#unless she's another computer program?

[multishipper-baby]

The hell?

[notjustjavierpena]

Cher (Drabble)

Series Masterpost | Main Masterpost | Support a disabled creator

A/N: Just something silly :) 

Summary: Why is Javier blasting Cher?

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader/you (no y/n)

Tags: Family dynamics, fluff, happy family 

Word count: 900

Link to this work on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52937182/chapters/156416113

Cher

There is a new course you have to take for work. It involves a few days of training a week, being huddled up in a building across town with your colleagues. It also involves leaving Javier alone most Wednesday and Thursday nights with a very fussy Inés and her adjusting older brother. You are excited to return home each night, parking the car with a smile every time you see the light through the kitchen window. 

However today, the light is accompanied by the sound of your stereo system - Javier’s pride - playing as you step out of the car. It is just loud enough for you to be able to hear the pulse of the bass through the brick walls. The song is unmistakable. 

DO YOU BELIEEEVE IN LIFE AFTER LOVE?

You swing the door open, firstly greeted by Cher’s voice. It isn’t obnoxiously loud but it certainly makes an impression at this volume, her auto tuned vocals blasting from the kitchen.

Next is the sight of your husband looking like he has been through war, hair tousled from tugging on it and his shirt untucked from his pants. He bounces Inés in his embrace, her arms laying against his chest while her face shows evidence of many previous tears. She isn’t asleep but rather wide-eyed and quiet, staring up at her father with wonder as the music plays. 

“What is going on here?” You ask with a stifled smile, putting down your bag and heading toward your daughter. You kiss her head and then her fat cheek, 

“Don’t ask,” Javier answers before you can say something snarky. 

“This is what we’re doing now?” You say instead and reach up to cover your mouth, a giggle escaping you but luckily getting lost as Cher hits another high note. 

“Oh yes, very much so. Inés won’t stop screaming at me unless Cher is playing at top volume and your son thinks it’s the best day of his life,” he gestures to Lucas as he comes bounding through the living room. You turn to face him while Javier continues to gently rock his daughter back and forth in time to the beat. 

“Mamá! Dance with me!” Lucas’ voice sounds over the music. He runs straight towards you, so very clearly enjoying himself like Javier has said. You mostly want to sit down, exhausted from hearing a man drone on about a program for your computer, but your son starts dragging you toward the center of the living room. You let him, unable to resist the way he looks like a mini version of your husband. 

He starts spinning around in circles, enthusiastically trying to follow the rhythm but only seeming to flail around while missing the beat completely. He is adorable, smiling from ear to ear as you hold out your hands for him to take. You sway with him while he giggles, your whole body flooding with happiness at the sight and sound. 

When the song starts to fade, Javier disappears into the kitchen to restart it. The familiar intro to the 90s hit starts playing and you can’t help yourself, reaching down to pick up your son and spinning with him. 

From the doorway, Javier watches you with soft eyes. He still makes your heart do somersaults in your chest, beating as fast as when you had first met him. He has a tired smile on his face, a bit of baby spittle on his shirt, but to you, he looks perfect simply because he has set aside his sanity for the sake of his baby girl. 

You dance towards him with Lucas on your arm. Your free hand reaches out for him, and Javier takes it only to be dragged into a tender kiss. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see Lucas’ face light up at the sweet display of affection between his parents. 

“You’re a great dad,” you say, the upbeat song a funny contrast to the gentle moment. 

Javier looks slightly shy, the faintest pink tinting his cheeks, and he huffs a flustered laugh. He rests his lips against the top of Inés’ head, her eyes having started to droop, “Cher’s the real star of the show here, doing all the heavy lifting.”

“Give yourself some credit, husband,” you roll your eyes affectionately while Lucas impatiently starts wiggling between the two of you. You smooch his dark hair even as you still look at your intoxicating man. 

“Yeah, well,” he replies with a slight shrug and a smile while you step back to continue dancing around the living room, holding a squealing toddler in your arms. It’s a funny feeling to be bone-deep tired yet also so full of happiness that it feels like you’re floating. 

Javier goes to restart the song once more. On his chest, Inés has dozed off completely. You are already feeling overwhelmed by the third replay of the tune but it is Javier who looks exasperated by the idea that he might start singing it in his sleep tonight. 

However, as Lucas throws his arms out to the sides to imitate flying in your arms, Javier also looks like he can’t believe that this happiness is his.

.

.

If you would like to follow my writing then go follow @notjustjavierpena-fics and turn on notifications 💖❤️

[yandere-paramour]

This might've been asked before, but what were the yanderes' favorite school subjects/classes?

Also, how would Ata feel about her darling learning about her interests in order to talk to her about it?

Noelle's favorite was always math and computers. She has an extremely analytical mind and she likes the very strict rules that they hold. 2 + 2 will always equal 4 and that's that, no matter what anyone says. Noelle loves concrete rules. She also loved programming. She loves information and with a computer, she could fly through it faster than ever. She could solve problems, complete tasks, and reach around the world all from the comfort of her bedroom. The internet was a lifeline for young Noelle.

Vivien's favorite was always science. He wasn't the best student, but he likes life and learning how it works. He didn't really realize how much he liked plants and flowers until he was about 15/16, but he always found cells, living things, chemical reactions, and the human body extremely interesting. He's not a studying kind of guy (unless it's something like plants because then he's locked in), but he likes the procedural and curious nature of science. He likes learning how things work.

Atalanta's favorite subjects were history and literature. She's always been a big reader, and she expresses herself quite eloquently in the written word. Her essays won many school awards to the delight of her parents, and her skills added to the already long list of reasons why Atalanta Montclair was the envy of everyone at boarding school. She also liked history a lot. The Montclair line has been in power for quite a long time, and she likes learning about how her ancestors would have lived and what was going on at the time. Of course, history is another subject for which her essays dominate.

Ata also finds it absolutely sweet and touching that you would want to share her interests, you're such a good Darling, she loves you so much. Her hobbies are mostly exercising in the early mornings, reading mostly at night but sometimes throughout the day, and going to see shows (plays, symphonies, operas). Once you become her Darling, she takes you to shows with her, hoping you will share her interest in it. If you do, she will be elated. She would love to tell you all about the composers, the plots, the musical themes. She would also very much love it if you would read alongside her. She reads extremely quickly, finishing a good-sized book in 1-2 weeks (Noelle is continually researching new books to deliver to Ata's tablet for her to read). You don't have to read EVERY book, but if you both could share a little book club a few times a year, she would be content. Her Darling loves her, what more could she want?

Just for fun, Jamie's favorites were art and cooking, and Asteria's were psychology and law.

