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rc--chan · 3 years ago

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Pokespe Evil Team AU Because Procrastinating Is My Job

So basically this is an au where the dexholders are leaders/admins of an evil team. This isn't an au where the dex holders join the evil teams, but one where they make the evil team. And actually do a good job...

Kanto Dex Holders: Team Myth. For the Kanto team I was thinking of an illegal fighting ring. Basically they force pokemon to fight each other with no trainer for the entertainment of others. They would have key locations in more remote locations where no one would expect. Like in the Pokémon Mansion, the Power Plant or under Pokémon Tower. Because who would think there is an illegal fighting ring under a graveyard? I named it Team Myth because no one can catch them, thus they seem like a Myth. Now onto their roles:

Red: Red is the admin found in the Power Plant. I originally wanted to make him the leader, but then I realized he isn't patient enough for it and it really doesn't fit his character. Thus he is an admin. His fighting ring would be the only one that occasionally allows trainers to battle with rented pokemon against other trainers. The fights would be to the death in this case since they are considered more advanced. You can also challenge Red to a fight and if you win he will give you a lollipop. To get to the fighting ring you need to traverse through the power plant until you reach an unnatural looking dead end. If you pull on the tail of a pikachu statue found there, a door opens.

Green: Green is the team leader. His calculative and somewhat cold nature really fits the role of a mafia boss. The main base of Team Myth would be in Pallet Town, his hometown. It would be hidden under the lab. Green being the professor's assistant is able to keep it all a secret. The entrance would be hidden under the bookshelf the the right corner. The classic, you pull a book and there is a secret staircase behind the wall. The hideout is divided in 4 parts that have the floor color coded so you know who it belongs to. To get to Green you'd have to defeat all 3 of the other admins and get a special key. Once you have all 3 keys, you can enter his section of the hideout.

Blue: Blue is the admin under the Pokémon Tower. Her whole gimmick was being a con lady so of course she is running the biggest con. People think she comes to Pokémon Tower and donates money to it out of the goodness of her heart. In reality she manages the biggest fighting ring. Her fighting ring would have more rare pokemon from other regions, like Drapion or Alolan Marowak. To get to it you need to get to the last floor of the tower and push on a brick on the wall behind the two statues. There is a secret elevator that will take you to the fighting ring.

Yellow: Yellow is in charge of the Pokémon Mansion fighting ring. She managed to transform the place into a ”sanctuary” for pokemon. The first floor has pokemon in small natural habitats, the basement is the staffroom for the people that work there and the last two floors are off limits because they house the fighting ring. People donate pokemon to the sanctuary and Yellow brings the strongest ones to the fighting ring. To get to the fighting ring you need to go to the security guard at the entrance of the stairs and pay him 1000 pokedollars to let you in as well as a special invite.

Johto Dex Holders: Team Toxicus. They are in charge of illegal experiments. They capture pokemon from the wild/steal them/have them bred and use them for experiments. This ranges from harmless ”how does this pokemon react in this situation” to testing drugs on them. They would work closely with Team Myth and sell them pokemon with perfect IVs, EVs, specific natures and abilities. Their key locations are in easy to access places or in spots with a lot of pokemon like the Daycare on Route 34, Azalea Town and Goldenrod City. I called it Team Toxicus as a reference to their experiments.

Gold: Gold is an admin. Again, his personality doesn't really fit the leader persona to me. He owns the daycare on route 34 and the lab under it. Trainers leave their pokemon with him and he steals their egg. ”Yeah sorry, no egg this time. Your pokemon must really hate each other.” Then the eggs are taken to the lab where they are hatched, raised and send to experimentation. To enter the lab you need to get behind the counter and manually set the clock hands to 2:02. A secret trapdoor will open in the place where pokemon stay.

Crystal: Crystal is the boss. We all know that the Johtrio shares one braincell and Crystal has it 95% of the time. So she gets to be the boss. Unlike Team Myth, Team Toxicus doesn't have a ”main base”. The whole operation has 3 labs rotate pokemon between each other that are also designed like hideouts. Crystal's lab is in Violet City, next to Ilex Forest. Pokemon are captured from the forest and brought in the lab for experimentation. The lab is underneath the Poké Mart. To get in you ask the Poké Mart clerk for ”a golden pokeball” and he will take you to the back from where you can take a ladder down.

Silver: Silver is also an admin. Making papa Giovanni proud. Silver works closely with evil teams from other regions in order to obtain rare pokemon not normally found in Johto. His lab is in Goldenrod City because it's a port city and it has easy access to cargo ships. He buys/trades pokemon for ones found in other regions and takes them to the lab for experimentation. The lab is in the Magnet Train station. To get to it you need to go on the platform and search for a red tile. You take out the tile and jump into a hole that leads to the hideout.

Hoenn Dex Holders: Team Triad. They are pokemon traficants. They steal or buy pokemon from other teams and then sell them on the black market. ”You want that shiny Milotic for contests but Feebas is too hard to find? You want to be champion but breeding for perfect IVs is too much work for you? Want to defeat the battle frontier but don't want to train a new team of pokemon? Team Triad has you covered.” Team Triad has only one base, in Mauville City. It is under the closed Game Corner and to get to it you make a pokemon use Strength on one of the slot machines. It reveals a secret trapdoor underneath. I named it Team Triad for obvious reasons.

Ruby: Ruby is an admin. Team Triad is run by all 3 of its admins, so there is no boss. He is the one that works with teams from other regions to get pokemon. The hideout has three floors and Ruby has the first floor. His floor is very elegant and is specifically designed for business deals.

Sapphire: Sapphire is the one in charge of capturing pokemon so she rarely spends time at the hideout. She goes out a lot with the grunts to steal pokemon or capture them. She has the second floor, but since she is rarely at the hideout, its the least decorated.

Emerald: Emerald is the one that actually raises the pokemon and trains them. He receives newly hatched pokemon from Team Toxicus that he trains to their fullest potential. He has the last floor and its designed specifically to train pokemon. He grows berries in there, has soil from a pokemon's birthplace and a lot of training equipment.

Sinnoh Dex Holders: Team Relic. Sinnoh has a lot of history and rare relics lying around, so I decided they own a smuggling ring. They smuggle rare items like Master Balls, rare held items and relics that have a strong connection to legendary pokemon. The blue and red orb? The azure flute? Griseous orb? They have all of them. They sell these items on the black market to collectors and desperate trainers. This team also only has only one hideout but they also own a lot deposits across the region where the items are held. The hideout is in the Berlitz mansion for obvious reasons. Again I chose the name for obvious reasons.

Diamond and Pearl: They are a package deal. Both admins. They travel the regions under the disguise of being a comedy duo. They use this act in order to learn where they can find rare items that they can steal. They also work closely with the Unova team. When they aren't all over the region, they act as Platina's bodyguards.

Platina: She is the mastermind behind this whole thing. She uses the money received from the Grand Hotels all over the region to fund the whole operation. She transformed her mansion into a hideout and is the one that strikes most deals.

Unova Dex Holders: The region that actually what gave me the idea to write this, because one night I thought to myself ”White could totally use the money she makes from the BW Agency to make an evil team and take over the region if she wanted to”. As for the name of the evil team: BW Agency. You all saw that coming. The BW Agency uses the disguise of an acting agency to hide their illegal items manufacturing. They create Master Balls, rare items and forgeries. They are the team with the most bases, having them all over the region. The most important ones are in Virbank City, Nimbasa City, Castelia City and Accumula Town.

Black: Black is an admin and White's bodyguard. He joins White during business meeting and helps her with whatever he can. When he isn't with White he spends his time at his base in Castelia City training the grunts and their pokemon. The hideout is underneath the Battle Company and to get to it you need to take a secret elevator found under the statue in the lobby.

White: White is the boss for very obvious reasons. She runs both the acting and illegal manufacturing aspects of the agency. She works closely with Team Relic and is good friends with Platina. The main base is in Virbank City, underneath Pokéstar Studios. To get to the base you need to go inside the dressing room and move the biggest painting, behind it there is a tunnel that leads to the hideout.

Lack-Two: Lack-Two is an admin and a secret spy inside the International Police. He pretends to be an officer that spies on the BW Agency when in reality he is spying on the police. A double agent basically. His base is in Nimbasa City. The hideout is underneath the Musical Theater, to get in you need to tell the owner that ”Ms. White from the BW Agency sent me to retrieve the black Prop Case” and he will take you underneath the stage where there is a secret elevator.

Whi-Two: Whi-Two is also an admin. She is in charge of the team's pokemon. She makes sure that they are fed and in top condition in case something happens. Her base is the smallest of the main 4 and in Accumula Town under the Pokemon Center. To get to it you need to go behind Nurse Joy's healing machine, if you move it there is a secret passageway.

Kalos Dex Holders: Team Z. Lame name, ik but I'm kinda running out of ideas for team names. They also do experiments but on mega evolution, they are experimenting to see if you can force a pokemon to mega evolve permanently. The team is co-run by X and Y. They are pretty efficient as they divided the tasks fifty-fifty. They have 6 small bases, 2 of which are in Lumiose and 1 big one in Anistar, that is considered the main base. If you use dive near the Sundial you can reach the secret base that is underneath it.

X: X is in charge of training the grunts and their pokemon and supervises the progress of the lab experiments. He is also the one that test if an experiment was a success by trying to battle with the pokemon.

Y: Y is the one that brings new cargo to the hideouts as well as capturing pokemon that are capable of mega evolving. She works closely with the BW Agency since they provide her with Master Balls.

Alola Dex Holders: The Delivia Company. They are a delivery company that secretly researches a way to amplify moves using Z-Crystal and illegally sells rare pokemon from Kanto, like Kantonian Persian and Vulpix. They have at least 1 base on each of the islands. Their most important ones are in Aether Paradise and Malie City.

Sun: Sun is the boss. When he couldn't get Aether Paradise back by normal means, he decided to create an evil team with strong pokemon to get it back. He succeeded and transformed the island into the main hideout of his evil team.

Moon: Moon is an admin and manages the pokemon and 85% of paperwork. She is also one of the main researchers and spends a lot of time in the lab in Malie City. The lab is underneath Malie Library, to get in you need to rotate one of the small golden statues found on the railing at the bottom of the staircase. This will open a trap door in the floor that reveals more stairs going down.

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krillin-fanfic · 3 years ago

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Identity In Ink

Welp, I did a thing! Probably one of only two I’ll be able to do this month, but I DID IT! This one’s for the “Tattoo” prompt, and mostly 18-focused and a shortie, but it’s a concept I’ve discussed with people in the past: Basically, did Gero ever do anything to mark his creations, and if so, how would they deal with that. And this one just kinda flowed out. Feel free to show some love or leave feedback in the links too! FF.net link AO3 link Without further ado, here we go.

Sometimes, she couldn't help but let it bother her.

It was a small thing. Something hidden away, beneath clothing, able to be put out of sight, and thus out of mind. But since she'd moved here... since she'd spent more time with her husband on the beach... it was becoming harder to ignore.

"Hmm.." 18 stood in front of the bedroom mirror, her pajama shorts pulled down a bit as she gazed at her hip, fingers idly tracing the object of her discomfort. There, on her left hip, was a small tattoo of the Red Ribbon logo.

It really shouldn't have bothered her, she knew; she'd made her peace with that part of her life a couple of years ago, around the same time she'd finally allowed herself to accept she'd had feelings for her best friend. But still, it reminded her of a time when she hadn't been so free. Reminded her that everything she used to be had been stolen away from her. Reminded her of that twisted old man and his "experiments"...

"Hey babe, you ok?"

18 inhaled sharply and let go of the shorts, the elastic snapping back against her as she spun to face her questioner, her expression cool as ice. "Do I look like I'm in trouble, dear?"

Krillin frowned, tugging at the loose shirt that served as his pajama top. "Well... yes, honestly. You can fool a lot of other folks, 18, but I know when something's bothering you." He pointed at the mirror behind her. "Plus I kinda caught you staring at that for a while."

18 closed her icy blue eyes and exhaled sharply through her nose. "Picking up habits from the old man again, are we?"

"Hey now, come on," he protested. "You're my wife and the mother of my child, who is finally asleep, might I add. But I'm allowed to look in our bedroom."

18 crossed her arms and huffed. "Peeping tom."

Krillin laughed as he noticed the faintest hint of a smile on his wife's lips. "Okay, okay, my bad." He threw his hands up in mock despair. "Spare me, oh mighty goddess of Kame Island."

She opened one eye and peered at him. "Hmm... offer me tribute and I'll consider it."

Krillin took a step forward and stood on his tiptoes, placing a soft kiss on her cheek. "Is that better, mistress?"

18 felt her face flush. "N-no... not good enough." Her blush deepened as she felt his hand cup her cheek and bring her face to meet his, her heart skipping a beat as he began to place feather-soft kisses on her lips. She loved this feeling. It was almost enough to make her forget-

She broke off the kisses and sighed deeply again. "Okay... okay yeah, there is something that's been bothering me."

"Ahhh, I figured." He took her hand in his. "What's bugging you, hon? Is it that... mark again?"

She nodded. "Mhm. Just seems so dumb. I know that's not who I am, I know I'm more than that, but sometimes when I see it, it just reminds me of before. Back when I really thought I'd lost my humanity. When I thought it was too late."

Krillin frowned. "Babe, if it bothers you that much, we can try to do something about it." He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. "We can always see about getting it removed."

18 snorted. "Like we can afford that? Those procedures aren't cheap, you know. Besides, I doubt there are any places that do that who have a laser remotely strong enough to work on my skin."

Krillin shrugged. "Fair enough, I suppose." He rubbed his chin for a moment. "Have you considered covering it up with something else, then?"

18 rubbed her forehead. "Maybe... I dunno. I'm not sure what I'd put there even if I could, really." She sat silent for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. "I think... I think I'm gonna go check on Marron real quick." She gave her husband a pat on the head as she headed out the door. "Back in a sec."

She tiptoed across the hall to her daughter's room, the door now adorned with letters spelling out the little one's name, turning the knob as quietly as she could. She only opened it wide enough to slip in, and shut the door behind her; no sense risking her baby girl waking up when she could see just fine in the dark, after all. She took the final two steps to the crib nestled in the middle of the room and smiled.

There lay her baby girl, sound asleep. Her blonde curls splayed out on her pillow, her tiny fist balled up on her chubby little cheek, little noseless face the picture of angelic calm as her tiny chest rose and fell with each breath. 18 reached out and brushed her other cheek softly, and sighed with content.

Little Marron had only recently reached an age where they'd felt comfortable letting her have her own room, and even then it was reluctantly. But between needing a larger crib, and frankly no small amount of frustration, they'd decided it was time. Little Marron hadn't initially been a fan, being quite fussy the first few nights; her father had been as well, and 18 rather appreciated the irony of her husband wanting a return to their intimacy yet also being grumpy about not having Marron with them. She understood though. Marron was one of the only two people whose mere presence seemed to have a calming effect on her. She could be in the worst of moods, but the moment that baby girl cooed at her, it all seemed to drift away as she got lost in those big dark eyes.

18 rested her cheek on her arm as she watched her baby sleep. Her baby. The idea had felt so impossible not so long ago. She'd been sure, positive, that all the alterations to her body would have made her unable to conceive. Gero hadn't seemed the type to leave behind anything that didn't fit his uses, after all. And it's not as if she and Krillin had bothered with precautions for well over a year without consequence. 18 allowed herself an admittedly lecherous smirk at the memories.

But then, one day, it'd happened. The news had shocked both of them, and been a source of both happiness and fear for them as well. But the moment their little bundle of love had come into the world, all that fear seemed to vanish in an instant. She's been so very small, with her mother's soft blonde hair and her father's eyes and features. There was no doubt she was theirs, and Krillin opined that she was the physical manifestation of their love. She'd initially snorted derisively and called him sappy, but as she held their little bundle, she couldn't help but quietly agree.

The tiny form in front of her stretched and yawned, and her heart melted. She was so sweet and innocent... so much so that 18 could find it hard to believe she came from her. She'd been meant to be an assassin, a killer, but now all she wanted was to protect this little angel. 18 smiled and leaned down, placing a feather-soft kiss on her baby's head before quietly opening the door backing out into the hall, gently shutting it behind her.

"She really is amazing, huh?" 18 stiffened and turned to see Krillin leaning against their doorway, grinning.

"Amazing is an understatement. Sometimes I still can't believe that we... that I-"

Krillin straightened and stepped toward her, shushing her. "You best start believing it, 18. She's ours." He took her hand and kissed it softly and smiled as she sighed, contentedly. "You feeling better now?"

"Yeah, I suppose so," she said, wrapping her arms around him. "Feels kinda silly now, letting something like that get to me as much as it did."

He rubbed her back softly. "Nah, it's understandable hon, believe me. So... any ideas on what you might wanna cover that up with?"

18 glanced over at her daughter's door once more. She was her second chance, the ultimate proof of her humanity. The center of her world. Her eyes fell to the plaque on the door, taking in the letters of her daughter's name. 'M-A-R-R...'.

She smiled. "Yeah... I actually do." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once 18 had decided on her new design, Krillin had called up Bulma to see is she's had any ideas on how they could get this done; 18's skin was near-unbreakable, after all, and no normal needle was up to the task. Bulma had eagerly agreed to be of assistance and told them to come over the next day.

It had taken a moment for 18 to brace herself, going back into a sterile lab, laying down on a table, but the procedure had been shockingly swift, a matter of minutes, and it was over before she's realized. She handled it well, all things considered, though Krillin's hand was a bit sore by the time it was over. He smiled at her. "See? That wasn't too bad." He leaned over and gently pecked her nose. "I'm proud of you, babe."

18 nodded and hopped off the slab, walking over to the mirror to examine the new ink, as Krillin turned to speak to Bulma.

"Thanks for the assist, Bulma," Krillin said. "This really means a lot."

The blue-haired Capsule Corp heiress brushed her gloves off on her overalls and lifted her face shield. "Oh, no worries. I had a free day today, and I'd been meaning to test this puppy out." She patted the side of the machine. "I got a custom order from a dinosaur rancher asking for something capable of inking numbers into his livestock, but he never showed up with a test subject so I never got to see if it worked. Just a matter of coding in the design and letting the computer do its thing!"

Krillin blinked. "Wait, did you just use my wife as a guinea pig?"

The heiress chuckled and waved him off. "Don't think of it like that. I never would have offered to do this if I wasn't 100% sure it was safe."

"I gotta admit, I never knew there were dinosaur ranchers out there..."

"Oh... yeah." Bulma scratched her cheek. "I mean, there aren't anymore, but..."

He raised his eyebrows. Oh. I...oh."

"Yeeeeah." She laughed nervously. "Turns out there's probably a reason that profession isn't very common, huh?" She glanced over at 18. "So, whaddya think?"

18 gazed at the small tattoo in the mirror. The red ribbon had been altered to resemble a small red butterfly, and letters added in the same font to now read "MARRON". It was a minor change, but it suited her perfectly. Red Ribbon's mark had been a symbol of the humanity stolen from her; this would be a reminder of what had proven to her that they never had.

She felt Krillin's hand slip into hers and smiled, warmly.

"It's perfect."

#chestnutfest2k21 #chestnutisland #Krillin #Android 18 #K18 #Kuripachi #Android18 #Android Eighteen #Dragon Ball #Dragon Ball Z #Dragon Ball Super #DB #DBZ #DBS #Dragonball #Dragonball Z

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valdomarx · 3 years ago

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Number Theory

On another version of Atlantis, John is a mathematician who is better with numbers than with people. But he's going to have to learn to get on with his team and their bossy leader, Rod, if he wants to survive here.

Stargate Atlantis, McShep, mensa!verse, 9k, rated E.

Also on AO3.

Dr. John Sheppard straightens his glasses, pulls his lab coat around himself, and makes one final, futile attempt to tame his hair.

He takes a last look around the SGC, bustling with scientists and marines and boxes of supplies, and wonders how everybody seems to know their place and what to do already.

Then he steps through a wormhole and into another galaxy.

Atlantis is stunning. Terrifying, and dangerous, and liable to kill them all, but stunning all the same.

He protests that there’s no need for a mathematician on an offworld team, but the head of science insists. John sourly suspects this Rod guy enjoys watching him wheeze and stumble every time they have to run for their damn lives.

But it turns out it’s useful for a field team to have someone around who can crack codes and work computers. And John hates field work less than he expected to, despite the unpredictability and the peril and all that awful running.

Sometimes, like when he breaks the encryption on a Wraith code in the nick of time and diverts an enemy ship away from its path toward Atlantis, he even feels a tiny bit like a hero.

Other than his team duties, though, Atlantis isn’t that much different from Caltech or MIT or the Air Force base at Wright-Patterson, or any of the other places he’s worked.

Everyone knows each other, except for him. Everyone bands together to look out for each other, and he stares in from the outside. Eating in the mess hall is like being catapulted back to high school.

So he makes himself at home in his lab. It’s quiet there, and there’s a plentiful supply of coffee, and there are only a couple of other mathematicians who occasionally pass through and largely leave him alone.

They’re next door to the noisy, boisterous science labs, where all the cool civilians hang out. But that’s fine. He gets used to ignoring them the same way he ignores the marines.

It’s just him and his numbers.

And sometimes, inexplicably, Rod or Teyla or Ronon, who will come by and sit at his desk and drink his coffee. He never understands what they’re hoping to achieve, but he doesn’t mind as long as they don’t touch anything.

Teyla appears in the doorway, staring at his whiteboard. It’s covered top to bottom with equations, and he’s had to stick up bits of paper around the walls to fit more on.

“Rod requested that I see how your work is going,” she says, voice giving nothing away.

He grits his teeth against the annoyance of the interruption. “It would be going faster if I could work unimpeded.”

She ignores the petulant note in his voice, squinting closer at the whiteboard. “What is this?”

“This is number theory. It’s the underlying basis for mathematics.”

Teyla raises an eyebrow. “And this is different from what Rod does?”

He sneers. “Very different. That’s just theoretical physics.”

“You do not respect Rod’s chosen field?” She seems genuinely curious.

“It’s fine, for, you know,” his lip curls, “an applied science.”

“I see. So this work can help us locate Wraith hive ships?”

He shifts his weight. “Well. I might need to, uhh, collaborate with Rod on that. I provide the conceptual models and he does the,” he waves dismissively, “practical calculations.”

“It seems that you two accomplish more when you work together.”

He scoffs. “I wouldn’t go that far. But he’s useful as an assistant, I suppose.”

When they learn there are three Wraith hive ships on their way to destroy the city, there isn’t much time for personal conflicts. They have a long-shot strategy: They’ve sent an emergency distress message in the vague hopes of rescue from Earth. But the Wraith ships are almost here and they need a plan now.

“Use the jumpers,” John suggests, because it’s obvious.

Rod snaps his fingers. “Yes! Put a nuclear warhead on board, fly the jumper right down the hives’ throats, and detonate.”

Elizabeth blanches. “That’s a suicide run.”

“No, no.” John thinks out loud. “Not if we can remote pilot the jumper.”

“Using the control chair!” Rod chimes in. “Sheppard, you’re a genius.”

John is so focused on the threat he forgets to preen over that.

It doesn’t take long for them to hook up the jumper to the chair and start running tests. Just as well, because death from above is coming imminently.

He knows something is wrong the moment Rod’s face falls while he’s poking at the cables running to the chair.

“McKay...” he says, voice low but insistent.

“I know! I know. Just give me a minute.” Rod disappears back into a bundle of cables. “I can fix this.”

Everything is suddenly, startlingly clear. The remote control won’t work, at least not in time. Someone will have to fly the jumper personally.

He and Rod both have the ATA gene, and both the same dubious piloting skills. But there’s not much skill required in flying directly into a hive, is there?

One of them has to do this.

“So long, Rod.” He turns and runs from the chair room to the jumper bay, not bothering to notify anyone of his plans.

“Sheppard! Sheppard!”

He hears Rod yell after him but he can’t think about that now. He has a job to do.

He gets beamed out by the Daedalus at the last moment. The battle is ugly, but the city and the expedition makes it out mostly intact.

Afterwards, Rod drags him into a conference room and yells at him for an hour about his reckless behavior.

John couldn’t give a shit. He has no regrets about his actions.

He gives an insouciant shrug. “Why the earful? It worked, didn’t it?”

“Because I am your team leader, and you didn’t even ask me for permission before nominating yourself for a suicide run!”

“That’s what this is about? Your precious chain of command? Grow up.”

Rod rounds on him and gets up on the balls of his feet. “There are people here who care about you, you dick!”

John blinks at the non sequitur. The idea that anyone would care more about him than about the city and everyone else in it is laughable. “Then they’re idiots,” he snaps and walks out.

Rod can write him up for that in one of the reports he so enjoys filing.

It would be nice if he could say that he learns and grows. That he makes friends. That he gets accepted by his peers and makes a home in the Pegasus galaxy.

But that’s not how this story goes. Not yet, anyway.

He does manage to make himself useful. He invents a new cryptographic algorithm to keep their computers and communications secure from Wraith interference. Elizabeth even gives him a grateful nod when he presents it to her, and says thank you.

He makes some progress on a quantum chaos approach to the Riemann hypothesis, not that anyone here understands that or how profoundly ingenious his work is.

And it turns out that many of the Ancient systems here are based on binary, just like computers on Earth, so he’s able to help Rod parse some of the more complex code. The two of them spend hours poking through the Ancient operating system, Rod fluttering around and theorizing aloud while John sits quietly in the corner, chewing on a pen and thinking.

It’s more fun than he would have expected.

