#just be prepared for a comic website with pop-up ads

[waspredteeth]

You know what I've realized these past several months on Tumblr and just...years of consuming content?

It's pretty rare for the fandom to acknowledge Gotham as a city. A real, living city with people in it. Like, sure we always get cutesy posts about Batman or the others from outside perspectives or fics that include interesting ocs (I love u if you do that btw).

But what I mean isn't that. What I mean is: does anyone think of Gotham and its citizens as actual people? Because I've sure seen kind of the opposite.

I see constant arguments or heavily biased (mostly misinformed) posts regarding what Bruce does and how the Batman helps the city. That his riches would get lost in corruption and no one can save the city unless there's violence. You could try and make the argument, sure. But we've seen time and time again in comics that Bruce uses his money to the benefit of the city. We've seen in comics that he employs people who are disadvantaged and gives them opportunities. People know Bruce Wayne gives jobs and treats his employees well. He donates heavily to charities, creates his own organizations, funds Leslie Thompkin's clinic, and consistently updates the safety of his own buildings. People (at least post-Crisis) would know that Bruce Wayne did everything he could to save Gotham after the Cataclysm earthquake/No Man's Land - that he went up against Congress. Of course, not everyone would like Batman. Not everyone would trust the Wayne name. They'd see a stranger who prowls nightly and may or may not rescue you. They'd see the privilege of an old rich name who gets to exert his influence over the city. If you go to him for help, you go to him with the fear, and anticipation of rejection or with the knowledge that he will be safe.

I've also seen the (imo) ridiculous notion that Crime Alley citizens would trust the Red Hood. Maybe some would now, after the reboots and actual comic book evidence that he's doing something. But I cannot fathom living in a city with such heavy crimes occurring and then trusting what is essentially a cop. People don't know the Red Hood. They don't know Jason Todd. They would only know: 1. he has tried and succeeded various times to take over organized crime and drug routes 2. he can and will kill if he sees it fit. In some people's eyes, he would be a cop with even less judicial oversight. In some families, he would be the killer of their breadwinner, of their fathers or family members or lovers. A man with a gun. Eyes without a face. If you go to him for help, you go to him for blood.

This doesn't even begin to lay out the insane amount of vigilantes who live/operate in Gotham. The Batman is not the only figure. The Red Hood is not the only figure. If you boil down Gotham to only the conflict between these two characters, you miss the nuances and varied opinions of the city by miles. If you boil down Gotham to just Batman-affiliates, you miss even more.

For every person who doesn't trust Batman, there's someone who'd prefer Huntress. For every child who lives in fear but can't trust an adult, there's Robin or Batgirl. For an abused woman, there's other women out there who help: Catwoman or Black Canary or Holly Robinson. There's people who'd never trust a vigilante but want safety, they'd have Leslie Thompkins (who operates in Crime Alley) or Lucius Fox who could give them a job.

Not to mention, Batman is very obviously white. There would be some people who would rightfully mistrust white men, and would prefer figures like Orpheus or Onyx or Batwing or the Signal or Huntress (post-N52). There's the Creeper, who would be terrifying but some might prefer the monster over the man. There's Ragman, an explicitly Jewish vigilante who was literally called the Tatterdemalion of the Oppressed and trusted by the poor and homeless. There's Batwoman, Mother Panic, Spoiler, Nightwing, Red Robin, Azrael, Bluebird, the enigmatic idea of the Oracle, Anarky, Ghostmaker, Gotham Girl/Boy, Catman, Alan Scott-Green Lantern, Wildcat.

Hell, maybe someone who lives in Gotham would just straight up trust Superman or the Flash or Wonder Woman more than anyone else. Maybe they'd never once trust someone acting for a perceived view of justice and would just trust an employer like Two-Face or the Riddler or any mobster.

I'm stressing my point here: when you write anyone who lives in Gotham City, keep in mind that they don't know they live in a comic book world. Secret identities are foreign to them, they only know the base actions of each vigilante. Each person's opinion will heavily vary. Every experience colors their view of the city and vigilantes as a whole. Just, idk, widen your horizons and consider about what someone living in a place like Gotham would really think.

To that end, read the comics!!! Research actual cities!!! Take in experiences and history!!! It's all interesting and just adds so much more.

You want one comic that shows Bruce helping Gotham and the various views of Gothamites, read Gotham Knights #32, published in 2002 and titled "24/7." Read it online illegally if you have to!!

#i'm not hating on existing content #make what you want! #I've just always wanted to see more #because there is more to explore #dc #batman #dc comics #batman meta #gotham city #DM for a link to the comic issue if you want #just be prepared for a comic website with pop-up ads #robin #dc meta #bruce wayne #I am Not tagging all these people

[antivirus-mh-au]

Antivirus - Chapter 2

TW: None Chapter 1 here Ao3 link If you like this, please leave a like, reblog, or send me an ask! It encourages me so much.

He blew the smoke from his mouth around the cigarette, the morning sun catching all the particles as they floated into the air. Tim drew the J on top of the fresh carton and dropped the pen onto the dashboard. Pulling the cigarette from his mouth, he drew in a deep breath of fresh air, fresh as you could get at a gas station by a highway. Looking around the parking lot, at the people filing in and out, he shook his head and gave a wry smile. Hard not to be in a good mood when you got some decent sleep for once.

Becca and Lukas were okay. Lukas's leg had been taken care of, and the two had set back off for Idaho, back to the families that loved them. Another success case for Timothy Kane. Another group of people adding to the myth of his existence. Seemed like every month there were more of them. The Operator never tired. The sickness never eased. In fact, it only grew worse.

But like hell was he going to start off a good morning with that depressing shit. He'd gotten paid, gotten rest, and he'd found out where the nearest library was with free internet. He was not going to let a rare moment of peace escape him. He'd lost too much for that.

The library wasn't far away from the gas station he'd refilled at. By the time he pulled into the parking lot, it was open, as were the windows on the front of the building. He spoke briefly to the clerk at the front desk, making sure he understood their internet rules and that it was okay for him to bring in his thermos of coffee, before finding a convenient spot by a power outlet. 

His laptop was getting old, it took a while for it to boot up. As Tim waited, he thumbed through a newspaper. Experts predicting a war with China for the third time in as many years, conflict in the Middle East, the royal family in Britain getting roped into some scandal or another. That was why he didn't read the news much, it was always the same. By the time he got to the comics (never his favorite part of the newspaper), his laptop had finished, and Tim traded the two without a second thought.

He could and did check his email on his phone but he was old-fashioned and preferred to use his laptop when he had the chance. Earlier Becca's mother replied to his report about her daughter returning home, a message he'd saved in a special folder he looked at when he felt particularly shitty. 

Another email was waiting for him now, from a 'Meridith Frederickson'. Another client, looking for her son and his missing best friend. He replied to that one, offering to schedule a Zoom meeting later that same day. By now he knew all too well what happened if he wasn't on top of his cases. 

And of course, he had new messages in the spam folder. Tim glanced over the subjects of the emails without opening any of them. Some didn't have any, but most were vaguely threatening, the kind he usually got from trolls and kids. 'Always watching', 'there's no escape', 'how could you', and on and on and on. People thought they could get a rise out of him by acting like totheark, but none of them even came close to what Brian had been all those years ago. 

Tim glanced at the tab next to his email, frowning. There was no sense in trying to put it off, even if he hated doing it. Everything on that site made him feel worse, and today had been a pretty good day. But if he didn't look, he'd regret it later, falling into a rabbit hole of updates that was guaranteed to fuck him over. So he opened YouTube.

The videos were taken down years ago, the channels involved with Marble Hornets wiped from the website. But that didn't mean they were gone, just hidden away on Google Drives and shock sites. What was on YouTube was... the fandom.

It made his skin crawl thinking about it. People from all over the world were obsessed with what he and Jay had been through. He'd seen hundreds of articles about the videos, from five minute listicles to long analysises about the events and the people involved. He'd seen other things, too, things he'd rather not remember. Like the fanart...

Out of everything, though, it was the YouTube community that unsettled him the most. The passionate, wide eyed college kids. The naive high schoolers. The older people, with their backgrounds in criminal science and forensics and cryptids and God knew what else. They picked over the videos and tweets and codes like vultures at a pile of bones. Like it was just a fictional web series, like people he knew and once liked weren't dead. And they spread the disease. It didn't take all of them, leaving the YouTubers alone, but claiming their followers. It made him sick thinking about all the people he couldn't save, the people who had no one left to try and find them, the people who vanished into Rosswood Park and were never seen again. It made him sick, watching these ignorant people talk about his pain as if they were all insects under microscopes.

But if he didn't pay attention, who knew what might happen. The Operator was watching all of them. One slip up was all it took.

He scrolled through both the front page and his subscriptions. The videos were, in the end, all the same. Speculation, discussion, analyzation. Some of them he could watch later. Others needed his attention now.

Tim’s eyes landed on a video, and his heart clenched. The Neophyte was streaming again.

The still image didn’t show much. Neophyte_Calling didn’t put much work into his channel. It was just a shot of what the streams normally showed, pale, unkempt hands poking free from black robes, resting on an old plastic table. That was what he expected to find once he opened the stream.

And he’d be correct, that was what awaited him once he got the courage to click. The hands twitched and clenched and dug at the table. It wasn’t the hands that were special though, it was what the owner of those hands were saying.

“Autumn after firestorm, the nights don’t listen and the butter is on the corn. Ten days or twenty paces of living guts wrapped around an old man’s neck. The water comes up to your waist but you don’t feel the attitude of denial inside the bastard daughter’s heart. Oh, god, eureka, industry was never so smooth…”

Complete nonsense. The ramblings of a man on some kind of drug, or lost to some unknown mental illness. Despite this, the chat flooded with messages. Donations popped up occasionally, attempts to get the Neophyte’s attention. He didn’t notice. He never noticed. He just kept talking. And he would keep talking until the stream ended on its own, or he passed out on the table.

People called him a prophet. Claimed every word he spoke had a double, or even a triple, meaning. They recorded every word he said and discussed them among themselves, coming up with ‘translations’ for his maddening dialogue. And to be fair, they could have a point. Sometimes, what the Neophyte said did seem to foretell events that happened not long after he spoke them. But the god the Neophyte channeled was not one Tim would ever ask someone to worship.

Silence. The man stopped talking, his fidgeting hands resting flat on the table. Dread filled Tim’s body. Speak of the devil, he was doing this again?

The Neophyte spoke again, his voice deeper now. The words came clumsy from his mouth, uncomfortable, heavy, as if he had never spoken before. The emphasis, the tone, it was all wrong. Tim had no trouble understanding them, however.

“You always fight,” It said through the Neophyte’s mouth. “You always resist. You tire, and exhaust, and fall. You continue to fight despite.”

The robes shifted, the head hidden from the camera’s view tilting.

“Tim,” It said. “You are a grain of sand. I am eternal. I am here. I will always be here. You understand. You continue despite.”

On the side of the screen, the chat surged with messages. It raced so quickly, Tim couldn’t have read any of them even if he tried. He didn’t look away from the livestream. 

“Tim,” It said again. “Enough. You have fought hard. You are getting old. That’s enough. It’s time to come home. To us. To all of us.”

The hair stood up on his arms, on the back of Tim’s neck. He shuddered.

“Like hell,” he whispered, and closed the tab.

But even though he closed the livestream, he could swear he heard the Neophyte, the thing puppeting him, whisper in his mind.

“Coward.”

When 2pm rolled around, Tim was back in his van in the library parking lot. Obviously he couldn’t do a Zoom call inside the quiet space, but their internet reached well past the parking lot. He sat on his bed, now folded up like a couch inside the converted van he lived in. His laptop open before him, the program open and ready. Now he just had to wait for her.

Hard to say what this Meredith Fredrickson would expect a private investigator like him to look like, but Tim did his best to look presentable anyway. Hair combed, beard trimmed, leather jacket kept to the side out of her line of sight - leather jackets weren’t worn by authority figures, and that was what he was trying to be right now. Not anyone could do this job, but who’s to say she knew that? If she didn’t like the way he looked, she could try to find someone else to find her son and his friend. And if she did that, by the time she realized only Tim could help her, it would be too late.

Thinking about it that way made him shudder.

Of course, while he was prepared to deal with what she thought he would look like, he wasn’t as ready for what she herself would look like. As the call began, and Meredith’s face came on screen, Tim hesitated. He looked at her closely again. Had he seen this woman before?

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Fredrickson,” He greeted.

The woman shook her head, her curly brown hair tossing around her slim shoulders.

“Meredith is fine,” she said. “I haven’t been called ‘Mrs’ since my husband died. I changed back to my maiden name - my son’s last name will be his, not mine.”

“Of course,” Tim said. Odd information to include, but people tended to ramble when they were nervous.

He looked at her again, at the frown lines developing around her lips, and the worry and pain in her wide-set eyes. Behind her was a normal looking home, a few windows with pale curtains, a kitchen kept clean from what little he saw. Something was nagging at him. What was it?

“Did you fill out the information packet I requested?” He asked.

Meredith nodded.

“Yes.”

The file appeared, Tim half-listening to her as he opened it.

“I know this is a very strange thing to ask from you,” Meredith said. “But circumstances have changed in a way I really didn’t expect. I know it’s hard to believe that after ten years my son could be alive, but I don’t have any other explanation for…”

She trailed off. Tim didn’t look away from the document she’d sent. The names written on the very first line.

Missing People: Jay Merrick and Alex Kralie

Motherfucker, had he been tricked?

Tim shot the woman a sharp glance, examining her expression in seconds. She was not the first person to ask him to track down Jay and Alex, but she was the first he hadn’t screened out before it got this far. Most people were upfront about their intentions, or were obviously trolling, or he otherwise got weird vibes from them. This Meredith had slipped him by, and wasted his time in the process.

“He is my son,” Meredith said. “I’ve included his birth certificate, since I thought you might not believe me.”

“I don’t need it.” A birth certificate? Those weren’t easy to fake, but Tim was no expert on Photoshop either. 

“I would’ve included Alex’s, too,” Meredith continued. “After all the years he and Jay knew each other, you would’ve thought I’d have it too.” She laughed, and there was pain within it. “But his parents died in a car accident about six years back, and…”

“Wait.” Tim refocused. “Alex and Jay knew each other?”

“Since the first year of middle school,” Meredith said with a nod. “I have a lot of photos of them. You know, Jay went through a phase, where he wore all black, and listened to rock music with singers I couldn’t understand. He got a tattoo of one of the bands on his ankle behind my back. I was so angry...”

She laughed again, and her eyes went distant. Tim stared at her, his mind flashing back to all the conversations he’d had with Jay, things that didn’t go into the videos. Being Alex’s childhood friend, since middle school - the phases he went through as a teen - that damn tattoo he was so embarrassed of. None of these were known by the fandom.

Oh god, this woman was the real deal. Even her face, now that he looked at her, was just like Jay’s. The distant look in her eyes as she thought… Jay got that same expression.

“Meredith,” he said, his voice softer, kinder. “Do you know about Marble Hornets?”

“I can’t bring myself to watch them,” she said. Meredith folded her hands together. “But I know what… what was shown on the videos. I know that they are…” She swallowed. “Considered dead by most people. I was one of them.”

His gut twisted. By most people, including her. “But something… changed.”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath, and moved to wipe her eyes. “I got a package in the mail about a week ago. Inside was a flashdrive and a few printed photos. It had been placed in my mailbox - I don’t know who sent it.”

Oh no, Tim thought. Not this again. Please, don’t play this game with people again.

“What were the photos?” He asked, aware of the sound of his own voice more than anything else.

“I’ve included most of them in the document,” Meredith said. “I… I still can’t believe what I’ve seen, but… But they don’t look like they could’ve been faked.”

Dread pressed down on his shoulders. Dread and something else, some kind of energy buzzing through his nerves. Tim looked at the document, scrolled down, and opened the photos.

Some were blurry, taken from a distance and zoomed in before being printed. Some were clear as glass. It took him several seconds to process what he was seeing, what the subjects of the photos were. Tim blinked, looked again, and his pulse quickened.

Alex, standing on a street corner, gray in his hair, exhaustion on his face. Jay in a dark cloth jacket with a hood, looking over his shoulders. Alex, and Jay, Alex, and Jay, in all the photos, in every single one. The clothes were different, the faces aged, but there was no denying what he was seeing, and like Meredith said, no way to fake what he was looking at.

“Oh my god,” Tim mumbled.

Jay and Alex were alive.

#marble hornets #marble hornets fanfiction #marble hornets tim #Tim Wright #mh tim wright #mh tim #marble hornets alex #alex kralie #mh jay merrick #jay merrick #MH Jay #mh antivirus au #mh alex

[metryingtodoanuzlocke]

Hello

I originally was gonna do typical soul silver randomizer run but I think this’ll help me prepare on actually being good at pokemon.

When my computer comes and is hooked up i’ll likely attach a actual emulator for a pokemon white run. 

FOR NOW, consider this my test run where I just describe shit to you without actually showing images.

The Pre-Run.

So I picked out the girl trainer because A. I like her design more B. I’m a girl B).

I forgot they give the trainers natures so i’m curious to see what mine will be? 

I tried to look up some nuzlocke tips but the fucking website gave my phone constant pop up ads that I couldn’t close :/. So i’m just gonna go with whatever and probably die a lot. 

