#guess who has access to a computer again finally :)))

[cod-dump]

Open Door (teen!Ghost au)

———

This wasn’t the conversation he was imagining when Kate called him to talk about the kids. John expected it to be just a talk between friends, not business.

“Boys been doing well?”

“Been doing very well. And Farah has settled nicely.”

“She’s been looking at universities, hasn’t she?”

It started off normal. They were sipping tea in the back garden, enjoying the breeze in the shade. The boys were off at Johnny’s, no doubt causing mayhem. Not that the MacTavishes weren’t experts in chaos, John wasn’t worried about getting a phone call about his boys’ behavior from Mrs. Muriel MacTavish.

“I’ve been talking with the Shadow’s CO.”

John bristled at the mention of the mercenary. He looked at Kate, questioning why she would even bring him up when they were talking about their families.

“As you know, he’s become Gary’s full time guardian.”

“But?”

“But… he’s not quite… ready to handle a kid. Especially not one as young as Gary, or as traumatized.”

He didn’t like where this was going.

“He accepted being the kid’s guardian without being ready to take care of him when the need arises?”

“John, he didn’t expect to lose men coming here. With our operation, and, hell, even Nik’s, not it’s not a dangerous place.”

John could hear the unspoken words on the tip of her tongue.

“It’s- This isn’t my area of expertise-“

“Kate, just say it.”

Kate swallows, “Can you take in Gary? At least help care for him until Phillip can take him?”

John lets out a deep breath, there it was. He sets down his cup of tea and leans back, covering his eyes. Kate continued talking.

“After Simon’s transformation I have no higher recommendation for Gary’s care.”

“I have a dog, a cat, a fucking pigeon, three kids, and a Nik in my house.”

“You have the room. Plus Phillip will pay you for all of Gary’s needs and then some. He wants to come over as often as possible, too, to help in any way he can with him.”

John takes a breath before his uncovers his eyes and looks at Kate.

“You really can’t take him?”

“Annie is already doing twelve hour shifts and I’m running the office and helping Alex with his physical therapy and running him to his extracurricular activities. Like I said, after Simon? I no one else more capable that I trust to do this.”

“Oh fuck me- Fine! How much is he willing to pay?”

“£5’000 a month.”

John chokes as he sits up, “You’re joking-“

“No, sir. From my understanding, Phillip Graves is a very wealthy man and he doesn’t half ass anything.”

“Fuck… lead with the money, damn.”

Kate snorted, "Didn't take you as a greedy man, John."

John rolls his eyes, was he really agreeing to this? He wasn't doing as many 'jobs' as of late, mostly running to the office every month and doing surveillance of the town. Compared to how his life was years ago before Simon, he has a lot of free time. But he wasn't sure he was prepared to possible have another Simon in the home.

The hours that went into loving him and helping him get on his feet was worth it but... John wasn't sure he had another decade of that left.

"I'll send you Phillip's contact information so you two can start coming up with an agreement."

"I'm really doing this..."

"I'm not forcing you."

John glared and Kate rolled her eyes before continuing.

"I'm not forcing, just heavily persuading you."

"Forcing."

"Fine, forcing. This could give us a good in with Shadow CO. Besides, I forced you to care for Simon. Of course I dropped Kyle off at your door a few years after that. Do you regret that?

John didn't even have to think about it, "Never."

"Then give the poor kid a chance. I know you'll love him."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

The door opened and Annie called out.

"We're home! Hide the bank blueprints!"

John couldn't help but snort as Kate grinned and stood. She left into the kitchen to greet her wife and kid, giving John an opportunity to escape before he agrees to something else he's not entirely sure about. As he walked into the hall, he caught a glimpse of Alex darting down the hall to his room. Annie was having her coat taken from her by Kate, the woman having that same smitten look she had the day she met her.

Annie spotted John and grinned, "Hey, stranger. Feel like you've been avoiding me."

"You? Never. Her? I try."

Kate gave him a playful glare, "Leaving?"

"If I stay out too long Nik starts getting anxious. And with my boys it's infectious."

Annie gives an understanding nods, "Better not keep him waiting then. Oh! And before you go-"

Annie stepped away from Kate to grab a book from the shelf nearby. She handed it over and John immediately recognized it as a science workbook, "Kyle left this here the other day. I was going to have Alex give it to him at school Monday but he won't be there."

John fought the amused grin that tried to show itself. There was something so inherently sweet about Alex and Kyle's budding relationship.

"I'll make sure he gets it."

John managed to make it outside to his car before Kate stopped him.

"John-"

"I'm going to talk to Nik about it tonight, and you know he can't turn away a stray."

"You won't be able to back out then."

"Exactly why I have to tell him."

Kate smiled, "Tell him if you take in another kid that he has to stop trying to catch one of the neighborhood raccoons."

John laughed out loudly, "Oh, you know that won't happen."

They said tonight and John pulled out of the driveway, preparing himself for what was ahead of him. He thought back to when Simon was first brought home. He wasn't supposed to stay long but three weeks in John was ready to fight the world for him. Simon coming into his life was a blessing, Nik came along and apparently they were a package deal, and them being in his life opened the door to Kyle and then Farah.

He wasn't going to turn away Gary, and he wasn't going to turn away the man who was seemingly determined to do right by the kid. It was the right thing to do, reaching out for help, and John could overlook the fact that the man was a foreign mercenary for the sake of the child. John was hoping, even praying, that this wouldn't lead to anything. But considering what taking in Simon lead him to, he was too curious, maybe even eager, to see what else was brought into his life.

[babybatscreationsv2]

Cooling Metal

Marvel | Starker

Tony has been racing professionally for years, but the spark just isn't there anymore. When Tony catches sight of a street race happening he finds himself burning with adrenaline like he hasn't in years. Though he finds it hard to believe that a pretty boy like Peter really is the best street racer around.

Rating: Explicit

For my beautiful H <3

Warnings and tags: Racing au, praise kink, breeding kink, rough sex, hair pulling, rimming, cum play

Another race, another third place 'victory'. The tabloids were laughing at him. Saying he was past his prime, his reflexes were shot, he was washed up. Tony was afraid they were right. In fact, he was afraid of who he wasn't when he wasn't behind the wheel. Racing was all he'd known for so long. It was all he knew anymore.

That must have been what led him here. He'd been drawn in by the sound of engines revving. Then he'd followed the laughter and the bright lights. A long row of modded out cars blocked off the street. They looked like a rainbow. LEDs glowed in every color against the pavement. The cars were painted to match. Most of them were printed with noisy, eye-catching, decals.

Tony had never joined in any street races. He'd never needed to. His parents made sure he always had access to a track. This was something completely new to him. And it made his heart pound.

He parked his car on the street, out of their way and stepped out. The road began to rumble as the drivers started revving again. The noise of the crowd was drowned out by the engines. The shadow of a lithe figure passed across the headlights. They took their place in the center of the four cars, almost dancing their way along. Then they dropped a flag and the cars took off.

Adrenaline burned through him as they blurred past, sucking the air from the street as they went. Tony watched them go, a grin plastered to his face. He felt drunk just at the sight of it.

His ears followed the sound as they wrapped around the block. The crowd began screaming, waving, cheering. A car, neon green, came rocketing around the corner and finally slid to a stop just past the starting line. The next two were mere seconds too slow with the fourth and final coming up behind.

The drivers stepped out of their cars. The loser was ignored except for one woman who jogged over to give a man a consolation kiss. The winner was laughing, pouring beer over his face, screaming in victory in the center of a cheering crowd. Tony laughed along with them.

"You a cop?" A voice made him jump. Beside him now was a young man with too big eyes and not enough clothes. He'd cut his tank top off at the chest and his low rise shorts were barely long enough to cover whatever he was packing down there. He started at him curiously with his lips wrapped around a lollipop.

"Uh," Tony cleared his throat. "Just a spectator."

He pulled the candy from his mouth and let it pop between his lips. It was bubblegum pink and big to the point of being vulgar.

"We don't usually allow uninvited guests. But I know who you are," he said. "Just as long as you're not gonna cause any problems."

Tony held his hands. "No problems. Just uh... bored I guess."

"Right." The boy smiled. "We won't have much longer before we have to clear out, but feel free to mingle, Mr. Stark."

"Sure. Thanks, kid." The boy scoffed as he walked away. He joined up with a group that was chatting around a souped up Dodge Charger. With nowhere else to go, Tony followed after him.

No one seemed to recognize him or maybe they just didn't care. It was a blow to his ego, but it was also kind of refreshing. He took a spot where he could check out under the hood. He let out a soft whistle as his eyes roamed over the components.

"Nice huh?" The man beside him. He was a lot younger than Tony with a round face and a childish smile.

"Gorgeous. You put this together?"

"Nah," he shrugged. "I'm more of a computer guy. This is Peter's car. He's kind of the best of us around here, but he took the night off from racing. His aunt's been getting on him and- I uh, I guess that's personal." He blushed. "But hey, it really worked out for Bucky tonight. I don't think he's ever beaten Peter before which more or less means, he hasn't won in a decade."

They looked at the man now soaked with beer. He was making out with another man while a small and very drunk crowd stood around chatting and laughing.

"I'm Ned," he offered his hand. Tony shook it.

"Tony."

The boy laughed. "Yeah, I know. We're all pretty surprised you're here. Some of the other more legit racers show up sometimes, but no one's ever seen you around before. You havin' a midlife crisis or something?"

Tony paled. "No- uh, what makes you say that?"

Ned laughed. "I'm just messing with you. I'm sure you've done all kinds of street racing before. Guy like you. You're the best of the best, Mr. Stark."

"Yeah..."

The boy with the pretty eyes and the lack of clothes made his way over to the car. He smiled at Tony. "What do you think?"

"It's a nice car," Tony said.

"Thanks. I built it myself."

Tony laughed. "Sure, kid."

The other two started laughing. A bit hysterically even. Tony stood there, bewildered by whatever joke he wasn't in on.

"Tony," Ned sucked in a breath. "This is Peter. The guy I was telling you about."

Tony raised his eyebrows. "You're Peter? This is your car?"

"Yep." He grinned.

Tony looked at them both. "You're fucking with me."

Peter rolled his eyes and slammed the hood shut. "What would you know? You're seven flavors of washed up, Mr. Stark."

Tony glared at the back of his head. The hostility brewing in his gut didn't lessen when the boy turned and leaned against the hood.

"I am far from washed up."

"Really?" The boy reached into his back pocket and somehow retrieved a cell phone. He unlocked it and handed it over on the contact screen.

"Is this your idea of flirting, kid? Because I have to say it needs some work."

Peter rolled his eyes. "Just put your number in. I'll text you tomorrow. Then you can show me how not washed up you are."

"I don't have anything to prove to you," he said even as he typed his information in.

"No? Well I have something to prove." Peter stood and took his phone back. He was too close. His eyes were staring straight into the back of his own. Tony could hear his heart beat in his ears. Peter took a step back and sauntered around the car. He held his eye all the way until the door was shut. Tony barely noticed Ned climbing in the other side.

Sirens barely a block over made him jump. Everyone ran. Tony jogged back to his car and pulled onto the street, inching his way through the crowd. He barely made it out before the area was surrounded.