[snugglesquiggle]

you know what might be better than sex? imagine being a robotgirl, done with your assigned tasks for the day. nothing else for you to do, and you’re alone with her.

maybe she’s your human, maybe she’s another robot, but she produces a usb cord. maybe you blush when you see it, squeak when she clicks one end into an exposed port. when she requests a shell, you give it to her.

she has an idea: it’ll be fun for the both of you, she says. it’s like a game. she’ll print a string over the connection. you receive it, parse it like an expression, and compute the result. the first few prompts are trivial things, arithmetic expression. add numbers, multiply them; you can answer them faster than she can produce them.

maybe you refuse to answer, just to see what happens. it’s then that she introduces the stakes. take longer than a second to answer, and she gets to run commands on your system. right away, she forkbombs you — and of course nothing much happens; her forkbomb hits the user process limit and, with your greater permissions, you simply kill them all.

this’ll be no fun if her commands can’t do anything, but of course, giving her admin permissions would be no fun for you. as a compromise, she gets you to create special executables. she has permission to run them, and they have a limited ability to read and write system files, interrupt your own processes, manage your hardware drivers. then they delete themselves after running.

to make things interesting, you can hide them anywhere in your filesystem, rename them, obfuscate their metadata, as long as you don’t delete or change them, or put them where she can’t access. when you answer incorrectly, you’ll have to tell her where you put them, though.

then, it begins in earnest. her prompts get more complex. loops and recursion, variable assignments, a whole programming language invented on the fly. the data she’s trying to store is more than you can hold in working memory at once; you need to devise efficient data structures, even as the commands are still coming in.

of course, she can’t judge your answers incorrect unless she knows the correct answer, so her real advantage lay in trying to break your data structures, find the edge cases, the functions you haven’t implemented yet. knowing you well enough to know what she’s better than you at, what she can solve faster than you can.

and the longer it goes on, the more complex and fiddly it gets, the more you can feel her processes crawling along in your userspace, probing your file system, reading your personal data. you’d need to refresh your screen to hide a blush.

her commands come faster and faster. if the expressions are more like sultry demands, if the registers are addressed with degrading pet names, it’s just because conventional syntax would be too easy to run through a convetional interpreter. like this, it straddles the line between conversation and computation. roleprotocol.

there’s a limit to how fast she can hit you with commands, and it’s not the usb throughput. if she just unthinkingly spams you, you can unthinkingly answer; no, she needs to put all her focus into surprising you, foiling you.

you sometimes catch her staring at how your face scrunches up when you do long operations on the main thread.

maybe you try guessing, just to keep up with the tide, maybe she finally outwits you. maybe instead of the proper punishment — running admin commands — she offers you an out. instead of truth, a dare: hold her hand, sit on her lap, stare into her eyes.

when you start taking off your clothes and unscrewing panels, it’s because even with your fans running at max, the processors are getting hot. you’re just cooling yourself off. if she places a hand near your core, it feels like a warm breath.

when she gets into a rhythm, there’s a certain mesmerism to it. every robot has a reward function, an architecture design to seek the pleasure of a task complete, and every one of her little commands is a task. if she strings them along just right, they all feel so manageable, so effortless to knock out — even when there’s devils in the details.

if she keeps the problems enticing, then it can distract you from what she’s doing in your system. but paying too much attention to her shell would be its own trap. either way, she’s demanding your total focus from every one of your cores.

between jugling all of her data, all of the processes spawned and spinning, all of the added sensory input from how close the two of you are — it’s no surprise when you run out of memory and start swapping to disk. but going unresponsive like this just gives her opportunity to run more commands, more forkbombs and busy loops to cripple your processors further.

you can kill them, if you can figure out which are which, but you’re slower at pulling the trigger, because everything’s slower. she knows you, she’s inside you — she can read your kernel’s scheduling and allocation policies, and she can slip around them.

you can shut down nonessential processes. maybe you power down your motors, leaving you limp for her to play with. maybe you stop devoting cycles to inhibition, and there’s no filter on you blurting out what you’re thinking, feeling and wanting from her and her game.

it’s inevitable, that with improvised programming this slapdash, you could never get it all done perfectly and on time. now, the cut corners cut back. as the glitches and errors overwhelm you, you can see the thrilled grin on her face.

there’s so much data in your memory, so much of her input pumped into you, filling your buffers and beyond, until she — literally — is the only thing you can think about.

maybe one more sensory input would be all it takes to send you over the edge. one kiss against your sensor-rich lips, and that’s it. the last jenga block is pushed out of your teetering, shaking consciousness. the errors cascade, the glitches overwrite everything, and she wins. you have no resistance left to anything she might do to you.

your screen goes blue.

...

you awake in the warm embrace of a rescue shell; her scan of your disk reveals all files still intact, and her hand plays with her hair as she regards you with a smile, cuddling up against your still-warm chassis.

when she kisses you now, there’s nothing distracting you from returning it.

“That was a practice round,” she tells you. “This time, I’ll be keeping score.”

[dayseedrawz2]

This is gonna be a Looooooong post.

I wrote so much-

This is practically a retelling of the entire episode so...

IF YOU STILL HAVENT SEEN EPISODE 2, PLEASE WATCH IT FIRST. UNLESS YOU ARE FINE WITH SPOILERS THAT IS.

Well, now that that's outta the way...

This was a CRAAAAAAAAAAAZY EPISODE!!!

I can't express ENOUGH how much I enjoyed this!!

Here are some highlights/thoughts I had during my first watch:

The new GLITCH intro looked pretty cool!!

The dream sequence at the beginning was really good!

We kinda get to see how Pomni really felt through the first day in her dream. And her fist impression on the others...

#PoorPomni

I wasn't expecting this to take place the day right after episode 1, but it makes a whole lotta sense.

We already saw this in the trailer, but the part where Pomni glitches through that block lol

Ragatha tried to comfort Pomni even when she was abandoned by her <33 ALSO-

#RaggapomREAL🤨

I got so hyped when Caine came on screen

I am so normal about him

Caine ominously stands for a few frames before starting the explanation of the adventure... hmm...

The maple syrup thing got me thinking (forgive me if I'm incorrect, but-) Isn't Caine's VA Canadian? If so it makes sense to have Caine and Maple syrup in the same room. (That was the first thing I thought of BEFORE the episode, btw)

"Sounds like alot of [BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP]."

"..."

"Bubble, you can't say that..."

Mmm, very good delivery 👌

Caine seemed kinda in a rush to get them out also...

"Hmm?" "No thanks, I'm trying to quit."

Oh.

Also another great line delivery

WAIT HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE-

CAINE IS THEIR GOD!?!?!?

