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ashecampos · 1 year

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RADIO SILENCE

wandaxreader (relationship) yelenaxreader + natxreader (siblings)

reader uses they/them pronouns

Warnings - angst angst and a sprinkle of angst

another silly little one shot no one asked for. For this one I took inspiration from that one episode of b99 where Rosa is on duty at an active shooting. Pre warning I did write this at 4am, my body was running on nicotine and coffee so please forgive me if this is bad <3

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Wanda’s pov - 9am - Avengers Tower

🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫

I stare at the clock as it slowly but surely moves, both arms moving but never seeming to meet each other, I look back to the time it displays, a tired yawn escapes my body. The meeting has only been going on for 20 minutes. Thing is I wouldn’t have been this tired if Y/N wasn’t put on early morning patrol duty. It’s normally the younger avengers who get forced to patrol the streets of NewYork on the mornings as all they have to do is stop a few robbers or help some old grandmother across the busy streets and even if there happened to be an avengers level threat they had their radio to call for backup. It was supposed to be Peter on duty today. But the little pesky bug boy decided he would much rather see to his aunt and her boyfriends anniversary plans than do what he is being payed for. The rest of the young avengers are at school, on Y/N’s request of course.

“Hey Sabrina you listening?” Tony interrupts my train of thought, I look up and see him and a few other staring at me “yeah sorry” I say with a gentle smile as they carry on their meeting.

Where was I? Oh yes my partner. My stupid adorable partner. They being the trouper that they are told Peter that they would happily take his shift on patrol, in which meaning them waking up at 4:30am, also meaning they woke me up as they being the clumsy person they are tripped over their own suit in their tired state, making suck a racket. Anyway that lead me to where we are now. Tired. Groggy and in a meeting. Thanks y/n.

After another half an hour of listening to absolutely everything. Sorry nothing of what Tony just rambled on about, Fury came rushing in with Maria. They looked broken. “Rogers, radio stat” Fury demanded as he pointed at the star spangled man. Steve being the perfect solider he is, he turned on and placed his radio on the desk for everyone to hear.

the small box crackles and squeals before a voice comes on “BREAKING NEWS!. I’m NewYork a shooting has occurred, all we know as yet is that the shooter is active and still on the scene. The shooting started at around 8am and is taking place at the american museum of natural history. The shooter is said to be armed with space tech. Anyone near the museum must evacuate and stay as far away as possible.” the radio then crackles and goes silent again. “and where is this museum?” Clint asks “upper west side” Bruce says without missing a beat. Looking around the room to see what the game plan is I see Nat’s face go sickeningly pale. “upper west side?” She asks, her voice cracking a little. I look at my future sister in law and it hits me. Yelena and Y/N. They both took their duty on upper west side an hour ago due to some reports of a commotion in some boring museum.

Fiddling with one of the radios, Clint manages to get connected to a police hotline, we can now hear if there is any updates on what shield agents are in the building. “Okay now agents of the shield facility I need anyone who is still standing to read their badge numbers” an officer says with a hint of boredom in his voice. Nat comes over to sit closer to me, everyone’s attention now glued to the tiny radio on the table. This meeting not being so boring anymore. “Agent104” some man says “agent233” another woman says, the list goes on for a few minutes until we hear a Russian accent, me and Nat lean forward in our chairs praying for either yelena or y/n or even just one of the twins. To everyone’s relief it was yelenas voice coming through “agents 443 and 444” she said. A big sigh is released as the twins are alive. But for how long? “We will be asking for hourly updates agents. If anyone is to come into contact with the shooter, do not touch the gun” the officer on the other end says with a hint of urgency.

Nat stands up first “we need to go help them” she pleas. “Negative, we stay here as ordered” Fury says as he leaves the room. Shaking her head Nat goes to the doorway and gets agitated “no Nick, both of my siblings are in there. You don’t tell me to follow orders” she snaps a little “Actually Romanoff, we need to stay here in case of an emergency, the avengers tower is open to the public who are in need of medical assistance.” Fury counteracts with his statement, he does have a point, however my partner and their sister are in that building. “we are to stay in this room and hope for the best. Understood?” He says his final warning before leaving the room.

Four long suffocating hours go by, none of us had left the meeting room. The radio went off every hour, agents would call their badge number into their radio, every hour there would be less and less calling their number. Meaning more and more casualties had occurred. Yelena and y/n hadn’t missed one calling yet. The team where getting bored by now, me and Nat pacing the room, everyone had enough. “That’s it. Both of you go to Y/N’s room and find something to keep yourself busy with. Now and stay there” Thor said, loudly and firmly, not taking no for an answer, me and Nat left the meeting room, making a quick entrance to Y/N’s room, their pink guitar laid on the bed from the previous night where they had sang to me, looking around nat sighed, she started to move stuff and clean.

An hour later there was a knock on the door, it opened as it was motion censored, Yelena stood in the doorway, swear covering her small face, Nat ran over to greet her younger sister, she engulfed her in a bone crushing hug. But where was the identical face that matched Yelena’s? “Lena oh my god never leave me again please” Nat says before looking back up, breaking the hug and going to move yelena aside to get to her other sibling, upon doing this she realised the worst. Y/n wasnt stood there with their arms open ready to be squeezed to death by their older sister. “Lena..where are they?” Nat asked urgently, praying that her sibling was just at med bay for another stupid reason as they always where. Yelena shrugged, her head lowered, eyes watery. “I-i don’t know Tasha, they told me to run ahead and that they would distract the bad guys and be right with me but when I got here they weren’t there” yelena sobbed, her words barely translatable. Nat guides us all to the bed, there was not one dry eye in the room as we all sobbed mourning the perfectly stupid person we all loved. To keep our minds off of whatever or wherever y/n had been, Nat told us to help her replace Y/N’s guitar strings as they hadn’t gotten around to doing it themselves.

An hour later, I give up “this is fucking useless Nat none of us know how to do this, we are just fucking it up the more we try.” I snap “the love of my life is out there in that stupid fucking museum and I don’t even know if they are dead or alive, I can’t feel them, I love them so much” I sob

“Jesus I mean I love you too but the crying..dramatic as fuck cara mia” I hear a voice behind me say, the voice is raspy and low. I look at Nat and yelena, they look shocked, I spin around and run to tackle the person. My person. “Oh my god Y/N”

#reader insert #x y/n #wanda maximoff #wanda maximov #avengers #comfort #the avengers #wanda mcu #hawkeye #natalie rushman #natasha romanov #depression #incorrect quotes #kate bishop #wanda x nat x reader #yelena belova #b99 imagine #b99 reference #b99 spoilers

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furbing-atrocities · 1 year

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Hi, I'm Leviathan

Im Leviathan, but u can call me Levi, or Lev, or honestly any variation of Leviathan! My pronouns r they/he/it, and I'm a libramasculine, ambiamorous, omnioriented demisexual grayromantic.

Tags: #tech stuff and #f: [furby name]

I drew the header, and I will *try* to update it every time I get a new furb! [<- very very behind]

My main blog is @ace-up-your-sleeve , my plushie blog is @beanie-buddy-boy , my alterhumanity blog is @fish-forcibly-removed-from-water, and my regression blog is @dreamy-puppy-xo

I'm a MINOR. Don't be weird.

secret draw box

DNI: TERFs, transmeds, racists, exclusionists or queerphobes of any kind, etc.

furby bios (w some pics) under the cut

Loup

he/they

non-working

gay (mlm) trans demiboy!

scene

an absolute angel

hyper from all of the monster he drinks

pinterest board

Ziggontorath (aka Ziggy)

he/they/xe/weird/eye

working w/ a voice glitch

xenogender user!!!

masc agender, dreameyegender, eyeclusterin, weirdcorian, and kidcorestalgic!

aroace and in a qpr w Fax Machine

pinterest board

Sistine Chapel

she/her

fully working

soft girl lesbian

likes art and sapphic poetry

shy and blush-y

once you get to know her tho, she is very goofy!!

pinterest board

Casimir

he/him

working but mute

loves flowers smmmm

loups bf

yes he gives loup flowers

bi af

uses <3 too much

pinterest board

TUP

Tremendous Unanimous Pickles

any pronouns

working + has a voice glitch!!!

once screamed bc i took her batteries out

even ppl who hate furbies think hes adorable

pinterest board

Kioko

she/her

works but gears r rlly loud (thanks Jetta 🙄)

very curious about everything

likes coloring and eating bugs

Tup is like an older brother

Ziggy and Piccolo are her dads <3

Flanagan Shithead

he/him

kinda looks like balls with a face and pubes

feral as fuck + will bite you

Cyborg Piccolo Fax Machine

he/him

untested and missing his batter cover :(

transmasc and in a qpr with Ziggy <3

physically disabled + had a prosthetic leg

dancing queen young and sweet only 17

major dad energy. need to get this man a hawaiian shirt stat

Nyx

she/her

fully working and goofy as all hell

soon to be customized <3

rlly bubbly and energetic

Allergic Reaction aka "Reo"

he/him

fully functioning

so pissy

like he is just so angry for no reason!!!!

Cheesecake

she/they

nonfunctional

butch lesbian

punk asf

doing your mom dating Sistine Chapel <3

raspberry swirl custom (based on the prototype)

Cough Syrup

he/she/they

unironically one of my favs tbh

her singing makes me rlly happy

i rlly like playing with their hair

he rocks french braids

Raul

he/they

shy lil fella

my gf got him for me for my bday <3

he has my fav voice of all my '98s

someone said that he and cough syrup kiss a lil sometimes in the comments of their intro post???

to me thats like saying 2 newborn babies are "dating" bc they r next to each other

Gilbert

he/him

gay and the colors of the mlm flag <3

literally just a little guy

gifted to me by someone in my server 🫶

Bubblegum

she/her

a 9/11 baby

a custom for my gf <3

Chevel Philodendron Silly Goose

he/she/they/it

"Choose Goose*

omnigay boygirl silly swag <333

had the biggest glow up ever

Pancake Robomachine

they/it

nonbinary silly :3

first complete reskinning ive done :3

named by my little cousin

Angel Dust/Anthony

he/him

gay

makes 7 sex jokes a minute

based on the Hazbin Hotel character

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syrena-of-the-lake · 11 months

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Tagged by @wingedflight, and tagging anyone who wants to play along!

8 Shows to Get to Know Me

Star Trek Voyager: my original found family fandom! I grew up wanting to be Janeway, and yes, dammit, there is coffee in that nebula. I love all the Treks, but this was *mine.*

Looney Tunes: I maintain that Bugs Bunny is a cornerstone of a classical education. And you can learn physics from Roadrunner cartoons. See? Educational!

Bullwinkle: Moose and Squirrel — the original himbo and the plucky sidekick — plus Boris and Natasha. What’s not to love? (Now you begin to understand my sense of humor.)

Castle: So much snark and banter, plus a sweet father/daughter relationship (with more snark and banter). Yup, on brand.

Siren: I only just discovered this but it is my new obsession. Feral mermaids? I’m all in.

Gargoyles: my middle school obsession. Magic, mystery, a Beauty-and-the-Beast type relationship, high-tech bad guys vs. solid stone… it was awesome. I made so many notebooks of new gargoyle characters.

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries: the sass! the found family! the UST YEARNING. My mom would have loved this show.

Gunsmoke: I grew up watching this with my dad and still do. Great writing, great characters, great stories. (And some silly episodes like the time Mary Florine’s brothers hid a prize bull and a still underneath the school, with predictable results, but that can be fun too.)

As soon as I post this, I know I will smack myself in the forehead and want to add more, so I will get a head start by adding honorable mention:

9. J.A.G. My first TV ship, and possibly the first time I stumbled across a fandom website. A revelation.

10. Everything Star Wars. No, I can’t pick just one! The first and forever fandom of my heart, I am living for the explosion of new content, but I will always love the original trilogy best.

#syrena’s obsessions are showing #one good meme deserves another

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ficbrish · 2 years

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Weekend Chapter 4

“Master(bation) & Cummander” [AO3]

Rating: Explicit, 18+ only

Tags: During Canon, Mass Effect 2, Post-Horizon (Mass Effect), Pre-Suicide Mission (Mass Effect), Biotic Shepard (Mass Effect), Colonist (Mass Effect), War Hero (Mass Effect), Sentinel (Mass Effect), Paragade (Mass Effect), POV Alternating, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Shameless Smut, Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Some Humor, Reunion Sex, Dom Kaidan Alenko, Light Dom/sub, Mutual Pining, Grief/Mourning, Misuse of Biotics, Rough Sex, Kissing, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, Masturbation, Shower Sex, Choking, Dorks in Love, I Will Go Down With This Ship

[Previous Chapter]

[Reading Guide]

Shepard was too busy watching Kaidan to help him clean up their breakfast. She spent so long drinking in that stupid picture, and here was the real living, breathing thing.

“Anybody ever tell you it’s rude to stare?”

“Can’t help it,” she said.

“Don’t want you to.”

“It’s settled then. Alenko, prepare to be gawked at.”

He continued cleaning, performing for her now he knew she was watching. Every gesture he made was slightly too big, every task a little too arduous; he even wiggled his butt at her a few times. It was a lame attempt at being playful, Kaidan knew, but Shepard laughed heartedly at every joke. She got up and kissed him.

“How can someone like you not have an audience for two years?”

“I teach now. Trust me, I have an audience,” he said, nervously glancing towards his shelf. That blinking yellow light was still there and still angry.

Shepard wrapped her arms around him and kissed him again.

“You can only look at me,” she said, blocking his view of anything else.

He happily gave in, “I mean if that’s the rules…”

“It is,” she said, looking silly and content.

He leaned in for more. Liara once told him that Asari transcended time and space with their companions during the bonding process. He was Human, and so was Shepard, but all they had to do to transcend time and space together was kiss.

“I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you,” he said, nuzzling his cheek against hers. It made Shepard so pleased it was numbing.

“They put a picture of you in my room when I was dead, and I stare at it.”

“What?!”

“What?”

“There’s just… there’s a lot to unpack there.”

“It’s pretty simple. I was dead. Super terrorists learned everything about me to resurrect me exactly as I was, you know, to fight the deep-space monsters threatening Humanity,” she explained, “And when they woke me up and plopped me on my rebuilt, high-tech, secret spy warship, they had a picture of you waiting for me up in my cabin.”

He just kept looking at her with that expression on his face.

“What?” Shepard shrugged.

He didn’t answer.

“That’s why I never reached out or responded to you,” Shepard admitted, “Or tried harder to find you. Supposedly it’s there to make me feel more at home, but I know it for the threat it really is. I know all his little tricks.”

He held on to her, amused by the way she squirmed in his arms as she made herself angry, then angrier.

She looked at him, that fury in her eyes.

“And Horizon," she continued, "You didn’t think that was suspicious? That maybe he used you being there, to lure me, to lure the Collectors?”

She was coming at him with a lot of new information fast.

“Wait, no,” she corrected herself, pacing out of his arms, “Because I came after the Collectors attacked! He just gave the Alliance the tip which sent you there—and your being there, with your connection to me, lured the Collectors. He used us, and he knew you were there the whole time. He lied to me. I asked, Kaidan, I swear. You were the first person I wanted to see.”

He was about to respond when she continued, “Those fucking bugs! They’re after me, Kaidan. They killed me, and they’ve been buzzing around following me since I’ve been back. They came to Horizon because of me, because of me and you. Then they tried to kill me again. Well, they’ve been trying to kill me this whole time…”

He got up too, about to respond again, when she continued again, “People are dead because—”

She stopped talking and her whole being screamed with reverberant blue light.

“Hey, no biotics in the bedroom.”

“That’s a boring rule,” she said still seething, but ceasing her glow.

He shrugged, “It’s an academy rule.” The amused tone of his voice was disarming.

“How old are your students?” Shepard asked, a little crazily considering the moment before. She thought it was cute, him teaching. She bet he was that hot teacher everyone was friends with and that everyone had crushes on.

“Youngest is 17, almost 18. And the oldest is 28,” Kaidan said before his voice caught in his throat. He shouldn’t be sharing any details, but talking with her made it so damn easy.

“It suits you.”

“Thanks, Shepard.”

“No, really,” she said. The admiration in her eyes touched him. If this was really a trap, it was perfect.

“Hold my hand while you talk to me, Shepard. I don’t get to touch you enough,” he said.

She blushed and reached out for his hand. He squeezed it when he took it in his.

“That’s better,” Kaidan said, and she smiled.

Then she had a curious sort of frown on her face.

“Well, I told you my side of it,” Shepard said, “What have you been up to?”

He scratched the back of his head anxiously.

“I told you I can’t really talk about that stuff.”

It was hard to hear him say it, but Shepard knew she had to give him time. She thought of how she’d feel if she hadn’t saved him in time back on Virmire, grieved him for two years, and then one day he just showed up in front of her, wearing Cerberus insignias, when the monsters were at everyone’s backdoor. She thought about that a lot. She drilled it into herself constantly since their encounter on Horizon. She still felt like he was being unfair, even though she could prove that he wasn’t.

“I don’t want to hear about that stuff. I want to know how you’ve been, what you’ve been up to.”

“There really hasn’t been much outside of work,” he admitted.

“Even so, you were experiencing your life that whole time. Unless you’ve been asleep like me.”

She had him there.

“So spill, Alenko!” She leapt in nicely. “Who did you get under to get over me?” She dismounted terribly. Her tone was playful, but her energy nervous.

He chuckled, a little embarrassed.

“No one. I’ve been a monk,” he admitted.

“Come on, Kaidan. You can tell me.”

“No one.”

“Not even that doctor you had drinks with?”

He kissed her forehead.

“I promise you, no one.”

