#you guys are so cool thumbs ip

[umbreoncomplex]

fanart for @lostmemory-zip /j

[artylo]

I watched someone play through the new "Father of Boy with vague Nordic elements" game and I am just convinced that the AAA games industry will see this narrative as a immense success, even through it has every edge sanded off and repeats its themes to you ad nauseam. It literally beats you over the head with everything. Kratos? Changed man. Not angry any more. Old. Atreus? Big man now. Wants independence. In love. Freya? Changed woman. Doesn't wanna forgive but is real soft and nice so she does anyway. Gotta kill husband. Repeat several hundred times.

I'll praise the writing for the way dialogue manages to sound genuine and effortless, but the contents of it is just repetitive theme assault whenever its not some cool sounding platitude or recounting the events from the original series. I understand that subtext is for cowards, but honestly, half-way through it sounded like every piece of dialogue was just the line "but I had it worse" paraphrased. Kratos literally went through the arcs of the entire cast in the original series, but he's supposed to say "Hmph."

He even opens up to Freya at one point about Deimos and his daughter and her response is something which I can only describe as "Oh.", before her scripting immediately goes into overdrive to tell you about the next puzzle solution as quickly as possible.

I will give some high praise for the voice cast as a whole, however. Odin (Richard Schiff) being a standout performance, in my mind. Most of the cast were screen actors with very little to no video game credits. I like new faces, but I don't think going the Kojima route is "it".

On another note, I really dig what they did with Freya design-wise too, even if I don't particularly like her character. Can't say the same about Kratos and Atreus' armours though, since they continue to be over-designed rubbish.

This whole game is so in love with the mythos of Kratos that it can't stop bringing it up, because essentially only the player knows that he's a big softie now, everyone else is working on that blood memory of him deleting Greece. Fucking Thor constantly brings it up how he's not really giving it his all, and you can even see it in combat. This guy used to demolish mountains, now he barely lands flesh-wounds on enemies. I even thought that him cutting off Heimdall's arm was a big deal... before it immediately grew back. Oh yeah and Thor gets to have a scar on his belly, which for some reason doesn't heal like his other wounds. Violence is not nice, after all. Changed man, right?

All I really wanted was to hear this again. Somewhere. Anywhere. Let it rip at the very end and bring him back to his reformed blue-collar milquetoast self. It'd even drive your point across. You know... themes?

But they don't, because they want to keep some of the past, but discard any association with it. Different game, right? Then why call it by the same name? Surely you could have made this a new IP and it would still work if the themes were solid, right?

No. The themes only work if they retroactively denounce and diminish a series of games they want to have nothing to do with, nor emulate, nor channel in any way outside of simply recalling iconography.

They say the originals were mindless and violent, yet why do I remember every single plot beat, every trial and tribulation he went through, enough to recall them for these new games. Are those games not narratively rich and effective? You draw from them so much, I can't tell.

Everyone will say this is the game of the year. Yes it cost about as much as a small country's GDP to make, and it looks pretty. But you will forget about it. Nothing in this game is going to stick. No one is going to forget stabbing Poseidon's eyes out with their own thumbs.

[little-murmaider]

(ITS SQUEETO) u could totally write skwis and toki thinking they’re being all Secretive abt their relationship ,, and then they get caught by someone👀

Hello! It was YOUR recent Skwistok fics that got me in the mood to start writing them again, so thanks! This one turned out VERY silly, hope you like it!

Toki and Skwisgaar hunched outside the Mordhaus Rec Room, giggling uncontrollably.

“Dose jerkwads,” tittered Toki. “Dey t’inks we spent de day having a regular-guys-pal-arounds at de Splasharoonie Water Park.” “Ja,” snickered Skwisgaar. “Dey don’ts knows we was makingks outs in dat supply closets right dere dis whole time.” “Dey’re so stupid!” “Dey have no ideas we ams been uns-side a secret ree-lash-un-ips for months!” “We are nailings dis!” “Okays!” Skwisgaar closed his eyes and drew a long, centering breath through his nose, exhaling slowly through pursed lips. Toki took a gulp of air, held it in his puffed-out cheeks, and spat it out like a stubborn piece of mucus from the back of his throat. “Okays,” Skwisgaar continued. “Now all we gots to does ams goes in dere and acts de way we always does.” “Which ams cool and normals and nots at all likes we beens in a secret relations-ships for months.” “Eggsgaktly.” “Dis gonna bed a walks in de cakes!” Skwisgaar bit down on his lower lip to suppress another eruption of giggles. Once he regained control, his features hardened into a look of detached contempt. “Readys?” He said flatly. Toki mirrored Skwisgaar expression, though his replication made him look constipated. “Yeps.” Skwisgaar nodded, and with the subtlety of two failed bank robbers splattered in dye pack paint, they strolled inside. The guys, engrossed in their mid-afternoon semi-hungover lie-around, did not acknowledge when Toki and Skwisgaar entered. The pair exchanged a smug, unearned look of victory. What a masterful plan they had conceived, and so masterfully executed! Nathan tapped his tongue to the tip of his finger and turned the page of his book. “You done making out in the supply closet?” The sustaining high note of Toki’s, “WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT” perfectly accompanied the low arpeggio of Skwisgaar’s, “What? No. What? No. What? No. What?” “Why woulds you even says dat?” Toki yelped. “We was at de Splasharoonie Water Parks! We tolds you dat!” “Sounds like somebodys has to works on dere listeningks skills,” Skwisgaar muttered, shaking his head in offended disappointment. Nathan peered at them over the top of his reading glasses. “You were at the water park.” “Yeahs!” “So why aren’t you in your swimwear? A beat, and then Skwisgaar said, “We gots changed.” “Yeahs we got changed Nathan!!!” “Uh-huh. And why are you wearing each other’s pants?” Toki and Skwisgaar looked down. Nathan’s accusation was correct. “Wells maybes our pants decided dey wanted to switch when we wasn’t payings attention!” “Dat’s not our faults! We can’ts controls what our pant does!” “You both look pretty disheveled.” Nathan set his book on his lap and held his place with his thumb. “Almost like…you were fumbling around in a dark, enclosed space.” Another long, agonizing silence. “…Toki fells down an elevator shafts.” “Yeah, and I dieds!” “Toos much, walks it backs.” “I didn’t dies!”

“This is really the story you’re going with.” “What story ams better…” Skwisgaar looked wistfully into the middle distance, “…dan de truths?” Across the room, Murderface slapped his thighs and rose to his feet. “Welp!” He hooked his thumbs in his vest and ambled away from the couch where he’d been lounging, his back to the group. “You’ve convinced me! Your schtory totally checksch out, no gapsch in logic whatschoever!” “Where are you going?” Murderface paused. He lifted his arm as though he intended to lean against a wall, but because he was no where near a wall, it hovered awkwardly before him as he glanced over his shoulder. “There’sch juscht one lascht thing. Picklesch would you be scho kind asch to read back the transchript from approximately 45 scheconds ago?” “Happy to.” Pickles pantomimed pulling a long sheet of paper from an invisible  stenotype machine situated in front of him. He cleared his throat, held the pretend paper close to his face, and recited in an unbreaking monotone, “those jerkwahds they think we spent th’day havin’ a regular-guy-pal-aroun’ at th’ Splasharoonie Water Park yeah they don’ know we were makin’ out in that supply closet right there this whole time they’re so stupid they have no idea we’ve been in’a secret relationship for months--” “Thank you, Picklesch, that’s more than schufficient. Well? What schay you in the face of thisch overwhelming evidence?” Failure coated Toki and Skiwsgaar’s faced like egg yolk. The moment lengthened into an insufferable lifetime. With their immaculate plan foiled, and lacking any other options, Toki reached down and gently held Skwisgaar’s hand. “WHOA WHOA WHOA.” “That’s too much, man! Gross!”

“You can’t just DO THAT KIND OF STUFF around us! Disgusting!” “Get back in that closchet! Literally!!! Not metaphorically!!!!!!”

[whindsor]

the trials of online dating, part 2

hey @witchofinterest you’re still inspiring me btw

Swipe left, swipe left, swipe left-

Mika thought, with all the options available to her, that online dating in NYC would be a breeze. In truth, it didn’t even have to be dating. She just needed friends that weren’t her sister or her sister’s boyfriend.

Swipe left, swipe left, swipe - oh, hold on.

Mika furrowed her brow, glad that the handsome man on the screen couldn’t see the double chin she sported as she curled up on the couch. James Bucky Barnes. She’d heard that name before. Where had she heard it before?

A quick google search reminded her, making her sit up and stare down at her phone. Now when she looked at his picture, she remembered how sad he looked during the trial, how tired he was when he took the stand to talk about all the things that happened to him. TIME magazine ran article after article about the years he lost.

And now he was trying online dating? Good for him.

Mika stared long and hard at the screen. He was cute, and he also probably felt a little misplaced here in New York. Or, this was a fake account, and she would be disappointed. Again.

Hiking. Technology. Reading. Well, they had two out of three things in common.

Fuck it.

She swiped right before she could think too hard about it, going through a few more profiles before deciding that no one was going to strike her interest until she figured this James Bucky Barnes situation out. So she put her phone down and went about her afternoon, baking some bread for the week and cleaning the fridge out. She hated cleaning the fridge out, but since she was currently mooching of her sister in the studio apartment, she needed to do a little extra work.

She wasn’t surprised when her phone dinged later. She was surprised to find that it was James Bucky Barnes, accepting her match.

Interesting.

Her stomach did a flip. She wasn’t cool enough to match with the former Captain America’s best friend, and definitely didn’t expect him to go for the Romanian girl.

Had to be a catfish.

Mika: Is this really Mr. Barnes?

She was going to get to the bottom of this. If he messaged her back, then she could get on the web app and trace his IP address and see where it was registered. She wasn’t positive on the legality of that action, but safety came first. Her phone dinged again. A message!

James: Unfortunately.

The response made her laugh out loud, any thought of tracing his whereabouts fading. A catfish wouldn’t respond like that.

Mika: Deciding to try online dating? You’re becoming a real modern man, James! James: My therapist made me.

Ouch, okay, so maybe he wasn’t into the dating part. Mika was about to switch her tactics when he messaged again.

James: Sorry, that was short. Still getting the hang of this. James: You can call me Bucky. James: If you want.

Mika smiled down at her phone. There was something magical about the guy not caring about sending multiple texts in a row. Any girls she dated didn’t mind it, but men were always wanting to look all stoic. Mika found that the less they talked, the more desperate they were.

Mika: Nice to meet you, Bucky. I’m Mika. James: Nice to meet you, Mika. James: I saw you’re from Romania. Have you lived in New York long? Mika: Just a couple months. Moved here after the Blip. James: Oh, I’m sorry. That must be tough. Mika: Could be worse. I’m staying with my baby sister who is now, technically, older than me. Mika: How is it being back here?

Well if he didn’t think she was a creepy stalker, he did now!

James: Weird. So many things are different. James: But even weirder, some things are the same.

When Mika blipped back, it was hard enough to figure out everything that changed in five years. If the TIME articles were correct, Bucky was back in New York after leaving eighty years ago. She couldn’t even imagine how weird everything felt for him. And how lonely he must be.

Mika: So what’s the most important thing for me to check out? Mika: You know, since you’re a true New Yorker.

That was a safe enough topic, right? She hoped so. Centenarian or not, he was the first person to message her that didn’t ask for pictures, and she was in desperate need of someone chill. It took a while for Bucky to respond, long enough that she was utterly convinced that she’d said something wrong.

James: Totonno’s is where we used to go for pizza all the time. If you want good cheesecake, Junior’s is the best. Mika: Oh, I like both of those things!

She paused, hoping that the next message would be him asking her out. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy.

James: Let me know if you like them. James: If it’s any consolation, they still taste the exact same. Mika: Good to know. I’ve also been on the hunt for a Romanian place. Mika: Know of any? James: Not right off hand, but I can do some research. James: I spent some time there, before the Blip. Mika: Really?? Where?? James: Bucharest. Mika: No shit! I lived there! Mika: I was on the south side, in Rahova. James: …so was I. Mika: What apartments? I was Bloc 70 B.

The dots hovered, then disappeared, then hovered again, then disappeared again. Mika held her breath, but couldn’t maintain it long enough before having to take in a gulp of air. Bucky still didn’t respond. Was that too intimate a question? God, she hated this online thing sometimes.

Finally, her phone lit up again.

James: Did someone send you. Mika: What? No. Mika: I’m sorry, did I say something wrong? Mika: I know they weren’t the fanciest apartments, but…

Another ten agonizing minutes, then,

James: I’m sorry. I lived in those apartments too. James: I get spooked pretty easily nowadays.

Mika let out a huge breath of relief. Okay, good, so she wasn’t some inconsiderate asshole. Her and Bucky just had the weirdest coincidences.

Mika: That’s fair! Mika: How do I know you’re not the one following me?

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

James: I don’t do that anymore. James: That…probably didn’t help my case.

Oh thank God, he was just as awkward as she was. And at least he had the excuses.

Mika: Meh, not the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me. James: Same. James: Wish I could even say getting blipped was.

Don’t do it, don’t ask it, don’t say it -

Mika: What’s the weirdest thing then?

Fuck.

James: When Steve tripled in size. James: Thought I was hallucinating. Mika: Oh God, I can’t imagine! Mika: It’s weird enough that Nicoletta is a year older now Mika: At least she’s the same size James: Do you have other siblings?

Mika tapped the edge of her phone. She never did figure out how to word this without eliciting a pity party. But hey, Bucky of all people would probably understand.

Mika: We had an older sister. She passed away. James: I’m sorry to hear that. Mika: Thank you. James: My sister passed away about 20 years ago. James: Obviously, I was not there. Mika: Have you visited her grave? James: Yea, in the first couple weeks I was here. James: Will you think I’m an asshole if I say it was anticlimactic? Mika: Not at all. Mika: Last time I visited Raisa I called her a selfish bitch so Mika: You’re in good company

Too much information, that was too much information.

Bucky sent back…a laughing emoji.

James: That’s how you know you were close. James: My mother got mad at me because Rebecca thought her name was “Stupid Baby” for a long time. Mika: Aw, you were much nicer to your sister than I was haha James: Well, it was the ’20’s. James: Things were a little different. Mika: Were you a flapper? Mika: Don’t lie. James: I would never. James: Lie, that is. James: I was definitely a flapper. James: The cutest damn toddler flapper you’d ever see. Mika: Pics or it didn’t happen. James: I don’t know what that means. Mika: It means I want photographic evidence. James: Cameras weren’t invented yet. Sorry.

Man alive, James Bucky Barnes was funny.

