#had to fix the audio then somehow broke the post

[raspiberry]

Lingyang edit <3

He makes me cry, I can't believe he's the meowth of Wuwa

[stogzo]

Canceled Broadcast [GENLOSS AU]

yeah this is just a ‘RGB + carisal carosoul carousol [You see me search caresill on google]

This is an ‘RGB trio+ Carousel Crew survive’ AU again. I broke it down into parts

part1: The mall

part2: the town

part3: escaped

I probably wont do a fic or anything but still, for simplicity.

Part 1 is under the cut

So it takes place after Ranboo gets boxed. We start with Niki waking up in her “Dressing Room” with a note saying ‘Our dearest apologies, but the show in which you air apart of will no longer air due to cancellation. You will be dispatched shortly.’ She knows that means she’ll die so she manages to sneak out and runs into Vinny and Ethan, who both had the same idea. They find out the mall still has some supplies and find bag to carry stuff. However as they all looking for a way out they see TVs replaying Ranboo’s death for the crew to ‘watch’ their hard work come to fruition. Ethan convinces Niki and Vinny to go back and grab the other four. They were thankfully somehow “fixed” already before the founder announced there would be no more shows, so they grab them and dip. Some employees find them and Niki gets to hit one with a big ass wrench. They escape the mall and find that they are in a completely abandoned town that hasnt seen life since the 80s.

Important details: Vinny’s face and parts of his upper body have burn scars, his eyesight is impaired due to how close the burns were to them, he can see but specifically his peripheral vision is worse

Ethan got out of his death without any major or permanent physical stuff, he was stabbed to death while an employee played Beast Noises Stock Audio #8 (audio jungle). His cuts and wounds are still sore to touch however

Niki has chronic migraines and the bullet just missed her spine, but damage was still done. She would need at least a cain

(My headcannons for) Austin and Sneeg werent crushed to death, instead employees came and broke their bones badly so they didnt have to add the sound effect later in post. Sneeg managed to escape before his damage got as bad as Austins’, his left upper arm and entire right arm and hand are fucked up forever though.

Austin got his entire skeletal structure fucked up though. Even after being “fixed” he has chronic pain and would need forearm crutches and maybe even a wheelchair

Charlie, due to the force of being slammed to the ground by the wire monster, shattered his pelvis, tailbone, and lower spine. Showfall’s medical staff could only do so much, he can technically walk but needs to take painkillers to avoid the extreme pain. Niki and Austin do as well, but in all of Part1+2 they give them to Charlie. He also has internal organ issues due to the surgery scene.

Ranboo would have awful pain in their neck and jaw. Due to the spikes their face muscles experience difficulty and pain when they emote. The inside of his mouth would also be tender and he’d have to be careful eating sharper foods (chips, crackers, etc). His wrists would also have scarring due to the crucifixion.

While Charlie, Austin, and Niki would technically be ambulatory aid users during part1+2, by part3 due to injuries not healing right and not having aids when they still NEEDED them, they would become fully dependent on their aids

If I used any of the wrong language or anything while talking about physical disability please tell me (<- able bodied)

[vixthefantheorist]

Going Back through to Argentum Inanis (the audio of the Video)

So earlier... -looks at time- last night, I popped out a theory ramble on @smoliboops post about the badges of Anomaly Found and from there some peeps also threw their thoughts on it, @n-anon being one of them and also @scarlet-witch-angel made one on it, very good theories and thoughts all around. I also thank @intothebutterflyburrow for having it appear on my dash when he reblogged it. Thank you! :D

So yeah I saw smoliboops' post, rambled like a loon for an hour typing it on phone about my thoughts, which activated Scarlet witch's theorist brain (:D) and made her own theory, which I found very interesting. I do need to get around to reading those theories you mentioned, Scarlet, I'm curious.

Anyway, what she pointed out in the audio of Argentum Inanis of Anti sounding like he said "Oh! I found the Time!" Which intrigued me, I spoke with @septicuniverse (I have her on Discord) because she was curious of what I thought of Scarlet's theory (I loved it); but I also wondered if that's what Anti said in the video.

Which brings me to yeeting my theorist ass over to the video and listen to it... it was pretty garbled with warped vocals and sirens screeching because Anti had to talk to Marvin through Silent Hill's phoneline. (I SWTG ANTI... SPEAK MORE CLEARLY OR I WILL WRING YOUR NECK!)

But it was possible to hear what Scarlet heard, but I decided to rip the audio from the video and yeet it into Audacity! (-jazz hands- Everyone's favorite game of Clear That Audio!) Yeah, we all know I'm not the best at all with these... but I try.

But I was messing with the audio to try to clear things up. As well as practice with audio volume~

And... I got a few different lines that I could make out in the audio because you know garbled mess.

The first one I heard was "Do you want in? There's time!" which made me believe Anti was very well aware of Marvin's presence with the orb and taunted him from watching Anti's work in the safety of his magical home/lair... where the hell Magic man lives. Thus inviting him into the chaos he was making, curious to see if Marvin can and will do anything.

And given Scarlet's information of Sean and Robin implying that the black eyes on Marvin showed him being possessed by Anti... which led me to believe he took the challenge... and failed. For that timeline maybe... (I guess?) or Marvin allowed Anti to possess him to see if he could glean any information from Anti's connection to him to try to turn the tide of this chaos Anti was causing. Does he succeed? I have no idea.

But wanting to be doubly sure, I tweaked and listened to the audio again for another hour, and then realized that it wasn't 'In' but 'Him' in the audio. Which turns it to "Do you want him? There's time!" which shocked the hell out of me because that made a bit more sense, thinking to Anomaly Found, there were was a small group that broke into the IRIS facility to do something, whether to break Chase out, or break themselves out if they were captured (or let them capture to try to get closer to Chase) or something else altogether that had them fucking around in the building at the time Anti decided to turn into into his personal playground.

Anti knew Marvin was watching his movements, watched everything he did, trying to find or understand what the hell Anti was doing and why (or he knew and trying to locate his main victim to prevent shit from happening). Either way, Anti was well aware of Marvin watching him and taunted him about having Chase in his grasp and if Marvin wanted to stop Anti, he had to act. Again, Anti inviting Marvin to challenge him for Chase's freedom and fix everything... somehow. I'm just guessing here.

Again, I wanted to be doubly sure and I knew I couldn't really clean the audio as well as I wanted to... it's just too difficult for me even though I am trying really hard on these... and figured to roll all the changes back to start clean and try new things to do with it to fix it up.

Lo and behold, I fucking heard it in the audio in its original form... if only the siren wasn't there it'd be clearer. But... It's still the same "You want him? There's Time!" but... I realized, in hearing it and looking to the audio image... the first half of the saying is cut off...

"Do you want him__- There's Time!"

Which made me realize -why- the second half was garbled. It wasn't just the screeching siren Anti loves so much, but the fact the first half of the audio overlapped the second.

And I had to listen to this several more times trying to focus on the overlap and I heard it... because the second half of the first sentence not only overlaps but warped into a robotic sound.

"Do you want him -back, MARVIN-? There's Time!" (or 'First... TRY!' of Anti taunting Marvin for not doing anything but yearning to get 'him' back. So if he wants 'him' back he has to at least DO something rather than wait for someone else to do it for him)

(PLEASE for the love of Theorist Gods, be careful with the audio... It's kinda loud since I did fiddle with the amplify feature of Audacity to raise the volume some... I hope at least. I mean it's not a whisper but still be careful. I don't want anyone having ringing ears or going deaf because of me. D: )

^ That is the original audio just amplified.

^And that one is the edited one that's a little lower but still kinda loud but I edited it to try to make it as clear as possible. This one since I was trying to dampen out the background noise, the robotic "back, Marvin" is bit harder to hear but its still there (or easier, depending on whose listening to it)

I was fucking FLOORED when I heard that. (Or I have lost my mind... if its that then I apologize, my fellow theorists and fans of the Septic Egos) This just leads more of the fact that Anti and Marvin KNOW each other on some level. Which opens up a slew of other possible theories or lends some weight to already existing ones of Marvin and Anti having some kind of history.

Now comes the question of which 'Him' Anti is taunting Marvin with. Chase? Given that Chase is the protag and the main target of Anti. Makes sense.

But... remember who else was captured by Anti~

That's right! JJ!

It makes SO MUCH SENSE NOW! Especially with all those other theories I've seen of JJ and Marvin knowing each other. JJ's First Appearance! He fell through Time and ended up in the past. And him mentioning that he arrived far too early! (why was he there in the first place? What did he mean by that? That was never answered because Anti too possession of him and swept him away.)

THEN we have JJ's Jolly Jaunts! A puppet stage that has the symbols of the main cards on it and looked something part of a stage show for the younger kids. Why does it have the card symbols, something Marvin has on his own mask, on it and not just JJ's own flair? Unless, the two were partners in magic shows. Marvin took care of the older audience with his magic and JJ took care of the younger audience with his stories, songs with the puppets.

It's possible that not only Marvin was part of the Magic Circle but JJ was as well. I mean why else would Marvin just hurl him in time with actual magic if the Magic Circle was very secretive of this stuff... especially the Inner Magic Circle, unless JJ was a member too?

And in Jolly Jaunts, Anti taunts Marvin with a puppet show and clearly shows JJ's state of being and helplessness. JJ, himself, at the end of it pleads for someone to help him. Pleading to Marvin to help him.

Just HOLY SHIT... this goes deep, guys... Damn, Sean you are fucking good at this. Guys, we really need to start paying attention to the audio... it can crack some shit wide open with them.

But yeah... just my rambling thoughts... again... Thank you all for reading if you made it this far. I apologize that I rambled your ears off.

Edit :

I wrote this in the middle of the night. I really need to stop doing that lol. But do keep in mind that this is all assumptions and theory based on some garbled audio.

I don't know if Marvin and Anti (or rather Argentum Inanis) have history together in the not so friendly terms. (Likely they do since the Magic Circle has a book on Argentum and time spells.)

Nor do I know for certain if JJ and Marvin also have a history together as friends, let alone partners of a magic show. Or if JJ was a part of the Magic Circle.

Hell for all we know Anti could have taken Jackie as well and that's why he hasn't shown up. And that's the "him" Anti refers to in Argentum Inanis video. Probably not likely but still possible.

Or it could be a completely different "him" that Marvin is trying to save.

Oh... Just realized that could answer somethings with Anti's rant in KJSE... "If you want him back so badly, then why don't you save him?" Was he speaking about C!Jack? Not just then but in Argentum? Or again someone else altogether since there are more characters in this story besides the six Egos now? Hmm curious...

[moxfirefly]

Good afternoon, this has been in the works for a while now and I finally got around to finishing it and being pretty content of it (this is gonna go up on AO3 soon along with the others that aren’t request) but I wanted to post it here first. Enjoy!

Rated Explicit (18+ only)

“Wish you were here right now

All of the things I'd do”

Gaming was always an escape.

From childhood to adulthood. There was some gaming equipment in your hands, controls, handhelds, keyboards and so on. There was just something calming about entering a fantasy world and immersing yourself in scenery and stories that made you stray from bad days and long nights.

For Donatello it was the same.

On one of his many supply scavenges Splinter had found a dumpster near a toy store that was going out of business. It was a memorable haul for them. What they expected to be routine things mixed with some type of groceries had turned into literal Christmas in July. Stuffed animals, board games, action figures and even a few gaming consoles with some cartridges and cd’s. Noticeably they were considered damaged or improperly manufactured, but they didn’t care and for Donnie he had spent a good week and a half fixing up the Nintendo and Play Station 2 consoles back into working conditions.

That alone had been plenty for him but nevertheless Mikey being so excited about playing wanted him to join him. They had played for hours and each disc or cartridge they tried out held a new story, a new set of controls to learn, new visuals and such. He was immediately hooked.

When he had gotten the first parts to start building a PC from scratch he knew there would be another world of possibilities for games.

Now gaming is a leisure for Donnie. Something he does for enjoyment and an escape when his projects become too much. The world of online gaming allowed him to also explore the possibilities of chatting with others though, the humans they were not allowed to see or speak to (with the exception of their Hogosha) but needless to say it wasn’t like Donnie broadcasted his identity and whereabouts. More so these people only came to game and speak game.

Donnie absolutely does detest the unnecessary sexism that gaming brings. Many a time he had read on chats or heard on his head set such derogatory comments thrown at female players. Never the one to stand such misogynistic behavior (he was raised better and had heard enough horror stories from April) he always shot that shit down quickly. Given his status as being far above his gaming peers he had developed respect and none of them ever shot back at him.

That’s how he runs into you.

On the opposing team nonetheless.

Once your female voice ran through the ears of the group he had been stuck in, the comments began to rain down. Some colorful, some lazy and some downright disgusting. Donnie had had enough and with some of his more illegal methods, had managed to push out the players in his party and send the audio recording to the email of the developers.

On exceptionally petty days he did far worse.

You had been stunned, wondering why the gang of immature boys had suddenly disappeared. Only one of them remained with the gamer tag specifying ‘Don_DuzMachines’ you couldn’t help but giggle at it.

You had asked if the sudden disappearance had been a weird glitch and if Don (as you assumed you should call him) had anything to do about it.

“Let’s just say I’ve got my ways” His soft voice rang through your headset.

“Well it’s hardly the first time I’ve had a gang of prepubescent boys tell me to suck their dicks” You started to move away in the map but stopped abruptly.

“Hey do you wanna play something else?” You asked tentatively. “Figured the least I can do is thank you” Donnie sat back pensively, well there was no harm in that now was there?

And so it started innocently.

Co-op games even the occasional match against one another. Each game you two always spoke through your headsets. Mostly banter about strategy or directions for who to do what or the occasional friendly jabs. You hadn’t revealed much that wasn’t the nickname you used as your gamer tag, and well Don had basically done the same.

That is until you decide to poke a little into his life. “You go to college?” You had asked, fingers gliding over the keyboard as you both partook in a raid. Donnie hadn’t expected such a question and he didn’t necessarily want to divulge much, he opted for a more ambiguous response. “I do my own studying, sort of like home schooling if you will?” Well he wasn’t wrong, Splinter had been both father and teacher to them, Donnie had just excelled more quickly and soon enough he was teaching his brothers on the academic side.

“You broke too, huh? Trust me it’s not worth the insane debt you’ll develop in six years that’ll take forty years to pay off” You chuckled with a hint of bitterness, Donnie couldn’t help but laugh and snort.

“That’s cute” You said sincerely. Donnie smiled, heat creeping up his neck.

How innocent things had been at the start.

For six months the two of you divulged little to no information. You never asked to video chat and Donnie never asked for your socials. It had just been a mutual agreement to keep the mystery that just wasn’t verbalized. Maybe it was for the better, because surely what had began as a gaming buddies situation had escalated to, well Donnie couldn’t really explain.

The first instance the two of you had been stuck on a map solving intricate puzzles. It was one of the more relaxed games the two of your partook in together when you didn’t want to deal with other players in a lobby.

“Dating apps are a nightmare, they’re only worth it for getting dumb funny stories” You had been playing but also checking some of the matches you’ve gotten on a site. Donnie swallowed, why did that settle so oddly in his stomach?

“Well any funny ones you’d like to share?” Don asked curiously hoping he wasn’t over stepping any boundaries. “One guy wanted me to cover my feet in marmalade, I really almost hit fuck it and did it” You couldn’t help but smile when Don choked, coughed and bursted out laughing.

“What kink is that even related to? I mean I know people enjoy feet but marmalade?” He was bewildered. “Come on Don don’t kink shame the poor guy, who are you to police his eclectic culinary desires?” Now the two of you couldn’t help but burst into another fit of laughter. Both your avatars were idle standing, the game somewhat abandoned in favor for the conversation.

“Hey I’m not kink shaming, we all have our weird kinks” Donnie smiled sitting back on his swivel chair. You clicked out of the dating site, chin resting on your hand. “Are we finally having this conversation? Cause I love this shit, it’s my bread and butter” You sat back in your gaming chair, tucking your knees.

Donnie felt so shy but the barrier of mistery the two of you had built urged him on. He was curious, like stupid curious what you looked like and while he had everything to figure out exactly where you were, it wasn’t morally correct for him. So why not just indulge in the conversation?