Shepard looked at the floor. She wouldn’t have held it against him if he had, or she hoped she wouldn’t. But the sense of relief she felt when he said that was so vast. It told her how deeply she'd feared the answer to that question. It haunted her ever since the words ‘two years’ had tumbled out of Jacob’s mouth.

She wanted to say something but found herself kissing him fiercely instead.

“I wanted it to be that,” she heard herself saying, “I wanted it to be that so bad.”

Kaidan would’ve gladly given up the need to breathe if it meant lingering on her lips for even a second longer.

“I don’t want anyone else,” he said.

Kaidan felt her pulling them closer to the bed, her hands beginning to tug at his sweatpants.

“Let’s calm down, Shepard,” he suggested instead, “I want to be able to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to calm down,” she said, still kissing his neck.

“I know I’m irresistible, but you’re not gonna get fucked again until I say you can.”

She put her face into his chest and groaned, “No fair!” Then started doing that thing with her tongue on his sternum.

As hard as it was, he put an arm’s length of space between them, holding her away.

“Shepard,” he said sternly.

“Fiiiine!”

He sat down on the bed.

“Now come sit down next to me,” he told her.

She obeyed, but leaned back suggestively, sighing with feigned annoyance.

“Is your favorite color still blue?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

“Come on, Shepard. Talking to me isn’t that bad.”

“I like to talk to you. I also really like fu—”

She stopped at the look on his face.

“Okay,” she acquiesced.

Shepard looked down and played with her fingers. She looked back up and him and smiled.

“Hi, Kaidan."

He smiled too. It was the kind that lit up his eyes and made his whole being seem light.

“Hi, Shepard.”

“I talk to you a lot, you know. In my head. When I’m on missions—when I’m walking around… I don’t know. I just think about having you in front of me more than I should, and then you’re here and I have no idea what to say.”

“That’s a start,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her closer. She leaned an arm on his shoulder.

The feeling of being this close to him made her head empty.

“Touching is cheating,” she said, “Now I really can’t think of anything.”

“This isn’t a game, Shepard.”

“It’s not?”

“Not one with winners and losers, at least.”

“Sounds like a shit game.”

“That’s why it’s not a game,” he said. She kissed him, never wanting to stop.

“Tell me then, Commander,” she said, and then interrupted herself, “You know, I’ll never get over you reaching my rank.”

"Didn't just reach it, I passed it," Kaidan grinned cheekily.

“By that much!"

"Just you wait until I make Major before you do."

“Oh, please. That’ll be the day!”

“Just you wait, Shepard. Now what was it you were about to ask me?”

“Oh, right! What’s different about you now? You don’t have to tell me what happened to make it different, I just want to know what’s changed.”

It was a loaded question to say the least.

“Not the important things.”

“Okay, then tell me the little things.”

Kaidan smiled and said, “Peanut butter.”

“Peanut butter?”

“Peanut butter,” he nodded.

“Huh.”

“Yeah. I thought I didn’t like it anymore—it was too sweet—maybe I didn’t like it anymore because I was getting older, a real adult in my 30s. You know? But then, right around the time before I saw you again, I decided to make a PB&J, and now I’m obsessed,” he laughed a little, “It’s not just sandwiches, Shepard. It’s everything. If it has peanut butter on it, I’m there. I’m right there,” he said, “You ever put it on toast with little slices of banana on it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, you’d know, Shepard. You’d know.”

She laughed and wished peanut butter was the only thing that had changed about him. Two years stood between them. That was just a fact. Two years where she was dead and he was alive. His heart was harder now, and so was hers, no matter how much they melted when the other was around. His new eyes held scars, and she hadn’t been around for whatever changed them. His whole being was more sure, but more careful too. Deep grief had landed on his shoulders, and turmoil could be sensed at his fingertips.

Shepard moved to sit on his lap and hugged him. She could feel the weight of his new self sitting in his energy. His face was like a magnet her lips were bound to, and she kissed every part of it.

“Oh yeah,” he eventually said, realizing something, “You don’t have any other clothes.”

“That’s not a problem, is it?”

“A wonderful idea, but it can’t be comfortable.”

He detached himself from Shepard and walked over to his dresser. He pulled out a shirt, some socks, and a pair of boxer-briefs.

“It’s all clean,” he assured her.

“We can change that,” she said, seductively shrugging her shoulders out of his robe. It fell around her, leaving her bare.

He threw the socks and boxers on the bed and came over to her with the shirt.

“Arms up,” he said. She pouted and obliged, and he threw it carefully over her. She swam in it.

“Do the rest,” Shepard demanded, shifting her hips forward.

Kaidan dropped to his knees at the foot of the bed in front of her. He took one of her feet in his hands and kissed the sole of it. Then he gave it a little massage.

She threw her head back with a contented groan and sighed, “Oh.” She had no idea how much they ached until he tended to them.

He stopped to kiss and suck one of her toes, then fit a sock over it. Kaidan repeated the same thing with her other foot, kissing along the inside of her calf before putting it down.

Shepard’s gaze followed him lazily as he reached for the boxers. Her anticipation felt cold and bright like sunshine on fresh snow.

He held out the stretched openings to her, and she fit her socked feet inside. Gradually, he moved his black boxer-briefs up her rosy-amber legs, kissing the bare, shivering skin between them.

Eventually he reached the tops of her thighs. He looped his hands through the leg-holes, and when he adjusted the boxers on her, caressed the butter-thick muscles of her round ass so that she sat in his palms. Kaidan lingered there, his face so close to the front of her pelvis that she could feel his breath as he inhaled deeply and sighed with intoxication. It made the material over her skin feel warm and damp.

“Kaidan…” she moaned, running her fingernails through his hair, and trapping his head with her thighs.

He felt her in his hands, squeezing and pulling on her cheeks. He dragged one finger lightly along her slit; it came away wet. He moaned and his breath was a hot tease against her sensitivity.

Kaidan pulled his hands out and moved them up to the small of her waist. He made a circular motion with his nose and lips over his boxers that she wore stretched tight against her. When she began to twitch, unsated, he scraped his teeth over the cloth along her labia and nibbled a little.

Then he rejoined her on the bed as if the moment before never happened, and sat there leaving her to squirm.

“There,” he said, “You’re dressed now.”

He loved seeing her on his bed, draped in his clothing and mesmerized. The dark grey shirt fit her like a blanket, and almost hid the black boxer-briefs embracing her bottom and thighs. His socks were a dark grey like the shirt, and they lingered up to her mid-calf. He would give up anything to have this sight every day—If it didn’t affect anyone else. The problem was always that the two of them were bigger than just themselves, the price of success.

“Why do I love how frustrating you are?” she asked.

There was that word again, but he knew it didn’t mean what he wanted it to.

“Because you like wanting me,” Kaidan answered.

“I’ll never stop, and you’ll make sure of it.”

“Oh, it’s a promise.”

Shepard’s smile was contagious.

“How’ve you been getting along without me?”

“Playing a lot of tug-o-war,” he said.

“Tug-o-war?”

He gestured.

“Oooh,” she realized. Then, innocently brushing over the innuendo, asked, “Don’t you need at least two to play that?”

“It’s always two people in my mind, Shepard.”

“Really? You and who else?”

“You.”

The feral longing in his eyes would have been terrifying on anyone else. On him, the expression was a blessing. It mirrored the base, needful desire she had for him. Shepard wanted to sink into this moment and never come up for air.

Reality felt tight, all her senses sitting on her nose, as she asked, “Would you wanna maybe… describe those thoughts?”

To a potential Cerberus spy? Not in a billion years!

Kaidan looked Shepard directly in her periwinkle blue eyes. All he could see was her, his Shepard. There was something new in them too, something dark that he couldn’t even begin to imagine. And then there were so many other things! There was a delighted joy, a feral thirst, and abandon. And it was all her.

“One thing I thought about a lot was your eyes, Shepard,” he admitted with a little shame.

“My eyes?”

“Yeah,” he said, “Not just a still picture, but sort of a compilation of different memories. The way you’d look at me in different situations, remembering you and the way you made me feel.”

Shepard laughed.

“Hey,” Kaidan said, “no laughing.”

“I’m not,” she said, in stiches.

“You are,” he said, beginning to laugh too.

She fought to catch her breath, and he laughed with her as she did.

“I’m not laughing at you, Kaidan,” she admitted between gasps, “I’m just so happy.”

He kissed her with fervor and held her so tight it stung a little. She returned it with a matched ferocity.

“Get me out of these fucking clothes,” she told him when they finally tore apart.

“Not after all my hard work, Shepard,” he said, then pushed her off him for emphasis. “You can take off your clothes when I say you can.”

Giant, throbbing, Reaper, space dicks! She loved this man!

Shepard glared at him. He didn’t flinch, and even seemed to enjoy it.

“That right there, that’s one of those looks I was talking about.”

“Like I want to rip you in half?” she asked.

“More like you want me to rip you in half and you’re a little mad at yourself for it. That frustration in your eyes is… Chef’s kiss! Magnifique.”

His joking tone faded as he grabbed her knees and fondled them, stroking lightly underneath and along the backs of her lower thighs.

“You’re powerful, Shepard, and when you look at me like that, you give that power to me,” Kaidan said. He kissed the top of her shins.

“It’s not just that, he said, “It’s the way you’d look back at me during a battle, either to see if I was okay, or with a kind of feverish glee. And then there’s the way you’d look at me back on the ship, either flirting or arguing with me—”

“Sometimes both.”

“Most of the time, both,” he said, a smile in his voice.

“But most of all I think about your eyes the night before Illos. Every part of it; from when you stole your own ship from the Alliance, to when you took me in your bed, especially then, and even after when you didn’t flinch as you almost killed us all authorizing Joker to make that landing. You’re a force, Shepard, and you burn through me, and you’re all I need.”

He was all she needed too, but the words were stuck.

He continued, “I remember the look in your eyes before and after you kissed me that first time. I was so afraid to take what I wanted. So afraid, Shepard, I was terrified.”

“What were you so afraid of?”

“Consequences. Of what could happen to you, to both of us, if I wasn’t strong enough to hold back just one of those times.”

“But I didn’t want you to hold back.”

“I know, that’s why it was up to me. I had to be the one strong enough for the both of us.”

“You don’t have to take care of me, Kaidan. I can do it myself.”

“I know you can. You’re just pretty bad at it. Don’t get me wrong, Shepard. You can survive anything, even death apparently. It’s just living you have a hard time with. You need people to look after you. There’s no shame in that. We all do.”

Her eyes went heavy and sad.

“Did anyone look after you when I was gone?” she asked, full of concern.

“They did,” he said, “For a while it was the old crew, and for a longer while, my parents. After that first year, I reconnected with some of my old friends in the Alliance, and then I had them too.”

Shepard sat up and threw her arms around him.

“I’m so happy to hear that,” she said, “I hate thinking of you being alone.”

“I was never alone. It’s like you said earlier, I talked to you all the time in my head. Hell, even on Horizon I could see you standing there in my mind’s eye, watching me walk away from you.”

“Let me guess, she wasn’t happy.”

“She was not,” he said, “And neither was I.”

“Yeah, well, it didn’t leave me in the best shape either,” she admitted.

“I’m so sorry, Shepard,” he said genuinely, then more lightly, “I didn’t handle it well when you rose from the grave and came at me with ‘hey buddy!’”

She laughed.

“I guess I didn’t handle it very well either.”

He laughed too and said, “You did not.”

“Speaking of handling things…”

“Uh oh, here it comes.”

“What if you told me about something more specific, and I… watched you handle it?”

Kaidan could tell she was embarrassed but couldn’t understand why. It was really amusing the way she blushed and couldn’t look at him.

“I have a better idea,” he said, “What if I told you something more specific and I watched you handle it?”

If Shepard was a tomato before, she was a beet now.

She took a while to answer, and Kaidan would’ve helped her out if he wasn’t enjoying it so much.

When she answered, she did so with a small voice that attempted seduction but was weighted with too much embarrassment, “I’ve never had anybody watch me do that before.”

It was so tempting to tease her, but he wouldn’t dare, not now.

“That’s okay, Shepard. We won’t,” he said.

She took his hand, bit her lip, and looked into his adoring eyes.

“I kind of want to show you though,” she said, pulse racing.

The tenderness in Kaidan’s eyes sharpened into want.

“Are you sure, Shepard?”

She nodded, then said, “Yes.”

“Then I want to see you exactly as you are on your own. No theatrics, nothing added for me.”

Watching the rate of his breathing change as Kaidan got more into it, and letting him see a part of her that no one else ever had, made her ache.

She scooted back towards the head of the bed and adjusted some pillows to sit up against. Time felt frozen, but they could see each other moving.

“Same for you,” she told him, “No embellishments, just exactly what you’d tell yourself.”

“It’s a deal,” he said awkwardly, his composure slipping.

Shepard was looking into his eyes, leaning up against his pillows with her hips slack. She was in his bed, in his clothes. This was really happening. And, oh my god, was he starting to sweat?

“What did you think about, Kaidan, when you were alone?” she asked, moving the boxers from her hips to her ankles.

“You,” he said.

“Be more specific.”

“I’ll get there, Shepard,” he promised. She moved her hand between her legs. He swallowed.

“I would think of you, how it felt to be around you and touch you.”

“I said detail,” she interrupted. Her fingers were still, but they hovered, promising.

“You also said no embellishments, Shepard. I’ll get there.”

“Continue,” she demanded. He came a bit closer to her, grinning devilishly. She leaned her head back against the pillow and closed her eyes. Kaidan thought she looked so vulnerable with her neck stretched back and exposed. An enthralling protective instinct rose in him at the sight.

“I wouldn’t be trying to think of you. Sometimes I was trying not to think of you. But then I’d close my eyes and you were there, and once you were there you wouldn’t go away,” he said, “It would start out less focused, just memories of the feel of you, cycling through different moments, and then one would eventually settle into my main focus.”

“Anything in particular, Alenko?” she asked, introducing her fingers to her folds with a deliberate stroke and a sigh.

He forgot how to breathe for a second.

Kaidan was transfixed by the trail her finger left on her skin, at the way it glistened in the light. His eyes glowed furiously blue like a sky smacked by the sun.

“As I said in the letter, I think a lot about that night before Illos.”

“I think about that too much," she sighed, "Tell me another one.”

Kaidan didn’t need to look at his hands to know they were shaking. Shepard kept her fingers stroking lightly and he watched her body respond.

He cleared his throat, “Okay. Another one I think about a lot, and please tell me if this isn’t want you want, but it’s something I never told you about. From when I was starting to really like you.”

“With me and you?”

“Sort of.”

“Go on.”

“A moment we had and the fantasy it inspired,” he admitted.

“Oh, I like that,” she said. He could see that she did. She'd begun to move her fingers together in a circular motion, her whole area so slippery that they struggled to keep purchase. He observed her hips twitch, and the way she put one of her knees up. Her torso was tense, but her shoulders remained relaxed.

“It was after Feros," Kaidan said, "Not the night we got back, but the morning after. I couldn’t sleep because I was obsessed—I was worried about what the Cipher had done to you, and I was also in awe with how you managed to save almost everyone. I’ve heard the stories, but Commander Shepard in person is a whole other thing. And you did it like it was easy. You were in control the whole time, assuring everyone not to give up, but I could see every emotion play out on your face. Almost imperceptibly, but it was there. I knew you just that little bit more than other people, so I saw it, but... I wanted to know a lot more. Like... obsessed. I had to know you better than I already did. Just kept thinking about you over and over. And I didn't know why. I couldn't just let that go."

“I got out of my pod and was wondering around restlessly," he continued, "I kept thinking about you and that door to your room. The SR-1 was huge, but it felt small, you know? No matter where I stepped, it felt like you were right there, just over the other side of that damn door. I probably looked a little crazy, but what happened down on Feros was so harrowing everyone just left me alone. So I was walking around, all full of fury without really being angry—I mean, I almost woke up Dr. Chakwas, I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Every nerve of mine was flaring, and I felt hot. I stopped walking and I was right in front of your door, not directly, but as close as I could without looking more suspicious than I already was. Frankly, it was a little creepy.”

His story still hadn’t hit the notes she wanted it to yet, but the steady hum of his voice was enough for now.

“I couldn’t help myself,” he continued, “I was just standing there and I couldn’t move. I could only think of you being on the other side. Were you awake and pacing like I was? Were you asleep? Did you wear anything, or were you just blanket, skin, and heat? Then I realized I was in front of your door because I was desperate to touch you. And at that moment, or some moments after, I don’t know how long I was standing there, you opened the door.”

“I remember that,” Shepard said breathlessly. The circular motions she made with her hands gradually increased in speed.

“I was so thankful the lights were dim because you were standing in front of me and I was so hard I could feel myself throbbing under my zipper.”

Shepard let out a short, low moan.

“I wish I could have seen it,” she said.

“Trust me, I wanted you to.”

“Keep going,” she said.

“Right. You were standing there about three feet away from the most massive erection I could remember having since puberty. I could see you still hadn’t slept or even settled down. Everyone else was in ‘just before dawn’, and you were still in ‘last night’ with me. You asked me what I was doing there just by saying my name.”

“Kaidan?”

“Like that,” he panted, almost a whine with his throat so tight. He groaned and felt his knees weaken at the sound of his memory actualized.

“You were confused," he went on in his regular voice, "But you had something else in your tone too. Where there should have been anger or a sense of intrusion, there was just delighted surprise. It was like I had stood there because you summoned me, and you’d stepped outside to claim me. I was equally ready to drop down and worship you as I was to take you right there against the wall.”

“You didn’t do either of those things, Kaidan. You just stood there.”

“I did.”

“I wanted to drag you back into my room so bad.”