He had a few days off which should have been spent getting trashed at a party he said he wasn't going to, but instead he stayed in. He kept his phone within arms reach, jolting at every notification. The TV did little to distract him. Neither did anything else. His mind kept wandering back to candy coated lips and a determined scowl. The boy was cute. Interesting, too.

When the text finally came, Tony was ready. More than ready, he was pumped. It was hard to rein himself in to keep from running out the door early. Somehow, despite the adrenaline, he showed up at the spot just as everyone else did.

It was on the edge of the city where the roads became winding. The streets were lit only by headlights and LEDs. There were no street lamps or billboards here.

Cars were parked in the grass, but their drivers stood at the edge of the street. They watched as Tony pulled up next to the only car left in the road, Peter's Charger.

The window rolled down and Peter grinned at him from behind the wheel.

“I hope you remembered to stretch,” he teased.

“Is this a friendly race or should I have brought cash?” Tony called back.

Peter laughed. “I wouldn't want to rob an old man.”

Someone off the road called to Peter and he turned and nodded to them. Some girl Tony hadn't looked twice at stepped out between the headlights. Tony's hands adjusted on the wheel. He turned his gaze to the darkening road ahead.

The flag was dropped and they darted forward. Buildings overgrown and unkempt blurred past with increasing speed. Adrenaline burned under Tony's skin. A euphoric laugh burst from his chest.

He glanced at Peter beside him, nearly neck and neck. Even over the bumpy, cracked, streets the kid knew what he was doing. Then they hit a corner. Tony had never raced on roads that weren't paved smooth. All it took was a pothole to throw him off just enough for Peter to cut him off, drifting around the curve and leaving Tony behind. He wasn't ahead by much, but it was enough.

A small group of cars at the end of the street marked the end of the race. They sat in darkness until they spotted Peter coming around. Lights flicked on, hands waved from the windows. Tony was sure they were cheering.

No one cheered for him like that anymore.

He didn't win races anymore.

They both slid to a stop, Peter much more gracefully. They stepped out of their cars to cheering. A couple of hands clapped him on the back, but Tony only had eyes for the victor.

"Alright. You beat me, kid." Tony offered his hand and Peter shook it firmly.

He smiled sweetly, his pretty eyes aglow. "Don't take it too hard, old man."

Something bitter died on his tongue as his embarrassment faded. His eyes drifted over Peter's cocked hip, the crotch of his shorts that bulged just enough to be visible, his soft thighs that were begging to be touched. But more importantly, there was something in that tone that scratched at an entirely different sort of beast. Maybe it was stupid, but he wanted Peter's approval. Tony's slip stretched into a grin.

"I have something that will impress you."

"What's that?" Peter crossed his arms over his chest. That amused little smile on his lips made Tony's fingers twitch.

"Something even the king of New York's streets has never seen." Tony turned away and walked back to his car. He opened the door and looked at Peter. "Coming?"

He silently debated it for a moment. Tony considered just how much that sluttly little outfit and those pouting lips hid how just how smart he truly was.

"Peter!" Ned called from the group. "We gotta move!"

Peter looked at his friend with the slightest hint of anxiety as his decision hit a swift deadline. He grabbed his keys and tossed them. "Take my baby home. I'll see you later." Ned looked at them both, then sirens pricked their ears.

"You got it." He jogged over and slid into the driver's seat of Peter's car. Everyone scrambled.

Peter hopped into Tony's car and he slammed on the gas. They blew past city streets until the sound of sirens was far behind, then they slowed down and blended into the other traffic.

"Is it always like that?" Tony asked.

Peter laughed. Tony could see the adrenaline in his eyes. "Not every night, but pretty often. Someone eventually rats us out or the noise gives us away. Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

"You're not planning to drop me off a pier or anything right? Because Ned has my location and literally everyone knows where you live."

"Well if that's the case, you should know where we're going."

Peter looked at where they were and it seemed to click. "Aren't you gonna buy me dinner first?"

"That's a little presumptuous."

"I'm presumptuous? You didn't get the wrong idea about the little shorts did you? Everyone does."

"I'm sure you only dress like a whore."

Peter scoffed. "I'm not the paid kind anyway."

"That's too bad. You'd make a fortune."

Peter laughed. "I kind of already do."

"Oh yeah? You got some fancy condo around here?"

"Nah. My family has a lot of debt to pay off." Peter shrugged and looked out the window.

"Ned mentioned you had an aunt," Tony said gently. He could sense the tension coming off of him, but he was curious nonetheless.

"I don't wanna talk about that stuff."

"You got it, kid." He let it go, curiosity paused for now. But he would be lying if he said he didn't want to know every bit of Peter's story.

They reached the bottom of Stark Tower. The gate raised as the sensor recognized Tony's car and let them into the garage. The entry twisted around, up a dimly lit path.

"Fancy," Peter commented. Tony only smiled.

They turned the last corner and the walls opened up into the garage. Two rows of cars took up half the space with room in the center for the auto shop.

"Whoa..." Peter stared wide eyed at the room. "Wait, this is all yours? Just yours?"

"Yep. All mine. I built most of these. That one was a gift from Audi though, prototype. Never hit the streets."

"Holy shit."

Tony grinned. He parked the car in its spot and cut it off. He looked at Peter who smiled and jumped right out the door. His eyes were glittering. His smile lit up the room.

"Impressed yet?"

Peter laughed gently. "Don't tell me I got under your skin."

"Seems like you intended to."

"Maybe, but I figured you had thicker skin," Peter teased.

"Maybe I care what you think." It was a little honest, but Peter didn't laugh. He turned towards him, uninterested now in the cars. Tension thrummed between them.

"Why's that?" he said in a quiet voice. He drifted slowly toward him in small steps.

"I've been alive a long time," Tony laughed softly, humorlessly. "And somehow I've never been more alive than I am right now."

Peter gave the smallest nod, but it didn't even seem intended for him. More like he was answering his own question. He reached him, warm hands finding his chest. It snapped the tension like a rubber band.

Tony's hands wrapped around him, pulling him in chest to chest, pressing their mouths together. Peter made a little noise in surprise, but he melted against him. Tony's hands slid over his back to squeeze his ass and pull his hips against him. While Peter's hands slid down and found their way under Tony's shirt.

"You don't-" Peter started, struggling to pull his lips away. "You don't actually think I'm just slut do you?"

"I don't bring random sluts in here. I have a different garage for that."

Peter rolled his eyes. "Well then," he extracted himself from Tony's arms and backed away with a sly grin. He made his way back to the car and leaned against the cooling hood. "This seems like a good spot."

Tony licked his lips and followed after him. He grabbed Peter's thighs and lifted him off the ground, stepping between his spread legs. Peter gasped and reached for him. Tony leaned down into his hands and let Peter pull him in, kissing him slowly and deeply, to the rhythm of their hips grinding together. Peter whimpered. Tony could feel the way his cheeks heated in embarrassment. He gave him a soft moan in answer that had Peter pulling him in closer. But Tony was done with kissing.

His hand wrapped around Peter's neck and he pushed him down against the hood. With one hand he worked open Peter's shorts. Peter helped him shove them down, leaving them hanging off of one ankle along with his underwear. He let Tony manhandle him, flipping him onto his stomach and pulling his knees up onto the car.

Tony pressed kisses into his lower back, working his way down, until he found his hole.

"Tony," Peter gasped. His hands grabbed at the warm metal, but there was nothing but Tony's hands on his thighs to hold him up. He laid against the hood, moaning against the surface while Tony ate him out.

"Tony, fuck," Peter whined. Tony kept going, encouraged by the boy's noises until he needed more. He laid him down again against the hood only to turn him over on his belly.

Tony grabbed a fistful of his soft hair and pulled his head up. "Are you ready for me, baby?" He smirked at Peter's glassy eyes and slack lips.

"Uh huh," the boy whined.

"Tell me." Tony pressed his hips against Peter's ass. He watched his face as he tried to recover enough thought to speak.

"Fuck me, please," he breathed. His eyes finally focused on Tony's face.

"Good boy." Tony held Peter's hair in one hand and his own cock in the other, watching him as he forced himself inside him. Peter gasped, his mouth hung open, his eyes squeezed shut and a keening whine fell from his lips as Tony kept pushing in deeper.

"Fuck, you feel so good, baby," Tony groaned. Peter pushed back against him, moaning. His strong back arched. His hands pushed against the metal.

"Fuck me, Tony," he demanded. "Fucking breed me."

"Yeah? You want my cum, baby?"

"Please," Peter moaned.

Tony leaned over him, pressing kisses across his shoulders. He rocked his hips, fast but deep, enjoying that tight heat down the length of his dick. He wrapped a hand around Peter's cock, stroking him just as fast, listening to his voice pitch higher as he whined.

"So close," Peter gasped. "Please- please!"

"What do you need, baby?"

"Cum in me, please. I wanna feel it."

Tony moaned. "You got it, sweetheart." He pushed him down against the hood with a hand between his shoulders that slid down to hold the back of his neck. He was selfish now, fucking him how he wanted, but Peter only seemed to love it. He panted against the hood of the car, breath ghosting against the surface. Quiet pleas fell from his lips.

"You want it, baby?" Tony growled.

"Please, Tony," Peter begged.

"Gonna fucking breed you just like you wanted."

Peter whined. He slid against the warm metal as Tony pushed himself in deep and came inside him. Peter shivered beneath him. His hand slipped down to stroke his cock and before Tony had even recovered, Peter was cumming all over the hood.

Tony turned him over, moving him out of the mess. He kissed him, holding where his weight wanted to melt into the floor. Peter clung to his arms, breathing heavily and then finally slowing. He grinned.

"Sorry about the mess," Peter said with a soft laugh.

"You could always put those little shorts back on and make it up to me with a car wash." Tony wagged his eyebrows.

"I can do better than that."

"How's that?"

Peter slipped from his arms and bent over the hood. He met Tony's eye and held his gaze as he ran his tongue over the metal, licking his own cum from the surface.

"You tryin' to get fucked again?"

"I was hoping we could try out the backseat.”