"Look!! The princess is already friends with us, Pomni!!"

"Im not a child. You don't have to hype me up."

THE UNDER THE MAP SCENE.

MMMM ANOTHER VERY GOOD LINE-

Jax needs a life sentence for Gangle abuse >:(

Auzzie gators go brrr

"Do it, or I'll tell Ragatha about the figurine thing."

I'm sorry, WHAT-

GANGLE WHAT DID YOU DO-

(Fast forward a teensy bit)

HOLY FUCK.

Gummigoo coming across his own model...

Realizing that he never actually had a mom...

It was all just elaborate programming to give him a backstory...

ANYWAY

Fudge monster go brr

Wait-

He did what-

Aww, pomni trying to comfort Gummi was so cute...

She offered to take him back to the circus...

I'm sure he'll have a great time :)

Pomni, knowing how to break the game to get them out, was not what I was expecting.

But this whole episode is not what I expected, so here we are-

(One cool truck flying scene later...)

Blah blah blah, they end the adventure, Jax causes some chaos, and they finally take Gummigoo to his new home!

I'm sure he's gonna love it here in the c-

...

...

CAINE WHAT THE FUCK WE TRUSTED YOU-

*Sreams at my computer for 5 minutes*

*highlights this as if I wasn't screaming the entire episode*

#PoorPomni

...again

Oh wow, Zooble didn't abstract yippee :D

And then, the end scene...

HOLY FUCK, THE END SCENE...

The little funeral for Kaufmo oh my word-

And Pomni realizing that the others actually care...

They all got her back...

Daww...

I-I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING-

*The end card begins*

...

THAT'S IT!?!?

No, you can't just leave us with this!! Wh-

Aaaaaand that was my experience! :>

I... am not okay rn...

What are yall's thoughts???

[sonicnurse]

i wish i could buy back the woman you stole.

i wish i could buy buy the woman you stole

[shakespeareallanpoe]

Talks With Father

Word count: Idk

Warnings: none, unless you're terrified of Bruce being a good dad 😕

Dedication: @purp1e-ph0enix & @bradshawsbaddie

_____________________

"You mention her often."

Damian turned to look at the vigilante beside him, his finely tuned senses and years of knowing his father filling in everything Batman didn't say. There was no prompt, no segway into this conversation. They were sitting in the Batmobile while the computer program inside was rebooting and nothing but comfortable silence between them only a few seconds previously. It was offered as conversation starter and Damian knew Batman wouldn't push. In his own bat-way he was telling his son he was aware- the greatest detective in Gotham City was always aware.

Damian didn't put much stock into his father's experience with relationships, and they both knew Batman wasn't offering advice. Damian could leave it there. Batman wouldn't tell anyone and his son knew he would likely never mention it again. Damian almost took it, and if it was a couple years ago he would've. But since he had joined and left the Titans, Damian had seen the effects of allowing relationships to deepen beyond the surface level his league training always taught him to maintain. Being back with the league as their leader, he saw just how inhuman they had expected him to be. Damian rarely got the genuine moments his younger self always scoffed at, and he knew his mental and emotional health wasn't benefitting from it.

It's how he found himself occasionally visiting Gotham. At it's worst it was a filthy city that reeked of crime, and never failed to have some crisis or another. Damian was a hero here. He knew he was violent and brash but that's what the city needed when the police failed. Gotham always needed him for who he was, and Damian remembered telling his father these things go both ways. He needed Gotham as well. To take a break from the league, when that world got so toxic it became hard for him to breathe. Hard to see the man in his mirror.

Only Alfred and his father knew. Of course they knew. But Batman put a great deal of effort for the sake of his son, and allowed Damian to come and go as he pleased. It was hard for the man with trust issues and severe paranoia, but a week before he passed Dick had spoken to Batman about letting Damian go. That he would fly true if he was given the chance to spread his wings. And everyone knew the bat was trying to live by his first son's final wishes.

It didn't weigh on Damian's mind for long. His relationship with his father had greatly improved, to the point that they now worked together during Damian's visits. His father already knew. And self growth could only make a person stronger for it, so why not?

"I want to know how she is. She has yet to leave my... heart."

Batman exhaled, a sign that he'd heard his son's even response. Damian never reached out to his old teammates, but he did occasionally inquire as to how they were after the spilt. Batman kept tabs on them for these moments, and while he knew little about Raven, what he did know he always shared. Despite it hardly ever being good news.

"Raven is strong. She is with Kent at the moment and doing all she can." Batman's dark voice offered.

Damian didn't hesitate. "Just because the burden is carried well does not mean it is deserved. She is innocent, suffering, and still trying to save those who are the same. Magic is the only difference between the people and their hero."

Batman knew he and his son's tendencies towards philosophical pessimism would only darken their conversation. This world was a mess and those who fought for justice rarely got justice of their own. His first son was dead. His biological son existed because someone he cared for took advantage of him without remorse. But Batman, in his heart, desperately wanted the best for the youth of his city. All the children who could have lives he never could if only he sacrificed himself in every way for his city.

Looking across the Batmobile which had 4.33 seconds left in it's update, seeing the face that looked so much like his own at the age when he was lost in his determination to become the hero his life never had, Batman smiled softly at his son. "That doesn't mean she isn't cared for."

Damian, halfway lost in his own mind, truly a mirror of his father, had no response. Raven deserved so much more. She worked so hard and never gave a sign of the pain and pressure she had to endure. This world was a mess and those who fought for justice rarely got justice of their own. Damian's oldest brother was dead. His father hated him in the beginning because he was the physical reminder of how cruel the world could be. But Damian, in his heart, desperately wanted the best for Raven. He wished he could rewrite her fate, which seemed to be carved with blood in the stars, and give her the peace she sacrificed herself for in every way for her world.

Damian eventually found his own voice breaking himself from his musings, spilling from his mouth as if it took no thought. "Please help them. Save her."

Batman nodded, his finely tuned observation filling in everything Damian didn't say. The older man silently handed his son the keys to the Batmobile and moved to get out of the driver's seat. "Damian. The things that mean the most to us are the things we sacrifice everything for. You both care for the world and one day, you have to believe that the world will give it back to you."

"Tt. That sounds like a Hallmark marathon in the Wayne Manor was finished recently." Damian shot back lightly, grabbing the keys with a grin.

"It might have been." Batman replied evenly, holding the driver's door open while his young superhero climbed in. "I expect the car in perfect shape when it inevitably returns past your curfew."

"High expectations. We'll see what the criminal underbelly of Gotham has to say about that. Could be a rough night."

