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rachelbethhines · 4 years ago

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Tangled Salt Marathon - “Rapunzel Knows Best!” ( A first half of S3 Recap)

So I decided to place the recap after Be Very Afraid for several reasons. For starters it’s where the season three hiatus took place. It’s also framed like a cliffhanger episode the same as The Great Tree and Queen for a Day; so while Cassandra’s Revenge is technically the midseason finale, Be Very Afraid functionally servers this narrative purpose better. Finally I want to keep the Cassandra heavy stuff contained in it’s own recap later same as I did for Varian’s arc in season one.

Also keep in mind, everything I discussed in previous recaps still apply here. Nothings changed and you could argue that the issues I bring up now could have also apply to past seasons; they just happen to be at their worst here.

Here are the past recaps

To Filler or Not to Filler

Hey, What Ever Happened to That Varitas, Guy?

What Is the Point?

‘Whatta Twist’

And here are the episodes that’s covered in this recap

Rapunzel’s Return Part 1

Rapunzel’s Return Part 2

Return of the King

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf

The Lost Treasure of Herz Der Sonne

No Time Like the Past

Beginnings

The King and Queen of Hearts

Day of the Animals

Be Very Afraid

Poorly Defined Conflicts

I’m not just talking about Cassandra’s lack of goals here either, though that is a part of it. I mean in several episodes the central conflict isn’t laid out clearly enough before being resolved. We flip from one set up to the next without ever resolving the first; like in Rapunzel’s Return when Cass and Varian fight for screen time or whenever Rapunzel is suppose to learn one lesson only for someone else to learn a completely different lesson in every other episode. And to this day I don’t know what Rapunzel and Feldspar’s subplot in Lost Treasure was suppose to be about.

There’s also of course the ill-defined overall conflict; which at this point has become convoluted and nonsensical to the extreme, and will only grow more aggravatingly stupid as the season progresses. The main villains lack clear goals, their motivations don’t align with previously stated facts, and the actual interesting conflict involving the threat of the rocks and their destruction of people’s lives and homes is just shoved under the rug and forgotten about.

There is no story without conflict. Having the conflict be all over the place is not only confusing but makes it harder for the audience to invest in what’s going on.

Failed Narrative Promises

Tying in with the above statement regarding conflicts, we have failed narrative promises. Rapunzel is repeatedly told to that she needs to learn something in several episodes only for her not to learn it at all. She either learns some unrelated ‘lesson’ that wasn’t established, (like in Rapunzel’s Return with her pervious goal about ‘opening up to others’ being switched out for a generic ‘responsibility’ lesson that at the last minute, where she doesn’t even do anything responsible,) or she winds up ‘teaching’ the opposite lesson to a different character thereby rewarding her for her bad behavior.

And that’s just within the induvial episodes themselves; there’s also broken narrative promises through out the overall story arc; like...

no justice/redemption for Lady Caine,

no acknowledgment that the Saporians are the victims of colonization

no conclusion regarding Corona’s murky past

no satisfying ending to Varian’s plot that sees everyone in involve grow

a poor copout of an explanation for Cassandra’s face/heel turn

The Dark Prince reveal going nowhere

The Brotherhood being put on a bus

King Frederic, or any royal, not being held accountable for their past actions

Lance’s new found responsibilities just being thrown away for the tenth time

The Disciples plot being being dropped

next to nothing in season two winds up being relevant

And Rapunzel, the protagonist of a coming of age story, fails to learn anything at all

I could probably go on but you get the gist. Tangled is incredibly frustrating show to watch because doesn’t deliver what it promises. You’re not being clever by ‘subverting audiences expectations’ unless you can justify your narrative decisions with previous set up. Tangled is too lazy to build proper set ups so it’s ‘twists’ leave you wanting to punch things rather then impressing you.

Character Assassinations

Every single character in Tangled the Series gets thrown under a bus, driven off a cliff, and then allowed to drown in the ocean of their completely unaware self-congratulatory smugness.

Rapunzel is turned into a bully

Cassandra is given the idiot ball to hold permanently

The King and Queen are lobotomized

Quinin gets replaced by a robot

The rest of the Brotherhood are pale shadows of what they could have been

Edmund is transformed from tragic complex figure into a dumb jerkoff who abuses his kid for a laugh

Zhan Tiri, once an ancient demon warlock, is reduced to a floating impotent ghost girl

The Saporians become poor hipster parodies

Cap is put on a bus

Any villain who isn’t Cass is gets ignored

Lance is infantilized to the point of absurdity

Eugene becomes a doormat

and poor Varian is forced to become a complacent victim to his abusers as oppose to being allowed to keeping his dignity

I think the only person who escapes this mass murder of characterization is freaking Calliope, and she’s hasn’t even appeared yet! (Well okay her and Trevor, maybe)

This all ties back into the poorly defined conflict and failed narrative promises. Rather than let the characters drive the story, they’ve become puppets to the plot, and plot is really stupid and forced, and circles back in on itself and is full of contradictions.

Manipulating the Audience’s Empathy to Do the Work for the Writers

The reason why the creators believe they can get away with such poor characterization and lazy writing is because they expect the audience to do all the heavy lifting for them.

Cass isn’t given an on screen reason for what she does because they’re hoping her fans will just automatically excuse her because they like her/relate to her and not, you know, get mad at the writers for dumbing her down. And after all who doesn’t love the creator’s pet? Meanies! That’s who!

No one calls out Rapunzel’s bullshit on screen, because if everyone likes her, then you, viewing audience, should too. Because if you have any sort of independent critical thinking abilities and a sense of right and wrong then clearly you’re ‘just a hater’.

Everyone should just shut up and be satisfied that Varian is even on screen now and be grateful for the scraps that they get cause he’s not the real point of the show and according to Chris ‘Varian fans aren’t real fans’. Even though they make up most of his viewing audience.

I could go on, but it’s just variations of the above. The writing in this series is very fond of gaslighting the audience and trying to trick them into justifying the absolute worst behaviors while desperately hoping they doesn’t noticed the continued downgrading and dismissal of characters they do like or once liked.

And the sad thing is, it’s worked. There are people to this day that still try to justify this show’s shitty morals and bend over backwards to excuse the likes of Rapunzel, Frederic, Cassandra, and Edmund. Worst, there are loud sections of the fandom, (usually on twitter) who think bullying is okay and follow in Chris and his characters footsteps. Most of them young impressionable girls who are now ripe for TREFS to indoctrinate because they use the same bullying tactics and excuses for authoritarianism.

Media does effect reality, but not in the way purists and antis would have you believe. No one is going to become a violent manic from playing a video game nor a sex offender because they read a smut fic. But they very much will conform to toxic beliefs if it’s repeated enough at them by authorities they ‘trust’; like say the world wide leading company known for family entertainment and children’s media, and the ‘friends’ they find within the fandom for said company...

I’m not saying you can’t enjoy Tangled the series or that you’re some how wrong for liking it’s characters, nor do you have to engage with every or any criticism thrown it’s way. But yes you need to think about the media you consume on some level and valid criticism is very much important to the fandom experience for precisely the above reasons.

Conclusion

This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg of what’s wrong with this show, but it is most of its biggest problems laid bare. Anything that haven’t covered here or in the past recaps will be explored in the final recap. Cause this is it folks; the last leg of the journey for this retrospective. When come back, hopefully next week, we’ll tackle Pascal’s Dragon.

#tangled #anti-tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #tts #rta

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chaotically-cas · 5 years ago

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29 Things I Think Allistic People Need To Hear

From an autistic person

Not my usual content but I felt it needed to be said.

Saying “everyone is a little autistic” is really hurtful. Yes, everyone has their struggles but these struggles are far different for autistic people. Saying everyone experiences it is invalidating & harmful.

Being graded on eye contact & standing still is wrong. I’m pretty sure at one point or another we’ve had a project we were graded on & one of the grades was eye contact & not fidgeting. These things are extremely hard for autistic people & they are practically second nature. It’s like holding in a sneeze.

Stim & figget toys in schools. Of course fidget spinner’s & stim cubes can be bought & should be bought by anyone. If you want one, get one. But the way schools are banning them is crazy. They are very necessary for autistic people & it’s so much harder for them when schools ban their use.

QUITTTTT BABYING US!! We aren’t ‘uwu babies’. We are humans. We are perfectly capable of functioning without allistic people’s pity & looking down on us. We are our own people that don’t need a hand to hold in every damn situation. We aren’t cute because of it. ��

Listen to autistic people. Everyone is all for advocating for people until that group of people want to advocate for themselves. So shut up & listen once & maybe you can learn something you didn’t know.

Creative writing in class is difficult. You don’t know how many bad grades I’ve gotten on because I can’t think of a good story out of my ass. It’s extremely hard for autistic people. Please give us a prompt it’s more helpful than you know.

Role playing in class. I think we’ve all had to do something where we research a famous person & have to assume their identity. This is again, so hard for autistic people. It’s hard enough for us to be ourselves. Most of us can’t understand these actives enough.

Slurs. Quit saying retard. It’s not an insult. It’s not funny. It’s offensive & every time you use it you’re hurting a disabled person & spreading harmful stereotypes. It’s not just a word. It’s not just a bad word. It’s a slur. Same as the f word or any other slur. Don’t use it.

People talking over us. No I dont mean just in conversations. Although that is another issue. I mean organizations like autism speaks that put words into autistic peoples mouths instead of letting them speak for themselves.

Stop making fun of our special interests. Whether you find anime cringey or think an adult loving Aladdin is childish just stop it. These things being extreme joy to us. They make us happy in a word that we don’t understand. So just leave us alone & let us be happy.

Don’t stare at us if we’re stimming. Especially in public. If you see me flapping my hands. Don’t stare. If you hear me humming quietly, don’t judge. These activities aren’t for your viewing pleasure. They’re for autistic people to regulate & express how they’re feeling.

Normalizing ableism. It’s so normalized. Whether it’s phrased like “suffers from autism” or how regularly ‘retard’ is used in classe; ableism is so often over looked especially by adults. There are no many micro aggressions they are just passed off as us not having a thick enough skin. When in reality it’s really damaging.

People first language. If you ever correct someone by saying “no, they’re a PERSON with autism. Not an autistic person”. Literally shut up. We’re autistic. We’re people. Being autistic doesn’t make us any less human so you don’t need to make it seem like it does. We’re still human no matter our disably. People don’t have to be reminded of this.

Using words like psychopath & sociopath. Calling autistic people these things just because you don’t understand us is disgusting. If you don’t understand these terms don’t use them. Just because we aren’t good at showing empathy in some cases doesn’t make us ‘psychopaths’.

Tone indicators. This is both the over use & not using them that’s an issue. Saying things like “/j /hj /sarcasm /srs /lh” all in one post defeats the whole damn purpose of them. & not using any at all especially when joking around or using sarcasm can lead to a lot of misunderstanding. It’s not that hard to use one or two at the end of a post. /srs

Picky eating. Literally stop making fun of autistic people for not liking a lot of foods or ordering the same thing at every restaurant. A lot of textures & flavors are very bothersome to autistic people. They can cause overstimulation or even panic. Just let us be. So I eat mac & cheese 4 times a week. I didn’t know it effected you so much.

“Ugh you’re so annoying you can’t ever get a joke”. No hearing that is what’s annoying. Tones are hard for us to understand so while most people pick up on it autistic people are more likely to read too much into it or take it seriously. It’s simple to use tone indicators in text or even to say “I’m joking”. It won’t make your joke less funny. It’ll just help us understand more.

Be specific if you want things from us. Don’t just say “hey I need a pencil”. Or “the dishwasher needs put away”. Most likely we’ll just be like, yeah, ok, and? Be specific please. Say things like “can I borrow a pencil?” or “can you undo the dishwasher?”.

Faces seeming to look weird. A lot of us having facial stims that can alter our faces. Whether it’s excessive blinking, eyebrow raising, or face scrunches. Don’t ask us what’s wrong with our face or what we are doing. For me, because of my facial stims & tics my eyes/eyebrows are permanently uneven. Don’t bring it up.

Classroom behavior charts are horrible. Autistic people don’t behave the same as allistic people. Simple as that. What they see as ok behavior, others don’t. & some times they don’t realize these behaviors will get them in trouble.

Police brutality. Especially in black or brown autistic people. It’s so common that people call the police on autistic people stimming in public because they are seen as dangerous. & when these autistic people can’t understand what’s going on or can’t make eye contact they are labeled as more suspicious. Especially black autistic people. Just look at Elijah McLean.

Feeling dumb. Especially in schools or other scholarly conversations. Some autistic people aren’t able to keep up or fully understand everything that’s being said or presented. Which leads to us feeling dumb. Give us time to process or aso questions please.

Feeling robotic. You’ve most likely heard autistic people being compared to robots at one point or another. Whether that’s for the impaired ability to establish empathy or something else it’s an extremely negative & hurtful stereotype. Especially in media.

Saying ‘I forgot’ is a valid excuse. There is so much going on in our heads. So much to process & remember. We forget things. Everyone forgets things. Especially autistic people. Please don’t yell at us for always forgetting to do the dishes. It’s not like we chose to forget.

The harmful effects of the vaccines cause autism jokes. Aside from the whole anti vaxers debate, perpetually the idea that we shouldn’t be vaccinated because it causes autism is disgusting. It’s treating autism like a disease. Like the person who has it isn’t worthy. Or that autism is so chronic it will ruin everything. It’s like people avoiding cheese burgers because it’s rumored they make you ginger. It’s preposterous.

Yelling at autistic people for struggling to want to learn new concepts/concepts at all. This not only goes for in school but in just normal conversation. It’s hard for autistic people to grasp things they don’t have an interest in learning. So please don’t yell at us for not understanding everything about a band that we don’t care about, we would if we could. It might not seem like a big issue but it happens more than you’d think.

Intrusive thoughts. (Tw: rape mention & violence) Most of the time autistic people experience extreme spells of intrusive thoughts “omg he’s going to rape you image him raping you” or “stab yourself in the side right now” or much worse. & when autistic (and other) people try to talk about it they are labeled crazy or insane. It’s a normal occurrence to have these kinds of thoughts. We don’t want to. But they happen. That’s why they’re called intrusive.

Executive disfunction. This is basically when autistic people are views as lazy but we physically & mentally just can’t. Where tasks as seemingly simple as going to get a glass of water feels like a mountain to autistic people. It’s not that we are lazy. We physically & mentally can’t work up to it.

Class rank & graduation requirements are unfair. Autistic people socialize differently. It’s just a fact. Our brains work differently in classes & outside of it. We could be working our asses off to understand our English class book, but we get an F. Not to mention how most schools require community service hours to graduate. Yes community service is good but it can be very hard for autistic people.

Please feel free to add on but a lot of these are drawn from personal frustrations. Please listen to autistic & other disabled people more. All these also applies to those with ADHD/ADD or any other mental illness where the situations apply. You’re all valid & amazing.

I love you all. 💕

#autistic #actually autistic #autism psa #listen to autistic people #rant #the outsiders

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thetypedwriter · 4 years ago

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The Music of What Happens Book Review

The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg Book Review

I don’t think I like this book.

I know that’s a strong statement right off the bat, but it’s mostly true. However, there was also something about it that I didn’t quite hate and, as usual, I will try my very best to put forth both the positives and the negatives of this read into some sort of subjective semblance of rationality.

Now, firstly I’d like to thank @chapterhappy98 for the recommendation. I love getting book recommendations (just not when people actually buy me books-see previous reviews) and this one seemed totally up my alley.

For a novel I’d never heard of before it had a lot of components that excited me. An LGBTQ+ romance? I’m here for it. One of the main characters being half-Mexican and half-white? Love the representation. A cute plot centered around summer and food trucks? Yes, please.

All the ingredients were there for a good book, but the way the book was written, the perspective of the characters, and the characters themselves made this a slog for me. On paper, this should have been lauded as a cute fluffy novel with some very deep feels, but instead I found it tedious, aggravating, and thankful that it was at least short.