They kept going back and forth, attempting a more normal conversation. It was, Mika found, a very nice conversation. He was someone she liked talking to, and he seemed to enjoy talking to her too. Or at least he was really good at faking it. 

“Why are you smiling so much at your phone?” Nicoletta asked later, giving her an odd look from her easel. Her boyfriend had already gone to bed, leaving them to watch whatever they wanted on Netflix. Of course that meant they put on a baking show and proceeded to do anything but watch it.

“Huh? I’m not smiling at my phone.” she said, tucking said phone into her lap.

“Don’t be dumb.” Nicoletta said, brandishing her paint brush like a knife. “Who are you talking to? You better not say-“

“Ew, no, not him.” Mika said, cutting her off before she could utter the name of her ex. “Just…someone I met on HiLove.”

“I thought we talked about those dating apps.”

“I’m lonely! I need friends.” she said. “He passed the background check.”

“Let me see a picture.” Nicoletta said, coming over. Mika sighed, thumbing through the app to find Bucky’s profile, and the one picture he had. She hoped her sister didn’t notice the two unread messages in the corner. “Hmm. Okay, he’s handsome.”

“Yes.” Mika agreed. In fact, he was becoming more handsome as the afternoon went on. “And he’s funny too. And smart.”

“Ok, calm down. You just started talking to him.”

“I know! I’m not like, proposing marriage.” Mika said, rolling her eyes. “I just like talking to him so far. That’s all.”

“Uh huh. I know how it goes with you ‘talking’ to good looking people.”

“About as well as it does with you.” she pointed out. “Pre Steve, of course.”

“Of course.” Nicoletta said. “Have you discussed future plans? Deepest fears? Favorite sexual positions?”

“I hate you.”

“These are important questions!”

“I’m going to bed.”

“No phone sex on the first day!”

“I really hate you!” Mika sang, pulling the curtain around the little area in the studio apartment that counted as her room. It was late, and she probably should go to bed anyways. But Bucky was still up, and they were currently discussing movies. Turned out, he was way behind.

Mika: Star Wars? James: Nope. It’s on the list. Mika: Star Trek? James: Also on the list. Mika: Pride and Prejudice? James: Isn’t that a book? Mika: And a movie! My favorite one. James: Guess I’ll move that to the top of the list then.

Was he…flirting? Mika couldn’t deny the smile on her face now, even as her eyes struggled to stay open. Nicoletta went to bed, and with the light off, staying conscious was becoming a struggle.

Mika: Good answer. James: Ever seen Wizard of Oz? Mika: …no. A little before my time. James: Ouch.

Despite the humor and the fun conversation, she could feel the fatigue setting in. She was so afraid to stop talking, afraid that tomorrow he would change his mind, or find someone cooler than her. But she couldn’t stay up all night anymore, she wasn’t in her 20’s.

Mika: Unfortunately, I think I need to sleep. James: I understand. It is really late.

She paused, tapping the edge of her phone. What was the worst he could say? No?

Mika: Talk to you tomorrow?

Apparently it was his turn to pause, long enough that she nearly fell asleep before her phone buzzed again.

James: I’m looking forward to it. James: Goodnight, Mika. Mika: Goodnight, Bucky.

She went to sleep with a smile.

[teacup-crow]

Fizzy

The first time Krejjh met Brian they saved his life. Here’s that story.

Words: 1100

******

A few days after they defect from their platoon, the greatest war humanity has ever known comes to an end not with a bang, but with a whimper. Nevertheless, the atmosphere in Neuzo is electric with joy, and it tingles Krejjh’s skin as they down another glass of… well, they’re trying to find out what.

“Shrel veeda agat?” They try, waving a hand at the transparent bubbling liquid. The human bartender, a person with an accent far too strong for Krejjh’s barely-there Earth-English, shakes his head uselessly. “Mmmm… has what? Cup has what?”

“Oh! That’s lemonade. Well, the closest we can get to it out here; the Americans are pretty unconvinced by it but it seems popular with everyone else, as well as your lot...”

“Lemonade,” they take another sip appreciatively, understanding the first three words of the answer and trying for the right question word as they wave another free hand. “Veedo... veedo... why! Lemonade has…” they gesture uselessly, miming the bubbles popping. “What, why?”

At the awkward and apologetic shrug they receive, Krejjh sighs. Breesht! They really need a translator, and sooner rather than later.

Pocketing the little umbrella from the drink, they down it and drop a handful of coins on the table. Few places in Neuzo deal solely in credit - hard cash is far less easy for the IGR to track, and more difficult to fake. It’s helpful for someone with no ID, but human, physical forms of money don’t feel real to Krejjh, all those little slivers of metal imprinted with stars and dates and numbers. Consequently, the supply of it in their pockets is rapidly dwindling. They probably need to deal with that problem sooner than later too.

Still, for now, back to the motel and to trying not to ruminate too hard on the choices that led them to wandering this collection of space stations with no plan and no idea what to do.

It’s a street scuffle that catches their attention just a few blocks from the bar. Words which are Earthen, but not English, and distinctly threatening -

“Coglione! Sei stupido?!”

There are other humans who hear it too, but they rapidly disperse. Krejjh steps a little closer in overwhelming curiosity.

Three men, in cool black jackets Krejjh immediately wants to get their hands on, have backed another into a wall with a knife against his neck. He looks a little bruised up, as if he tried to escape from them and failed miserably. He also doesn’t look like a particular target for mugging or intimidation - he’s so skinny even by human standards, in baggy clothes, glasses, fluffy gold-brown hair and freckles that scream civilian and young. How cowardly of the other humans to flee! Krejjh clenches their jaw.

“Fellas, è tutto un malinteso… io posso…”

Then, glancing round desperately for an escape route, he catches Krejjh right in the eye and says, in perfect Dwarnian:

“Ch’eth il.”

Help me, in one of its most desperate forms.

The man with the knife tenses the muscles in his upper arm, and Krejjh steps out of the shadows with a hand on their blaster and clears their throat.

There’s a few seconds of silent stand-off that stretch out until the men let their victim slump to the floor, nod, and skulk off. He crouches for a few moments, breathing rapidly, shaking with nervous laughter, words in English this time: “Oh man, I thought I was a goner.”

“You speak Dwarnian?” Krejjh says, crouching beside him, barely able to hope.

He replies in their language: “I’m pretty fluent, yeah. Dude, you just saved my life!”

“Glad I could be of assistance! The name’s Krejjh,” they say, so delighted to be having an easy conversation for the first time in days, and press a thumb to his in greeting, a custom he seems aware of.

“Kre… you’re a pilot!” He smiles, broadly, and Krejjh realises they can’t quite take their eyes away from that face. It’s dazzling. His eyes crinkle at the corners: he’s not quite as young or innocent as they first thought, and that intrigues them, too.

“You… know how our names work?” They’re smiling too. Apparently his is infectious.

“I had to write a three-thousand word paper on it, junior year of my undergrad. I’m a linguist, I, uh, work as a translator. Freelance, you know? I did some work for those guys, but as you can see, our contract’s kinda fallen through. Oh man, this is all out of order, sorry, I’m a bit… I’m Jeeter. Brian Jeeter. And wow, Krejjh, if there’s anything I can do to pay you back for that - ”

“Translatorjeeterbrianjeeter? I absolutely have a job for you! I need English lessons, and translation services, and pretty much every sort of help you can provide with understanding human languages.”

“That I can definitely provide!”

And the deal is done, like most deals in Neuzo, quickly in a back alley.

“Okay so, lesson one, squashing everything together like that is really not how English names work… like that obviously sounds good in Dwarnian but once we translate it it’s long and uh, unwieldy...”

They listen intently to his chatter as they head back to the main street. The station lights, mimicking a planetary day, are beginning to dim even further.

“Want me to walk you home?” Krejjh offers.

“I… I normally wouldn’t take you up on that, but it’d be appreciated right now. If I look like I’m under some Dwarnian protection the gang might cool off and forget about me.”

“You would be quite hard to forget,” Krejjh says, barely thinking. His cheeks and the tips of his ears turn an alarming shade of pink, like the birds back on Homeworld when they sense a threat and want to blend with the sky.

“This is my place!” He waves up at a cosy, second floor apartment. Even from here they can see the stacks of teetering books. “Swing by tomorrow whenever it suits if you like.”

“I can do that! Wait, how do I say bhren ip nokeen in Earth-English? How do I say the phrase how do I say that in Earth-English? How do I…”

“Maybe let’s go one thing at a time, yeah? Bhren ip nokeen is ‘good night’.”

“Good night, Translator Jeeter!”

“G’night, Krejjh.

“Wait, wait, one more thing.” He hangs out of the doorway, looking down at them for the first time from the steps. They suddenly feel a little shy themselves, which is pretty unusual for them. “In lemonade, what is it called when it’s bubbly? And how do they make the bubbles?”

“Dwarnians don’t have carbonated drinks? And they say we have inferior technology...”

“Oh, so… you add carbon dioxide to your beverages?!”

“When you put it like that, it sounds weird, but yeah. I think the word you’re looking for is fizzy.”

Krejjh tries it out as they walk back to their motel again, lingering on the zzzz sound, picturing the way his face made them feel, picturing the partygoing humans and their relief and joy and excitement, feeling their heart race a little faster than it should. Maybe, they decide, it’s not just drinks that can be fizzy.

*******

Notes

I remembered like halfway through this that what Europeans/Australians call lemonade and what Americans call lemonade is NOT the same, and I feel like 200 years of cultural integration and space flight wouldn’t change that. Also, Americans are actually correct here: lemonade should contain actual lemons and not be a stand-in word for 7up/Sprite. But hell, this station is full of Sicilian Mafia, it’s definitely a European part of Neuzo, don’t @ me.

The Italian conversation, according to Google Translate, is pretty much: “Asshole! Are you stupid?”... “This is all a misunderstanding, I can-”

Brian buys Krejjh a soda stream at some point. I just know it.

[observantgal]

Spies Tied by Love

Spies Tied by Love

Pairing:  Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes (Stucky)

Rating: Teen And Up Audience

Author’s Note: This is part of bigger story. Hope you like it! Let me know if you did. Do come back for other chapters!

Chapter-1

Chapter-2

Barnes began accommodating himself to his new space. The energy this room gave off was exhilarating for him. He always had fantasized about such control rooms, and now there he was, flesh and blood, in one of the highest tech-supported facilities. He felt electric and nervous at the same time. The first thing that came to his mind to calm his nerves down was coffee. He considered having a cup and start looking for clues.

The cafeteria was on the topmost floor. An enormous glass dome of a skylight illuminated the area with natural light and the huge hall housed several round tables with stacks of chairs in the corners. The vending and dispensing machines were installed next to the kitchen so Barnes went there directly. He stood against a table, checking his phone, while the machine brewed his coffee. A bunch of interns giggled at a table not far away and it was evident from their whispers, they were gossiping. He tried to eavesdrop when all of a sudden, a shrill voice shrieked, “Oh my God!” and slowly reduced to a murmur, “I told you, didn’t I? You guys didn’t believe me”

“Well, we didn’t think it was this serious, Charlie!” went the other.

“Whatever dude, the stats are out, and just like I guessed, the more number of cases solved successfully, for the current year, again by to the unbeatable Mr. Rogers and the invincible Ms. Carter! You will not believe this when I tell you, but I have been rooting for them from the day I started working here!”

“They truly are a power couple!”

“OMG…Yes they are! Have you seen their chemistry when they are working together?! I hope they invite us to their wedding…”

“OMG Yes! Who do you think is going to propose first?”

Barnes chose not to listen anymore, so the voices muffled on their own as he shifted his focus on the dispenser. His coffee was ready and off he went.

Later in the afternoon Carter, Romanoff and Rogers were gathered in the ‘Control Room’ to catch up with the case. They also thought it would be polite to familiarize themselves with the new guy. Romanoff being the more genial of the three started first. She said, “So, Barnes, what have you been up to?”

“I am glad you asked Ma’am!” Barnes squealed. Realizing how high his voice sounded, he toned it down and continued, “I have been running trials and tests, and assessing the security systems and the lock codes. As suspected, the breach could’ve been by someone from inside the facility. But, eliminating the off chance of remote access into the systems using permitted codes, or unauthorized access into the database, would be nothing but foolishness.”

“Like Hacking?” asked Rogers.

“Exactly Hacking” nodded Barnes. “I need a little more time to ensure which one it was that lead to the breach. But apart from that, Mr. Coulson has asked me to hand over these earpieces to you.”

“This is your Ma’am”, he said as he advanced towards Romanoff.

“You can call me Natasha,” she said, accepting her device.

“Duly noted Ma’am. Um… I… I mean Natasha. Click this button and go for Barnes. They are embedded with radio beacons. I can get your exact locations in real-time in any kind of a distress situation. Real-time maps accessed from the GPS Satellites are mapped to my system and I will be able to assist you to safety and provide all the info you might need. From tracking underground locations to finding a simple Form you might need to submit somewhere; I will be at your service.” He couldn’t believe how fast he was speaking. It was hard to contemplate whether the voluble info dump he whipped up, was because of excitement or merely the extra caffeine from earlier, acting up. He hoped with all his heart that no one noticed.

“That’s impressive Barnes!” said Carter, trying on her device.

“Thank you, Ma’am,” he said catching his breath.

“Keep up the good work! Also, I go by Carter”

“Thank you, Ma’am… Sorry Carter”

He looked at Rogers for a similar clearance, and Rogers didn’t miss his cue. “You can call me Steve,” he said. Rogers’ affectionate smile bore a profound sense of calm and amiability, a glimmer enough for Barnes to feel welcomed and a part of their team. His breathing returned to normal and the racing thoughts gently eased off. He nodded meekly and replied, “Okay, got it.”

The three of them tried their sets on to understand how it functioned and after a few trial checks, the ladies shook hands with Barnes and took off. Once they were alone, Rogers seized the opportunity to ask Barnes for a favor, the one he felt too embarrassed to ask in front of the others. Without wasting an instant, he spoke, “So… Barnes, since you mentioned about the database and stuff, you think you would be able to find me an easier way to handle my paperwork? I sure am very good at it, but those Records people...” his eyes narrowed in rage and lips pursed as if holding back from saying something, he continued, “they always seem to come up with these new rules. At this point I feel like they are making stuff up just to, I don’t know mess with me or something? You think you could help me out a little?”

Barnes was astounded as his eyes widened, but he managed to shift his gaze quickly before it gave him away. He scratched the back of his head and replied, “Umm… sure Steve. I… I can... I can do that. Yeah”

“Oh, thank you so much, man! Of course, I don’t want this to interrupt your work in any way, you know…” Steve shrugged while fidgeting with his device.

“Oh, don’t… don’t worry about it, Steve. It’s not a problem at all!”