“Well it’s not feet, sorry to disappoint” He heard you laugh, an infectious sound he had grown to enjoy so much. “Feet are so passé anyways, what about bondage?” You spun slowly in your chair, the sounds of Don adjusting and clicking on the keyboard ringing in your ears.

“Bondage is a go, especially sensory deprivation” He was checking some documents April had forwarded to him in regards to a case they were dealing with, but he could multitask. You made an approving noise, nodding while taking a sip of your drink. “Into that D/s stuff?” You asked wanting to see what else he might like.

“Well yeah, but I do enjoy more um... Fem Dom stuff” He finished up the email he wrote out for April and hit send. “A man with taste, not something we get often” You chuckled but decided to add. “I wouldn’t mind having a guy submit to me” You bit the inside of your cheek a little shy suddenly.

Something about that statement made heat spread south for Donnie. The concept of being dominated? By a woman? He peaked a look behind him, pushing one side of his headset down to hear what his brothers might be up to but he heard only music and chatting voices.

“What’s your favorite thing?” He inquired almost too softly.

“Erotic ASMR” There was no trace of embarrassment in your voice and that somehow made Donnie hot.

“Maybe we frequent the same sites for that” Don boldly threw out. You made an approving face before sitting forward and typing on your keyboard. A beat or two later Donnie saw an email notification from you on one of his many burner emails. He opened it finding links to audios from various sites all catered to erotic audios. Donnie whistled, this was a gold mine and true to his predictions you did indeed have some of his favorite sites to peruse.

“It’s not just male audios by the way, there’s women too” You sat back once again, nervously playing with your hair. “Thanks... Well I do like hearing both” Donnie confessed, voice avoiding a stutter.

You grinned. Oh he was even more fun that you could’ve expected.

Curiously enough that had been the tamest experience into yours and Donnie’s sex talks. Because it hadn’t really stopped at that, they progressively escalated little by little. Fave kinks had turned to fave sites, fave sites had turned into fave videos. Donnie never pictured he’d share his hidden folder with a stranger no less.

You nor Donnie could really say how the two of you had ended up one late night, with yet another abandoned game, talking about weird but satisfying cyber sex experiences. Some of your stories had been on the more comical side but a few had riled Donnie up to the point that he couldn’t ignore it. There was a shift in your voice as well, an allure that enticed him.

“Can I be honest?” You licked your suddenly dry lips. Donnie tensed momentarily, not sure what to expect. “Of course, please” You squeezed your thighs together, ‘please’ shouldn’t sound so good coming out of his mouth. You trace lazy circles on your thighs, something pushed you. “I’m kinda turned on by this...by talking to you about all this stuff” Maybe this was overstepping it, surely there was nothing wrong between two adult friends discussing such matters.

There was no need to tell Don that you had yearned to put a face to the name. But his hesitance spoke of insecurities and you could understand that.

“I am too...” Donnie looked up at what he called a ceiling in his home, the darkness of the sewer system and concrete. He’d never have a chance with you, it was a deeply rooted desire for intimacy and if virtually he could obtain it then so be it.

For all your boldness you felt a wave of bashfulness hit, crashed around your self confidence. Then Donnie steps up and you feel your toes curl in excitement. “Do you want to have a better experience?” Donnie runs both hands down his face, who was he to provide better experiences, he’d never even physically had a partner. The slow sigh that escapes your throat is comforting static in his headset. “Yeah, yeah I really do actually” You feel a smile etch itself on your lips.

“You can call me Donnie” It’s the closest to his name, and truthfully he really wants to hear you say it.

“Y/N,” You say to which Donnie makes an approving noise, he finds your name to be pretty. He rolls it in his mouth, testing the syllables, he can envision moaning it, well he wants to moan it if he can be completely honest. He wants to put a face to that name but he quickly pushes the thought out. There’s a pregnant pause where neither of you engage or make the first attempt. Not wanting to let this mood flee, Donnie swallows and closes his eyes. The hum of the abandoned game grounding him.

“Say my name again” It’s not a forceful demand, all the contrary he wants to hear the pitch in your voice when you say it, he wants to picture how each tone would variate depending on what he would do or say. “Donnie...” You smile to yourself when you say it, a hint of desire nestled in it and Don notices that and wants more of it.

There’s a lengthy sigh from your behalf, hands wandering up your thighs towards your chest. “I’d like to be there right now, would like to say it against your lips” Your bold confessions makes Donnie’s pulse quicken. He runs a ghosting touch up his plastron, the vision of a delicate hand doing it. The imaginary weight of you on his lap grinding down on his hard member. Donnie grips himself through his shorts a soft groan escaping his parted lips.

“Want you to kiss me” He swallows dryly, the approving noise you make pushing him forward. “Feel your lips all over, feel your mouth around me...” He lifts his hips, hand cupping himself and the small hitch in your breath is a sound he wants permanently recorded in his brain.

“God are you big? I bet you are” You kneed your breast, thumb and forefinger pinching the sensitive nubs until they’re perked. Donnie smirks to himself, freeing his aching member and looking down at himself. Mutant genes aside he feels somewhat shamefully proud of his cock, he wonders if you would like it... deeply buried within you. “Yeah I am, I think you can take it something tells me” You catch that teasing tone and the urge to swallow him whole and make him see stars is too much.

Your hand finds its way into your underwear, the warm wetness making you moan as you tease your middle finger between the lips to find your sensitive nub there. You bite back another lengthy moan but recover enough to breathlessly say, “oh fuck, Donnie” and that very sound makes him shiver. Never did he think he’d hear something so temptingly good, said with such sincerity. God the things he would do to smell your arousal right now, to taste the wetness. “Push two fingers in slowly” Donnie almost pleas, his voice shakey, hand pumping his cock at a steady pace. You do as he wishes, your gutted moan making more precum gather at the tip of his member.

“God-shit- you sound so good, wish you were riding my big dick right now” He wants to chastise himself for saying something like that, but he can’t deny that statement shakes something in you. He can hear it, the sound of your fingers mixed with a continuously rising string of moans. “Ohmygod” Words tumble out strewn together by your pleasure. “Donnie please, please fuck me harder” That alone makes him sit up and push forwards, one hand on his desk as the other works himself up in upward twisting strokes.

Donnie can’t erase the idea of slamming into you right here on his desk, maybe bent over, maybe you’ll let him cum on your face...

He pushes the idea away, he can’t envision your face now, not right now, not when your moans have you sounding this deliciously in need. You’re plunging two fingers into your core as your free hand runs firm circles around your clit. “Christ Donnie you sound so good baby” You moan, perspiration covering your body and Donnie can only groan his approval.

There’s a few minutes where it’s just the two of you lost in your own pleasure together. The constant chants of ‘fuck’ and ‘god’ and ‘yes’ mixed between the two of you. “Say it... again” Donnie groans out, hand quickening, briefly gathering some saliva and letting it fall on his hard member for better traction. “Don-oh, Donnie cum in me!” You’re so far gone, not caring what comes out of your mouth. The wet sounds in your head set and a vibration you figured could be static mixed with his groans was all you heard.

Donnie’s hips twitch, feels that request swim inside of his brain and the image of burying himself as deeply as you could take is all he needs. Just as your moans rise in crescendo he feels the first twitch and relief of his orgasm overtake him. He’s never felt it hit him this hard it knocks the wind out of him, each rope shooting out onto his hand and floor. In his minds eye though, it’s your suffocating heat taking it, milking him until he’s a shivering mess. It plays perfectly like a movie, he swears he can even feel your lips at his neck and arms holding him tight.

Your sounds are enough to keep him stroking, the way your voice pitched up with the sound of his name entwined, forever recorded in his brain. Your entire body tensed to the point of uncomfortable but it was impossible to stop abruptly when he sounded so lost in you. Your leg shakes and stiffens and it takes every inch of control to not become liquid and slip away into comforting bliss.

Eventually the sounds of heavy breathing slowly but surely settling are the only things the two of you can hear in your ears. There’s a mess, for you and for him. The understanding of things transpired crossing each of you two’s brains. Should you speak first? Should he?

“Um, you with me?” You settle, skin sweaty and mouth dry. There’s movement on the other line, a quiet cuss here and there and you smile. “Yeah, sorry just... made a mess” His voice has that sheepish tone and you can’t help but chuckle.

“Great thing about being a girl, we can conceal the evidence better” You stretch your aching legs enjoying each joint pop. “The female anatomy never seizes to amaze me, trust me” Donnie leans back in his chair, napkin cleaning any other soiled spot.

The silence was somewhat comfortable, the buzzing of good chemicals slowly settling.

“Was this okay?” He asked, hesitant tone in your ears.

“More than okay if you ask me” You kept it light not wanting him to feel odd or even ashamed.

You ventured on slowly, forming the question in your brain and bouncing it back and forward with a swallow. “If, and I mean if you want to, we can maybe do this from time to time” You worried a thumbnail between your teeth. Donnie’s gaze watching the idle screen of the abandoned game, he thought hard but briefly.

“I... yeah I would” He smiles to himself, even if the nagging thought that this might not last clutches the back of his mind. Why ruin a good thing? This was good more than good and you suggested to continue.

He doesn’t want to preoccupy his brain with scenarios, or if that dreaded ‘let’s meet’ sentence decides to cross your lips. If this is the inch of intimacy he gets to have and it’s with you, who he has grown so fond of, then he’s selfishly taking that inch and guarding it with his life.

Mutely you both remain on the line, no words spoken from the agreement, just simply enjoying that the two of you were present.

Even if not physically.

[babyjamiebarnes]

Build-A-Bear

Part Eleven

Featuring: Bucky x Stark!reader, dad!Tony, Steve, Sam, Peter, OC background characters

Warnings: language, sexual implications and references, blackmail

Summary: Bucky decides it’s time to come clean to Tony, consequences be damned. Steve has his own bombshell, of sorts.

Author’s Note: Hi. I’m a lazy piece of crud. I wanted to post this earlier but I suck. It’s kinda short too, at least compared to previous parts. There will probably only be a couple parts left, maybe 2-3? I’m posting these chapters as I write so tbd in length lol. And as always, feel free to buy me a coffee!

Tags: @amourmarvel @fangirlvoice @kennedywxlsh @devilswaldorf @what-the-hap-is-fuckning @alyispunk @fredweasleysbitchh @wearegroot @sunflowerbebe107 @prestigious-tea @brckenmemories @angelbabymed @charmedbysarge @cruelsummer-s

Series Masterlist

“Are you fucking insane?”

Everyone moved back to your apartment to avoid freaking poor Matt out any more. And now there was a standoff in your living room.

“It’s the only course of action that makes sense,” Bucky said in his defense.

“Buck, her dad will skin you alive if he sees those pictures,” Sam said. “Even if he’s somehow fine with it, she’ll lose her job!”

“If we don’t do this, that kid downstairs loses his family!” Bucky shouted back.

Sam groaned in exasperation and ran his hands over his face. “There’s gotta be a way to get the money.”

“There’s not,” you said defeatedly. All eyes turn to you. They initially looked to you for guidance, but your reliance on Bucky gave him the wheel on your own personal highway to hell. “Even if we do give this person the money, there’s only one person we can get that kind of cash from. Bucky’s right. We have to tell my dad.”

“[Y/N], maybe we should brainstorm some other options,” Peter nearly whispered, keeping his voice soft in the midst of the chaos. “I don’t want you to lose your job.”

“I’ll quit,” Bucky said suddenly. “I’ll quit being an Avenger and just do, fuck, private security? Or something.”

You could see the stress and fear and frustration written on his face. In a couple steps, you were standing in front of him and were able to cup his scruffy cheeks as you spoke.

“We’ll figure all that out later.” You perked up on your toes and gave him a short kiss. “But right now, we’re on a bit of a time crunch. I’d like to end this sooner rather than later so… let’s tell Tony.”

With Peter willingly sitting in the open trunk area of the Jeep, everyone was able to fit in one car back to the Tower. The tension inside the vehicle could’ve been cut, sliced, and diced with a knife. No one wanted to say anything, but no one really knew what to say anyway.

Steve was still silent. He didn’t say a word when you discussed telling Tony, but you could practically see the gears turning in his head. He had something to say, he just wasn’t saying it.

By the time you got to the Tower, you felt like you were gonna throw up. You held the envelope with the letter and media tight in your grasp, only letting go to open your door. The second your feet touched the garage floor, Bucky was right beside you.

He kept a firm grip on your hand, squeezing a little extra so you knew he was there with you and wasn’t going to let anything bad (worse) happen. Knowing he was willing to risk his entire livelihood for you made you love him even more. But you knew if it came down to it, you’d give up your position with the Avengers. Even with only two years spent at Stark Industries — just under a year spent with the Avengers (and nearly a year with Bucky) — you’d have no problem getting a new job with any other company. Bucky’s skills were put to the best use saving the world.

As the elevator approached the floor with your dad’s office, Sam finally broke the silence.

“Do you want us to be in there with you? I’m thinking it might be better if it’s just you two.”

You turned to see Peter wringing his hands, subconsciously agreeing with Sam — he clearly didn’t want to be in the room when all this went down but was putting on a brave face to be a good support system. Steve still stood silent with his arms crossed over his chest. Whatever was going on in that head was still festering.

“I think you’re right,” you agreed with Sam. “We’ll come find you once he gets the news.”

Your eyes met Bucky’s and even though he was trying to remain confident for you, there was fear behind those baby blues.

“We’ll be okay,” you said just loudly enough for him to hear.

When you reached the floor you’d been dreading, Sam, Steve, and Peter all turned to go to their designated rooms, partially because it had been a while since all of them had been back, partially to stay far away from the impending outburst.

You took a deep breath and started toward Tony’s office, just to be pulled back into Bucky’s arms. He held you tight, nuzzling his face in your hair and just holding you. You gripped the back of his shirt in response and just took a moment to appreciate the hard muscles of his chest and the weight of his arms around you.

“We’re gonna be okay,” you whispered.

Bucky let out a breath and kissed the crown of your head.

“I don’t want to lose you.”

This made you pull back and look up at him.

“Lose me? Bucky, I’m not going to let this affect us. No matter what happens, I’m not going anywhere. I love you too much, Bucky Bear.”

The affectionate nickname made him smile, even if it was just a little quirk of the lips.

“I love you too, Build-A-Bear.”

You let him hold you for a couple more minutes before leading him to your dad’s closed office door. When you slowly pushed the door open, you saw Tony sitting behind his desk with half a dozen holographic screens open in front of him.

“Hey pumpkin, what are you doing here?” he asked, barely taking his eyes off his work for a second.

“Um, I kind of really need to talk to you.” Despite being on close speaking terms with your dad — the kind where you felt comfortable swearing in front of him and joking with him, even sharing some of your secrets — you felt like this was crossing a line.

Of course it was. You were in bed with (his perception of) the enemy.

Tony could tell something was wrong by how timid you sounded. You were always loud and bubbly with him — a quality you definitely got from him. He swiped all of the screens closed and walked around the large desk to stand in front of you. He briefly met Bucky’s eyes as the super soldier stood close behind you.

“What’s going on?”

“You-you should probably sit down for this,” you said shakily. Tony took the seat nearest you instead of walking back behind his desk. “So… you know how I’ve been dating James for, like, 10, 11ish months now?”

“And I still haven’t met him?” Tony said with a quirked brow.

“Yeah.” You forced a chuckle. “Well, when we were going through mail this morning, I… I got this.”

You held up the envelope before sliding out the letter and handing it to your dad. His expression went from curious to furious in seconds as his eyes scanned the entire page.

“They sent pictures. Pictures taken through my apartment windows of me and James. Being… intimate.”

“James who?” your dad asked, still staring at the letter. When you didn’t reply, he looked you in the eye, his expression hard as he demanded, “[Y/N], what is James’s last name?”

You took a short breath, the most your anxiety-gripped lungs could handle, and avoided his gaze as you replied.

“Barnes.”

Tony shot up from his seat, his eyes moving from you to the man behind you. The familiar feeling of a metal hand on your lower back helped ease the anxiety coursing through you at your dad’s reaction. When Tony took a step toward Bucky, you countered with a panicked step between them, looking up at your dad and pleading.

“He didn’t know who I was.”

“Bullshit,” Tony spat. He and Bucky were glaring at each other over your head.

“He didn’t, I swear. He found out the same day everyone else did.”