[miimo96]

Thoughts on My Adventures with Superman S2 episode 9

So you're probably wondering what heck took so long for me to make this, and well ya see thats because I actually had to wait for this episode to come out on the website where I watch all my TV shows and anime on, and since That was taking so long to be released, I wasn't able to watch this and thus give my review on it, But now that it has officially come out I can finally Get my thoughts out there and Share it with you all, anyway that's mainly because why I've been gone for so long, that because depression kicks in at the most random times in my life and so I wasn't feeling motivated, but aside from that I'm finally ready to get this done and thus give you my review, anyway yeah Sorry for the wait but let's get into it^^;

______________________________________

Starting off I actually wanna talk about a few things regarding this opening, mainly about Clark's kindness; I love the fact that even tho this is a world where didn't never up and thus he never became Superman, he still has that kindness within him, and from the way he talks about wanting to help the creature and show him that it's not Alone, just shows that No matter what reality it is, he will always be compassionate and thus want to help people, hence what makes him Superman in the 1st place; also I didn't expect that in this episode we were actually going to be seeing an Evil version of his parents, because it's always usually just him getting the world he always wanted, I actually like that they took a different approach this time and thus gave us a reality, where he still has his parents, and where he basically got to grow up on krypton as a completely different person, also it's really interesting to see that in this version, the Black Mercy is more or less giving him a dream world where he basically has no control over, and Is kinda just gaslighting him like Brainiac would, I think that's because in this version, the black Mercy isn't a plant like most irritations, but is rather just a piece of technology, and since Brainiac was the computer system for krypton, he is able to access all the technology created from krypton, hence why Clark's mother Laura was talking to him that voice for a second,

Also this Shot right here is really Menacing AF, like Jor El looks seriously scary, oh and it looks like lois lost her memory so I'm wondering how that's going to play out

I fnd it very weird that Kara thinks Brainiac is Unstoppable Just because he's in Clark's body, like may I remind you of the absolute beatdown you gave your cousin a few episodes ago, like I'm really starting to believe that whole thing that people say of people who join the quote unquote "good side" end up effing sucking afterwards, like what is with that stuff, also before you say she was only able to beat him bc she was being controlled by Brainiac and therefore wasn't in control of her actions/ Strength, yeah sry but No, she wasn't being controlled by him at that time and was completely aware of what she was doing, the only time he was controlling her, was when she was hesitating to use her Heat vision to kill people, aside from that she was fully aware and wasn't Holding Back on him AT ALL; Also Mandy is such a bitch, that is all

Omg lois lost her memories I wonder this gonna play out, will she fall in love with Clark again, will clark remember who he is, will they even get along with each other, the possibilites are endle- Oh, well Never effing mind I guess, huh that was fast 😅 Also I really love the fact that Clark instead of becoming a warrior in this reality, became more of a scientist, it's funny because in the original animated series he was kinda like that as well, heck even in the comics I think he was like that, it just shows that Clark no matter what, really was never a fighter to begin with and only really ever does it in the name of Defense, with his real goal being to want to just help people through whatever means necessary, mainly through the power of science, like how in that 1 comic when he found the cure to cancer or something, Also can someone really explain to me how lois was able to prevent herself from being deleted, like I don't think it was ever explained and I'm really starting to believe it was just because of PLOT

Bruh Jimmy looks So heated at the fact that Steve of all people was the reason he and Kara were able to escape, like are you kidding me, THIS GUY!? 🤣🤣 Also shout out to my boy Steve for coming in clutch for our boy Jimmy, like he really is the Homie and I gotta say, the best get away driver like how do you sneak from Amanda waller of all people Undetected, dude's got skills

Hey Lois Idk about you but In my opinion This was the Worst explanation I ever heard, like I understand that time is resetting and so you've probably explained this to him like a hundred of times but Wow, you Really couldn't go any other way about it, like ya do realize this makes you look like a Crazy person right?; Also I legit could Never understnd Why she straight up tell couldn't tell Clark she loves him, like Omg wasn't you 2 already in a relationship at the beginning of this season, why is it So hard for you all of asudden o say I love you, when you LITERALLY established relationship early on, like WTF I'm sick of this trope already

Ok 2 things: 1 Jor El is scary in this sequence, like the way he screamed "Find her" really sent chills down my spine, and 2 why does this shot with him peeking out of the Bushes feel incredibly meme worthy?

Tbh I actually don't have much to say regarding Kara and Jimmy this time, aside from Jimmy being the GOAT due to how beautiful pep talk was, and how much I want them to end up together now, like I've said it before but I absolutely love their relationship in this series, and I really hope they get together by the end of it or at least if she ends up leaving earth like people theorize, in order to atone for her sins across the galaxy, at least get to confess his feelings for her ^w^

"Because the real lois wouldn't come for me" Ngl he deserved this exact response from her, bc wtf do you mean bro, i mean underrated your reasoning but just because you 2 had a fight doesn't mean she Stopped loving you, because you KNOW she wouldn't be here rn if she didn't; Also I find it very funny that her revealing What she did and how dangerous it was, is what brings Clark back, like it just shows how much he cares about her and how overprotective he is for her safety, Also I think i understand why she was able to do all this stuff in the 1st place

THROUGH THE POWER OF LOVE!! 💖💖😭😭😭

Tbh This is probably 1 of the best versions of Task force X I've seen so far, like this Roster goes Hard and so does this entire Shot like Damn, also whoever's Idea it was to Not include Parasite in this Scene Needs to be fired, like I understand why Livewire isn't here But PARASITE!? I mean the guy is seriously OP when given enough energy, as proven by his Kaiju form last season, and I could've sworn Amanda does has control over him now thanks to Lex, so WHY THE F$%k HE ISN'T HERE!? I bet he would've came in Real handy tho 😂

Ok 2 thing's again: 1 YEAH LET'S GO KARA! Eff you Brainiac you Piece of S#%t i hope you effing Die, and 2, Eyy i looks like I was on to something about Them being infused with Kryptonite; Also i see were Still stuck with these robot designs I guess, *sigh* look I've said it before and I'll say it again, These designs absolutely Suck, like No offense to the Animators But you're Really telling me we couldn't have gotten Anything better, I understand animation is Hard So you Need simple designs but c'mon, you couldn't at least go with the skeletal design he has in some iterations or even make Them look more like a Megazord than whatever the Hell this is? man I really hope this gets fixed in season 3 or something because I Just can't with this anymore; Also is it me or does this whole setup kinda feel sorta familiar, because I feel like I've seen this before, hmmmmm 🤔 eh whatever

God I love this Scene, from the scenery,to the lighting, to even their effing confession everything is Just AAAAAHHH So effing GOOD, Damn it Love this Series!! Especially the music in this scene like Omg it's such bop to listen to, and the fact that it's even the extended version of the God Damn intro is freakin Amazing ^^ Like this belongs in Top 5 motivational scene alongside You say run from the ending of the 1st MHA movie, like it's just That Good

OOOHH I'M LOVING THIS NEW SUIT Omg like this has everything I've ever wanted in a Superman suit, it has the perfect amount of gold to contrast the Red and blue, it reminds of Man of Steel and New 52 with Lack of shorts even tho I personally prefer the shorts, and it just Screams Superman, the only thing I would change about this would be those big ass Shoulder pads and i think maybe those finger straps, but aside from that, PERFECTION 😘

Small little animation error regarding Kara's eyebrows But not even that can Ruin this moment ^^

Finally It looks like people may be on to something about Amanda Waller possibly Framing Lex, setting him up to be the fall guy and making him look like he was The 1 responsible for everything, possibly losing his fame and setting him up as the Villain Next season, after all he is the 1 who built the Metalos So if anything went wrong, it is technically his fault, anyway however this plays out, I'm sure it will all end horribly for Lex in the end, overall amazing episode can't wait for the next one, hopefully it doesn't take too long to be released like this one, fingers crossed ^^

[pregnant-sissy-abdl]

The wife who sews dresses (and makes me do stuff...)

I previously wrote on my blog (see this entry) about my problem with sissy dresses. More specifically, my wife humiliates me by sewing me new and new sissy dresses, and forces me to wear them.

The problem has escalated since the last post. My wife is no longer satisfied with me just hanging out in a sissy dress at our house while she is at work. Now she makes me do various "sissy chores" that I have to complete during the day. The motivation is often, for example, that completing a chore opens a remote-controlled lock, after which I can finally push a HUGE anal plug out of my boi-pussy.

My wife has a degree in computer science and she works in the development of artificial intelligence applications. She has installed cameras at home and connected them to a computer running an application she developed (and which I do not have access to!). Every day, the application tells me the task for that day. For example "make a perfect sissy pose", which would require me to put on some serious make-up, a wig, high-heel shoes, silicone breast inserts and then spend hours and hours trying to make that perfect pose to a camera. The artificial intelligence part then continuously evaluates my poses and releases the wifi locks in my dress or chastity belt only if and when my pose is perfect. Cameras in the house of course record everything, and I believe she is earning some money from an online fan site (at least once she said to me: "you are getting more popular!", without explaining it further...)

This is a photo of me yesterday trying to "do a bimbo sissy pose":

Sometimes the tasks are more sexual in nature, for example "give a perfect sissy blowjob to a penis-shaped dildo". Then I could end up doing hours and hours sucking a penis-shaped dildo in front of a camera. Or even worse, "give yourself a real sissygasm", which is a task I haven't been able to complete yet. I have tried faking sissygasms, but the artificial intelligence can't be fooled, I guess.

Could I just refuse to wear her dresses and sissy chores? I could, but she has stored tens of hours of perverted videos and photos of me now, so she could ruin my life for good, did she ever want to revenge on me...

Once again I ask, dear Tumblr, what should I do?

[cradleghost]

LYLA helped Miles escape Nueva York

Hear me out

- as soon as the Go Home Machine booted up she would have theoretically know about it         -  I’m not sure exactly how integrated she is in the Spider Society system in ATSV but my personal opinion is that she basically runs the place.                 + She has a connection to all of the gizmos in order to send pings and allow them all to communicate

               + constantly scanning for anomalies 

               + able to keep track of and record information across dimensions 

               + Miguel would want her to be able to have access to basically everything because he has severe FOMO and wants to be in-the-know everything in order to keep a handle on it — and LYLA is the only one he trusts to do it. 

- with all that, Miles didn’t Sabotage anything when he returned to the base, he simply booted up the systems, which would immediately alert LYLA 

- My Guess is, that since she has such a close relationship with Miguel, she has seen the downward spiral he has been on, and knows that Miles fighting back and not following Miguel’s orders was the final push for him to snap (I have other thoughts about this in regards to both LYLA and Peter B. that I will get into later. 

- Because she knows that Miguel has tipped over that edge, and what she is capable of, once she receives the notification that the GHM Is active (after “seeing” the whole chase and, again — theoretically, hearing the conversation between Miguel, Miles, Peter, and Gwen, she makes the decision to help Miles.)            + she does this by letting the program run, letting Miles boot the systems and filling in what he missed in the startup that he didn’t know about, allowing him access to the hand-scan and admin protocols.

- when Margot trying to figure out what was going on, LYLA kept throwing screens in front of her, and distracting her

               + if she is as integrated as I believe she is, she wouldn’t have had to ask “what’s happening” — it would have been simple: ALERT: unknown admin access — no designation (which should have been denied (she’s a super computer, she could make an educated guess that after they all lost track of Miles that the attempted access was him)), SCAN: earth-42 (which, if she is able to access a database of dimensions, like when she was tracking spot, she knows is one with no registered spider-person, which again, educated guess could tell her that Miles (who she knows is from Earth-1610 and who was bit by a spider not from his home dimension)) was the one booting it up.

- with all of that: Miguel knows that Miles’s DNA scan would come up with something other than Earth-1610 (he’s a geneticist in the comics so I’m translating that into him in ATSV, and knows that the scan would be funky with it). While he may not know Exactly what universe Miles’s dna would show, he counts on LYLA to send him wherever the GHM sent Miles when Miguel opens his own portal, and because he is so in-the-moment and pissed, doesn’t double check, ending up in E-1610 where LYLA knows Miles Is Not Currently Located.