“Cool man! Thank you. See you around then?”

“Yup. See ya”

Rogers pretended to examine his earpiece sheepishly, while Barnes walked to the back of his desk and pretended to work. After a few seconds, they looked up at the same time and accidentally met each other’s eyes. The gaze continued a little longer than usual, and to turn away now was too late, but so was maintaining it. Before it could get any more awkward, they smiled vaguely and nodded in acknowledgment.

Rogers ambled backward towards the door with the device in hand, roughly estimating the lowest number of strides that would bolt him out of there. So absorbed was his mind in counting down the steps, it made him overlook the fact that he was in a room with restricted space, and swaying his long hands while walking was not the best thing to do. He bumped into a cabinet knocking something off of it and tripped trying to catch it before it hit the ground. But it was too late and the damage was done. He went red as a beetroot because this had never happened to him before. And to be all fingers and thumb, though for the first time, was not an impression he was planning to make in front of Barnes. He fetched it without looking up and plopped it on a table nearby. Barnes couldn’t make out what it was but tried extremely hard not to crack up. He didn’t move his eyes off the computer screen for one second and pretended to not have witnessed any of that. After Rogers left and the doors closed, he laughed quietly until he got it all out of his system. When he was done, he let out a huge sigh and got back to work.

                                                          ****

Read on AO3

The next day Coulson called for everyone to meet in his cabin, for Barnes had found out something, that he wished to share. Natasha looked badass, as usual, but also was very awake for someone who hadn’t slept for more than eight hours, in three days.  Carter looked elegant, as they waited for Barnes to start. But Steve looked strained and was wearing the same clothes from last day, an indication that he spent the previous night working at the facility. Sam wasn’t able to join them as he was busy with another assignment but promised to catch up after a few days.

Coulson gestured Barnes to start and he began, “Like I mentioned yesterday, we can’t entirely rule out the possibility of remote access or hacking. If it was physically accessed at the facility, it would have been recorded in the system’s log. Also, there was no unauthorized or suspicious personnel entry recorded on the surveillance cameras.” He played a few sped-up clips from the surveillance cameras on the big screen behind Coulson’s desk. He continued, “Even if they did try to delete the log, the systems are configured in such a way, that at the least, a subtle trail will be found. I didn’t find any such trail, so we can rule out the physical access at the facility.”

Coulson didn’t want to rule it out entirely, but let him continue anyway.

“Along the same line goes remote access. The log would have recorded the access even if it was made from somewhere else because passwords were used. Which again, is not the case. So, to conclude, yes, we were hacked. But thankfully, our countermeasures were strong enough to report the breach quickly, therefore alerting everyone. The good news is, none of our data has been compromised. And with their IP address, we will be able to locate the place from where the attempt was made. But they have used VPN, for obvious reasons, and I will let you all know once I have cracked it. That’s it for now.”

Coulson seemed pretty impressed and asked, “How long do you need to for that?”

“I don’t know Sir. But I will do it as soon as possible.”

They spent around another twenty minutes over possible scenarios and other things and later dispersed. Outside the cabin, Barnes walked up to Steve hoping to strike up a conversation. He started, “Hey Steve, so about the paperwork that you were asking me yesterday, how about today in the evening?”

“Hey! Yes, that would be great Barnes! Are you sure it won’t be a trouble for you?” Steve asked clasping his hands together.

“No, no, of course not”

“Okay then, I will finish my work until then and we can meet downstairs at the Archives. How about 6?”

“Yes. Sounds good.”

“Alright… see you then!”

That afternoon flew by so fast, that Barnes didn’t realize he had spent it entirely on reading through anything and everything related to documentation until he had made it to the last of it. From rules about deadlines for submitting a report, intimating a delay in submission, to penalties for non- adherence of the same, he had gone through all of them, with the main objective of finding harmless escape clauses or ambiguities.

It was half-past five when he made it to the Archive Room. He tried breaking the ice with the staff there and handled it pretty well. As opposed to the picture painted by Rogers, he realized that these people were very pleasant and just doing their jobs. They explained to him how the filing system worked and the various steps involved in archiving, among other things. Rogers arrived at quarter past six and was greeted by a throng of interns. He was popular among them but it would be a surprise if he wasn’t. Tall, handsome, charming, smart, witty, funny, and dangerously single. He waded his way through a flood of giggles, greetings, and caresses to finally reach Barnes, who stood near a shelf, farther from the entrance, with some files in hand, and watched the drama ensue.

“Good Evening!” he said adjusting his shirt and tie. “I’m extremely sorry for being late. I had to take a quick shower and then I got stuck in the traffic…”

“Oh no! It’s totally fine” interrupted Barnes. “I was just going through these folders and stuff too. You don’t have to apologize.”

Rogers pulled two chairs for them to sit down, not far from the huge shelves, and they began talking about paperwork. Barnes explained to him in simple steps, the things expected out of him and where he’d been going wrong. The rules were recently updated and Rogers hadn’t gotten much time to catch up with the amendments and that was why he was having a problem with the records. Barnes also let him in on some loopholes he had discovered, and some common documents which were sufficient and time-saving. They were so engrossed in their discussion, buried in a pile of files, that none of them realized it was 9 pm until a staff member walked up to them and enquired if they needed any assistance.

“No, thank you. We are done for now” answered Rogers. They placed all the files back on the shelves, thanked the lady that offered them help, and left.

They decided to have dinner in a restaurant nearby. Rogers suggested a cozy place he knew and Barnes agreed. It was a family-owned restaurant, around ten minutes away from the facility. The restaurant was small, intimate, and cozy but the food was fabulous. The owner and her wife were the cooks and their children managed the guests and tables. They ordered soup, roasted vegetables, stuffed chicken breasts with a side of mashed potatoes. The meal arrived faster than Barnes expected and they started their meal.

“Thank you so much by the way,” said Rogers

“It’s totally fine Steve. I’m just glad I could help. Also don’t ever mention it”

“You’re a very kind man”

“Well, so are you”

“Yeah right,” he smirked.

“No, really Steve. I was so nervous about working in a new place and with new people… and I haven’t had a good night’s sleep ever since, without feeling anxious about the next day! I feel more comfortable now, thanks to you. I’ll probably sleep well tonight”

“What? Come on Barnes. It is quite normal to feel nervous at a new place but it isn’t worth losing sleep over it. And by the way, you are a part of our team now so don’t worry about it. I am happy that you feel okay now, but don’t ever lose sleep over little things. Also, if you need a bedtime story, just call me. I am good at making things up” he winked.

Barnes started giggling and shaking his head, then continued to eat.

“No seriously, sleep is very important Barnes. It’s like restarting your system, and clearing cache” he paused to look at Barnes, and once he had his full attention continued, “If you didn’t notice, I used computer terms for you to understand.”

“Oh yeah, I see that” Barnes nodded his head heavily, “but this coming from a guy who has a messed-up sleep schedule, works all night, and survives mostly on fast food, is quite inspiring. If you didn’t notice, I was being sarcastic”

“Wow! A comeback huh? I didn’t see that one coming. Impressive!”

“Well, what else did you think of me?” he said feeling smug.

“A genius, surely. You were a direct recommendation from Mr. Carper and that is evidence in itself that you are a genius. Wait a minute, how do you know that I work most nights, and what my eating habits are?” asked Rogers with a concerned look.

“Oh, that was sheerly my luck. I set the bait and you rose to it” he tried sounding as convincing as possible.

“Ah! I see it now” replied Rogers and grabbed the roasted vegetables. With a silly look, he pointed at Barnes and said, “But, you know what? You’re such a nerd.”

“Really?”

“Yup, you are a nerd. Accept it. When you open your mouth, all I hear is big technical words!”

“Um, I don’t need to accept it, Steve, because… I freaking OWN it. I am ‘The Nerd’. So, you eat up, Butterfingers.”

Steve let out an audibly huge gasp and retorted, “How dare you! And for the record, that was the first time something like that has ever happened. I swear to you. I have handled some really sensitive missions and never have I ever dropped something. I have no idea how that happened. Wait, what if it was some kind of a practical joke you were trying to pull?”

“Now I wish I had come with something, because I know you would’ve fallen for it” Barnes sniggered reaching over for the chicken and Rogers pushed it forward coyly. With an alluring look he continued, “But on a serious note though, you need to take care of yourself. Change your eating habits Steve, and stick to a sleeping schedule. I know work is important and everything, but you need to think about your future self too.”

“Hmm… I know where that is coming from and you are right. I need to make some massive changes.”

“Yup, it might be a little difficult in the beginning, but trust me you’ll get used to it. I did” and he shrugged.

Rogers nodded in agreement. They continued eating while having more friendly banters and talked about random things. After finishing the dinner, Rogers introduced Barnes to the owner and her family. They were a friendly bunch and told him how sweet and humble Rogers was, and how he had helped them financially a while ago. It was eleven o’clock when they finally took leave.  

Barnes turned to Steve and with a dear gaze said, “Thank you for the dinner”

“You’re very welcome” he smiled with a slight bow. “See you at work.”

“Yeah, see you. Goodnight Steve”

“Goodnight”

They waved each other bye and headed back home.

                                ***** end of Chapter 2 *****

Read on AO3

[glitzywisps]

Bite of the Frost Fae

Chapter Five: My Friend Thinks Yours’ is Cute

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17652593/chapters/54944221

(Forgot to post this on here. Also I can’t seem to find chapter one on here lmao rip ig)

"I swear it was around here somewhere," Mathias said as he and Tuuli wandered down the street, rubbing his hands together for warmth.

"I think you're crazy. There has never been a coffee place on this street!"

"Yes, there is, Sigve took me there!"

"I'm not even sure if I believe Sigve is real either," She teased, then cut off when she looked ahead. "Huh. I guess there is a coffee place here. Sorry Mat, you were right."

"Told you so," He huffed and opened the door for her. Much like his first time there, no one acknowledged them, except this time the place felt more hostile and tense. Probably because they weren't usual patrons. Tuuli walked to the counter first, smiling sweetly until she made eye contact with the woman at the register. The Finn tensed, almost trembling.

"U-um…" The woman quirked a brow, still watching silently before she spoke in her deep alto.

"You want to order?"

"Yes- uh," Tuuli bit her lip and glanced over to Mathias. "I'm not sure..?"

Mathias patted Tuuli's shoulder, shooting the other woman a smile. But before he could speak, the mysterious lady gave a curt nod and turned to make their drinks. "I guess we're getting surprised…"

They took a seat close to the counter and removed their coats. Tuuli would sneak a glance at the woman working on their drinks every now and then.

"Something wrong?" Mathias asked her.

"No- She's just… So pretty, um- and scary…"

"I bet she's not that scary! Don't judge a book by its cover. Flirt a bit," He teased her, chuckling as her round cheeks grew pink. Their drinks were placed in front of them, and Mathias pulled his wallet out. Tuuli took this chance to inspect her more, taking in her thin but pointed nose, pale and unblemished skin, with lovely blue and green eyes shadowed by furrowed brows. Tuuli's heart jumped into her throat when those eyes turned to her, realizing she had been caught staring.

"H-Hey… I'm Tuuli, uh, I like your braid…" She almost shook under the intense gaze. She saw the woman's eyes widened just slightly before her lips quirked a bit and she touched the long thin braid that was over her shoulder.

"I like your hat…" She responded, referring to the white knitted beanie the other wore. Grinning, Tuuli thanked her. "Are you new around here? I've never even noticed this coffee place before!"

"Um… Yes, I haven't been here, um… In a long time." Tuuli listened and nodded before she said back, "Do you have a spare minute to sit and chat with us?"

Mathias almost snorted at the us part, knowing he was going to be third-wheeling. The woman looked around hesitantly but eventually took a seat with them. "What's your name?"

"You may call me Bea."

"That's a cute name, I'm Tuu- oh, I said that already," She giggled nervously, causing Bea to smile softly and almost laugh along. Mathias shook his head, listening to Tuuli awkwardly try flirting with Bea and start some small talk. But he couldn't help noticing the other customers side-eyeing them now that Bea was sat there, even hearing some snickers. Bea wasn't very talkative, and Tuuli didn't know her, so there were quite a bit of heavy silences that not even Mathias could fill. During one of these said silences, he found his gaze drifting to the window.

His heartbeat picked up slightly, making eye contact with Sigve, who was stepping into the cafe.

"Ah, hello…" Sigve greeted, scanning the trio briefly. Exchanging a small nod with Bea. Tuuli turned around to see who was there, tilting her head in slight confusion before her eyes widened and she almost gasped audibly. "Wait, is this the guy?" She asked, turning to face Mathias. 

His cheeks heated and he nodded, clearing his throat.

"Sigve, this is my friend Tuuli. Tuuli, Sigve," He introduced, gesturing accordingly. Sigve took the last seat at the small table, seeming tense as he shook her hand. "Nice to meet you… I take it he's mentioned me?"

"Oh, only al-" She cut off with a slight whine as Mathias gently kicked her shin. "I mean, yeah. He's said your name once or twice."

"My name…" Sigve seemed to almost be having his own conversation with Bea, just through their eyes alone.

"Are you and Bea friends?" She asked, smiling sweetly.

"We grew up together."

"Really!? Ah, well the four of us should get together sometime, yes?" 

"Sounds like fun," Mathias said, glancing between the quieter duo. Bea nodded, smiling softly towards Tuuli. Sigve shrugged in response. "I wouldn't mind that…"

"Bea mentioned she hadn't been here in a long time, do you also travel?" Tuuli directed the conversation to Sigve. Sigve hummed slightly, "Yes. We both take a lot of trips throughout the year."

"So do Mathias and me! Though we typically travel through Northern Europe, occasionally we'll get chances to go to places like Spain."

"It's nothing big, just a few trade jobs." Magnus rubbed the back of his neck, trying to not seem overly proud of it. He was trying to seem cool in front of Sigve, and he knew Tuuli was the type to try and embarrass him in front of him. "Where have you been?"

"Also around Northern Europe and America, places like Greenland and Iceland," Sigve said. 

"Just for fun?" Tuuli asked, eyes widening slightly. "Sounds expensive."

"I travel with family, Bea comes as well," Sigve explained. And with that, Tuuli's attention was directed back to Bea. Reaching to place a hand on her arm and said, "You'll have to tell me all about it sometime!"

Bea flushed a bit and nodded, before noticing others entering the cafe. Giving a small nod to the Finn and smiling softly, she stood and went to return to work. "She's awfully quiet, huh?" Tuuli hums to no one in particular, her gaze still on the tall woman.

"Don't mind her, I think she's just crushing on your friend," Mathias said to Sigve, although Tuuli didn't even seem to realize what he said. Sigve chuckled, covering his smile with his hand. "Don't worry, I believe they will get along fine," He responded, watching as Bea sent a shy glance towards Tuuli.