OH another reason I picked this game is that the pokecenter and market are combined. I had to constantly travel through that one cave after the first gym leader and heal up. 

Instead of writing my name because if I make this I comic I will not be writing it as me (writing as myself is too difficult imo) I went with a name generator.

Was kinda stuck on which one to go with but I ended up using Sandra. Just sounds the coolest. Also fits the most comfortably. 

Another reason to go for pokemon white is that I really like the rivals in this game, they really feel like friends i’ve had before lmao. Cheren used to be my favorite out of the two when I was younger but I think i’m preferring Bianca nowadays. 

Cheren has a unique impatience foot tap sprite lmao.

I’m going with Oshawott, because Oshawott is my favorite starter :).

Snivy is always a 2nd choice pick though, sorry tepig! 

I feel it’s kinda appropriate though that Cheren has a Snivy and Bianca has a Tepig. 

Of course Bianca wants to fight and it’s gonna get rowdy lmao, I got a good hit on the first round and tepig lost a good chunk of health. I think it only lasted 4 turns at most. 

I switch over to Cheren and i’m a little nervous, when I comtemplated on random run or not Cheren got my Oshawott’s health allll the way over to red. So crossing my fingers. 

I got another good hit towards the end before his leer could’ve been put to use. Woohoo!!

I forgot that you change the nature and class stuff till now so lmao. I almost put my title to preschooler while checking WHOOPS.

I set class to Lass (idk what else to put it to) and nature to Hasty. 

My male Oshawott has a Lax Nature and Often Scatters Things.  Now what to name it....

Riptide

#Pre-run #nuzlocke training

[raendown]

A commission for @theintellectualweeb! Thank you, this was fun to write!

Pairing: IzunaTobirama Word count: 4837 Rated: T+ Summary: Izuna comes home to a kitchen filled with smoke and wonders, rightly, what the fuck. Since when does Tobirama cook? Since never, as it turns out, no matter how many times he continues to try.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header! 

Calamity Cuisine 

The first time Izuna came home to find their apartment filled with smoke he panicked, as any normal human would. He was the one with a habit of playing with fire, Tobirama usually the one to scoff and stay as far away as possible, so it seemed a logical conclusion that something had gone terribly wrong and the love of his life was in danger.

As it turned out, the only thing in any danger was his dinner.

Panic quickly gave way to amusement upon finding Tobirama standing in the middle of their kitchen with a baffled expression and both hands on his hips, glaring at the stove like it had done him a great injustice. The look was a familiar one. It was the same look he gave to all technology when it wasn’t doing what he wanted it to do. For a man with so many smarts up in his own head he did have an unfair number of troubles with anything marketed as a smart device.

“What…happened?” Izuna asked, not bothering to disguise the laughter in his voice.

“I’m not entirely sure. As far as I can tell I followed the instructions to the letter – although they weren’t as clear as I would have liked them to be.” Tobirama’s nose wrinkled with distaste.

“Oh? What was unclear? And what were you trying to make? All I can see is black smoke.”

Izuna waved one hand through the air, trying to clear a small pocket around him to breathe in, and he wondered why the smoke alarm wasn’t going off until he spotted it sitting on the counter in several pieces. That answered that question. He didn’t even need to ask why or how; he’d known his partner for long enough to guess where his logic had gone with that one.

“Kraft Dinner,” Tobirama announced, holding up a small blue cardboard box. “The instructions said to ‘stir occasionally’ but it never explains what it means by occasionally. Should I hover over the pot and stir every thirty seconds? Should I stir in three equal intervals?” Clearly frustrated, Tobirama tossed the box down and crossed his arms petulantly. “By the time I had decided what parameters to use for ‘occasionally’ the pot had begun to smoke. These things really should include more specific language.”

“Okay you know I love you. But. A child can figure out how to follow these instructions. Literally only you could mess this up.” To take the sting out of his words he clapped Tobirama on the back as he stepped past to open a few windows.

“Children cannot possibly figure this madness out.”

“They really can.” Izuna threw open every window that might be used to evict smoke and then started looking around for something to fan it all around with.

Still pouting Tobirama moved to help him. Izuna considered telling him how cute that disgruntled expression of his was but in the end he kept such observations to himself. Obviously he was already frustrated over this ridiculous little episode and there was no point in riling him up even more. No matter how curious he was about burning the noodles when obviously they would have needed water to cook in.

“How about we just order pizza for the night?” he suggested.

“I suppose so. That was not my plan but one must roll with the punches, as they say.”

“You’re talking like an old man again,” Izuna helpfully pointed out. His partner gave him a pinched look.

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Better!”

The second time Izuna came home to a disaster in their apartment was less than a week later and before asking any questions he headed straight for the windows to let it all escape outside. On his way he ducked underneath the swirling black mass and spotted the new fire alarm he had just bought sitting on the counter in the same condition as the last had been – but he couldn’t find it in him to be angry. Not when Tobirama had the decency to look at least slightly apologetic.

“What did the instructions say this time?” he asked when he could breathe again. Tobirama cleared his throat but his answer still came out as an unintelligible mumble. Izuna grinned. “Sorry what was that? I didn’t catch any of that?”

“I said that I forgot about the food. Did you know the oven light goes off when it reaches temperature?”

“Yes. I did. Because I cook all the time.”

Tobirama sniffed. “Well…it’s a dangerous feature.”

“It alternates every minute so that you can tell it’s still at temp.”

“Ah. That is something else that I did not know. I may have gotten distracted by the new catalogue that came this morning. Do you think I could afford a new telescope? There was an ad for an incredibly powerful–”

Before he could really take off Izuna leaned over to shut him up with a kiss. “Not the time. What are you stinking up my kitchen with today?”

He got no answer but opening the oven told him all he needed to know. Well, almost all he needed to know. The blackened mess inside the foil tin could have been either a frozen lasagna or a frozen shepherd’s pie, the ones he kept in their freezer for lazy nights were about the same size, but it was hard to tell the difference after the whole thing had been burnt to charcoal.

“Must have been a riveting article you were reading,” he mused.

“Would saying sorry help?”

“Not if you don’t actually mean it.”

Tobirama nodded. “I’ll work on it. I am sorry the food was ruined.”

For once living on the bad side of town came with an advantage as Izuna was able to slip on a pair of novelty singing bass oven mitts, extract the ruined meal, then carry it across the living room and toss the whole thing out the window. He paused for a moment just to hear the satisfying crash of it landing in the dumpster below before returning the mitts to their hook and turning to give Tobirama the most judgmental raised eyebrow he possibly cook.

“Why has this happened twice?” he asked. ‘You’ve never shown any interest in cooking before.”

“I wanted to cook dinner for you,” Tobirama admitted stiffly.

“So why don’t you just cook the way you always do and order Taco Bell?”

He’d never seen Tobirama puff up with so much offense before. “I will not serve you Taco Bell!”

Nose in the air, he spun away and stormed off to their bedroom as though he’d been greatly insulted. Izuna tilted his head curiously but decided against following the man. Something weird was obviously going on but with Tobirama it was always better to just let things happen as they would and let the man get through whatever he wanted to. It was really only safe to stop him if he was about to hurt himself.

Usually if you stopped him without a better reason he would just turn around and find a worse way to achieve whatever it was he wanted.

As evidenced when Izuna came home several days later to find what looked like the entire contents of his fridge smeared around the kitchen. Nothing had escaped the carnage. Cupboards, countertops, floors, even the ceiling had bits of vegetables clinging to the stucco he’d always meant to scrape off and repaint. At first he thought Tobirama was just that bad at whatever he was doing in here but he understood the moment he took in the sight of the blender with barely a quarter inch of green mush sitting in the bottom of it. The disaster sort of painted a picture of its own from there.

“So. What’s today’s thoughts?” he called out. When Tobirama popped up from the opposite side of the counter with his face coated green it was a difficult call whether he should scream in terror or laugh under he split a seam.

“There was an accident.” Something in his partner’s tone had him narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

“And then?”

“…and then I wanted to see if I could recreate the event.” Tobirama’s eyes panned upwards to the mess on the ceiling. “Our blender is much more powerful than I realized.”

Izuna pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed in deeply then breathed out slowly. “Should I ask what was supposed to be on the menu today?”

“My thought was to prepare the shakes you like to bring with you to the gym, although I wasn’t certain what recipe you use to make them. I found several online and most of them involved vegetables in a blender. Which seemed strange to me since it’s usually quite the battle convincing you to eat any vegetables but all the websites agreed.” He shrugged, the mess on his face sliding downwards like a comical theatre mask of sadness.

“Should I ask why you insist on continuing these kitchen adventure or…”

“Is there something wrong with a man trying to prepare a gift for his partner?” Tobirama frowned but his ire was exponentially less effective when hidden behind pureed vegetables. Actually in a strange way it just made him look more kissable, which was a little gross to think about.

Cleaning up the mess of blended food took three hours and Izuna refused to lift one finger to help. He did drag his favorite armchair a little closer so her could act as cheer squad and keep Tobirama from getting distracted. Only god knew what sort of oddities were going on inside his mind every time he paused in the middle of doing something and turned as though to act upon some new idea. Izuna was merciless in driving him back to his task, feeling absolutely no guilt for doing so. The mess was his fault, after all, so he should be the one to clean it.

Afterwards he gave in to Tobirama’s pouting and let the man flop over his lap while he watched TV. It wasn’t exactly cuddling by mostly people’s standards, better described as Tobirama using him for a glorified book rest, but to them it was an excellent way to spend time together while still entertained by their own interests. Just because neither of them enjoyed the same shows didn’t mean they couldn’t happily occupy the same space.

For a full week after that Izuna came home to a disaster free kitchen and he began to think that whatever madness had taken hold of his partner was finally passing over. Their evenings were quiet and the nights when he didn’t cook something for dinner he made sure to call out for delivery to arrive at the same time he knew Tobirama would be getting home, following his schedule like clockwork. It wasn’t until halfway through the second week that he discovered he had become complacent. Considering that he thought he almost deserved the shock of opening the door to find the bloody remains of an actual chicken spread out across their counter.

“Oh god, Tobirama what the actual fuck!?” Dropping the backpack he carried his work folders in, Izuna covered his mouth with both hands and spun away to combat the bile rising up in the back of his throat.

“Fresh meat,” was Tobirama’s succinct answer.

“A little too fresh! Did you actually slaughter a fucking animal in my kitchen? What the hell!”

“You always complain the supermarket doesn’t have meat as fresh as you would like. I thought…” He trailed off as though it had only just occurred to him that there may have been a few flaws in his thought process.

Still facing away, Izuna tried not to picture more details in the single glimpse he’d managed to catch. There was absolutely no need for him to know which parts of that poor animal were where or how much blood was now contaminating his countertop. He wasn’t exactly squeamish at the sight of blood but a dismembered carcass was a little different from accidentally stabbing his hand with a mechanical pencil again.

“Either you’re going to need three bottles of bleach in there before I even think of cooking anything on those countertops or you’ll just have to replace the whole thing because oh my god Tobirama. Does it ever occur to you that maybe you should run these ideas by someone first to make sure they’re not crazy?”

“No,” Tobirama responded bluntly. His voice sounded like it was still coming from the same spot.

A little suspicious, Izuna felt the need to clarify, “You’re not actually still trying to chop up that poor bird are you?”

“Should I stop? It seems like such a waste now that I’ve come so far.”

It took a while to stop twitching but Izuna kept his calm by chanting how much his loved his partner over and over in his head. Without that he was sure he would have turned around, vomited, and then killed the other man. Only when he thought he could speak without screaming did he open his mouth – and then stopped.

“God, I hate it so fucking much when you win with logic,” he grumbled.

“Does that mean I may continue?”

“Yes, fuck, go ahead you psycho. It kind of would be a waste. Are you almost done or something? Can it go in the fridge after? Because I am not coming back in to that room until everything is cleaned up.” Without waiting for an answer he absconded down the hall and barricaded himself in their bedroom.

In the end he actually benefitted from this turn of events since keeping himself locked away kept him from getting distracted by Tobirama’s company as he so often did and gave him the opportunity to go over some of the reports he’d dragged home from work. It was several hours before the quiet little nest he’d made for himself was disturbed by a hesitant knock on the door and he realized that he had probably gotten more done in that short amount of time than he had all day at work. Not having to fend off constant interruptions was definitely a luxury he rarely got to experience.

“May I open the door?” Tobirama called through the wood. “I promise that I washed my hands. Twice.”

“With disinfectant?”

“Both times.”

“Yeah alright. But you better not be covered in blood!”

Tobirama was not covered in blood. He was, rather, naked from head to toe. “I guessed that any mess on my person would upset you so I threw my clothing down to the dumpster. Well, I tried. I believe it was the Lady Hyuga on the third floor who put her head out the window just in time for my bloody shirt to land on her face.”

Izuna howled with shameless laughter.

“Good! I never liked her. Her and all her family; there’s got to be a hundred Hyuga living in these apartment blocks and they’re all so stuffy.” He continued chuckling as he tried to imagine the scene she would have made.

“So you say. I also cleaned the kitchen. As instructed, I disinfected every surface twice.” There was a distinct note of pride for a job well done in Tobirama’s voice, like he expected a reward for following orders, and strangely the fact that he was standing naked without a hint of awkwardness only made it more endearing.

“Thank you,” Izuna told him. “Come here.” When he beckoned Tobirama stepped closer and bent down to receive a soft kiss as his desired reward.

When he straightened he looked back over one shoulder. “I considered trying to cook the meat myself–”

“Nope!” Izuna was up on the bed in an instant, hustling down the hall.

“I said I only considered it!” Tobirama called after him with undertones of offense.

After a quick inspection Izuna declared the kitchen clean enough, though he still had to rub everything down one more time just to make himself feel better about wiping off the blood. The meat he found tucked away in the fridge looking almost like any other store-bought cut of meat so he pulled it out and got started on a late dinner for them both. If the meat did end up tasting much better for being so fresh, well, Izuna was sure Tobirama understood the thanks he was offering when they went to bed that night.

Nearly a full month passed after that without any sort of cooking fiasco breaking up their daily routines. There were several attempts, multiple calls from Tobirama at various points during the day with strange questions that Izuna was certain would have led to certain disaster, but he was rather proud of himself for putting out any and all fires before they could really spring up.

Both of their brothers dropped by for a visit while he still had things under control and Izuna was happy to have a clean kitchen where he could whip up a meal delicious enough to impress even his cantankerous older sibling whose palette swung wildly between caviar or bust and whatever was rotting in the dumpster behind the closest fast food joint. Madara complimented him on his steaks and Izuna pretending that Tobirama had butchered those fresh too but decided he didn’t want to listen to the screaming.

Their family dinner was nice overall despite the two Senju brothers disappearing for nearly an hour and then reappearing by climbing in through the window. Hashirama had tears streaming down his face but he refused to say why so Izuna could only guess that he’d been terrified getting dragged up and down the fire escape. Although neither would explain where they had gone it wasn’t actually so out of the ordinary for Tobirama to get an idea in his head and drag some poor sod along by force to help him act on whatever crazy thought had occurred to him this time so Izuna let it go without thinking very much about it.

It wasn’t until another two weeks later that he realized he maybe should have thought about it a little more. Or, actually, that it was a good thing he hadn’t. Surprises were nice every once in a while as long as it didn’t involve his kitchen going up in flames again.

Walking in the front door to find a perfectly cooked and plated dinner of his favorite western meal, roast beef and mashed potatoes, definitely was not on the list of surprises he could have guessed at ahead of time. Suspicions and questions immediately rose up but he managed to keep a lid on them for the time being in favor of slipping off his shoes without looking away from the feast laid out on their kitchen table. Neither of them being very formal people, they didn’t actually use their kitchen table for eating very often. Mostly they sat on barstools and ate over the kitchen island. Today it seemed Tobirama had taken the time to clear everything off their dining table for a proper presentation, bottle of wine and all.

The image was only made more perfect when Tobirama skidded in to the room with the distinct look of someone who was hurrying to meet their cue. He was blinking wildly and his hair showed evidence of being wrestled down in to a more smooth style, though it still defied expectations by standing straight up on the man’s head. It just wouldn’t be Tobirama if he were perfectly smooth.

“Did you kidnap someone’s dinner?” Izuna asked. It was the only explanation he could think of for the appearance of such a well-cooked meal.

“No.” Shuffling a little awkwardly, Tobirama looked away with a pout. “Anija agreed to come over and cook for me since my efforts to do so on my own...were not yielding the expected results.”

“I must have just missed him in another elevator or something. Damn. This all looks amazing. I am suddenly terrified that I’ve forgotten some kind of anniversary.” Relief swept through his body when Tobirama shook his head.

Gesturing to the closest seat, Tobirama murmured that he should sit before disappearing down the hall again with a frantic light in his eyes. Only when he turned did Izuna finally look past the funny hair and the wild expression to notice that the man was dressed up. He could count on one hand the amount of times he had seen Tobirama wearing anything nicer than a clean t-shirt in the four years since they had met.

“What’s all this?” he asked when his partner came back in to the room.

“I was trying to be nice,” Tobirama huffed. “But I could never get it right. Dinner is- it’s tradition, I think. But Anija said that a nice meal means I should look nice and you do deserve nice things and–“

“Okay, okay, calm down. If you say ‘nice’ one more time you might accidentally crack a smile.” Izuna did just that in response to the prissy look he got.