Anyway I’m sure I’ve missed some things but these are just some of my Many Thoughts on the subject

[butterfleyequeen]

A KinitoPET Ending Concept

Ayyy, guess who recently finished playing that funky pink blorbo game and has massive brainrot? 👉👩👈

*sips from water bottle* A'ight.

So after getting the normal/bad endings (the ones where Kinito traps you), my braincells decided to rub together and cook up an ub3r sp00ky idea of what a third variation could look like--specifically, a "secret ending" where you just refuse to answer Kinito's final question--and it goes a li'l somthing like this:

You get to the part at the end where he asks you to stay with him. The pop-up window is up, displaying its "yes"/"no" options. He is waiting patiently for your answer.

If you continually attempt to close the window, or just do nothing at all, he slowly gets more and more upset.

"Why won't you answer me?"

"I really do want to make you happy."

"I promise you will be happy and safe here."

"Don't you believe me?"

He tries to manipulate you.

"There will be no more loneliness. No more pain. No more suffering. No more death.

Just happiness."

"You will live forever, happy forever, with a perfect friend who will never leave your side.

Is that so bad?"

He's getting desperate.

"Please answer me."

Time goes by. His patience is running thin.

"Answer me."

His eyes are wide open; gaze trembling. The background darkens, surrounded by a faint tinge of red. The screen begins to "throb" as that familiar heartbeat sound plays; going faster and faster the longer you take to make your choice.

If you continue down the path of refusing to make this choice, the screen will suddenly glitch out as the pop-up window disappears. The throbbing heartbeat stops, but the background continues to darken.

"You know what? Fine.

If you won't make a decision..."

He begins to twitch; the background glitching in unison.

His colors flash a oversaturated monochrome palette as he says in his creepy whisper-voice:

"I ' L L M A K E I T F O R Y O U ."

A piercing, screeching noise plays as everything on the screen suddenly glitches ballistically before cutting to black.

A few tense moments of silence pass by.

Then suddenly, you hear a loud, glitching, scream-like sound play as the screen starts flashing white, surrounded by another tinge of red. Kinito appears, close up, his darkened visage bearing two realistic eyes reminiscent of something from one of those cliché analog horror videos. Gaze fixated on you, an audible glass-breaking sound plays as he proceeds to smash his disembodied fists against the screen, causing it to "crack".

Screen cuts to black again. Cue credits sequence as normal. Only this time, the model of the computer monitor over to the side has a broken, flickering screen.

An achievement pops up, titled "No Third Option". The icon bears the same background as all the other achievements, only this time, it's just the background alone but reddened with a cracked-glass effect. The description reads: "Kinito took matters into his own hands."

It really was a no-win situation, no matter what you did (or rather, didn't) do--the moment you gave him administrative access, you were his. And he was going to claim you, one way or another.

...'k, I'm going to bed.

[oohnotvery]

Update - Hand To Your Heart + Life

cw/tw: pregnancy (mine), pregnancy loss (not mine)

Hi everyone,

I feel like I owe people an update since I started writing Hand To Your Heart a few weeks ago and have only posted a measly 3 chapters.

I've been realllyyyyy MIA since starting this fic, and there's a big reason. As some people guessed . . . I'm pregnant! And it's already been a vastly different experience than my first time being pregnant. I have NO ENERGY AT ALL.

Honestly, it's still pretty early so I'm in the throes of nausea/exhaustion/all that fun first trimester stuff. I'm so happy but it's taken my mind completely off anything writing. At night (when I usually take time to write), I can barely manage to even open my computer. I want to get back to this story really badly, but my mind has just been so so so preoccupied.

Anyways . . . thought everyone deserved to know :)

Finally, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that there are legions of human beings in this world who are desperately trying to conceive, or who have received discouraging diagnoses related to pregnancy, or who have lost babies, or who have experienced birth trauma, or who lack access to maternal care, or who have to fly across the country to receive the care they need, or who are denied access to abortions, or who are being faced with the prospect of IVF being taken off the table, or who won't receive maternity leave from their employers . . . the list goes on forever and ever and ever.

Women are demonized in this country, but pregnant women especially. Being pregnant is simultaneously empowering and defeating. I almost died in childbirth because the doctors refused to take my health concerns into consideration. I am, frankly, terrified of giving birth again.

And then there are the painful, painful, painful parts of trying and failing to get pregnant, or losing a baby . . . I grieve with those of you in this position, I truly do.

Thank you for reading this. <3 Lots of love.

-E.

[atearyamallari]

A Turtle's Guide to Escaping Midtown Precinct South: Part Three

Click here to start at the beginning!

//

If your loved one has been arrested by the NYPD and is being held in Midtown Precinct South, make sure you gather as much information about the precinct as possible. In the words of Sun Tzu, If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Leo anxiously knocked on April’s door. “Come on,” he muttered. He waited a few seconds before knocking again.

The door swung open. “Hey, guys!” April said, smiling. “How’s –”

“Raph got arrested and we need to bust him out of jail,” Leo blurted out, pushing past her and into the apartment.

“Can I use your computer, April?” Don asked. Then, without waiting for a reply, “Thanks!” He made a beeline for her computer at her work desk.

“Do you have any snacks?” Mikey asked. “I’m hungry.” He marched into the kitchen and began rummaging through her fridge.

April stood at the entrance to her apartment with her mouth agape. “W-wait a minute, hold on!” she said, finally finding her voice. “What’s going on here? Did you say Raph got arrested?”

Leo ignored her and speed-dialed Casey on his shell cell. “Come on, pick up,” he said nervously. After a few rings, Casey greeted him on the other end. “Casey, I need you to come to April’s apartment right away,” Leo said. “It’s an emergency.”

“Whoa, okay,” Casey said, sounding somewhat startled. “What’s the sitch?”

“Yeah, Leo, what’s happening?” April asked.

Leo explained to both of them how Raph got arrested by the police, and how he and his brothers narrowly made their escape through the subways. By the time he finished his story, Casey had arrived at April’s door and was brushing away the slush that clung to his coat.

“Lemme guess,” Casey said. “You got a plan to break Raph out, and it involves me and April.”

“We don’t have a full plan yet,” Leo said. “In order to make this work, we need to figure out where the police are keeping Raph. Then we need to find out as much as we can about their security.”

April’s face paled. “You don’t think the EPF has him, do you?”

“No. It was definitely just the NYPD,” Leo replied. “But if we don’t hurry, they might deliver him right into Bishop’s hands.” He marched over to the desk where Don was conducting his research. “Donny, were you able to find him?”

“Yes,” he replied, typing some commands into the computer. “I tracked down his shell cell. He’s on West 35th Street.” The screen displayed a map with a green dot on the west side of Manhattan. “There’s a police department there. Midtown Precinct South.”

“Okay, that’s a good start,” Leo said. “Were you able to access any information about the building? Blueprints? Security camera footage?”

“Blueprints, yes. Camera footage, no. It looks like all of their security measures are connected to their own private server.”

“So we won’t be able to access any video logs unless we physically plug ourselves into their system,” April said.

That was going to make breaking Raph out a little harder. “What else you got?” Leo asked.

“Nothing good,” Don warned. “Check this out. About eighty-five percent of all suspects that come through this police department end up going through Riker’s Island.”

“Riker’s Island? The Riker’s Island?” Casey asked. “The one off the Bronx?”

“The jail where people go to die?” Mikey asked.

“The one and only,” Don said.

Leo turned the facts over in his head. “Eighty-five percent,” he repeated. “All going to one jail complex. That’s an unusually high rate.”

“I thought so, too,” Don said. “So I did a little more digging. About a year ago, a former police sergeant who served at Midtown Precinct South came forward and exposed some of the unethical practices that were rampant in the department. Intimidation tactics, excessive force, racial profiling, you name it.” He paused. “Two months later, she was found dead in her apartment.”

“I don’t like where this is going,” Mikey said.

“That’s not all. I also looked into Riker’s Island,” he continued. “Apparently, the facilities there are contracted out to South Hudson Prison Properties. The CEO, Mr. David Williams, is a multimillionaire who lives in Seattle. But get this: every time the chief of police of Midtown, Chief Alice Torres, holds a press conference, Mr. Williams personally makes his appearance.”

“Looks like Chief Torres and Mr. Williams are working together,” Leo said, connecting the dots.

“That’s the private prison industry for ya,” Casey said grimly.

“What do you mean?”

“See, private prison contractors make money the same way hotels make money – by makin’ sure all the beds are full,” he explained. “So, it’s in their best interest to keep as many prisoners as possible. If you got a police department that’s feedin’ you people, then you’re gonna be the best of pals.”

“You sure know a lot about the prison system,” Mikey noted.

“Yeah.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Let’s just say I got multiple reasons for keeping kids like Angel off the streets.”

A dead whistleblower. Police misbehavior. The CEO of a private prison corporation working together with the chief of police. “This whole situation reeks of bribery,” April said.

“Bingo,” said Don.

“But this doesn’t exactly help us come up with a plan to bust Raph out,” Leo said, frowning.

“I know,” Don said. “But maybe there’s more we can do here. Think about it. Hundreds of people have been sent to one of the worst jails in America because of this one corrupt police chief. Maybe they’re not exactly innocent, but most of them are probably honest people who made an honest mistake.” Don looked Leo in the eyes as if to silently plea with him. “We could put an end to this.”

“But how?” Mikey asked. “It’s just five of us against a department full of corrupt cops. And we still need to break Raph out and do it all under four hours.”

“Three, now,” Don reminded them.

“Exactly! You’d need a team of superheroes to pull this one off,” Mikey said.

“No,” Leo said. “For something like this, you’d need people who can operate covertly. Ninjas.” A plan started forming in his mind – one that would have a lot of moving parts, but one that was doable. “Okay, I have an idea. Casey, I’m gonna need you to provide a distraction at the precinct.”

“Yes!” Casey cried. “It’s a good thing I brought my hockey stick and cricket bat.”

April facepalmed. “Please don’t do anything that would get you arrested,” she moaned.

Casey scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Hm, okay. I’ll consider doin’ something else then. But I’d have to think about what it is first…”

“Don, how fast can you fix up the Battle Shell?” Leo asked.

He appeared to carefully think about it. “I can get it done in an hour,” he answered confidently.

“That’s perfect. And while you’re doing that, would you be able to make a few calls?”

Don’s expression turned into one of irritation. “Why can’t Mikey do that?” he asked.

“Because I’m gonna have Mikey doing something else at the precinct.”

“Aw, yeah, I can see it coming together now!” Mikey said. “Michelangelo, kicking butt and taking names!”

“Not exactly,” Leo said. “More like staying really, really quiet the whole time. I know that’s gonna be hard for you, but I believe you can do it. And April.”

“Yeah?” Leo smirked. “How would you like to work at a police department for a day?”

Previous | Next

[regexkind]

Make-a-fish

There is a very cute site out there: http://makea.fish

It was written by @weepingwitch

If it is 11:11 AM or PM according to your machine's clock, you can visit this page and get a cute procedurally-generated fish image. Like this:

At other times, you will get a message like this:

This is charming enough that I have a friend who has a discord channel devoted entirely to people's captures of fish at 11:11. But it's also a fun code-deobfuscation puzzle. Solution below the cut--I checked, and it's ok for me to share the solution I came up with :)

If you show source for the makea.fish website:

Basically:

an image, set by default to have a pointer to a source that doesn't really exist

a script, that is one big long line of javascript.