And then, inevitably, he fucks up to a new and truly epic degree. He and Rod find the Ancient’s Project Arcturus, their great hope for extracting vacuum energy from subspace, and he convinces himself he can get it to work.

He’s self-aware enough to know he’s making poor choices, but not mentally strong enough to do otherwise. Because yes, of course virtually unlimited power is tempting, and of course discovering the last great experiment of the Ancients is thrilling. But he's a cautious person. He's not one to take unnecessary risks.

And yet the moment Rod turns to him with that look of delight, saying he's impressed, clapping him on the shoulder like he's done something wonderful, John is just gone. He ignores safety limits and all common sense, and he pushes and pushes and pushes for them to power up the generator, as if his wishes for it to work could make it so.

He wipes out most of a solar system with his hubris, not to mention nearly killing them both, and he's furious down to his bones because he can't figure out why he would have done something so stupid.

Bad enough to fail so spectacularly at your work that you devastate an entire star system, worse to have burned whatever credibility you may have built with your team, but worst of all to have to walk every day among people who know all about your inadequacy.

He's in the queue for the mess and a couple of the marines behind him are sniggering, one of them making a not-very-quiet crack about Sheppard’s ego being a weapon of mass destruction. John is staring straight ahead and pretending to ignore them, but the blood is pumping furiously in his ears and he's gripping his tray so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

“You got something to say?” Suddenly Ronon is there, all six-foot-three-million-pounds of him, glaring down at the sniggering marine like he might crush his skull with his bare hands. “If you’ve got something to say to Sheppard, you can say it to me as well.”

The marine backs away, hands held high and spluttering apologies.

Ronon throws an arm around John’s shoulder and walks him to a table so they can sit and eat.

John stares down at his food and wills the panic to subside. “Thanks,” he mutters once his breathing has settled.

“No worries, bud,” Ronon says and steals a piece of carrot off John’s plate. “So, how’s that bomb design you were working on coming along? You know I love a big boom.”

John tells him how his models have predicted the highly energetic variety of naquadah they’ve discovered could be harnessed into more efficient field explosives, and Ronon nods along as if this is all fascinating.

In that moment, John knows he would die for this man without hesitation.

Perhaps the worst part about the Arcturus incident is how unbearably nice Rod is about the whole thing. He tells John that it was both of their decision, that he doesn't blame him, that sometimes these things happen when dealing with advanced technology.

But John can see the disappointment in his eyes and hear the judgement in his voice. He gets a sick, twisting feeling in his stomach when he thinks about it, and that must be Rod's fault.

Rod picks a bad time to come visit the lab.

"Sheppard," Rod leans against the door frame. "I need your report on the Arcturus mission."

The sick feeling in his gut deepens. He hasn't written the report yet. "Bet you’re enjoying making me catalogue my failures."

"What? No. I just need you to submit a report so I can turn it over to Elizabeth."

"I see. You're looking for someone to blame, right? Going to write about how I pushed you and it's all my fault?"

"Of course not," Rod steps closer and there isn't enough air in the room. "I wouldn't do that. What's going on with you?"

He can't bear the look of concern on Rod's face, which he surely doesn't deserve and will surely evaporate soon enough. "Maybe I've had enough of you reminding me of my screw ups via the excuse of paperwork."

Rod's voice sharpens. "Don't blame me because you're feeling guilty. I can't deal with that for you."

The reminder of his lacking emotional skills stings and he lashes out. "Don't try to therapize me. You're hardly in the position to be doling out life advice." It's a mean, petty thing to say, but he's feeling vindictive.

Rod's eyes narrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

John's pulse is notching up and his face is getting hot, the last of his short temper fraying away.

“You’re a people pleaser, Rod!” He realizes he’s yelling. He doesn’t care. “Everything you do is to make other people like you.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Rod puffs up. “I try to be a decent human being. I try to think about others and support them. Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s fake! It’s all bullshit. Do you even have a personality of your own, or do you just reflect whatever the last person who smiled at you wants?”

Finally, the cracks in the facade of nice begin to show. “Making an effort to treat those around you with consideration isn’t demeaning!” He gets up in John’s face, waving a finger at him. “Not that you’d know, because you never consider anyone other than yourself.”

“At least I’m honest,” he spits, and it’s venomous. “At least I know who I am. Do you? Do you have any idea who you’d be if you weren’t so absorbed in distracting everyone from your flaws?”

He sees the barb hit its mark. Rod stumbles back like he’s been physically shoved, his face crumpling.

“God, you’re an asshole.” It’s not even angry. It’s small, and quiet, and John is suddenly acutely aware of how much taller he is than Rod, how much he towers over him.

Rod turns on his heel and walks away, and John knows that means he’s won. But he doesn’t feel the usual curl of smug satisfaction he gets when he puts someone in their place.

Instead, he just feels empty.

Whatever. It’s not his problem that Rod is having some kind of breakdown. Why should he care that Rod is skulking around the base looking small and miserable? He only said what they both know to be true.

If Rod wants to be a dick about it, that’s on him. If he’s going to remove John from the team, that’s fine. There’s nothing that John can do about it anyway.

He gets back to work, running simulations of ZPM power levels and how long they can expect to sustain the city under different circumstances, given that they won’t be enjoying unlimited power any time soon. He likes modelling, and he knows this work is important.

But for some reason he can’t focus. His gut keeps churning and his temples ache and he’s haunted by the word worthless, worthless, worthless.

When his lab door chimes at well past midnight, he’s ready to tell whoever it is to fuck right off. In fact, the excuse to yell at someone sounds great right now.

But when he opens the door to find Rod standing there, twisting his hands anxiously, he’s too shocked to even be snitty. He’d assumed that Rod and he were done, that it was only a matter of time before he was kicked off the team.

But here Rod is, mouth downturned and saying, “You were right, okay?”

John notes the sad wobble of Rod’s chin and bites back the urge to say something dismissive. “About what?”

“About me. I do try to please everyone. I do want everyone to like me.”

It sounds pathetic, said out loud like that, John thinks but doesn’t say.

Rod is still going. “But it’s not what you think. It’s not some ego trip. When I was younger, I used to be -” He lets out a huff of air. “- very different. I said whatever I wanted to whoever I wanted, and I didn’t care if everyone hated me for it.”

John tries to imagine an angry, mean Rod. His brain can’t picture it.

“I pushed people away because I was afraid they’d reject me. I was always alone and I got very good at telling myself I liked it that way.”

An uncomfortable feeling of familiarity crawls up the back of John’s spine, and he ruthlessly quashes it.

“That changed when I went to the SGC. The people there… They believed in me. They wanted my help, and they wanted to help me. I learned that if I was going to work there, to do important work, then I was going to need connections. And to make connections, I had to think about others, and try to be what they needed. It wasn’t only about me any more.”

Something in the preachy tone of Rod’s voice sets John on the defensive, and his shoulders begin to rise, counterarguments springing to his lips.

“Wait, stop -” Rod lays a hand on his shoulder, and all the aggression leeches out of him. “I don’t want to fight with you. I’m just trying to explain.”

The earnest look Rod is giving him makes his skin itch.

“I care about everyone here. Including you, John. Perhaps I try too hard sometimes, but that’s only because you all matter to me. I don’t want to let you down.”

Rod is talking in plurals, but John gets the impression he’s speaking to him personally. It’s too weighty, to be handed that kind of sincerity without warning.

“I do...” He coughs and looks at his feet, “I do care about the people here as well. I might not be demonstrative about it but I’m not…” he searches for the right word, “... indifferent.”

He doesn’t say the other words he’s thinking, which are cold, callous, heartless, the things people always call him.

Rod’s hand is still on his shoulder, heavy and warm, and he squeezes gently. “I know you do. I just wish that sometimes you’d let other people see that too.”

John tries. He really does. Ronon tells him that he needs to get out of the lab more, so he resolves to make time to socialize. He doesn’t really know how to do that, but Teyla quietly slides him a copy of the city’s social activity schedule and suggests he goes through the list.

Painting with Major Lorne - no.

Choir with the medical staff - sounds awful.

Extra combat training - absolutely not.

Mensa club - now there’s a possibility.

“Join us for FUN and FRIENDS,” the tiny advert reads. “All welcome (as long as your IQ is over 150).”

That he can do. He joins the club.

It's him and Kusanagi from R&D and Parrish from botany, plus a couple of the gate techs and one of the nurses from medical. Every Thursday night, they get together to solve puzzles and play chess. It's dorky and awkward but it's kind of nice, actually, and the people there don't seem to dislike him.

He thinks maybe he's getting better at this whole people thing.

And then Rod leaves, and everything goes to shit.

It starts off with a crisis, like there always is around here, exotic particles exploding out of a containment chamber which isn’t containing anything. There’s chaos, but there’s also data, so it doesn’t take long before he and Rod are turning to each other as the explanation clicks for both of them at the same time: An experiment to generate vacuum energy being conducted in a parallel universe.

“We can’t do anything from this side,” John reasons. “The bridge is one-way.”

“The inhabitants of the other universe might not even know what the effects here are. We need to go there directly and get them to shut it down,” Rod says, firm and sure. “It’s the only way.”

“But how could we-”

Rod snaps his fingers. “The Ancient shield. That’ll protect whoever travels there.”

“Right. Let me run some calculations.”

His head is buried in his computer when Rod comes running back in with the shield in his hand.

“Fire it up whenever you’re ready,” Rod orders. “I’ve got the shield to protect me.”

John’s head whips up. “You? You’re going?”

“Of course me! Come on, the chance to visit an alternate reality? Who could resist that?”

Icy cold water settles at the pit of John’s stomach. “That’s a one-way trip.”

Rod shrugs, like that’s nothing. “If that’s the cost to save our universe, it’ll be worth it.”

Something like rage explodes inside John’s head. “Absolutely not! I should be the one to go.” He searches desperately for a reason. “You’re needed here.”

Rod gives him a small, sad smile and says, “So are you.”

“That’s bullshit, McKay, and you know it. I’m not letting you do this.”

“Tell you what, let’s flip a coin for it.”

And that’s about as reasonable as he can hope for, so he turns his back to dig a coin out of his lab coat pocket.

That turns out to be a mistake.

“Be safe, John,” Rod says, then he activates the shield and steps into the containment chamber.

That bastard.

He spends three days thinking that Rod is gone for good.

He can’t… He can’t think, and he can’t sleep, and he’s angry all the time. When Zelenka asks for his help running calculations on the spacetime tear above the city John bellows at him, calls him incompetent, and says they might as well just accept that the city is going to be torn apart. Then he stays up all night doing the calculations anyway, because it’s better than lying in bed and staring at the ceiling for another interminable evening.

He doesn’t bother eating, or showering, because what’s the point if they’re all going to die within a week? There’s a restless, raging scratching under his skin and it’s not like he hasn’t faced the possibility of death before, but this feels bleak and empty and insurmountable in a way he simply can’t deal with.

And then the rift mends itself, and Rod returns on a beam of light, and everyone acts as if they’re back to normal now and that brush with annihilation was just one of those quirky things that happen in the Pegasus galaxy.

But it eats at John, that feeling of powerlessness, that rippling anger of a problem he couldn’t solve.

Rod slides back into life in the city like it was nothing but another mission, and everyone rushes to say how brave he was, what a hero, how selfless he is, and John’s blood boils.

Rod swings by John’s lab with his usual breezy demeanor.

“Hey Sheppard! Wanna grab some dinner?”

The incongruity of Rod in his doorway, smiling casually like this is just another Tuesday, sends something hot and sharp spiking through his brain. “No,” John snarls. “Busy.”

“Okay. How about tomorrow?”

“Busy then too.”

Rod gives a self-deprecating little smile, and John wants to wipe it off his face. “Too busy to make an hour for your team?”

“A team?” he spits. “Is that what we are?”

Rod pales, finally taking in how furious John is. “Of course we are. I thought, since I’m back now, we could -”

“Oh, so you stride back in and decide to grace us with your presence, and we’re supposed to be thankful for that?”

“John, what -”

“You left!” he explodes. He’s shocked by his own vehemence. “You left us all. You weren’t planning to come back and you just left.”

Rod takes half a step forward, his face doing something complicated. “John, listen. I never wanted to-”

“Go fuck yourself!” He shoves at Rod’s shoulders, hard enough to keep him at a distance. He needs space; he needs quiet; this is all too much. “We don’t want you here anyway. You should have stayed in that other dimension. I’m sure it was great there.”

“That’s not-”

“Shut up, McKay.” He tunes his voice to the iciest, most dismissive tone he has. “You should have stayed gone.”

He enjoys a mean spark of satisfaction at the way Rod’s face falls, then he storms out of the lab.

Fuck that guy anyway.

Everyone on the base keeps looking at John like he’s volatile, as if he’s about to blow at any minute. Even his team starts handling him with kid gloves, like he’s fragile, and he hates it so much he could scream.

He meticulously constructs the bubble of hostility which has long been his go-to when he needs people to leave him alone. He snaps and snarls, and perfects a glare so hostile that no one dares approach him.

It’s restrictive inside that bubble, but at least it’s stable. At least he gets to decide the reason why people are going to hate him.

A few days later, Teyla strides into his lab wearing her patented “take no shit” expression.

“John,” she says, and the false cheery brightness of her tone has him scared already. “You will join me for tea.”

This is not, he recognizes, a request. He begins to mumble excuses but she cuts him off without hesitation. “You will come to my quarters, and we will drink a mug of tea together.” She crosses her arms. “Now.”

There are battles you can win, and ones you cannot. This is most certainly the latter, so he meekly follows her as she sweeps out of the lab and back to her quarters.

Once inside, Teyla forces him into a chair with an excessively firm hand.

“Sit,” she orders.

It’s easier to do as she says.

She carefully prepares the tea and warms the earthenware mugs, strong hands making practiced, confident movements. John watches the motions as she pours the tea and slides a mug over to him.

“Drink,” she orders, and again it’s easier to obey.

The tea is soapy and bland, but he fears her retribution enough not to mention that. He sips as they sit in silence. She regards him heavily over her mug.

Eventually she reaches some kind of conclusion.

“You are a valued member of our team, John.” Her face is impassive but her words are warm. “We would not see harm come to you.”

“That’s. Uhh. Good.”

“But your behavior of late has been,” she narrows her eyes, “ill-advised.”

John opens his mouth to defend himself, because it’s not as if Teyla could understand what’s been going on. But she holds up a hand which stops him short.

“I do not care to listen to your justifications. But you should know that if you continue on the path you have been on, it will be to the detriment of us all.”

John feels like he’s been pulled into the principal’s office to be scolded like a schoolboy. He didn’t care for that shit when he was ten, and he certainly doesn’t care for it now.

“If that was all,” he pushes the mug away and gets to his feet, “I’ll be on my way.”

“Wait.” Teyla’s hand shoots out with a warrior’s accuracy and closes around his wrist. “I am concerned for the team, yes. But I am also concerned for you. I would like to think that we are…” she tilts her head, “friends. And I should like for you to be happy.”

John is embarrassed to find a lump forming in his throat. He’s never truly had a friend before, and that someone of Teyla’s stature and courage would consider him as such has him flabbergasted. He suddenly wants, very badly, for her to think well of him.

“I’ll try harder,” he says. “I’ll try to be better.”

She releases his wrist and gives him a generous smile.

“That is all any of us can do.”

He starts small.

He saves up a few of the precious Earth-imported cookies they get for dessert in the mess sometimes and brings them to the next Mensa club night. Kusanagi beams and says that was very thoughtful of him, and Parrish splits a chocolate chip cookie with him while they speed-solve sudokus.

The next day he types up a report about the team’s most recent mission with as much detail as he can remember, and he makes special note of how brave Rod and Teyla and Ronon were.

He saves it to a flash drive and takes it to Elizabeth himself.

“What’s this?” she asks as he hands it over.

“Mission report,” John says, eyes fixed on a tapestry hanging behind her desk.

“Submitting a report without having to be asked five times first? Who are you and what have you done with Dr. Sheppard?”

Anger flashes for a moment, because he’s trying here and she doesn’t need to remind him of his past failings. But he looks down and sees she’s smiling. It’s a joke. She’s joking around with him.

Huh. Okay. That’s unfamiliar, but he doesn’t hate it.

“Maybe I’ve slipped in from an alternate dimension,” he says, and even though that’s not very funny Elizabeth laughs anyway, and that makes something glow inside him.

He grudgingly admits to himself that there does seem to be a pattern developing: when he makes an effort to connect with people here and, god help him, be nice to them, then they are happy and so is he. When he yells and pushes people away, they are sad and he is angry.

It’s sort of obvious, really, and he would be embarrassed that it’s taken him so long to figure that out, but humans are bizarre and complicated and not at all like numbers.

He has a hypothesis and now he needs to test it. He should try being more considerate to those closest to him and see if that improves everyone’s moods. If only he could figure out how to do that without the entire experience being mortifying.

He’ll work on Ronon first, he determines. Ronon has always looked out for him and they have a sort of unspoken bond. Finding something nice to do for him should be simple enough.

He decides on a data-driven approach. He takes to following Ronon around, looking for inspiration, trotting after him with a small notebook in hand to record his observations. Ronon finds the whole thing hilarious.

Ronon spends approximately 40% of his free time in the gym, which certainly is a lot, and a further 30% in the mess. Another 10% of the time he goes running around the city, and the remainder of his time is spent visiting with Teyla, stopping by the science labs to tease Rod, or visiting John.

“You like people,” John observes one day, when Ronon is warming up for a combat session with some of the marines. He’s added up the figures and plotted the data into neat hand-drawn scatter plots and histograms. “You spend almost all of your time around other people.”

Ronon’s lips tighten for a second, and then he relaxes. “Yeah, I do. For a long time it wasn’t safe for me to be around anyone, and I hated it.” He looks around the bustling gym and nods. “Now I don’t have to be alone any more. I’ll never fail to appreciate that.”

John squints and scribbles that down in his notebook too. “You like spending time with people even if they’re -” He glances over at the marines, loud and bossy and distastefully laddish, “- strange? Or mean?”

Ronon grins at him. “Even then, yeah.”

“But you go running on your own. Is that what you prefer?”

Ronon stiffens slightly. “No. It reminds me of running from the Wraith. But it’s important to stay fit, and no one here likes running with me.”

Ahah! The perfect opportunity. John bounces on the balls of his feet. “I’ll go with you.”

“What, seriously?”

“Sure. It sounds fun.”

It is not fun. Running is brutal, and he is terrible at it, but Ronon smiles the whole time and he keeps telling John what a great job he’s doing.

By the time they’ve completed one lap of the route, sweat is pouring off John and his lungs are fit to burst.

“Go get some rest,” Ronon says, slapping him on the back hard enough to make him stumble. “I’m going to do another couple of laps.”

“Same time tomorrow?” he asks between heaving breaths.

“You really want to do this again?”

“You run every day, right? So I will too.”

Ronon stops for a moment, then hauls John into a giant bear hug, apparently not caring that he’s sweaty and gross, and says, “Thanks, man.”

John is a little awed by how easily he expresses his approval, and how much it means to be on the receiving end of it.

He’s noticed on trade missions that the Athosians greatly value textiles, which they weave from plant fibers and dye bright colors. On his next trip to the mainland he slips away to ask the village elder Charin about the rugs which are spread throughout her tent.

She seems surprised by his interest but happy to show off her collection. She tells him how Athosians give rugs as gifts to celebrate relationships and achievements, and then she shows him how they're made.

He trades a whole month's worth of credits for supplies, and when he returns to Atlantis he spends hours each evening delicately weaving yarn through a wooden frame, building up a soft, textured rug. When it's done it's a little lumpy, but it has four clear bands of bright color running through it to represent their team.

He carries the rug to Teyla's quarters and fidgets outside her door.

"John." Teyla squints at him as she opens the door. "You appear nervous."

"I made this for you," he says and thrusts the rug at her. "Charin told me you're supposed to make them for family. This one has stripes for the four of us on the team. Sorry if it's not very good."

Tesla takes the rug and presses a hand to her chest as she examines it. A slow, warm smile spreads across her face.

"It is beautiful. You have my thanks, John. This means more to me than you know."

He has an uncomfortable flutter of emotion and he can't quite meet her eye. He focuses on the wall behind her instead.

"You are as family to me as well," she says, and steps forward to press their foreheads together in the Athosian way.

The frank sentimentality of her manner makes him squirm, but he sort of likes it.

Rod is trickier. He is not a person who cares much for stuff, and he always waves off supply runs from Earth, saying he has everything he needs.

But he has been complaining lately that the unstable nature of Lantea's sun has been interfering with some of his measurements. John has an idea that can help with that, even if it does involve working with grubby experimental data.

Once he's ready he invites Rod to join him in the control chair room.

"I did some modeling," he says quickly when Rod arrives. He doesn't bother with a greeting. "To predict solar influence on the Lantea system and help with your experimental readings."

Rod's eyes light up. "You modeled a star for me?"

"I thought it might be," he shrugs one shoulder, trying not to look too anxious about whether Rod will find it weird, "useful."

He plugs a flash drive into a socket on the chair platform and guides Rod into the chair.

"How does it work?" Rod is bouncing with excitement, the same look of delight on his face as when he finds a new piece of technology.

John indulges in a small, proud smile, and says, "Think about where we are in the solar system."

Rod leans back in the chair and its power hums on. Overhead, the holographic display bursts into life showing Lantea and its star, along with all the other planets and comets and asteroids filling the system, with notations on their size and mass and trajectory.

Rod whips the model around, running it backward and forward through time, watching the orbits of the planets dance.

Then Rod zooms in to see the sun up close and gasps. John has linked the model to the city's long range sensors so the display can simulate the star's fluctuations in real time, and as they watch its surface bubbles and releases a tendril of plasma which reaches out into space.

The display follows the plasma as it propagates out through the system, moving first through the asteroid field and then meeting the planet, interacting with the magnetosphere and lighting up the planet's atmosphere with an aurora of dancing colors.

The soft lights of the display are reflected in Rod's eyes, wide and joyful and curious, and the sight makes something like pain but not twist in John's chest.

"This is incredible." Rod pokes further through the interface, looking at zipping comets and distant moons. He sits up and the chair's power fades off. "Thank you."

Heat creeps across John's cheeks, and he busies himself unplugging the drive. "I wanted to do something… nice."

Rod stands and walks over to him, taking the drive from his fingers. But he doesn't let go, keeping hold of his hand. "This is very nice," he says, startlingly close.

And then something very strange happens, and Rod is leaning in and kissing him. John is distracted from the soft press of his lips by absolute bafflement at this turn of events and he freezes up.

Rod steps away and John stares at him, desperately trying to figure out how to respond. "You kissed me," he ends up on, which does have the merit of being true.

Rod rubs the back of his neck. "Sorry. I thought that's what you were going for. Was it not?"

John's brow wrinkles. His thoughts are whipping past at a million miles an hour.

That hadn't been his intention - he'd assumed that Rod was straight, not that he'd given it much thought - not that someone like Rod would be interested in him even if he wasn't - but there's something compelling about the concept, something intangible sitting on the edges of his perception. He can't quite see the shape of it.

"I need more data," he decides. "Kiss me again."

Rod breaks into a charmed smile. "I can do that."

This time when Rod leans in he's ready for it. Their mouths meet carefully, tentatively, and he angles his head so they line up better.

Oh. Interesting. The data is looking positive.

"Hmm." John draws back to breathe and consider. "Yes. That's good. Let's do that some more."

“An excellent plan," Rod says, putting his arms around John's waist to pull him closer and kiss him deeper.

Rod tastes incredible. Or maybe he just tastes of stale coffee and power bars, but John’s senses are so heightened that every sensation feels earth shattering, and he's starving for more. His hands scrabble at Rod’s collar, at his arms, at the hem of his shirt, trying to touch everything in a mad dash. He’s determined to get as much of whatever this is as he can before it comes to a crashing halt.

“Hey. Hey,” Rod’s hands are on top of his own, and he’s pulling away like John knew he would. John folds into himself, ready to turn his back as he listens to this is a mistake or we both know this isn’t going to work out or I’d never feel that way about you.

“If we’re going to do this…” Rod is giving him one of those lopsided smiles, soft and genuine. “I’d like to do it properly.”

John, still braced for rejection, has no idea what that means.

“Let me take you to bed,” Rod says, wobbly and uncertain and hopeful, of all things.

“Oh.” He could do that. They could do that. An ocean of unexpected possibilities opens up, glittering and unfamiliar and enticing. “Okay.”

Rod takes his hand and leads him back to his quarters. John’s palm is sweaty but his steps feel light as air.

Kissing Rod is excellent. Doing so while lying on Rod's bed is even better, and at some point they both lose their shirts and then there’s even more skin to explore and the comforting scent of Rod all around him.

It's what's next that's stressing him out, because while he's aware of the theoretical steps involved in sex, he doesn't exactly have practical experience to draw on.

There's the ever-present worry that he's missing something, that there's something he ought to know, like there's a handbook for this which everyone got a copy of except for him.

"You good?" Rod is looking at him with those very, very blue eyes. "You went away there for a minute."

His cheeks are blazing, but it seems important to set expectations. "I've never done this before," he admits.

"You mean with a man?"

He squirms. "With anyone."

He waits for Rod to laugh at him, but he merely looks contemplative. "Were you not interested, or…?"

"It never seemed that important, you know? Just another of those things that everyone else did except for me, like going to parties, or having friends, or spending Christmas with family."

Rod's face softens with sympathy.

