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buckyskorpion · 4 years

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Do Something Bad, Too - Part 5

Pairing: Alpha!Bucky x Omega!Reader

Summary: It’s like every single Alpha on the planet won’t rest until they’ve confessed their eternal wish for you to mother their children, and it’s getting old. Luckily, that’s a problem Bucky might be able to fix.

Warnings: language, a/b/o dynamics, mentions of violence

A/N: sooooo..... lets not mention the last time i updated this fic was four years, and get excited that im finally updating!! woo!! i really hope this was worth the wait, im very anxious about letting you guys down. let me know what you honestly think! love u all, thank u for sticking with me

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You stay in Nat’s apartment in the Tower for the rest of your heat, which lasts an entire week. Nat comes and goes throughout that time to make sure you’re drinking enough water, to make you dinner or run you a bath, or sometimes just to keep you company when you’re capable of that. She doesn’t stay long, though, aware her presence just makes the unbearableness of going through heat even worse. She also doesn’t mention Bucky’s clothes or anything about that first day, which you’re immeasurably grateful for. You don’t think you could talk about it without crying.

To say you’re humiliated is an understatement. Mixed with that is all this guilt and shame and self-hatred for inflicting that situation on you and Bucky. Mostly for Bucky. He had made it so very clear he was only comfortable helping you with the scent thing, and even with that there were boundaries. You had blown through them all by showing up to his apartment, triggering both your instincts to do things you couldn’t control, and now he probably resented you enough to never want to see you again.

You don’t blame him. It doesn’t stop it from hurting so much, though.

You’ve well and truly fucked yourself now. Not only is it omega instincts driving you towards Bucky now, but also your own stupid, naive heart. You miss his giant hands and broad shoulders that block out the world for a second, narrowing your scope to just the two of you. You miss the way you can breathe around him, how the world doesn’t feel so scary and foreign to you when he’s by your side. It’s crazy because you weren’t even close, you weren’t even really friends, but now you never will be because you’re so goddamn stupid it’s actually astounding.

Nat’s plan had not worked. And this time, you couldn’t even blame her for this colossal backfire. This is all your handiwork.

You’re back in your office, returning to work once your fever died down and you could stand to be in the vicinity of other alphas without passing out. Maybe you’re tapping rather aggressively on your keyboard, and maybe all the techies on the floor can hear you sigh and groan in frustration every two seconds and are sending you strange looks through the glass. Whatever, you’re their boss, they can’t say anything. Besides, your boss has requested some rather strange security upgrades and you’re not sure if it’s within your job description to email Tony Stark and say what the fuck?

It turns out you don’t have to, because Tony Stark comes to you. It’s not often he takes part in the day to day workings of Stark Industries - that’s your job, after all. But he comes striding into your office eating an apple and wearing sunglasses during the middle of the day, and points a ringed finger at you.

“You’re back,” he says, and you find yourself glancing down at your baby-blue pantsuit just to make sure you are, in fact, back. Stark takes a very pointed breath through his nose and adds, “You smell terrible. This is great!”

“Great?” You can’t help but sound bitter. Your smell is hardly great to you. Even after sweating out your entire body-weight and taking more showers than is considered healthy, you still smell like Bucky. You can’t escape him - not your thoughts, not your heart, and certainly not the way your skin seems to emanate him like he’s crawled underneath and set up shop. It’s embarrassing and humiliating, because it’s not real, and just serves to remind you of the terrible mistake you’ve made. You hope beyond hope Stark doesn’t recognise the other alpha scent clinging to your pores.

“Yes, great. I need your help,” he says, sitting down in a chair opposite your desk. You glance at the specs you have open on your computer, the strange security upgrades he wants you to make to the Tower, and then back to Stark’s million-dollar smile. It’s unsettling. You feel a headache forming before he even opens his mouth.

“If this has anything to do with these emails-“

“Those can wait,” Stark says, waving a dismissive hand at your computer. He lobs his applecore into the bin beside your desk as if to punctuate his point, then says, “This is a request on behalf of the Avengers.”

“Um,” you say, rather eloquently. Avengers? What on earth could they want with you, unless- you groan, rolling your eyes to the ceiling. “Natasha.”

“She highly recommended your expertise,” Stark says, and that headache brewing in your temples blooms into a full-blown migraine. He stands, smooths out his slacks, and says without room for question, “Follow me.”

This is how you end up back in the residential floors of the Tower, much to your chagrin, which Stark seems to pick up on. The closer you get to Bucky’s floor the more fidgety you become, heart racing and skin turning clammy until you watch the numbers fly by and you leave him somewhere in the clouds above Manhattan. The elevator doors ding open to a floor that seems to go on forever, full of gym equipment and fancy simulation tech you figure the Avengers must use to train. You find Natasha’s red head on the sparring mats, tackling someone to the ground with her thighs, and glare daggers as you follow Stark into the room.

“She’s alive!” Natasha calls across the room, ignoring your death glare for a knowing smirk. Her voice echoes through the warehouse-style gym floor, drawing the attention of the others in the room. The Avengers, and all of a sudden you feel like an eighteen year old kid watching aliens attack New York on a grainy satellite TV in the desert again. This is like meeting celebrities on another level. Steve Rogers finishes wrapping his hands as he walks over to you and Stark, Sam Wilson beside him, and Natasha gives Clint Barton a hand to help him up from the mats.

“What have you roped me into now, Nat?” you ask, not bothering to hide your frustration. You’ve just about had it with her meddling, but you should’ve known it was a pipe dream to think she would stop.

“We know you’re very busy, we won’t take up much of your time,” Steve Rogers says, extending a hand and introducing himself like he needs to. Captain America needs no introduction.

“I know who you all are,” you say, giving them a nod. “And you’re right, I am busy. So why am I here?”

“You and Nat must get along like a house on fire,” Clint says, earning him an elbow in the gut from Nat herself. You grin, all sharp in the way Nat tells you looks scary in a hot way, and watch as he subtly shifts behind Nat as if to hide behind her smaller frame. It’s only then that you register the scents mingling between them, and realise that Clint Barton is Nat’s omega. She grins at you, beatific and serene, as if she can read your thoughts and knows exactly what you’ve just figured out.

“Let’s not hold (Y/n) up any longer,” Nat says, grinning in a way that always spells trouble for you. “She’s a woman in high demand.”

Stark leads them to what seems to be a large empty space in the training facility, but it’s soon filled with hologram projections from a tiny Starkpad he pulls from his pocket. You fall into step beside Nat, using your height advantage to glare down at her and convey the level to which you want to strangle her right now. She just loops her arm with yours and kisses you on the cheek, frustrating your attempts at intimidation before you can even begin. Bloody Russian spies, you grumble to yourself as you come a halt in front of the holograms.

You’re looking at building specs, that much is obvious. Why, though, is entirely lost on you. The structure is a tall hexagonal building reminding you of a panopticon, with security floors in the centre and what seem to be prison cells surrounding them. Details jump out from Stark’s hologram - security cameras, miniature guards patrolling the floors, thermally sealed doors and electromagnetic force-fields on the cells. It’s a prison, you surmise, and you’re starting to get a bad feeling as to why you’re here.

You turn to Nat and say, “I’m not going back in the field.”

She pats your arm with only a tiny bit of condescension and says, “I’m not asking you to.”

“You’re my Head of Security,” Stark says, then gestures to the hologram building, “If you can design impenetrable security systems, surely you can undo them.”

“You want me to help you break into this place?” you ask. The team all nod, and you look back at the intimidating, virtual-blue building in front of you. “It’s a fortress.”

“Yeah, they really upped the anti on security since I was in there,” Sam Wilson says, earning him a reproachful look from Steve. It does nothing to soothe the anxiety starting to thread through your chest. Failing the Avengers doesn’t seem like an option, but from where you’re standing, neither is breaking into this facility.

“I’ll need to know what it is first,” you say, “Then I can try and help you. Emphasis on try. I’m not a miracle worker.”

“It’s called the Raft,” Steve says, his face growing stony and set as he talks. “It’s a prison designed for enhanced persons by Secretary Ross. After Germany, I broke Sam, Scott, and Clint out. But Wanda-“

“We need to get her out of there,” Clint says. You pretend not to notice as beside you Nat discreetly takes his hand, rubbing her thumb across his bruised knuckles.

“Leave the search and rescue to us,” Stark says, and you watch him shift uncomfortably under some inscrutable looks Steve and Sam are giving him, “We just need your help on how to get into the joint.”

“Simple,” you breathe, but only Nat laughs. This seems like an impossible task, but from the look of everyone around you, failure isn’t an option. You’re going to have to make the impossible possible. It’s a good thing you’ve had some experience with that - in the military, trapped into sand-filled corners with no foreseeable way out, it really did seem like you were working miracles to stay alive out there. You swallow past a dry mouth and blink through desert-gunked eyes, say, “I’ll need that Starkpad, and some time.”

“You have forty-eight hours,” Stark says. The hologram disappears in a blink as he throws the Starkpad, no bigger than your palm, which you only just manage to catch. Stark clicks his fingers, as if an idea as just occurred to him, and says, “Oh, I almost forget to tell you! The Raft is underwater. Completely submerged, middle of the ocean, super top-secret. Fun, right?”

Your heart drops to your stomach. Fun is not the word you you would use. Only forty-eight hours to break into the most secure facility in the country, if not the world? This day couldn’t possibly blindside you anymore.

As if the universe is conspiring against you, FRIDAY’s voice chimes in from overhead speakers to say, “Mr Stark, Sergeant Barnes is on his way to the gym floor.”

You feel your whole body lock up, heart seizing in your chest - Bucky? Here? You weren’t prepared to see him yet, or speak to him. What would you say? How could you apologise for one of the worst crimes you may have ever committed, and you’ve killed people? Natasha unloops her arm from yours, tries to soothe you with a hand on your back but it does nothing for the anxiety shooting sparks throughout your blood stream.

“How many times have I got to tell that illiterate Soviet popsicle, he’s not on the fucking team,” Stark grumbles, storming towards the elevators with a scowl. Steve clenches his fists, glaring after Stark but Sam holds him back. He mutters something only Steve can hear which makes him close his eyes and exhale sharp through his nose - frustrated, but calming by the nanosecond.

It’s a shame nobody thought to do the same for you.

“What did you just call him?” you say, ignoring Natasha’s warning murmur of your name as you follow after Stark. Maybe you still have some residually elevated hormones from your heat, or you really are just a lovesick idiot who can’t control her temper, but whatever it is has you absolutely incensed. Stark stops dead, clearly caught off guard by the venom in your voice, and spins on his heel to stare at you incredulously.

“Excuse me?” he says, blinking owlishly at you as you lean up into his space. You’re aware you’re overstepping the boss/employee line, but you can’t help yourself. The rage is brewing, and with each laboured breath Bucky’s scent grows stronger and stronger until it’s all you can smell. It settles over your skin like armour, and the urge to protect that hold on you, to protect him, is beyond your control - it’s primal.

“Don’t talk about him like that, ever,” you snarl, watching with satisfaction as Stark’s eyes turn round and wide.

He glances behind you towards his friends and says, “Are we sure she isn’t an alpha? Sheesh.”

“Tony,” Natasha warns, but it’s too late. You use the palm of your hand to slam into Stark’s solar plexus. You kick out his kneecap and he drops on one knee, wheezing and gasping for air. It all happens so fast you can’t even think about the repercussions of assaulting your boss, let alone what’s driven you to do it in the first place.

“I don’t need to be an alpha to kick your ass,” you hiss, glaring down at Stark who looks up at you like you have, in fact, lost your mind.

At that moment, the elevator dings and reveals Bucky practically seething behind the elevator doors. He storms in, larger than life - in the week or so it’s been since you’ve seen him, you’ve somehow forgotten how physically intimidating he actually is. You immediately step back from Stark’s kneeling figure, feeling the strange need to hide your hands behind your back like a kid caught with the cookie jar. Bucky glances wildly between you, Stark on the ground, and the ring of Avengers in different states of attempting to intervene. He heaves ragged breaths and is emitting a scent that threatens to take you to your knees, too. Authoritative, powerful, protective.

That submissive, animalistic side of you makes you really hate being an omega sometimes.

“Why is she here?” Bucky asks someone behind you, probably Natasha. He swings his, frankly, frightening gaze to Stark and demands with just as much venom as you had, “What did you do to her.”

“Jesus Christ, nothing!” Stark wheezes, clutching at the spot on his chest you’ve definitely bruised. He points an accusing finger at you and cries, “She hit me!”

“I’m so sorry,” you say, feeling your hands start to shake where you clutch them behind your back. You look to Bucky like maybe he can explain, which makes you sick to your stomach because he’s not yours to look towards. Now, more than ever, that is abundantly clear. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“I do!” Natasha pipes up behind you, helpful as ever. Bucky glares at her for you this time, releasing you of his burning-hot stare. His gaze has the power to paralyse you, and you need to get away from him, this, all of it - right now. You don’t get a chance to, however, before Natasha once again sticks her foot in it and says, “She was defending your honour, James.”

“Yeah, and I’ve no idea why. One quick google search should tell you he doesn’t need any-“

It takes you a second to realise the snarling, growling sound echoing through the gym is coming from you. Your face burns as you roll your lips together, cutting the sound off completely. For your entire life you’ve been headstrong and confident, but this whole experience with Bucky from the very first day you met him has shaken your entire self-perception. Everything you’ve known has been turned upside down - it was easy when all alphas were assholes, and you were one omega they couldn’t fuck with. Now, you stare down at your shoes and refuse to look in Bucky’s direction because he’s affected you so much you can’t even control yourself anymore. The worst part is that it’s entirely your own doing, because Bucky made it very clear you aren’t the one he wants, so everything you’re doing right now is just incredibly humiliating.

“(Y/n)?” Bucky’s voice makes you shudder. Looking at him would surely make you burst into flames, from embarrassment of the last time you saw him which you can’t even think about, or from the shame of pathetically defending a man who doesn’t want anything to do with you. He doesn’t even want you here, storming up to ask why you’re in his home in the first place.

“I’m gonna go,” you say, giving Bucky a wide berth as you head for the elevators. You can’t get there fast enough, practically sprinting to press the close-door button as fast as you can.

“Wait-“

And then, the absolute worst thing happens. You almost crush the Starkpad still in your hand from clenching your fist so hard - you have to, in order to keep your hands by your sides and not in Bucky’s personal space. Because just as the doors are about to slide closed, he slips in between them and FRIDAY seals you both in. The elevator fills with Bucky Bucky Bucky, just like your heat-addled brain has been chanting at you since you stumbled into his apartment a week ago.

Bucky stares at you wide-eyed, and you stare back just the same. This could possibly be your worst nightmare come to life, especially when the elevator screeches to a halt and FRIDAY’s dulcet tones hammer your fate home.

“I appear to be having some technical difficulties,” FRIDAY says, sounding confused if an AI can sound like anything. “I’m so sorry, I’m trying to fix this. It seems someone is manually overriding my control of the elevator.”

“Nat,” you groan, in unison with Bucky. So that’s it. You’re stuck in an elevator with Bucky and are being forced to face the music, by the powers that be. The powers being Natasha, a no good meddler who is going to be in a world of pain when you get out of here. Alpha be damned.

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peterman-spideyparker · 4 years

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Love is Blind (Sam Wilson x Reader)

Author’s Note: Hey guys! I’m so sorry I didn’t get to posting this fic this past weekend like I said I would, but I was getting some things in order before my classes start next week (yikes!). I’ve been feeling rom-com-y lately with the books I’ve been reading, and I thought it’d be fun to do a fic that reflected one of my favorite tropes--escaping the terrible blind date! This my first Sam Wilson x Reader fic, so I hope I did him justice! Enjoy! :)

Summary: You pride yourself on your self-sufficiency and your great career, but you want a love life, too. That’s where your friends come in. Sometimes they’re right on the money with their fix ups, but most of the times, it’s a blunder. The date tonight is no exception, but an unexpected familiar face helps you get out of it for a much better evening.

Warnings: Fluff, bad blind date (general douchebaggery/sexism on the blind date’s part), drinking, implied smut, language

Other Characters: None

Word Count: 1,263

You hide the exasperated sigh from your chest behind your wine glass before taking a rather large gulp of the deep red liquid. You had mixed feelings about being set up on a blind date; on the one hand, you were open to the idea of being set up, as you were madly embarrassed by the amount of time that had passed since your last date. On the other hand, you were apprehensive about going out with someone that you didn’t know because Natasha and Tony knew some . . . colorful characters. Unfortunately, tonight was not an exception to the past trends.

“And then after we won state’s we had a giant party at my dad’s lake house,” your date continues. “It was a total rager with beer flowing like freakin’ Niagara Falls.”

“Mm,” you say as you finish your glass of wine. “Real interesting story, but if you’ll excuse me, this is my third glass of wine and I need to use the restroom.”

Before he can say anything else, you grab your clutch and make a beeline towards the restrooms in the back of the restaurant. You whip out your phone, ready to call Natasha and ream her out when you bump into a rock-hard chest.

“I’m so sorry,” you say as you look up from your phone and see a familiar face, although you don’t know why you know this man.

“It’s alright,” he smiles, his brown eyes twinkling as he flashes you a smirk. “You’re, uh, you’re Natasha’s friend, right?”

“Depends who’s asking,” you say, quirking an eyebrow.

“I’m Sam,” he says, giving you his hand to shake. “I know Nat. I’m Steve’s friend.”

“You were at that party!” you say. “Right. I kicked your ass in foosball.”

He chuckles. “That table was new and my tiny men kept sticking. My foos game is on point.”

“Right,” you say with a flirtatious smile—the first time you’ve done that all night. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go yell at our mutual friend for setting me up on a terrible date.”

“Or,” he starts. “I could help you get out of it.”

You bite your lip as you put your phone away. “I’m listening.”

“Just trust me,” he smiles. “And if you trust Nat to set you up on a blind date, I’m pretty sure you can trust me to help you get out of it.”

“Alright,” you nod.

“Good. Go back to your table and wait.”

You nod again as Sam flashes you a wink, and you make your way back to the table.

“Oh, the waiter came by while you were gone,” your date tells you. “He wanted to know our orders, so I got the ribs and I ordered you that watercress cranberry salad with cashews. Gotta keep that figure bagin’.”

“Well, when the anaphylaxis from my cashew allergy kicks in, my throat will close and I guess I’ll be able to keep that shape you like so much,” you uncomfortably respond.

He just chuckles and sips his beer. “You’re a real funny one.”

You give him a tight grin when Sam suddenly approaches the table. “Hi,” he smiles. “Do either of you happen to own a navy Honda—?”

“I do,” you say, maybe too quickly, but you don’t care—you just want to get out of this date.

“I’m sorry, but there was an accident in the parking lot, and, well—.”

“Oh no. You know what, Drew,” you tell your date as you put down your napkin and grab your clutch. “I will take care of this and be right back.”

Before he can say another word, you rush out of the restaurant on Sam’s heels.

“Thank you so much,” you tell him as you feel the cool night air kiss your skin.

“No problem,” he laughs.

“What were you even doing at the restaurant, anyways?”

“I might have been ditching a bad date of my own.”

“Set up by Natasha?”

“No,” he chuckles. “One of my VA coworkers set me up with someone in HR.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t go well.”

“It’s okay. Bad dates happen.”

“So,” you start. “Since both of our dates were terrible, how do you feel about ice cream?”

Sam gives you a look. “Ice cream does always make things a lot better. It’d be nice to end this night on a high note.”

“There’s a nice little place on Elm Street. Made fresh daily, good ingredients.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“So, do you mean ‘sex’ every time you say ‘ice cream’?” Sam says, turning his head on his pillow.

You smile and laugh, rolling over in the sheets to face him. “No,” you smile. “I really meant ‘ice cream’. But ice cream combined with three glasses of wine and a really kind and handsome man told me that ‘ice cream’ could have a double meaning.”

Sam smiles, the moonlight from your bedroom window making him look like an angel.

“What?” he asks softly, gently rubbing the back of his hand on your exposed arm.

“Nothing,” you tell him, adjusting your head on the pillow. “It’s just that, I don’t really do this. Like this, I mean. Hooking up with someone.” You feel your cheeks burn with embarrassment. “I’ve never slept with someone without going on a date. So, this is just kind of, I don’t know. I feel out of character.”

“Who said this was just a hookup?”

“What?”

“Well, I mean, you just said that you’ve never slept with someone without going on a date. Now, I know in that past it’s probably been date then sex, but I’m hoping that you’ll make an exception and do this in the reverse order. So, I’d really like to take you to dinner tomorrow night if you’re free. If you’re alright with that.”

“That sounds really nice,” you hum as you place a gentle hand on his forearm.

“And maybe if you’re up for it,” he continues, a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “we could get some ice cream afterwards.”

You playfully nudge his shoulder.

“Hey,” he hums. “I’m a stand-up guy. When I say ice cream, I mean ice cream. Not my fault you have a dirty mind.”

“You seemed to like that a few minutes ago, from what I remember. Unless you only make that noise when you’re unhappy and annoyed.”

“Oh, believe me, I loved it,” he grins as he rolls on to of you, his legs straddling yours and an arm around your middle. You place a hand on the back of his neck and pull him down for a steamy kiss. You moan at the sensation as your hand slides down the smooth skin of his trapezius to the small of his back to hold his body as close to your as possible. Your heart flutters as you feel his chest press tightly against yours, but you let out a disheartened whimper when he pulls his lips back.

“Not so fast,” Sam teases, his soft lips kissing the sweet spot in your neck. “That can only happen after dinner. I’m a gentleman, remember?”

“Mm, fine,” you sigh. “I would have made it worth your while, though.”

“Save it for tomorrow,” he whispers as he kisses you sensually one more time. “And I promise that I’ll make it worth your while.”

You smile softly before you kiss his lips one more time before Sam slowly rolls off of your body and the onto the other half of the mattress, his arms holding you close to his chest as you both get comfortable and drift off.