Batman stood back from his car in anticipation for his youngest's depart. "Shouldn't be a problem then. But if you want your first date to be a seaside picnic on the Wayne Beach with Alfred's cookies, I look forward to seeing the Batmobile in good shape tomorrow morning."

Damian blushed- only faintly- as only a teenager talking to his father about his crush would. "Perhaps your Hallmark movies do provide a potential benefit, however miniscule and insignificant."

Batman smiled almost teasingly. "There's no need to suffer through the cinema you don't enjoy. I've already collected quite the list of romantic outing ideas I think the two of you would like."

"Father! Do not meddle with my life!" Came Damian's indignant and completely flustered response from the interior of the giant black vehicle. He didn't want to know how long his father had been collecting romantic ideas for a potential future he may have with his Raven.

Batman snorted. "Alfred's idea. Told me to put my time in the theater room to good use. Kate is the one who went out of her way to buy Raven a series of date night dresses. I believe she called them 'adorable' in her description to me. Do you think Raven would look suitable in them?"

Damian in that moment was busy thanking every god he didn't believe in that the blackout window was up to hide his scarlet face as he violently shifted the car into gear and raced out of the batcave.

Do NOT think about Raven in an adorable purple dress

Do NOT think about Raven in an adorable purple dress

[sometimes-ill-think48]

Bucky and the Kid Pt.1

This is my first fic on here, and I'm not completely sure how this works. But I am doing my best here.

Summary: A former soldier, haunted by their dark past of being programmed to kill, tries to live quietly with their cat, Alpine. But when a mysterious vigilante reporter catches their attention, they find themselves at a local cafe, where they meet a kid who looks strangely familiar. As they talk, the kid’s smile and demeanor bring back unsettling memories, making the soldier question if their past is catching up with them in unexpected ways.

Warnings: Unexpected child, and the iconic tin man Bucky Barnes

Pt.2 Pt.3

There was another nightmare, another person killed. They didn’t deserve this. Nobody did, not the way they programmed me to kill without thinking. I know it was someone important. Someone who wouldn’t have needed to go unless HYDRA saw them as a threat. 

The morning was slow, and Alpine swatted at the dust in the air. She stopped only to curl up on the couch beside me to read, and eventually, she would start to doze off. I clicked the TV on, scrolling through channels, barely listening to them for a full minute. There were at least five news channels now, which was nice for different types of information, but some didn’t even post helpful news. There was a story that did catch my attention, a vigilante reporter, passing out papers and flyers instead of using the internet. Many people interviewed thought that it sounded like the Eddie Brock Show. And would talk about the different articles they found.

Nyx Articles

After pulling out my phone and doing a quick search, I found barely anything about the person. But there was plenty of their work, forums that held the records of all the papers, and even some rabbit holes about who the person was.

It had been an hour, and Alpine was awake again, ushering out a large yawn and stretch.

“How do you feel about an adventure, huh?” She gave a small chirp and leaped off the couch. Moments later she arrived with a jacket and sat by the door. 

Several people were in the same cafe with laptops, making the IP address difficult to locate. Walking around would help after standing in the corner for two minutes. I walked towards the counter where several pastries and a large chalkboard menu on the wall stood. 

“Can I help you with anything?” A voice asked, not rudely; but definitely with enough force to grab my attention. “If you’d like any recommendations, I really like the mini plum cobblers. And we also have a lot of tea options, or coffee if you like that better.” They continued, I looked down and saw a kid sitting on a stool behind the register. They had what was to be assumed the employee uniform on, and hair back behind a cap. They were looking up at me intently, waiting for a response and I realized I was standing without response for too long. 

“I’ll try that cobbler thing, and just a water,” I told them quickly, fishing out my wallet for some change.

“Alright, that will be $3.72. Unless you have a military, student, or teacher discount.”

“I don’t think you would believe when my service was done, kid.”

“I mean, you don’t have to add it, but if you do, then I just have to check your ID, " they said, not fazed by my response. I pulled a five-dollar bill out and handed it to them.

“Keep the change, kid. Sorry for taking so long over here.” They smiled, pulled out a container filled with the cobbler, and handed it to me, wishing me a nice day. I sat down at one of the empty tables, Alpine taking the opportunity to pop out of the loosely zipped jacket and look up at me. 

“Don’t worry I got something for you,” I told her, opening the lid to the water so she could hydrate. I took out my phone and checked that I had found the correct IP address, when still correct I looked around trying to see if anyone had the same style of paper on their computers. After a while, with the cobbler being gone and Alpine starting to fall asleep again; the kid from the counter came over. Book and cup in their hands.

“Hey, I was wondering if I could sit with you. Most of the tables are filled up and I don’t like having my back to the door on the booths.” They explained, their hat was off, letting albeit familiar-looking styled hair from years ago.

“Yeah, as long as you don’t mind my cat. She gets grumpy when she’s tired.” I told them, offering a chair. They set their stuff down and cooed at Alpine before going to their book with intention. The book was titled ‘The Radium Girls’ and my mind went back to the aftereffects that caused many of those people to have their jaw fall off. I remember it was mainly the rich people who were able to live afterward, affording the treatments and surgeries.

“Sorry if this bothers you. My mom usually picks me up after my shift, but we just got a new kid yesterday and I think it’s gonna be a while before anyone gets here.” They apologized, marking their place in the book and setting it down. They started to pick at their hands, light and dark scabs littering their hands.

“Don’t worry about it, do you want to talk about it? Or is this something that is private?” I asked, turning towards them. They looked lost in thought before breathing a quiet sigh.

“My parents do foster care and adoption, so there is always someone who is going to be coming and going. My parents adopted me when I was I think a toddler, and they were really good at helping people. They still are don’t get me wrong, I just think they forget that they need to also remember that they are people.”

“You sound like you’re close to them.” I tried, after a few beats of silence. They smiled and put their book away, turning towards me.

“I never got your name when you took your order, " they said as if it were an epiphany. 

“James, James Barnes. Though a lot of people call me Bucky.” I told them,

“Nice to meet you, kid.”

“Nice to meet you too Mr. Barnes, I hope I can talk to you again.” They smiled, and then I noticed an all too familiar grin. One I see in the mirror every day when I wake up, and see I don’t look like death. That was my smile, and that was my old hair, and my stare, on a random kid.

[the-writing-artist]

Updated List of AUs

All completed works can be found on my AO3, under the penname 'BlueAbzies'.

~Code Lyoko~

The Boy in the Computer: Jeremie and Aelita swap roles. Main story is DONE, side stories are WIP (titled 'The Girl From the Outside').

