#overwhelmed by raw data is a good way of putting it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

andypantsx3 · 5 years ago

Text

conspire | 3 | practice

pairing: Todoroki Shouto / Reader

length: 13,307 words / 5 chapters

summary: Shouto Todoroki had definitely only asked you out in order to ward off his horde of interested suitors. So why does he keep actually taking you out on suspiciously realistic dates?

tags: romance, reader-insert, fake dating, misunderstandings

warnings: aged up characters, eventual smut

Fake dating Shouto Todoroki was an absolute whirlwind, but it certainly came with its benefits.

As weeks passed, you found yourself with a compliant test subject and plenty of data for the work you were doing on his support item. You’d confirmed that you could use this work as your submission for your senior project -- developing a support item without any input, direction, or critique from a professor -- and you’d set to the task with enthusiasm after that.

Shouto caved easily enough to the tests you’d put to him on your first “date” and you’d had way too much fun getting him to freeze and heat things for you, strapping him up in all the nodules and wires as you’d promised. Over the course of a few weeks, you’d analyzed the absolute crap out of the cryogenic structure of his ice crystals and tested the limits of his temperature control to your heart’s content, pleased that the amount of time you were spending together also played into your cover story.

It turned out his quirk worked as you’d suspected, which was incredible. Shouto’s power allowed his body to work like a heat pump, directing thermal energy against the current in which it naturally flowed at will. He used the energy from one side of his body to alternately push energy into or draw energy from the other side of his body, in order to create a temperature gradient strong enough to induce ice or flames.

He was basically like a really good looking, high-powered air conditioner.

The discovery was overwhelming and gave you limitless possibilities as to what kind of support item you could build for him.

The problem was, there were maybe too many options.

“You can watch my quirk training, if you need more direction,” Shouto had suggested one night when you were tucked up doing homework together. He’d really taken to the role of doting boyfriend and put in appearances often, taking you out on a series of other mind-bendingly good dates and showing up to your dorm on school nights with homework and small, thoughtful gifts like bottles of tea.

Through his efforts, he’d become something like a close friend.

You’d discovered over the course of your time together that Shouto wasn’t as quiet and serious as you’d initially suspected him to be, and you quite liked the sides of himself that he chose to unveil. He had a tendency to be blunt and was strangely oblivious given how observant he could be, and he had a little bit of a short fuse when the match was properly lit. He was still kind and thoughtful for the most part, but as he grew more comfortable with you it was like a flip sometimes switched and out crawled an inner gremlin, eager to tease and fluster you.

To your eternal mortification, he’d most definitely caught on to the fact that kissing you was the fastest way to fluster you, though in your defense, being kissed by a man who had no romantic interest in you was certainly a mind-boggling concept in and of itself. He’d thankfully only kissed you a few other times--once, weirdly, when you’d been almost sure no one else was around--though he sometimes watched you with a look in his eye like he was scheming up ways to make it happen again.

He was a very convincing fake boyfriend.

You had agreed to follow him to quirk training the following evening, and showed up to take your place on the sidelines of beta field that afternoon in a thick coat with a thermos of warm tea. Deep in your bag, you’d embarrassingly stowed an extra for Shouto, a habit formed by all of your time spent together.

He was there when you got there, clearly having come straight from class, and huge walls of ice already dotted the field, one or two twisted into melting spires. Slick trails of water ran down their sides where he’d blasted them with his fire, pooling into the cracks of the earth at their bases, and singe marks scored the grass around them.

Shouto seemed to brighten when he caught sight of you, and he came padding over to where you were making yourself comfortable on the cold ground.

“Anything in particular you want me to test out?” he asked, but you shook your head, unearthing a notebook and a pen from your bag.

“No, just do your thing,” you said, uncapping your pen. “I’m just looking to observe how you usually move around and channel your quirk. I rewatched all the sports festival footage from the last couple years but your style changes wildly between them, so I want to get a feel for how you currently do things.”

He looked somewhat embarrassed. “You watched those?”

You let a teasing smile flit across your lips, curious to see what kind of mood he was in today. “Oh yeah. Loved the one where you got totally stomped by Bakugou.”

To your amusement, his eyebrow twitched. “I let him win.”

Men and their fragile egos. You suppressed a smirk and stretched leisurely like a cat in the sun, tipping your face back to look up at him. “Sure you did.”

A look of annoyance passed over his handsome features, and he huffed, taking a threatening step closer to you. Something glinted in his eye, and that was all the warning you had before he leaned down and pressed his mouth over yours.

You instantly dropped your pen, fisting a hand in the jacket of his uniform to pull him closer. It briefly crossed your mind that no one was around to observe the two of you, and that this kiss was perhaps wasted effort on his part, but then he did that thing with his tongue you liked and all rational thought fled from your brain.

Shouto kissed all the sass straight out of your mouth before drawing back, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

“I’ll thank you to keep quiet,” he said, and you could only stare at him dumbly as he smirked and made his way back onto the field.

Confusion eventually washed over you as he set about practicing with his quirk, and you could only pay half a mind to what he was doing.

What had that been about? You checked your periphery to confirm that no one else was around to have witnessed his assault on your good sense, confusion only mounting when there was no one in sight. You knew he wasn’t actually interested in you, but that kiss had felt like something a real boyfriend would do to shut a mouthy girlfriend up. Was he getting so used to your little charade that he hardly minded? Did it affect him so little that it hardly troubled him at all?

You pushed your thoughts down for examination at a later time, forcing yourself to keep your mind on Shouto’s quirk training.

You took careful note of the graceful way he moved, the raw power with which he released both sides of his quirk. He was faster than almost anything, able to maneuver around the field with deadly precision, unbelievable power called to his fingertips within seconds and wielded with brutal efficiency. He was, much like his quirk, two halves of some contradictory whole, combining incredible strength with unexpected elegance to create a combat style that had quite likely never been seen before.

You sketched out several notes on his movements and jotted down a couple vague ideas for support items that came to mind as you watched him.

After a while, Shouto seemed to come to the conclusion that you’d had enough time to observe him and started messing around instead, creating enormous ice waves to slide down for your amusement, looking like a very strange surfer on some still mass of ocean. You laughed as he shot down a slope faster than he’d clearly expected, throwing up another hill of ice to slow his descent.

He came sliding over to you, huffing a little after hours of exertion. “You’re acting like you’ve seen better.”

You smiled. “You just looked funny.”

That wry twist at the corner of his mouth was back. “You do it, then.”

You stared at him. “What?”

He held out a hand, wiggling his long fingers. “You’ve had your fun judging me from over here. You do it if you’ve got opinions.”

A stab of panic shot through you. “Absolutely not.”

Something like a challenge glinted in his eye and he surged forward, scooping you up into his arms easily. You panicked, instantly trying to twist out of his hold and get him to drop you, but he just walked back onto the training field, one arm barred across yours in a steely hold. You tried to get a foot against his hip but his grip was too tight to allow you movement enough to do it.

“Shouto, you had better drop me or I will straight up murder you,” you grit out, gripping his sleeve in terror as a crackling noise started where his feet met the ground.

“You had better hope I don’t,” he tossed back as a platform of ice formed under his boots, carrying you up to the top of one icy wave. Your rise was horrifyingly quick, and you were torn between being absolutely terrified and impressed that this is how he maneuvered around all the time. You gripped him in horror.

“I will never forgive you if you do this,” you threatened, staring down the steep drop hundreds of feet to the ground. “Nothing you could ever do will make up for a betrayal like this.”

“I have some ideas,” he said. Then he took a step off the top.

You became aware of a piercing scream and realized it was coming from you. You wanted to press your face into Shouto’s chest and close your eyes but you were too terrified to even look away from what was happening as the two of you slid down the ice at hundreds of feet per second, hurtling at the ground like a rocket. You couldn’t believe you had laughed at him if this is what it felt like to do what he did.

You felt Shouto tense underneath you, and the arm under your legs flashed notably colder, before another layer of ice formed, evening out the wave into a less precipitous curve, slowing your slide and carrying you easily to the field. Gravity seemed to catch up to you again and you slid down a little in his arms. Your heartbeat pounded in your chest and your hands clenched in the fabric of his costume, even as you slid to a stop, soft grass rustling underneath his boots as he stepped off the ice.

“You’re a dead man, Shouto Todoroki,” you promised, hands still fisted at his sleeve. And he was, just as soon as you could let go of him.

Another smirk crossed his infuriatingly handsome features and you found yourself a little mesmerized by the sight of him.

He hefted you higher in his arms. “But if I was dead, how would I do this?” he asked, then pressed his mouth to yours again.

Well, he certainly had your number. Your plans for murder were instantly wiped from your brain like notes from a whiteboard, and you moved a hand to his collar to pull him down to you. His mouth was hot and he was excruciatingly gentle, working you over thoroughly, until you could hardly remember your words, never mind a flawless plot for murder.

Shouto shifted carefully and you became aware of grass under your back. Then he was moving over you, pressing you into the field with the solid weight of his body. His mouth left yours to pepper a trail of kisses in a slow line down your neck, and those long fingers tugged down the zipper of your jacket, coming up to pull down the collar of your sweater to allow him better access.

You squirmed mindlessly under him, letting out surprised little gasps whenever he found a spot that you particularly liked. The chill of the evening washed over you and you pressed yourself into him for warmth, sighing when his left side flared hotly. He bit down carefully over your pulse where it beat wildly in your throat.

“Y/N,” he groaned, and a vague thought came to you like this was somehow strange for the two of you to be doing, some reason why you shouldn’t be. You couldn’t remember why. “Tell me if I should stop.”

He pressed his mouth back to yours again, a calloused hand making its way up the side of your sweater and disconnecting your thoughts again. This felt too good to be wrong, why shouldn’t you do this? A thumb brushed under the fabric of your bra, catching a nipple, and you jerked under him, letting out an embarrassing noise. He made a noise low in his throat and did it again, tensing when you shuddered under him again.

He let out a harsh breath, then your sweater was torn upwards and your bra quickly followed, a warm mouth closing over one nipple. You swore, the heat of his mouth so unbelievably good against the cold air, arching into him as he swirled his tongue.

“Oh my god,” you managed, fingers tangling desperately in his hair. You hooked a leg over his hip, anchoring him against you harder. Your own hips raised without any input from your brain, and you swore again when one of his thighs pressed tightly to your core.

He moved to your other breast, laving over the hardened peak, two toned eyes watching your face with undisguised interest.

“Shouto,” you gasped out, drawing him back up to you to kiss him. His chest pressed into yours, the strong line of his body pinning you down everywhere, and the weight of him was unbelievably wonderful over you. Why had you ever thought you shouldn’t do this?

A blinding light suddenly flickered on over you, searing even through your eyelids where they’d fluttered closed. You jerked apart in shock. Blinking blearily, you realized it had grown dark and the field lighting system had just kicked in.

Shouto sighed and crawled off of you, leaning back on his knees to stare down at you. You blushed, the implications of what you’d just done pressing down on you, realizing your entire chest was exposed to him in the harsh light. You yanked your sweater back over you, struggling a little bit to get the band of your bra back down. Shouto placed a hand on your hip.

“Uh,” he said, something like a flush rising to his own cheeks, “That’s what you get for laughing.”

You choked out a shocked laugh, staring up at him. “That’s what I get for laughing?”

He smiled again, climbing to his feet and pulling you up with him. “I imagined my girlfriend would be more supportive.”

You gathered up your bag, hardly daring to look at him. “You picked the wrong one then, I think.”

His smile turned soft, something almost private. “I think I did okay.”

Warmth flashed through you again and you had to push down the well of thoughts that bubbled up inside you like a spring. You tried to ignore the niggling at the back of your brain as bid your goodnights and went separate ways to your dorm buildings. One thought refused to be pushed aside, however, following you as you made your way to your room, lingering as you readied for bed and turned out the light. You couldn't sleep for a long time as you tried to dredge up an answer.

What the hell had that been?

#bnha #bnha x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #fanfic #todoroki x reader #boku no hero academia #todoroki shouto #smut

479 notes · View notes

insomniamamma · 5 years ago

Text

Prickle: Ezra x F! Reader

A/n: Okay, so don’t know what the hell this is. I was trying to go to sleep a few days ago and this just kind of popped in there, the idea of Ez giving the reader a weird nickname. I swear I have a more serious, put together fic in the works, but this demanded my attention first. I meant this to be short, but I suck at keeping things short.

warnings: language, angst, mild violence, lil bit of fluff, no beta

______________________________________________________________________

He calls you Artichoke. Since hiring you on, Ezra has thrown a string of nicknames at you, mostly botanical or avian, some referencing things you have never heard of, and this is the one that stuck. Cee is Little Bird most of the time, until she indulges in teen-age surliness and then she's Channel Rat. You are Artichoke. Which would be fine, except you don't have the foggiest idea of what an artichoke is. Nothing about the word triggers anything in your brain.

You are not so well-travelled as Ezra and Cee. You grew up on Falnost, a dusty little fly speck of a moon, only colonized because it orbits a gas giant with lush rings, perfect for ice-mining operations. Falnost has one port city that caters to people who come downworld on leave. The rest is cattle and corn. Nothing to do but pull rocks out of the ground, dig irrigation ditches and spread the sandy dirt with live bacteria concentrates in hopes of convincing the ground to grow something. Not a place for fancy words or much beyond a standard technical education. You scrimped and saved and bought your passage off-world as soon as you could, and you've been drifting ever since. Puggart Bench was the closest you've been to civilization, and even that seemed overwhelming and a bit weird. You suspect artichoke is something from the inner worlds, but you have no idea what it could be. What if it's something bad, or nasty like a channel rat? What if Ezra's been making fun of you, calling you this name? It started two drops ago on Sammana. You were there to harvest lattice corals. Sammana once had a deep liquid ocean, but now all that was left were vast, glittering salt-flats. It was hot on Sammana. The air, while not toxic, stank like sun-dried shit. The corals themselves were fragile and you had to dig through the salt-pan with hand tools to get to them. By the end of the first day, your hands were raw and sobbing from a hundred salt-burnt cuts. You were hired on as muscle, but Ezra's been teaching you the trade as well. Many hands make light work, he said, and dimpled at his own joke, being down one hand himself. The dig did not go well. The corals you were finding were few and of mediocre quality at best. Enough to keep you fueled and flying, but little else. There was less than a cycle before you had to catch the slingback and even Ezra's mood was dark. "I'm callin it," he said, after a small and brittle coral crumbled in his hand. "We got enough to get us onto the next job. Fueled and flying, right?" "Fueled and flying," you echoed back, grabbing the railgun and taking point. Camp was some ways and the sun overhead felt like a physical weight grinding down on you. The railgun was heavy, sweat ran into your eyes and pooled under your body armor. So much miserable effort for so little reward. Today's pull was a pittance, a little extra fuel, a little extra data bandwidth and that's all. You swiped the sweat from your eyes for the hundredth time today. You were over it. Camp resolved itself out of the heat-glitter rising up from the salt crusted ground, the drop pod sitting in a crater of shattered salt, the tent next to it, hooked up to the pod's RTG by a thick braided cable. The tent's flaps were open. Someone was moving inside. "Oh, hell no!" You pelted towards camp, railgun raised, the figure paused, and then continued rifling through the tent. He had your trophy case at his feet, what little you've been able to collect over the last cycles and this bastard meant to take all of it. "Hands in the air motherfucker!" The thief dropped his haul and raised his hands. "The fuck out of the tent, right fucking now!" You felt Ezra and Cee behind you, heard their hard breaths. "I didn't mean nothin," he says, "I thought this camp was abandoned--" And something snapped in you. Never in your life had you been this angry. "Bullshit you did! Abandoned with the pod still hot?" You primed the railgun, and aimed through the scope right between this dumbass's eyes, and then you felt Ezra's hand on your arm. He spoke low and close to your ear. "Ease up on the rails, there, Artichoke, ain't no need for bloodshed yet." And for as angry as you were, you did as he asked, relaxed your stance some. Ezra walked toward the kid, no mercenary, this, just some dumb local. "My friend here wants to shoot you," Ezra said, "And she is well within her rights to do so. We have toiled long to get what little we could out of this bitter ground." "I'm sorry!" said the would-be thief, "I didn't mean nothin--" "What you meant or didn't mean is not the issue here," said Ezra, "What you do next is going to determine whether you walk away or I tell my over-eager associate here to indulge her violent nature. Here's what is going to happen. My partner, Cee, knows every stitch of equipment we own. You will dump your pack for her, turn out your pockets and give back everything that's ours. One aggressive move and Artichoke here will kill you. Rely on it. You do what I say and you get to walk away with your life. Clear?" "Clear," he said. He dumped his pack as instructed and Cee picked through the contents, reclaiming several items. "We're good,"said Cee, and gave the thief a shove, "Get out of here." He turned and started running, you fired a few shots that crackled into the salt-pan at his heels. Later, as you broke camp, you and Ezra got into the first real argument you'd had. So far you've managed to keep things professional, but the anger was still there, hot and pulsing behind your eyes. "You should have let me shoot him," "It doesn't always have to come down to shooting," said Ezra, "Things turned out right in the end. We kept our harvest and that foolish boy gets to keep on breathing." "He was trying to steal our whole harvest," your voice rose, "Gods be damned, Ezra, you know what that means. You of all people--" "He was a kid," Ezra's eyes were wide and dark, "Not much older than our Cee. Would you have that kind of blood on your hands?" There was no good answer. Ezra had all the words, you struggled with them. There was no way to speak back. Ezra sensed something shift in you, something in the slump of your shoulders. He laid his hand on your upper arm, gave a brief squeeze. "It's alright, Artichoke, We're all safe. It's alright."