"And even if I wanted to sometimes, it didn't matter, because who would want this?" He indicates himself with a disparaging hand. He knows what he looks like: too thin, too lanky, messy hair that will never keep a style. He's no one's ideal. "I'm not even sure why you’d be interested."

"God." Rod reaches for him and takes his face in his hands. "You really have no idea, do you?" Rod carefully removes his glasses, sets them aside, and says, "You're gorgeous," like he really means it.

Taking off his glasses makes John feel more vulnerable than taking off his clothes. Suddenly his shield is gone and there's the world, and Rod, and it's all very close and immediate and a little disorienting.

"Hey." Rod pets his face, soft and gentle, "It's okay. We can go slow."

He makes an effort to pull himself together. "I won't be very good at this."

"You don't have to be good." Rod traces his lips with a finger. "You just have to be you."

And that’s mystifying, frankly. But he’ll give it a go for Rod.

They kiss some more, and he relaxes into it, lets Rod take the lead, lets him explore his mouth until he’s boneless and breathless. He breaks for air and is lightheaded, the room almost spinning, but he wants more.

Then Rod is kissing along his jawline, and down his neck, and oh, when Rod’s lips brush against a spot near his throat his entire body tenses and twitches, and Rod makes a curious, happy noise and does it again. It’s a hair away from overwhelming but he likes it, he likes it a lot, and then Rod gently runs his teeth over that spot and John’s hips twitch off the bed entirely of their own volition.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, but Rod doesn’t look put off. In fact, he just grins, says, “Don’t be, I like it,” then pushes John back onto the bed and mouths at that spot some more.

His skin is hot all over and he’s shaking, and god, this is all going to be over embarrassingly fast and they haven’t even gotten all of their clothes off yet.

“Rod,” he says, and it comes out as a whine. “Will you -” He gestures vaguely at the bulge in the front of his jeans and hides his face in the pillow, too bashful to let Rod see him.

Rod pauses from his engrossment in John’s neck to breathe hot words into his ear instead. “Is that what you want?” he asks, and John is fit to burst already. How is Rod so good at this?

“Please,” he says, mumbling into the pillow. Everything is too much and not enough, and he wants, he wants, he wants. “Please, Rod, please -”

“Okay, of course I will, it’s okay.” Rod strokes his flank, petting him like a skittish horse, and that should be mortifying but it’s exactly what he needs. “I’d like to see you though,” he says, and reaches over to touch John’s chin.

John lets himself be turned, lets Rod roll him over so they’re facing each other and their eyes meet. That’s almost overwhelming too, but Rod looks so pleased he thinks he might be able to manage it, and then Rod is kissing him and unzipping his pants and oh, oh, oh.

Rod wraps a hand around his cock and John just melts, like every brain cell he possesses has decided to pack up for the night. He can't even bring himself to blush because Rod is touching him right there and it’s so good, it’s so good, and all he wants is more.

Rod handles him confidently, exploring what he likes: a bit faster, a bit slower, a bit more pressure, a bit less. If John could speak he’d tell him that it doesn’t matter, right now he likes everything, anything, whatever Rod wants to do to him he’d take it happily.

But Rod is a scientist, and he loves his data just as much as John does, so he does some experimentation and finds the ideal speed John likes, and the angle, and then he squeezes gently around the head and John’s orgasm explodes behind his eyes like bright, white light.

He floats for a while, like a spring that’s been twisted and twisted and finally bursts free, and he’s vaguely aware of Rod stroking his face. It’s nice, every muscle in his body slack and comfortable for once instead of clenched down tight.

“You good?” Rod asks, and John can’t help but smile.

“Very,” he mumbles, mouth lax and lazy.

Rod drops a kiss on his temple, and there’s something so casual and caring about that it makes John’s heart squeeze.

“You mind if I get myself off?” Rod asks and heat races up the back of John’s neck. He does not mind that one bit.

“Should I. Um.” He ought to offer, right? That was the polite thing. But, “I don’t really know what to do,” he admits.

Rod smiles softly at him and says, “How about you kiss me?”

And yes, John is definitely on board with that, he can do that. He puts an arm around Rod’s shoulders and pulls him closer, then kisses him: carefully at first, peppering soft pecks to his lips, and then deeper, lips sliding over each other as they grow more heated, and then finally wild and messy, slipping his tongue into Rod’s mouth while Rod pushes his pants down and works himself over.

He feels Rod’s fist bumping up against his thigh, faster and faster as he speeds up his hand, and John can’t help but glance down. He watches in fascination at the way the head of Rod’s cock peeks through his hand on each stroke, red and hard and leaking from the tip. Reflexively, he licks his lips.

Rod is making these soft groaning noises which have John entranced, like he wants to spend every spare minute he has learning how to coax them out of him. And then Rod is biting his lip, and twitching, and staring at him open-mouthed and breathing hard.

“Can I come on you?” he asks, and something in John’s brain short-circuits.

“Yes,” his mouth says for him. “Rod, god, yes.”

He can’t stop staring at the movement of Rod’s hand and, emboldened by a force he didn’t know he had in him, he reaches down to wrap his hand around Rod’s. He lets Rod guide their movements, adding a soft pressure from his fingers so they can bring him off together.

“John,” Rod sighs, full of warmth and contentment, and then he’s relaxing and coming. Fluid splatters across John’s thighs and he did that, he made Rod feel good, and that feels like the best gift of all.

Rod is soft around the edges now, smudgy like a charcoal painting, and when John asks, “Was that okay?” he pulls him closer and nuzzles into his neck, covering both of their bodies and their clothes hopelessly in come, and says, “That was perfect.”

John wakes up sticky, rather too hot, and filled with a roiling, anxious feeling. The bed is too small and Rod is too close, and his heart rate picks up as he looks fuzzily around the room.

He should go. He should just go, right now, before Rod wakes up and they have to talk about this and he says something wrong and ruins everything.

He’s squinting and patting at the bedside table, looking for his glasses, when he feels movement behind him.

“Morning.” Rod drops a soft kiss on his shoulder. Then he rolls over, John’s glasses in his hand, and opens them up and pops them onto his face. He slides them up John’s nose, smiles, and says, “There you are.”

And oh. All that panic seems further away once he has the armor of his glasses back, and now he can see the pillow crinkles imprinted into Rod’s cheek. He seems less like an agent of impending judgement and more like Rod, just Rod, Rod who knows him and has seen him at his worst and still, for whatever baffling reason, seems to like him.

“Hi,” he manages, and Rod beams like that was exactly the right thing to say.

“Coffee?” Rod offers. “Or shower first?”

As rare as it is for John to turn down coffee, he really is unpleasantly sticky. Deal with that problem first, he decides. “Shower,” he says, grateful that he’s not required to string together more than single words.

“Sure.” Rod gives his ass a cheeky pat as he rises, then throws him a towel.

He showers quickly and efficiently, but as he steps out and wraps a towel around himself he spots a purpling bruise on the side of his neck in the mirror. He stops to trace it with his fingers, remembering the feeling of Rod’s mouth there, hot and demanding.

“Ahh.” Rod stands in the doorway to the bathroom. “Sorry about that. I got a bit carried away.” There’s a flush on his cheeks, and he looks nervous.

John tilts his head, looks at the mark from another angle. There it is: incontrovertible evidence that he's wanted. What a fascinating concept. “Don’t be. I like it.”

“Oh.” Rod’s eyes go very round and the blush deepens. “That’s good. That’s. Ahh. Very good. I’ll just -”

Rod drops the towel from around his waist and makes for the shower, and John gets an eyeful of his half-hard cock, and then, as he walks past, an ass he has the sudden urge to sink his fingers into. A heat that’s beginning to feel familiar creeps up his neck, and he wants -

What the hell, he thinks, and he tosses his own towel aside to follow Rod back into the shower, delighting in his yelp of surprise when he slides up behind him.

“Shep! Think fast!”

John manages to get his hands up just in time to prevent the power bar from hitting him in the face.

“Thought you might want a snack before the mission,�� Ronon says with a wink. “Just in case we have to run anywhere.”

“Hey, I’m getting better at that! I’ll catch up with you one day.”

“Sure you will.” Ronon checks the straps on John's tac vest like he always does, then says, "Looking good, buddy," and ruffles his hair.

John used to hate that, but he's given up trying to tame his hair and now he lets it stick up in whatever direction it wants. It's weird but it works.

Teyla bumps her shoulder against his as they walk toward the gate room. "What do you have for us today, John?"

“Remember that strange energy signal Major Lorne’s team picked up last week? I was able to map its topography through space and pinpoint its likely origin, and Rod took a look at the electromagnetic readings and he thinks it might be a power source -”

“So we are going to investigate the signal on P2X-884?”

“Bingo.”

Rod is standing in front of the gate like he belongs there. He claps his hands. "Ready for another thrilling adventure in the Pegasus galaxy?"

"Maybe we'll get to hunt some Wraith," Ronon says, entirely too cheerfully.

"Or discover some hideous alien parasite," Teyla joins in with a gruesome smirk.

"Or accidentally blow something up," John supplies, because that's usually how their luck goes.

"Sounds delightful." Rod grins and yells up to the gate techs, "Dial her up."

As the gate engages with a whoosh and a glow of blue light, Rod reaches out to graze his fingers against John's: a reminder, and a promise. Out of the corner of his eye, John catches his smile.

He stands a little taller, knowing his team has his back, and steps through the wormhole.

#mcshep #stargate atlantis #my writing #i will NOT shut up about mensa!john i LOVE him

42 notes · View notes

olivemac · 3 years ago

Text

heartbeat | chapter six | b.b.

Summary | When Steve Rogers asks Kate Stark to find the Winter Soldier, she gets too involved.

Notes | Captain America: Civil War re-write, essentially. Starts just after the events of CA: Winter Soldier.

Pairing | Bucky Barnes x fem!oc, Bucky Barnes x Stark!oc

Genre | romance

Rating | explicit

Story Warnings | mild angst, fluff, romance tropes, so many romance tropes, coarse language, alcohol use, canon-typical violence, smut (m/f), oral sex (f&m receiving), 18+ ONLY

Chapter Warnings | canon-typical violence, coarse language

Citation | Russo, J., & Russo, A. (2016). Captain America: Civil War. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

A/N #1 | FINALLY got this rewritten. Final chapter coming very soon, as well as a "lost scene" between chapters three and four.

A/N #2 | Feedback is encouraged! Let me know your thoughts.

master list | AO3 link

_____

prev chapter

_____

The next morning, the rest of Sam and Steve's plan comes together on the sixth level of a parking garage at the Leipzig/Halle airport. Steve pulls the car into a spot next to a grey van and gets out to greet Clint and Wanda.

"Cap," Clint says, shaking Steve's hand.

"You know I wouldn't have called if I had any other choice," Steve tells him.

"Hey man, you're doing me a favor," Clint says. "Besides, I owe a debt."

Steve looks at Wanda. "Thanks for having my back."

"It was time to get off my ass," she replies.

Kate, standing by Bucky next to the Volkswagen, nods her hello to Wanda and Clint.

"How about our other recruit?" Steve asks Clint.

"He's raring to go." Clint walks over to the van and opens the sliding back door. "Had to put a little coffee in him, but...he should be good."

The man lying across the backseat jolts up at the sound of the van door. "What time zone is this?" he asks.

"Come on. Come on," Clint says, pushing him forward.

The man shakes Steve's hand. "Captain America."

"Mr. Lang," Steve says.

"It's an honor. I'm shaking your hand too long," Scott Lang says, dropping Steve's hand. "Wow! This is awesome! Captain America." He turns to look at Wanda. "I know you, too. You're great!" When he looks back at Steve, Scott can't stop himself from feeling his broad shoulders. "Jeez," he says.

Steve looks over his shoulder at Bucky and Kate, and Kate raises her eyebrows at him in a silent question of "Who is this guy?"

"Ah, look," Scott continues, "I want to say, I know you know a lot of super people, so...thinks for thanking of me." He mixes up the words in his excitement, then turns to Sam, "Hey, man!"

"What's up, Tic Tac?" Sam greets.

"Uh, good to see you. Look, what happened last time when I..." Scott trails off.

"It was a great audition," Sam says, shaking his head, "but it'll...it'll never happen again."

"They tell you what we're up against?" Steve asks.

"Something about some...psycho-assassins?" Scott answers.

"We're outside the law on this one," Steve tells him. "So, if you come with us, you're a wanted man."

"Yeah, well, what else is new?" Scott says, shrugging.

"We should get moving," Bucky speaks up.

"We've got a chopper lined up," Clint tells Steve before a man's voice comes over the public announcement system in German.

"They're evacuating the airport," Bucky says.

"Stark," Sam says.

"Stark?" Lang questions.

Bucky looks at Kate. "You're not coming."

"Two things," she says, holding up two fingers. "First, I work for and own shares in a former weapons manufacturer started by my father. Second, I came to a foreign country as a single woman, alone, to find the Winter Soldier. Do you really think I came unprepared?"

She enters a code into the smart watch on her wrist and it transforms into a smaller version of Tony's Iron Man gauntlet, wrapping around her wrist and hand, leaving her fingers free.

"It's a repulsor," she says, pointing it at Sam.

"Nuh-uh, no," he says, holding up a finger.

"Plus, I know some self-defense," she says. "Romanoff trained me."

"So, she could probably kill us all," Clint says, smirking. Scott looks momentarily worried, and Kate winks at him.

Wanda hands Kate a duffel bag. "Thought you might want this," she says. Inside Kate finds a Stark Industries-designed tactical suit and a laptop.

"Thanks, love," Kate tells Wanda.

When she turns back to Bucky, he's staring at her. "What?" she asks.

"Nothing," he says, shaking his head, but his smile is wider than she's seen it in a while.

_____

While the rest of the team spreads out across the airport, Kate hangs back in a terminal, trying to hack into Tony's Iron Man suit. It's a long shot, but she wrote some of the code for FRIDAY so she thinks she might be able to shut down a few functions.

"Sir, Miss Stark is attempting take us offline," FRIDAY informs Tony.

"Shut her out," Tony says. "And remind me to ground her when this is over."

In the terminal, Kate's screen flashes the message "Nice try, sis" before going black. She slams the laptop closed.

"Fuck," she exclaims.

"We found it," Sam comes in over the comms. "Their Quinjet's in hangar five, north runway."

"I'm closest," Kate says.

"You know how to fly that thing, doll?" Bucky asks.

She smirks even though he can't see her. "There's a lot you don't know about me, Sergeant Barnes," she says, her voice heavy with innuendo.

Sam groans, "Please stop."

_____

With what's left of the Avenger's distracted by Steve's team, Kate is able to make her way to hangar five without any incident. She ascends the Quinjet's ramp and preps for flight.

"I'm in," she says over the comms.

"We're almost to you," Steve tells her.

From outside the Quinjet, Kate hears Natasha shout, "Get out of the jet, Katie."

She stands at the top of the ramp, not descending. "You know I can't do that, Nat," she says, shaking her head.

"Is he really worth all of this?" Nat asks.

Kate doesn't hesitate before answering. "Yes."

Near the entrance of the hangar, a control tower collapses. Steve and Bucky come running through the debris. Nat stands between them and the Quinjet.

"You're not going to stop," she says to Steve. It's not a question.

Steve shakes his head. "You know I can't."

Nat sighs, "I'm going to regret this." She lifts her wrist and fires an electric charge from her Black Widow's Bite, stunning T'Challa who stands behind Steve, ready to avenge his father’s death in the UN bombing.

"Go," Nat says.

Steve and Bucky join Kate on the Quinjet. "Glad you could make it," she says as Steve slides into the pilot's seat.

_____

Bucky and Kate sit behind Steve in the Quinjet, not speaking. Bucky's mind is a jumble of questions he wants to ask them both. He starts with Steve.

"What's going to happen to your friends?" Bucky asks.

Steve sighs and shakes his head. "Whatever it is...I'll deal with it."

Bucky stares straight ahead. "I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve."

Steve glances at Bucky. "What you did all those years...it wasn't you. You didn't have a choice."

"I know," Bucky says, then looks at Steve, "but I did it."

Kate bites her bottom lip and stays silent.

_____

Somewhere outside of Moscow’s airspace, Kate's phone dings. She pulls up an encrypted email from Tony.

"Steve, you need to see this," she says.

She opens a file detailing who the doctor in Berlin really was: Colonel Helmut Zemo. Steve studies the information, his mouth set in a hard line.

"Who the hell is this guy?" Kate asks.

"He's Sokovian," Steve finally says, and Kate can see in his eyes that he's still haunted by what happened in the small country.

"At least Tony knows the truth now," she says.

Steve only nods.

_____

Steve brings the Quinjet to land in the snow on a remote mountain top and kills the engine. Kate pulls out a rack of guns labeled 'Romanoff' and hands Bucky a machine gun. She takes a pistol for herself from a cabinet above and places it in her thigh holster. She can feel Bucky's questioning eyes on her again.

"Tony used to take me shooting every year for my birthday," she says.

"You sure about this?" he asks. She knows what he's asking, if she's sure about risking her life for him, choosing him over Tony.

"Always," she says, and she kisses him on the cheek before sliding another pistol into the back of her belt.

She moves to stand behind Bucky and Steve as the exit ramp of the jet descends.

Steve turns to Bucky and asks, "You remember that time we had to ride back from Rockaway Beach in the back of that freezer truck?"

"Was that the time we used our train money to buy hot dogs?" Bucky asks, smiling.

"You blew three bucks trying to win that stuffed bear for a redhead," Steve says.

"What was her name again?" Bucky asks.

"Dolores. You called her Dot."

"Should I be jealous?" Kate chimes in.

Bucky smiles again. "She's got to be a hundred years old right now."

"So are we, pal," Steve says, clapping him on the back.

Kate follows closely behind Steve and Bucky as they enter the bunker. On a lower level, a loud thud catches their attention, and they all turn as a set of double doors are forced apart by Tony in his Iron Man suit.

He steps forward and retracts his helmet.

"So, you're done being a jackass?" Kate asks, lowering her weapon slightly.

"You seem a little defensive," Tony says. Steve takes a few steps toward him without lowering his shield. Behind him, Bucky keeps his gun aimed at Tony.

"It's been a long day," Steve says.

"At ease, Soldier," Tony says to Bucky. "I'm not currently after you."

"So, why are you here?" Steve asks. He wants to hear Tony admit he was wrong.

"Could be your story's not so crazy," Tony says. "Maybe. Ross has no idea I'm here. I'd like to keep it that way. Otherwise, I got to arrest myself."

"Well, that sounds like a lot of paperwork," Steve replies, lowering his shield. "It's good to see you, Tony."

"You too, Cap," Tony says, then he turns at Kate. "Katie."

"Big brother," Kate says.

Tony looks at Bucky. "Hey, Manchurian Candidate," he says, "You're killing me. There's a truce here. You can drop..."

Steve indicates to Bucky that he can lower his weapon and he does.

The four of them continue through the bunker, with Bucky keeping Kate between himself and Steve. Tony, with his helmet reengaged, leads the group into a large chamber holding several cryo capsules.

"I've got heat signatures," he says.

"How many?" Steve asks.

Tony hesitates. "Uh, one."

As they enter, the lights come on and the cryo capsules fill with a hazy, yellow mist. They can see that the capsules contain the other super soldiers. Kate catches Bucky's eye and they share a bewildered look.

A voice comes over an intercom system. "If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep," Zemo says. "Did you really think I wanted more of you?"

As they draw closer, they can see that each soldier has been shot in the head.

"What the hell?" Bucky mutters.

"I'm grateful to them, though," Zemo continues. "They brought you here."

A light in a control room at the back of the chamber comes on, illuminating Zemo's face. Steve hurls his shield toward the small window, but it flies back.

"Please, Captain," Zemo says, "The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets."

"I'm betting I could beat that," Tony says.

"Oh, I'm sure you could, Mr. Stark. Given time. But then you'd never know why you came."

"You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here?" Steve asks, making his way to the door that separates Zemo from the rest of them.

"I thought about nothing else for over a year. I studied you. I followed you. But now that you're standing here, I just realized," Zemo pauses, "...there's a bit of green in the blue of your eyes." He chuckles. "How nice to find a flaw."

"You're Sokovian," Steve says. "Is that what this is about?"

"Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell. No," Zemo shakes his head. "I'm here because I made a promise."

"You lost someone?"

Zemo clicks his tongue. "I lost everyone. And so will you."

A small screen to Steve's left comes to life.

"An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again," Zemo continues. "But one which crumbles from within? That's dead. Forever."

Tony steps up to the screen, his helmet retracted, and studies the grainy security footage of a secluded road.

"I know that road," he says. He turns to Zemo, "What is this?"

Kate steps up behind him. "It's...." she starts but doesn't finish. She can't pull her eyes away from the date at the bottom of the screen: December 16, 1991.

The tape plays. The car on screen crashes into a tree, and Kate gasps. She watches as her father tumbles out of the driver's side door and a man approaches. She can hear her father's voice in her head before he speaks: "Help my wife, my daughter. Please. Help." Bucky can't look at Kate; he doesn't want to see the realization dawn on her face, doesn't want to watch it turn to hatred. When her father looks to the man above him with recognition and says, "Sergeant Barnes?" Kate sobs. She isn't sure how her legs are still holding her up, and she can taste bile in her mouth.

When the tape ends, Tony lunges toward Bucky.

Steve stops him. "Tony. Tony."

Tony turns to Steve, tears in his eyes, "Did you know?"

"I didn't know it was him," Steve says.

"Don't bullshit me, Rogers! Did you know?" he asks again.

"Yes," Steve answers. Tony pushes him away.

Kate finally turns to look at Bucky. He's not sure he can handle the tears running down her face. "You could have killed me," she says. "You should have killed me. Why didn't you?" Her voice grows progressively louder with each statement.

"You weren't my mission," he says quietly. But it's a lie. The mission called for no witnesses. He doesn't know why Kate is still alive. But he remembers her wide, scared eyes looking up at him that night, not unlike how she's looking at him now, and his heart feels like it might crack in two.

"So, what?" Tony shouts. "The Winter Soldier has a conscience? You don't kill kids? Just leave them orphaned?" He lunges for Bucky again.

"Tony, stop," Kate says, reaching for him.

Tony turns to her quickly. "You're grounded, Katie," he says, and he fires a low-voltage stun from his repulsor that knocks her unconscious. Bucky lets out a deep growl as Kate's body hits the floor.

The fight that breaks out is chaotic. Steve is certain that Tony will kill Bucky, and he isn't confident that Bucky won't be able to keep himself from killing Tony to protect Kate.

"Get out of here," he roars at Bucky, and he throws himself between the two of them.

"It wasn't him, Tony," Steve shouts. "HYDRA had control of his mind!"

"Move!" Tony demands.

"It wasn't him!"

But Tony isn't letting up. Tony gets Bucky the neck and seethes, "Do you even remember them?"

"I remember all of them," Bucky growls and pushes off from the platform he's on, taking Tony with him.

_____

When Kate wakes, her head is pounding. She gets to her feet slowly and looks around. Zemo is gone, having used the chaos as an opportunity to escape, and she can't see Bucky, Steve, or Tony anywhere. The room is eerily quiet. She stands still for a moment, taking deep breaths and waiting for a wave of nausea to pass. She's fairly sure she has a concussion.

As her vision becomes clearer and the ringing in her ears dies away, Steve appears at the entrance of the room with Bucky beside him. They're leaning on each other and seem to both be holding the other up. Bucky's titanium arm has been blown away, and Kate gasps at the sight. Steve doesn't look much better. She makes her way to them and presses her palm against Bucky's bloody cheek. The sight of him in pain momentarily outweighs her heartbreak at the recent revelations about her parents. He hisses at the touch to his bruised face, and she pulls her hand away quickly.

"Sorry," she says. But he shakes his head.

Kate turns to Steve. "Where's Tony?"

Steve gives a nod over his shoulder toward the silo where he left Tony with the shield, and says, "It's over."

Kate wants to ask more questions, but she doesn't think now is the time. She follows the two super soldiers out of the bunker and back to the Quinjet.

_____

Aboard the Quinjet, Kate finds one of Tony's T-shirts and wraps it around what's left of Bucky's arm to cover the jagged metal. Then she pulls out the first aid kit and wipes the blood from his face. They haven't spoken about the tape or that night in 1991, and neither of them know what to say. So, they both stay silent.

When she finishes with Bucky, Kate makes Steve sit still so she can clean his wounds, as well. He watches her closely as she bandages his bloody knuckles.

"I'm sorry about Tony," he says. "About what he did to you back there."

"Thanks," she says. "I've never seen him like that. He...," she pauses, "I know he feels guilty about what happened, things he said to Dad before he died, things he didn't say. And then...having to raise me. It was a lot for him."

"And you?" Steve asks.

Kate is quiet for a moment before answering. “They died before I even knew them. The only memory I have of them is this dream of the night of the crash and a man I thought was a figment of my imagination. Turns out.…” She doesn’t finish the thought.

“It wasn’t him,” Steve says. “Not really.”

She looks over at Bucky, slumped in one of the seats on the other side of the jet. She knows he's listening, but he doesn't look up. "I know," she tells Steve, meeting his eyes again with a soft smile.

Kate closes the first aid kid and stands. Before she turns away from Steve, she says, "You knew. Nat knew, and she left it out of the file. You could have told me."

Steve looks up at her. "Would you have helped me find him?"

"I don't know," she says. She looks at Bucky again. "But I'm glad I did."