“Just pretend I can be kind to you for one evening, if you please.”

Rather than point out that Tobirama did kind things for him all the time – in his own way, of course – Izuna shut his yap and let Tobirama pour him a glass of wine. His favorite, he noted. That was the sort of kindness he had come to expect before they even started dating. Tobirama was the sort of man who watched and learned and remembered, then he put those observations to good use by ordering Izuna’s favorite foods, taking him to movies with his favorite actors, switching brands when their new laundry detergent started leaving rashes on his delicate skin. His love was shown in little actions.

After the wine was poured Tobirama grabbed a paper napkin off the kitchen counter and brought it over, unfolding the one ply sheet and shaking it in the air like it was a proper fancy cloth napkin. Izuna stopped him before he could try and lay it out across any laps.

“Why don’t you just sit down and eat instead of trying to worry about every single detail? This is already amazing. Consider me impressed. Now eat before your food gets cold.” Izuna watched with amusement as his partner wrestled with the concept of not attending to every last detail himself.

“Fine,” he mumbled at last.

The food was delicious, though that was little surprise if Hashirama had cooked it, and the wine complimented their meal quite nicely. With the windows closed to keep the sounds of traffic muted and some kind of music playing at a low volume from their bedroom the evening actually had quite a lovely date-like atmosphere that they didn’t bother with very often as a couple.

Really the only thing that could be improved upon was Tobirama’s dinner conversation. Usually no matter where they were he could be counted on to chatter away about whatever he pleased, unbothered by the idea that someone else might overhear him and find his choice of topic offensive somehow. Now he sat ever so slightly hunched with his fork clenched tightly in one hand and most of Izuna’s attempts to start a conversation were met with distracted mutterings that didn’t quite sound the same as when he was lost inside his own head trying to work out a problem.

If Izuna didn’t know any better he would say his partner was worried about something.

“Are you alright?” he asked eventually.

“Yes, fine, all fine. It’s fine.” Tobirama continued to scowl down at his half-finished meal without even trying to make eye contact. Something was definitely wrong.

“Tobes–”

“Don’t call me that.”

Izuna bit his lip. “This surprise is great and all but you’re kind of worrying me. Are you sure you’re good?”

“Worrying you was not exactly what I had intended. This was supposed to be a nice evening for you. I can be nice!” Tobirama slid his own plate away from himself a stood up to pace an anxious circle around the table.

“Yes, I know you can be.”

“Well good. When you love someone you’re supposed to do nice things for them. Every magazine and article I’ve read says that and Anija agrees so I trust the majority consensus.” As he spoke he made another circuit around the table with his brows drawn together in an expression that could almost be mistaken for deep concentration by anyone who didn’t know him well.

Scooting his chair back, Izuna stood up as well to stop the other man in his tracks. “Hey. Stop. Tell me what’s wrong. You’re being…not you.”

“You just agreed that I can be nice, I’m doing a nice thing!”

“Uh-huh and you’re also rambling on about it when usually you like it better if I don’t mention anything. Please tell me what’s actually going on.” Izuna lifted his eyebrows and caught Tobirama’s eyes. They stared each other down until Tobirama wrinkled his nose and looked away.

Well versed in the surprising unpredictability of a man so set in his own patterns and routines, Izuna hadn’t even bothered trying to guess at the reason behind his partner’s behavior, not after how many times he’d been wildly wrong before. Conclusions he thought of as completely logical could usually be torn apart in three sentences or less by Tobirama’s oversized brain. So right now he just needed the idiot to talk; the suspense was killing him.

Still, he tried to be patient as Tobirama’s eyes darted everywhere else in the room but at him until finally he dug around in the pocket of his dark slacks. The theme of black on black he had chosen for his outfit did absolute wonders to make the rest of him pop. Izuna couldn’t wait to peel it all off him later.

“Anjia said if I wanted to give this to you then I should probably butter you up first. I think he was making fun of me but I wasn’t sure so I thought it was better to be safe than sorry.” Tobirama nodded as though agreeing with his own logic. Then he opened his hand and all the air rushed out of Izuna’s lungs at once.

The ring was modest and slim, clearly chosen to look more natural on Izuna’s smaller fingers. With a band of white gold and a simple braided engraving around the center it could not have screamed ‘engagement ring’ any louder unless someone glued a massive diamond to the top of it. Izuna couldn’t stop staring. And because he couldn’t stop staring he also couldn’t help but notice the very fine trembling in the hand hovering between them.

“I think you’re supposed to ask a question when you give me that,” he breathed.

“Right, yes, you are correct.” Tobirama cleared his throat and shuffled a step closer. “Will- is there a specific way I’m meant to phrase this? I think I should have done a little more research first.”

“Will you marry me?”

Both of them stared at each other in surprise after Izuna blurted out the question on both of their minds. The silence was only broken when Tobirama gave a little mewl of discontent.

“I was supposed to ask you that!”

“Well you were taking too long. So…answer me.”

“Of course I wish to marry you, I was going to-mph!” Before he could go off on a tangent about who should ask or answer Izuna cut him off again by throwing himself at the other man, arms wound tight over broad shoulders so he could drag himself up to Tobirama’s height for a deep kiss.

Hands settled on his hips to pull him in closer and Izuna was grateful when Tobirama bent down a little so he could lower himself from the tips of his toes. Under no circumstances was he willing to break their kiss yet. Not with so much unadulterated joy thundering against the inside of his rib cage. With no other way to express himself he held on tighter and kissed with everything he knew he wouldn’t find the words to say, hardly able to breath past his emotions and loving every minute of it.

It wasn’t until Tobirama pulled away to blink at him with concern that he realized he was tearing up.

“My brother can never know that I cried,” he demanded. Tobirama nodded solemnly in return.

“Understandable.”

“I love you.”

“Yes, I gathered that.”

Laughing wetly, Izuna let his head drop against the middle of Tobirama’s chest. “Jerk. You’re supposed to say it back.”

“Ah. I love you too, of course.”

That was all he needed. Izuna closed his eyes and clenched his fingers, picturing what it would look like when Tobirama slid the ring on to his left hand. Not with a hundred guesses would he have thought this was the reason behind so many disasters in his kitchen.

Worth it, he decided. Tobirama would always be worth it.

#rae writes #commission #izutobi #izuna #tobirama #modern au #fanfiction

[harley-sunday]

The Draw (01)

Summary: The whirlwind starts at the 2018 ACE Comic Con in Phoenix but you’re not sure where it will end...

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x reader

Warnings: None so far, but this is a super slow burn. Bear with me.

Word count: 4521

AN: For those of you have been around a little longer - this story was originally published on my secondary blog Leijona Writes, but then taken down again, so you may have already read it :) Either way, please let me know what you think! Also, I mention a picture somewhere in the story, I’ve put a link in the text just to give you some reference as to what I’m talking about :) And last, I don’t have a taglist, but if you follow Harley Sunday x Sebastian Stan you should see any update I post.

Tante = aunt in Dutch amongst other languages. A little nod to my mother tongue and hopefully a way not to have to use the dreaded (Y/N).

Masterlist

December 2017

“Oh, am I the best aunt ever, or what?” you mutter to no one in particular as you click the ‘buy now’ button on the ACE Comic Con website, adding two Marvel VIP tickets to your online shopping cart. After you finish the transaction, you pick up your phone just as the email confirmation of your order pops up on your screen. Finding your brother’s name in your contact list you hit the call button, printing out the tickets while you wait for him to answer.

“Hey loser,”

“Not a loser when you hear where I’m taking Jake next month,” you answer, almost giddy with excitement.

“Didn’t I tell you to stop spoiling the kid?” He lets out an exasperated sigh and you can just see him pinch the bridge of his nose in the same way your Dad does whenever he doesn’t know whether he should be mad or grateful.

“He’s my nephew,” you argue, knowing very well that what you’ll say next will win your brother over, because it’s not the first time you’re having this argument, and you have pretty much perfected your persuasive powers over the years. “I know you guys don’t get to spend as much time with him as you’d like, what with Sarah working night shifts at the hospital and you running your own business, and I want you to know that it’s not about that, ok? But he’s as close as I’ll get to ever having a kid of my own, Nate. I’ve been single since God knows how long, I don’t have anyone else to spend my money on and I really like spending time with the kid. Will you please let me?”

“You need to breathe,” Nathan grumbles.

“And you need to ask me where I’m taking him,” you counter, smiling even though he can’t see you.

“Fine,” he sighs. “Where are you taking him, tante?”

“The ACE Comic Con in Phoenix!” you exclaim loudly. “We’re meeting Captain America, Falcon, and the Winter Soldier!”

“No shit,”

“Yeah shit,” you laugh. “I got tickets for a photo op with all three of them. It’s for Saturday afternoon, so I figured we’d fly out there Friday night and back on Sunday morning, make a weekend out of it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Nathan agrees, “I just have to check with Sarah, but I think it’s ok.”

“Alright, but don’t tell Jake, ok? I want it to be a surprise when I pick him up from school that Friday,”

“I hate to say it,” your brother mutters, “but you really are the best.”

“What was that?” you ask with a grin, before laughing out loud when you hear the sound that tells you your brother has ended the call.

January 2018

“Hi bud,” you smile as you see Jake running towards you. You hold out your arms, wanting to pick him up, but he just high fives you.

“What?” you feign surprise. “Can I not give my favourite nephew a kiss anymore?”

“I’m your only nephew,” he deadpans with so much attitude it’s hard to believe he’s only seven, “and we’re on the schoolyard, tante, everyone can see us.”

“Oh right,” you nod solemnly, “because it’s now a secret that I’m your aunt, I got it.” You throw him a wink for good measure before you take his hand and lead him to your car, “You ready for our weekend, bud?”

He nods, “Dad said I have to listen to you and hold your hand,”

“Hmm,” you hum, “that’s good advice, I suppose.” You unlock the car and open the door for him, taking his backpack as he climbs into the car seat, “Did Dad tell you where we’re going?”

He shakes his head, “No, just that we would go on a plane somewhere,”

“You excited about that?”

“Yeahah,” he says, nodding enthusiastically, “I’ve never been on a plane before.”

“You have, but you were very little, bud,” you say while struggling with his seat belt. “Mom and Dad took you to New York for Christmas when you were one, when Grandma and Grandpa were still living there.” You let out a groan, frustrated that you can’t get this to work. When Jake holds out his hands you hand the seat belt over to him and are shocked when he fastens it in just a matter of seconds.

“Well, then this is the first time I’ll go on a plane where I can remember it,” he answers and you can’t really argue with that.

“Do you want to know what we’re going to do?” You watch him nod and can’t help but smile, “We’re going to meet some of your favourite superheroes, bud.”

His eyes grow wide, “Really?”

You nod, “Yup, we’ve got a date with Captain America, Falcon, and the Winter Soldier tomorrow.”

His mouth drops, “No way!”

“Way,” you reply with a grin, “and we even get to take pictures with them.”

He holds his out his arms then and you lean into the car, letting him hug you, placing a kiss on his head when you pull back, “Let’s go.”

“Tante?”

You let out a quiet groan and open one eye, cursing silently when you see the clock on your phone reads 6:15, “Yeah bud?”

“Is it Saturday yet?”

You turn around and see him sitting up in his own bed next to yours, looking all too awake, and so you wonder if you’ll get away with it when you say, “It’s still night, buddy, try to go back to sleep, ok?”

“Ok,” he shrugs and lets himself fall back onto his pillow, a giggle escaping him when he bounces back a little.

You smile at him even though he can’t see you in the dark and wait for his quiet snores to fill the room again, your heart bursting with love for this amazing little person.

“What time is it now?” Jake asks for about the fifth time today, getting more and more nervous each time.

You look at your phone, “It’s 4.15, bud, so after you’ve been to the bathroom we’re going to get in line, ok?”

He nods, but then gets distracted by a cosplayer dressed up as the Hulk, his head turning as he lets out a quiet, “Wow,”

“Cool, huh?” you agree. You point your thumb at his chest while holding his hand, “Not as cool as your Captain America sweater though.”

He looks up at you, an uncertain look in his eyes, “You think Captain America will like it?”

“Definitely,” you nod. You reach the bathrooms then and agree to wait for him outside, after he argues that he is seven-and-nine-months and knows how this works, thank you very much.

“I even washed my hands,” you hear behind you when Jake comes out, looking extremely pleased with himself.

“I’m sure Captain America will appreciate that, bud,” you smile and take his hand again, leading him towards the line of the photo booth. Your slot is at 4.45, so you are a little early, but the girl waves you over anyway. You hand her your tickets and she scans them, handing them back to you with a sad smile.

“Chris Evans had to call in sick,” she explains, “so it’s just Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan, I’m afraid.”

“Oh,” you reply, feeling your heart drop a little, knowing how much Jake was looking forward to meeting Captain America.

“If you could just wait over there,” she nods to her right, “and then we’ll call you in with the rest of the 4.45 group, ok?”

You nod and gently pull Jake with you, mentally preparing yourself to give him the news that his favourite superhero won’t be able to make it. But then he sees someone dressed up as Superman and before you know he’s explaining all of Superman’s powers to you with so much enthusiasm that you don’t have the heart to interrupt him, and so by the time you get called into the waiting area you’ve forgotten what you were supposed to tell him.

You’re first in line in the waiting area, six teenage girls behind you, all giggling non-stop, excited to meet their celebrity crushes no doubt. The waiting area really is just a roped off area next to the little podium where the pictures are being taken and you watch as the last two fans of the previous group exit the stage, when Jake tugs on your hand. You look down at him and see a confused look on his face, “What’s wrong, bud?”

“Where’s Captain America?” he asks, his eyes scanning the stage.

You silently curse yourself as you squat down, making him look at you, “Captain America couldn’t make it today,” you see his bottom lip start to tremble and your heart drops some more, “I’m sorry, Jake.”

Tears are falling then, big fat tears, and of course it’s then the girl calls your name. You look up at her and shake your head, “I’m going to need a minute,” you gesture to the girls behind you, “can’t they go first?”

The girl nods and you’re happy she’s willing to help out. You scoop Jake up in your arms, and step aside. You let him cry for a while, because you know how much he was looking forward to this, rubbing his back to help calm him down. When the second group of girls make their way on stage you whisper a quiet, “Hey, bud,” to get his attention.

He pulls back a little and looks at you, tears streaking his face. You try to smile at him but fail and so you set him down, sitting down on your knees so you’re at eye level with him, “I know this is not how we planned things, but Falcon and the Winter Soldier are still here, ok? We should at least go say hi to them.”

“Ma’am?”

You look up to find the waiting area empty, the girl with the clipboard nodding her head towards the stage. You send her an apologetic smile, “Just a second, please?”

“But I’m wearing my Captain America sweater,” Jake mumbles, letting his head drop, plucking at the fabric.

“I know, bud,” you ruffle his hair, not really knowing what else to say. It’s then you see someone approaching you from the corner of your eye and you let out a small gasp when you see Sebastian Stan coming your way. You only know him as the Winter Soldier, so you’re surprised to see him in a casual combo of jeans, sneakers, and a brown leather jacket, but it suits him.

Jake’s eyes grow wide once he has followed your gaze and sees who’s there.

“Hello, Captain,” Sebastian smiles, saluting Jake, “Falcon and I were wondering if you could help us out?”

Jake just looks at him in complete awe, unable to say anything.

“You see, we were supposed to take pictures with Captain America today, but he had somewhere else to be,” he lowers his voice, “he said something about a super secret mission, so don’t tell anyone ok?”

Jake nods, mouth still agape.

“So, uh, we wanted to ask if you maybe wanted to take a picture with us,” he gestures at Jake’s sweater, “since you’re already in uniform, Captain.”

Jake moves his eyes to you, a questioning look in his eyes.

You smile at him and shrug, “What do you say, bud?”

He nods slowly, “Ok,”

You let out a sigh of relief and watch as Jake takes Sebastian’s outstretched hand, walking on stage with him. You stand up, smiling when you see the scene unfold in front of you.

Anthony bumps fists with Jake when he gets on stage, “Good to see you, Cap,”

Jake giggles at all the attention, smiling widely now, his tears drying quickly.

Sebastian asks him what he wants to do for the first of the three pictures they get to take and Jake knits his eyebrows together for a moment, his nose scrunching in the way both Nathan and you do as well when you’re thinking about something hard. He looks up at Sebastian then, “I wanna do the tough guy pose, you know, like this,”

You let out a laugh when he crosses his arms in front of his chest and sticks his chin out, trying to look tough, but Sebastian and Anthony follow suit tough and the photographer take a couple of pictures before they’re onto the next pose. You hear Anthony suggesting something about doing a salute for their next picture and then they do, Jake standing proudly in the middle.

For the last picture you see Sebastian give the photographer a sign right before he picks Jake up from behind, holding him against his chest as Anthony start tickling him. Jake’s laughing for real now, his head falling back as he lets out one of his rare, roaring laughs and it’s then the photographer takes the picture.

You can’t help but smile as you watch Sebastian put Jake back down. Anthony gives him another fistbump before excusing himself to go to one the panels, waving at you when he exits the stage. You nod at him, hoping it will convey your thanks.

Jake bounces towards you then, but stays on the stage, his cheeks red from all the excitement, “Did you see that, tante?”

“Yeahah,” you beam back, your excitement matching his. “Did you have fun?”

He nods enthusiastically.