The grinding of his teeth let you know he was seething. But trying to hold it together for now.

“Let me see the rest,” Tony said calmly, holding his hand out. You reluctantly dropped the photos and DVD into his open palm. Bucky didn’t want to get too affectionate, so he just rested his hand on your hip while Tony flipped through the photos.

Everything was back in order, so he went through the same sequence you did: pap photos, to apartment photos, to sex photos. You could tell when the pictures turned raunchy by the way Tony’s face contorted, tossing the photos down shortly after.

“Friday, play the disc,” he commanded. The video played against the only blank wall in the room, the audio of you and Bucky playing through the speakers.

“Dad, you really don’t need to —” you started, quickly stopped by a sharp glare from your father.

“What are you gonna do to me?”

“I’m gonna put a baby in you. I’m gonna cum inside this tight pussy until you can’t take it anymore.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Tony nearly growled. “Friday, shut it off.”

“I tried to tell you,” you murmured under breath, though not loud enough for him to hear. Bucky did hear it though, evident by the way he squeezed your hip.

Tony leaned forward against his desk, hanging his head in clear frustration. You knew better than to speak up while he contained his emotions, so you stood in silence with Bucky as your dad sighed heavily and spoke to himself under his breath.

“You just have something against me, don’t you?” Tony said accusingly to Bucky.

“Don’t do that,” you scoffed. “You don’t get to do that. If you’re going to get mad at anyone, it needs to be me.” You never got snappy with your dad, but everything weighing on your shoulders frayed your nerves and his attitude didn’t do anything to fix it. “I’m the one who knew full well what we were doing. I’m the one who had all the details. I’m the one who chose to risk everything for this from the start. So if you’re really that mad, take it out on me. Otherwise, help us. We’ll get to the semantics and firing and all that bullshit later. Right now, there are literal lives on the line.”

Tony was still fuming until he heard the last line.

“What do you means ‘lives on the line’?”

Bringing Steve, Sam, and Peter in helped all of you explain what happened, from the note you received to the first viewing of the photos and video to the confrontation with Matt, but not without Tony grilling all of them about when and how they found out about you and Bucky. Peter looked nervous about keeping a secret from his boss, but you knew your dad wouldn’t do anything too bad to the kid. Maybe kick him off a couple missions, but nothing noteworthy. Steve and Sam looked like they really couldn’t care less, especially since Sam was the last to know.

Despite still wanting to rip Bucky’s arm off and beat him with it, Tony remained civil for your sake, at least until all of this was sorted.

The first step was getting Peter, Happy, and Pepper to try to track down where the letters came from, which likely meant scanning for fingerprints (despite how many hands held it that day alone). The second step was for you, Bucky, Tony, Sam, and Steve to scope out your building and any neighboring buildings someone may have been scoping your apartment from. There was no one someone could’ve been dangling outside your windows without you noticing. The third step was meeting with your doorman again to try to piece together some answers.

You all agreed to keep local law enforcement out of it so the culprit didn’t catch on as quickly. Having a few Avengers and Tony Stark show up at Tony’s daughter’s apartment wasn’t out of the ordinary so you could still stay under wraps. There was no reason to draw attention to your place and possibly trigger the mystery person into accelerating their plans.

With your dad’s confidence in the plan, you gradually grew more and more optimistic about the plan. If all else failed, Tony would get the two million and continue tracking the fucker down. It wouldn’t be hard to sneak a tracker into the cash and watch where it goes once it’s out of your hands. That’s when you could bring in local law enforcement.

It felt like things were finally going your way.

As you and your crew headed downstairs to drive back to your place, Steve grabbed your arm and tugged you to the side.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” he asked quietly.

You nodded and followed him down the hall; Bucky was busy talking to Sam and Tony was on the phone briefing Rhodey so he could stand guard outside your doorman’s place for a while, giving you the perfect opportunity to step away for a minute. When Steve pulled you into a side room, you finally spoke up.

“What’s up? Is everything okay?”

Steve crossed his arms and huffed. That signature frown of his softened when he met your concerned gaze.

“I know we’re not necessarily close, but I consider you a friend. You know that, right?”

“I consider you a friend too,” you said with a nod.

“What I’m about to say... I need you to keep it between us. Don’t tell Bucky or Sam or Peter or your dad. Just between us, at least for now. Okay?”

“O-okay...? You’re making me nervous, Steve,” you admitted. “What’s going on?”

“I think I know who’s blackmailing you.”

[mikiib]

The Magnus Archives: ALIEN AU (Part 1)

     So in short I had come up with an AU where the cast of TMA characters are set in the universe of ALIEN. They’re both my FAVORITE pieces of horror media I’ve consumed and so my brain figured- WHY NOT? So I have 13 pages and scenes in my brain that would take place in this AU. If this or the following posts that I’ll make inspire anyone I would LOVE to see what you come up with! In short this story has a mostly good ending.    

 Here’s a list of the things that ARE and AREN’T in this universe. 

- 14 Fears aren’t in this world. It’s fully immersed in the universe of the movie ALIEN/ALIENS. - The xenomorphs however have more powers- they can shape shift into anyone they ‘kill’. So if the alien hatches from the host but somehow the host survives then that creature can pretend to be that person. If they kill someone they can pretend to be them.  They still however take the main biological forms of the hosts they came from in regular form. - Queens are born when there is no other queen in near vicinity detected by the unhatched egg.  - The hatching of an egg takes a lot longer after implantation rather than a few hours like the original movie.  - The aliens acidic blood is still STRONG but not nearly as much. I nerfed that to a slower burn- if left on the surface for more than a few minutes it can still be JUST AS BAD as the movies version. - Cyborgs are a thing in this world- who is and isn’t a cyborg is up in the air- however you’ll find out if you follow the posts. - The aliens are weak to extreme heat and extreme cold. The younger they are the more vulnerable to both. Fire extinguishers and flamethrowers will be a big weapon in both firepower and as a melee weapons. - The technology is slightly more up to date compared to ALIEN’s 80′s tech, as there are in short video calls that can be held. -Mother (MU-TH-UR 4900) is the ships computer mainframe, and can connect directly to Elias with his acceptance of the transmission. Mother also monitors the crew and their vitals when they are under cyosleep. - They can quit. No bindings to ‘The Eye’ here. 

ARTIFACT RETRIEVAL VEHICLE: THE COEUS CREW: SEVEN

Captain and Scrivener (Archivist): Jonathan Sims (Age: 31)

  Executive Officer: Sasha James (Age: 35)

  Warrant Officer: Georgie Barker  (Age: 29)

  Navigator: Melanie King (Age: 27)

  Engineers: Tim Stocker (Age 33) & Martin Blackwood (Age: 27)

  Science Officer: Nikola Orsinov (Age: 30)

CARGO: OTHER WORLDLY ARTIFACTS UNDER STUDY COURSE: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MOON BASE: THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES 

-Everyone shares the role of being a Scribal (Archival) Assistants to Jon- no exceptions.  -The Magnus Archives is a space station on the Moon orbiting Earth.  -The cargo they carry is found from the ships that collect samples from uninhabited planets as well as statements from those who report to them their findings to investigate.  -The Admiral is the ships designated therapy cat to help the crew cope with isolation brought on by Georgie. -Elias Bouchard is the head of The Magnus Archives.

STORYLINE: 

     The story starts after they’ve collected the last of the artifacts required on the list to retrieve. They’ve been in cryosleep for over 6 months and only need 3 more months of it till they’d arrive to their destination. Everyone wakes up on their own time, Georgie first, along with Melanie and Martin. Followed by Tim, Sasha, Jon, and Nikola, they gather at the dining table of the living quarters. Martin makes everyone their preferred meals, seemingly the most nervous. This has been Martins first time aboard THE COEUS, and his banter with Sasha and Tim prove while not the best at his job there, he makes a mean meal out of the ‘rubbish space food’ provided. Melanie comes back after taking a look at their current location frowning, letting the others know they aren’t even close to Earth yet- not even in their solar system anymore. In surprise they turn to Jon, who himself has only been Captain on ship for only just before this crew was assigned to him. He gets up to check out whats going on, many of the others follow him, much to his disgruntlement as they basically fill the small room. Mother has intercepted a transmission of unknown origins and under contract of their jobs they must check it out. Curious to know more about their new course Jon calls Elias, who informs them it will be a 2 week set back on their schedules course. Jons not exactly excited about this but Tim’s quite happy to be informed it does give them quite a large bonus since it does seem confirmed of unknown (non-human) origins. 

     Once they arrive to their destination, Melanie sets the ship into motion for landing. She reads off all planet signs to the crew on. It’s a nearly isolated dwarf planet of 600 kilometers in diameter (372.823 miles). The surface on landing will be 23 degrees celsius- much warmer than expected but it does seem to be orbiting a sun fairly closely. They prepare for landing and Martin and Tim are set to get the ship in position. Martin and Tim talk together as they prep and make sure the landing legs will be fine against the surface of the planet. While they do so Sasha pops in announcing she gets to go with Jon and Melanie to investigate the source of the spooky transmission on foot. Meaning also she gets a bigger cut in the bonus than them. Tim and Sasha razz at each other but stop when sparks are spat in Martins face for wiring something wrong. He curses and Sasha comes over to help see what's wrong, pulling on gloves. She laughs a bit and gently teases him to choose a different degree to lie about next time he wants a new job as she fixes the wiring for him. Martin shushes her, claiming he didn’t expect them not to do background checks, nor did he expect to be given a position on one of the biggest damned cargo retrieval ships known. While he worked originally as a simple warehouse organizer at The Magnus Archives sister base on earth he had needed cash to help support himself after his Mother had moved out. Tim wraps an arm around Martin, claiming he’ll shield Martin from Jons prying eyes if anything goes wrong on this detour. They laugh a bit before the radio goes off from Jons office room. He’s complaining about the lights not turning on in there and would be thrilled if someone did their job correctly when fixing it before he gets back on the ship. Tim radios him that they’re on it before they tease Martin more on his obvious crush on Jon before Sasha is then called up to suit up. 

     Georgie is helping the 3 suit up properly, making sure their heart monitors are secure and attached to their neck to get an accurate pulse. Jon seems to be struggling most with the suit up, this unlike the other two, being his first time in a suit outside of the initial training. Sasha after having her camera feed double checked helps Jon out. And while Jon doesn’t say anything about it, it’s obvious Sasha should’ve gotten the job as Captain. Melanie the entire time rattling on about how excited she is to document her findings of a foreign transmission. 

     They land with ease, nothing going wrong as the planet, while rocky with a constant rain, is also somewhat flat. They make their way to the source of the transmission. Tim and the others are now watching from the ship- cameras live feed and audio coming to them as Georgie talks with Melanie about all the kind of things they could find on the ship to study. Nikola reminds everyone that without the items and everyone following the procedures for quarantine, no one is touching the items that may be brought back. The conversation dies out into aww when they see the space ship the signal is coming from appear on camera. Melanie is excited as Sasha and Jon start to look for a way in. Jon reminds them to stay close to him at all times as they enter the ship- its obvious he’d rather none of them go in here due to how degraded the place looks. Everything seems to have been heavily melted in random patches, but the ship itself seems to be made of a biological element of some sort- comparing it to a ribcage almost as they walk through it.

     As they traverse the ship they stumble across multiple dead alien bodies. They aren’t fresh but they also don’t look years old. Melanie goes to take a closer look at them but Jon quickly pulls her back from them, yelling about how obviously unsafe it is as well as the fact that she just broke formation rushing off into a different room. They both get into an argument about what should be done with the bodies, and how far their investigations should go. At this point the feed is hardly coming through via camera, but the audio makes it back to the the ship roughly. Sasha goes on without them as she’s getting closer to decode the transmission. it’s a warning of sorts is what she can gather. Looking at the bodies it may have been an illness of some type, each of them dead from some type of acid but she finds one with an open chest- like an explosion. she gets closer to one, that seems to shift out of the corner of her eye. She tries to let the others know but she realizes that they can’t hear her over their arguing, and she’s almost certain she’s lost on the foreign ship. So instead she brings herself closer to the alien body before something crashes behind her and she stumbles back, tripping over something, and screams as she bashes her head on the back of her helmet. She gets up and looks around and sees the shadow of the creature run off and she chases after it.

     That got the attention of the others as not only with the scream but Tim tells them her heart rate is spiking drastically. Jon and Melanie cry out for Sasha and she stops after meeting a dead end. She sighs and tells them she’s fine, she just fell and admittedly was just chasing after shadows. She turns around however and suddenly her heart monitor on the ship starts to read dead.  PART 2 

[randomdcfangirl]

The Story of The Red Hood

(A/N): This is something I wrote a long time ago but didn't post because I felt like it was too unfactual. This is my version of Jason's backstory.

Jason telling his story on BuzzFeed Unsolved channel anonymously, not even the staff knew who he was. It was just audio and they put a few diagrams in the actual video to make it better.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

"I'm The Red Hood and this is my story. I lived in Crime Alley which was formally known as Park Row in downtown Gotham. It's the hood or ghetto whatever you call it, there was a lot of projects around there, we lived in some but they have since been knocked down. My earliest memories are of my mom and dad arguing, a lot of times it would end in physical violence against me and my mom. My dad was a piece of shit to keep it short. He was a drug dealer and alcoholic, my mom ended up getting addicted to what he sold. I don't know what type because I was 4 when I noticed she was changing. It was pills of some sort.

So it was a repeat of yelling, beatings, going hungry and mom being high for about 2 years. One thing is my dad was a drug dealer but he wasn't a good one. It ended when my father got arrested and sentenced for a very long time. I was 6 and all I knew was that he was gone and that maybe things would get better, but they didn't. My mom didn't have a job and I was basically keeping us both alive at the age of 6. I knew how the hood worked, people out there were the only people I'd ever known. So I somehow kept us alive for another year and a half. Until one day I came home from school because I was in school at this time, can't tell you how I got there. But I called out for my mom and she didn't answer, I assumed she was high again so I searched the apartment and found her on the bathroom floor. She OD'd while I was at school, she was cold so she'd been there for awhile. So I called the ambulance and gave them the address then hung up.

I already knew I didn't want to be in the system or an orphanage so I grabbed some stuff in a little backpack and left. I'd rather be a street kid then in the corrupt system. I was a smart kid, I knew not to get mixed up in gangs and drugs. I was about to turn 8 when I first got on the streets. It was rough, I was already small and malnourished because we were broke and didn't eat often. After the first few months of being on the streets I had to prepare for winter and Gotham winter's are no joke. But I found out my dad was killed in prison, I wasn't upset, he deserved it after everything he'd done to people including me and my mom. But that meant I was the last of my family, I didn't know my Grandparents and I'm pretty sure my parents didn't have siblings so I had nobody left.

So I was on the streets for just over 2 years. The streets were probably better then my home with my mom and dad to be completely honest. One night I was in an alley and I saw the batmobile, I saw his wheels and in my head I was literally like "those will go for a lotta money down at the shop". So I started taking the wheels off, I got one off and was going to go for the other one but there was a deep voice behind me that said "what are you doing?". I turned and Batman was behind me and in my 10 year old brain I thought I was dead because he looked scary. I grabbed the tire iron I had and hit him in the gut to try and get away but it didn't work. I tried to apologise but he didn't let me and just asked a question "are you hungry?" Is what he asked me. I nodded and he took me to get burgers and we ate at a random place. He gave me a place to stay and it was scary at first because I didn't think I could trust him. I found out who he was, obviously I can't tell you that information, and I got even more skeptical about him. But he ended up adopting me and those first 3 and a half years were amazing.

I became the second Robin at age 12, I was trained by him and he was the father I never had. I truly considered him my dad, still do but don't tell him that. His somewhat dad was there too and he is like a Grandfather to me, he is the only other person in that family I will admit I love with all my heart. We call him Agent A. He's awesome. But everything went kinda bad when I turned 14 and was starting to see more of the shitty things people do. I got to reckless and if anyone knows that Batman or any other hero, unless they're like me, they have a strict no killing rule. So it got close many times with me, Batman and I started arguing a lot. It drove our relationship apart and he benched me from being Robin. So I wasn't allowed to patrol or do missions anymore because I was getting to reckless.