_____

final chapter

#bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #james bucky barnes #sergeant barnes #bucky barnes x oc #bucky x oc #bucky barnes x ofc #bucky x ofc #bucky fic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes romance

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lihimsidhe · 3 years ago

Text

Full Review: https://youtu.be/nMBgmV3QMwY

Summary

Stories Untold is a sci fi psychological horror adventure game released in 2017 by the studio No Code Lt and published by Devolver Digital.(1) Adventure games are characterized by exploring, puzzle solving, and narrative interactions with game characters. (2) The ‘adventure’ label hails from the 1st known adventure game Colossal Cave Adventure developed during the 1970’s. (3). In Stories Untold the player will do mostly 3 things: enter text into a writing prompt and hope what they entered progresses the game forward (text adventure), click around the environment to find interactive elements and utilize these elements in a specific order (point and click), and do some very light exploration.

Stories Untold’s origins lay in Ludum Dare; an event where game developers around the world challenge themselves to make a game from scratch in just a few days aka a ‘game jam’. (4) House Abandon was the product of such a game jam. (5) House Abandon would prove to be so well received that it is the very spark that would grow to become Stories Untold. (6). House Abandon became just one of the four stories featured in Stories Untold.

Each story has the player assume the role of an unidentified person using various electronic equipment ranging from locations that include an abandoned house, a laboratory, and a remote radio station in a blizzard. There is a fourth chapter but to explain its location and tasks can easily wade deep into spoiler territory.

It’s very difficult to reveal if this game attempts to execute on a specific message or not without spoilers. So treading as carefully as I can I will say that yes there is a message to be found here. A tragic takeaway that can hit hard for some players who put in the work to leave no narrative stone unturned.

Analysis

Disclaimer: I’m not a fan of puzzle games, or puzzles in games. They too often devolve into ‘guess what the developer was thinking’. More on this in a bit. Back to the regularly scheduled program:

The development studio behind Stories Untold, No Code Ltd, describes the game as the following:

“Four Stories. One Nightmare.

From the prototype 'The House Abandon' comes the critically acclaimed, and BAFTA winning, 'Stories Untold', the latest madness from No Code. Four short stories, tied together in a complex web of psychological-horror, intense visuals and genre-bending adventures.” How does this game execute on these selling points? Let’s address the last line first: genre-bending adventures. In my playthrough I walked in expecting a fairly basic adventure game with excellent presentation and left having experienced that same notion. This is all to say that Stories Untold, as far as I can tell, is not bending any genres.

The text adventure portion of Stories Untold doesn’t make a noticeable departure from one of the earliest text entry experiences ELIZA; a program created in the 1970’s that simulates a psychologist by responding to a user’s text entries (7). In fact after having played around with some ELIZA clones online (8) I’d say that Stories Untold actually underdelivers in this genre compared to ELIZA that was developed nearly fifty years ago. Point and click began with the game Enchanted Scepters in 1984 released on the Mac (9). In that game you do much the same as you do in Stories Untold: Moving your cursor to find an interactive point that hopefully drives the game forward. An activity unfavorably described as ‘pixel hunting’.

While I do concede that Stories Untold executes well enough on its mechanics would I also concede it is genre bending? Absolutely not. Mechanically speaking it falls very strictly within its genre.

As for the intense visuals the game advertises it has? I’m strongly inclined to agree. This game’s visuals are a love letter to the 80’s. It’s as if the game reached into the past and brought a portion of that era forward in time both temporally and visually.

Stories Untold also executes on psychological-horror aspects as well. There were times I was genuinely frightened both via jump scares and/or the dense atmosphere the game draws the player into. This game evoked feelings of fear, mystery, and foreboding of what was behind the next event.

“It is up to the designer to provide the appropriate information to make the product understandable and usable. Most important is the provision of a good conceptual model that guides the user when things go wrong.” (10) -Don Norman

The promise of a text adventure sounds great on paper: enter some text and the game reacts to what one entered driving the player’s progress forward. Just the thought of that fills my mind with excitement at being able to utilize my conversational skills I’ve learned in life to interact with a game sounds incredible The thing is, and the reason I’m personally not a fan of puzzle games is that they almost always seem like playing a game of ‘guess what the developer was thinking’ instead of the player applying their common sense to solve a puzzle.

If for example in a text adventure game you are trying to walk around a house you simply typing ‘walk around the house’ may or may not work. Perhaps the developer perceived ‘walk into yard’ as walking around the house. For me this creates a schism where it stops being about me vs the game and instead becomes a battle of how my exact wording for doing something very simple differs in verbage in how the developer would write it. So instead of walking around the house and losing myself in the story I’m now trying to guess what the developer thinks are the right words to say. What compounds this here is that the feedback is binary; either what I typed works or it doesn’t and I get the equivalent of an error message that doesn’t offer any guidance on exactly what the developer was thinking. This ‘guess what the developer was thinking’ issue wasn’t as pronounced in the point and click sections of the game. These were almost always tests on one’s observational skills and parsing over every little detail until the path forward reveals itself. Some of the puzzles I was willing to endure and some… I just looked up a walkthrough to solve them so I could get back to enjoying the game’s incredible atmosphere. The crazy thing about Stories Untold is me as a player desperately trying to scrutinize every little detail to move forward shares a strong connection to the game’s narrative. I really appreciate that despite my misgivings with this game’s puzzles.

As for the game’s narrative itself… I say I left the game mostly satisfied. Throughout the game the music, visuals, and gameplay really got my mind racing with the possibilities of the world that was spilling out before me. “Where could this story be leading?”, I excitedly pondered. And sometimes I was even afraid the game would provide an answer. Seeing how it was resolved was a bit underwhelming. I won’t lie. I went from a mind racing with possibilities to a flat, “Oh it’s that? Well that’s something I guess.”

If there was one thing I wish this game did differently it would have been to have focused entirely on the text entry mechanic presented in House Abandon. I said before I went and played with some ELIZA programs online and I loved that there was no failure state. The conversation just continued even if the code emulating a human would sometimes spout nonsense. I don’t expect anyone, let alone Stories Untold, to conjure up a fully realized artificial intelligence to amuse me for my 3 hour adventure game. But I can’t help but muse about a more realized text entry loop.

This game has 12 total achievements to earn. (11) Since the game utilizes a level select system, there are no missable achievements. Most achievements are earned by just progressing through the game. The ones that aren’t awarded in this manner are obtained by light exploration and finding some collectibles. All in all very easy to 100% in one sitting.

Significance

Stories Untold has received several notable awards (12) including British Academy of Film and Television Arts Game of the Year in 2017 (13).

Steam Reviews has it sitting at ‘very positive’(1) while Metacritic has it at a 7.0/10 user score. (14)

It has sold at least over 100,000 copies on Steam (15). If Steam sales remained roughly the same on the other platforms it was ported to (Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox) that would imply at least a few hundred thousand people have decided to enter the world this game provides. While adventure games have drastically changed since the days of Colossal Cave Adventure with games like The Walking Dead and Until Dawn, text adventures have mostly fallen out of mainstream gaming discourse. For that reason the fact that Stories Untold managed to break through in the way it did favors it being a touchstone for many adventure and text adventure games going forward.

Recommendation

Ask yourself the following: Do you like arbitrary puzzles? Do you mind some psychological horror in your entertainment? Do you ever wish you could just play through chapters in your favorite book? If you answered yes to both these questions then this game was made for you.

What if you’re like me and you can barely stand puzzles in games because they seem to evoke a ‘guess what the developer was thinking’ type of feeling?

I would still recommend this game. The reality of the game is that it can be completed in just a few hours. When you get stuck, look up a guide, solve your roadblock, and get back to enjoying this game’s stellar atmosphere. It’s really worth experiencing. Especially if you lived through and/or are a fan of the 80’s

If you’re completely puzzle adverse but still enjoy interactive narrative? It might be worth looking up a playthrough or livestream.

Sources

1. Dev & Publisher: Stories Untold on Steam (steampowered.com)

2. Adventure Game Def: https://www.britannica.com/topic/electronic-adventure-game

3. colossal cave adventure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure

4. ludum dare: https://ldjam.com

5. game jam: http://www.nocodestudio.com/development-updates/2016/9/5/the-house-abandon

6. dev interview: https://www.pcgamer.com/crafting-the-unique-genre-defying-horror-of-stories-untold/

7. ELIZA (origins): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00146-018-0825-9

8. ELIZA (interactable): http://psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/psych101/eliza.htm

9. 1st point click game: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/01/history-of-graphic-adventures/

10. Don Norman: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E257T6C/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_2BZA3S6D0KPFSKXFKHVM

11. Achievement List: Steam Community :: Stories Untold :: LihimSidhe

12. Various Awards: http://www.nocodestudio.com/nocodegames

13. BAFTA: https://www.bafta.org/media-centre/press-releases/british-academy-scotland-awards-2017-winners-announced

14. Metacritic: https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/stories-untold

15. sales: http://www.nocodestudio.com/development-updates/2017/9/21/stories-untold-news-patch-indiecade-awards

#storiesuntold #nocode #devolverdigital #videogames #sciencefiction #horror #adventure #scifi #horrorgames #horrorgame #textadventure #videogame #enchantedscepters #ELIZA #colossalcaveadventure #adventuregames #adventuregame #scienceficitiongame

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writingfordayz · 5 years ago

Text

The Distance Between Us

I couldn’t help but notice the subtle trembling of Shiro’s hands. He tried to steady them against his glass, continuing to smile and engage Coran in a discussion about the planet we’d just visited. With the glass anchored to the table, he was able to hide the shaking, but as soon as he directed the glass towards his lips, some of the water toppled over the edge and onto his chest. After finishing his drink, he chuckled and brushed it off, along with the incident, and returned his hands to his lap, concealing them under the table.

With a glance around the room, it was easy to see that no one had noticed his slip-up, but it was evident to me. Ever since we had both returned from the rescue mission, he’d been off. It was clear this mission had affected him more than most, but it’s odd because it was one of the most successful ones. I mean, come on! We managed to sneak onto a Galra ship, completely undetected, and broke out a group of Balmara who were abducted after the team first liberated them. Everyone survived and I only got a few bruises out of it. I was actually proud that I could train the next day without being too sore, but it was that morning when we were fighting simulations that he seemed unsettled.

Glancing up from the last of the fading bruises on my arm, my eyes landed on Shiro’s empty seat. “He’s done already?”

Allura laughed and said, “Yes, he went to continue training. You could all improve a little by following his training regiment.”

Hunk paused mid bite, “Nah...I’m good.”

Without looking up from her computer, Pidge mumbled,” Same”.

“Yeah… you’re right Princess. I’m gonna go join him.”

The training deck was barely illuminated by some dim lights overhead, and Shiro’s figure danced around simulations in the dark, his arm hesitating before striking down the enemies. He continued to increase the difficulty until he was in complete darkness. When the rhythmic shattering of simulations was intercepted by heavy thuds and panting, I abruptly ended the training sequence and flipped the lights on, finding him slumped over on the floor in a pool of sweat.

“Shiro what are you thinking?! The training is going to kill you far faster than the missions at this rate.”

He jolted back momentarily, studying your face before relaxing. Reaching forward, I grabbed his arm that reflexively flew up to defend himself. It was trembling, but as he grasped my hand, all anxiousness ceased.

“I’m sorry you had to see that. I didn’t know you were watching,” he admitted.

“Why are you doing this to yourself?” It killed me when he shut people out, especially myself. Half the time he’d be honest. I’d been informed about his nightmares, his fears of losing his brother, the regrets he’d left behind on Earth, but the other half was completely closed off from prying ears. All I ever want to do is help him like I do in the middle of the night when the knock echoes between our walls and my arms provide enough comfort for him to fall back asleep.

“All I’m doing is trying to improve my combat skills. We all have things we need to improve, and that’s my weakness,” he explained as he stood and walked past me towards the exit.

“This is more than just improving your combat skills! I can tell there’s something different about you Shiro. Ever since that last mission, you’ve been training non-stop and you avoid any interactions with me outside of work.”

He’s stride faltered as he calmly explained, “What we do is tough, so I need to train constantly. The last mission brought that to my attention. As for our interactions, I haven’t treated you any differently, I’ve simply stepped back to let you spend more time with Pidge. You two make a better team, and I’m going to be paired up with Allura from now on.”

Before any protest could be made, the doors slid shut, and he was gone.

Me and Pidge? Shiro and Allura? The last mission couldn’t have gone better, so why would he want to switch partners all of a sudden?

I wasn’t letting this major change go unexplained. Don’t get me wrong, Pidge is a great Paladin, the smartest one on the team and within the top 10 in the universe, but Shiro’s been my partner for the past eight months... Am I falling behind the others, and he’s just trying to keep me in the castle to work remotely? Or maybe Allura is better for him because she’s able to make the tough decisions. I tend to get hung up on the morality of the issue. At times I’m too emotionally involved, but I know that’s my fault and have been trying to fix it.

There’s also the matter of his constant trembling. Based off of the way he’s been training, it could be due to overexhaustion… Maybe I’m just overreacting. Maybe he’s right; he hasn’t been treating me any differently and I’m just trying to overlook my short comings, but that doesn’t expl-

Shiro’s hand trembled over the keypad to his bedroom, flashing red and beeping incessantly, indicating an incorrect code. He tried to navigate his finger towards the correct code, and when the red blinking continued, he slammed his fist against the wall. A pool of guilt settled in the base of my stomach, rising towards my throat as I caught a glimpse of a frown spreading onto his face before it was blocked by the wall he’d settled his forehead against. It was unbelievably sickening to see him this upset.

The whooshing of his bedroom door opening startled him, his eyes meeting mine. “You’re our leader for a reason Shiro. I trust your decisions, and I won't press the issue any further, but just know that I am here for you for whatever you need.” I left it at that.

Things slowly changed for the next week. I helped Pidge work on some projects around the castle while Shiro and Allura went out on some reconnaissance missions. He continued to distance himself, but it wasn’t up to me to confront him any more. Shiro is the most honest guy I know, and if he felt he needed to keep some things private, then I respected that. The rest of the team didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary either, and Keith would’ve noticed if something were truly wrong. Meanwhile, Pidge designed some new tracking devices for all of our suits, ones that could reach a signal nearly half way across the galaxy. After I installed them, it became my job to monitor everyone when they went on missions.

“Alright, what’s wrong?” Pidge asked one night while I was scanning the screens with everyone’s vitals. They were intercepting a cargo ship supposedly carrying weapons for the Galra. They were all holding steady as the minutes ticked by.

“Nothing, why?”

“That’s the tenth time you’ve sighed in the last hour. So, what’s up?” she asked.

Well, she got me there. “I just feel useless...no, not useless. More like helpless. It’s hard sitting back and watching them out on missions when I’m not able to actively help them if needed.”

“I know what you mean, but they’re all capable of backing each other up. They’ll be okay… Shiro will be okay.” Pidge didn’t even look your way as she tossed his name into the mix. I’ll admit, I’ve paid more attention to his screen than the others.

“I care about everyone’s wellbeing.”

“I know you do, but you care about Shiro’s even more. It’s not hard to see that,” she disclosed this so matter-of-factly. I hope it’s not as obvious to everyone else; I wouldn’t want them to think I care any less about them.

Before I could comment, she continued, “Well, I think it’s hard to see if your Shiro. He’s surprisingly dense lately, but we’ve all got stuff we’re dealing with. Ya know?”

“Yeah...I know.”

A few days later, Keith’s voice echoed over the radio, informing us of that they successfully located some Blade members who were being held hostage. While they transported them off the ship, I began filling out a log of everyone they’d found. Suddenly, all of the vitals went into distress mode, their heart rates increasing dramatically.

“Something’s wrong.”

Pidge snatched the radio, “Keith?! What’s happening?”

Muffled words broke through, “...ambushed...not Galra...no sto- Shiro!”

In unison with Keith’s scream, Shiro’s screen went blank. My heart lurched, lodging itself in my throat. I frantically tried to get the screen back up, my mind repeating over and over that it’s just a technological failure. That it’s not his tracker working. That it’s not his tracker telling me he’s dead.

The keys began to blur together, the computer protesting as my vision was clouded with tears. Pidge grabbed me by the shoulders and turned my body to face her. Her mouth was moving, but there was a distant ringing in my ears.

I must’ve sat like that, unmoving and unable to breath, for at least an hour because the next thing I remember is a smudge of red breaking through the darkness and almost immediately fading away, being replaced by more black. I felt like I was being crushed, but it wasn’t by the insurmountable agony in my throat and chest. This was lower and spread around to my back, cool metal grazing the exposed skin between my shirt and pants. I shivered and latched on, immediately recognizing Shiro’s embrace, and when I could finally take a deep breath in, his voice broke through, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry...I’m here. I’m here.”

I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t. This is a part of the job. We all know the risk of being a Paladin, and as much as I always dreaded Shiro going out on dangerous missions, I never could have imagined what it would feel like to actually lose him. He sat there for a long time, rubbing my back. Truthfully, I resent being filled with relief almost immediately because any amount of agony is worth it to feel his arms around me, but as soon as he felt me relax, he pulled back to point out his destroyed tracker on his shoulder. I brushed a finger over the charred device as I noticed six other pairs of eyes fixed sadly on me. Emotion is weakness...I should’ve been stronger. I should’ve been able to focus on the rest of the team and helped get them out safely so the casualty count didn’t rise.

“I’m glad you’re okay…” I admitted quietly. This isn’t a state I want to share with everyone else, the others I’m meant to protect. I’m too vunerable here.

“I think... I need some air.”

Shiro could sense the tenseness in the room and said, “The rest of you go debreif the hostages.”

As they filed out, Shiro started up again, “I am so sorry. I was reckless out there today, and it didn’t even occur to me that you were monitoring my vitals. I shouldn’t have put you through that.”

I tried to shrug it off saying, “It’s fine. You can’t control everything, and that could’ve happened to anyone.” It was true, and Shiro shouldn’t beat himself up over my reaction.

His expression shifted to one of complete disbelief as he struggled to find the words. He settled on a question, “If it happened to anyone else, would you have reacted the same way?”

That was a heavy question, mainly because I know my reaction wouldn’t have been the same.

“I care about everyone on the team Shiro, they’re my family an-”

“That’s not what I asked,” he said, cutting me off mid-sentence.

“If I lost one of them… It would be devastating. If I lost you… I’d lose everything.”

Shiro wrapped his arms around me immediately, holding me tighter than before as if I were about to slip out of his grasp.

“I can’t stop…” he began, but it sounded like the words were caught in his throat; “I know you see it. I can’t stop shaking...ever.”

When he took a breath in, his whole body shook, tears hitting my shoulder when he exhaled. He felt so fragile, even though he put on a brave face for everyone else.

“I know. Please Shiro, talk to me…” I begged. He was finally reaching out after weeks of becoming increasingly distant.

“Seeing you today… how you reacted when you thought I was dead… It reminded me of how I would feel if the roles were reversed. The last mission we went on, the witch got inside my head...She found out my one true weakness was, was you…” He pulled back, gripping the sides of my shoulders as he continued to recount that day. “She altered all of her drones’ faces to look like you. Every time I fought one off, I couldn’t tell if I was destroying my enemy or injuring you! When I finally did find you, the lights were off, and I hit you! I nearly knocked you out and only realized it was you because you didn’t fight back!”

I couldn’t believe that all of this happened to him and he never said anything to me, never radioed to me when it first started.

My confusion must have been rather evident because he explained quietly, “I didn’t tell you because it would’ve put you in more danger… I thought if I actually admitted that what Hagar thought she had discovered was true, she would know. Just by admitting I love you, I’d be putting a target on your back.”

I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face, contrasting his continued stream of tears. I reached up and wiped off what I could from his cheeks, trying to soothe him and let him know it’s okay.

“I think we all already have pretty big targets on our backs just from being defenders of the universe, don’t you think?”

A small laugh broke through, his eyes brightening. “I guess you’re right about that,” he admitted.

“So can we go back to being partners again?” I asked hopefully.

After some contemplation, he settled on, “On one condition.”

“Name it Kashi.”

He blushed lightly at the nickname and said, “You have to listen to my commands in the field. If we’re in danger, and I tell you to leave me, you leave me without hesitation.”

“Absolutely not. You can not name terms of agreement that you can’t agree to.”

He sighed and said, “Alright, you got me there.”

“How about this,” I compromised, “We both try our best to stay out of danger, and should the situation arise, we stand by each other.”

Shiro slowly leaned up and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead, sealing the pact.

“Deal,” he whispered.

#voltron #Voltron Imagine #shiro #takashi shirogane #shiro x reader #pidge gunderson #katie holt #keith kogane #Allura #voltron defender of the universe #shiro fic #shiro x reader fic #vlt #shiro angst

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glammackay · 4 years ago

Text

Under a Blanket of Blue - 14/03/21

Synopsis: George and Alexa settle in on their first day in Finland. (Warning: a lot of cuteness) @alexadem

Alexa: Was the idea of catching a flight to go on a spontaneous vacation with a guy she'd just met a bit of a crazy idea? The majority would vote yes, but honestly, this was the sort of stuff Alexa wanted her life to be made up of. She didn't like to waste any time on the couch, twiddling her thumbs and trying to imagine herself having fun when she could just go out and experience it. Besides, there were literally no red flags surrounding George - to the naked eye, he seemed like the most unproblematic person on the face of the planet, and any qualms she /may/ have had about any potential awkwardness diminished the moment she had spotted him at the airport. One of Alexa's most prominent traits was that she was outgoing, and loved meeting new people, so she had absolutely no issue with running towards the man and greeting him in a tight embrace, nor within anything that followed, not even when the taxi driver had turned out of the city centre and led them more out into the sticks, where that dreamy lodge George had booked was situated. In fact, that had only excited her more. The potential this accommodation and this week, as a whole, had, was enough to keep her smiling the entire journey there. "Well...fuck me" Alexa announced, snowflakes dusting her eyelashes as she looked up at the place they'd be calling home for the forseeable. "Shotgun the biggest bedroom". She shot a smirk over to the actor, crunching her way through the snow up the pathway and stomping out her boots once she'd made it undercover. "So, how does this work? Did they tell you they'd left the key somewhere, or something? I mean...this place /definitely/ has enough places to hide something-" no matter which way she looked, Alexa spotted a new thing to excite her - at the moment, it was the sheltered fire pit that she would definitely be insisting they light up one night.

George: This vacation was somewhat out of character for George. He’d spent time in remote locations with people he hardly knew before, but usually it was some kind of bonding experience with co-workers, not somebody he was coming to know as a friend, and especially not somebody so seemingly different to himself. Perhaps that was why he was so drawn to it all. Alexa was a lot more outgoing and forthright than he was, but when talking to her they just seemed to get along so well. She seemed to be doing a good job of bringing him out of his shell a little bit, whilst he was allowing her to just feel comfortable being herself around him. This was the recipe for a great friendship and travelling buddy, no matter how little time had passed since first speaking. He’d been trying to keep the details of the place under wraps, just so he could watch her reaction when the lodge came into view. “It’ll do us, huh?” he grinned, knowing full well the place could sleep thrice as many. “Yeah, I think the secret entrance to the crazy sex dungeon is ‘round the back,” he tried to say seriously, but almost immediately began laughing to himself, his cheeks flushing at the mere notion of him saying such a silly thing. He felt comfortable with at least saying these things aloud to Alexa, even if he didn’t commit to the bit. He could never commit to the bit. “No, umm, there’s a key box somewhere...” he started looking around the entrance way, before spotting what he was searching for. “There it is. Then we just enter the code and...” there it was, the keys in his hand. Front door, back door, sauna door, hut door - they were sorted. “Right, let’s get this thing open, because I’m freezing my tits off.”

Alexa: Raising both her eyebrows as she glanced back and forth between George and the lodge that looked like it could host the Weasley family, Alexa scoffed "ch'yeah, I think it'll do us. We're going to be living like kings and queens, MacKay, I'm /so/ glad I left you in charge of the planning". With her breath visible in the brisk air, the actress shifted from foot to fit in a lame bid to keep warm - maybe she hadn't planned her airport outfit as well as she'd thought she had, but the extent of how cold the country was had come as somewhat of a surprise, although, nothing compared to the shock she felt as George cracked a joke that could've come from her very own mouth. "Oh, oh, I get it. Is this where you bring all your girls so you can act up here, and then re-enter Great Britain as a saint again? Solid plan, I'm almost going to be disappointed if there's not a secret sex dungeon now". Of course, any disappointment would quickly be remedied by all the amenities that this place /did/ have, and once George had got the front door open, Alexa couldn't help but dump her suitcase right in the entrance way, like an eager child who just wanted to run around taking full advantage of everything. "Holy shiiiiiit, this place looks like it's fresh off of MTV's Cribs, you did good. I don't even know where to star-" cutting off short as she remembered her plea for the best room, Alexa side eyed George for a moment, wondering if he was on the same wavelength before dashing off upstairs to check out the bedrooms. She didn't even care what the others looked like really, the first one she laid her eyes on was more than cute enough, with it's slanted roof, cosy decor, and best of all - view out the window, where you could see nothing but miles of snow-topped trees and hills.

George: “Oh no... you’re onto me...” George laughed, stepping aside as he let Alexa make her way inside first, before he enthusiastically followed suit. The place looked even nicer than it had in the photos, and in the photos it looked pretty remarkable. It wasn’t huge, but with the big windows looking out onto the nearby frozen lake - at least that’s what it looked like to George - and the open landing on the floor above, it felt spacious enough. Once again, he keenly watched his company as she dashed around the place, very clearly enjoying herself far too much whilst exploring. It was like letting a child loose in a sweet shop, and he couldn’t get enough of it. He was a little slower at settling himself in - he took the time to shuffle their cases so they were out of the way and ready to go to their respective rooms, before making his way into the small kitchen in search of a kettle. Naturally, the most important thing of any holiday rental was whether or not they had a kettle, which thankfully they did. Once he filled it with some water and put it on, he finally went to see where Alexa had ended up. “So... I take it I did good with finding this place, then?” he smiled at her and sat himself down on her now designated bed. “What do you want to do first? Chill out and settle in or go straight for the hot tub? Or something else? I think we've got another two hours of daylight.”