The positives are everything I mentioned above. The plot itself is cute. Food truck summer romance is not a plot I’ve read before, but it's original enough to be intriguing and cute enough to be endearing. High quality fanfiction fodder right here.

Although the representation could have been better, it was sufficient. I enjoyed the fact that Max’s mother was Mexican while his father was a whiter-than-toast comedian from Indiana. Both Max and Jordan have friends who are white and friends who are not and I enjoyed that Konigsberg portrayed the distinct friend groups as such and that moments of race do come up.

For example, like when Jordan suggests they steal prickly pears from people’s yards and Max shuts it down before the idea can even coalesce because a white boy stealing pears from yards is a hooligan move, a Mexican kid stealing pears from yards is a crime.

Small introspective moments like this were very interesting and added a layer of reality to the novel that I appreciated. On this same route, both Max and Jordan, our two main characters with revolving perspectives, are going through some deep trauma and while it wasn’t amazingly handled, I did appreciate moments towards the end where Konigsberg actually has the characters face what they are going through and take appropriate routes to fix them or start the healing process (acceptance, counseling, etc).

By no means did I think the book handled sensitive topics such as rape, addiction, bullying, and self-esteem issues well, but at the very least, most of the issues were adequately addressed and on the right path towards healing and rehabilitation which is more than I can say for some other novels.

Now, for the negatives. Buckle up, people.

First off, the writing.

I found it abhorrent. I don't know if this is just Konigsberg’s style of writing, but it did not vibe with me at all. I found his writing and dialogue superfluous, cheesy, and gag-inducing.

To me, this is not how real people talk, think, or interact, but instead a grown ass man’s idea of how teenagers think, talk, and interact. It made me truly wonder if Konigsberg has actually ever met a teenager in his life.

As a high school teacher, I interact with teenagers on a daily basis. I know how they talk and interact, and through their journals and papers, I can generally grasp at least a preview into how they think.

It’s like Konigsberg took every adolescent stereotype that exists and stuffed it onto his pages with mediocre words and subpar humor. The Music of What Happens is a pantomime of the teenage experience and I found it extremely irritating.

Secondly, the perspectives of both Jordan and Max are maddening and irksome, although Jordan more so I have to admit. Both of these characters suffer from what I call “Woe is Me” syndrome. This is the idea that making a character have a sad or tragic backstory or circumstances also makes them deep and complex.

This is so far from the truth it hurts.

Trauma and tragedies are not simply fodder to build a cheap and easy way for a character or a plot to build depth. It should be handled with care, with consequences, and with other characteristics built in that are reasonable and befitting of the whole character. Both Max and Jordan were almost laughably tragic.

Max’s parents split up, and while his mom Rosa is the MVP of the book, his dad is nothing more than a useless caricature of the absentee father, so much so that when Max admits to his sexual assault his dad does nothing, but makes a joke and talks about a stand-up routine he has coming up.

Jordan is much, much worse. This boy is the most self-deprecating, pitying thing I have ever read.

(Spoilers ahead for the novel and Jordan’s circumstances).

His friends who he calls his “wives” (cue eye roll) bully him, his mother is a gambling addict with bipolar disorder, he believes he killed his father by giving him a heart attack on his sick bed, and he’s about to be homeless unless he can make money from his dad’s old food truck and save his mortgage.

It’s absolutely ridiculous.

I’m not trying to make light of these issues, but the way Konigsberg handled these characters went like this: “Hmmmm how can I make interesting teenagers? I know! Let’s make everything in their life miserable. Yes, that will make readers care!”

In case you were wondering, no, it didn’t work.

Just because Jordan and Max are tragic characters did not mean I cared for them or even liked them. If the idea was to build complexity and sympathy that absolutely failed. If anything, I felt frustrated by the circumstances, vexed by the way both boys handled their issues, and galled at how the surrounding world allowed it to happen.

In addition, going back to the idea that Konigsberg has never met a single teenager in his life, both Max and Jordan fell into such archetypal teenage tropes that I felt my teeth rotting.

They fell in love after hanging out twice, their reasons for liking each other were abysmal and perfunctory, and if anything, the only reason I actually saw these two working in any way was simply because they were both the only other gay person they knew, which is not even an adequate component.

The romance felt strained and uncomfortable and the “dates” they went on made me laugh with absurdity. Picking up stuffed animals at midnight to put them at the front of the zoo? Who does that? I didn’t find it charming, I didn’t find it unique, and I didn’t find it cute.

I found it odd and unrealistic.

Which, at the end of the day, is what irked me about this book the most: it was unrealistic.

You might say: “Typedwriter! That’s unfair! You read about vampires and fairies and all sorts of fantasy creatures and worlds!”

You’re right, I do. But fantasy and unrealism are not synonyms. Fantasy I love. Even within fantasy worlds there needs to be rules and order. There are still expectations and realistic behaviors and laws that govern fictional creatures and lands.

For a novel that is supposed to depict real life and real teenagers The Music of What Happens edges on the side of surreal for me. Surreal is also fine if that is the targeted result.

In Konigsberg’s case, however, I don’t believe that was the intention. I got the feeling that Konigsberg wanted this to be a real and deep portrayal of love and adolescence and instead I found it ludicrous and nonsensical.

Everything about this book bordered on nonsensical. Two boys running a food truck without any knowledge or prior experience and ending up making thousands of dollars? Okayyyyy, sure. Jordan’s mother’s behavior, gambling addiction, and speech? Preposterous. The way Max and Jordan talked to each other and their friends? Almost like a robot’s depiction of how they think humans communicate.

At the end of the day, this book’s unrealistic look at life, love, relationships, trauma, and consequences ruined it for me. It’s certainly not the worst thing I’ve ever read, but most of this book was just a mindless jumble of words that didn’t form a proper connection to me as a reader.

As listed above, not everything was horrible and I’m not trying to make it out like it was, but for the most part, I didn’t enjoy this book as I stated from the beginning.

As always, this is just my opinion. I still love that it was recommended and I mean no harm to anyone who does love this book. Perhaps if I was a young teenager I would have connected more with the self-deprecating monologues and pity parties. Perhaps if I wasn't so skeptical I could actually believe two sixteen-year olds could pull off a food truck success, but alas I’m not and I couldn’t.

If this book brought out tender feelings and emotions for you, however, I am glad because isn’t that why we read?

Unfortunately, this was not the case for me for The Music of What Happens.

Recommendation: Unrealistic everything made this book toiling drudgery for me. Take the idea of a cute summer romance on a food truck, apply it to your favorite fandom and OTP for a Valentine's Day prompt, and then happily move on with your life without having the need to pick up The Music of What Happens.

Score: 3/10

#the music of what happens #bill konigsberg #ya fiction #YA Books #YA literature #book blog #books #book review #Book Recommendations #YA Book Review #book reccs #ya book rec #book rec #bookstagram #LGBTQ fiction #popular fiction

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tonystarkbingo · 5 years ago

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TSB Mark IV Week 2 Roundup!

This includes the Round Robin fic that several participants wrote as part of our Discord Party, as well as a whole bunch of other amazing works. Go leave them some love!

Title: Adventures of Tiny Dragon Tony and His Treasure (Loki) - Chapter 41: Snapshot #41: The First of Many Meetings Collaborator: tinydragontony Card Number: 4005 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: T5 - more than a partner Ship: FrostIron Rating: Gen Major Tags: Fluff, first meetings, 5+1 Summary: Here it is, the most requested chapter to date! How Loki met tiny dragon Tony! Word Count: 3300

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Title: Snowed In Collaborator: eachpeachpearplum Card Number: 4003 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: S2 - snowed in Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: snowglobe, possible imprisonment?, art Summary: Tony was just minding his own business, taking a quick zip around the city, just because he can. Next thing he knows, he’s in a glass ball sat on some evildoer’s shelf. To make things worse, he’s not the only one…

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Title: Man on the Run Collaborator: ceealaina Card Number: 4008 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: R1 - Old Team Ship: Background Pepper/Nat, Background IronHusbands Rating: Teen Major Tags: Fluff and Humour, Team as Family, Post-Endgame, Fix-It Summary: Saving the world is important. But Tony really, really just wants to retire and spend time with his family. And if faking his death is the only way to do that, that's how it goes sometimes. Word Count: 1115

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Title: Inktober - Day 19 Collaborator: monobuu Card Number: 4040 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: S3 - AU: Star Wars Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: Scandalous amount of leg Summary: Uuuuuh. Yeah. (*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)

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Title: Scrunch Me Collaborator: martianwahtney Card Number: 4011 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A2 - Victorious Ship: WinterIron Rating: Gen Major Tags: fluff Summary: 3 times Tony asks Bucky why he wears scrunchies, and 1 time he figured it out for himself Word Count: 995

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Title: The Best Bathtub Collaborator: camichats Card Number: 4049 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: K4 - Kink: Bath/Shower Sex Ship: Tony/Sharon Rating: Mature Major Tags: Minor sexual content, allusions to sugar daddy/baby relationship (though not actually present in the fic) Summary: Sharon is a tough Shield agent and she’s proud of that, but sometimes it’s nice to relax and feel pampered. Word Count: 1649

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Title: Baffled, bewildered and bemused. Collaborator: JehBeeEh Card Number: 4058 Link: AO3 Square Filled: K1 - Learning to be Loved Ship: Stony Rating: Mature Major Tags: Super Fluffy, Implied Sex Summary: Baffled. Bewildered? Perplexed. Tony couldn’t quite figure out which version fit this situation best, but they all seemed to apply. Perplexed seemed a bit much though. Puzzled? Bemused. Word Count: 3197

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Title: wound with your eyes (kill with a smile) - Chapter 3 Collaborator: deathsweetqueen Card Number: 4066 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A5 - Restrained Ship: WinterIron Rating: Mature Major Tags: graphic depictions of violence, Spy Kids AU, Secret Identities, Kidnapping, Indian Tony Stark Summary: Tony Stark and Bucky Barnes were once the renowned superheroes, Iron Man and the Winter Soldier. Eventually, they put aside the masks and the armour to get married and raise a family together. Twelve years later, SHIELD agents go missing, and Tony and Bucky decide to go on their first mission since their eldest child was born. When they're mysteriously kidnapped by a psychotic TV show host, it's hardly a great first step to getting back in the game. The worst thing, though, might be the fact that the only people who can rescue them are their own children. Word Count: 12,872

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Title: with or without his unhallowed touch - Chapter 24 Collaborator: deathsweetqueen Card Number: 4066 Link: AO3 Square Filled: K1 - myths and legends Ship: Tony/Thanos, Stuckony Rating: Explicit Major Tags: Tony is Kidnapped by Thanos, Tony is the Soul Stone, Female Tony Stark, Obsessive Behavior, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Emotional Manipulation, Stockholm Syndrome, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Physical Abuse, Domestic Violence, Forced Relationship, Gaslighting, Rape/Non-con Elements, Warnings for this Chapter: Explicit Violence, Major Character Death, and Cannibalism Summary: Toni sees the Chitauri mothership high above her, sees the hundreds and thousands of warships that circle the Earth, and she knows, she knows. She thinks, oh, I understand. A beat. Her hand burns. Wow, we are so fucked. She lets the bomb slide out of her hands, watches as it floats towards the mothership, and fire rains down on her, even in the dark, pale, cold hollow of space. She laughs, breathlessly, thinks of all the ones who’d loved her the most, and dies. Word Count: 129,402

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Title: What We Do in the Tower Collaborator: newnewyorker93, rebelmeg Card Number: 4042, 4034 Link: AO3 Square Filled: S2 - Forcibly Adopted (4042) A5 - WTF (4034) Ship: Peter & Tony, Pepperony Rating: Gen Major Tags: Vampire AU, Avengers family, crack and humor, unapologetic cherry-picking of vampire lore Summary: Peter Parker has been having an awkward time as a brand new vampire. But now he's got Tony Stark whisking him off to meet a whole group of weird and hilarious vampires that live in Stark Tower and maybe this won't be so bad after all? Word Count: 5185

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Title: Prince Tony and the Red Headed Princess Collaborator: PoliZ Card Number: 4007 Link: AO3 Square Filled: K2 - AU: Fairy Tale Ship: Pepperony Rating: Gen Major Tags: fairytale elements, domestic fluff Summary: Morgan asks her daddy for a bedtime story with knights and monsters, and wizards and princesses. With some help from Pepper, Tony is happy to oblige. Word Count: 866

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Title: A Bottle and a Half of Whiskey Later - An 1872 Playlist Collaborator: moosh Card Number: 4037 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: S5 - Canon: 1872 Ship: None Rating: Gen Major Tags: Playlist Summary: A playlist based off some of the songs that Tony sang in the comic. Word Count: N/A

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Title: The Gift of Jab Collaborator: dracusfyre Card Number: 4032 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A2 - Dares/Bets Ship: WinterIron Rating: Gen Major Tags: Pre-Relationship, Sparring Summary: For the ImagineTonyandBucky prompt: Hi! I'm always up for some sparring hotness, so how about Tony being present for physical training sessions (working/watching), but says no everytime Nat/Clint/Steve/etc invites him to do it. Rhodey laughing every time the team says that it's bc Tony doesn't want to embarass himself. Bucky suspects his BF is actually well-versed in hand-to-hand/martial arts/self-defense; so he gives himself the challenge of getting Tony onto the mat. When he does he ends up a)on the floor & b)really aroused. The fill is less horny than the prompt, sorry. Word Count: 2453

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Title: Lady in Red Collaborator: JehBeeEh Card Number: 4058 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A5 - Steve Rogers/Captain America Ship: Stony Rating: Mature Major Tags: Summary: “I GOT SCARED, ALRIGHT?”“Steve, sweetheart-"Steve kept pacing their room like he hadn’t even heard her. “I got so scared, you have no idea. And I know, okay. I know you can take care of yourself, and you don’t need me to save you or protect you, and it is sexy as all hell, but in that moment, I forgot all about that, and I was scared that I couldn’t protect you.” He collapsed on the bed, elbows on his knees and his head in his hands and Toni could hear him take long slow breaths.This had definitely not been how Toni envisioned their return home going. Word Count: 1176

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Title: i come as a woman, dark and open Collaborator: simi Card Number: 4066 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A5 - Resolve Ship: Toni/Steve/Bucky Rating: E Major Tags: Female Tony Stark, Regency AU, Misogyny, Racism, Explicit Sexual Content, Emotional Infidelity, Slurs, Marital Dissatisfaction. Summary: When Toni first meets Captain Steve Rogers at one of the biggest gatherings of the season, she is not impressed. On the other hand, his best friend, the charming James ‘Bucky’ Barnes, was an utter delight. Unfortunately for her, after a series of misunderstandings at said party, she is forced to accept Steve’s hand in marriage in order to save her family’s reputation. And while Toni never expected a fairy tale, she had always hoped that companionship would one day turn into something more. How was she to know that Steve was just as charmed by Bucky as she was? a.k.a. Steve and Toni get married to each other; there are more misunderstandings; Bucky is an absolute delight and possibly the saving grace for their marriage; and somehow, all three end up falling in love with each other in the process. Word Count: 25, 335

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Title: TSB October Discord Party Round Robin Fic Collaborators: rebelmeg 4034 Politzania 4007 EachPeachPearPlum 4003 summerpipedream 4045 Ducky 4013 Magica 4019 SomeSortofItalianRoast 4036 DarthBloodOrange 4010 Link: AO3 Square Filled: rebelmeg: A4 - Huddling for Warmth Politzania: A5 - Dog Park EachPeachPearPlum: S1 - Premonitions summerpipedream: A5 - Clint Barton/Hawkeye Ducky: R5 - Fortune Telling Magica: T2 - Fortitude SomeSortofItalianRoast: S2 - Magic DarthBloodOrange: T4 - Robots Ship: None Rating: Teen Major Tags: animal transformation, magic/witchcraft, Kate is a hero, Clint is a disaster human being Summary: Tony has been turned into a dog, and he is going to straight-up murder whoever made him a corgi. Word Count: 2634

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Title: I Know You Collaborator: iam93percentstardust Card Number: 4012 Link: AO3 Square Filled: R5 - Sam Wilson/Falcon Ship: IronFalcon Rating: Gen Major Tags: Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Sickfic Summary: When Tony gets sick and hides away from everyone else, it's up to Sam to find his wayward boyfriend. Good thing he knows him so well. Word Count: 1316

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Title: Thriller - Michael Jackson Collaborator: monobuu Card Number: 4040 Link: AO3 Square Filled: A5 - Murderchildren Ship: None Rating: Teen Major Tags: Creepy? Summary: N/A Word Count: N/A

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Title: I’ll keep your brittle heart warm Collaborator: peachy Card Number: 4017 Link: AO3 Square Filled: K3 - Protectiveness Ship: Stony Rating: Teen Major Tags: Breaking up and making up, fluff, getting back together Summary: They got married when they were young, just twenty-four years old, despite the arguments from their friends that they should wait, that neither of them were ready for a commitment like marriage so young. Steve distinctly remembered Sam pointing out that the male brain isn’t even fully developed until age twenty-five. But they were young and passionate, so sure they’d found their perfect person that they could overcome anything and everything life threw at them. And it was true. For six months. Word Count: 4223

#tonystarkbingomarkiv #tsbmiv #tsb weekly roundup #tsb week 2

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spiftynifty · 6 years ago

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You said something on twitter about there being a reason why Keith is the only character who never cries, but I kind of thought that as a culture we were kind of getting over male action heroes not being able to cry? I can think of plenty of other shows or movies aimed at boys in the last five years with male protagonists that were allowed to cry actual liquid tears at least once. Is it like, they let him do certain things he otherwise couldn't but had to sacrifice other normal behaviors for it?