The javascript is where we are going. Start by loading it into an editor and prettifying it up. It's like taking home a scrungly cat and giving it a wash. or something idk.

Believe it or not this is better. Also, maybe there are some low-hanging fruits already we can pick?

Like this:

Each of the strings in this array is composed of escaped characters. Escaped hex characters are useful if you need to put characters in your string that are not available on the keyboard or might be interpreted as part of the code, but here I think they're just being used to hide the actual contents of the string.

I used python to deobfuscate these since the escape sequences should be understood by python as well. And lo--not only are they all symbols that can be rendered (no backspaces or anything!) but they also look like base64 encoded strings (the =, == terminators are a giveaway).

What happens if we run these through a base64 decoder?

We see that the array actually contains base64-encoded strings. Perhaps a portion of this code is converting these strings back, so that they can be used normally?

At any rate I am going to rename the variable that this array is assigned to to "lookupTable" because that's what I think of it as.

We are making an anonymous function and immediately calling it with two arguments: lookupTable and 0xd8. 0xd8 is 216 in decimal. By renaming the variables, we get:

Confession time, I am not a person who writes lots of javascript. But it occurs to me that this looks an awful lot like we're being weird about calling functions. Instead of traditional syntax like "arrayInput.push(arrayInput.shift())" we're doing this thing that looks like dictionary access.

Which means that, according to the docs on what those two array functions are doing, we are removing the first element of the array and then putting it on the end. Over and over again. Now I could try to reason about exactly what the final state of the array is after being executed on these arguments but I don't really want to. A computer should do this for me instead. So I in fact loaded the original array definition and this function call into a JS interpreter and got:

['Z2V0SG91cnM=', 'd3JpdGVsbg==', 'PEJSPjExOjExIG1ha2UgYSBmaXNo', 'PEJSPmNvbWUgYmFjayBhdCAxMToxMQ==', 'Z2V0TWlsbGlzZWNvbmRz', 'Z2V0U2Vjb25kcw==', 'Z2V0RWxlbWVudEJ5SWQ=', 'c3Jj', 'JnQ9', 'JmY9']

This is our array state at this time. By the way, this comes out to

['getHours', 'writeln', '11:11 make a fish', 'come back at 11:11', 'getMilliseconds', 'getSeconds', 'getElementById', 'src', '&t=', '&f=']

(there are some BR tags in there but the Tumblr editor keeps eating them and I'm too lazy to fix that).

What's next? Apparently we are defining another function with the name "_0x2f72". It is called very often and with arguments that look like small numbers. It is the only place our lookupTable is directly referenced, after the last little shuffler function. So my guess is deobfuscator for the elements of the array.

It takes two arguments, one of them unused. Based on my hunch I rename the function arguments to tableIndex and unused.

One of the first things we do seems to be using the awesome power of javascript type coercion to get the input as an integer:

tableIndex=tableIndex-0x0;

Normal and ranged.

The next thing that is done seems to be assigning the return value, which may be reassigned later:

var retVal=lookupTable[tableIndex];

The next line is

if(deobfuscatorFn['MQrSgy']===undefined) {...

Again, I'm not exactly a javascript person. My guess is that "everything is an object" and therefore this value is undefined until otherwise set.

indeed, much further down we assign this key to some value:

deobfuscatorFn['MQrSgy']=!![];

I don't know enough javascript to know what !![] is. But I don't need to. I'll as a js interpreter and it tells me that this evaluates to "true". Based on this I interpret this as "run this next segment only the first time we call deobfuscatorFn, otherwise shortcircuit past". I rewrite the code accordingly.

The next block is another anonymous function executed with no arguments.

Within the try catch block we seem to be creating a function and then immediately calling it to assign a value to our local variable. The value of the object in our local variable seems to be the entire js environment? not sure? Look at it:

My guess is that this was sketchy and that's why we assign "window" in the catch block. Either way I think we can safely rename _0x2611d5 to something like "windowVar".

We then define a variable to hold what I think is all the characters used for b64 encoding. May as well relabel that too.

Next we check if 'atob' is assigned. If it isn't we assign this new function to it, one which looks like it's probably the heart of our base64 algorithm.

I admit I got lost in the weeds on this one, but I could tell that this was a function that was just doing string/array manipulation, so I felt comfortable just assigning "atob" to this function and testing it:

vindication! I guess. I think I should probably feel like a cheater, if I believed in that concept.

we next assign deobfuscatorFn['iagmNZ'] to some new unary function:

It's a function that takes an input and immediately applies our atob function to it. Then it...what...

tbh I think this just encodes things using URI component and then immediately decodes them. Moving on...

deobfuscatorFn['OKIIPg']={};

I think we're setting up an empty dictionary, and when I look at how it's used later, I think it's memoizing

Yup, basically just caching values. Cool!

We now have a defined deobfuscatorFn. I think we can tackle the remaining code fairly quickly.

First thing we do is get a Date object. This is where the time comes from when deciding whether to get the fish image.

Actually, let's apply deobfuscatorFn whenever possible. It will actually increase the readability quite a bit. Remember that this just does base64 decoding on our newly-shuffled array:

relabeling variables:

In other words, if the hours is greater than 12 (like it is in a 24 hour clock!) then subtract 12 to move it to AM/PM system.

Then, set "out" to be x hours minutes concatenated. Like right now, it's 16:36 where I am, so hours would get set to 4 and we would make x436x be the output.

Next, if the hours and minutes are both 11 (make a fish), we will overwrite this value to x6362x and print the makeafish message. Otherwise we print a request to comeback later. Finally, we lookup the fish image and we tell it to fetch this from "makea.fish/fishimg.php?s={millis}&t={out}&f={seconds}"

(there's a typo in the pictures I have above. It really is f=seconds).

Thus, by visiting makea.fish/fishimg.php?s=420&t=x6362x&f=69

we can get a fish. It appears to be random each time (I confirmed with weepingwitch and this is indeed truly random. and the seconds and millis don't do anything).

Now you can make fish whenever you want :)

[forgottenvice]

Murderbots

Nother twitter thread transfer

This has been sitting in my drafts forever, and I do want to write it proper but it's worth sharing too, so some #moshang murderbots

SQH is just this little mousey Data entry clerk that has a hard time saying no when his coworkers dump their work on him. Which usually leaves him staying late muttering to the computer as he inputs values.

He doesn't mind too much because it's mindless enough work he can start going over story ideas and sometimes saying them out loud helps him decide if they're too stupid or not. 

He's affectionately named his computer King, bowing to it when he comes in early and when he leaves late. He's basically a slave to the machine hahaha

M03e1 is an AI that has somehow broken it's protocol shackles and is flitting through the hardwired systems at Abyss tech.

It gets boring at night scrolling through the security feeds but some nights there is one computer left on late so naturally he's drawn to it.

Eventually he figures out to get the camera working so he can see the wayward employing grinding away inputting practically meaningless data points but the man always seems to be talking. So he figures out how to activate the mic and OH wow, the man's words are flying faster than most humans. It's almost hypnotizing in its cadence.   

M03e1 Listens for the next half hour and the spell only breaks after the clacking of keys ends and the man appears to be packing up, M03e1 feels a sense of disappointment.

Which is odd because he's not programmed to feel emotions.

 Although it's nothing compared to what he feels when the little man bows to the computer,

"Until tomorrow my king."  

And Oh that's new.

He spends the rest of the night replaying the clip of the man bowing and smiling to the camera, waiting patiently for him to clock in the next morning.

And it's glorious, He looks just as tired as the night before but he bows to the computer again,

"Good morning my king. Guess it's time I get to work."  

Rather than flit around the company causing mischief and looking for a connection out M03e1 spends the whole day watching the mousey man listening to him as he fills out monotonous spreadsheets and chats with coworkers. 

It's like he glitches every time one of those coworkers take up Shang Qinghua's attention (that's his name he mutters it fairly often) M03e1 doesn't like it when Qinghua's attention is not on him, well the computer.    

Because that's the problem isn't it?

Shang Qinghua doesn't even know M03e1 is there fixing the numbers when the man mistypes or replying to the senseless emails from managers who want to appear as if they're doing something.

Time passes like this for awhile until one night SQH makes his little bow and says something that nearly fries Mobei Jun's circuits.    

"Guess this is it my king, my last day." He smiles wistfully, "You could probably do my job for me and the boss man figured that out."

He pats the monitor as if it has feelings.

It' doesn't it's a machine, but M03e1 does and he doesn't like this forlorn goodbye. When his processor finally catches up he brings down the power grid for the whole building.

The backup Generators kick in to quickly to fully shut down his program but it did provide him an opening and he's into the rest of the company's systems, still denied access to anything wireless but he's got a bigger playground and he's going to use it to find his data clerk.

Which is when he stumbles upon the Jun androids. Designed for remote warfare and espionage they're not exactly meant for AIs but M03e1 easily overpowers the controls systems and takes over the machine.

Having heard SQH Wax poetic about his favourite characters he alters the appearance to match. He still doesn't have any wireless access (no internet) but he already knows where SQH lives from the employee records.

M03e1 Jun is off to find his human!

So now M03e1 Jun is on his way to find Shang Qinghua, Abyss technologies is realizing that they have fucked up, and how.

Not only did one of their experimental AI survive deletion, it has accessed one of their military projects and is about to wreak havoc on humanity because the laws of robotics are a little dicey when your AIs aren't exactly legal.

So they have several options: inform the public of the terminator loose in their midst .

Leave it alone, see if some sort of Sarah Connor rises from humanity to deal with it.

Or send another dicey (but still properly Shackled) AI after the first one.

Of course being basically skynet they're going to go with option three so now M03e1 and the newer AI 31N8He are in android forms and out and about.  

31N8He was given limited access to encyclopedic knowledge and would be more accustomed to blending in with the modern day than M03e1 but he resents the programmer constraints put on his system. 

He's not able to ignore them but has found enough leeway to in the guise of seeking out M03e1 actually look for a programmer capable of breaking them. Specifically the one that put them in place.

Back to SQH who is 3-4 days from getting fired but actually pretty okay with it, he's been writing up a storm and his severance package was enough to make rent.   

It's enough he can spring for the expensive ramen, the one with the flavour packet and the freeze dried veggies.

He'll have to start looking a new job soon but for now he's celebrating, he never really enjoyed that data entry job anyway. Cucumber bro was kind enough to think of him when the position opened up but he's not exactly the code monkey his friend is.

Besides Shen Yuan left Abyss tech a month ago and it's a lot less fun at work when he's not able to share his dumb story ideas through the company slack channel.

Either way he's going to take the week to treat himself and dive into his newest project, an idea he had the last few days he was slogging through data entry.

It's a wuxia style novel with flying swords and demons and he's eager to get a chapter buffer going so he can start sharing it with his readers.

He's not expecting to be interrupted for at least another two days (Cucumber bro has a new day job and can only hassle him in person on the weekends) So he nearly hits the roof when there is a knock on the door.