Alexa: Fingers dragging themselves over countertops as her eyes took in the room, Alexa immediately made her way over to the window where she allowed herself a moment to let it sink in that she was actually here. About to tick off what had been at the top of her bucketlist for as long as she could remember, and she was almost lost in a sentimental moment when George's voice came from behind her. "You did good," she assured him with a soft smile. "I almost can't believe I'm here, especially not so soon, I wasn't sure if you were just making friendly conversation when you said you were interested, so - thank you for coming with me". Plopping herself down on the edge of the bed, Alexa ran her hands over her knees as she weighed up the options. "Well, you know I'm dying to get in that tub, so why don't we grab something to drink, hop on in, then find somewhere to see the lights from when the sun starts going down? Or, if we're feeling too sluggish, we can always save the venturing further afield for tomorrow night, and just stay cosy tonight? I'm honestly good with either".

George: George’s smile spread from ear to ear at Alexa’s reassurance. He had a feeling he’d done a good job with the location, but her confirming it made him feel even more confident of it. “Hey, now, thank you for coming with me! You know... to my secret sex hideout, that I definitely bring all the ladies I’ve known for two weeks to...” he let out a laugh at his own joke again, this time not blushing quite so much. It seemed he was becoming even more comfortable with his jokes to her. “Yeah, I mean, we’ll probably get a good glimpse of the lights just from here, with the views we’ve got, especially with those big windows downstairs, so maybe we can enjoy them from there with some blankets and music,” he mused, throwing out whatever ideas he thought might sound inviting to his travel companion. He jumped to his feet and made his way to the door, before turning on his heels and pointing his fingers in her direction. “So hot tub first... and we’ll feel our way from there. I just put the kettle on, would you like a hot drink? Tea? Coffee? Hot chocolate? The owners seem to have stocked all the vitals.”

Alexa: Hair falling across her face as she shook her head with a laugh, Alexa swayed into George, enjoying the fact he was becoming more comfortable with making jokes of the sort. "At least now I know why you really don't have social media, it's a John Tucker Must Die situation, you don't want all your conquests tagging you and being able to find each other". The thought of being able to see the lights from just outside the lodge hadn't even occurred to her, she had assumed there were certain spots that you'd be able to see them from the best, but then she supposed that had been extremely naive - they were in the sky, after all. "At the fire pit?" She suggested hopefully, eyebrows raising. "Sounds perfect to me. And you know, considering we're being all adventurous - I think I'll go for a tea. I've honestly never had one that isn't iced, and I trust you're well trained in the art of tea making. I'll have it however you have it". Following George back downstairs, Alexa practically skipped towards her case to retrieve her bikini - a white, Louis Vuitton one, of course. Admittedly, she was a bit of a brand whore - before taking it into the nearest bathroom and changing into it. She re-emerged a few moments later wrapped in one of the robes that were provided and leant on the kitchen countertop, face in her hands. "Just came to see the master at work. This better be the best damn hot bev that I've ever tasted or I'll severely judge you brits and your obsession".

George: “Tea it is, then,” George nodded his head in agreement, pleased Alexa had made the right choice to him. “And the fire pit, we can definitely check out in a bit. I think it’s called a Lapplander hut or something like that? Don’t quote me on it, though. But it looks really cool,” he spoke, almost to himself as they both went downstairs, and then their separate ways to prepare themselves. He managed to find all the right ingredients for a basic, good cup of tea, and poured them all in to some snow themed mugs for them. He’d just finished removing the tea bags before Alexa joined him once more. He placed her mug in front of her, before looking up and smiling. “Give it a minute to cool down, or you’ll burn your tongue,” he said, before realising that it sounded like he was talking to a child. “Sorry, I suppose that’s common sense. But I’ve lost count the amount of times I’ve burnt my tongue because I’ve been too keen to have a sip.” He lifted his own drink up to his mouth and blew on it, before setting it down on the counter again. “Maybe I should quickly get changed into my trunks whilst I wait for it to cool down. I’ll be back in a minute,” and with that, he left to fetch his swimwear from his suitcase and get changed in the bathroom. He soon emerged sporting a clearly well worn pair of rainforest themed swim shorts - about the craziest his wardrobe got - and his respective robe, undone.

Alexa: "Nope, no, I needed that. I always dive into everything too soon, so your caution: hot bev warning was /very/ needed" Alexa smiled, drawing the mug closer to her yet behaving by not taking a sip. She was softly blowing on it when her eyes averted from the steam onto George's reappearance - noticing the body first, then the iconic shorts afterwards. Honestly, it was hard to pick which one to comment on first, though the fact he had tried to deny the existence of his abs was too impossible to ignore. "Ah, and there it is, that so-called dad bod that you seem to think you have. D'you know how frustrating it is for hot people to not think they're hot when everyone else around them can see it as clear as day?" Realising she had to have been staring, Alexa turned her attention back to the tea and finally had her first sip, though she had to admit she wasn't fully concentrating on the taste. "Sorry. Don't mean to check you out but...I totally do".

George: George went bright red at Alexa essentially calling him hot and commenting on his abs. Not that he minded, of course, but the blushing was instinctual whenever anybody complimented him in such a way - it was as subconscious to him as breathing. He wasn’t sure whether to cover up or let her keep looking, because he couldn’t help enjoying the attention. He opted to leave his robe open, and grabbed his cup of tea, which was now at the perfect drinking temperature, and took a sip. “It’s okay. You’d think I’d be used to it, with having to be on film sets where I’m walking around with people looking at me shirtless all day, but nope. It still bewilders me,” he shrugged, before smiling at her. “I’ll try not to stare as much when you disrobe,” he teased, winking at her. Once again, the confidence to say such a thing was only because of the company he was in - he was just letting whatever he thought she’d enjoy hearing flow out of his mouth, without a second thought.

Alexa: The blushing definitely didn't pass by unnoticed by Alexa, it took everything in her not to tease him for it, and she was doing so well until he so confidently commented about her losing her robe, even with the wink, it was all too much to be able to resist. "Oh, is that so?" She set down her mug once more, fingers going to the knot on the robe to slowly untie it, eyes focused on George in a bid to catch him falter. "Do you promise? I'm actually real shy"- probably the biggest lie she'd ever told, one quick Google search and you could see she had absolutely no issue getting her body out, it wasn't arrogance, just a strong belief that you should love the body you were given, and shouldn't have to hide it. Letting the robe fall from her shoulders, Alexa knew damn well she'd just sacrificed a warm walk to the hot tub, but whatever, it was worth it. "Come on then" she spoke in an overly sweet tone, grabbing her tea with one hand, and his own hand in the other to lead him outside.

George: Not quite believing how he’d managed to get himself into such a situation, George was biting down on his bottom lip in an attempt to stop himself from smiling like an idiot, but it definitely wasn’t working. “You’re mad, you are,” he said, shaking his head as Alexa disrobed in front of him, his cheeks managing to redden even more than he thought possible. He wanted to be overly polite and not look, but he knew she wanted him to, so he glanced her up and down; his gaze lingered a little too long, until it was interrupted by her taking a hold of his hand. He snapped out of it, and instead tried focusing on just walking to the door that led out to the hot tub. Opening the door, they were hit by the bracing cold of the outdoors - a stark reminder that they were very close to the Arctic Circle, and the sun was setting soon. “Quick, get in, I’ll figure out all the buttons,” he said, offering his hand up to help her balance as she climbed in. Thankfully, it wasn’t complicated, so within seconds, the tub started bubbling.

Alexa: More than satisfied with the reaction she had got, Alexa was glad she was the one walking in front so George couldn't see the smile on her face...that was until the door actually opened, and she was immediately hit with the cold air like someone had bitch slapped her. Assuming George knew what he was talking about - he had one of those faces you could just trust - Alexa set her drink down in one of the holders and hopped into the tub with his help, which was admittedly warmer than the outside air, yet not at it's full potential, like it had been on some power saving mode. "This is fucking cold too, you...shithead!" She exclaimed with a laugh, splashing a little out the tub at him, figuring they probably should've turned it on fully a little before they intended to get in it. "But it's better than out there, for sure. It's gonna be /so/ nice". Submerging herself to the shoulders, Alexa used her arms to push herself backwards onto one of the corner seats and kicked up her feet a little, probably enjoying the novelty of a hot tub a little too much considering they were hardly needed in LA.

George: George grimaced at Alexa mentioning the tub was still cold. “Ah, yeah, shit. We were just a bit too keen, huh?” he spoke, taking a big swig of his tea, before placing his mug by the side of the hot tub. He watched her enjoying herself for a moment, a huge grin on his face as he did so. “You having fun in there?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at her, her answer very much evident without a word leaving her lips. After a few more moments, he figured it was time he joined in on the fun. He took off his robe, hanging it up nearby, and turned to face Alexa. “Fuck, it is a bit nippy out here, isn’t it?” he said, exaggerating the temperature even more by tensing all his muscles - the toning of them becoming even more apparent than before. And then he climbed into the hot tub, sitting opposite his company, so they both had a bit of space. “Oh, this is alright actually. It’s not putting the hot in hot tub, but it should warm up pretty quickly.”

Alexa: Unaware that her enjoyment was so apparent, Alexa grinned with a nod, feeling like a little child who'd just come on their first summer vacation away from school. Having never heard the term 'nippy' before, the actress immediately cast a glance down to her chest, figuring he must've meant she was showing actual nip, rather than referring to the cold, yet once she figured out he was just being British, she let out a laugh. "Fuck, you can't say things like that without giving me a quick Urban Dictionary style definition, that means something completely different where I come from..." Still, she hoped that wouldn't make him intentionally try to dial the slang or the accent down. That, mixed with the way he looked right now made her certain that George was the kind of guy who would get plenty of female attention without even realising it. One of the most eligible bachelors in any room, yet still one of the most modest. "Here - we should play a game. Like, a would you rather: culture edition. So like, you can say two of anything, one has to be American, one has to be English...whether it's food, movies, actors - whatever. And then you have to pick which one you'd rather eat, watch, sleep with - you know? Like, I could start with...Hugh Grant or George Clooney?".

George: “Oh, shit, sorry,” George shook his head, forgetting he was talking to an American who wouldn’t understand all his British colloquialisms, but he didn’t mind explaining them as he went. “It just means really cold - originates from... well, you can probably guess,” he trailed off, figuring he didn’t need to go into the etymology, too. He listened intently to Alexa as she described the game she wanted them to play. He rather liked the sound of it - their cultural differences had already been apparent the short time they had spent with one another so far, so why not combine it into a fun way to learn more about each other? “Ooh, I like this. Hmm, which would I rather eat... Hugh or George...” he pretended to look like he was thinking carefully, before laughing at his terrible joke. “Okay, I don’t know if it’s a terrible reason to discount somebody or not, but I don’t know if I could cosy up to George because we share the same name. That would just feel weird. Would you find that weird? It’d be like when Taylor Swift dated Taylor Lautner. Each to their own, but I couldn’t do that. So Hugh it is. He seems like a good laugh, anyway. What about you?”

Alexa: Well, at least she was on the right brainwave with thinking it had /something/ to do with nipples, maybe she wasn't being quite so stupid after all, though she wished she could rewind the clock a little and not check out her own tits. Thankfully, the water was already beginning to heat up a little more, and though her arms were still adorned with goosebumps, it was becoming more tolerable. "You are a literal dork" She should've known he'd have some smartass answer to her suggestion, though once he actually answered it properly, she nodded her head. "Good choice, good choice. I totally get what you mean, I even find it weird having to talk to my Amazon Alexa, like I'm going around the house talking in first person, makes me feel a little crazy". Reaching for her tea once more as she thought to herself, Alexa figured she should at least /pretend/ the question was difficult for her, when in reality Hugh Grant easily won for the accent alone. "I think I'd go for Hugh, too. I've had a thing for him since he played the prime minister in that christmas movie - which...I can totally imagine you in, by the way. I feel like you'd be that guy that goes to America because he can't pick up girls in England. In...the best way possible".

George: “If I ever need to ask you a question randomly now, I’m going to open with ‘hey Alexa’ and see how long it takes for you to get mad at me,” George teased, knowing full well he probably would do it once or twice at most. He fetched his mug and sat sipping at it as he listened to Alexa explaining the reason behind her choice, which he could definitely understand. “Yeah? You think I’m a Colin Frissell?” he asked, playfully raising an eyebrow at her. “I mean... when I’m in the States, I do find that people are fascinated by my accent and the way I pronounce certain words. I’m yet to have been invited back to an attractive stranger's place to stay the night, though. Well... no, that’s not wholly true. I’ve had a couple of propositions but not gone along with it, because it didn’t feel right,” he found himself rambling on, so he stopped himself with another sip of his tea, before placing it back where it was. He stretched his arms up, and shimmied his way further into the gently bubbling water, as he attempted to come up with his own ‘would you rather’ question.

Alexa: "I'm already mad at you for even thinking about it", Alexa teased setting the tea down once more and making herself more comfy in the water that was now hot enough to warm her completely. She didn't want to even think about having to get out anytime soon, especially not thanks to her need to tease and leave the robe discarded on the living room floor. Present her /hated/ past her. "Maybe a little, but as I've said, a much cuter version - which was why I was about to call you out on that bullshit. I don't believe for a second you haven't been hit on in bars, or anything like that. American girls can be...well, we're a lot. And I gotta say, I'm impressed you haven't just gone along with it for easy sex. I don't think I've ever really met a man who wouldn't when someone was offering it to them like that. Remind me again, who manufactured you?"

George: “It was Bill Gates himself,” George joked, trying to play it cool, despite his cheeks reddening - at this point he was surprised they weren’t just bright red the whole time. “I don’t know, it just feels too weird for me. I prefer getting to know somebody before we’re intimate. Like, I’ll make out with a stranger, sure, but sex is different. For me, at least,” he shrugged, realising his way of thinking probably wasn’t something Alexa was used to hearing. “It’s different for everybody, though, right? We all have certain things that we find difficult to share with someone until we know them better, and that’s just what it is for me,” he shuffled slightly in his seat, perhaps for the first time actually feeling slightly uncomfortable around Alexa, if only because he wasn’t used to opening up about such personal things so quickly, even if he was still doing it willingly.

Alexa: For probably the first time in her life, Alexa wasn't quite so quick to share her own views on sex as she knew all too well it was off putting for some guys. Usually, she'd be defensive about it, but there was no need to be, it wasn't as if George was judging her for having an opinion that was different to his, he was just sharing his own. Biting down on her lip as she nod her head to his 'different for everybody' statement, 'you can say that again' she thought to herself, though she wasn't about to make herself come across as some kind of harlot - despite it being true. "No, that makes total sense, I totally get why you'd prefer to refrain from it. Casual sex isn't all that great anyway in the grand scheme of things, 9 out of 10 times the guy won't be able to make you cu-" once again catching herself before getting too NSFW, Alexa turned her open mouth into a sheepish smile. "Sorry. We don't need to talk about orgasms, I guess that's just where my mind tends to wander when I'm still waiting for /someoneee/ to come up with a 'Would You Rather' question".

George: “Really?” George asked, a little surprised by Alexa's statistic. He knew that a lot of guys could be selfish in that respect, but not to that extent. He smiled a little at her attempting to censor herself, perhaps in order to make him feel more comfortable. He appreciated it, but he also didn’t want such a conversation to be completely off limits. “I don’t understand it when blokes don’t make an effort, in that department. Like, not even tried to figure out what their partner wants. I’ve always been the sort to ask a woman what they like and don’t like, sort of, as we go. I mean... god, this is gonna make me sound like a square to you, probably, but I usually ask a person if it’s okay to even kiss them, instead of just leaning in and hoping for the best. Well... I try to, and then I get kissed before I have the chance to ask,” he continued on the topic, even though she’d tried to brush it off slightly. He wasn’t necessarily avoiding coming up with a would you rather question for her, more that he was continuing to delay it whilst he thought of something good. And anyway, this conversation felt more interesting to him, for the time being.

Alexa: "Well Georgie, that just means that you have what most men lack...communicational skills. I don't think I've actually slept with a single man whose asked me what I've wanted. Most of them just kinda...grunt like cavemen and it's all pretty underwhelming. And I -" Okay, she was prepared for everything he had said thus far, but the fact he asked permission before kissing took her a few moments to wrap her head around, and she hoped he wouldn't take her silence as a bad sign, like she was inwardly mocking him or anything like that. The complete opposite, actually, she was more so wondering how it'd taken her 30 years of life to come across a man who asked for consent to kiss. Realising she hadn't said anything for a while, Alexa voiced the main thing that was swirling around in her mind, even though, for once she didn't feel like being outspoken, it was as if she couldn't help herself. "Well, just so you know, for...future reference or whatever, you wouldn't need to ask me. The answer's already yes".

George: George noticed the silence, but he had somewhat anticipated it. Whenever he told people this small detail about him, it seemed to take them by surprise. He took it as a good sign, more than anything else. He simply watched Alexa patiently, awaiting whatever response she may have. He expected a question or two maybe, or even just a comment about how rare it was. So her response managed to have the same effect and take him by surprise. He hadn’t been able to gauge how she felt about him, up until now. Sure, she’d complimented his appearance, but he didn’t know whether to take that as her genuinely being attracted to him, or simply a superficial thing. Not that he minded either way, but the truth was that he had had the thought of kissing her cross his mind... if only to be locked behind a door in his head for a later date, so he could just focus on getting to know her for the time being, and seeing what happens. “That’s... good to know. I’ll keep it in mind,” he said leaning in a little closer to her, as if to tease her that it had already very much been on his mind.

Alexa: Maybe, just maybe, throwing that into the mix already was a bad idea, but Alexa didn't know how to act if it wasn't bold and brazen, and it didn't seem to have put him off completely, so she allowed herself a breath, smiling at his response. "Just thought I'd save you some breath, you know, incase you were thinking about it". Of course, there was a very good chance that George continued to surprise her by being one of the only guys not interested - and that wasn't even being narcissistic, just that most guys were easy, and that meant a statement like that was actually usually followed by a kiss, so she was at a loss for words or any idea how to follow something like that up now. This never happened, the whole second guessing/feeling somewhat shy, and boy did she hate that it was happening now. For once, maybe she was the one blushing rather than George. Or maybe it was the heat from the steam. That had to have been it.

George: George continued with keeping his gaze on Alexa - he couldn’t help noticing a slight change in her demeanour. He was a little taken aback by it, as she probably was, too. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was because of what he had said or not, but he didn’t want to say anything about it. He’d hoped by now he had created a comfortable enough environment for her that she would tell him if she was bothered by anything he was saying or doing. When he finally looked away, and began glancing at their surroundings for the first time in what felt like a good few minutes, he realised that the sun was getting lower and lower in the sky. “Right now I’m thinking if we wanna see the lights tonight, we’d better start getting ourselves ready soon. Well, we don’t have to, because they should be at their brightest in a couple of hours, but I figured we could sort out some food beforehand so we can just sit and watch them for as long as we like after. How’s that sound?” he asked, his thought process managing to go past the realisation that he’d completely changed the topic of conversation without intending to.

Alexa: Alexa wasn't sure if the shift in her body was solely due to the hot tub or if her body temperature would've just knocked itself up a few notches regardless, but once George had broken the tension with reminding her what it was they were actually here for, it dawned on the actress that she clearly /was/ feeling some type of way about him. Not even in any deep way, it was far too soon for that, but maybe the attraction did hit a little closer to home than she previously thought. It wasn't so much, yeah people would find him attractive and much more of a...'/you/ are attracted to him, Alexa'. "Right, yeah, we should...definitely do that". Honestly, she couldn't get out of the tub quick enough now, eager to forget her entire thought process and focus on something else. Standing up, the drastic temperature change washed over her once more, so she wasted no time in heading back into the lodge. "Do you think we have time to go to a supermarket to get some ingredients, or are you thinking take out?"

George: George nodded at Alexa’s motion to start getting themselves ready. She seemed a little quick to get out of the water, but before she had a chance to get far, he, too, had gotten out and grabbed his robe that was hanging up nearby. “Here, take this,” he offered, placing the robe over her shoulders, figuring that would take the edge off until she got to her room and could warm up properly. “Well, actually, not to blow your freaking mind or anything, but I asked the owners if they could go to the shop to get a few things and drop them off before we arrived, so they’re already in the kitchen. At least to tick us over til tomorrow when we can make our own way out there,” he smiled at her once they had stepped inside. He tried to be cool but was noticeably tense from his body being exposed to the cold for even a brief time. “How about we get ourselves dried and changed, and have a look through the supplies when we’re warm and cozy?” he raised an expectant eyebrow at her, before walking over to grab his suitcase, ready to make his way to his bedroom.

Alexa: Clutching his robe around her, Alexa shot George an astounded look - not only was that a chivalrous act that she hadn't expected, but it seemed he had thought of everything while planning the entire thing. "Nope, consider my mind blown. That's some forward thinking brain you've got yourself there", embarrassingly enough, had it been the other way round and Alexa in charge of the organising, they definitely would've been raiding the cupboards to see if they could make a meal out of hot chocolate powder and eggs for the night. "Sure, you go hurry, you must be fucking freezing" she encouraged, retrieving her own case and taking it to the room where layers were the only thing on her mind. It didn't matter what the hell she looked like, as long as she could stay outside for as long as possible tonight, so once she'd taken her bikini off and dried herself she pulled on a matching set of loungewear ( with admittedly about three tops underneath ) and a pair of fluffy socks. The ends of her hair were wet, so she pulled it all into a high pony before grabbing a package out of her case and making her way back downstairs, hoping she'd miraculously managed to beat George back, though the odds were against her.

George: George was the kind of person who would practically over plan everything. Most of the time, it was a good thing, and it seemed to be for him so far on this trip, but he always had to remind himself to allow some freedom and leeway with his plans, especially if they included others. He grabbed a towel from the bathroom that was nice and warm, and began drying himself down with it, as he wandered into the downstairs bedroom, claiming it as his own. He made sure his top half was bone dry before he took his trunks off, and wrapped the towel around his waist whilst he hung up the trunks and began rummaging through his case for something warm and comfortable for him to wear for the evening. He settled on a pair of black sweatpants, a burnt orange jumper, and a t-shirt underneath, with socks that happened to match his jumper. He looked like he was about ready to join the Weasleys for Christmas, but he didn’t mind because he knew it’d do the job. Once he’d hung up his towel to dry, too, he ventured back to the open living space, surprisingly only beating Alexa to it by several seconds. “We meet again,” he teased, beaming at her, before making his way to the kitchen to see what they could start preparing for dinner.

Alexa: "Fuck me, hello to you too, Ron Weasley" Alexa teased, clearly on the same wavelength as it was undeniable that his sweater looked like it had been knitted especially for him. Following him through to the kitchen, before she'd even have a chance at checking out what he had ordered in, the actress placed the package down on the counter, beaming proudly up at George. "You didn't think I'd forget what yesterday was, did you?". Considering she hadn't known George for too long to know roughly what he already owned and what he didn't, she figured she'd make up a care package that would come in handy for the right now. A selection of ales as he'd said he liked them, a glass tankard with his full name engraved on it, ingredients for smores, a meditation set with candles and the likes in, and best of all - a game of twerk pong, which she figured would really help him finesse his twerking skills. "You don't have to open it right now, we can wait until whenever, but just so you know it's here, and that I didn't forget. So...happy birthday for yesterday".

George: George let out a small laugh at Alexa calling him a Weasley. “You read my mind,” he shook his head, almost in disbelief she was thinking the same thing about the jumper. He was even more in disbelief when she presented him with what he inferred was a gift. He figured she would remember it had been his birthday, but he wasn’t expecting more than maybe a card or one small gift, not a whole array of things. He bit his lip, trying to contain his huge smile, and managing to fail horribly once again. “Thank you so much,” he uttered, still trying to catch his breath from the shock. Before he could think of anything else to say, he practically blurted out “can I give you a hug?” Almost immediately, he realised asking permission was probably silly, since a few minutes ago she had said she would say yes to him asking to kiss her, and a hug was a few steps of intimacy down from that, so the answer would likely be yes, too. He didn’t give her much of a chance to reply, before he wrapped his arms around her. “You’re so sweet.”

Alexa: Alexa was glad that George left hardly anytime between asking and doing, as she couldn't help breaking out into a giggle, though he could probably /feel/ it regardless. "You really are something else, MacKay". Very quickly the giggle subsided into a satisfied smile, her cheek pressed into his chest thanks to the very present height difference. "You don't need to thank me, of course I was going to get you something. I wasn't just expecting you to put in all the hard work of the planning and then /not/ get you a birthday present". She pointed out, pulling back and glancing up at him with a playful eyebrow raised. "And don't tell anyone else I'm gross and capable of sweet things, okay? I got a rep to protect".