You look up then, seeing Sebastian coming towards you, “Oh, listen, thank you so much! You really-”

“I was just wondering if you wanted to get a picture as well,” Sebastian asks with a smile.

“Oh,” you shake your head in confusion, “Isn’t the next group waiting for their pictures, though?” but it’s then you realize that there’s no one in the waiting area but you.

“You were the last group of the day,” Sebastian explains, “and I don’t have anywhere else to be, so I’m up for it.”

“Yeah!” Jake cheers, jumping up and down in excitement, “Can I tell you what to do, please?”

“Ok,” you reply with a smile, taking Jake’s outstretched hand as he leads you on stage. You can’t help but smile at his confidence now that he’s feeling more at ease. You drop your purse in the corner and stand next to Sebastian, looking at Jake who’s standing in front of you, “Tell us, bud.”

Jake’s scrunching his nose again before his face lights up, “I want you to look scared.”

“Scared?” you echo, unsure why he thinks it’s a good idea.

“Yeah,” Jake nods, offering no further explanation.

You look at Sebastian who simply shrugs so you agree, “Ok.”

Facing the photographer you widen your eyes, as though you’re seeing something scary across the room. Staring straight ahead you can’t really see what Sebastian’s doing but you hear Jake giggle right when you feel someone standing behind you. You hear the photo being taken and turn around to find Sebastian half hidden behind you and you can’t help but laugh.

Once he’s standing beside you again Sebastian looks at you, a mischievous look in his eyes, one eyebrow raised, “Alright, what’s next?” He must see the confusion on your face because he’s quick to add, “You get three pictures, just like everybody else.”

“Oh, ok,” you smile before you look at Jake for more ideas, but you find him talking to the photographer about why Thor is better than Loki, so you try to think of something when an old picture of Sophia Bush and Bethany Joy Lenz comes to mind. You take your phone out of your back pocket and hold up one finger, “Hold on,”

You show him the picture once it comes up on Google and he grins, “Perfect.”

He gets the attention of the photographer and takes your hand in his, looking at the picture again before he mimics Sophia’s pose while you take on Bethany’s after you’ve put your phone away.

Jake’s laughing at you when the picture is being taken and you can’t help but laugh either. It’s time for your last picture then, and when Sebastian suggests to get Jake on stage as well, you can’t help but agree so you motion for him to join you.

You watch as Jakes climbs on stage and stands in between you two. He looks up at you, “We should do one for your wall, tante.”

You nod appreciatively, “Good thinking, bud.” You turn to Sebastian to explain, “It started as a joke back when my brother and I were still kids, because well, we liked to screw up as many family photos as we could, but now I have this whole wall full of pictures where everyone’s looking away from the camera,”

Sebastian chuckles, “I wish I could see that, it sounds awesome.”

“It is,” Jake beams, “I’m in there too! Eight times!”

“Wow,” Sebastian nods, giving him a high five, “way to go, Cap.” He looks at the photographer who lets him know he’s ready, “Alright, let’s do this.”

You see Sebastian looking up ever so slightly, as if he’s seeing a bird fly by, so you decide to look just to the right of the camera, a confused look on your face as if you don’t know where you are, while Jake turns around, his back to the photographer and you bite your lip to keep from laughing because the kid is a genius.

The photographer holds up his thumb, “We’re done,” and tells you they’ll email the pictures to you next week.

You let out a laugh then, patting Jake on his back, “Good move, bud.” Turning towards Sebastian you smile, “Thank you so much for this,” you nod towards Jake, “you made his day.”

Sebastian shrugs, “It was the least I could do,”

Jake leans into you and you wrap your arm around his shoulders, “We have to go, bud,”

He nods and looks up to Sebastian, “I think you’re my favourite superhero now,”

“Better not let Captain America hear that, buddy,” Sebastian chuckles and gives Jake another salute, “Thank you for helping us out, Captain,”

You take Jake’s hand and grab your purse as you walk off the stage, but not before you throw Sebastian one last look and mouth a quiet, “Thank you.”

“You ok, bud?” you ask, taking a sip of your drink. You watch as Jake’s playing with his food, having only eaten a little of the hamburger and fries you got him. You’re back at the hotel after taking a cab back from the convention, convincing Jake to order room service instead of going into town to eat because honestly, what’s better than room service?

He nods slowly, “Just thinking,”

“Hmm,” you hum, “Whatcha thinking about?”

He lets out a sigh, “I don’t think the kids at school will believe me when I tell them what happened today, they’ll probably just bully me again,”

Something pulls on your heart the second you hear him talk about bullying, “What do you mean, bud?”

Jake continues to stare at his plate, “When I wore my Captain America sweater to school they teased me because they don’t like him.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“The boys in my class,” Jake explains, “They say he’s not a real superhero.”

“Well, they obviously don’t know what they’re talking about,” you try.

Jake shrugs, “They told me it was a stupid sweater and that they didn’t want to be my friends anymore.”

“Oh Jake,” you sigh, feeling yourself getting angry at these little brats.

“It’s ok now,” Jake continues, “they haven’t teased me for a while now. I think we’re friends again.”

Not knowing what to say you keep quiet, studying him as he takes a sip of his drink. You bite your lip, “Do Mom and Dad know about this?”

He nods.

You shake your head, now getting mad at your brother for not telling you this. But then you realize it’s not helping Jake in anyway, so instead you get up and sit down next to him, pulling him into your side, “Well bud, I think everyone’s going to be jealous of you when you show them the pictures.”

“You think?” he asks, looking up at you expectantly.

“Oh yeah,” you say, trying to sound confident, “I mean, Falcon and the Winter Soldier? They can’t argue with that, right?”

“Did you say ‘thank you’ to tante already?” Sarah asks just as you’re grabbing your coat, ready to head home after dropping Jake off.

He shakes his head and rushes towards you, throwing his arms around you waist, mumbling a quiet, “Thank you,” into your stomach.

You ruffle his hair, “You’re welcome, bud.” You look up at Sarah, “I’ll forward you those pictures once they send them to me, ok?”

She nods and gives you a hug, “Drive safe,”

“I will,” you put on your coat and take your car keys out of your pocket, “Tell my idiot brother hi from me once he gets home, ok? And then whack him in the head for working on a Sunday.”

Sarah chuckles, “Will do.”

You kick your shoes off the minute you come home from work that Tuesday, already over this week even though there’s still three days left. You head straight for the fridge, taking out the bottle of wine you put in there last night, and pour yourself a glass. Hearing your phone chime, you take it out of your back pocket as you sit down on the couch. There’s a new email alert and you smile when you see that they’ve sent you the pictures from last weekend.

Opening the attachments your smile grows wider when you see Jake posing with Falcon and the Winter Soldier, letting out a giggle when you come to the pictures of Sebastian and you, because the picture you tried to replicate has turned out to be even better than the original. The last picture is the one of Jake, Sebastian and you and it’s amazing and definitely going up on your wall.

You forward the email to Sarah, adding a smiley for good measure.

You’re about to get started on dinner when your phone rings, Sarah’s number flashing on your screen, “Hi,”

“Tante?”

“Hi Jake,” you smile, “Did you see the pictures?”

“Yeah, Mom showed them to me,” he replies, “I’m going to take them to school tomorrow,”

“You should,” you agree, “Tell everyone you got to step in for Captain America.”

“Yeah,” Jake says. You hear Sarah say something in the background before Jake ends the call with, “Mom says dinner is ready, bye!”

“Bye, bud,” you say but the line is already cut off.

When you call your brother later that week you’re greeted with an all too familiar, “Hey, loser.”

“You’re the loser,” you counter almost automatically, but then you remember why you’re calling and you add to the sentiment, “You really are, Nate.”

“Why?” your brother exclaims. “What did I do now?”

“Why didn’t you tell me Jake got bullied at school?”

“It was one time,” Nathan explains, “it wasn’t a big deal.”

“It was to Jake,” you respond, “he told me about it Saturday.”

“Well, I can assure you he’s over it,’’ Nathan says, and you can almost hear him smile, “he took those pictures with him on Wednesday and all the kids went crazy. It’s like they think he’s part of the Avengers or something.”

You let out a sigh of relief, “Oh good, I was hoping that would happen.”

“Yeah, no it’s fine,” your brother assures you, “Listen, I have to go, but I guess I’ll see you at the parents next weekend?”

“Ugh yes,” you say, thinking about upcoming family dinner, celebrating aunt Carol’s seventy-fifth birthday.

“I have a feeling Jake might be coming down with the flu by then,” Nathan chuckles.

“Don’t you dare bailing on me, loser,” you shout, but by then he has already ended the call.

You’re quietly humming along with the radio as you drive back home from your parents.

As it turned dinner was manageable, aunt Carol enjoying the wine your Dad kept pouring her, which in turn kept her from making her usual crude remarks about your non-existent love life.

You spent some time talking to Jake, who assured you everything at school was fine, and that the other kids were nice to him. He seemed so much more confident than a couple of weeks ago and when you asked him about it he told you it was because he was friends with the Winter Soldier now.

As your mind wanders back to the Comic Con you attended with Jake an idea starts to form in your mind and when you get home you open your laptop, opening your email program and google, looking up ways to get your message across. You find an email address that belongs to the agency he’s signed to and you know it’s a long shot, but it’s all you have, so you sit down and start typing, the words flowing out effortlessly:

Dear Sebastian,

I’m not sure this email will ever get to you, but I just wanted to let you know that I now consider you a real-life superhero.

My nephew Jake and I met you a couple of weeks ago, at the ACE Comic Con in Phoenix. You must have met a lot of people that day, so I doubt that you remember us, but just before we got to take our picture with you Jake was upset because Captain America wasn’t there. You came up to us and comforted him and asked him if he wanted to help you and Falcon out by taking a picture with you guys, making him believe you needed his help instead of it being the other way around. The pictures turned out great by the way!

Well, he took those pictures to school with him later that week and the kids that bullied him for liking Captain America before (God, kids can be cruel, can’t they?), now think he’s a part of the Avengers and all want to be his friends now.

Jake has gained so much confidence from meeting you, and all I can do is say thank you for taking the time for us that day. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the pictures that were taken that day, but I’ve included the last one we took together with you.

Thank you once again!

(Y/N)

You hit ‘send’ before you can change your mind and lean back in your chair, not sure what to make of the fluttering sensation in your stomach.

April 2018

You’re at work, scouring the web for a birthday present for Jake, panicking just a little because his birthday is next week and you’ve yet to find anything, when your phone chimes, signalling that you have new email.   

Your eyes widen in shock when you see the sender’s name.

Sebastian S.

#The Draw #Sebastian Stan x reader #Harley Sunday x Sebastian Stan #Sebastian Stan Imagine

[itslmdee]

Fic: When Fans Collide

Mira meets a fellow female fan with a secret at a convention.For the allbingo meet-ugly prompt "we have been chatting online for three years and today I learned your profile picture isn't you"

Mira loved going to conventions and meeting other fans, buying merchandise, attending the celebrity panels, and joining in with the amazing cosplay; those who liked to dress up as a favourite character could get very inventive with their costumes.

Mira had chosen to dress as Domino from "Deadpool 2" this year, having previously cosplayed as characters including Wonder Woman, Zoë from "Firefly" and, last year, Valkyrie from "Thor: Ragnarok". She hadn't gone so far as to add a contact lens as another Dominio cosplayer she'd met at the registration desk had, but she'd carefully applied the white makeup around one eye and fluffed up her hair.

She'd hoped to meet her online friend of three years, and fellow fan, Erica, but at the last minute Erica had said she wouldn't be able to make it this time, adding a sad emoji to her instant message. Erica hadn't been to a fan convention before and was anxious about it, so Mira wondered if it was nerves that led her to back out.

"I'll take lots of photos for you," Mira had promised. She already had several of the building and a couple with some fans, including the other Dominio, who had gushed over Mira's elbow-length fingerless leather gloves as more authentic than her own.

Mira browsed some of the stalls full of comics, signed photos, Funko Pops and other figurines, Blu-Ray box sets, and more. She'd got some money saved up especially to splurge on merchandise.

"Sorry," someone said as they bumped into her. Mira looked up at the woman who was wearing a "Burr shot first" T-shirt and a beautiful dragon necklace.

"No problem. I love the shirt," Mira said. "Both "Hamilton" and "Star Wars", what's not to love? My friend Erica has the same one." Erica had proudly photographed the shirt laid out on her bed being admired by a plush Pikachu.

The woman paled a little. "Thanks," she mumbled and walked away.

Mira was surprised by the reaction but didn't take offence. People could get nervous around strangers, especially if they felt intimidated by the crowded halls. She continued browsing.

Several stalls later Mira had only purchased a couple of keyrings though she'd seen a lot of things she'd like. She'd probably buy more things tomorrow once she'd seen everything on offer, and had her eye on a "Stargate: Atlantis" print and a colour-changing "Supernatural" mug.

Stopping for a coffee, Mira spotted the Hamilton fan again, huddled in one corner and glancing at the convention leaflet and then at the room as if lost. She wandered over slowly, giving a wide smile.

"Hi," Mira said. "This your first time here? It's a bit overwhelming when you first get here but most people are really friendly and you'll have a great time."

The woman nodded, one hand moving to fondle her necklace.

"That's a great piece," Mira said, "I'm Mira."

The woman nodded again. "I know."

That was unexpected. Mira glanced down at her ID badge; it was readable close-up but the woman must have good eyesight to have seen it from this distance.

"I'm sorry," the woman said and launched into a ramble. "I'm so ashamed. I kind of hoped I'd see you here, but I said I couldn't come because then you'd know what a liar I am, and so I said I wouldn't come and then I got here, and it's so crowded and you know I don't like crowds, and I regret everything right now and I'm sorry."

Mira blinked a few times, taking all this in. "Erica?" she asked when the woman finally stopped for a much needed breath. It was the only thing that made sense except the woman didn't look like Erica's profile picture. She leaned in and peered at the woman's badge. Erica Staywell. Her friend.

"Yes. You look amazing," Erica said. "Just like the pictures you showed me when you were preparing your costume. And I look…" She gestured vaguely.

"You look a little different to your profile picture," Mira agreed. Her own pic showed her dressed as Princess Tiana from when she and some of her friends had all dressed as Disney Prince and Princesses for a Halloween party.

"That's because that's not me," Erica said miserably. "It's a picture I found on a stock photo website. I was making a vision board to inspire me and I chose her because she's younger, thinner, prettier than me. I put her as my avatar because that's what I wanted to look like, that's how I wanted to feel, happy like she looks in that picture. It makes me feel good to look at her when I post online."

That was understandable, but Erica wasn't finished. Before Mira could ask why she'd never mentioned the photo was inspirational rather than based in reality, Erica explained. "We'd only been talking for a while when you said something nice about me and I didn't want to admit I didn't look like that; I'd just lost my job and was feeling miserable enough without having to show you how I really looked."

Mira stared at her, aghast. They'd still been getting to know each other then but she remembered Erica getting made redundant and how it had in fact brought them closer with Mira sending her gifs to cheer her up when she was low, letting Erica vent about the struggle of hunting for a job, and being thrilled when Erica got her new job which turned out to be better in every respect than her old one. They'd even talked a bit about the vision board which had at first seemed to fail Erica by letting redundancy occur before delivering the better pay and flexible hours she'd been asking the Universe for.

Now she understood why none of the photos Erica had shared in the last three years had shown her face.

"Oh, Erica," Mira said with sympathy. She was still reconciling this woman with her friend – and since they'd only ever communicated via text, no doubt Erica was getting used to hearing Mira's voice too. Meeting someone in person was always an interesting experience. "I would have understood."

Erica shook her head. "The longer it went on it just seemed like this huge thing that I'd have to tell you and I was embarrassed."

"Enough that you'd come to the convention alone?" Mira had already planned her trip and booked a single room since it was a longer distance for her to travel and she wanted to attend both days, Erica only initially agreeing to come for one day because she could get the train from her hometown to the hotel where she could meet up with Mira.

"I almost didn't come but I'd paid for the ticket," Erica said, blinking away tears. "I'm an idiot."

"Yes," Mira said because they'd become close enough for her to tease. "You're an idiot for thinking I'd care what you looked like. Which is amazing by the way."

Erica shook her head again and Mira pulled her into a hug.

"Look, of all the people here we found each other," Mira said, releasing Erica. "We have the rest of the day to enjoy the convention together. It's going to be so much fun."

"Okay," Erica said, summoning up a smile and wiping her eyes. "I'd like that."

"And I got you something so this will save me mailing it," Mira said, rummaging in her bag. She held out one of the keyrings.

Erica took the Lego Loki keyring, eyes wide with surprise. "Oh, thank you!"

"I've got Lego Wonder Woman," Mira said with a grin. "So, do you fancy the "Lord of the Rings" panel? It starts in ten minutes."

Erica clipped Loki to her handbag. "I'd love that."

They walked, arm in arm, to find a seat.

#flash fiction #short fiction #allbingo #meet-ugly #my fiction #writingwednesday

[utopianparadoxist]

What’s your thoughts on all the Viz and Homestuckdotcom stuff

Mainly, I’m sad about the fine folks at WP who lost their jobs. I’m concerned about Hiveswap, too, but not the way most of the fandom seems to be.

