#BY TECH i mean like. front/back end development. coding stuff

[wuntrum]

yknow, maybe i need to become the gnc butch in tech that i wanna see (date) in the world

[leiawritesstories]

Speak To My Heart

Rowaelin Month, Day 15: A bad day

Word count: 3422

Warnings: language, bit of depression, fighting. In short, there is angst in this fic. Hope the ending makes up for the rest.

Linguistics and foreign languages are two of my personal passions, so please bear with the bits of language talk that I couldn’t resist including. Brief word of clarification: a lot of expressions we use in English either translate into something extremely rude or don’t make sense in other languages. Translation companies have been trying for quite some time to make sure they don’t accidentally send a client a translated instruction manual that reads “fuck your mother” instead of “for questions, contact your local energy department.” All right I’ll get off my soapbox. :)

The phrases in foreign languages, marked with *, are translated into English at the end. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rowan’s day had been shit. The second he walked through the door, he’d been bombarded with an endless slew of crash reports, malfunctioning equipment, faulty passwords, and best of all, having to rewrite half the security firewalls because one of the rash young idiots in his department couldn’t be bothered to check his work for errors before sending it to management. And management thought it was the department boss’s job to fix all of his employees’ fuckups.

He hated IT.

Even more so since being promoted to department chair. 

All he wanted to do was the fun stuff--program design and development, fixing the flaws in his own designs, and of course making those who tried to break into his company’s systems regret their pitiful existence. But Cadre Tech’s bitch of a CEO refused to let the best software engineer on her staff actually do his job. 

Most days, he could cope with the pile of useless shit she directed to his desk. Most days. Today was not one of those days. Probably because on top of all the meaningless tasks he’d had to field, he was also forced to sit through one of Maeve’s bullshit “department head strategy sessions,” where every department chair had to pretend they gave a single shit about any word coming from their CEO’s garishly red, pinched mouth. 

As if she knew anything her staff actually did. 

Thanks to the compulsory meeting, Rowan was stuck in his office at nearly ten o’clock, painstakingly combing through the final draft of the update to CT’s translation program. This program had shot the company to fame and fortune, or at least insane stock value. “A Google Translate that actually translates,” their marketing department called it, and by the gods, that stupid slogan worked. And made sense. Rowan knew the program was just as good as it claimed to be.

He’d put in the hours, alongside a team of linguists, software engineers, designers, and people fluent in at least one other language. Frequent were the sessions where the project whiteboard turned into a jumble of words in twenty or more languages, Spanish alongside Arabic next to a column of simplified Japanese characters spilling over into a row of Cyrillic lettering. Rowan himself spoke German and some Spanish, but even he was lost amid the cacophony of eighteen different people switching from language to language, trying to figure out how idiomatic expressions translated from one language to another and what words should never, ever be placed together. 

It took the team well over a year of bickering, or as they called it, friendly linguistic disagreements, to make it from loosely mapped concept to functioning program. By the time it hit the market three years ago, the software had been so well promoted that companies all over the world snapped up their chance to finally communicate properly with the client they’d offended years ago with a bad translation. 

At launch, of course, Maeve stood in front of a sea of shouting reporters brandishing microphones, smiling her serpentine smile, and proceeded to thank the creative team for all their “contributions” before taking all the credit herself. 

Said creative team went to the bar that had become their usual gathering spot that night to get drunk and shit-talk their horrible boss, not necessarily in that order. 

His favorite memory of that night was hearing the chief linguist, an outside contract with multiple advanced degrees who spoke eight separate languages besides English fluently, refer to Maeve as “quella puttana rugosa che non riusciva a convincere un cazzo a venire a dieci metri da lei se si vestiva da figa.*” The Italian speakers on the team were crying with laughter, and so was everyone else, once she translated it.

And then she downed another shot of vodka and hissed something that sounded like “sukya bliyad, no puedo mich betrinken con esta ordures.**” When everyone blinked in confusion, she sighed and relayed the sentiment in English. 

Nobody had laughed as hard as Rowan. Aelin Galathynius just had that effect on him.

She brightened his darkest days.

But she couldn’t ease the strain of today.

And it was all his fault.

~

Aelin glanced up at the clock on her wall and cursed in three different languages when she saw that it was nearly eleven. Without meaning to, she’d spent all afternoon and evening writing lesson notes on idiomatic expressions. She really couldn’t help herself once she got into the topic; it was her pet project.

And the subject of one of her dissertations. Yes, she had multiple. 

She’d worked her ass off for years to get through college, then through graduate and doctoral work while teaching at universities to offset costs, then earned a full-time teaching position at one of the top-ranked universities in the world. She got to teach linguistics, her lifetime love, and give guest lectures at other universities and at conferences, teaching people all over the world about the complexities and interrelatedness of language. Hell, she spoke ten; she’d be qualified to speak on linguistic relationships by virtue of that alone.

Gods, she was the chief linguist behind the most successful translation software ever produced. Even if the bitch who owned the rights to said software had literally threatened to sue over ownership rights if any of the people who’d poured their figurative blood and sweat and literal tears into building the program tried to claim a small piece of the credit each of them so richly deserved. 

That software and her role in its creation--even though Maeve Ond had claimed the public credit, the creative team spoke at interviews and made news features for their work in Cadre Tech’s massive success--had solidified her credentials as a professor of linguistics, had boosted her into her lecturer spot.

Last year, her university granted her tenure. 

She should have been overjoyed, and she was, but not as much as earning tenure deserved. 

Because there was nobody to share her joy.

Three years ago, in the wake of CT’s overnight jump to worldwide fame, Aelin fled a love she did not and never would deserve. 

She told herself she would never look back. But she did. Almost every day, she looked back at the life she’d shared with Rowan and tried to convince herself that she did the right thing.

Try as she might, she could never silence the whisper that echoed always in her mind. 

“You broke both of your hearts” 

Someday, she told herself, someday she would be back in Doranelle. Someday, she would have a chance to apologize. Someday, maybe she could fix the Rowan-shaped chasm that gaped wide in her heart. 

Yet here she was, sitting in a very nicely appointed hotel room in the university district of Doranelle, typing furiously away as if burying herself in notes and prep for tomorrow’s lecture could make the urge to contact Rowan disappear.

~

Three years earlier. Doranelle.

“Knock, knock.”

Rowan’s head jerked up from where it had most definitely not been slumped on his desk. “Wha--Oh. Hi, Aelin.”

“You’re falling asleep, buzzard, let’s go home.” He heard laughter in her soft voice. 

“As if you won’t just get home and start cross-checking every single one of the phrases on your ‘potential problem’ list.”

She chuckled, walking over to him. “Fine. We’re both perfectionist work whores. Doesn’t mean we don’t need sleep.”