George: George’s smile kept growing when he felt the warmth of Alexa pressing against him. Noted, he thought, for if they found themselves having to keep extra warm whenever they ventured outside during the trip. He nodded acceptingly as she told him it was a fair bargain between them - him sorting out the vacation, and him getting a gift; he certainly couldn’t argue with it. “Well there goes my plans of telling everybody on social media,” he joked, the chance of which was extremely unlikely, since he didn’t use it at all. “If anybody asks about this trip, I’ll tell everyone you ignored me most of the time, I couldn’t even sit near you or been in the hot tub with you. Anything else you want me to mention? Just so I definitely don’t ruin that reputation you’ve got going on?” he asked, a playful eyebrow returned right back to her.

Alexa: Pursing her lips as she pretended to be deep in thought, Alexa wandered around the island in the kitchen, peeking into the cupboards nonchalantly. "Hmm, that you cooked for me every lunchtime and every evening. You don't have to, of course, I don't even know if I trust your cooking yet-" glancing back over her shoulder to convey that she was teasing, she soon resumed the nosing around before hopping up onto the counter herself, completely at a loss for what George had been planning to throw together. "But I want everyone to think you did, like you were catering to my every whim. And I'm a quesadilla at 4am kinda girl if I wake up hungry, too. So it must've been a real nightmare for you. Anyway, what are we whipping up tonight, chef?"

George: “Ugh, you’re just so demanding,” George playfully rolled his eyes, more than happy to go along with this facade, knowing full well that it wouldn’t actually come to life. “I can do that. I can even add that you made me walk to the supermarket in the snow by myself every day so you only had the freshest ingredients,” he nodded along, already enjoying this far too much. “Just tell me if I have to rein it in. Don’t want you looking too bad,” he smiled at Alexa, before beginning to look for the ingredients of the meal he had in mind for the evening. “Okay so... one of the dishes I’m best at is paella. Specifically chicken and chorizo paella. I don’t know if the owners managed to get every ingredient, but as long as we’ve got the basics, we can still make a delicious meal. Wait... did I ask you if you eat meat? I feel like I should’ve asked you that and accounted for it beforehand,” he pouted, suddenly looking a little concerned that he hadn’t taken everything into consideration.

Alexa: Clicking her fingers together, like George had just come up with the greatest plan ever, Alexa nodded. "Yes, that too. I like that. Meanwhile I was in the sauna, just waiting for you to come back from your treacherous journey". It was as if her stomach wanted to give away the fact paella was one of her favorites the way it rumbled in response to George even uttering it's name, but she wasn't going to say it loud, what are the chances he'd believe her rather than just thinking she was saying it to be polite? Besides, with the opportunity to tease him some more presenting itself to her, Alexa feigned an awkward look, shoulders slumping and eyes looking apologetically over at her counterpart. "I...I am a vegetarian, actually. And a celiac so I can't eat gluten. Plus I don't like any vegetables. And I'm allergic to /a lot/ of things, so really all I can eat is...potatoes". Letting that linger for a moment, she soon shook her head, a smile back on her face. "Nah, I'm totally fucking with you. Paella's amazing, and I'm sure yours is going to be one of the best ever". Though she did partake in the making of their dinner, she would give George most of the credit due to it being his version, and although she couldn't wait to dig in, she left it steaming on the side while she ran over to collect their coats, tossing George's over to him before jamming her feet into her boots haphazardly. "Come on, we gotta eat this outside. I've had paella on the beach before, but I've never had paella in the snow under the northern lights before".

George: George nodded his head, making a mental note of all these supposed demands from Alexa - he knew they’d have plenty of fun telling everybody about what happened on their trip and keeping an air of mystery about it. He sort of liked that idea. When she first said she was a vegetarian, George looked a little concerned, like all his meal ideas had flown out of the window very quickly because he’d been inconsiderate enough not to ask beforehand. And then as she continued, he began squinting at her suspiciously, before she admitted she was just messing with him. “Fuck me, you nearly had me for a moment there, I was about to trek out to the supermarket for real to get you something you could eat. So... thank god we’re not making that tale a reality just yet,” he sighed, shaking his head at her, pretending to act annoyed, despite the smile on his face. He was happy to do most of the cooking himself, but the help of Alexa was certainly welcomed - it was the first time in a while he’d prepared a meal with somebody that wasn’t a family member. He seemed a little surprised when she went to fetch their coats, rather than tuck in to their meal, but he picked up on what she wanted to do pretty quickly. “I’ll be honest, I doubt many people have had paella in the snow under the northern lights before - we’re about to be a part of a very exclusive club,” he smirked, before fetching his own boots and putting his coat on, readying himself to brace the cold.

Alexa: "The mile high club will seem /so/ overrated once we join this one". Alexa stated, matter-of-factly before darting off once more to bundle up an armful of pillows and blankets. "D'you think you can carry both the dishes out for me?" She requested, barely able to keep the top cushion balanced as it wobbled precariously. Still, she managed to transport them all to the hut that provided just enough shelter from the bitter winds, but was completely open at the front so they still had a clear view of the sky. Which, she hadn't even glanced up at yet. She'd purposely kept her face practically buried in the blankets with one eye on the floor as she made her way over. She'd waited so long to see the northern lights in person, she'd be darned if she wasn't going to make it into some big reveal. With her back still to the entrance, Alexa dumped down the load she was carrying and jiggled on the spot excitedly. "Can you see them already?!" She asked George, on the off chance he wasn't doing the exact same thing as her.

George: “From what I hear, the mile high club isn’t even all that exclusive anymore,” George shrugged - despite not being a member of it, he knew plenty of people who were. He never really saw the appeal; he liked to feel comfortable and not like everybody on the plane knew exactly what he was doing, because that sort of thing rarely went unnoticed. “Of course, darling,” he nodded, taking both of their plates and walking carefully behind her to the hut, hoping very much he didn’t ruin such a big moment for her by spilling her paella all over the snow covered ground. Thankfully, he managed to set their plates down on the table in the middle of the hut with every drop still on them, and he looked up to see how Alexa was getting on. He had focused all his concentration on not spilling their food that he hadn’t dared look up at the sky at all, until she mentioned it. “Yeah, look,” he pointed up, “you can see the green just over the top of those trees. They should get brighter and cover more of the sky over the next couple of hours.”

Alexa: Without even realising that she had placed her hands over her eyes, Alexa turned so she was facing the right way, and parted them like a scared teenager watching a horror movie, though the moment she did and caught a glimpse of the green through the trees her arms dropped down to her sides and she did a little bounce of excitement. "Holy shit, that's so cool". Already it was unlike anything she'd ever seen, without it even being at it's full potential yet. Before they let the paella get too cold, Alexa got snuggled up on the wooden seat, holding up a corner of the blanket so George could sit down and she could drape it over their laps. Surprisingly, it didn't feel too cold to sit out in yet, though she knew that would change the longer they remained there without hot food in their belly. Which, her attention turned back to then, and she began to tuck in, giving George verbal affirmations for between the first few bites. "Jesus, that's good, too." and "I need to get you to cook for me more often".

George: George looked down at Alexa just as her eyes laid upon the lights, and the way her face lit up with pure joy made George grin like an idiot, knowing that he had had some part in making this experience happen for her. He had seen the northern lights a few years before, up in the far reaches of Scotland, but he knew they were in for an even more incredible experience tonight. His attention then focused back onto their food. He hadn’t even for most of the day, so by now he was famished. He grabbed his plate, and quickly settled down next to Alexa on the seat, and placed the blanket over his legs, before taking a big bite of food. He let out a small laugh when he heard Alexa’s intermittent comments about his cooking. “Paella is very much my piece de resistance when it comes to cooking. It probably won’t get any better than this,” he said, before taking another mouthful. “Well, no, I have made paella even better than this before, but this is definitely up there with the best I’ve made. Must have been my charming sous chef's help that made it so good.”

Alexa: No matter how charming he was being, Alexa knew nothing she had done in the kitchen had benefitted the taste, having been on mostly chopping duty which really anyone and their ten year old siblings could do, but she knew that was just the sort of person George was - modest and always looking to share the praise, that much was evident already. Soon enough, her plate was cleared, and Alexa set it to the side and brought her knees up, hugging them beneath the blanket while with every passing moment the lights grew brighter above them. If she were honest with herself, it had kind of been the perfect day, and who could've thought up a better ending than to be sat underneath something so epic? Feeling overcome with emotion in that moment - which admittedly, was very unusual for her - the actress let her head fall to the side until it came into contact with George's shoulder, and she smiled to herself as she took it all in. "So, what do you think? Was this worth missing mothers day for, or have you been pining over Mama MacKay's company the whole day?".

George: George was impressed by how quickly Alexa managed to clear her plate - he was a fast eater, but she still managed to beat him to it. Once he was done, he placed his plate above hers and settled back into his seat. He smiled when she decided to rest her head on his shoulder - he’d always seen this as something very intimate only people who felt really comfortable around him did, and considering how long they’d known one another, and this being their first time meeting properly, he felt pretty accomplished that she felt so comfortable so soon. He let out an almost inaudible laugh when she asked her question - somewhat surprised it was something on her mind, because it hadn’t crossed his since they’d arrived at the lodge. “I spoke to her yesterday about it, actually. That I felt a little bad that I’d planned this trip, forgetting I’d be missing Mother’s Day with her. But when I explained where I was going and why, she said that she’d probably have ditched me, too, if it meant seeing the northern lights in Finland. So... that definitely made me feel a lot better,” he smiled, leaning his head down to gently rest upon hers. “She always knows exactly what to say.”

#Alexa #para #//can u believe these kids #//shoutout to anybody who reads it all ;)#//the title is a ella and louis song and just kinda fits ok bye

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black-is-no-colour · 4 years ago

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John Galliano Turns Moviemaker for His Latest Maison Margiela Artisanal Collection

By Sarah Mower, 16 July 2020

“You’re going to come into my head without security! Mon dieu. Take care—it can be a dangerous place!”

John Galliano is laughing, half-joking, half-not, on a Zoom call about the huge leap he’s taken into moviemaking. If you can call it a ‘movie’ — the term doesn’t hold when the piece of work he’s produced for Maison Margiela is a documentary, a narrative, an interactive provocation, and a real, raw, fantastical thing, all at the same time.

Residents of the Paris quartier which houses Maison Margiela would recently have been astonished to see a drone circling the local St. Joseph’s church, and then disappearing into the open window of the building opposite. It was there to hover over Galliano and his white-coated team at work in the studio—just one fraction of the epic collage of recordings of the Artisanal collection, released today.

Whatever damage the pandemic has wreaked on the fashion industry, the upsurge in mold-breaking imagination in depicting clothes, thought, conversations, and humanity is swiftly bringing about a revolution. “I very quickly realized that fashion, and the way we had created and presented it, would never be the same again,” Galliano says. “It can’t be until some kind of vaccine is found. And as soon as I accepted this reality, I was able to embrace the idea that something new could happen, that we could innovate, be resourceful, and that fired me up again. Nothing’s going to stand in the way of the creative process—I refuse to let that happen!”

Psychologically, Galliano essentially flipped the behind-closed-doors mentality that has been his own safety zone—and the anonymity code at Maison Margiela for years. Instead, he decided that he’d show every step of the making of the collection, in extreme detail, only with some extra-special twists in the storytelling. “I thought, ‘I’m going to be completely transparent about this, now.’ I’d always feared being in front of the camera [and] all those things you do when you know the camera’s on you, but I decided that I’m ready. So I approached [British photographer] Nick Knight, whom I trust and love.”

The upshot was two months of documenting every move made by Galliano and his team in just about every possible format. “I wanted to portray the process… a voyeuristic method, almost. So Nick’s been filming me remotely. There’ve been drones flying around us, coming in and out of my conversations. I’ve been wearing GoPros, one on my head, one on my chest.” Knight accumulated Zoom calls, text messages, FaceTime calls, used thermal-camera imaging, AI, and even an X-ray app—everything that could capture the detail and texture of working both by hand and remotely was captured.

“It’s been a whole new, exhilarating process,” Galliano exclaims. Some of the technology has fed back into the collection. “It’s informed how I’ve allocated fabrics for some of the dresses—that’s been a very creative way of working. But of course, some of the sequences are real time, real dresses, because I think today we want to see real, too. I asked my kids to start filming themselves on iPads at the beginning of the pandemic. They were expressing 3D experiments in cutting on their kitchen tables, on their terraces, in their garages. So really that’s how it started.”

This is John Galliano-the-storyteller, though: There had to be something else going on, too. “I wanted to bring in a double narrative,” he muses. “So there’s the story of the collection, but it’s set within a thriller. Why? Because I rather like the genre of horror and thrillers, and how they’re put together. And because for me, it represents the thrill of creation, research, and discovery.”

The second part of the production was shot in the Cotswolds in England, in a mimicking of the start-to-finish timeline of the design-to-fashion shoot. Under British lockdown safety rules, it was an intense bonding experience. “We had to combine as a group on set—live together, dine together, sleep there in the same place. Then—I can’t explain this—magic happened. My muses became vessels for some kind of power, and I don’t know where it was coming from. Here they were, living it: my clan, my tribe, six of them. I wanted them to connect. When you see them in movement and they express 100% what they’re wearing—there were some moments when I had to excuse myself from the set, because of some of the readings there. I found it so moving, I had to actually walk away.”

All those preconceived notions about the lack of feeling in digital representations of fashion? Galliano now dismisses them as old thinking. “The filming is intellectually stimulating and emotionally stimulating. So many people constantly say, ‘How are you going to get the emotion on digital?’ Well, I felt that it was palpable.” What he’s come out with, he says, is “a blueprint” for a way forward which can be used “to activate different dialogues—and show Gens Y and Z exactly how we do things. How we’ve created our own fabrics, whether it’s from the interlinings, created sandwiches of fabric, our own versions of embroidery in-house—how we’ve become resourceful.”

Source: Vogue.com

#Maison Margiela #Margiela #Maison Margiela by John Galliano #John Galliano #Galliano #Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano #SHOWstudio #Nick Knight #fashion #fashion presentation #haute couture #couture aw20 #style #pfw #paris fashion week #paris couture week

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chipotle · 4 years ago

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Panic's Nova text editor (a review)

Review: Panic’s Nova text editor

Panic, the long-established makers of Mac utility software, seems fully aware that introducing a new, commercial code editor in 2020 is a quixotic proposition. Is there enough of an advantage to a native editor over both old school cross-platform editors like Emacs and explosively popular new editors like Visual Studio Code to persuade people to switch?

I’m an unusual case as far as text editor users go: my primary job is technical writing, and the last three jobs that I’ve worked at have a “docs as code” approach, where we write documentation in Markdown and manage it under version control just like source code. The editor that works best for me in tech writing is the venerable BBEdit. When it comes to editing code, though, BBEdit lags behind. My suspicion is that BBEdit’s lack of an integrated package manager has hurt it here. Also, BBEdit’s language modules don’t support extending one another, making it effectively impossible to do full highlighting for a templating language like JSX or Jinja.

When I was a web programmer, I was one of many who moved to TextMate, and used it for everything for a while. When the Godot-like wait for TextMate 2.0 became unbearable, I wandered the text editing wilderness, eventually splitting my loyalties between BBEdit, Sublime Text, and more recently VS Code. At this point, I suspect nothing will pull me away from BBEdit for technical writing, but for programming I’m open to persuasion.

So: meet Nova.

I’ve been using Nova off and on in beta for months. I’ve reported some bugs, although I may mention a couple here that I didn’t catch until after 1.0’s release. And, I’m going to compare it to the GUI editors that I’ve been using recently: BBEdit, Sublime Text, and VS Code.

Nova is a pretty editor, as far as such things go, and with files of relatively reasonable size it’s fast. With stupid huge files its performance drops noticeably, though. This isn’t just the ridiculous 109MB, nearly 450,000-line SQL file I threw at it once, it’s also with a merely 2MB, 50,000-line SQL file, and Nova’s offer to turn off syntax highlighting in both files didn’t help it much. This may sound like a silly test, but in my day job I’m occasionally stuck editing an 80,000-line JSON file by hand (don’t ask). This is something BBEdit and VS Code can do without complaint. Panic wrote their own text editing engine for Nova, which is brave, but it needs more tuning for pathological cases like these. They may not come up often, but almost every programmer has one stupid huge file to deal with.

Nova has an integrated terminal and an integrated SSH client, and even an integrated file transfer system based on Panic’s Transmit. In fact, if you have Transmit and use Panic Sync, it knows all of those servers out of the box. Nova has a task workflow system for automating building and running. You can associated servers, tasks, and more with individual projects; Nova’s project settings are considerably more comprehensive than I’ve seen in other editors. You can even set up remote tasks. Nova has a serviceable Git client built in, too. Like VS Code, Nova uses JavaScript for its extension API, and it has built-in Language Server Protocol support—it’s a superbly solid foundation.

Beyond that, some smaller features have become table stakes for modern GUI editors, and Nova handles them with aplomb. “Open Quickly” can jump to any file in the open project, as well as search by symbols or just symbols in currently open files; it has a command palette; you can comprehensively edit keybindings. It has multiple cursor support for those of us who like that, and a “mini map” view for those of you who like that, although know that you are wrong. Nova’s selection features include “Select all in scope” and “Select all between brackets,” a command I often use in BBEdit and miss dearly in Code. (Both Nova and BBEdit select between brackets and braces, although BBEdit also selects between parentheses.) This effectively becomes “Select between tags” in HTML, a nice touch. There are a few other commands like “Select all in function” and “Select all in scope” that I didn’t have any luck in making work at all; a little more documentation would be nice.

That’s worth an aside. Panic has created a “library” of tech note-style articles about Nova sorted by publication date rather than an actual manual, and it’s not always easy to find the information you want in it. I know this is just what a technical writer would say, but I’d dearly like to see a human-organized table of contents starting with the editor basics and moving to advanced topics like version control, server publishing and extension authoring.

The Zen of Language Servers

A lot of Visual Studio Code’s smarts depend on the implementation of a “language server” behind the scenes: language servers offer almost spookily intelligent completion. For instance, take this PHP snippet:

if ($allowed) { $response = new Response(405); $response->

If you have the Intelephense PHP language server plugin, Code understands that $response is an instance of Response and, after you type the > above, offers completions of method names from the Response class.

Right now, Nova’s mostly limited to the language servers Panic provides, and they’re… not always so smart. In that snippet above, Nova starts by offering completions of, apparently, everything in the open project, starting with the variables. If I type “s,” it narrows things down to methods that begin with “s,” but it’s all methods that start with “s” rather than just the methods from Response. The “Jump to Definition” command shows a similar lack of context; if I highlight a method name that’s defined in multiple places, Nova shows me a popup menu and prompts me to choose which one to jump to, rather than introspecting the code to make that decision itself.

But, this is a solvable problem: there’s (I think) no reason someone couldn’t write an Inteliphense plugin for Nova. If Nova’s ecosystem takes off, it could be pretty formidable pretty quickly.

Walk like a Mac

Even so, LSP support isn’t Panic’s biggest selling point. Unlike Sublime Text or VS Code, Nova isn’t cross-platform: it’s a Mac-only program written to core platform APIs. Is that still a huge draw in 2020? (Is it instead a drawback?)

You can definitely see a difference between Nova and BBEdit on one side and Sublime and Code on the other in terms of resource usage. With the two Ruby files shown in the screenshot above loaded, I get:

VS Code: 355 MB, 6 processes

Sublime Text: 338 MB, 2 processes

Nova: 101 MB, 2 processes

BBEdit: 97 MB, 1 process

Code is an Electron-based program, although Microsoft famously puts a lot of effort into making it not feel like the black hole a lot of Electron-based apps are. Sublime uses its own proprietary cross-platform framework. In fairness, while us nerds like to harp on research usage a lot, if your computer’s got 16G or more of RAM in it, this probably isn’t a big deal.

You notice Nova’s essential Mac-ness in other ways. Its preference pane is, like BBEdit’s, an actual preference pane, instead of opening in another tab like Code or just opening a JSON file in a new tab (!) like Sublime. And while all editors better have first-class keyboard support—and Nova does—a good Mac editor should have first-class mouse support, too, and it does. You notice that in the drag-and-drop support for creating new tabs and splits. Nova’s sidebar is also highly customizable, possibly more so than any editor I’ve regularly used. (Yes, Emacs fans, I know you can write all of Nova in Lisp if you want. When one of you does that, please get back to me.)

Unlike BBEdit, though, Nova doesn’t have a Mac-like title bar, or a Mac-like outline view of the project files, or Mac-like tabs. (Well, BBEdit doesn’t have tabs at all, which turns out to be a great UI decision once you have a dozen or more files open, but never mind.) This isn’t necessarily bad; people often say BBEdit “looks old,” and it’s hard not to suspect that what people mean by that—whether or not they know it—is that it looks like the long-established Mac program it is. Nova is relying less on “we have a Mac UI and the other guys don’t” than on “we have Panic’s designers and the other guys don’t.” Make no mistake, having Panic’s designers counts for a lot.

What may be more disappointing to old school Mac nerds is AppleScript support: none whatsoever. It doesn’t even have a vestigial script dictionary. Again, this may not be something most people care much about; personally, I hate having to write AppleScript. But I love being able to write AppleScript. BBEdit’s extensive scriptability is one of its hidden strengths. Nova’s Node-based JavaScript engine is probably more powerful for its own extensions and certainly more accessible to anyone under the age of 50, but it may be hard to call it from external programs.

So is it worth it?

That probably depends on where you’re coming from.

If you loved—or still use—Panic’s older editor, Coda, this is a no-brainer upgrade. If you used Espresso, a Coda-ish editor that always seemed to be on the verge of greatness without ever reaching it, Nova may also be a no-brainer for you.

If you’re a fan of Sublime Text, BBEdit, TextMate, or another editor that doesn’t have native Language Server Protocol support, you should definitely try Nova. Sublime and TextMate have more plugins (especially Sublime), but many extensions seem to be languishing (especially TextMate). BBEdit never had a great extension ecosystem to start with. All of these editors have strengths Nova doesn’t, but the reverse is also true, and Nova may catch up.

If you’re an Emacs or Vim power user, we both know you’re just reading this out of academic interest and you’re not going to switch. C’mon.

If you use Visual Studio Code, though, it’s way tougher to make the case for Nova. Code has a vastly larger extension library. It has the best support for LSP of any editor out there (LSP was developed for Code). Despite being Electron-based, it’s pretty high-performance. Code doesn’t have an integrated SSH or FTP client, but it does have an integrated terminal and task runner and Git client. If you don’t object to using an editor that isn’t a “perfect fit” with the Mac UI, Code is very, very good… and it’s free.

I don’t object to Nova’s pricing model—$99 up front including a year of updates, $49 for future years of updates—but I can’t help but wonder if Panic should have gone with super aggressive introductory pricing. Also, I saw more than a few suggestions on Hacker News about how there should be a Code-to-Nova extension translator; I’m not sure automatic conversion would be practical, but a guide on manual conversion seems like an excellent idea.

For my day job of technical writing, I’m going to stick to BBEdit. (One day I’ll write up an article about why I think it’s the best “documentation as code” editor on the market.) For programming and web editing, when I was working on both a Ruby and a PHP project—the former a Rails learning exercise, the latter an obstinate “I am going to write a modern PHP app without using a framework” exercise—I kept trying Nova’s betas and then switching back to Code for Inteliphense and, I swear to God, MacVim for Tim Pope’s amazing rails.vim plugin. I suspect Nova could duplicate both of those, but I’m not sure I want to be the one to do it. (Also, while Panic has decent reference documentation for writing extensions, I’d like to see a few simple end-to-end walkthroughs for those of us who look at a huge list of reference topics and don’t know where to start.)

But Nova isn’t just pretty, it’s powerful, and has a lot of promise. The editors I’ve been comparing it to have been around since 2015 for VS Code, 2008 for Sublime Text, and 1992 (!) for BBEdit; it’s not reasonable to expect Nova to blow past them in every respect right out of the starting gate. Even so, they are Nova’s competition. Catching up fast is an essential requirement.

So: yes, I’ve bought Nova, and I’m rooting for Panic here. I’ll come back in a year and report if I’m willing to stay on the update train.

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mobius-prime · 5 years ago

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65. Special - Sonic Live!

Previous / Table of Contents / Next

The Last Game Cartridge Hero

Writer/Pencils: Ken Penders Colors: Karl Bollers

*deep breath* …oh boy.

So this issue is kind of infamous for being, well, terrible. At least, this first story is. Even I, usually being willing to put up with a lot of crap from Penders, think this story is just a royal mess. You'll see what I mean in a second.

Anyway, the customary intro page of this issue makes some kind of allusion to Sonic being about to enter some strange other zone that's unlike anything he's ever experienced before. Indeed, the beginning shows Sonic rushing to try to rescue Sally, who's been captured by Robotnik, only to be blasted by energy bolts from behind - which, as we all know from when this exact thing happened to Robotnik in StH#21, just means he'll be catapulted into another reality instead of killed. Which reality is that, you ask?

Ha. Haaaaaa.

Oh yeah. That's right, folks. It's one of these. Kenders actually recruited both his real life son and niece to be photographed and placed into the story of the Sonic comics as actual characters. Luckily this only lasts for this one issue, and they weren't made recurring characters or something, but like, damn. These children are grown-ass adults right now. I wonder what they think of this? What they think of their father/uncle respectively? If they cringe looking back at this, or look back on fondly as a cool thing they got to experience as kids? Side note as well, as I've mentioned before Ken had never played a Sonic game while he worked on the comics, nor did he own a Sega console. That's why, when Steve "dies" in the game the screen simply appears to turn off, and, if you look closely, he's not holding a game controller, but rather holding a regular TV remote sideways. Oh, Ken. Why this? Why?