Permanent Taglist: @majesticavenger @steampowerednightvaler @themusingsofmany @just-the-hiddles

#sam wilson #sam wilson x reader #sam wilson fanfic #sam wilson fanfiction #falcon #falcon x reader #falcon fanfic #falcon fanfiction #sam wilson x reader fanfic #sam wilson x reader fanfiction #marvel #avengers #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #avengers fanfic #avengers fanfiction

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ussthunderquack · 4 years

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The Avengers watch “Tiger King”

Thor: Is binging the whole series for the seventh time, while eating cheetohs or something

King T’Challa: Stares at the TV screen in silent outrage

Tony Stark: Begins angsting out over all the cubs he’s taken photos with, and all the zoos and sanctuaries he donated to without researching first. Then when Morgan asks for a white tiger cub for her birthday, hurries down to the lab and begins working furiously on a way to safely produce white tigers without the ill effects of inbreeding.

Scott Lang: Begins frantically researching/asking whether husky-sized ants count as exotic pets, and if keeping them on a dog leash counts as abuse.

Steve Rogers: Gives an impassioned speech (that is, “impassioned” for Steve) about how no animal should be kept in a cage

Wanda Maximoff: Empathizes with the animals being locked up in tight quarters and manipulated for a sinister agenda

Bucky Barnes: Is having all kinds of memories triggered: by the caged, abused animals; by the manipulated young people in the sex cults; by Saff losing his arm; and by people getting attacked by large cats.

Ava Starr: Is already using her phasing abilities to free random animals from zoos, houses and film studios across the continent.

Bruce Banner: Argues with Tony that safe breeding of predatory animals is an oxymoron, and urges Tony to go to bed.

Peter Parker: Counters with his spider-bite, and suggest he himself might hold the key to how to breed dangerous life forms safely.

Princess Shuri: Laughs at all of them, and confesses that Wakanda perfected safe cat breeding decades ago, then asks Stark what color stripes Morgan would like her white tiger cub to have.

Steve Rogers: Gives an impassioned speech (”impassioned. Woa.”) about how no one has any right to take Joe Exotic’s animals from him. Also, Carole Baskin is not to be trusted.

Loki: Taking notes on how he will run his own zoo, once he has the Midgardians under his rule. Stark will be the main attraction, wearing a gold chain, and a gold tiger-stripped loin cloth.

Natasha Romanoff: Is most disturbed by the sex cults and manipulation of young adults and teens. Goes to Doc Antel’s zoo pretending to be a naive woman from Russia who barely knows English, then gives him the chair treatment.

Steve Rogers: Gives a riveting. Inspiring. Speech. About how Carole Baskin is innocent, and Joe Exotic is scum and no animal should be kept in captivity of any kind, under any circumstances. Also, he will defend Carole’s cat sanctuary to the death.

Sam Wilson: Gives Steve the stare.

Carole Danvers: Is inspired by the woman who shares her first name, and re-designs her suit to have big cat print.

Dr. Erik Selvig: Attacks a particularly unusual zoo while naked, and sets loose the animals.

Dr. Hank Pym: Watches in bum shock as his giant ants stampede through New York, freed by a naked Scandinavian man.

Steve Rogers: Gives a speech about how documentaries are filled with lies and agendas, and everyone should turn off “Tiger King.”

Sam Wilsion: Agrees and suggests “Star Wars.”

Loki: God of Mischief, he hears Rogers’ words, and uses his magic to change the TV to “Cats”--the 2019 film.

Steven Strange: Is violently making out with Tony on the sofa. They are the only ones oblivious to the horror onscreen.

Steve Rogers: Gives an epic speech about how “Tiger King” is the crucial wake-up call we all need. To animal abuse, to property rights, to bad CGI, he doesn’t know anymore, but what he knows is that there is an AGENDA!

Shrui: Jumps and screams with surprise when Steve raises his voice and points his finger in the air dramatically; she thought he was a cardboard cutout this whole time.

Rocket Raccoon: Obviously takes animal abuse personally, and begins planning a “surprise” for Joe Exotic and Doc Antel.

Goose the Flerken: Confesses that Carole Baskin’s husband was delicious.

Scott Lang: While searching the Avenger Tower for records of giant ant laws, makes a strange find: Cap’s shield, covered tiny plunger darts, and sticky notes that say things like “Animals Don’t Belong in Cages,” “Pets are private property that mustn’t be regulated,” “Sometimes my teammates don’t tell me things,” and so forth.

Nick Fury: Is already on his way to hand the entire documentary’s main cast their asses.

#domestic avengers #ironstrange #strangeiron #not steve rogers friendly #lab bros #tiger king #shuri #pro shuri and tony friendship #pro wanda maximoff #Ava Starr #Rocket Raccoon #ant-man #Erik Selvig

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springtimebat · 4 years

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The demon and the seer

Chapter One: The Carnival Folk

In which a trip is made early, predictions are performed and Frankie Albarn is oddly at home

The last days of October were fading, just like the embers of a dying fire, and the devious clutches of November were finally stretching. It was during these twilight hours, between All Hallows Eve and the broken weeks of early winter, that the Carnival Folk made their return to the town of Bad Seed.

The fields around the place succumbed to grey clouds as their visitors slithered across cracked cobblestone. Their van, that dreaded thing of nightmares, resembled an ancient hearse, with its collapsing bumper and its range of old knic-knacks plastered onto the doors, the windows, the floors. And as the vehicle made its way to the Old Albarn farm, descending through to the hills on its thousands of legs, its swollen exterior fighting against the rain as it began to rain, the villagers of Bad Seed glowered at the fog that had began to make its clumsy way up lanes and junctions, smashing against brick, a homemade, foreign concoction brought with their Carnival Folk in order for them to stay in the shadows. So they could hide. Men crouched in armchairs as the monster passed by the windows, worried for their children. Women of all shapes and sizes, eyes bulbous and full, whispered amongst themselves, heads swimming with myth. Murders of children flocked together around misted glass, hoping to catch a glimpse of phantoms. For a thing of legend to become a thing of reality. For they were all living in rare times. The Carnival Folk, with all their monsters, their fog, their shadows, only visited Bad Seed once in a blue moon. Mutters around town spoke of a blood pact with the crazy old Albarn Family, high up of their farm just outside of town. Others spoke men as big as houses, running through the town, carrying body parts, animals, circus equipment. Some spoke of animals; of elephants with three trunks, of wolves with human hands, of birds with paws and snouts. And then, of course, there was the woman of ancient tomes, with her hunched back and her gammy legs. The old one with her gnarled fingers, her walking stick; a tree branch that was said to stamp out peoples’ lives, summon devils and reanimate the dead. Most importantly, of course, was her glass eye, blue as frost said to bring those who gazed upon it eternal damnation, to curse the onlooker with rotted flesh and a taste for bloodshed. Shadows grew heavy in the town of Bad Seed and the children, in their murders, in their flocks, giggled in delight, in mischief. The old one was here!

Too soon, the van was making its way up old country lanes, having left the harsh confines of town square. The driver, hooded and armed with a threadbare whip, pressed firmly in, until in the midnight throes of mist and dew, the Carnival reached the old Albarn Farm, withering away on its small stretch of fields just outside Bad Seed’s suspicious gates. The van groaned as it came to halt, low exhausted. The driver sighed and mopped thick streams of sweat from his brow. Then he jumped down from his position, rounded the back of his family hearse and pulled the back door open. In the back was the old one, her wrinkled hands clutching the scrap walls. She frowned as she was led out into the moonlight, her amber eyes tiny slits as she got used to her surroundings. The driver, a man of very few words, grabbed the crone by the waist and delivered her onto the decaying pavement, where she landed on two slender legs hidden by an inherited grandmother’s smock.

“Ah, back again Wilson,” The hideous one announced, her voice thick and high. She pointed a finger at the old Albarn Farm just before them. The driver grunted and held out an oak branch he had kept in the front seat until she was ready. The woman shook her head and glowered at him.

“No need Wilson! I can make it on my own this time I know it! This place has a bitter taste. Always has, always will. I’ll be fine for this visit.”

Wilson sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Don’t start that my boy,” The old woman scolded, batting away flies with a claw, “Now, have you got the tub?”

Wilson nodded and tapped a rucksack on his brick back. The old master nodded and with that, the two set off towards their destination; the crumbling Albarn farmhouse, taken apart by weeds, with its eyes blank slates.

“Bloody Albarns! They make this journey hard enough without the stairs to climb!” The old one puffed as they finally got to the front door, after ten minutes of step after step after step. Wilson groaned and pressed the doorbell. There they stood for a while, waiting for a welcome, tapping their boots.

Footsteps soared to the old one’s strange ears and the door finally swung open, with a hideous creak. She noticed it was on its last rusty hinge. The Albarn woman appeared in the door frame, her face pale and warped, swarmed with cold sores. After catching sight of the old one and her assistant, Mrs Albarn’s eyes, already quite glassy, dimmed further.

“Do you want to come in?” She muttered, twirling a strand of straw hair around a bony finger. There was a thud from Wilson as he pulled the rucksack off his shoulders and the poor Albarn woman gave a squeak. The old woman smiled up at her, her teeth shiny in the dark.

“That would be nice dear, thank you.”

And with that, the Carnival Folk entered the Albarn farm for what seemed like the thousandth time.

It had been six long years since the old one’s last visit and six long years since the last Albarn child. Yet, as they were ushered into the dilapidated foyer, the old master and her apprentice both realised the house hadn’t changed at all. Same furniture in the same place, just shaggy and worn with time. The carpets had not been replaced and the same cracks had not been scratched from the walls. All that seemed different were the portraits. The Albarn portraits were of the ugly necessary variety. They were an assortment of long gone corpses lining the foyer walls, detailing which was which. Now all the walls were filled to the brim with baby pictures. They told of first steps, of first words, of first guns. The insidious gap-toothed grin of a toddler loomed over the old one and made her cough. As she looked around and as Wilson rummaged through his supplies, Mrs Albarn seemed to stand in her own hallway, clasping and unclasping her greyed hands, opening and closing her fish mouth, unsure of what to do.

“Strange,” The old one wondered, “She wasn’t like this the last time. She was such a happy lamb last time.” The old woman cleared her throat, making the Albarn woman tense.

“Is there anywhere to place the tub? Or shall we go into the Parlour like last time dear?” Mrs Albarn shivered in an invisible wind then nodded. Raising an eyebrow at Wilson, who looked just as puzzled, the old one led the way into the side parlour, just to their right.

“Is there any reason why Frankie insisted we come so early after the baby's birth?”

They had set up the old tub on the coffee table and had now taken to listening to the rain thrash against the windowpane. Mrs Albarn, sitting on a patchwork couch, bit her lip.

“It was actually my idea. I was...concerned. I’m still concerned.”

The old woman rolled her eyes. New mother jitters. There was no doubt about it.

“Couldn’t you have waited a little longer dearie? Autumn is a very hard time of year for us. When you turn your head, October bleeds as quickly as it can into the following February.”

“Don’t you mean November?”

“No. February. Frankie should know how difficult the journey is here. It took us seven months to get to him. And Frankie was a real handful!”

“Yes well, this is a very special case.”

“Has the child set the house on fire?”

“What? No!”

“The barn? The fields?”

“No! Nothing’s on fire!”

“Ah, you see that’s what I would class as a special case. What has the child done there? She’s only what...two months old? What could she have possibly done to make you so anxious?”

Before Mrs Albarn could answer, her husband slumped into their make-shift parlour. He was different too. So very different. When Frankie Albarn’s first child had been born the man had been glowing with pride, happiness… a third thing the old one couldn’t quite remember. Now, he was pale and grey, just like his wife. But Frankie was an Albarn! He had descended from witches and shadows! He was crafted from the midnight sky! Yet those bright eyes had fallen to smoke and faded glass. The old woman sighed. What a waste.

“Hello,” Frankie nodded at the two Carnival Folk in his parlour, “How are you two?”

“Confused Frankie,” The old one sighed, “There better be a good reason for you calling us out here in November no less! Would you care to tell us what is going on?”

“The baby is…odd.”

“Odd how?”

“Just...odd. And Ruth was afraid-”

“Oh yes! She’s already said that! But here we all are, in the farmhouse. Nothing on fire.” A small smile formed on the old woman’s careworn face. Frankie gave a little chuckle, remembering the time he set the living room drapes alight.

“We had them replaced.”

“Oh yes I noticed last time!”

Ruth Albarn sat between them all, perplexed.

“Fran’s upstairs,” She cut in, “Would you like to see her yourself?”

“By all means. Go girl go!”

A few minutes later, the old one of myth and fantasy was sat on a parlour armchair, prodding a baby with a wrinkled finger.

“Ah, lovely! Just lovely! Much better than the boy was!”

Fran Albarn, plump as plump can be, gave the old one a giant grin. Her mother, sitting on the far side of the room, had turned a livid purple.

“Yes,” Ruth growled, “We know. The very first time you said it.”

The old woman blew a loud, obnoxious raspberry on the baby’s tummy. Fran erupted into a cackle, a noise Mrs Albarn seemed utterly repulsed by.

“She had your laugh Frankie!” The crone gawped, “Your hair too!��

She stroked the girl’s dark brown tufts, which had just started to sprout.

Frankie didn’t seem happy about this news and looked down to the floorboards.

“I see nothing wrong with this one. Why on earth did you call?”

Frankie Albarn ran his fingers through his hair.

“When she was born she didn’t scream. She was completely silent. The midwife, some girl from town, said she was born with her eyes wide open.”

“And what lovely eyes too!” The old woman giggled, pinching Fran’s nose. The baby nodded, squirming, “Cheeky bugger!”

“...Anyway, isn’t that a little odd, you know? Being born observing the world around you. Having that much self awareness is a dangerous thing.”

“Perhaps for ordinary folk,” The old one picked the bay up, resting her in chicken-bone arms, “But this is an Albarn. Her kind swims with the fishes and flies high with the birds. There’s more witchcraft in her bones than sewing and farming.”

Ruth Albarn gave a little sob. The crone opposite growled.

“Oh, pull yourself together! It could be much worse!”

“How?” Ruth wailed, “How could it possibly be worse?”

Wilson, silent as the grave, tapped the tub in the centre of the room, his eyes hooded. Frankie patted his wife on the back.

“I think we’re about to find out Love.”

“Steady Wilson! Steady!” The old crone called, placing Fran into the tub, tickling her head and pinching her cheeks before letting go.

“What’s the bowl for?” Ruth whimpered.

“To cook her dear.”

“What?”

The old one sighed and turned back to the baby.

“It was a joke Ruth. Just a joke,” Frankie explained warily.

“Wilson,” The crone called, “I need the flask. Pour the flask!”

Out of his pocket, Wilson produced a flasky, grimy and half full. He reached over Fran in the tub and poured the flask into her forehead, making the baby gurgle.

“What’s all this for?” Ruth whispered to her husband as the old one placed a hand on her daughter’s head. Foam had started to crawl out from the bowl and began to take over the coffee table.

“We’ll see.”

“But-”

“We’ll see.”

“You have to list-”

“Trust me.”

After a minute or so, the old one’s eyelids began to droop and her hand let go of Fran’s head.

“Here we go.”

“Wha-”

“The Fawn!” A voice pushed Ruth back. It was a rough male growl, which soared out of the old one’s throat with such force, it seemed to be the voice of a prisoner, trapped in her tiny frame, “A fawn will come. Only its eyes will remain.”

The Albarns watched, their mouths open. Wilson, stood beside them, lit a cigarette.

“Nothing significant. A man made out of cinders. Crimson. West-West! North-west!” The old one called out, as spit flew down her chin, “A man with no names... A demon... A demon and its…” At this point, the old woman’s eyes, now red and puffy, clicked open. She stared down at the baby, full of so much light, so much potential, so much magic. Then she turned to stare at the parents, all lost and frozen in time.

“Do you know what’s wrong with her?” Frankie asked slowly. The old one shuddered violently but then twisted her mouth into a smile.

“Nothing’s wrong with her. She’s going to be a great little witch. One of the greatest I will ever see.” She replied, with some sadness. Ignoring Ruth’s tears, the old woman of myth, of legend, stumbled back to the parlour door.

“We’re leaving now.”

Frankie Albarn, who had gone to collect his daughter, nodded reluctantly.

“Ruth will see you out.”

“Don’t you want your equipment back?”

“No need for it,” The old one replied, “Got hundreds of them, haven’t we Wilson?” Wilson grunted and raced forward to their van to retrieve his whip.

“That thing you did, it was a prediction right?” Ruth asked as they returned to the front door.

“Indeed.”

“So, they don’t always come true.”

“My predictions are very precise. I have thousands of satisfied customers. But yes I suppose there is room for error.”

“My pa always said to never trust your carnival lot,” Ruth Albarn glared. The old one smirked, her eyes like little suns in the shadows.

“Frankie’s pa ran off with a she-wolf, if I recall correctly. Make sure his son doesn’t do the same dear. History repeating itself is a horrible thing.”

Ruth scoffed and shut the door in the old one’s face.

As the old lady walked down the stairs, she chuckled. By the time she got to her carnival hearse, she was cackling. Wilson, who had climbed back into the front seat, grinned at her.

“I’ll bet you he’s gone in five years time.”

Wilson held up two fingers in the fog.

“Oh that’s a brave bet Wilson my boy!”

Both giggled and the old woman circled the van. When she opened the back door, her face fell a little.

“Shame about the girl. Terrible start to life. Still, I suppose she’ll get away soon enough.”

Wilson grunted and the old one, a relic of lost times, of monsters and men, climbed back into her van. Her assistant, who only spoke in noises, spat out the end of a cigarette and hit his whip onto the dry ground. A strange goodbye to an even stranger place.

And with that, the Carnival Folk disappeared into the hills, its bumper falling off with a giant thud as they hid in the mountains. They would never be seen in the peculiar town of Bad Seed again.

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impala-dreamer · 5 years

Text

My Burning Sun

SPN FanFic

~Sam and Dean go to check out a case of mysterious animal attacks, and Dean finds a blast from the past that is a little too hard for him to handle.~

Dean x Reader (past), Sam, OMC

3,702 Words

Warnings: ANGST. Mentions of smut, kissing. ANGST! Show level blood and angst.

A/N: This is another piece for my Fic Imitating Art Challenge. The title and beautiful graphic was made by @mere-mortifer, fic by me! Hope you enjoy...

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Dean felt good. Not in a normal, 'Everything is fine in the world and my father didn't just die for me and leave me with an ominous threat to save or kill my baby brother' way, but good nonetheless. The sky was a perfect dark blue, the clouds were crisp and white, the air was fresh, blowing through the open windows as the Impala pushed 60 on the freeway. He felt good.

"OK," Sam said, shifting in the passenger seat, photocopies of newspaper articles scattered over his giant lap. "Lucas Heller, 46, CEO of Stanscorp, the town's biggest job supplier, found dead last Thursday.. Lungs shredded."

Dean shook his head solemnly. "Poor bastard."

Sam went on. "Millionaire lottery winner Micah Bloom, dead of an apparent heart attack, also showed signs of an animal attack."

"What happened to the money?" Dean chuckled to himself, right hand gripping one o'clock on the wheel.

Sam rolled his eyes and sighed. "And this last one, Robbie Hastings, mauled to death in his second floor bedroom. Coroner says it looks like a bear attack. Stomach and internals were shredded while he was still alive."

"Ouch."

"Yeah."

Dean switched hands and grimaced at the thought. "Imagine being clawed to death? Shit." He chanced a look at the black and white paper still dangling from Sam's hand. A happy couple, presumably Robbie and his wife, smiled back at him, and Dean's eyes narrowed. She looked awful familiar…

"You OK, Dean?"

His name snapped Dean out of his head, slamming the filing cabinet of memory inside. "Yeah," he said, clearing his throat and sitting up behind the wheel. "Hungry. You hungry? I need food."

Sam shrugged noncommittally. “There’s half a bag of Combos in the back.” He turned to reach for them, but Dean huffed loudly.

“Food, Sam. I need food.”

“So, you don’t want the Combos?”

Dean groaned and sighed. “Yeah, gimmie the damn Combos.”

Dean was feeling a little less good when they left the morgue. He swallowed down a mouthful of the truck-stop breakfast burrito that was threatening to make its way back up and out, and nearly missed the tiny step after the door as he followed Sam outside.

“You alright?”

“Who puts a stair there!”

Sam shrugged him off and headed to the car, manilla file in hand. “That was harsh.”

“Yeah. Gross.” Dean gagged again, remembering the mutilated body they’d just examined. He paused for a moment and set his hands on the roof of the Impala, late summer sun burning his wrists slightly. “Sam, what kind of bear eviscerates his prey and doesn’t...eat any of it? Dude was torn apart, but everything was there…not, ya know, where it was supposed to be, but…”

Sam shook his head. “Not any bear I know of. Bears don’t normally pick locks, sneak into a dark house, climb a flight of stairs, pull a man out of his bed to do that either.”

“So...not a bear. Gotcha.”

“Check out the crime scene?”

Dean nodded and pulled open his door with a creak of the old hinges. “I guess we could swing by…”

The house was cute. A little white fence surrounded a perfectly manicured lawn, pink rose bushes lined the front of the house, reaching up towards green shutters and big airy windows.

Dean didn’t notice the hand paved walkway or the initials carved into the top porch step. He didn’t see the wooden gnome statue hiding between the bushes or the perfectly faded patina on the antique brass door knob. Didn’t hear the charming bells that sounded through the house as Sam rang the bell. He was too focused on the familiar face he’d seen in the paper, his brain combing through every woman he’d ever known, denying the odds that it could be her. There was no way… was there?

The door opened slowly and a sad but kind smile greeted them.

Dean’s jaw dropped. “Holy shit.”

Beside him, Sam startled and quickly reached for his badge. “Mrs. Hastings? I’m Special Agent Wilson, this is my partner Special Agent Jardine…”

The smile spread as Y/N ignored Sam completely. “Hey, Dean.”