“So did I.”

“You walked away.”

“I had to, for both of us.”

“You could have come inside and fucked me until I screamed and lost my job.”

“I know.”

He watched her twitch a little more, then shift her weight and put her knee back down. Her hands went just a little bit faster.

“I did more than walk away, Shepard. You had me, a 32-year-old man, rush to the bathroom just so I could fuck myself. I walked as discreetly as I could with that thing in my pants, my hands were even clumsy as I locked myself in. I didn’t even get my pants fully down!" He had to laugh at himself, even now, "I swear I almost tore it off thinking about what would have happened if I followed you back through that door.”

He chuckled a little more, then admitted genuinely, “Shepard, I came harder than I have with some partners and afterwards I still felt no relief. It wasn’t what I needed, I needed to fuck you. That’s what I think about sometimes. I think about you making me feel that way, and everything that would have happened on the other side of that door.”

“Tell me,” she said.

“You’d have invited me in, and immediately saw me, you know, as hard as I was. You’d either laugh and make fun of me a little or chastise me. I don’t know what I’d like better. And you’d have that smile on your face before I,” he paused a little, “pushed you against the wall, hard, and grabbed your hair. You’d touch me, reaching around behind you,” and then he sighed a little, “and then I would’ve groaned in your ear as a bit the back of your neck, and put myself inside you.”

He stopped for a second, not used to saying those things out loud. He saw Shepard enjoying herself, committed to the illusion of being alone, and remembered exactly what it was she was sharing with him right now.

He continued, “But that still wouldn’t be enough. I would put my fingers in you too, feeling myself move in you and feeling the way you felt me.” He swallowed, “I would have fucked you hard while you called out my name and told me you belonged only to me. I would make you cum until you were drunk with it, and I would still keep going and going because nothing would take away the need, it would just get worse and worse.”

It took him everything not to just take her like that now. She looked like an overripe peach between her legs. His dick would clamp into it like teeth and her juices would run all over him and down his thighs. And it was begging for him to do so, shouting in swell, until it started to pulse. Then Shepard’s whole body shook as though evil ran through it.

She called out his name as she rode it out. She reached out to him with her free hand, and he took it. Her eyes were shut tight until she was through it. When she opened them, she could see that Kaidan was very, very aroused. He even seemed to shake.

“I want to make it come true,” she said.

He kissed her and helped her sit up, which was a little challenging with her pants around her ankles, and his grace faltered in lieu of want. He stood with her legs wrapped around his waist, and carried her over to the door.

“Hop off, Shepard. I’ll go on the other side.”

“You’re leaving?” she asked.

“It’ll just be for a second,” he reassured her, then quickly kissed her forehead before stepping into his office.

When she felt herself genuinely miss him once he was out of sight, Shepard knew leaving would be…

“Now open the door,” he called out excitedly through the door.

She opened it. This time, his massive erection was in full view in the bright light of his office.

“Kaidan?”

There it was again, exactly like she'd asked back then.

He gobbled her up.

“I’m sorry, Shepard. I’m so sick of waiting,” he admitted as he devoured her. She didn’t care. She was glowing, literally.

Shepard stumbled with him back into the room. They almost tripped on each other’s feet as he guided her further backwards, glued to each other.

A sharp, vocal breath escaped her as her back hit the wall hard.

“Sorry, Shep—”

“Mmm, stop apologizing and fuck me,” she told him, biting his lip and holding his head between her hands.

Kaidan spun her around and slammed her into the wall facing it. Her entire being was tingling.

“I said no biotics in the bedroom,” he commanded just behind her ear. His lips lightly brushed her lobe as he spoke, and he held her hair in a tight fist against the back of her head.

“Stupid, boring Alliance rules. Don’t you just want to break them?”

His hands traveled from her lower back down into her pants, where she slid herself onto his fingers. They felt different from this morning, and the almost-vibrating sensation she felt intensified until—

“O-Oh…” Shepard said, her voice losing its grip and diving. Her knees began to buckle, and her legs began to shake. She would’ve fallen over, but he held her pressed solidly into the steel wall. His fingers were actually vibrating. Maybe not physically, but with quick pulses of constant energy that melded and mutated with her own. The feeling travelled through every nerve of hers until it coalesced into something in her head that was like the birth of a star.

“Didn’t you miss this?” he asked.

“I did,” she spoke, shuddering.

“Don’t tell me I don’t ever break the rules,” he instructed, and spun her around to face him again. He lifted her higher up against the wall, and she wrapped her legs around his waist in a vice grip.

“You don’t ever break the rules,” she mocked.

He took both of her wrists in one hand and pined them just above her head.

“You can get fucked,” he said, while Shepard moved his sweats down his legs with her feet.

“Plea—ah!”

He thrust into her, moaning indulgently into her neck. It slipped in so easily that he immediately hit the back.

It was almost unfair the way he made her climax with such little climb. A few thrusts and she felt herself tighten and pulse while he still held his composure. Kaidan relentlessly pounded her, and bigger waves came to mock the one before as it died.

“I wanna bend you over my desk, Shepard,” he eventually said.

“Okay,” she agreed, bodiless and lightheaded.

Kaidan pulled out to carry her into his office. She liked the way his erection bounced against her ass with every step. She ran her hands through his hair and looked at him tenderly as he walked. His forearms felt so solid under her thighs, and she couldn’t wait for him to be back inside her.

A whoosh of blue light cleared the surface, and she was flat against Kaidan's desk looking up at him.

He bent over her, wrapping a hand around her neck as he fondled her breasts under that baggy, grey shirt of his with the other.

“Is this everything you thought of?” she asked.

“It’s so much better,” he said. Then he commanded her to turn around.

She obeyed, and he pulled her hips closer.

“Stand up,” he told her, and she did as he said. She stood still in front of the desk, curiosity peaked.

He grabbed her throat from behind and kissed along her back. Shepard moaned and felt her knees falter. Then he took his hand away and bent her over his desk with sudden force.

“I need it,” she said.

This time, he obeyed.

The desk rocked under them. The room glowed conspicuously blue.

“Make me lose my job,” he said and slapped her ass hard. She made otherworldly noises and begged for more.

He angled himself deeper, placing his foot on the desk for leverage. Shepard was overwhelmed as he absolutely destroyed the back of her walls. It was like he was sucking out her soul—a massive storm worked through her body, ebbing and flowing with crash after crash.

As it finally ceased, she said, “Get on this desk with me.”

They both crawled fully onto the desk, and Shepard moved on top of him.

Kaidan was thrilled. The image of her bouncing on top of him in his office, that desolate place where he overburdened himself with tasks just to stop thinking of her, mended his heart. Her hair fell messily into her face with every impact. He lifted that shirt of his off her chest and tucked it behind her neck. Her breasts danced wildly.

Shepard felt like he was completely, helplessly under her control until he asked, “Do you want me to do the thing?”

Fuck control! “Yes, please!”

The feeling started in her spine and swirled at the base of her skull. Together, they made the room bright. His dick worked the same magic his fingers had, pulsating with an energy that resonated in hers. If before felt like the birth of a star, this felt like the creation of an entire cluster.

They both shouted as the pleasure possessed them. Their bodies trembled together, and the sharp sensation of each other narrowed into haze. When the final feelings whispered away, Shepard dismounted and rolled over to lay beside him.

They both looked up at the ceiling.

“Holy cow!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah,” Shepard agreed, catching her breath too.

“Shepard, I—” Kaidan began as he tried to sit up. But he tumbled off the desk and hit the floor like a sack.

“Oh my god! Kaidan, are you okay?” she asked, peering over the edge.

He answered by laughing heartily.

Shepard ineffectively reached a hand down to help as she got caught up in his fit. He didn’t even try to reach up for it, his eyes were shut tight with the hilarity arresting his ribs.

The room was no longer blue but filled with something else instead. It rang with their hysteric relief.

[Next Chapter]

[All Chapters]

#shenko #smut #estrella shepard #Kaidan Alenko #Mass Effect #mass effect 2 #full fic #fshenko #kaidan x shepard #Shepard x Kaidan #weekend fic #BrishFics

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hibiscusangel15 · 3 years

Text

Rumors

Day 22 Prompt: there’s been talk about us

Summary: Rumors chased after Ichigo and Rukia their entire lives. People liked to gossip about their appearances. About their statuses. It was always the trivial matters that rubbed others the wrong way.

And then came the rumors about the nature of their relationship. For Day 22 of @ichirukimonth 2021.

Rating: Gen/K

*Also crossposted to AO3 and FFN!

If you like my fic, please consider buying me a coffee!

We fear that which we cannot see.

“Hey, have you heard?”

“That Kurosaki kid—”

“Yes, that Kuchiki girl—”

“No way! A delinquent joining our class?”

“Of course that untalented recruit is a noble. It’s the Kuchiki influence. I thought so, too!”

Rumors chased after Ichigo and Rukia their entire lives. People liked to gossip about their appearances. About their statuses. It was always the trivial matters that rubbed others the wrong way.

And then came the rumors about the nature of their relationship. A bit surprising, to be sure, but not altogether unexpected, given how petty gossip hounds could be. Just another bored rumor passed along the mill that would eventually be forgotten and replaced with something new.

They both denied it as firmly as they could. It never satiated others’ nosy appetites for long.

All those rumors fell away when she was whisked back to Soul Society. They were the last thing on his mind when he and the others fought to rescue her. He’d forgotten about them completely until she and the other Shinigami showed up during the next semester, unannounced, and the rumors started up again.

It didn’t help that she was living with him now, either.

“What’s the deal with you and Rukia-chan anyway?” Isshin asked while helping his son with the dishes. The girls were having fun getting to know each other upstairs, so he figured he’d step in.

Ichigo threw him a peeved side-glance. “What do you mean? She already told you she has no money or relatives here to help her.”

“So you volunteered to take her in without a second thought, huh?”

“You expect me to let her fend for herself?” The defensive edge in his voice made Isshin pause.

He smiled as he took a dish from the rack to dry. “No, of course not. You’ve always been the type to stick your neck out for someone in need. Why do you think your mom and I named you Ichigo?”

Ichigo said nothing, just continued washing dishes. If one good thing could be said about his punk of a son, it was the fact that he never flaunted his inner strength.

“You’ve never really had many friends growing up. For the longest time, the only friend you had was Tatsuki-chan and then Chad. Everyone else was too scared to try and talk to you. So I’m glad you’re putting yourself out there this year and making a bunch of new friends, Ichigo.”

His son’s face softened.

“That being said, you never answered my question, my son.” Isshin’s eyes sparkled with a single-minded pursuit. “Could it be you don’t trust me enough to tell me the truth? Or is it that you're too shy?”

That all-too-familiar scowl returned to Ichigo’s face. “What the hell’re you talking about, Dad?”

“There you go, dodging the question again! I’m talking about Rukia-chan! Is she, y’know, your girlfriend?”

“My...girlfriend?” A dish slipped from Ichigo's grasp and shattered into pieces.

“Aw crap!” he swore, stooping to the floor. “Sorry, Dad!”

Before he could reach for the largest piece, Isshin gently pushed his son's hands away. “Let me handle this, Ichigo. I don’t want you hurting yourself. Go get the trash can.”

“Dad, it’s no trouble. I can get it.”

Isshin paused. “To be honest with you, son, my joints ain’t as spry as they used to be. I probably can’t get up right now even if I wanted to.”

“Oh, what? You’re such an old man,” Ichigo said as he pushed himself up.

At that moment, Isshin slipped a small pill into his mouth. Urahara’s gigai tech might have been impressive when he was first gifted the thing, but damn was it getting more and more unresponsive as he got older.

After Ichigo cleared the shards away, Isshin let his son finish washing the dishes. It was the easiest way to trap him there, at any rate.

“Anyway,” he began again, “what is Rukia-chan to you?”

His son hesitated, brown eyes darting around as if he could pull some bullshit excuse from the murky dishwater.

He covered it up with yet another scowl. “We’re just friends. Sorry to disappoint you and Yuzu.”

“Aw, c’mon, Ichigo! Your sister and I are just curious!”

“You guys are way too keen about my nonexistent love life. Why don’t you two get lives of your own?”

“You kids might not understand this since you’re so young, but when you become a parent, your life revolves around your kids! That means your life is my life, too!” Isshin clenched his fist. “So c’mon, Ichigo! Tell me everything! Don’t be shy!”

“I’m not being shy. Quit bugging me.”

“Oh?” Isshin’s eyes gleamed. “Only a truly shy man would be so cold! Come now, my son! Confess your deepest, darkest secrets to your father!”

As soon as he tried to embrace his son, all turned black as his face rammed right into Ichigo’s elbow.

* * *

The girls upstairs heard a loud crash and Ichigo’s infuriated cursing.

Karin frowned at the floor. “There they go again. God, it’s so exhausting living with them. Sorry, you’re just going to have to deal with them for the time being.”

Rukia slapped on an innocent smile. “Oh, I don’t mind! I think a lively household is kind of fun!”

Another crash thundered through the house as the two men continued brawling away. Karin sighed. “Fun, huh?”

“I just hope they remember to clean up after themselves! I’d hate to clean the kitchen again when I already did it last weekend!” Yuzu said.

Rukia had heard their muffled fighting before when she hid in Ichigo’s closet. To actually bear witness to the Kurosaki family’s antics was another matter entirely. Compared to the piercing silence of the Kuchiki household, this was a much more comforting change of pace.

“Now don’t take this the wrong way, Rukia-chan.” Yuzu fidgeted on her bed . “But…um….”

Karin tilted her head back with a loud sigh. “She wants to know if you and our stupid brother are dating.”

“Karin!” Yuzu shouted, scandalized.

“It’s what you wanted to ask her since she arrived, right?”

“Dating?” Rukia repeated. “No, we’re just friends!”

“Just friends, huh?” Karin muttered.

“Yes, of course.”

“So you say.”

“Karin!”

“I’m just saying it’d be way more interesting if all this was some elaborate ruse for Ichigo to introduce his girlfriend to the family is all.” She flopped back onto her bed, letting her legs swing freely over the edge.

“That certainly would be more interesting, I suppose,” Rukia conceded. “Unfortunately, that’s not true. No offense to your brother, but he’s too honest to think of doing something like that.”

The three paused when Ichigo’s booming sneeze echoed up to them from downstairs.

Karin smirked. “Friend, girlfriend. It’s all the same to me, I guess.” She pointed a finger at Rukia. “You and I might get along swimmingly once you drop that nice-girl act and be yourself, though.”

Rukia blinked. And here she thought her human girl schtick would work here, too.

The smile that crossed her lips was softer, more natural this time. “You and your brother have the same instincts, I see.”

“I’d say I’m better at reading people than he is. He’s a big dope.” Karin waved dismissively.

Yuzu’s warm smile grew. “Whether you’re just friends with Ichi-nii or something more, I’m still glad to have you in our home, Rukia-chan! It’s nice to have more girls in the house for once!”

Rukia dipped her head. “I’m grateful that you’re letting me stay here without questioning my motives. I hope I won’t be a burden to any of you.”

“If you can keep my brother and my dad in line, you’d be more of a help than a hindrance,” Karin said. “Anyway, Yuzu tends to snore and fuss in her sleep, so I hope you can deal with that, too.”

Yuzu flushed and threw a pillow at her sister’s bed. “Karin! I don’t snore!”

Siblings showed the oddest resemblances to one another from time to time. Karin's teasing grin was so much like her brother's that it made Rukia smile in return. Ichigo then barged into the room and plunked himself on the edge of her bed to hang out with them. They all talked about their day and mocked each other in that special way only siblings could. It was warm and exasperatedly caring.

All those silly rumors that once passed around Karakura High about her and Ichigo dating would definitely escalate if anyone saw her living with him. It didn’t matter to her either way.

For once, she'd found a place where she didn’t have to worry about being judged. Rukia could dare to be happy. She dared to relax and laugh along with them. The Kurosaki family treated her like she belonged, and that was enough.

* * *

“Wait, they live together? Are you sure?”

“Of course! Kojima-san went to their house the other day to bring Kurosaki all the homework he missed, and he told me that Kuchiki-san was the one who answered the door! And she took it from him on his behalf! Like she was his girlfriend or something!”

“No way someone as pretty as her would be shacking up with a guy like that, right?”

“I don’t know. You remember how she climbed in through the third-story window and kicked him in the face and smacked him around? If anything, I feel sorry for Kurosaki.”

Now those rumors couldn’t be helped either. Rukia needed somewhere to stay, and like a little pest, she wormed her way into Ichigo's home and his everyday life. And with his month-long Vizard training going on, he wasn’t exactly around to put a stop to them.

The rumors really started to get out of hand once Ichigo, his friends, and all those weird kids who joined in the middle of the semester disappeared at the same time. No one knew where they went, or if they were even alive.

Some theorized that they had all dropped out to form a street gang. Others proposed the idea that Kurosaki and Kuchiki-san had eloped and invited all their friends to the wedding. All of which were extremely ridiculous, but who was to prove them wrong? Certainly not the subjects of the rumors themselves.

Oddly enough, both Asano and Kojima were the first to dismiss any rumors they heard. They seemed less enthusiastic about it, like their friend’s love life was no longer a fun puzzle to work out. They hung a lot more around Arisawa, who was equally morose and exhausted with it all.

Of course, this only fueled the wild rumors further. Perhaps they were bummed out that they weren’t included in whatever escapades Kurosaki and his other friends got involved with.

Then Kurosaki returned. Without any of those weird friends of his. Without that odd Kuchiki girl by his side.

Kurosaki Ichigo became a recluse, even among those he once called friends.

Perhaps they’d broken up. Maybe she had to move away.

The mystique of their relationship died down pretty quickly after that.