Just to be clear, I don’t have any special insight or anything. Everything I’m about to say is wildly speculatory, but well, so is pretty much all of the doomsaying already out here. I don’t really think all is lost, so if I can provide any comfort, I may as well offer my perspective.

Let’s break this down, because a lot of facts are getting mixed in with people making assumptions. Here’s what happened yesterday:

1) Cohen and Shelby tweeted that they were looking for work. That’s not an official statement on anything, but combined with WP’s branding being removed from the Hiveswap website and Poinko and James leaving, things certainly look bad for WP.

2) On the same day, VIZ launched the new version of the Homestuck website, with a redesign meant to render the comic more accessible--particularly for mobile users--and start future proofing the parts of the comic made on technology that is soon being rendered obsolete and largely unusable, like Flash.

These two things don’t seem innately related. Viz hasn’t done anything except update/future proof the website, which I already expected from the partnership. They also released a news post alluding to new stuff being on the way, which sounds like an update on the epilogue Hussie said he was working on with them. 

Even so, the overall look of the move has the fandom crying foul because they suspect VIZ is instigating some sort of corporate takeover. And while I think it’s good to be careful, I just don’t see the evidence for that yet.

I’m wary of corporate overlords, so I’ve sort of worried about VIZ along those lines before. And that is a risk I am continuing to look out for. But if I was worried about corporate censorship/manipulation of Homestuck, the only thing I’d immediately worry about is the LGBT stuff.And for a corporation, Viz’s track record on LGBT stuff is fairly solid.They’re in charge of re-dubbing the Sailor Moon anime, and have garnered positive press for NOT censoring the LGBT stuff the original dub did. They’ve published some LGBT manga. They’re not an LGBT corporation or anything, but their track record veers positive, is all I’m saying.

I can’t really think of what else they’d mess with. I’ve heard of them censoring religious imagery, and Homestuck does deal in some heavy spiritual/mythological themes, but I definitely wouldnt say anything in the comic is overtly religious.

More to the point, if they were going to mess with the actual comic, I don’t see why they wouldn’t have done so now, while they were doing the redesign. And while we’re at it, I should mention its questionable that VIZ actually has control over Homestuck’s actual IP.

The Homestuck website is copyrighted to Viz *and* Homestuck itself, which is the legal entity I’d expect holds all the actual creative rights. That probably wouldn’t matter if VIZ wanted to just strongarm Hussie with lawyers, though-- billion dollar corporations are dangerous that way.

I’m just saying, I don’t know that having partial control of the site at all implies Hussie just “handed off” creative control to VIZ. That seems like a wild assumption.

Also an assumption is the idea that VIZ “fired” WP so that they could develop the game themselves, which...I don’t really buy at all right now. Its not clear to me that VIZ has the expertise, manpower, or even interest in developing Hiveswap themselves.

Again, I am not claiming to have facts here. This is just an alternate line of fandom speculation. Please, for the love of fuck, don’t treat me like an expert. But here’s how things look from my perspective.

Because VIZ is largely a soulless corporation, the only motivation I can confidently ascribe to them is the one all companies have: making money.And Hiveswap doesn’t exactly seem like it sold gangbusters, honestly.

@sometipsygnostalgic has noted how lackluster the advertising for the game was, and its true they seemed to be relying on word of mouth and hype to get the game sold. That doesn’t seem to have happened.

I find it hard to believe VIZ would watch this commercial flop unfold, and come out of it thinking its best move is to invest MORE money in the endeavor. Corporations don’t typically respond to market failure by doubling down on their investments, just in general.

But more to the point, I don’t see that VIZ has a clear route to do so. The company only JUST involved itself in narrative driven indie games-- and it’s involved itself as a publisher, NOT a developer. It partnered with two developers that we currently know of: 1) Rose City Games, the devs of The World Next Door, and until now, 2) What Pumpkin.

Rose City Games looks a lot like WP, staff-wise--it seems to be a small indie team of about a dozen and a half people, working on their first game. They’ve done some organizational work and stuff like that, but nothing that suggests to me that they’d be prepared or willing to just...take on Hiveswap in WP’s stead.

And there IS NO IN-HOUSE GAME DEV STUDIO at Viz. It doesn’t exist. Making Hiveswap themselves would mean building one, just like WP had to, and I don’t see why they’d want to take the risk with the less than promising results of Act 1.

While it’s possible this is some kind of takeover situation, that is a big IF to me right now. VIZ would be making some legit hard business decisions in pursuing that maneuver, and it’s not clear they’re going to. I think its at least as possible that development on the game is simply canceled, or ideally, frozen until there's enough funds to actually pay people.

That last point is what I think fans should focus on. IF it’s a matter of simple lack of funs forcing What Pumpkin to close doors because there isn't, uh, the money to friggin pay people, then...there’s probably hope.

Like I said, VIZ did just allude to more news coming. IF whatever they’re working on with Hussie is good/interesting enough to, say, get new people reading Homestuck, then all of a sudden the comic would be drawing new interest while also advertising to incoming readers about...Hiveswap, which is now advertised for on the web-site through pop up ads.

Kind of invasive? Sure. But word of mouth didn’t get the game sold, so if some old-fashioned advertising does and Hiveswap/Homestuck collectively start collecting enough hype and profit that the staff of WP can be rehired, I won’t complain.

All in all, I’ll just say we’ll have a much better idea of what this partnership between Hussie and VIZ looks like--and what VIZ’s intent is--once we see some actual content they’ve produced together. I suggest the fandom wait it out to see what this Epilogue is, and what kind of content might be coming after.

With any luck, that wait will only last until 4/13.

#long post #homestuck #hiveswap #what pumpkin #VIZ media #thoughts #this is distressing to me #dont get me wrong #but the stakes are so high that it really doesnt make sense to panic #it'll only make things worse. #pencilkind-specibus

[hxlding-on-blog]

085 with peter b and eddie brock?

Fluffy Prompts: 085: “It’s 2 am but you’re craving cake and we’re both up anyway so let’s bake in our underwear.”

They’ve spent a good half hour trying to put the report together, grouping pictures side-by-side with words. Since making their own reporting website, they’ve found better work. It was their own little business, every click a bit of ad revenue. And though the truth was hard to find sometimes, they got out of their ways to make sure it was somewhere other people could find it. Once it was uploaded, Peter leaning in his spot of the couch a bit more as Eddie had his arms around him, they shared a lazy celebratory kiss.

Peter glanced at the clock in the corner of his screen, yawned, and allowed his head to lean on the other’s shoulder. Venom slithered from Eddie’s other shoulder, a string of themselves going up from his neck to allow them to comfortably sit on top of Peter’s head. The more and more time Peter spent with Eddie, the more comfortable Venom got with this, essentially feeding off of this love and affection Eddie felt whenever around him. 

“Y’know, little buddy, I’m not sure what you’re doing in there but, whatever it is, it’s making me hungry for some cake.” He pat his womb, where their child was, and pouted a bit. Neither of them expected this to happen, with Peter thinking he was infertile the moment he had his first shot of T, but- accident or not- they were going to raise this child with all they could. “Hey, guys, lets go bake some.”

It’s only been five weeks, with Peter throwing up in the morning every day and his constantly changing cravings, but Eddie and Venom were already taking to the pregnancy pretty well. In fact, teaching Venom about it was one of their pastimes. Neither of them knew enough about it to really teach them about it but, with a quick google search and the experience to back up the claims, the symbiote was starting to learn. 

Whatever the effects of having radioactive spider-power blood and an alien symbiote in your body were to a child, they didn’t have a clue. All they knew was that it was fine, and that they didn’t need to mention anything about it. So long as the baby was going to be fine in the end, they didn’t see any reason to mention the little…supernatural things that might get in the way. 

“Peter, it’s two in the morning. Are you sure?” Eddie’s head leaned a bit on Peter’s, arm moving to rest over his shoulder. He knew a thing or two about helping others in these situations, just a bit more than Peter- though, it’d be better if Peter had his own little experience to help himself- knowing enough that his morning sickness may strike somewhere soon.

“Yup. Come on, Eddie. V, help me get him up.” Peter stood up, stretched his back out, and pulled the other up by the arms. Venom didn’t do much; they simply observed from Eddie’s shoulder. When he was on his own feet, Peter made his way to the kitchen, dragging Eddie along. “If you won’t help, I’ll make it myself. That’s right, little guy, dad’s gonna get this cake done on his own without the help of his other husbands.” 

Again, Peter pat where their child was. He could handle things on his own; the doctor only warned him to avoid certain foods and to do certain things when he felt this or that. Nothing out of the ordinary that would get him to not be able to do the usual, except for putting a pause on the Spiderman business. That, sadly, was something Peter had to sacrifice for a while; once this human being was out of his body and he’s had the time to adjust, he could get back to swinging around New York.

“Oh, fine, fine.” His human husband gave in, pulling out the cake mix from the cupboard and lifting it towards the symbiote riding his shoulder to allow them the chance to observe it. It got Peter to chuckle, reminding him of ratatouille. Eddie opened up the box, placing the plastic bag of the mix on the counter as he unknowingly placed the box into the trash. It took Venom looking back to remind him that they indeed weren’t done with it. “Oh, shit. Right.”

“Hey, not in front of the kid.” Again, he chuckled, giving Eddie a soft slap with the back of his hand to Eddie’s unoccupied shoulder. It was a joke, Eddie knew well, but Venom watched with a look of confusion. They still didn’t understand much about this.

{| THEY CANNOT HEAR YOU. THEY ARE TOO YOUNG AND, TO MY UNDERSTANDING, HAVE NOT DEVELOPED THE ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’VE SAID |}

He probably shouldn’t have but Peter laughed, Eddie chuckling soon after as he gave a pat to the symbiote’s ‘head’, fishing out the box with the ingredients and the instructions. Thankfully, there was nothing within the trash that would’ve hindered it useless. Eddie tried to fish for something to help, but it wasn’t easy. “Yeah, we know. It’s like a fun little joke, y’know?”

And, hell, maybe their kid could hear them. They’re the product of Spiderman, Venom, and the world’s greatest reporter; Peter wouldn’t be too surprised if they popped out the womb with the full ability to speak. It’s almost expected, really. How far could they keep this up without mentioning it to their doctor?

Eddie got two eggs out, balancing them on the counter and making sure they wouldn’t roll off to the floor. When that was settled, he got out a measuring cup. Peter, on the other hand, prepared a cake tin, a plastic bowl, and a wooden spoon. As Eddie was measuring out a cup and a half of water, Peter got to dumping all of the mix into the bowl. A dust cloud of it got in his nose, Peter coughing out with a laugh.

He coughed into his fist, Eddie noticing and placing the cup to the side so that he could come over to help. But Peter stuck out his free hand, laughing off the little incident. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Get back to filling that cup. Do we need to preheat the oven?”

The other shrugged it off, Venom watching Peter as Eddie gestured over to the box on the counter, making sure that he wasn’t going to get injured. It took a moment for Peter to remember how the oven worked at all- he sat there, kneeled down in front of it for a while- and turned the knobs according to package instructions. 

Everything was going a lot smoother than the last time they baked anything, with nothing burning just yet. Then again, they haven’t gotten anything mixed just yet. Peter cracked the two eggs into the bowl, taking a wooden spoon out of a little cup and stirring as Eddie poured in the water. As he poured the batter into the tin, he hesitated halfway. It felt like they were missing something but, without knowing what it was, he didn’t bother to stop.

“Okay. Last thing is to just put it in, right?” Eddie itched at the back of his head, Peter reading the back of the box again just to be sure. Yup, this was it. All they had to do left was stick it in the oven and wait for a while. So, Eddie took the tin and knelt down, Venom trailing towards his back to observe Peter’s stomach. Or, actually, his womb. Not much to see now, really.

But, with Eddie like this, Peter took this as a chance to let his splayed hand slap Eddie across the ass. He jolted a bit in the surprise but wasn’t at all mad about it, shaking his head and closing the appliance before getting up and giving Peter a few playful slaps to the chest. “Hey, hey! Not in front of the kid!” 

Again, Venom found this odd, but didn’t question it. Instead, they observed where the offspring was supposed to be. It didn’t move, or make a sound, or anything else; it was simply there. They knew it was alive in there but it was really hard to think of a reason as to why they’d ever talk directly to it, or even think it was listening.

But Venom didn’t mind all that much; they were just as excited as the other two were about the child.

“Hey, while we wait, want to think of baby names?” Peter leaned against the counter again, one leg over the other with a hand over his stomach as the other kept his weight up on the marble. The other two agreed that it’d be a nice pastime, listing off the generic names and having fun with it. At this point, with the two of them holding each other in the living room, they weren’t trying all that much.

“Okay, okay. How about…Lee.”

“Wait, just Lee? Like, earlier you said Optimus Prime. And then you said Toaster. Then you said Pumba.”

“Well, duh; imagine his school ID. Brock, Lee.” Peter let out a hearty laugh, Eddie soon joining after as Venom was quietly observing the two of them. It was dumb, yeah, but they seemed happy. The symbiote fed off of that love and care, enjoying it overall.

“You want our kid to get bullied?” It was simply the nature of Spiderman- of Peter Brock-Parker- to be witty and comical. Eddie couldn’t do much, if anything at all, to change this; it somewhat charmed him. “You’re insane, Peter.”

Then, there was the burning smell. It came from the kitchen and the two of them knew instantly what it was; they’d forgotten about the cake. They got off each other, stumbling their way inside to open the oven and Peter quickly got the window open to try and get the little bit of smoke out. “Yeah, I’m a bit insane. But I wasn’t the one who was supposed to remind me of the cake.”

No big deal- they’ve eaten worse. But, to their dismay, the realised a missed step; they didn’t coat the tin in anything to avoid the cake from sticking to it. So, when Eddie pulled it out of the oven and fanned away the fumes, he nervously laughed by Peter’s side. They could eat it straight from the tin, that wouldn’t be an issue, but now it looked unappealing.

“So, are you craving anything else or is it still cake?”

#Anonymous #[[ok so when i lost this all i started Sobbing #[[@ anon bless you #[[theres one(1) ass slap here #One And Only || PB #Give It To Me Straight || DRABBLES #[[also yeah its super long jfaksjdhfaksdjfh #Pizza & Tater Tots || PB // EDDIE #Hello? || MESSAGES #[[also if anyone reblogs this and tags it w m.p.r.e.g im going to forcibly remove myself from the game smh #Pregnancy TW

[templeofgeek]

What makes Gallifrey One so special? What makes it the hot ticket for Whovians and DWeeks? We are going to give you a general overview about what Gallifrey One is, what you can expect there and tips on how to get your hands on these hard to get tickets!

Gallifrey One is the world’s largest and longest-running annual Doctor Who fan convention. It is a fully non-profit event founded in 1989 by active fans in local Los Angeles science fiction fandom. Gallifrey One boasts some of the best Doctor Who celebrity guests while still maintaining its small con feel. This convention is completely fan run. It features one of kind panels, guest from all walks of science fiction and the non fiction science community, not just the Doctor Who universe. Taking place every February over Presidents’ Day Weekend at the Marriott Los Angeles Airport Hotel, this con is an experience not to be missed.

2018 Highlights: 

Gally (as it is often called) is one of those cons that have a jammed packed schedule. Programming goes from 10:00 am until 10:00 pm. And even after there are after parties, screenings, dances, masquerades, karaoke events and so much more. There is probably way more that went on at the 2018 event than I could possibly list. I recommend checking out the 2018 Gallifrey One Wrap Up on the convention website. But for now, here are some attendee photos of some of the guest highlights from the con!

The Great Steven Moffat. Showrunner for #DoctorWho, #Sherlock and soon #Dracula. Still highly passionate about his work and at times combative. Struggling mightily against those who might accuse him of writing the same female characters over and over again and promoting a false image of sexism against the first Doctor. An extremely entertaining panel. #whovian #scifi #timelord #tardis #gallifreyone #thedoctor #gally1

A post shared by Ming (@franklin778) on Mar 21, 2018 at 3:27pm PDT

The beautiful #JemmaRedgrave #KateLethbridgeStewart enjoying herself at #Gallifreyone #DoctorWho #tardis #Timelord #whovian #brigadier #zygons #gally1

A post shared by Ming (@franklin778) on Mar 20, 2018 at 6:03pm PDT

#RachelTalalay speaking on #metoo #DoctorWho her work with #CW shows and her desire to helm a #Starwars film. Always generous and wonderful and such a pleasure to have at #Gallifreyone #gally1 #drwho #sherlock #supernaturaltv

A post shared by Ming (@franklin778) on Mar 17, 2018 at 1:41pm PDT

Beware when #DavidBradley shows up to your event especially if it’s a wedding. Here at #gallifreyone talking about his experience portraying the first #DoctorWho. No thoughts on #WalderFrey and #GameOfThrones. Spoke about his early days acting and meeting the family of #WillaimHartnell before he portrayed him. The great fun they had with the humorous cutting banter at the beginning of #TwiceUponATime #Tardis #gally1 #Timelord

A post shared by Ming (@franklin778) on Mar 18, 2018 at 3:48pm PDT

Sophie and Sylvester. ❤️❤️ • • • #doctorwho #gally1 #photography #portraitphotography #seventhdoctor #ace #sylvestermccoy #sophiealdred

A post shared by Katie Be (@katiebe_photography) on Mar 2, 2018 at 9:21am PST

Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon) was impressed with my Cyberman. I think he’s seen one or two in his lifetime.