Sam dropped the badge, letting it hang midair as he assessed the situation. His brother was staring at the woman, eyes clouded by something similar to sadness but not quite. Sam couldn’t place it as he’d never seen such a look on Dean’s face before; on anyone else he’d say melancholy, but with Dean, who knew. He cleared his throat, but neither paid him any mind, caught in a moment.

Dean let out a breath that was almost a laugh, pure shock running through him. “I saw the picture in the paper,” he said softly, “but I didn’t think it was really you.”

“What’s going on?” Sam asked to no one since no one was listening.

Y/N laughed and gave a little shrug, her eyes never leaving Dean’s for a second. “It’s really me.” Her smile was big but masking something painful. “You look...really good, Dean.”

Freckles drowned in a sea of pink as Dean blushed. “You look…amazing,” he said quickly, stumbling over his own tongue. “Like… wow. I…”

Sam cleared his throat loudly. “So you two know each other,” he announced, hoping to break the fog of whatever was happening and get back to work.

“You changed your name,” Dean half asked her, still forgetting Sam was next to him.

Y/N nodded. “That happens when you get married.”

His smile fell a bit, but he picked himself up quickly. “Yeah. Right.” He licked his lips, lost in her eyes.

Sam gave up, rolling his eyes. “Should I go?”

Dean jumped. “Oh, sorry. Y/N, Sam, Sam, Y/N.”

“Nice to meet you, Y/N.” Sam reached for her hand. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

The mention of her dead husband seemed to jar Y/N back into reality. She squeezed Sam’s hand gently. “Thank you. Do you need to come in, or?”

“If you don’t mind,” Sam said with a professional aire. “We should check out the house, yes.”

Y/N stepped aside to let him in, holding the door open for them both. “I mean, I know you’re not really Feds, but once upon a time I trusted your brother so…”

Sam shot Dean a quick look but his brother was back to staring.

“So you know why we’re here?” Sam asked as Dean dreamed.

Y/N shut the door slowly and turned around. “I assume something strange is afoot, if it brings Dean Winchester to my door.”

Dean walked around as they chatted, spinning a small circle in the living room, peeking into the dining area, straining to see the kitchen. The house was tidy and small, but stuffed with personal items, strange art, and plants here and there.

“This place is so you,” he announced with a laugh, looking at a ratty but interestingly colored afghan slung over the couch.

Y/N looked over her shoulder at him. “Excuse me?”

Dean shook his head and sighed as he picked up a smooth white rock from the coffee table. “Nothing…”

“We only had one slice of apple left,” Y/N said, shaking her hips as she walked back to Dean’s booth.

He looked up from his coffee mug with a frown. “Ah, damn.”

“So I fought Betsy for it,” she concluded, biting her lip as she smiled down at Dean and handed him the plate.

“Oh, you’re the best,” he told her, looking from the picture perfect slice of apple pie up to her beautiful face.

“Whipped cream?” she asked, pulling a can from her apron.

Dean nodded quickly and sat back as Y/N swirled a giant tower of cream on top of his pie.

“A little extra because you’re cute,” she whispered with a wink.

Dean’s mouth flooded and his pants grew tight as Y/N dipped her index finger into the whipped cream and pulled out a dollop to suck between her plump lips.

The pie was good but the view was better. In fact, he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. She seemed to float around the tiny diner, plastic smile screwed on tight for every customer, a softer, sexier appearing when she glanced his way. He was only in town for a few days, just in between cases on his was to meet John, but if he could, he’d spend every meal sitting in that booth staring at his beautiful waitress.

“Did you enjoy your meal, sir?” she asked, plugging his ticket into the cash register.

Dean laughed. “Very much, Miss, thank you.”

She looked away and gathered his change, giving Dean a chance to gather his courage.

“So…”

Y/N popped back up and his voice got stuck. “Have a great day,” she smiled, handing over two quarters and a receipt.

Their hands touched as he took the change and Dean nearly grabbed her, pulling her over the counter to taste her perfect lips. But he kept it all inside, figuring he had just imagined all the flirting. What would a girl like her want with a scruffy vagabond like him anyway?

She let her hand slip away and whispered gently before leaving him stunned. “I get off at nine.”

Her number was written on the back of his recept, a quick ‘Call Me’ scrawled on the top.

Dean bounced all the way back to his car, a new spring in his step and a gleam in his eye that wasn’t there before.

Sam journeyed up the tight staircase, careful not to knock any picture frames off the walls with his broad frame as he walked up nearly sideways. The old stairs were not made for giant feet.

The master bedroom was easy to find; second door on the right, crossed with bright yellow police tape that he pulled down to step through.

Y/N stood in the doorway behind him, her toes on the border between hall and bedroom, never moving to cross.

Sam stepped carefully. The room was a mess, dried blood still in pools on most of the floor, soaked deep into the expensive beige rug, painting the walls in splatters, leaving a trail from the bed to the middle of the room where the body had been dragged.

“Wow,” he gasped under his breath, imagining the horror of being ripped apart in the night.

“Pretty bad, huh?” Y/N said sadly, eyes watering as she stared at the ruined bedsheets, the knocked over side table, the curtains sprayed with crimson.

Sam nodded, looking back over his shoulder. “Do you mind if I…”

“Yeah, do what you need to do,” Y/N agreed quickly and turned away, falling back against the wall next to the door. Her breath was shaky, shoulders high and tense. She closed her eyes but the blood remained. She held hummed to herself, but Robbie’s screams were still fresh in her ears.

Dean saw her panic and reached out a hand, cupping her elbow gently.

She startled, pulling in a heavy breath as she looked up to find him there, brows creased with concern, same old Dean.

“You OK?” he asked, voice barely a whisper.

Y/N shook her head and wrapped her arms around her chest, fingers brushing against Dean’s. “I haven’t been back in there since,” she confessed dryly. “Been sleeping on the couch. Can’t even go in to get my clothes.”

Dean sighed and gave her elbow a squeeze. “I’m really sorry.” He looked up as if there was a pamphlet on how to comfort an ex lover over the death of her husband written on the ceiling, but there was nothing helpful; just a photo of Robbie and Y/N at some party, smiling and happy.

“That him?” Dean asked, nodding up to the framed picture.

Y/N twisted a bit, pushing herself off of the wall to look. “Yeah.” She smiled. “He’s really great. I think you’d like him.” Darkness flashed over her eyes and she bit her lip. “Was. He was really great. Fuck. Dean, what am I gonna do?”

His heart broke as she looked up for an answer. “I don’t know, Y/N/N,” he told her honestly, sadness tightening his throat. “But I’m gonna help you get through this first part, ok? I promise.”

His smile was sad but true and she grabbed his hand, holding it tight.

Dean was only supposed to stay a week. Just one week to rest and recharge before meeting up with John in Milwaukee.

The week had come and gone, but Dean was still in town, still creeping around the Bluebird Motel, still hanging around with Y/N.

Two weeks of sneaking into the alley during her breaks to kiss until the mood grew desperate.

Two weeks of staying late to walk her home through the dark, hand in hand, fingers entwined, steps in sync.

Two weeks of picking her up early on her days off and driving the winding back roads with the windows down and Zep on the radio.

Two weeks of passionate touches in the backseat, biting kisses in the woods by the lake, inexperienced but eager tongues colliding in every shadow.

Two weeks were slowly becoming three, three faded to four, and as summer began to fade, John’s phone calls to his son became more and more demanding.

Dean had to go.

“You could stay, ya know,” Y/N said softly, her fingers curled around his, her back resting against his chest.

They sat on the hood and watched the moonlight dance across the lake, black still ink split by pale yellow.

Dean bent his lips to her temple. “I can’t, baby. I’m sorry.” His young voice cracked around the hurt. “I gotta go. My dad needs me.”

“I need you, Dean.” Her whisper was bookended by heavy breaths that carried tears.

“You don’t understand,” Dean sighed. “I’m all he’s got.”

She shuddered against him, trying not to give in to the hurt, the pain of him actually leaving. She knew he never meant to stay, but the longer he was there, the longer he was hers, the harder it was to let him go.

Dean wrapped his arm around her tight and held on, burying his nose in her hair, breathing deep. “I’d stay if I could, you know that.”

She didn’t speak for a long while, didn’t move other than to breathe. When she finally returned to the moment, Y/N kissed his arm and pushed away, sliding off of the cool metal and hitting the grass with a thud.

“Come here, Dean,” she said with a smile, turning away even as she called him, facing the lake.

He watched in awe and sadness as Y/N shed her clothes, stripping quickly in the moonlight and dipping a toe into the lake. She shivered and then went for it, running in a few yards before jumping, disappearing beneath the surface like a mermaid in the deep ocean.

“Dean! Come on!”

The water was cold but he made it, swimming over to where she tread water, haloed by the reflection of the moon.

She brushed up against him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him close. Their lips met in a familiar rhythm while she floated against his nakedness, skin on skin, soft in the water.

“I love you, Dean,” she whispered, water pouring down from her hair to hide the tears. Dean kissed them away, holding her tight. “I think I’m always gonna love you.”

They fucked in the backseat; scratchy blanket laid out to catch the lake as it slid from their bodies. It was slow but desperate, out of time and a little bit clumsy. They both needed it to last, needed to remember every moment, but the heat of youth sped up time and soon Dean was dropping Y/N off at her house, midnight moon starting to turn towards the west.

He never went back.

Dean had promised to meet her before work the next morning, just one last goodbye, but he never showed.

Sometimes he imagined her standing outside the little diner; apron slung over her shoulder, waiting, straining her neck to look down the road for him. Did she cry? Did she scream and curse his name? He’d never find out.

He never went back.

Sam’s voice echoed a bit in the hallway. “Uh, Dean?”

Y/N nodded towards the room, letting Dean know that she was OK.

“What’s the deal?” he asked, carefully stepping over the muck and gore that decorated the floor.

“Well,” Sam began, kneeling down to lift the edge of the carpet. “Here’s your animal scratches…” Long gashes were carved into the hardwood, massive claws unlike any bear markings they’d ever seen.

“Ok…”

Sam sighed and popped up, motioning for Dean to follow him to the window. The sill was caked in yellow powder. “Sulfur.”

Dean groaned. “Oh, that’s not good.”

“No, it’s not.”

The door creaked as Y/N leaned against it, barely more than half a foot inside the room.

Dean turned to her. “Y/N? Did your husband… uh…” He didn’t know how to ask suddenly. Looking at her sad eyes, standing amidst the blood of her dead husband, Dean was lost for words.

Sam found them, jumping in to help. “Did Robbie come into any wealth over the last ten years? Maybe a promotion at work, or a miraculous health cure? Anything strange like that?”

Y/N moved away from the door and took a step inside. A chill ran down her spine and she hugged herself, shivering at the scene. When she saw the rug pulled back, saw the deep scratches on the floor, she let out a sob that nearly knocked her over.

Dean rushed to her side, hands cautiously grabbing her upper arms to help her stand. “It’s ok, we can do this later.”

She shook her head and looked up at Dean, taking a deep breath to calm down. “It was his job,” she said steadily.

Dean frowned, wanting to grab her and hold her close. “What was?”

“He made the deal for a promotion at work,” she said simply.

Across the room, Sam jerked on his feet, a little shocked by the new information. “Wait, so you know what happened?”

Y/N broke away from Dean and nodded. “Yeah, I know. He told me all about it when he did it.” She moved to stand in the middle of the room, looking down at the space Robbie’s body had laid. “Sold his soul to a red eyed crossroads demon who breezed into town one night.”

Dean’s shoulders fell and he rubbed at this cheek. “I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

“He knew what he was doing,” she said, quietly. “So did I.”

Sam flinched. “What?”

Y/N swallowed hard and explained. “He made his deal for money,” she said. “I made mine for love.”

Slowly, she turned to look at Dean who hadn’t moved in forever. His lips parted and his eyes went blank as the gears took a moment to turn in his head.

“You did what?” His heart was racing, lungs refusing to do their job.

The wetness in her eyes began to fall, dripping down her cheeks like rain on a window, untouched, unguided. “I couldn’t get over you, Dean,” she whispered. “Robbie was always there, ya know? Even when I was growing up. Always. Always picking up the pieces of my shitty little life, but after you left, there were just too many pieces. He wasn’t gonna wait around for me forever, and I didn’t blame him. I tried, Dean. I tried so hard to forget you, to get over you, but…” She stopped to breathe, lips trembling as she cried. “He was gonna leave me too, so I…”

“You made a deal,” Sam finished, nodding to himself in understanding.

“I did.”

Dean felt the world moving beneath his feet; gravity was making itself known to him and his stomach couldn’t take it. He slumped forward, hands hitting his thighs. “How could you do that?” He stood back up, panting around the pain in his chest. “How could you do that!”

Y/N crossed her arms and shook her head, looking to the ceiling, to the bloody bed, anywhere but at Dean. “I sold my soul to forget you, Dean Winchester,” she said finally, tears drying as the pain returned. Dean Winchester, my first true love, my burning sun. I sold my sold to a demon to be free of you forever. And yet, here you are, back to haunt me during my last hours…”

Dean’s head rolled to the side and back as his tears fell. “I don’t know what to do,” he cried. “I don’t know how to fix this!”

Sam called to him, hoping to break his brother’s rage, but he once again went ignored.

“I don’t know how to help you, Y/N! I don’t know how to break a demon deal! I…”

Y/N closed the space between them and lay a hand on his chest. “Dean…”

“I don’t know what to do!”

She pushed up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “You do what you did all those years ago. You get in your car and drive away.”

Dean crumbled. “No. I shouldn’t have left you. I can’t do that.”

“You’re going to. I knew the terms when I made the deal. I just didn’t think I’d have to say goodbye to you again. So… please… just go so I don’t have to. Do me that one favor.”

He kissed her hard, hands holding her face still as he pushed every ‘I’m Sorry’, every missed ‘I Love You’ into it. When it was done, so was he, and Dean let her go, turning on his heel and rushing for the door.

Y/N watched them go, standing at the top of the stairs as they reached her front door. Dean paused, hand slipping from the antique knob before following Sam outside.

He turned, green eyes lifting to the top of the stairs. “Y/N…”

She smiled and gave him a tiny wave.

“I’ll see you in Hell, Dean Winchester.”

2019 Forever Tags:

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#spn fanfic #dean x reader #fia challenge round1 #angst

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coursecolony42-blog · 4 years

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<h1>Picking The Right Personal Bankruptcy Law Practice Alkmaar</h1>

Content

The Keys To Making Online Law School Effective.

Advocaten In Nederland, Alkmaar.

Law College Professors.

Top Law Schools In The United States & Canada.

To the north, Egypt is house to one leading law school, Cairo College, rated in the variety. As well as finally, Kazakhstan and Thailand are both new to the law college placing this year, the latter with two entries. Also with three representatives in the law institution position is Hong Kong, including the University of Hong Kong in 18th area, while the Chinese University of Hong Kong is 39th.

Some examples of the educational program include American law, worldwide law, the United States legal system, the Canadian legal system, as well as comparative Law. Additionally, the LLM student may have the ability to select from subfields such as copyright, taxation, global ecological law or civils rights law. The LSAT is not a need for pupils enrolling in the LLM program in the United States. Although he died at the age of 90 in December 2015, Joe Jamail makes this checklist because he was the most affluent practicing lawyer in the USA at the time of his fatality.

A more two top colleges for law lie in Malaysia. Looking at Scandinavia, there are three leading law schools in Sweden, and also two each in Denmark, Finland and also Norway. Of these, the highest-ranked is Norway's College of Oslo, rated for law. The Netherlands has participants in the law college position, with Leiden University and also the College of Amsterdam both flaunting leading 50 spots. There are a whopping 141 European colleges in the law institution ranking, with the UK including most prominently with 34 entrances.

Are all lawyers millionaires?

Lawyers Are Over-Represented As Millionaires Not according to the work done in The Millionaire Next Door which pegged lawyers at just 8% of the country's total millionaires.

Female lawyers gain an ordinary revenue of $112, 731, whilst male lawyers earn an average income of $148,487. View a duplicate of the full checklist of our lawyers that were honoured in 2019. Congratulations to all our detailed lawyers on obtaining this well-deserved recognition. McInnes Cooper is very happy to have over77 of our lawyerslisted in the same publication for 2019. The Master of Regulations degree is a 1 year (full-time) or a two-year (part-time) program for students that currently have a level in law. This program might have more than one sort of curriculum relying on the area of expertise the student might pick.

Nevertheless, lawyer wages differ significantly based on experience degree, with much less seasoned partner lawyers earning about $74,000 each year according to PayScale. PayScale reports $84,00 as the typical annual wage for lawyers and also attorneys. As lawyers have to frequently take care of challenging individuals, they additionally benefit from substantial empathy, patience, and also interpersonal abilities. advocaat alkmaar help lawyers communicate with opposing advise. Students putting on law school need to pass the LSAT, a standard test that examines analysis and verbal thinking skills.

And also, a person who is going through a splitting up or divorce will require a family members law firm. An individual billed with a criminal offence will require a criminal law firm.

How much do lawyers gain or just how much do lawyers make in Australia? Below is a table describing the typical revenue of solicitors, Magistrates and also Juries based on gender. Remarkably, regardless of the general public understanding, lawyers don't also make it in the top 5 paying work in Australia.

In Australia, a lawyer is thought about both solicitor and barrister who has a valid exercising certification to be allowed to exercise as a lawyer in Australia. An excellent criminal lawyer is a well skilled court advocate that is primarily comparable to a barrister.

She ended up deciding on neither due to the prices involved as well as however her lack of interest. Her parents were ravaged at first however occurred over time. Completely-- some companies, like Wilson Sonsini enters your mind-- have actually supposedly done rather well dealing with technology start-ups and also taking equity in lieu of fees. The Three Years and also Out PlanShort term lawyer and afterwards on something else.

Previously, he was an investor in the San Francisco Giants. After finishing from Harvard Law College in 1962, Alan Dershowitz went right to function.

Typically described as the "King of Torts," he represented Pennzoil in a 1985 claim against rival Texaco. His backup fee was $335 after the courts decided in Pennzoil's favor.

Sight consulting companies that provide solutions in a certain practical location. The best way to get abundant in the law is to file a claim against companies with deep pockets in behalf of damaged individuals or stand for firms as well as utilize yourself by working with affiliates. However I think various other lawyers secretive method can do so by saving/investing well over the long run. Unfortunately, most tend to get captured up in way of living rising cost of living b/c most obtain lost in condition video games.

A person who has actually been harmed at the office, as well as left unable of earning an earnings will require a settlement law firm. The most effective law office in Australia will ultimately depend upon the marketplace that the law firm accommodates. However, various other lawyers specialise only in a couple of areas of law.

In 2019 Russell Kennedy as well as Aitken Lawyers merged to develop a more powerful technique. Millner and also Knights panel of expert lawyers can assist you obtain the payment and also apology you deserve. Norton Rose Fulbright LLP runs a worldwide practice and also serves some of the globe's most distinguished companies and financial institutions. The company has comprehensive legal assistance team working with its 4,000 lawyers based in 50+ cities throughout Canada, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. We list below how law degrees ranking in two college league tables.

Those who specialise only in a specific area of law, such as criminal law will more than likely have one of the most amount of expertise and also ability in that location. This will result from the reality that they on a regular basis operate in that specific area of law, creating a high level of expertise and also experience. A general lawyer is similar to a General Practitioner doctor, where the General Practitioner will have basic competence as well as knowledge, but also for something much more complex, you will be referred to a professional. You'll need to obtain in touch with a business or building lawyer if you're buying a company or home.

The 1953 graduate of the University of Texas Institution of Law was a former marine who had a longstanding reputation in the court for being abrasive, impolite, and also repulsive. However, outside of the court, he was understood for his charitable philanthropy. After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1967, he operated at a tiny company up until he was asked to do help Microsoft, which was still in its beginning phases. At some point, he ended up being Microsoft's legal counsel, a placement he held for 25 years.

From 1996 to 2005, Holmes led campaigns to raise sex variety at EY. On her watch, the number of female partners tripled from 80 to 241, which increased the total percent of female partners at the company from 6 percent to 12 percent.

Americans do not separate between solicitor as well as lawyer. A seasoned criminal lawyer on the other hand frequently carries out the job of both roles, namely in-court advocacy as well as advice for clients. A barrister is a sort of lawyer that mostly performs campaigning for in court, including tests.

In 1870, Ada Kepley ended up being the first female in the USA to graduate from law school. Nevertheless, when she obtained a permit, she was informed that Illinois law forbade women from exercising law. By the time the law was ultimately overturned, Kepley had diverted her powers to the support of social reforms, specifically the temperance activity.

After the top 10, the UK's best institutions for law are UCL, King's University London, theUniversity of Edinburgh, Queen Mary College of London andDurham College. Of the 300 organizations included in the ranking, 50 are discovered in the US, consisting of 14 in the leading 50. Outside of the leading 10 above, other excellent law schools in the US include the College of Chicago, Georgetown College, College of California, Los Angeles and theUniversity of Michigan.

The Keys To Making Online Law College Successful.

In this role, she was known for enforcing nontraditional sentences, such as composing essays. In addition to presiding over divorce court, Lynn is the writer of 3 publications. Right here is a glimpse at the 20 richest lawyers worldwide, ranked from the most affordable total assets to the highest.

While law employers welcome job applications from trainees from all universities, there are 'hidden' benefits to some bigger, perhaps much more prestigious, law institutions that deserve thinking about. advocatenbureau alkmaar have the chance to select various other electives, such as family members law or company law, however they are not compulsory element of the qualifying law level.

There are various factors that there are 2 type of attorneys, along with whatever comes down to exactly how the legislation is done.

If de functies pass away ze bieden are part of a legislation college, you need to more than likely to a law establishment and take the bar test, and then come to be a legal representative.

General lawyers are the ones that work out regulation for a business, business or person .

In order to come to be a general lawyer, you ought to have several years of legal education as well as understanding, you need to become part of a law university, as well as likewise pass bench examination.

Advocaten In Nederland, Alkmaar.