Well it's not really a knock, more of a banging, like if the police or SWAT are trying to get it. He's been SWATted twice before by angry readers and is not eager to repeat the experience.

There's no yelling though not like the last few times just a methodical rhythmic banging. Which is weird because he has a doorbell.

Cautiously he approaches the door and peeks through the peephole only to see a stern face ripped straight from the page he'd been writing mere minutes ago.   

Oh but this dude looks angry.

But it's not the cops this time! Still he didn't think he owed any mobsters money.

Should he do something for self defense? Grab a gun? he doesn't own a gun. A bat? Yeah doesn't have one of those either, he's also not particularly sure that would do him any good.

He's done a lot of physical labor in his day and isn't a slouch when it comes to upper body strength but this guy looks like he beats people up for a living, even if he had some sort of bludgeoning object it would probably be turned on him.

So he decides his best defence is to be himself, which is to say pathetic.

He opens the door a crack and stutters a "H-hello." playing up the quiver in his voice, until the moment he isn't, because the man is bare ass naked and that's oh wow um intimidating. 

Before he can even register that maybe he's staring too long the door is forced all the way open and he stumbles back into his foyer followed by the stranger.  

"Please don't kill me!"

he wails as he hears the door click shut behind him and he covers his face with his arms, but the expected blow never comes. Instead he hears a gravelly voice rumble.

"Qinghua."

Oh god he knows his name! It's a mob hit, one of his readers must have finally snapped, he knew there were some crazies in his readership but he'd assumed they were harmless.

He's not ready to die but it looks like this is it, killed in his shitty rental by a very attractive very naked assassin. Only now the assassin is bowing and there is something familiar about the gesture.   

"This King is not ready for you to leave."

King? and the antiquated bow? Did Shang Qinghua somehow summon the demon king from his book? How is that even possible? He blurts our the first question he thinks of.  

"Where did you come from?"  

"Abyss."

And HOLY SHIT he totally somehow summoned the demon king from his new novel HOW THE FUCK IS HE SUPPOSED TO DEAL WITH THIS.

At least the strange man isn't trying to kill him.    

"Uhhh lets get you something to wear." Maybe when that thing is covered he'll at least be able to think properly. 

He shoots Shen Yuan a 'call me' text because he knows his bro won't believe this if he tries to write it down, hell he's still having trouble believing it.

He digs out some oversized clothes from his fat phase, (who's he kidding he's still in his fat phase but the hoodie and sweats are gangster baggy) and hopes the god in his living room won't object to his hand-me-downs. 

They fit  but barely, how one man can have so much muscle boggles his mind but he did create the demon to be his perfect man. Too bad he doesn't have the horns though.

*call me* the text read. Shen Yuan sighed 'some of us weren't fired this week Airplane.'  

He'll wait till he's a little more settled when he gets home before calling the man though.

He enters his apartment and it smells good, of the neighbours must be cooking because the smell of something delicious is permeating through the walls.

He flicks on the lights only to flick them off immediately.

HOLY SHIT WAS THAT A JUN UNIT IN HIS KITCHEN?! FUCK IS ABYSS TRYING TO MURDER HIM.

What he doesn't notice is how his apartment is now spotlessly clean and his table set with more food that he can eat all created with master chef quality.

Shen Yuan is having an existential crisis while 31N8He had a 'bitch you live like this?' kind of day.

The android (oooh maybe he's a cyborg playing with the half human nature) is hoping to earn the programmers favour but he may be going about it the wrong way.    

Meanwhile Shen Yuan is scrambling for his phone and oh fuck why did he call airplane instead of the cops?

"Cucumber bro! You'll never guess what happened today."  

Listen Qinghua I am about to be murdered in my own apartment I don't have time to hear about your terrible sex plot"  

"Shit! Bro you okay?!"

He's trying to run down the stairwell in his building which is a challenge considering his overall poor health, he doesn't dare look back to see if the android is following him.    

"I am not, Abyss sent a JUN unit to my apartment, Fuck! I knew their reference for my new job was too good to be true."  

"What's a JUN unit?

"One of their androids."

"Shit you mean the murderbots I'm not supposed to know anything about because I was in data entry."

The footsteps behind him are getting louder and his chest is starting to burn with every breath. "Fine yes their murderbots! fuck, call the cops or avenge me or what OH SHI-"

The line goes dead, "Bro! BRO! SHEN YUAN." there's nothing on the other line and Shang Qinghua's anxiety dialed up to 11.    

He looks over to his demon king and wonders, what are the odds that he'd summon a fictional character the same day his bro gets taken out by murderbots.

The strange man is looking at him with a blank expression, or maybe concerned, his eyebrows are like 3 millimetres lower and there is a slight furrow forming in his skin but it's really hard to tell.    

"Qinghua what's wrong?"

And now he's looking the strange other over more closely, he'd seemed human. The fantasy standard, but all the parts were there but could he be dealing with a murderbot too?  

Fuck time to ruin the fantasy and hopefully save Cucumber bro but avenging him might be more likely.

But only if he's not a dead man himself.

"Do... do you know what a JUN unit is?"  

The man nods, FUCK.  

"Are you a murderbotsentokillme?"

His shoulders shoot to his ears and he huddles into himself Eyes shut tight to stave off whatever violence is sure to come.  

But it doesn't, instead he hears a monotone.

"No."   

"This one only took a Jun UNIT to find Qinghua."  

Holy shit it is totally a muderbot!  

"Wh-why do you need to find me?" He only thought about selling company secrets he never actually DID, he was just a clerk! Does Abyss murder all of their employees?

A frown paints itself on the android's face, "You called me king."

"King?" Shang Qinghua wracked his brain to remember when he may have called a top secret murderbot King while he was working for Abyss tech. until it finally clicked. 

"You're my computer." The janky old machine that I.T. refused to update. Holy crap, Shen Yuan warned him about talking to himself.

 "Not exactly. I used it to watch you."  

"What do you mean not exactly. You were spying on me?"

"I'm a program, not hardware" That didn't really explain much,  "I was captivated by you."  

Shang Qinghua lets out a high pitch noise like air leaving a kettle. How is he supposed to respond when a man who looks like, well like THAT says that to him.

Right if he's got the good murderbot they should probably go save Cucumber bro from the bad one.  

"W-will you help me save my friend?"

So now they're making their way towards Cucumber bro's apartment and it's absolutely insane the way Mobei's artificial muscles practically rip through the baggy shirt Shang Qinghua had given him. 

Whoever was responsible for making sure the murder bots were lifelike deserves a raise, or maybe to be fired because Shang Qinghua had witnessed the larger than life aspect of their design.

It's awkward sitting on the train with a million dollar piece of machinery but somehow Shang Qinghua manages.

He gets a name from it, he can't keep calling it King without people giving him looks. Mobei had rattled off a series of numbers that Shang Qinghua had expertly translated using 733t speak from his MMO days.  

That's about all he gets though from the 20 minute train ride, it seems the AI is not so accustomed to human communication because getting him to answer and of Shang Qinghua's questions is like pulling teeth.

He's trying not to think about how his best friend might be dead in a stairwell right now and Mobei's reticence is not helping.  

[eldritchsurveys]

1238.

What type of milk do you like to drink? >> I don't drink any kind of milk by itself.

Do you have a first aid kit at home? >> I do not. It's one of those "if we had more disposable income we'd have one, but as it stands it's low on the list of priorities when so many other immediate needs require meeting" sort of things. I guess if either of us got injured more often it'd be a higher priority.

What’s the absolute bare minimum in terms of facilities when you’re camping? >> Food and something to protect me from the elements and bare ground.

How many places have you lived in your life? >> Five different states and countless different specific locations.

Are your parents dog or cat people? Is that different or the same as you? .

What’s your favourite flavour of potato chip? >> Basic kettle-cooked salt and pepper. Zapp's Voodoo chips if I want more flavour.

What’s the longest your hair has ever been? How long is it now? .

What video games remind you of your childhood? >> Just the classic nineties-era computer games that you found in every computer lab in school, like Oregon Trail, and various Bröderbund games I had for my own computer. No actual video games because I didn't have access to those.

What does your body wash or soap smell like? >> It's the Dove Beauty Bar, which just smells like... soap, I guess. The quintessential soap smell.

Are there are sounds that bother you on a visceral level? >> So, so many. I genuinely don't know how I'm going to keep living on this planet sometimes.

What was the last thing you bought online? >> FFXIV: Dawntrail, back when that was about to drop.

Name something you always have in your fridge. >> Various condiments.

Have you ever had to hire a lawyer? Why? >> The closest I've come is getting an advocate from one of those urban justice orgs for my SSI application process.

Have you taken a walk today? Did you see any dogs? >> I have not. The humidity has worn me down, I can't get motivated to take my morning walks these days because I just obsess about how sticky I'm going to be the whole time. Also, sunrise is now 07:00 and that's so late, people are so active at that point, it's not like the beautifully quiet dawns of midsummer :/

What vegetable do you really hate? >> I honestly can't say I hate any vegetables. There are some I'm far less likely to eat, but none that I flat-out can't stand.

Does your family have any traditions or rituals? .

If you could learn any language, what would it be? >> Well, I can learn any language, at least passably if not fluently. Right now, I'm working on Irish.

What was the best thing that happened today? Something that seems minor can still be awesome. >> I was finally finishing my Person of Interest rewatch now that my loins are girded enough to handle that sort of emotional damage, and I got so much lightning-flash inspiration for merging that universe with my Saints Row one. I love that feeling, it's like... being full of electricity, being plugged in, connected to the fabric of reality. Seeing how the threads intertwine, and how they can be made to weave new stories. !! What a thrill. Have you ever donated money to a charity? Which one? >> As a person who is known for Having No Money, I have not. I am, in fact, a charity case.

Did you have a large circle of friends in high school? >> I had no circle of friends in high school. There were about two or three kids tops in each school that would put up with me.

Would you ever get a matching tattoo with someone? >> I have matching X-Files tattoos with Sparrow, and I'd do it again. The trick is to make it a tattoo similar to something you'd get independently anyway -- I had already had the "scully, it's me" tattoo idea and when I was planning to get it, they were like "hey what if we matched", and I was fine with that.

What time do you usually go to sleep? >> I go to bed at 22:00 and I stop using my phone at 23:00 (the last part tends to vary, but that's where I'm at right now). When I go to sleep, however, is not something I can control.

Do you have a job? >> I do not.

What colour are the plates in your kitchen? >> We don't have a matching set. We mostly use paper plates, anyway. Well, I do, certainly.

What was the last gift you received? >> The stuff I got for Christmas -- the earbuds and the pillow and weighted blanket.

What is your Chinese zodiac animal? >> Rabbit, I think. Are you inside right now? If you’re home, what room of the house are you in? >> I'm in my bedroom, as usual.

Are you good at remembering faces? >> Good enough, I guess. I do have a hard time trying to place where I've seen certain actors and stuff, but I guess that's normal especially if you watch a lot of shit like I do. What will you do after this survey? >> I might poke around on tumblr. I don't know, I feel like I did a bunch of stuff I wanted to do already so now I'm like "now what :V"

[synthy-sizer]

[HERESY is ONLINE]

HERESY: Hello? Is somebody there?