Well, anyway, Sonic finds himself floating in a strange void seemingly unable to move or see anything, until the faces of these kids start looming in his face and talk about seeing him in the TV as they try to turn on their game. Sonic, worried they're going to try to turn off the TV and I guess strand him in there for longer, somehow reaches out and pulls them in instead.

Great going, Sonic! Now these two kids who have no superpowers of their own are stuck in a dangerous war zone with you. Indeed, this goes as well as you might expect. He and the two kids are able to breach back into Sonic's home zone, where Robotnik has captured the rest of the Freedom Fighters and is planning to launch missiles into space to create… some kind of doomsday device? It's not really explained well beyond "killer satellites," but either way, Sonic doesn't like the idea of this, and so he starts beating up the swatbots in his way. This stops briefly when Robotnik decides to take his villainy to the next level and threaten to shoot the two random innocent kids just because they happen to be with Sonic.

Of course, the swatbots aren't as fast as Sonic, which begs the question of how they even managed to blast him at the beginning of this story in the first place, and he beats the rest of them up and escapes with the kids. He takes them to the control center to shut down the missile launch, which has begun its countdown due to Sonic accidentally knocking Robotnik down onto his launch remote. Great job, buddy!

They manage to shut down the missiles, but just as they do, Robotnik, Snively, Sonic, and the two kids are all pulled into a strange beam of light. Once Sonic and the kids get their bearings, Robotnik begins gloating, since apparently, during the split second between when he entered and when Sonic entered, he contacted a bunch of alternate universe copies of himself and got them to build him a big mech suit shaped like himself. Apparently, they're in yet another strange zone, and Robotnik realizes he can conquer the whole multiverse from here, not just his own version of Mobius. At least… I think that's what he's implying. Honestly, it's so unclear and all the dialogue so scattered, it's hard to even properly tell. Anyway, Robotnik throws Sonic and the kids in a prison cell with several other… humans?

While Robotnik suddenly finds himself threatened by the other versions of himself, not content to be used for slave labor, Sonic has a chat with these people. Apparently, this isn't just any old zone - it's the kids' home zone, AKA, Earth! Now, this definitely isn't our Earth. These guys claim to be the designers of the Sonic games, but for one, they're decidedly not Japanese, and two, there's no mention of Sega at all. Apparently, the concept art for Sonic the Hedgehog in this world was created when they received strange interdimensional transmissions showing images of him, and they decided to make a game out of it. Not only that, but now these video game designers slash scientists have apparently created a weird prototype device that was responsible for sucking Sonic and co. into this world through a strange dimensional link. Yyyyyeah. Go ahead and try to make any sense out of this crap.

Well, anyway, Sonic and the kids notice Robotnik and Snively about to be vaporized by the angry other-Robotniks, and decide to step in and save them from certain death, or maybe just another instance of zone-hopping. Come on Sonic, this is what, the third or fourth time you had an opportunity to let this guy die and have all your problems be solved? How many other people have died in this war because you refuse to let Robotnik be killed by his own hubris? Of course, the swatbots and other Robotniks don’t like this, and so to save themselves, Sonic and the kids need to shut down the prototype linking them to this world. Turns out the way they do this… is through Sonic game cheat codes!

The code recited by little Steve here is actually a real code, something I'm mildly surprised about given Ken's weird disdain for the Sonic video games. It's the level select code for the original Sonic the Hedgehog game on Genesis (non-Japanese version). If you've got a Genesis and a copy of the first game, try it yourself and see. In this world, however, it's apparently the shutdown code for the swatbots, and thus everyone is saved. The game designer scientist guys use the prototype's dimensional link to send Sonic, Robotnik and Snively back to their own zone, and Sonic has a happy reunion with his friends, who have been mysteriously freed from captivity in the meantime.

Oh, boy. Someone needs to tell Kenders that the Sonic games don't actually depict Sonic from the comics. These kids aren't gonna have any idea what the Sonic they were traveling with is up to, because all they'll be doing is playing as a different, more turquoise-colored Sonic, battling some weird dude called "Eggman" and collecting seven multicolored Chaos Emeralds to save a planet that definitely isn't called Mobius. Shame.

The Substitute Freedom Fighters

Writer: Rich Koslowski Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: Karl Bollers

So you may be wondering. How exactly did the Freedom Fighters even get captured in the first place, and how did they escape while Sonic and the others were stuck in the "real world"? This story is here to answer our questions! Apparently, while Sonic is just off derping around somewhere else, the others are watching Rotor create a new micro-cam that he can attach to his bandolier, working kind of like a body cam so they can review footage of battles after the fact and learn from them. Fortunately for them, some swatbots immediately show up to let them test out their new invention. Unfortunately for them, they get overwhelmed and dragged back to Robotnik.

Hey, look who it is! Larry Lynx has made his comeback, and he's noticed everyone's disappearance… as well as the ongoing live feed from Rotor's micro-cam. Realizing everyone is in danger, he rallies the first people he sees training - Cyril Eagle, and Sally's old recruits. They team up and fight their way into Robotropolis, Larry using his famous bad luck to make sure the swatbots lose every time, and they're able to eventually find the captured Freedom Fighters and liberate them. After finding Sonic as well, they head back to Knothole, where Sally forms the six of them into a new team, the Substitute Legion of Freedom Fighters, as a backup squad that can continue the fight against Robotnik if the Freedom Fighters are unable to.

This is cute, but it does bring up an interesting point. Clearly, the Freedom Fighters are not always able to win their battles, and it's dire enough that Sally's started forming backup teams. It's not said directly that it's in case the main team dies or is roboticized or something, but we know that's a very real possibility in this war. Makes you wonder how this war was even fought when they were all tiny kids, and if something like this has ever happened before…

Knuckles Quest 2

Writer: Kent Taylor Pencils/Colors: Pat Spaziante

Well, no need to worry about that. Knuckles is at it again! This time, he's found his way to a strange cottage in the forest, and is set upon by a bunch of vicious mythical creatures, most of which he names off and mentions hearing in fairy tales. It's interesting, because as far as I'm aware, none of these are real-life mythical creatures, which means we're getting a tiny bit of lore and worldbuilding regarding the kinds of mythical creatures Mobian children are told about in this world.

Anyway, Knuckles is totally confused about why he's fighting all these creatures that are supposed to not even exist, but eventually reasons that they indeed can't be real, and are magical projections. Once he announces this, they dissipate and he finds himself talking to an old fox wizard, who directs him to continue his search elsewhere. He then reveals that he used to serve the king in his youth, and that his name is…

…Merlin Prower? Any Sonic fan worth their salt knows that Tails' real name is Miles Prower and that "Tails" is just a nickname, indicating that this strange wizard may be somehow related to Tails. Hmm, wonder if we'll ever hear any more of him…?

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #special - sonic live!#era 2 the freedom fight #writer: ken penders #writer: rich koslowski #writer: kent taylor #pencils: ken penders #pencils: art mawhinney #pencils: pat spaziante #colors: karl bollers #colors: pat spaziante

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adamsimonini · 5 years ago

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2nd Month Tech Update: Going Down The Rabbit Hole

Building capacity through building a farm

I was able to host a Vue.js workshop for full-time staff and co-op students within the building. It consists of hands-on development material I built at my last job. The workshop aims to provide participants which practical knowledge to get up and running building with Vue.js within 2 hours. Specifically, it consists of an online IDE (integrated development environment) where everyone gets full access to their own instance of the project repository; and a standalone web app built with the very same code found in the repository. In other words, while participants learn concepts from the lessons, they can also peer behind the content to see the actual code generating the examples. What is more, there are challenges throughout where participants must use the previous lessons to continually improve their project: designing a personal farm.

The results of the workshop were promising. Though all participants had web development experience, many were not very familiar with modern reactive front-end libraries. It was their first taste. They were introduced to modern javascript ideas such as reusable components, importing and exporting modules, and state. Further, some participants inquired as to how they could incorporate Vue.js into their current work, which I consider a win. It means they understand the value of the technology, and they are starting to see, and contemplate, ways it can be wielded in their own jobs.

Adding internationalization

At the moment I am building the front-end with Vue.js, and a Vue.js UI (user interface) framework Vuetify. Vuetify is built using Google’s popular Material Design spec, and essentially provides me with a bunch of nifty pre-made components. I didn’t add in internationalization (also known as i18n, where 18 refers to the letters couched within the bookending “i” and “n” in the word “internationalization” - shout out to Wikipedia for that!) from the start of my project. I decided I would add it early on, and I did. However, even this slight delay in implementation cost me over a day of troubleshooting to get everything working as desired. I got a refresher on a lesson I have already learned many a times in IT: “Do fundamental stuff at the start, or else!”

Up in the air

Month two was an interesting one by the end of it. On the technical side, it feels like everything has bled into everything else. What it will congeal into I know not at this juncture. There have been two notable catalysts for this occurrence:

i) As a team, we have gone full-force into conversations, interviews, and discussions with teams & actors both internal and external to our department. Consequently, our expertise in certain domains (e.g., the staff expectations for the future system) have surpassed that of others, for whom this project is one of many on the go. We have spread our net wide.

ii) On the technical side, there is a sequence of events that need to take place in a somewhat ridged order. For example, in order for us to produce a solid front-end, we need questions about the back-end answered, and before questions about the back-end can be answered a back-end solution must be chosen, and before a back-end solution is chosen there needs to be a formal options analysis (OA). We don’t have all the dominoes in place, yet. This leaves us in a tricky situation. We have a good deal of knowledge into some important things now, but we are also lacking knowledge into other critical things. We want to start building, but we aren’t certain what the back-end and it’s API will look like. We want to develop a web app, but we don’t know where the app will be hosted (and consequently what restrictions will apply to it). We want to use modern web technologies, but we don’t know what technologies are familiar to the team who will take over once we leave. We want to play with the possible back-end solutions that are being investigated, but we can’t gain access to a sandbox of those technologies.

Entering month three, our main focus - and consequently my main focus - will be on resolving the aforementioned dissonance.

Milestones Achieved

changed my Node.js code to target a cloud MongoDB database hosted by MongoDB Cloud Services, so now my app reads and writes data to a remote database.

added internationalization and localization to the app, so users can change languages (with the option of components like datepickers changing their format, too)

as a team we raised our level of confidence and knowledge to the point where we can contribute to the options analysis process & take a more active stance on the technology side of things

installed Windows 10 Pro on my work machine (for under $3 CND on ebay.ca via an OEM license), in order to get access to Windows’ Hyper-V, which is required for Docker Desktop on Windows

finished introductory Docker course on Lynda.ca to learn about containerization, and how it can be utilized in my development process going forward

built workplace IT capacity through hosting a Vue.js workshop

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not-the-usual-suspects · 5 years ago

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Unexpected Visit

Mikah wasn’t sure why exactly he had been led over to this side of town. He had all of his work in a bag, his mind had wandered while he went through the darkened City streets. He had heard the tales of when the City had first been reborn under Wily’s rule. How the City had been a glorious beacon of light and hope. So what had happened?

Fear. The people were afraid of everything they had been given, being taken away in an instant. So they kept quiet about the old world. Nothing good was to come of it. Fear was what kept them quiet and complacent. Fear was what had kept him hidden for so long.

But right now, he wanted to meet up with a friend. Someone who was supposedly in town. Someone who he hadn’t seen since he was much younger, more naive. Someone who might be able to help him.

He soon found himself at the rundown front of a warehouse. Not the largest one in the City by far, but it was also just small enough to fly under the radar. To not be raided by any Snipers. To make anyone walking by think that there wasn’t anything special about the dilapidated walls and doors, the windows boarded up. Obviously, it was sanctioned for demolishing, and shouldn’t be bothered.

Though, from what he’d seen and heard, that couldn’t be further from the truth. He’d gotten the readings from inside the walls. Heard the voices, seen the energy signatures moving behind the reinforced concrete. People lived within the warehouse. Mikah knocked on the door, loud enough to be heard, but also with an attempt to keep himself unnoticed.

The silence in the alley was palpable. He shifted in place, pulled the strap onto his shoulder more, kept the box tucked away under his other arm. The door opened, and inside was an older man with scars on his face. He’d fought, once. A long time ago. He eventually set down his weapons in exchange for the tools he had tucked into his belt. The teen smiled, almost hesitantly. “Hi, doc.”

He saw the woman inside, an odd instrument clenched in her fists. She was far more wary of his presence than the doctor was, but even still, Mikah wasn’t worried. He could almost hear her gasp as he was taken into the man’s arms, a hearty hug returned awkwardly.

“Mikah, my boy!” The man pulled back from the hug, led him inside before he shut the door. The bolt slid into place immediately, and the teen couldn’t help but feel a bit more intimidated by the woman as she stepped closer to him, her gaze calculating the potential threat he carried. Which was none. But she clearly wasn’t aware of that right now.

“Where have you been?” the doctor moved away from the door with a smile, though concern was also present in his expression. “I’ve heard some terrible things about what happened to you - about how Slash Man had...”

Mikah shook his head. So that had gotten around to the most hidden away people. He wasn’t surprised. “Well... injured, not killed.” He pulled his hat up to show the eye patch that covered his right eye. Also part of the reason why he was here. “But I don’t really have too much time to talk. I wanted to ask you for some of those favors you promised?”

Over the next hour, he’d learned a bit about what he had been up to. The woman was code-named Siren, one of a joint project between the doc and Mikah’s mother. He had been stuck in a remote area in Serbia for several years after Mikah had last seen him, with only three of his original creations still left untouched by Wily. He had come back to the City to try and gather information on what Wily - or now, Adelaine - was working on next.

Now, Mikah had his own ideas laid out on the table in front of them. Designs he had worked on while they had been underground, kept hidden away from Adam and especially from Serenity - if she caught wind on what he had been planning for months, she would have forbade him from leaving her sight. The box also set down on the table. The doctor’s hands were clasped in front of him, eyes focused mostly at the box.

“There’s no way you’d be able to get away with this,” Siren argued, a look over to her creator. “She’ll find out. We’ll both be arrested, killed. I might end up like the others. Not to mention, you haven’t ever done a procedure like this.”

The ticking of the clock caused Mikah to shift in his seat, very unnerved by the fact that he hadn’t gotten a response from the doctor himself yet. After another tense minute he finally pushed back in his seat, looked up to the teen with a somber expression. “She’s right about all of this,” he warned. “I would need the means to gather even half of the materials required for these blueprints-”

“I can take care of that,” he insisted, his resolve now back in full force. “I have connections to get the materials. Even if questions are asked, I can explain them away; get the supplies under the radar.”

He was studied for a while; the doctor finally let out a sigh, a shake of the head. “Mikah, you do understand the risk with a procedure like this. If I can’t get everything set up properly, you could end up severely limited, or...”

Mikah, for once, stopped to think about what that would entail. He could end up dead from a surgery like this. And even if he did live through it, the risks of the healing afterwards could leave him heavily disabled if things weren’t set up properly. After a moment, he nodded. “I know. But I have to do this. Besides, great people were only noticed when they took risks, right?”

The doctor let out a small laugh, looked over to Siren with a determined gaze. “You’ll get the area set up?”

She stared at him before she stood up, a heavy sigh that follow her actions. “I still think this is crazy,” she muttered as she left the room.

Within twenty minutes Mikah was laid down onto the operating table, his fists clenched with the growing anxiety in the pit of his stomach. He’d made sure to leave no trace of where he’d gone, for the instance where he didn’t walk away from the surgery. But he knew that Iris wouldn’t understand why he did this. If he did happen to make it through, he would have to bring her by to meet the doctor. Maybe he could explain the things that Mikah had trouble with.

He winced when Siren walked up next to him, the medications already laid out and ready for use. She didn’t know him, and he didn’t know her. She clearly didn’t want to be here, but it almost seemed like she was here more for the doctor than for the teen. She set up the anesthetics, made sure everything was connected.

“Mikah.” The doctor made sure he had the teen’s attention before he continued. “No matter what happens, just know that your mother would be proud of you.”

He couldn’t help but give a cocky grin. “Save it, doc. In case I don’t wake up.”

Once Mikah was completely under, the doctor opened the box that the teen had given him. Inside was a cybernetic facial attachment; it looked very much like it had been taken from the side of a Master Class’s internal frame. He had done procedures for his own creations before, but this was a human life. Once he wasn’t sure he could replicate again.

He let out a small breath, and it that breath the fears were put behind him as he got to work. A project that would last well into the night, but for the doctor, that was nothing new.

#the delinquent Light [Mikah]#the unnamed doctor [Dr. ???]#the rising chorus [Siren]#verse broadcast [canon/main plot]#[long post]#[world building]

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ultraarifuzzamanblog-blog · 6 years ago

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Web developing can be a smart career to a freelancing profession

Md arifuzzaman

August 13, 2017

0Web Development

Who are Web developers?

The web developers are those who create and develop websites. So, they are artists and do everything for creating and developing a website. They use color, graphics, images and special effects on the navigation. They do all the things very excellently so that the site becomes user-friendly and excellent to look at according to the client’s expectation.

When a web developer start designing?

Before starting this job, the developers communicate with the clients and ask them many questions like ‘Why do you want your site to complete? What features do you want to have on your site? And the more detailed question about the site. After learning the client’s expectation about the site, the designers start their design.

What does a Web Developer do?

A web developer is to do many functions such as he designs a new website, write code, add animation, check bugs and fix them. And last, of all, he launches the site in the client’s server.

Do you want to be a web developer? Then you can read the article until the end of it.

Now I will tell you what terms you need to learn to become a Web Developer. Not only that I’ll also tell you what kinds of benefit and opportunities will be opened for you when you will become a Web Developer. And I will show you the way and resource which will help you to start your journey to be a Web Developer.

Before going to start I would like to make it clear what does the web developer generally do. The web developer basically builds apps or website. How many types of website do you visit in online, all of those are web apps or websites? Facebook.com, youtube.com all are the example of websites.

How many Parts of a website

Basically, a website has two part-(i) web Design and (ii) Web Development. The users generally see the designs but they don’t see the developments. The common example of it is the YouTube video. Here the visitors can see the design of the video player, like button, comment button etc. But when the visitors click on the like button or they comment then the comment become save and increase the like count. These are an example of the development which happens behind the scenes. When you click on the like button then the like remain saves in database.

Database

Now, the question may arise, “What is the database?” The answer to the question is- the database is like a memory. As we save our music, picture in a memory card similarly our content remains to save in database. Basically, the users can see the outward design of a website but they cannot see the activities which are being happened behind the scene. Because it cannot be seen.

Kinds of Web Developer

Let’s know the type of web developers. The web developers are generally three types namely:(i) Front-end Developer(ii) Back-end Developer(iii) Full-stake DeveloperThese three types of developers do three types of function for web development. Their different activities are discussed below:

Front-end Developer

Front-end Developers are basically designer of a website. They design the app or website with Photoshop or illustrator. And then they convert the design into static code- HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This type of website is not functional. If you want to change the contents, like text, images of such website then you have to know the HTML and CSS. And you can change the content going to the coding page. Again visitors cannot send a message through the contact form of such website. Because it is not functional.

Back-end Developer

Back-end Developers have the knowledge about the Front-end Development. But the Back-end Developers don’t do the part of the design. Taking the static code from the Front-end Developer they make the website dynamic. That means they convert it into a working app which has an admin panel. And the user can change or add content through this admin panel. Here the users need not know to code. Because they can dynamically change the images or texts using this admin panel. The contact form of such website is also dynamic. Visitors can easily send their message to the admin of the website with this contact form. So, the function of a Back-end Developer is to make the static app of the Front-end Developer totally functional.

Full-stake Developer

Full-stake Developer is the all-rounder. Because they do both design and development. They have started to finishing knowledge of an app or a website and they do all the work of a website by themselves. Here there may arise a question - why you will be a Front-end Developer or Back-end Developer. Why not you will be a Full-stake Developer. Unquestionably you will try to be a Full-stake Developer. But if you want to do all the activities by your own self then it will take much time to complete a project. Besides software maintenance is also another part of a web developer. So, it will be hard to do all the functions by a single hand. Hence the developer divides their project to do the work team wise. And each developer does his work, in which department he is expert.

Programming language for Web Development

Now let’s learn what kinds of the programming language are essential for being a web developer. Any app or website is created by the computer programming language. How many apps are in your smartphone, how many websites do you use, these all are created by programming language? To be a web developer you have to learn some certain language like HTML, CSS, JavaScript & jQuery, Responsive Design, Bootstrap, PHP etc. You have to learn these languages serially.

HTML for Web Development

HTML is a markup language. It is used to mark up the website. Where will be header section, there will be a sidebar, where will be the footer section these are marked up with HTML. Actually, you have to learn the language to divide each part of the website.

CSS for Web Development

The next language which is used for web designing is CSS. You have to use the language to design the part which has been marked with HTML. What will be its background color, what will be the size of the images, what font will be used for the texts these type of activities are done with CSS. So, CSS is like makeup for a website.

JavaScript & jQuery

After learning HTML and CSS, you have to learn JavaScript and jQuery. You have to use this language to make the website indoor active. For example, when someone does comment or like in Facebook then you get the notification. The function of your getting notification is an indoor activity. Generally, when you will design a website, you will add different indoor activity including slideshow. To add these activities you have to learn JavaScript and jQurey.

Responsive Design Fundamental

Generally, the visitors visit a website from a different device like a laptop, smartphone, tablet etc. So, it is essential to make it responsive so that visitors can easily and nicely see the website from all kinds of devices. Otherwise who use a tablet, a smartphone cannot see the website properly. Because it will be broken. But when you will make your website responsive then visitors can easily see the content of the website from any kind of device.

Bootstrap

After completing HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery, Responsive Design, you have to learn Bootstrap. Bootstrap is a popular Front-end framework. Most of the clients and company recommend using this framework in their project. Hence you have to learn this framework very well. After learning HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQurery, this framework will be very easy for you to learn.

Scripting Language

When you will complete you learning HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jquery, and Bootstrap then you have to learn server side scripting language so that you can make your site dynamic and functional. There are many kinds of a server-side scripting language like PHP, RUBY, PYTHON, NODE JS etc.

Which language you will learn

You have select any one of these languages. Don’t try to learn all the languages at a time. Then you will not be able to learn perfectly any one of them. I recommend you to learn PHP. Many largest companies are using this language. For example, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Facebook are using this scripting language. Before learning PHP or PYTHON I recommend you to learn C programming. Because C Programming is a mother language. If you can learn C programming then learning other languages will be easy for you.

WordPress or Laravel

After learning PHP you have to learn Word Press or Laravel. 35% to 40% website of the whole world are being operated with WordPress. And 60% e-commerce sites are being operated with Woocommerce which is a plugin of the WordPress. Actually, WordPress has a big online market. Thus if you learn Wordpress after learning PHP then it will provide you a better opportunity in the online market. Laravel is another a popular framework like WordPress. So, you can also learn Laravel. But I will recommend you to learn WordPress.

Git

The next item is Git. Git is a software version control system. You have to learn it to do update your website regular basis and to do the smooth experience of the software users. Another advantage of learning Git is that you will be able to remain connected with your team from any part of the world. That means it will give the opportunity of connecting with your team remotely. If you don’t learn Git, you will remain lock in your office or home from where you are working. It will save your much time. So, you have to learn Git if you really want to do programming.

UI/UX Design

UI/UX design is another important term for being a web developer. UI/UX means designing software with Photoshop or Illustrator. There are some learners who learn only UI/UX design but don’t learn to code. Again there are some learners who learn to code but don’t learn UI/UX design. However, if you really want to be a dedicated Front-end Developer then you have to learn both sides. It will make your value multiple times more than others. But if you want to be a Back-end Developer then you need not to learn UI/UX design. In this regard, you have concentrated much on the scripting language like PHP, PYTHON, RUBY, NODE JS etc. But you have the knowledge about the basic Front-end language like HTML, CSS, Javascript, and jQuery etc.

SEO Knowledge

Besides these, you have basic knowledge about SEO. Because SEO is important for ranking a website. Though we know a website rank for its content. It also depends on how the coding of the website is done. So, when you will make a website for your client or for a company then you have to do coding SEO friendly so that the site comes to Google rank easily. Therefore you should have the idea of using the SEO friendly tag like heading tag, subheading tag, an anchor tag. Because these are very important for SEO. Learning SEO is not a tough matter. Rather it’s very easy.

Photoshop Knowledge

Last, of all, you have to learn basic Photoshop. The knowledge of how to cut and crop image helps you at the time of coding. Whether you are a Front-end developer or Back-end developer you must have the knowledge of Photoshop. When the designer submits a design then you have to separate the different part and integrate those in software. According to this serial, learn all these then you will be a professional Web Developer.

Opportunities of a Web Developer

Let’s learn what the benefits and opportunities of a Web Developer are in the online and offline market. Number one, you will be able to work as a Web Developer in different Software and Technology Company. You will be able to manage the website of the company or you will make a website for the clients of the company. The second opportunity is in the freelancing market. In the freelancing marketplace, the Web Developer has a great demand. Because there is no such a company who has no need website. Almost all kinds of the company like- small, large, the medium company need apps or websites. To present their service online and to sell their product to the customers, a website is inevitable for a company. By giving your support to these company as a web developer, you can build an excellent career. Number three, you can launch a software company by yourself and you can offer software-related service to different companies. So, there is no deficiency of opportunity of a web developer. Only you have to do the work seriously.

You can learn all these things properly and easily from

teamtreehouse.com

. I hope that this guideline will help you to be a professional Web Developer.