“I know you too well to believe you’re actually going to sleep.”

“All right, you win. Come home now, I’ll make some food, and you can put me to bed.” She winked saucily at him, leaving very little doubt what putting her to bed would entail, and he was up out of his chair in seconds. 

“Hand over your computer, Fireheart,” he grinned as they walked into the small house they shared on the outskirts of the city. 

“What?”

“Your computer, love. I’m leaving both of our work bags on the shelf by the front door so we can actually catch some rest tonight.” He pressed a finger to her mouth to silence her protests. “Uh-uh, Ae, we have interviews tomorrow and I won’t let the genius behind this program’s flawless word-to-word be anything but well-rested.”

She sighed, but he saw the love in her eyes. “Here, then, my dear brilliant software engineer. Leave your notebook, too, because I know if it’s anywhere near you, you’ll be up at three in the morning scribbling blocks of gibberish and picking apart your faultless code until you go insane.”

Both of their work satisfactorily put aside, Aelin made good on her promise to cook Rowan dinner. 

And then he made very good on his promise to put her to bed. 

The next morning, they were both awake with the sunrise, content to lay curled in each other’s arms as the morning light spread across their room.

Rowan drifted back into sleep, waking for good when he caught a whiff of coffee from the kitchen’s direction. 

“Morning, you sleepy buzzard,” Aelin grinned, sipping from her mug.

Rowan dropped a kiss on her head as he reached for his mug. He took a long drink, sighing as the milky, sweetened caffeine hit his mouth. 

“I will never understand how you drink your coffee black, Fireheart.”

“Not all of us need to sweeten the hell out of coffee to drink it, Ro. Maybe if you can’t handle the real thing, you should go back to your pretty little cups of crappy cafe tea.”

“Mention my pretty little teacups again, Ae…”

She giggled. “You be quiet and drink your coffee-flavored milk, my love.  We both know you’re impossibly grumpy until you have caffeine in your veins.”

He grumbled something unintelligible as he drank his coffee.

They were nearly late to work that morning, even having planned an extra half hour to arrive, thanks to Aelin wearing what Rowan dubbed her “sexy professor suit.” She fixed the pins in her French twist in the car, making herself once again a portrait of professionalism, and slipped Rowan’s hand from her leg.

“Two hands on the wheel, Whitethorn.”

He pouted. “But I’m a safe driver and I want to hold your hand.”

“My hands are over here, love, not down by my skirt.”

When he pulled into his spot, Aelin closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. 

“You good, Fireheart?”

Gods, she loved hearing him call her that. “Yeah. I just…needed a moment to settle myself. To tell myself the cameras aren’t here to tear apart what I say.”

Rowan wrapped his hands around hers. “Dr. Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, the bland reporters are here to stand in awe of your expertise. Not a single word you say will come across as anything but brilliant and beautifully said.”

She squeezed his hands, her usual confidence returning. “I love you, buzzard.”

“I love you too, Fireheart. Let’s go talk about our amazing achievement.”

The day sped by in a blur of reporters, interviewers, teleprompters, practiced speeches, lights, cameras, and crew. When the last bleached-blonde anchor of the last interview of the day cut her crew’s cameras, Aelin flopped against her second-in-linguistic-command, Dr. Nehemia Ytger, the expert on ethnic African languages. 

“If I never see a news crew again, it’ll be too soon,” she sighed. “I’m beat.”

Nehemia snickered. “But we’re done talking about how proud we are that Maeve and her marvelous company have done such a grand service to the world.”

Aelin snorted softly. “Right. And now we servicepeople want to go home and take off our heels.”

“Amen to that.”

As the team filed out of the studio, Rowan made his way over to Aelin. “Holding up?”

“Not anymore,” she said, leaning casually into his side. “My heels are killing me, there’s a hairpin stabbing into my scalp, and I really, really need to pee.”

Rowan laughed, deep and husky. “Let’s get you home, then.”

“I’m stopping in the bathroom first.”

Just before she left the ladies’ room, Aelin heard voices in the break area. Familiar voices--Rowan’s, Maeve’s, and the snippy, borderline whiny tones of Remelle Frelau, who worked in the marketing department and had a hell of a boner for Rowan. 

“--looking at revenue over--” Maeve’s voice cut out, but from the gasps of the other two, the revenue was through the roof. 

“And it’s all thanks to this genius here,” drawled Remelle, who if Aelin had her guess was probably clinging onto Rowan like a platinum-blonde leech. 

“Ms. Frelau, this was the product of a team. No single person could possibly have made it happen alone.”

“Oh, call me Remelle, or even better Remy. And you’re the team leader, so you practically did create it by yourself.”

Aelin snickered to herself. Vapid bitch had no idea what she was saying. 

“That’s not how teams work, Ms. Frelau. We wouldn’t be here without Dr. Galathynius and Dr. Ytger’s language expertise, not to mention the creative genius of the engineers, graphic designers, linguists, and programmers.”

“Ms. Frelau, though her judgment is clearly biased, has a point, Mr. Whitethorn,” Mave said. “You demonstrated remarkable collaborative leadership qualities throughout this project, and I fully expect that you will continue to do so.” Maeve’s heels clicked away. Rowan’s voice followed her.

“Thank you, Ms. Ond, but I have to credit Dr. Galathynius--”

“Will you stop kissing that woman’s ass?” snorted Remelle. “Gods, she’s not worth your time or your praise; all she does is translate words into different languages and you idiots drool over that like it means anything.”

Aelin jerked like she’d been slapped. She knew Remelle was a self-centered, shallow, spiteful bitch, but she hadn’t known she would do this.

“--did more for this project than you and your useless whiteboard of catchphrases,” growled Rowan. 

“I don’t care what she ‘did for the project,’ Rowan, she’s never going to be good enough for you.”

“Thank you for caring about my welfare, Frelau, now please kindly fuck off.”

Aelin chose that moment to saunter out of the bathroom and head straight for Rowan, her face showing no hint of having heard that conversation. She did note with satisfaction Remelle’s vain attempt to march out of the room with some semblance of dignity. Too bad her heel caught on the seam of the hallway carpet and the break room’s tile flooring and she had to grab the doorframe to keep from collapsing. 

“You’re awfully quiet, Aelin.”

“Just thinking. Processing, really. It’s been a hell of a day.”

Rowan nodded. “I bet.”

“And hearing fucking Remelle rip into me for being useless…didn’t make it better.”

“Shit, you heard that?”

“Yeah. I heard that.” Her voice was hollow. 

Rowan pulled into their driveway and shut off the engine. Reaching across the console, he cupped Aelin’s face in his hands. “Aelin. You are brilliant. You are terrifyingly smart. You are a force of nature. Nothing, nothing you will ever do is useless. Don’t let that jealous bitch make you think you are less than the perfect woman.”