Since that crazy day on Sammana, you've been Artichoke, and you don't know what to make of it. You can't ask Ezra directly. Ezra has ten different words for everything. You don't always understand him. You don't know if he's doing it on purpose, but sometimes he makes you feel stupid. You can imagine his self-satisfied smile as he explains the why of your nickname. You're not about to ask him. So you decide to ask Cee. It's morning and you hand Cee a dented metal cup with fake coffee in it. Ezra shoots you a look and you shoot him one right back. You shouldn't give her coffee, he'd said, it'll stunt her growth, to which you'd said, Kevva's sakes, she was processing Jhata Balu at twelve. I think she can handle a cup of coffee. Ezra is a morning person, one of the things about him that infuriates you. You and Cee have barely joined the land of the living and he's up and about and doing maintenance on his suit. One handed, he struggles, but you've learned not to offer help. You did once and the look he gave you made you want to strap your body armor a little tighter. So you just tune out the string of muttered curses coming from the other end of the tent. You've learned to tell when Ezra is talking to himself. "Hey, Cee?" "Mmmh?" "What's an artichoke?" You pitch your voice low, but there's heat prickling in your neck. Cee sips her coffee and smiles, a slow, one sided grin, like she's been expecting the question. "It's a Terran plant," she says, and pulls her battered notebook and pen from under her pillow, furrows her brow as she sketches. She turns the notebook so you can see. "It looks kind of like this." And now you are even more confused, presenting with what looks like a scaly ball on a thick stem. What this has to do with you, you can't even guess.

"Why does he call me that?" You ask, and Cee just stares over her coffee cup like she's staring into the black hole at the center of the galaxy, "Cee! Why does he call me that?" Cee smirks and jerks her head up. And the fact of the relative silence hits you, Ezra's muttered string of curses is done and you hear him chuckle close and behind. You bow your head, heat rushing to your face.

"If you wanted to know the reason for your moniker you could have just asked," says Ezra, you're not looking at him, but you can practically hear him smirk. He's gone and done it again, set a snare of words, and you've bumbled into it. You clench your hands and jaw and turn to face him, best to absorb whatever little humiliation he has planned for you so you can get back to your coffee. "Fine," you say, and it comes out angrier than intended. It is too early in the morning for this. "Why do you call me Artichoke?" His brows furrow briefly and his smirk softens into a warmer smile, the kind that crinkles his eyes at the corners. He squeezes your upper arm, like on Sammana, but there's no body armor between you. "I call you Artichoke because I believe that, like an artichoke, you conceal beneath your prickly exterior a tender, delectable heart." He drops you a wink and then jams his helmet on and out the tent flaps into the sticky heat of day. "Good one, Ez," Cee calls to his retreating back and the purr of the zippers pulled back up, "Real subtle." "What. The. Utter fuck?" You mutter into your cup of shit fake coffee. You shake your head. You and Cee suck down your coffee in silence for a beat. "You know he likes you, right?" Says Cee. "Well, I should hope so," you say, "We're crew." Cee is giving you a look of pity and condescention that somehow only teenagers can manage. Oh. "Oh. Oh no! No no no no no!" The realization comes pouring out of you and Cee giggles. "Nope! Not in a million years! Hard no!" But part of you thinks this is wrong even as you say it. Part of you likes the idea of being Ezra's artichoke, his tough and prickly thing with soft insides. Part of you wonders what would happen if you let him in beneath your spiky outer layers, just a little.

#ezra prospect x reader #ezra x reader #ezra x you #ezra prospect #cee #cee prospect #prospect movie

161 notes · View notes

imaginesandideas · 5 years ago

Text

humid

roughly 4k words, originally posted on my A3O account. a late summer memoir; NSFW. reblogs, comments, suggestions and all kinds of support are more than welcome ✨

[whispers] y’all should really play Hozier’s “Work song” or “NFWMB” for this one 🖤

It’s been a tough couple weeks. Well, months. And it’s especially hard cause you’re living together, you’re married and yet you’re passing each other by. Not willingly for goodness sake, but you’ve been barely finding time for each other lately and it’s killing you. He’s not dealing great with it either, but he keeps the facade to avoid worrying you more. He’s learnt that at work obviously. The same work that has been keeping him away from you for so long.

You’re not better though. Everything has changed after you finally got your degree. The studying was hell, you were mostly tired and overworked. But Flip? He was by your side through highs and lows and was always super supportive. If not for him you probably wouldn’t have done it at all.

But after that you were met with another bunch of obstacles. Cause despite your earnest efforts, finding a decent job in the Colorado Springs area was a rather difficult task.

You went through successive stages of education but it never meant that someone would be willing to give you a chance. And again Flip was the most supportive husband - he would drive you to your interviews insisting that it’s „no big deal” and that he won’t be late for work, cause the work will wait for him anyway. You found his presence by your side in those moments extremely comforting. As you were driving around town he would reach out for your hand to hold it and place a kiss at the back of it. Such a simple gesture but for you it meant more than words. You knew that it was an affirmation, it was him reminding you that you’re strong, that you’re capable and that no matter what happens he’ll be there. For you and with you.

And you simply couldn’t help but glance at him lovingly as he was entirely focused on the road, making sure you get there safe and on time.

And finally, after many unsuccessful attempts, you got the job. It wasn’t a job of your dreams, but it was good for a start. You were earning enough to support your household budget and to take some of the worries off Flip’s shoulders. It was the independence you’ve been seeking, but it also meant that you’d have to get used to your lives continuously not coinciding.

You didn’t even realize when 6-hour shifts have turned into 10 hours. And then those 10 hours turned into a lot of paperwork you’d do during the weekends. But that’s okay, you thought, Flip was also busy at the station or going on missions so you couldn’t really be mad at yourself for doing all this extra work, right? And it was also pretty rewarding cause soon enough you got promoted and had even more complicated tasks to execute. It also came with bigger money, but all of a sudden you realized that you don’t even have the time to go and spend it on something.

Soon enough it dawned to you how little time together with Flip you were actually getting and the thought itself made you feel sick. Cause if you were to count all the moments you two had for each other during the week, it would have to be all the hours asleep and alarming amount of rushed goodbyes and kisses as you pass each other by in the hallway of your home.

Passing each other by - that’s what you were actually doing and it was driving you insane. But what could you do, you were trapped between the current project and all the upcoming ones. You were trapped between Flip’s and your own work schedule. Separated by the obligations that lay with your shoulders.

„That’s wonderful, I’m so proud of you!” His voice is heavy with exhaustion but you can sense that he’s smiling as you’re talking on the phone.

The manager position was more than you could’ve dreamed of, especially after such a long time in your current job, but the offer was so generous and unexpected that it took you a moment to process it. But first, you needed to call Flip. Partially because you wanted to know his opinion but also just so you could hear his voice.

„Well I have yet to agree but yeah I’m pretty excited.” You smile to yourself. „I mean, it’s a big step and I’ll have to get used to the new workplace but yeah…”

„You’ll do great baby. You’ll handle it like a fighter, I’m sure of it.” He’s really so proud of you and no distance could ever hide it. You can practically see his eyes shining with pride. „I love you.”

You sigh sadly.

„I love you too baby.”

„… and miss you.” He adds in a hushed tone.

„I know, I do too, you have no idea how much.” Suddenly you feel glad that you got to talk now, during your break with none of your coworkers around. It’s not like you’re ashamed or anything but you just don’t want people gossiping about the state of your marriage or you in general. It’s your moment, one out of very few you get to spend with your husband, even if it’s on the phone. And you’re just sad, your voice almost breaks as you’re speaking. „I know it’s probably just all the work and stress but I think I’m going crazy sometimes.”

„That bad?” He chuckles and you roll your eyes but you know he’s only teasing. „I know baby, I’m sorry, it’s my fault. All this paperwork from the last case got us locked up here for days. Even Ron had enough of it and left earlier today. Promised he’ll be back tomorrow morning but I wouldn’t bet my money on it.”

You nod mindlessly. Gnawing on your bottom lip you decide to take your shot.

„How much of it do you guys have left?”

„The case data? Uhh, for at least a day or two I think. Why?” You smirk but keep your voice on the same note.

„I might be wrong but I remember that chief once mentioned that you still have that overdue leave?”

He pauses for a moment, most likely trying to recall that conversation but soon enough he’s back on the line.

„Yeah I think there was something. I’ll ask him again but I believe there was a week or two.”

„Okay so, uhm, how about you get the paperwork done and we both take some time off? Just you and me, no work, no phonecalls, no distractions.” At this point you can barely hide the excitement in your voice and you don’t even care. This may be your last chance so you just hope he agrees.

„God yes, that’d be perfect!” He smiles widely and you can’t help but smile too. „What about your new job though?”

„I’ll handle that, don’t worry.”

„That’s my girl.” The smile he has at that moment will stay with him for the rest of the day, he has no doubt about it.

Time flies when you’ve got loads of work and things to look forward to. Those days flied by like a rocket and there you are, all giddy and excited as you walk towards your home. You decided to buy some groceries on the way and grab your order of italian takeaway from that restaurant you used to visit quite often when you were still only dating. Despite the tiredness and the overwhelming heat of the day you try to keep your mood uplift, the thought of well deserved time off with your husband is making all the work worth it. Cause he is worth, and you know that both of you deserve this more than ever.

The late-summer sun is setting low over the city and the woods and you stop in your tracks to catch that last glimpse of golden light. Who would’ve thought that one day you’d miss small things like this - slowly walking home, admiring the view. But you promise yourself to care more from now on. It’s a brand new chapter of your life and you decide not to waste a single moment that’s worth remembering. And you want to remember this, remember this day.

You set your purchase on the kitchen counter and drop your bag on the couch. Flip did not set the hour precisely but you guessed that he’ll be late, the usual.

After you put the food in the fridge - you specifically ordered pasta to be semi-raw so you could reheat it at home when the right time comes - you grab the bottle of leftover wine that you intentionally didn’t finish the last time. Now that you’ve got a couple days off it won’t matter if it’s not the weekend yet, you’re starting yours early. Besides, it should help you relax a bit, loosen tense muscles. And that icy liquid just feels so right as it reaches your tongue, perfect for a hot evening like this one. With a glass in one hand you step out on the porch but the air is still way too heavy with heat and you return inside.

After yet another sip you set the glass on the table and choose to change into something more comfortable. Ideally something thin, cause even back inside the air was pretty humid. Barefoot, you step inside your wardrobe and the coolness of it makes you close your eyes in bliss. The summers here were great, you loved the sun and the nature flourishing, but if you could trade one thing it would have to be the heat, especially during the night.

By the time you come into your bedroom you don’t even know what time it is, you’re too drowsy to care. Maybe you’d just wait in here, lay on these silky sheets you just recently bought for the summertime sleeps. You’ll keep one eye open in case if he comes back soon. You won’t fall asleep no way. No way…

Jolting awake you notice that the light is turned off, the whole room is dark and aired but still pretty humid as if someone left the window open. And it’s almost completely silent, except for the steady breathing beside you. There’s warmth spreading over your waist where his arm rests protectively and you smile. Once your vision accommodates to the darkness you see his sprawled out form, so pale in the night shades of your bedroom. He even got rid of the tank top he’s normally wearing to bed and you assume he must have felt just as hot as you.

You also realize that you must have fallen asleep before he even came back, cause you can’t seem to remember anything after changing your clothes in the wardrobe.

His embrace feels better than anything else in the world and you wish you could’ve stayed like that forever but your throat feels so dry that you decide to gently slip out. It’s no surprise that you still feel dizzy as you stand up, suddenly remembering the alcohol and the fatigue of workday. As quietly and carefully as possible you sneak out of the bed and then out of the bedroom, leaving Flip alone underneath the sheets.

One glass of water isn’t enough so you pour yourself another one. It’s been hours since dusk yet the air feels so heavy and hot as if during the day. Your skin feels sticky, like it’s covered in some sort of sweet syrup.

„You minx.”

His raspy voice coming from behind startles you at first, but his hands swiftly sneak around your waist before you get a word out. And you don’t even mind the warmth radiating off his body onto your back, engulfing you as he closes the distance between you both, that closeness is almost relieving. You haven’t been this close in a very long time.

„I thought you were asleep.” You say softly as you reach out to caress his face and he nuzzles his cheek into the crease between your shoulder and neck, kissing along your tense muscles.

„Can’t sleep without you. I need to know where you are.” He mumbles and you smile.

It’s true, even when away on a mission or an investigation - he always calls. He knows when you’ll be back from work and wants to make sure you got home safe. That’s the protective side of his that you’ve learnt to adore, even if one could consider it an annoying trait.

With his vast work experience, the things he’s seen over the years but also the love he had for you from the very first day, he couldn’t just simply overlook your safety. You were that one string keeping him grounded and sane thorough all the madness in his life, he wouldn’t have forgiven himself if he’d lost you. It was almost like a ritual at this point. Him calling you from the station before you head for bed, sometimes you calling him at the hotel when you know his workday on a mission is over. Not only does it calm both of you down, it’s also a chance to have that much needed time to talk about ordinary things.

„I’m sorry I fell asleep on you. I had some wine, I don’t even remember when I passed out…”

„It’s okay. You work so hard, you deserve some rest.” His voice is soothing in your ears, almost as soothing as his soft lips traveling up along your pulse point. „And I was tired too.”

„Was? Past tense?” You whisper chuckling and his grasp on you tightens, he’s pulling you in even closer almost inhaling you whole. His hands run up your sides, gently cupping your breasts before they retreat, then climb up again, this time underneath your shirt. Ever so slowly, teasingly his fingertips dance over your skin, over your slowly hardening nipples. And despite his bodily warmth it still sends shiver down your back.

He whispers but it feels like a thunder echoing along your neck.

„You already know.”

Your bodies move in unison as you turn around to face him. His face glows of late summer sweat in the dim light and it only accentuates his rough features, from cheekbones to jaw. He gives you a few seconds, enough to get a good look at his shadow-toned figure - arms, thighs, collarbones, stomach and that strong chest - at your Flip, before he pulls you in once again. This time his hands are even greedier, his movements are more desperate. But you’re right there to reciprocate, bringing your own needy hands to his dark, sweat-tangled locks. And when his lips finally meet with yours it’s like breathing. It’s natural, it feels necessary. It’s like magic but better, cause there’s nothing realer than this.

„I missed you. So so much. I missed this.” He whispers in between kisses hastily. His voice is hushed but deep, like in a tantric prayer. Like a spell.

„Flip.” You call out quietly, a whisper echoing in the darkness. He hoists you up, you watch his arms flex in the corner of your eyes, hands clutching on your thighs for dear life as he places you ever so gently on the counter. Safe yet so close to the edge.

His movements are sensually slow, so different from the way you’ve remembered him. With lips parted you let him kiss away the tension from your shoulders, arms, neck, wrists…

„Let me.” He half asks half states as he sinks low on his knees. Your eyelids grow heavy with each touch of his plump, warm lips on your ankles, calves, below your knees, along your thighs. „My love, my queen.”

You don’t remember him him like this and you’re hypnotized. He’s like a drug flowing through your veins, heating you from underneath the skin. Like he’s controlling your whole body, its motions, you.

„Baby please.” You’re begging. Flip likes that, a lot.

„Say it again.” It’s the depth of his voice, the booming of it that wakes you up from this trance you’ve been stuck in. And he’s looking at you with those cinnamon-spiced honey eyes of his. The eyes that are now locked with your own hazy gaze.

He kisses your ankle without even looking away and it’s like fire burning you from underneath and that icy breath tingling on your skin.

„Please.” A whine.

„Again.”

„Please…”

It comes out nearly a whimper, but he’s relentless, his face stoical like a cliff. Proud, patient, waiting.

He’s tempting you, testing you as if it is the devil himself kneeling beneath your feet. Encouragingly grazing his fangs along the luscious skin of your thighs. Awaiting your surrender. Your submission.

„Say it like you mean it.”

Your heart is shaking in anticipation. It feels so wrong and yet you give in.

„Phillip, please. I need you.”

And he bites in, sucks in, leaves blooming marks like petals scattered around a bouquet of fresh wild peonies.

He devours you entirely, completely. Trembling, you’re losing control, in fact you’re giving it away, right into his eager hands, lips, hungry eyes.

By the time his mouth reaches your clit you’re already blissed out, encouraging him with the motion of your hips, quietly gasping, begging for air, begging for more. Begging for no air at all.

It’s like you’re breaking apart, your body and mind conflicted yet something, someone, keeps them tied together, seals them with each caress. Your nerves are tingling but at the same time are so numb, like he’s crawled inside you, slick as a snake. He’s controlling you, the rhythm of your breathing, of your heart.

And your heart feels like a volcano, hot and ready to explode from your heaving chest.

„Y-yes, there, please.”

Your slick and his spit are one. Your inhales are synchronized with his lips. Perfect harmony, only it’s not quiet, it’s loud on his tongue, loud as the gasps leaving your mouth and even louder in your brain.

With your vision clouded you gaze down and that’s when it hits you.

Your limbs involuntarily shake, wave after wave crashing over you and within seconds you can barely breathe. Your mind is filled with light, like sun setting over beach, the sounds of ocean rustling. You’re divided, both here and out there, not even sure which one is which cause all of these sensations feel so real.

There’s this immense hot heaviness climbing up your torso. It covers your ribs, moves swiftly over your cleavage, rests below your breast, on your heart. His hand reaching out to touch you even more. So gentle and loving yet so delightfully demanding.

„Yours.” You whisper even though he doesn’t question it verbally. It’s in the air and you just repeat it like echo, like a mantra.

Fingers dig into the counter, seeking support. He knows you’re almost there, he can feel it through your uncontrolled trembling, your spasming cunt. And so he catches you, holds you grounded, holds your thighs firmly apart with his strong hands. Somehow it doesn’t even matter that it’s the middle of a hot night, it doesn’t matter where did your underwear go, if the sun is about to hit your faces within the next few minutes, cause all you care about is him. And you keep chanting his name with that haunting promise.