It was not until May of their final year of high school did rumors about Kuchiki Rukia returning circulate around the school. Someone claimed to have seen her hanging around Karakura again. With how eagerly Kurosaki cancelled the rest of his sports team contracts to leave school earlier, it seemed more and more plausible.

Inoue Orihime’s own confirmation that the Kuchiki girl was indeed back only fueled the flames. Apparently, Kuchiki Rukia and all the new kids had to move far away all of a sudden. No, they weren’t all a weird family. No, she would not return to Karakura High.

As for the rumor covering Kuchiki Rukia and Kurosaki Ichigo’s relationship status, Inoue, Arisawa, and Kojima were all tight-lipped on the matter. Despite their best efforts, Asano Keigo was not all that great at keeping secrets, and it only took a bit of pressure for him to crack.

“No, they’re not dating! Can you believe that?” he’d screech at anyone who would listen. “I swear, I’ve tried so hard to hook them up, but nothing I do works! Tell me, what’s a guy gotta do to help his dumbass friend score, huh?”

* * *

Rukia was in the middle of writing up a report when Ichigo decided to show up for an impromptu visit. Admittedly, it was nice catching up with him, but it did wreck her entire work schedule for the day.

Well, perhaps wreck wasn’t the right word for it. She didn’t mind his company. She just normally finished up faster than this.

The odd look her brother threw her when she requested that they be left alone put her off. It did not help that she had flushed when Renji raised a tattooed eyebrow at her before he left, nor the fact that the servants hushed their giggles when Ichigo looked over his shoulder at them.

“Hey, is something going on around here?” he asked after catching the latest servant stifling a smile as she passed. “The servants have been whispering to each other all day.”

That’s because you decided to barge in so blatantly like you live here, you fool, she wanted to say.

Rukia shrugged affectedly. “People like to talk.”

About us, to be precise.

Ichigo scoffed. “People are always talking about me like I’m some kind of freak because of my hair. I’ve never cared all that much about gossip. It’s all bullshit anyway.”

She set her brush down on the inkstone. “I see. You too, huh?”

“Too?” he repeated, finally looking over at her.

“You heard Nii-sama explain why I was adopted into the Kuchiki clan, correct?” She took his silence as a yes. “The Kuchiki name is a prestigious one, but that notoriety does not come without its costs. The moment I was adopted, I was immediately placed in Squad Thirteen despite never having graduated from the Shinigami Academy. I was deemed a product of nepotism, and the other squad members hated me for it.”

Rukia shut her eyes. The memory of Kaien’s warmth flickered in the back of her mind. That would be a story for another day.

“It may seem ridiculous to you, how such a thing could hurt me.” Her smile did not reach her eyes.

He shook his head. “It’s not ridiculous, Rukia. What’s ridiculous is all the stuff people assumed about you. They don’t even know you.”

“No,” she said. “But even worthless rumors can start to take their toll once enough of them build up.”

“Oh yeah? Well, I’m gonna change that.”

Her smile fell. “How so?”

“We’re friends,” Ichigo said without any hesitation whatsoever. “So anyone who talks shit about you gets the business end of my sword.”

“A little extreme, don’t you think?”

Ichigo snorted but said nothing else.

To alleviate the tension brewing around him, she teased, “And what rumors about yourself have you heard lately? I’ve heard quite a lot. I’ve even been asked to confirm a few, on occasion.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

Rukia turned the various rumors over in her mind, struggling to find the best way to spin it. A joke perhaps? Could he laugh off something like this?

No, Ichigo would probably get embarrassed and storm off to find the cretin who started these unsavory rumors in the first place. She would assume such talk was unbefitting of those who served in the Thirteen Court Guard Squads, but apparently she was mistaken.

“Nothing much. Petty gossip.” She continued writing her report as if such matters didn’t concern her at all. “About you and I, mostly. What we are to each other.”

Ichigo scowled. “Not this again.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“It’s like people don’t have anything else to do with their lives. Stop trying to live vicariously through us already.”

Rukia paused. “Live vicariously?”

“Yeah, it’s like when people try to experience stuff through—”

“No, I know what it means. But what did you mean by that?”

The moment he met her eyes, she understood. There was a frantic, helpless gleam to them, but even so, he did not dare look away.

It was not a challenge, but more a question. It was a plea. His confession.

“Oh. I see.”

“Look, I wasn’t trying to…. I mean, it’s not…. This wasn’t the way that I wanted to….”

Ichigo put his head in his hands and took a deep breath. When he finally sat up straight again, he looked her right in the eye. “Rukia, do you want to go out with me?”

“Oh?” She leaned her head in a hand, the corner of her mouth tugging up. “Are you sure you want to prove those rumormongers right?”

He scowled. “This isn't about them! I told you, I don’t give a shit about what other people think. It wasn’t the rumors that made me like you.”

“What a bold thing to admit.” She covered her mouth in mock surprise.

“Ugh, shut up! It’s hard enough to say as it is.”

Rukia began to laugh. “You’re so strange, Ichigo. I like that about you, though.”

He tried and failed to hide how red his face had become. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not.” Her smile became more genuine then as she reached her hand out to his. “I am happy you asked. Although, I hope you know that it is uncouth of you to drop in on a woman unannounced. According to what I read about courting in the World of the Living, it is also customary to have a chaperone along with us on our dates.”

“Yeah, that’s been outdated for centuries now. What the hell kind of books are you even reading?” he scoffed.

“How rude! And here I was, excited to ask Nii-sama to accompany us for our first date!”

“What? Don’t bring Byakuya into this!”

Their silly bickering echoed all throughout the courtyard. Even still, they did not let go of the other's hand.

* * *

"Hey, have you heard?"

"That Substitute Shinigami and Lieutenant Kuchiki are dating?"

"Why is this news? Weren't they already a couple?"

"Ah, I see! So I was right all along."

Years and years of speculation, only to have the confession be far more mundane than they hoped.

The funny thing about rumors was, once they were confirmed, they lost their appeal extremely quickly.

Another rumor soon came to take its place.

"Kurosaki Ichigo is a noble? No way!"

"Sure, he looks a lot like Lieutenant Shiba, but isn't he just a human?"

"You sure he didn't just marry into the Kuchiki family?"

And so it goes. And so the rumors circled back once again.

If you can say that your heart doesn't change

Then that is strength.

No, nothing can change my world.

The only time a petty rumor is actually one hundred percent true lol. But I mean, it's not hard to disprove with the way they're always looking at each other.

I suppose this fic can kind of fit in the same AU as Home and Clearing Away the Rain. Maybe consider it a prequel of sorts, if you like!

Thanks for reading! Until next time!

#IRMonth2021 #Day 22: there's been talk about us #Ichiruki #OTP: Black Sun and White Moon #Kurosaki Ichigo #Kuchiki Rukia #Kurosaki Isshin #Kurosaki Karin #Kurosaki Yuzu #Bleach #my fanfiction

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moonawrites · 3 years

Note

Hello there! prompt : meeting the parents, thanks ♥

Orchid is Euphemia's favourite spot to get her nails done for several reasons. It has a light and airy interior that she enjoys when she's in the mood to relax and get pampered, they serve her favourite champagne, it's conveniently close to her London home, and the auburn haired nail tech she always requests is the most charming young woman she's ever met.

Lily is bright and funny and quick as a whip, and the first time Euphemia had met her 5 months ago, she immediately decided James had to meet her. She'd gone home excited, called her son, and insisted he come by for dinner after work.

Imagine her shock when her darling son flatly refused the second she'd said she found him the perfect girl! Well... okay, it wasn't much of a shock. James is generally a good son. He comes to dinner when she asks and calls her regularly and spoils her with gifts when she insists he doesn't have to. But he can be quite stubborn and refuses her any involvement in his love life. Which, sure, it's fair... she can't deny there have been some missteps on her part, even if her intentions have always been good. But this time is different. Lily is different, she's sure of it.

So she persisted. For months, she had tried to tell James about Lily, how gorgeous and brilliant she is, how well suited they are. But she never got far, always shut down before she got so much as her name out. Then three months ago, he'd dropped another bomb: James was seeing someone, and therefore he could not possibly agree to meet someone else right now. It would be improper and immoral, all the good things she herself had taught him.

James, unfortunately, has a good heart and a good head but quite poor taste in women. So Euphemia did the only sensible thing: she insisted he break up with his mysterious girlfriend and meet the girl she had in mind. It made sense, after all. She knows they're perfect for each other. Predictably, James refused.

Also predictably, he refuses to let Euphemia meet her too. Says she's always too much for the women he dates, but is bound to be worse when she's already biased against her.

Euphemia had toned it down, but not quite relented. An "I wish you'd bring this woman to dinner" here, a "you really won't even tell me her name?" there, and all she gets is an eye roll, occasionally a "you'll track her down with a first name and a city, I don't trust you" or "when the time is right, mum, please let it go." A much less polite "oh my god, kill me now" when she'd suggested one last time that he forget her all together and meet the darling from her spa. One day he'd slipped up and raved about what a talented artist she is, when he'd stopped by for tea after seeing her. He seemed completely enamoured, so finally, Euphemia decided it was time to let it go. Things would work out in due time for her son, there was nothing she could do to control this.

And last month, with a heavy heart, Euphemia had finally put the topic to bed completely, shut it out of her still secretly hopeful heart. James is romantic and impulsive, quite silly really, and so when he makes poor choices, as his mother, Euphemia feels justified in insisting he do better. But Lily... well, when Euphemia had once again suggested she meet her son (she stopped with James, who said she had to stop with Lily too?) she had not laughed it off like usual. She'd admitted that she had been seeing someone for a while, and liked him quite a lot. Lily she trusts to make good choices a bit more, and feels a little less responsible for, so Euphemia just sighed and decided it was time to give up for good.

"How's your mysterious boyfriend?" she asks the redhead now.

Lily's face instantly lights up as she works. "Good. He's good. I mean he's great, really." She glances up at the clock on the wall. "He's picking me up here for lunch, you're my last client today. Maybe you can meet him."

Hm. Euphemia has a meeting to attend to after this, had just barely squeezed it into her calendar, but she's quite curious. Perhaps she will stick around a tiny bit longer, just to see who Lily had chosen over her son. There's only a slight chance he's better than James, but she'd like to see for herself.

"Oh? That's sweet," she says with a smile. "Is he taking you somewhere nice?"

"He always does."

"That's good, a girl like you deserves it."

Lily laughs. "Please be nice to him if you meet him, I feel like you're scarier than my own mum."

"I will be if he deserves it."

And so they chat and Lily works on her nails like usual. Just when Lily's finished up and Euphemia is getting ready to go, the door opens and Lily's face lights up in a radiant smile. Ah, that must be her boyfriend.

Euphemia turns her head curiously to see, and her brows furrow in confusion. That's-

"James!" Lily says breathlessly, walking past Euphemia and right into his waiting arms.

"Hi love," he says, kissing her cheek. "Are you ready to-" and then he freezes, glancing over Lily's shoulder. His face goes a bit pale. "Mum?" Then it goes from panic to anger. "What are you doing here? Did you come to Lily's work to bug her about me? I told you to leave it alone. How did you even find her?" he says, all too quickly, the words tumbling from his mouth faster than his brain can think. "Lily, I'm so sorry, my mum is a lot but-"

Lily interrupts, looking completely lost. "Is... wait, Euphemia is your mother?"

Before he can answer, Euphemia interrupts, marching towards them. "Lily is your girlfriend!?"

James stares between them, completely stunned. "You know each other?"

Lily nods, and suddenly her eyes are dancing with mirth. "She's a regular client. You know the one I said is always asking me to meet her son, and I feel so bad for dating you because she's so nice?"

James stares at his mother in a daze. "Is Lily the girl you...?"

"Have been trying to set you up with for five months? Yes, darling. Keep up. How on earth did you land a girl like this all on your own?"

James narrows his eyes, looking mightily offended while Lily bursts out laughing. "Whose mother are you?"

edit: realized when i first pasted this from my notes app entire paragraphs from the beginning were missing? sorry about that!

#WELL i tried #thank you for the prompt!#jily #drabble #prompt #moona tries to write #my writing #jily fic #jily drabble #james potter #lily evans #euphemia potter

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chaniters · 3 years

Text

Intermission

Cyrus agrees to modify Riley's feelings, gets confronted by her, then remembers some of his worst moments at the farm and discovers Ortega's Epilepsy. All in the same evening. TW Suicidal thoughts. TW Motorbike accident. ------------------------ “Are you sure you want me to do this?” you ask, hoping he’ll change his mind.

The look in his eyes tells you he won’t take no for an answer on this.

“Please don’t get cold feet on me now Cyrus. You already told me you’d do it...”

“Yes, I did… Fine. I’ll do it. Whatever.” you shrug as he stops the bike.

The mansion is far from the city. A little spot of private heaven, paid for with taxpayer dollars by the look of it. The Carters have been in politics for long, and public officials are often very rich in Los Diablos’ corporate government.

You can’t help feeling out of place here. Every time you’ve been at a place like this, you were wearing a disguise, maybe a junior janitor, bellboy, or waiter. Always an extra layer of protection to keep people from looking at you.

But coming here in a hero suit, drawing everyone’s eyes?

That’s… something.

The door opens as you approach, with who you assume to be Riley walking outside, a wide smile on her face.

“Ric, so glad you stopped by...!”

“Sorry I didn’t call first, I was in the area and…-”

“And you wanted to apologize for what you said last time! It’s ok silly, I forgive you!

” she says, wrapping her arms around him and giving him an intense kiss that he doesn’t seem to be returning, not that it's stopping her, with her hand going lower and onto his butt.

“Rye, I just wanted to … Rye… Rye, I didn't come to apologize. I told you it's over… we need to talk...” he keeps trying to talk through the awkward kiss.

“I know you didn't mean it!" she laughs "Come on, say it! You missed me!”

“Rye… please cut it out...”

“Hmm.. now why would I do that…”

This is new. You’d have never expected to see Ortega look so helpless...

You imagine this would be what Anathema calls cringe.

She pauses as she opens her eyes, noticing you standing right there, staring at them. Her smile suddenly loses its intensity, looking just like something that’s splattered on her face.

“Oh. And you brought Sidestep.”

“Hello” you wave, trying to fit into the awkward moment, extending your hand.

“Hi. Riley Carter pleased to meet you” she replies, putting herself back together and letting Ricardo recover his breath. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“He’s my ride,” you point at Charge. He’s the culprit here, not you. Her mind is far too intense, and this is going to be hell…

“Like I said, Riley… I need to talk to you about something. Something important.” Ortega says, his voice more serious now.

Coward. Is that another reason he brought you, to rescue him? “Oh” Riley seems to have finally paid attention to what he was saying. “I’ll give you two some space,” you say, returning to the bike. Ortega looks alarmed by you leaving, but you have enough range that you don’t need to be right next to her to do it.

You lean on the motorbike, taking some chewing gum from your pocket as they start walking around the gardens, your mind following hers, and the conversation from her end. Ricardo tells her about the last events, how Psychopathor managed to assemble a tank in prison and blow the walls in his escape, the clash that happened afterward, and how some heroes and villains ended in the hospital. Or dead, like Darkfist, and Dr. Incredible who were vaporized in a plasma blast when the tank exploded. He then goes over the investigation that determined it was built using nano-construction techniques, and how the only portable device available for something like that was in the rangers HQ before it got stolen, without anyone knowing who told the thief it would be there. The trail ends with her... She stops him there, asking what does any of that has to do with her, asking him if he’s accusing her of something so ridiculous. Shouts at him that she didn’t know about any of it, and that’s when he decides to bring it out to show her. The bug that was placed in his communicator. The expensive, unique bug that was made to blend with his insulated tech. The bug that could only have been placed by someone really close to him… A pause in her mind. Hesitation…

She denies it. He insists. He tells her Steel had everyone’s hardware analyzed and only his costume was affected… and that there was only one person he had left the costume with.

That’s when she breaks. She tells him how she got tricked, how someone she met at a party told her he was cheating on her. How they told her where to get the bug… how to apply it… He yells at her, and you begin to feel like perhaps you shouldn’t be watching this, you shouldn’t be listening in…

But he wants to know, and you said you’d do it, so you stay hooked to her thoughts, like a parasite, feeling emotions you’ve never experienced herself. Guilt. Remorse. Shame.

She tells him she’s so sorry, that she didn’t mean for this to happen, that it’s all her fault… She starts crying, apologizing, asking him not to leave her…

Thinking she should kill herself.

The thought doesn’t get said out loud, but is so intrusive and enforced by so many negative memories that you have to block it out, pull out of her mind, run away, hide inside your own thoughts and lock down your shields so it doesn’t follow. You got the answer he wanted, so you can go back to feeling like the little guy chewing gum by the motorbike. But you’re crying too now. You’ve heard similar thoughts before, but not without the drug cocktails they gave you. Not without a team of specialists helping you scrub your mind of awful thoughts you took from people.

Your trainers told you plenty of times that humans get too emotional about their partners, and that you should stay clear of such thoughts. You should have listened. Now that you had a taste, you can tell they were right because It’s terrifying.

You open your eyes to see Ortega hugging her as she keeps weeping.

Blinking doesn’t make it go away.

Why? Wasn’t he angry at her a moment ago? You can’t understand it...

But you have to go in again.

You agreed to do this, and the answer was only half of it. You can’t walk back now…

Can’t help asking yourself again why did you agree to this...

Gathering all your strength, you focus and plunge deep into her thoughts once again.

It’s terrifying in there, like a building that’s falling apart, only held together by Ortega’s arms, or at least that’s what she thinks. She thought they would get married. She thought they would have children.

SHIT.