While real estate attorneys make suitable salaries-- the average is $80,000 and it can obtain as high as $147,000-- it was reported that virtually one in 4 property attorneys are not granted advantages. The thirteen achieved legal professionals provided above stand for a vast array of histories, practice locations, political stances, and disputes. Nevertheless, despite their unique identifiers-or, even more properly, becauseof them, these ladies have actually changed the legal career. The phenomenal obstacles these females have dealt with, both straight-out and implied, in their initiatives to ruin the glass ceiling have actually been equaled only by their capabilities.

Which job has the highest salary in Australia?

Australia's top 10 highest paying jobsSurgeons. Nearly 4,000 Australians work in this profession, and they top the earnings bracket with an average taxable income of $394,866. Anaesthetists. Internal Medicine Specialists. Financial Dealers. Psychiatrists. Other Medical Practitioners. Judicial and Other Legal Professionals. Mining Engineers. More items

The examination takes half a day as well as is used 4 times each year at many locations. Pupils curious about loss admission must take the test in October or June, although December scores are typically approved. LSAT ratings consider heavily in admission and also financial assistance decisions. And finally, looking to start with at Africa, South Africa has 4 representatives in the law college position, with the University of Cape Towncontinuing to lead the way at (below in 2014).

Industry1.Social Help as well as Health Care2.Retail Trade3.Administrative and Assistance Services4.Retail Trade5.Education & TrainingHave a question? Ask our award winning team of Sydney criminal lawyers in Sydney, we provide totally free assessments.

The number of females with versatile work timetables likewise tripled from simply more than 300 when she began her campaigns to nearly 1,000 in 2005. In an interview with The Practice, she worries that senior leadership was essential to this success. " None of this would certainly have been feasible without the energetic support of 2 EY CEOs," claims Holmes. Undoubtedly, two weeks after she approved the position, Holmes uncovered she was expecting with her initial child. I have been to four lawyers before met Jimmy and also Tayla.

Which country is best for law study?

Top Law Schools in 2019Top 10 Law Schools in the World Based on the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2019RankName of InstitutionLocation1Harvard UniversityUnited States2University of OxfordUnited Kingdom3University of CambridgeUK8 more rows•27 Feb 2019

Law School Professors.

Discover the top law colleges based on the QS Globe University Rankings by Topic 2020. Real estate lawyers examine agreements and offers and make sure that purchasers are obtaining fair bargains on the homes they are purchasing. Realty lawyers also collaborate with vendors to make sure whatever is reasonable on that particular end, too.

Lawyers Office Appelman Alkmaar

Very caring listening experience understanding lawyer and my result with this Criminal ... By A.E . A major or director of a law firm may range from $500-$ 800 per hour. Each sort of lawyer has a different role which usually involve different regulations and legislations.

She became an intense opponent of alcohol usage, using her skills and skills to rise to a placement of nationwide importance in the temperance movement. She was a writer and published anti-alcohol papers that presumed as to call men that often visited drinkeries. Sandra Day O'Connor holds the distinction of shattering the greatest glass ceiling in American jurisprudence as the very first women Justice of the USA High Court. Deborah Holmes, the Americas director of business responsibility at EY and also herself a lawyer, concurs that leadership is essential to establishing a culture of synergy as well as variety.

For example, if you reside in Sydney, and also you're dealing with a criminal cost, you'll need to connect with knowledgeable Sydney criminal lawyers. The sort of lawyer you will require will depend upon the kind of lawful concern you're confronted with.

Please find in the accessory the primary legal technique areas in the Netherlands Bar's register of lawful areas our advocates have actually signed up for. The world's most significant international organisations rely on us to aid them make the right decisions in a fast-changing globe. We combine the knowledge, experience as well as energy of the whole firm to resolve our clients' most complex difficulties, anywhere as well as whenever they occur. We supply the globe's preeminent corporations and also financial institutions with a complete service law solution. Sight events for graduates and also professionals arranged by seeking advice from firms.

If you're seeking to study law, you might be discovering it challenging to choose between the lots of hundreds of distinguished law schools readily available worldwide. Luckily, our latestlaw school position, among the 43 subjects covered by the QS World College Rankings by Subject, must have the ability to assist, showcasing the 300 greatest organizations for this field.

By 1964, he had become a participant of the Harvard Law College professors and in 1967, he was made a full professor. ( He retired in 2013.) While mentor classes, he was likewise making a name for himself in the criminal law field. Many thanks to his reputation as the "leading lawyer of last resort," he has a collection of top-level clients, consisting of Mike Tyson, Jim Baker, Leona Helmsley, O.J. Simpson, as well as Jeffrey Epstein. Better called the judge from TV's Separation Court given that 2007, Lynn Toler formerly served as the only community court judge in Cleveland Levels, OH for more than 8 years. After getting her law level from the College of Pennsylvania Law Institution in 1984, she concentrated on civil law up until ending up being metropolitan court judge.

Both tables base their rankings on somewhat various variables. The Times tables think about research study quality and impact, in addition to student fulfillment. You can discover more about the various rankings as well as the various elements that they consider below.

If you currently have an idea of what areas of practice you want specialising in, or simply want to discover more about, it's worth comparing the electives offered by each program. Currently, the most usual path to qualifying as a lawyer is a level (either a law level or a non-law level) followed by a conversion course and/or an occupation training course. It's taking your time to meticulously believe concerning selecting the best university as well as course to research if you select to go to college.

This provides a simple one-stop-shop for corporate advice and legal procurement divisions to collect details on companies they are aiming to instruct. The Amsterdam office provides pro bono legal assistance as well as is actively associated with numerous impactful organizations, such as EarthToday, ClimateCircle, The Ajax Structure, CollAction, and Manifesta. Eversheds Sutherland prolongs its geographic footprint to 66 workplaces in 32 nations. Eversheds Sutherland stands for the combination of 2 companies with a shared culture as well as commitment to client service excellence.

There's a lot concentrate on the bimodal salary circulation on legal incomes early in a lawful occupation but not the long run. I'm pretty sure there's a third spike somewhere to the right of the presented income array. He's got schoolmates our age that are purchasing million buck houses with money. My wife was determining in between a lawyer or physician when we first met.

Top Law Schools In The United States & Canada.

After you recognize the kind of legal concern you are encountering, you will certainly have the ability to figure out the very best kind of lawyer. Yet prior to picking that lawyer, you ought to do some study to ensure the lawyer you are intending to opt for, is one with honesty, transparency and also experience. The best kind of lawyer matched to you will depend upon your lawful concern. In America an attorney is thought about an attorney at law, as well as is someone who's passed bench examination with authorization to practice law.

#advocaat alkmaar #advocaten alkmaar #advocatenkantoor alkmaar #advocatenkantoren alkmaar #advocaten in alkmaar #advocatenbureau alkmaar #jurist alkmaar #advocatenkantoren noord holland #alkmaar juristen

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wilsonelisa430 · 3 years

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Sony Is Looking to Transcend the Camera Industry Beyond the Film Design Domain

Sony is thinking beyond DSLRs as it sets its sight to a whole new level where the camera industry can go beyond serving the film design. CNET.com has also written a commentary on this concept and has proposed that the forthcoming future of higher-end photography might lie in the mirrorless realms.

Sony has finally gradually stopped the production of DSLR cameras, bringing the whole era of the last decade to an indefinite halt. The crux of the matter is that the tech giant is striving hard to transcend the camera industry to a whole different level and further from its history in the filmmaking fraternity.

If you are uninitiated to the internal machinery of the camera and haven’t paid much attention to the whole debate pertaining to the mirrorless camera, then this blog belongs to you. Here, you will find out what Sony has done in recent times and why its actions are significant for the camera industry. The company originating from Japan has proven itself to become a sort of MVP in pushing for the new era of mirrorless cameras.

As a user, you will only understand the subtle difference in the quality of the photographs you receive. However, if you wish to know the technical details, then the mirrorless cameras will provide new features such as rapid-fire shooting, more enhanced computing horsepower for photography, and further improved autofocus.

The new photography model called “Mirrorless Camera” has pushed the camera industry from the domain of core design which had been going in since the last century itself involving all the works of film design. In the past, something called “SLR” cameras used to employ a reflective “reflex” mirror to reflect the light from the lens and direct them towards the viewfinder, facilitating the image’s composition. However, whenever we used to click a photograph, the mirror would displace from its location, the shutter would open, and the film used to get exposed. Over the course of time, every industry started moving towards digital media, and the camera industry was no different. The DSLR was introduced, the DSLR being the acronym for Digital Single Lens Reflex, and it had borrowed the concept of the single-lens reflex camera into its design. Essentially, the DSLR camera had swapped image sensors used for filming.

Now, you must note the fact that the absence of DSLR camera models based on the reflex mirror was observed from electronic.sony.com by SonyAlphaRumors last Tuesday. The website electronics.sony.com is essentially an official website created by Sony catering to people looking for Sony’s interchangeable lens camera. The product alteration was observed in the digital market. Online sellers such as B&H Foto & Electronics and Adorama have officially removed the 2016 model called “A99 Mark II” from their stores.

Initially, Sony was not part of the high-end photography industry, but it gradually established itself after its entry in 2005 courtesy of a deal that saw its acquisition of SLR business owned by Konica Minolta. It was also the time when aspiring filmmakers, fledgling independent creators, and a part of Hollywood started accepting digital cameras and DLSRs as the instruments for filmmaking, rejecting the celluloid camera in its entirety. Anyways, Sony started releasing its high-end photography products, which were formidable competitors to Canon and Nikon; however, they weren’t good enough to match their sales dominance.

Sony has been gradually coming towards mirrorless cameras for years now; their next step in the high-end photography industry was the release of DSLT models, which was sort of an intermediary step between the company and their objective of mirrorless camera models. The DSLT models used a translucent mirror instead of a reflective mirror, and reflected a portion of light towards the viewfinder, and diverted the rest of the portion towards the image sensor.

The Change to Mirrorless Camera from Sony

The secret of Sony’s success has been the mirrorless cameras. Sony released mirrorless cameras and changed the entire landscape of the photography industry. As you can guess, scientifically, a mirrorless camera allows the complete portion of the light from the lens to converge at the image sensor. The mirrorless camera neither requires a reflective mirror nor a translucent mirror. The digital image output gets displayed either on the viewfinder (which also includes a tiny screen of its own) or on the back of the camera.

Sony wasn’t stopping at that; it worked on its technology, which has evolved over the years. And, now it is showing to the industry that the reflective-mirror camera is now a seriously outdated product. And, all of these efforts materialized into the massive success and affluence of Sony products. A veteran camera reviewer called Lori Grunin has revealed in his statement to CNET that Sony’s rise to prominence in high-end photography is closely related to its diversion towards the mirrorless camera from reflective-mirror and DSLT cameras.

The giant Japanese force in the electronics industry, which is also renowned for the manufacturing of image sensors outsourced by its rivals, has even managed to brute force its competitors to enter the mirrorless camera domain and release their own models. And as a result of it, we now see products such as Canon R5 and Canon R6 along with Nikon Z6 and Nikon Z7 in the market.

Slowly but surely, Sony has managed to deliver home the fact that every aspiring photographer, along with enthusiasts, has to look towards a mirrorless camera.

Advantages of Mirrorless Camera

If we are speaking about the advantages, then it is imperative to first observe the fact that the mirrorless camera would naturally provide better autofocus because of the fact that the Sony’s in-house image sensors would be operating at all times the camera is turned on, and the image sensors would also be backed up and powered by high-quality processors.

The wedding photographers would benefit from mirrorless cameras because of a feature called eye-tracking autofocus introduced by Sony to aid portrait photographers in time-saving. Well, Sony might be ahead in the game, but Cannon has also managed to match some of the eye-tracking features in its R5 and R6 models. Mirrorless cameras are also beneficial in utilizing the autofocus feature in the entirety of the screen and not the center of the screen, which is quite beneficial in highlighting the contrast while filming. This feature was not available in the reflective mirror camera and translucent mirror camera.

Remember the loud clicking sound? Well, mirrorless cameras come embedded with the pictures that would allow photographers to click anything without dropping a pin courtesy of electronic shutters. The mirrorless cameras also have an embedded viewfinder that would let you click anything in the pitch dark as well.

The manual focusing, composition, and exposure are also enabled with a mirrorless camera. The latest mirrorless camera models such as Sony’s Alpha 1 and Canon’s forthcoming model R3 can capture the high-resolution photo at a breakneck speed. The shooting rate that both models can offer is 30 frames per second, which is staggering, considering the fact that a few years earlier, even six frames per second, was considered to be an achievement. It would be easier for us to understand the concept when we observe a scientific fact that when things become lighter, they become faster, so it is quite beneficial to draw heavy components such as mirrors out of the system.

Now, having said that, it is important to look at things with perspective and talk about some of the demerits of the mirrorless camera as well. For the firsts, the batteries of the mirrorless camera dry out much rapidly since the batteries have to power the image sensor and viewfinder on a continuous basis. There will be moments when you find that the images shot by the mirrorless camera are slightly deviating from reality, but that is not always the case and must also depend on the lighting and the camera angle as well.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that Sony wants the camera industry to look ahead of the film industry and move towards the mirrorless camera, there is a strong voice from across the fraternity that wants the preservation of old filming modules such as celluloid. Nevertheless, as far as photography is concerned, a mirrorless camera would offer nothing but profit to the photographers. However, there are certain things that need to be looked at before things can proceed towards perfection, and these are battery backup and reality deviation. However, all in all, the mirrorless camera would cement itself soon enough as the only logical way the photography gets done in the upcoming future.

Hi, this is Elisa Wilson , a tech-savvy from the Canadian province, Alberta. I am a computer science graduate who is currently working as a tech research analyst at Kforce Technologies. Alongside providing detailed info-graphics to studies in question, I also create instruction manuals and troubleshooting guides as per the client’s requirement. Recently, I have created a Roku activation guide, and here’s the link you need to follow: roku.com/link.

Source :- https://computersoftware410578901.wordpress.com/2021/05/21/sony-is-looking-to-transcend-the-camera-industry-beyond-the-film-design-domain/

#sony

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imjustthemechanic · 7 years

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The Stone Knight

Part 1/? - Two Statues Part 2/? - A Curious Interview Part 3/? - John Doe Part 4/? - Escape Attempt Part 5/? - Making the News Part 6/? - Fallout Part 7/? - More Impossible Part 8/? - The Shield Thieves Part 9/? - Reality Sinks In Part 10/? - Preparing a Quest Part 11/? - The Marvelous History of Sir Stephen Part 12/? - Uninvited Guests Part 13/? - So That’s What It Does Part 14/? - The What and the Where Part 15/? - Gearing Up Part 16/? - Just Passing Through Part 17/? - Dinner with Druids Part 18/? - Kracness Henge Part 19/? - A Task Interrupted Part 20/? - The Red Death Part 21/? - Aphelion Part 22/? - The Stone Giants Part 23/? - Nat the Giant Killer Part 24/? - An Interrogation Part 25/? - Guilt Part 26/? - Rushman’s Brilliant Idea Part 27/? - Hunter in Hiding

Our heroes drop in on their friendly neighbourhood cryptozoologist, who shares an embarrassing secret. Oh, and I tell you where the Grail is, because that was mean.

As they headed south again, under heavy gray skies that threatened rain but never actually delivered on it, Natasha found herself thinking about several different things. The first, of course, was the urgency of finding O’Herlihy. It was reassuring that Sharon had another theory, but the only way to know for sure was to go there, and Nat had an awful mental picture of breaking into the man’s room in the Glenmoriston Arms and finding nothing but another smear of blood. Even if the Red Death hadn’t gotten there ahead of them, he was probably still on his way, and he had an entire secret society behind him while they were just five random people.

She also thought about Allen Rushman. He was going to have to stay with them for the time being, and that was okay as long as they were just visiting libraries, doing Google searches, and driving across the country. What would happen, though, if things came to a fight again? Nat had little doubt they would, and when it happened, Allen would be worse than useless. Somehow, he was going to have to be kept safe. Like any other predator, the Red Death would go after the weakest member of the herd.

Mostly, however, she thought about her theory. It was only a theory at this point – it had popped into her head at the same moment as the shock that seemed to signify the activation of a Grail fragment, but beyond that there wasn’t a lot to support it. It was based on an awful lot of assumptions, none of which she had any evidence for. She hoped she wasn’t just making it up.

Her theory was that since William the Conqueror must have known about the Grail, he would almost certainly have gone looking for it himself. Maybe that was even part of the reason he’d had the Domesday Book put together. An inventory of the entire country would be a great way to get started. If he’d found it, like Sir Galahad he would have learned that it wasn’t nearly as nice an object as the King Arthur stories would have had him believe. He’d therefore taken steps to prevent another man like the Red Death trying to get a hold of it, by wiping out any evidence that it had ever existed.

In the fantasy world this had all happened in, that would be the reason the Grail and the Red Death weren’t mentioned by the chroniclers or recorded in the artworks – the Conqueror hadn’t allowed it. Maybe that was even the reason in the real world. Who the hell would be able to tell after a thousand years? All historians had was the word of their predecessors, and chroniclers were notorious for ‘improving’ their stories or leaving out the parts that didn’t contribute to the axe they wanted to grind. The Goo-Goo Dolls had a song about that, didn’t they? All we are is what we’re told, and most of that’s been lies.

When he’d found the Grail, whether it was on Flotta or somewhere else, William would have moved it. He would want it someplace where he could keep an eye on it, but nobody else could get at it or stumble across it by accident – so he’d built something to protect it. Something that, in his world, could never be dug up or knocked down. Something he would have an excuse for setting his best soldiers to guard, without having to tell them what they were really guarding. A stronghold so secure his descendants would use it as mint, palace, prison, and treasure house, because it was impossible to break in or out.

The Grail was under the Tower of London.

At least, that was the theory. It made internal sense, but Nat wasn’t sure how well it meshed with the outside world, or exactly what aspects of it counted as truth or fantasy. Was it her lie about knowing the answer that had come true, thus placing information in her brain about something that was already true? Or was the theory a lie she had told herself, which had then come true when she believed it would come true? Would somebody searching there a month ago have found anything unusual, or had this whole thing sprung to life as part of Pierce’s thing with the statues? As with the problem of O’Herlihy, there was only one way to know, and that was to go there and see.

Part of Natasha hoped they arrived and found nothing at all. Then they’d know that the Holy Grail didn’t exist and never had, and while that would mean this had all been a colossal waste of time, at least the world would still operate by rules Natasha understood.

They arrived back in Inverness to find it crammed to overflowing with tourists. Word of the Monster had gotten around quickly, and scientists, media, and interested laypeople from all over the world had converged on the city to see for themselves. There was not a hotel room, parking spot, or restaurant table to be had in the entire town, and the Ness Bridge was lined on both sides with people holding binoculars, just waiting for one of the creatures to rear its head.

Things were fortunately quieter in the suburbs where the police station was. The storage room where Zola had broken in and Lipcomb had been killed was still roped off with yellow tape, but the police were beginning to get back into their routine. Sharon headed inside, and asked for the chief.

Chief Fraser was an overweight man with a bushy red and gray mustache, the one who’d shouted at everybody to get back to work when he found them standing around staring at the mess Zola had made of their locker room. He arrived panting for breath, having evidently run from wherever he’d been.

“Carter!” he exclaimed. “I was just wondering what happened to you! Where have you been?”

“Flotta,” Sharon replied. “I was…”

“Flotta? What, with the giants on fire and the Ebola?” The man went white and took a step back from her. “I thought you were working on the Pierce case!”

“I am working on the Pierce case,” said Sharon. “Alexander Pierce is dead. He was murdered by a man called Johann Totenkopf, who threw him out of a helicopter. It’s going to be a hell of a report when I get around to writing it. Before I do that, though, I’m pretty sure the next guy on Totenkopf’s hitlist is Darren O’Herlihy.”

“The previous victim’s brother,” said Chief Fraser.

“Yes!” said Sharon – Nat might not know yet about her theory, but Sharon was clearly delighted that hers was correct. “Please tell me you’ve got him in protective custody!”

Nat glanced around the room, worried. Zola could be here right now, listening… he could well have been with them all the way from Galltair, in the trunk of the car or something. There was no sign of him, but how could they tell for sure?

“He asked for protection,” the Chief agreed. “He said he’d gotten threats from the guy who killed his brother. We’ve got him in a hotel in…”

“Ah! Ah!” Sharon put a hand over his mouth. “Just… don’t tell us out loud. Don’t tell us at all. Take us to him, but don’t say the name of the place. Walls have ears, okay?”

Chief Fraser stared at her a moment and gently reached up and took her hand from his mouth, but he didn’t continue his sentence. He just said, “what’s going on?”

“It’s… let’s just say it’s a conspiracy,” Sharon decided.

“What kind of conspiracy? Are we talking about a three-blokes-get-together-to-murder-the-fourth type of conspiracy? Or a the-queen-is-a-lizard-alien type of conspiracy?”

“I’ll tell you all about it when the case is closed,” Sharon promised. “Right now, just trust me, this is really important.”

The Chief nodded slowly, and pointed a finger at the people behind her. “Who are they?”

“Experts,” said Sharon.

“Experts?” he echoed.

“Yes,” said Sharon. “Dr. Rushman is the archaeologist Mr. Pierce had consulted about this statues. Sir Stephen is an authority on the folklore they were based on. Dr. Wilson is helping me look into the, uh, Ebola thing, and Mr. Rushman here is…” she spent a moment trying to figure out what his role could be, then gave up. “He’s Dr. Rushman’s father. We’ve got to talk to O’Herlihy. At least, four fifths of us need to talk to O’Herlihy.”

“All right.” The Chief sighed. “I trust you, Carter.”

“Thanks,” said Sharon. “That means a lot.”

He shook his head. “Lord knows nobody else seems to know what’s going on.”

The police had put Darren O’Herlihy up at the Mercure Inverness Hotel, which Nat thought was an awfully nice place to be in protective custody. It had five-star dining, a pool, and free wi-fi – the last time Nat had been in protective custody, it had been in a cell in Siberia with only one tiny space heater for her and four other girls. O’Herlihy wasn’t enjoying any of his luxuries, though. He was in his suite with the door locked and the curtains drawn, while two policemen stood guard at his door and another smoked on the balcony. There was a very unseasonable ivy Christmas wreath hanging on the door.