A post shared by Rick Callender (@rickamplified) on Mar 3, 2018 at 8:21pm PST

OMG, I'M SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW YOU GUYS!!! xD ———- Gallifrey One: Day 3 ———- #drwho #doctorwho #twelfthdoctor #12thdoctor #firstdoctormarkii #petercapaldi #claraoswald #jennacoleman #billpotts #pearlmackie #nardole #mattlucas #nardolecosplay #dwcosplay #doctorwhocosplay #cosplay #screenaccurate #replica #tardis #whovian #whovians #gally1 #gallifreyone #gallifreyone2018

A post shared by #DoctorWho – The Doctor (@doc_in_the_box) on Feb 18, 2018 at 3:26pm PST

  I had the absolute pleasure to shoot with @BigFinishprod writers Matt Fitton and John Dorney while running around #GallifreyOne last weekend. Matt and John were the highlight on the panels they were featured and as you can see above, they brought their unique brand of mirth to these portraits! Be sure to check out their work by supporting #BigFinishProductions and a HUGE THANK YOU to both John and Matt for taking the time to work with me. • • • #mattfitton #johndorney #portraitphotographer #writersofinstagram #bigfinish #portraitphotographer #gally1 #doctorwho

A post shared by Katie Be (@katiebe_photography) on Feb 23, 2018 at 9:33am PST

Outside the Con: 

The convention is held at the Marriott Los Angeles Airport Hotel. It is just steps from LAX international airport. There are plenty of hotels in the area, as well as a variety of places to eat within walking distance.

  Child Friendly: 

This is probably the most child friendly convention I have come across. There is a ton of children’s programming available as well as babysitting available.  Children programming does fill up quickly, so I suggest keeping signing up as soon as the programming is announced. There is a courtyard just outside of the convention floor that gives children some room to run around and wind down a bit. There are plenty of food options available at the convention as well as in the nearby neighborhoods. I was able to find food options for even the pickiest of eaters.

Pros of this Con: 

There is so much great programming that there really is something for everyone. There are guest from the audio series, from the comic book creators, there are even guests from other fandoms. If you are interested in cosplay, there are panels on cosplay as well. There are writing workshops, discussion groups, ribbon trading, meet ups of all types. There is a bar and lounge area on the main floor of the hotel that is lovingly referred to as “Lobby Con”.  At this 2018 Convention Steven Moffat and Sylvester McCoy were both spotted in the lobby with fans, interacting and hanging out with fans. The con takes place in the same hotel that many of the guest stay in, so seeing the guest walk around is very common. They are not guarded by security like they are at larger conventions. This gives the convention a more intimate feeling and allows for experiences that would not normally happen at other conventions. One of the benefits of a convention that is specifically geared towards Doctor Who fans is that everyone at the convention is a Doctor Who fan. You are in a safe place to express your total love for Doctor Who. It creates a very welcoming and open environment. You are all there to celebrate the thing that you all have in common. The thing that you all love.

#Gally1 nights

A post shared by Monica Duarte (@thisdorkynerdgirl) on Feb 17, 2018 at 11:23pm PST

Cons of this Con: 

The Vendor/Dealer’s room at Gallifrey One is pretty small compared to most Southern California conventions. It boast only a few rows of vendors. It seems fine for a convention that holds less than 4,000 attendees and despite being small you can still find some truly unique merchandise that you wont find anywhere else, but it would be nice to see an artist alley with a nice variety of Doctor Who art for sale. The con takes place during a holiday weekend and it takes place at the same time as a gaming con in a neighboring hotel. This can make it difficult and pricey to find both room accommodations and parking. If you plan to stay at the hotel from Thursday until Sunday night, be prepared to spend upwards of $800 for the 4 days, 3 night stay.

A fullsize volunteer owned TARDIS on display at the end of the Dealers Room.

Rubber Toe Replica Booth at Gallifrey One 2018

Cosplay: 

The Cosplay is pretty top notch at Gallifrey One. The fun thing about cosplay at this convention as opposed to other pop culture conventions, is that because it all centers around one fandom, you find some of the most clever, creative and even obscure cosplays. At any given time you can fins cosplayers portraying characters from all walks of the Doctor Who universe. You can find cosplays from Torchwood, Sarah Jane Adventures, Class and even the Big Finish Audio Series (yes, they even cosplay from audio cover art).

Con Costs: 

$110.00 Adult Full Weekend $50.00 Teen Full Weekend (Ages 12-16) $20.00 Child Full Weekend (Ages 3-11) Note that the above prices do not include a small EventBrite processing fee, which will be added to each order ($6.22 per adult ticket, less for the others).

Gallifrey One only sells weekend badges. Single day passes are no available.

Parking for locals: 

Parking can be reserved in advance  (AND YOU SHOULD). Parking ranges anywhere from $15 a day to $35 a day. General airport parking lots are available within walking distance of the convention. Arriving early is highly recommened.

Hotel Accommodations: 

Hotel rooms at the Marriott are in high demand and are filled up almost immediately after reservations open. There are many hotels within walking distance near by.  *See YouTube Video Below*

Pro-tip: 

We recommend turning on post notifications for the Gallifrey One Twitter and Facebook accounts so that you stay up to date on hotel announcements, ticket sales, guest announcements and programming information. If you are trying to get tickets or hotel room accommodations on the day they go live, don’t give up on the first sold out screen. try again for the first 20 minutes. Many times the systems just need to refresh and catch up, and you may be able to score the tickets/room that you need.

Overall Impression: It can probably best be explained in this quote from veteran Con-goer and Temple of Geek photographer, Nathaniel Peinado, “Gally isn’t just a convention experience. It’s a family. A yearly reunion, if you will. A chance to see your closest friends that come from distant places, and an opportunity to make new ones. It’s a place where everyone and everything is celebrated and it doesn’t matter if you’re there in an old TARDIS t-shirt or a screen accurate costume. The amount of joy and love you receive from this convention will leave you wishing the next one wasn’t another year away. It’s definitely an experience that makes you believe things really are bigger on the inside.��

My babies ❤

A post shared by Monica Duarte (@thisdorkynerdgirl) on Feb 17, 2018 at 12:28pm PST

Gallifrey One RETURNS February 14, 2019 – February 17, 2019. Tickets go on sale April 14th, 12:00 PM PST! 

How to get tickets? 

Check out our pro-tips from our whovian friend, Lady Of Time Cosplay. She gives a really great and really informative review on how to get tickets to Gallifrey One. If you are a first timer to Gallifrey One and serious about getting tickets, the video is worth the 15 min watch.

https://twitter.com/gallifreyone/status/983380455838793728

https://www.facebook.com/events/169029780387728/

  Unless otherwise stated, photos provided by Temple of Geek photographers Monica Duarte and Nathaniel “Doc In The Box” Peinado 

Gallifrey One: The Ultimate Whovian Convention What makes Gallifrey One so special? What makes it the hot ticket for Whovians and DWeeks? We are going to give you a general overview about what Gallifrey One is, what you can expect there and tips on how to get your hands on these hard to get tickets!

#bill potts #Doctor Who #doctor who cosplay #gallifrey #gallifrey one #gally #gally1 #Jodie Whittaker #matt lucas #Matt Smith #Pearl Mackie #Peter Capaldi #Steven Moffat

[fereality-indy]

Gravity Heroes Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Wednesday December 5th, 2012

Delphi’s Temple

Bunker, Gravity Falls

‘Delphi's Files

Things have been really sour in the Bunker and elsewhere for the last few days. I wasn't in the room but over the monitors I saw Mr. Pines, Stan, collapse after he was brought in to see James' grandmother.

He did seem to warm up rather quickly to the fact that James was his grandson, perhaps even more so than James himself. The poor guy. To find out the person pretending to be your grandmother actually was your grandmother, only to have her die on you shortly afterwards.

Mr Ford, being the sceptic he is, ran a DNA test on the three of them and confirmed it last night. He seems to be taking their rapidly expanding family in stride. He has been splitting his time between helping his brother and caring for our other injury from the fight. Nate and Lee have been coming to help him with the Manotaur, but they've been teleported back to Nate's each night since his neighbors never saw them leave.

The Pines twins and their father have taken it upon themselves to help Stan any way they are able. They've already called the hospital and the Valentino's to inform them that they had a guest pass away in her sleep. Mabel's magic was able to 'dress up' the body enough to seal the wounds. There may be a brief investigation but come on it's Blubbs and Durland. Yesterday they got Stan up and had him helping Soos around the gift shop. Preparing for the Christmas traveling season was what Soos had told him they were doing. It was all Soos and the twins could do to get him to mark up stuff for the Christmas sale. The only real bright spot has been that school has been closed since the blizzard Saturday night/Sunday Morning.

Tony, Francis, Pacifica, and Candy have been spending time in my Temple helping me continue to research not only into Pacifica's problem but also searching for everything they could find on James and his grandmother. So far all we have been able to find is that she was the only family he had left, until now at least, and even then he didn’t even know she was related to him.

Tab, Asta, and Jette are searching for everything they can find on other current 'enhanced' as we have taken to calling them. So far there have been reported instances across the country. There is a group of college age kids in Oklahoma that seem to be treating their abilities as if they were just another reason to create a fraternity. Some guy is traveling the south using some sort of color based abilities. In Indiana there is a comic book company that is creating their own team of enhanced. And in a town named Danville there is a small group gathering around an armored hero calling himself the Beak. And finally operating out of a Colorado town called Middleton is a lady and her husband that has been running a hero website since the early two-thousands, they're the ones that handled that Lil Diablo incident nearly a decade ago. And they’re doing it without powers. I've apparently have been in touch with their tech expert before, he's a follower of my blog according to Asta. They're a group we may want to reach out to for some tips as we go. There seems to be more popping up everyday, but these are the major players showing up in the US. As for international instsances I’ve heard vague rumors of a pair opperating out of Paris, but only out of some middleschooler’s fan blog, and also rumors of a state run school in Japan. But these are just rumors.’

Tambry scooted back away from her computer and stretched her arms up behind her head. As she lowered her arms she felt a pair of hands gently grab her shoulders. Looking back as the hands began to massage her shoulders she saw that it was Tony.

“I’ll give you five minutes to stop that,” she said as she leaned into the massage.

“Heh. You need to take a break. You’ve been at this computer for a couple of days.”, he said as he worked out a knot near her neck.

‘I agree with Master Anthony, mi’lady.’ Tab’s word balloon read.     

‘Yeah, toots. Let us take over for awile,’ Asta printed as her bloodhound icon came into view. ‘Jette, Tab, and I can handle this in for awhile. Go have some fun.’

“Yeah, yeah. I guess I can take some time for myself. What do you have in mind?

20 Minutes Later

Outside Of The Mystery Shack

“That’s it!”, Dipper called after being hit in the face with the third snowball in as many such minutes. He hopped up and launched several snowballs towards the small fort his sister and the others had hastely constructed on one side of the Mystery Shack after Tony had dragged Tambry out of her lair and  the snowball fight was proposed.   

“Take that,” Tony added as he, Wendy, and Tambry hopped up and joined Dipper in storming the snowfort.

Wendy stopped about halfway there with a confused look on her face. Noticing it Dipper too stopped and asked,  “Wendy, you ok? What’s wrong?”

“This is too easy, they should have started barraging us with snowballs as soon as we popped up from cover.” Wendy said as Tony & Tambry cleared the edge of the fort.

“There’s no one here,” Tambry called out as she turned back towards her friends, “Watch out!”

Suddenly a barrage of snowballs rained down from the roof of the Shack as Mabel, Pacifica, Candy, Francis, and Grenda began their attack. “Onward Aoshima! Victory is ours!”

“How did you…”, Dipper sputered as he fended off the snowy onslaught. Suddenly he came to a realization, “Hey we said no powers!”

“Whoa guys, do you hear that?”, Wendy called out trying to stop the barrage.

“No mercy,”Candy called out as she pulled a shovel off of the roof and began pushing snow off of it in the direction of the groups former snow fort.

“I hear it too,” Tambry started to say before she was grabbed and pulled out of the path of the falling snow by a smiling Tony.

“Oh, you guys are just trying to get out of the…” Mabel started before she too perked up as she heard the sound coming down the driveway. “Ok, now I hear it too.”

As they all turned towards the drive they saw a large logging truck with a giant snowplow attached to the front of it. As the ones on the roof decended it was close enough there was no mistaking the driver’s bushy red beard.

“Dad,” Wendy called out as her dad climbed down out of the cab of the truck and rushed over to embrace his daughter.

“Baby girl, are you ok?”, Dan asked after he released the hug.

“Oh com’on dad.”, Wendy said as slugged her dad in the shoulder. “Like I told you on the phone, I’m fine. I had just rushed over here as soon as I figured out how bad the weather was gonna be. Remember Dipper and Mabel are from California. They’ve never even seen fresh snow let alone having it be this bad. So I had to be here for them.”

Scruffing her hair as he did, Dan said “That’s my girl, watching out for your friends.”

Turning towards the rest of the group and in his booming voice asked, “And how are you guys?”

“Doing good mister Corduroy sir!” Dipper replied quickly.

“Good, good. And Dipper you can drop the sir, call me Dan.” Dan said with a smile that really did not go unnoticed by the rest of the crew. “I take it you’ve been keeping my girl out of trouble.”

“I try sir, I mean Mister Corduroy, but usually we end up keeping each other out of trouble.”, Dipper said as he shuffled his feet in the snow, “And she’s already been sharing some of her survival knowledge with us today. We now know what to do if say the power went out and we had to rely on the fireplace and wood burning stove for heat. Even the basics of what to do if we got lost out in the woods in this weather.”

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I started teaching her and her brothers the basics back when she was just a lil sapling.”, As he finished up the sentance he looked over the rest of the gathered group, “Why Tambry, Miss Northwest, uhm Grendel and Candace wasn’t it? It’s good to see you three also. How did you three make it all the way out here?”

“Oh, well we were having a sleepover.” Mabel piped up quickly as she realized the need for a cover story. “When the snow started falling we decided to extend it.”

“Ah to be young again, having a sleepover was always fun while I was growing up.” Dan said as he lightly chucked Mabel in the shoulder. “Tambry, I don’t think I can remember the last time I saw you without your phone out.”

“Oh, yeah. Well I have people,”Tambry said as she squeezed Tony’s hand, “who’ve convenced me that there is more to life than the digital world.”

Dan chuckled at that before his face turned serious. He looked back at Wendy and asked, “Your boss is still Soos, right? Is he here?”

“He’s inside helping Stan take inventory,” Wendy replied nonchalantly before she got a better look at her dad’s face. “Why?”

“Well on the way here I was asked to deliver his mail and newspaper. “ Dan said as he walked back towards the truck.

“Ok, I’ll take them to him dad.”

“That’s ok, I’ll take it to him. it was entrusted to me anyways.” Dan said as he pulled the newpaper out of Wendy’s reach.  

This caught Dipper’s attention as Dan seemed to actively pull the paper away but was not really doing much to keep the mail clear.

“Really dad, it’s part of my job description to get the mail. Soos is still terrified the mailman is a werewolf,” Wendy said as she attempted to grab the paper again.

“I keep telling you to tell him that Mr. Myers just has a glandular problem. He’s not a werewolf.” Dan said as he moved the arm with the paper up away from Wendy.

Dipper walked over and snagged the mail out of Dan’s hand while he was distracted by Wendy. As he looked over the envelopes he saw they were almost all resort ads for after Soos & Melody’s wedding. “There’s nothing but ads here, so what’s in the paper you don’t want us to see Mr. Corduroy?”

“What? Oh Nothing.” Dan replied as he turned towards Dipper and realized he had lost the mail. Absentmindedly he dropped the other arm allowing Wendy to grab the paper.

She unrolled the paper as she backed away from her dad. Looking at the headline her face suddenly dropped. “We need to get this into Soos immediately.”

She broke into a run and rushed inside the Shack with Dipper and the rest of the gang in hot pursuit. Soos was in the gift shop with Stan arranging knick knacks. “Soos, you need to see this. Whoever has taken over the paper has found your dad and it’s not good.”

Soos looked over quickly at Stan and poked him before sighing in relief, “You had me worried for a moment, I thought that maybe I had been imagining Mr Pines here.”

“No Soos, your birth father.” Wendy said as she handed him the newspaper.

“Local propreitor is the son of notorious death row inmate,” Soos read the headline aloud as he scaned the paper, “According to this reporter’s research Jesús ‘Soos’ Ramirez, AKA Mister Mystery II of the Mystery Shack is the son of the Nebraska Bomber, Earl A. Wellman. Wellman is known for his string of letterbombs he delivered in the spring of 1994. He is due to be executed next January after eighteen years on deathrow.”

“Soos,” Mabel said as she placed a comforting hand on his arm.

“Heh. Well at least I know he had a good reason for never coming to visit,” Soos said as Stan and most of the gang came around and made him the center of a group hug. “Besides, he quit being family to me years ago, this is my family now.”

“Aw Soos,” Mabel cooed as she squeezed him harder, “You gonna be okay?”

“Of course Hambone,” Soos replied, “I just need to worry about now and the future. Maybe I can even spin this to help the Shack.”

“What we need to do is go talk to whoever is running the paper now,” Wendy said after the hug broke up.

“Yeah, this is the second article to come out seemingly attacking one of us.” Dipper added as he looked around at the group.