„Yours Flip, yours. Yours.”

If only you could see these honey eyes as they drown in the sound of your voice, the eyes that can’t speak but still reflect his love for you - selfless, filled with adoration and respect. In his eyes you’re a statue, carved and perfected thorough the years, and now he’s bringing it to life.

Your body goes tense one more time, from head to toes, from the crown of your head and along your spine. He slows down, he wants it to last, he wants to feast on you for the rest of his days and even more, but he needs you to be fed.

And gods, he’s feeding you with everything he has, with the twirls of his tongue, with his own spit sticking to your sweat covered body, the tiny bites and that gloriously filthy loud sucking.

It’s your arms that give in first and you lean back on the counter covered in sweaty bliss. His hands that kept your your thighs apart loosen the pressure, though you’re fairly sure of the bruising that will come out of it. The beauty of pleasure and pain.

Slowly he pushes himself up from his knees. And- fuck, he’s so in love with you he would propose to you the very next day if only that didn’t already belong to the past.

That’s when your eyes open. You catch him staring but he’s staring at you the way no other person ever did. Not like a prize, a plaything, no, he’s fucking mesmerized. All he sees is a goddess and the look in his eyes, his face says it all. It’s that tiny smirk on his stupid-beautiful face that cracks your heart open. You wonder how dare he tongue-fuck you into oblivion just to be so puppy looking seconds later. It’s like he’s testing you again.

„I fucking love you, y’know that right.”

„Phillip Zimmerman, how dare you. I should be the one saying that right now.” You chuckle but soon enough he gently grabs you, sitting you upright, his arms wrap around your waist yet again, eyes glossy with love. You’re speechless cause it feels like falling in love for the first time, this moment, him holding you close like this. You know this, you two have been like this in the past but you thought you’ve lost it somewhere along the way. Life can be rough, can be painful and sometimes just utterly normal, boring even. But here you are, gazing at each other longingly, maybe more in love than ever before because it’s no puppy love anymore, it’s a full-grown one.

His eyes follow the lines he draws with his fingers along your cheekbone, cheek, jaw before stopping at your chin. And he stares. Stares into your eyes.

He’s thinking how perfect you are, your face carved with determination, struggles but also beauty, and this immense love. He’s thinking how fortune must have helped his blind senses in catching you. And how he never wants to let you go.

He’s so lost in thought and so you take over finishing the sentence he meant to make. You seal the confession with your own lips, deepening it, making the words mean something beyond their definition.

With your eyes closed your hands glide over his face. You feel the softness of his skin, but also each of the tiny scars, the moles, the small imperfections that make Flip the person you know. Your person.

Your lips detach and you already miss their fullness, you miss the way they belong together.

„I meant that, you vixen.” He exclaims half-teasingly, but you know he’s sincere. You know him well enough to recognize it, so you just smile.

„I know. And I do love you too, so much. I really missed us.” As you speak he cups your face yet again but allows you to continue, not wanting to interrupt your thoughts. You were always better with words than him. „And I’m so proud of us, super-proud of you. How you grew over the years, how you’ve gotten better at everything you were already great at. And, like, grateful. For everything you do, for being so supportive and for being there for me an-”

„You better cut this sugary bullshit or you’ll make me so soft ’m not gonna be able to fuck you later.”

„Cutting it right now!” You pretty much cry it out and he chuckles flashing that full-blown smile of his, the one that’s reserved only for you.

„Good girl.” He says and you half-expect him to run off with you to the bedroom, but instead he kisses your forehead and pulls your arms over his shoulders. „But first, sleep.”

„What? No, no nonono. Babe, Flip, no, put me down. I can’t leave you hanging like this, let me-”

„No. Sleep. We need some more sleep first. Besides - I caught that small yawn you did 5 minutes ago, and you tried to freakin’ hide it from me so you’re not getting away with this one.”

„B-but…”

„I promise, we’ll catch up after a nap. Look, we woke up in the middle of the night and now it’s almost dawn.”

His words make your head spin in direction of window and you can’t believe he’s right as the first beams of sunlight hit your eyes. And of course you yawn on the spot, cause he’s really just has all the points.

So you just nuzzle your head in the crook of his marble neck as he carefully hoists you up. You stay there, wrapped in his love through the finishing moments of night, and through couple more hours as both of your bodies rest covered in silky sheets, with limbs tangled together, breathing steady. Even when the air gets humid again covering your bodies with another layer of sweat, you don’t mind. You’re no longer against the heat, not if it’s the heat he covers you with, not if it’s the heat of you together.

#flip zimmerman x reader #flip zimmerman #detective zimmerman #flip zimmerman fanfic #flip zimmerman smut #blackkklansman fic #blackkklansman au #blackkklansman fanfic #my fics #full fic #phillip zimmerman

91 notes · View notes

firstagent · 4 years ago

Text

Review! Digimon Adventure: (2020) Episode 44: Hikari and the Moving Forest

In this episode, the group puts its quest on hold to help out a random Digimon just for the hell of it. If you’re thinking that’s the same thing as always, you’re wrong! This one features Hikari!

The lack of character in the main cast has been a hindrance all season, but lately they’ve been able to make up for it in two ways. One is to shine so much light on a single character that what they lack in actual depth is answered by overwhelming raw personality that makes you cheer for them anyway. The other is to take the spotlight away from the main cast to feature a one-off Digimon who’s far more interesting. Both tricks are attempted here, with Hikari eerily desperate to meddle in the affairs of a Petaldramon, who silently and stoically pursues a vengeance that favors style over substance. When the style doesn’t land either, there’s not a whole lot left.

It’s another drawback to stacking all these meaningless episodes one after another, at an awkward point in the story where the early rush of intensity makes it difficult to trust this changed pace, while also makes it too late to still be learning about the cast. The base concepts too frequently approach halting their journey upon meeting one or a group of Digimon and helping them fend off whatever bully they’re struggling with. When these Digimon are charming or it brings out the best in the kids or it’s just plain entertaining, we forgive the lack of progress. This one banks on all three applying and doesn’t quite succeed on any of them.

Of the three, the character focus is the most successful, but only because featuring Hikari has historically brought out the show’s most novel and most mysterious moments. Suffice to say it would have worked better had it been done back when this Hikari was actually novel and mysterious. But we are back to Hikari being attune to beasts crying out in secret and responding in ways nobody else can understand. It shouldn’t be out of place for this normalized post-Tailmon Hikari to be uniquely empathetic and pick up on these signals, but it certainly feels unusual based on what we’ve seen. Although it’s nice to see this weird, sort of creepy side of her again, in the end it’s really little more than one of the kids getting very emotional over the plight of a Digimon they’d just met. We’ve seen that before.

As far as Digimon charm and entertainment value, it’s a total loss. Petaldramon falls into the same trap as ElDoradimon, manufacturing the impression of grace and nobility just by virtue of being very large and not trying to kill the children on sight. Like ElDoradimon, someone needs to tell us his life’s story to try to get us to care. What we see is a lot of lumbering, and one time responding to Hikari’s sympathy with flower and fruit. The concept of a creature constantly pursuing an enemy isn’t that novel, and there’s no surprise that the kids agree to help him because they always do. The battle against Entmon is slow and plodding and consists of the two colliding with each other in slow motion as Koshiro feels the need to narrate whatever intricacies are behind what’s happening.

The one action he doesn’t need to narrate is the one that perpetuates the show’s problem of artificially excluding anyone that isn’t featured. When they agreed to fight with Petaldramon, the plan assumed everyone would able to fight together. This would be just the second time it’s happened in seventeen episodes: the first time they were almost beaten by a sentient potato. But no, Entmon separates everyone except Hikari and Tailmon from the fight. That hangs the entire climax on those two and Petaldramon, and they just aren’t up for the challenge. Hikari’s passion and Angewomon’s intervention aren’t in the least bit surprising, and Petaldramon’s inability to win us over leads to an ending that feels like it’s just going through the motions. The previous episode worked not just because it had two entertaining guest appearances, but because all of the Digimon were allowed to join in the madness. When it’s Hikari on her own, it takes a lot more.

Attempting a graceful story isn’t a bad idea. It worked wonders with Mimi and Guardromon. But assisting that was that it came at a busy time when the kids were experiencing their first wave of difficulty and only starting to gain the tools to fight it. In the middle of a run where absolutely nothing is happening, the only known real enemy is still in gestation, and the kids are running unchecked through the continent, it’s another side story in a string that’s become as tiresome as the run of intense story was overwhelming.

My Grade: C-

Loose Data:

You know it’s getting bad when even the kids are looking bored traveling on Komondomon’s back. They’re grateful to hit the forest just for the change in scenery, not because they expect anything interesting to happen.

There’s something very off-putting about the way Petaldramon is drawn and animated. It moves like a robot in almost all of his exterior shots, making him hard to sympathize with, or even connect him to the gentle forest creature generating offerings for Hikari.

ElDoradimon had Patamon fangirling over him to lend him some sort of credibility. Petaldramon has Palmon. I’d rather see a Digimon prove its legendary status through its actions than by having good references.

Tailmon points out that even though they’re in a hurry, they need to rest once in a while. They’ve been pursuing this FAGA place for eleven episodes now and have gotten absolutely nowhere.

It’s not that surprising, but it looks like Patamon can still become Pegasmon. It’s hard to say whether he actually can choose which form to take or Angemon is only available in especially dire moments. Either of those would be interesting to discuss. Let’s hope they do.

See reviews of every Digimon episode at Digimon: System Restore! Support the site by joining our Patreon!

#digimon #digimon adventure:#digimon adventure (2020)

7 notes · View notes

monchikyun · 5 years ago

Text

08. Cast your spell

Connor is malfunctioning. That was the initial explanation on offer when his insides started behaving weirdly around one specific colleague, the one that supposedly hates him the most. He’s checked himself thoroughly, expecting some sort of tangle in his data, but no matter how many self-diagnoses he performs they always come out clear.

Whenever he is in detective Reed’s proximity, his stress levels rise and he’s overwhelmed by a very unfamiliar sensation. It’s not an unpleasant one, nor does it hurt, it just feels… strange, and Connor doesn’t know what to do with it. It often lingers when they gain their usual distance back. He thought that it was just an emotional glitch he wasn’t able to detect and it would eventually go away. But instead, he’s gotten presented with what he had most dreaded - it gradually gets worse the more time passes.

And it seems to have affected not only him, Reed is also acting out of his usual, belligerent character. Once he even caught the detective smiling at him. They have dropped the harsh words spoken between them and spiteful gestures, but this was something beyond plain tolerance. He can feel two curious eyes on him when he isn’t looking, and it doesn’t take a genius android to find out who they belong to.

This development doesn’t seem natural to Connor, it has to have been caused by something otherworldly. And there is only one suspect available. Through this process of elimination, he comes to the conclusion that the source is none other than the irritable man himself.

He decides to put an end to it once and for all and puts the confrontation on his today’s after-work schedule. Luckily, the detective’s shift ends at the same time as his, so it won’t be very difficult to corner him in order to have an adult discussion about it.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Gavin is frantically searching in his pocket for a smoke so he can try and calm his heart down. This can’t go on any longer, but how does one will themselves to stop crushing on the most beautiful man alive? It’s the most impossible thing he can imagine. He doesn’t even know when it has begun, it just feels like he’s always been this way. Waiting for someone too perfect for him to arrive in his life so he can have a reason to self-sabotage himself to death because there is no way someone so good would even come close to being fairly amicable with the trash-man that is Gavin, not speaking about the other stuff he so pathetically dreams of. It would be understandable if Connor showed no interest in him whatsoever, but the universe won’t grant him even the tiniest mercy. The android gives him a certain look sometimes, and the way his eyes glisten when they have to interact tells him that there could be a chance…

A chance of what? Submitting Connor to his fucked-up self? Yeah right.

He takes a drag and sits down on a bench near to some small park. The weather is quite warm today and he’s too agitated to go home anyway. Plus, he likes how the world changes colours when autumn rules the Earth and the winter is still too far away to leave its ruthless marks all over the already grey city.

He would almost find it peaceful if it wasn’t for the very inconspicuous android pretending not to have followed him all the way here.

Connor stops and stares at him for several seconds like he is deciding whether to skin him alive or eat him raw.

“What.” Gavin bites down his automatic insults since he has no need for them anymore. The prospect of being like by someone this hot too tempting for him to fight right now.

“Detective Reed, ….are...are you a witch?”

What.

He drops his cigarette in utter shock while his brain freezes, unable to make any sense of this question. Bitch, maybe. But how in hell…

“I know it’s doesn’t correspond with modern science, but I stopped taking all facts at face value since I’ve deviated. So..”

The mad machine has the audacity to blush blue like he wants Gavin to make a stupid mistake.

“How the phck did you come to that ridiculous conclusion, tin can?” This one slips past his filter, though it doesn’t look like Connor is really bothered by it, seeing how fucking flustered he appears to be.

“Well… I… “ His heart skips at the dumbo’s nervousness and his body is coercing him into doing something absolutely mindless, like grasping Connor’s trembling hand.

“Something strange happens to me whenever I’m near you… So I thought that maybe you cast a spell on me or…”

Gavin can’t help the burst of laughter that comes out of him. For the most advanced computer in the world, Connor is pretty daft. And cute.

His cheeks display what his heart is thinking, but this moment feels so surreal he can’t simply stop himself.

“What kind of strange thing?”

Connor is probably overheating with the amount of computing he has to do to make sense out of this. He inhales some air and straightens his tie like he tends to do in uncomfortable situations. (There is no particular reason Gavin knows that, not one.)

“I feel like… I don’t know, my insides get warm but in a way that leaves me empty... like there is something specific I need in order to... be whole.”

Okay, that’s it, Gavin’s self-control has gone for better pastures.

He stands up and moves indecently close, taking hold of the dork’s slightly larger hand, being as gentle as his rough exterior allows him.

“How about now?”

His answer is Connor’s other hand grazing his stubbled chin before cupping his lava-like face.

“But… that can’t be… how is it possible? You’re not especially nice or handsome.”

“Thanks.” Gavin takes the hand off his face so he can hold both of them in his own.

“There doesn’t have to be a logical explanation to these things, Connor, they just happen sometimes. But it’s up to you what you decide to do with it.”

He watches his LED spin yellow with bated breath, anticipating nothing but a brutal rejection.

“I like it. You. Still don’t understand why, but I just know that I don’t want to throw these feelings away.”

He has the unendurable urge to kiss his stupid confused expression away, so he lets himself put his lips on Connor’s forehead, ever so lightly.

“As you said – it’s magic, you adorable dumbass.”

@convinseptember it’s more “you cast your spell on me” kind of story but oh well :D

#convinseptember #covin #this one is light and silly #Connor can't human very well

6 notes · View notes

firstwaterfilters · 4 years ago

Text

The Truth About Water Filters

Next time when a young person asks what kind of adult you are, please say something like this: “Suddenly, you are worried that the water filter is dirty, you chose the wrong water filter, or you need to replace the water filter, but you don’t remember Where is it. This book tells you how to do it. You don’t remember where to put the replacement water filter, so you press the reset button and you will worry about it again a few months later.”

Most people have a good chance of having some kind of water filter in their homes, but this seemingly simple devices-they just filter water, right? -very complicated. There are many legal questions about water filters. You should ask them if you want to ensure the health of the whole family. Do you really need to use a water filter? Are they worth spending such crazy money? Do you really need to replace them? Do they really make your drinking water safer?

This is an interesting trivia-the water filter is not a modern invention.

According to Lenntech Water Treatment Solutions, the foundation of water purification can be traced back to 2,000 BC. Records from ancient Greece, Egypt, and India indicate that they knew the importance of clean water and usually boiled and filtered it through sand or gravel. In 500 BC, Hippocrates developed a water filter that we recognized. He called it the Hippocratic Sleeve, which is essentially a cloth bag into which water can be poured to filter out sediment.

Rome built a huge aqueduct and infrastructure system, but the fall of Rome destroyed most of them and left many things on hold. It was not until 1627 that Sir Francis Bacon tried to filter out salt from the water through sand.

By the 1700s, some houses were using filters made of sponge, charcoal, and wool. It was not until Scotland built the first water treatment plant in 1804 that filtration began on a municipal scale. In 1854, the cholera epidemic swept through London and found that even if the water seemed safe to drink, it was not necessarily clean. Australia’s water filter company said that Queen Victoria really increased the visibility of household water filters, especially the pottery forms made by Royal Dalton. The carbon filter came out in 1862, and all that is left is to perfect the ideas that people have worked on for hundreds of years.

There are several different filters, but most filters follow the same general principles. According to Explain That Stuff, most filters have two parts that work together to remove impurities from the water. First, there is a physical part-water is filtered through a fine mesh, which usually handles larger impurities.

Another method is chemical filtration, which sounds similar at first glance. However, here, water will flow through something (such as activated carbon), where a chemical reaction will occur, causing impurities to be pulled out of the water and into the filter.

Frigidaire said the activated carbon filter is the most common filter used in households. That’s because it has the best of both worlds. Larger particles will be captured on the surface of the charcoal, and the carbon will absorb some other unwanted pollutants in the water, especially lead and volatile organic compounds or VOCs. Then, a chemical reaction also took place here, and it was this kind of reaction that helped to remove the chlorine in the water.

This is a simple question: Why do you think most people choose to install a water filter in their house or choose a water filter?

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the most common reasons people start researching filters is that they don’t like the taste of water. Sometimes, when you drink tap water, you are tasting chemicals that make it safe. Since this is a popular complaint, many of the most popular refrigerator and jug filters are designed to improve this taste.