It’s getting to you, like a flood, and you’re drowning under it…

Is this love? Why can’t I be without him? Why does it hurt so much?

She doesn’t know, and you have no clue about these questions. “ Have you ever been in love?” She asks.

“No. I haven’t” you reply, because she’s right there. She can sense you now because you’re lost, and your training is useless here.

“But you have,” she says, pulling one of your own memories. One that you locked deep below, where it would never see the light of day. “You were in love and you made him go away.”

“ Stop. That’s not true! ” “ You loved him and you made him go away because you were afraid. And now you are going to make me go away because he is afraid. Afraid of me. ” This shouldn’t be happening. She shouldn’t be able to hurt you like this! But she isn’t… she’s just making you remember… You’re the one hurting yourself.

“ Oh my god, he’s such a coward … so you’re going to do it, no? ” she asks, bitter and relentless.

“ I told him I would,” you reply, elevating yourself above the flood that is her defense. Regaining control. Out of her grasp. “ Then do it,” she asks. “ Make me stop hurting .” Standing tall now, you can look down and see that the demons in her mind are many… Ortega is wrong. How is this going to help at all? “ DO IT, YOU FUCKING COWARD !” she dares you. “ DO IT !” The waters begin rising, trying to drown you again, but you’re ready this time, holding her back. burning deep, modified thoughts into her mind.

Turning her love to indifference. Annoyance to hatred. Breaking down her image of Ricardo to pieces, and scattering them through the waters, where they’ll never get put together again.

How far can you go?

Not much, you can sense an incoming migraine, a hard stop to your powers.

You keep going as much as you dare and then erase your own presence as well. Just like they trained you, replacing your thoughts with a tired rage aimed at the horrible boyfriend that made her cry.

You retreat for the second time, feeling your head hurting as never before. Your pain gate is no use, there’s no stopping it once it’s already inside the brain.

With a last effort, you awaken her, bringing her back to reality.

She stops weeping immediately, pushing him away, staring in shock.

What have you done?

You’re tearing up, as she looks at him with eyes that show no little recognition, before muttering a curse, telling him to get off her father’s property and going back inside, leaving him alone at the footsteps.

Why did you do this again?!

It made sense last time. You would have been discovered and reprogrammed. He wouldn’t stop having feelings for you. It was wrong.

So you reprogrammed him yourself because you couldn’t bear them doing that to him… NO!

No, you were just trying to save yourself. There’s nothing else to it.

Why did you do it again this time? Just because he asked? He’s not your handler! You know that.

Should have said no… why agree? You don’t have an answer.

His eyes are reddened as he gets closer, and by the look on his face that he’s equally shaken.

“Let’s go,” he says, without another word. You’re too weak to argue, and so you sit behind him, as he starts the engine, speeding you both away

________________________________________

The Carter mansion soon disappears in the distance, wind flowing heavily against your suit as Ricardo goes full throttle. Too fast to be able to talk normally, so you switch on your helmet’s intercom.

“We’re going really fast… are you ok?” “No I’m not ok” the reply comes a few seconds later. “Did you get anything?”

“I did,” you reply “Then hit me.” “As far as she knows, she didn’t lie, so they must have manipulated her into planting the bug..” He relaxes slightly as you say that, slowing down the bike. “That’s… good to hear,” he says at last.

“Did you really suspect her of being behind this?”

“Not her. Her father… he’s dirty and…” he sighs. “Mierda. That’s why it’s so hard to be in a relationship, you know? They’ll use anyone against you. They’ll do anything to get an advantage over you.” “She was still spying on you.” you point out. “And you still hugged her after she confessed.”

He doesn’t say anything else for a while, so you focus on the road ahead. It’s dark, and you can’t see much beyond the bike’s light. The city lights shine in the distance, but you still have above an hour to get there.

“Did you do it?” he asks in a shaky voice when you had started to think the rest of the journey would be silent.

“Yes. Yes, I did.” is all you can say.

“Thank you.” he lets out as if this had been a simple favor. Just some mind-trick, like making someone’s gun point the wrong way. Like finding out who’s looking at us…

“How was she?” he asks, not letting it go.

“What do you mean?”

“Her mind… how was it from the inside?”

“It was… I… You know I’m not a shrink, right?”

“Just tell me, Cyrus. Please” Shit.

“It was… bad. Like real bad.”

“How bad?”

You tighten your lips. That isn’t your memory...

“Cyrus, I'm only asking because I want to know if she’s going to hurt herself!”

“I did what you asked! I’m not a shrink, I just changed her feelings! She’ll stop trying to get together with you. That’s all I know!” you repeat, a lot louder this time. “Just answer the fucking question!” Deep breaths. “You don’t get it,” you complain, to no one in particular, because of course, he will never get it. Doesn’t he understand that you don’t want to think about this? It’s her thoughts, not yours, and you want it to stay that way!

“Tell me Cyrus, or we’re going to have a problem.” Your handler’s words coming from his mouth, making your skin crawl. Making you want to throw up.

Tell him. It’ll be easier.

But it’s not easy. The thought is charged with deep shame, now your shame and she rattled your own memories...

“Yes, Ric! Yes, she thinks of it sometimes. She thought of it today when you started yelling at her! Is that what you wanted to hear?!” “Yes.” he croaks through the intercom “Yes, I needed to know,” he says, the life sucked out of his voice.

“Fuck you.” you let out, feeling the beginning of the migraine, overloaded with too much baggage that doesn’t belong to you. “Can you help her with that?”

“FUCK YOU!” you scream louder.

“Cyrus, if you can help her with this then…”

“Help her with this? Listen to yourself!”

“I just want her to stop hurting!”

“And what? You want me to rewrite her into a better person, is that it? Newsflash, I can’t! I can’t handle my own problems and you want me to fix hers?” “But…” “You think I have some fucking magic wand? You don’t know what it’s like! It hurts both ways!” “I just wanted to help…” “FUCK YOU! All you want is to feel better about yourself!” Your head is about to explode, and you’re tearing up under your helmet, your eyes drifting onto the white lines on the road, going one after another in quick, endless succession. Focus on them. That’s safe. You can feel him sigh as you hold on tighter to his skinsuit, feeling him take a curve, with another incoming in the distance or so the signs say.

“Slow down. I want to get off…”

“We’re still far from the city.”

“Do you think I care? Let me off!” “I… I’m…” he’s mumbling erratically, the white lines on the road losing cohesion.

... something’s wrong! Your eyes widen as his hands begin slipping from the handlebar. There’s only a massive surge of static where his mind should be. Not normal, even for him.

“Wait, don’t do that!” You try to wrest control of the handgrips, but you’re not fast enough, and the bike goes sideways on the incoming curve, off the road, and down the cliff.

Down the cliff.

You barely manage to brace for impact, covering your head during the fall, bumping and rolling several times until you land on your stomach, the bike falling next to you. You stay there, immobile for a few seconds, internalizing what just happened. Wondering if this is where you die…

The question lingers until you struggle to sit up, finding you are still pretty much in one piece. Taking off your helmet reveals it’s cracked on several spots.

Shit.

Standing up is a chore, but your pain gate hasn’t activated. The suit must have spared you the worst, it would seem.

“Charge?” you ask, looking around in the darkness. The motorbike’s nearby, and you walk towards it, struggling to get it back to a standing position. You maneuver the wheel to point the light around, looking for him in the direction of his static, until you find him lying on his back.

You leave the light pointing at him as you get closer. “Are you ok?!” you ask, but there’s no answer. His neck is trembling, as are his hands, emitting pitiful noises… You try to hold him down, but a bolt of electricity almost catches your hand. It takes a moment before you remember that your suit’s gloves should be sufficiently insulated.

You kneel next to him, making sure only the gloves come into contact to take off his helmet, cracked just like yours. Underneath, his face is contorted to the side, trembling and breathing noisily.

“Seizure,” you say, immediately starting to follow the guidelines they implanted in you. Left arm bent to the side and out of the way, right hand on his cheek, right knee raised and bent, and then roll him over on his side, then steady his chin up to clear the airways… That’s about all you can do without getting caught in the current… but what if it doesn’t stop? What if sets his emitters to a higher setting and fries you?

No. That shouldn’t happen, he can’t accidentally change the power setting in this state.

“Breathe. Breathe. Keep breathing” you say, holding his hand, going wildly against yours.

You keep him steady, hoping it does stop, until after two minutes, he finally does, going limp, breathing noisily. His emitters die down too, thankfully.

“Hey…can you hear me?” you ask, tapping his arm.

He can’t, so you repeat the question a few times, waiting. Waiting for him to come back until he finally answers with a quick nod, pressing the hand you’re holding.

It’s a relief to see him coming back to his senses somewhat, but it presents a different challenge because he’s also been in an accident on top of the seizure and you need to check if he’s ok. So you start asking him questions about his arms and legs, getting one-word responses with a delay, as he’s close to non-verbal.

Head hurts. Both arms fine. Chest fine. Right leg fine. Left leg hurts.

Nothing seems broken, which is a relief.

You try your intercom, but the pieces are broken and you can’t reassemble it without tools. You take his helmet but the inside smells burnt, he must have fried it.

“I’ll be right back,” you say, stepping up to drag the motorcycle closer to see what the damage is. That’s when you notice the rear wheel is completely bent.

Great.

“Now this thing has to have a radio…” you begin checking the features “YES! Here!” You kiss the small device, looking for the on the switch to…-

“Wait,” he says, a hand extended towards you.

“Wha… why?”

“They can’t know I had a seizure…”

“You don’t want me to call?”

“Please no,” he asks.

You look at him, finally starting to understand what’s going on…

“You're epileptic!”

“I just missed a few doses! Haven’t had one in years! If you tell them...”

It’s all too clear what would happen. If the media found out the Marshal had a seizure while speeding on the highway...

You keep staring back at him, in shock, before tossing the radio down and sitting back next to him.

“Alright… I won’t call them. It’s ok” you reassure him. “It’s going to be fine.”

He replies with a pained “Thank you”

“I’ll… I’ll fix this. Somehow.” Why are you doing this after what he just pulled on you earlier? Why do you care so much about this asshole?

Why do any of it? The answer comes almost immediately. It seems you’re not THAT dense.

It almost makes you laugh, with the absurdity of it all.

Luckily it takes you less than an hour to get a car to stop to take you back to town convincing the driver that you’re just wearing costumes for a party and crashed on the way. He asked you what kind of party this late at night and Ortega decides to intervene, claiming you’re strippers for a bachelor’s party. That works like a charm, he can make up all the answers he needs in his own mind. Ricardo is silent through the rest of the journey, you don’t know if he’s still recovering or if he simply has nothing else to say. It doesn’t really matter, because you couldn’t be more thankful for it, as the migraine explodes in full force. ____________________________ My Fanfiction: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero world. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for his wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist. Full fic is on AO3 as well https://archiveofourown.org/works/30292125/chapters/81514135

#FHR #Fallen hero Retribution #Fallen hero Rebirth #Fallen hero fanfiction #Chargestep #Ricardo Ortega #Riley #Fallen hero #Fallen Hero Spoilers

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terramythos · 3 years

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TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 19 of 26

Title: A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2) (2016)

Author: Becky Chambers

Genre/Tags: Science Fiction, Third-Person, Female Protagonists

Rating: 9/10

Date Began: 7/25/2021

Date Finished: 8/5/2021

“Lovelace” is an AI system aboard the Wayfarer, a wormhole tunneling ship. Following a critical error, she awakens as a fresh installation, overwriting the beloved version everyone knew and loved. Faced with a distraught crew, she accepts a strange offer: upload her consciousness to a humanlike “body kit” and live with an independent tech on Port Coriol. She renames herself Sidra and moves in with Pepper and her partner Blue. Despite their support, Sidra struggles to figure out who she really is, and the type of person she wants to be. To complicate matters, her existence as an AI in a body kit is strictly illegal… and discovery means certain death.

Pepper has her own shaky past. Once “Jane 23”, a genetically engineered slave from a fringe colony, she escapes from a scrap processing factory. Amid the continent-spanning junk heap, she discovers a trapped, functional AI named Owl. Owl saves her life and teaches her about the galaxy beyond. As Jane struggles to survive in a harsh and desolate wasteland, she resolves to fix Owl’s broken ship and escape the planet together. But such a feat is easier said than done.

“Just because someone goes away doesn’t mean you stop loving them.”

Content warnings and minor spoilers below the cut.

Content warnings for the book: Slavery, child abuse, child death, animal death. Depictions of PTSD/panic attacks. Traumatic injury and severe malnutrition. Recreational drug use.

I enjoyed A Closed and Common Orbit much more than The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. From what I understand, all the books in the Wayfarers series are standalones, but this one does have a direct connection to the previous story. It stars two minor characters from the last book— Pepper, a genetically engineered technician who escaped from slavery on a fringe colony, and Sidra (i.e. Lovelace), an AI installed in an illegal, humanlike body. While A Closed and Common Orbit can be read on its own, the last book is helpful for some context and worldbuilding.

Official descriptions for the book don’t do it justice. Common Orbit follows two narrative threads. There’s a “current” story that follows Sidra as she adjusts to her new body and learns how to be a person. This storyline doesn’t contain much action, but there is some tension with Sidra hiding her true identity. With Pepper and her partner Blue’s help, Sidra gradually accepts/overcomes her unique abilities, challenges, and limitations. Sidra’s story functions as a scifi flavored coming-of-age story. It’s not all fluffy and heartwarming, containing realistic interpersonal conflicts and a rocky friendship with an Aeluon tattoo artist named Tak (who is awesome—a genderfluid character whose pronouns change throughout the book, and no one sees it as weird or a big deal. Hell yeah). I like seeing fictional friendships that take work to develop, but become genuine as both characters grow.

But in my opinion, the meat of the narrative lies in the “past” thread, which serves as Pepper’s origin story. It details her childhood as a slave called “Jane 23”, her escape into a continent-sized scrapyard, and her chance meeting with Owl, an abandoned AI trapped in a junk ship. Owl takes on the role of a parent and does her best to raise Jane. This story is excellent for many reasons. It’s a parallel coming-of-age story. Like Sidra, Jane learns to become a person, but hers are bleak circumstances; isolated from other humans, eking out an existence hunting feral dogs, and slowly patching up the shuttle. Jane struggles with PTSD and the grim reality of survival in a world that wants her dead. This culminates when she resolves to repair Owl’s ship and escape the planet. The simplistic, childish language in the early chapters gives way to more nuanced prose as Jane learns more about the galaxy. There’s a heavy focus on the close, familial relationship between her and Owl. As the story progresses, the reader naturally questions what happened to Owl, and why she’s absent in the Sidra storyline. Both stories converge in the third act to resolve this.

One thing that’s really nice about parallel narratives is when they complement and add context to each other. It’s such a basic thing, but I love when writers do it well, and Chambers is no exception. Pepper’s “past” story provides the context for her motivation to help Sidra. Pepper sees AIs as fully sapient and deserving of the same rights, treatment, and dignity as any other person. Owl saved Pepper’s life and raised her because it was the right thing to do… so Pepper fulfills a similar role for Sidra. Another great detail is Pepper’s obsession with a children’s media franchise, Big Bug. Initially it comes of as geeky and a little silly. But when we see the reason for her attachment in the Jane storyline, it hits like a gutpunch. There’s lots of other similarities between the stories, but we’d be here all day if I went into them.

In general, many of my complaints about the last book don’t apply to this one. I think fewer leads helps, as there is more focus on individual character arcs. To me, many of the characters in the last book felt tacked on, to the point I didn’t feel any investment in them. But here, the focus on Sidra and Pepper feels deeper and more intimate. I’m apprehensive about the next two books, as they both have broad ensemble casts. I hope they avoid the problems present in The Long Way, but I’ll be optimistic. Common Orbit also has lasting conflict and consequence, something severely lacking in the last book. It’s nice to see that characters who like each other and consider each other family still have arguments and conflicting motivations. This sounds basic, but again, it’s something the last book either didn’t convey or resolved right away.

While I enjoyed this book, I have a few criticisms. Several key scenes are missing, to the story’s detriment. A big one is Owl’s “introduction” to Sidra’s storyline. As I mentioned earlier, it’s clear that Pepper’s motivation to help Sidra stems from her relationship with Owl. When Owl suddenly becomes relevant, it’s hand-waved that Pepper told Sidra about her at some point. Yet we never actually see Pepper do this. Considering the narrative setup between these characters, it seems like a huge missed opportunity to skip a critical scene that ties the three together. I also wanted to see more development with Blue; while I like him, he doesn’t have much narrative impact. He’s present in both stories but mostly serves as a passive, emotional support character. It would have been nice to see him take an active role at some point.

I gave this book the benefit of the doubt, and it paid off. I have to say I’m impressed with the level of improvement between The Long Way and Common Orbit. While I am nervous to see what the last two books hold, I hope I like them. As mentioned, each book is a standalone story. I’m reading them in order, but from what I can tell, you can start with any of them. I certainly recommend this one!

#2021 reading challenge #9/10 #taylor reads

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thegreatallie · 3 years

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My week has been, shall we say, pretty wild.

I was in a good mood going into the beginning of the week, given that I’d won my first blue ribbon at a county fair after about 8 years of never getting higher than second premium. But man, did cruddy things just kind of keep happening, such as the whole bookcase incident and my trip to the water park (season pass visit) that I took to cheer me up made me want to pull out my hair.

But then Thursday. Oh, man, Thursday.