She smiled tentatively at him. “She…she told me before that last interview that I could never be enough for you. Because you--because of Lyria.”

Rowan raked a hand through his hair. “Ae, can we talk about this inside?”

That night, he told her about his former fiancé, Lyria. He told her about their whirlwind romance, their youthful dreams. He told her about the horrific crash that stole away Lyria’s life. A drunk trucker, a narrow pass in the mountains. He showed her the box in which he kept all the memories of that life. He cried. Aelin cried. He curled against her, let her comfort him.

“Sometimes, I wish she was still here. She’d understand everything. She always did.”

Aelin had no response. She let Rowan fall asleep, his weight shifting off her and into his bed, and looked through the box. Everything she saw served as another reminder that this was the first woman he loved, the woman who understood everything. 

She was worthy of him. 

But was Aelin?

The more she looked at Rowan and Lyria’s happiness, the more the answer solidified. 

No.

When Rowan woke up the next morning, Lyria’s box sat on Aelin’s side of the bed, a side that had not held Aelin.

He glanced out the window.

Her car was gone.

He got up and frantically paced through the house.

Everything she’d brought into his home was gone.

As was she.

~

Present day. 

Rowan opened his front door mechanically, pulled off his shoes, dropped his work backpack on its shelf, and was halfway to his bedroom before he realized he’d just opened his front door. His front door that was always locked. 

Someone was in his house.

Someone who either had a duplicate key or insanely good lockpicking skills.

Exactly one person owned a duplicate key to his house.

Aelin.

That’s impossible, she lives in Orynth, she can’t be here, he told the traitorous part of his brain that leapt with joy at seeing Aelin’s face again.

He turned around and made his way through the kitchen--nobody there--to the living room. He flicked on a lamp, casting a soft light around the room.

And nearly had a heart attack.

Aelin Galathynius sat on his couch. 

For a moment, he just gawked at her. She looked so…different. Older. Gone was the infectious smile that had captured his heart. Dark shadows smeared under her eyes, testament both to the long hours she devoted to her work and to recent sleepless nights. She was twisting a ring on her right hand, a familiar sign of her nerves. From his angle, Rowan could see a hint of dark script on her wrist. A tattoo. The Aelin he knew didn’t have tattoos.

“I’m not a ghost.” Her voice, weary and hollow, broke the tense silence.

Rowan crossed the room, propped an arm on the fireplace. “Why?”

“Why am I here? Why did I leave? Why did I cut you out of my life?”

“Everything.” He couldn’t keep the waver from his voice, but his eyes burned into hers.

She took a steadying breath. “I’m here to apologize, first of all. I’m here to face what I ruined and to try and start mending it. I’m here to come to terms with everything I broke when I left three years ago.”

Whatever he’d expected her to say, it certainly wasn’t that.

“I’m sorry, Rowan. I’m sorry I left like that. I was…I was scared.”

“You can’t just run away from your fears, Aelin!” He couldn’t keep the frustration from his tone. “You can’t just abandon someone when you have a bad day!”

“I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t have left! I know I can’t run from my fears; I’ve spent the last three years trying and fucking failing to do that! But I don’t know what else to do.”

“Saying something about it would have been a good first step.” 

“I’m bad at emotions, Rowan. I tried. It wasn’t enough.”

“That’s not a good enough excuse.”

Aelin flicked a tear from her face. “I know.” Her shoulders slumped. “I’m so sorry, Rowan. I should never have left. I let some stupid comment root into my head and make me doubt myself. I made myself believe I would never be good enough for you. I left you. I loved you, and I still left you. I still love you, even though I’ve tried to suppress it. I can never make up for that. I…I just wanted to tell you how much I’ve regretted that horrible decision all these years. I want you to be happy, Rowan, I--”

“How am I supposed to be happy without a source?” He’d dropped onto the couch, close enough to touch her but still keeping his distance.

“What?”

“You didn’t just take yourself away, Aelin. You were my happiness. I’ve spent three fucking years trying to make myself believe I’m better without you in my life, and I can’t.”

She was unabashedly crying by that point. “What do you want me to do? How can I make up for abandoning you?”

“Stay.”

Her gaze locked onto his, both of their eyes pooling with tears.

“Stay with me, Fireheart.”

“But--”

“I never stopped loving you either.”

A choked sob ripped out of Aelin. Rowan couldn’t hold himself in check any longer; he reached out and tugged her gently into his arms. To his shock, she didn’t resist, burying her face into his chest as sobs shook her shoulders. When she calmed, he tilted her chin up.

“Will you stay, Aelin?”

“Yes. Even though I will never deserve your forgiveness, yes.”

~

Translations:

* = “that pinched old whore who couldn’t convince a dick to come within ten metres of her if she dressed up provocatively” (Italian)

** = loosely translated as “Fucking hell, I can’t get drunk off this garbage.” (in order, Russian (badly phonetically spelled out because Rowan POV), Spanish, German, Spanish again, French) (the Russian doesn’t directly translate, so it could mean several different variations of expletive)

~

Might there be a second part? Perhaps......

[tiptapricot]

I’ve been having a lot of Evil Robo BnT thoughts recently, so here’s a bunch of them! This ended up pretty long just as a forwarning djjdjd

Post DeNomolos, Evil BnT are forced to do a lot of self exploration and discovery

They’re two robots from the far future, stuck in the past with each other and the two humongously important historical figures they were not only sent back to kill, but also physically made to look and sound exactly like, with no way back to their own time and no further reason to carry out the mission they were created for

It’s a lot to adjust to

(Three uses of the f-slur near the end in a canon compliant/reclaimed usage context, and implied sexual content, but extremely mild)

It still doesn’t have much of an impact on them at first though, besides some anger and annoyance. They don’t feel emotions in the same way or to the same depth that humans do, so they kind of fall back on: this sucks and that guy was a dick, guess we have to live in the stupid past now, and that’s the extent of it

But they’re also AIs, and AIs learn and grow

They hide out in a cheap apartment for the first few months or so back, going out to steal money to pay for rent and to pick up movies and stuff, but it’s exposure to the world, it’s living. And the more they interact with people, the more media they consume, the more the rigid walls of their programming break down and expand

And that’s when things start getting complicated

Because that’s when things like morals, sense of self, purpose in life, and, to their horror, real emotions start coming into play

Their evil edges start corroding, things stop being as straightforward, and they start developing into their own complex people

Being Bill and Ted with a few glorified descriptors stuck on the front starts feeling… weird, especially when they inevitably end up running into them again and being around them more

Because they’re supposed to be Bill and Ted, but they aren’t, and yet they can’t completely deny the parts of themselves that are….. it’s frustrating

As a first step in both asserting and exploring their individuality, they choose their own names