I didn't have anything to do and I don't exactly remember how I found this out but at 15 I found out my mom was alive and in Ethiopia. My mom who was dead wasn't my actual mom, she was just my dad's wife but she took care of me when she could. Before all the drugs, I mean I don't remember much but I have a few memories of her being a mom to me. So it was a complete shock to find out that my mom wasn't really my mom and that my real mom was in Ethiopia. So I told Bats and he said he knew so we got into another fight. So I did probably the stupidest thing I've ever done. I decided I would go to Ethiopia by myself so I did. How I got there and what I did when I got there isn't important.

I found my mom and went to her. It was good for a few hours then the Joker showed up. I was familiar with the Joker because I was Robin, I knew how crazy he was. So I was trying to protect my mom but she stabbed me in the back like a lot of people have. She was working with Joker and basically lead me to him. This is where my story gets really complicated. We both ended up tied up in a warehouse with him beating us with a crowbar. Mostly me because he wanted to teach Batman a lesson. I was going through this for months, I was in the middle of a warehouse being beaten to death with my mom by a deranged clown with a crowbar. He killed my mom at some point then he left the warehouse one day because he knew Batman was close. He told me to tell Batman 'hi' but he knew I wasn't going to make it to then. I tried to get the door open but he locked it on his way out and as I leaned up against it I saw the bomb. I knew I wasn't gonna make it and I didn't.

I know that's very confusing and the only way you'll understand is if you listen. The bomb went off and it burned for a few seconds but then it was cold and peaceful. You're at peace and it's nice, especially if you had such a life as I had. But it didn't last long to me, it lasted for what felt like a few minutes before I woke up underground. I was dead for 6 months, no pulse, no heart beat, I had an autopsy, I still have the scar. I woke up in my coffin at 16, I was calling for Batman but by his real name. I realized no one was coming and I freaked out and clawed my way out of the coffin. I wasn't all the way there, I was dead for 6 months so I had a good bit of brain damage and don't remember much from after I dug myself out of the coffin except that I broke a couple fingers, it ripped my nails out and I was bleeding all over my hands. After that I somehow ended up with a whole organization of assassin's. This woman who is very significant in a few of the bats lives was apart of it and was trying to nurse me back to health but it wasn't working.

The amount of brain damage I had was to much to fix so she threw me in something called the Lazarus pit. It's basically a fountain of youth except it can bring people back to life as well. Her father who was the leader of the assassin's discovered it and kept it secret. Most of them are destroyed now but I think there's one. The pit was painful, I remember that, it feels like you're burning alive and it does for a few minutes after you get out. Then you're extremely disoriented and crazy full of rage and anger. I still have some of that running through me but it's a lot better than the first few years. At this point in my story I'm 17, I started training with the league and the woman to get my memories back because most of those were still blank. I still have a few gaps in my memory but most of it is from before my dip in the pit.

In this training I was learning about Batman and Nightwing who was the first Robin and is kinda my older brother. We weren't close when I was Robin because him and Batman weren't on great terms so we didn't hangout much. I regained my memory at some point then I was told Bruce had another Robin, who is now currently Red Robin, and the Lazarus made me angry about it. I felt replaced but what made it worse was the fact that Joker was still alive. I was never mad at Batman or blaimed him for my death, the reason I was so angry was because after everything Joker put me through he was still alive. I felt worthless and it was even worse because I felt replaced as well.

I ended up leaving the assassin's base a month or so later. I was set on tormenting Batman, I was going to try and kill him, Nightwing and Robin. It was definitely the anger because I'd never put a kid in a situation I put Robin in now. I got to Gotham and started killing the bad people, like rapists, murderers, drug dealers, abusers, pimps, just anyone making another person's life a living hell. The reason I started doing it was because prison wasn't working for them. The drug dealers not as much as everyone else but I still killed some of them. I never killed the innocent, that's something I never did or ever will. So eventually I got Batman's attention and it took a couple months for him to figure out it was me. I wanted it to take longer but I made the mistake of saying his name. So because no one really knew it at the time it made things make sense but it didn't at the same time, because in their head I was dead.

So about a week later we ended up in another fight but he was holding back because he figured out I came back to life. But I had this whole plan to have him choose between me and Joker. Unfortunately it fell through and he didn't choose either of us, we were in and apartment building in a random apartment. I had Joker and we had a talk I guess you could say. More of me being angry and having a few choice words to say to him then anything else. I gave him choices but he didn't really choose. There was a bomb and it had like 10 seconds left and I shot at him. He had his back turned but he's Batman so he dodged it, with a few seconds left he grabbed me and Joker and jumps out the window so we're not caught in the blast. It was still kinda close but I left before he had a chance to register.

Let's just say I wasn't okay after that. I have PTSD, Anxiety and Depression from what Joker did to me so it was hard to except that I didn't mean anything more to Batman then Joker did. So I was a wreck, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, all I did was drink, I was about to turn 19 and definitely should not have been drinking. I became a bit of an alcoholic just like my dad and I hated that. I eventually got a grip on myself even though it was only a little. I left Gotham because I wasn't in the right state of mind to stay there. I traveled all over the place and in my travels I ran into Arsenal and we became best friends. Still are. We started working together as Red Hood and Arsenal, we were broke as hell. Eventually we ran into Starfire and we kinda just decided we'd become a team after hanging around each other a lot. Then The Outlaws was formed.

That was probably some of the best and worst years in my life. Best because I had those 2 by my side and they are still my best friends. Worst because my mental health was at an all time low. I couldn't sleep, I was having very bad PTSD episodes, my Anxiety was through the roof, so was my Depression. Arsenal had his own problems, so did Starfire and all we had was each other to lean on and it was all we could ask for. Just people who cared and understood. We did missions pretty often as a group and we would get paid by people who requested the jobs but it wasn't much. We've slept in the worst places, most of the time not sleeping at all. But our own lives kinda pulled us away from each other. Starfire went off world back to her planet, Arsenal and I stock together for awhile until he went back to Star and I went back to Gotham. I was in a better place, wasn't killing as much, the Lazarus through my system calmed down a lot. It still effects me but no where near as bad.

I was laying low in Gotham but the Bats found out. It was only 4 of them at that point, Batman, Nightwing, Robin 3 and Agent A. It was all good until I tried to kill the Joker. It was in another not so good state of mind but I wasn't able to kill him because the bats came. I was planning to kill him the same way he killed me, beat him with a crowbar and blow him up. I was 22 at that time. They got me away from Joker and took him into custody and I left to one of my safehouses. We eventually crossed paths again but it was awhile before I could actually talk to them again. So me and Nightwing ran into each other we ended up having a talk and we kinda made amends. It wasn't anything crazy. It took a long time for us to be okay with each other again. But eventually I was able to call them family again and I visit the house Batman lives in to see them.

But as time went on we added new people, we became a bigger family as you can see. Robin became Red Robin, then the current Robin, then Orphan, Spoiler, Batwoman, Signal, Bluebird and Bluebird's brother who isn't a Vigilante. I'm pretty much cool with everyone, no one I really have a problem with except Batman because we've been through so much together. I'm 25 now and things are better, I still have my struggles and family issues but that's my family. As much as I pretend to not care they're my family and I love 'em. So this was a less detailed version of my story and look how long it is. But anyway I don't really know why I did this but I did so bye I guess.

Oh and before you ask I am not the rapper NF. I actually really like and relate to his music because we've been through similar things but I'm not him. I know someone is going to ask that question."

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The NF joke was just that a joke, don't come for me I love him lol.

[iatasbcl]

Shades of Cool

Pairing: RK900 x Reader 

A/N: hey! I’m so sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I just got done with my finals so I can finally write again (woo). That being said, I don't feel like this is good enough so there is that. Also, this was heavily inspired by LDR’s ‘shades of cool’ MV.. sooo ya, maybe listen to that

Warnings: Character death, hallucinations, implied suicide, grief, IDK this is just sad

2 0 4 8

Richard closed his eyes and leaned against his chair. He tried to tune you out, to forget how sweet your voice sounded when you let out a laugh, to ignore how beautiful you looked as you swayed from side to side, he tried to push you out his mind. The logical part of him wanted you out while his consciousness wanted you to preserve you, or rather what’s left of you.

It was pathetic, he knew it. He knew you and him were not the same, that his thirium pump was not the same as your beating heart. He still loved you as his one and only, he had found what humans usually searched for years and years in a matter of a few months into his own life.

To him, you were perfect.

Can you promise me something, Richie?

Anything, my love.

He found you and you found him in the midst of the chaos of your daily lives. It wasn’t easy for him to understand his attachment to you first. But he grew to love it, to love you. Letting down the walls that were designed for him was a difficult task, but he broke through them one by one, only for you.

Life was not fair, not to him anyway. You were human while he was an android and both you knew what that would mean. He would outlive you at some point, he would continue to live while you wouldn’t.

Promise me that you will move on. That you will be happy without me, please.

He couldn’t. Not with the way the universe took you from him so soon. He tried; he truly did try to find happiness again because he promised he would. No lover could make him as happy as you did, they couldn’t make him smile just at the thought of them. Richard’s friends, family, and even colleagues all tried to help him move on and let go of you.

And he did, for a while. It hurt to live without the one person he wanted to share his days with, but he did, nonetheless. The world wasn’t done toying with him though.

He didn’t know what happened exactly. It must have been a malfunction in his memory, optical units, and audio processors. He started seeing you everywhere despite not accessing his memory. His memories of you started blending into his reality. You were dancing in your living room again, you were working next to his desk, you were reading quietly in the park, you were everywhere he went.

He remembered how he felt the first time it happened. He had headed home after a long night, mentally exhausted and ready to go into standby mode. He opened the door to yo- his apartment and he swore his thirium pump stopped when he noticed a shadowy figure on his sofa. Its silhouette was awfully similar to yours as the person continued to watch tv – which was turned off.

He called your name in a breathy whisper, but you didn’t respond at all. His legs rushed to you, could it be you? Were you somehow brought back? No. It wasn’t possible.

His logical thinking was right, it was the fragment of you. He discovered that when his hand passed right through your figure. His mind projecting you onto his life was the last thing he needed, or so he thought.

He could’ve had the issue fixed if he wanted to; he almost did.

In a sense, he had you in his life again. Sometimes you’d say the sweetest things to him, you’d let out that adorable laugh and he was hearing your voice again. He missed it, looking at you through his memories wasn’t enough before and now you were here, with him. He couldn’t hold you and truly talk to you, but the way memories of you came to life and haunted him in the best way possible was enough.

Others started to notice his increasingly strange behavior. He was brightening up of course, but he had distanced himself from others at the same time, only relishing in you.

+

“Richard, is it alright if I talked to you about something in private?” Connor had asked him on a quiet Monday. Richard looked up from his terminal for a second and noticed the concerned look on his counterpart’s face. He looked backed down and continued his work “I’d rather not.”

“Richard.” Came Connor’s stern voice, “Some of your biocomponents are malfunctioning. They have been that way for a while –”

Richard cut him off by slamming his hands against the table, “I said I don’t wish to talk. Leave me be, Connor.” Connor looked at him for a second, everyone was staring too as the loud sound had gotten their attention.

“Richard…” the man sighed. “Just leave me be. Please.”

+

Nines, are you sure you want to do this?

Yes. He was sure, he was so sure of his own calculations and abilities that he failed to consider any unpredictable variables. The criminal that shot you down from afar, how long the ambulance took to get to you and how he couldn’t stop you from bleeding out were all things that should not have happened. You weren’t supposed to take that bullet, he was.

He didn’t know why he even stood where you and he once were. This wasn’t a memory he was fond of and yet he came to this dark corner behind the building where your last bust occurred. He craved reliving as many memories of yours as he could.

+

You emerged once again as soon as his eyes fluttered shut. this time you laid next to him, your hands running through his hair or rather disappearing when you try to get in contact with him.

I love you. I love you so much it hurts. I was so scared.

Oh. It was a distinct memory that he had buried in the furthest parts of his head. You two had laid next to each other after a practically rough night where a suspect almost killed him. He would have, had not been for you. Both of you just laid next to each other. He remembered feeling numb while you trembled and quivered against him. It was part of your jobs and yet there you were, almost crying because you thought you had lost him.

You were just his partner; you shouldn’t have been so concerned about the well-being of an android. Or so he thought back then. Your relationship only progressed after that.

He missed you.

+

Why did you let me die, Richie?

Richard’s eyes snapped open. Your sweet voice was no longer that, instead it held a tone of animosity to it. You were angry. The trembling figure stood in front of him with their lips tight and expression sour. It was a look you had never given him before. How were you saying things you’d never said before?

I didn’t want to die. I was so scared. I just wanted to go home.

“I… I didn’t want you to die –” he began, wondering if this was what hell felt like.

You did. You took everything from. You killed me. You were supposed to be the perfect machine, but you couldn’t even save me.

The android stood still. You were right, this was his fault. It was because he was not efficient enough, it was because he made the wrong predictions, it was because he…

He was worthless.

Richie. Let’s go home.

He didn’t notice you wrapping yourself around him. He didn’t notice you backing off and giving him something – a gun. Come to me, baby. To you. He would go back to you. That is exactly what he wanted.  To go where you were. He stared at the gun.

He would always go back to you.

[hydrus]

Version 422

windows

zip

exe

macOS

app

linux

tar.gz

🎉🎉 It was hydrus's birthday this week! 🎉🎉

I had a great week. I mostly fixed bugs and improved quality of life.

tags

It looks like when I optimised tag autocomplete around v419, I accidentally broke the advanced 'character:*'-style lookups (which you can enable under tags->manage tag display and search. I regret this is not the first time these clever queries have been broken by accident. I have fixed them this week and added several sets of unit tests to ensure I do not repeat this mistake.

These expansive searches should also work faster, cancel faster, and there are a few new neat cache optimisations to check when an expensive search's results for 'char' or 'character:' can quickly provide results for a later 'character:samus'. Overall, these queries should be a bit better all around. Let me know if you have any more trouble.

The single-tag right-click menu now always shows sibling and parent data, and for all services. Each service stacks siblings/parents into tall submenus, but the tall menu feels better to me than nested, so we'll see how that works out IRL. You can click any sibling or parent to copy to clipboard, so I have retired the 'copy' menu's older and simpler 'siblings' submenu.

misc

Some websites have a 'redirect' optimisation where if a gallery page has only one file, it moves you straight to the post page for that file. This has been a problem for hydrus for some time, and particularly affected users who were doing md5: queries on certain sites, but I believe the downloader engine can now handle it correctly, forwarding the redirect URL to the file queue. This is working on some slightly shakey tech that I want to improve more in future, but let me know how you get on with it.

The UPnPc executables (miniupnp, here https://miniupnp.tuxfamily.org/) are no longer bundled in the 'bin' directory. These files were a common cause of anti-virus false positives every few months, and are only used by a few advanced users to set up servers and hit network->data->manage upnp, so I have decided that new users will have to install it themselves going forward. Trying to perform a UPnP operation when the exe cannot be found now gives a popup message talking about the situation and pointing to the new readme in the bin directory.

After working with a user, it seems that some clients may not have certain indices that speed up sibling and parent lookups. I am not totally sure if this was due to hard drive damage or broken update logic, but the database now looks for and heals this problem on every boot.

parsing (advanced)

String converters can now encode or decode by 'unicode escape characters' ('\u0394'-to-'Δ') and 'html entities' ('&'-to-'&'). Also, when you tell a json formula to fetch 'json' rather than 'string', it no longer escapes unicode.

The hydrus downloader system no longer needs the borked 'bytes' decode for a 'file hash' content parser! These content parsers now have a 'hex'/'base64' dropdown in their UI, and you just deliver that string. This ugly situation was a legacy artifact of python2, now finally cleared up. Existing string converters now treat 'hex' or 'base64' decode steps as a no-op, and existing 'file hash' content parsers should update correctly to 'hex' or 'base64' based on what their string converters were doing previously. The help is updated to reflect this. hex/base64 encodes are still in as they are used for file lookup script hash initialisation, but they will likely get similar treatment in future.

birthday

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

On December 14th, 2011, the first non-experimental beta of hydrus was released. This week marks nine years. It has been a lot of work and a lot of fun.