Another common reason for using water filters is that households may be concerned that lead can seep into the water from pipes. They may also worry that arsenic will enter the water source, although this is usually a bigger problem for those with private wells. Nitrate can also enter the water system of a well, and anyone dealing with a medical condition affecting their immune system should choose a water filter very carefully.

When choosing a water filtration system, there are many more options than you think, and CDC says that not all options are the same. It all depends on your needs and how much time and money you are willing to spend.

For example, look at those water filter tanks. Of course, they are easy to use and do not require any special requirements, but if you drink a lot of water or make a lot of lemonade, iced tea, or any kind of water-waiting for the water to flow through the filter, it becomes very, very boring.

Refrigerator filters are great, and most filters also filter the water used in the ice maker. But these edr1rxd1 water filters need to be replaced regularly, which may increase costs. If most of your water comes from a tap, you can also install a tap-installed filter. However, some installations require professional installation, and you may find that it greatly reduces the water flow. Some may even require modifications to your existing pipeline, so the first thing is to determine how far you are willing to go. The same is true for the filter under the sink, but if you want to save space and filter all the water, it might be worth it.

Then there are many options for the water treatment system throughout the house, which may be convenient for people who use wells or especially hard water. It will treat all incoming water, but it may require not only professional installation but also regular maintenance. Take the time to weigh the pros and cons!

The light in the refrigerator flashes again, which means the filter needs to be replaced. But the water flowing from it tastes good, so is it really necessary to replace the filter?

Home Revolution provides a useful analogy and says that you should think of the water filter as a lint tray in a clothes dryer. It will collect various variants, and if you don’t empty them, terrible things will happen. The same thing happens to your water filter, if you don’t make changes, its efficiency will be reduced, and you won’t even be able to use the water filter. The photo here shows a clean and dirty water filter-do you want to drink from dirty filtered water?

Different water filters have different service lives, so you must consult the accompanying literature to see how often the water filter needs to be replaced-usually, this is based on time or the amount of water filtered. To

According to Fresh Water Systems, if you do not replace the refrigerator filter, it is likely that all the contaminants captured so far will actually overflow and eventually return to the water. That will definitely make you sick.

If choosing a water filtration system seems overwhelming, then this is a way to help eliminate those systems that are not worth the time. According to the CDC, one of the best things you can do is to look for “NSF” marks. This means that the product has been evaluated by the independent research company NSF International, which tests various products to ensure they meet public health standards, and its label will inform you of the results.

NSF International regularly tests products and conducts on-site testing to ensure that they continue to meet the standards, and the health of your family is involved, which is exactly what you want.

NSF’s specific criteria for testing water treatment products include distillation, cyst reduction, reverse osmosis, and taste and odor-in other words, no matter what you want the water filter to do, NSF can tell you how good it the water is. If you don’t see their approval seal, please keep looking.

Water filters may filter out a lot of bad things, but this does not mean they are clean. According to a study by the University of Michigan (via Michigan NPR), the opposite is true.

The researchers studied the number of bacteria coming out of the water filter and said: “The number of bacteria coming out of the water filter has increased relative to the number of bacteria entering the water filter. We found that the number of these bacteria can increase at most 100 times. .”

Although they emphasize that not all bacteria are dangerous bacteria, there are some follow-up footnotes on this. If you choose an entire house filter to remove chlorine from the water, the CDC warns that you have a chance to eventually increase the number of bacteria and bacteria living in the pipeline. To

This is worth thinking about, and so is this important warning from the CDC: For those with compromised immune systems (such as those undergoing chemotherapy or other cancer treatments), water filters are essential. However, because bacteria accumulate in the water filter, those people should not replace the filter cartridge. Even healthy individuals should wear gloves when replacing ink cartridges and wash their hands thoroughly afterward.

The term “sticker impact” hasn’t even begun to explain how you feel when you buy those replacement filters. Whether they are canister filters or refrigerator filters, it seems that their prices are very unreasonable. What happened here?

Glacial Pure said in the now-deleted blog post that there are factors that make the cost of replacing the filter high, and the cost of the high-quality raw materials needed to ensure that the filter operates as expected are only part of the story. The production of water filters also requires a lot of research and development. Once completed, a lot of testing must be carried out before being put on the market. This is not just a test problem, but a series of test problems, including special tests for heavy metals, residual chlorine, particles, etc., etc. To

You would think that all these seem to be excused. This is forgivable. Consumer Reports has studied whether expensive water filters are really better. They found that they are absolutely, and there is only one aftermarket filter with legal credentials and test results (and a lower price tag), and that is Culligan. Even they did not get the same certification as the more expensive models, which shows that the water filter is definitely worth your money.

When you think of something that is often counterfeited, you may not think of a w10295370 water filter. But you should-Sharon said that the counterfeit water purifier industry poses a major health risk.

It turns out that this is a lucrative market. After all, water filters are expensive, and they are one of those things that people are willing to try to make cheaper. There are many such things that are difficult to study-which means there are many things on the market that have not been evaluated.

There is a bigger problem-not only can they not really improve the taste of water or remove pollutants, but they can actually leak pollutants into the water. According to the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, it was discovered that the forged filters could leak arsenic and other carcinogens.

It is estimated that there are millions of such fake water filters on the market, and the situation is so serious that the US Customs and Border Patrol have begun to capture them. Between 2016 and 2018, they grabbed more than 150,000 people before reaching the intended Amazon seller. They warned consumers to be vigilant. These fakes usually try to imitate legitimate companies, but if they don’t look right, they may be incorrect.

#water filter #glacialpure #refrigerator water filter #healthylifestyle

0 notes

keenerordeath · 5 years ago

Text

Endgame Timelines

(except I don’t cry at the end)

Disclaimer: I have never read the comics, I am basing everything off of what I've seen in the MCU films and fans online that know more about the stones than I do. Add in my limitless optimism and you get this monstrosity!

What would happen if Tony hadn't been the one to snap away Thanos and his army? Would Peter Parker, the only other avenger with a Stark original nanotech suit, be the one to snap instead?

Let me show you what I think would have happened if Tony survived Endgame and Peter Parker saved the universe.

Below the cut:

what could happen to peter parker

how tony fixes everything

how I think the stones should all be returned after endgame

Peter Parker and the Gauntlet

Of course, something to address immediately would be Peter's probability of survival. We've seen Tom Holland's Peter Parker lift a fallen building's debris from himself and swing away afterwards. Since Peter hasn't been shot, or severely impaled, I don't have much of a reference to go by in terms of healing and regeneration, and he's certainly not on par with Deadpool in that department. BUT, I do have reference of Infinity Snaps from the Hulk, Tony, and Thanos himself. Hulk is strong, sure, and isn't all that fazed by radiation, since that was what created him. However, he was easily beaten by Thanos, and was injured just by wearing a gauntlet that held all six stones. The snap completely destroyed his arm. For Thanos, wielding the full gauntlet only caused a surge in energy but his body was intact. The snap itself left his arm injured but not completely immobile. The arm doesn't reach that point until snapping a second time to destroy the stones. To an average human like Tony, the snap cost his life. But we KNOW all this. What we don't know is how it translates to anyone other than these three.

As a mutant, where does that leave Peter on the spectrum? Does using the stones leave a wound that will never heal, destined to be that way by the rules of the stones? Nothing is for free, right? My theory is that Peter would have a different experience. Do I want to see him in pain? Hell no. While our reality is that Spider-Man must move on in a universe without Tony Stark, I can't help but dream up endings a little more happy. So, what if? What if the one who will recover the easiest from using the stones is our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man?

I would venture that the kid would be in intensive care under Helen Cho's watch. This woman has worked with super soldiers like Steve Rogers, created the cradle from Avengers: Age of Ultron. The avengers trust her with their lives. Tony wouldn't want anyone else to take care of Peter, because she would be the one to keep him alive. Not to mention, Peter heals quickly. The biggest issue may be understanding his metabolism well enough to administer antibiotics, pain killers, and other nutrients that his body would need to support his mutated healing abilities.

Peter is in the hospital and Tony needs something to keep himself occupied while waiting for his kid to wake up.

Tony Stark and the Plan to Return the Stones

Anthony Edward Stark is not going to sit on his ass if there is a problem that needs solving. With everyone back besides Vision and Natasha, he's got a team that can execute the return of the stones perfectly. Even one thing out of place and alternate timelines are created.

Tony gets Dr. Strange to rewind time on the compound. It would be great if that could go back to not being rubble, you know?

Then he gets to work, getting the rundown from everyone.

What state were all the stones in when they were taken from the past?

What was Steve doing in 2012 after he left Loki and the others in the tower?

Where did he get the Pym particles from at the base?

When did Clint wake up with the soul stone in his hand?

Where was Natasha's body after she became the sacrifice?

Where did Rhodey and Nebula leave Quill?

Would it be so bad to leave the power stone on Morag now that Thanos cannot reach it there?

Will Gamora of 2014 want to go back to her own time or stay here?

Will Gamora want to stay if they manage to get her back alive from Vormir? Two Gamora's?

Where was the hammer before Thor summoned it?

What do they have to do to get the Aether back into Jane?

He has a lot of questions, a lot of witnesses and resources, and a need for a distraction.

First thing he needs to do? Get as much information about the stones from Dr. Strange as possible.

any theories involving the actual powers and abilities of the stones are suuuuper yada yada-ed in some places because I have a very basic understanding of biology, atomic composition, time travel, neurological functions, artificial intelligence, etc. - they're flimsy in some places and I'm not sure how to fix that

Can the pocket universe in the Soul stone be accessed? Does it hold only Nat and Gamora's souls? Would they need their bodies to return the souls to? Would it just be easier to collect their bodies from Vormir and turn back time on them, too? Would their souls even be in their bodies anymore, or would they just be husks? Would taking their bodies back to the present create an alternate timeline that prevents their new alternate selves to be able to retrieve Nat or Gamora? Is it important enough to them to screw with another timeline like that? Will they have their bodies restored once they're puled from the stone?

Now, my understanding of the stones stems from the movies and an explanation I came across on Quora while researching the stones.

"To combat [their] weaknesses they all feed into each other and make each other more powerful. Also as a general weakness they will destroy most mortals without the use of a vessel (Infinity gauntlet, Ronan's hammer Etc) The Time stone makes each stone's effects permanent as well as permeate time. The Reality stone makes the others affect the world itself as opposed to just an aspect of the universe. The Power stone's raw power acts as a battery for the rest of them and amplifies their power. The Soul stone gives power over the souls of everyone the user comes across. The Space stone makes the effects of the other stones universe wide. The Mind stone allows the user complete control of the minds of everyone in the universe."

Another tidbit about the Soul stone that I found was this:

"Allows the user to steal, control, manipulate, and alter living and dead souls; as well as animate the motionless. The Soul Gem also acts as a gateway to an idyllic pocket universe. At full potential, when backed by the Power Gem, the Soul Gem grants the user control over all life in the universe."

Can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs. With the combination of the Power, Time, Space, and Reality stones they get Natasha and Gamora out of the Soul stone. It is a stretch, considering Hulk said he had tried to get Natasha back. I think maybe using the Soul stone puts up a bit of a roadblock. How well can the Soul stone resist the effects of the other stones when it isn't being used, then? Say you use the Space stone to move the women out of the pocket universe? (Maybe it is possible to rebuild or reshape them to how they used to be by using the Space stone, same concept as Thanos changing the Aether to the Reality stone using the Space and Time stones). Using the Reality and Time stones to solidify their existence in that time and space in the universe, they could bend reality to make it so. The Power stone will juice up the other three, surely allowing them to push past boundaries they couldn't on their own. And if it takes a little tinkering with a juiced-up Soul stone to get them both fully restored, then so be it. Whatever it takes to get them back.

Now… vision is an incredibly complicated puzzle to solve. What IS left after the stone is removed? If Shuri had been allowed enough time, what would have changed for Vision? My gut tells me that his best chance lies in the hands of Shuri and Dr. Strange. Vision has just been hooked up to Shuri's tech in Wakanda. Five years later she still has the scans she made, still remembers what she had to do. So Dr. Strange takes them back to right before Thanos' General attacks Shuri and her guard, taking Vision with him. Instead of letting that play through, Strange pauses time, leaving himself and Shuri to find what made Vision tick, remove the stone and see what is left, what they need to substitute in as replacement for the Mind stone. They gather all the information housed in Vision's body. Every piece that came from Jarvis, Stark, Banner, Thor, Ultron, the Mind stone. How can that be recreated to be able to house Vision's memories and consciousness, again? Restoring him to minutes before Thanos took the stone from his head is the end goal. Once Shuri has all the data she needs, they turn back time on Vision, leave him back on the table, and resume time before jumping back to their present. They'll need the cradle again, some more vibranium, some help from Helen Cho and Thor's lightning. Would complete reconstruction and an upload of consciousness work without the stone? Obviously, the flying and the strength and all his other powers from the stone would be gone, but is it really so bad to have a chance at being normal?

They have their lost family back now. But they cannot rest yet. What else do they need the stones for before they can send them back to where they came from?

Can they be used to heal Peter? Have they already weakened themselves from using them so much? Is there anyone else that can wield them and help to restore what was lost after half the population vanished and everything became overwhelming to maintain? The plan for returning them was set, they're left with a lot of time to use the stones for some good. Can Captain Marvel offer more help to others in the universe? Surely, Earth isn't the only place that desperately needed help in the aftermath. I assume she will do what she can, holding more hope than in canon, since losing Tony left most of them… less than motivated to get back into hero-ing.

Danvers did what she needed to with the stones. Time to start their return plan.

All the stones need to be returned to how they looked when they were taken.

Thanos used the Space and Power stones to change the Aether from its weird wiggly form into an actual stone. Great, let's undo that. Should we use the Time stone or the Space and Power stones? Either will work? Dope, done and done, moving on.

The scepter and its case are around the compound somewhere, Vision doesn’t need the stone anymore, let's pack it in there. Same with the weird orb thing Rhodey brought the Power stone back in. Let's get those packed and they'll be ready to go.

Mjolnir: check. Aether: check. Scepter: check. Power Orb: check. Space, Soul, and Time stones: check, check, check. (Dr. Strange will be hanging onto that Time stone until the last mission, though)

Now we know from Avengers: Endgame that each capsule of Pym Particles will give you two jumps. They can go from the present to the past, then the past to the present. After that they have to refuel. With that established, my estimate would be that they would need to use AT LEAST 19 capsules, not accounting for spares in case of an emergency.

So, Hank Pym, mind making those? We need them to fix our time travel mess. Thanks, pal.

Back in Time, Right on Time

Tony doesn't need everyone to make this go smoothly. He can work with a smaller pool of people.

Clint is not going back, not to Vormir, not to anywhere. He will stay in the present with Nat and his family.

His blue meanie, Nebula, is staying with him. He will not subject her to the pain of sharing her network with another Nebula from a different time, not again.

Tony himself will not be leaving. He will be right here, coordinating everything. Some of them will be leaving at the same time. Others have multiple trips they're going to make. No one makes a second jump until they have checked back in with him. They'll restock their suits, get some food and rest, gather the things they need to return, and venture back out.

No Avenger is going to be sent back to a time that will trigger bad memories from their pasts.

Many candidates and teams were dismissed pretty early. They're abilities may have been ideal, but if their personalities did not mix well, Tony could not risk the messes that incompatibility could cause.

For this to work, the best chance of success for the return of every stone and avoiding any offshoot timelines will require these Avengers: Captain Rogers, Thor, Dr. Strange, The Wasp, Mantis, Scarlet Witch, and Ant-Man. Stay tuned because we're going to need one surprise extra along the way, but more on that later.

To know where to go first, Tony first had to figure out who messed up the worst, and needed the most stones to complete the mission.

Loki's Vanishing Act

Let's start with Loki taking the Tesseract in NYC 2012. It is essentially a surefire way to change pretty much everything we know about the MCU. So how is Tony going to fix that Royal Whoops? Well, it's not going to be easy. To ensure that Loki and the Tesseract are sent back to Asgard with Thor, Tony will send the Wasp and Ant-Man to keep the Tesseract close to a collapsed Tony Stark and Thor, and away from Loki, Endgame Tony and Scott, and the slimy Alexander Pierce. If anyone besides Thor got the Tesseract then, Tony and Steve would never go to the army base even further in the past. Best not to mess with that.

Really? Hail Hydra?

Now that Loki is once again in custody of the Avengers, we'll follow Captain America taking the Scepter from NYC in 2012.

(Enjoy the layout of this one, because there's so much to it I don't want to make this into more of a story than a presentation. You'll take all my bullet points and you'll like them, damn it.)

Triggers for alternate timelines:

Tricking Hydra into thinking he was their ally

Prematurely informing his 2012 self of Bucky being alive

Removing the Mind stone from the scepter (this one couldn't really be helped, you're okay Steve)

Conclusion: a seamless return without creating any alternate timelines will be enough to give me a migraine. (Tony probably had one, too, after learning everything Steve said to get his way to the scepter and out of the tower)

So, how does he plan to fix it? By sending the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, and Mantis.

Elevator Mess

Upon arriving at Stark Tower in NYC 2012, Hope shrinks the scepter, along with Wanda and Mantis. Their job is to follow Steve Rogers and clean up after him.

One "Hail Hydra" later, Hope carries Wanda to where she can erase the memories of all those in the elevator. Captain America is not with Hydra, he never entered that elevator, and he never took the scepter.

Last step here is to take the scepter they've brought and leave it exactly where Cap took the original from.

America's Ass

The reason Cap even had to fight himself is because Loki escaping disrupted the timeline, pulling 2012 Cap from search and rescue and back to the tower to hunt down Loki.

With Loki secured, Wanda has to manipulate 2012 Cap into still believing that Loki got away. After disabling his communications, they send him on his way.