Sharon showed the two cops her badge, then knocked on the door. “Mr. O’Herlihy! I’m Detective Inspector Sharon Carter! I’m looking into your brother’s case. May I come in?”

There was the sound of furniture being moved and a latch being turned, and then the door opened as far as the chain lock would let it. One terrified blue eye, bloodshot with lack of sleep, peeked out.

“Hi.” Sharon tried to smile warmly.

“You were in the helicopter,” said O’Herlihy.

Natasha was surprised he remembered – he must have been really angry with them for stealing his thunder.

“Yes, that’s right,” Sharon said. “It’s been a busy week, hasn’t it? I just need to ask you something.”

Nat pulled the two pendants out of her purse again and held them where he could see them. The round one Sir Stephen had been carrying now had the red gems missing, too, which she decided to take for a good sign. “Your brother gave you something like this, right?” she asked.

O’Herlihy slammed the door again.

Sharon gently pushed Nat’s hand down, then knocked again. “Mr. O’Herlihy, this is important!” she said. “We need to know anything you can tell us about those pendants!”

The door opened again and O’Herlihy’s hand came out, dangling another cross-shaped token on a broken silver chain. This one was also bereft of its red decoration, if it had ever had any.

“Take it,” he said. “I don’t want it anymore.”

Nat would have done so, but Sharon stopped her again. “Where did your brother get that pendant, Mr. O’Herlihy? He had more, right? What did he do with them.”

“Just take it,” O’Herlihy pleaded. “I think it’s bad luck. It gave me a zap a while back, and since then I lost my monster, my brother was murdered, and some little goblin went through my stuff. It’s half the reason I’m hiding in here, please take it away.”

Sharon took the pendant from his hand, then caught his wrist to keep him from closing the door. “Wait. Tell me about the goblin.”

O’Herlihy didn’t answer at first. “If I tell you, will you take it away?”

“Yes,” said Sharon. “I’ll lock it away where you’ll never have to see it again.”

The man took a deep breath. “Mick called me the night before… the night before they killed him. He said there’d been this critter watching him, like a little old man the size of a child. It woke him up in the middle of the night to ask what he’d done with the charms. I figured he dreamed it. I didn’t notice that I hadn’t heard from him in a couple of days because I was busy with my monster, but when I came back to town to get more gear, I found my flat all torn apart, and there’s this little man, just like Mick described him. He disappeared right in front of me, and an hour later the cops showed up and told me Mick’s blood is all over the floor in some warehouse. Whatever those things are, I figure they’ve gotta belong to the Little People. That’s why I’ve got the ivy on the door. Grammy always said it kept the fairies out.”

Under the circumstances, that didn’t seem like a bad idea, Nat thought. They were dealing with creatures from folklore. Maybe folklore could tell them how to fight back. Although they might have better luck if they didn’t use plastic ivy.

“Did the creature ask you about the pendants?” asked Sharon.

“It ripped that one off my neck,” O’Herlihy said. “Then it threw it away and said it was spent, and vanished. There were a bunch of them originally but I don’t know what Mick did with them. He probably old them on eBay, and I don’t have his password so I can’t check.”

“What was his username?” asked Nat. If she had that, she could get into his account easily.

O’Herlihy didn’t answer.

“Did you know it?” Sharon asked.

“Yeah.” O’Herlihy looked embarrassed. “It was Stud-Mick-Muffin,” he said, and shut the door.

Nat kept her face carefully straight. “All right,” she said. “I’m gonna need some equipment, but I can get the names of the buyers.” And if she ever needed an eBay account, she’d remember to pick a username she wouldn’t mind seeing on her tombstone.

#fanfic #natasha romanov #black widow #steve rogers #captain america #sam wilson #falcon #sharon carter #agent 13

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hey-kids-want-some-avengers · 7 years

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Twelve days of Christmas: day 4. Baby, it’s cold outside.

Baby, it’s cold outside. A/N: this is like fluffy, sorta smutty Christmas crack with a giant bow on top. Sam and Bucky get snowed in during a storm and during their time forced together Sam decides they need to make sure the human race doesn't die out. Yup. _____________________________________________ Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Sam Wilson Warnings: NO MPREG! snow storm, hate/love, dirty talk, general smut-y stuff, fluff, anxious Bucky ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨ Sam was too drunk to go home last night, simple as that. Steve, Sam and Bucky had stayed in, drinking and talking, a movie in the background for the better part of Christmas. It had been fun, really, and even though Bucky and Sam bickered at every occasion, it had actually been nice. Around 1am or so, Steve had gone home (stupid super serum soldiers and their crazy bodies) and offered Sam a ride, of course, because Steve's a gentleman. Sam denied it though, said he would call a cab later and that he wanted to finish the movie and his beer. Bucky hadn't complained, just threw on some pajamas and sipped a mug of tea because apparently he's an old lady, and sat on the chair opposite of him after showing Steve out. Sam couldn't remember anything past that for the life of him, but waking up on Bucky's couch with a blanket over him and his head pounding loud enough in his ears he feels like he might die is sign enough he didn't make it home. He probably passed out before either of them called a cab. He'd been past a little drunk, but Sam liked drinking, especially over a holiday and with Steve, Bucky too, he guessed. It took the tension out of everything. He heaved himself up after a few more minutes, waiting for the room to stop spinning. "Shit," he mumbled, rubbing his eyes tiredly. The lights were all off, but he could smell coffee from the other room, so he figured Bucky was probably awake. The guy only ever slept like, what, two hours? He stood, his balance thrown a little as it spun, tilting. He’d drunk too much, and he was currently thanking the heavens above for blessing him with a strong stomach and alcohol tolerance. He’d never had a really bad hang over before, honestly. A little nausea, bit of a headache, but not much else. “Hey, Bucky?” He called out awkwardly, his voice sounded gruff. Bucky emerged a few moments later, wearing grey sweats and a red t-shirt, hair pulled back. He raised an eyebrow at him skeptically. “Huh?” He doesn’t look amused, but he looks like it’s normal that Sam passed out in his house. “Sorry, about last night?” He said awkwardly, smoothing a hand over his face. Bucky shrugged and went back to the kitchen, emerging with two mugs of coffee, still steaming. “It’s fine, ya feelin’ okay?” He asked, setting Sam’s mug on the table. “Not bad, been worse,” he said, picking up the mug after he sat back down on the couch. “I’ll get outta your hair soon.” Bucky gives him a look like he just stripped naked in a supermarket, before glancing towards the window. “Yeah, uh, that’s not gonna happen.” Sam looked at him blankly. Seriously, this guy couldn’t ever just explain, he had to be so cryptic. It was infuriating. Bucky leaned back in his stupid old-guy recliner and sipped at his coffee. Of course he drank it black. “We’re snowed in,” he said flatly, peering at him, over his mug. And upon looking out the window, he found he really wasn’t kidding. There was packed down snow as high as the windows, only a tiny gap at the top, exposing wind and of course, more snow. Fuck. “Oh hell no,” Sam said hurriedly, waving a finger at Bucky. “I’ve got shit I gotta get done!” “Like what, sit on your ass?” Bucky grinned. “I’m not you.” Bucky glares accordingly and huffs. “Yeah, whatever, you ain’t gonna be able to make it out any time soon,” he shrugged. “Steve’s held up in a hotel somewhere.” “Awesome,” Sam grumbled. Bucky seemed virtually Unphased. “So we’re gonna be the last sad fuckers on this planet?” Bucky snorts. “Yeah, right,” he says as he kicks his legs up. Wow, who wears sweats that tight anyways? He hates this guy, hates him so much his dick hurts. What. Bucky raises an eyebrow at him. He’s staring, smooth Wilson, smooth. He jerks his eyes to his own coffee abruptly “it’ll probably safe to get home in a day or two?” Bucky says, though he doesn’t sound sure of himself. He has no idea, he’s sure. “Yeah, guess we’ll see,” he says back awkwardly. Bucky shrugs, goes back to sipping at his coffee. The house is a little cold, dim too. There’s no light coming from the windows, after all. But it’s not uncomfortable, and somehow they haven’t lost power, so he’ll take that as a win. Sam sighed, drumming his fingers against his cup. He should probably drink it before it gets cold, but there’s a thick tension in the room he can’t shake off. Bucky’s not even looking at him, but it’s awkward, feels like he’s on the spot light, like maybe Bucky’s doing everything in his power not to look at him. The situation sucks, really. “Hopefully it doesn’t get much worse, we’re running on my backup generator,” he says absently after another agonizing minute of silence. “You have a fucking backup generator in this thing?” Sam asks, eyebrows raised. The house isn’t that big, it’s only got two rooms, a bathroom and small kitchen and living room. He’s not sure where one would even go. “Yes,” he says back, glaring. “Lucky for you.” Sam shrugs, because he’s not wrong, he just can’t figure out why, when and how this thing came to be. Or where for that matter. A few hours pass, Sam’s taken a shower, and yeah, he purposefully uses all the hot water, brushed his teeth with a spare toothbrush Bucky has, and put his clothes back on. He’d finished his second mug of coffee and was settling back into the couch when the lights flickered. Bucky wasn’t even in the room, he’d excused himself around the time Sam went to take a shower so he could clean up and get dressed into something a little less sloppy, not that Sam gave a shit. He gave the light a long hard stare, because there was no way in hell he was gonna freeze to death in the dark, but he stopped and the heater was still thrumming, so he relaxed a little. It wasn’t until Bucky re-emerged in jeans and a hoodie, flopping down unreasonably close to Sam that the lights finally do just go out. The heater stops on queue and it’s silent. “Fucking hell,” Sam mutters and by the look on Bucky’s face, he thinks he’s feeling the same way. “Shit,” he breathes, rolling his eyes. “Well so much for that.” “I’m gonna die, stuck in a shitty little house with you.” “Oh boo hoo, Wilson,” Bucky retorted. “I made you coffee, gave you the couch, let you take a damn shower, I think you’re gonna survive.” Sam huffs. “Not if I have to sit around you much longer.” Bucky rolls his eyes. “Yeah, right.” Sam and Bucky sit next to each other in silence, probably looking like children with their arms folded over their chests, refusing to look at each other. He hates how much he actually can stand Bucky. He drives him crazy, of course, but it’s in a good way, even if he claims it isn’t. He’s thought about Bucky when he was alone on more than one occasion, and he’s never (almost) actually hated their time together. He kind of treasures it in a weird way. He knows Bucky is going to drive him insane, both with annoyance and sexually, but he can’t find it in him to care. “Seriously though, everyone else is gonna die out,” Sam says again, finally. Bucky looks at him, unamused. “Why would we be the only survivors?” “We’ve had heat the longest,” he shrugs. “You’re assuming.” “Pretty damn sure.” “Okay, fine, but we’ll still die eventually.” Sam sighs, exasperated. “That’s why I said we have to,” he pauses, motioning vaguely with his hands. “Repopulate.” Bucky makes a face. “Last I checked we all have dicks here,” Bucky says seriously, and yeah he totally just stared at Sam’s crotch, because of course he did. “When did you check, I must’ve missed that?” “So you don’t have a dick?” Wow, how did they end up here? Sam shakes his head with a low chuckle. “I think we both know the answer is that I very much do, have a dick.” Bucky shrugs. “What?” “Didn’t say anything.” “You’re all—shrugging, you shrugged!” “So?” Bucky looks at him like he’s crazy. “What, you don’t believe me now?” “I never said I didn’t,” Bucky says with a grin. “I swear to God-“ Sam starts, but before he’s finished, they’re kissing. Sam honestly has no idea how it happened. He’s not even entirely sure which one of them made the move, but neither of them seem to really mind either way. It’s surprisingly softer than Sam thought it would be, when he’d actually thought about it, he’d always assumed it would be rushed, kind of hard. Honestly, minus the slight chapped scrape of Bucky’s lips, everything about it is soft and slow, gentle. When they do part, they’re still only inches apart, and Bucky’s looking at him carefully. “Huh,” Bucky says, pulling Sam into his lap with disturbing ease, kissing him again. Of course he doesn’t complain, it’s a fine late Christmas present. He’s kind of been waiting for it. Especially after he discovered that Bucky can’t shop for shit. “What?” Sam asks, a little breathy when Bucky breaks it again. “Nothing, Nothing,” Bucky says, but it’s beyond clear he’s lying. “No, what is it Barnes?” “You’re honestly really easy to work with, are we sure you’re not the one without a dick here?”

#sorry this is late #I’ve been crazy busy today #twelve days of christmas #winterfalcon #sambucky #sam wilson #bucky barnes #twelve days of christmas fanfics #day 4 #bees fanfics #12 days of christmas #sam wilson x bucky barnes #christmas #twelve days of christmas day 4

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artdjgblog · 4 years

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Innerview: ? / The One Club - Young Guns

May 2008

Art & Design: DJG

Note: Submission(s) Explanation

01) The Afterparty & The Wilders This is a Kansas City, MO concert poster made for bands The Afterparty and The Wilders. It is originally hand-made out of sewing ribbons and pencil writing. The “Afterparty” is built of one continuous ribbon piece. Posters are 12″ x 18″, inkjet prints (two different layers) by DJG on thick, flesh-colored paper found for cheap. Amie Nelson is credited as the client for this piece. She and DJG are both credited as the copywriters for this poster. This poster received honors and exhibition around the globe from the Type Directors Club of NYC in 2007. 02) Cacophony at Blank Space The first DJG double-sided poster is for a music and art group exhibition called “Cacophony” at Blank Space Gallery in Oakland, CA. What you see here are both views in one frame. The original front and back is roughly 36″ x 75″ and built by hand in an eight hour period on my basement floor. The client is Hunter Mack of Gold Robot Records. Copy writing credits go to Hunter Mack and DJG. Final posters are printed on 13.5″ x 22″ blue print paper. They are to be sold at the opening exhibition night. I rarely sell things. 03) Capture the Drag This is a piece of personal art built on a big piece of foam board. It is mostly made from a pile of found objects and trash that have captured my interest. I have been sitting on this pile for seven or eight years and put tiny dents into it whenever i get an itch. This image came to my head on a vacant Friday night and needed to be made. 04) Danielson Danielson released a highly acclaimed album in 2006 called “Ships”. They are a very unique, spiritually-influenced family band that makes odd freak-folk music that is both almost eerie and inspiring…in that strange and surreal basement church childlike puppet theater way. Here we have our Lord’s lamb with boat ores as feet, sailing the seas. The little guy steers the ship of man in his gullet, leaving a trail of sheep-like droppings to mark the way (aka: anchor drops). The lamb is originally 24″ x 36″ (give or take) and made from front lawn clippings, weeds and the tiny flowers that never get noticed. Typography is all done by hand and headlined with little round metal pieces collected from a construction site. Posters are printed 12″ x 18″ on white construction paper. They are my first posters for a New York City show. It is sometimes nice to see the sheep get kicked from the clubhouse a little further down the road. Client for this poster is a record label called The Record Machine. Copy writers are Nathan Reusch and DJG. I normally don’t make the same thing twice, but of late I have been making more and more sheep in a similar fashion. I made five this past Friday for a show in California and four smaller ones last September for a St. Louis, MO exhibit. A huge one or two will go on display at the Missouri State Fair this summer. The Danielson sheep was on display and was part of a DJG series that won “Best in Show” at the 2007 AIGA Kansas City Design Awards & Banquet. The making of sheep is a great exercise while in-between other things. The sheep are cute and have personality, I like this “cloning” aspect, and they help reconnect me to the past. I grew up on a sheep farm, showed sheep in county fairs, got tickled by baby lambs, kept some on the back porch, played basketball with them on my sheep poop basketball court, still appreciate their connection to Biblical things and still think that their round droppings look like M & M’s brown candies. 05) Elevator Division – Whatever Makes You Happy A run of 250 hand-cut and spray painted cardboard CD packages with photocopied inserts were made for this CD by a band called The Elevator Division (I am only showing you the cover image). I lived on the couch and worked out of the band’s basement at the time, so we had a great one-on-one relationship. I played the instrument of full-time art director and part-time adviser for six or seven years. This image reflects the ideas and themes within the lyrics that deal with coming of age change, conflict, war and the shooting off of one’s options. The first 250 went quickly and I only own one. Though,I happened to inherit a second via marriage to a gal who bought one back in the day when she had her eyes on my design guns. A second run was created with spray paint on standard CD jewel cases, making production less of a hassle and still maintaining the original idea/execution. And some people bought both. Copy Writers include James Hoskins, Paul Buzan, Sam Hoskins and DJG. This “Finger Bomb” image came to me the night before I was to begin production of this massive project. The idea I had before of a soldier running just didn’t seem to fit completely and I was being too easy on my head. This one came and spoke and then screamed during an idiotic mad rush of basement spray paint fumes on a stormy late spring evening. The image has also taken heart with many an entertaining design publication (Print / STEP), book and even strange collectors of DJG work. Upon finishing the 250 packaged marathon, I lept out of the basement at a crack of lightning and belly-slid down the slick front lawn hill into the gushing gutters of an urban Kansas City street. With red paint streaming from my ears, nostrils and mouth, the “squatters” at the house across the street found this manic display of joy as quite interesting and clapped and hollered. 06) DJG Marks (Image NA / Go Here) After eight years or so of making things in a more “professional” manner, a large paper trail of logos had been stringing up. This poster was created to show and memorialize almost every single member in the DJG logo family. There are a small handful that slipped away, and will be searched for at a later date. Clients vary from many bands to bars to websites to a law firm, university union, film studio, media and recording and computer companies, city slogan, and a church. 07) DJG’s One Eye Brow “DJG’s One Eye Brow” was the first (and probably last) professional lecture given by DJG Design. This poster was created to promote the event and to collaborate an original art piece with friend and fellow graphic maker, Douglas James Wilson. He is a university design instructor, fellow graphic enthusiast, photographer and letterpress operator in Springfield, MO. The lecture was at the design school I studied at, Missouri State University in Springfield, MO. MSU’s Students In Design are credited as the client for this poster. DJG & Doug are the copy writers, designers and type makers. Poster images were first made and printed in black and blue inks on 13.5″ x 22″ blue print paper by DJG. They were then shipped to Douglas James Wilson who letter pressed two layers on top of that in yellow and black. The fine print at the bottom of the poster is an actual email conversation between DJG and Douglas about the project. This poster was honored and exhibited at the AIGA Kansas City Awards & Banquet. Douglas and DJG have combined on one other project exactly one year after this lecture poster was completed, and plan to make more and more babies together. Currently there is what we call a “Three Way” in construction. DJG has made close to forty original art pieces and passes digital files of the images to Frank Chimero (www.makemakemake.org) who makes stuff on top of them and prints them out and then ships them to Douglas James Wilson (www.onpaperwings.com) who will end it in letterpress. 08) The Vines & Jet DJG heard about Australian bands The Vines & Jet traveling a long way to play the middle of Lawrence, KS and decided to make a poster commemorating this journey/event. These “suitcase” posters were made and printed entirely by hand. Old, thick posters found in a dumpster were covered with sticky contact paper from a roll that an old roommate left behind. They were then cut to the shape of suitcases and typography was created with spray paint and rubber stamps. The type stenciling resembles the typical markings that identify band equipment cases and the vine pattern is a salute to tacky suitcases and travel gear. The posters were celebrated by Print Magazine, STEPinside Design and a few other publications and books. DJG has since looked out of curiosity for more vine patterned contact paper… 09) DJG’s Truck Stop Love Stalls No. 1 & 2 These two, decently-sized, mini-type billboards were built and exhibited in a special Valentine’s show in February of 2008. Handmade type has always been in the DJG diet, but lately, and in conjunction with the action of pushing into more straight so-called “art” pieces, giant works of typography have been starting to leak from the DJG studio. This twin project has helped trigger more and more marriage with the designs and writings of DJG. A brief, 48 line poem was written on the seven minute walk to the day job in September of last year and 3/4 of it was used as inspiration for this project of experimenting with word and type design out of many types of things. It was a real hoot and many rolls of tape are holding it all together. Though, one word will be defined for sure in the future, “BIGGER”. 10) The Violet Burning One day at my day job I found that a kind lady mending the plants and landscaping had dumped a ton of plant clippings into my trusty janitorial barrel-cart. Earlier that morning my mind had been plowing over ideas for a new poster design. The clippings found their way into my pockets and out the door I flung at 3:30pm to run home and hit the basement door with full design speed. Letters and type were constructed, scanned and inkjet printed and another layer of bugs and flowers was put over top of it. Copy writer credits belong to DJG. The poster was well-received at the show venue and around Kansas City and eventually recognized and exhibited by The Type Directors Club of NYC in 2004 and many other publications and books. -djg

#innerviews

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dinoalexander · 5 years

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Your Moment of Zen: The Gourmet Academy’s Semi-Quotable 2019 Quotedown Quotetacular

Ladies and gentlemen and non-binary conforming life forms across seven star systems... the Gourmet Academy’s World Famous Get Down Like a Hound Party ‘til You Puke Semi-Quotable 2019 Quotedown Quotetacular... is ON! === “Time to play everybody’s favorite game show, Fireworks or Gunshots?” -BFG

“Goddamnit. I have to be the adult, don’t I?” -Gordon

“You can copy the format, you can copy the look, but you can’t copy culture!” -UBA

“Gentlemen, I wash my hands of this craziness.” -Kimberly

“Starting a petition to have Barbara Walters do the ball drop next New Years just to hear her say, ‘I’m Barbara Walters and this is 2020.’” -Chelsea

“Hello, Antonio Brown's Shiny Helmet Emporium, how can I help you? What's your pleasure?” -Carl

“Watch me whip out my Shenehneh.” -Gordon

“I feel like I’m watching one of my movies, because this whole damn thing sucks.” -John Cena

“I giggled.” -Michael

“I’m not saying BH90210 is the worst thing in the history of all recorded media, but if somebody had the theory that Luke Perry faked his own death to avoid any and all association with it, I would be willing to entertain that theory.” -Kevin

“Any day the key card works is a win.” -Joe Ovies

“She played a fiddle in an Irish band...” -Ed Sheeran “No she didn’t.” (Click) -Chico

“CBS was callin’, I’m Black Monty Hallin’.” -Wayne Brady

“Richard Quest on CNN! He's gonna ask the rest of the 500 questions!” -Klaussie

“Work. What is this work bullshit?” -Gordon

“Verizon and Tegna, when the carriage agreement ended.” -MD

“I got my words! I got my friends! I got my words WITH my friends!” -Megan

“Thoughts and prayers to the Love Boat, who had her on so frequently her name probably appeared higher up on the call sheet than Isaac or Doc.” -Kevin

“Another fine product from Assmung.” -Carl

“Remember how I thought Adam Gase was a total piece of crap? I have been proven right. Fuck Adam Gase and the horse that rode in on him.” -Cyndi

“Walls? Where we’re going, we don’t need walls.” -Laura

“I’m a person who wants to be productive trapped inside a person who wants to sleep all day.” -Cortney

“Tommy Chong is a THC-list celebrity.” -JB

“Hey did you know that Francesa met Secretariat?” -Greg

“In a year when Black Panther told a story of a black superhero in a futuristic world struggling with real questions about how to deal with racial oppression, and BlacKkKlansman told a story of racial wounds in America that continue to this day and the need for allies to put themselves on the line, Best Picture went to Green Book, the story of a brilliant black musician as told through the white guy who drove him around. Okay.” -Kristin

“Advice: avoid sugar, Oregon Trail diseases, & women named in Mambo No. 5.” -Austin

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but so will my poor eating habits and bad decisions.” -Sarah Pribis

“She was prepared to kill a cockroach with a baseball bat.” -me on overzealous providers

“I am the crocodonkey.” -Klauss

“Aaaaaand we just lost Quisla.” -C

“Can Scaramucci last longer than a Scaramucci?” -...I don’t know, somebody.