As a CULTURE, we are slowly, slowly, sloooowly having the beginnings of conversations readdressing what masculinity is. It’s SLOWLY starting to be reflected in live action TV and movies, which is nice. But animation, because it’s “for the children” and therefore undergoes extra scrutiny, is always at least a few years behind when it comes to social progress. And when you’re dealing with an IP that’s held onto by perhaps people who are still living in the 80s, you can add some more years onto that waiting game.

Keith is the “hero” of the franchise, even though it’s technically a team effort. He embodies a lot of the expected traits: he cares about people, but isn’t terribly close to them (except Shiro), he’s honorable even to enemies, he has some level of aggression, and possesses leadership skills. He’s meant to embody strength in his final form, and strength “if you’re a man”, tends to include not crying because crying is a weakness. Or something.

We’re allowed to see Allura and Pidge cry, of course, because they’re girls. Hunk, Coran, and Lance are allowed to cry too because they’re the comic relief and as such their emotions are allowed to be extreme.

But since around season 3 I’ve been paying close attention to Shiro and Keith, the two hero-leaders, and whether extreme situations would allow them to cry. They’ve both been through so much and they’ve both had opportunities to cry over their losses, but neither ever did. Form Podcast revealed that in an episode of season 4 the writers wanted to have Shiro bathe the mice but were shot down from above because “isn’t Shiro supposed to be a strong hero character?”. The message being that despite his endlessly kind and caring nature, he wasn’t someone who would do something so endearing because that’s not what (male) heroes do.

What I find interesting too is that when Shiro officially gets relegated to second fiddle on the leader chain, he’s SORT of allowed.

He gets the classic anime shiny waver to indicate tears, but that’s it, which seems grossly inadequate for mourning someone Shiro loved deeply for 4 years and kiiiind of blames himself for dying. We DO get to see an actual tear on Shiro’s face in the final episode when he says goodbye to Allura but it’s not the kind that falls and I feel like it was probably a fight just to be allowed even that (sorry I’m never, ever watching that season again so I can’t provide a photo).

But Keith, Keith isn’t allowed to cry at any point in Black Paladins, despite his voice actor confessing he himself cried recording the lines (and you can hear it). He’s not allowed to cry when he learns Shiro died, or while he agonizes over Shiro being in a coma. He’s not allowed to cry over dead Blades or his mom leaving despite the power of that moment. In s8 Keith is reduced to the epitome of the boring male action hero, giving orders, keeping his distance to everyone (except Lance in a twist that I think even baffled KL fans), maintaining honor over everything else including his own emotions. He doesn’t cry when his friends get sucked into uhh *checks notes* the trapped… souls… of the Olde Paladins, and he certainly doesn’t cry when Allura says goodbye. That’s just not what (male) action heroes do.

Season 8 felt like Certain People Up Above were so frustrated by how offcourse VLD had gone from their outdated ideals of what an action show should be that they yanked the reins in HARD in a brutal attempt to steer it back oncourse. Back onto something that resembled a tired, poorly aged, space robot action show from the 80s. But this isn’t the 80s, and trying to pretend that what worked then still applies now is, I suspect, a major reason season 8 was such a disaster.

#voltron #keith #shiro #voltron meta #big boys don't cry if you've got an outdated look on masculinity #Anonymous

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cyanpepper8 · 2 years ago

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oh my god there’s so many of these, so they’re basically a yearly conference on animal behavior and its applications to robotics but transcribed and published as a textbook. every conference has a cover like this

the dogs! the buried guy is so appreciative i love them both

i love how sketchy the real cat looks and how shocked the robot one looks at the mouse darting past it

not even gonna begin to describe why this one is sick

unfortunately this one is a lot smaller so the scan isn’t as good, but its still neat.

these are all the ones I could find on the internet archive, but it’d make sense for there to be more out there. I’ve also hunted for the original artist’s website or any online presence in hopes of finding higher quality scans, but couldn’t find anything beyond them signing the pieces “sole, 96″, so if anyone knows let me know!

described under read more

First image: a bald eagle ballroom dancing with a mechanical lobster at sunset on a chess board by the ocean. There are stars and music notes above both of their heads. the artist's signature "SOLE 96" is visible in the bottom right corner.

Second image: the same image as the first, but on the cover of “From animals to Animats 4”, the proceedings of the fourth international conference on simulation of adaptive behavior edited by Pattie Maes, Maja J. Mataric, Jean-Arcady Meyer, Jordan Pollack, and Stewart W. Wilson. The border of the book is soft green.

Third image: The cover of “From animals to Animats 5”, the proceedings of the fifth international conference on simulation of adaptive behavior edited by Rolf Pfeifer, Bruce Blumberg, Jean-Arcady Meyer, and Steward W. Wilson. The painting on the cover of this book is a robotic saint bernard saving a saint bernard from an avelanche. The robot is carrying a blue barrel around its neck that the saint bernard is drinking from. the saint bernard has a heart above its head and is giving the robot a thumbs up. The border of the book is vibrant yellow.

Fourth image: The cover of “From animals to Animats 6”, the proceedings of the sixth international conference on simulation of adaptive behavior edited by Jean-Acady Meyer, Alain Berthoz, Dario Floreano, Herbert Raitblat, and Stweart W. Wilson. The painting on the cover of this book is a robotic black and white cat batting at a wind up mouse on a rooftop in paris. the eiffel tower is in view. there is a brown tabby cat peering at the wind up mouse from behind a smoke stack. The border of the book is soft blue. A sticker with the book's barcode is applied in the bottom left corner.

Fifth Image: The cover of “From animals to Animats 7”, the proceedings of the seventh international conference on simulation of adaptive behavior edited by RBridget Hallam, Dario Floreano, John Hallam, Gillian Hayes, and Jean-Arcady Meyer. The painting on the cover of this book is a green sea monster swimming in front of a manor or castle, playing the bagpipes and wearing a hat similar to the ones worn by the king's guard infront of buckingham palace. There are three eighth notes coming from the main drone of the bagpipes and bubbles from the other drones. Below the surface of the water, the sea monster is almost entirely mechanical. Surrounding the large sea monster there are 6 other, significantly smaller entirely robotic sea monsters. The border of this book is orange, and the spine has been taped with yellow electrical tape.

Sixth Image: The cover of “From animals to Animats 10”, The 10th international conference on simulation of adaptive behavior, SAB 2008, Osaka, Japan, July 2008, Proceedings. This book is edited by Minoru Asada, John C.T. Hallam, Jean-Arcady Meyer, and Jun Tani and published by springer. The painting on the cover of this book is a golden skinned humanoid writing the japanese character for "big" on a scroll that is spilling off of their golden desk onto the floor. There is a robotic red panda lying off of the desk and onto the floor drawing a diagram on the other end of the scroll. entering the building there is a robot designed to look like dragon dancers with a red and yellow head, white mane, and green cloak/body. a japanese temple and cherry blossom tree are visible throught the open door. This book is grey, white, and blue, with the painting significantly smaller than on the other books. there is a ripped section of the cover in the bottom left.

#not my art #for later #robot animals

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andrewmoocow · 6 years ago

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Fooly Falls 2 Ride on Shooting Star chapter 3: Beach Episodes for the Win! (originally posted on March 28, 2019)

AN: Now this is where things will get pretty deep. We already got hints of Haruko's past last chapter, plus the confirmation that she ran into Rick Sanchez at some point in that past. But that leaves the question: will there be an adaptation of FLCL Alternative set in the Rick and Morty multiverse? Who knows? ZKDW ZDV VXSSRVHG WR EH D VXQQB EHDFK GDB VRRQ EHJDQ WR ORVH LWV ZDB. RQ DQ LVODQG LW OLHV KLGGHQ VHFUHWV WKDW ZHUH PHDQW WR EH IRUELGGHQ.

Gwen's next nightmare began when she found herself walking in a single file line with tons of other unfamiliar people in an even more unfamiliar place. "M-Mama, Daddy, Tyrone?!" she asked while quietly panicking over her current situation before her location changed from the crowd to a cruddy apartment. That was when she began to hear voices. "Do you realize what you have done Haruha?!" "Who said that?" Gwen wondered in response to the invisible male's stern voice. "Look at your father when he's talking to you Haruha!" A smacking sound soon followed. "Your slacking off and playing that infernal music nearly got us all in trouble! Either behave like every other girl on this godforsaken planet or never show your face around me again!" The moment Gwen closed her eyes in fear, she next found herself on a stage with various pitch black people clearly resembling shadows with an orange head glaring at her before it began to bellow "PLANET WASPRUS, SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT!" Gwen winced for a moment while the audience watched patiently, begging her to get on with it as if they were fearing for their lives before she noticed her shadow in the spotlight. It was still the shape of a girl, yet her facial structure and hairstyle gave away who's eyes Gwen was viewing from. "Haruko?!" She then began to hear more voices, the three present sounding even more unfamiliar. "Aw shitballs you guys, we gotta run!" the first voice belched loudly as color-coded silhouettes of a human man, a birdlike creature and a bipedal feline became more opaque. "Running from what? The Galactic Space Patrol Brotherhood, the Cromulons or Medical Mechanica?!" a second more high-pitched voice responded that sounded like a character from one of the old cartoons Soos loved. "All of the above!" "And it's not just them. Look." the final voice stoically added pointing to the sky. A gigantic red phoenix with a wingspan that encompassed the entire planet of Wasprus suddenly appeared, startling the large head. "IT SEEMS WE HAVE A SPECIAL GUEST DISQUALIFIER THIS EPISODE!" it boomed. "LEGENDARY PIRATE KING ATOMSK, SHOW US WHAT YOU GOT!" The Pirate King flapped its wings, slowly tearing the planet apart as Gwen continued staring at it. There was something majestic about the bird's appearance that made her slowly step forward. Her hair began turning pink and she started reaching out to the bird while the belching man's voice sounded once more. "Don't do it babe, that's Atomsk! His power will seriously screw with your head!" Suddenly, a chibi version of Jinyu landed right in front of her. "I tried to warn you!" she scolded in a squeaky voice. As more chibi Jinyus fell from the sky, Gwen came closer to Atomsk as it looked down on her and screeched loudly. That was what caused the girl to finally awaken with a jerk. Gwen panted quietly clinging onto her bedsheets as she looked around her and Tyrone's room. "What's with these dreams lately?" she pondered before another voice was heard, this one she could recognize from miles away. "BEACH DAY, BEACH DAY, BEACH DAY, BEACH DAY!" Tyrone excitedly burst into their room and ran around for a bit before pouncing his older sister while she continued to lay in bed. "Come on Gwen, beach day!" "Oh right." his older sister muttered. "Beach day."

"So Ezra, what do you think of my new bikini?" Leia asked Ezra showing off her school swimsuit themed two-piece. "Please just stop with this." Ezra responded turning away in embarrassment. "I have far more important things to do, like stare out into the distance." "I think that blue is really your color!" Tyrone complimented the older girl. "Though I don't see the point of the big nametag on the top." The Pines and Ramirez familes have decided on a day at Lake Gravity Falls's beach with Haruko, Jinyu and the Chius along for the ride. However Ford was not present on account on having someone over while they were having some fun in the sun. "Okay Arnold, today marks your first day of manhood!" Juan announced rubbing Arnold's shoulders while Jorge stood by with a bottle of sunscreen in hand. "One of the most important aspects of being a man is being brave around total jalapenas like Haruko over there!" As he set the stage for the lesson, Haruko laid down in a beach chair with a cold drink in hand catching some rays in a rather skimpy bikini. "Or maybe baes like Jinyu!" Jorge added pointing to the other guitar player building sandcastles with Melody, Imelda and Abby. Arnold just blinked for a bit before asking "Okay, what did you just say?" "We're workshopping new slang that I'm sure will become the talk of the town within a few days." Juan answered taking the sunscreen away from his brother to hand to the Northwest boy. "Anyway, the best way to get a girl on the beach to have the hots for you is to give them a very good applying of the good ol' sunscreen. But it's your choice bro." "You could either go for them or maybe a certain other duo." Jorge added. "Grin grin, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more!" "I know you two have a crush on both my moms! Can you two not creep me out like that?!" Arnold yelped fumbling with the sunblock. "Hey, who's at fault for making Pacifica so extra thicc?" Juan argued before Haruko called the three boys over. "Yoo-hoo, young male friends! Does one of you want to help this jalapena put on sunscreen?" "This is your chance young grasshopper. Go to her." Jorge beckoned their student in manliness. As the two boys proudly watched him awkwardly step forward, Stan on the other hand was stewing in his wheelchair. "Don't get a nosebleed Stanley, don't be like those old anime men who lust after any female that moves!" he commanded himself. "Don't do it, don't do it! Aw, here it comes." Thankfully for Stan, blood didn't fly out his nose. But instead, his own heart started acting up and made him fall out of the chair onto the sand. "Still better than a nosebleed." "Oh my God, Stan!" Dipper cried as he and Mabel raced to their great-uncle's side. "Are you alright?" he asked. "I'm fine Dipper, simply failed to resist looking like a horny senior." Stan answered while his speech was muffled by the sand. "Think I might need to get outta the sun for a while." "Here Grunkle Stan, just sit down with Gwen and you'll be just fine." Mabel stated guiding the con-man to a table where Gwen was sitting in the shade. "Women. Am I right Gwen?" Stan snarked to his great-great niece. "By the way, where's Ford at?" "Stanford said he'll catch up with us later." Jinyu answered appearing from behind. "He just has some business to attend to."