Evil Bill chooses Willis, or Will for short, and Evil Ted goes with Theoneous, Theo for short

It’s different enough to feel like their own thing, while still appeasing the ingrained itch to take BnT’s place

There are gaps like that, a disconnect/mental dissonance between their consciousnesses and the knowledge that they’re robots, circuitboards and wires and code, like a separation between what they feel is them and what they feel is the robot

That’s an experience that continues as they grow, especially as they try and figure out what to do with their lives. It’s tough sometimes, to figure out where the programming ends and where their own wants and drives begin

They’re the only ones familiar enough with future tech to help each other when they experience technical issues or need repairs, and the only ones they feel comfortable being that physically vulnerable with

It leads to them being kind of codependent, but it’s warranted in a lot of ways

They also naturally stick closer to each other, because even though they grow to have emotions and are able to care about people, they aren’t totally mushy

They don’t get as upset about things, or as excited, and while they form their own kind of love for the people they end up caring about (without admitting it), they’re still never able to connect with humans in the same way they connect with each other

It’s this inherent wall, a difference in how they experience the world

Their forms of affection are machine based, just like how humans are human based. They’ll give each other cold packs when it’s hot or they’ve been moving a lot, they’ll do evening maintenance on each other, chatting while one of them has their hand in the other’s chest cavity, and they jump on each other or bang their shoulders together super hard, because they can’t feel a thing and they’re durable enough for it, and that’s fun to them

That doesn’t really carry over to human interaction though, and a lot of times they end up coming across as cold or mean

They generally have a rougher seeming relationship than most humans. There’s a lot of teasing and insults and slapping, which turns most people off from them, but that’s how they show they’re comfortable (it’s also how they show they don’t like people, but there’s a subtle and meaningful difference there, AKA that they won’t purposefully try to harm the former party)

Robots process sound differently too, for them it’s more of a physical experience than just listening

Will’s guilty pleasure is that he likes to listen to piano (secretly), especially Debussy and other classical that sounds similar. Something about it makes his circuitry feel good and fuzzy and calms him down

He doesn’t feel comfortable telling Theo about it, it still feels like a dumb pussweed thing to be into (plus it continues to make him have some most non metal thoughts about kissing and That’s DEFINITELY not something he can share)

They also both really like death metal. Though they were loosely programmed with the knowledge of BnT’s music taste, it’s not quite their style, and they lean towards the more intense stuff

They do that in most fields though, since it usually takes higher energy stuff to get them going/excited/into something

That’s why they roughhouse a lot, and mess things up, and drive recklessly, it forces their mechanics to process more things more quickly, and as a result gives them their own form of dopamine/adrenaline

Sometimes things backfire, they’ve fucked themselves up accidentally on more then one occasion when stuff goes too far or isn’t what they expect, but they’re always there to patch each other up

When their synth skin gets ripped or torn they don’t always bother to repair it, and underneath there’s a layer of see through hard plastic and their bodies look like those clear case electronics that were popular in the 90s (idea cred to @juiceboxfrog !)

They also have inspector gadget-like telescoping stretch arms at their wrist and ankle joints, but they don’t use those much because they’re unsettling to most humans. Definitely a leg up when they want to climb places the shouldn’t, though (idea cred to @showbiz-za !)

Theo is more prone to needing fix ups than Will, since the extra wiring that was installed for the time and space spanning camera DeNomolos gave him made him more susceptible to short circuiting, over heating, and other glitches

After awhile he just takes his left eye out and leaves it like that, keeping his hair in his face to cover it. It doesn’t do anything for the internal parts of it he still has, but it’s not like it’s a loss. The connection port kept sparking, and it was uncomfortable and kept fucking with his vision, so it wasn’t worth it

Plus he didn’t really like that it used to be a camera… or still could be

One of the things Will and Theo both have to get used to is actually valuing their own privacy and autonomy

When DeNomolos was around they were just his tools, tools that he didn’t even like

They honestly grow to resent him pretty fast, both with his treatment of them, and, when their emotions are especially out of control, his creation of them

They don’t talk about it much, or when they do it’s mainly anger, not addressing or showing the more raw parts they do feel, because that’s still foreign to them, and their circuits weren’t designed to process or understand more complex stuff

Complex stuff like how being around Ted more makes Theo develop a certain… insecurity

It’s not like the connections are hard to make: he looks like Ted, he sounds like Ted, he was meant to be Ted, Ted has a dickweed of a dad, and Theo had a dickweed of a creator, Ted has Bill and Theo has Will

But Theo doesn’t have Deacon

And while he doesn’t want to be exactly like Ted, part of him also does (it was made to). Part of him wants to be human, to have those natural connections and someone to watch over

But he doesn’t and it’s weird*

He tries to ignore it, chalks it up to his drive still attempting to put him on his original track of replacing Ted, and therefore making him more aware of the family roles Ted has

For all he knows that is what it is, he’s just a robot after all

Even though they aren’t really ones for mushy love, Will and Theo do love each other

You can’t not when you know the other person inside and out, literally

They joke a lot about that when they’re doing repairs (“Dude you’re holding my heart, pretty faggy of you.”), and though they laugh, there’s an unspoken intimacy to it, something that sits warm in their wires and goes beyond platonic; something (though they would never describe it as such) loving about getting to take care of each other, and getting to get taken care of

The jokes also stop being jokes after awhile and take on a charge, morphing into unofficial flirting

Eventually that charge sparks, and their relationship becomes a different kind of physical. That’s new, too, a type of exploration neither of them are familiar with, but it’s nice, it’s good, and it’s easier to write off as casual and not meaningful than anything else (for the record I do think this works/plays out different for them than it does for humans, but I will nOt get into that here or anywhere lmao)

That arrangement doesn’t last forever, though, because one night Theo has a bad malfunction that cause him to completely power down, and it sends Will into a panic

It takes him almost an hour to fix the problem and for Theo to reboot, and when he comes back Will can’t stop touching him and checking in and it’s weird

“Why are you so worked up dude, this’s happened plenty of times.”

“Yeah I know you just… you fritzed out and went limp and it freaked me out dude.”

“So? You know this is nothing to worry about. I don’t get why you’re kinda acting like such a pussweed dude.”

“I didn’t know what was wrong! That’s plenty of reason to be fucking worried!”

“Not for you! Not for us! Why the hell do you care so much this time?”

“Because I love you, asshole!”

And then there’s silence, and staring, and then Theo cracks a smile

“Heh, fag.”

Kissing after a confession, as it turns out, makes both of them short circuit, and they wake up three days later still tangled up on top of each other, half falling off the apartment couch

“Y’know… I think we’re both fags now dude,” Will whispers, and they chuckle in the space between their mouths. “I did it first though.”