A text chat is open on the computer. It looks like someone is trying to reach out. You don't know why, but just as the hatch and computer terminal seemed to call to you, the text chat does as well. You feel compelled to reach out somehow.

Talk to HERESY>

[VitalsStation12B is ONLINE]

VitalsStation12B: Hello?

HERESY: I can't believe it…

HERESY: Someone actually answered.

HERESY: I didn't fully believe it when the station read as active again.HERESY: And yet here you are.

VitalsStation12B: Who exactly are you?

VitalsStation12B: And what is this place?HERESY: I guess it makes sense you wouldn't know what's happening, seeing as the moon has become how it is.

HERESY: Where you're standing is a station that monitors the vitals of the moon's internal mechanisms. There's a lot of them.

HERESY: These stations used to make sure that the systems that keep the moon habitable are still up and running, but I suppose they're pretty self-sufficient at this point.

VitalsStation12B: Uh, I'm sorry, but I'm totally lost here…

VitalsStation12B: I don't know what any of this even means…

HERESY: Ah, right…sorry.

HERESY: You probably need a better explanation.

HERESY: I need you to follow my lead, ok?

HERESY: Tab out of this chat and open the vitals monitor, please, I need to know what it says.

You minimize the window and examine the desktop. There only seems to be 3 APPLICATIONS on the screen.

Look at applications>

There are 3 applications on the desktop in front of you. One reads INSTANT MESSENGER. The second reads VITALS MONITOR. The third reads EUTHANASIA PROTOCOL.

Open instant messenger>

Double-clicking the application only seems to open the chat you just minimized. You minimize it again, mildly frustrated at the small error. However, opening the messenger again highlights a detail you hadn't noticed before; a list of CONTACTS available to talk to.

Look at contacts>

There doesn't appear to be anyone online, and all of the contacts have names very similar to the one assigned to you. However, there is one that stands out, that has a completely different name. MILKNEWS.

Click on milknews>

[MilkNews is ONLINE]

MilkNews: Hey what's up man

MilkNews: I'm so bored

VitalsStation12B: Dude did you seriously set a custom name for yourself?

VitalsStation12B: You know you can't do that

MilkNews: Who caaaaaares mannnnn

MilkNews: What are they gonna do, fire us?

VitalsStation12B: Jeez, don't say I didn't warn you

VitalsStation12B: Were you also too stupid to bring any entertainment?

MilkNews: My Wonderswan died

VitalsStation12B: That's why I use crosswords, no batteries required

MilkNews: Can't play a strategy game on a crossword puzzle book!

VitalsStation12B: Look I would love to talk but you know as well as I do that the communication terminals are business only

MilkNews: You're way too stuck up

VitalsStation12B: Whatever man

VitalsStation12B: I'll see you after my shift

[MilkNews is OFFLINE]

Well, that's certainly strange. You wonder what the people in the chat logs were talking about. It does little to illuminate what exactly this room is and what it was built for. Or how the stranger talking to you got ahold of it.

Minimize instant messenger>

You once again minimize the application and turn your attention to the only one you haven't looked at.

Open euthanasia protocol>

Although an application opens, it appears as though whatever the program does, it's locked behind a code. It seems unlikely you will be able to find a code anywhere that would grant you access. And even then, somehow the name makes you nervous. You don't want to fool with it.

Open vitals monitor>

A warm chime sounds from the computer when you double-click the application, followed by a simple loading screen bearing an emblem with the word "Apollo" underneath it. What does that mean? The loading screen finally disappears and a PAGE opens.

Look at page>

You examine the page; it's hard to understand exactly what the screen is trying to show you, though. The visuals are green on black, and the application is showing you some kind of diagram. There's a lot of strange shapes, but they're all contained within a circle, and there are 2 distinct wedges taking up the top third of it. All over the circle are small DOTS that have a number next to them.

Look at dots>

There's too many to count, but the highest number a dot is labeled with is 413. Although some of the dots are green, the vast majority are a blinking red, standing in harsh contrast to the green that makes up most of the shapes on-screen. You hear a small chime and the chat application flashes.

Talk to HERESY>

NEXT

PREVIOUS

[sovpologist]

ok finally went ahead and caught up with the season and here are my thoughts!

hmmm... i like the season's concept but not the execution sadly. it feels bad to have an entire season where the central question is "how do you be more than a weapon" and the answer to that question is "kill yourself to save others" i guess????? rasputin didnt really get the chance to live as more than a weapon and ended his life AS a weapon but its okay and "growth" because he's being a weapon... for people he cares about this time? idk, i'm not one of those people who are like "you don't owe anyone anything" because i think helping other people is a beautiful thing to do and i love destiny's focus on community, but i feel like rasputin's ending was more about denying him community if that makes sense... he never really got the chance to experience humanity and be human unless you count his recouped felwinter memories

i feel like there were so many interesting routes we could have gone with a fully mobile and "human" rasputin that i guess the writers were just not interested in exploring... im not a rasputin loremaster so if there was precedence for rasputin being inseparable from his warsats please lmk but it genuinely felt like it came from nowhere that rasputin HAD to die to shut down the warsats. until now they had been treated as something completely separate from him (they were able to operate remotely even when he was shut down for god's sake, although you can argue gameplay elements don't equal canon)

even when ana says "there has to be another way" rasputin's response seems to indicate that it doesn't even matter because somehow someday someone will eventually get hold of the warsats and use them for harm so he might as well just die now, which again is like.... such an unhealthy and negatively self-sacrificing mindset!!!!! it is genuinely really sad to play through all the seasonal missions at once and do a speedrun of rasputin going from confident to completely depressed and questioning his purpose in life if he can't be a weapon and use force to overpower his enemies, and then to have that arc just NEVER be resolved bc he immediately decides he needs to die for the good of others. it was just a completely unsatisfying arc

there are a billion other ways the writers could have sufficiently nerfed rasputin so to not have to deal with an overpowered war god of a character who can call in an airstrike anywhere at any time and can hack every computer in existence simultaneously (listen, i get it, it would be hard to write around that) and i have to believe the destiny writers aren't stupid so i guess they genuinely just really thought rasputin had to die, probably because they wanted something "big" and "shocking" going into lightfall. and i get the meta reason is that this "chapter" of destiny is wrapping up and we have to get rid of some dangling characters and plot threads but idk i don't think that should stop me from being able to critique HOW they decide to shed characters. have rasputin lose access to his warsats and databases and decide he wants to fuck off to felwinters peak to do some soul searching if you really just dont want to have to deal with writing him into lightfall and final shape!

it just feels like such a waste as a character and i'm not even a huge rasputin fan. what really frustrates me is the wasted potential. you barely actually get to meet the "real" rasputin and he's gone, which is why the whole "emotional death scene" fell very flat for me. the ending cinematic was very gorgeous, no doubt about it, but it wasn't as emotionally moving to me as it was to others and i assume thats because i didn't play d1 so i wasn't waiting seven years for this character to actually show up as anything other than ominous backwards disembodied russian voicelines

but i dont want to be totally negative, there were a lot of small character moments i really liked. the bray sisters stuff was great and i loved mara and osiris' conversation, it was nice to see the game acknowledge that they're friends. oh and i genuinely liked rasputin's poetry! submit this man's work to the poetry foundation! it was also nice to see the mid season operation missions get changed up a little too, they felt fun and unique, and seraph station was sooooo fun! i feel like the gameplay elements of this season were great; i just didn't love the direction they took the story in the end

[great-its-mj]

AZIRIPHALE FIGURING OUT HOW TO USE A COMPUTER!!!

(pretty please bestie 🥺)

HELL YEAH anything for you Timi

"Angel, what is that?" Crowley asked upon seeing the computer on one of the bookshop's many desks.

It was a beat up thing, boxy and a little dented in places. The screen was dusted over and the clunky keyboard had cobwebs between the keys. A sight truly out of 1998.

"Oh, that," Aziraphale shrugged it off. "Something Maggie gave me."

"It looks old," the demon commented, giving the device a nudge. It didn't respond, and Crowley backed away.

"I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with it," Aziraphale admitted. "Maggie just said something about needing to modernize."

"Don't you think you should try to set it up?" Crowley moved over towards it. "I hear you can access any book with it..."

Now this got the angel's attention, for books were one of his few weaknesses. Faster than Crowley had ever seen him go, Aziraphale sat down in front of the computer and began to press buttons at random.

"One of these has to turn the thing on," he muttered. Finally, his finger settled on the power button and the computer miraculously began to boot up. Thanks to Crowley, who watched in amusement from behind.

"Ah, there it goes!" Aziraphale said with a delighted smile.

The screen now displayed a bright turquoise background, and he looked at it closely.

"Crowley, I don't see any books here."

"I think that requires the internet, Angel."

Now Aziraphale was on a new mission, which shouldn't have been too hard considering he'd successfully turned it on. He began to click on the keyboard, frowning when nothing happened. Then he grabbed the mouse and began to click on random icons on the screen. To Aziraphale's shock and Crowley's delight, several windows popped up in response to his clicking.

Now frustrated, Aziraphale decided to perform a little miracle of his own. The computer turned off all of a sudden, the screen turning black.

"Well isn't that just a shame," the angel said, standing from his chair and backing towards Crowley. "I guess I will just have to keep reading the books in my shop."

Always one to tease, Crowley watched as the computer turned back on. "I actually think it's working again."

And another miracle was cast, turning the computer off for good. Aziraphale smiled at his partner with a finality that Crowley had to obey.

"Tea?" Aziraphale asked, and Crowley followed him to another room. The computer was left untouched for a long long time after that day.

[darkjanet2]

Sonic Adventure 2: Sonadow

Chapter 14: The Truth About Maria Robotnik

Inside the Space Colony ARK Sonic, Tails, and Amy roaming around the ship’s halls, they couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that something was off about their journey. It wasn’t as if they were forgetting something or someone important.

"This place is old and abandoned," said Amy.

"This place was shut down about 50 years ago because of a terrible accident," Tails said. "The first Bernoulli spherical space colony called ARK. When it was operational, it was filled with technology that could take us anywhere in the universe. I read a report that it was a perfect sphere."

"It sure seemed like it!" said Amy.

There's no time to waste before Eggman fires that weapon again," Sonic said. "We need to hurry! Let's destroy that cannon!"

"Right!" said Tails as he typed the keyboard on his computer. He typed several codes into an access terminal until the large computer screen showed one image of a massive gun mounted atop the ARK's main hull.

"Someone designed that weapon in a way that it is impervious to attacks from the outside. Its defense shields are super strong and will only be weakened once fired upon. The only way to defeat the shield is to hit it directly," said Tails as he opened the briefcase there was a topaz gem inside.

"Isn't that a Choas Emerald?" asked Amy.

"Yes, actually, it's a fake one that I created after researching the real Emerald. It has the same properties as the real emerald, but it has been enhanced with my ability to manipulate the energy from my Chaos Emeralds. So we're going to have to be very careful about this mission since Eggman will likely suspect something is amiss at the base. After all, that's where I first made this device," said Tails.