"So Mr. Kanda, what is your history with Raharu?" Ford asked his new friend Tsukata Kanda in his laboratory. "I remember her quite well from when I was a boy." Kanda stated. "She quite literally crashed into my life and pulled a variety of things outta me, but the only one I kept was this." The agent reached into his jacket and out of it came a small squirt gun. "A water gun? How quaint." Ford commented examining the toy. "My great-nephew and great-great niece had giant robots and guitars come out of their noggins." "Then they must be lucky. Their heads must be ripe with N.O energy for her to use." Tsukata explained. "Use to become strong enough to find the Pirate King and take him back from Medical Mechanica." "That's what I've always wondered about her ever since she first met my family." Ford added. "What's her deal with Atomsk and where did she come from? Is she even from this dimension?" "Dimension?" Kanda wondered before Ford pulled out that old photo of him with Rick. "As it turns out, she may have encountered one Rick Sanchez at some point in her life which would explain her sociopathic behavior; as Rick here is a wanted criminal across multiple universes." "So you're implying she might not be of this world?" the Department of Interstellar Immigration agent continued. "I have no idea either." Ford answered with his shoulders slumping in confusion. "But from what I've gathered, she's become more villainous since we last met. We need to keep the kids on high alert should she ever try anything funny."

"Wow, Arnie sure is taking his sweet time." Jorge commented gazing at his watch as Arnold pretty much started slowly crawling on the sand before he realized what time it was. "Hey Juan, don't you have a girlfriend coming to see us?" "Wait, when did Juan get a girlfriend?" Tyrone asked catching the twins' attention as Juan began panicking. "Beneath all that silliness, you're a sweet guy but when did that ever become a thing?" "I am terribly sorry my brotherhood of man!" Juan exclaimed nervously. "I've just nearly lost track of the time!" He then proceeded to run away from the beach at high speeds. "This way fellow knights of masculinity, follow me!" With the three boys running away followed by Arnold deciding to just give up and cower under the shade, Haruko simply shrugged. "Talk about toast not being good in milk." the Vespa Woman snarked. "Hey Gwen, wanna do it for Shaggy over there?" Dipper and Jinyu were quick to defend the younger girl from the former housekeeper's advances. "I'm fine with either you or Jinyu doing it as well, Pine Tree." the orange-haired woman added smiling, causing Dipper to turn redder than blood. Meanwhile the bus had dropped off a young girl around Juan & Jorge's age who had blue hair, a white knee-length dress, a red jewel pendant, green diamond earrings, matching hair-bow and a flower pot in her hands. "Gentlemen, I'd like you to meet my girlfriend!" Juan declared. "This is Aiko." He then lowered his voice for Aiko. "Come on sweetie, say something." "Uh, hello there. My name's Aiko and I'm dating your friend Juan here." Aiko muttered nervously before she hid her face behind her flower pot. "Haha, she's perfect!" Juan laughed pridefully. "What a beautiful lady! She doesn't drink, swear or sweat! A perfect cinnamon roll as they once referred to people like her!" "My name's Tyrone, a friend of your boyfriend. Hey, nice flower pot you got there." Tyrone introduced himself and complimented Aiko's pot. "You like gardening? I kinda like gardening too." he stated trying to find some common ground between the two. "Uh, yeah." Aiko answered. "So tell us Aiko, what made you want to date my brother?" Juan asked her as the four began walking back to the beach. "What qualities do you find attractive?" "Well I just really like him, that's all!" Aiko responded with a squeak. "Oh, I'm so embarrassed!" She hid herself behind the flower pot again making Juan laugh. "So why did you bring that flower pot here?" Tyrone asked again. "It's my emotional support plant." the flower girl answered shyly. "It may not look like it, but this was very expensive." "See, what did I tell you?! So precious!" Juan cackled loudly. "Oh don't say that Juannie, it's embarrassing!" Aiko blushed with a giggle.

Back at the beach, Jinyu had been nominated to put sunscreen on Haruko. Or so she thought, as the Vespa Woman recoiled upon feeling the solution on her back. "So oily! What SPF is this?!" she cried frantically rubbing herself. Jinyu just gazed at the bottle in her hands and read the label. "Oh, it's tanning oil." "It's what?!" Raharu shouted as her skin suddenly turned a golden tan. "Haha, oldest trick in the book!" Stan applauded with a booming laugh. "Up top!" He held up his hand for Jinyu to give him a high-five, but didn't receive any. "Come on, I just want to feel like I accomplished something with someone as a team!" Jinyu rolled her eyes and returned the high-five. "Yes!" "You're all still holding a grudge I see." Haruko commented. "Just for the past three weeks." Dipper stated scowling. "You were stalking us at Greasy's where we went out to lunch, in the streets and even in Gwen's room! This is nothing!" "You've already gotten what you wanted once before." Jinyu added. "It's time you just gave it all up. Quit it already." "No way." the Vespa Woman declared. "I need to fulfill my wish in order to fulfill my-" She was suddenly interrupted by a volleyball to the face thrown by Aiko jumping for joy while the Ramirez children, Candy, Ezra, Wendy and Mabel stood by. "How embarrassing!" The ball was tossed into the air and Haruko jumped high preparing for a spike. "ATTACK NUMBER...ichi." she shouted smacking the ball downward and crashing it into the sand, blinding everyone. "So, why don't we all call it a truce now?" she offered to Jinyu, Dipper and the Stans before joining the game. "Ready or not, I'm gonna come at you all!" "Yeesh, talk about unsubtle." Dipper snarked before the two heard Gwen approach. "That woman over there, what does she want?" Gwen wondered as they watched Haruko toss volleyballs from above at rapid fire speed. Jinyu gave her answer, as stoic as ever. "That woman's the same as me." "Who wants to go next?!" Jinyu's other half challenged making funny noises into a megaphone. "Uh Jinyu. What is it that you want?" the daughter of Dipper asked the Bel-Air driver. "I was once with someone amazing." the older woman answered. "He was big, strong, and simply amazing. With him, one could simply fly around anywhere in space and live forever. But then, he suddenly disappeared; he abandoned me." "We're talking about the bird guy, right?" Stan interjected. "I said it once, and I'll say it again: dead bird reproductive organs taste terrible!" "Not now Stan." Dipper cringed at the thought of it. "Aw come on kid, you really think I was expecting it to taste like frozen peas?!" his great-uncle complained before Jinyu cut them both off. "As I was saying, it turns out in the end I just wasn't his equal." she continued. "I'm not enough for him. At least, not by myself. And yet we still continue to look for him." "We?" Gwen asked as her father put a hand on her head. "She means Haruko sweetie." Mason stated. "Right Dipper. You chase something because you simply can't catch it. Want to touch it, but you know you can't." Jinyu responded before she turned to Gwen. "You must've experienced something like that in your life, correct?" "You're asking what I really want?" Gwen muttered in surprise. She pondered for a moment before Arnold gave an impressive receive to Tyrone, who retaliated with a spike. "All I want is for me and my family to be safe." she muttered picking up the ball after it rolled to her feet.

Throughout the rest of the day, everybody spent their fun in the sun playing volleyball, eating barbecue, smashing watermelons, surfing and building sandcastles. Even Ford joined in when he finally arrived. "The blue spring of adolescence." Haruko remarked burying Jinyu in the sand with a shovel. "Perhaps this is an extension of our friendship, delayed adolescence if you will." "I'm content with you changing your mind about our relationship." Jinyu replied barely reacting to her other half plotting to get rid of her, even as Haruko began mixing cement. "But regardless, this still doesn't mean I'll let you use any of the children for your schemes. No point in fighting anymore." "Is that so?" Haruhara wondered. "Brainwashing suppression mechanism. They took extra measures ahead of time." Julia replied. "And she's got quite the geniuses to defend her when those fail." "You mean the nerd herd?" Haruko snipped before the two women turned their attention to most of the kids and adults working together on a particularly big sandcastle. Everyone was talking about how tall they can make it, except for Gwen who was perfectly silent as she picked up a crab fawning over a gold coin in its free claw. "By the way," Jinyu spoke again as she was now trapped in a concrete cocoon. "I fail to see the fun in this." "Oop, potty emergency!" Haruko chirped leaving the Jazzmaster woman encased in stone. "When you gotta go, you gotta go! AND I'M GOING!" "You need a lift there Jinyu?" Ford asked towering over the woman, and she quietly replied with "I am perfectly fine Stanford, but thanks anyway." As the kids continued working on the sandcastle, Gwen sat under the shade with Aiko and Ezra. "So, you not gonna swim in the ocean?" Aiko asked cheerfully to the dour girl. "No, no I'm not." Gwen moaned. "Then why even go to the beach if you're not going in the water? Do you have aquaphobia or something?" Ezra commented kicking his feet up on the table. "Better question is, what about you?" the younger girl in the cap replied. "Is it because of Leia?" "W-what gave you that idea you aesaekki?!" Ezra screeched in embarrassment as his face turned redder than Gwen's hair. "I don't know, you just seemed to blush at her swimsuit." Gwen remarked with a barely visible smirk. "Speaking of which, why didn't you bring yours Aiko?" "'Scuse me? That's just what Juan and I didn't agree to." Aiko grinned much to the two's confusion.

As the sun began to set, Juan & Jorge taught Arnold how to make a campfire while Aiko watched, Ian, Leia & Tyrone skipped stones, Ezra sat on a rock by himself and Imelda was getting ready to put Abby to bed. Meanwhile the adults chatted while Jinyu remained trapped in dry cement, with the waves gently taking her off the sand. "So now I have to use these sticks?" Arnold asked trying to light a fire with a pair of twigs. "Exactly my boy! You've been paying attention!" Juan exclaimed as their student in manliness rigorously rubbed the wood together to create a few sparks. "Hey, I'm doing it!" "You're doing amazing sweetie." Jorge congratulated Arnold before the sparks became a full ember. "Woohoo! Hey Aiko, over here!" Juan called to his girlfriend. "Do you think it's cool how much we've taught him?!" The flower pot girl beamed brightly before Dipper stepped toward the three boys. "Hey kids, have you seen Gwen anywhere?" "Beats me. And Haruko is gone too." Jorge responded. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go find her!" Arnold shouted racing up and down the shore in search of his cousin. "Wait, Gwen is gone?!" Tyrone added just as concerned for his older sister. "We have to find her before nightfall. I'm getting worried sick." Dipper announced alerting everyone on the beach to the current situation. After an hour of searching, they regrouped at the table with no success. "Where could Gwen be?" Candy asked. "She couldn't have gone far, but we combed every last centimeter of the beach." Ford stated. "Then there's only one place left on this lake that we haven't touched yet," Stan theorized. "And that's Scuttlebutt Island." "Or as Mabel and I call it, Butt Island!" Soos interjected. "Oh you scallywag!" Mabel giggled. "Uh, excuse me." Aiko squeaked. "I still need to get home. Can someone walk me to the bus?" "Why I'd be Patrick Stewart to milady!" Juan politely exclaimed taking his girlfriend by the hand. "Aw, that's my little gentleman." Melody said grinning. "But on an unrelated note, how are we going to get there?" "I think I've got a plan guys." Jorge announced adjusting his sunglasses. "It's time to set sail on the SS Cool Dude II!" At the bus station, Aiko dropped her timid facade for a more harsh and stingy one as she said goodbye to Juan. "Just so we're clear, I'm being charged overtime! Are we clear?" she demanded. "I am terribly sorry." Juan moaned, which earned him a scoff. "Give it." "Uh, here." Juan whimpered handing Aiko a wad of dollar bills. When she snatched it, all the Ramirez boy got in return was her flower pot. "So, was the character I created to your liking?" Aiko asked examining her earnings. "Oh yes, positively adorable!" Juan answered excitedly before the driver announced the bus's oncoming departure. "Okay, all there." the girl stated hopping onboard. "You boys think girls who're only shy and timid are just so precious. And by the way, the pot is yours." "Oh, uh..." Juan stuttered at the thought before Aiko switched back to her character. "A present for you!" she chirped gleefully. "Thanks Aiko! I'm gonna take good care of this-" Juan responded gratefully when he was cut off. "No. No it wasn't. Let's just say that you exchanged the envelope for that. Wouldn't want people finding out that I'm a rent-a-date." "So I bought this from you!" Juan realized as the bus began to leave. "Bye or whatever." Aiko bluntly said farewell before the vehicle drove away, leaving her fake date in the dust. The boy's train of thought went off the rails when Jorge snuck up from behind him to his shock. "Hey bro, you wanna be pirates?"

"Yo-ho, yo-ho. A pirate's life for me." Tyrone, Juan, Jorge and Leia sang onboard the SS Cool Dude II that was now captained by Ford as it left Melody, Imelda, Abby and Candy on the beach. "An insect took our friend away from her hut, look out me hearties yo-ho. And whisked her away to the island of butts, look out me hearties yo-ho." "We've just set sail and I'm already feeling seasick." Ezra groaned growing tired of the singing while he and Arnold leaned over the back of the vessel. "But we still have to find Gwen." Arnold declared trying to be bold as he was suddenly cut off. "When you were a kid, did you ever draw pictures of fireworks while watching them with your family, only for it to be too late?" "W-who's there?" Arnold yipped in shock. "Wait, Jinyu?! Where are you?" he said looking around for the woman. "Do you know where Gwen is?" "You'd try to draw every last colored speck of light. But the only way to color the night sky itself was with just a black pencil." Jinyu continued monologuing. "They lit up the dark sky so beautifully with all the colors." "What does fireworks have to do with finding Gwen?!" Ezra shouted. "All beautiful things eventually fade away." That was when Arnold reminisced on the sandcastle they all built together. Turns out Gwen put on a small smile at that time. "LAND HO! LAND HO!" Ian roared when the Cool Dude II finally reached Scuttlebutt Island. "Weigh anchor everyone!" "Well, this is it." Dipper declared dropping the boat's anchor as the crew disembarked. "Everyone needs to stay sharp. There's no telling what awaits us here." As they marched onward toward the depths of the island, Jinyu washed up on shore just as a shooting star glimmered over her. "Oh, the first star."

"So why do they say three square meals a day anyway?" Tyrone asked while the group continued exploring the Scuttlebutt woods. "A square only has four sides and I have no idea where the meal part came from?" "Last I remember, it means eating well." Pacifica replied. "That makes sense, but what do squares have to do with it?" Tyrone continued. "Quiet everyone, I hear noises!" Ford alerted putting a stop to their sojourn. The noises in question were quite unusual, ranging from beavers chittering while chainsaws roared and dinosaurs snarled. "Dinosaurs, here?" "Oh no. How hot is it today?" Mabel groaned in wonder. The dinosaur stomped closer and closer until it revealed itself as a cute little T-rex that seemed around Tyrone's height with a peculiar red plate on its back, orange boots and a large snout. "Aw! Hey there little guy!" Juan said becoming amazed at how cute the little dinosaur was before it revealed its frog-like tongue that grabbed the boy by his ankle and swallowed him whole. "HELP ME!" "Oh my God, Juan!" Soos cried out shaking the dinosaur by its torso trying to free his son. The creature relented and laid an egg with green spots patterning it that hatched to reveal a traumatized Juan. "You okay there little dude?" "I think I learned what it's like to be reincarnated. And I also learned what flavor the universe is." Juan stuttered utterly astounded at the experience as the dinosaur walked away. "Really, what was it?" Jorge asked. "It was black licorice. Yeah, we're utterly doomed." his twin brother stated. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm just gonna lie down here and contemplate on how the platypus came to be. You all go on ahead." "Where did that thing come from?" Tyrone asked. "I think I know what." Ford stated taking a knee towards a toxic waste spill. "Radioactive ooze, classic!" Stan exclaimed. "And it's not just that. Look over there!" Dipper added as a colony of beavers with chainsaws for tails emerged chittering cutely. "Sweet, chainsaw-tailed beavers!" Leia cheered becoming distracted by the little critters. "Oop, stay back sis! They do have chainsaws for tails." Ian cautioned his younger sister. "Now let's not get too distracted, cause I feel all these freaks of nature must mean we're close." "Yep, I can definitely see a Medical Mechanica factory from here." Pacifica noted turning her gaze to a giant iron nearby. "When did that show up?" Wendy asked. "I honestly have no idea. Weren't they supposed to be done with Gravity Falls when Atomsk first showed up here?" Ezra wondered. "Though I have a strong feeling we'll be proven wrong soon enough." "No turning back now. Gwen is nearby." Dipper declared stepping further into the dark island forest. "Come on guys." While the others followed, Ford stayed behind to examine the waste before putting on some protective gloves to scoop it up in a beaker. "This should be useful." he muttered.