So let me set the scene: Every year that I can, I like to sing in the fair’s talent show. I couldn’t last year due to covid, or 2019 due to cancer, or 2018 due to living in Florida, or 2017 due to it being cancelled for reasons I never found out. But in years past I’ve performed an English translation of Rondo of the Sunflower House from Ponyo, performed Part of Your World on ocarina, played a guitar solo, and also sang Stronger Than You, although that year a bug flew into my mouth near the end and I couldn’t even finish the song.

This year, I wanted to perform Drift Away from Steven Universe: The Movie. I’d been practicing it before for something else, and since I wasn’t actually expecting a talent show this year, I pulled it out and decided to use it. But in the weeks leading up to the fair, I didn’t practice as much as I should have. So I was thinking I was just not going to go after all. It was a pretty rough week and the last thing I needed was to risk adding to it by undertaking something big.

Still, I had a few ride tickets that I had bought on Saturday and not gotten to use, due to running out of stamina. It hadn’t bothered me because I’d planned on going back on Thursday. And while I was there I had meant to pick up a piece of pyrite from one of the vendors. And I’d like to try to win one of those Steven Universe dolls I’d seen at the dart throwing board. After thinking about it, I ended up going.

Well. First, I couldn’t find where to register. That worried me because in the past they’ve had upwards of 30 acts in the show and I wanted to sign up early enough so they’d call me before 9:00 PM, given that I had to get home, take my meds, and be up the next morning at 8:15 (they affect how I sleep.) But I found out that they weren’t even taking sign-ups yet even though it was less than two hours to showtime. It was confusing, but it worked out, and then I had a nice grilled cheese for dinner. So far so good.

Then I went to the dart booth. I’d tried to win a Pearl doll on Saturday and failed so spectacularly that it was embarrassing. At home I just looked up how much it would cost to buy a Pearl doll, but the ones like the one at the fair were upwards of fifty bucks. So then I looked up how to throw darts and sort of practiced the motion with my wrist, trying hard to feel throwing straight. I was confident enough to slap down another $5, but the problem is you need all three of them to hit their mark.

The lady running the booth was nice and friendly. I told her I was gonna try to win the Pearl, and when I lifted up my bag to get out my wallet she recognized it was a Steven Universe bag. I’d purchased it at the Cartoon Network Hotel last September, and it was black with all four of the diamonds on it. She complimented it, and then said, “Let’s win you that Pearl doll.” She even picked out a cluster of balloons that would be the easiest to hit.

The first dart was not so good. It actually missed the balloons entirely, sailed low, and hit the eye of a Mordecai from Regular Show doll. Oof. She gently took the dart out of his eye and put it back on the counter. “Try again,” she said, and it was super kindly.

So I tried again. I took a deep breath, positioned my hand, and threw. And I popped one. Then a second one. I had to take another breath because I was so excited, but I threw the third one, and popped the third balloon. And that was it. I won the Pearl doll.

Things were looking up. I took Pearl on the silly baby roller coaster they had, which is about the wildest ride I can enjoy, and then went to get my pyrite. Next to the rock seller’s booth was a booth for a local diner I like. I chatted with the representatives for a bit and they showed me they were running a contest where you get a free lollipop, and if the lollipop has a dot on the bottom of the stick you win a mystery prize. And if you don’t win the prize, you still get a free lollipop. I did take the free lollipop, and to my surprise I actually got a blue dot! They let me pick a bag, and the bag had a tie-dye kit inside. Sweet.

I was tired, so I went to sit down until the show started. Before that happened, though, I went to talk to the tech guy to see if the accompaniment I’d brought would work, but he was busy with a tech problem. See, apparently someone else performing had the music on their phone, but they didn’t have the right adapter for him to play it. I didn’t want to butt in, but someone spoke up for me. I held up my phone, with it’s USB-C to 3.5mm headphone jack, and asked if this would work for my music.

He pointed at it and said, “That’s the adapter I need.”

I took it out and let him use it, and thus the show was able to go on. I felt really fuzzy inside after that happened, and I was so excited to see the show.

The bad news was, only seven people signed up in total: three in the Under-15 section and four in the 15-and-over section. The good news was, even though I ended up coming in last place, I still won fourth premium. And the amazing news is, fourth premium comes with a cash prize. I had to go to the office for them to cut a check, though, and it took forever for the judges to get the judging sheet up to them and for the office to print the checks. The whole time I was thinking, “Man, I hope the prize is worth it. I mean, I’d hate to sit here for twenty minutes for a ten dollar prize that they can’t give me cash for because of regulations and accounting and whatnot.”

Well, It was. It was fifty bucks. Fifty American dollars for singing a Steven Universe song slightly off-key, because not enough people signed up. And that asshole juggler that wins first prize every year wasn’t even there.

So, yeah. I had a pretty amazing night. I was on cloud nine all night and had a hard time relaxing enough to go to sleep. All day Friday I was still on, like, cloud seven or eight at least.

#real life

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chipotle · 4 years

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Panic's Nova text editor (a review)

Review: Panic’s Nova text editor

Panic, the long-established makers of Mac utility software, seems fully aware that introducing a new, commercial code editor in 2020 is a quixotic proposition. Is there enough of an advantage to a native editor over both old school cross-platform editors like Emacs and explosively popular new editors like Visual Studio Code to persuade people to switch?

I’m an unusual case as far as text editor users go: my primary job is technical writing, and the last three jobs that I’ve worked at have a “docs as code” approach, where we write documentation in Markdown and manage it under version control just like source code. The editor that works best for me in tech writing is the venerable BBEdit. When it comes to editing code, though, BBEdit lags behind. My suspicion is that BBEdit’s lack of an integrated package manager has hurt it here. Also, BBEdit’s language modules don’t support extending one another, making it effectively impossible to do full highlighting for a templating language like JSX or Jinja.

When I was a web programmer, I was one of many who moved to TextMate, and used it for everything for a while. When the Godot-like wait for TextMate 2.0 became unbearable, I wandered the text editing wilderness, eventually splitting my loyalties between BBEdit, Sublime Text, and more recently VS Code. At this point, I suspect nothing will pull me away from BBEdit for technical writing, but for programming I’m open to persuasion.

So: meet Nova.

I’ve been using Nova off and on in beta for months. I’ve reported some bugs, although I may mention a couple here that I didn’t catch until after 1.0’s release. And, I’m going to compare it to the GUI editors that I’ve been using recently: BBEdit, Sublime Text, and VS Code.

Nova is a pretty editor, as far as such things go, and with files of relatively reasonable size it’s fast. With stupid huge files its performance drops noticeably, though. This isn’t just the ridiculous 109MB, nearly 450,000-line SQL file I threw at it once, it’s also with a merely 2MB, 50,000-line SQL file, and Nova’s offer to turn off syntax highlighting in both files didn’t help it much. This may sound like a silly test, but in my day job I’m occasionally stuck editing an 80,000-line JSON file by hand (don’t ask). This is something BBEdit and VS Code can do without complaint. Panic wrote their own text editing engine for Nova, which is brave, but it needs more tuning for pathological cases like these. They may not come up often, but almost every programmer has one stupid huge file to deal with.

Nova has an integrated terminal and an integrated SSH client, and even an integrated file transfer system based on Panic’s Transmit. In fact, if you have Transmit and use Panic Sync, it knows all of those servers out of the box. Nova has a task workflow system for automating building and running. You can associated servers, tasks, and more with individual projects; Nova’s project settings are considerably more comprehensive than I’ve seen in other editors. You can even set up remote tasks. Nova has a serviceable Git client built in, too. Like VS Code, Nova uses JavaScript for its extension API, and it has built-in Language Server Protocol support—it’s a superbly solid foundation.

Beyond that, some smaller features have become table stakes for modern GUI editors, and Nova handles them with aplomb. “Open Quickly” can jump to any file in the open project, as well as search by symbols or just symbols in currently open files; it has a command palette; you can comprehensively edit keybindings. It has multiple cursor support for those of us who like that, and a “mini map” view for those of you who like that, although know that you are wrong. Nova’s selection features include “Select all in scope” and “Select all between brackets,” a command I often use in BBEdit and miss dearly in Code. (Both Nova and BBEdit select between brackets and braces, although BBEdit also selects between parentheses.) This effectively becomes “Select between tags” in HTML, a nice touch. There are a few other commands like “Select all in function” and “Select all in scope” that I didn’t have any luck in making work at all; a little more documentation would be nice.

That’s worth an aside. Panic has created a “library” of tech note-style articles about Nova sorted by publication date rather than an actual manual, and it’s not always easy to find the information you want in it. I know this is just what a technical writer would say, but I’d dearly like to see a human-organized table of contents starting with the editor basics and moving to advanced topics like version control, server publishing and extension authoring.

The Zen of Language Servers

A lot of Visual Studio Code’s smarts depend on the implementation of a “language server” behind the scenes: language servers offer almost spookily intelligent completion. For instance, take this PHP snippet:

if ($allowed) { $response = new Response(405); $response->

If you have the Intelephense PHP language server plugin, Code understands that $response is an instance of Response and, after you type the > above, offers completions of method names from the Response class.

Right now, Nova’s mostly limited to the language servers Panic provides, and they’re… not always so smart. In that snippet above, Nova starts by offering completions of, apparently, everything in the open project, starting with the variables. If I type “s,” it narrows things down to methods that begin with “s,” but it’s all methods that start with “s” rather than just the methods from Response. The “Jump to Definition” command shows a similar lack of context; if I highlight a method name that’s defined in multiple places, Nova shows me a popup menu and prompts me to choose which one to jump to, rather than introspecting the code to make that decision itself.

But, this is a solvable problem: there’s (I think) no reason someone couldn’t write an Inteliphense plugin for Nova. If Nova’s ecosystem takes off, it could be pretty formidable pretty quickly.

Walk like a Mac

Even so, LSP support isn’t Panic’s biggest selling point. Unlike Sublime Text or VS Code, Nova isn’t cross-platform: it’s a Mac-only program written to core platform APIs. Is that still a huge draw in 2020? (Is it instead a drawback?)

You can definitely see a difference between Nova and BBEdit on one side and Sublime and Code on the other in terms of resource usage. With the two Ruby files shown in the screenshot above loaded, I get:

VS Code: 355 MB, 6 processes

Sublime Text: 338 MB, 2 processes

Nova: 101 MB, 2 processes

BBEdit: 97 MB, 1 process

Code is an Electron-based program, although Microsoft famously puts a lot of effort into making it not feel like the black hole a lot of Electron-based apps are. Sublime uses its own proprietary cross-platform framework. In fairness, while us nerds like to harp on research usage a lot, if your computer’s got 16G or more of RAM in it, this probably isn’t a big deal.

You notice Nova’s essential Mac-ness in other ways. Its preference pane is, like BBEdit’s, an actual preference pane, instead of opening in another tab like Code or just opening a JSON file in a new tab (!) like Sublime. And while all editors better have first-class keyboard support—and Nova does—a good Mac editor should have first-class mouse support, too, and it does. You notice that in the drag-and-drop support for creating new tabs and splits. Nova’s sidebar is also highly customizable, possibly more so than any editor I’ve regularly used. (Yes, Emacs fans, I know you can write all of Nova in Lisp if you want. When one of you does that, please get back to me.)

Unlike BBEdit, though, Nova doesn’t have a Mac-like title bar, or a Mac-like outline view of the project files, or Mac-like tabs. (Well, BBEdit doesn’t have tabs at all, which turns out to be a great UI decision once you have a dozen or more files open, but never mind.) This isn’t necessarily bad; people often say BBEdit “looks old,” and it’s hard not to suspect that what people mean by that—whether or not they know it—is that it looks like the long-established Mac program it is. Nova is relying less on “we have a Mac UI and the other guys don’t” than on “we have Panic’s designers and the other guys don’t.” Make no mistake, having Panic’s designers counts for a lot.

What may be more disappointing to old school Mac nerds is AppleScript support: none whatsoever. It doesn’t even have a vestigial script dictionary. Again, this may not be something most people care much about; personally, I hate having to write AppleScript. But I love being able to write AppleScript. BBEdit’s extensive scriptability is one of its hidden strengths. Nova’s Node-based JavaScript engine is probably more powerful for its own extensions and certainly more accessible to anyone under the age of 50, but it may be hard to call it from external programs.

So is it worth it?

That probably depends on where you’re coming from.

If you loved—or still use—Panic’s older editor, Coda, this is a no-brainer upgrade. If you used Espresso, a Coda-ish editor that always seemed to be on the verge of greatness without ever reaching it, Nova may also be a no-brainer for you.

If you’re a fan of Sublime Text, BBEdit, TextMate, or another editor that doesn’t have native Language Server Protocol support, you should definitely try Nova. Sublime and TextMate have more plugins (especially Sublime), but many extensions seem to be languishing (especially TextMate). BBEdit never had a great extension ecosystem to start with. All of these editors have strengths Nova doesn’t, but the reverse is also true, and Nova may catch up.

If you’re an Emacs or Vim power user, we both know you’re just reading this out of academic interest and you’re not going to switch. C’mon.

If you use Visual Studio Code, though, it’s way tougher to make the case for Nova. Code has a vastly larger extension library. It has the best support for LSP of any editor out there (LSP was developed for Code). Despite being Electron-based, it’s pretty high-performance. Code doesn’t have an integrated SSH or FTP client, but it does have an integrated terminal and task runner and Git client. If you don’t object to using an editor that isn’t a “perfect fit” with the Mac UI, Code is very, very good… and it’s free.

I don’t object to Nova’s pricing model—$99 up front including a year of updates, $49 for future years of updates—but I can’t help but wonder if Panic should have gone with super aggressive introductory pricing. Also, I saw more than a few suggestions on Hacker News about how there should be a Code-to-Nova extension translator; I’m not sure automatic conversion would be practical, but a guide on manual conversion seems like an excellent idea.

For my day job of technical writing, I’m going to stick to BBEdit. (One day I’ll write up an article about why I think it’s the best “documentation as code” editor on the market.) For programming and web editing, when I was working on both a Ruby and a PHP project—the former a Rails learning exercise, the latter an obstinate “I am going to write a modern PHP app without using a framework” exercise—I kept trying Nova’s betas and then switching back to Code for Inteliphense and, I swear to God, MacVim for Tim Pope’s amazing rails.vim plugin. I suspect Nova could duplicate both of those, but I’m not sure I want to be the one to do it. (Also, while Panic has decent reference documentation for writing extensions, I’d like to see a few simple end-to-end walkthroughs for those of us who look at a huge list of reference topics and don’t know where to start.)

But Nova isn’t just pretty, it’s powerful, and has a lot of promise. The editors I’ve been comparing it to have been around since 2015 for VS Code, 2008 for Sublime Text, and 1992 (!) for BBEdit; it’s not reasonable to expect Nova to blow past them in every respect right out of the starting gate. Even so, they are Nova’s competition. Catching up fast is an essential requirement.

So: yes, I’ve bought Nova, and I’m rooting for Panic here. I’ll come back in a year and report if I’m willing to stay on the update train.

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knowingoverseer · 5 years

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==> - a Miss

An excited purr escapes your throat as you pick up the attuned Tuning Fork, okay, okay. Okay. You.... you needed to get ready for this! Oh, yeah you weren't prepared. Kicking at the chalk you’d used in your ritual a bit to muss up the lines (not that they could be used for anything else), you note to clean up your mess later as you run about collecting what you need. Your travel coat, your shoulder bag, your sword, all things you kept in your work room. The last thing you needed, however, was the watch Star was attached to.