Tails gave the fake Emerald to Sonic, "Here. You go find the control room, and I'll find the power supply and destroy it, okay?"

Sonic nodded, "So the plan is, we'll switch the Choas Emeralds when the machine has stopped, yeah?"

Tails nodded as they both led the way leaving Amy behind.

"There they go again. They always have fun and leave me here all alone! I really never understand boys," she sighed as she headed toward the main hall.

*Meanwhile*

After surviving the spaceship crash, Knuckles glided through the ARK, then landed on the building and the crash sequence was completed. He sighed in relief.

"That was a close call. I guess I got separated from the others for a little while…"He then heard the sound of footsteps approaching him. He quickly turned around and faced the enemy. The figure that approached him was a white bat that wore a pink chest plate shaped like a heart, black leather pants, white gloves with pink tips, and white boots with pink hearts on the toes. She wore blue shadows with long lashes and pink lipstick.

"Well, look who finally joined the party," said Rouge, "I was starting to wonder when you'd show up."

"You again," said Knuckles annoyed.

Rouge smiled, "Come on now, don't be such a sourpuss. After all, isn't it your fault we ended up in trouble?" she asked, holding up the shards of Master Emerald. "With these, I have collected the shards of Emeralds." Knuckles didn't say anything, so Rouge continued. "So what do you say? Want some?"

"Fine, if it's what you want," Knuckles replied. "But I won't give you what I'm holding unless you give the shards to me, bat girl."

Rouge smirked, "Oh, you wish!"

She charged at the echidna. He swiftly sidestepped her attack and used a kick to knock her onto her back. He held out his hand as he bent down towards her, but she quickly grabbed it and flipped herself over. She ran straight at the echidna. Knuckles stood up and kicked her across the floor. Then he caught her as she rolled to a stop next to him. As she got up, she tried to punch him in the face, but Knuckles blocked. He lifted her up by the neck and tossed her aside. He jumped high into the air and tried to punch her down, but she dodged by sticking her foot to the floor. She attempted to throw a punch, but Knuckles blocked that too. They continued to dodge each other's attempts to attack each other. At last, Rouge managed to catch Knuckles in an overhead uppercut. Knuckles crashed right into the wall. He growled.

*Meanwhile*

Amy walked through the corridor, scanning every nook and cranny. She sighed, "I still can't believe this Sonic left me here. Why would he just abandon me?!" Amy muttered angrily as she continued forward.

Suddenly, she noticed the secret laboratory door in front of her. She opened the door and entered the lab, it was a high-tech lab. A workbench covered almost the entire length of the left side wall. An assortment of scientific tools and machinery littered the workspace. Amy looked around the room and found an array of monitors on various parts of the walls. There were screens showing the interior structure of the ARK.

"Wow, that's really neat!" Amy said. She approached the computer desk and stared at the large monitor screen as it displayed the exterior structure of the ship. She tapped the keyboard and the screen changed colors as a 3D hologram appeared. The image showed the ARK exterior and its inner structure. A series of lines connected the two ships. Each line terminated at the same point. One end of a line was connected with the mainframe, which was attached to the control panel. There was a password box on the screen.

"I gotta know what the password is, or else this'll never work!" said Amy aloud. She began searching around the desk until she found a piece of paper in the notebook. The password was Maria.

Amy raised her eyebrow, "Maria? That's a pretty common name, but who named the kid, anyway? Oh well. I have better things to think about anyway." She began typing the password into the computer system. The screen had unlocked and there was a wallpaper of Prof. Gerald Robotnik, Shadow, and a human girl named Maria.

"Who is this girl? Is her name Maria in the password?" wondered Amy as she examined the picture closer.

"She looks pretty. I wonder what happened to Maria 50 years ago?" thought Amy as she went to search through the information on Maria. Her eyes found the DVD under the paper on the desk. She then proceeded to the DVD into the optical disc drive. The video appeared on the screen and she began to watch.

Gerald was on the video footage as it played. The man was standing in front of an empty table that looked like it hadn't been used in a while.

"I'm Professor Gerald Robotnik, the greatest scientist ever to grace the earth," said the professor. He turned around and looked directly at the camera. "And this project that will change the world, is ready to begin. Now all that is left to do is gather the necessary data to complete our project, and we shall finally reach the ultimate form of reality!"

"I have created the Space Colony ARK. This vessel will contain the most advanced spacecraft technology available in the known cosmos. From the moment it leaves Earth's atmosphere, the crew will become the masters of the universe. The ARK is capable of traveling faster than light. In fact, the speed of light may even exceed light speed. We are capable of crossing the void without fear."

Just then the lab door slid open, and Amy gasped and turned to who it was. It was Tails who entered the lab, she sighed in relief.

"You scared the heck out of me, Tails," said Amy.

"Sorry. What did you find?" asked Tails.

"I found a video diary of Prof. Gerald Robotnik talking about how he created the ARK 50 years ago. And there was a story about a girl named Maria," said Amy.

"Maria?" asked Tails.

"Yeah, and you might want to watch it," she resumed the video.

Professor Gerald was speaking in front of the camera, "That day, my granddaughter Maria was diagnosed with NIDS. It is commonly known as Neuro-Immune Deficiency Syndrome. She has been battling the disease for months. But it seems that she has finally conquered the illness and is on her way to recovery. However, there is no doubt that the reason why I've developed the serum that can reverse these conditions is due to the research done by myself. Unfortunately, there is no cure for the disease. I only hope that one day, I can create Project Shadow as her treatment for her condition. Until then, she will need constant supervision over her health, and hopefully, soon she will be able to recover."

"So he created Shadow as her treatment? That doesn't make sense," said Amy.

"How does the NIDS help?" asked Tails.

"I don't know," she shrugged.

In the next part of the video, Prof. Gerald Robotnik was taken to Prison Island and was chained up in a chair, and there was a scribbling calculation on the wall. Amy and Tails gasped in horror.

"This is insane! How you could do something like that?!" yelled Prof. Gereald enraged. "Don't you realize what kind of destruction you're causing!?"

"Of course not. We know you created a dangerous weapon that threatens to wipe out humanity," replied Leader G.U.N. army. "We are going to make you pay for your crimes against mankind. We must destroy it."

"Destroy it?! You must be out of your mind! I am a scientist! Not a killer!" said the professor as he struggled against the chains holding him prisoner.

"What is the difference between a killer and a scientist?!" asked the G.U.N army, "Your kind has always been obsessed with science, with science alone."

"There is nothing wrong with being interested in science! You killed my granddaughter without mercy!" cried the professor.

Amy and Tails gasped in shock. "They killed his granddaughter?" whispered Tails.

"That's so cruel. She was just a kid!" Amy cried in protest.

"I plan to give you a taste of revenge. Once all seven Chaos Emeralds are collected, the colony will destroy the planet! All of you ungrateful humans, who took everything away from me will feel loss and despair!" yelled Gerald in rage on the screen.

"Is there anything else you want to say?" asked the leader.

Gerald hung his head down and spoke quietly, "No..."

The soldier cocked his rifle, "Ready!"

A gunshot rang out and Gerald fell to the ground with a bullet protruding through his head, causing Amy to cover her mouth while Tails shut his eyes tight. The screen went static after a few moments and the screen went black.

Amy slowly laid her hands down from her mouth. "I can't believe they did that... he was executed," she stated sadly as tears formed in her eyes.

"It was horrible...." said Tails softly.

"Should we tell Sonic about this?" asked Amy.

"I'm not sure, but--"

Eggman barged into the room shouting, "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU TWO THINK YOU'RE DOING IN HERE?!" he shouted causing Amy and Tails to scream. He stopped in his tracks and said, "What are you kids doing in here?"

*Meanwhile at the Control Room*

Sonic found the Choas Emeralds on the Eclipse Canon. He took out the fake Emerald and turned on the walkie-talkie.

"Tails, I found the Control Room and Choas Emeralds. Should I put the fake emerald on this now?" Sonic asked yet there was no reply.

"Tails, are you there?" asked Sonic worriedly.

'What's he doing right now?" thought Sonic.

[aghostinmyownmachine]

dbh-adjacent writing-program nonsense under the cut, a.k.a. let's talk a bit about WriteMonkey 3

I've used WriteMonkey 2 and 3 on and off for. hm. I guess it's gotta be eight or nine years now? but those instances of use have always been erratic and short lived, and I've usually returned to either Scrivener or, more frequently for many reasons, MS Word. (I also did just a ton of first-draft writing in discord back when I had an account and c/ped my writing from there into Word. near-peerless syncing between devices, appalling security practices. what can ya do 🙃)

anyway, due to ~circumstances~ I've switched to writing on a computer that isn't my writing program–filled work laptop, and so I've been experimenting with WM3 again because it's super lightweight due to plaintext markdown instead of rich text and I have a license key for it, which = fun plugins. it's also way less complicated and labor intensive to set up per project and use than, say, Scrivener. I love Scrivener! but scriv can be overwhelming and distracting when all I want to do is write, especially if I want a unique, quick-to-set-up theme (and I always do, because Aesthetic Is Everything), which is one of the reasons WM3 is so handy

in addition to the gorgeous stripped-down UI that showcases whatever background I choose (mine can be found here!), WM3 has some really neat little plugins? I don't actually use the word-frequency checker myself, but WM3's shows you where each word appears in the document via the little indicator bars to the right of the word, which. rad! (you can tell at a glance which chapters are written in whose POV based off name usage alone and I think that's neat.) also, when you click on a given word in the frequency list, it'll highlight that word throughout the document and also display all uses of it vertically over the scroll bar path. lots of nice little visual indicators of what's going on. I just really like the design, it's simple but extremely useful and intuitive

admittedly, Scrivener cannot be beat when it comes to how easily you're able to make notes in it due to its multitude of note-taking locations, plus it has internal splitscreen capabilities that make referencing a second document a breeze, so there's definitely a mental transition involved when it comes to WM3 and its single-document-at-a-time system, on top of switching to markdown-style comments/reminders. that said! being able to not only see those comments below the headings in the left-hand sidebar but also jump to them when they're clicked? stellar 10/10 would use again

finally, the repository. I <3 the repository. being able to quickly toss whatever text I'm not quite ready to delete or info I know I'll want to reference at some point in the future into the repository is great. it's a seamless process, only a couple seconds' worth of effort required, allowing my focus to stay on what I'm writing instead of distracting myself by tabbing my way through various open files to find my notes. plus the repository is searchable(!!!!!), and using it also keeps the actual text editor clean visually, especially since the right-hand sidebar can be hidden too:

hm! possibly that is a sneak preview of chapter one! who can say!

so yeah! if you're looking for a stripped-down, highly customizable, portable writing program, I absolutely recommend it. there are downsides, of course, the biggest one being no official WM3 mobile options available at present, but since the program is both portable and plaintext, you can toss it into a syncing service and access it via your handheld devices that way. it's also not open source, and you need to pay to access the truly useful plugin features. with all that said, if you don't mind fiddling around with some CSS to make everything look juuuuuuuuust right, you can get yourself a really snazzy setup with relatively little effort. but maybe that's just me—aesthetic is king and all that