“I want dysentery! ... wait what?” -Kyle

“My boobs are not real.” -Gordon

“I want to stop this show and take 10% of you outside, right now!" -Chris Harrison

“OMG Parallel Universe me, stop it!” -C

“I figured out who should host the Oscars ... Colin Kaepernick! Dude still needs a job, right? Also, he’s like two or three times the size of Kevin Hart. I bet we could pay him the same amount, so it’s like getting a bargain! Of course, I’ll want a modest consulting fee from the Academy. Problem solved. You’re welcome.” -Clint

“How the hell am I supposed to put this thing together? Are there instructions or am I just supposed to wing it?” -C “Even IKEA gives me instructions in a foreign language and a tiny ass tool.” -Q

"The only place you see Success before Work is in the Dictionary: -Mauro Ranallo NXT Takeover Phoenix

“A bold statement from a guy dressed as a hippo on a talent show.” -Klauss

“If you wanted the chicken fingers that badly, you could have asked for one instead of taking the whole plate of food.” -Gordon

“Time to play “Sexy or Sleepy”?” -C

“... that means ‘Eff you, you, you, and you’.” -Jason “That’s my autobiography right there.” -Gordon

“The magic thing about home is it feels good to leave but it feels better to come back.” -Emily “Home is a bit like that.” -C

“Thoughts and prayers to Ryan Stiles, who has lost his go-to celebrity impression.” -BB

“Hey, the Lord works in mysterious ways, but you don’t have to, USE YOUR TURN SIGNAL, ASSHOLE!” -Q

“What, you think people do coke once?” -Greg

“I can read off a TelePrompTer like a motherfucker.” -Kristen Bell

“‘Thank God we will be able to see more Pat Buchanan on TV’ said no one ever. I mean, for fuck’s sake, the last thing that is needed is another show featuring a panel of bloviating pundits. I get it. It’s cheap and easy to produce. But so is p*rn.” -Kevin, on The McLaughlin Group

“After watching HQ Words you wonder why Anna Roisman hasn't hit the big time yet. After watching HQ After Dark, you can completely understand why.” -Gordon

“If I die tonight, I want two of the Woodpeckers, two of the Football Tar Heels, and two of the Panthers to serve as my pallbearers so they can all let me down one more time.” -C, on Bad Sports Week 2019

“The first time is flattery, the second time is a lie.” -Michael

“I went to the mall with my pops. I saw something driving to there that truly shocked me. Someone had an orange Ford F650 extended cab pick up truck… With duallies… A rolling coal smokestack… And hubcaps with spikes on each of the nuts. And my only thought was… “My God… It must be MICROSCOPIC!” -Brian

“Would’ve expected to see “Employees must wash hands before returning to work”, posted in the restroom, but alright NOLA, still good looking out I guess...” -Casey

“Because....um.....going from a 40 to a 33 waist apparently makes people want to bed you.” -Gordon

“Breaking news: Idiot talks to idiot on a channel watched by idiots.” -Kevin

“Screaming tree maraca!” -Dahlia

“Looks like I fell down on the job. Metaphorically, because literally would make me Oprah Rich and I'd be full of imported cheese right now.” -Laura

“In another decade or so, somebody is going to make a documentary on Ken Burns documentaries. The TRT will be 152 years.” -Kevin

“May your 2019 be filled with happiness, prosperity, great cocktails, laughter, and Waffle House when you need it most.” -Rick Wilson

“There are sober people in England... No there’s not!” -Mike the CD

“Oh... oh.... oh....” -Q “IT’S MAGIC!” -C

“And finally, some of y’all still out here begging (I’m mean, pure, unadulterated BEGGING) for attention (I’m talking ANY attention) and validation. Lord Jesus put that sadness away. Just put it away.” - Michael

“I’m thinking of a number. The number is 10. You go first.” -JD

“Also, I would take tasteful pics of me making pizza naked. I'm only 30 and I'm only gonna look like this once.” -Kimberly D

“I have ADD. You wanna ride a bike? I’m gonna drink some water. Rooooooam if you want to... This coffee’s really delicious. I’m a sucker for you.” -Q

“Matthew Judon... Body built by Taco Bell.” -Matthew Judon, professional football player

“YEAH!!!! 1943, BITCH!” -my response to Q’s retelling of the events leading up to the Battle of Midway.

“Depending upon the inflection (Bless your heart) can mean anything from “oh you poor thing” to “would you lend me your brain?, I’m building an idiot”.” -Brian

“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” -LiyaZee

“That is a giant banana!” -Chris Ahearn, re: a giant banana “Why thank you!” -JB

“Betty White the Happy Homehooker.” -C

“I'll only have a hamberder if I can have it with covfefe.” -The Governess

“I will never forget when you surprised my ass in Atlantic City. That was the weekend of the Press Your Luck Prime Rib.” -JB “That was my first taste of the juice.” -Chico “And you been on the corner... ever since... looking for a fix.” -JB

“Sounds like a generic dude who owns the Ford dealership in every single city in America.” -BFG’s response to “Who is Tom Steyer?”

“Time to switch to Channel 7...” -Cyndi, getting ready to launch a Dallas recap style recap

“The only difference I've noticed this year is that now I get told, "OK Boomer", when I complain about holiday creep.” -Trey

“A 21st Century Koan... If a vegan that sold essential oils begin doing CrossFit… Which would they tell you about first?” -Brian

“Sorry I shoved my hair in your face.” -Christina

“You are turning into a Burberry wearing, wine drinking, charcoal mask wearing kinda guy... AND I COULDN’T BE PROUDER!” -Q

“Instead of airing new Love Island episodes, something tells me CBS is better off rerunning “The Mentalist”. -Doug “CBS is better off running Secret Talents of thr Stars.” -Gordon

“How far along are you?” -some guy “Oh, about six burritos and about a dozen cupcakes.” -Kimberly

“Answers and bribes go into the Corona Extra bucket.” -Michael

“Dear God, Please watch over Cole Anthony’s shoes.” -C

“What’s that scent you’re wearing? Oh, a little something I call washing your ass.” -Q

“You ever just wish there was a coffee delivery service? .... I do.” -Kathleen

“I’m just another brother with a game show.” -BFG

“(Unintelligible) ... Thicke of the niiiight.” -Greg’s impersonation of Gilbert Gottfried’s impersonation of Alan Thicke

“Antonio Brown doesn’t need football - ‘They’re going to play by my rules.’ A bold statement from a guy dressed as a hippo on a talent show.” -Klaussie

“You keep your head high and your middle finger higher.” -Alex

“There has to be a more scientific name for the penis. ... Intermittent organ?” —Gordon “That sounds pretentious enough to be scientific.” -C

“Zooey is saved for awkward sexy stories. Jeff Zucker is someone I don't want associated with "sexy stories".” -Dane

“Ryan is as Canadian as it gets. I think he bleeds maple syrup.” -C

“Turns out Gillette doesn’t work well with sensitive skin after all.” -Ben Rejmer

“Are you drinking something funny there, sunshine?” -Statboy

“It's so cold out here on the east coast that Jim Dolan, the brilliant genius that he is, decided to warm the citizens of Manhattan up and turn MSG into a giant dumpster fire.” -Gordon

“Ziggy is my spirit animal.” -C

“It may sound bougie, but.. you look good, you play good. You play good... they PAY good.” -Cam Newton

“We could be flying Pan Am Clippers to Venus. But MTV stopped playing music, legalized weed, and elected Donald Trump.” -C

“I get it. Tom Brady = deflated balls. Alex Guerrero = "inflates them". Hookers like Tom Brady. Damn, Alex Guerrero is better than Viagra.” -Klaussie

“I think I found the pony under the pile of shit." -Kimberly

“Skype sucks ass.” -Gordon

“In this troubled times, I like to put my hand over the kidney in my heart, stare at the moon of Mars contemplating how the wheel is older than the wall, the great things Frederick Douglas is doing & just being thankful I have ID to buy cereal, thankful for George Washington Airport victories & I don't have Windmill cancer.” -Trent Capelli...Twitter

“Sugar isn't "worse than cocaine." You're not killing yourself by ingesting sugars either in foods or in your coffee. People who are selling you weightloss programs want to tell you that you're killing yourself but there is no scientific evidence that sugar kills humans. Thank you for attending my TEDtalk.” - Shrub

“I found a love...” -Ed Sheeran “No you didn’t.” (Click) -Chico

“Many of you are wondering about my mental state after the Vols game last night. I assure you last night I slept like a baby. Sleep two hours, wake up and cry, sleep two hours, wake up and cry...” -Brian

“If you paid $7 for a Jack & Coke, you got jacked.” -Klaussie “... and Coked.” -C

“Rich Eisen getting triggered by an f’n commercial for 9-1-1 because it featured a fictional situation in a place where his kid goes to is the most white guy thing ever.” -Greg

“And now that your reagent is all nice and mixed and all the chemicals have gotten to know each other, gently put the reagent cartridge onto the instrument. Gently... GENTLY, YOU IDIOT!” -C, to himself

“... goddamned hula shirt.” -Q

“The person who wrote the article needs to be taken in the back and have their writing license revoked. And then shot. And then never be allowed to touch a keyboard again. And then have their hands chopped off.” -Gordon

“They got Bowzer next to Barbi Benton, the lucky son of a bitch.” -C

“Here's what gets me every time I see the trailer for the Cats movie...these are all successful actors. Like...nobody in this movie actually needs to do this.” -Lana

“I made Chico donate $24 to Extra Life.” -Gordon

“You guys are compact cars like I’m a gay, wasted white girl.” -Q

“HQ is like the divorced dad with a much younger, hippy dippy, girlfriend-- and the kids don't want to visit.” -Amberlee

“Suck down your coffee like you own it!” -Hollie

“DRUM SOLO!!!” -Weird Al

“You know when you’re a podcaster you need a good vocabulary. I did always have one. When I was young I mixed up Jacuzzi and Yakuza. And for a while I was in hot water with the Japanese mafia.” -Brian

“It’s game of thrones, but I’m much less Jon Snow and much more Johnny Mudstorm.” -Gordon

“Skype is being a ho.” -Jason

“It's a less-sensitive Soul Man, in a time we need no such shit.” -Klauss

“I thought you were gonna get a room.” -Chapel Hill Phil “I thought you were gonna mind your business.” -Chico “.... that’s fair.” -CHP

“For those of you who are upset about being single on Valentines Day, remember this... 99% of my socks are single but you don’t see them crying about it!” -Connor

“They are selling CBD oil at Bed Bath and Beyond?! I’m sure that’s quality stuff. Honky, please!” -Christina

“She is twisted. If she swallowed a nail, she’d shit out a corkscrew.” -Q

“Oh Taylor Swift. Patron saint of Pride Month. Thank God for straight white girls.” -Michael

“Apollo’s Chariot: “I’m the biggest baddest hypercoaster on the eastern seaboard.” Intimidator 305: “... Bless your heart.” Fury: “Both of you can hold my sweet tea.”” -C

“I don't know you and I sure as heck don't know your sister.” -Klaussie

“Nothing makes you stronger than having no choice in the matter. You’re strong because you have to be.” -Christina’s dad

“Apparently people have mistaken my professional courtesy with genuine interest.” -Michael

“Jon Bauman, you dingleberry!” -Chico a la James May

“Bad enough it’s Scott but it’s Comic Sans, so that makes it even worse.” -Nick “Gentlemen... start your whacking!” -Cyndi “PHRASING!” -Jay, Chico, JVG

“As Robert Downey Jr. once said...” -Cindy

“Whenever I see a married couple with a joint Facebook page, I never, ever have any thought other than "I wonder which one of 'em cheated."” -Adam

“Why is Dan Orlovsky talking football and why should I take anything Safetyman says seriously?” -Cyndi

“Okay, you're a billionaire and can easily afford top-of-the-line call girls at $5,000 to $10,000 an hour and you go to a sleazy massage parlor where the women smell like lavender and shame (so I've heard).” -Steve

“My floor is occupied with eggs.” -Gordon

“Quis, your thing is making noise. Can you make it... not make noise?” -C

“I’ve been waiting at the phone for 29 years hoping someone can win this cruise!” -Klaussie

“If you wanted the chicken fingers that badly, you could have asked for one instead of taking the whole plate of food. #WelcomeBackToLeague #BowlerCityThievery #CheckingTheCamerasAfterLeague.” -Gordon

“I'm proud to say I only cried five times. Admittedly, once was during the opening credits...” -Prof. O

“Phone calls in the mor-NING!” -C, describing his job as a radio jingle

“Okay, the shirt I was wearing when Liza gave me a slimy hug...I wanted to keep wearing it but I also loved the way the slime stains looked on it, so I waited six weeks to wash it so the slime stains would be totally set in. I just did laundry and there’s not a slime stain to be found anywhere on this shirt. On the one hand, mildly disappointed, but on the other hand, holy crap, Tide just made a customer for life out of me.” -Adam

"Really, you don't go back to the crazy ex-girlfriend. You leave her in the insane asylum." -Rafael Siegel, former Cash Show host

“Don't slap Charlotte in her boobs, you're just making her ANGRY!” -Brian

“Is it bigger than a Bird Box?” -Adam Nedeff’s take on What’s My Line?/Bird Box

“That song Birthday Sex is depressing when it’s your birthday and you have no sex.” -Red

“Politics politics politics Sean Spicer politics politics politics DWTS politics politics politics shimmy shimmy shimmy politics politics politics *tea sip*” -Kimberly

“We may need to add Brie Larson to the "How big is Batista's dick?" question list.” -Dane

“Chico and I not only know that we;re going to Hell, we requested a nice suite, complete with kitchen, spa and bidet, Aaron is coming also. We should have room in the suite for more if you want to join us.” -Gordon

“If Bill Cosby is telling you to get out, get out. Else, you'll get a dinner drink with a special surprise.” -Klauss

“Hey, what’s coming out this May?” -Q “(Incoherent slurring)” -C “Really? Who’s in it?” -Q “Ryan Reynolds, I dunno.” -C

“I feel like Neville Longbottom with a remembrall.” -Amberlee

“Comically oversized shit sells. It's America, bigger is better.” -Jessica

“You’ve heard of salt in a wound or lemon juice on a paper cut... but have you heard of Oxi Clean powder on a fingernail you cut too short? Pro tip: avoid that.” -Coby

“I have an idea.” -Q “OH NO!!!! NOT AN IDEA!!!!” -C

“Truck contains political promises.” -actual septic truck

“Uhh... framing?” -C

“It’s very easy to get friends on these apps if you say you’re a hot chick.” -Gordon

“Woodstock 50 cancelled after organizers determined they can’t make it as hilarious as Fyre Fest.” -Adam

“Age and wisdom divorced decades ago. Stupid people get old too.” -Austin

“They put some extra claps in this.” -C, re: CS2019 theme

“I hope she’s dreaming the biggest, bestest dreams... and I hope she never stops.” -Kathleen, on her new little girl.

“You think it’s awkward buying condoms, try returning them!” -Q

“If Mississippi State wins the Outback Bowl, we all get free Bloomin' Onions. If Iowa wins, we all get free Coconut Shrimp. If that's not reason enough to root for Iowa, I don't know what to tell you.” -Matty

“Full hearts, full stomachs, can’t poop.” -Evil Travis

“That's it. Officially referring to my boobs as my "small turkeys".” -LiyaZee

“More phone calls in the mor-NING!” -C, describing his job as a radio jingle

“Tried watching pre-debate coverage, but the phrase "brutal Darwinian logic of winnowing" sent me back to Press Your Luck.” -Heather

“...if we hold up a painting of Hurricane Dorian, will it die?” -Amberlee

“Hey Cindy... you married that.” -C

“Literatively? Okay.” -Gordon

“I plan on going with Chef from South Park's line on that one -- "There's a time and a place for everything, and it's called college."” - Kristin, on “Break Up With Your Girlfriend (Because I’m Bored)”

“Allegiant Stadium. Much like the Raiders... A WORK IN PROGRESS.” -C

“Nobody could sing like Milli Vanilli… But let’s be fair neither could they.” -Brian

“Gar-a-giola, Gar-a-giola, STRIIIIIIKE IT RICH! Gar-a-giola, Gar-a-giola, STRIIIIIIKE IT RICH! Strike! It! Riiiiich! Strike! It! Riiiiich! Gar-a-giola, Gar-a-giola, STRIIIIIIKE IT RICH!” -Nedeff’s lyrics to the love theme from “Strike It Richl by Hal Hidey

“In God we trust, all others must provide research-based, peer-reviewed data.” -Aryn

“Go-gurt™: because fuck spoons and decency.” -Sarah Ann

“Like I said ESPN is to the Patriots what FOX News is to the Republican Party.” -Greg

“That is like walking hepatitis.” -Tim DeLaGhetto

“Will there be any trivia questions on your trivia question show?” -Erskine

“I’m a journalism major, so I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” -BFG

“That’s Right is the Adam Gase of trivia apps.” -Greg

“And yes, Bill Maher does in fact molest collies, and goats...and sheep...and Chicago Bears. 😜” -JVG

“In the words of my dear uncle Paul, ‘Google it, bitch! I’m not here to educate you!’” -Nikki

“You know what they call the guy who graduates last in medical school?” -Megan “A doctor!” -C

“You can never win an argument with an idiot or an asshole. Idiots don’t know they’re wrong, and assholes won’t even consider the possibility that they could be wrong. You can’t help it if you’re an idiot sometimes, but don’t be an asshole. Just something to think about going into 2019.” -Clint

“No Ganos is good Ganos with Graham Gano.” -Tim

“Enough loonies to fill up the Bank of Montreal.” -Klauss

“In the age of auto correct no less, it makes me shudder when I see the leader of the free world making fifth grade grammar mistakes.” -Q

“You look like who did it and why.” -Mary

“Ow, my check! ... I mean, ow, my neck!” -Big Rick

“This woman on Wheel of Fortune has two grandchildren named Kennedy and Nixon, and I have questions.” -Melanie

“You’re the President of the United States and getting dragged by fucking Burger King. It’s just... wonderful.” -Shannon

“Classy, Like a White House Big Mac.” -Actual team trivia name

“Sex is a mistake 9 out of 10 times.” -Michael

“Who signs the cat?” -Carl

“This feels like an SNL sketch. Where’s Bill Hader?” -Greg

“Yeah! And uh...I played HQ with one of them in a hotel room. Wait, that sounds creepy.” -BFG “More than that. (No, THAT sounds creepy.) You have played online trivia with one of them. Surely you ran into or at least saw others in Vegas.” -Klaussie

the subject: The Jeopardy! All-Stars

“Step 1: Go to McDonald's. Step 2: Order a Shamrock Shake. There, now you don't have to read the article.” -Prof. O via Evil Travis. The question: “How to order a Shamrock Shake.”

Lunch lady: “Hey Dino! Get me a grape soda! I’m thirsty!” C, after an insane amount of giggling: “You said it, not me.”

“Some bitch decided she wanted to be a bitch.” -C

AP headline on Twitter: "Tim Tebow struggling in Triple-A; still a work in progress." GSNN: "Funny -- so was 'Million Dollar Mile'."

“The Bosa brothers = MAGA Gronk. Don't @ me.” -Klauss

“... BASSOON SOLO!!!!!” -Weird Al

Greg: “Crying Game Cereal. A surprise in every box.” (Everyone dies for, like, five minutes) Chico: “... I’m going to HQ.... YOU NEED TO GO TO CHURCH!”