His "I have eyes on Loki," never reaches anyone, and once they've fallen and Steve has knocked 2012 Cap unconscious, Wanda goes about erasing his memory of learning about Bucky. (Does Wanda get a video of "that's America's ass," to make fun of him with later? It's a mystery, truly, we'll never know)

Search and Rescue

They leave after returning 2012 Cap to the ground floor and waking him up (Thanks Mantis, I love you), sending him to resume search and rescue as if nothing had happened.

Ghosts of the Past

When Tony brings up Vormir, Steve volunteers. He won't let Clint, Banner, or Quill go. He was close to Natasha, spent the last five years with her. He wanted the chance to rid them of the stone that tried to take her from them. He knew that the other three didn't need the pain that would hit them should they see the place where the women they love had almost been lost to them.

What no one accounted for was Steve knowing who had been guiding people to the stone all this time. Facing Red Skull was not what Steve had expected. If it weren't so terrifying to see him again it would be almost comical. But there was nothing here to fix. He'd watched as Clint's craft took off, returning back to the others with the stone and without Nat. He handed the Soul stone off, tapped the device on his wrist twice, and went home.

Frigga Knows All

Steve doesn't talk about the last mission, so they move on to the next one. Tony sends Wanda and Steve to Asgard with Mjolnir and the Aether. They can't change that Thor told his mother the truth, but they can stop the Asgardians chasing Rocket and erase their memories of the raccoon. Disruption handled, Wanda goes to return the Aether to where it resided inside Jane. A very unfortunate place for it to be, but she knew she couldn't make any changes. So she returned it and left to find Cap, who had found where Thor pulled the hammer from and put it back. Rocket and Thor had gone back, and now Cap and Wanda could, too.

The God of Mischief

All of the Avengers were familiar with the Tesseract. Turns out it was just a cosmic cube used to contain the power of the Space stone. Interesting twist, for sure. But Thanos crushed the cube, and without it, they couldn't get the Tesseract back to Howard Stark's labs. At least the Pym Particles were a simple mission.

(Buckle up, I'm bringing back the bullet points)

Triggers to alternate timelines:

SHIELD suddenly having the Space stone rather than the Tesseract

Hank Pym losing important pieces of his research

Army base employee reporting Tony and Steve to bunker security

Conclusion: only the best of the best could twist this situation back to where it needs to be.

Tony's plan went something like this:

Saving a god

Thor and Dr. Strange go to retrieve Loki from the wreckage of the Asgardian ship

They work together to gather all those lost onto a nearby planet.

Once all the Asgardians have been found, Dr. Strange turns back time on the ship and on those gathered, bringing them back.

Using the Time, Space, and Power stones, Dr. Strange opens a portal that takes the Asgardians and their ship to the present in Norway, where the rest of their people reside.

Thor returns to the present, knowing Valkyrie was already in Norway, prepared to receive everyone.

Fooling a King

Dr. Strange keeps Loki with him, being the only one they've known to be able to contain Loki and see through his tricks. Loki doesn't give him any reasons to contain him, though.

An extra quantum realm suit and some Pym Particles given to Loki, and they jump to a time well before Loki had even learned he was the stolen prince of Jotunheim.

Together, they take the Tesseract from Odin's vault and hide it away.

Loki disguises himself as a young Thor and "confesses" to breaking the Tesseract, presenting the Space stone to Odin.

The Space stone is soon contained once again in a cosmic cube, an exact replica of the Tesseract Thanos had crushed, and returned to the vault.

Not wanting to risk anything, they replace the hidden Tesseract, retrieve the repaired cube, and jump back in time once more.

Returning Particles

Dr. Strange opens a portal in the basement of the bunker, watching as Howard Stark and "Howard Potts" leave the room.

The Tesseract is returned to the container Tony took it from and they were quickly through the next portal

Steve Rogers was gone and Hank Pym had yet to return

The capsules of Pym Particles were placed in the empty space left by Cap.

Mission complete, Loki and Dr. Strange returned to the Avengers Compound.

Can't Really Fix This One

There was one alternate timeline that Tony would never be able to fix, not that he would ever want to. The Thanos from 2014 brought his army and his daughters with him to end the Avengers of the present and take the stones for himself.

But once he and his armies were snapped away, there was no one to return back to 2014. They were gone. Nebula had no idea if Gamora had vanished along with all the others on the ships that brought her to a different time. Well, if they ever run into her, they'll offer her the chance to go back to the time she left, should she wish to return.

All that could really be done was send Wanda and Mantis to put the orb back in the temple, give Quill back his lockpick, toss him in front of the temple and wake him up. Maybe he would run into this Korath guy he mentioned, maybe he won't, considering he was a lackey to Ronan, one of those Thanos used to do his bidding. A Thanos that was no longer there. Either way, Quill wasn't just left for dead. He may never meet Gamora, but he still had other adventures to go on, other people to meet.

It's Finally Over

The Ancient One was taking down Chitauri before Hulk showed up. Steve would follow her attack patterns and range, because once Hulk showed up to get the stone, she would be distracted, and the Chitauri she would have stopped would continue on into NYC.

After Hulk had left with the Time Stone, Steve immediately approached the Ancient One and handed her the stone. They shared a look of understanding, she turned to rejoin the fight, and Steve left the rooftop to return home for the last time.

and they all lived happily ever after, the end, happy hanukkah, goodnight - Rallow <3

4 notes · View notes

kaen-ace-of-diamonds · 5 years ago

Text

Grade Book

Word Count: 1600+ (oneshot) [AO3]

Genre: Angst/Fluff

Characters: Korosensei, Class E (mentioned), the Second Reaper (mentioned)

Summary: When he was a man, the Reaper kept meticulous records of those he killed, as a mark of pride in his own work. Now that he’s Korosensei, what he wants to leave behind for good is a record of pride in his beloved students.

Written for the @assclasszine.

~0~

The Reaper is a methodical man.

It would be a rookie mistake to leave evidence of his work around his apartment, he knows that. Nobody but himself ever comes inside it. Even then, when he vacates his various residencies after some time, he leaves them emptier than they were when he first moved in, in body and soul, and it feels as if no one ever lived in them at all. He is a spirit, a god of slaughter, and the spaces he passes through leave no trace of human presence, only death.

At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to be, according to both his reputation and his own standards for what a legendary assassin is made of. But the Reaper is only human, after all, and he can in fact succumb to the average human compulsions. He’s fairly certain that it’s only humans that feel the need to meticulously list and organize things, the pleasure centers of the brain stimulated when a pattern is found and adhered to. He theorizes that it comes from the desire of a weak species to find some order or control over their lives, which can be ended or thrown into irreparable disarray out of absolutely nowhere.

The Reaper is not weak, and needs no such reassurance. He has very little life to upset in the first place. But he finds the process comforting anyway.

This time around he has been lucky enough to rent an apartment that comes with a desk. When he returns home with his most recent mission completed, he retrieves his blank black binder and a ballpoint pen from his suitcase, and sits down at it. He’s always surprised at how pleasant he finds the mixed scents of looseleaf paper, old wood, and fresh ink.

First he documents the details of the mission, taking it all down in a cipher of his own creation to hide his own location and methods, as well as the names of his employers. He doesn’t assume it to be unbreakable, but he supposes it will give anyone who doesn’t know him quite a job to do in solving it. He feels neither fear or doubt when he sets out to kill. At least, this is what he tells himself.

This habit used to be for study purposes, back when he was in training himself. He used to have a section for reflecting on the mistakes he’d made, working on ways to do better. He makes no mistakes as a full-fledged killer, and when that section reappears in recent entries it is reserved only for the failings of his apprentice. Now instead he sticks firmly onto the pages identification photos of his targets, front and center, and the photos he takes to give his employers the proof that his job has been completed as ordered.

He writes down biological observations, the initial information on them given him by those employers (as well as whatever connection both share), any specifications they may have given him for the kill, the weapons and methods that he used in bringing about their deaths. He is tempted sometimes to put in the pictures and text clippings from the various newspaper articles about them — even the pitiful scraps that the largely overlooked ones get, in remembrance for average lives — but always decides against it. It isn’t his own personally gathered data, and he’s not some run of the mill serial killer, after all, gathering trophies and memorabilia from a hobby.

The Reaper is a professional, the best of the best. His work is his life, and it is only fitting that one of his very few indulgences in that life is documenting that exceptional work. Statistics are not all of what makes him the world’s most perfect assassin, of course. People in his circles discuss what does, behind his back in hushed, bitter tones. He has heard many of their conclusions over the years, all of them wrong. The conclusion that he himself has drawn — which certainly lends it credence as the right one — is that his success comes from two things. It’s not only the core of ice that’s long since replaced his heart, allowing him to commit any gruesome task asked of him with the clearest mind and the least regret. It is also the intense devotion to his trade that has replaced any other emotion that might get in his way. He has nothing else, and needs nothing else, except for the death that has always surrounded him.

This book is merely a testament to that. To his work, if not himself. Like the shadowy god for which he’s named himself, when somebody finally takes his life, whoever he is will disappear into the misty night. Unimportant and unacknowledged. Only the work he has left behind will remain. Only the trail of blood stretching endlessly into the horizon.

The Reaper supposes that it is perfectly fitting. Such is the inescapable point of life, isn’t it?

He writes out the name and time of this latest death, in a top corner, like he assumes a doctor would do. The point of his pencil lingers on the grayish paper, and idly scratches out the vague form of the kill’s broken form on the street.

~0~

Korosensei has very little experience with things like textbooks and strict curricula. So though if asked, he would vigorously deny anything so unprofessional as winging it, that is the majority of what he is doing at first. Karasuma must have his suspicions, of course, but he never says so outright, only gruffly barks him towards the right direction like an irritated sheepdog.

He doesn’t think he’s ever had teammates before, any more than he’s had this many students to train. The small sea of determined young faces looking up at him is unlike anything he’s ever been faced with. They’re certainly on the other side of the universe from the eternal dissonant calm on the face of his apprentice. Where the Second Reaper is ice inside, his children are pure youthful fire: overwhelming, beautiful, and sometimes even terrifying to behold.

So it is almost second nature to begin recording them. Some part of him mourns the loss of his old scrapbooks, but he supposes that this grade book is a perfectly worthy replacement.

He doesn’t even notice it at first when his books become more than that. More than they have ever been, even at their most thorough.

All the information in his students’ files he meticulously copies down. Personal information and opinions come next, along with lesson plans, weapons data, the tactics they choose and their results. With all of his new appendages, it’s easier and faster than ever before to take down all his thoughts before he loses them. It’s all just logs and facts and records, really, just a whir of necessary information...until it isn’t.

All of a sudden, it’s candid photos instead of yearbook and ID standards, with the bright smiles of his students’ true selves instead of the dull-eyed depression their school life has forced upon them. It’s a diagram of the makings of anti-Sensei bullets, above the top ten best shots in the class. It’s train and plane tickets from their resort trip, bordering the pages of their vacation pictures, and four whole pages of bits and pieces from their festival success. Outstanding test grades are plastered everywhere, from cover to cover.

Also scattered around are tentacle-drawn sketches (improving with each new attempt, if he does say so himself) of the best aspects of his classroom. He thinks he’s finally captured the wryness of Karma’s smirk, the strangely familiar shape of Kayano’s face, and most intriguing of all, the bright, striking sharpness of Nagisa’s eyes, glowing with killing intent.

Korosensei fills so many pages that sometimes he forgets that his time and their space is limited. His pencil shakes over the page when it hits him that the date of his inevitable destruction is drawing near. He’ll need to wrap it up, as painful as it is...

Yes, that is exactly what he shall do, he decides, heart leaping a little. His personalized graduation albums are a work of art, but he supposes it couldn’t hurt to leave one more hidden treasure for Class E to find here, after the final bell has rung. So he gathers up all his books from the beginning of the year to now, and sets them all in orderly piles in a box, which he stores safely inside of his desk.

He almost wants to take them all back out again, and look through them one last time. Maybe adjust some things. But no. No time for that. Besides, his raw and unedited feelings ought to mean the most to them, anyway. They are so very pure of heart and bursting with passion themselves, after all...

Korosensei straightens up and looks out the window at the ravaged moon. He hopes and prays that his children will be the ones to kill him, in the end, before he can destroy them. Those faces of theirs would make for a fine last sight. And he doesn’t want to be the one who snuffs those brilliant lights out, after all, before they’ve even reached their prime. He hopes they will always know how special they are, and how much they are worth, and how deeply his adoration of them runs even when he is gone.

The Reaper never once told anyone “I love you.” Korosensei isn’t quite sure how to, either. But for his students, he has given it his best try.

The name of the Reaper is gone, and the trail of blood has run just about dry. And when Korosensei disappears, it is life and love that he will leave behind, for his children to carry with them as they surge forward and thrive.

#assassination classroom #ansatsu kyoushitsu #korosensei #kaen's fics

6 notes · View notes

livingdatabase · 5 years ago

Text

dear audience,

the following letters will be read aloud during our performance. nico will read first, then zoe.

these letters will be accessible on this Tumblr during our piece. if you want/need to intake information visually, please feel free to read along in your own browser as we read aloud.

- nico + zoe

___________________________________________________________

dear zoe,

thank you for being in this with me. for sharing yourself with me.

to embark on this journey of friendship with me.

for holding me and allowing+encouraging me to open and trust.

I hope it is reciprocal.

letting go has been a constant practice of mine throughout this. (and always is)

sometimes that feels good sometimes it doesn’t. I have no idea what we are making, but I am getting to know you better through each addition to the database. I stare at your drawings and imagine the moments that they were created. I try to listen to each stroke. I like being in conversation with you. I like the lack of polish here.

I dont exactly know how to share this database with people, I worry that its too slow paced to hold, that we’re unfolding something magical but the constructs of time and performance haven’t made space for us yet. I hope im wrong, but im letting go (again) of any thoughts around this landing, being interesting, being anything.

it is because it is. right?

it is not a product It is not a product It is not a product It is not a product

to be bought and sold

this has become a mantra as we actively stray from the capitalist commodification of art that I have known and worked within my entire life. this is easier said than done, hence my urge to onto the phrase: it is not a product.

I am fascinated by the timeline of our process, but I also feel that it is circular, and sometimes all of the data floats around and talks to each other, and sometimes it lies out flat, corresponding to dates in an order.

I think about how we got here. in my body, it’s a wizard of oz moment, like various happenings swirl around, high above the ground, the gentle tornado makes its way around California, and eventually it spits us both out.

It's not scary, its playful. we are sitting and it’s almost funny the way everything was spinning and now we settle in in stillness/ left to our own devices. left to actually get to know each other for the first time. thats how I see it anyways. we are gifted time and space along the way.

i have decided to share two videos after this.

the first video was also the very first piece of data on the base. haha

I just wanted to share my early morning with you, the title (good morning zoe) was a default that came about when I forgot to give it a title. It feels accurate.

i’ve shared some other clips of my life with you, some that feel so mundane, so regular. none are finished products. It takes a bit of courage to let those be, to not come back to them.

The other video im sharing today was made in my mother’s shower in my childhood home in the San Fernando Valley. It was made with the intention to heal. Out of necessity. It is reminiscent of our first video together, but SO different. The denotative, complex implications of a shower stand, but the experience of this video is one of self-nourishment. a process of lighting myself on fire and putting myself out. of working through. and allowing water to work through me, and I emerge, not squeaky clean, but in a new layer of flesh. still warm/raw, but definitely new.

september totally feels like a beginning to me.

_____________________________________________________

dear nico,

how do we make something without trying to have it be something, other than what it becomes? such a question engages the inherent presence of unknowability in making. how something emerges as it is listened to - heard.

we began this database project recently, and it feels important to acknowledge the history of how we got here. Having separated from a third collaborator and our initial plan of action, and having met each other through this third person, we were left with the question of what connects us? of who are we, as nico and zoe.

where to begin other than in saying hello.

the archive situates our making in conversation with our daily lives. we wanted to practice depressurizing product, or rather, getting rid of it all together, if such an act is even possible. we wanted to untangle ourselves from capitalist values that we have digested as artists.

in other words, we wanted to practice listening to our own bodily senses of time. to make at our own collaborative pace. to acknowledge that everything now is different with the turbulence of multiple pandemics going on. such ruptures in the world, in oppressive systems, have potential to open up spaces for imagination. within such spaces of imagination, can we offer ourselves the pleasure of knowing we are exactly where we need to be? can we ourselves the pleasure of stillness?

because i so often find making to be a relationship with stillness. of course, making is frustrating, hard ,uncertain, and causes me to have some sort of existential question about my purpose in life every day, but even with all of those negotiations, it returns me to a conversation with myself. and such a conversation needs quiet and stillness [ and by quiet i don’t mean a lack of music or sound ]. they need space to be unexpected and unknown.

the world is big and overwhelming, but this project of archiving and sharing small moments of thought, movement, curiosity, of trying to not worry so much about them being polished or perfect, offers our daily lives stillness and forgiveness. we share the unfinished with one another. share our unfinished selves with one another. yet, the idea of finished implies an end, which implies a segment, which implies a breakage in time, a separation of time from itself. in emphasizing the unfinished, are we not opening ourselves up to fluidity?

right now, i am in my one bedroom converted garage, in the back of my family’s house. with quarantine and raging fires, i live all my time in this room. i am writing to you from my bed, the puppy snoozing beside me, tomato plants growing outside, their final bursts of red a reminder of what once was. soon to become an echo of itself, soon to die and return.

i am writing to you from a space of domesticity, which feels like two lives of mine merging.

against the backdrop of my living space, actions such as waking, sleeping, eating, making, and working catch me unawares with a repetition i know has always existed. it is a different kind of meaning making. these small but luxurious tasks of dailiness ground me to the smallness and gratitude of my life, which returns me to the expansiveness of my body.

there is an intimacy that comes with being seen unraveled. it has been hard to not overthink, not worry about producing something good enough. but with you, it also feels like growth. making together is our form of friendship building.

i appreciate all that you share and give. and how you receive my messiness with care.

i trust that we are finding our language together, and i hope to keep sharing our half thoughts, full thoughts, unedited versions, questions, complications, desires, and labors, for as long as feels good.