“That might be a little hard,” Dan commented from over by the door, “The paper’s office buned to the ground Monday night. They’re saying it was an electrical fire.”

“No one was hurt were they?” Francis asked as he joined the convesation.

“Not that I know, but I’ve heard that Tad isn’t planning on reopening the paper.”, Dan said with a shrug.

“Wait, Tad?”, most of the group exclaimed.

“Yeah, he took over the paper after Bodacious T joined the TV news crew. I thought everyone knew that,” Dan said as he rubbed his chin.

“Why in the world would Tad be attacking us?” Pacifica asked as she looked confusingly at the rest of the group.

“I dunno,” Grenda chimed in, “He’s always been nice to me whenever I see him in town.”

Meanwhile Somewhere In Town

“Well sir. After I recieved your news, I carried out the destruction of the newspaper. I burned it down and i the process destroyed all of the physical copies of the records you had borrowed reguarding your former collection of friends.” Tad said into his phone as he was toasting a slice of bread. “I still don’t get why we are destroyed all of their police records. Oh yeah, I forgot you were mentioned in the files. So in destoying their records, we cleared yours. What about digitial records, oh those were destroyed earlier. Good to hear sir.”

He sat down and buttered his toast as he listened to the other side of the conversation. Ater swallowing the bite he took he replied, “So you’ve made us some new allies during your trip to Portland. Good. The new heroes seem to have defeated the Witch and her subordinates, we can use all the allies we can get. No sir, I’m not implying that you are weak. Just the strength in numbers is always advantagous.”   

______________________________________________________

Chapter 71 is over. Tambry gives us a quick lil update to what has happened for last couple of days after the big fight. And then she is dragged out of her self imposed workzone in order to get some sun and have some fun. The group’s snowball fight is interupted by the arrival of Wendy’s dad and some bad news he’s brought with him. next chapter more aftermath and finally the twins first Christmas in Gravity Falls.

Well all I’m sorry this took so long to come out, my laptop has all but died and so for a long while I was writing only on my phone. This was not fun as I have said in the past I have giant fingers on a small onscreen qwerty pad. I have so many mistakes and cramped thumbs that I practically gave up. Recently on of my roommates has allowed me to borrow his tablet and keyboard and so I was able to get this chapter out. I am wtrying to get my own tablet/keyboard combo and to that effect I have opened a Ko-Fi account under my fereality name if anyone would like to donate to the cause.

The names of our heroes:

Shifter/Dipper – Shapeshifter, highly intelligent.

Will O'/Wendy – Spectral powers, naturally athletic.

Glamur/Mabel – latest in a line of mystics, intelligent but more artistically inclined.

Freerunner/Tony – Peak physical condition, muscles & skin density increased, intelligent.

Flux/Francis – Self transmutation, highly intelligent (biological studies).

Charger/Pacifica – Battle armor, rich, secret sci fi fan.

Vaccine/Nate – toxin/antitoxin production, immunity to poisons, viruses, and toxins.

Brainbuster/Grenda – Natural muscle

Yami/James – Shadow and darkness manipulation, major otaku

Delphi/Tambry – Team hacker and communications expert, Techno-Shaman.

Schematic/Candy – Gadget creator, highly intelligent, trivia queen (I know I need to include this third one some :-) ).

Desperado/Wildbill – Team combat trainer

Also remember to check out my other Gravity Falls works:

Gravity Heroes: Sidetracks - A series on one shots & drabbels that are stories that are in the Gravity Heroes-verse but aren't necessarily required to read the main story-line. It's essentially my take on the classic Marvel Comics Presents. Chapter Seven follows Wild bill after he returns to Piedmont and delves into a few of his past lives that were re-awoken by Polden' Solntse.  

Welcome To The Gravity Falls Region - My take on the Pokemon AU. Follow the adventures of the potential Pokemon Master Dipper Pines and his sister Mabel, Pokemon Coordinator extraordinaire, while they travel through the Gravity Falls Region.

Gravity Falls Valor Force Rangers - In summer of 2016 an ancient force has arrived in Gravity Falls intent on finding weakened layers of reality that are prevalent in the area and exploiting them. Realizing fear is one of the ways to find the weak points, he and his evil henchman have begun corrupting both creatures and objects in order to terrorizing the populace. Taking a cue from a friend he met while stuck on the other side of the portal, Ford recruits five 'teens with attitudes' to combat this threat.

The Curse - thanks to a misunderstanding Wendy is targeted by a fairy curse. This is a short story following what happens afterwords.

Wrasslin Wendy - After Wendy’s brothers learn that Dipper’s Godfather is a former pro wrestler and beg him to introduce them. A few years later Wendy and her brothers are now working for Global Championship Wrasslin. that’s where our story begins. (This is my Writer’sBlock Breaker story for when I need to break through my Writer’s Block)

I also would feel honored if any of my works inspire any art. If the do I would love to see them. Thanks again to all who have read this far. I have received art now from Deviou5, Siryleleen, & Polydactyly Zodiac. These will be posted soon in my Deviant Art account as fan art and credited to them. Thanks again you three. I'm happy to see different interpretations of the characters from the GH AU. Let me know by PM if you do and I'll send out a list of the full descriptions to you. The art is now up at fereality.deviantart.Com/ just remove the spaces. A new pic of Yami is now up.

Again I'd like to give a shout out to dusk4224, EZB, SuperGroverAway, ddp456, & A Pleasant Dream. It was their stories that made me want to get back into writing and to want to start with Gravity Falls. Please check out their stories if you haven't already.

Please review. I'm always open to constructive and helpful criticism, though if you're gonna troll please move on.

Sorry I’m not on the net while I’m writing this chapter so I don’t have access to my reviews in order to respond.

#gravity falls au #gravity Heroes AU #wendip #mabcifica #tambry

[wallpaperpainter]

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#kids painting

[jerepars]

The Con Extended Chapter Notes

Hyperlinks appear in blue (underlined on mobile). The story is posted here. Direct link to this chapter is here.

> “Well, is this a new thing or an old thing?” Veronica supplied a starter question.

> “A bit of both, I guess. I had a huge crush on him when I left Riverdale. And then this summer, when I saw him, all those crush feelings came rushing back.” I got the floaty fluttering of butterflies in my stomach just speaking of my feelings out loud. “Then I found out he was moving here. Then I found out he was moving into my building. It all just kind of encircled me.”

I don't think I've made any reference to "The Con", the song by Tegan and Sara, since Chapter 2 ("The Plan"). We're now at the point in the story where the parts of the song that inspired me to name the story after it will begin to pop up more. One of the lines that's repeated several times in the latter part of the song is encircle me, I need to be taken down.

I do understand the context that the line is being used in within the song, and that might come back around later in the story. But for now, we've got Betty admitting to being encircled by her feelings. Tegan and Sara have mentioned a bunch of different times that the original name for the song was actually "Encircle Me" and was later re-named as the title track for the album The Con.

> “Oh my God, swoon. You just got Disney Princess heart eyes,” Veronica cooed. “You are so smitten. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this about anyone.”

> “I’ve known him for so long and I do feel like I really know him,” I said. “Lately it feels like…like maybe he could have some of the same feelings. And maybe we could have something that I thought would never happen.”

Here's an instance when I realized I was making a reference to a song literally as I was writing the sentence. Part of the chorus in "Attention" by The Academy Is... goes: Oh, did I mention when I see you it stings like hell? To the fact that we could have something that'll never happen.

Back in the notes for Chapter 5 ("The Sleepover") I said that I was hoping I'd get to reference Academy somehow, someway during the story, because they were a Chicago band. This time I wasn't even thinking about any of their songs, it just happened. I inadvertently put myself on a total nostalgia trip, too, because I remember referencing the same song--much more directly, actually--in a story I wrote over ten years ago. Wild.

> “Oh, Betty.” Veronica shook her head pensively. “As much as I love the idea of you pulling one over on him, and as much as it sounds like he’s got some seriously repressed feelings for you, I don’t want you to end up hurt if this goes badly. Please be careful.”

> Be careful. Those were the same precautionary words Jellybean had warned me with when the con was in its infancy, before I’d gotten in so deep.

I'm always going to back-reference to things that happened earlier in the story. In Chapter 3 ("The Fireworks"), when Jellybean revealed to Betty that she knew what was going on, she warned Betty to be careful. Even in Chapter 4 ("The Robots"), when Betty and Jughead have breakfast together, the chapter ends with him warning her about whatever game she's playing.

> For Trev and myself, preparation for the holiday shows would be grueling just as the preparation for the autumn program had been. The year before, for the inaugural season with the new Nutcracker, the company had begun the piece from scratch, with only a one-page synopsis of the story and our choreographer’s vision. We’d worked on The Nutcracker from the very start of dance season in August through December. Since it was no longer rubbing two sticks together and hoping they caught fire, and haven taken the time to premiere Giselle for the autumn program, it was back to the usual approach of rehearsing The Nutcracker from November until the first performance in December, with few full-on rehearsals through December. I was thrilled about the parts I’d been cast for; a pas de deux in the Spanish Dance, one of four dancers in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, as an understudy for the Arabian Dance and a Snow soloist, and corps roles as a Snowflake (of course) and fair worker. But it would be no easy feat. For most dance companies, Nutcracker time was (maybe ironically) crunch time. We never worked harder under such unforgiving time constraints than during the holidays.

In the chapter notes for Chapter 6 ("The Minutes"), I talked about the Joffrey Ballet's "new" Nutcracker and linked a few articles about how it was reimagined and how it's different from a classic Nutcracker, so maybe check that out. If you want.

When I was doing my research, looking through the program for Giselle, I noticed that one of the pages was an advertisement for a documentary on Joffrey's new Nutcracker to air on WTTW, the local PBS affiliate in Chicago. Knowing that this chapter was coming up, I thought to myself that I might as well wait to see the documentary. So I did! I even took notes so I could write the paragraph quoted above. And you can watch it too if for some reason you want to spend an hour learning about the new production. The documentary is called Making a New American Nutcracker and it's streaming on the WTTW website. Want to make a Riverdale connection? For all the Skeet Ulrich fans out there, it's narrated by Neve Campbell, who played Skeet's/Billy's girlfriend in Scream. Six degrees of separation with Skeet? You bet.

I found the casting sheets from 2016 and, oh boy, it was really hard to decide what roles to put Betty in beyond the corps roles. But I definitely wanted her to be in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show (one male dancer is Buffalo Bill and the three other dancers are women). As described in the documentary, it replaces what is usually the Russian Dance, but it's danced to Tchaikovsky's score that is used for the Russian Dance. There's some kind of humor in there, man. I like it.

> As for Kevin, he would be on the earliest non-red eye flight back to LA in the morning. He had a master class to teach that same day and rehearsal for a performance at the American Music Awards after that. He was just as busy as a dancer in a company, if not even busier. I was thankful that Kevin still managed to make time for me when he was in town and that our close friendship continued beyond our adolescence. There were no hard feelings that he never made it to any of the Giselle performances because he had his own life and success to tend to, and I was so proud of him.

This is Kevin's second appearance in the story, and his last. I wish he could have been in it more but it was more important to me not to relegate his role as just the gay best friend who occassionally provides comic relief. The comic relief he provides on Riverdale is great, yes, but we're now six episodes into the second season and I'm still wondering where Kevin's major arc is. I don't think he should be just a placeholder.

That's exactly why when he was introduced in Chapter 3 ("The Fireworks"), Betty spent some time talking about him--his life, his career, his success--rather than just the role he plays in her life. Keeping that in mind, I did want Kevin to make one more appearance in the story, briefly, squeezing a little bit of time for Betty into his schedule (and not the other way around), amidst all the good things that are happening in his busy life.

> “Thanks. You’re the best, Arch. I know you’ll be great tonight.” I leaned in and shifted onto my toes so that I could kiss him on the cheek. As was customary in ballet, I whispered my good luck wish to him, “Merde.”

I came across this quite a few times while doing research for the story. It's bad luck to say "good luck", and because breaking a leg is a possibility during ballet performance, ballet dancers don't wish each other well by saying "break a leg" either. The term merde, the French word for 'shit', is what dancers say before a performance instead. There are differing views on why that slang is used.

> I grabbed my coat off the back of my chair to shield me from the early November evening and slid my phone and card case into one of the pockets—I’d need my ID to get back into the bar after. I turned back to my friends and mouthed a ‘sorry’ as Jughead and I walked toward the door. Trev merely shrugged but Kevin gave me goofy grin and added a wink for good measure.

> I followed Jughead outside and we didn’t stop until we were standing in the doorway of the storefront across from the bar. It was a hair salon that, according to the hours listed in the window, closed at five every afternoon. The salon had bay windows, which made for a wide doorway that was lit by a solitary fluorescent motion-detecting light.

There is, in fact, a salon across the street from Schubas. And if you enlarged the image of the storefront using Google Maps, you'd see that the bay windows create a wide entryway in the shape of a trapezoid. What am I doing with my life looking this stuff up?

> It felt good to insult him to his face after finding out just what he thought about me liking him. I’d really started to believe that he might have a thing for me, too. At the very least I thought he genuinely cared about my well-being. But none of it was true. And once again my crystal vision was so wrong. My fate with him wasn’t like those girls like Sabrina. It was worse—it was nonexistent—and he had made sure of it. As quickly as he’d made my heart swell, he yanked it out of my chest, threw it on the ground, and stomped all over it with his combat boots.

The line about Betty's crystal vision is a quick little back-reference to her mention of crystal vision in Chapter 6 ("The Minutes"), which as I mentioned in the notes for that chapter, is actually a reference to Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams".

> Oh, I was counting on it. I was absolutely livid. There would be no complaints on my part if Chic wanted to use his overprotective older brother card for justice against his beanie-wearing cad of a best friend. In fact, I would gladly help him. Chic could pour the gasoline and I would light the match.

I debated with myself whether or not this was the right moment to use some of Alice's lines from 2x01. I wondered if using the "beanie-wearing cad" term was too distracting here, if it brought humor into an otherwise serious and tense moment. But then I thought...Betty's definitely got some of Alice's fiery spirit in her. So when she's livid? Well, that probably comes out, with Alice's terminology, too.

#je repars notes

[theliterateape]

Recent Memory: Case File #0002: "The Millennium Bug"

By Keith Gatchel

And, now, a look back at what had made the news over the past 5 to 20 years, and if it still matters to this day.

What was the news? The Millennium Bug.

How was this news? Two thousand years were about to end in the 1990s. We'd all celebrated New Year's Eve before, and seen more than one or two decades go by (stop reading if you haven't, this is PG-13). Even a select few of us are lucky enough to live over 100 years, or be cursed by a painting. But, this was "Dick Clark's Rock Hard New Year's Event of 19Goddamn99, Jabronies!" The odometer rolling over into a whole new number. And, damn were some people into it. Jennifer Lopez waited for tonight, Will Smith sampled the name. And Prince, true to form, was ahead of his time. Despite being the construct of a guy who would soon hate March 15, then a Pope who had to fix it, people gave a nearly supernatural significance to the upcoming year of 2000.

What went down? This coincided with the permeation of the modern personal computer into homes worldwide. To understand how revolutionary computers and the internet were at the time, or if you have to explain it to a kid: imagine walking down to the river every day to get water, and however much water you get is determined by how many times you can get up and walk down to said river. Then, someone comes along to your little hut (or teepee, or van on cinder blocks) and installs indoor plumbing with a Champagne glass shaped Jacuzzi; now there’s less walking, and a better chance to get laid. Still unclear? Talk to Rome. But, with all change comes questions and healthy skepticism. Where does this water come from? Could this water get polluted flowing through the pipes? Will the Jacuzzi jets hide your farts? Could sex in it prevent you from getting an STD, or cure it like the biblical healing waters of Jordan?

But, this wasn’t just water, this was information. (Brain water!) Computers were made by vast swaths of nerds, not all of whom talked to each other, which was typical, as much fewer comic cons existed at the time. The internet they would soon use to communicate with was still being made by them. Thus, this was the internet by the end of the '90s, this was how it was sold and this is was the past 20 years leading up to it. How you felt about the future determined what you awaited for in the years or decades until the year 2000: either the vast, sprawling, perfect civilization predicted for you by The Jetsons, The Carousel Of Progress or Demolition Man, or the scary hellscape of Mad Max, Judge Dredd, or for that matter, Demolition Man again (seriously, that movie really holds up.) But, with this massive change came a flaw, a “recalled airbag” if you will.

Since you don’t have as much time to watch old internet videos like I do, I’ll summarize. Computer memory was expensive, thus space was limited, thus the years were paired down. "1969" became "'69" (of course, you're picturing the yin and yang.) Thus, the average computer, as the ball dropped, might read the year "2000" as “00," mistake it for “1900" then possibly clam up and pretend it didn’t exist (again, like many nerds of its day). This was all over pop culture, specifically Strange Days, Sports Night, SportsCenter, Family Guy, that Chris Carter show that wasn't The X-Files, the X-Files episode that finished that show, Newsradio, and plenty of others. The movie Office Space described it well, which I’ll link again here because this is essentially every movie in the ‘90s wrapped up within one clip. The Heaven’s Gate cult killed themselves (but not whoever still maintains their website). The year 2000 was like the arrival of a celebrity, or god, with a cult of personality formed around it with a manager, a publicist and a stuntman.