When they finally reached the Medical Mechanica plant stationed on Scuttlebutt Island, the factory was horrendously dilapidated and a small hole was there to serve as their makeshift entrance. "Okay, here's the plan everyone." Ian announced. "Me, Leia, Dipper, Mabel, Ford, Arnold, Pacifica & Wendy are gonna go in first while the rest of you serve as lookout. This could be a bumpy ride ahead of us." "Aw come on Ian, why can't Ford be lookout while I join you guys?" Stan complained. "If you switch us, I'll let you become your dad's successor!" he tried to barter with the eldest Ramirez son, but his offer fell on deaf ears as Ian snuck in first. "Time for me to put that fencing club practice to good use. And Leia, now might be a good time to whip out all you learned from the kickboxing class Stan signed you up for." "I came prepared." Leia grinned determinedly preparing to use her sarong as a whip. "Wish us luck Grunkle Stan." Mabel said to Stan before she joined her group in exploring the factory. "Oh just you all wait, I'm gonna maim her the hardest by the story's end." he grumbled. Ian's group tiptoed into the Medical Mechanica factory watching out for any sign of Gwen. "Just gotta be quiet everyone. No sudden movements." Dipper whispered just as he began hearing the voices of two familiar girls. One voice was struggling to escape while another must've been her captor. Upon hearing the voices, Dipper scooted to the source hiding behind a pair of large doors. "Let's get to know each other better." he listened in on Haruko as his daughter continued to struggle. The father yipped in fear for her safety and began to peer through the doors to get a closer look. "Everyone, over here." he signaled for the others to group up with him. "Oh no." "Let's get to know each other better." Haruko remarked towering over Gwen in a nurse's uniform. "Please stop." the younger girl whimpered before the Vespa Woman unbuttoned the Hawaiian shirt and the shorts she had on to reveal a pink, purple and white striped one piece underneath. "Oh my, looks like someone was planning on having fun today. Now tell me, where can I hit you so you can overflow?" "Overflow? What kinda hot garbage is she on about?" Leia wondered incredulously as they felt an enraged Dipper about to break down the doors. "Oh dammit, someone help me stop Mr. Pines before he makes a huge mistake and blows our cover!" she ordered trying to hold the father back from barging in, but was too late as he kicked down the doors screaming "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HER RAHARU?!" Arnold on the other hand got one good look at his captive cousin and made a bright green blob creature emerge from his forehead to everyone's shock. "What, it came outta him?" Haruhara muttered as the creature slithered for a bit before it faced Arnold. "I have no idea what you're supposed to be, but let me give you one command." he said. "Go save Gwen!" Back outside the factory, the rest of the Cool Dude crew awaited their teammates' return when a loopy Juan came wobbling towards them carrying a flower pot in his hands and a strange stone shape on his back. "Oh hey bro, you're back!" Jorge cheerfully greeted his twin. "How did contemplating the universe go?" "I just paid a visit to the Garden of Eden. And the apples were terrible!" Juan exclaimed shaking his head to relieve himself of his daze while planting the stone on the ground, revealing itself to be the same one that Jinyu was trapped in. "Where'd the flower pot come from? Was it a gift from your girlfriend when she dumped you?" Stan asked the pompadour boy, who then screamed at his brother "YOU TOLD THEM YOU IDIOT?!" "I cannot tell a lie!" Jorge quoted George Washington before bringing his brother close. "But I didn't tell them she was basically a callgirl." he whispered into his ear. "That's between you and me. We can Tony Hawk about it later." "Where are the kids?" Jinyu asked Soos. "Oh yeah dude, they just ran in there after Haruko to save Gwen." the former handyman replied brightly. "I'm sure things will be all hunky-dory by sunrise."

Meanwhile in a small house back at Gravity Falls, Aiko had arrived home to her father who was reading the papers. "Hey Aiko." Masurao asked the girl. "Do you know what happened to the flower pot that was in this room?" "No clue." Aiko fibbed going upstairs, prompting suspicion from her father before he put down his tabloids & shut the door behind him, and the room gave way to reveal various machinery hooked up to a screen with the eyepatched man on it. "This is codename Eyepatch." Eyepatch said. "Do you have an update?" "Actually, I have a slight problem." Masurao proclaimed. "What is it?" Eyepatch asked. "The flower pot seems to have gone missing. What about you and the others?" the capped male replied. "Tonkichi and I are waiting for the right moment to strike. But Kanda on the other hand was able to fish info from Stanford about that motorbike chick." Eyepatch explained making a picture of Haruko mindlessly picking her nose while giving a peace sign. "If what he says is true, she's not of this world and we got an interdimensional apocalypse on the horizon."

"So what species of flower is this supposed to be?" Ezra wondered examining the pot. "Doesn't seem like anything I've researched, so I assume it's just a simple weed." Suddenly the factory behind them exploded while Haruko soared high above it with Gwen in hand and Dipper, Mabel, Tyrone & Arnold clinging onto the green creature chasing after her. With a smirk, Haruko tossed the younger girl away to smack the beast with her bass and send it flying with another hit. "Hey, leave my niece alone you creep!" Mabel shrieked clinging onto the biker's front and giving her a hard slap across the face. Haruko returned the slap and it soon devolved into the two women flailing their hands at each other as they kept falling. As for the boys, they continued grabbing hold of the green blob while it continued going after the airborne Gwen. Thankfully they were able to catch her, but she landed face-first into Arnold's chest causing her cap to react and spawn a mass of wires & metals from her forehead that roped her in and absorbed all nearby metal, even the Medical Mechanica factory. "What the hell is going on now?!" Ian shouted while he, Leia, Pacifica, Ford and Wendy evacuated just in time. "More N.O." Ford declared looking up at the giant object above them. "We have to save Gwen quick before it gets any worse!" "G-Gwen." Arnold muttered in shock at the sight before him. "Sis." Tyrone added just as worried sick. Out of complete nowhere, the flower pot made a comeback by landing on Arnold's face and making him lose his grip on the creature. Dipper & Tyrone were sent flying as well due to the shockwave until the three Pines were rescued at the last moment by Jinyu's Bel-Air. "Listen Arnold, you are the only one that can save Gwen." Julia stated from the backseat of the car. "Back here." she called to the trio lying down in her cement confinement. "So that's where you've been!" Dipper exclaimed. "Not even going to ask how you ended up like this." he added before turning to the giant hunk of metal in the sky. "So that thing's got Gwen?" "We've seen some crazy stuff since you and Haruko came into our lives, but this is the last straw!" Arnold added fiercely. "You gotta help us Jinyu, please!" "If you are unable to draw fireworks; well then," Jinyu declared. "Try shooting one in the air!" Her shades twinkled before her limbs burst from the dry concrete and she stepped onto the hood of her car. "Do it again, as many times as you need!" The Bel-Air once more turned into a mech ready for another fight. "On second thought, maybe you should be one instead!" Jinyu exclaimed folding her arms in a similar matter to a certain fusion of a pair of buster machines before tossing Arnold her bass. "Aw yeah, this is amazing!" Raharu cheered mounting onto the green creature while it waved a white flag in defeat. She smacked its butt with her Mustang to make it fly further toward the machine holding Gwen captive before spotting the Bel-Air giving chase with Arnold standing on the hood with guitar in hand. Haruko wordlessly commanded the blob to fire from one of its hoses, but the Bel-Air blocked the energy spheres and the two charged. The nurse gave the transforming car a mighty smack on the arm and chased it once more. "Cream her Arnold, make your mothers proud!" Pacifica cheered her son on before realizing that Mabel was still falling. "Oh my god, Mabel!" she cried politely helping Stan out of his wheelchair so that she can use it to catch her wife. "COMING IN HOOOOOTTTTT!" Mabel hollered descending into the seat of her grunkle's chair. "And she sticks the landing! Thank you, thank you very much!" she declared to an invisible crowd before Pacifica grabbed her face to give her a big kiss. "Knew you'd come through honey." The blob continued firing at the Bel-Air, but thankfully Arnold refused to back down while Dipper was desperate to escape. "I can't take this anymore!" he screamed lighting up three cigarettes to calm his nerves. "Are you kidding dad?! BEST BEACH DAY EVER!" Tyrone shouted excitedly. Haruko on the other hand wasn't feeling the same way as she commanded the creature to once again fire, this time at one of the automobile's rocket boosters giving her an opening. "Hah, got you now!" Then suddenly, the metallic creature roared and whipped the Bel-Air away, ejecting Dipper & Arnold from it and the latter still armed with Jinyu's guitar. This would prove the perfect chance for the son of Mabel & Pacifica to land a fatal blow upon the beast, which led to Gwen finally being revealed. "Are you okay Gwen?! Say something!" Arnold cried for his unconscious cousin. "Oh no no no no! What am I going to do now?!" "Hmph, she doesn't have enough yet." Haruko suggested having already touched down behind the two on the green blob while it deflated. "Enough of what?" Arnold asked the older woman standing over them with her bass. "A tundra? Tsun-dora? Tsundere?" Haruhara muttered to herself before making her findings clear. "She's definitely one of those people." "Just shut up already Raharu!" Dipper snarled dusting himself off after a nasty landing before racing to his daughter's side. "Please wake up Gwennie! Please!" he exclaimed clutching the girl's shoulder which made her moan. "Saying her name ain't gonna help Pine Tree, let an old friend do the heavy lifting." Haruko lifted her guitar skyward ready to bludgeon Gwen, but Arnold had finally had enough. "Leave them alone!" he shouted shoving her away with tears in his eyes. "Aw." Haruko cooed putting down her string instrument and getting close to the boy. "Then take that hat offa her." she whispered into his ear. "Go on, don't be shy. No need to worry. Your voice will reach her." "Don't do it Arnold, it's a trap!" Jinyu called dropping Mabel, Pacifica, the Stans and Tyrone from her car just in time for it to be shot down. "Leave my son alone you maniac!" Pacifica growled, but the five were too late as Haruko sat down with Arnold in her arms. "You can reach it, it's deep inside of her." she continued toying with his arm. "Why don't we do it together, kay?" Arnold gasped, realizing what was happening, and made her back off. "I don't need your help! Let me help her myself!" he shouted defiantly reaching for the bobble of Gwen's cap. "Don't do it Arnold! You have no idea what will happen next!" Dipper cried to his nephew, but his words fell on deaf ears before the cap started whirring violently. Red sparks erupted from the girl's head as it felt like her hat was literally drilling itself into her skull. When all was said and done, Haruko rapidly tip-toed toward Gwen and attempted to remove her beanie from her head with little success. But what was successful was the fall of the metal creature as its pieces began falling into the lake before the eyes of everyone still on Scuttlebutt Island. As the Pines began to get up to see what was happening, they barely had time to react before the beast collapsed underneath them. When all the metal was completely submerged in the ocean, the sun rose and they were saved by Jinyu as she parked her car on the new metallic part of the island. "Come on Gwen, please come back to us!" Dipper cried trying to wake his daughter up one last time. "What is even going on?!" "I told you all not to touch that!" Jinyu cautioned the Pines just as the rest came racing toward them, along with Haruko freeing herself from the scrap. "That was perhaps the best dogfight I had ever seen." Soos commented. "Yeah, you both totally went Red Wedding on each other!" Juan added excitedly. "As in murdering hundreds of innocents, including a few pregnant women and their unborn children?" Ezra bluntly replied adjusting his glasses, prompting the two boys to remain silent. "Yeah, let's just drop the slang thang." Juan announced and Jorge quietly nodded. "The emergency system has been activated." Jinyu informed her other self. "And there's nothing you can do to stop it." "Aw geez!" Haruko complained. "Damn, they're so sneaky. Those schwifty bastards." she remarked staring up at the sky. "This is all because you tried to tempt my son." Pacifica coldly responded. "That's right, Hakama tried to..." Arnold tried to speak up before Gwen finally began to rise from her slumber. "W-where did she come from? H-h-here comes Gwen." "What did Arnold do to her?" Juan asked. "I do not want to know." Jorge replied just as puzzled. "Yeah, let's just keep this an enigma til next time." a raccoon with a strange accent suddenly appeared behind them. "Hehehehe, most of the characters in this story are SOOOO stupid!" "W-what the hell, where did he come from?! We didn't see him at all throughout this entire chapter!" Jorge cried in shock over the raccoon. "Ah yes, I'd like you to meet Bawuu, my new pet raccoon, or so he calls himself." Ezra introduced Bawuu while he perched on his shoulder. "He just showed up to me and declared that we should live together, because he claims most of the animals on the island are imbeciles. And I have a feeling he'll barely add anything to our adventures going forward." "Well, guess we got no other choice everyone." Stan announced. "You're right Stanley, we'll have to search for the makers of the hat. And it's not from some chic fashion joint." Jinyu added. "I suppose I'll just have to bust on in." Haruko remarked knowing what their next objective was. "Right," the white-haired woman replied. "our objectives may be different, but our target is still one in the same." Haruko just stared up at the sky for a moment in silence when she finally revealed the name of that target. "Medical Mechanica."

AN: At long last, chapter 3 is done! Apparently I'm just as talented at procrastinating as I am with everything else I'm good at. Ooh speaking of which, still need to finally get back to work on Gravity Soul! Until we meet again some sunny day everyone!

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xdesignsblog-blog · 6 years ago

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UX and UI Design in an Artificial Intelligence-Powered World

As a lover of technology and business news, no day goes by without reading an article in my Facebook news feed from pages like Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, Inc., Fast Company, etc. Earlier this year, I was captivated in particular by an article published by Fast Company on Jan 14 which was titled “The Most Powerful Person in Silicon Valley.” The title by itself arrested my attention, so I stopped to check it out. Little did I know I was going to be anchored to the story, which albeit long was worth every second of the 1200 seconds I spent reading it. Before clicking the link, my notion was that the article would be about a ranking of big wigs in technology and business - like the Musks, Bezos’s, and Zuckerbergs - by their net worth and degree of influence. Well, I found out it wasn’t; it was about the future of a highly touted technology and the person taking the lead to invest billions of dollars to realize it. It was about billionaire Masayoshi Son (CEO of SoftBank) and his vision of an Artificial Intelligence-powered world where machines control our lives.

Two key questions in the story, which stuck with me and inspired this blog post, were: “Are you ready to live in Masa World?” and “Where is this massive vehicle heading?” The author sought to provide answers to these two questions by shedding light on Masa’s vision of a world depicted by chips implanted in brains, cloned animals, connected devices, intelligent work environments, and a human hand giving a robotic one a valentine – a utopia world in which the symbiosis of humans and computers will lead to happiness for everyone. And this is not fantasy; Son’s is backing his dream with multi-million dollar investments in AI-oriented companies.

I have always thought of AI as a future-looking technology, but it wasn’t until recently I read the article that I gave it a deeper thought and attention after pondering on the two questions above and coming up with two of my own – one personal and the other professional, respectively: 1. Would I be ready for a full AI revolution? 2. What does it mean for UX/UI Designers? On the former question, I have started learning more about AI and appreciating how it is impacting and could impact my life. On the latter, I have been looking into certification courses to gain expert knowledge and skills in AI. I have also been doing some research into what would be required of UX/UI design and development for AI technologies. Below are my five initial findings:

UX/UI designers should have a good understanding of both user and machine needs Gathering needs (i.e., design inputs) is the starting point of any design effort. With AI, design inputs have morphed from just being user needs to including machine needs too. One major need of machines is the need to learn. A good example is a conversational AI technology like Siri. When it doesn’t have responses to a user’s request, it would require the user teaching it to learn answers via conversation. Thus, the device needs self-improvement via a natural learning capability embedded in its design in lieu of it coming preprogrammed with answers and search algorithms. UX design must therefore employ innovative interaction styles that can facilitate machine self-improvement.