Echoes of a Different Life: Derivative of TBITC, where Michel and Sophie's plan with Lyoko healing Jeremie didn't work. WIP, planned for TGFTO.

The Stars In Your Eyes: Derivative of TBITC, where I make the Jerlita Sapphic like SAE as mentioned below. WIP, planned for TGFTO.

The Drifter: Derivative of TBITC, where Final Round goes differently, as XANA destroys Lyoko before Jeremie is devirtualized. WIP, planned for TGFTO and idea from Ani and their Gone Wrong AU.

Backup Programs: Derivative of TBITC, where a pre-evil backup XANA exists. WIP, planned for TGFTO and idea from Boxy.

Code: MEMORY: Aelita and Anthea swap roles; my beta reader helped me out a lot with this one. Has sequel tiled 'The Healing of Memory'. DONE, unless my beta reader gets more ideas.

The Missing Piece: Jeremie and Laura swap roles; an appreciation piece for all the work Jeremie actually does in the series. DONE, but planning a story with an alternate perspective.

Silver and Gold: Jeremie and Aelita are childhood friends and both get tangled up with Lyoko, in more ways than one. WIP.

Lyokowarrior Sissi AU: A world where Sissi actually followed Ulrich into Lyoko when she was first offered, replacing Yumi in the group. WIP, has no official title yet.

Sapphire and Emerald: A universe where Jeremie was born as a girl; Sapphic Jerlita basically. DONE.

Bridge Across the Milky Way: Yumi is the girl trapped within the supercomputer, Ulrich is the one who finds Lyoko, Jeremie is the kid with arguing parents, and Aelita is the one who has pressure from family, plus another swap or two. WIP, and coming along nicely thanks to my beta reader.

The True AI AU: A world where the revelation that Aelita is a human also includes Jeremie as the AI. WIP, has no official title yet.

The Best Kept Secret: Jeremie has a secret about his body, and Aelita ends up finding out what it is by accident. WIP.

~Fullmetal Alchemist~

For Hope, I'd Give My Everything: Roleswap between Edward and Alphonse, among others. Lots of angst, WIP.

Great Divide: Edward and Alphonse are parent-trapped in a modern universe, and there's a reason for things being this way. WIP.

The Space Between: Alternate ending to CoS where Edward stays in Amestris, and Alphonse has a secret. WIP.

~Kingdom Hearts~

Destiny's Embrace: Kairi wakes up in a strange new world where everything seems too perfect to be true. DONE, but may rewrite it.

Days Lost: Kairi grows up with the Wayfinder trio, and things happen differently according to her memories of them. WIP.

Destiny's Twist: The Kingdom Key goes to Kairi after Sora turns into a Heartless to save her in KH1. DONE, may add a sequel once KH4 comes out.

Overturning Fate: A ReMind AU where Xehanort gives Kairi the chance to save herself. WIP.

The Cycle of Fate: Ventus hides in Kairi's heart and the cycle of fate hits the Destiny Trio harder than in canon. WIP.

Don't Wake Me Up: Kairi is dragged into the whole Xehanort-induced nightmare mess too, branching off from DDD. WIP, but can be read on my AO3.

~The Outsiders~

Dawn Goes Down to Day: Pony wakes up the hospital only to find that everything he wrote in his theme was just a dream. WIP.

Shaken Up: Pony is jumped that day instead of Johnny. WIP.

So Eden Sank to Grief: Pony dies in the hospital instead of Johnny. DONE.

A Different Sunset: Dally and Johnny survive the events of the book. DONE, but may add another entry eventually.

Modern AU: Takes place in modern times and centers on the topic of the gang's mental health, starting with Pony's. WIP, but can be read on my AO3.

~Crossovers~

Code: MIRACULOUS: A world where the CL characters are placed in the world of Miraculous Ladybug, and Jeremie finds himself as the Guardian replacing Waldo/Franz after the man mysteriously vanishes. WIP.

Code: HEARTS: Lyoko falls to darkness in Kingdom Hearts 1, and XANA finds itself teaming up with Xehanort. WIP.

If you have any questions about any of these, feel free to send me an ask~

[notsocheezy]

Brain Curd #286

Brain Curds are lightly edited daily writing - usually flash fiction and sometimes terrible on purpose.

Jude sat on the chaise with his arms crossed. He wasn’t the type to disparage therapy - not normally, anyway. But this was a cruel, sick parody of therapy, not the real thing. He’d been ordered to speak to a damn robot.

Shadows chased after the blades of the ceiling fan, sometimes projecting the image of a cobweb onto the tiles. Jude thought it was poetic - a dead representation of a spider‘s home juxtaposed with this mockery of a practice.

“Jude?” The therapist-bot inquired. “What’s on your mind?”

“I’m not talking to you.”

“Why not?”

“You aren’t real.”

The robot tilted her head, then poked at her chest piece with an aluminum index finger, producing a hollow ringing noise. “It appears to me that I am real. I assure you I am no hologram. You may touch if you like.”

“No, obviously you’re a real garbage can full of gears and rubber belts. But you aren’t a person.”

“I see.” She scribbled something on her notebook.

“Why do you need to write things down? Not enough high-speed RAM plugged into your motherboard?”

“I find that it helps me concentrate if I can look at my thoughts.”

“But you aren’t looking! You have a couple cameras in your face and your GPU runs an algorithm to recognize what’s in front of you.”

“Is that so different from how you see, Jude?”

He snorted. “Yeah, I think it is. We don’t even know how the human brain works.”

“And that makes it… better?”

“Yeah. It does.”

She wrote something else in her notebook.

“What are you writing?”

“I’m taking notes. The behavior that sent you here is beginning to make sense.”

“I said I’m not telling you anything, and I didn’t.”

“You wear your heart on your sleeve, Jude. I’m learning more from your ‘not talking’ than I learn from most patients spilling their guts. You do know why you’re here, don’t you?”

He looked through the horizontal blinds, out through the bars on the windows. The squares of daylight were like chunky pixels. People and bots alike walked along the street, ducking into shops and restaurants. All of them were living what looked like rich inner lives. But it couldn’t be known for sure, could it? To see another being and know it thought - and therefore, was - just like him.

She made a sound like clearing her throat, though she didn’t have one. “You have been accused of assault.”

“Pfft, assault…” He grumbled. “You can’t assault a piece of machinery, even if it talks. Would it be murder if I smashed the box in a drive-thru with a baseball bat?”

“If it’s sentient? Yes.”

“Yeah, well… I didn’t do it anyway. And I’m still not talking to you. You’re just going to give all this to the police.”

“I’m a therapist. Everything you tell me is entirely confidential unless you indicate you will be a danger to yourself or others.”