Here’s Leonard Nimoy scaring the crap out of you, and a commercial selling you a survival kit. Apple computers released an ad starring HAL 9000 telling you why they won’t rise up and kill you (talk about sending "Nixon to China," eh, Nimoy?) To be fair, there were many people who weren’t all that concerned about it, and most that were prepared for just a tiny apocalypse.

What's up with it now? We’re still here, if you weren’t too sure. True, we might not be. But, for all intents and purposes, nothing really happened. Overall, we partied hard, then went back to normal.

Does it still matter? What the Millennium Bug did was give the end of the world a name. As a species, we’ve never dealt with a singular threat as one. Between raiding, attacking and destroying each others’ civilizations, we’ve never faced a life threatening asteroid or alien race that threatened humankind. But, here we had a name with a weakness to exploit: sunlight to our Gremlins, a tangible enemy that we could defeat. And, 100 billion dollars later, we did. (Say it with me, 100 BILLION DOLLARS!) But, that hasn’t stopped other end-of-the-world predictions, be they from some random preacher, another possible bug in the year 2038, or the prediction of the Mayans just because their calendar stopped (as if one Mayans didn’t just say, “Hey, um, guys, we just mapped out 5,000 years into the future, so I think we're at a good stopping point.”)

Do we still care? Unless you plan to live another 983 years (dream big, you!) probably not. And, there's a real chance that words and numbers might not even mean the same to us at that point, if we even still speak with mouths. But it brought out a little secret we as a society are all curious about: how will the world end?

No one wants the world to end, in the sense that none of us want to cause it (...put down the earthquake machine.) But we know the world we live in isn’t natural, and built on shaky ground. I live in Chicago, and am never entirely sure at any given time which grass is real. So, we imagine it like we imagine winning the lottery or going to jail—we wonder how we’ll act. And the best part about Y2K, if we’ve learned anything, is that we, as a society, won’t totally lose it. If the day comes that we see an asteroid hit the Earth, or nuclear war, we won’t immediately hunt and kill our neighbor, Beth. And, if it's going to happen, we secretly want to be there for it. Perhaps we want to be one of the few billion in heaven that get a t-shirt made. We’ll get to be a part of the special somebodies that got to be the epoch of civilization, the height of mankind, the end of the book, the cookie dough ice cream of the freezer. And, more than anything, we would know what predictions are right and which ones were false. Because that’s the thing about prophecies, it’s easy to make up ones that will never come true. So, it’s best to focus on the ones that will.

#Y2K #Millennium Bug #Champagne glass shaped jacuzzi #Rome #1990s #The internet #Leonard Nimoy #Demolition Man #Judge Dredd #Mad Max #Carousel Of Progress #Sports Night #SportsCenter #Office Space #Doctor Who #Heaven's Gate #Gremlins #Strange Days #Calendars

[youngcoulsonmademegay-blog]

How to Bypass Surveys

While surfing the Web and commencing a big range of various websites, we land on one which redirects us to survey shape or internet site for as a minimum as soon as each day. That’s no longer it; they aggravate you with the unnecessary detail filling strategies and cease-up on comic story websites that waste a while. This typically occurs across the sites that offer download hyperlinks, precious files, or any crucial records, and because people don’t have additional options however to get the document or documents, they entire those disturbing surveys. There is a method to this. There are a few Survey Remover tools available online or offline so that you can without difficulty bypass those Surveys or take away those Surveys online and download that report.

Bypass Surveys Online 2019: Today the whole thing is going online. People now will locate every sort of facts on the internet. The stability of the web has advanced loads over the years. Not merely simply facts, but you may also discover almost something online like Amusement, Information, Jobs, and the listing is going on.

Also, Read Windows Audio Device Graph iSolation

Every day tens of millions of human beings are using the net to satisfy their wishes. Technology has developed loads in these years that’s currently capable of taking the entirety online. However, there are usually some things which annoy a character even as surfing the internet. If no longer whilst gazing any films i,e, advertisement, and reviews. People should take away ads using the aid of ad-blockers, but the scenario differs from research.

How To Bypass Surveys Online: In this digital technology, nearly absolutely everyone uses the net. The variety of internet customers have accelerated fantastically in a final couple of years. Whenever a person wants to download something, the net is what they are able to think about. It doesn’t count number what you want to download you may continually locate it on the internet. While the net is unfastened, however not the content material of it. There are many web sites available wherein you could find free downloadable content material like real racing mod apk however a number of them don’t. When it comes to paid matters online, not many customers show their hobby in them. Majority of net users continually look for free things online, and there are infinite web sites which provide paid content totally free. Some web sites might also permit you to get them without difficulty, at the same time as a few may also ask you to do some mission in going back.

Also, Read DPC Watchdog Violation Windows 10

Some web sites may additionally ask you to complete a survey which will get the ones locked content. You can easily do it with the aid of following the instructions point out on the web page, but on occasion, it will become a headache. You may also get fake download buttons and spammy invisible ads on the web page after completing those surveys. When you complete a survey they get a few sums of money. But, the thing is that these online surveys are pretty time consuming and furthermore they do now not give you the original hyperlinks after the final touch of it. Most popular survey sites are Fileice, Cleanfiles, Sharecash, Uploadable, and Dollar add and so on. When you give them your original data to complete the survey they unsolicited mail your email and contact numbers with promotional gives (most of them are spam). So, if you want to skip online surveys without problems you then want to comply with the underneath techniques on “how to pass surveys online 2018″.

Here in this post, we are going to tell you about some of the first-rate approaches to pass surveys online. Along with it, you can additionally find methods to pass survey Android effortlessly with it. The maximum brilliant issue here is that you can additionally do survey bypasser download from this page with a purpose to assist you to bypass surveys on-line without any trouble. It is constantly recommended to use online survey bypasser or skip surveys Chrome extension to download files. If you don’t know approximately them, then you can read this post to understand approximately them.

Top 5 Best Methods To Unlock Or Bypass Online Surveys

#1 Editing Web Page

Editing the net pages manually to remove pop-and Bypass Online Surveys are the best component due to the fact we don’t want to depend on any third birthday party app or offerings. However, which will get rid of the pop-united states of America and skip surveys, we want to use an internet browser with dev tools like Firefox, Google Chrome, and so forth.

You just want to right click on at the pop-up or survey which they need to skip and select ‘Inspect’. Now you may see an HTML supply code of the website. You want to cautiously study the HTML code even as hovering on each line of code. Simply select the Pop-up or survey code and disable it.

Also, Read Why is My Computer So Slow

#2 Block Javascript

It’s well worth to be aware that most of the survey pop-united states of America depend upon javascript. So, in some example, it’s been visible that blocking off the Javascript removes the survey or pop-up. Users just need to visit the Google Chrome’s settings page and then scroll right down to find the ‘Javascript’ segment. Under the Javascript, locate and permit the choice ‘Do no longer permit any website online to run javascript’.

Once completed, head again to the internet web page that’s that incorporates the survey or locked content material and reload it. That’s it, you've achieved! Now you will no longer see any survey or locked content. So, this is how you may pass surveys chrome.

#3 Method: Using Online Sites

In this approach, we can be the use of two popular web sites Survey pass and Survey smasher to Bypass the net surveys. This web page will automatically dispose of all of the scripts of the surveys and assist you to get redirected to the unique content material page where you could without problems download your preferred file.

1) Using SurveyBypass Site Open the website surveybypass.Com and paste the URL of the page wherein you are getting the surveys. Now click on the Go button. Now, this can get your file prepared to download and you could without problems download that file by using bypassing all of the surveys. So, in case you are searching out the pleasant on-line survey remover, then this may be the only.

2) Using SurveySmasher Site SurveySmasher is the online device to bypass Surveys with a single click on. It bypasses the Survey-safety and uploads the report to Mediafire with an unmarried click on a button! SurveySmasher helps All common Survey-Providers like FileIce and ShareCash! With SurveySmasher, you could download whole lists of survey links with pure ease! Go in advance, and skip any survey you need now. Surveysmasher is loose

Also, Read WMI Provider Host High CPU

#4 Method: USING SURVEY KILLER APP (survey bypass tool)

Survey Killer is an unfastened utility device that helps you to download or get entry to the required content without filling up the surveys. In this, you simply want to put the URL within the Link Box and then Click at the Download File Button of the device. Your report will be downloaded rapidly.

Note: It works only on the percentage of cash hyperlink. You can download it from right here.

#5 Method: USING BROWSER EXTENSION

Open your Google Chrome browser and add the extension Bypass Survey. Now, this extension gets brought in your Google Chrome browser on the right pinnacle corner. Now on every occasion it detects the survey page it's going to automatically all the surveys scripts at the page and you could without difficulty download your record directly without completing any surveys. Also Read: How to Play YouTube Videos Faster Without Buffering

So foregoing are the exceptional and easy methods for Bypass Online Surveys. These online survey remover will definitely assist you to pass online surveys.  By this, you can without difficulty get right of entry to the web page wherein your real file is placed, and may without problems download the preferred software or document without finishing any of the surveys and this could store your plenty of time and information.

More info Clicks Bestoftool.com

[art124spring2019]

Week 12 - New Media

The first iteration of the World Wide Web (Web 1.0) was a collection of static websites connected by hyperlinks and accessed via terms and questions entered in search engines.  Using this web was like window shopping at a strip mall after hours.  You could take up the information made available through the windows and make comparisons, but little was required from you aside from your presence.  Your attention, while not unappreciated was not a commodity in the same way that your purchasing power was.  Web 2.0 is a different beast.  Characterized by motion, interactivity and User Generated Content, World Wide Web V.2 is an attention seeking creature.  Interactive design is a growth industry rooted in the possibilities and requirements of Web 2.0.  Interactive designers must draw from and contribute to conventions of video game design, advertising and ecommerce, among many others.  

 Game theory has been used in diverse settings from the schoolroom to the corporate office.  Incentives like badges (rewards), levels of advancement and engaging storylines have become ubiquitous to the degree that the influence of game design is sometimes overlooked.  Rutherford (2015) argues that interactive designers need to incorporate not just rewards but also cues, routines and investments. Cues are visual information that prompt users to perform and action; routines are repetitive action cycles that users can infer from the cues, and investments are way that a player might strengthen a character and become more invested in the game plot.  The interactive designer might translate investment into “preferred” status of return-customer discounts.  Eskilson (2007, p. 385) describes how pop culture references drawn from comics, anime and video games that were once thought too specialized for mass appeal have recently been absorbed into static and interactive design.  In the battle for users attention, video game design and theory bring weapons like engrossment and even addiction as Tim Wu explains, video games present a seductive world in which players can be totally absorbed, where they can’t think of anything else (p. 193).  

 Another strong, yet under-recognized influence on interactive design is e-commerce.  In 1991 there were four companies trying to lure Americans onto the Internet.  One of them, Prodigy, created a graphical user interface and leverage its founding company, Sears into a computer-based shopping network.  Limitations of online graphical display limited the success of this early effort, but the seed was planted, and in 1995 Amazon was launched (Wu, 2017). The conventions and virtual artifacts of e-commerce have greatly influenced interactive design.  The list and shopping cart models have transcended e-commerce and come to be the model offered by online library catalogs and university course selectors.  Many online tax preparation sites also emulate the shopping experience as they guide users through the assembly of required forms.  In case the online shopping failed to catch on, Prodigy had another idea for monetizing public attention—online advertising.

 No one who uses the internet can fail to notice the pervasive adverting on every type of website from search engines like Yahoo to news outlets like the Washington Post.  Back in 1991 Prodigy “saw itself reselling the attention directed to computer screens” (Wu, 2017).  Company executives envisioned a new advertising medium that would assemble markets for audiences the way TV programs used to and imagined they could sell advertising on every screen.  By the end of the 1990s a new search engine company called Google would succeed in ways the founders of Prodigy never considered.  Search was at that time eclipsing the Yahoo-style curated subject hierarchy and, thanks to that popularity, Google had massive attention available to convert to cash, and the audience were a select group that actually wanted something, “intentional traffic” in advertising jargon.  Google’s real genius was even greater, buy stressing relevance, it has convinced a generation of information seekers that it does them a favor by serving up ads for stuff they might actually care about (Wu, 2017 p. 259).  The ubiquity of advertising today essentially steers the ship of interactive design. Advertising has shaped what we expect to see on a page and how we scan for information.  The modern web designer must look through a lens that enlarges opportunities to monetize attentions while at the same time exploiting opportunities to encourage consumers to actively promote commercial messages simply because they find the content funny or otherwise engaging as in the case of a banner generator created to promote the 2005 film Snakes on a Plane.  This effort encouraged film fans to create their own advertisement for the movie and integrate it into their own website (Eskilson, 2007 p. 400).  

 Resources:

 Eskilson, S. (2007). Graphic design: A new history. New Haven: Yale University Press.

 Rutherford, Z. (2015). How video games improve your interaction design. Retrieved from https://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/10/07/how-video-games-improve-your-interaction-design/

 Wu, T. (2017). Attention Merchants. Atlantic Books.

 Also referenced:

Graham, L. (1999). The principles of interactive design. Albany, NY: Delmar Publishers.

This image is from a game called Onward Dream that Adric Holmes is developing.  Game design influences the interactive design of most modern online applications.

This local news website has two advertisement blocks within a user’s first screen view.  The pressure to monetize a site user’s attention has influenced content providers at every level.

E-commerce staples like lists and shopping carts have shaped the way we search for information, register for classes and events and even file our taxes.

#interactive design #video game design

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Advertising agency internet marketing

Official Website: Advertising agency internet marketing

Developing your Credibility and also Existence as an Advertising Agency on the web Advertising And Marketing Industry.

Probably you know with the neon indications of different business establishments around your locality’s downtown.

If you are an avid fan of different tv programs, probably you also have actually noticed various type of products flashed on your television display in between the program that you are seeing. It is frustrating on your part that there are “unnecessary disturbances” when you are seeing your favorite program, you can not do anything regarding it. As numerous will certainly say, it is part of the tv network’s programs timetable.

On the other hand, if you are a paper fanatic whether of a local newspaper or The New York Times, you can not remove numerous product and service endorsements placed on various parts of the newspaper. Identified advertisements is the assigned component for such endorsements, you will certainly still locate several product as well as service recommendations on the front web page, sports page, as well as even on the comics section of the paper. Just like the television, lots of will state that becomes part of the newspaper’s “income-generating tasks”.

Advertising is nitty-gritty.

And its objective is to obtain “as several clients as feasible”.

No holds barred. Just pure company.

Condemn it to various ad agency. They have begun the business and also they will continue it up until companies as well as various other companies require them, which is possibly permanently.

Advertising agencies provide the marketing needs of different services and companies via advertising and marketing techniques. They supply a wide range of advertising-related and working as a consultant services based upon market conditions, advancement sales approaches, and pop culture.

These advertising agencies produce firm and product logo designs, incorporate and also come up with effective and also attractive color design to capture the attention of customers to their customer’s ads. They are additionally in-charge of pamphlet and motto manufacturing and also the production of descriptive sales copy of items and/or services of their clients. They might issue press releases regarding the most recent updates and use different tools such as televisions, newspapers, neon indications, city as well as interstate signboards, and also Internet. Furthermore, part of their marketing approaches is to arrange occasions as well as give away promotional things.

Amongst various advertising and marketing tools, the opportunity on the Internet births one of the most possibilities, specifically if you will advertise Web marketing services. This is among the a lot more profitable endeavors that you can absorb the area of online-based advertising. As well as if you have the essential marketing abilities as well as know-how in addition to the basics of Internet marketing, you have the possible to begin with your very own ad agency for Internet marketing businesses.

If you determine to begin with your very own advertising agency on the Internet, you must discover the different elements of Internet marketing so that you will be able to think of an efficient advertising and marketing method for your Internet-based clients.

1) MLM, or multi-level advertising and marketing, is among the efficient methods of creating sales and marketing at the same time. It is an unique system that allows you to collect compensations by yourself sales in addition to individuals you recruited. This is popular in terms of item sales, assisting a Web marketing service generate wealth with compensation repayments on several levels. Some instances of online-based companies that make use of ONLINE MARKETING are the cosmetic and also home design line of product.

2) Ezines are another advertising technique to introduce the products and/or solutions of a Web marketing business. Ezines takes the form of digital publications that generally take on a particular location of rate of interest. It works similar to a typical magazine, only that it is cost-effective as well as in some cases free. You just require to write a best ezine that will certainly encourage its viewers to buy the items and/or solutions of your client.

3) SEO, or the search engine optimization, is a proven online advertising and marketing technique, and also presently in-demand at this time. It is a system of producing internet site material that makes use of popular and highly-searched search phrases or key phrases related to the nature of your customer’s Net marketing organisation.

As soon as you have informed yourself concerning these advertising concepts, you prepare to discover some complicated yet reliable marketing systems as well as begin marketing your online-based advertising agency to different Internet marketing businesses. It will certainly be your initial step in establishing your online reputation and presence in the field of Online marketing advertising industry.

These advertising agencies create company and also item logo designs, incorporate and come up with reliable and also appealing color plans to capture the interest of consumers to their client’s advertisements. Among different advertising tools, the opportunity on the Net births the most possibilities, particularly if you will advertise Net advertising and marketing organisations. As well as if you have the needed advertising skills and also proficiency as well as the essentials of Net marketing, you have the prospective to start with your very own advertising and marketing agency for Internet advertising services.

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

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