"Do you want to skip out, and leave them to their devices?" 

"Where shall we go?" Sigve was already starting to stand. 

"I was thinking about the library since the last time got cut short." Mathias pulled his coat on, tapping Tuuli to tell her they were leaving. She waved him off, getting up to talk to Bea more now that other customers had settled. Mathias gave a thumbs up to Sigve and then they were leaving. The air seemed even colder than when he had gone in and felt like a sharp slap to the face. "Geez, it's freezing…"

Sigve raised a brow, "It's not that bad. The sea isn't even frozen."

"T-That's how you measure freezing!?" The Dane would have laughed if his teeth weren't chattering. Sigve rolled his eyes with a small smile, reaching and lacing his fingers with the other's, leading the way to the bus stop. Mathias was able to focus on the feeling, suddenly feeling less cold as they stood and waited. The snowflakes seemed to slow to stop and the moment of clarity gave Mathias time to take in Sigve once again. The slight upturn of his nose, and the long lashes framing his peculiar eyes, never failed to mesmerize him. Sigve caught his eye, bushing slightly but giving his hand a small squeeze and smiling shyly in return…

[zhangpdf]

Story Time: Mirthe and Summer go see Tangram, part 3

so one day after the 酷狗 show

summer and i decided to go to the airport to see if we could send them off

and we got there kind of late

we thought we were gonna miss them

but there were like 3 other fans still waiting

so we knew we didn’t

and at first we thought more fans would come but no??

so we were just waiting, and once again i saw a wild jjz appear

and again i subtly went ‘ SUMMER THERE THEY ARE THEYRE HERE SUMMER’ until summer saw the demon’s lrt’s white hair

as tgm appeared we thought more fansites would too, but no??

so it was just us two and a few fansites

and when they were checking in the fansites were so focused on lrt (bc taking a normal picture of him is basically impossible ask summer)

and honglin sat down facing us, and waved at us and smiled (and i cried a little bit on the inside)

we took that as a sign that he wanted the talk

and zhixie was standing behind honglin and took out one headphone and was obviously listening along kgjkfd

and first of all i want to say that zhixie and honglin are the sWEETEST BOYS EVER and they totally invented English

so after summer’s camera refusing to focus and our little fight about who would talk to them

honglin was fixing his hair so we told him he looked great and he had the cutest reaction what a baby

and then summer just weNT FOR IT

promoting literally everyone in the gc and the 翻译组 except for ourselves jgkds

what did we learn:

tangram knows @/beihonglin’s weibo and honglin now knows she loves him a lot

zhixie is crazy about @/honeyforzhixie and asked for her name and where she’s from and was v happy to hear she has loved him since ip

zhixie knows about tumblr but ‘we don’t use that here’ but ‘we’ll figure it out’ (zhixie if u see this hi ily i hope ur following marta or else 🔪)

if u ask zhixie ‘can u tell x sth’ he will!! he told jingzuo @/tanqram loves him and gave us a thumbs up after doing so

we also made sure they knew they had a lot of international fans

when i said they’re very loved everywhere zhixie’s head perked up so cute ;u;

when summer told zhixie to tell jingzuo she also told him to tell chaoze she loves him

and zhixie replied ‘chaoze saw you guys yesterday right?’ yes he did ;; ;;

if you think we were very cool just talking to them like that

we weren’t we summer had three breakdowns in front of bhl about her camera not working,

then we fought about me not knowing what to say after seeing bhl’s perfect face

and then summer just started rambling and i just agreed with everything they said jfdljgalkd

it was just because summer was there as a vc she could focus because chaoze wasn’t there, i was there as a rose so i was too busy internally sobbing over honglin’s beauty to be able to say anything normal

maybe i'm forgetting a lot of things but then it's summer's job to add to this thank

[cherrydae]

Clandestine | 1

Series: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

Genre: Assassin! Baekhyun

Warnings: Violence

Word count: 2.7k

Summary: One drunken night leads to your life getting entangled with a network of assassins. You became their target, and Byun Baekhyun the shooter.

________________

“C’mon, c’mon! Pour up, Y/N!” Yejin exclaimed as you were fumbling with the lid of the soju bottle. It was you, Yejin, and Jongin, sitting in the living room of your apartment, for your monthly drink night that takes place every 2nd Friday with the aim to get absolutely drunk.

“I’m trying, you know!” You yelled back at her, the alcohol making you slur your words. You continued to fumble with the lid, but it didn’t want to budge. “Fuck!” You were about to throw the bottle against your wall, but Jongin caught your wrist before you could.

“I got this.” And with a flick of his wrist, the lid was off which meant more soju.

Not too long after, the three of you were long gone, laughing at ridiculous stories of the past.

“Listen— It’s not funny! I actually liked her!” Jongin was whining, as you and Yejin couldn’t stop laughing. “Jongin— you genuinely thought that giving her a bear mug would do the trick?” Yejin laughed even louder as she clung onto your arm, resulting in Jongin merely huffing and taking another swig from the bottle.

“You know... despite this university being supposedly for people like us… rich and all, it’s still boring. We’re so secluded from other universities! We can’t even go to their parties!” Your hands were thrown up in the air as you complained, your friends nodding in agreement.

“We should do something— something fun.” Yejin suddenly narrowed her eyes before pointing at you, her finger pressing into your cheek. “You. Miss I’m-an-incredible-hacker.”

You furrowed your brows and pointed at yourself. “Me?” Your answer made Yejin roll her eyes. “No, I’m referring to Miss Jongin.” Which resulted in him giving Yejin a light shove.

“Y/N, you should hack your way into Black Pearl and get us a free subscription on their alcohol and snacks. Wouldn’t that be fun! Right, Jongin?” The male nodded and stuck up both his thumbs.

A light scoff left you as you climbed over Yejin to grab your laptop before falling right back in your seat. “Piece of cake. Watch us bathe in champagne and pretzels!” You said with a grin before you opened up your laptop, cracking your fingers before you typed away.

Originally, you were born and raised in Seattle. But your parents decided to send you to a prestigious and private university in Seoul. They had the money, you had the brains. It was a match. And there you were, in Seoul, with your own apartment, own car, and the drive to graduate in biotechnology. That’s where you met Yejin, Jongin, and Chanyeol. It clicked right away, and you guys became a tight group of friends.

Chanyeol, unfortunately, couldn’t join the drinking night due to his working shift.

Not all 20 year olds were born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

“Y/N. You’re so slow. You suck at hacking.” Jongin murmured, causing you to narrow your eyes at him. “Don’t rush me! I don’t want to make mistakes.”

“Is that why we can’t look whenever you hack into wherever…” Yejin pursed her lips, causing you to roll your eyes at her as you continued to type away.

Soon, you noticed that you broke past the firewall. It confused you however, because liquor stores shouldn’t have such tough firewalls. But you were too far gone to think straight, obviously bathing in pride that you once again successfully hacked into another place, even when you were clearly drunk.

“Guess who’s making a breakthrough? This girl!” And your friends yelled in happiness, raising their bottles before taking a huge gulp.

Your eyes were glued to your screen once again, yet they slowly widened as you saw something very different pop up on your screen.

Black Lotus.

With furrowed eyebrows, did you delve deeper. And with regret. Suddenly, you could see a huge list of names. Some had red lines through them, others were underlined. You clicked on one of the names with a red line through them, and widened your eyes once again, feeling nausea hit you.

He was dead. There was a gaping hole right through his forehead.

The next picture was a news article speaking about this man’s death. But that wasn’t all. There was so much more. More names. More pictures. Locations. Weapons. And money. Lots of money. The numbers you saw made you gasp.

“Y/N? Is everything alright?” Jongin asked. But you didn’t respond. You couldn’t.

“Y/N? Hello? You’re paling!” Yejin snapped her fingers in front of your eyes, causing you to come back to your senses, quickly closing all tabs and slamming your laptop shut.

“I— Uh, it didn’t work. They had a second firewall I couldn’t break into. Sorry! I’m calling it a night. Goodnight!” And you quickly stood up, stumbling slightly before regaining your balance and making your way up the stairs and into your bedroom, leaving your friends confused.

You didn’t know what you just saw, and how on earth you got into their system. But god, did you wish that you didn’t.

—————————————————————

On the other side of Seoul, Minseok, the one in charge of Black Lotus, was currently furiously cursing.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck! How on earth did someone manage to hack into our system!” He was clearly frustrated, fingers threading through his jet black hair as he couldn’t stop walking around in his office.

“Seemingly our defense is too weak.” Baekhyun murmured with a shrug, comfortably situated in one of the armchairs.

“Shut the fuck up, Byun. This isn’t the time for your remarks. We don’t know how much they’ve seen.” Minseok quickly moved back to his desk, furiously typing away at his computer all whilst Baekhyun simply gazed at him.

“Let me guess, you’re trying to find out?” He tilted his head slightly to the side, brushing his brown locks away from his eyes.

“Do you genuinely think I can find out how much they know. I can’t get into their head— Ah. Well this is interesting. They, or should I say, she, should’ve hid her IP address.” A grin spread over Minseok’s lips as he leaned back in his seat, turning the computer towards Baekhyun which had a picture of you on it.

“Y/N Y/L/N. Currently attending Haesan university. 20 years old, and has a habit of visiting the gym every saturday evening. Byun, I have a job for you.”

“Does this one pay me well?” Baekhyun rose an eyebrow as he got up this feet, hands dusting off his pants.

“Does me not shooting your brains out count as a payment?” Minseok hissed at the male, causing him to let out a light laugh and raise his hands in defense.

“She really did piss you off. I see. How do you want me to take her out? Fast? Slow and agonising? You tell me.” Baekhyun’s fingers were playing with a small knife that he held, fingers brushing the blade before he locked eyes with the other male.

“I don’t care. Just get the job done. And you know how we work here at Black Lotus. You go in, as—”

“As silent as the black night. Take out. Vanish. I know the protocol, Minseok. Come on, I’ve been doing this job for how long now? Easy now. Am I not the one that earns us the most money?”

“Don’t get cocky, Byun. Just go.” Minseok said with a sigh, as Baekhyun merely grinned before walking out of the office and down the hallway.

“Y/N. You don’t know what’s coming.”

—————————————————————

The next day, at university, you tried your best to convince your friends that nothing was wrong. You played it off with the same excuse of the firewall, and that you left them because you felt very nauseous due to drinking too much. They didn’t buy it at first, but you continued to press that that was the truth and to just leave it be. Eventually, they agreed.

“So, anyone joining me tonight on my gym session?” You said as you and your three friends were walking towards the parking lot of the university.

“Sorry, I have another work shift tonight.. We will definitely hang out together soon! I’ll ask my boss to change my schedule next week?” Chanyeol said with a small smile. You simply nodded before turning to Yejin and Jongin.

“You see— we’re still pretty hung over from yesterday. We planned on getting some coffee and crashing at Yejin’s place. Sorry, Y/N. We’re not as sporty as you are.” Jongin wrapped his arm around your shoulders, giving you an apologetic smile.

“You guys suck as friends. I’ll go alone then. Watch me rock that summer body.” Your eyes narrowed at your friends before the four of you burst out into laughter, soon seperating to go to your own cars.

Later that evening, you decided to walk to the gym. If you were going to get sporty, then walking was that cherry on top. Once you got the gym, and stored everything in your locker, did you walk up the stairs to start your usual treadmill session for half an hour. You had your earbuds in, and were very focused on maintaining a solid breathing pattern as you ran. Yet you couldn’t shake the feeling off that someone was watching you.

After an hour or so, did you call it a day since your muscles were evidently complaining. Boxing asked a lot of effort. With a sigh, did you step out in the cool night air, zipping your coat further up as you made your way back home. That eerie feeling of earlier was still rather present. That feeling of someone watching you. You didn’t know what it was, but it made you pick up your pace.

Two streets later, and you felt very much followed. You didn’t know what was going on, but it was slowly starting to make you panic. You quickly turned the corner, nearing a busy shopping street. Yet before you could turn that very last corner, did you feel a pair of hands clutch onto your shoulders, pulling you backwards.

You were about to let out a piercing scream, but a gloved hand covered your mouth as you were pulled into a secluded alley. You were then thrown against the brick wall, the person in front of you pressing their forearm against your throat.

You couldn’t see clearly, since it was quite dim, and the person in front of you was wearing a mask and cap. The only thing that you could see were a pair of what seemed to be dark brown eyes, gazing intently at you.

“Wh—What do you want? Money? Take it—” You managed to choke out, struggling to breathe with their forearm still pressed against your throat. The person rolled their eyes and shook their head.

“Don’t worry. I have more than enough.” He murmured, his voice sounding quite smooth compared to the rough way he was pressing you against the wall. He then reached into his pocket, pulling out a sharp knife.

“Unfortunately, I’ll have to bid you farewell. Sorry, love. You shouldn’t have hacked into our system.” The male pressed the cold blade against your jaw, slowly sliding it down to your throat, leaving a cut on your jaw. Your eyes slowly widened as you realised what he was talking about, panic washing over you.

“I—I didn’t see anything! I don’t even know what Black Lotus is! Please, don’t—” You were gasping for air, as tears started to well up in your eyes.

“Assassins, sweetheart. Like I said, you shouldn’t have hacked your way into our system. Goodbye.” He pressed the blade against your throat, and you started to squirm against his grip. You didn’t want to die. There was too much left for you to do, and you didn’t want one drunken night to ruin everything. That’s when you realised something. Your legs.

You struggled even more against his grip before lifting up your foot, and kicking the male right between his legs, causing him to topple over, dropping the knife in the meantime. Once you were free from his grip, did you also fall down to the floor, gasping for air. Yet you realised you didn’t have the time for that, quickly grabbing your bag and dashing away from the male.

However, you felt a strong grip on your ankle as you tried to escape, pulling you down to the ground with a slam, causing you to groan out in pain as you landed right on your left arm and leg.

“You bitch.” The male muttered as he grabbed the knife again, quickly hovering over you and pinning you down to the ground. You continued to struggle against his grip, squirming around even more as he tried to cover your mouth once again. When his hand succeeded at covering your mouth, did you part your lips to bite down firmly onto his gloved hand, causing him to curse and pull it away from your mouth.

“You really are a tough one, aren’t you.” Yet before he could do anything else, did you let out a piercing scream.

“Someone please help me! In this alley! I’m being attacked!” You continued to scream as you struggled more and more against the male, trying to make it as difficult as possible for him to do anything with the blade. However, your struggling was soon stopped, as he firmly pinned your arms above your head, sitting with his full weight right on your abdomen. You tried to move, but to no avail.