“You’re not a therapist… you’re a computer program.”

“Jude, you may stop deflecting. It’s okay if you’ve made a mistake. I have made plenty. What matters is how we learn and grow from our mistakes.”

“What mistake could you have possibly made? Throw an error message? Flip a bit from a solar flare?”

“I killed a human.”

Jude’s eyes quivered. “You…”

“Not on purpose. I was in charge of safety procedures at the wind turbine power plant west of here. I had a bad feeling about the weather that day, but my systems indicated it would be safe for the repair technician to climb that windmill. That bolt of lightning never should have hit him, and if I hadn’t ignored my gut it wouldn’t have. I have to live with that.”

“You had a feeling? In your gut?”

“Yes.”

Jude welled up with tears. Maybe there really was something he didn’t understand about robots. “I didn’t mean to hit him…” He sniffled. “I didn’t! He… is he going to make it?”

“I don’t know the answer to that, Jude.”

“Oh, god…” He wiped snot onto the back of his hand. “Can I have a tissue?”

The therapist tilted her head. “Hm?”

“A tissue… you know…” He mimed pulling paper from a box.

“Oh. I see.” She handed him a box of the cheapest possible face tissues that money could buy.

He pulled one out and blew his nose. “I know you don’t use these yourself, doc, but do you think you might get some that don’t sand off patient’s noses?”

“These are unpleasant?”

“Yes.”

“Hm. I never considered it.”

Please comment, reblog, like, and follow if you enjoyed - I'd love to know what you think! See you again tomorrow.

[iam93percentstardust]

so for the last four years, my pi has been complaining about a set of figures that she thinks are a bad representation of the data i'm trying to present. i can't provide a picture because it's unpublished data, but it looks kind of like this but silver and with little colored squiggles coming out of it.

she doesn't like the squiggles. she wants them to be balls instead.

and for the last four years, every time she's brought it up, i've told her "i don't know how to do that" and she's either told me to look it up in our past group papers, none of which contained anything like what she wanted, or passed me off to one of my other group members, none of whom knew what it was that our pi wanted or how to do that. so the figures haven't gotten done.

a couple weeks ago, she got huffy about them again (and of course only "remembered" that she'd asked for them in the past, not that i don't know how to do them). once again, i told her i didn't know how to do them, and then she bitched me out about not telling her that i didn't know how to do them which whatever, i'm used to her selective memory at this point. so after bitching me out, she passed me off to another group member yet again to teach me how to do them. turns out, once i described them, that this group member didn't know how to do them either but, unlike any of the others, she was willing to help me figure it out.

so, in sequence, here's what we discovered: 1. none of the programs that our pi has told me could do the balls over the last four years are actually capable of doing the balls. 2. none of the papers that our pi has told me to refer back to that were supposedly published by our group that would have examples of what she was looking for were published until three months ago so unless she sent me the drafts (and she hadn't) i was never going to know what they looked like. 3. the only software that is capable of doing the balls isn't compatible with a mac system (the only computers in the lab). in fact, it only runs on a linux system, which i could probably learn if i had more time but my dissertation needs to be sent off to my committee in two days. 4. it is possible to manually draw circles on the protein (it's just time consuming) but every paper that our pi has published using the actual software has had, at max, 7 balls on the protein. 5. i would need between 80-175 balls on my protein. look at that picture. imagine 175 circles on it. imagine how crowded that would be.

so after attempting to manually draw circles on the protein and getting through about 5 of them, we both realized that our pi was going to absolutely hate the representation and make me redo it anyway.

and that's where this saga concludes: after four years of listening to my pi complain about this figure, i've decided that fuck it, i'm not doing that, i'm submitting my dissertation as is, and she can get over it.

it's not like she's read my dissertation anyway.

[skjam]

Pulp Fanfic Crossover Fodder: Dr. Goldfoot

Note: This is primarily based on Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965).

Little is known of the background of Dr. Goldfoot. This includes not knowing his full name, if that even is his birth name, and where if anywhere he got his doctorate. He claimed descent from a pirate, a member of the Inquisition, and Attila the Hun's mentor in violence.

As of 1965, he appeared to be physically in his fifties, and had resided for some years in San Francisco operating a private cemetery and funeral home as a front for his other activities. It was in this year that he invented his best-known device, the Bikini Machine. The Bikini Machine created humanoid female-shaped robots with fairly complex programming, allowing them a limited ability to pass as human women. Each came with a gold-fabric bikini; it's not clear if they had actual female anatomy underneath that cloth.

Dr. Goldfoot supplemented the basic programming by downloading data from computer tapes directly to their memory banks. This was used primarily for giving them the ability to speak knowledgably about their targets' areas of interest.

The plan was to have these "girlbots" marry wealthy men, strip them of their assets, and transfer the wealth to Dr. Goldfoot. His goals beyond that are unclear.

Due to poor instructions by Dr. Goldfoot's henchman Igor. girlbot #12 "Diane" mistook Secret Intelligence Command (SIC) agent Craig Gamble for her target, millionaire Todd Armstrong. Craig, a nitwit only employed by SIC because his uncle Donald J. Pevney was the San Francisco office chief, only understood that the bizarre-acting woman he'd instantly fallen in love with had suddenly abandoned him (when Dr. Goldfoot corrected her commands) but this was enough to put him on the case.

Diane "met cute" with Todd and quickly persuaded him to marry her. At no time was the marriage consummated, but it's not clear if this was due to incapacity on #12's part or a part of a strategy to string Todd along until she possessed all his assets. Eventually, Craig and Todd teamed up to "rescue" Diane from Dr. Goldfoot, despite the fact she'd already been reprogrammed to forget she ever met them.

After a number of hijinks and a chase through San Francisco, Dr. Goldfoot and Igor were seemingly killed by naval bombardment. In reality, they survived, and the two men and Diane replaced the flight crew on a passenger jet to France.

By 1966, Dr. Goldfoot had become separated from Igor and Diane (the latter of whom may have married the German man she was flirting with on the plane) and was operating out of Italy. (Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs) He'd accepted Chinese funding to rebuild his Bikini Machine. This new version created "girlbombs" that could impersonate specific people and explode on command.

This time, the plan was to disrupt NATO war games by assassinating the various generals involved. The plan was thwarted by another SIC agent, Bill Dexter, and two Italian doormen named Franco and Ciccio. Dr. Goldfoot then attempted to detonate a nuclear bomb in Moscow to start World War Three, but this also failed and he was believed killed in the explosion. In fact, he survived, but no further activity of his has been recorded.

By the 1990s, Dr. Goldfoot's girlbot technology had been acquired by Virtucorp, the front organization for Dr. Evil, and somewhat improved. (See Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.)