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velkynkarma · 7 years ago

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The Quintessential Paladin Armor Guide

Hey guys! We’re 5 seasons in now, and I thought it would be useful to put together this reference sheet for everything we know the paladin armor can do to date. I’ll also update this guide when new seasons come out and we learn more armor functions, too. Currently, this guide has been updated for Season 5. I provide references to episodes where each ability is used for samples of an ability, and visual examples for some abilities as well. This guide is primarily intended to be factual, with hard evidence from the episodes. However, some parts of the armor are still open-ended or have some degree of speculation surrounding them. I will indicate this as well if something about its abilities is unclear.   This guide contains a large number of screenshots, so all observations will be under the cut. For general reference, the guide is arranged in the following order:

General Armor Observations

Breakdown of individual armor pieces and their abilities

Helmet

Shoulders

Cuirass/Chest Piece

Jetpack

Gauntlet

Belt

Thigh/Leg Armor

Boots

General Bayard Observations

Character-specific notes regarding armor/bayard usage

Conclusion

Let’s take a look at what this armor does!

GENERAL

One size fits all: Despite Hunk’s misgivings (S1E1), the armor appears to fit itself to any body type (with the exception of the helmets, which Hunk appears to struggle with sometimes). This is further established in the wake of S3E7, where we see five different races with five different distinct body types and sizes, also wearing a variation of the paladin armor

High Durability: The armor is fairly durable. The only case we’ve seen of it being broken (outside more fragile extra pieces such as the jetpacks) is when Keith takes a direct hit from a druid’s blast (S1E10). Even when Lance shielded Coran at point-blank range from an explosion, his armor appeared to have held itself together and likely saved his life (S1E4), although it was severely scuffed and likely had still taken significant damage. The same is true when the entire team holds scaultrite in S2E5 for the teludav (their armor is scuffed but not broken) and when all of them are hit by dark energy/electricity (S4E6, but not entirely clear if they’re being struck with electricity or magic). It is also at least moderately resistant to acid, since Keith is able to swim in the Weblum’s stomach for a short period without being digested (S2E9), although it’s made clear this won’t last forever. It does appear to be somewhat weak to electricity, as Pidge is effectively stunned/injured when struck by an opponent using this attack (S4E2).

Full Environment Functionality: The armor is fully functional both for space environments as well as underwater environments. It is not clear if the suit also accounts for underwater pressure, although in S2E2 both Lance and Hunk were perfectly safe underwater in their suits.

Other Minor Observations:

The armor can be made in any color, regardless of whether or not it matches with a Lion’s color (S3E2, Allura’s pink armor, although there is no Pink Lion). They appear to only traditionally match the colors of the Lions.

Bayards, “the traditional weapon of the paladins of Voltron,” are distinctly color-coded and linked to a Lion. There are only 5, regardless of how many variations of armor we’ve seen.

All the bright blue/teal lines on each piece of armor appear to be lights and will glow in low lighting (S1E4). Most of this appears to be for aesthetic, or possibly to help with visuals in a low-lighting situation. However, at least one set of lights actually has a functional purpose (the ones on the upper leg/thigh armor), which is where bayards are “sheathed” until needed.

Presumably the armor is designed to get into very quickly, as the paladins appear capable of going from casual gear to armor in the elevator ride from the bridge of the Castle of Lions to their respective ziplines (S1E2)

In S1E7 Allura mentions that “there are already sensors built into your suits” when they are discussing dropping the BLIP-tech sensors in order to be able to scan for the enemy. It’s unclear if she means the sensors are used to read the BLIP-tech readings, or if the sensors are there to track where each paladin is.

The armor used by Shiro, Keith, Hunk, Lance, Pidge, and later Allura, is not the exact same design as their predecessors (S3E7). There are distinct differences in the design of the helmet, chestpiece, belt, and boots, and the original paladins do not appear to have the thigh-sheath lights. However, the armor of today’s characters was stored away in cases in the Castle of Lions, implying these may have been later designs.

The original paladins’ armor is slightly different than the designs we know today, although it isn’t clear if it had any functional differences.

HELMET

Space Capable: The helmets are capable of fully sealing shut and providing oxygen (or, presumably, any other needed gas for the species in question) and protecting from the elements. This also applies to underwater (S2E2). It is unclear how the helmet filters oxygen/breathable gases as the armor does not appear to have any kind of tank. It is also not clear how it recognizes what breathable gasses are necessary for the species in question wearing it. It is also not clear if the helmets will automatically seal when the paladin enters a breathing-poor environment, or if they control this in some way. Communications: The helmets have audio communications (like a radio frequency). Paladins seem capable of talking to each other individually or in a full group depending on the situation at hand. Communications can be disrupted in the wrong types of environments if the signal is interfered with (S2E1, Shiro had to get to higher ground before his comm would work, S3E3, the gas interfered with their communications so they could not hear each other). The communications can also be used to some degree even when not wearing the helmet—as long as it is relatively close by, the paladin can be heard and hear others (S1E6, Lance was not wearing his helm but could still be heard when he shouted). Visuals: The visors of the helmet are capable of displaying imagery and data for the wearer in overlay readouts that don’t obstruct their vision. The data can be transmitted two ways. The paladin can transmit what they are seeing to another team member or back to the Castle of Lions (S1E10, Keith displays the quintessence processing chamber to the others).

Keith (S1E10) sharing what he’s seeing with the rest of the team.

Or, data can be transferred from someone else to the paladin (S2E4, Pidge scans the entire building for signs of life and transmits the results to Shiro, who uses it to find Lubos).

Shiro (S2E4) receiving Pidge’s scanned information and using it to track Lubos.

The paladins have also used a variation of this in combination with their gauntlets to create visual communications (S1E8). One paladin will use his/her gauntlet to display visual feeds from another team for something like video chat.

Blackout Training: Used only once (S1E2), this feature is remotely activated not by the paladin but by their trainer. Used to block visuals completely so that the paladin is forced to rely on the Lion’s senses. It’s part of an “expert level drill that really shouldn’t be attempted until you’ve been flying for years.”

Lance (S1E2) is not okay with blackout training helm when he realizes he can’t see.

Team Tracking: In S2E1, Keith is able to track a signature with a special layout on his visor to know what direction to run in when searching for Shiro. Note, it’s not clear if he’s tracking the Black Lion, or Shiro, although the signal appears to center directly over the Black Lion when he gets a visual of it.

Keith (S2E1) following a readout on his visor to find Shiro and the Black Lion.

Translation: In S4E2, Pidge is able to read the rebel monument despite it being in a language she does not know. The helm highlights the text, produces an Altean version of the text on the visor readout, and then reads the script out loud to her in her own language. Note, this may possibly be a newer feature, as in earlier seasons the characters have difficulties translating Galra text; alternatively, it’s coded for other kinds of languages, but not Galra.

Pidge (S4E2) using the helm translation to read her brother’s “grave.”

Composition Scanning: In S4E6 Hunk is able to look at a sample of soil in his hand, and the helmet is able to scan it and determine what particles made up the soil.

Hunk (S4E6) using the helm to identify dangerous explosive material in the soil.

Unknown: On occasion the paladins are shown not having their helmets in one scene, or having left them behind, but then going into battle with them shortly thereafter (Ex. S3E4, the team runs down the halls and fights the Altean sentries without any headgear, and they are not wearing helmets when alternate-Slav opens the airlock. However just seconds later they are shown flying out with sealed headgear for space). It’s unclear if the helmets have a function like the bayards (when they can be stored away on the armor until needed), or if this is a detail oversight.

SHOULDERS

No notable attributes, other than possibly being one of the more distinctive pieces of the paladin armor and color-coded by paladin.

It should be noted the color-coded pieces are not actually attached to the collar. There is a distinct strip of gray-black for each paladin that matches the undersuit they wear.

Hunk (S2E4) shows how the colored shoulder guards aren’t attached to the collar.

CHESTPIECE

No notable attributes, other than possibly being one of the more distinctive pieces of the paladin armor and color-coded by paladin. Each one is marked with the Voltron “V” symbol, although it should be noted a very similar design was used for the alternate-universe Alteans, so this may also be a notable Altean symbol.

Lacks protection for the stomach, which has been a source for one of the major injuries in the series so far (Shiro’s side-wound, delivered S1E11, prominently seen S2E1). This seems to be a notable weakness in the armor’s design.

JETPACKS

Jetpacks are part of the chestpiece, but have their own entry for a few reasons.

The jetpacks are extremely fragile and can break if put under enough pressure (S1E5, Pidge gets shot by Galra fire in the jetpack and it bursts, S1E11, Shiro’s breaks after flying through zero gravity and hitting the wrong way). However, they do appear to provide some extra insulation or armor from the back, since as stated Pidge is shot point blank in the back and lives through it.

when not in use, the jetpacks are retracted against the paladin’s back, which is their standard setting. When they are in use, two “wing” pieces extend farther away from the body, and can sometimes be seen visibly over the characters’ shoulders.

Pidge (S2E1) gives a good example of how the packs extend when in use

The jetpacks appear to be primarily designed for maneuvering in zero gravity and can do so decently well, even in combat scenarios (S2E10, gravity was turned off to allow better maneuverability for the paladins) or with multiple individuals (S2E6, Keith is able to tow Allura with him fairly easily).

They can also be used in an environment with gravity, but to a more limited degree. Generally they appear to be used to slow descent in a fall (S2E4, team Voltron airdropped in for a rescue), or to allow for rapid sudden movement horizontally (S1E3, Pidge and Shiro escape a ship’s crash) or in short vertical distances (S2E3, Keith uses the jetpack to catch Ulaz and strike).

They do not appear to let you “fly” in a gravity environment. This was made pretty clear in S2E1, when Keith could not just fly across the chasm with his jetpack. He launched himself partway and was able to use the jetpack to supplement his movement, but even then he barely made it. He also has to keep touching down in the geyser field despite the obvious danger touching the ground here represents. This suggests the packs are supposed to be use for short distances at best

Weight does also affect the jetpack’s power in a gravity environment to some degree. In S1E3 both Pidge and Shiro jump off the same point in the downed Galra ship when trying to reach the computer. Shiro sinks fairly quickly while Pidge flew significantly higher and came down much lighter. Along a similar vein, in the same episode Shiro was able to carry Pidge out using his own jetpack, but only for a short distance, and he had to touch down at least once and re-jump using it.

They can also be used underwater for enhanced maneuverability (S2E2). Additionally, they do not appear to produce any kind of jet-wash or super-heat the water, so their users are not boiled alive in the process of using them.

Jetpacks are frequently incorporated into combat as well, for short bursts of speed, maneuverability, or height. Keith uses it the most in combat to leap in close very quickly, or to ricochet off walls (ex. S2E3 against Ulaz). Shiro will use his the same way to enhance parkour maneuvering or get in close enough to use his arm (ex. S2E10). Lance has also done this once (S2E10, to shoot at an opponent from the air).

Keith (S2E12) using his jetpack for extra speed and force while fighting sentries

Currently it is unclear how the jetpacks are fueled. They do produce some kind of blue flame, but it is unclear how they do so, if they have unlimited power, or where fuel is stored if needed.

GAUNTLETS

Holographic Computer Interface: The gauntlets can create a holographic computer interface that can be used for a variety of tasks just like a normal computer. Some samples for paladin uses are interfacing with and downloading Galra data (S1E3), using the gauntlets for video communications (S1E8), create maps or plan routes (S1E4, S2E10), analyzing escape options or possible next steps (S1E5), generating holographic distractions (S1E5), or transmitting data to or from the Castle of Lions, the Lions, or each other (S1E7, S2E10, S2E4). Pidge has also used the gauntlet for hacking in a variety of forms, from standard hacking (most eps), to generating a facial recognition hologram from an image (S2E10), to remotely hacking the Castle of Lions (S1E5 for the invisible maze) or Shiro’s arm (only once, in the comics). She has even hacked Galra technology via other paladins’ gauntlets, such as when she uses Shiro and Lance’s interfaces to pass her data in order to let her hack a closed system in the Beta Traz prison (S2E10). However the limit of her hacking is questionable, as there are times when Pidge brings her laptop along to perform some of the same functions (S1E10).

Shiro (S1E8) projecting imagery from Coran to Hunk and Keith

Scanning: The gauntlets are able to scan items or systems and can be used functionally in this regard both to supplement the computer interface or for additional needs. Pidge used it to scan another computer interface in S1E5 to examine the data and manipulate it. It’s also used in “reverse” this way in S2E10, as Lance and Shiro scan systems to let Pidge connect, and then are able to project codes back into the same system to let them unlock doors. In a non-digital setting, the gauntlets can also be used to scan items or people, such as when Lance uses it to scan the warden’s face in S2E10. Often works in conjunction with the computer interface, but appears to be functionally different, so I’ve put it in its own category. Energy Shield: The paladin armor can create energy shields generated from the wrist to protect its paladin. The shields have so far been demonstrated to block Galra firearm attacks (multiple eps), immobilizing foam (S2E10), distress spores (S2E4), acidic creatures (S2E9), explosions (S2E12) and even druid lightning blasts in one instance (S1E10) so they are pretty durable. Keith has also used his shield as a protective wall in at least one instance against the Weblum’s defense laser (S2E9), although it should be noted in this case it was not used to deflect a direct hit, but rather as an extra bit of protection when he and Acxa were already hiding in a side chamber. Hunk has also used his shield as a weapon on at least one occasion (S4E5) by using it to slam a sentry into a wall. They do appear to have some limitation however, as after being struck by druid magic in S1E10 Keith does not try to summon his shield again, and the attack appears to have broken it. A similar instance occurs in S4E2, when Pidge uses the shield as a defense against a falling boulder; it does not stop the boulder and throws her backwards, and the shield disappears afterwards. Shields can be generated in a large number of sizes, from small for training exercises (S1E2) to full body length (S1E7). Energy shields can be used with both the left and right arms. 

Keith and Shiro (S2E4) summoning shields on both the right and left arms

Energy Disruption Taser: Only used once by Pidge so far in S1E1 to stop the drone she eventually turns into Rover. Fires a beam or pulse of some kind that scrambles enemy technology.

Rover’s pov (S1E1) as Pidge incapacitates it prior to being converted to Team Voltron

Wrist Grappling Lines: In S2E10 Shiro and Pidge fire grappling lines that attach to a surface and reel them in to it in open space. These appear to be for use in zero gravity only as they have not been seen again since with the paladin armor, and are never used to pull or lift a paladin in a situation where they have weight. (It can be noted that Keith used a similar technique in S4E1 with his knife while operating with the Blade of Marmora, so this appears to be standard maneuvering practice in space).

Shiro (S2E10) firing his wrist grapple in open space

Flashlights: Gauntlets come equipped with flashlights for particularly dark areas that the glowing strips on the armor aren’t enough to illuminate (S2E2, S3E4) Medical scan: In S4E2, Pidge uses her gauntlet to scan Te-osh’s body for injuries. The scan works similar to an x-ray and reveals several broken ribs, which the scan tech also highlights. This suggests the technology can not only provide imagery of an individual’s internal organs or skeletal structure but can also correctly interpret if there is an injury, regardless of the species it scans.

Pidge (S4E2) scanning Te-osh and identifying injuries with her gauntlet Search function: In S4E2, Pidge is able to use her gauntlet to scan the ground and locate a doorway that leads to the base Matt is stationed at. Note that it is not a passive feature and she had to actively search for it after deducing that something was there, however the scan did locate the anomaly once set to look for it.

Pidge (S4E2) scanning for possible doorways or anomalies while searching for Matt Matter Compression: This is more speculative, but based on other forms of technology we’ve seen from Altea. Shiro’s glove appears to change when he’s in paladin armor and uses his prosthetic to fight, as though the glove material retracts or disappears (S1E4). There have been other incidents of Altean technology doing something similar, such as the pod “doors” appearing out of thin air to close or dissolving when opening (S1E4), or the way the gladiator seems to dissolve into bits of data when defeated (S1E9 when Keith destroys it). It is possible, but not confirmed, that the gauntlets or paladin armor in general are also capable of this.

BELT

No notable attributes at this time. As of Season 4 we still have no explanation for the gray boxy structures that rest on the right and left sides of the belt. It is not clear if they are there for decoration/aesthetic, if they are the power source for the suit, if they are some form of pockets/pouches/storage, etc.

THIGH/LEG ARMOR

Bayard Holster: The most notable feature for this armor is it’s where the bayards are “sheathed” or “holstered.” The glowing strips that rest just below a paladin’s hips appear to hold an un-summoned, energized form of the bayard. The paladin can summon and return it at will.

Keith (S1E1) summoning his bayard clearly for combat

BOOTS

Heel Jets: In S2E2, Lance uses a set of jets in the heels of his boots a few times: first, to repel baku-brainwashed Hunk during their fight, and then later to fight another mer-soldier. Note that he is only seen using this as a form of attack, not a form of propulsion. Also note that this ability has not been seen again since and was only used by Lance.

Lance (S2E2) using some form of heel blast to repel an attacking mer-soldier

BAYARD

As stated, bayards are limited, and appear to be specifically connected to the Lion in question (ex. Allura now has the blue bayard for the Blue Lion, even though she’s wearing pink, and there is no pink bayard).

According to Allura in S5E3, bayards “amplify each paladins’ life force.”

Bayards can be held by a paladin piloting a different Lion (S3E2, Lance hands over the blue bayard to Allura although he had been piloting the Red Lion). They can also be held by someone not currently piloting at all (ex. Zarkon), and it is possible to be a pilot without one (ex. Shiro, S1 and S2).

Bayards can be used to form a weapon for the paladin. The weapon in question is paladin-specific regardless of which bayard they have (ex. Keith forms a sword with both the red and black bayards). Although they do tend to form the same type of weapon, there may be differences in build and design. Bayards can even evolve over time for a single individual as well, even if they never change hands: both Hunk and Pidge’s bayards change appearances between seasons 2 and 3. See these other meta posts for more in-depth details.

As of S5E2, Lotor has been seen using the black bayard as well. This raises two questions: does this mean Lotor is also capable of piloting the Black Lion? Or, is it possible to use a bayard even without being directly linked to its respective Lion? S3E5 shows Allura holding the red bayard as Lance’s sword form, but it immediately returns to its base form; it is not clear if this means a person unlinked to a specific Lion can’t use that bayard, however.

Lotor (S5E2) holding the black bayard. His base form, sword and chainsword all resemble Zarkon’s.

Bayards can possibly adjust shape or type as well depending on user skill. Lance was able to change his bayard from a rifle form into a sniper rifle form and back at will (S3E6), which is the first indication of this happening in the team.

As of S5E3, he is also now capable of transforming it into an Altean broadsword; see this analysis for more detail on the weapon. It should be noted this has only been witnessed once, and it is not yet clear if he can change it back to a rifle. Lance himself states he does not know how he changed his weapon.This marks Lance as the first to change his bayard to multiple forms from different “families” of weapons, and also makes it clear this is a skill all of the paladins could develop in time.

Zarkon is the only other example we’ve had so far of changing bayard shape, and not just within the same “family” of weapon but into a different kind entirely (ex. S1E11, where he forms a sword, chain whip, shield, polearm, and cannon; see his bayard analysis for more detail). Lotor has also managed to change weapon shape but still prefers swords or sword-variants.

Zarkon’s bayard also appears very differently than the others (S1E11) and changes shape when Shiro regains it even in its base format (S2E13). Lotor’s bayard form takes approximately the same shape. Again, unclear if this is due to Zarkon’s skills and/or bloodline, or the individual in question. Zarkon’s corruption is another possibility having an effect on the weapon, but if this is the case, it would mean Lotor is also corrupted in some form.

Shiro (S2E13) holding Zarkon’s version of the bayard compared to his own

As of S5E2, Lotor has revealed he is also capable of using the black bayard. When he holds it, it takes the same form spiky base form that Zarkon’s does, and he displays a few of the same forms that Zarkon uses (a chain sword/whip and a regular sword). Note his abilities with it appear to be somewhat limited compared to his father still, as he does not use any other forms such as the cannon, polearm or shield that Zarkon exhibits, and he does not used ranged moves with his regular sword.

As of S5E2 it should be noted that the shape of Zarkon’s bayard cannon also appears to have changed. It is not clear if this is indicative of any kind of character evolution or change, especially since Zarkon has displayed several variations of the same weapon in the past (for example, 2 different swords).

Bayards are also used to interface with their specific Lion, in order to form a weapon in Voltron (this only works with Voltron, and not in individual Lions)

Ex. Yellow Bayard creates a shoulder cannon similar to Hunk’s own bayard when activated

Like a paladin’s solo combat, the weapon formed for Voltron is paladin-dependent, not bayard-dependent. Keith still forms the Blazing Sword even when using the black bayard in the Black Lion (S3E6), and the sword is not formed at all in S4 after Keith leaves the team. (There is some possible discrepancy to this, however it may also be an animation error).

As of S5E4, Voltron is seen using its sword again even though Keith is not with the team, which may suggest that Lance is now capable of summoning it due to the new form his bayard has taken. This is not officially proven yet however as we have not actively seen Lance summoning the weapon for Voltron.

This suggests (but is not yet confirmed) that Voltron’s weaponry could be near-infinite, depending entirely on the paladins piloting it and which ones activate which bayards, although there is possibility for some overlap (for example, Alfor and Keith both summoned a sword for Voltron—S3E7). This would also suggest that Voltron is particularly dependent on its paladins for advanced weaponry.

Currently, we have only seen 3 cases of bayards being used to form weapons for Voltron: Hunk forming a shoulder cannon with the yellow bayard, and Keith and Alfor (and now possibly Lance) both forming a sword (with either the red or black bayards). It is currently unknown what form of weaponry might be produced for Pidge, Allura, and Shiro, or if the former paladins besides Alfor formed anything unique. It is also not clear if Lance is capable of producing another bayard form besides the sword.

Bayards can additionally be used in conjunction with each other to power up individual weapons. This is first seen in S2E6, when Keith summons the Blazing Sword with his red bayard, and then Pidge, Hunk and Lance all use their own bayards to make it much larger and more powerful. With the addition of Shiro’s bayard (S2E13) this becomes an extremely powerful upgrade to the point when the sword was literally on fire/emitting energy. However this has only been seen in Season 2 with the sword, and it is unclear if this type of upgrade can be applied to other bayard weapons (such as Hunk’s shoulder cannon).

A similar function occurs in a more defensive nature when all five bayards are used together. Instead of powering up a weapon, all five bayards used simultaneously can give Voltron itself a power boost, which may be strong enough to drive out invasive attacks such as viruses (S5E3).

It should be noted this results in each paladin being transferred to a combined Voltron mind-space. It is not clear if this is a function of the bayard, a function related to Voltron, or if this was an odd side effect. It is also not clear if it functions for all paladins, or only in specific circumstances, as Shiro admits he has no memory of this incident in S5E3.

It is not clear how a person’s original bayard form is determined, or if it is based on an individual’s personality, quintessence, etc. However, as of S5E3, Allura comments that Lance’s new Altean broadsword bayard is showing him “you have greatness within,” and later on in the same episode mentions that bayards amplify a paladin’s life force, which could possibly imply they can adjust based on personal growth, potential or changes in a person’s life force.

If a bayard is knocked out of its owner’s hands it will change back to its original base form (S1E9). However it does have some fluidity of movement in other aspects, as it can be manipulated to some degree in its energy form (S3E6, Keith shifts his sword bayard from his left hand to his right while fighting Ezor). Presumably the difference is whether or not a paladin is holding concentration on it, however this is not confirmed.

Keith (S3E6) moves his bayard to his right hand when his left is restrained

Sparkle power: Bayards can also apparently perform minor illusions or cast sparks, as seen by Lance. It should be noted it is unclear if this is an actual ability each bayard has, or if this was a visual gag in animation to emphasize Lance fooling around.

Lance (S2E10) makes his bayard sparkle

Bayards appear to revert to the base form upon death, even if the user is still holding it (S2E5)

CHARACTER-SPECIFIC NOTES WITH ARMOR/BAYARDS

Some of the characters have so far shown specific quirks or uses for their armor that not all of them use.  

Pidge uses her gauntlet the most often. The rest of the team generally only uses it for communication, or at Pidge’s direction to get or send data for her.

Shiro’s gauntlet is flexible enough to allow him to use his Galra prosthetic without damaging the armor. Additionally although only his hand lights up, the glow will go all the way up to his elbow (note: this only occurs when he is in paladin armor. When he activates it in civilian clothing in both seasons 2 and 3, the glow is usually contained to his hand).

Although Lance will frequently hit targets with his bayard, the strength of the blasts appears to vary, as some targets he will hit multiple times but they won’t take damage. (Ex. S1E2, the gladiator, or S2E10, the warden). Possibly the most notable example is a direct hit to Sendak that did not kill him. In other cases his first shot will completely destroy a sentry.

When in combat with both sword and shield, Keith typically uses the shield on his right arm and sword in his left, but he has been seen using both shield and sword on both arms

Keith has also been known to throw his sword-bayard (or Marmora blade) at opponents, with surprising accuracy. (S1E7, S2E12, S3E4).

Note: The Voltron Show (S4E4)’s depictions were bypassed for the sake of this guide, as most data shown in this episode regarding the armor is subject to embellishment, stage illusion, or other forms of trickery not actually accurate to the armor’s real functions

CONCLUSION

That’s it for now! As stated, I will continue to update this guide with new relevant information whenever more data is given to us on paladin armor functions. Hope it’s useful to all you writers, artists, and fans out there! ~VelkynKarma

#voltron #voltron reference #long post #lots of screenshots #phew!#I've been working on this for a while guys #hope it's useful!

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