“Aunt Becky has some stupid kids.” -Austin Rogers

“I wanna be 21 again and ruin my life differently... I have new ideas.” -Sarah Pribis

“Mannnn listen!! It's time to just throw the whole R. Kelly away!!” -Bruce

“By the time all is said and done, I will have been awake for 24 hours.” -C “Rookie.” -G

“Instead of airing new LI episodes, something tells me CBS is better off rerunning “The Mentalist”. -Doug

“Well they went over as well as a ham sandwich at a kosher deli.” -Q

“Drop it and get out of here!” -Carl’s boss

“The call is coming from inside the wheelhouse.” -Ullsperger

“I am the Marquis de Asshole.” -Gordon

“Elizabeth Banks’ ass is America’s ass.” -C, with apologies to Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, and Bill Carruthers

“Don't have an iPhone or iPad? Maybe you can beg at the boots of your betters, proletariat scum!” -Megan

“Tom Brady and Bob Kraft shaking hands and whispering into each other’s ear... ‘Hail Hydra’.” -C

Jason (discussing the Masked Singer): “The Hippo was ANTONIOOOOOOOO Brown!” Brian H: So THAT'S how the Madden Curse happened this year.

“Manish Mehta is on 92.3 The Fan right now. My first thought after hearing him for 5 seconds: He sounds like Aziz Ansari as The Bookworm on that SNL GSN show parody a few years ago.” -Klaussie

“Look at me, I’m Sandra Bullock.” -Nick

"That's Britain for you. Tea solves everything. You're a bit cold? Tea. Your boyfriend has just left you? Tea. Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt? TEA DAMMIT!" — LiveJournal user jslayeruk

“Temporary emotions lead to permanent mistakes!” -C

“Tuesday night wasn’t just biscuits. Roy Williams went ahead and got the dirty rice to go with it.” -Adam Lucas after Carolina made State humble, 113-96

“Shaka... when the paywalls fell.” -Kevin

“Barbi Benton... ROLL TIDE!” -Greg

“I love when you ask for recommendations for establishments, services, recipes, products, etc., and people respond with, "Did you Google it?" Like, Thanks, Karen! I hadn't thought to use the easily-accessible, number one search engine in the world before! I'm totally not looking for recommendations based on actual experience from personal friends who will give me honest feedback, so I'm glad you directed me to Google!” -Cindy

SWSNBN: “Can your cover for me while I eat my sandwich?” C: “Go eat your sandwich.” SWSNBN: “I’ve got nothing going on.” C: “You’ve doomed us all. Go eat your sandwich.”

“If life gives you lemons remember: life was very honest about how many people it'd been with.” -Austin

“Two hours after lunch is still after lunch! BOOK SAY SO!” -C

“Remember, two wrongs don’t make a right, three rights make a left, and I’m Kyle Serra, quiz responsibly.” -Kyle

Q: “The answer fell into the pizza!” C: “Well now not only is it correct, it’s delicious.”

“Tom Brady just got the sixth stone. Half the NFL is about to vanish.” -Nikki

“I’m Max Essodus and I’m leaving!” -Klauss

“Chuck Todd is a bowl of Jello with a bad goatee and a shitty hair cut.” - @PhillyLocalGuy

“Leonard Frey! Leonard Frey! Anytime you call, Leonard will take care of you! Winter, Spring and Fall!” -Chico

“I THINK I’M BREAKING EVERY FCC RULE IN THE BOOK!” -Kevin Harlan calling two NFL games at the same time

“Horrible news to report, Baby Yoda has died after Myles Garrett beat the shit out of him with a helmet.” -Barry McCockiner

“The Yankees are like Roman Reigns: they’re good, everybody still hates them, and they always kick out of your finisher shm” -Mike Janela

“My nightmare is being stuck working for a guy that looks like Chris Cillizza” -@ChadShartman

“Mel Gibson/Rothschild casting is most inspired decision since Richard Spencer was chosen to write the screenplay for the new Frederick Douglas parody bio pic.” – Josh Marshall

“OOOOH! A LITTLE BIT OF THE BUBBLY!” - Chris Jericho

“Minecraft? HELL NO!” -Amberlee at RewardTheFan on Minecraft RewardTheFan

“109876543210, Happy New Year!” – Kyle @ Trivia Crack

“LYDIA CORNELL IS NOT A BIMBO!” -Mike

Tony Stark: “Hey, you said one out of fourteen million, we'd win, yeah? Tell me this is it.” Doctor Strange: “If I tell you what happens, it won't happen.”

America, let me just tell you something, do not commit crimes with checks.” –Charles Barkley

“I bet George Halas and Pop Warner are up there now coaching Angels in the Heaven Bowl.” –Cord Hosenbeck

“The director saw Green Book and was inspired to make a bigger disaster of a movie about race.” –From the IMDb Trivia Page for Loqueesha

“Drew Brees and Harry Styles fighting over a Pepsi is Peak 2010s.” -Chico

“The aging app? I didn’t know there was an app that helped Mike Maccagnan make his freaking draft picks!!!” -@DAitken90

“For all the notes and stats FOX gave out, they missed that this was the very first post-season game in history where two wife-beater closers gave up two-run home runs in the 9th.” -Ken Levine

Chico: “Man, Bowzer ruined this!” Mike: “Just like the second half of the show Bowzer ruined this!”

“Amazon Suggestion for David Pecker: Because you considered “Blackmailing the Richest Man Who Ever Lived,” we recommend you “Get an Orange Jumpsuit.” –Stephen Colbert

“When in doubt, choose Helium!” –Megan

“They should make a Mistress Pac-Man. Ghosts chasin’ her around the apartment Pac-Man rents for her, eatin’ all the strawberries and chocolates he sends and whatnot. Then the last level Ms. Pac-Man is after her ass like “Oh HELL no that’s MY round yellow man!!!” –George Wallace

“God is a woman and her name is Hailee Steinfeld” -@dakotalanthimos

“I stopped by the Statue of Liberty today, thinking about freedom, and the ability to go for it all.” –Bill Walton at the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas talking about being at the NY-NY Casino

“today marks LaGuardia Airport’s first positive contribution to America.” –Jack Holmes on the end of the Late 2018-Early 2019 Government Shutdown

“BEAT THAT GHOST DICK!” -Matt Richards

Greg: “What if the Monster on The Masked Singer is Michael Cohen?” Mike: “If it is that will almost guarantee there won’t be a second season of The Masked Singer.”

“Roger Clemens tried to smash Mike Piazza’s head with a baseball bat and was still less of an asshole than Curt Schilling.” -@[email protected]

“I love all the diversity in Star Wars. There’s brown people and someone with a Boston accent” -Dani Fernandez

“I don’t care that Brock Lesnar won Money In The Bank, I want to know if Brett Somers won Money In The (BLANK)” -Mike

“Woodrow Wilson even with a stroke was sharper than Donald Trump is today.” –David Frum

“THE JABRONI OF THE JABRONI MOVIE FOR THE HOLLYWOOD BLONDE JABRONI NEED TO HAVE THE MOST EXCELLENT LEADING HEAL TO MAKE THE IRON SHEIK LOOK LIKE THE LEGEND. PROBLEM NOBODY HEAL ENOUGH TO BE THE LEGEND. THIS WAY ONLY PERSON THAT TAKE THE CHRIS HEMSWORTHLESS LOOK LIKE HE THE REAL BABYFACE IS THE LEGEND IRON SHEIK. OTHERWISE THIS MOVIE WORSE THAN THE NOTEBOOK AND WORSE THEN THE JABRONI BETTE MIDLER BEACHES” –The Iron Sheik

“As far as I’m concerned, that’s America’s ass!” - Scott Lang “That is America’s Ass.” - Steve Rogers “America’s Ass? Are you talking about Tom Villard?” - Mike

“Oh Jesus, it’s Jimmie Walker’s turn!” –Chico

“Where’s the Robert Kraft spa video? I’d rather watch a video of my own funeral.” –Gerard Mulligan

“So, does Jeff Zucker have to completely cause CNN to lose money and get devalued so badly it gets bought out by Comcast for him to replace Vince Russo as “worst Turner Broadcasting hire ever?” -Dane

“I was just researching Mark Russell as a "Whatever happened to...?" He's still alive.” –Matt Jones

“And all of ESPN and FS1’s morning shows are just the worst. People who watch them actually come away dumber for doing so. I don’t understand the appeal of watching idiots on either network yell biased opinions at each other...many of which are lacking context or facts beyond what they see on a caption of a social media post. It’s like going to a comment section and watching arguments.” -Dylan White on the Awful Annoucing Facebook comments section

“Hunter, Kiss my ass.” –Dave Bautista

“The fact that the CEO of twitter can have his account hacked is a blinding indictment of twitter’s security policies. The fact that no one could tell the difference is a blinding indictment of jack himself.” -@ChrisSmith_RSB

“I don’t know anybody who loves or even likes Trey Wingo.” -@SlicedBrett

“A Madea Star Wars” must now be a thing…” –Amberlee

“People are like "the New York Post is bad for that cover, subscribe to the Daily News instead!" as if the Daily News didn't run a screencap of a woman being murdered on it a few years back. They're both pure trash. Neither are better.” -Craig Calcaterra

“Tim Burton’s Dumbo brings out Michael Buffer TWICE to say “Let’s get rrready…for Dumbo!” and I laugh again every time I think about it.” –Ken Jennings

“Who the hell is Dr. Lee Franz?” –Jason H.

“I was in the theater and that moment was revealed and the audience was “OOOOH!” and I just was laughing so hard!” –Ron Burgundy remembering the ending of “The Crying Game”

“Ladies and Gentleman… whatever legitimacy pro wrestling has left literally crawled under the ring.” –Chico critiquing the workrate of Colin Jost

“BANODLES, ARE YOU READY TO GO SHOPPING, YOU SON OF A BITCH?” -MIKE

“Can y'all imagine if the Gremlins and Jason Vorhees both attacked at the same time that would be some difficult shit to deal with anyway talk to you later” -George Wallace

“Trump getting impeached over the Ukraine is a little like Scorsese getting the Oscar for The Departed, but hey recognition is recognition.” -John Ross Bowie

“Alex Trebek is a fixture in the American firmament and we're all behind him. What a great man, so kind to my family and so warm to all of us contestants. Send him your love.” -Austin Rogers

“Rather than bore you with my expansive knowledge of British politics, allow me to comment on more pressing matters: drunken Chris Jericho getting his belt stolen” -Mike Tunison (@xmasape)

“Only ESPN would do a feature on Robert Kraft taking former players to Jerusalem — while he awaits trial for soliciting prostitution in a sex trafficking ring.” -@willgcopeland

“Looking forward to the “In Memory of Jim Cornette’s Career” graphic that will be starting Dynamite.” - Trevor Dame

“Tom Steyer sounds like a guy who airs MLK and Columbus Day ads, where you can get a new Mustang or Fusion for up to $6,000 off MSRP” - BFG

“Eh, what’s her name? Her name Barry Lonson. She’s in da, she won Oscar for the movie “Stuck In The Basement”. Also, she’s in the movie “Kink Kong: He Got Love With Her” but how he make sex with her, she’s young, she’s small and he big. I don’t know?” -Yehya reviewing Captain Marvel

“To this day nobody knows who Ann Risley is.” -Chico

“Heartbreaking: there is apparently no video I can find of this moment, where a robot named "Mr. Scraps" delivered a ball to James Doohan (Scotty from Star Trek), who had just arrived in a dry-ice-and-laser-bathed Delorean to throw out the first pitch in "The Biodome". Please enjoy this real quote from the Mariners former VP of marketing: "We named the robot Mr. Scraps, because it looked like a garbage can on wheels. Not exactly what we were expecting, but it served its purpose." [email protected]

MC Cool Cloud: “No union better mess with my family!” Cloud 9 Employee in Training Video: “Oh, MC Cool Cloud, (pats stomach) you’re gonna be the best dad.” Garrett: “I’m sorry, did MC Cool Cloud just impregnate a human?” Mateo: “I think he did.” “I’m in shock, Gene. I just talked to my accountant and I found out this guy made 30 grand and I’m working for minimum scale.” -Marty Cohen on MG-HSH Episode #12 “It would be kind of weird for a person named Tammy to be played by Tim Dunigan.” -Mike

“Chico's brain only has so much memory. It's either the capital of Botswana, or something you rambled at 3AM while white-girl wasted. Only one of those nuggets of wisdom is a panty-dropper, and I think we all know which.” -Laura

“So, the audience for SNL seems to be comprised of easily offended Catholics, YouTube “influencers”, and Trump. But Lorne Michaels still thinks he shouldn’t retire? Because if I learned those people watched something I produced, I’d eschew all technology forever and go live in one of those Unabomber log cabins.” -Kevin

“Morning report: The "Fuck Your Feelings" crowd sure gets triggered easily.” -Rick Wilson

“ZIPPERS?!” -Klauss

“We’s considerin’ buddies.” -C

“Automan’s naked and wearing a belt? I don’t get this!” -Klaussie

“You were standing in his crotch!” -Anna

“I am utterly surprised there were no traces of Batman cereal yet Greg's dad made at least 2 appearances.” -Klaussie

“Next time, can you pick a gas station that ISN’T in the middle of nowhere?” -C

“Did Isaac ever deliver cold hard cash direct to your PayPal account? No!” -Greg

“Too many phone calls in the mor-NING!” -C, describing his job as a radio jingle

“Semi-Quotable of the 2010s--Hundreds of quips enter, Adam Nedeff wins because he's funny and he has half of Hollywood under his thumb.” -Klaussie

“You’re not you when you’re thirsty.” -Q, the Double Entendre of the Year

“Nobody ever robbed a convenience store to get sugar money.” -Brandon

“If you're mad at rich peoples kids for getting special acceptance/treatment at college and you aren't mad about all the athletes that get the same thing you're a hypocrite. Ya'll leave Aunt Becky alone.” -Stephanie

“Damn it! I used too much stick.” /Ethan

“And her tights say two cents a dance.” -Kimberly

“Go home, That’s Right. You’re clearly on meth.” -Evil Travis

“I paid $700 for THAT?!” -Klaussie

“Florida is now under a Jim Cantore watch.” -Braden

“Good Brother, but Bad Mother!” -Gordon

“Dude. Even Nike hates Duke!” -D

“For 15 points, Will Smith’s arrogant cousin Hillary appeared in an episode of NBC’s hit sitcom Blossom. Another episode of blossom featured Don Novello playing the role of Father Guido Sarducci, and Father Guido Sarducci also popped up on an episode of Married...With children. Stay with me here. David Faustino’s character Bud Bundy also popped up all the Fox network sitcom Parker Lewis Can’t Lose. In another episode of Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Parker crosses paths with grown-up Eddie Haskell, who of course,We all remember from Leave It to Beaver. His next-door neighbors, June, Wally, and Beaver Cleaver were all characters in an episode of the Love Boat. Now there is this other episode of the Love Boat where all of Charlie’s Angels are on board. In an episode of Charlie’s Angels, Dan Tanna shows up from Vega$. But that’s not important right now. Remember when I said Parker Lewis had crossed paths with Eddie Haskell? Well Eddie also popped up on an episode of Hi Honey I’m Home. So did Gale Gordon‘s character Mr. Mooney, who you might remember from the Lucy Show. There’s an episode of the Lucy Show where Lucy crosses paths with Private Gomer Pyle, USMC, who, of course originally appeared on the Andy Griffith show, which was a spinoff of Make Room for Daddy. On an episode of Make Room for Daddy, Danny encounters Buddy Sorrell, one of Alan Brady’s writers on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Alan Brady later appeared on Mad About You, where Ursula was the twin sister of Phoebe from Friends, and Phoebe’s friend Chandler Bing showed up on Caroline and the City, where Caroline draws a popular comic strip that is read and enjoyed by Daphne Moon, the caretaker for Dr. Frasier Crane’s disabled father. Dr. Crane used to hang out at a Boston bar called Cheers, where Norm, Cliff, and Carla encounter Drs. Auschlander & Westphall, but on a landmark 1988 broadcast, we learn that Drs. Auschlander & Westphall never existed and that all of the shows I mentioned in this question are logically the figments of the imagination of Tommy Westphall, Who is the only character who demonstrably existed on what beloved medical drama?” -Adam

“Snapchat Catch Phrase!” -Will & Erinn

“#1800235DEAD!” -...damn near everybody

“Charles Stiles, Mystery Diners.” -Charles Stiles, Mystery Diners

“This tea is delicious.” -Kimberly === Here’s to 2019... Come together, just think of tomorrow.

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adventuresinlibraries · 5 years

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Baby Monkey, Private Eye

Baby Monkey Private Eye

Written by: David Serlin

Illustrated by: Brian Selznick

Scholastic Press, New York, NY

2018

Lexile Score: 210

Reading Level Grade: 1.5

Guided Reading Level: F

It's a picture book! It’s a graphic novel, It's a chapter book! It’s a mystery book, It’s an easy reader!

WAIT!

It’s all of the above!

This genre-smushing spectacular should be pictured in the dictionary if “sophistacute” ever becomes a word.

It arrived in the mail, and the envelope thudded onto the table with all the heft of a novel. I opened it and withdrew a tiny hardcover. And Baby Monkey waved at me from the cover, holding a magnifying glass bigger than it is.

Baby Monkey has big wide eyes and looks as cute as most baby monkeys do. My first surprise was how head over heels I could fall for a hand-drawn creature. Selznick uses his characteristic detailed pencil drawing to carefully shade in the monkey on the cover. The tiny strokes that make up its fur render an incredible level of complexity to the creature. Red letters announce the title and contrast with the cute big-eared main character. I opened the book, intrigued.

From the heft of the novel I expected a chapter book and found my second surprise.

The font is enormous.

It stands in stark, easily discernable contrast, black letters on a blank white page. The words are always on their own, never obscured by the illustrations. This effective use of white space makes it easier for young eyes to track the letters and young minds to grasp the meaning of the words.

The first word is WAIT!

I held my breath.

Then the heading for the prologue appeared,

“Who is Baby Monkey?

The prologue asks and answers that question using only 16 words.

In this way, the book successfully fulfills the requirement of an early reader and introduces the main character at the very beginning. Between the cover art and the introductory information, we know quickly that Baby Monkey is the heartbeat of this mighty book.

After the prologue is the table of contents. The reader can see there are five chapters, a key, an index, and a bibliography.

The font on the table of contents subtly reminded me of the font in other easy readers, most notably, Frog and Toad. Its smaller size contrasted with the giant letters in the prologue. This makes the tiny table of contents easy to breeze through and drives more page turns Before a young reader has time to get intimidated they flip the page, looking for our hero. And, Selznick and Serlin get down to business.

Each chapter follows a formula. The mystery is introduced. Baby Monkey offers to help. Baby Monkey looks for clues. Baby Monkey writes notes. Baby Monkey eats a snack. Baby Monkey puts on pants (this part is difficult and pretty silly.) and Baby Monkey solves the case! Towards the end of the book, Baby Monkey gets tired and needs a nap.

The text in this easy reader is simple and repetitive. Suited to ages 4-6 the large font and fomulaic plot may be simple but the illustrations keep will keep readers entertained. It carries a predictable rhythm from one chapter to the next and children will be thrilled to fly through the 191 pages in this book. (Have I told you about how much I love chapter books that inspire confidence in readers and help transition them to longer stories? No? Well, consider this your notification.) This is in some ways a transitional chapter book because of its length even though the text is still very simple.

The final chapter has Baby Monkey searching for a baby. This high-stress scenario is different from most of the other cases Baby Monkey has worked but has a surprise ending reminiscent of other books young readers may have loved.

This book does what Brian Selznick did best in Hugo Cabret. It transcends its genre with every stroke and shadow of the detailed and masterful illustrations.

The illustrations provide really interesting clues to the action. A careful reader might notice that the pictures of Baby Monkey’s office change to foreshadow the client who needs private eye services. The first client is an opera star and the pictures on the wall are all opera-themed.

The next client, a pizza chef, walks into an office festooned with pictures of the “Mona Lisa”, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a map of Italy, and a movie poster for “The Italian Job.”

Any guess as to the third client?

This device encourages analytical thinking and close “reading” of the pictures, a great skill for beginning readers to practice. The key at the end offers the titles and metadata for the paintings, sculptures, and photographs decorating the room. Also, in each office photo, right before the client enters, Baby Monkey is reading. These books are listed in the bibliography and the author’s names are a hoot.

Now, I have heard the book described as a graphic novel. I don’t know if it completely fits because the illustrations are not in panels. But the entire story is told primarily through the drawings. So, in this case, it is an illustrated novel. Each time the thief is caught Baby Monkey identifies them through a speech bubble, a graphic novel convention, and the illustration is the only clue to their identity.

Another aspect of Baby Monkey Private Eye that was captivating was Selznick’s development of suspense to encourage the reader to keep turning pages. He consistently used the point of view of the characters and their expressions to point the reader toward the material on the next page. Baby Monkey and the clients are often looking of leaning toward the page turn. In the middle of each chapter, before the antagonist is revealed, Selznick draws a trail, of footprints heading off the page toward the end of the book. This is just one example of the way the image can push the reader while providing key information at the same time.

Baby Monkey is a character children can empathize with. I mean, not much is cuter than a baby monkey. In addition, Baby Monkey’s gender is generic. It is always “Baby Monkey” and never “he” or “she” so all children can secretly picture themselves in Baby Monkey’s story.

It was hard to find read-a-likes for Baby Monkey. This book was so very unique. But I found a few tie ins: similar subjects, similar illustrations, and a genre spin-off.

An obvious pick was the Babymouse series.

Babymouse #1 Queen of the World

Jennifer & Matthew Holm

December 2005

Random House Books for Young Readers

Ages 7-10

Lexile Level- GN (Graphic Novel) 470L

Babymouse is a fun little series for kids who like cute creatures. In this book, Babymouse wants to attend the slumber party of the super-popular queen bee, (um,, excuse me, queen mouse) Felicia Furry Paws. Babymouse must negotiate her way out of a movie marathon with her best friend, Wilson. This fast-paced little book is funny and sweet and full of literary allusions. The text is tiny so readers who are just beginning might have a little trouble. But this is a great book to read alongside a guide. And, Babymouse, with her wild imagination and even wilder whiskers, is sure to inspire a giggle in anyone who reads along.