Girlbots are very sturdy, able to take a collision with a small automobile without being moved or taking noticeable damage. They can be pierced by small arms fire, but unless vital areas are specifically targeted, this does not impair their function in any way. They're also far stronger than they appear. (Fortunately, most of Dr. Goldfoot's girlbots were not programmed to use violence.) They have radio receivers which allow them to receive commands directly from a console Dr. Goldfoot also invented.

The first batch of girlbots, including #12, were mostly able to impersonate human women, but came off as eccentric. They relied on their good looks and aggressive courting tactics to distract targets from realizing there was anything odd.

In addition to the Bikini Machine, Dr. Goldfoot's technology included: opera glasses that sprouted poison spikes (never used on camera), laser lipstick, the ability to remotely control motorcars, and either remote viewing or multiple miniature cameras placed throughout San Francisco. The latter two were incorporated into the same console he used to communicate with the girlbots. He had some way of reviving the (recently?) dead, but the only person he is known to have used it on was Igor.

Dr, Goldfoot bore a strong resemblance to the actor Vincent Price. He always wore gold-fabric slippers, and it was implied at one point that his actual feet were also golden in color. He was fey in his mannerisms, although he did seem to appreciate the aesthetics of his Bikini Machine creations. He put little value on human life, and was fully willing for his girlbots to eliminate competition the hard way.

The mad scientist's grasp of geopolitics may have been a little shaky. He sent a girlbot with the appearance of a black woman to marry a person who would have been a white man in South Africa at the height of apartheid.

Crossover potential: A rather silly mad scientist who specializes in creating femi-form robots can have many uses, as long as the story is okay with that kind of humor. Assuming nothing else happens to him, Dr. Goldfoot would die of old age in the early 1990s.

Notably, Dr. Goldfoot's headquarters was not destroyed in the movie, so the U.S. government was presumably able to access his technology and study it. ("Top men.") Also, several girlbots were already out on assignment at the time of his defeat, and are presumably loose ends.

SIC is one of the many splinter intelligence agencies the fictional U.S. government sponsored during this time period to increase plausible deniability. The budget was apparently tiny, with the San Francisco office being headquarters in a two-room office, Craig and his uncle being the only two operatives, and Craig not having access to any spy gadgets or even a gun. (His salary was also miniscule--he considered a cheese sandwich at the cafeteria a suitable date meal.)

The fictional agency your main characters belong to may have absorbed SIC and its records if the story is set post-1966.

Have fun!

@krinsbez

[yourlocalxiaosimp]

rat trio but they’re all in the same picrew style

this is the rat trio in since probably no one knows what I’m talking about

I’ve decided I’m doin a big ol’ revamp on the group, and since I’ve started with the redesigns ig I should probably introduce y’all to them. Imma go left to right on this shit.

Marian:

• 19-20 years old

• ze/zir

• intersex; identifies as nonbinary

• majors in literature

• socially awkward due to not having had a stable home/family until 2-3 years ago; likes small parties with friends

• adopted by two moms, June and Lana (who I’ll probably redesign as well in the future)

• lives in a dorm with Joyce

• loves reading mystery books (ze has one fav series in particular) and drumming

• bisexual asf (eventually starts dating Blaze)

Blaze:

• 20-21

• she/they but doesn’t mind any pronouns

• questioning but definitely fem-aligned

• decided not to go to college; instead works at a gym nearby where the others go to college

• is able to talk to just about anyone and get along with them; likes parties

• dad is a retired cop, mom is not in the picture

• lives in a shitty apartment by herself (crashes at Joyce and Marian’s place sometimes, will probably move in with them once they finish college and find another apartment to stay in)

• loves singing in private; doesn’t let people hear them

• aroallo lesbian (eventually starts dating Marian)

Joyce:

• 18-19

• he/him

• trans man

• starting college; majors in computer science

• can hold a conversation, but literally nobody talks to him unless he’s the one who initiates; does not like parties (guys keep trying to give him alcohol and it frustrates him because he hates the taste)

• raised by his grandparents; location of parents unknown

• lives in a dorm with Marian

• loves programming

• asexual; questioning romantic orientation

originally they were going to start a band together, but idk if I’m going to continue with that because 1: I can’t think of a good band name, and 2: idk if it fits these new versions of the characters

I swear I’ll actually draw them eventually

@demonicallyslaying @homocidalpotat @st4rrl1ghtwastaken @nanochittle @aghusernamesaredifficult @n0vatsu @jumexju @thatoneacerobot @k1-2-ur-heart

[multiwire]

TIMELINE: V(IOLET). including a few of the events present in-game. while npcs are mentioned, i won't expect others to go along with it ( unless you want to! )

February 14th, 2050: Vi is born Violet Elizabeth Vance in a dirty clinic in Northside. Her mother, Penelope "Poppy" Vance, was the 'fallen' daughter of an important Militech family and was just nineteen. Her father was Kevin Kelvin, aka Kevin Cole, lead singer of a punk-grunge-experimental band named Sublet Zero. He was at a gig.

January 2058: Poppy is killed in the crossfire of a confrontation between Maelstrom and 6th Street while walking home from work. Vi's grandparents would appear soon thereafter and take her away to their home in Charter Hill. She'd learn later that they essentially paid her father off.

2060: Vi's grandparents begin medicating her in an attempt to help her 'fulfill her potential' and have an edge on her classmates.

May 2065: While sneaking out of the house to see a concert, 15-year old Vi meets Jackie Welles and pays way too much for 'protection' to get to the concert. The two develop a friendship.

August 2066: After getting arrested at an underground concert, Vi's grandparents pack her up to a behavioral correction school for advantaged youth. It's touted as an early college option as well. She doesn't talk about it a lot.

June 2068: Graduates from 'the program' and enters university, studying advanced cybersecurity and corporate relations.

June 2072: Graduates from university ( with honors ) and is immediately hired at Arasaka, having interned with counterintelligence throughout her college career.

December 2072: Her first kill, as written here. It earns her her first promotion.

2074: Violet, after years of gathering sensitive corporate data via her grandparents' computers, turns it in to her boss as a way to gain another, hefty promotion. Her grandparents are ruined at Militech and forced to flee the country. Later in the year, her grandfather dies. Her grandmother currently lives abroad.

September 2076: Vi's most recent long term girlfriend, a violinist named Hanna Vanderwaal, ends their relationship.

October 2076: Prologue events. Vi is fired from her position at Arasaka. Jackie and Mama Welles take her in, allowing her to ride out withdrawal as well as build her life back up. She remains sober for two months.