The video that follows is a little study - - of light and color, pacing and time. Editing footage allows for the expansion of something that can at first, be so small. It makes me think of how you wrote to me in a letter: “ … items that are mostly still, until they come alive.”

i am honored to work with you and learn from you.

love,

zoe

2 notes · View notes

scumerage · 5 years ago

Text

How could "World War I" actually happen in One Punch Man? A social, legal, and military breakdown:

[Credit to /u/shadowii66 on reddit for all his great insight and debate regarding what many, myself included, believe to be an upcoming Superhero Civil War (even if he disagree and argues it won't happen). Much of this will be a rehash of our long in depth discussion, so I will try and summarize.]

#I. What is necessary for a civil war to happen?

(A) Both sides need to be partially justified/have partial public support:

If one side is presented as too unjustified/too univerally hated, then they can't actually fight, example, if the HA or Neo-Heroes attacked the other simply to seize power, not only will society turn on them, but most of their own heroes will refuse to fight on their behalf. Remember, the majority are not soldiers but heroes, they fight for individual reasons, not blind obedience.

(B) One side needs to declare war on the other:

Even if both have justification and at least some public support, one or both sides needs to take the step to act on it, to decide that, else it will simply continue to compete with popularity, funding, and public discourse. They need to take matters into their own.... and destroy the other Association by force.

Even if both sides are partially justified and one side makes the daring to declare war, the heroes still need to fight. If one sides heroes refused, it would simply be a coup, a manhunt, or a bloodless revolution and political takeover. Not a real war.

(D) Both sides must rival each other in military power:

If one side has an insurmountable and overwhelming power advantage, the war will end the minute it begins, with one side demolishing the other in a single battle. So the only way a war can actually be waged is if it is competitive, if victory and defeat hang in the balance for each group of heroes.

#II. How COULD the Civil War happen?

(A) Neo-Heroes declare war on the HA on charges of corruption, inefficiency, and endangering humanity:

The Neo-Heroes claim the HA leaders are criminals that need to be arrested for their crimes (and they would be right): money laundering+bribery+monster black market trade/putting a donor's son before humanity itself/nearly all their best heroes defeats by a single human teenager, the hero hunter/heroes like Bofoi and Tornado causing massive collateral damage through incompetence/any heroes who defend the HA are supporting the corruption and criminal collaborators.

The Neo-Heroes march on City A to arrest the HA execs, the "Old Heroes" refuse to let them, an all out battle breaks out. Presumably the Neo-Heroes are driven back (else the HA would fall and the war would be over), maybe the HA launches their own attack on the Neo-Hero HQ, in any case, the war continues.

(B) Either Metal Knight is framed as a villain, or the Organization/Neo-hero ties are made public:

If the Organization can frame Bofoi as a villain, either by having replica Metal Knight drones attack the Neo-Heroes or even civilians, or better yet, frame Child Emperor as a HA terrorist seeking to destroy the Neo Heroes. Since Child Emperor is too smart to eat up the war propaganda of the Neo-Heroes (Edit 1), AND he will be investigating the Neo-Heroes from the inside, which the Organization does NOT want.

But if the Organization/Neo Hero ties are made public? The HA can justifiably say the Neo-Heroes are working for villains, allies of the MA, AND illegal arms dealers/criminals. The corrupt, desperate HA leaders would be all too willing for an excuse to attack the Neo-Heroes, who threaten their very existence, especially by stealing donors and hero recruits. Same scenario of one association attacking the other, just with attacker/defender reversed.

The Old Heroes won't fight to protect the corrupt and criminal HA execs.

The Neo-Hero members won't attack other heroes on false charges.

The Old Heroes saved the world from the aliens and MA, so they cannot simply be labelled as criminals and villains to justify fighting them.

[/u/shadowii66 If there are any major reasons I mistated/left out feel free to correct me]

#III. What events CANNOT happen, which would nullify the Civil War?

(A) Blast, Tornado, or Metal Knight join the war:

They are too powerful, and would give the HA too great an advantage. Thankfully, Blast has chosen to remain absent so far, and the other two have been discredited and will likely not take action.

(B) The Organization launches an attack on the world prematurely:

That would unite the heroes against them, and force them to overcome their differences and work together to fight them. Also, the Organization would lose the brilliant strategy of using the Neo-Heroes as cannon fodder to take down the HA/gather battle data on all the Old Heroes+Neo-Heroes+human fighters in general (and maybe have the Neo-Heroes go after Bofoi to force him to reveal his robot army prematurely).

While they very well may be playing a large role on the sidelines, perhaps manipulating the war for their own benefit, and may even show up at the end, there can’t be a main villain too early. They are in a similar bind as the Organization, if they are too open and threaten the world too greatly, the heroes would ally to fight them (though it would still be glorious if one of the battles between several S-Class and Neo-Leaders is cut short by the Ninja Leader showing up and curbstomping all of them in an instant... they wouldn't even know how they were defeated).

#IV. How COULD the Civil War end?

(A) The Hero Association falls:

This is the Organization's whole purpose for the Civil War... to destroy the HA with humanity's own fighters, and also gathering a complete database of all the strength, style, and abilities of every hero. Meaning that even the S-Class will be utterly crushed by whatever perfect matchups the Organization creates to defeat them (not simply mix and matching random monsters like Psykos did). With all the heroes, both Old and Neo, as good as defeated, only Bofoi and Blast (maybe King as well?)(Edit 3) will be left to oppose them. and then... THEN they will strike.

(B) The Neo-Heroes fall:

The Organization's plan fails, the HA remains standing, though obviously greatly weakened, multiple cities in shambles, the heroes even more demoralized and worn out than they were from fighting the monsters. Still beneficial to the Organization, but not the great victory they had hoped for.

Could be the Hero Name Victims Association, could be the Ninja Leader, could be Blast, could be a disciple of God, could Blast, hey, crazy idea, could be the Organization or Bofoi for all anyone knows. The main issues is that the Third Side can’t take the spotlight til late in the Civil War (preferably when either it is clearly a stalemate or one side is clearly winning/losing). That way the Civil War conflict can actually be fully fleshed out. And either has an army wide reaching and effective enough to defeat both groups, or does not and the heroes on either side align.

(D) The HA and Neo-Heroes make peace:

Errr... possible? But both the HA and Neo-Heroes are hopelessly corrupt in their very structure.... based on support from either opportunistic morally unscrupulous businessmen... or foreign technological civilizations who have their own ends in mind. They cannot accept the degeneracy they both share, deny responsibility for... and accuse the other of having. Even a theoretical alliance in corruption would be doomed to fail sooner rather that, when their usefulness for each other is gone.

#V. What will happen after this Civil War Saga is over?

By “over”, what is meant is simply that the themes and story of the Civil War is fully tied up, that would include, say, when the Ninja Leader returns or the fallout from one or both Associations falling has had its impact. That the Civil War Saga is over, and a new saga is beginning. And the next saga is obviously the Organization Saga. The Civil War, successful or not, is over, there is no more use to be gained out of staying in the shadows. The time has come for machines to overshadow mankind, all the squabbles between chaotic monsters, naive martial artists, arrogant heroes, and greedy mercenaries will be nothing compared to the two greatest military powers the world has ever seen (Edit 2): Dr. Bofoi/Metal Knight, with his legions of mass produced, stockpiled, and obedient battle drones… and the Organizations elite, freshly upgraded, and intellectually genius AIs and cyborgs. Oh, and Genos is there too!

#VI. Final Notes:

Edit 1: Child Emperor explicity stated he doesn’t trust the Neo-Heroes and wants to keep an eye on them.

Edit 2: The HA, MA, and NHA were all mostly dependent on random, biological prodigies. Which is great in the short term, they collected the best fighters they could find available and put them to work doing what they do best. However… they can’t actually produce talent reliably (even Psykos was lucky to get Orochi and then Garou to grow exponentially, just as the HA was lucky to get Genos). Whereas Bofoi and the Organization? All the need is data, raw materials, and time… and they can produce an army. And they both have had plenty of all three.

Edit 3: The Organization may decide that King is purposely hiding his fighting style, therefore they don’t seek him out... and lo and behold, he doesn’t come after them and wipe them out!

#opm #opm webcomic #the organization #bofoi #metal knight #neo-heroes #one punch man #superhero civil war #civil war #superheroes

7 notes · View notes

theonyxpath · 5 years ago

Link

So, yes, it’s Labor Day here in the US, a national holiday. Many companies would therefore give today off to their employees, but since every day is a holiday here at Onyx Path, we had our usual Monday Meeting today, and work continues apace.

Of course, the second part of our MMN Blog title today comes from the fact that the Scion: Demigod 2e Kickstarter has been just crashing through the Stretch Goals after funding in 75 minutes! We’re all really thrilled and grateful to all of our backers for showing such fantastic support!

Putting the two together, I thought that a change of pace today that showed how some labor was done to create the elements for Scion: Demigod might be appropriate. And since I did some of that labor, I figure it’s on me to step up today and delve into the creation process for one of our latest Scion pantheon symbols.

This one is for the Apu, the Incan pantheon.

It’s usually after the writing is pretty well finalized, but not necessarily developed, that I’ll ask the project developer for notes on whichever part of the project needs a symbol. In the case of Scion, our writing and dev teams do such a deep dive into the pantheons that I could get overwhelmed just reading through the text, so in addition to letting me read that, I also ask for any ideas they might have for symbols and elements appropriate to the pantheon.

Sometimes I get easily usable ideas, and other times the needs of a visual project mean that I have to dig a bit deeper myself. In the case of the Apu, my notes scrawled on my note pad included: “golden sun disc (with link)”, “stepped pyramid”, “stone and gold”, “order/stability”, “Cusco”, “black and white llamas��.

I was good to go with the golden sun disc, and checked to see if any of the previous Scion symbols I designed went down that same visual direction. None did, so using that big hit of gold as the centerpiece became the start for the symbol. I originally considered using the foliage motif similar to what I did for the Aztec pantheon symbol as a background and surrounding next for the gold disc, but that did seem too close to other symbols and for me it just didn’t feel Incan enough.

Which is a big part of what makes these Scion symbols work, they have to feel appropriate to the pantheon. Which means we’re in the realm of the subjective, as what feels right to me may not feel right to you. But that’s the chance you take, because these are Scion symbols and they have to touch us, mean something to us, at least a bit, or we’re missing the point of the setting/game. All the raw data in the world about what should be included doesn’t help if most people aren’t connecting with that symbol.

That led me to hit the books. Yes, actual books. If I know what I want, finding 1500 images that I can use as reference for that thing is a snap with a Google search, but if I’m still looking for visuals that connect with me, then online searching just doesn’t work for me as well as paging through books about a culture. I don’t know what’s on the next page, which is the point.

One of the things I picked up on, was how striking the textiles still are in areas we’d consider Incan. Which started a whole different idea about how the color could and should work for this symbol. Bird feathers as decoration, and returning to one of the writer’s suggestions, the Incan knotted rope language called quipu. I had wanted to use it but didn’t have a way to keep the ropes and knots legible in the symbol, but with a bright textile background holding everything together, I could bring the quipu back into play.

Here’s my rough ideas page, the Apu symbol at top right representing the first pass, and the one lower left coming after I did more research:

From the rough sketch, where I’m looking at what elements can be arranged in what pattern, and where I’m thinking about but not putting down the color yet, I’ll draw out the various elements on bristol board in ink – usually with technical pens rather than anything that would give a varying line. We just need an even line.

A lot of time, if I know I want an image the same on both sides, or top and bottom, then I’ll just draw the one side and copy/flip/combine in Photoshop after scanning. The knotted ropes are on a separate page, as they required the whole sheet so I could draw them with enough detail.

Like I mentioned, these drawings get scanned in, and are really used as raw materials to copy and paste from when I start to make the whole symbol in Photoshop. Each element in the design gets its own layer, and that layer is set to Multiply in the layer menu. That way, the darkest lines stay dark, but anything in a layer “under” our line art shows through. This will become clearer when you see how the color goes in, but here’s just the line art all piled on top of each other:

At this point, it’s time to get color in there, and in this specific symbol, it’s also time to get the patterning into the Incan textile. Some of the colors only show up when the overall color is on there, so don’t worry if it seems like some of the symbols aren’t there. They are on layers that I did different layer types, like Multiply from before:

I also used the same colors for the fringe along the bottom and just drew those in loosely knowing the overall color would fall in between the other colors. Each instance of the bird symbol is on its own layer so that I could play around with size, position, layer effects, and color. I was going more for energy with the positioning and a certain lack of perfect positioning to replicate the hand-crafted nature of the textile.

Next, here it is with the red overall color. I spent a lot of time playing with the color controls to get the red I wanted, and then tweaked almost all of the little bird symbols to have their colors work with the red:

While some of the birds are now showing up, you can see a few blank spots in there. Don’t worry, those won’t show up once the other item layers get colored in.

This was good, but the thing was, it didn’t feel like fabric to me. And that’s what I wanted to really play up – the texture of the textile! I could have scanned in a cloth texture, or found one online, but in this case I went with combining layer effects and filters. I’d tell you what I did if I could remember, but here’s what it looked like without the red layer behind it:

I’m going to jump ahead here, and give you a step by step look at the big gold disk as it’s layers are painted in, but just assume that whatever I tell you about the disk, I already did in sort of the same sequence for the knotted ropes and the feathered headdress. I also started thickening the line stroke around objects to give them more heft and set them visually into the whole symbol. More on that later.

So here’s the first color for the disk, a dark golden brown:

Here’s where it really gets fun and painterly. The next layer is just yellow, with the Photoshop brush set on soft-round and at something like 25% transparency. With the lines already setting up the shapes, I just zoomed in and put yellow in keeping the brightest areas towards where the light was supposed to be hitting the disk (more from below than the traditional light from above):

Looking at it at this point, it didn’t pop enough. So I copied the yellow layer and set it to Multiply or the like and the doubled up yellow hit what I was looking for. It didn’t show up much when I was putting these sequential layer graphics together, but it’s that sort of subtle coloring that gives it the 3D look we need:

And here goes the last highlight on the gold, which was a lot closer to white to really get a bit of sparkle, plus I also created a shadow effect in two layers so that the disk would feel more like it is on top of the other elements. We want that gold disk to be the big popping thing from this graphic, and it needs to be strong to outshine the colors of the textile:

You can also see that I made the outer edge line much thicker than the others inside the symbol, so we’d have a strong edge to it so it could stand out on the page like the previous Scion symbols. Although, to be faaaair, I did reduce that thickness where the knotted ropes break out of the bottom. The ropes were being engulfed by the outline visually, plus, there’s a whole “language will be free” sort of thing going on there.

Hope you enjoyed this little look at the labor (or labour, as Matthew, James, and Ian would say) behind one of these pieces. It really is a labor of love, though, and it is so great when folks really respond to them.

Because this blog was so art heavy, here are your usual pieces of art from upcoming projects all together at the end!

V5 Let the Streets Run Red art by Sam Araya

Terra Firma art by Gregor Pedrycz

Hope you don’t mind the extra art here, but they really do illustrate our

Many Worlds, One Path!

Blurbs!

Kickstarter!

Scion Demigod Second Edition funded last week in 75 minutes and is headed strongly to 300% funding, having blown through all sorts of Stretch Goals! Check it out if you haven’t already:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/scion-demigod-book-3-for-the-scion-second-edition-rpg

Onyx Path Media!

This week: The Titanically Talented Trio of Terrible Terrificness discuss Stumbles, Errors, and How To Avoid Them! They’ll be looking at all sorts of fumbles and bumbles they and others have made while putting together game books!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

The Story Told RPG Podcast gets top billing this week due to their excellent, in-depth interview with developer Neall Raemonn Price regarding the currently on Kickstarter Scion: Demigod! Check it out and learn some of the ins and outs of Scion: https://thestorytold.libsyn.com/episode-61-scion-demigod-interview-with-neall-price

We’ve got lots of Scion: Demigod actual plays coming in the next few weeks, with the first starting this week by Vorpal Tales! Keep watching this section for more Scion: Demigod games!

For anyone new to our media section, you can find us running and playing games over on twitch.tv/theonyxpath pretty much every day of the week! Plus, if you’d like your games hosted there, just get in touch with Matthew Dawkins using the contact link on matthewdawkins.com.

Please give our Twitch channel a follow, as you can find a huge number of videos of all kinds of games being run!

This week on Twitch, expect to see these games and streams running:

Scarred Lands – A Family Affair

Technocracy Reloaded – Vorpal Tales

Scion: Demigod – Vorpal Tales

Danielle’s RPG Development Workshop

Hunter: The Vigil – Cold Cases Forsaken Spaces

Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale

Mage: The Awakening – Occultists Anonymous

Vampire: The Masquerade – Boston by Night

Chronicles of Darkness – Tooth and Claw

Deviant: The Renegades – A Cautionary Tale

Get watching for some fantastic insight into how to run these wonderful games and subscribe to us on Twitch, over at twitch.tv/theonyxpath

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find a whole load of videos of actual plays, dissections of our games, and more, including:

Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale – E11 – https://youtu.be/Vxqy6JgB9wk

Scarred Lands – Surprise Meatgrinder! – https://youtu.be/iqiIEsvIslE

Scarred Lands – Purge of the Serpentholds – S1E14 – https://youtu.be/Ie-rITGhaAs

Hunter: The Vigil – Uptown Shadows Episode 4 – https://youtu.be/2qdLBpMu0lE

Realms of Pugmire – Paws and Claws S2E14 – https://youtu.be/ZcSdsNK-VI0

Subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online!