Looking back on 2020, we converted a regularly buggy and crashy new Qt build to something much faster and nicer than we ever had with wx. Along with that came mpv and smooth video and finally audio playing out of the client. The PTR grew to a billion mappings(!), and with that came many rounds of database optimisation, speeding up many complicated tag and file searches. You can now save and load those searches, and most recently, search predicates are now editable in-place. Siblings and parents were updated to completely undoable virtual systems, resulting in much faster boot time and thumbnail load and greatly improved tag relationship logic. Subscriptions were broken into smaller objects, meaning they load and edit much faster, and several CPU-heavy routines no longer interrupt or judder browsing. And the Client API expanded to allow browsing applications and easier login solutions for difficult sites.

There are still a couple thousand things I would like to do, so I hope to keep going into 2021. I deeply appreciate the feedback, help, and support over the years. Thank you!

If you would like to further support my work and are in a position to do so, my simple no-reward Patreon is here: https://www.patreon.com/hydrus_dev

full list

advanced tags:

fixed the search code for various 'total' autocomplete searches like '*' and 'namespace:*', which were broken around v419's optimised regular tag lookups. these search types also have a round of their own search optimisations and improved cancel latency. I am sorry for the trouble here

expanded the database autocomplete fetch unit tests to handle these total lookups so I do not accidentally kill them due to typo/ignorance again

updated the autocomplete result cache object to consult a search's advanced search options (as under _tags->manage tag display and search_) to test whether a search cache for 'char' or 'character:' is able to serve results for a later 'character:samus' input

optimised file and tag search code for cases where someone might somehow sneak an unoptimised raw '*:subtag' or 'namespace:*' search text in

updated and expanded the autocomplete result cache unit tests to handle the new tested options and the various 'total' tests, so they aren't disabled by accident again

cancelling a autocomplete query with a gigantic number of results should now cancel much quicker when you have a lot of siblings

the single-tag right-click menu now shows siblings and parents info for every service, and will work on taglists in the 'all known tags' domain. clicking on any item will copy it to clipboard. this might result in megatall submenus, but we'll see. tall seems easier to use than nested per-service for now

the more primitive 'siblings' submenu on the taglist 'copy' right-click menu is now removed

right-click should no longer raise an error on esoteric taglists (such as tag filters and namespace colours). you might get some funky copy strings, which is sort of fun too

the copy string for the special namespace predicate ('namespace:*anything*') is now 'namespace:*', making it easier to copy/paste this across pages

.

misc:

the thumbnail right-click 'copy/open known urls by url class' commands now exclude those urls that match a more specific url class (e.g. /post/123456 vs /post/123456/image.jpg)

miniupnpc is no longer bundled in the official builds. this executable is only used by a few advanced users and was a regular cause of anti-virus false positives, so I have decided new users will have to install it manually going forward.

the client now looks for miniupnpc in more places, including the system path. when missing, its error popups have better explanation, pointing users to a new readme in the bin directory

UPnP errors now have more explanation for 'No IGD UPnP Device' errortext

the database's boot-repair function now ensures indices are created for: non-sha256 hashes, sibling and parent lookups, storage tag cache, and display tag cache. some users may be missing indices here for unknown update logic or hard drive damage reasons, and this should speed them right back up. the boot-repair function now broadcasts 'checking database for faults' to the splash, which you will see if it needs some time to work

the duplicates page once again correctly updates the potential pairs count in the 'filter' tab when potential search finishes or filtering finishes

added the --boot_debug launch switch, which for now prints additional splash screen texts to the log

the global pixmaps object is no longer initialised in client model boot, but now on first request

fixed type of --db_synchronous_override launch parameter, which was throwing type errors

updated the client file readwrite lock logic and brushed up its unit tests

improved the error when the client database is asked for the id of an invalid tag that collapses to zero characters

the qss stylesheet directory is now mapped to the static dir in a way that will follow static directory redirects

.

downloaders and parsing (advanced):

started on better network redirection tech. if a post or gallery URL is 3XX redirected, hydrus now recognises this, and if the redirected url is the same type and parseable, the new url and parser are swapped in. if a gallery url is redirected to a non-gallery url, it will create a new file import object for that URL and say so in its gallery log note. this tentatively solves the 'booru redirects one-file gallery pages to post url' problem, but the whole thing is held together by prayer. I now have a plan to rejigger my pipelines to deal with this situation better, ultimately I will likely expose and log all redirects so we can always see better what is going on behind the scenes

added 'unicode escape characters' and 'html entities' string converter encode/decode types. the former does '\u0394'-to-'Δ', and the latter does '&'-to-'&'

improved my string converter unit tests and added the above to them

in the parsing system, decoding from 'hex' or 'base64' is no longer needed for a 'file hash' content type. these string conversions are now no-ops and can be deleted. they converted to a non-string type, an artifact of the old way python 2 used to handle unicode, and were a sore thumb for a long time in the python 3 parsing system. 'file hash' content types now have a 'hex'/'base64' dropdown, and do decoding to raw bytes at a layer above string parsing. on update, existing file hash content parsers will default to hex and attempt to figure out if they were a base64 (however if the hex fails, base64 will be attempted as well anyway, so it is not critically important here if this update detection is imperfect). the 'hex' and 'base64' _encode_ types remain as they are still used in file lookup script hash initialisation, but they will likely be replaced similarly in future. hex or base64 conversion will return in a purely string-based form as technically needed in future

updated the make-a-downloader help and some screenshots regarding the new hash decoding

when the json parsing formula is told to get the 'json' of a parsed node, this no longer encodes unicode with escape characters (\u0394 etc...)

duplicating or importing nested gallery url generators now refreshes all internal reference ids, which should reduce the liklihood of accidentally linking with related but differently named existing GUGs

importing GUGs or NGUGs through Lain easy import does the same, ensuring the new objects 'seem' fresh to a client and should not incorrectly link up with renamed versions of related NGUGs or GUGs

added unit tests for hex and base64 string converter encoding

next week

Last week of the year. I could not find time to do the network updates I wanted to this week, so that would be nice. Otherwise I will try and clean and fix little things before my week off over Christmas. The 'big thing to work on next' poll will go up next week with the 423 release posts.

[calliecat93]

Top 5 Things I Disliked About Red vs Blue: Season 2

When I decided to do this series, I knew it was gonna be hard to do lists for Blood Gulch. Not because I can’t think of anything I like or dislike specifically, but as I said before, BGC is mainly comedic driven. The worst I can say is ‘this isn’t funny’ and critique the earlier production standards. Which that’s kinda mean since they were working with what they had and trying to learn to do the show. As such, I have to reach on Dislikes for these and S2 was a tough one in that regard. I managed to come up with five, but GOD I had to stretch haaaard on it.

But still, I did it. Just remember, take this with a grain of salt. So here we go, Top 5 Things I Disliked About RvB S2.

#5. Doc

If you asked me which of the BGC to write out and never bring back… I’d probably have to pick Doc. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate him, but I’ve also never loved him. He comes off more whiny than funny, and most of the time he’s only funny due to the back and forth with O’Malley. Otherwise, usually… he’s just there. Even here in S2, while having a pacifist medic in a cast where several are trigger happy could lead to some funny stuff, Doc was just an annoyance. The situations he got into were funny, like getting knocked into the Warthog when the Blues unknowingly made it go rogue, but he was literally just there for the ride. Something IDT later season really improved aside form 16 and 17, which tbh I think is stretching it.

IDK, I just find Doc whiny and kinda boring. Even if he’s meant to be the annoying, disrespected nice guy, doesn't Donut kinda fit that slot already? Heck, they both even have the recurring ‘disappear for seasons and then suddenly comes back’ joke. The only times that I feel invested in Doc is when he has O’Malley, which is how he re-entered the plot here. I’m gonna save more about that in the S3 posts, but on his own? Doc just… doesn’t really work and I didn’t really miss him in between the Reds dumping him and him reappearing when O’Malley infected him. It’s also a flaw IDT recent seasons have really fixed, though they are trying. Plus I don’t hate Doc and some jokes with him do work (the gag of his naming made me giggle), I'm just… indifferent. But that’s why he’s at the top of the list since the most I can say is I find him whiny and not as funny,

#4. The Cyborg Subplot

So due to losing Lopez and because he’s Sarge, Sarge decides to turn one of the Reds into a cyborg to do all the stuff that Lopez did. He settles on Simmons. Now in and of itself, the subplot is fine. It leads to a good few jokes, like Grif trying to ruin Simmons’ parts after the surgery or a few gags like Simmons shooting his own foot and of course, faxass. While IDT the season would have been hurt without it, it has plenty of funny bits. Sow hat’s the problem. Well… like I said, cutting it wouldn’t have hurt anything. It kinda is just there to give the Reds something to do during the O’Malley and Tex stuff since otherwise, they’d just be standing around and taking… well, more than normal. Otherwise, it’s only significance plot-wise is Tucker tuning into their frequency, which is important in the finale when he picks up Vic and Sarge’s conversation.

So yeah, the subplot isn’t all that important. But it is still funny, so I don't mind it being there. But nowadays… how much so we see this come up? I mean Grif got mutilated by a tank and got another guy’s body/organs haphazardly stitched on. Simmons, while he possibly gave up those parts to Grif willingly, was otherwise forcibly converted into a cyborg. This… hasn’t really come up again. I mean the only time I think Simmons mentioned it in-show was as a brief joke in S11. Nine seasons later. I don’t think Grif’s side of it has come up at all ever again. Though… considering you can only get so many jokes out of this setup since everyone is always in armor, I do understand why. Though I feel with Simmons’ side at least, they could play with it some more, both comedically and maybe even storywise. But that may be my need for Simmons content talking…

So yeah, the subplot was okay. It’s at Number Four since I don’t hate it and it was funny. I just feel like nothing would be lost without it, especially since it pretty much never comes up again. Maybe one day though, who knows? At least the fanfic writers keep it alive XD

#3. The Caboose Forgetting Church Thing

Okay this is brief, but it does annoy me. During the whole trip into Caboose’s mind, Caboose’s memory of Church gets shot. As such, Caboose forgets who Church is. Makes sense, O’Malley killed the personification of Church in Caboose’s mind, so his mind would forget it. It also explains why Caboose got, well… for lack of a better way to put it, intellectually challenged later on due to having three AI’s in his brain and all the chaos that broke out. But Caboose forgetting Church lasts like… one episode? Maybe two? Anyways, Burnie explained on the commentary that it was just too hard to write out so they did one joke with it, and then just dropped it. Probably for the best... but then we have to figure out how this works in-continuity... damn it.

Really this is only on here because it forces me to try to figure out how this is possible in a show sense. Which yeah I probably don’t need to, but I am a continuity loser who tries to piece together these things. If I had to guess, maybe the memory of Church fixed itself somehow or Caboose was able to recall after being around Church for a little while. But I honestly really don’t know, and trying to think it through hurts my brain. It also did little to nothing either story-wise or comedy-wise, at least we got a few jokes out of the cyborg subplot. IDK, I feel like they gave up on it too soon. But then again this is the saga where they’ll break/ignore continuity for the sake of a joke and that’s just how these seasons worked. Hence why I put it smack-dab in the middle.

#2. Some Holdover S1 Issues

You can tell that there was a mass improvement in terms of production for Season Two. Pacing felt stronger, more was going on, characterizations began to settle in, and they even began to form more of a plot. They clearly had a much better idea of what they were doing now that they got through Season One and I think things like Matt becoming more involved in writing and production as well as Gus moving back to work on the show really helped as well. That being said, not everything got resolved. Most did, but there are still a few holdouts.

Audio mixing is a LOT better, especially when it comes to effects. The filter is still a little distracting, though better compared to S1. Not all the characterizations really set in. Grif and Donut are about 75% there and Simmons and Tucker are probably the least set in stone. The traits are there, like Simmons clinginess to Sarge and Tucker actually showing some competence when forced to, but nothing set in stone. Donut’s also on the right path with his hobbies and tendency to babble into TMI territory, but the voice is still off and his personality isn’t quite there yet. There’s some other, but I’ll touch on it in the Likes list. Some jokes could also still drag, like the whole switch joke where some of Church and Tucker’s back and forth went on a little too long.

We’re clearly making progress, but the mark hasn’t quite been hit. It’s still an improvement over S1 though, the pacing especially. This is nitpicky, but still it’s there. But hey it’s progress, and that is never a bad thing. So yeah, RvB is still evolving here, but the progress bar is loading steadily and trust me, by S3 I think we’ll be settled in… well, for the most part.

#1. Some Outdated Humor

The BGC was made from 2003 to 2007. Obviously, there’s gonna be some stuff that is outdated. Take the graphics themselves for example. Halo has evolved, so the game can look a little outdated, especially when you compare the original footage to the remastered footage. Let's put it this way, VIC is uncanny in the remaster… and is utterly horrifying in the original version. Thank God that the DVD is the remaster and I was spared of looking at that monstrosity. Visuals aren’t the only thing though, some pop culture references can also come off as outdated, like Creed joke in the RL vs Internet PSA. So can some of the humor that shows how stupid we were back only two decades ago.

There are… some jokes that are uncomfortable to listen to. For example, there’s the Grif shaming himself joked by saying he’s a girl and likes ribbons in his hair. It’s not the worst joke and clearly, it isn’t made to offend… but nowadays I think it could look offensive to certain individuals. It didn’t necessarily offend me, but it did kinda make me feel uncomfortable when I first watched it, but it could be me thinking it over too hard. There’s also the casual usage of the R word. Last season it came up a bit, but I noticed it came up more frequently here. Not excessively, but there were quite a few instances where it was treated as a casual curse word. Obviously back in 2004 we didn’t realize this was an offensive term, and I think they’ve even said that they regret the casual usage of it during the early years. You certainly would probably not hear that word used unless maybe to emphasize how terrible a character is, but even then I think they’d be more careful.

Now obviously RvB uses a lot of adult and offensive humor, especially in this era. I guess you can kinda call it the web version of South Park, only RvB has never really resorted to shock humor. It puts it above many, /many/ animated adult comedies in that regard. Still, when you run for this long, you’re gonna have some outdated elements. It’s not necessarily their fault, it just shows that times has changed. Still, it does make some stuff hard to look back on without cringing, and I imagine that the Founders would agree. So yeah… there’s just some stuff that wasn't fun to look back over and S2 isn’t the only offender, but this was where it stood out to me and took me out of the moment. As such, it is Number One.

(Top 5 Likes)

[shikai-the-storyteller]

CYBERVERSE WATCH: S3 Episode 13, 14, 15, 16

Episode 13

MACCADAM IS MY GRANDPA NOW

Jetfire!!! And Skybite!!! Skybite’s got a great laugh

Oh wow the cloaking still protects them? Nice!

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE FIX PERCY’S EYES, WHERE THE FRICK IS RATCHET

A MULTIVERSE DRIVE???

PLEASE...PLEASE LET US SEE OTHER UNIVERSES??? OTHER UNIVERSES PLEASE????

SPARE SOME MULTIVERSE STUFF FOR A POOR SOUL???

I mean as it stands, the fact that Cyberverse is talking about this stuff is more than satisfying, man I frickin love this show

“We can launch those squiggly things into a whole ‘nother universe!” his delivery of that line was so good and also Wheeljack pls, then it’ll be another version of you’s problem

MEGATRON REALLY *IS* POUTING, MEGATRON YOU BIG BABY

Maccadam fondly but watching them talk about their battle plans makes me feel so bad for him...

AW MAN IS MEGATRON GONNA CHUCK OPTIMUS INTO A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE

About time you showed up you big pouting pansy

Man these two totally were ex boyfriends

LMAO ARCEE AND SHADOW-STRIKER’S EVIL LAUGHS, THAT”S SO DELIGHTFUL

That Titan should just smack them out of the sky tbh

SKULLCRUNCHER THE CROC...NICE

I love that Soundwave and Roddy are manning the controls

“Commanders command. And you forget, we have backup” CUTE...CUTE....CUTE!!!

I’M SO PROUD OF MY BOYS!!!!!!

BEE!!!It’s been so long since I’ve seen you! I love my little yellow boy!!! Please take care of your dad Bee

OH NO IT”S CREEPY TENTACLE DOCTOR

GOTH GIRL AND PREP GIRL!!! 