UX/UI design should reflect the predictability of AI system UX/UI and AI share one thing in common – predictability. UX/UI design focuses on studying user behavior and applying those behaviors to improving the design of the user interface and overall experience. AI collects data to learn and predict future human behavior and also train machines to be intelligent. Understanding such an attribute is necessary for UI designers to create interfaces that reflect system predictability - i.e., as the machine uses data models to predict user’s action, the UX/UI designer must understand and translate the system’s predictive capability into appropriate interface designs and interactions that correlate with expected user behavior. For example if an AI system is intended to predicts a user will make coffee at 10 AM on particular days of the week and inform the user to make coffee, the UI designer must understand this functionality and provide an interface that informs the user or makes it obvious to the user that its coffee day/time. Thus, what makes an AI system intelligent it’s not only its ability to predict users, but also how effectively what is predicted is presented to the user.

UX and UI design for AI systems should strive to be natural Three categories of AI have been identified – artificial narrow intelligence (ANI), artificial general intelligence (AGI), and artificial super intelligence (ASI). The current realizations of AI we see and interact with today is ANI. ANI systems are only good at what they have been programmed to do – e.g. self-driving cars, tailored e-Commerce, and search engines. The next levels of AI that people like Masa envision are AGI and ASI – computers that are as smart as or smarter than humans, respectively. UX/UI design has succeeded in meeting the needs of ANI systems; however, it is the higher levels AI that present a challenge for UX/UI design. For machines to be smart and behave as humans, interfacing with them would need to be natural. For instance in the “human hand giving a robotic one a valentine” example above, the robotic interface should have ability to feel the human arm and understand the love being expressed, and be capable of doing same. Current UIs are mainly “plain” visual, auditory, and haptic interfaces. Future AI systems would require UI designers to be more adept at designing natural interfaces – those with exact or higher visual capabilities of the human eye, advanced voice input/output enabling natural communication, capabilities of smell and taste, and capabilities of understanding varying degrees of touch and feelings such as happiness, anxiety, pain, and love. There is also the operational concept of “No Interface” by Golden Krishna, which suggests autonomous AI without human intervention, but that’s a subject for another blog article.

Automation should not diminish user interaction Automation is a key aspect of AI technologies Since automation assumes part or all of a user’s interaction with the machine, UX design would require determining the amount of automation needed in order not to diminish the user experience by way of a complete loss of human interaction and satisfaction. UI design should clearly delineate parts of the system that are automated versus those that require user interaction.

The UI should be secure yet usable and trustworthy The lifeblood of AI is data. Therefore, security (i.e., data privacy, data confidentiality and data availability) is a very important requirement for AI technologies. Where there’s too much security, usability is compromised thereby impacting user experience negatively. On the other hand, where there is less security, trust is lost as users become concerned about their data and how it’s being used. The challenge for UI design becomes how to include strong yet abstract security features, while being transparent about how user data is being collected and used, and ensuring usability.

The Fast Company article about Mr. Son and his AI vision got me hooked and excited about the potential that AI and UX/UI have in creating smart technologies and great user experiences in the near future. For me this domain is formative and exploratory, and the thoughts shared are based on research on AI combined with my experience as a UX/UI professional. I’ll continue to update and write about this and related topics as I gain more knowledge and expertise about AI so that I can furnish the UX community with relevant information on an imminent technology revolution that will need us to be at the forefront of the battle of ensuring humans can coexist peacefully with machines in an AI-powered world.

REFERENCES

1. Booker, K. (2019). "The Most Powerful Person in Silicon Valley". Retrieved 02/26/2019 from https://www.fastcompany.com/90285552/the-most-powerful-person-in-silicon-valley

2. Urban, Tim (2015). "The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence". Retrieved 02/26/2019 from https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html

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kashmiresims · 7 years ago

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Apologies of Men

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“Alanna…”

The way he said her name was delightfully lascivious. It rolled off his tongue, originating from his voice which was as deep as a chasm. Instead of the indifferent, impersonal, tone that usually marked his words—there was a myriad of emotion caught in it. Adoration. Longing. Sincerity. He didn’t need to say anything more. Franz approached her, swept her off her feet as easily as if she was a piece of paper, and allowed her to taste that voice of his. He was strong, warm, and in that moment, she knew he loved her.

“Three pints of blood.”

Alanna blinked.

She was no longer wrapped up in the scene her imagination had conjured. Instead, she found herself at her Wednesday afternoon class in the lecture hall. The professor had brought in a fake cadaver to demonstrate whatever he was teaching that day.

“This is how much a body loses and then goes into level 4 hemorrhage shock. A transfusion must happen or else the patient will die,” her professor reached into the cadaver and yanked out a plastic heart that was apparently made of some kind of squishy material as he squeezed it. Of course, no blood or other bodily fluids seeped out but it got the point across, “the heart can’t pump fast enough to replenish lost plasma at that point.”

Alanna had been finding herself drifting more and more into daydreams as of late. She was usually alert—taking notes, and asking questions. She was ashamed to admit it, but she didn’t even know entirely what the professor was talking about now because had started out the lecture on blood pathogens. She looked down at her notebook, and saw all she had been doing was etching hearts in the margins and had incomplete notes but for one clear line reading ‘blood should stay in the body.’

She sighed and glanced at the clock on the back wall and saw it was already time to go! Lectures sure did fly by when her mind was racing about other things.

“Be sure to read the section on blood types, transfusions, and diseases before the next session,” the professor reminded the class as they began to pack up their books and bags. Alanna stayed seated for a few more moments, still musing that it was no surprise the predominant ‘thing’ on her mind was her best friend. Dreaming up scenarios of confessions of love, either by both or one of them. If not that, it was imagining their first kiss. Alanna had kissed boys before…well rather a boy. However, that was when she was 15 and it wasn’t serious. What she felt for Franz now, was unlike any other feeling in her body she had ever experienced.

She was in love with him.

After talking to her brother more about it, without naming names, she had come to the conclusion it had to be love. Nothing had driven her heart to beat so fast or feel so tight in her chest just from thinking about someone. She could usually navigate her thoughts with clarity but now they were just a disorganized jumble injected with a heavy dose of feelings as soon as she thought about Franz.

“Oh, Miss Thackery!” the Professor called as she slipped her backpack straps over her shoulders. She turned her head over her shoulder and saw him gesturing for her to join him at the floor where he stood. She nodded and joined him next to the cadaver model, while her classmates shuffled out of the hall and onto their next classes or naps.

“What do you need, Professor?” she asked curiously, hoping her lack of focus was not noticeable or causing an issue. Maybe it was a good thing she had never been so in love before, because she didn’t see how she could have completed high school if she had been struck with such a distracting affliction.

Her professor didn’t seem at all offended she hadn’t asked a single question during the lecture, he instead began speaking with great animation, “The medical studies program will be taking applications here in the next few weeks for students interested in doing their next semester abroad. Only a handful are selected and I think you would make an excellent candidate and would be willing to endorse you.”

Alanna beamed, feeling very flattered that her professor would not only single her out to tell her about the program but endorse her as well.

“I’m honored! What does it consist of? Where would I go if chosen?”

"It varies from year to year—the committee is still finalizing the location, however it’s a great opportunity few get to have, and I’d ask you to consider it. Not only would you be able to continue your studies but receive hands-on experience in helping patients in another area of the world!”

“That sounds amazing! Yes! I will definitely apply for it when I see the announcement. Thank you for letting me know about it,” Alanna’s smile grew even wider as she left the lecture hall and emerged into the building lobby. She took a moment to sit down and giddily think about travelling out of the region, being immersed in another culture while helping those who needed it. She pulled out her phone, immediately checking her text messages to see if Franz had sent anything and to her delight there was one unread message from an hour before but she hadn’t seen it since she had been in class. She hadn’t heard from him since she had visited him at his dorm and eagerly pressed the view button.

Franzster: Hey, thanks for the flowers. Mom really loved them.

She flashed a grin at her phone screen, even more delighted to hear that her flowers were appreciated. She had decided to send them over after hearing about Ms. Schoulsburg being in the hospital. She still was very devastated that his mother was ill and that their family bakery was going to be sold.

She typed back:

I’m so glad! How is she doing? How are you?

She tapped her foot, hoping he was around his phone to answer. She hadn’t realized until the last couple of days but she really hadn’t talked to him all that much since school started compared with previous years—so made a mental note to reach out more often and not get as lost in studying as she had been. Her phone made a noise, indicating that it received a text and she crossed her leg over the other, smiling as she opened the reply from Franz.

Franzster: She’s still there. Hopefully they will let me take her out this weekend. Sorry, but I have to go. I am pulling all the shifts at the bakery this week in her absence. She quickly typed out:

Hopefully! I’ll chat with you later. Have a great day!

She put her phone back into her pocket as she stood up, feeling slightly disheartened they couldn’t continue their chat. She could always retreat into her thoughts-turned-daydreams and imagine what else they could talk about but it wasn’t the same. She needed to try and concentrate anyway. She decided to head over to the campus library, she had a few books she’d been meaning to check out for her studies and she had a whole section to read before next class, as the professor had assigned.

Alanna thought that maybe, she had enough books as she straightened her shoulders and climbed the stairs to the upper floor of library, the weight of her backpack nearly pulled her backward. She needed to remember to empty her bag before her next class, otherwise there’d be no more room left!

She came upon the bookshelf that supposedly contained the title she had been wanting to check out when she noticed a familiar red head sitting at the study table directly across from it.

“How’s your robot holding up?” She approached the table and crossed her arms; she tried not to let any enmity seep into her words. Shane seemed to jump at being addressed publicly, coming out of a particular intense stare of boredom or so it seemed. He had a blank piece of loose-leaf paper in front of him. If he was doing a writing assignment, he was failing miserably.

The redhead turned his bored stare to Alanna and quirked a brow as if to ask her why she bothered addressing him, “It’s just fine.”

“Good,” she said a bit indignantly, because if anything went wrong with it, she had no doubt Shane would have blamed her for it. She was still miffed that he hadn’t thanked her for staying to help the other night. She figured he was a bit like his father in that respect.

She’d been exposed to the Calhouns because they had lived on the same street as her family growing up. Alanna didn’t like to throw around mean words but Mr. Calhoun was a bit of a…well…a butt head. She had seen him out in his yard when she was younger, watering his garden but then spraying water at any stray animals that happened to walk by. They were the same animals that she would leave out food for in case they were hungry. She felt bad, like it was her fault they got sprayed because they wouldn’t have been there in the first place if they didn’t expect food. What really made her burn with anger was that Mr. Calhoun had the nerve to chuckle when the poor cats or dogs went skittering off in the opposite direction, shaking cold water from their fur. She stopped feeding strays after two whole summers of that behavior.

It reminded her that Mr. Calhoun was running for mayor and he certainly didn’t have her vote. People who treated other living things with such disdain didn’t deserve to be in any kind of position of power.

She began to search the bookshelf for the book she wanted but heard Shane clear is throat from behind her.

She whipped around with a slight frown but found he had kicked out the chair next to him and nodded toward it as if she should sit. She did so, but with suspicion—’welcoming’ was not an adjective she would use to describe the red head. He wasn’t outright mean, but his demeanor was that of an intellectual snob—people, it seemed, were all just too stupid to waste his time interacting with.

She pulled the straps of her backpack off her shoulders so she wasn’t sitting so awkwardly, letting it to ground with a slight ‘thump.’ She met Shane's gaze to see what he wanted.

“So, I forgot to thank you the other night,” he leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees, his eyes were intensely serious though; they seemed to want to dart to anywhere else than hers but held firm nonetheless. Alanna’s brows hiked upward in surprise that he was acknowledging it. “I’m sorry, I just don’t usually get help for that sort of thing and forgot. So, thanks for helping me figure what was wrong—maybe now I’ll beat out Orbinson to get into the tournament.”

Alanna shook her head back and forth, suddenly confused, “What do you mean ‘beat out?’ I thought all the robots get a chance to participate?”

“Well no, not at the regional level. Each college picks one robot to send to compete. You can tell the other members at SSU don’t take it seriously enough since they left for break instead of working on their builds. Only Orbinson and I really have the chance for competing, but that’s just my opinion,” Shane explained, and his serious stare was interrupted by a few crinkles at their edges as he grinned. Alanna had never actually been in an official robotics program before and her brother never mentioned that he always beat out his classmates to complete at the regional competitions. She bit her lip in worry, now wondering if she had unfairly given Shane the advantage as he wouldn’t have figured out what was wrong with his robot without her. Then again, she’d given advice to Reggie as well that bettered his build. Perhaps she should have just kept her mouth shut. Her brow creased, remembering how Reggie had seemed annoyed with her advice, probably wishing would have kept it shut in the first place.

“What’s wrong?” Shane asked, seeing the unusual expression, well it was unusual for Alanna—the human personification of sunshine.

She took in a breath and released her frown, settling her expression back to a Franz-like neutral.

“Nothing. You’re welcome. Glad I could help,” though her tone wasn’t indicative of gladness. She picked her back pack up and slung one strap on her shoulder, trying to keep herself balanced from tipping the other direction because of all the books in it. Curs-ed Newton’s laws! “Good luck with the competition, Shane.”

“Hey wait,” he said and paused while she turned around, regarding him with slight annoyance. She had things to do, and didn’t feel like chit-chatting with her old high school rival.

“What?”

“Are you sure you can’t join the robotics program? I mean, it’d nice to feel challenged again,” he asked and then added the last part in that arrogant tone he always seemed to have.

Alanna grinned sarcastically and narrowed her eyes, shaking her head, “Reggie doesn’t challenge you enough?”

“Orbinson does all right but he lacks imagination. You always had it.”

At that rare compliment, her grin transformed into something genuine and a bit regretful, “Sorry, I have too much going on with my coursework to dedicate time to building tech anymore.” Especially if she needed to do the work required to get into that program that the Professor told her about.

“Well, maybe you should stop by more often to see what is being worked on, since you’ve managed that much,” Shane suggested.

“Why? Are you running out of ideas?” she teased.

He made a doubtful scoff at the back of his throat in response and rolled his eyes; this was the kind of banter they’d always had in high school when the science fair came around every year.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she chuckled, “Anyway, I have to get a book and get back to studying.”

“Same,” Shane gestured to his unwritten paper and promptly turned around but looked back over his shoulder with the same slight grin, “See you around.”

She nodded and quickly scanned the row of book spines, grabbing the one she was looking for in the first place. She saw some others near it that piqued her interest but feeling that literal weight on her shoulders reminded her she didn’t have room for all of them. She frowned in thought, trying to solve her dilemma and came to the conclusion she would get the books she wanted and she would just carry the rest in her arms if need be.

She emerged from the library triumphant. She had her books, and now she was…

“Heeeeey Alanna,” she nearly jumped as her train of thought went reeling off the track. She balled her fist and looked up to see Reggie of all people, smiling at her. She blinked a few times and relaxed her posture before replying, “Hello Reggie.”

What a coincidence she should run into him right after thinking about him. He had his messenger-style bag slung over his chest and adjusted the strap as he said, “You going off to study?”

“Yeah actually, just had to pick up some books first,” she bobbed her head to indicate the stack she was carrying.

“You need help?” he offered.

“Thanks, but I can manage,” she started walking down the sidewalk toward the campus coffee shop. She liked to study there during the weekday afternoons. The library was too stiff, her dorm room was too crowded—but the sofas and the table in the corner of the coffee shop were quiet and cozy.