His grip tightened on your wrists, as he kept them in place with one hand, the other reaching out for the knife once again. Tears welled up in your eyes once again as the blade came in your sight.

“Game over, love.” And you felt the cold metal press against your throat once again. But that was until you heard a voice yell.

“Hey! What’s going on here!” It seemed to be a male. Soon, his voice was followed by another male. And another male. And a woman. All stood by the opening of the alley, yelling at the man on top of you.

“Someone call the police! He’s attacking her!”

“Fuck.” You heard the male mutter. He quickly let go of you, before getting up from the ground, looking around before he clicked a rope with a hook tied to it off his belt. He threw the hook up, until it was secured on the edge of the building to your right, and quickly climbing his way up before the spectators could catch him.

And with that, he vanished.

Yet there you were, on the ground, tears still streaming down your cheeks as you slowly tried to sit up, two of the spectators walking up to you and crouching next to you.

“Miss, are you alright? My god, what happened there?” Did the woman ask, reaching her arm out for you, as she slowly helped a wincing you up. Your arm and leg hurt, and you expected to find bruises on them the next morning. You shakily lifted your fingers up to touch your bleeding jaw, wincing once again at the contact.

“I—I’m fine. Thank you for saving me. But please— don’t call the police. I’ll be fine. Please.” You shakily exhaled, looking at the two spectators with a sad smile. You had a feeling that if the police got involved, it would cause a lot more trouble. Plus, they’d find out that you’ve been hacking, and that would get you into trouble as well.

“But miss, you’re bleeding.” The man pulled out his phone, as he pointed at your jaw.

“It’s fine— Please. I’ll call someone to take me home. But please don’t call them.” You practically pleaded. The male sighed before nodding, and the woman slowly helped you stand up. You felt your legs tremble, and you had to brace yourself against the wall as you took out your phone to call Chanyeol.

You didn’t know what you got yourself into, but it wasn’t pretty. You hacked into the database of Black Lotus. An assassin network. Suddenly, you hated soju and swore to never touch it again.

a/n: aaaAAa welcome to my first ever series here on tumblr! it’s been ages since I wrote, and I decided to pick it up again. no better way than to write a baekhyun series amirite. anyways! I hope everyone enjoyed this first chapter! let me know what you think in the comments or my ask? feedback is always appreciated. I’ll update soon. :] also, a special thank you to @ilujongdae for helping me out with the moodboard!

[skunts-own-truth]

@unabashedlyradcolor

Seems to me maybe laughing at the books would be a pretty good answer to this particular problem. Like, say when Konrad Curze recently made it rain thousands of bodies onto a city he was trying to spook into compliance. That over the top shit’s goofy as all get out, and I feel needs to have a good chuckle at. While I can agree the bolter porn is a bit of a snore, those completely ridiculous number crunches of war are outrageously funny in of themselves, and in my opinion, not a big deal. In a setting where planets regularly get blown to tiny bits, and a big scary space empire beats some enemies by sacrificing billions of their own in a planet wide extermination, I just completely zone out when writers start talking about another hundred dead xenos dying while only like four space marines died. I personally find content like that laughable and arbitrary, and only there to fill pages, and make the IP people happy. It would be cool to get some love in the other factions, though, I feel that. I’m gonna give a big thumbs up to GW though for actually giving us some Tau, Eldar, and Dark Eldar novels. Back in my day there was only Imperium, and now we have books featuring some aliens too? That’s real cool. I think GW’s going to some better places these days, and I’m happy to see that.

As time goes on I’m sure we’ll get more and more stuff from other factions. And with great folks like Guy, Josh, David, and all the others at the pen, I can’t wait to see what they do with aliens and cultists everywhere. But, also I do understand why GW has focused on the Space Marines so long, seeing as that was their most popular army for some time. I don’t fault them for it. The past is the past, and there ain’t no need to dwell. Let’s look to a bright and shining future. Hell, Guy just got some Ork audio dramas out! Which are GREAT, and if y’all haven’t heard them yet- DO.

As for folks sending death threats. Gosh, that’s rude, and maybe they shouldn’t be babies about people wanting to see different perspectives. Still, it’s funny that anyone would go so far over this stuff. I’m sure those receiving it don’t think so, and they have all my sympathy, but I’d die for some death threats over this shit. I’d laugh about it for months. So, if you see this and see I don’t mind more non-Imperial content, send away, pal! I’m open and ready for it. Toot toot toot.

[kirachama]

decoded (707 x reader, part iv)

summary:  As one of the newest recruits for Hackers Chasing Hackers, one of your goals is to help recruit the infamous hacker 707 into the ranks. When other members of the group start dropping off the radar, a misunderstanding leads you to being banned by the group. Determined to clear your name and get to the bottom of the disappearances, you end up working with none other than the great 707 himself.

rating: 13+ (hacker au, spoilers involve 707′s real name, which are probably not spoilers anymore at this point. /shot)

notes: ah. hello! so i meant to get this out before november, aka nanowrimo, started, but as always things don’t go as planned. anyone from around that time may remember a poll that i put up concerning this fic and the... results from that have been incorporated, perhaps in a way none of us expected. /shot

please enjoy and once again thanks to my friends kamu and @cannibalisticskittles for their help with this chapter! 

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There are reasons why 707 is known as one of the best hackers in the world.

His attention to detail is one of them. It comes with the territory though. One tiny mistake can lead a myriad of errors within a function. And an error ridden function is likely not work, which could result in the weakening of the program as a whole. So naturally, when something has been changed, especially by another person, he’s quick to notice.

Like right now.

Someone has altered the code for his defensive systems. Saeyoung has programs set up for these kinds of things, and while he doesn’t doubt their effectiveness, sometimes it’s good to manually check things. He skims over the the code, sipping at his PhD Pepper. There are minor changes here and there, but for the most part everything is still the same. None of the changes are inherently harmful; even with them, everything still works, albeit less efficiently than what he prefers. Whoever is doing this is trying to be discreet about their mischief.

The keyword here being trying.

Saeyoung checks to see if he can track the source and, of course, they covered their tracks. Not that it’ll help them much. It takes him a couple minutes to uncover the hackers. The IPs look familiar, and when he checks he finds they belong to two members of Hackers Chasing Hackers. Saeyoung’s lips tug upward into a grin. It looks like she’s one of them.

“Interesting…” he murmurs. Normally, Hackers Chasing Hackers takes a while to nurse their wounds when he actively retaliates after one of their attacks, so he wonders if maybe this is something orchestrated by either her or her partner. It wouldn’t be the first time that one or two members of the group has gone after him on their own.

He leans back in his chair and stares up thoughtfully at the some of the glow in the dark stars he’s stuck to the ceiling. Of course, he can’t just let the two get their way. After all, he has a reputation to uphold. Bets are they’re trying to weaken his defenses a little before they attack so that they have a better chance of taking him down. Saeyoung scoffs. It’s a viable effort, but in the end, it’s not going to work.

His hands hover over the keyboard. If he wanted to, Saeyoung could crush them and all their hard work almost instantly.

But then the image of that girl’s flustered expression as he remembers it from the party comes to mind.

And with it, an interesting idea.

“...just how much more of this is there…” you grumble lowly, clacking away on your laptop. It’d been a few days since you and Minji had decided to take on 707. For the most part, things have been going rather smoothly, with the only issue being that his security system is much, much larger than you had anticipated. To compensate, you’ve been spending every spare moment trying to get as much done as you can. But you can already tell that it’s still going to take way longer than you had hoped to execute this plan. And the longer you take, the more likely 707 is going to figure out what you’re up to. The thought of whatever retribution he might have in store for your efforts sends shivers up and down your spine. You don’t think that you could take another week without your baby. The possibility of that alone powers your fingers to move a little faster.

Your stomach growls, protesting your decision to use your lunch break to hack instead of eat. You’ll get a sandwich or something you can eat on the way to your next class. For now, you’d rather use the time you have sitting down to hack.

“Hey!”

The sound of Yoosung’s voice makes you nearly jump out of your seat. You scramble to finish the little bit of code you’re working on, not wanting Yoosung to see what you’re doing. To be honest, you doubt he’d be able to tell, but better safe than sorry. Once you’re done, you look up to find two things, or rather, two people. Person number one is obviously Yoosung, who plops himself down right next to you and person number two… is the red haired guy from the party, grinning from ear to ear.

Every hair on your body stands on end as you watch the redhead settle himself on Yoosung’s other side. You’re pretty sure he’s not a student; that red hair of his sticks out like a sore thumb so you definitely would have seen him before. Then why is he here? Yoosung seems to realize that you’re staring at his companion and introduces him to you. “This is my friend, Saeyoung!”

“Hello~” the redhead bows his head, not bothering to hide the mischievous grin on his face. “Nice to meet you again!”

All the color drains from your face as Yoosung swings his head around to look at you, clearly confused. “Again…? Have you guys met before?”

“Uh… ” you mumble, unsure of what to say. Should you just lie and say that maybe Saeyoung has mistaken you for someone else? Or do you tell him the truth? But if you do that, you might just have to tell Yoosung everything… Before you can even make the decision yourself, Saeyoung decides to make it for you.

“We met at the party,” he answers in nonchalant tone.

“Party…” It takes a moment for the light bulb to go off in Yoosung’s head. “Oh! The RFA party! You were there too?”

“Um… yeah,” you nod sneaking a glare over at Saeyoung. His grin only widens in response.

Yoosung doesn’t seem to notice the dirty looks you’re shooting at his friend and pouts at you. “I was one of the hosts… Did you see me? Why didn’t you say hi?”

“You… looked kinda busy when i saw you,” you reply. It’s not entirely a lie, but you also had been actively trying to avoid him as well. “So I didn’t really get a chance…”

That answer seems to satisfy Yoosung, “Oh! I see!”

“Yeah, sorry about that…”

“It’s okay! I hope you still were able to have a good time!” Yoosung gives you a warm smile, which makes you feel a tiny bit guilty. Maybe you should have said hi to him after all… “I don’t remember seeing your name on the guest list, though… Did you come with an organization?”

You nod slowly, not liking where this seems to be headed.

“Oh cool! Which one?”

“Uh…” If possible, you’d like to avoid a slip up like you had last time, but since it’s been a couple weeks you can’t even remember any of the other groups that were there. Maybe you should just come clean after all… It’s not like Yoosung finding out you can hack would be the worst thing in the world.

“Didn’t you say you were part of that group selling keyboards?” Saeyoung interjects, in a surprisingly helpful way. Obviously, you didn’t, and you know Saeyoung knows that. Despite the fact he pushed you into this mess, the fact that he’s throwing you a lifeline is strange. But you’d be a fool not to take it.

“Yeah! Yeah! That’s right!” you agree, a little too enthusiastically.

“Ohhhhh,” Yoosung’s head bobs up and down in an enlightened way and you inwardly sigh, relieved that he seems none the wiser. Then, after a beat, he adds, “I remember you saying you were looking for a new gaming keyboard, Saeyoung, is that how you guys got to talking?”

You glance over at Saeyoung, who’s smile wavers just the tiniest bit, and respond in a careful sort of way, “Yeah, that’s right… he told me that he needed a new keyboard…”

“I thought so!” Yoosung nods again takes a big bite of the sandwich he’d bought for lunch. “Oh, did you know Saeyoung plays LOLOL too?”

“Does he?” you ask, raising an eyebrow. It doesn’t surprise you that a friend of Yoosung’s would play LOLOL, but if you remember right, Saeyoung told you at the party that he was absolutely no good with computers… Was he exaggerating when he said that? You look over at Saeyoung who gives you a tight smile. Something about his expression feels… off, but you can’t seem to pin your finger on it.

Yoosung chirps, “Yep! He’s even on our server!”

“Oh really?” That makes sense. Usually, people tend to play on the same servers as their friends. “What’s your username, maybe I’ve seen you around or something!”

Saeyoung laughs a bit and scratches the back of his neck looking a bit shy, “Ah… I don’t play that often…”

Yoosung nearly spits out the food in his mouth, “What!? You play a lot!”

“...in comparison to you, not really~” Saeyoung teases. You have to stifle a giggle. You don’t know anyone who’s as addicted to LOLOL as Yoosung. It’s a miracle that he’s made it this far in the real world. Sometimes you think that he should just become a professional LOLOL player instead of whatever it is he’s planning on doing in school.

“...you say that, but you’re the best player on the server,” Yoosung retorts, puffing out his cheeks in a pouty sort of way.

You blink, surprised by Yoosung’s comment. The best player on the server is Saeyoung? But that would make him… “Awesome Hacker?”

“Yeah,” Yoosung huffs. “That’s him alright.”

Your breath catches in your throat at the confirmation. You were willing to believe that maybe, despite his lack of computer skills, Saeyoung can still play LOLOL on a casual level. But there’s absolutely no way that someone like that could be the top player on your server. You’ve never played with him personally, but you’ve heard the stories. Awesome Hacker’s skills are known to be unparalleled. Any party that raids with them is guaranteed to be world first. Hell, there are some rumors that Awesome Hacker may have two extra arms and that’s how they’re so good. And you’re supposed to believe that this godly player and Saeyoung are the same person?

One of them has to be lying. And between Yoosung, your friend who you’ve known since the beginning of this semester and Saeyoung, this handsome stranger who you’ve probably known for a total of fifteen minutes or so, it’s clear who you’re going to believe here. You glare at Saeyoung, who meets your gaze with a quiet chuckle. He must be able to tell that you’ve figured out his little ruse. If it weren’t for Yoosung, you’d be giving that liar an earful right about now.

“So, anyway, what were you doing?” Yoosung switches topics, completely oblivious to the stare war going on between you and Saeyoung. “I was calling out to you for a while.”

“Oh, just some homework,” you lie automatically.

“Lunchtime is a good time to do homework...” Yoosung mumbles thoughtfully as he munches on his food. Then, suddenly, he starts coughing like he’s choking. Alarmed, both you and Saeyoung both pat Yoosung on the back, trying to help him clear his throat.

“Yoosung? What’s wrong?” you ask, voice saturated with worry.

“Home...work…” he repeats weakly. Then he snatches his bag and begins rifling through it like a madman. Yoosung doesn’t seem to find what he’s looking for and then looks up at you, like a helpless child,  “I...I think I left my homework in my last class….”

“Oh.” Knowing him, he was probably working on it during class instead of paying attention to the lecture. “Maybe it's still there…”

Yoosung’s eyes begin to dart around, as if he’s trying to figure out what he should do. Then he suddenly stands and sputters, “I… I’ll be right back!”

Then, before you can say anything else, he dashes out of the lunchroom.

“I really hope he finds it…” you say quietly, staring at the door he ran out of. It’d suck if he had to redo it, especially if he’d managed to actually get a lot done.