*he does get this later with Billie and Thea, but that’s a whole separate post

(As one last thing wanted to add that Love Came Along by Pansy Division perfectly encapsulates the vibes of Will n Theo’s relationship to me, AKA something casual and almost humorous while still being super intimate and emotional, so def check it out if you’re ok with suuuuper explicitly sexual lyrics bfgjgfdfg)

Headcanons masterpost

[multifandomfanfiction]

Beauty and the Genius Chapter 9

TITLE: Beauty and the Genius Chapter 9 PAIRING: Spencer/OC RATING: T CHAPTER: 9/? SUMMARY: When David Rossi joins the team, so does his daughter Gwendolyn. But what happens when she and the resident genius start developing feelings for each other? How will it affect Rossi and Reid’s team dynamic?

[A/N - Longer chapter this time.]

“After my parents died, I…kind of went off the rails for a while. I dropped out of Cal Tech. I lived underground, basically. But I kept teaching myself code. It was like the one thing that kept me together. Of course, my skills got me put on a list. Of people who could potentially do very bad things,” Penelope explained.

“So they offered you a job?” Spencer asked, “Like Frank Abagnale. The Bureau figured if you can’t beat ‘em, hire ‘em.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Garcia, what’s on the encrypted file?” Morgan asked.

“I’m required to keep a record of everything the team does. And after my system got hacked and Elle got shot, I just didn’t want anyone else to be able to get at you.”

“I’ll talk to the doctor, see if he’ll clear you to leave,” Spencer said and left the room.

Gwen went with Derek and Penelope, but not before doing her usual ‘goodnight’ with Spencer. Of course Penelope teased her all the way back to the apartment.

There was a police officer stationed out front. “Hi. I’m Mike Fleming. I’m on till midnight. Officer Cranbeck will be here after that, okay?”

“Thank you,” Penelope told him.

“You’re welcome.”

Morgan led her to the entrance of the courtyard. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”

Penelope stopped to look at the bloodstain on the steps.

“Come on. It washes off. I promise,” he reassured her.

They entered Penelope’s apartment and Morgan looked around and laughed. “I, umm…I would expect nothing less.”

Penelope laughed. “You should be flattered. Not many people are invited in off the grid.”

Morgan spotted a film player on an end table. “Super-8?”

“Yeah.” Penelope walked over to it and turned it on. A film of a younger Penelope started playing. “I always imagined myself fighting crime. My parents were hippies. I think it horrified them.”

“Now why does that not surprise me?” Gwen teased.

“How old were you when you lost them?” Morgan asked.

“18. Drunk driver.” Penelope turned off the projector.

Morgan picked up a piece of paper and examined it.

“I volunteer once a week to counsel family members of murder victims.”

“Baby, you don’t get enough of this stuff at work?”

“I look at those crime scene photos all day long. I can’t know that those families are out there trying to cope and not do something to help.”

Gwen rubbed Penelope’s back and said, “You’re a good woman, Penelope Garcia. Far too precious for this world.”

“Thanks.”

“You do know it was stupid to encrypt that file?” Morgan asked her.

“Yes, I know. Old habits, I guess.”

“You need some rest. You both do.”

“You’re right.” Penelope hugged Morgan. “Go. Be free, my love.”

“Hey, I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m fine. I got my goon squad parked out front and a badass witch on my side.”

Gwen giggled at the comment.

“Goon squad or no goon squad, that couch right there is gonna be my best friend until we find this guy. Now leave it alone.”

“Okay.”

Penelope looped her arm around Gwen’s and started to head to her bedroom. “But if you’re thinking of trying to take advantage of me, let me call my doctor so he can revive me afterward.”

They both laughed.

“What about me?” Gwen asked.

“You’re hot, Sabrina. But I know a certain doctor would beat my ass if I tried anything with you.”

Gwen blushed furiously as Penelope pulled her into the bedroom.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

They woke up to gunshots.

“Garcia!” Morgan yelled, running into the bedroom.

“What’s going on?” Penelope asked.

“Stay right there. Stay there!” Morgan looked out the window and then walked over to the two women. “Come here. Come with me.” He dragged them both into the corner. “Get in the corner. Get in the corner. Gwen, your gun.”

Gwen pulled out her gun.

“Were you sleeping with that?” Penelope asked.

“Downside of having an FBI agent for a father.”

“If somebody walks through that door, you shoot okay? Shoot first, then ask questions,” Morgan told her.

“I got it Derek!”

Morgan walked out the door and fired a shot.

“Morgan!” Penelope yelled.

“Stay there!”

They heard Morgan running down the stairs.

“It’s okay, Penelope. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.” “But what if something happens to you?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

There was movement in the doorway and Gwen cocked her gun.

“Rossi. Rossi. Woah. Woah. Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.”

Gwen lowered her gun. “Call me Rossi again and I will you shoot you.”

Penelope ran into Morgan’s arms crying as they heard sirens in the distance. “Why is this happening to me?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

The ambulance arrived and the BAU team followed shortly after.

Spencer rushed to Gwen’s side. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Spencer. Really.”

“I should have never left you alone.”

“Okay, first off, I can take care of myself and second, I wasn’t alone. Morgan was here.”

“Thank god he was.” Spencer sat down once he was convinced that Gwen was unharmed.

“What’s going on?” JJ asked, walking up to Penelope.

“I don’t know. This guy’s gettin’ seriously bold and I can guarantee it’s not over.”

“You okay?”

“I don’t know what he wants from me,” Penelope said.

“Could you know something about him?” Spencer asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe you have something he wants?”

“I don’t know who he is. I’m so scared.”

“I know,” JJ told her.

Rossi, Hotch, and Emily came into the apartment.

Rossi looked at his daughter, who nodded. She wasn’t hurt, so there was no need to fuss over her.

“Hey, did you get a look at him?” Emily asked Morgan.

“Nothing solid.”

“Garcia, we need to get you back to the hospital,” Hotch told her.

“No,” Penelope said.

“You know what? You should still be there. We need her someplace safe,” JJ agreed.

“I feel safe with all of you.”

“We can take you to the BAU.”

Penelope nodded, staring off into space.

“Garcia?” JJ asked.

“You okay?” Spencer asked her.

“When we were at dinner… They wanted to seat us by a window, but he insisted on sitting at the worst table in the place. And he sat with his back to the corner.”

A couple of detectives walked in, talking quietly.

Hotch turned to them. “Detective, can you clear the room for just a minute?”

“I got a dead cop downstairs. I consider this part of the crime scene.”

“I know. Just a couple of minutes.”

“Do what you gotta do.”

“Thank you.”

The detectives left the apartment.

“Tell us about the car,” Spencer told Penelope.

“Why?”

“Just go with him,” Morgan said.