“H-Hey, I…I wanted to say that I was sorry for snapping at you the other night,” she heard him say from behind her. She hadn’t realized he was following her, and looked over her shoulder to see his sheepish expression. He was nervously running his hands through his dark hair, mussing it one way, then the other while he looked at the ground, “I actually took your suggestion and installed audio component lower on the bot.” She stopped walking, and felt the light autumn breeze bluster past them. She’d had two guys apologize to her the same day about what happened in the same night—three if she counted Franz's apology text but for an unrelated thing. Timing was an odd thing. She turned around fully but not with her usual smile, “Thanks, I accept your apology, but I have to know—why were you so short with me? If you went ahead and took my advice, it surely wasn’t because my ideas were bad?”

Reggie shook his head, “No, I just got overwhelmed—it’s not everyday someone shows that much of an interest or knowledge in one of my hobbies.”

“So, your first reaction is to push them away?”

Reggie only knotted his brows in thought as a reply and Alanna continued on her way. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time Reggie had pushed her away. Reggie was the only boy she had ever kissed, and she had felt strongly for him at the time and thought he felt the same. He never called after, and it didn’t help that she had told him she only pretended to like him in exchange for Evelyn Jane to spill the secrets of her scheming in the Battle of the Bands. She had told Franz the same thing, however Franz saw through her lie and reached out—he questioned her—Reggie wasn’t brave enough or didn’t care enough to try. Poor Reggie was collateral damage, and that to some degree, was why Alanna felt she owed it to him to try being friends again.

But he made it difficult sometimes.

She was walking up to the coffee shop entrance when Reggie bolted past her and leaned on the door as she was about to open it. She frowned and pressed her lips together, silently questioning why he was blocking her way. “Listen, I really am sorry and I’ll make it up to you,” he grinned with a hint of hope.

“Oh? How?” she arched a brow.

“There’s a meteor shower on Friday night. I can bring my telescope and we could watch it together at the Old Sim State Tower. I’ll bring snacks, some chairs, and we can stargaze the night away. How does that sound?”

She did like stargazing. Had she told him that before? She probably had back in high school when they were chemistry partners; they used to have very long, productive conversations when they had been friends, and she did miss that. Franz, though they talked together often, wasn’t one to hold such lengthy, personal, conversations.

She mulled the idea over in her head, “That sounds lovely, I’d accept that as an apology too.”

Her answer sent Reggie’s smile to its broadest yet and he removed himself from the door, opening it and gesturing she should go inside, away from that chilly autumn breeze.

#ts2 #sims 2 #NOV arc #kashmiresims #sims 2 story #my shots #Thackery #Orbinson

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keiths-stupid-mullet · 7 years ago

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New game! Describe the paladins with five words giving a hint of the element they represent without saying it. No colors though. Include Coran, Matt and Lotor and add an element you think they could have. Tag a person so people can keep playing and continue the fun ~Mist.

Ok listen I tried to do this, I really did, but I already failed with Keith?? He’s obviously fire, so I went with “burning, hot, changing-” and then I had to stop because fire can take on lots of different forms.

There are candlelights that are soft and small, just like Keith is when he’s comfortable around someone. There are campfires, warm and inviting, there to be enjoyed with friends, comfortable the way Keith is when the team includes him in shenanigans. There are torches that mainly exist to be used and light the way, to be at the front of the battlefield, just like how Keith puts the mission before himself. There are big forest fires that destroy everything in their way, similar to how Keith loses control over his temper sometimes. There are lasers, sharp, precise and deadly, like Keith’s knife throwing skills.

Lance is like water. He’s adaptable the same way a river always finds a new path to flow when outer influences change. He has undiscovered potential just like the ocean that’s full of unknown things. His temper can be as bad and unforgiving as a tsunami wave or as calm and relaxing as a lake in the summer breeze. Water helps when you are thirsty the same way as Lance can easily help you calm your thoughts when you’re in distress. Water has so many different functions that it’s hard to pin down it’s “most important” job - just like Lance struggles with figuring out what exactly people see in him.

Hunk’s element is earth. It’s grounding, similar to how Hunk always points out what reality looks like. Earth is the foundation you build on, the same way he’s a leg that builds Voltron, the same way he uses his engineering skills to build robots. It can be full of minerals to support life or can be dry and unforgiving, just like he can vary between supporting his friends and killing his enemies. Earth isn’t really about change, it’s about already having developed a functioning system, just like Hunk (even with his anxiety) is one of the most stable characters in the series.

Pidge has probably the most straightforward explanation. She, as the guardian spirit of the forest, is all about growing. Growing from only considering her family to considering the entire team. It’s about loving that you’re connected to others - via technology and internet or through the air you breathe. The range of things you can find in a forest is vast, just like her knowledge. Forests are constantly striving to improve their “situation” (ecosystem) and adapt to the environment, just like Pidge. Both love animals and adventure.

Shiro is the sky. It symbolizes freedom, the same way Shiro became “Shiro the Hero”, the face of Voltron. Usually, when you think about the sky you think about fresh air and the sun, a healing and comforting presence. But dark clouds belong in the sky as well, sad things like the trauma Shiro deals with. Thunderstorms belong there, unforgiving forces of natures that won’t stop for anyone or anything. Cold wind that knows the harsh situation of reality. And yet the sky means looking up, towards a new goal, towards a new hope.

For Allura, I would choose space. It’s limitless and full of stuff yet to discover. Space itself can be cold and empty sometimes, just like Allura must feel about having lost her entire planet. But she keeps pressing onward, wants to protect people, wants to help all planets they come across. Space and planets are connected in our minds, just like Allura and planets are. Many of the currently known laws of physics might not apply in space, which goes double so for Allura and her abilities. She is key to Voltron, unites them all through herself, just like all other elements can be found in space. (Also, bad pun ahead - both are radiant :D) ((I warned you))

Coran’s element would be time. He’s the oldest person on the team and mostly a silent observer. He knows stuff the paladins might only dream about and no one is quite sure how he works. He’s the medical officer and likes to make sure that his team is alright, just like “time heals all wounds”. Despite his quirky behavior he has been there since the very beginning, so don’t underestimate his power just because it might not always be clearly visible.

Matt and stars. The most common star we know of is the sun. Warm and nice, sometimes a little too much. But there are many stars out there, stars that are a lot brighter than the sun and stars that are a lot darker. We don’t really know much about him yet, we don’t know what he can do. But he’s tough and just because his light diminishes sometimes, it doesn’t mean that he will die - something that’s true for all stars.

Lotor is like (corrupted) quintessence. Is it good? Is it bad? It can be used for both. Quintessence, before it gets corrupted by the Galra, has the potential to be good, the same way Lotor could have easily been a good guy if he had experienced a different past. It is life itself and it doesn’t really give or take. After it gets corrupted it usually makes people selfish and strong, both of which apply to Lotor. But even then it might not be irreversibly evil, Allura was able to turn a direct hit of Haggar’s magic into sparkles. There seem to be no rules for the behavior of quintessence so far - and Lotor is just as unpredictable.

#a² (answered ask)#mist #I SWEAR I TRIED #god i'm so bad at just shutting up lmao #i'd be super interested in what elements you'd pick for the others #i'm gonna get shit for the lotor and quintessence one aren't i #BUT IT FITS #AND IT FITS WELL #i mean?? if he didn't lie in s5 his goal is to literally make unlimited energy available for everyone???#which means QUINTESSENCE?????????#and keith in s4 was like ''we found a quintessence trail that might lead us directly to lotor''?????#plus his whole interest for altean sciences?????????????#IT FITS #that's not to say that other elements don't fit (see: diamonds) (pretty but tough and dangerous)#but i really like the one i picked #so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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fantasyideas1 · 3 years ago

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quotes almat

1. How do genes work? Likewise, when you photocopy a photo, with each copy, the clarity disappears if you copy the same sheet many times with a blank sheet. The same applies to history, philosophy, culture, language, as well as mentality.2. At first the book is interesting, in the middle boring, at the end unforgettable, I want it to never end.3. Decreased hormones increase the feeling of loneliness and you feel life much clearer. 4. Hatred, resentment, anger are the timidity of love. When the timidity is gone, all the souls of the earth will be reunited into a single soul of love. Love is a unity that will transform us into a God of love.5. The brain is a tick that sucks out all reality from us.6. Money is childhood, love is maturity of the mind.7. Everything that is connected with nature and people is the circulation of life in the world, universal energy, and love is also a part of the natural world, that is, the circulation of life, the interweaving of energies create a new energy of life, that is, children. Love is energy as the main stream of universal energy, a heavenly feeling of sincerity of happiness.8. Sultry blondeSultry blonde. I feel hot feelings for you. Leather is like a gold diamond, gold-colored leather is a color of luxury that shimmers in a shade of white gold. The sexual magic of seduction in your skin color, shimmers with all the colors of seduction. Like the rays of the sun warming the body and soul. I feel intense heat in my body with lust and passion. Heart and subconsciousness calls you every day. Wow, how hot, super hot because of your special beauty. The soul is as beautiful as the body itself. When you are near I am in the dimension of endless love. Your beauty is prosaically embellished with reality.Author: Musin Almat Zhumabekovich

1. The utopia of laziness thanks to machines Speech, etiquette, behavior, thinking, everything is mechanized and everything works automatically, everything is carefully programmed for the norm, everything is a formality. The world around us becomes soulless, a world in which there is a utopia of laziness thanks to machines and mechanical thinking. 2. Progress in this world takes place at the intuitive level of blindness, where the truth is learned only by touch. 3. The robot can gain intuition, and this is a bridge with the world of philosophy of feelings. 4. Love is part of the chaos of nature and the universe itself. Only by breaking your logic will you know love. 5. Time is the cycles of life in infinity, desires accelerate old age in the subconscious. Time is also in the river of life, it is infinite, but there are limitations not in nature, but in the organisms of living beings. Animals have more natural and philosophical goals in life than humans, since people want everything, while animals and insects want the main thing in the natural processes of the universe. 6. Advertising seems to take us back to the Stone Age where the basis of life is prey. 7. Philosophy even transforms a robot and an animal into a human. Using a child's question: Why? This is an elevator that shows slavery, below selfishness, below he knows the will that will turn him into a humane person. 8. Cyber space is the coffin of illusion. 9. Bio-cyberconsciousnessIn reality, logic is quantum vision, just scrolling through a video player, so we can see a scenario of an unstable future. But going into Bio-cyberconsciousness, which forms an alternative reality of dreams, since technology is a biomechanical symbiote that absorbs our consciousness and thereby gains mind, forming a duality of the mind in which we begin to get confused about who we are - this is a black hole that scatters our mind into pixels of memories , a mosaic that is more difficult to assemble over time, this is how growing up in oblivion is formed - it is like a lethargic dream of illusions that takes us to another space. Hypper is a dream in which time accelerates during sleep, being on the verge of two worlds: reality and illusion. You miss life itself and the most important core of life is love. Love should become the main instinct that contains the filling of true happiness, namely the constant need to give your sincere love. Techno dimension in which there is only a sphere of consciousness called our immortality. Artificial hibernation in artificial happiness, since reality is an eternity in which a person feels only depression as he feels infinity - this is the immortality of consciousness, and infinity is the truth. Blindness from terabytes of HD imagination is a great denial of its essence and meanings depend on our desires. A place where we will never see infinity, since it is limited only by our associations of self-interest. Death itself is a great awakening from the bondage of desires, because the soul longs only for peace.10. The strength and power of the laughter of consciousness and the smile of awareness increases with each life - this is the inner evolution of awareness that turns you into an angel. 11. The nervous system of philosophy fails, as in the neurons of philosophy, like black holes in space, quantum acceleration or deceleration of progress or regression. Author: Musin Almat Zhumabekovich

Hot blonde. Burning sexy, oily skin, burning amber sun, golden high probe. Sexy cat. Sultry lust in your voice, you are a pure form of sexuality. You are sexy hypnosis temptation. Your beauty programms my consciousness and subconsciously to love and crave only you forever and infinitely. Pulls you powerfully. You are too special for me. I love you with turbo acceleration, with every day all the deeper and deeper. Your beauty in one phrase: ultra hot. Author: Musin Almat Zhumabekovich

1. The highest level of awareness is the irony of sarcasm eats pride, insight in a crying laugh. 2. The dark side of the personality and its dark energy Each of us has his hidden negative side of the person, someone demonstrates it, someone hides it, but this is the part of us that is not us, but only a parody of us. This is what we seek to suppress in ourselves. We suppress egoism in ourselves and move to a new level of consciousness where we will not be alone. Since love is much better than loneliness in selfishness. Since it is precisely the main power of the dark side of the personality that is the manipulation of egoism. Of course, a person changes in his face and his eyes glow in his eyes because he does not see his own wine and what is happening. Such a person becomes blind in his head. False righteousness leads away from the truth. There are no bad people because we simply don’t realize what we are doing. A man is covered with dark energy, anger turning into black hatred. A person is tempted that only he is right so he gets an illusory superiority and his face is completely lost. The soul of such a person becomes black. A sense of rightness does not give him comfort, since evil will never have comfort, only hatred in the soul. It is impregnated with energy, turning into a certain entity and it is clear that it is contagious. Man, as it were, demonstrates pride. But often, as you probably noticed, such people left little of humanity in themselves. The dark energy of arrogant hatred destroys us from within and life is completely meaningless. This is not just reasoning, it is a pattern that surrounds us. Whereas love and forgiveness returns us the true form of self.3. Fate is our subconscious, life as a repeating dream of the subconscious in a new rebirth. Memory is what guides us.4. The body of an empathic or understanding person is as if encrusted with crystals that receive a static charge when connected to people and reality.5. The body is a cocoon of illusions. Instincts are marketing manipulations on which they play as a musical instrument of egoism. From death, it crumbles revealing the soul, awareness and the third eye.6. Loneliness as an early retirement.7. Chaos is a great esthetician who accidentally generated the most beautiful landscapes of nature and the unique beauty of man.8. Life is an ocean and many of us do not have gills and therefore we are gradually suffocating as we seek a way out in ourselves.9. The cracks of reality are the cracks of the insight of the mind.10. Holiness is the suspended animation of the mind, for awakening in a better place.11. The stairs from the TVs are memories. It is very difficult to walk on it, because of guilt. You go through the plasma screen of the TV, through everything that was in your life. You understand to the depths of your soul, and it seems that you are starting to swim and get out of the other side of the screen leaving your body there, and the soul sees a new ladder up from the TVs.12. Hardcore black humor Rap beat: Tam House, Tam House Tu Tutuk Ta Tam House, Tam House The hardcore black humor of reality is tearing the psyche of crazy laughter, billions of ridiculous laughter everywhere, overlooking everywhere. The power of awareness increases with laughter. Reason bursts at the seams with laughter, a new person is born. Evolution through the laughter of awareness.Author: Musin Almat Zhumabekovich

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ohmytheon · 7 years ago

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The Definition of a Hero (FMA x BNHA, 3)

Notes: Many thanks and blessings to @severalsunlitmornings for being my beta! It's the first time that I've had one. Normally ya'll get stuck with my "first draft is the final draft" shit. Anywho, it's time for our kids to meet each other and Roy. Yes, I know this isn't exactly how it goes in the anime/manga, but I don't want to just copy and paste scenes. (And I hadn't rewatched the episode yet when I wrote this.) This is my first time writing Deku and wow I love him. Also, I intentionally skipped the actual Entrance Exam because I will be showing it from Roy's POV in the 5th chapter while he watches it with the teachers. Thanks for reading!

The Definition of a Hero hope: a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen

Bakugou could not fucking believe that Deku was taking the entrance exam. He couldn’t believe it. What the fuck was wrong with that kid? He was going to get killed and Bakugou was going to laugh about it. In fact, if not for the fact that they would be taking the exam in separate groups, he would’ve beat the hell out of the idiot just to prove how dumb he was.

Even worse, despite the fact that Bakugou clearly didn’t want anything to do with Deku and didn’t want him around, the idiot was upbeat despite looking nervous. “You’re going to do great, Kacchan!”

“Of course I am,” Bakugou growled. “Just stay out of my way like the damn extra you are.”