MAN I JUST KNOW SOMETHING’S GOING TO GO HORRIFICALLY WRONG HERE

FRICK NOT THIS DUDE AGAIN

AW MAN NOT A WHOLE BUNCH AT ONCE

YEAAAHHHHH WHEELJACK AND MEGATRON WORKING TOGETHER!!! NICE

Two Decepticons and one Autobot...not a good sign

Oh shoot it’s the DECEPTICONS who wanna universe-jump, MEGATRON COME ON DUDE YOU DIDN’T EVEN TAKE YOUR ARMY WITH YOU DUMMY

OH NO!!!!!!

“It’s time for the commanders to join the battle” MAN YOU’RE SO COOL RODDY (YOU TOO SOUNDWAVE)

OH SHOOT THERE GOES THE TOWER

WELL FRICK

DON”T “WE DID IT” HOT ROD YOUR DAD IS IN THAT WRECKAGE

“Quintessons: Inferior. Cybertronians: Superior” MAN I”LL NEVER GET TIRED OF THAT

HE”S SO COOL!!!!! FIST BUMP BUDDIES!!! Man I’m so over the moon that these two wound up getting along

You know I’m suddenly having a revelation: I wonder if they could somehow re-activate all those other Soundwaves to help them against the (inevitable) final battle I’m sure they’re gonna have

WHAT THE FRICK

ARE YOU FRICKIN KIDDING ME

Starscream: CANCELED, CANCELED, YOU”RE ALL CANCELED

Well, Megatron certainly got the heck out of dodge at the right time lmao

Episode 14

I legit thought they were going to do an ATLA ref for half a second

Oh my gosh is this an Autobot recruitment video???

“The universe. You ever thought about it?” GOSH THIS VIDEO....

I’m frickin cackling, the Quintessons were like “Hmm, what’s the worst thing we could possibly inflict on this planet?” then went “Oh, of course, Starscream”

WHY DIDN”T YOU JUST LET GO STARSCREAM

Wow Starscream really did just sell out his entire planet huh

SOUNDWAVE NO!!!!! JEEZ HE GOT EVERYONE

Jeez and Starscream has to share with two other faces, that sucks

Lmao Starscream is just like “Nah judging people is what I was born for”

UNSPACE??? UH OK

WAIT isn’t that what Wheeljack made a few episodes ago????

LMAO HE’S GONNA WAIT TIL HE CAN GET OPTIMUS AND MEGATRON TOO bless Starscream and his pettiness

“First I must witness their humiliation!” STARSCREAM PLEASE the Quintessons really got the worst Judge

OHHH WHAT’S HE GONNA DO

SOUNDWAVE YOU’RE SO POWERFUL!!!!!

OH NO HE GOT THEM AGAIN....

GOSH I ACTUALLY GASPED WHEN THEY BROKE SOUNDWAVE’S AUDIO THING, NO!!!

“Well, it did for one of us, and it only takes one Autobot to make a difference” Bee? Whirl??? Wheeljack???

WINDBLADE!!! EVEN BETTER!!! The person with the braincell!!!

I love that Rodimus doesn’t even look worried, he just sighs like “aw man not this loser again”

On the one hand: Worried about my boys On the other: Man I love these two being buds

Also: Not To Be That Guy But it looks like Soundwave’s wearing white thigh-highs with little orange hearts on them and it’s VERY distracting

“You two work so well together!!!” OH NO OH NO OH NO ARE THEY GONNA FUSE THEM TOGETHER OR SOMETHING

THOSE HEAD MASKS ARE SO DISTURBING

uh oh what kind of loop is this

THE PLAGUE OF RUST OH NO

oh my gosh STARSCREAM’S MAKING THEM DO A BUFFING LOOP...THAT’S REALLY THE WORST THING YOU COULD THINK OF STARSCREAM....

“WHERE ARE MEGATRON AND OPTIMUS PRIME” well Optimus is under a pile of concrete, so

Lmao thank you for your peanut-gallery commentary Kup

OH SHOOT THEY DID JUMP THROUGH THE MULTIVERSE BRIDGE

MAN THAT LOOKS SO FRICKIN COOL???? YO SHOUTOUT TO THE BACKGROUND ARTISTS WHO WORKED ON THIS SHOW, YOU ROCK

SERIOUSLY IM IN LOVE WITH THAT I hope whoever did the background art shares their work online sometime, I’ll be ALL over that

AHH I ALWAYS FORGET HOW SHORT THESE EPISODES ARE

Excuse me, Jeremy Levy as WHO???

Episode 15

Kup you are an...interesting commentator choice lmao

MACCADAM..... :(

Windblade please save our favorite Grandpa

wINDBLADE!

HOW’S IT FEEL BEING THE COOLEST KID ON THE BLOCK WINDBLADE

Wait I *JUST* noticed the title calls this “Bumblebee: Cyberverse Adventures” ???? IS THAT NEW

CALL ME A SUCKER BUT WINDBLADE CRACKING HER NECK AND TELLING THE LITTLE SHARK DUDES TO BRING IT ON WAS QUITE POSSIBLY ONE OF THE BEST MOMENTS OF THE SERIES SO FAR

Windblade: *does anything* Me: IM GAY

“I don’t do fear” GOSH I LOVE MY TALENTED GIRL

OH NO!!! OH NO!!!! WINDBLADE NO!!!!!

AND HER WINGS TOO??? WHY!!!!

MACCADAM HELP HER OUT COME ON DUDE WHAT HAPPENED TO NO FIGHTING

lmao rip at the dude crushed by the juke box

Wait I thought they already woke up Iaconus??

YEAH!!!!!!!! MACCADAM AND WINDBLADE TEAMING UP

“UNFORGIVABLE CRIMES AGAINST ME!” LMAO I LOVE THAT LITERALLY EVERYONE IS TUNING OUT STARSCREAM get rekt Starscream.

Not to rag on people who like Starscream because I like him too but me @ Starscream stans tbh 

You guys just need to hold hands! I mean seriously, come on you guys!

STARSCREAM QUINTESSONS OMG I just noticed they’re all wearing Starscream’s colors pffft

AW.....MACCADAM’S FIRST HIGH-FIVE....:’) I bet Windblade and Maccadam both give the best hugs and best high-fives 

They’re so cute MAN I love Cyberverse!!!! I love how sweet these characters are!!!

A psychic trap??? Hoo boy

Windblade: How do I defeat this psychic trap? Maccadam: Well, it would help if you had any bug or dark-type Pokemon on you.

“Or you could just tell me!” I JUST SAID THAT TOO LMAO gosh I love the writing on this show

OHHH I LOVE THE CONTRAST OF IACONUS’ BRAIN WITH BEE’S BRAIN IN SEASON ONE, THAT”S SO GOOD

OH LMAO HE MEANT HER SWORD I thought he meant like “your inner-strength” or “your wisdom” NO HE MEANT “USE YOUR SWORD WINDBLADE” LOL

OHHH SPOOKY VOICE, I DIG IT

Wow Starscream’s really reading out his 1000 page long call-out post to a captive audience

LMAO THEY”RE JUST LISTING OUT DATE LOCATIONS

CHROMIA IS SO CUTE!!!!!!!! AHHH

OH NO ARCEE!!!!

I LOVE ARCEE, “HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT YOU BASTARD”

OH SHOOT JK I GUESS THEY REALLY DIDN”T TOTALLY WAKE HIM  UP LAST TIME I was wondering why he was just an arm

TITAN TIME!!!

Episode 16

To toast the flares off a neutron star....cute....

Wouldn’t it be cute if Kup was telling this story to a bunch of baby Cybertronians

Awh....Maccadam I’m sorry your old Titan had to re-awaken :(

“Too bad I won’t know how it ends” OH NO ARE YOU GUYS GONNA KILL OFF MACCADAM???? NO!!!!

Iaconus looks frickin RAD I’m sure Hasbro will make a killing off his toys

Speaking of I really hope they release Cyberverse on DVD in a bundle-pack

“War Titan, do NOT ignore me!” YEAH USE YOUR MOM VOICE ON HIM WINDBLADE!!!

LOVE THAT ROCK MUSIC

“This has never happened before” now THERE’S an interesting tidbit

OH NO....ITS THE OTHER TITAN....CROATON....

on the one hand, I’m SO glad we’re getting the Titan battle I crave, but on the other, CROATON NO!!!

TRIFORCE BEAM!!!

I love that Windblade is Jaeger-ing this frickin Titan solo

WHOOPS THERE GOES THE STADIUM

“Optimus had a fight of his own...with gravity!” oh how the mighty have fallen Optimus lmao

I wonder how this wonky universe would handle a flier

JUST THROW A BUILDING AT A TITAN, NBD

SOMEONE PLEASE CATCH ARCEE

THANKS GRIMLOCK

THERE’S RATCHET Finally, I was wondering where he was

“Well it’s not my fault this won’t be a fair fight” OH SHOOT THERE IT IS!!! THERE IT IS

I can’t believe Starscream is trying to back-seat drive this fight lmao

SOUNDWAVE NO!!!! Oh thank goodness they’re ok

OH NO OH NO

IS THIS IT IS HE GONNA DIE?? MAC DONT GIVE IN TO FATE!!!  NO!!!

MAC NO!!!!!!!!!! MAC YOU DIDN”T HAVE TO DIE NO!!! YOU LITERALLY DID NOT HAVE TO STAND THERE AND GET BLASTED WHY DID YOU DO THAT!!!!!!!

“My last citizen...he is gone” FRICK IM GONNA START CRYING

Quints > Murdered Croaton's citizens most likely > Enslave Croaton > Inadvertently kill Iaconus' last citizen (WHICH HURT BECAUSE WE'RE MADE TO ASSUME IACONUS ONLY CARES ABOUT WAR BUT NO, HE LOVES HIS CITIZENS DEEP DOWN) > BEHEAD IACONUS LIKE, WHY YOU GOTTA STAB ME IN THE HEART LIKE THIS

Wheeljack you’re so smart but ALSO IM STILL CRYING OVER MACCADAM

“Hehe, you’re a nasty little fella” NICE JOB COWBOY

OH NO ALL THE SOUNDWAVES DANGIT I KNEW IT

AND HE”S A BIG LIAR HE DID HAVE SOME BLUE SOUNDWAVES

OH NO WHAT ABOUT WINDBLADE

HECK THAT”S SUCH A BAD PLACE TO STOP BUT I CANT WATCH ANY MORE EPISODES RN I GOTTA STAGGER THIS SERIES

[ahnsael]

My car is finally fixed!

Went to a local Auto Zone that advertises free tests of batteries, alternators, etc to diagnose problems like mine. It was a REAL quick test. “Yup, that battery is DEAD.”

He explained that new cars usually come with cheap batteries, and you’re lucky to get three years out of them (I got about 3½ out of mine).

I told him we did the same thing at Disneyland -- when you buy a light-up toy, odds are it comes with “Rocket” brand batteries, which we got (at the time) for about 1¢ each. And they would last maybe an hour or two (if you were lucky) before you’d notice your toy getting dimmer (granted, we brought LOTS of spare batteries out with us to sell these toys, so any guest that came up to say their toy didn’t last long, I’d explain that the batteries are indeed cheap and don’t last long but when they put better batteries in, the toy will last. And then I’d give them enough batteries to change them out four more times so the toy would last them through the next couple nights of use.

I spent an extra $30 (in theory -- read on) to get a better AGM battery (at least it’s better for my situation -- they tend to recharge faster and withstand extreme hot and cold temperatures, unlike normal car batteries -- and since most of my trips are four miles to or from work, that wasn’t long enough to recharge what battery power I spent on starting the car by the time I reached my destination. And since I work graveyard, my car is outside in sub-freezing temperatures all night this time of year).

The guy said he wasn’t trying to upsell me (he was TOTALLY trying to upsell me), but when I went with the more expensive option (and after we talked Disney for a few minutes -- I’m telling you, once in a while being a former cast member still pays dividends) he asked if I was a veteran and I said “No, but he is” and pointed at my stepdad who was in the Army, and the guy took $20 off the price on the spot, and then he said that he’d take another $10 off if we left the old battery with them (which, THANK YOU, because I don’t want an old car battery to try and figure out how to get rid of).

So in agreeing to spend $30 extra without hemming and hawing over it (I had actually looked at batteries over the past couple days and knew that everything he was telling me matched up with what I had read about AGM batteries vs the standard wet cell battery), I got this battery for the same price as the other one that he had which would fit my car.

No more having to jump-start my car every time I go to work, recharge my jump starter while working, and jump start the car again to get home! No more worrying that I can’t stop at the store on the way home because the store isn’t going to charge my jump starter for me and I may not be able to start my car again to get home. No more leaving the car running when I run into a convenience store and hope I see it if someone tries to get in and drive away.

And now I ramble (yeah, yeah, I hear you shouting “too late, you’re already rambling!” at your computer screen), so here’s a “read more.” Some of you who have followed me for less than two years may learn something about me at the end of this post that may change your perception of me, but since tumblr is the only place I’ve talked (albeit sparsely) about this particular thing. Those of you who know me well already know this unless you missed those posts.

I’ll still keep the jumper in the car “just in case” -- I just have to charge it every 30 days to keep it up to snuff. Plus, it may come in handy if a guest at the casino needs a jump. Though I should check with my boss on that; it may bring up liability issues that we would rather not deal with. I have a feeling that would be a no-go. We’re not even allowed to administer first aid, or even have a first aid kit, because of the liability if we “treat” someone and it goes south somehow. We just call for the ambulance (which I’ve only had to do twice -- once for a lady who fell out of her chair [never did find out why but she was alert and coherent and walked to the ambulance but DID want their help] and once for a guest who had a stroke while at a machine -- and didn’t want the paramedics, he wanted to keep playing video keno with his left hand since he couldn’t lift his right one (we did get him on a gurney, but he literally did not stop playing until paramedics put him on the gurney, and then I cashed him out and gave his money to one of the medics to give to him -- if a friend of his hadn’t told me that he wasn’t okay I wouldn’t have known because other than playing with his left hand when the “play” button is on the right side, he looked okay, but after she told me he needed help and I wasn’t sure if he did I sat down and talked to him and it became very clear that she was right but without asking him about it I would have never realized what was going on, but because she told me that she thought he was having a stroke, and the 9-1-1 operator walking me through some tests which confirmed it, it was caught in time that there was no lasting damage).

But I digress with work stories.

Now to the thing newer people may not know about. As some of you know, I did something REALLY not-smart a couple years ago (I got behind the wheel of a car when I had no business being behind the wheel of a car), and I’ve been dealing with the consequences since then. Nothing too terrible, all things considered (thankfully I didn’t hurt anyone or cause any damage), and finishing the worst part by serving the rest of my 48-hour jail sentence was over in August of 2018. In February of 2019, I was freed of my obligation to attend counseling after the counselor signed off on me not being a continued danger and not likely to re-offend (which I WILL NOT do -- the consequences get worse with successive infractions, and just ONCE was enough to teach me that, even if I hadn’t felt awful for putting my community at risk, the punishment is NOT worth deciding to go to Burger King when I should NOT be driving to Burger King -- fun fact: the Auto Zone I was at today is next door to that very Burger King which I was leaving when I was pulled over).

In August of last year, I was done with “alternative sentencing.” What that was, was I had to call the probation arm of the Sheriff’s Department EVERY SINGLE MORNING to see whether or not they wanted to test me for alcohol in my system (the judge had ordered me to drink ZERO alcohol for a year -- not even NyQuil if I was sick). If they were to find alcohol in my pee test, I had a warrant issued for my arrest. Granted, in May of last year, the head probation officer told me that I didn’t have to call anymore -- but I was subject to search or testing at any time (and they did show up at my house a few times to make sure I was still complying -- they still had to monitor me, but I didn’t have to call anymore because I had earned a degree of trust with them; also they were genuinely nice people and I got along well with them, so our positive relationship may have entered into it as well; when I was officially released from their rolls of “people to watch over,” I went in the day after the judge’s order had expired to verify that I was done with them, and the head guy shook my hand, said “you’re off our rolls,” and admonished me: “Don’t come back”).

But then there was the year of having an interlock device in my car. I didn’t reinstate my suspended license until January of 1999, and that’s when the year (ordered in my August 1998 sentencing) kicked in. It’s not “wait a year and then reinstate your license without having to do this;” it’s “once you reinstate your license, you must have this device in your vehicle for a year from THEN”).