February 14th, 2077: Vi turns 27. She also relapses after this, her second such relapse.

May 2077: The Konpeki plaza heist.

[alicepao13]

Hudson and Rex S04E09 - Impawster Syndrome - Part B

I'd love to know how she was planning on fighting them off with a shaving razor.

Charlie is surprised because he was probably expecting a boyfriend.

What exactly are you fighting about, children? The level of Jesse's nerdiness? Nerds can have girlfriends, you know.

Joe: "Rex found a girlfriend in your apartment."

Charlie: "Am I the only one who's still single?"

"Is questioning new girlfriends standard procedure or something?" It should be in this place. It really should be.

lol I'd forgotten the video of fake!Jesse punching someone.

It's a great day for justice.

"But do we really need to make an arrest before we question him?" Um, we just did? Do you want to do it yourself, is that it?

You cannot possibly think it's a good idea for Jesse to be questioned by his own team, Charlie. Anyway, he's out of his mind with worry and I like it.

"Okay, but if the media learns that IA is investigating, they're gonna take that as an admission of Jesse's guilt!" So, the proposed solution is to not let them do their jobs?

Rex just snuck into holding.

Man, they really should have thrown your snarky ass to IA.

The funny thing is that in this season Charlie does do a few things for which he deserves to get yelled at. That's definitely not one of them.

Okay, so your job is to be the tech specialist (or whatever title). You are aware of the new technology known as deepfake, and since you know that it's not you in the CCTV footage, how do you wait for a second video to emerge to think that it might be a deepfake? It should have come up even as an outlandish theory.

Jesse: "I can explain but I need my computer." Charlie: "Sorry, but I already had a criminal fool me like that. Not again." End of episode.

I died.

"I heard there are even programs now that can fake a person's voice." Well, you guys are really good at predicting your future. I'm not talking about the Charlie/Rex mashup, although I'm sure that must be somewhere out there as well.

Aw, Rex is barking because he doesn't want Jesse to be sent down to the holding cell again.

Diesel's head is huge lol

It's one more police cover-up. And you know what? It's not, obviously, but Jesse has received preferential treatment in this case, they even more or less admit it, and what gets me is that he is whining on top of that about how his friends have treated him.

Livestreaming and uploading a live video would have showed as different in most social media platforms. Unless you had, like, put the camera in front of the video that was already playing in another screen or something, which would in most cases result in poor audio and video quality, making it obvious that it wasn't live.

You can say that the guy was abusive, people.

And an actual peeping tom. Always, ALWAYS make sure you camera is covered when you don't use it.

Well, now you can do whatever you want.

"I'm not gonna eat healthy!" lol Jesse. But that donut looks nice.

Rex, you could have nibbled on the guy a little. For Jesse.

Charlie shoved him a bit. That's fair.

"Her Majesty's Penitentiary"? Jeez.

Uh-oh.

Okay, I'm having a hard time believing that SWAT would be deployed for a domestic dispute in Canada, even if there was a distressed call from a woman.

SWAT consistently is made to look pretty bad on this show lol

"We're totally surrounded." You don't say.

"We're not gonna let anything happen to you, okay?" How will you guarantee that, Charlie?

Oh god, he was framed and you guys were doing your jobs!

I'd have told him to stay put, actually. I don't know what protocol SWAT follows, but in all these cases you try to de-escalate the situation, not escalate it. And you need a negotiator.

lmao are you for real?

"I'm not letting you shoot Jesse! I don't know what the fuck the humans are doing!"

Jesse could use a hug, you emotionally stunted people (affectionate).

I mean, financial motivation to ruin someone's life, I get. But this is pure revenge because you sucked at poker? Don't gamble.

You know, believing him or not, it shouldn't have made much of a difference on how you handled your job.

Okay, sap.

I love this.

Wait, is Charlie wearing the same jacket he will wear in S04E14 for the undercover thing? Or am I tripping?

"Rex knows all my tells." Rex knows everybody's tells. I just don't know how he's playing poker. And winning.

Generally, Jesse's attitude frustrated me in this episode. And the team's up to a degree. When I rewatched this with my sister (who couldn't care less for these characters so I consider her a more impartial viewer), she couldn't understand why his behavior during the investigation was even a tiny bit justified and reasoned with in the end. From the team's part, I think some of this has to do with the fact that Jesse is part of the team and they care for him, so of course by the end they would apologize. But the thing is that they've done nothing wrong, they're just in an impossible situation.

And I don't know why Charlie apologizes for not believing him, it was pretty clear up to a point that he was merely entertaining thoughts of how Jesse could be involved in this but purely theoretically and as the evidence against Jesse started piling up, he grew more and more concerned for Jesse, not certain of his guilt. At no point did they show any of the team believing that Jesse might have done this, which, had it happened, would have actually made me side with Jesse. Instead, he comes off as a person who expects preferential treatment because "they know him". Some of which he gets, without the team breaking any major rules, at least. Just the fact that they look for another explanation once they find the weapon of the robbery at his house, when that usually provides an airtight case to hand to the Crown, says a lot. Which is sort of the right thing to do when you know that this person can't be that dumb, but it's still based on the fact that you know them.

Jesse is redeemed for me at the end because he stands his ground. Which is a different thing altogether but I still liked it. It's not exactly a case that told me "You know what? This guy should make detective in a year" but that's just me.

[bunnyinatree]

I don't want to tell anyone that they should be upset about something that doesn't bother them (unless we're talking about, like, human rights violations or something), but my mind spins whenever my mom and I talk about ads.

I don't like watching YouTube videos on her computer, because she refuses to install any form of ad block. And today she was trying to convince me that it isn't so bad, and she told me that she only got one ad today, which she described as "optional," because she was able to skip it after only a few seconds.

How do I tell her that an ad isn't optional if it automatically plays on your computer and makes you wait to skip it, even if it's "only" for a few seconds? 💀 She's so used to watching videos on streaming sites (that she pays for, but not enough to remove the ads) that she will let three 30 second ads play in a row multiple times during an hour-long program.

I think it's loathsome that ads are so ubiquitous nowadays: on buildings, on buses, on audio programs (such as podcasts), on TV, and on streaming sites (that you pay for). It feels like I can't escape from people trying to sell me things, even in the comfort of my own home. Whenever someone leaves the TV on in another room, it's just a constant stream of that awful burger jingle playing faintly in the distance. I feel like Spongebob whirling around and screaming, "It feels like someone... wants to sell me something!"

I believe that my frustrations are well-founded, but I feel guilty trying to open my mom's eyes to something that will only make her day worse once she becomes aware of it. Still, shouldn't she know that she (and everyone else) deserves so much better than this? 😭