Star was technically all over your hive now a days. An AI who use to go by the name Mabel, given to you by a long lost friend, she now called herself Star and had made a home of the computers and surveillance systems your brother, Calib, once had rigged through the hive for more nefarious purposes.She still, however, frequented outings with you held within the high-tech watch she originally was homed in. The watch itself has seen a few upgrades since, all thanks to Star’s own technological prowess. Truly an heir of Harley genius. Generally you kept the watch upstairs, in your room next to your main computer because Star had the ability to interact with it there. “✨- Omg omg omg omg!!!!” A chime like an old videogame twinkle effect sounded over some speakers, signalling Star was taking them over to speak. She could technically reach you in the basement, but didn’t have cameras down there to see what you had been doing. Regaurdless, she sounded excited. “✨- This is it this is it!! ✨- You’re finally gonna go find her! It’s been like, elevendy billion years Callie! ✨- I bet she’s gonna be like! SO SO HAPPY! When you find her I mean. YEAH!” “heh, maybe? i mean i hope so. i’ve missed her, bUt it’s still kinda weird she’s never tried to come back on her own.” “✨- She’s going to be so happy that you’re RESCUING HER!” “star, i really don’t think she needs rescUed. i mean droog didn’t, she’s every bit as capa-” “✨- Then how come she never came home?” “that’s... that’s what i was getting at. i don’t know.” You sigh, shutting off the doorway to your workroom for now and going over to unplug the smartwatch. It was fully charged and perfectly synced with Star’s main hub, and wouldn’t start diverging until you left the area of Wi-Fi. A bright blue hologram of Star’s current fursona popped up above the watch’s screen, barely showing off the sheer sparkle-dog-ness of her current avatar: The frutiest fruit bat to ever fruit. It changed often, but there were always some giveaways it was Star. The fun sweaters were usually the key focus. As well as the blue colouration, as the hologram projector has always had the ability to produce other colours. Blue was just.... easiest? You don’t actually know. “✨- She isn’t avoiding you, you know that right?” The hologram spoke, fluttering itself up to get right in your face about it. “it’s! it’s not really me i’m worried she’s avoiding! it’s-” “✨- Dumbra! I know, I know! But don’t forget you talk to me too when you’re drunk and yo-” “ANYWAYS, star, i need yoUr help. i know i asked yoU this before, bUt yoU really don’t mind coming along to help me figUre oUt where all this thing is going to take me? i’m not bUgging?” “✨ - Hmph! But no, of course not silly! This is the only way I can, you know, stretch my legs!” The hologram flapped up further to wiggle it’s anatomically incorrect ‘bat’ legs, laughing at her own joke before receding back to the space just above the watch. “✨ - Besides, you know I love helping you. It’s practically what I was created for!” You’re not sure why you think it would be better to try this outside than in your already magically charged basement, but you head out the front door. You’ve called out to Chess to let her know you were leaving, as well as texted Davara. As soon as the cool night air hits you you’re pulling the hesitantly dubbed Travel Tunner from your sylledex and removing your wand from your strifedex. You stand at the edge of the plateau your home is situated on, holding both instruments out in front of you. You only give yourself a moment’s more hesitation before you hit your wand against the metal fork, hard. The sound it makes is loud, you can feel it reverberating not just in the air around you but up your arms as well. Your vision starts to swim, and you feel almost vague and fuzzy for a moment, like you were fading out of existence. Simultaneously fading back into existence elsewhere. Where exactly, though, is unclear. It takes a moment to reorient yourself from the travel, but.... looking around, you really can’t see anything. You’re in.... some kind of room? A really big room. Not completely devoid of light, either, but what light was coming through was from.... from.... You had to squint, but there was light coming from the ceiling. The ceiling itself seemed to be made of some sort of round crystal or glass, but the natural light that would normally be filtering through was clouded over by a dark storm. Thunder could be heard in the distance, and.... you strain your ears because there’s something else you can’t quite place. But before you can place it, you become acutely aware you’re no longer a troll. You’re human. Which means.... this was a world inhabited by Pokemon, based on your previous use of Human transformation spells. “meenah?” You call out, taking a few steps forward. The dim, barely there light didn’t give you much to go on, but you think there was some kind of chair on one side of the room. A hallway on the other. Still.... there was a sound. Like... like..... It was water sloshing! Beneath the floor, actually. You snap, realizing where you were. Or at least, a version of where you were. This was the Alolan Champion’s room. Your own time as the Kalos champion had you learn the ins and outs of the special stadiums needed for league battles. And while it wasn’t the most common, there were trainers who used exclusively Water-residing pokemon, like Goldeen and Finneon who, while they could battle on land, were at a severe disadvantage when fighting. Thus the floors were set up in such a way that half the arena could open up to a pool, or even the whole arena dependent on the teams battling. Still, this was only half the puzzle of where you were, and unfortunately you’ve got a sinking feeling you know why you were brought here instead of to Meenah. “okay star, coUld yoU check where we are in the mUltiverse right now?” “✨- Sure thing just give me a moment....” You can’t help but get a feeling of being watched, and you wonder if there’s cameras set up. The shadow overtaking the room was probably in your better interest then, because you’re not sure how you’d explain sudden teleportation in.... actually, no, you could technically use your Gallade as an excuse but- “✨- OMG CALLIE! You’re never gonna believe this. We’re in our pokemon timeline! Like, the very exact one! You’re coming up as the Kalos champion an everything!” Ah... yeah, you were correct. You sigh, looking down at the fork. This.... was probably your fault. “what about anything on meenah makara? can yoU check?” “✨- Mmmmm nope, nothing on Meenah is showing up. There’s a Mina who’s apparently the Fairy not-gym leader for Alola but that’s the only result I’m finding.”

You sigh heavier, yeah, you did this. Reaching up you run a hand through your hair, groaning. Still, on the bright side at least it didn’t teleport you off to like. The 1920s again or some such. Still, you know what happened. “when i attUned the tUning forks i mUst have imprinted my more recent associations with meenah into the ritUal. when i played sUn and moon, i was whistfUlly playing as if i were her, so of coUrse it takes Us to the most familiar variation of the alolan champion’s room. caUse that’s where i’d have last really.... felt connected to her. stUpid.... stUpid, hUh?” More sighing. Well, at least you know what went wrong, and how to get out of here too. You were either going to have to practice tuning without letting associations get in your way, or try and find something of Meenah’s to use with the ritual instead. Both were viable, but first.... you really needed to get out of here. And home. “✨- Nooo! Not stupid. You’re being really hard on yourself Callie! This was your first time out!” You put your wand and fork away, relying on tried and true methods of teleportation to get out of here. Turning on the ball of your foot, you zap away to the Pokemon Center in Tapu Village only a few miles out from here. You had a transportalizer set up there, so it was easy to get home. “mmmmaybe, it’s fine. i’ve got some ideas on what to do next, bUt i think one go roUnd is enoUgh for tonight, don’t yoU?”

#Long post /#action!post #This one has a bit more stuff happening but still a generally boring read so ahh))

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igotnothingclever · 5 years

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Arrow 7x17: calling all slush pile rejects

So that was a snooze fest. The arrow writers reached into a pile of rejected, hackneyed scripts, pulled out a few, blindly spliced them together and threw it on the screen. Bringing the careening momentum of the last few episodes to a standstill. What a waste. I almost missed the ffs. No, that’s a lie. I didn’t. 🤪

Unfortunately the big “surprise” that Emiko was the Big Bad wasn’t a surprise at all. Called it. As did many many others.

While it’s nice to disrupt the patriarchy and have a female Big Bad, Emiko is underwhelming. I’ve thought this before, maybe even said it (?), but our man Oliver has shit luck when it comes to family. Could we have covered this in the earlier Emiko-centric episode? I think so, yes. But that would have required significantly more nuanced plot development and who has time for that? I’m ambivalent about Emiko’s role in the destruction of the Queen’s Gambit. Retroactively changing the story and forcibly tying season 7 to the beginning of Arrow seems unnecessary and forced. Not everything has to connect with everything else. It doesn’t all have to be the circle of life or in this case -- the circle of vengeance, destruction and death. We know Merlyn did it. Why change the narrative now? Or should we just blame Larry again?

On an aesthetic note: her new outfit and eyeliner game is on 🔥🔥. Still, it doesn’t make up for my complete lack of surprise that she’s out for revenge.

The unfortunate thing about Emiko’s banal reveal is that there is so much in her history that makes her a sympathetic villain. She’s proof that Robert Queen was a weak, weaselly, douchenozzle wanker. She’s further proof that Moira Queen was a cold narcissist, whose worldview was predicated on maintaining power and bending the world to suit her needs and wants. Between the two of them, they completely destroyed Emiko, nearly destroyed Thea, and would have destroyed Oliver if not for Lian Yu and everything that followed. I didn’t realise how angry I was with both Robert and Moira until I started writing this review. The havoc their choices have wreaked on an entire city and on the people they purportedly loved is staggering. Oliver is caught in the wreckage of their choices. Every single time he finds his footing, he recovers from the debilitating shame of being their son, they find another way to screw him up. Well done. Parents of the century. Applause. Applause.

But to get back to my earlier point, I don’t have a problem with Emiko as a villain. I just found the exposition surrounding the reveal tedious. Oliver’s willingness to assume the burden of his parents’ sins is a defining characteristic as is his fervent desire for family. But at some point, he has to learn the lesson that his parents (while they may have loved him) were terrible people and he cannot spend his life expiating for their sins. That is a long, lonely journey with no happy ending. I want the writers to let him learn this lesson and to be at peace. Let’s not bang out this desultory tune any more.

Smoak Tech is here! And I welcome our robot overlords! 😁😁 No, but in all seriousness, it was brilliant to see Felicity shine with Archer. The nod to Oliver and their relationship is lovely. Her trademark sass was in full flow. It bugged me to see that Archer was felled by a silly electronic disruptor placed by Emiko (because when has a big bad not been welcomed in the bunker?!) The choice to undermine Felicity’s intellect in service of advancing Emiko’s agenda wasn’t a great moment. I have a real problem with television shows pitting women against each other; undermining one to advance another because they can’t be bothered with coming up with a clever less rote writing tweak.

Oliver versus the drones was brilliant. Hello, Mr Queen so nice to see you in action!

I enjoyed the olicity moments. Oliver’s begrudging help to Black Siren was hilarious. Although, I can’t be the only one who was grossed out by the fact that she cleaned an open wound at the kitchen island where he was cooking? 🤢 Kind of unhygienic! Dina and BS’ tortuous conversations were uninteresting. I find the double standard tedious. And repetitive. The narrative push towards BS becoming (or seeming to become) a villain and the schisms between NTA, BS and Emiko will probably play a role in what becomes of Star City in the future. Not a story thread I’m following with any great urgency but since it takes up valuable screen time - I’ll follow along.

5 episodes left -- let’s not waste momentum or screen time. Shock and Awe, people. Say it with me, Shock and Awe.

#arrow #arrow 7x17 #brain confetti #oliver queen #felicity smoak #olicity #otp: bae and the parkour bunny #terrible parents: robert and moira queen

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notimetoblog · 6 years

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Crashing App and Soaring Heart

Summary: Bucky takes on a tech problem for you and you might get more out of his kindness than expected.

A/N: The original name for this was going to be “App Time”... lol just kidding! After two stories with ‘time’ in the title it was time for a change lol (I’m really not doing this on purpose lol). Here is ANOTHER fluff-full story for you guys. The angst-bug is starting to bite so i may write up a more agnsty one for next time. The first part of the story actually happened to me but sadly that's as far as the similarities between the story and my life go... Also a massive thank you to everybody who read “Perfect Timing?” that was wild! Thank you guys so much for reading!!

“Ugh!!!” you screamed out. “Did the entire planet decide to make my day miserable? I mean, did I miss the email announcement or something?”

You heard a low chuckle coming from behind. You did not have to turn to know that Bucky had entered the room you were currently in. You had been trying to play some music on your phone for the past hour while you sat on the couch working, but your music app crashed over and over again. Music was not exactly necessary for the task Steve had asked you to complete, but the frustration of not getting the app to work made it impossible to move on. You had taken it as a personal challenge to just get the darn thing to play music! But every time your hopes went up as the title of a song appeared, the app simply crashed. You would set it down promising yourself that you would just move on but the simple thought of a victory over the crummy app was too tempting, so you would pick up your phone again, repeating the cycle.

“What are you complaining about this time?” he asked, and you just knew he was sporting his usual grin.

You knew it was silly. Of course, there wasn’t a global conspiracy bringing down your music app simply to piss you off. But why couldn’t it just work?

“Nothing,” you said still not turning to face him. The last person who should have to hear about your exaggerated complaints was Bucky. The guy had been through so much and here you were losing your head over an app.

“You just accused the entire world of conspiring against you, Y/N. That does not seem like nothing,” he said as he started to laugh.

You started to chuckle too. It was impossible not to join Bucky when he laughed. The sound of it always reminded you of how far he had come. He had overcome a lot of things and was still able to laugh and get others to laugh with him too. You constantly told him how proud you were of him because of this.

“It really is nothing,” you said after finally turning to face him. “I’m just being over dramatic. See my music won’t play and I’m just stuck here trying to get it to work.”

“That’s it?” he asked with a smile. “Have you tried turning it off? Steve told me that should always be the first step when trying to fix these gadgets people have now.”

Of course, Steve would say that. That had been a staple of Steve’s approach to technology. Turn it off and then on again, he would say, It works all the time! He could’ve been talking about a phone, a TV, a computer, or a blender. It was all the same to him. Tony had made it his mission to make Steve more tech savvy, so he had been acquiring new techniques over the last couple of months.

“Yeah, Buck, I did,” you said as you looked down at your phone again. “I turned it off three times already and it still doesn’t work.”

His brows furrowed, and you couldn’t help but giggle. He was always so sweet to you. Who else would take this issue with your music as seriously as Bucky? He was a sweetheart and you would be lying to yourself if you said he didn’t make your heart melt.

“But its alright,” you said. “I’ll just work on this thing for Steve without it. Thanks for your suggestion, though, Buck.”

“Now wait, Y/N. I mean the thing has to work. Has it ever done this before?”

You shook your head; secretly grateful he was still here and so wiling to fix this most pressing of issues.

“I thought it was the Wi-Fi, but FRIDAY ran a connectivity test and the signal is up and strong. So, its not that,” you said.

He came closer to you and sat down beside you.

“Can I take a look?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure,” you responded to him as you handed him your phone.

You saw as he took the phone in his right hand, opening the settings. You looked on at him and felt as your lips involuntarily turned upwards into a smile. Bucky was too sweet for his own good.

“What?” he smiled as he felt you looking at him.

“Nothing,” you giggled. “You’re just sweet, Buck.”

“Sweet?” he asked as he turned to look at you. You did not miss the tint of pink that colored his cheeks. “I’m just being a good friend, Y/N.”

“I know,” you said as your heart fell a little at the mention of him just being a friend. Despite this, you couldn’t help but hold on to the small bit hope, the blush on his cheeks casted your way. Maybe it meant something. “That doesn’t mean you’re not sweet, though.”

“Many people would disagree with that, doll,” he said as he went back to scrolling through your phone’s settings.

“Yeah well all those people haven’t had time to get to know you. If they had, they’d be saying the same thing I am, trust me.”

He chuckled as he shook his head.

“I somehow have a hard time believing that,” he said softly.

How could he not see? Bucky Barnes oozed sweetness. Everything in his life had attempted to make him cold and distant, but it was no match for the overall goodness and sweetness that always existed within him. His true self had defeated whatever Hydra had tried to make him into. He had cared for Steve when they were children, cared and protected all the new friends he had made since coming back, and he was most definitely caring and sweet towards you.

“I think I got it!” he exclaimed bringing you back from your thoughts.

“What?!” you asked incredulously. “Did you really just fix it!?”

He handed you back your phone and you opened your music app once more. You prepared yourself for it to crash again as you went to play a song. Much to your surprise, the app did not crash. Instead, the song you had selected began

to play and your jaw dropped.

“How!?” you asked as you looked at Bucky. “Do you know how long I spent trying to fix this thing? How’d you do it?!”

“I’m afraid I am unable to share that information, doll,” Bucky said in his this-is-official-business voice that would come out during important meetings.

“Oh, come on Bucky! Just tell me. I mean what if it happens again?”

“Well, if it happens again, which it won’t because I mean, I fixed it which means it was done perfectly. Then I guess you’ll just have to come find me,” he said with the cockiest grin you’d ever seen splashed across his face.

“You’re really not going to tell me?” you asked.

“Answer me this one question and I might consider it,” he said with a spark in his eye you had not seen before. You felt your stomach twist and flutter with the possibility that spark might hold. “Do you really think I’m sweet?”

You smiled, “Of course, Buck! I said it like two minutes ago, didn’t I?”

“Sweet enough to have you consider accepting a dinner invitation?”

If your jaw had dropped when he got your app to work, it completely fell off when you realized what he was saying. You couldn’t seem to form an intelligent sentence. Every time you tried to speak nothing would come out, but you had to let him know that my goodness, of course you would accept a dinner invitation.

You forced your brain to start up again, hoping Bucky’s suggestion on how to fix your phone worked on your brain.

“Yes,” you said after what felt like an hour. “I would love to go to dinner with you.”

Bucky gave you the most charming smile. The man knew how to charm a girl, that’s for sure.

“Sweet,” Bucky said chuckling at his choice of words. “I’ll stop by your room at 7.”

“Ok,” you whispered still trying to process the fact that you and Bucky were actually going on a dinner date later tonight.

You saw as Bucky got up from the couch and started making his way towards the door.

“Bucky, wait!” you yelled stopping him before he left the room. He turned towards you with a confused look on his face. “You… you didn’t tell me how you fixed my app,” you smiled. “You’d said you’d tell me if I answered your question.”

“Um, I said I would consider it, doll. And after a lot of thoughtful consideration I decided I might tell you after dinner.”

You rolled your eyes at him knowing very well he would probably never tell you, simply to tease you, for as long as he could, that he was able to solve a tech problem you couldn’t figure out.

“And besides,” he continued. “You won’t even be thinking about the app tonight, Y/N,” he said with a smile before winking and leaving the room.

Sweet just wasn’t enough to describe Bucky Barnes all of a sudden. The new word that kept running through your mind was ‘enchanting’ and you were more than sure you would be able to think up more colorful words to describe him after dinner tonight.

----

Bucky Tag Club!! Thank you so much guys for reading!!

@camillechan @just-add-butter @buckyisthepuresthuman @faunacea @carry-on-my-fandom @creideamhgradochas @sixweekcure4dreams @sold-my-soul-in-2016 @verycoolveryunique

Good luck to anyone going through finals week! Almost end of the semester for me !!!!

#Bucky Barnes #bucky #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky x you #bucky fluff #fluff #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky fanfic #bucky fanfiction #double_size #bucky one shot #stories by notimetoblog

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recentanimenews · 6 years

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I Wanted to Write a Tourism Article, But I Touched a Mysterious Glowing Portal and Somehow Ended Up in Another World?!

So, cards on the table, this wasn't the article I was originally going to write.

The plan in my to-do list—and the plan in newsroom chat—had been for me to head out to Japan, meet up with a friend there, and review a bunch of the collab cafés currently running. (Astute readers may have gathered that, since I cover the news pieces for like 90% of them, I'm kind of infatuated with them.) I had the reservations all set for all of them, I had my round trip ticket, got my passport renewed, the whole nine yards.

Then on the layover in San Francisco, I killed some time looking at the modern art pieces scattered around my gate, and... long story short, things happened, I touched what I thought was an interactive NASA display but oh silly me it was an interdimensional portal.

No lectures, please. Lessons were learned.

At the moment, I have two issues. One, I have ended up getting so turned around in my efforts to get home that I've actually ended up going through a total of seven worlds, none of which are the one I'm trying to get back to. Two, I have a feature due, like, now. So I figure while I'm waiting to meet up with this mysterious guy who looks and sounds eerily like my childhood friend, I might as well knock out two birds with one stone.