“You said it was white, 4-door, American. What else?”  Spencer asked.

“That’s it. It was just a car.”

“No, come on, think. Anything. Go back,” Morgan told her.

“The seat belt was buckled behind his back.”

A look dawned on everyone’s face.

“Why does that matter?” Penelope asked.

“It wasn’t a rental. It was for surveillance,” Morgan explained.

“Agents don’t wear seat belts. They need to get out in a hurry.”

“All right, let’s cut the crap,” Rossi said, storming over to Penelope.

Gwen knew what was about to happen.

He sat down across from Penelope. “You need to be straight with us. Right now.”

Penelope looked over at JJ for help

. “Look at me, not them.”

“I’m not hiding anything,” Penelope told him.

“You got shot. Most people get shot for a reason.”

Penelope looked at Morgan.

“Eyes here!” Rossi yelled.

“Ease up, Rossi,” Morgan said.

“Derek, he knows what he’s doing,” Gwen reassured him.

“You got a roomful of people here willing to believe that an FBI agent is trying to kill you. We need to know everything you do on company time that we don’t know about. Come on. Spit it out!”

“It’s nothing bad! It’s just…I counsel victim’s families and they know where I work, so sometimes they ask me to look into cases for them.”

“What does that mean?”

“It just means that the cases, the unsolved ones, I tag them, so whoever’s investigating them knows that the FBI considers them a priority.”

“You’re not authorized to do that,” Hotch told her.

“I know. I was just trying to help.”

“But whoever’s working those cases thinks you’re watching them,” Emily explained.

“I just wanted to put pressure on them so that they don’t slide.”

“How many cases are we talking about?” Hotch asked.

“I don’t know. 7, 8 maybe. I need to get into my system.”

“You can’t. You’re suspended.”

“Wait a minute, Garcia. On your date, you said this guy was pressing you to find out if you were working murder cases,” Morgan said.

Penelope nodded.

“Hotch, we gotta look at those files.”

Hotch sighed and looked at Rossi.

“I told you, I’m sick of this jagoff being in front of us.”

“Dave’s right. We’ll go back to the BAU. Morgan, Reid, Prentiss, Gwen, you stay here and make sure no forgets to log out of the system. Garcia should not have access,” Hotch told them.

“Understood,” Morgan said.

Gwen shared a smirk with her father.

Taglist: @imagining-in-the-margins , @subhuman-queer, @anotherr-fine-mess and anyone else who would like to be tagged!

[philip-seville-archive]

You Need To Calm Down || Phinnip

Summary: Phinnip get into a weird fight at a beach party for reasons they are too obtuse to figure out. Typical Friday!! 

@oh-phineas​

Pip Seville

Pip went to more parties than one would think, thank you very much. It was how he kept his reputation as a mid-ranked popular kid-- cool enough to hang out with Tony Rydinger without being Tony Rydinger. He was thus extremely good at mingling, and drifted from group to group effortlessly as he did his own form of networking among the secondary-uni mix that congregated on the beach's shores during the summer.

Phineas did not have such grace. He always entered a group at a party like he was the guest of honor.

And so Pip rolled his eyes. "Cool it, Flynn, it's summer! Who wants to talk about school right now?"

Phineas Flynn

Phineas shot Pip a look. Why did he always have to have a comment like that? "It's like they say about work. If it's something you like, it won't feel like work. And I know uni's gonna be epic," he argued. "Plus, I've definitely heard you talking about NYU this summer."

Pip Seville

"Um, since when? You stalking me and taking notes?" Pip said-- in a playful way though, promise. He smiled and everything. "I think the only time I've talked about NYU is when you bring up uni first."

Phineas Flynn

"More like I have ears. But sure, if you wanna believe that I don't have anything better to do with my time." Phineas smirked. Honestly, it was kind of the opposite-- Phineas was so busy with the play and his new business, he didn't actually see Pip much except at some rehearsals. "You know, come to think of it, it's been, like, forever since we hung out. What's up with that?"

Pip Seville

"Well, we don't have SSIC anymore, so..." said Pip, trailing off with a shrug. "What would we even do?"

And he'd expected this. He and Phineas were friends of convenience. Yes, Pip had grown to really like the guy (despite him annoying Pip most of the time) and he would miss him, but he had always known that as soon as Phineas graduated, it was bye-bye. That's part of the reason Pip decided to be annoyed at Phineas most of the time, honestly. Didn't want to get too attached when separation was inevitable.

Phineas Flynn

Phineas looked at Pip quizzically. It was... true. And it wasn't something Phineas would have admitted, because he just wasn't blunt like that. Phineas liked to imagine everyone he met was one of his buddies, and act like they were best friends. Even if it was basically just the equivalent of being someone's coworker.

But he also had always liked to think he and Pip were really friends-- that fight back in January wouldn't have hurt as much if they weren't, right? But... yeah, what did they even have in common?

Phineas wanted to keep the idea of it going, though. "I mean, I dunno, we went to Alton Towers that one time. It was fun." He smiled, back to his typical jovial nature. "We should do more stuff like that! Right? How about a camping trip? You, me, Tad, maybe that other guy you guys were hanging out with, Louie if it's not gonna make it weird for you, lads trip!"

Pip Seville

Pip could not help himself. He scoffed, barely bringing up his drink in front of his face in time to pass it off as kind of a half-cough situation. There was just--

"Sorry, I-- I'm processing the concept of a lads trip, give me a second--" Pip said, making a face. Ugh, he was gay and loved boys, but sometimes boys (like Phineas) were just so... boys.

"Okay, I-- actually, I'm curious why you think camping is the right activity for you and me. Genuinely, I would like for you to explain the thinking behind that specific choice considering the year you spent getting to know me."

Phineas Flynn

Phineas didn’t think it had to be all that deep. But here Pip was again, looking at Phineas like he was a bug under a microscope. It was so weird.

“I dunno, it’s just fun, right? I didn’t really think about it that much. But if you think it’s a dumb idea, like, sure, I guess. You have a better suggestion?”

Pip Seville

"I just don't think we have to do a big thing every time we want to hang out," said Pip. Also, he would loathe camping. Anyone who knew Pip knew that, but once again Phineas was displaying an unsurprising lack of awareness of people other than himself (and this was why they were friends of convenience).

"Like-- okay. If you really wanna hang out, why don't me and Tad meet up with you and that girl you're seeing for lunch," said Pip. "Oooor you could come over for a movie marathon. Or a board game tournament, so I could kick your ass in Settlers of Catan.”

Phineas Flynn

Phineas wasn’t sure how Vanellope would feel about it, but he had a feeling she would be bored, going out to lunch. Maybe it was because she was so interesting that Phineas was scared of letting her down.

How would she feel about board games? Phineas couldn’t be sure.