It’s actually been 13 months now. But I wasn’t sure about the process of getting it removed. I asked about it the month before my year was up at the place where I have to get it calibrated once a month, and they said to call the interlock company (this is a car audio place that also handles interlocks, but not the interlock company themselves), and they would tell me how to “petition the court” to get it removed.

I did more research and the interlock company says they need the “monitoring authority’s permission” to allow the interlock to be removed. But they don’t say who the “monitoring authority is” (which is understandable as they are a nationwide company and state laws differ but even when I found a page that broke down the removal process state-by-state, it didn’t say who my monitoring authority was or what kind of “permission” I needed to obtain or how to get it).

But yesterday morning, I emailed the interlock company and the DMV to ask them about the removal. Surprisingly, the DMV got back to me first (still haven’t heard back from SmartStart -- edit, yes I have, see below).

But it was a reply to my email address from a person in the “Drivers License Assessment Team” saying that they had looked at my record and that I was good to come in and get the interlock restriction removed, and that that should be enough for the interlock people.

And, as I was writing this, I got an email from SmartStart saying “Please be informed that removal authorization is not needed if you have had device installed (1) one year from date of when your restricted license was reinstatement.” Grammar aside (”when your license was reinstatement?”), this actually contradicts what the web site says. But I think I’m going to the DMV tomorrow morning to get my restriction removed, and then I’ll call the car accessories store that I’ve been using and make an appointment for its removal (I may have to call SmartStart and have THEM schedule the appointment -- I replied to SmartStart’s email asking with whom I make the appointment, so we’ll see if they replay today).

But the one other major stress in my life is going away. Not that I’m afraid “I may be too drunk to drive” because THAT IS NOT HAPPENING AGAIN but that it has occasional errors, gives me an “ABORT TAMPER” message (which means it thinks I tampered with it somehow) when temps get below 20º, sometimes reboots itself mid-drive (it will test me after about 10 minutes of driving after I start, then about every 45 minutes thereafter to make sure I’m not drinking WHILE I’m driving). When I leave work on a cold morning, I could be sitting in my car for 4-5 minutes before the thing is ready for me to breathe into it -- as I sit there shivering, because without the engine on, the fan isn’t blowing in heated air, it’s just blowing in outside sub-freezing air (and frosting my interior windows as much as it had been outside before I scraped the ice off while waiting for the interlock to warm up).

So that other major stress will be gone soon, too. And then that whole nasty experience is behind me after two years, as long as I’m never stupid enough to do it again. And I do NOT plan on that. My thing is that...I have a co-worker who I used to offer rides to once in a while (I’m off 30 minutes before him, but sometimes I stay and gamble for a bit). He walks a couple miles to/from work. But he doesn’t know about my DUI, and I don’t want him to know about it. I did give him a ride ONCE since then when weather was particularly nasty, but I wend out and started my car while he played a daily tournament, and by the time he got to my car I had gotten it started after passing the breathalyzer. Then I just hoped that it wouldn’t test me before we got to where he lives (I hid the interlock under my seat while he was in there). Fortunately, it didn’t request a re-test until a few minutes after I had dropped him off.

[kinfriday]

Wandering Hops: Disappointments

Growing up in the deserts of West Texas gave me a special appreciation for the ocean, and temperatures below 115 degrees.  Our summers got so hot, I became convinced that heat was one of our chief exports to hell. No matter where you are, it seemed like  it was always hotter somewhere in Texas. 

However, being on the beach does not make you immune from the sun. I learned that living in Southern California, but at least the breeze coming off the Pacific is cool, and makes the days bearable. 

Even down in Corpus Christi, Tx  near the Gulf of Mexico, eight hours from where I grew up, the air was so thick with humidity you could cut slices of it out of the air, and save it for later. Which made it a dubious respite at best and a “living in the worlds largest dryer vent simulator” at worst. 

Does it sound like I’m complaining? Maybe I’m just venting. I’ve apparently built up some steam about this topic. 

Ok, there’s our terrible pun allotment for this blog post… Moving on.

To summarize, the ocean has always held a type of special allure to me. 

For one, any large expanse of sparkling blue water was a rarity in my life, and for two, the sight of the Atlantic was associated in my mind with a one time summer trip to Disney World when I was six, and visiting my Mom’s side of the family in the North East. We’d go to the “Shore” (bonus points for you if that tells you the state) and spend a few days enjoying the colder waters, enjoying our respite from the desert sun. 

Yet my entire life, up until I was 26, I had never ventured further west than Albuquerque. The Pacific was a mystery to me. The first time I saw it, was from the dirty window of an eighteen wheeler, hauling freight while in driver training. Far off down the street was a horizon of shimmering blue, during a spring-like November day in Los Angeles. 

The traffic had been hell, the parking worse (my vehicle was 70ft long, tip to tip) but suddenly, all of my problems lifted. 

There it was, off in the horizon, the big blue water of the west. Fabled in song and story. 

The Pacific Ocean. 

It is a treasured memory, and has stuck with me, even though I ended up living in Southern California with my then fiance, and now husband. Ironically, in many ways, the Ocean is a desert in its own right. Nothing truly lives only on the surface amongst its waves.  In fact, most  life there is out of sight, far below the water line. Yet the climate, and it’s beauty is so radically different from anything I had ever really known, outside of a few moments from my youth. 

And, amidst the wonder, the grind of daily life, and all those memories, I somehow had yet to visit the Pacific Ocean here in my home state of Washington. 

In short, I decided it was high time to fix that. 

The North Head Discovery trail is a there-and-back hike rated as moderate difficulty. Its challenge arises mainly from its mileage, and the slight increase in elevation at its end. My hiking app gave me maps which combine it with the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse trail, giving it an elevation challenge. 

I set out from the parking lot of a resort that donates parking space for trail goers. The trail itself was wide and paved, nothing like what I was accustomed to. A discovery trail is different from your normal hiking trail, in that it focuses on historical and/or scientific curiosities in the area.  It’s not just an adventure, it’s a field trip, and for a history buff, this made it especially appealing. You see, Lewis and Clark were there, in 1805. Strewn along the straight, southern path are tiny diversions leading to monuments, and statues, detailing their journeys, and pages from their journals describing events they encountered on the very ground you are walking upon connecting you to their time. 

There are gateway arches over the entrance to each parking lot you cross that in proud, bold numbers, proclaiming 1805 showing the  pride the community takes in their current history. 

The focus is mainly upon the expedition itself, and the local flora and fauna, but there is one placard detailing a limited history of the Chinook, the indigenous people that called that area home before they were ultimately, and unfairly displaced off their land by America’s dream of manifest destiny. 

In this, I found the trail especially lacking. To know more of this people, and their history, while venturing on the shorelines where they once lived, thrived, and built their society would have served as a fitting counterpoint to the Lewis and Clark Expedition which ultimately functioned as a herald of the end to their way of life.  

Overall, this feeling of imbalance greatly stuck with me as I veered south after my first quarter mile. I was now easily able to hear the roar of the waves, smell the ocean, and feel the cool breeze but I still could not see it. An endless sea of dune grass instead, like the world’s largest shag carpet, stretched out before me as I moved along the easy, wide path, wondering when I would get my chance. 

At half a mile in, I couldn’t take it anymore, and diverted down a side trail, heading sharply west. Breaking over the sand dune, and there it was in all of its majesty

I stood there, and took it all in. Here I was, well over 1500 miles from where I had first seen it, and yet, this was the same patch of big blue water. The enormity of it boggled my mind, and caused me to take a deep breath, if only to recenter myself, as I pondered the vastness of the machinery of the Earth. 

Still, I was not there to stare, not there to have a day playing upon the beach. I was there to hike a trail, and make miles. Taking one last look, I turned back towards my task, and got to work, stopping at a convenient bench to knock the sand out of my shoes. 

Soon, the ocean disappeared behind the dunes, and I was back amongst the grassy expanse, cooled by the breeze and all the while being baked by the sun; heading south at a constant, rhythmic pace. 

It got meditative. There wasn’t much to do, and there wasn’t much to see besides occasional informational placards and monuments, which sometimes broke me out of my forward moving stupor, and other times, failed to arouse my interest. The first hour passed, and then, about half way through my second, I came to an inescapable realization. 

I was bored. 

In the hiking community, watching videos, I’ve heard the term “type two fun.” Type Two fun is something that is fun after the fact. You look back on the memory of its accomplishment fondly, even though at the time you were, uncomfortable, overworked, bored, or any number of mildly to severely unpleasant feelings. 

As I plodded along it seemed to me that, save for a few moments, this hike was going to be full of the type two fun, and I found myself disheartened. Stopping in my tracks just over four miles in I looked back the way I came as questions danced through my mind. 

Should I go home? Give up? Call it an early day? Did I really want to complete this trail, or was I content with saying I tried, and it wasn’t for me? 

The decision grew heavier, as I looked forward towards my goals. When I hike the PCT in 2020, I know there will be times when I’m bored, and when I just don’t want to hike. I might be sore, or just fed up, and as I pondered, it became apparent to me that giving up, was a habit, as was perseverance. If I quit today because I was bored, or uninterested, it was going to be that much easier to quit next time… when the workout got hard, or the trail challenging, or when the sentence wouldn’t come for my novel. 

That simply wouldn’t do, so, turning back towards the south, I dug in, kicked on my audio book, and enjoyed the scenery I did have, putting away my expectations. 

I’ll be honest, there were times when the trail seemed to drag by with all the rapidity of a snail on ketamine but I set a goal for myself to clear as quickly as I could to work on my pacing. 

With a goal in mind, and a good audiobook pouring from my headset, another hour passed, as a small mountain came into view, and suddenly, there was a full beach to my right with the ocean pounding against the waves. 

Here before me was a profound type of liminal space. Not just ocean and shore, but ocean, shore and forest all meeting in one collision of juxtaposed beauty. Breaking out of the dune grass, there was an entirely new vista before me now, as the trail tilted up, carrying me forward, and providing me with some elevation challenge, until I crossed one parking lot, then another, and came upon an old lighthouse perched at its top, with a sweeping view of the Pacific before me. 

It was an experience I would have never had, if I had turned back. Enjoying my reward, snapping a few pictures for posterity, I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and turned around for the  7.5 mile journey back to my truck, happy that I had stayed on the trail. 

[nickplaysminecraft]

surviving the first night. this was always a challenge for me, somehow, back then.

maybe its funny that the "unofficial official" title of this post is in part a homage to x's adventures. i really did write that entirely by accident, if you'll believe me.

i had a funny moment in remembering just how weird and kind of buggy this game was. my audio broke because my headphones wire shorted for a quick second so I had to restart the client, logging in did half a heart of damage. i remember this being prominent for a while, i never figured out quite what caused it or read the bug reports/bug fixes. its probably the world trying to load blocks that were previously mined and suffocating the player maybe?

maybe i'll read through the release notes

[golfsitespeed]

Liftoff simulator and taranis

Q.71 : isdn circuit mode switched bearer services Taranis Can’t Play Simulators – USB and Joystick Option Due to an automatic Windows 10 update that broke the USB drivers, suddenly some controllers may no longer be recognized in Windows. Here is a custom model ini file that you can try. On Windows you may need to set up the endpoints. The tips in that document can also be useful for other similar radios connected via audio cable. Spektrum radios generally works best connected via a standard 3. On some operating systems Windows at least you might need to make some manual setup in the menu of the radio itself if you are running an older version of OpenTX. Hi, thanks for the article!FPV Freerider user manual. Not a biggie though it usually comes back within a second. But I do randomly get a glitch disconnection like once every 10 minutes. I feel like the delay is about the same as connecting the Taranis via USB. You will also need to go through the calibration process for the first time. Check out this guide if you have trouble flashing firmware on FCit could be a driver issue.Īnd make sure props are removed just in case. But if you want a dedicated FC and RX setup just for playing simulators, these are the cheapest ones I can find. FPV Drone Simulators, Which is Best? Why? Only F4 and F7 FC support this feature currently. It was late at night, this would do for now. Another good thing is the wireless connection, you are no longer constrained by the USB cable when playing. For example the cheap old Flysky i6 or Turnigy 9X! Access to sims is not an excuse to buy a Taranis anymore. I accept.I will show you how to set it up in this tutorial. Connect Any Transmitter to FPV Simulators via Flight Controller If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published.įor prompt technical support, please use our forum IntoFPV. Are you Robot? Sign me up for the newsletter! Related Articles. Your email address will not be published. Thanks so much Oscar, I was trying to make it work and could not find the solution until i look at your post. I have the very same problem as Mike! And it just happened dew days ago!! Last weekend I was flying with velocidrone no problems!! Is it a windows update or something? My tx is asking and I select Joystick. This video is how you fix it and restore the old driver. Yesterday 9th September Microsoft released through windows update a libusb-win32 update - this has broken all joystick connectivity for FrSky and Jumper TX transmitters. It took me a couple of hours to find out, finally found this: youtube. The mentioned steps above are not working with the new win update. Hey guys I have had this issue and came across this. I found that rolling back the driver for my xlite made windows 10 recognise it. I hope this clears things up! Had the same trouble while trying to use drone simulator.

But that also confuses many people due to the large amount of outdated info out there. But of course, if we wanted to change it to mass storage, we would have to re-flash the firmware. We recommended to leave it unchecked so our radio always showed up as joystick when we connect it to the computer, and so it was never a problem. A lot of people are having this problem only after they updated the OpenTX firmwareor recently bought the Taranis.īefore OpenTX 2. This solution applies to all radios running the latest OpenTX firmware newer than version 2. Everything working.Here is the quick fix. Holy smokes! Before finding this I already flashed OpenTX had to be done anyways. Your transmitter issue is most likely a separate problem, not sure what's going on there. Hey Greed, after doing the fix for the USB drivers mine seems to be working fine, including online multiplayer. We've not seen any similar reports like that, however we'll see if we can make sense of that somehow. Oh wow, thats an interesting observation. So, I cant practice the tracks for my upcoming races. The second I sign in my RC stops working.

Well i have tried this and it does work……. Thank you for sharing! We've been on contact with FrSky to see if a fix can be provided and we've also asked Joshua Bardwell to share the workaround that we've provided. I tried to post a YouTube link, but Steam doesn't like the link. Turns out it's not a problem with Liftoff, it's a problem with the Windows 10 driver. I just spent the last two days trying to get my Taranis to connect to Liftoff. Home Discussions Workshop Market Broadcasts.

[black-strike-otp]

part 15

Things have gotta get better, ya’ll think. There’s no way it’s gonna continue at this rate being a shit-post slap in the face. Ya’ll underestimate me. ;)

Megatron bought his story. Not technically a lie, but not technically a truth; Blackout had explained that he’d found no Autobots and nothing of interest on his location. With the length of time he’d been gone, Megatron assumed accurately he had been making absolute sure there was nothing even resembling an Autobot on the planet. The only thing of interest, he reported, was the reasoning behind the patches of holes here and there on his frame from a local specimen of the planet.

Although the bond between Scorponok and himself was still closed, Blackout could feel the bug shift against his backside. He tried not to consider thinking what was on the bug’s mind. With extreme accuracy however from at least a century of being bondmates, Blackout had an idea what the bug was being fussy about.

He could hear the minicon now despite not hearing him at all. “Nothing of interest, huh” he’d mock.

Starscream seemed, as always, the least unsure about his tale. Then again, with their streak record of bitter arguments and maybe only two dozen or more murder attempts on each other, no one questioned the seeker’s suspicions. No one questioned Blackout’s loyalty, either.

In the quiet of his room, alone and with luxuries yet nothing of significant importance at all, he spent his time in secret trying to fix his cannon. Using any supplies he had; or could discretely steal from around the ship, Blackout finally managed to get the fragging thing in functional condition again.

Everything was back to normal again. Yet somehow, it felt like so much had changed.

~

~ Months Later ~

“I’m going to miss these guys,” Novastrike whined, her servo extended into a crowd of Knoech’ol. The alien creatures frills were quivering with sorrow as they tried shaking her digit. Others were clinging to her arm, her side, her legs all with the same pleading, desperate expression.

Guard passed glance over the small monstrosities. “As will I, Novastrike. But we can’t stay here any longer. We need to find energon reserves. There’s no longer any other option for us.”