So, in lieu of what was going to be an adorable romp through anime-themed parfaits and soda, here's a travelogue of other worlds you may find yourself visiting someday.

Yggdrasil

If I'm going to get thrown to the four winds, this isn't the worst place to start. Yggdrasil actually seems to have the same view of the stars as Earth, which means technically I was pretty close to home? Also, things aligned pretty well with Bronze Age technology and society, so it wasn't 100% culture shock. Well, you know, except for all the magic and stuff flying around.

Hospitality was pretty decent: all the local tribes were set up as "families," with a Patriarch at the head of each (male or female) and their followers referred to as children or siblings. Apparently loyalty within that system is a big deal around here, to the point that the success of peace negotiations can rest on that.

Then there are the Einherjar: straight-up magic using warriors. You don't want to mess with them, but as long as you're not on the receiving end of their attacks, they're amazing to watch in battle.

Best thing about Yggdrasil? Amazing reception. Data comes through like you're just sitting next to your router no matter where you go. Phone calls are a little tougher, though... you have to be near some kind of magic mirror to make it work. Which is fine if you've got nowhere to go. But, if someone had a loved one back home and had to keep leaving their base and knowing they couldn't call, I imagine that'd make them crazy after a while.

Worth the Trip?: The good news is that with a few web searches and some skilled friends, you can survive the primitive nature of Yggdrasil with some familiar creature comforts. (And then they get a new skill set!) Downside is, no matter how nice people are, if you're living anywhere with anything like society, you're probably about to be in a war zone.

Cross Reverie

Okay, this one was a little weird. I swear I've seen this game around online (I'm more a Fate/GO girl myself), and pretty much everything I saw when I came through here matched up with the game. Same landscape, same types of people, and basically enough going on where if you know the game you can get around like nobody's business.

Here's the thing: everyone is super low-level.

Like, initially I was completely ready to believe I'd ended up inside a game. It wouldn't be the weirdest thing that happened to me on this trip. But everyone's "levels," even the really capable fighters were down in the teens. Then again, I guess when you're talking real-world adventuring, you're not going to spend several hours a day beating up monsters just to ding a higher level.

Interestingly, a lot of the ladies around here don't... wear a lot of clothes? I felt weirdly overdressed a lot of the time. That's not a fast rule, but it was not uncommon to see lower- and higher-cut outfits in fashion. (Take note and... I guess don't visit when it's cold?)

Worth the Trip?: If you're a gamer, you'll feel right at home. Things tend to function on game logic, but at a more "human" level. Just don't expect in-game creature comforts like teleportation. Though, if you're looking for actual straight-up game stuff...

Sword Art Online

There we go. No fuss, no messing, no wondering what translates to what. This is a game. You're in a game. Welcome to an RPG that you actually, like, do.

I'm pretty down with that. I like swords, I like adventure, and being able to do raids and quests without having to worry about spinning the camera around. Extra bonus? Your fellow adventurers are from the same world as you. So less culture shock, less having to explain your bad references in conversation. Overall a lot more welcoming. Plus, it's gorgeous there—exactly what you'd imagine a fantasy world to be, with all the cool clothes and critters included.

There is one major down side, though... transportation out of there is not. Easy. And I don't mean like "flights are expensive" or "there's only one bus route." I mean like "you have to fight your way up a giant tower and not die and that might not even work." So not (and I speak from experience here) the best stop for a multi-stop trip where time is of the essence.

Worth the Trip?: Really depends how into it you are. If this is somewhere you specifically want to go, yes. If you have other plans in the next, like... rest of your life? Plan with care.

Disboard

I mean... I'm sure it's just a coincidence that so many of the places I ended up in seem to have gaming themes to them. Maybe our world is the odd one out?

The world of Disboard is a dream come true if you're one of two things: an adept gamer or a flawless cheater. If you are neither of those things, though, you might have a bad time. Disboard functions on games in pretty much any way you can think of. Disputes on anything from rulership of a country to whether you're about to get robbed are handled via bets and competitions. And it could be anything, from a hand of poker to God-tier shiritori.

If you're crazy lucky or crazy smart, you'll probably rock Disboard within hours. But if you've got my kind of luck?

It might be best to leave the gaming to the pros.

Worth the Trip?: Even if you're a garbage-tier gamer, Disboard is really beautiful. So you can at least take in the sights and do your best to stay out of trouble.

The Hidden Realm

The first thing you're told about traveling in other dimensions is not to eat the food. But you know what? I'm already in too deep. Might as well enjoy myself.

The Hidden Realm is that mysterious place where gods and demons live—and when you have a realm of gods and demons, what do you need? Come on, you've watched enough anime to know this... that's right. An inn. And inns need food. Sadly, the Tenjin'ya has some pretty boring food in its main restaurant.

But turn a few corners and go around the back of the property, and you will find the best little Japanese/spirit fusion restaurant. Seriously, it's crazy good. And it's run by a human girl who learned how to cook for spirits, so you know you're getting quality.

Worth the Trip?: Completely. I mean, okay. Whether or not the spirits will be nice to you really depends on their personalities, so you might meet a few jerks. But that food.

The Kingdom of Belfast

Belfast is part of a larger world that's accessible in one of two ways: you can either cross dimensions, or you can, uh... die. I highly recommend the first one if you have any sort of choice in the matter.

That said, dying and being reborn in this world does apparently net you some profits. There's been a case where the person reborn here was actually able to use all seven facets of the world's magic. (For reference, you're usually going to run into people who can use one or two at best.) That's going to make you popular... especially with the ladies, apparently.

Added bonus? Finally got reception again! This is another place where, if you've got any smart devices, you can make use of them once again. I'm not entirely sure what roaming charges are here and elsewhere... frankly, I've been too afraid to look.

Worth the Trip?: With good reception, plenty of magic to go around, and some frankly adorable fashions going on? I'll give it a thumbs up.

El-Hazard

And so we come (maybe?) to the end of my journey. I hope. I think. With a stop in El-Hazard, a world that's equal parts ancient tech and Arabian Nights culture. And, you know, I kind of dig it. Beautiful scenery, really cool magic and machines, and...

Bugs? Oh. Yeah. I forgot. There's literally an entire nation of giant bug people. Called Bugrom. They also might be a little at war with the humans here, and their might be some doomsday items scattered around.

But I mean besides that, it's actually pretty fun. Lots of room to wander and explore, a variety of landscapes, interesting people... and bugs.

Worth the Trip?: Depends how you feel about giant insects and ancient biomechanical creatures — conditional yes.

If you find yourself in another world (whether on purpose or through a completely honest and understandable accident Nate), stay smart. Bring a solar-powered charger. Be prepared to rule at least one kingdom or tribe while you're there. Look for sad girls with glowing necklaces, because they tend to know what's going on—and whatever you do... try not to touch anything. [EDITOR'S NOTE: I'm only okay with Kara missing the cafe coverage because she brought souvenir snacks. We good.]

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Kara Dennison is responsible for multiple webcomics, and is half the creative team behind the OEL light novel series Owl's Flower. She blogs at karadennison.com and tweets @RubyCosmos. Her latest book, Black Archive #21 – Heaven Sent, is currently available from Obverse Books.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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taaroko · 6 years

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Post-IW MCU Rewatch: Ant-Man

Yay, time for Ant-Man! This one has rather grown on me over the last couple of viewings (not that I ever didn’t like it).

Hi middle-aged Peggy! (Isn’t it great how many times Hayley Atwell managed to get herself into these movies beyond what the original plan was, out of sheer enthusiasm? Yeah, I’m still bitter Agent Carter got cancelled.)

The music for the logo is awesome.

My killjoy brother says the main reason he dislikes this movie is that he doesn’t think it makes sense that Hank would ever trust some stranger (Scott) with his tech. Um. Hank has been protective of the tech because he doesn’t want it to be abused. But Scott proved he wasn’t a corporate goon by going to prison for screwing over a corrupt corporation. He’s proven himself. Also he doesn’t have the knowledge to make more of the particles, so he can’t steal any of the secrets himself.

Luis is probably my favorite sidekick in the whole MCU. He’s irrepressibly cheerful, he compulsively makes delicious-looking waffles, he’s a refined wine man and fan of neo-cubism yet also steals two smoothie machines, and when he goes into ramble mode it’s the greatest thing ever.

Anyone who has ever worked food service has met an idiot like Scott’s customer. Also his boss is basically David Brent. Trying way too hard to be cool, but kind of a git and a coward.

Scott’s attitude is super endearing. Very chill, understated reactions to things that annoy him. You get the impression that it’s not so much that he’s a very patient man as that he’s just so used to stuff like Luis’s antics that he’s become kind of inured to it. He’s also able to roll with the punches. Getting fired from Baskin Robbins could’ve made him bitter and angry, but instead he just kind of shrugs and takes that Mango Fruit Blast. He’s not prideful at all.

I called the tank being real by the second time the keychain appeared onscreen. Chekhov’s Tank!

Hello, Darren Cross, dude who is only not the worst MCU villain because Malekith exists. (How did Malekith manage to have less of a personality than Darren? It’s absurd.)

The ad video for the Yellowjacket is horrifying. Do people actually make ad videos for advanced weaponry? Do they narrate them with movie narrator voices and tidy up the diction to make them sound like wonderful good pieces of technology, but in a not-entirely-convincing way?

How is a hand on a shoulder such a sinister and obvious sign of impending murder?

Cassie is the most adorable little girl ever, and the kid playing her is a really good actress. I love that Scott is a dad. It makes him much more interesting. (Also is he the only divorcé in the entire MCU? Wait no, May is too. I think he’s the only one in the movies, though.)

“He’s so ugly! I LOVE HIM!” AAAAGH. SO CUTE.

I love that all the little details keep coming back. (The tank, the “La Cucaracha” horn.” Just lots of really good callbacks. It’s hard to believe this movie had production issues with changing directors.)

The way Darren kills that guy by shrinking him, and then wipes him up and flushes him, is ridiculously horrific. And the way he looks in the mirror after that is probably the most interesting he ever is in the movie. He knows the path he’s going down, and he’s not stopping.

So it’s not entirely clear. Is Hope dating Darren? Are they living together? Or are they just business partners? I’m confused.

YES LUIS STORY TIME. This is like Kid History, and it’s my favorite thing. Please please please make an MCU recap narrated by Luis, Marvel.

This music is weird and fun. I love it.

Scott parkouring is great. I wonder why he developed that skillset when he was just an electrical engineer. Has he been doing it since he was a kid?

Scott is like the midpoint between Tony Stark and Peter Quill in almost every way. Good at outside-the-box solutions, has engineering skills (but not at Tony’s level), a sense of humor that’s more self-deprecating than Tony’s but less wide-eyed dorky than Peter’s, etc. That’s awesome.

Could you be more transparently evil than using a bleating white lamb for your ill-fated lab experiments?

Huh. There’s a moment where Scott looks in the mirror too. Is that meant to be a contrast with when Darren does it? For Scott, it’s a moment where he resigns himself to failing, even though he caved and did the burglary. I don’t really see the connection, emotionally, to the way Darren looked in the mirror, but I guess one of them is the apprentice Hank rejected, and the other is the apprentice he ultimately chose. *shrug*

Ant-Man perspective is great. The encounter with the rat is terrifying.

You broke Scott’s chill, Hank!

Okay, so Scott’s actual superpower is changing his clothes at the speed of light. It was entirely unnecessary for them to give him such a small interval of time to get the suit on.

“What happens if I throw up in this helmet?”

There were zero bullet ants on the floor in the initial wide shot of the room. Also in the second wide shot. Which takes place two seconds before Scott tries to put his foot on the floor. Did they...forget to render ants in those shots? Or did they forget there were going to be ants there when they filmed from that angle? Gonna count that one as a mistake, because they could not have gotten all over the floor that fast.

They really needed to do more to explain about Darren’s brain chemistry getting messed up by the particles, because as far as I can tell, the first time he ever shrinks himself is on the helicopter at the end. How do these particles make him evil/crazy, exactly? What was he like before? What have the particles done to Hank?

Also they shouldn’t have explained the particles as changing “atomic relative distance” without also explaining that the suit allows you to control your weight relative to size. Because sometimes Ant-Man appears to weigh as much as he looks like he should, but the rest of the time, he’s clearly still 180 lbs in that tiny space (with the reverse problem when he becomes Giant-Man). If he always weighed 180 lbs while being the size of an ant, he would constantly punch through surfaces by walking on them, and if he was always the weight of an ant, he’d be powerless to do anything except be sneaky.

The montages in this movie are great.

Scott uses Hope’s move later. :D And she was totally checking him out.

Huh. Hope and Scott’s conversation in the car happens exactly halfway through the movie, and it’s the turning point. This is when they start being on the same team.

Hank’s revelation about Janet comes rather out of nowhere. I feel like they could’ve woven that in more effectively. It’s also a little exposition-heavy to entirely work on the emotional level.

This gesture by Scott is one of the best things.

I love the crossovers. Crossovers forever! (Seriously, put Thor cameos in future GotG movies and Loki cameos in future Doctor Strange movies. No, I don’t for a second believe Loki is really dead.)

Poor Sam. He missed out on Sokovia just to get trolled by this rando in a shrinking suit.

Hope saw Scott use her move! Hee!

Sinister hand on shoulder!

Okay, Hope’s “I’m at home” line is why I was confused about whether she and Darren were dating and living together. But it occurs to me now that there’s not really an implication that it’s his home too. So I think they’re just business partners. Good. Because Darren being double-crossed by his girlfriend and failing to react on that level would have made him a much worse character than he already was.

Seriously love Luis, and the other two guys are great too. Excellent crew of wombats.

I love the wallpaper in Hank’s house. Also, just, all of Hank’s house. It’s so pretty.

Okay I absolutely believe that Luis was the only guy to ever knock out that huge dude from the prison. He’s been knocking people out with single punches left and right on this job so far. I love him even more now! That’s such a cool little bit of consistency for him.

Is it true that cops use Crown Victorias as their undercover cars most often? Because I’ve kind of assimilated that as real-life trivia ever since theaters.

What was the point of frying the servers if they were just going to shrink the building to nothing anyway?

Kurt and Tip are hilarious. “There was a black guy who looked exactly like me who attacked us and put us in the back of this disgusting van!”

So if the Avengers have spent the last year taking down Hydra facilities, how are there still people in Hydra who can spend billions for Yellowjacket suits?

I thought Hank was going to die the first time I saw this. Now I’m betting this will be a How to Train Your Dragon situation with Ant-Man and the Wasp, where not long after we discover the long-lost mom, the dad gets killed.

Darren’s villain music is the best thing about him. It’s very unnerving.

All the fights while Scott’s in the suit are so much fun to watch.

“Are we the good guys? Feels kinda weird.”

I don’t like that the chain attachment on the tank also gets huge. And how does a tank cushion a three-storey drop?

That Darren is able to shoot ants is very silly and weird. Would’ve worked better if there was buckshot or something. But still. This movie made me care about an ant dying.

Dangit, Darren, you just killed everyone else in the chopper. You suck.

Briefcase fight! I remember how hard everyone laughed when “Disintegration” started playing in theaters. So great.

All the abrupt cuts from epic to insignificantly small are what make these fights so funny and awesome.

Bug zapper! I watched this with my dad recently (his first time seeing it) and he laughed so hard at the bug zapper.

Another tased Avenger!

So I thought this movie was going to be stupid, right up until the trailer got to the bit with Thomas the Tank Engine. Then I knew it was going to be amazing. It’s still probably my favorite moment in the whole movie.

They kinda overdid it with the “back it up” bit.

Giant ant! Poor Paxton.

Did anyone not see it coming from the moment Hank talked about going sub-atomic that Scott was going to have to do it at the end?

The infinite shrink is mesmerizing to look at. I bet this movie was cool in 3-D. (I have glasses, so 3-D is not so fun.)

Hi Janet!

The bottom half of that face in the photo actually looks kinda like Michelle Pfeiffer’s face. Nice work!

Hahaha, I love that Cassie kept the ant as a dog.

MORE STORIES FROM LUIS! The way he blinks too many times after he finishes is what really clinches it.

So yeah, I like me a heist movie, and it was definitely a brilliant decision on Marvel’s part to go small (figuratively and literally) with the next movie after Ultron. It is a mistake to think you always have to escalate your threats in a series. That was the problem for a while with Supernatural, and it’s definitely a problem in shows like Dragonball Z and Naruto too. Ant-Man was the perfect way to scale back and remind us that these movies are a ton of fun. I’m so glad that they did the same thing with the scheduling of Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp, and I can’t wait for July 6.

I really hope Ant-Man and the Wasp does the same thing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 did, and goes deeper with the characters instead of just getting bigger in scope. Because Ant-Man is one of the more surface-level movies in the MCU. Scott doesn’t really carry a lot of angst, so even though his arc is about proving he can be the hero Cassie sees him as, it’s pretty chill, with just a couple of moments where he loses...hope...(dang it) in his ability to make this work and be the dad he wants to be.

The bigger emotional arc was Hank and Hope, because Hope absolutely carries her angst and bitterness in a big way. They’re kind of a representation of what Scott and Cassie could end up being if Scott doesn’t get his crap together. And Darren is an evil parallel for Scott, obviously. All of the different arcs probably would’ve worked better if they’d spent enough time and effort on Darren to make him interesting. But the lack of depth in all of the arcs doesn’t ruin the movie because it’s a comedy. This is deliberately a light, fun comedy action movie, and it’s great.

Also it has a good and memorable soundtrack, so bonus points.

#ant-man #scott lang #hank pym #hope pym #mcu rewatch #Infinity War spoilers #marvel

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