“Hopefully~”

The sound of the other voice causes you to freeze. Yoosung's impromptu departure means that you're alone with him. You turn your head to find Saeyoung staring back with an owlish expression. You have your reservations about being alone with him but at the same time since Yoosung’s gone now, you can actually give this guy a piece of your mind.

“So,” you begin. “You have some explaining to do.”

He shoots you a playfully evasive grin. “Do I?”

Something about the look on his face makes you feel a little tingly, but you ignore it and hiss, “Don't play dumb with me! You said at the party that you were no good with computers, but just now Yoosung said that you're the best player on our LOLOL server.”

Saeyoung merely shrugs and dramatically declares, “Maybe my love for LOLOL transcends my non-existent computer skills!”

“I'm not buying it,” you lean in a little closer to glare at him.  “Why did you lie? Do you have something to hide?”

“Nooo~”

“If you’re trying to convince me otherwise, you’re going to have to try harder than that!” You look up into Saeyoung’s eyes, trying to see if maybe you can find something there. But all you can see amidst the golden hue of his eyes is your reflection.

He chuckles a bit and leans in toward you,  “Maybe you’re the one who needs to try harder? Your seduction technique needs a little bit of work~”

You squeak when you realize just how close the two of you are to one another and jump backwards so that you’re at a more respectable distance. Saeyoung laughs and despite the fact that you’re red with embarrassment, you continue to glare at him. “I wasn’t trying to seduce you!”

“Oh?” he cocks his head to the side, eyes alight with amusement and a dash of confusion. “That’s too bad.”

You blink. Too… bad? What does that even mean? Did he think you were trying to actually flirt with him? Did he want you to? The thought of it makes your face feel warm and you look away, flustered. You were just trying to intimidate him into telling you the truth, but it- Something clicks in your head and you turn back to Saeyoung, glaring through narrowed eyes, “....are you trying to distract me?”

“Damn, my plan’s been foiled,” he responds in a lighthearted tone that makes it clear that he’s still toying with you. It’s a bit frustrating, but you’re not ready to give up.

You click your tongue in annoyance, “Too bad. So sad. Now out with it, I’m not letting you go until you tell me what you know.”

“...don’t you have class soon?”

He has a point. You look away from him, contemplating for a bit before you mutter, “I… I’ll skip it.”

“...what about when Yoosung comes back?” he adds, still clearly amused by all this. “Are you going to keep grilling me then?”

You groan. He’s got a point there too. Of course, you could just reveal to Yoosung that you’re a hacker, but you’re still not sure if your friendship is with him is on a high enough level for that reveal yet. Saeyoung still had that damn grin plastered on that smug mug of his. You can’t help but wonder where a nice guy like Yoosung met a dude like this.

“Give up yet?” he asks in a mockingly sweet voice.

“No!” you sit up straight and continue to glower at him. “Listen, obviously you must know something because if you didn’t, you would just tell me and be done with it.”

“Oh, you think so?”

For a split second, you doubt yourself. There’s the chance that this guy is just some weirdo who knows nothing and is just enjoying screwing with you right now. But he was at that party and he’s here right now. You don’t think that’s some coincidence.

“No. You definitely know something,” you tell him firmly. “Tell me what you know. Though, even if you don’t, I’ll find out one way or another-  I am a hacker, you know.”

Saeyoung’s catlike smile is replaced with a contemplative stare. Is that… a bad sign? You’re not quite sure, so you peer into his eyes again, trying to see if you can find a trace of what he could possibly be thinking. Once more you find nothing, and he says nothing, you feel a ball of nervousness begin to grow inside you. Then, he begins to speak, and you brace yourself for whatever he has to say.

But what you hear isn’t an explanation, but a loud cackle. Saeyoung holds his stomach as he dissolves in a fit of laughter. You can’t help but feel a bit embarrassed sitting next to him as he’s starting to gain an audience. Once he starts to calm down, he speaks, wiping at the tears that had formed at the corners of his eyes, “...okay, you got me.”

Your pulse quickens at the sound of his words.

“I’ll tell you what I know.”

[rabidsquabbiteldewrito]

ElDewrito Dev Update (Mar 04, 2018) Part 1

It’s been about a month since our last post, and we apologize for the lack of dev blog updates. Many of our team members have been busy/away during parts of the last month (I just got back from a much-needed week long vacation, snowboarding in the Rockies). While we would have liked to have 0.6 released by now, please remember that we’re all doing this in our spare time for free, and sometimes we burn out, or simply aren’t able to work on it as much as we’d like.

That being said, we’re back at full force with refreshed minds and ready to hammer this thing out.

I’ve read many comments from many people, whether it be on reddit or discord or PMs, saying that our communication is too infrequent and needs to be improved. While I do not need to apologize for taking a vacation, I take these comments to heart. It was only a year and a half ago when I was in the same position you are in, on the outside looking in, asking the same thing from the devs. It’s why I made that first 0.6 update post and it’s why I have been writing these blog posts. I’ll honor your guys’ request and go into as much detail as possible.

I’ll discuss the progress we’ve made since our last post, what’s remaining to do, and also showcase some cool new stuff we’ve added. And as always, we’ll show you some new gameplay using the new features or new forge maps.

This blog post is two parts. If you don’t care about the technical jargon and just want to see cool stuff, skip to the bottom - there’s some cool new features to see. For the rest of you, sit down. This one’s a long read; you asked for it.

The ‘Dedi Connection Bug’

In our last blog post, I went into detail about the ‘dedi connection bug’. As you recall, this bug has two manifestations:

Player A can’t join a server because it conflicts with player B already in the server. The join request is actually rejected.

A player attempts to join a server, but the establishment process never completes, yet the player is able to join the voip server and can hear players in the server. This manifestation has multiple root causes.

One of our team members, unk_1, wrote a log parser to detect occurrences of the dedi bug. We turned on network logging on a few of the 0511 dedicated servers and left them running for a week at a time. After analyzing the logs, we’ve found that manifestation #1 accounts for about ¾ of the connection issues. As I mentioned last post, #1 has been completely fixed already.

A lot of work has gone into trying to fix number 2, and while some occurrences might be out of control for the time being (restricted NAT type for example: remember Xbox 360 NAT type issues?), we have made great progress and have fixed one of its causes. I’ll go into a bit of detail about that here.

MTU and Packet Fragmentation

The MTU (maximum transmission unit) is the size of the largest amount of data that can be sent in a single network transaction. If a packet is too big (larger than MTU), routers will fragment this packet into smaller ones and then the data gets reassembled. This fragmentation can lead to a much higher chance of packet loss. In addition, not all routers behave the same in regards to packet fragmentation, and many do not obey the ‘Don’t Fragment’ flag in the IP protocol header.

Why is this relevant? After lots of digging and research, we found that some of the packets that are exchanged during the establishment process were bigger than the MTU size. The solution? Shrink them down to a valid size so that they don’t get fragmented. After testing this in 0511, we saw the number of manifestation #2 occurrences decrease.

While this is great news, many #2 occurrences still were still present in the logs, and we believe many of them are related to NAT. We will provide a how-to doc when 0.6 releases on how to check/open your NAT type, as well as other useful info to ensure that other players can connect to your server without issue. As for the other #2 connection issues that may (we aren’t even sure if any remain) still exist that are within our control, we’re going to leave them to be fixed them in a later update. Debugging these issues are a slow, tedious, painful process. We can’t have this issue delay us any further, so we’re calling it a day. Note: So far, with the #1 and #2 fixes in, we haven’t had a single dedi bug re-occurrence in our testing sessions, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that there aren’t rare connection issues hiding somewhere that we haven’t been able to replicate.

The Updater

The usual question. We’ve made great progress on the updater, and it is pretty much finished. The updater will be a lightweight standalone exe that will allow you to update to the latest version, and even downgrade to previous versions. The updater will not need to be ran to start the game, nor will it act as a launcher like the 0511 updater does. It’s simply an updater. When a future update comes out, for example 0.7, a message will be displayed on the title screen when you boot up the game, telling you that you need to close the game and update. Open the updater -> click update -> done. There are a couple of very small bugs we’ve found during the testing of it, and those are being fixed.

Enough about the boring stuff, on to the fun stuff.

Misc/Small Bug Fixes since last post:

Settings - Fix for Alt binds

Added forge binding to deselect everything

Allow held forge object to be extended unconstrained

Fix transparent materials for reforge

Fix ‘default’ weapon offset preset doesn’t work in the in-game menu

Fix atmosphere toggle on map modifier

Fix weather effects not working on certain maps

Fix issues with custom fog not working well on certain maps

Discord UI - Fix the Ui showing breifly upon starting the game

Chat UI - Add warning alert for opening links that may be unsafe

Fix crash related to forge kill volumes

Fixed exe remaining running in background due to Discord rpc not shutting down

Fix duplicate requests for player info (rank, emblem, ect)

Jaron’s emblem editor that we showed a preview of in the last post has been added and touched up. 

Q: Has anything you’ve previously shown us not going to make it into 0.6?

A: Yes, unfortunately the doors and fans we showcased in the last blog post have too many issues and are not ready for prime time. We want them to be polished before adding it, and doing so right now would be time consuming and would delay release. Keeping the doors and fans as-is in 0.6 would break any maps using them we were to fix/polish them in a later update. For these reasons, we’ve decided to exclude these from 0.6 and add the doors/fans to a future update instead.

Q: Have any new cool features been added since the last post?

A: Absolutely. 

But before I go into detail on these, I want to make an important distinction about why things are still able to be added while we haven’t released yet. We often see comments like “Why are you still adding features when you could have released?”, or “just release the game and add stuff to it later”.

That’s not really how development for this game works. This team has quite a few active developers. If two people are working on a must-fix bug, say ‘the dedi-bug’ for example, there are other members of the team who are still available to work on other things. If devs A and B are developing the new updater, that doesn’t mean that devs C-G need to sit and twiddle their thumbs until the updater is finished. Some bugs are very complex, and only certain members of the team have the expertise to fix them. This produces opportunities for us to sneak in extra features without slowing down our 0.6 progress whatsoever. So to be clear, extra features that we’ve been showing off in the last few blog posts have not in any way slowed down or delayed the release of 0.6.

That being said, buckle up, because we’ve got some cool new shit for you.

Glass and Emissive Glass have been added as forge materials. Any reforge object can be given a glass or emissive glass material, and can have customized opacity and color. 

.

.

40 New Materials have been added for forge objects. In addition, Forge Material textures can now be scaled, and the x and y offsets   can be adjusted.

Here is a video showing some of these new materials being used in forge, as well as how to adjust the scale and offsets.

Fog has been drastically improved to look more realistic. Here are a couple of examples:

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Directional lights have been added.  You can control the direction, intensity, fov radius, color, and near width of any light. Here is an example picture:

.

Directional lights are great because you get much more control with bleeding (the light doesn’t go through the objects). you can set the FOV to something high like 180 and it’s like a point light but it won’t bleed above it through objects. In this example - here’s where the light is:

With a point light instead of directional light, it would be super bright up here:

Pulse and Flicker functions can also be applied and customized to any light source. You can control the minimum intensity, maximum intensity, as well as the frequency of the pulse or flicker. Here’s a video showing some of these lights being created/altered in forge.

Player size is now a gametype option/trait. Players can be scaled to be tiny, huge, or anywhere in-between. For example, you can create gametypes where the players become huge while in the hill or in the lead, or tiny while holding the ball or flag. A small map like the pit can suddenly turn into a BTB map. The sky is the limit. Players also animate between the two sizes, so they don’t just instantly magically appear large or small when transitioning from one size to another.

A full gameplay video where players are tiny, but become big and slow while inside the hill in a game of KOTH is posted in part 2 of this blog post, but here are a couple of pictures.

A huge spartan driving a Warthog:

Large Spartans as a hill trait:

Skyboxes can be swapped to/from any map. Yep, you can now choose any skybox you want when creating a forge map. There are options for inheriting the fog that comes with the skybox, or you can override it with your own custom fog.

These skyboxes open an whole new realm of creativity. Take a look at some simple examples of skyboxes being used on different maps.

Guardian Skybox on Narrows

Valhalla skybox on Sandtrap:

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.

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Here is a video showing how to change/alter skyboxes: 

Here is a small album of 4k images. I will add additional images to this album throughout the day. 

Additional Weather Effects have been added. Heavy Snow, Rain, Falling Ash, Slipspace Fallout, and Flood Pollen can now be used as weather effects. While the rain effect is a little underwhelming and needs some work (it doesn’t look very realistic yet), some of the other effects are quite cool. Here’s a gif of the “Slipspace Fallout” effect.

Don’t forget to check out part 2 for some gameplay videos, but for now, let’s get back to business. 

Q: Now What?

A: We are at a state where we now consider the game to be ‘Feature Complete’. All of the major bugs that we’ve committed to fixing have been fixed. All of the features that we committed to adding, have been added. No more features will be added. We are going to enter a short, exhaustive, ‘Regression Testing’ cycle where we test every feature that we have added over the past two years. The only commits that will occur between now and release will be fixes for bugs found during the regression testing cycle. The reason this is necessary is because over time, parts of the code have changed, been refactored, moved, ect. We need to ensure that we haven’t broken anything along the way. One of our main devs, unk_1, once said “I can't overstate how much i just molested the engine over the last 2 weeks. It needs to be tested like a lot.” And that’s what we’ll be doing. 

When we’re finished, you’ll know. 

Until next time (or until we’re playing right along side you); Sincerely, 

RabidSquabbit

[so-goodbye-smile]

Sony Xperia L3 - Ultimate buyers guide

Current [EU] Xperia L3 price | Current [US] Sony Xperia L3 price

Design

As you know Sony is not one to follow the usual smartphone trends. This is a gift and a curse for Sony fans like us. The gift is no notch. Just a 5.7" 720p 303 ppi IPS LCD display protected by gorilla glass 5.

The Curse. A considerable amount of forehead housing the earpiece and the 8mp wide angled selfie cam, and an even bigger chin.

The glass looking finish over the back over the subtly glittered surface actually looks really nice in daylight. The diamond cut bezels around the camera module is also a nice touch.

The Xperia L3's design is pretty old school but with that said that I am an old school kind of guy. I still like wired headphones. Yes the L3 has a headphone jack. Also, the Sony Xperia of 2019 have returned to the old school side mounted fingerprint reader that we saw a few years back.

The implementation of this actually looks pretty nice & it keeps the design arguably more ergonomic than last year's XZ3 and XZ2, just based off of the placement.

Also, this time around the fingerprint reader is not doubled up as a power button. Maybe this helps with the accuracy of the fingerprint reader. Or maybe it's just more cost effective, but actually, I prefer this as opposed to digging my thumb into the side of the phone. It's just a little more effortless.