“I know,” she sighed, looking back at at the Rising Star. Some of the others were busy packing up supplies and giving a head count to make sure everyone was accounted for she noticed. Others were grouped off like she was, saying their goodbyes to the species that had allowed them refuge on their home world.

Giving a half-sparked smile, Guard leaned down slightly to press a servo against the little femme’s shoulder. “Come now, Novastrike. We should be on our way.”

“Yes, sir,” she whispered in an empty voice, her audios cast down.

With great care, she managed to pull free of the little hands of the Knoech’ol and stepped around their teeny bodies as they gave out harsh, shrill cries of sadness. Nova picked her way around them until they stopped trying to grab at her and give chase; the poor things huddling together in masses to wail their sorrows.

Guard surpassed her slower pace and stepped inside of the space vessel, followed by most of the other rogue Cybertronians. Novastrike came up short of the ramp that lead aboard the ship and opened up a section of her armor plating of her chassis discretely, pulling out a glimmering dark blue gemstone flecked with sparkles.

She placed it gingerly upon the ground.

Turning back to the ramp, Novastrike began to ascend after the others. Guard, who had been standing at the top of the ramp, gave a final look around.

“I suppose we have everything,” he stated, turning back to look at one of the mechs standing nearby. He gave a curt nod after skimming a datapad filled with information.

“Wait a second, sir, I forgot something,” Novastrike blurted out, feeling a faint flutter in her chassis.

The much larger mech cast a confused glance towards Novastrike. He opened his mouth to make a reply, but already the white-armored femme was dashing down the ramp.

Snatching up the gemstone, Novastrike placed it against her lips. The rock had grown smoother over time slightly from overzealous rubbing. Quickly, she turned heel and ran back up the ramp. Nova was quick to zoom past a slightly perplexed looking Guard and out the nearest door, into the hallway.

Huffing a heavy sigh, the mini femme glanced down at the shiny rock pressed against her chassis. Her optic ridges slowly lowered as she looked up to the ceiling, sliding down the nearest wall. Her digits clutched the jewel a little tighter.

If only she was strong enough to let it go.

~

The body count on board the Rising Star began to rise very slowly. At first, it was easy to place the bodies in the safety of storage units, cold chambers meant for lengthy stasis periods, even leaving them in a small morgue on board the ship meant for those who passed during a transport.

But the bodies began to pile up.

After a while, there was nothing left to do but to dump them in space. Nobody liked the idea of it, least of all Guard. He fought Neutroboost tooth and nail about keeping them on board until the very last, but the stubborn secondary commander insisted it was best. It created space, and it prevented the possibility of disease catching and spreading.

“We aren’t going to be going home anytime soon,” Neutro had roared furiously. “Just throw them out the hatch.”

“You’re asking me to leave our brothers and sisters in the deep vacuums of space, where they won’t even get peace?”

“Nobody else has gotten any damn peace this whole fragging war!” Neutro had snarled. “If you can’t do it, I’ll do it without you.”

Guard was a strong, old mech. It had been sparkbreaking for Novastrike to see the poor guy tear up as he watched what he considered his family to be left out in the middle of nowhere. Unlikely to be found and salvaged even after the war to be returned to Cybertron. They would float forevermore out here, unless their bodies were used and recovered by others, or by coincidence, managed to burn up in some sort of planetary entry or star explosion.

Fights broke out more frequently. Bots were simple starving. There had been a rather outlandish speculation that the minibots and femmes were being given more rations; leading to a temporarily thieving of rations.

Novastrike went days without energon. She was burning fumes by the time Guard found out.

Rations became stricter after that. He had been furious. In an effort to keep the incidents from reoccuring, Guard simply placed himself in the way of storage area where the energon cubes were kept. He rarely ever left the location, and when he did, he had three trustworthy bots stay and guard it when he left.

You weren’t allowed to leave the area until you were given, and consumed your ration. Absolutely no one was allowed to leave or drink without Guard being nearby.

This new protocol caused further rifts between Guard and Neutroboost. No one could determine why exactly, but Novastrike had her assumptions. With how dangerously bitter and hateful Neutro had become since the Exodus, there was no way of knowing for sure exactly what was on his processor, but there was certainly ways of guessing.

She just hoped she was wrong.

~

Battles were waged far and wide from Cybertron. It was all the same thing. Bloodlust sent the Decepticons in a craze; always demanding more, always fighting within themselves. Wherever they went, everything was destroyed in their wrath. Cities, towns, species, the environment itself; it all came to an end.

Blackout witnessed death after death at his own servos and those of his faction. It all meant nothing to him.

They took what they pleased. Lives, energon, credits, tools, weapons- everything was theirs for the taking. Fueling their armies, curbing their appetites for destruction.

Lord Megatron’s rage only seemed to grow by the day. Nothing was sparred. Turning on his own when they questioned him, ripping the very sparks out of factionless who were in his path without remorse.

A small part of Blackout began to even feel distrust towards his former friend. Where once, Megatron would show his support, offer his grand speeches, place a servo upon his closest allies shoulders and proclaim victory, now he was simply violent. He lashed out uselessly; his red optics filled with insanity and horrors one could hardly believe.

All he spoke about was killing the Prime. All he would cry was of how he would have the mech’s last breath, and steal the Matrix of Leadership.

But where was that leadership now? Where was the mech who lead them, proud and strong into battle? Where was the mech who swore to his followers that they would have their place, their rights, their home? Where were the promises of a new system and of freedom and salvation?

It all seemed so distant. And now, everyone seemed more like puppets in a game with no ending.

~

Perched on the very thin ledge of metal beside a thick panel of glass, Novastrike watched the gaseous planet as they went by. Its overlapping diagonal rings of ice and rock and beautiful swirling vapors of sunset oranges and yellows made for a spectacular view.

Her thoughts deviated off on their own. She wondered what Silvercore would have thought of his. Of all these grand adventures he spoke of, she wondered what he’d feel of this one. Maybe at the beginning, she had thought he’d enjoy it. But now, constantly hungry and with the threat of death always looming above your cramping frame, she no longer thought he’d be enjoying himself.

What would Blackout think of the planet?

Well, that was an easy one. He’d hate it, naturally. He hated everything.

Novastrike’s expression screwed up into one of resent and pain. She placed a servo over her chassis, directly over the spot near her spark chamber where she’d kept the dumb space rock she couldn’t get rid of. She told herself now that it was only right she try returning it to the Knoech’ol people one day, but she knew she was fibbing to herself.

A thousand times at least, she must have thought about tossing it out the nearest hatch. Lay it with the departed and let it go out to space. Put it somewhere, see if anyone would dispose of it for her.

But no matter how many times she tried to just leave the slagging thing, she always went back for it.

The little femme pressed her forehead against the glass and snarled, glaring at the planet as though it was its fault she was in this situation.

Her optics caught sight of a shadow, moving against the far left side of the planet. She squinted slightly, trying to make out the strange phenomena she was witnessing.

The alarms on the ship began to go off. Novastrike jolted, following off the ledge and on the ground with a thud.

Reaching back, she scratched her helm and looked up to see bots running by.

“What’s the emergency?” Nova cried out above the alarm.

One of the bots dashing by came to a stop. Another ran into him from behind, and then went to run around him with the rest of the bots.

“There’s a Decepticon warship on the other side of that planet,” the mech stated. “Everyone’s supposed to get to their assigned positions.”

Novastrike’s sparkbeat picked up rapidly. She rolled over, watching as the mech went to run quickly after the others. Her processor felt jammed. She couldn’t remember what she was supposed to do.

So she went to the one place where she hoped, at least, she could make herself useful.

Sure enough, Novastrike’s reached the command module and spotted Guard and Neutroboost, along with many frightened rogues and those at work in the room.

From here, Novastrike could get a good look at the ship. It was a massive dark purple; very box in form. It had to be at least ten times the size of the Rising Star.

“Guard, is that a rogue ship?” Novastrike asked in a frail, quivering voice.

Guard grimaced, and announced loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, “No. That would be the Decepticon warship Hell’s Point. It’s an experimental starship, designed with a wormhole generator.”

“Like- a spacebridge?” a shaky voice asked.

“Very much like one, yes. Only, this doesn’t require two dimensional portals to operate. You don’t need a point A and B to bridge the gap. That ship can travel anywhere without a sister station.”

“Primus, we are so screwed,” whispered another voice.

“Maybe it hasn’t seen us?” offered a femme. “Maybe- maybe it won’t bother us?”

The Hell’s Point began to slowly change direction. Everyone watched in horror as it began to plow headon into the planet’s rings; sending debris flying in every direction.

“Sir, we don’t have a functional weapons system onboard the ship,” a mech quietly remarked. “How are we supposed to fight them?”

“We can’t,” Guard stated solemnly. “We’ll just have to try-”

“Steal their ship, of course,” Neutroboost stated, his optics shining with eagerness. “Think of it, they probably have loads of energon on board- or at the very least, more than we do. If we could take control of the ship-”

Guard turned a livid face towards Neutro. Steam physically blew out of his ventilation system. Everyone stepped back, including a shocked Novastrike. She’d never seen Guard mad in all her life, let alone so mad that there was waves of heat visibly coming off of him.

“We are not risking the safety of our crew for your ludicrous, selfish desires, Neutroboost!”

“But that sort of technology could save our lives, Guard. We could go anywhere in space we wanted to for energon. Frag, we could go home if we wanted!”

“I said no!”

“You’re not the only one in charge here, Guard, or have you forgotten?”

“Your desires for fame and glory are going to get us all offlined, Neutro. You haven’t been acting commander for years now. Stand down, now, or I will personally put you in your place myself,” Guard threatened in a much quieter tone, pressing his chassis against the smaller mech’s.

Novastrike’s optics flickered uneasily between the approaching Hell’s Point and the two commanding officers. The steadily approaching starship suddenly turned its thrusters on full, and the ship was coming towards them at full speed.

It seemed she wasn’t the only one that noticed. Screams suddenly broke out from every direction.

Guard and Neutro turned their faces at the same time towards the panned glass.

It was too late. Hell’s Point came at them like a battering ram; clipping the top section of the Rising Star. A section of the upper deck was sheered clean off, and the ship suddenly went into a violet spin.

Novastrike hit the far wall hard. Her optics glitched and energon ran out of the cracks in her helm. From the force alone of the spin, everybody was flattened against the floor and wall, unable to pry themselves away until the momentum began to settle.

A crackle of static came over one of the open comm channels that had been activated by a mech slamming into a command module.

“They’re docking! I repeat, we have a breech in the upper deck. We have a-”

A blood curdling scream followed, and the line went dead.

Everyone began scrambling to their pedes at once. Sliding into their seats, those at the command post began to run diagnostic scans of the ship and its surroundings.

Placing her servo on the back of her helm, Novastrike shakily got to her pedes. She looked over to see a rather disgruntled Guard shoving Neutroboost aside. He appeared to be limping slightly, much to the little femme’s dismay.

“Sir, we’re getting a reading of something coming out of a transwarp portal nearby.”

“Another Decepticon ship?” slurred a nearby bot.

“Unknown.”

“Whatever it is, it must have its own wormhole generator,” Guard muttered, glancing at the ground. “Keep an optic on it, and report anything to me. I’m heading up deck.”

“But, sir-”

Guard looked around the room. “Any able-bodied and willing to fight, follow me.”

A few mechs and femmes locked optics with Guard and then each other with uncertainty.

Turning swiftly on his heels, Guard began to march out of the room. His arm made a loud, mechanical ‘thunk’ as metal plates began to shift, revealing a rather large cannon.

Slowly, everyone but a very few began to unload their weapons and follow after Guard. They had put their trust and sparks this far into the mech’s resolve. They would do so again.

They left behind in the command module a few of the standard workers, and one very displeased looking Neutroboost standing with his arms crossed.

~

The upper deck was a massacre. The roof and a large section had been removed from the Rising Star entirely. Bodies were thrown around; and others floated dead in space.

Novastrike froze as she spotted Eradicon and Vehicon, along with Decepticon warriors, clashing. The Hell’s Point had docked two large tentacle-like channels into the ship, and soldiers were coming in left and right.

Unlike the little femme and some of the other rogues, Guard did not hesitate. The mech charged headlong with a valiant roar of anguish and fury into the fight. His cannon crackled with energon; firing rapidly upon anyone who Decepticon in the old mech’s line of sight.

It was admirable and frightening at the same time.

Nova’s servos shook nervously. She tightened them on the grips of her plasma pistols.

Fists collided. Bodies clashed. Blades sliced. Blasters fired. Cannons exploded.

It was deafeningly loud in a closed space. Everything stunk of war.

Novastrike didn’t miss this. Not a bit.

She sprinted after the others. Using her speed just as much as her offense as her defense, the small femme bolted past Decepticons and mid-turn, fired at their legs. The sight of plasma eating into their armor caused her tanks to churn.

Leaping against the wall, Novastrike jumped up and over another Con and took out the back of his legs as well.

Clashing her guns together, the two pieces reshapped themselves into a larger rifle. Nova skidded behind a warped section of the ship’s siding and began sniping out the legs of Cons from her safe haven.

~

:: Commander Guard, the ship is exiting its transwarp hole. ::

:: Intercepting transmissions, sir. ::

“Sir,” a mech cried, distracting Guard as he locked servos with a Decepticon. “We have confirmation on the ship leaving the wormhole. It’s the Jonagar.”

A nearby Decepticon suddenly whipped their helm towards the informant, and turned back to some of his fellow Cons with a horrified expression.

“Autobots, incoming! Retreat back to the ship; someone get a hold of Captain and tell him the Jonagar is approaching!”

A shot exploded through the Decepticons chassis and he cried out, falling down with energon pooling out of his mouth and chassis.

“Back to the ship!” Another Decepticon roared.

The mech with his servos interweaved with Guard grimaced as Guard began to crush his digits. The overpowering rogue mech offered a sadistic grin.

“You’ll learn not to mess with my ship, and my crew, one way or another,” Guard boosted.

The Decepticon’s gave a sinister grin; flashing pointed teeth.

“You think so, huh, old mech?”

Guard furrowed his optic ridges, but it was too late.

A cannon folded over from the Cons backside and over his head, and fired as the mech twisted his arm sharply, cracking joints in Guard’s left arm in several places.

The cannon tore through Guard’s chassis at an angle; shredding armor off of his chassis and blowing into his leg. He gave a strangled cry of agony as the Decepticon released him, smirking wide. He turned to follow after the other Decepticons; his broken digits limply flopping at his side.

~

“Guard says to burn the thrusters hot,” one of the mechs stated at the command room. “We’re getting out of here while we can.”

Neutroboost curled his lip up angrily. His optics darted to the viewing window, glancing at the Autobot warship, the Jonagar, as it began to exit its wormhole.

This was their perfect opportunity to strike the Decepticons and the Autobots and try to take at least one of their ships and energon. Guard was a soft-sparked, weak old fool.

~

Novastrike ran helplessly after the bots carrying Guard down the hallway towards the medical room. Her chassis ached with worry as the faded light blue energon streamed down the elderly mech’s side and puddled in thick drops on the floor.

And it wasn’t just her, either. The majority of the ship was crowded after the bots that had managed to haul up the Commander’s large frame.

“Tell the command center to burn the thrusters hot,” Guard rasped.

“Will do, sir.”

Guard leaned his helm back just enough to catch the optics of some of those racing after him. There was an impish twinkle in his optics, and strangely, he looked much younger than he had looked in years.

“I’ll be fine, everyone,” he stated. “Please, get back to work, don’t fret over me. The ship’s going to need a crew to still run her, after all.”

There was some shouted words of protest, but Guard shook his helm as he was skirted into the medic’s room.

Thankfully for him, a rather irked looking femme immediately stepped in the doorway as he passed in.

“Nobody’s permitted in here unless their dying, or seriously injured at the moment” the femme snarled. “Do as your commander says, and get back to work.”

Jumping up and down, Novastrike tried to spot Guard as he was being laid out on a berth. He seemed to be gritting his derma in pain.

The crowd began to disperse slightly, grumbling. The medic gave a little sniff as she turned around to go see her patient.

Just as the doors began to shut, Novastrike caught sight of Guard glancing at the door. He seemed to have captured her gaze and offered a supportive smile, and a wink before the doors closed.

Nova’s tanks churned anxiously as she wrung her servos nervously. She only hoped his optimism wasn’t purely for show.