Tom Murr continues with his amazing They Came from Beneath the Sea! audio drama over on his YouTube channel!

Radio ReScience Episode 2: Military Entanglement, can be found right here: https://youtu.be/qiTprIriV7Y

And Episode 3: Spycraft is here: https://youtu.be/qqS5rM3GA5A

Systematic Understanding of Everything is a new Exalted Explainer Podcast by Exalted Dev Monica Speca and Exalted Writer Chazz Kellner that is breaking down Creation in 45 minute chunks in preparation for Exalted Essence.

Their most recent episodes are available over on https://www.exaltcast.com/, with their newest covering the stunning terrifying Abyssals!

The Story Told Podcast continues their Fall of Jiara Exalted chronicle, and you can find their newest episode right here: https://thestorytold.libsyn.com/fall-of-jiara-25

Our good friend The Primogen concluded his Changeling: The Lost actual play a couple of months ago, and has kindly assembled a useful playlist of every single episode. Go give his excellent tale, Littlebrook Reunion, a watch: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2GEMzqGEGIg6pT79zt-FyFYoPjzn8YM5

GMS Magazine produced a review of Dystopia Rising: Evolution over on their channel! https://youtu.be/Q0Ih1KkUhS0

Here’s a blast from the past: last year, Tabletop Spotlight reviewed Monarchies of Mau for us. If you’re interested in some in-depth views of this corner of the Realms of Pugmire, please give their video a watch: https://youtu.be/gV48x2eQMU4

Vorpal Tales assembled their playlist of They Came from Beyond the Grave! actual play episodes as well, and you can find all six of the episodes of this series right here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9fUj4KdqE4BTnVZv9pZUkSk7GpwnyKXG

Please check these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games! We’d love to feature you!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

We’re told that the App Dev is currently creating an updated version for the latest devices, so keep an eye open for those!

Virtual TableTop!

Introducing a Virtual Tabletop adventure: the Gauntlet of Spiragos for Scarred Lands on Astral TableTop!

Scars of the Divine War, which ended less than 200 years ago, have still not healed. One such scar is the Chasm of Flies, a rent in the earth created when the titan Spiragos the Ambusher was smote down by one of the young gods, Vangal the Ravager. Now, the Chasm is inhabited by spider-eye goblins and their spider allies, but it is also thought to be the resting place of powerful artifacts from that elder age.

Gauntlet of Spiragos is a Scarred Lands adventure designed for 1st level characters, although it can be easily modified for characters of up to 5th level.

Astral TableTop is the easiest way to play any tabletop RPG online, free. Astral already supports popular systems like D&D and Pathfinder, and Astral can support virtually any tabletop roleplaying game. Get started quickly with built-in support for most popular game systems. Whether you’re brand new to TTRPGs or a veteran tabletop gamer, Astral‘s ease-of-use and built in automation is designed to streamline gameplay.

Astral is browser-based and uses the latest technology to streamline your storytelling experience. Connect with your party online and run your campaigns however you like. Astral offers tools optimized for phone, tablet, and desktop devices, no installation required.

Build epic battlemaps using Astral‘s enormous collection of scenery, props, and tokens or upload your own. Pro users gain access to over 12,000+ assets and fresh new packs every month. Add weather, visual effects, triggers, and so much more with easy-to-use tools

Build your own adventure, or choose from pre-generated game kits like Gauntlet of Spiragos. Create character sheets, craft maps, or just jump right in to connect with your friends and start your adventures!

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to provide our traditionally printed books out into your local game stores. Game stores can order via their usual distributors, and can also contact Studio2 directly. And individuals can check out our projects via the links below!

You can pick up the traditionally printed Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau main books, screens, and the official dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

Now, we’ve added Chronicles of Darkness books such as Changeling: The Lost Second Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Our Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition books are also available from Studio2 in the US: https://studio2publishing.com/products/vampire-the-masquerade-chicago-by-night-sourcebook

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And now Scion Origin and Scion Hero and Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, the PDF and physical card PoD versions of three decks of magic Items for use in Scarred Lands go on sale on DTRPG!

Conventions!

Though dates for physical conventions are subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, here’s what’s left of our current list of upcoming conventions (and really, we’re just waiting for this last one to be cancelled even though it’s Nov/Dec). Instead, keep an eye out here for more virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with:

PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

We’re still waiting on word for this one, as a TTRPG publisher we weren’t included in the companies contacted for PAX‘s virtual con replacing their usual electronic gaming con(s).

And now, the new project status updates!

Development Status from Eddy Webb! (Projects in bold have changed status since last week.):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep.)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Prometheus Unbound (was Psi Orders) (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

No Gods, No Masters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion Fiction Anthology (Scion 2nd Edition)

TC: Aeon Novella: Dawn (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

TC: Aeon Novella: Meridian (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Legacies of Earth (Legendlore)

Redlines

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

CtL 2e Novella Collection: Hollow Courts (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Squeaks In The Deep (Realms of Pugmire)

Trinity Continuum: Anima

Second Draft

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

M20 Technocracy Operative’s Dossier (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

V5 Forbidden Religions (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Manuscript Approval

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution Fiction Anthology (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

V5 Children of the Blood (was The Faithful Undead) (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Post-Approval Development

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Editing

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

LARP Rules (Scion 2nd Edition)

The Book of Lasting Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Dearly Bleak – Novella (Deviant: The Renegades)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Under Alien Skies (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Dead Man’s Rust (Scarred Lands)

V5 Trails of Ash and Bone (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Post-Editing Development

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Indexing

Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

Tales of Aquatic Terror – AD’d.

WoD Ghost Hunters (KS) – KS page to Paradox for approval.

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Mummy 2

Deviant – AD’d.

Legendlore

Technocracy Reloaded – AD’d.

Cults of the Blood God – Artists chugging along.

Scion: Dragon (KS)

Masks of the Mythos (KS) – Fulls recontracted.

Scion: Demigod (KS)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (KS)

TC: Adventure! (KS)

Geist: One Foot In the Grave – Artists are working.

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness) – Breakdown brokedown.

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad

Vigil Watch

Trinity Core Jumpstart

Aberrant – Layout done with the power section. Art still coming in.

Proofing

Cavaliers of Mars: City of the Towered Tombs

Yugman’s Guide Support Decks (Scarred Lands)

TC Aeon Terra Firma – Sent back to Josh, looking good.

V5 Let the Streets Run Red – 2nd proof out this week.

At Press

TCFBTS Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Shipping from printer to KS fulfiller.

Pirates of Pugmire – Shipping from printer to KS fulfiller.

Pirates of Pugmire Screen – Files at press.

Dark Eras 2 – Files printing.

Dark Eras 2 Screen and booklet – Files at press.

Contagion Chronicle – Press prep, PoD files uploaded and ordered.

Contagion Chronicle Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

Lunars Wall Scroll Map – Shipping to KS fulfiller from printer.

Lunars Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate – Prepping files for PoD and press.

Scarred Lands Creature Collection – Shipping from printer to KS fulfiller.

Sunken Bones – Pugmire pirate adventure – Errata collecting from Backer PDF.

Titanomachy – Errata collecting from Advance PDF.

Magic Item Decks 1-3 (Scarred Lands) – PDF and PoD card versions on sale at DTRPG and DriveThruCards this Wednesday!

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Labor Day! Traditional end of Summer and start of the school year holiday in the US. Except, of course, now the school year starts before Labor Day and anyway, everybody is in virtual school, and Get Off My Lawn!

#Onyx Path Publishing

1 note · View note

bygosscarmine · 6 years ago

Photo

LOVE SHIFTS SHAPE

Sky High: Magenta x Ethan, post-canon

a multi-chapter reunion story, in continuity with Love, Unspoken

Magenta is dreading the reunion in a mild “I’m in a successful band that has nothing to do with my powers” sort of a way, but she looks forward to seeing the friends she’s kept up with at the party.

Then, for a second she doesn’t recognize Ethan in his adult form, and things long forgotten (like her break-up with Zach) feel all too relevant again.

Read Chapter One here.

Read Chapter Two here.

Chapter Three: Never Meet Your Heroes

Ethan glanced at Magenta, but she knew that any tension between Layla and her ex was of the kind that attends staying friends after a teen breakup.

"Warren was apparently in an accident," she said. "Layla says he's fine, but she doesn't want to leave the hospital."

"Oh, definitely," he said. "Wow. You going to go there?"

He looked around, definitely weighing his importance to the event as the chair of the reunion committee for their year, versus the claims of Layla.

"I don't think I can leave yet," he said. "You'll let me know what's going on, though, right?"

"Sure," said Magenta.

Their way was unblocked.

After a little scuffle about whose car to take to the hospital, in which Ethan insinuated she didn't know her way around her own city, and she insinuated he was a misogynist (and possibly a racist, too) they drove their cars separately to the hospital so no one would have to get a ride back to midtown.

When they arrived, Layla was lingering in the vacant-feeling lobby of the ER in respose to Magenta's text.

"Oh, I'm so happy to see you," said Layla, and she threw herself on Magenta with a hug. "Both of you."

She more gingerly hugged Ethan, who folded her in and said, "I'm so sorry, how scary. Was he on his bike?"

"Yeah. Honestly, it's a wonder he isn't in worse shape. He's been insisting to everyone he learned how to roll properly. I went to that class in high school, too, but could never have done it."

"When did it happen?" Magenta asked, since Layla seemed to be about to cry with gratitude.

"About 4? I didn't know until they called me, half an hour later, and I was checking him in when I realized about the reunion..."

"Hey, hey, don't worry about it," said Ethan soothingly, recognizing a Layla stress-spiral coming on. "No one thinks you should be anywhere else."

"Have you eaten?" Magenta asked.

"No, no, I couldn't even think about it. But I will have to stay here tonight--well, they'll let me and I want to. I was thinking about going home, but..."

"Yeah, go. We'll stay here. Magenta and I can catch up a little and you can get a toothbrush, some snacks. Does your mom know?"

"My mom doesn't like Warren much," Layla said.

She was really distressed, to be admitting that so bluntly.

"Your mom doesn't want you here at the hospital without any support, no matter what she feels about Warren," Ethan said. "But if not, call Will's mom. We can help you tonight, but they'll help you over the next few days, OK? You don't have to do it by yourself."

They went with Layla, who continued to rattle along the things she was thinking of getting or tasks she needed to do while back at the house, until they got to the room and she fell silent.

They gingerly made their way in after, though there was clearly not enough room for so many around the bed.

Not even Warren could make a raw asphalt burn on the side of the face look good, and the bandaging on his arm was heavy, while tubing running to his other arm indicated pain medication or blood loss. Layla had a hand over her mouth and Magenta took her arm so they could go talk in the hallway.

"You said he was OK, but if he's checked in, does that mean he needs surgery?"

"They've got him under surveillance. I mean...well, whatever the medical word is. He's being monitored for any issues, because he was unconscious when the ambulance arrived. His arm was set but they'll do more looking tomorrow and see if it needs surgery. They just want to be sure he doesn't have any internal bleeding. He seemed lucid and normal when I got here, but he was still in shock, I think."

"Nothing wrong with being careful," said Ethan. "I expect they don't think anything more is wrong with him, but they have to follow procedure."

He was comforting Layla with this cool logic, and apparently it helped. Layla said, "Thanks so much for staying with him, guys. Call me right away if--if anything!"

They assured her and she walked out of the hospital wing.

After a short pause, Ethan opened the door to the hospital room, and held it for Magenta. She walked through it.

Warren's room had two beds, but he had no roommate. Magenta sat on the bed across from him, and frowned a little at the sagging movement as Ethan sat by her.

"Did you text your girlfriend to let her know not to expect you?"

"No."

Her eye fell from a watchful gaze on Warren's chest rising and falling as it should to the dark hand pressed into the mattress a few inches from hers. She was just thinking of asking some probably dumb question about the girlfriend when Warren spoke gruffly, "You clowns think you're nurses or something?"

"We're bodyguards, obviously," said Ethan, with all the mock-sincerity of a man who remembered being the smallest guy in the school for both freshman and sophomore year, and still spent his workdays at a computer screen.

"I can't sleep with you guys staring at me. Get out."

Ethan sighed with an elaborate shrug at the ingratitude, while Magenta told Warren, "We're blaming you when your girlfriend slits our throats."

She stalked out, rather relieved, and slumped into one of chairs in the waiting room beyond the rooms in this wing. The smell of hospital was overwhelming, but at least the beep of machines abated somewhat under the reruns of stilted game shows patter.

Ethan did not sit beside her again, instead taking a chair across the room, an awkward distance.

"What was your research project on, again?" she asked, having discarded the idea of asking about his current girlfriend as too loaded.

"Currently it's on the function of the amygdala in crisis, but I don't think you want the details on that."

"You said you were going to be doing research on supers, though."

"Yeah. So, a good deal of the research I'm doing now is comparing, to see if there are any significant variants between activity in the brain of those with powers and those without."

"Just to compare what makes the difference between us? Or will it build to something else?"

"Eventually, I hope to have enough data collected to do one on how minor and major powers differ."

This last phrase came out in a slightly different tone, and Magenta looked at him closely. His eyes shifted to the side, and he forced himself to stay still. It was important to him, this idea. He hadn't told her anything about it, had probably put her off with the bland sound of his research so he didn't have to mention it. Well, it wasn't like Ethan to not have a much bigger picture plan, which is why she'd kept asking.

"You think it may be an actually measurable difference, not just random?"

"No," he said, "I think that most people believe it is something innately different, and we need to prove that untrue or nothing will change."

There was a tint of anger in his voice that she understood very well, but still surprised her.

So she waited, eyes on him.

"You know what it's like," he said. "Even your own family are always vaguely disappointed in you, because your gift, which is just a part of your self, isn't enough. So some of us hide behind our big brains, and some of us hide in rock-n-roll."

"My mother didn't mind my super-power, actually," said Magenta drily, "just the rock-n-roll."

"Everyone else let you know that your power wasn't good enough, though, didn't they?"

"True."

Actually, Magenta wasn't sure if she would have been able to tell if her power was another disappointment to her family, in the medley of things that had become a wash of distance and reproach by the time she was old enough to really understand. She'd assumed so for a long time, but in one of her recent conversations with her mother, though it had ended stiffly, her mother had said, "I do not care what you do with your power, if only you will be part of the community. Why do you think it's better to leave?"

"I think," Magenta said, "that really it just layers over whatever family issues are already there. Then you come to the world with whatever cracks you have in your self-esteem and other people try to mask theirs by pretending only you have issues."

"That sounds like the seed of a rock song."

"Funny you mention that, did I tell you I write songs for a band? It's a pretty good band, too."

Ethan smiled then, a real smile--one that started as a grin, then as their eyes stayed on each other melted toward something sweeter.

Magenta's text tone interrupted, and she remembered he was going home to a girlfriend.

"Layla?" he asked.

"Yep." She read the message, Everything OK??? and typed back, Totally great, your bf is well enough to be a jerk, don't worry.

He could be a jerk on his deathbed, Layla typed back, with a cry-laughing emoji.

Magenta slid her phone back in her pocket, sat up and tried to smooth out her blouse where it had crinkled as she'd leaned on her knees.

"Who was the most changed tonight?" Ethan asked. For a bit they talked about who they'd noticed, who they hadn't seen. Then he said, "I saw Zack talking to you. Didn't seem like it went well."

"How could it? He refuses to grow up."

"I don't know. Don't get me wrong, I don't think he's great, but I think sometimes around certain people we revert to how we were when we were last around them, you know?"

"I guess."

She thought about this a moment. Her own immature response to Zach trying to reconnect in his blundering way. He'd never been subtle. She'd always been defensive. She sighed.

"You're right." She stood up. "I'm going to peek in on Warren, since clearly Layla is not busy enough to forget to ask."

There was something hanging in the air between her and Ethan that was too much like regret.

Warren was staring at the ceiling, apparently no longer wanting to sleep. He glanced over at Magenta, and said, "You clean up nice, kid rodent."

"Thanks. They burned all my choker necklaces when they signed us to the label."

"I wondered about that. Sorry I ruined your reunion, too." His voice was scratchy, as if his throat had been punched. She didn't know if that was just from pain or bruised ribs.

"I'm only sorry you ruined my plan to crash your place to play video games."

"What's Ethan doing here?"

"He came to check in on Layla, too. She needed to go get things to stay overnight, so we're staying until she gets back."

"No, but why would he do that?"

Magenta had not thought to wonder about this.

"A good excuse to leave the reunion?"

Warren gave his quick smile, only to wince slightly at the pulling on his scraped face.

"That makes sense."

Magenta left him and found Ethan standing in the hallway.

"I probably should get going," he said. "Layla will be back soon, and Warren's doing OK."

"Yeah, no need for you to stay," said Magenta, though she was a little disappointed.

"Which hotel are you staying at? You fly out tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah, I'm at the Royana. Have a good night," she said.

He had looked like he was about to say something, but her dismissal had stopped him. Whether she'd pre-empted herself from inviting him to meet up tomorrow or pre-empted him from having to make excuses to not meet her again, she wasn't sure. But they didn't hug each other goodbye, and that felt a little cold but necessary.

He had gotten tall enough it would have been an awkward hug, anyway. People around the same size were easier to hug casually.

Layla came back and Magenta left with a promise to bring her coffee in the morning before she left, so they could catch up.

Her hotel room was as nice as it had been when she entered it, but the air conditioner was turned too low. When she turned it back up, the kicking off of the fan left it too quiet.

She rolled into bed, and tried to let the unsatisfying day go.