This entry level 2019 Xperia does have a USB C port which I was happy to see. It's more convenient I think you'll agree. The volume rocker just below the fingerprint reader that I think is perfectly placed, Also a single downward firing speaker on this one.

It's important to remember this is the best from Sony 2019. Stay tuned to WhatGear for more on the midrange and flagship models in the future.

Usability

First and foremost the Xperia L3 might be one of the most comfortable Sony phones I've held for a long time. It has no sharp corners and nice round edges where the screen meets the bezels. The Xperia L3 at the time of this video is running on Android Oreo and Sony have done a good job of not filling the device with bloatware out of the box.

Powering the device performance is a Mediatek 6762 and 3GB of ram which is not bad. Would have been nice to have seen a Snapdragon 660 but hey that might have increased the price point...a bit. However it's more than powerful enough for top 5 social media apps and general smartphone apps.

GET AN XPERIA L3 FREE @ VODAFONE

That battery life is not bad either, with it's 3300mah battery which easily lasted me until the end of the day. It also has Sonys own adaptive charging that learns your charging patterns and as a result, doesn't kill your batteries life in the long run.

The Sony Xperia L3 actually surprised me with unlocking features. it's got face unlock feature as well a voice unlock, and the fingerprint reader is very snappy and rarely fails. I actually have all three on at the same time... So It is just whatever I feel like using at the time. It's nice to have options

The cameras are not bad given the price that this comes in at. The Xperia L3 has a dual camera setup. You've got 13mp primary and 2mp depth sensor. More on that later.

Sony has also thrown in some experimental stuff. Which is good to see. You've got high contrast text which just sharpens up your text characters. It's pretty cool.

The color correction which has a strange effect. And color inversion which inverts everything including photos and apps etc... Everything looks pretty horrible in this mode, but the menus look good. It is kind of like an unfinished dark mode.

I would have liked to of seen a proper dark mode but hey they're halfway there. Let me know what you think about dark mode there's a poll up in the top corner.

Quality

The LCD HD+ screen is quite good considering the price tag. There's not much color shift when off axis. When watching movies it's clarity is actually quite sharp and there's a definite pop in color when it comes to reds.

There is actually a setting to adjust your color balance...but to be honest I think most people won't need to mess with that.

As for its performance. I tested this out pretty heavily with some lengthy PubG sessions and it holds up well. Yes, I couldn't run it on the highest graphics settings, but it was a pretty seamless experience.

The sound quality is really not amazing. the single firing speaker is not going to blow your mind, but with that said.

headphone jack. Get yourself some Sony WH-1000XM3 and your good.

Awesome Features

The cameras. A couple of the great things about the Xperia L3 camera is it supports bokeh aka blurry background, on the back and front cameras. So that's pretty awesome.

Also within the camera app. There are a bunch of presets that will help you take good photos in all kinds of different conditions and the rear shooter supports HDR.

Even though this is entry level. Sony has still integrated NFC which means you can do contactless payments via your and pair NFC devices with one touch. You don't always see this on entry tier of devices. So that's pretty awesome too.

One of the most awesome features is its overall build quality.

It actually feels surprisingly premium for such an affordable device. Nothing feels cheap and actually when it comes to entry-level devices this one of the nicest I've ever seen in terms of build quality that I've tested. It feels so nice in the hand even the weight is spot on.

Get a FREE xperia l3 @ VODAFONE source https://www.whatgear.net/technology/sony-xperia-l3

[ayngelface]

Sony Xperia L3 - Ultimate buyers guide

Current [EU] Xperia L3 price | Current [US] Sony Xperia L3 price

Design

As you know Sony is not one to follow the usual smartphone trends. This is a gift and a curse for Sony fans like us. The gift is no notch. Just a 5.7" 720p 303 ppi IPS LCD display protected by gorilla glass 5.

The Curse. A considerable amount of forehead housing the earpiece and the 8mp wide angled selfie cam, and an even bigger chin.

The glass looking finish over the back over the subtly glittered surface actually looks really nice in daylight. The diamond cut bezels around the camera module is also a nice touch.

The Xperia L3’s design is pretty old school but with that said that I am an old school kind of guy. I still like wired headphones. Yes the L3 has a headphone jack. Also, the Sony Xperia of 2019 have returned to the old school side mounted fingerprint reader that we saw a few years back.

The implementation of this actually looks pretty nice & it keeps the design arguably more ergonomic than last year’s XZ3 and XZ2, just based off of the placement.

Also, this time around the fingerprint reader is not doubled up as a power button. Maybe this helps with the accuracy of the fingerprint reader. Or maybe it’s just more cost effective, but actually, I prefer this as opposed to digging my thumb into the side of the phone. It’s just a little more effortless.

This entry level 2019 Xperia does have a USB C port which I was happy to see. It’s more convenient I think you’ll agree. The volume rocker just below the fingerprint reader that I think is perfectly placed, Also a single downward firing speaker on this one.

It’s important to remember this is the best from Sony 2019. Stay tuned to WhatGear for more on the midrange and flagship models in the future.

Usability

First and foremost the Xperia L3 might be one of the most comfortable Sony phones I’ve held for a long time. It has no sharp corners and nice round edges where the screen meets the bezels. The Xperia L3 at the time of this video is running on Android Oreo and Sony have done a good job of not filling the device with bloatware out of the box.

Powering the device performance is a Mediatek 6762 and 3GB of ram which is not bad. Would have been nice to have seen a Snapdragon 660 but hey that might have increased the price point…a bit. However it’s more than powerful enough for top 5 social media apps and general smartphone apps.

GET AN XPERIA L3 FREE @ VODAFONE

That battery life is not bad either, with it’s 3300mah battery which easily lasted me until the end of the day. It also has Sonys own adaptive charging that learns your charging patterns and as a result, doesn’t kill your batteries life in the long run.

The Sony Xperia L3 actually surprised me with unlocking features. it’s got face unlock feature as well a voice unlock, and the fingerprint reader is very snappy and rarely fails. I actually have all three on at the same time… So It is just whatever I feel like using at the time. It’s nice to have options

The cameras are not bad given the price that this comes in at. The Xperia L3 has a dual camera setup. You’ve got 13mp primary and 2mp depth sensor. More on that later.

Sony has also thrown in some experimental stuff. Which is good to see. You’ve got high contrast text which just sharpens up your text characters. It’s pretty cool.

The color correction which has a strange effect. And color inversion which inverts everything including photos and apps etc… Everything looks pretty horrible in this mode, but the menus look good. It is kind of like an unfinished dark mode.

I would have liked to of seen a proper dark mode but hey they’re halfway there. Let me know what you think about dark mode there’s a poll up in the top corner.

Quality

The LCD HD+ screen is quite good considering the price tag. There’s not much color shift when off axis. When watching movies it’s clarity is actually quite sharp and there’s a definite pop in color when it comes to reds.

There is actually a setting to adjust your color balance…but to be honest I think most people won’t need to mess with that.

As for its performance. I tested this out pretty heavily with some lengthy PubG sessions and it holds up well. Yes, I couldn’t run it on the highest graphics settings, but it was a pretty seamless experience.

The sound quality is really not amazing. the single firing speaker is not going to blow your mind, but with that said.

headphone jack. Get yourself some Sony WH-1000XM3 and your good.

Awesome Features

The cameras. A couple of the great things about the Xperia L3 camera is it supports bokeh aka blurry background, on the back and front cameras. So that’s pretty awesome.

Also within the camera app. There are a bunch of presets that will help you take good photos in all kinds of different conditions and the rear shooter supports HDR.

Even though this is entry level. Sony has still integrated NFC which means you can do contactless payments via your and pair NFC devices with one touch. You don’t always see this on entry tier of devices. So that’s pretty awesome too.

One of the most awesome features is its overall build quality.

It actually feels surprisingly premium for such an affordable device. Nothing feels cheap and actually when it comes to entry-level devices this one of the nicest I’ve ever seen in terms of build quality that I’ve tested. It feels so nice in the hand even the weight is spot on.

Get a FREE xperia l3 @ VODAFONE Source: https://www.whatgear.net/technology/sony-xperia-l3

[cosmichemist]

Sony Xperia L3 - Ultimate buyers guide

Current [EU] Xperia L3 price | Current [US] Sony Xperia L3 price

Design

As you know Sony is not one to follow the usual smartphone trends. This is a gift and a curse for Sony fans like us. The gift is no notch. Just a 5.7" 720p 303 ppi IPS LCD display protected by gorilla glass 5.

The Curse. A considerable amount of forehead housing the earpiece and the 8mp wide angled selfie cam, and an even bigger chin.

The glass looking finish over the back over the subtly glittered surface actually looks really nice in daylight. The diamond cut bezels around the camera module is also a nice touch.

The Xperia L3's design is pretty old school but with that said that I am an old school kind of guy. I still like wired headphones. Yes the L3 has a headphone jack. Also, the Sony Xperia of 2019 have returned to the old school side mounted fingerprint reader that we saw a few years back.

The implementation of this actually looks pretty nice & it keeps the design arguably more ergonomic than last year's XZ3 and XZ2, just based off of the placement.

Also, this time around the fingerprint reader is not doubled up as a power button. Maybe this helps with the accuracy of the fingerprint reader. Or maybe it's just more cost effective, but actually, I prefer this as opposed to digging my thumb into the side of the phone. It's just a little more effortless.

This entry level 2019 Xperia does have a USB C port which I was happy to see. It's more convenient I think you'll agree. The volume rocker just below the fingerprint reader that I think is perfectly placed, Also a single downward firing speaker on this one.

It's important to remember this is the best from Sony 2019. Stay tuned to WhatGear for more on the midrange and flagship models in the future.

Usability

First and foremost the Xperia L3 might be one of the most comfortable Sony phones I've held for a long time. It has no sharp corners and nice round edges where the screen meets the bezels. The Xperia L3 at the time of this video is running on Android Oreo and Sony have done a good job of not filling the device with bloatware out of the box.

Powering the device performance is a Mediatek 6762 and 3GB of ram which is not bad. Would have been nice to have seen a Snapdragon 660 but hey that might have increased the price point...a bit. However it's more than powerful enough for top 5 social media apps and general smartphone apps.

GET AN XPERIA L3 FREE @ VODAFONE

That battery life is not bad either, with it's 3300mah battery which easily lasted me until the end of the day. It also has Sonys own adaptive charging that learns your charging patterns and as a result, doesn't kill your batteries life in the long run.

The Sony Xperia L3 actually surprised me with unlocking features. it's got face unlock feature as well a voice unlock, and the fingerprint reader is very snappy and rarely fails. I actually have all three on at the same time... So It is just whatever I feel like using at the time. It's nice to have options

The cameras are not bad given the price that this comes in at. The Xperia L3 has a dual camera setup. You've got 13mp primary and 2mp depth sensor. More on that later.

Sony has also thrown in some experimental stuff. Which is good to see. You've got high contrast text which just sharpens up your text characters. It's pretty cool.

The color correction which has a strange effect. And color inversion which inverts everything including photos and apps etc... Everything looks pretty horrible in this mode, but the menus look good. It is kind of like an unfinished dark mode.

I would have liked to of seen a proper dark mode but hey they're halfway there. Let me know what you think about dark mode there's a poll up in the top corner.

Quality

The LCD HD+ screen is quite good considering the price tag. There's not much color shift when off axis. When watching movies it's clarity is actually quite sharp and there's a definite pop in color when it comes to reds.

There is actually a setting to adjust your color balance...but to be honest I think most people won't need to mess with that.

As for its performance. I tested this out pretty heavily with some lengthy PubG sessions and it holds up well. Yes, I couldn't run it on the highest graphics settings, but it was a pretty seamless experience.

The sound quality is really not amazing. the single firing speaker is not going to blow your mind, but with that said.

headphone jack. Get yourself some Sony WH-1000XM3 and your good.

Awesome Features

The cameras. A couple of the great things about the Xperia L3 camera is it supports bokeh aka blurry background, on the back and front cameras. So that's pretty awesome.

Also within the camera app. There are a bunch of presets that will help you take good photos in all kinds of different conditions and the rear shooter supports HDR.

Even though this is entry level. Sony has still integrated NFC which means you can do contactless payments via your and pair NFC devices with one touch. You don't always see this on entry tier of devices. So that's pretty awesome too.

One of the most awesome features is its overall build quality.

It actually feels surprisingly premium for such an affordable device. Nothing feels cheap and actually when it comes to entry-level devices this one of the nicest I've ever seen in terms of build quality that I've tested. It feels so nice in the hand even the weight is spot on.

Get a FREE xperia l3 @ VODAFONE Source: https://www.whatgear.net/technology/sony-xperia-l3

[breeeliss]

Cn & lb's weapons have Internet access & untraceable IPs so when they're bored on patrol they livesteam & do random shit on youtube & bc of that everyone sees them as people not just heroes & sometimes alya gets in on it & they stream to the ladyblog

have you guys ever seen that shipping video that thomas sanders and jon cozart did? this is p much based off that xD

Link to Archive of Our Own: [AO3]

Summary: “We’ve noticed something interesting going on. An alarming number of people seem to ship Ladybug and I.”“

Yeah, it’s tricky stuff shipping real life people. People expect us to be romantically compatible. But are we?”

An exclusive Ladyblog Livestream Event with Ladybug and Chat Noir where they decide once and for all whether Ladynoir is a compatible (and acceptable) ship. Remember to like comment and subscribe!

“Okay, guys. Act natural, and remember this is just for fun. You guys cool with doing your own intro and everything?”

Ladybug scoffed. “Are you kidding? You’re giving him control of an entire video, he’s totally fine.”

“You can literally make fun of me until the end of time, I don’t care. Do you know how much I’ve fantasized about doing a YouTube tag?” Chat Noir bounced in his seat a little bit and cracked his knuckles. “I am beyond ready.”

Ladybug jutted a thumb at him and smirked at Alya. “See? I think we’ll be good.”

Alya snorted and finished setting up her phone on the little tripod mount she bought specifically for the occasion. Her hands were shaking a little bit because she was still finding it hard to believe that Ladybug and Chat Noir were actually sitting in her living room, not even a few feet away from her. 

It had always been her dream to do a Livestream to the Ladyblog that wasn’t just focusing on the superheroics. Yes it was always exciting to get details on fights, on their powers, on what goes through their heads in the middle of battles, but at the end of the day they were still the same age as Alya. She wanted to have the chance to just do something silly with them. News reporters very rarely treated them like the teenagers they were, and Alya was sure that her followers would get a kick out of them doing something humorous on camera. She’d made a whole blog post about it one night when she was sleep deprived and not thinking before she typed. 