“Sure, yeah, we could do, like, a couples thing if you want,” Phineas said nonchalantly. “Not that I’d call me and Van a couple. We’re just, like, chillin’. But I get what you’re saying. I don’t know if she’s really into board games, though. She’s from New York, so, like...” Phineas made a face as though to say She’s really cool. “I think she’s a gamer, though. You ever play League of Legends?”

Pip Seville

Oh great. Video games.

Not that Pip didn't like them. He just liked...certain kinds. He was not the must skilled gamer in the world and he didn't have a lot of time to explore a lot of types anyway. "Uh... no," said Pip. That sounded like something Tad would like though. "I guess I could learn though, if that's like, her thing?"

Phineas Flynn

Phineas smiled proudly. He always felt cool, talking about Vanellope. “Yeah, she’s really good at that kind of stuff,” he explained. “Like, anything techy, really. Did I tell you she’s helping with the coding for my app?”

Pip Seville

No, he hadn't, but it didn't surprise Pip at all. After all, that was Phineas's new project. So he had a new partner.

Not that Pip was jealous okay-- the idea actually sucked in his opinion, and he did not think it was going to get off the ground.

"Oh? That is cool," he said. He at least sort of meant that. "Is she like, an official part of the Phineas-Louie team then? Your official developer or whatever you tech bros call it?"

Phineas Flynn

Ohhh, that was a good point. “Well, she’s definitely getting a free jacket,” Phineas said authoritatively. “Once our investor money comes in. I guess she should probably get an official title. Maybe she can be CTO. Since Louie and I are co-CEOs. I want her to feel appreciated, you know?”

Pip Seville

Pip really needed to meet this Vanellope girl. He wanted to see the type of chick that liked Phineas. Everything that Phineas said tracked, but he had to wonder how much was getting filtered through that very specific Phineas lens, you know? And there was only so much one could pick up on social (yes, he'd stalked her!!! No shame in that, everyone did it!)

Anyway, he thought Phineas sounded a little condescending right now but hey, he didn't know the girl! "Right, I mean, I hope so. If she's actually helping you code the thing. That seems pretty important for getting it off the ground," said Pip. "Have you found any investors yet?"

Phineas Flynn

Phineas was... bending the truth a little here. “Yeah, Louie’s uncle is loaded so that’s pretty much a done deal. I might hit up Mr. Simba, too, I feel like I made a good impression. But that’s just the start. I’m really trying to network, you know? Once we get to Pride U it’ll be easier.” @SWOOPING EVIL laur

Pip Seville

"Oh, like for school-funded grants and stuff like that?" Pip asked, and again, this was a genuine question, not trying to cut Phineas down. As if Pip knew how Pride U's business school worked! Maybe they had grants or scholarships for that kind of thing.

Phineas Flynn “I mean, maybe!” Phineas said, not really sure whether or not Pip was being sarcastic or trying to catch him in a lie but choosing to believe he wasn’t. “I just mean the networking will be easier— I’m sure my professors will have been through it, and there’ll be societies for that kind of thing, and I can get in touch with alumni... Know what I mean? That’s why I’m trying to meet Pride U people.”

Pip Seville

Yes, for once, Pip did know what Phineas meant. And honestly?

He was jealous.

Wanting to go to NYU meant that he couldn't do any of that before the fact. There were like, maybe some zoom meet-up things... maybe. But everyone knew that was bullshit. You had to be on the ground. Shaking hands, being charming. AKA what Phineas was trying to do right now (and Pip was sort of keeping him from doing, whoops).

"No, no, I get it," reassured Pip, since he seemed a bit flustered out of nowhere. "You're lucky that you want to go to Pride U honestly-- and your sister goes too. I'm sure you'll be fine when the fall rolls around."

Phineas Flynn

Okay, that was kind of weird. Phineas almost wanted Pip to go back to making fun of him.

“I mean, hey, it’s not like you committed to NYU. Nothing’s stopping you if you end up changing your mind,” Phineas pointed out, interpreting Pip’s statement as being jealous that Phineas was going to Pride U, not being jealous that Phineas wanted to go to Pride U. “You’d know so many people at Pride U. It’d be super easy. Just sayin’.” @SWOOPING EVIL laur

Pip Seville

AND he was right back to rolling his eyes at Phineas. Seriously?! How many times were they going to have this conversation? And like, why? What kind of weirdo measuring stick contest was this Pride U vs. NYU thing??

"Oh my god, so? I mean would I like to have a leg up before hand, absolutely, but I'm not about to make the most important decision on my life based on how easy something is! Sometimes, and I know you might find this shocking, but hard things, things that take a lot of work, are worth it!"

Phineas Flynn

Phineas made a face. That comment hit him, maybe more than it should have. “Dude, are you joking? I work so hard. Do you think this business would’ve got anywhere if I didn’t, like, grind?” Phineas threw his hands up in frustration. “Just because you’re all Type A doesn’t mean you’re better than me. I just like to do stuff my own way. And I don’t wanna, like, leave all my friends and family just to go to college in a city where I don’t know anyone. So, like, judge me, I guess!”

Pip Seville

"Oh my god, I don't want to leave my friends or family either, it's not my fault my friends and family live across the freaking ocean! But sometimes you also have to take risks and be true to your dreams and mine are in New York City!" said Pip hotly.

Suddenly he felt like he was arguing with Amy. Out of nowhere. Which was weird, because Phineas-- seriously, why did he care??

"Why do you care?" Pip finally actually asked, flinging a hand out. "No seriously, why are you always on my arse about this?"

Phineas Flynn

Why did Phineas care?

He should have been relieved Pip wanted to move across the ocean and that Phineas would never have to do another stupid group project with him again. But a part of Phineas still kind of thought Pip would stay in Swynlake. It was just... well, SSIC had been Phineas’s first big project. And Pip had been Phineas’s partner in that. And how did you go through a kind of intense experience with someone like that and just never see them again in your life?

Because Phineas was sure about that. Once Pip went off to NYU, he was never coming back, and Phineas was never going to see him again.

“I— honestly, Pip, I don’t know! ‘Cause you’re really pissing me off right now!” Phineas retorted. “You’re always, like, jumping to conclusions about me! And I really don’t appreciate it!” Especially because, a lot of the time, Pip was right. That was the worst part.

Because somehow, Phineas did care.

Pip Seville

"I have literally never jumped to conclusions about you a day in my life. I draw conclusions based on evidence and observation and experience!" Pip snapped. "Though I don't even know what you could be talking about because all I said the past five minutes was basically that I thought you were going to find the connections you wanted at Pride U. Oh, and I complimented your girlfriend, you're welcome by the way!"