Night of the Gargoyles

Written by Eve Bunting

And illustrated by David Wiesner

Clarion Books,

1999

Lexile Measure 910

This creepy book about gargoyles will satisfy older children who enjoyed the pictures in Baby Monkey but who are looking for content that is more mature. The illustrations of the highly detailed creatures who come to life have some of the qualities of Selznick’s images and do a lot with tone, shading, and contrast. So much can be done with a pencil, and the gorgeous descriptive language used in this book only adds to its complexity. This book is also a lot in common with Where the Wild Things Are by Sendak.

Taking the theme of mysteries a little farther you could point younger readers at

Enigma- A Magical Mystery

By: Graeme Base

Abrams Books for Young Readers; 1st edition

September 2008

Grandpa Badger is a magician but his props and bunny have gone missing. Kids who liked Baby Monkey will appreciate the signature style that can belong to no one but Base. The pictures have lots of things to find and the busy pages and extensive picture puzzles will keep kids busy until the thief is caught.

And, if your kids just want to monkey around, there is always

Grumpy Monkey

By Suzanne and Max Lange

Random House Books for Young Readers

2018

The title character in this New York Times bestselling book explores why he is feeling grumpy. The other characters in the jungle try and help him cheer up by systematically working through solutions and reasons that Jim might be cross.

Happy Reading!

#picture-book easy reader

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god-hunter · 7 years

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Secret Empire #10

This issue let a lot of people down. Frankly, it mostly confused me. They definitely went places I wasn’t exactly expecting. And the resolution wasn’t as strong as I would have hoped. I think that bothered a lot of people.

This was the grand finale folks. It all came down to a big showdown between Hydra Cap, overpowered by the Cosmic Cube and our heroes.

[SPOILERS]

Oh. And our Consciousness Cap.

[Wait, what!? But how!??]

Let’s go through everything from the get go.

Right away, Steve tells everyone to stand down. [With the face lid down, he really looks stupid. It was such an Iron Man knock off costume after all, and I really didn’t like that.]

Even Spidey says right away, “You must be pretty mad. I mean, he kinda stole your whole Shtick.”

Tony A.I just says, “You have no idea.”

Beyond that- Hell no are they going to stand down and listen to him. Fuck this guy.

“This is for Nat, you son of a Bitch. Avengers-- ASSEMBLE!!!” Clint Barton rallies the call, which is awesome to see.

They all gang up on him, which ends in an instant, because he has the ability to warp reality with a single punch.

And that’s exactly what he does. Suddenly as he smashes the ground, the World redesigns itself in Hydra’s image.

It’s awful. We see altered newspapers touting that Fantastic Four was originally Hydra, the X-Men were never a thing, because Charles and Erik were executed... The original Avengers were formed by Hydra... and that’s how Spider-man was created too...

Fuck man!!

The damaged White House was turning gold, the Lincoln Monument turned into knight armor with a snake like helmet, rather than his suit. That disgusted me the most. I hated this.

Oh yeah, and all of the heroes that fought him for 3 seconds were wiped out of existence. Save for Sam Wilson, (because he flew Jane to safety, remember?). Oh, and Bucky & Giant Man are still around too, somehow. They must’ve been hiding in the back.

There’s a panel that forces us to compare Sam’s stand against Hydra Steve to the Original Captain America’s stand against Thanos. [Hardly.]

Sam Wilson pulls the old bait and switch by kneeling to him, offering up the cosmic fragment and uttering the words, “Hail Hydra.”

But it’s all a ruse. All a part of Bucky’s grand plan..

Steve takes the fragment and his shield back. [It was sad to see Sam give it up.] Then Steve absolutely powered up into a full God-like light form, “But as quickly as the power came--it slipped away.”

The narration takes us through this moment as Steve is instantly depowered and caught off guard, confused along with the rest of us.

“W-where is it? What have you done?”

Suddenly, Giant Man and Bucky peer out of a portal, along with Kobik and a special guest.

But before going further, they went ahead to take us back to moments earlier and explain what just happened.

Giant Man and Bucky shrunk down deep as Steve grabbed the fragment. They flew right for it, while Giant Man gave Bucky a disc to go microscopic.

This allowed Bucky entry into the Cosmic Cube, which would give him the ability to bring Kobik back to the mortal plane, which was his plan all along.

[They took us to Days Earlier to explain that plan, but I won’t].

I did actually like Bucky’s jump into the cube.

One moment, Consciousness Steve is trying to figure out stuff with Kobik, who is hiding out at a Daycare center feeling sorry for herself. The next moment, Bucky calls out from the sky, “STEVE. STEVE.” Conciousness Steve holds onto Kobik, recognizing the voice.

“We’re coming, Buck--” He reaches out to the light and his best friend grabs him by the hand.

“It’s okay-- I’ve got you.”

I really liked that.

And now we’re back! Everything’s back too, by the way. (sort of). The damaged White House, the Lincoln Monument.. our heroes who were wiped away for a minute...

“NOOOOOO!!!” Hydra Cap cries out.

And along with Bucky & Kobik came a formation of the ideal memory that was Captain America.

That’s right. Consciousness Steve was made, whole, and he donned the ever impressive, original Captain America Uniform.

And this is how it came down to a battle between Good Steve and Evil Steve.

...and it was cool. The fight was blow for blow, and evenly matched. Apparently it was televised, so the World got to see it too...

Steve got his shield back from Evil Cap, and to quote the narration - “Our champion did not falter.”

Eventually, a beaten and desperate Hydra Steve ran for the Hammer. Which had been changed from ‘if he be the strongest, shall possess the power of Hydra’ back to ‘if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.”

Evil Steve can’t pick it up anymore. He struggles and struggles.

“Here-- Let me try.”

Good Steve grabs it, picks it up and smashes evil Steve’s armor off basically.

It was awesome to see Hydra Rogers get what was coming to him. Only... that’s the Original living breathing, corrupted Cap.

You’re left with this weird feeling in your gut that something just ain’t right.

But in the immediate moment, Tony A.I and the rest were really glad to have him back.

Good Conscience Steve walks over to Sam and says that, “...this didn’t belong to him. It doesn’t belong to me, either.”

So Sam got his shield back. That was really kind of awesome to see.

“And neither does this.” He throws the hammer over to Jane, who catches it and becomes Thor again. [...Not as awesome.] {I would’ve liked to see it go to Odinson, but I bet there would’ve been a lot of backlash for that.}

[All they had to do at this point was have this Consciousness Cap fade away, ghost-like and float back inside Hydra Cap’s body. Then have our man wake up all sad and sorry for himself. ‘Oh God! What have I done???’] - But no...

I think the World would’ve accepted that way better, but no. Memory Cap is whole and here to stay.

And with Kobik completely whole too, she decided to restore the corrupted history, back to normal, but leave the scars off this event in tact. So Las Vegas was still wrecked, and Black Widow and Rick Jones were still dead.

[The fuck!?]

Then, a select few heroes were given a “Vanishing Point”, which is complete forced garbage to cross-promote the ‘Marvel Generations’ issues that are circulating right now.

As the narration explains... “...for some of us-- The ones who stood for what was to come, our Future -- she gave a gift... A journey of Discovery... Through the Vanishing Point. And when we returned, we were restored. Reborn.”

...Yegh.

And with that, I’m not exactly interested in finishing this review.

There was a short epilogue, explaining what happened with the Inhumans, and showing a little bit of rebuilding to D.C and whatnot. There is a quick, tiny panel confirming that Black Widow is indeed dead, and that she was mourned...

The Barf guy was allowed to leave the prison he was holed up in if he signed something. And I don’t really care, because we didn’t see much of him unless you got certain tie-ins. So there’s that..

He reunites with his kid, and we see that his house was all graffiti’d up with Pro Hydra sentiment and “Die Inhuman” racism all over the place. It was TP’d too.

But he finds help in his supportive Inhuman Community, and we see that his kid is playing with a Captain America doll. Only, it isn’t a Steve Rogers doll like before. [I believe he wanted a Steve Rogers lunch box??] Now it’s a Sam Wilson doll.

-The End!-

::farts::

What was that epilogue? Seriously?

I guess you needed something, but I would’ve been fine with the two page panel that said that they were once again “...Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.”

But if you want a better epilogue or more of an aftermath to make sense of things, well that’s what Secret Empire: Omega is for. And I absolutely bought that one last week.

#Secret Empire #Issue 10 #Marvel Event #Nick Spencer #NOW! 2017

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ntrending · 5 years

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Can industrial farming be a force for good?

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/can-industrial-farming-be-a-force-for-good/

Can industrial farming be a force for good?

Big Ag to the rescue. (The Voorhes/)

Large-scale farming has a well-earned rep as America’s top eco-villain. But what if the industry could change to be more sustainable? Unthinkable? Turns out, shifting to accommodate our planet is the entire history of agriculture in the United States. Below, how industrial agriculture transformed in the face of environmental disaster in the 1930s—and how it can change to accommodate Earth’s uncertain future.

Look to agriculture’s past…

An essay by Ted Genoways

Amid the faded photographs and yellowed clippings in the attic box that holds the sum record of my ancestors, one item stands out. It’s a short article from The Wichita Weekly Eagle, boldly headlined: “Sam Genoway’s Farm Tractor.” Sam, a distant cousin of mine, was apparently so happy to see his name in the paper that he didn’t bother to make sure the writer got the spelling correct. But the story wasn’t really about him anyway. As the title would suggest, the focus was Sam’s tractor. “People have found out how many different kinds of work he can do,” his wife, Carrie Mae, told the reporter, “and they come from miles around.”

It was May 1917. America had declared war on Germany, and President Woodrow Wilson classified wheat, what Sam grew, as a “material of war.” The Department of Agriculture made the grain’s production a national priority, and Henry Ford announced he would mass-produce tractors in time for harvest. That season, Sam and his Caterpillar 45 plowed hundreds of acres. “I don’t expect this to last such a great while,” Carrie Mae said, “as the people who hire him soon decide they need a tractor of their own.”

She was exactly right. The number of tractors on U.S. farms went from about 50,000 at the start of 1917 to nearly a million by the end of the 1920s. With the additional horsepower and savings in man-hours, tens of millions of rocky acres became fresh farmland. Farmers ripped up trees and brush, pulled out boulders, dug irrigation canals, and built miles of new roads. Most important, tractors broke up dense topsoil to yield wide furrows and soft seedbeds. American farming surged.

But when European grain producers reentered the global market, U.S. agriculture found itself perilously overproductive. Crop prices fell to record lows, and people who had bought tractors and equipment struggled to keep up with the interest on their debts. Farmers abandoned or fallowed 33 million acres of newly opened ground just as the drought of the 1930s arrived. Unprotected and unplanted, topsoil dried up and blew away, forming “black blizzards.” From the Texas Panhandle to southern Nebraska, from the foothills of the Colorado Rockies to the rolling prairie near Garden Plain, Kansas, where Sam lived, tens of thousands of families lost their farms in what came to be known as the Dust Bowl.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt entered the White House in 1933, he appointed Henry A. Wallace as Secretary of Agriculture to tackle the problem. Historians often argue that Wallace, founder of Pioneer Hi-Bred Corn Company, pulled farms out of the Dust Bowl with corn that resists drought. But FDR went much further. To reduce dust storms and soil loss, he paid foresters to plant more than 200 million trees around fields. He signed the Soil Conservation Act, establishing subsidies for landowners to restore native plant life. What really rescued agriculture was policy that protected resources and rewarded those who revised wasteful practices.

That clipping about Sam’s tractor reminds us that American ingenuity has solved countless crises, but it has created many as well. Our history, like how the Dust Bowl formed in part thanks to technology outpacing stewardship, should guide our decision-making. Large-scale conventional agriculture, or what we often call “Big Ag,” can make massive investments in research to improve yields and reduce its impact on Earth’s resources. Present-day farmers have access to more data, more research, and more support than any previous generation. But without considering the unintended consequences of getting bigger and growing more, we risk creating the next generation’s problems.

Examples of this go well beyond the Dust Bowl. New irrigation systems helped farmers survive the next drought in the 1950s, but it also depleted aquifers. Genetically modified seeds made it possible to plant more crops on fewer acres, but it also led to declining soil health and food with lower nutrient value. Feedlots and enormous hog and chicken barns, often referred to as “concentrated animal-feeding operations,” expedited meat production and freed up farmland, but they’ve also driven the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and contaminated communities’ drinking water. Now, as engineers move toward self-triggered irrigation, self-driving combine harvesters, and animal confinements with self-feeding systems, there’s a great opportunity to improve profits—but also the risk that production will once again pose unforeseen threats to precious natural resources.

Sam, bolstered by federal policy, weathered a decade of hardship and privation. Stories like his are a reminder that Americans can chart a better course through trying times ahead, but only if we learn from past mistakes. Big Ag is a powerful force. We must ensure it is a positive one, for farmers and for the uncertain future of our planet.

…to fix its future.

Practical solutions to industrial agriculture’s biggest problems, by Nick Stockton.

Water

Overconsumption, pollution, climate change, and the increasing demands of a swelling population are drying out key agricultural regions like California, the Mediterranean, and Central America.

Mind the overspray. (Richard Ellis / Alamy stock photo/)

Problem: Regular droughts

Solution: Early-rising plants

Since the 1940s, farmers from Texas to South Dakota have relied on the Ogallala aquifer during sporadic dry spells. Now parts of the reserve are getting dangerously low. Agriculture giants Monsanto, Syngenta, and DuPont have engineered plants capable of muscling through drought, but those seeds cost more, and farmers don’t always get the yield they need to justify the price. The problem is these dry-spell survivors often can’t turn off their drought mode fast enough once the weather shifts. The longer it takes for the crops to reopen the pores in their leaves, which close to prevent precious fluid from evaporating, the less likely they are to take advantage of growth-boosting moisture. But some plants, like an alfalfa relative biologist Roger Deal at Emory University studies, boast genetic material that helps them become fully functional mere hours after rainfall. Future plants modified with this type of superpower won’t be dinner anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t someday end up on your plate. Research into the genomic goods that help plants “remember” to go in and out of drought-survival mode could help engineers design seeds that make faster transitions, thus increasing yield and making them smarter purchases for farmers.

problem: H₂O overuse

Solution: Probes to test the waters

You can’t ask vegetables or grains when they’re thirsty, but you might be able to decipher how many drinks your soil’s serving up. Beginning in 2013, a group of Kansas farmers took on a five-year challenge to reduce their groundwater consumption by 20 percent. By stabbing electronic probes into their combined 170 fields, the experimental growers were able to check on the moisture content of their soils and turn on the sprinklers only when the terra firma was truly too dry to sustain their crops. In the end, the thirst-by-proxy method paid dividends: Water-watchers grew 98 percent of the corn yield their neighbors did, but used 23 percent less liquid. That’s good news for both our water stores and our farmers: Easing up on the pumps helped probe-users end the season with 4 percent more cash.

Soil

The U.N. estimates intensive agriculture has seriously degraded one-third of Earth’s productive land—and continues to ruin about 24 billion tons of dirt each year. With innovative soil supplements, our food system can tread more lightly.

Big agriculture. (The Voorhes/)

Problem: Fertilizer fallout

Solution: Basalt of the earth

Industrial fertilizers help us grow lots of food for humans and livestock. A 2015 study from the University of California at Berkeley showed that conventional yields were, on average, 20 percent higher than those of organic farming. On the flip side, relying on these chemical boosters degrades soil quality and food’s nutrient content. Organic field dressing is better but works slowly. Maybe there’s a third way: rocks. Basalt’s got what plants crave, like calcium, iron, and magnesium. Adding broken bits of the volcanic stone to the soil also sucks up carbon and helps with moisture retention. Sound like snake oil? California’s Strategic Growth Council, a committee that directs grant dollars toward sustainability projects, doesn’t think so. In 2018, it spent $4.7 million to test basalt fertilization on acreage across the state. One of the biggest challenges is pulverizing the material to just the right size: Big chunks don’t break down quickly enough, and small grains cost too much to make.

Problem: CO₂ emissions

Solution: Coral reefs on land

Agriculture expels roughly 15 percent of the world’s annual greenhouse gases; even tilling soil releases troublesome amounts of CO₂. “Cutting down on emissions is fine, but it’s too late to rely on simply reducing fossil fuel use,” says Mark Rasmussen, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State. Rasmussen’s proposal is coral-like carbon capture, which means essentially growing “reefs” underground. At sea, these ecosystems consist of the exoskeletons of tiny marine creatures, which harvest carbon dioxide from the ocean to build their shells. Rasmussen’s team wants to leverage soil’s naturally occurring microbes, which can process carbon dioxide in the same way. Researchers would seed these microbes in the soil, where they’d turn emissions into calcium. The faux reefs could even sit under nonarable land, sucking up atmospheric CO₂ without the risk of denting any farm equipment.

Problem: toxic runoff

Solution: Helpful germs

The Gulf of Mexico has a corn problem: Growers across middle America fertilize crops with gobs of synthetic nitrogen. The runoff drains into the Mississippi River, which eventually flushes into the Gulf, hundreds of miles away. Here, nitrogen-hungry algae bloom into massive “dead zones” that suffocate other marine life. Mexico might have a corn solution: Plant biologists from the University of California at Davis and the University of Wisconsin at Madison found several wild strains of Mexican corn that produce their own nitrogen. The plants form above-ground roots that secrete a gel containing symbiotic bacteria. These microbes convert atmospheric nitrogen into necessary nutrients. The scientists have cultivated the self-nourishing varietal in both Wisconsin and California, observing similar results. They are currently investigating whether we can engineer high-yield commercial corn with similar talents, thereby reducing America’s need to fertilize its No. 1 agricultural product.

Animals

Americans get nearly two-thirds of their protein from meat, milk, and eggs, but raising billions of beings creates a feast of unsavory problems. Algebra and algae are here to help.

A menu tweak could quell cows’ methane burps. (Daniel Acker / Bloomberg via Getty Images/)

Problem: Poop lagoons

Solution: The other brown energy

It’s common for livestock farmers to dump animal feces into open-air “lagoons,” a practice that’s especially dangerous when heavy rains overfill these pools, adding dung to the flood waters. During 2018’s Hurricane Florence, for example, manure from dozens of North Carolina hog operations spilled out of such basins. Even without the help of natural disasters, lagoons can leak or overflow into local water supplies. Good thing poop ponds aren’t our only option. Large bacteria-filled tanks known as anaerobic digesters can transform waste into methane gas. Agriculturalists can then convert the fumes into electricity they can either sell back to the grid or use to power their operations. In 2018, the EPA’s AgStar Financial Services cut more than 4 million tons of greenhouse-gas emissions by offering cheaper microdigesters to smaller farms. That reduction was the work of just 248 digester projects, a tiny fragment of the country’s more than 2 million farms.

Problem: Destroyed soil

Solution: Moo math

Many cattle ranchers pack their land with as many cows as it can hold. This is a losing strategy. Crowds graze so quickly that pastures can’t regrow their best grasses. This exposes bare soil to the elements, causing it to lose nutrients and volume. Overstocked areas also worsen the landscape’s overall ecology by leaving little room for other plants and animals. The answer might be as simple as determining exactly how many cows can graze on a piece of land without doing damage. Texas A&M; University researcher Monte Rouquette raises cattle on experimental plots, calculating how rainfall, soil composition, and other factors impact a landscape’s ability to support a number of livestock. He also catalogs biodiversity and how herd numbers impact the quality and quantity of the meat. While his models are specific to East Texas (his home, and home to millions of cows), his algebraic approach could work elsewhere, and he shares his models with the USDA.

Problem: Cows’ greenhouse gases Solution: Kelp help

When cows eat, they burp. A lot. In fact, for all the talk of farts, bovine belching is responsible for around 70 percent of cattle methane issuance. What’s more, the combined burps of Earth’s billion-head herd constitute roughly 14.5 percent of the planet’s total greenhouse-gas emissions in a given year. University of California at Davis animal scientist Ermias Kebreab and his team found that mixing red macroalgae into their dairy cows’ feed resulted in a 60 percent drop in methane-loaded…emissions. The desiccated seaweed addition seems to inhibit enzymes produced by gut microbes in the mammals’ first of four stomachs, and at least one of these enzymes appears to be instrumental in the formation of methane. At first the ruminants ate slightly less of the fishy feed compared with their usual supper, but a smidge of molasses to cover up the unfamiliar smell helped ease them into their new better-burp diets.

Problem: Invincible bugs

Solution: Keep the uber-sects apart

Farmers of decades past could lose entire seasons of crops to insects like rootworms, whiteflies, and aphids, but early solutions brought their own problems, like the pesticide-driven decimation of our bee populace. Researchers have explored other options, including modifying crops so they can help kill pests, but that backfired too. These engineered plants never slay all their targets because some invaders carry inborn resistance to the bug-harming proteins. Once the modified crop culls the rest of the swarm, those unpoisonable leftovers have only each other to make babies with. Presto: a new generation of better, badder creepy-crawlers. Researchers at the University of Arizona have gotten around this by planting unmodified seeds in genetically altered fields, which lets some nonresistant bugs survive and mix their susceptible DNA with their tougher buddies’. This method is labor intensive, though, so the Arizona group teamed up with some scientists in China to try crossbreeding. They bred altered cotton with an unmodified version, resulting in a variety that spawns a 75-25 mix of resistant to nonresistant plants.

Problem: chemical fertilizers

Solution: In living clover

Soil already contains lots of nitrogen, but it’s missing the few molecules that let plants turn it into nutrients. Many cattle ranchers spray pastures with waterway-polluting chemical fertilizers to ensure their herd has plenty of tall, lush grass to eat throughout the season. That’s good for the cows but damaging for our soil and marine life. Clover could provide a spray alternative. The roots of this cover crop house symbiotic bacteria that convert nitrogen into the chemically “fixed” variety plants can use. Researchers at Texas A&M; University figured out a way to put clover to work for their grasses: They seeded fields with the legume in late fall, before the grass sprouted. The cattle then noshed on the trefoil and pooped fixed nitrogen, helping the following season’s grass flourish. Not only did this method reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers, it also extended the grazing season as animals munched on the yummy new greenery.

This article was originally published in the Summer 2019 Make It Last issue of Popular Science.

Written By Ted Genoways, Nick Stockton

#Science

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