But two days later, when she caught them right after another akuma fight, Ladybug pointed her out of the crowd and mentioned that they both saw the post she’d made. “Feel free to ring us up when you have an idea for a video,” she grinned.

It was almost too good to be true, but Alya wasn’t going to let go of an opportunity like this. The amount of views and followers she’d get after this would be astronomical. She was practically vibrating. “Alright, you crazy kids, I’m gonna read off the questions for you once you start. Whenever you’re ready.”

Not even a moment after she clicked record, Chat Noir froze, opened his mouth wide, and let out a huge sneeze. Ladybug jumped and buried her face in her hands, wheezing with laughter. “You freaking dork, we just started.”

Chat Noir chuckled. “I thought about Mr. Pigeon and I couldn’t help myself.” Ladybug leaned back in her chair and cackled while Chat Noir rubbed his nose.

“Hello, Ladyblog viewers!” Chat Noir said through his laughing. “Peace, love, and ladybugs to you all — oh my god, I improv-ed that! Can you use that from now on? Peace, love, and ladybugs? Wait, wait, Ladybug write that down, I wanna trademark that.”

Ladybug rolled her eyes, but pulled out her compact and typed it into the chat function. “I’ll text it to you right now, hold on.”

“Excellent,” he grinned. “Peace, love, and ladybugs! My name’s Chat Noir, and I am here with the lovely, wonderful, beautiful, and incredible Ladybug!”

Ladybug shut her eyes and hummed. “Oooh, I loved that. Thank you.” Chat Noir did a little bow while Ladybug picked up after him. “So, believe it or not, the two of us actually read the Ladyblog a lot, mainly because you all are so active on it, and we just wanted to thank you all for the kind words and support you give us everyday. We may not always be able to respond to it, but we see and we really appreciate it.”

“However, we’ve also noticed something interesting going on in the comments which is that an alarming number of people seem to ship us.” Chat Noir looked at Ladybug. “I dig it.”

“Yeah of course you would,” Ladybug teased back. “What is it called again? Ladynoir I think?”

“Yeah, Ladynoir! I mean, all kidding aside, I totally get it.”

Ladybug snorted. “Do you remember when Alya got all of those pictures of us when we were playing tag along the river? We were hanging off of each other the entire time, so yeah, super not surprised.”

“Just to clear up anything, we’re not dating,” Chat Noir told the camera. He darted his eyes side to side, leaned in close to the camera, and whispered, “ yet.”

“ He wishes ,” Ladybug whispered, winking at the camera. “But yeah, it’s tricky stuff shipping real life people, you know? It’s like…all these people sort of expect us to be romantically compatible and then the two of us are just left here thinking, are we?”

“So to rectify this dilemma for you all, we’re going to figure out today whether the two of us are compatible! So we’ve got these….mini whiteboard things…” Ladybug held hers up to the camera. “….and we have a bunch of these compatibility questions that you guys all sent us for us to answer.”

“Basically we’re going to keep track of how many times we agree and disagree, and if we’re on the same page more than we’re not, we can officially call ourselves compatible and you are all free to ship to your heart’s content.”

Chat Noir snorted. “Do you realize the amount of fanfiction fodder this is going to give people? Like seriously, just imagine it. Watch it pour in the night she posts this.”

“But see, you would know that, because you’re the only person I know who would read fanfiction about himself.”

“Um, you liked that Ladynoir story I sent you a week ago.”

Ladybug shrugged. “Well, yeah it was really well written, I’m not going to deny that.”

He reached over and flicked her on the nose. “So don’t be a hypocrite.” She pouted at him while he drummed his hands against his whiteboard. “Alright. I’m ready. Alya! First one.”

Alya chuckled. “Alright guys, first one: toilet paper over or toilet paper under.”

He blinked. “Wait, what?”

Ladybug nudged him in the side. “Like….when you put the thing in the dispenser, does the paper flip over or under, Chat.”

Chat Noir made a disgusted face and started frantically scribbling on his whiteboard. “Is that not obvious?” Ladybug shrugged as she wrote down her own answer.

“Alright, flip one…two…and.” They both flipped their white boards to the camera and cheered when they both put ‘over.’ “Oh my God, I was terrified you were going to say under,” Ladybug said in relief.

“That is so creepy,” Chat Noir explained, erasing his answer. “Like who even does that?”

“Alright so that’s a point!” They both celebrated once more and high fived as Alya got the next question ready.

“Okay question number two,” Alya read out. “White, milk, or dark chocolate.”

They both scribbled on their boards for a couple of seconds before flipping their boards at the same time. Ladybug stared at the answer on Chat Noir’s board and her jaw dropped. “What in the actual hell, are you serious?”

Chat Noir hugged his board to his chest defensively. “White chocolate is delicious! Are you insane?”

“It’s not even freaking chocolate, you monster!” she argued back. “It’s like….if I mixed together white crap, milk, and sugar, I’d get white chocolate.”

“Dude, who the hell puts dark chocolate? That’s not chocolate, there’s no sugar in it!”

“Chocolate is supposed to be bitter! Everything else is way too sweet, it ruins the taste.”

Chat Noir grumbled as he erased his answer. “I’m breaking up with you.”

“Ditto. I want all of your things out the house by this afternoon.”

“I’m keeping the car.”

“Fine.”

Alya was covering her mouth, trying not to let her laughter show up in the shot. “Okay, okay, this is the third one. Do you take your tea with or without sugar.”

“There’s no point to this, I already know what she’s going to say.” Chat Noir laughed and rubbed a hand down his face when they flipped their signs and he saw ‘without’ scribbled on her board. “You’re an abomination.”

“I….okay,” Ladybug said, facing the camera directly. “I dare all of you to fight me on this. Sugar does not belong in tea. Like I can maybe get behind you putting it in coffee but that’s literally it.”

“You are asking the Internet to fight you, my Lady.”

“I don’t care! I’ll fight all of you!”

Alya piped in. “I mean….I put sugar in my tea, so.”

Chat Noir reached over off camera to give Alya a high five. “Yes! Team Sugar Tea.”

“You’re all gross.”

“Alright, alright! Number four! Early bird or night owl?”

Ladybug hissed and stared up at the ceiling for an answer while Chat Noir poked his tongue out and started scribbling with intense concentration. It took them a while to both finish drawing, but Ladybug had ‘night owl!’ on her board, and Chat Noir had drawn a cartoonish owl in response. “Yes!” Ladybug exclaimed “Oh man, I was getting bummed for a second.”

“Yeah, but I’m not surprised the two of us are, we’re always out late.”

Ladybug nodded. “We schedule patrols for like an hour, and then once we’re done the two of us kinda just hang around for hours because we don’t wanna go home. There was one time we were out until like two in the morning.”

“We were definitely out until three at least once too.”

Alya pulled out the next question. “iPhone or Android?”

“Yikes, this might cause a fight,” Ladybug winced.

“Nah, don’t jinx it, I believe in us,” Chat Noir waved away, writing his answer. “These are good questions, by the way. Like….every married couple should do this.”

“You’re gonna make fights break out,” Ladybug snickered.

“Ah, fighting’s healthy. Alright, flip!” They stared at each other’s boards and cheered loudly when they both wrote ‘android.’ 

They fist bumped with both hands, and Ladybug bounced excitedly in her chair. “Oh thank god. Aren’t they better phones though?”

“People with iPhones are over here ranting about Siri, meanwhile they just lost their headphone jack, so who’s the real loser?”

Ladybug laughed to herself. “Have you seen the, uh….what are they called? The dongle things? Like that attachment you have to get to use regular headphones.”

Chat Noir snickered into his hand. “It doesn’t even sound sexy, like who wants to be in the street and be like ‘ah, sorry guys, gotta pull out my dongle for a minute’?”

“It sounds dirty, don’t you think?” Ladybug sniggered. Chat Noir cackled and almost fell out of his chair. “No seriously like ‘I have to pull out my dongle’ sounds like I have to pull out my….” She gestured to her lap and was grinning as she watched Chat Noir take one of the couch cushions and press it to his face while he muffled his hysterics. “What?!”

He shook his head and sat back up. “Oh man, I love you. Wait how many more do we have?”

“Three more. The next one’s uhhh….” Alya snorted in laughter. “Oh man, god help you two. Dogs or cats?”

Chat Noir covered his mouth with both hands and slowly turned towards Ladybug. Ladybug let her shoulders drop and stared in disbelief at the camera. “Why would you do that to us?”

“Ladybug — ”

“Chat don’t do this — ”

“Ladybug I’m like dead serious — ”

“You’re so dramatic, oh my god, it’s going to be fine!”

“Just please,” he begged. “Please. Answer carefully and honestly. This is like….do or die.”

“What would you do if I said dog?”

“Don’t make jokes like that!”

Ladybug turned away from him and looked back at him over her shoulder. “I’m writing my answer.”

“I’ve literally never been this stressed out in my life.”

“Do you want me to count you guys down so you show your answers at the same time?” Alya asked.

Chat Noir made a show of sniffing, making his voice sound like he was on the verge of crying. “Yes, please.”

“It’s like you have no faith in me,” Ladybug teased.

“Don’t lie on your answer!”

“I’m not going to lie, Chat, don’t worry.”

They both wrote down their answers and gave Alya the thumbs up when they were done. “Alright guys. You’re gonna flip on my count. One….two….three!”

Chat Noir kept his eyes closed when he flipped his board, holding it a full arm’s length away from him. “Agh, I’m scared.”

Ladybug tapped his leg with hers. “Flip, trust me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Chat Noir opened his eyes, stared at her board, and threw it behind the couch as he threw his arms up in glee. “Thank all the adorable kittens in heaven, you’re a cat person!!!!!! ”

Ladybug held her arms out. “You want a hug, I know you do, bring it in.” Chat Noir wrapped his arms around her waist and started to fake sob into her stomach. She patted him on the head and snorted. “You threw your board clear across the room.”

“I don’t care,” Chat said, his voice muffled. “You love cats and that’s all that matters in the world.”

“ Is that all that matters?”

“You’re willing to accept my kind into your home.”

Ladybug turned to the camera again. “See, he thinks he’s actually a cat, so he takes all this very seriously. Excuse him, he’s almost done.”

Chat Noir stayed huddled up to her for a minute more before he sat up properly and smacked his cheeks a little. “Oh man, that was an ordeal. Oh dammit, my whiteboard.”

“You threw it into the plant! Like by the television!”

Chat Noir quickly came running back to sit on the couch. “I got it, I got it.”

“You two are too much. Alright, this one is Fall Wedding or Spring Wedding?”

Ladybug snorted when she wrote down her answer and sighed in relief when they both ended up putting ‘Fall Wedding’ on their boards. “I feel like the two of us would rock a fall color scheme, don’t you?”

“Plus, like, have you ever seen those wedding photos where they like throw fall leaves into the air? Like when they do outdoor weddings? Wouldn’t that be the cutest thing?”

“Oh my God, my parents did that! It’s super cute, oh man, I wish I could show you. If we get married though, we’re screwed on the cake.”

“Why?”

“You like white chocolate. ”

“Oh my God, are we going to start this again.”

“I’m going to remember this for at least the next month, you think I’m joking.”

“So can we get milk chocolate and call it even?”

Ladybug hummed and bit her lip. “I’ll bring it up with the wedding planner, we’ll talk about it.”

Chat Noir shook his head, rubbing his hand across the board to wipe it clean again. “Remember what I said about all that fanfiction fodder?”

“Bet you ten euros there are gonna be like twenty wedding fics by the end of the week.”

“Nah man, more than that. We’ll see.”

Ladybug sighed and smiled at him. “Last question, right?”

“Mmhm,” Chat Noir grinned. “Alright, what’ve you got for us, Alya?”

“This is a fun one,” Alya prefaced. “Ladybug or Chat Noir.”

They both laughed uproariously and were quick with their answers. Alya already figured what they were each going to write before they even flipped over their answers, but she had to admit it was really adorable to see them smile at each other when Ladybug wrote ‘Chat Noir’ and Chat Noir wrote ‘Ladybug.’

“I’m very cool with that disagreement,” Chat Noir beamed at the camera. “If that’s the only thing we fight about, I’m blessed to be honest.”

Ladybug tapped him on the shoulder. “Wait, I think we won.”

“We won?”

“Yeah like we got the most compatibility points.”

“Oh crap, did we?”

Alya looked down at her notebook and nodded. “Yeah, you got more of them matched up.”

They both threw their hands up and cheered. “We’re compatible!” they chanted at the same time, Ladybug falling against his shoulder in a fit of giggles.

“Damn, so I guess….?”

“Yeah,” Ladybug finished. “We….essentially did the work for you. So you are free to ship to your heart’s content. Go forth!”

“You have our permission,” Chat Noir assured. “And if you guys could low-key tag me on Instagram with links to your stories, that would be awesome.”

“You know damn well you have a physics test next week, you are not going to ask for fanfiction.”

“I’m fine , don’t worry about it. I wanna see what they come up with.”

“Listen. Tag me in them. So then I won’t give them to him until he finishes studying.”

Chat Noir shook his head at her in disbelief. “You’re just going to read them before I do!”

“ Offended that you would think that.”

“We will discuss this later.” Chat Noir turned back to the camera and clapped his hands together. “So….that’s it I guess? Um….Ladybug and I have Instagrams!”

“Yeah, apparently, when you do things from our weapons, the IP addresses get totally scrambled? So you can’t trace them and you can’t tell who we are. Which is great because that means this loser can post all the videos he wants to his.”

“Oh did you see what I tagged you in this morning?”

“Yeah the seven cat videos? Of course I did. I always do.”

Chat Noir pumped his fist. “Excellent. Anyway, uh, we fool around on those things a lot, so if you’re in the mood for a laugh, feel free to check us out. Alya’s gonna leave our links below this video.”

“And if you have any suggestions for other videos we can do, let us know. Alya will keep us updated, because these are actually really fun,” Ladybug said. “Oh! And always stay safe! If you ever see an akuma, always stay indoors and put as much distance between it and you as you can!”

“Yeah, really important guys, we wanna keep you safe, but you have to remember to stay alert at all times okay?”

Ladybug pouted her lips. “I guess we have to say goodbye.”

“Wait wait! Our tagline!”

“Right, right.” Ladybug counted them in so that they spoke at the same time. “Peace, love, and ladybugs!” They both fell into more laughter and Ladybug waved at the camera. “Until next time, everyone.”

Alya fiddled with her phone and stopped the recording. “Aaaaaaand, that’s a wrap.”

“Sweet,” Chat Noir replied. “Was that okay? You think they’ll like it?”

Alya shook her head and dismounted her phone from the tripod. “That could not have possibly gone more perfectly.”