“Would you stop being a dick for no reason?” a boy with braided golden hair snapped. He was sitting in front of them, but had leaned back in his seat to glare at Bakugou.

If he hadn’t been so taken off guard by the fact that some little shit had actually snapped at him like that, he would’ve rocketed out of his seat and strangled the kid. Who the fuck was he? Bakugou bounced back quickly, slamming forward in his seat so that the legs of the chair made a loud cracking noise. “Why don’t you mind your own fucking business?” The boy rolled his equally golden eyes. “And get a different hairstyle. You look like a girl.”

“Better than looking like a jackass,” the boy responded. He pointed a gloved finger at Bakugou. “You better stay out of my way or I’ll sock you right in the jaw.”

Bakugou gripped the table tightly and pushed himself up, half standing and half ready to launch himself right over to pummel him. “And how do you expect to do that? You couldn’t even reach my face!”

Like flipping a switch, the boy jumped to his feet, red-faced and infuriated, and growled, “Are you calling me short?”

“Should’ve called you an idiot too!” Bakugou shot back.

The boy looked like he might actually implode. He pushed back his sleeves and Bakugou stood up straight to meet him head-on. He’d been itching for a fight ever since finding out that Deku was taking the entrance exam. He didn’t mind beating up some nobody to get one. At least maybe this kid would put up an okay fight unlike Deku.

“NO FIGHTING!” an amplified voice exploded, knocking both Bakugou and the golden-haired boy to the ground. Bakugou fell hard on his back and neck, having tripped over his chair, while the boy went down face first. In his temper, he’d forgotten about Present Mic. Stupid asshole.

While dragging himself back to his feet, Bakugou caught sight of Deku leaning over to help the other boy up and “tch”ed. He didn’t need any help. He dropped back in his seat, matching the glare that the golden boy shot at him, and then looked away from them, kicking them out of his mind.

Whatever. If Deku needed someone to stand up for him now, there was no way that he’d be able to make it through the exam. And with what quirk? Why were they letting him take the exam anyways? And he doubted that that golden-haired freak had a decent quirk. He sounded like the kind of person that overreacted so that they had to make up for something. He probably wasn’t strong at all and just tried to come off like that.

By the time everyone began to leave the auditorium, he and Deku were already conversing excitedly with each other. Bakugou shook his head. Let the weak ones pair up. It would make them easier to weed out. He was stronger than both of them put together and he wouldn’t even consider them during the exam. This was his time to shine. He was going to be number one.

Izuku knew that he was being annoying and talking way too much, but he couldn’t stop himself if he tried. Seeing everyone’s quirks in action during the entrance exam had been incredible. It might not have felt so incredible after it had ended, what with two broken legs and a broken arm, but he was here and it was worth it. It was all worth it. He was going to become a hero, just like All Might, and even more amazing was that he’d get to do it alongside others with the same goal.

It had been difficult to make friends when he had been quirkless. Izuku thought he had been likable enough, but Kacchan’s constant berating made everyone wary to get close to him, as if they might suffer the same wrath, and despite his antagonistic behavior, other kids looked up to Kacchan because of his strong quirk and confidence. Quirkless and obsessed with quirks, Izuku had been an outsider no matter how nice he was.

But not here. Not at U.A. It was his first day and he was fitting in. He couldn’t stop thinking about how Uraraka had stood up for him and asked if she could transfer some of her well-earned points to him so that he could still be accepted. One day and already someone thought he was hero material.

Still, quirk or not, old habits would never die and his excitement about everyone’s quirks was overflowing.

“Your quirk is so strong!” Izuku exclaimed, forcing himself to sit at his desk. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Sitting at a desk beside him with his feet propped up on the table, Ed shrugged his shoulders. “I practiced a lot with it growing up -- wanted to make sure I was good and ready when it was time to apply here.”

Not for the first time, Izuku wished that he’d had more time to strengthen himself before receiving All for One and any time at all to practice it. Having to use it for the first time during the entrance exam had almost killed him. It was worth it though. Seeing people with such power over their quirk though both amazed and discouraged him. He was going to fight as hard as humanly possible and then some, but practice was important and he couldn’t use his without injuring himself.

“You just--” Izuku waved his hands in the air. “All you had to do was touch those robots and transformed them into useless piles of garbage!”

He could still recall the shock at seeing Ed, who was admittedly even shorter than Izuku, running straight up to one of those machines and jumping out of the way of its attack. The second he touched it, instead of floating it like Uraraka’s zero gravity quirk had done, the metal had twisted and shaped itself into a rather ugly duck no longer capable of moving.

“I made a lot of metal statues back home,” Ed said.

Must not have been very good ones. The robots had turned into rather tacky metal statues. Izuku did not say that out loud though. Ed was extremely talented, just not at art. Everyone had their weakness.

“And then you used the rubble caused by others from destroying the robots to create a weapon!” Izuku continued, thinking back to the long metal pole that Ed had fashioned in order to pierce through the robot’s weak spots. “Your quirk is really versatile and excellent for urban combat.”

Ed nodded his head, suddenly looking distracted as he rubbed his right arm. Izuku had noticed that Ed tended to favor his left and that his right seemed to hang a little more...limply, but he didn’t say anything. Maybe it was an old injury or had something to do with his quirk. Under his uniform, it looked like just another arm, though Izuku also noticed that Ed wore gloves as well while no one else did. Had he been wearing them during the entrance exam? Izuku couldn’t remember.

Then, Ed grinned at him. “You were the one that took out that zero point robot. It was massive!”

Unable to stop himself, Izuku flushed. “Yeah, but I wasn’t really thinking and the blow back was...bad.”

“I would think so after punching the shit out of that thing,” Ed pointed out with a snort. “Everyone else was so focused on fighting that we didn’t think about saving. It was a good reminder of why we’re here.”

Izuku smiled brightly. Out of all the things that could’ve been said to him, that had to be the best. He was here to become a hero, just like everyone else, and to be a reminder of that, well… It made him think of All Might -- of how he was symbol of peace and reminded people that they could be heroes in their everyday lives. He thought, for a moment, that maybe he truly was worthy of All Might’s power, as long as he could live up to this.

“Oy, would you two get a fucking room?” Kacchan snapped from behind them.

Ed jerked his feet down from his desk and swiveled around to glare heatedly, but before he could get a word out, Izuku waved him down. “It’s okay, really.”

After another beat of glaring, matched equally by Kacchan, Ed slowly turned back to face Izuku, although there was still a small scowl on his face. “What’s his problem anyways? I mean, he’s an asshole for sure, but it’s like he goes out of his way to be one to you.”

“We grew up together,” Izuku said mildly. He didn’t want a fight to break out into class. One had already happened the second he’d stepped into the classroom and Kacchan had spotted him. He knew that it would be bound to happen, but if he could prolong the inevitable knock out fight between Kacchan and Ed, he would. Both of them were too hot-headed for their own good. “He just wants to be the best and he’s used to being it.”

“Yeah, well, a lot of us want to,” Ed grumbled, “but everyone has that moment that knocks us down a peg.”

It wasn’t the words so much as the look on his face when Ed said them that made Izuku think that Ed had already gone through that moment in his life. Izuku wasn’t sure if he had or not. He wanted to think that his entire life being quirkless had been one big rock bottom, but maybe the true test of his metal would come after. Maybe he would find himself now that he was climbing to the top.

It was a scary but inspiring thought.

And then, almost as an afterthought, Izuku wondered what that moment might look like for Kacchan when it came.

Bakugou hadn’t exactly been sure what to expect of his classes at U.A. He’d had a good idea, but even he knew that the school was going to do everything in its power to throw them off balance. A hero’s journey was never straight, no matter how badly he wanted to get to the top. Having his first teacher slink into the classroom in a bright yellow sleeping bag had been strange. Hearing that the All Might was going to be one of their teachers was a shock to the system that he was still trying to wrap his mind around and didn’t quite believe.

Then, after reporting outside to one of the many fields for their next class as they had been told, the Flame Alchemist himself showed up.

There was no way that Bakugou was going to lose his cool in front of everyone else. He clenched his jaw so that his mouth wouldn’t open and dug his nails into the palms of his hands so he didn’t fidget. But there he was, the pro hero that Bakugou had watched carefully since he was eight years-old. The man wasn’t wearing his costume, so he didn’t think that everyone recognized him, but it wouldn’t have mattered to Bakugou.

He saw the slight grin, the smooth swagger with every step, the hands in his pockets that said at ease -- all of it wrapped in the air that gave off a hint of danger. Bakugou had been studying the hero for years. He didn’t need a mask or costume to spot his hero. Just as he did on the screen, the Flame Alchemist gave off an undeniable aura of confidence. Every step looked both casual and pointed. All of their eyes were drawn to him until finally he was standing right in front of them.

“Sorry for being late,” the Flame Alchemist greeted, pulling one gloved hand out of his pockets to wave cheerfully at them. “School was never my thing.”

“You’re our other new teacher?” Engine Legs asked, sounding slightly skeptical.

“Do I not look it?” the Flame Alchemist asked, sounding more amused than anything else. He had just shown up and they were already questioning him.

How did these idiots not know who this was? Bakugou looked around at everyone else, noting their faces. Some looked like they might’ve recognized him, but most wore blank faces. Only Half and Half Bastard had given a reaction, tensing his body and dropping his eyes to the ground.

Braid boy folded his arms across his chest. “If school isn’t your thing, then why are you teaching us?”

A small ball of fire, nothing to be afraid of, burst at Braid boy’s feet, causing him to jump and the Flame Alchemist actually laughed. It almost made Bakugou laugh too, just seeing that idiot jump like that, reminding him of how Deku would react towards Bakugou’s explosions. The fire got everyone’s attention though. It was only a small show of power, not even a blip on the radar when it came to the depth of the Flame Alchemist’s quirk, but now everyone was looking at him with wide eyes.

“Y-you’re the Flame Alchemist!” Deku exclaimed. Well, of course, dipshit. Everyone already knew that now.

The hero shrugged his shoulders. “Mustang is fine at school.”

Finally, a name to the man. For years, Bakugou had only known him by his hero name. Sometimes, you could find out a hero’s identity, especially if they had the creativity of a spoon and used their real names, but for however flashy and outgoing that the Flame Alchemist was, he left a lot to be desired when it came to who he was behind the mask. People that were able to get into the school and hero records might know, but the general public was left in the dark.

Bakugou couldn’t believe that the Flame Alchemist -- no, Mustang -- was actually here. He was in casual clothes, something that Bakugou had only seen a handful of times when a reporter managed to capture a picture of him out and about on his off days. He was notorious for evading cameras and reporters in public when not working, even if he hogged them when he was on duty. Hawk’s Eye was with him half of the time in those pictures, somehow looking no less threatening than when she was in costume. Besides, Bakugou doubted that she was never not armed and Mustang didn’t need his costume to use his quirk.

They saw that now as he looked like a man you might see at a fancy restaurant and not a pro hero. Bakugou knew what he was capable of; he’d seen and studied all the footage.

“Lesson number one and two,” Mustang told them. “As a hero, you’re going to end up doing a lot of things you might not necessarily like in order to do what’s best.” He moved his hand again and, while he didn’t jump again, Bakugou saw Braid boy twitch a bit in anticipation for another blast of fire. Mustang just smiled. “And always be on your guard. That was nothing. Villains won’t be kind and so therefore neither will I. If you want a pat on the back, you can go to All Might, but in my class, I expect you to fight back or suffer the consequences and they will be quite unpleasant.”

While the rest of the class murmured with each other, Bakugou smirked. This was going to be fun.

Todoroki had tried not to react when he saw the Flame Alchemist walking towards them, but it had been difficult when he’d realized why the man was here. He was going to be their teacher. All he could do was picture his father bursting into flames upon realizing that the two heroes he loathed the most were now his son’s teachers. He couldn’t help but wonder if Endeavor knew or if he would find out later. It would not be a pretty sight either way.

If there was one person that his father hated more than All Might, it was the Flame Alchemist. At least his anger towards All Might was tangible, what with him being always one step above him as the number one hero, but his hatred of Mustang was incomprehensible. It didn’t make any sense. As far as Todoroki could tell, there was no specific reason that his father hated the other hero so much. It was just there .

A strange thrill ran up Todoroki’s spine. He couldn’t tell whether it was dread or excitement. On one hand, he knew that Mustang was an incredibly powerful hero and would be an excellent teacher in helping everyone learn to use their quirk in combat situation. Well, the others that didn’t have the same training his father forced on him since he was five. Still, Todoroki thought he could learn from Mustang. He was quick and clever, known for using his quirk in creative ways.

On the other hand… Todoroki watched the small ball of fire explode and startle Edward Elric. It was so brief that most would forget it quickly, but the sight of that fire burned in Todoroki’s mind. And he was afraid.

He thought back to the promise he’d made his father before he left for U.A. He would not use the half of his quirk that he had inherited from his old man. Using the ice quirk that he’d inherited from his mother, he would become a hero and he would beat his father with that alone. He would not use the half of his quirk that destroyed and tore their family apart. He would use nothing that he gained from his father.

But would Mustang try to pry it out of him? Would he try to force Todoroki to use his fire quirk? Would he look down on him?

It didn’t matter if Endeavor had never said anything. The moment their paths crossed five years ago, Todoroki had known that Mustang knew what his quirk was just by looking at him. “You went and did it,” Mustang’s words to his father rang in Todoroki’s mind. He’d known what his father had done -- what he’d created. It wouldn’t take long for Mustang to notice that Todoroki almost solely used his ice quirk and never once produced flames.

Did he understand that too? Did he know what Todoroki was doing?

He prepared to be seen right through as Mustang surveyed the class, but his eyes landed on Todoroki for only a second and then moved on to the next student. Without realizing that he’d tensed up, Todoroki’s body relaxed the moment he wasn’t being scrutinized. It would appear to everyone that Mustang didn’t recognize him, but that wasn’t possible. His hair, his scar, his eyes all marked him for who he was. The Flame Alchemist remembered, but he wasn’t acting on it.

Todoroki wasn’t sure what that meant. Maybe it meant that Mustang would treat him the same as every student and not the son of the man who hated his very being. Good. That was good. The last thing Todoroki wanted was any special treatment because of who his father was. He just wanted to be treated like himself. He would always remember the way Mustang had spoken to him, like he was a completely separate person from his father. He had been kind to Todoroki even when Endeavor had been cruel to him.

That was a hero, Todoroki had thought back then.

Mustang’s words now sounded like they were meant to provoke everyone. His trick with the fire had clearly done the job in provoking Edward. It wasn’t very hero-like, but then the teachers at U.A. weren’t here to coddle or nurture them. They were here to push each student to their limit and beyond in order to become the best heroes that they could be. Mustang had gone through the same thing as a student here, like All Might and Endeavor, just as Todoroki and his classmates would.

All throughout the class, Todoroki only used his ice quirk and he could’ve sworn that Mustang was watching him closely, his gaze sharp enough to slice through a rock, but whenever he glanced back, the teacher was focusing on someone else. Todoroki shook his head, sweat dripping from his hair. Maybe he was imagining things. Maybe he was so preoccupied with worry that he was making things up. He didn’t want to be seen like that. He just wanted to be seen as himself.

When class was dismissed and they all dragged their tired and sore bodies back inside, Todoroki took one last glance back at their new teacher and was caught off guard upon connecting eyes with him. Mustang put two of his fingers to his temple and flicked them forward, the same gesture he had done upon saying goodbye to Todoroki when they’d first crossed paths on the street five years ago. Except this time, instead of saying goodbye, the gesture said, I remember.

But Todoroki didn’t know what that meant either and it made him wary. And he hated that feeling.

#fma #bnha #katsuki bakugou #shoto todoroki #edward elric #izuku midoriya #roy mustang #todoroki shouto #fma x bnha #anime #fmab #fma: brotherhood #deku #bnha x fma #all my kids in one place WOW #the things of songs #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #mha

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