There was the chime of a text from her phone. Checking to see if Layla had some news, she instead found that Ethan had asked, When is your flight tomorrow?

She ignored it, and put the phone back on the night stand, ringer turned off.

It buzzed at her again. Annoyed, she angled it to see. Don't be a punk. I should have asked earlier, but I was distracted.

Sure, he'd been distracted.

Are you texting me from your girlfriend's house right now? She furiously replied.

No.

Layla or no Layla, she turned her phone off.

#Sky High #Sky High 2005 #fanfiction #Magenta #Ethan #superheroes #fic

1 note · View note

revlyncox · 6 years ago

Text

Onward and Upward Forever?

Expectations of endless expansion and the reality of climate crisis

Preached to the UU Church of Silver Spring, September 15, 2019

Once upon a time, when Unitarian congregations in America were coming to terms with a post-Civil War society, when they were both overwhelmed by the social impact of industrialization and intrigued the modern conveniences made possible by it, there arose a new way of describing their faith. It was nicknamed the Unitarian covenant, and was drawn from a sermon by James Freeman Clarke in 1886. You can still find it carved into the stone walls of many of our congregations. This covenant proclaimed faith in “the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the leadership of Jesus, salvation by character, and the continuity of human development in all worlds, or, the progress of mankind onward and upward forever.”

Looking back, this covenant does seem overly optimistic. Forever? Really? No limits? Straight to the top with no setbacks? Hmmm. Perhaps we can see how that optimism came to pass in our Unitarian ancestors, at least in those who were white and middle class. I have preached before and will again about African American Unitarian and Universalist ancestors of the 19th century, whose insightful theological statements were more realistic. But among the people in Unitarian national and congregational leadership, Clarke’s statement really caught on.

For people of means in the late 1800’s, history might have seemed like a continuous march of progress toward ease and intellectual accomplishment. There were goods from around the world being served in their art and literature salons. There were factories and trains. Surely, as society advanced, people would have the time to perfect their character and draw closer to God through personal growth and development. What was less obvious to many was that this whole system of expansion was built on exploitation: exploitation of labor, and extraction of natural resources beyond what was sustainable. Because the people who were doing the preaching and the thinking and the policy making benefited from this economic system, its flaws were more difficult to see.

In her book, After the Good News: Progressive Faith Beyond Optimism, my colleague the Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd talks about the heritage of 19th century utopian communities and intellectual movements, and how we need to sing a new song if we are to be truthful and useful in the world as it is. She writes:

The great modernist churches of the mid-twentieth century were tied to the concept of unending societal progress birthed after the industrial revolution. That vision of unending societal potential was in turn tied to patriarchal and racially unjust systems that benefited from the oppression they decried.

The prevailing cultural and socioeconomic ethos of this gospel of unending progress was built by and for white men with significant power. They exercised that power through seemingly benevolent dominion over the earth, its peoples, and its mysteries alike. So, that explains a lot of things. (p. 35) (So ends the quote)

Everything is connected here: gender oppression, racism, economic injustice, exploitation, and, most pressingly as we approach the Climate Strike this Friday, the future of our planet.

The economic systems that led us to where we are in the current climate crisis, the systems that viewed our living planet and exploited labor as raw materials for the gain of a few, are tangled up with some of the theological ideas that were foundational to our faith movement at the end of the nineteenth century.

McDonald Ladd goes on to say that a movement that recognizes the world as it is must follow the leadership of people rooted in marginalized communities. We must listen to those who know that the myth of unending progress is not a universal truth. We cannot stick with the narrative that things will get better if we just hang in there.

Our theological heritage of “onward and upward forever” has had some good points. It has helped us to see the positive potential of humanity and not just the depravity. It has encouraged our curiosity and our development of the very science that helps us describe where we are with truth and data. It has affirmed character traits like generosity and kindness. Yet the pursuit of endless expansion, either for personal gain or in the growth of industrial corporations, comes at a price. The story we have been telling ourselves for the last hundred years about inevitable, linear, and upward human progress has gotten us into trouble.

Disentangling our life-saving, humanity-affirming, earth-respecting faith from economic inequality and environmental destruction is possible, but it won’t be easy. We need to rethink our expectations about what our lives will be like, how our congregations should operate, and what it means to search for spiritual grounding.

With some understanding of how the economic, social, and spiritual thinking of the past led to our current crisis, the next project is imagining how to re-order our lives, our congregations, and our society for long-term resilience. An economic system that sees human capital and natural resources as inert things that can be fed into a machine of wealth expansion has been good for a few and disastrous for many.

As Sophia Geiger (local youth leader from Fridays for Future) has reminded us many times, our work for climate justice must be inclusive of the leadership of people who are most at risk from the impact of climate change. Hurricanes, droughts, wars over limited natural resources, and the dangers caused by melting glaciers and rising sea levels are devastating to all of us, yet it is the poorest and most vulnerable who will bear the worst of the impact. To start figuring out how to live differently, we can listen to the people who experience some of the most severe effects of the climate crisis.

The demands of the Climate Strike this Friday, September 20, include respect for indigenous land and sovereignty. We’ve seen vicious government and corporate attacks against the Standing Rock Water Protectors protesting the Dakota Access (oil) Pipeline in our own country; and similar attacks against indigenous activists trying to protect their home in the Amazon. We have seen the injustice against Aboriginal people in Australia, whose treaty rights are being ignored in order to sell their tribal lands to a coal mining corporation. All over the world, respect for indigenous people is set against resource extraction that degrades our planet. Indigenous people are among those whose survival is most affected by the changes to our planet, among those whose human rights are most threatened by the exploitative systems that got us in this mess, and among those who are most organized for resistance. The strike demands respect for their sovereignty.

The Climate Strike also demands “A transition that invests in prosperity for communities on the frontlines of poverty and pollution,” and “Welcoming those displaced by the ... effects of the climate crisis, economic inequality, violence, and lack of opportunity.”

Again, those who are marginalized by disinvestment in their neighborhoods, by environmental racism, by working class jobs that expose them to toxins -- leaders of these communities have been organizing for years, and have direct experience to share about what our society could do differently.

Refugees and migrants, people whose livelihoods or safety have been interrupted by climate crisis and by the operations of global capitalism that sees them as easy to sacrifice, their humanity and worth must be centered as we enter this new world of disruption and disaster.

Naomi Klein, in an interview with the Guardian newspaper, links the fear of environmental refugees with the resurgence of white supremacy and anti-immigrant nationalism, calling it “climate barbarism.”

Klein goes on to say that individual choices will not solve the climate crisis. She says we’ve been trained to think of ourselves as consumers before thinking of ourselves as humans. As humans, we need a chance to grieve together, to notice our feelings and process our experience, to connect face-to-face, to experience ourselves as living beings who are part of the natural world, and to band together for winnable struggles.

Now we are talking theological language again. How are we to relate to one another and to the living ecosystem of which we are a part? That is a spiritual question. How do we lament, make amends, and turn again toward right relationship? That is a religious question. How do we stay committed to our understanding of ourselves in community, not as isolated beings or lonely fighters against the world, but as responsible and responsive to that which is larger than ourselves? That is an eternal question.

It is time to reorganize our congregations, our communities, our governments so that right relationship with our planet and with human beings, starting with the most vulnerable among us, is more important than the values that underpin colonialism, extractivism, and endless consumption. I don’t have all the answers for how we do that, but I am planning to listen to the people who have been organizing for a long time across lines of geography, race, and class; to listen to people who build communities that take care of each other and move in solidarity with each other rather than trying to live single-issue lives (which Audre Lorde told us a long time ago was impossible); to listen to youth leaders, who will be dealing with this mess long after I am gone, and who are past ready to stop engaging in business as usual.

I don’t believe we can put our planet back to the way it was. I do believe that everything we do to mitigate the effects of climate change even a fraction of a percent matters, and that we have to move forward in a way that helps us care for and follow the lead of the people who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate crisis. I believe we can change how we understand what it means to be human.

For some of us, that is going to include participating in the Climate Strike, and in other direct actions. Others of us might organize to disrupt business as usual in other ways. We might sustain urban cooperative farms, or community canning kitchens, or networks of neighbors who check in when the for-profit healthcare system leaves people behind. We might participate in clothes closets or food gleaning projects or resource centers for reclaimed building materials. We are humans, not mere market units. Whatever we are doing to re-orient our society toward climate justice, whether that is advocacy or care giving or developing new ideas, let us do it in community, remembering that to be human is to be in relationship. The challenge facing us is vast. Our response must be on the same scale, and it must be infused with compassion and humility. We are called to transformation. Let’s follow this calling together. So be it. Blessed be. Amen.

#strikewithus #climate justice

3 notes · View notes

mumofadaofficial-blog · 7 years ago

Text

The Gap Filler

Firstly, a massive thank you to everyone that has read my first post! Your messages and comments have been overwhelming and you will never know how much it means to me to know that you all care enough to read our story - you guys are friggin amazing!! And I am so pleased to see that what I am doing seems to be helping or comforting others in some sort of way.

SO - last time I took you through Adas birth and getting her home. I touched very very briefly on the stressful time we had before Ada came off oxygen so I want to give you a run down on that. As traumatic as Adas entrance into the world was, life didn’t seem to get much easier for us and I think it almost completely fried my brain, but hey, we’re all crazy in one way or another right?!

Going back to KL hospital was an exstremely hard thing for me. The memories of what had happened there were still very fresh and very raw. Ultimately though, if it hadn’t of been for the team of people that initially worked on her, she wouldn’t be here today. So I sucked it up, put on my big girl pants and was ready to give it another chance.

There was definitely a big difference to Norwich, mainly I would say communication issues that I’m hoping lessons have been learnt from now. From going through this I have realised that parents really need to be included and told what is happening every step of the way, something which I think can easily be overlooked. When your Childs life is in the hands of someone else you NEED to know what is happening.

I don’t want to dwell too much on the things that were done wrong once we returned but it was a struggle and no parent should have to feel like they are battling with the providers of your Childs care - my advice would be to stand your ground, be strong, ask as many questions as you want and make sure you are happy with the answers and information given.

I also think its important to remember that not all people take the same pride and care in their job as others do, so we always tried to make a point of thanking the people that went the extra mile for us.

On the day that we were finally able to take Ada home we were not allowed to do so until she had undergone an MRI scan on her brain, we were told this was just routine. There wasn’t much explanation as to why. Instantly you think to yourself ‘omg, whats wrong?’ ‘Is there something wrong with her brain’ ‘is this routine or are they hiding something from me’ After doing research and asking questions, it is a routine thing to happen after a baby has been starved of oxygen at birth. Thankfully with Ada there was no signs of damage to her brain in the initial overview and this was then backed up by a specialist team at Nottingham (you still can’t stop your brain from thinking ‘what if?’ Whilst waiting to get those results back). After this she then had to have blood tests and a scan on her liver due to certain enzymes not being at an appropriate level. Without sounding thick, I didn’t even know what that meant and my head was just not processing anything properly. The information given to us on what would happen if it didn’t sort itself out was also very patchy.

Now taking a new born home on oxygen is bloody tough, you find yourself confined to your bedroom or to the lounge, the rooms where we had the oxygen canisters. And you feel very restricted and trapped. So much so that I pretty much only went to my mum and dads or to Tesco if I was feeling super brave. Trying to get a baby out of the car is hard enough when you’ve never done it before, let alone having a back pack with oxygen in it too. Personally we felt that we couldn’t travel up north to see Nathans family as it would be too hard, so unfortunately people had to miss out. Trying to run a house when confined to those two rooms is very hard, that whole sleep whilst the baby sleeps is not even a real thing! When Ada was sleeping I wanted to do my washing, clean up, eat something or even just sit outside and have a coffee. Looking back, I wish I had relaxed a bit more and just thought fuck it! Those jobs were not going to please anyone but myself. Being easier on myself after having a c section would probably of been a better option and I shouldn’t of pushed myself to do so much when it was sometimes really hard to do so. Thankfully Nathan was a good team mate and I have lovely family and friends who all tried to keep me sane and help as much as possible in the process.

In order to assess how Ada was coping and trying to wean her off oxygen it meant having weekly 24hr assessments on an oxygen monitor at home. If you haven’t ever had any experience with one of these its a clever, annoying as shit, little machine that shows her oxygen saturation levels via a sensor on her foot. If they drop below 90 it makes the loudest most annoying bleep you’ve ever heard…great when you’ve just got her to sleep and shes moved and knocked her sensor off 🙄. They are used a lot on premature babies, however, Ada was a full term, strong bruiser of a baby who really enjoyed throwing her feet around and getting into massive strops! (I have absolutely no idea where she gets her attitude from?!) It soon became apparent that trying to get accurate readings from the machine with the amount of movement she was making was going to be hard. The machine would go back, data would be downloaded and the readings were not accurate enough due to movement. It felt like a constant ACCESS DENIED. Back to stage 1, which is really hard on your mental state and emotions when you are desperate to get your baby better. This would mean we would have to repeat the 24hr process and her oxygen level couldn’t be reduced, even though as her parents we knew she was ok and capable. I was left with no choice but to provide a written documentation of EVERY movement that made her sensor drop throughout the 24hr period, sometimes meaning I wouldn’t sleep just to be able to prove that she was doing well. We’re talking like mental person sending in four A4 pages of movements! This went on for weeks, the longer it went on, the stronger Ada was getting and the harder it was to get the readings. At the time she was also struggling with silent reflux which seemed to play up especially for us on the days she had her monitor on - thank god we have now found infant gaviscon!!

As well as trying to cope with the oxygen there was a lot of different appointments at home, the hospital and doctors. Blood test for her liver enzymes again, health visitor, collecting oxygen monitor, hip scan, monitor again, physio, dropping monitor off, monitor again, dropping it off, another blood test, monitor again, health visitor, monitor again, immunisations, monitor again, physio, monitor again, consultant appointment, blood test, another hip scan, more immunisations, monitor again and physio - you get my drift and I’ve probably missed some out! Whilst all of these appointments were happening I was then having to chase for answers and information on the outcomes of all of these as the communication was very poor. But if you ask enough questions and make enough phone calls, eventually someone will answer you and you will find out what you need to know. Personally I don’t think it should have to be like that and it makes the situation a million times more stressful. But I do understand that staffing levels don’t always allow you to be the main concern and if your out of sight you can often be out of mind.

Gradually throughout all of this and my crazy note writing Ada was weaned down off her oxygen one step at a time, then it was stopped in the daytime so she only had to go on it at night.

Finally on the 27th of September we got the call that I had been longing to get! Adas consultant was happy for us to turn her oxygen off, completely! No messing around at night, no more changing plasters and making her face sore (making you feel like the worst person in the world), no more fighting to put her cannula up her nose and no more sleepless stressful nights with a monitor bleeping in your ear! I cried and then rang Nathan and cried a bit more, then I probably rang anyone else in my phone book that would answer, and you guessed it, cried some more. For once throughout this they were tears of happiness and relief. She had finally done it, our miracle baby had stuck her fingers up to the world and smashed it! In the words of the king that is George Michael ‘You got to have faith’ 😉

Now, our only reason to go to the hospital is for extra immunisations against bronchiolitis, unpleasant, but better than her being hospitalised again or poorly. And for routine check ups with her consultant which will happen until Ada is 2.

Deep breath for this part.

The effect that this has had on me has been unreal, and although Ada is fighting fit it still isn’t easy. I was always quite ignorant to issues involving mental health and was one of those ‘just get on with it’ people. I’ve now realised that sometimes this just isn’t possible. When something in your life has been so traumatic and so stressful it can be really hard to deal with and process, my main concern was Ada and to worry about me later. It is also very easy for people to say ‘she’s fine now so don’t worry’ but you do (please don’t take offence if you have said this to me!).

Hiding your feelings and pretending everything is ok is not healthy for anyone, but to seek help was not something I was prepared to do until recently. I am by no means crazy, or a manic depressant but I do have my bad days. Days when things get to me and the stress takes over, flash backs, not being able to sleep because my brain won’t switch off, worrying that something will go wrong, being well and truly put off from having any more children, having to have full control of all situations, and for weeks, I fully blamed myself for what happened to Ada and believed that I should of known something was wrong and prevented the whole situation. I have felt in the past like I am not good enough, like I’m doing a shit job and like I can’t cope. I have struggled to speak about how I feel as I was worried I would be judged or people would think I was a shit mum or that I couldn’t look after Ada properly. I have also pushed help away as I feel compelled to be some sort of ‘super mum’ and that no one else should be doing my job.

I still cannot talk about what happened without crying, and there isn’t a day go by when I don’t relive it at some point. I constantly look to see if Ada is developing as she should and is there any signs that something isn’t right, when I should just enjoy every moment. Living with me is probably a nightmare, Soz Nath, Mum and Dad - cheers for putting up with me 😘 Somedays I will snap at the smallest thing and overreact, whereas another day that same thing wouldn’t bother me in the slightest.

I am a very private person when it comes to my feelings and I have always thought to show people the venerable side of me would make me seem weak, when in fact it does the opposite. From doing this and the responses I’ve had I now realise just how important it is to talk out and show everyone the old saying of ‘It’s ok not to be ok’. To write this down and tell you all what has happened is unbelievably difficult, yet very therapeutic and I strongly believe that if more people were to speak out about how they feel and the effect it has, then it wouldn’t be such a taboo subject. Because it most definitely shouldn’t be and anyone who says they haven’t had a full scale meltdown at some point is most probably lying to you.

Ok, so might as well of just posted a naked picture of myself with the caption ‘HERE I AM’ after all that, but thats probably about as honest as you will find me.

Amy x

#blog #mumblog #mumbloggers #bloggers #nicubaby #nicu #neonatalbaby #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #nicumama

18 notes · View notes