Phineas Flynn

“She’s not my friggin’ girlfriend! We’re chilling!” Phineas gestured wildly, spilling his White Claw in the process. He barely noticed. He was all riled up now. Happy Leo season. “Not the point! Stop appropriating the scientific method to act like you’re being the rational one here!” @SWOOPING EVIL laur

Pip Seville

"I always am the rational one!" exclaimed Pip to that. "What are you talking about? Where have you been the past year when I've been the one turning your insane whims into actual executable decisions? That's why you freaking like me, because I'm so "rational!"" Pip said with overexaggerated quote marks (sloshing his drink too). @emma

Phineas Flynn

“There you go again!” Phineas laughed harshly, stepping back and flinging his arms wide. “You think you know everything! What are you, a friggin’ mind reader?”

He was about to contradict Pip, but the claim made him wonder: why did Phineas like Pip? Because he did like him. And he did want to stay friends. And they barely had anything in common, it was true, and Phineas did find it extremely annoying that Pip always had a smug counter argument to all of Phineas’s crazy ideas. And yet it bothered him that Pip wanted to move to New York.

“That’s— I mean, sure I guess you’re good at that, but it’s also really friggin’ annoying! You think you know everything about me, but you don’t!”

Pip Seville

Pip made an amazed face, lifting his hand again like what the fuck are you even talking about? Because Pip, genuinely, did not know what Phineas was talking about. Hadn't Phineas said they made a good team because of what Pip just described? Yes, he said it with lots of silly buzzwords about like, people's working styles and MBTI or ... whatever, Pip didn't care. But he said it! How was Pip mind reading anything, and oh, if he WAS, didn't that imply that Phineas was mad at him for obviously being right?!

Basically this conversation didn't make any sense. "What are you even talking about? What are we even arguing about right now? That I'm right, and you're mad about it? That I want to go to NYU, and you're mad about it? Literally I am grasping for straws, so puh-lease enlighten me!"

Phineas Flynn

“I don’t know!” Phineas shouted, and then thought about it, and then realized 1. that he was shouting and 2. that he really didn’t know.

He looked around. Some random girl was giving him a weird look. Phineas put his hands up in a “surrender” gesture.

“It’s chill, dude. It’s chill,” Phineas said, his face tomato-red. “Let’s just... whatever. You gotta live your truth. I gotta live mine. It’s chill.”

Phineas didn’t even know what he was saying at this point. He was still vaguely pissed, but mostly, he was tired. And a little embarrassed. Why did he always start drama like this?

“I’m gonna take a walk.”

Pip Seville

This was the weirdest fight they'd ever had. For lots of reasons. The obvious first one was that Pip could not track its beginning. Normally when they fought, it was over a detail about something, or sometimes Phineas took one of Pip's jokes the wrong way, or sometimes Pip got annoyed when Phineas joked (they never seemed to be on the same page when it came to the right time to joke). But whatever this was, it was invisible, and sticky, and full of knots. The kind of thing that built up over time.

The second weird part of it was that it lingered in the air. Normally they both could shrug off a fight or break it by changing the subject, refocusing, putting their attention to someone else around them. Phineas tried to do that. But the air hung and Phineas's face was red.

Pip wondered for the first time if maybe Phineas was drunker than Pip realized.

That thought made his stomach drop. It also made him freeze there, for one more second than usual. Enough time for Phineas to peel off and Pip to like...not say anything. Also weird.

"Okay, whatever," said Pip though Phineas was already walking away. But yeah. Okay, whatever. It was whatever. Pip shook his head and peeled off himself, looking for Tad or Josh or-- literally anyone else. Whatever whatever whatever.

[tempestaurora]

Hi I just need to share this idea before I fall asleep: AU where Beck targeted Harley instead because Tony left Harley EDITH instead of Peter

read on ao3

They showed up in the hand of a suited man who looked uncomfortably hot in the Tennessee sun. E.D.I.T.H., the card in the glasses case read, Even In Death I’m The Hero – T.S.

Harley had been to his funeral the month before, had stood outside the lake house with a collection of plain-clothed superheroes. He’d recognised some, but not all. Captain America, Falcon, Hawkeye, Bruce Banner. They were all red-eyed and sombre, donned in black suits and congregating in small groups after the ceremony. Harley had come alone, without his mother or sister, and had spoken to barely anyone, bar Colonel Rhodes who recognised him, Pepper and Morgan, who’d invited him, and the kid called Peter Parker, who looked about his age - though, post-snap, it was hard to tell anymore.

He hadn’t touched the glasses for two days before finally working up the nerve to try them on, then he’d played with them in complete awe for three days before finally putting them away again. He’d read the texts of strangers on the street, peered inside the Mustang’s engine and dissected every part, stared at the maths problems on his homework sheet and watched the numbers float off the page and solve themselves. It was a lot of power, Harley figured. Too much for a kid in fuck-all nowhere Rose Hill.

He made a small hole in the floorboards of the garage, and hid the glasses away.

He’d vanished in the snap, like half the universe, but his sister and mother had lived on for five years, continued to grow and change. He’d been in his senior year when he’d died, and now his sister was too. They shared the same classes, and though she’d desperately tried to get into science and engineering; to make use of the tools in the garage that Tony had provided Harley with, she just wasn’t interested, and leant heavily towards history, with dreams of archaeology and excavation.

They looked like twins now, and started to tell people that they were.

His little sister was five years younger than him, but they were both eighteen now anyway.

In all, despite having E.D.I.T.H. under the floorboards of the half-gutted garage (the equipment inside was both too sentimental to sell, and too expensive not to), nothing much changed with Harley as the world tried to right itself after the second snap. Time continued on, the world slowly rebuilt itself and struggled to house all the new homeless folk, and superheroes re-emerged from the cracks, fighting the everyday bank robbers and crazy scientists, rather than colonising aliens.

Harley and Ariel graduated side by side, her name read out first, then his, and they wore matching robes and smiled matching smiles for their mother’s photos. They packed up their things and both headed for New York, both of them studying at Columbia, and both of them scoring rooms in the same dorm. On the day they left; Harley’s Mustang idling out front with his sister’s music blaring from the stereo, Harley wandered around the garage, decked out by a dead man, and pulled back the floorboard. E.D.I.T.H. still sat there in the case, just as it had when Harley had first received it a year before, and he removed it, replaced the floorboard, and started the long drive north.

His classes were the good kind of difficult, and he threw himself into electrical and mechanical engineering, scoring high grades and making new friends. Parties were a rare thing in Rose Hill, as everyone lived so far apart and kids his age were rare, so now he and Ariel had new experiences to make; dorm parties and frat houses, night clubs and bars. Despite the new laws about post-snap identification, his I.D. from before still worked in some places; technically twenty-three rather than the lived eighteen.

“We’re twins,” he and Ariel would say to whoever asked; the two Keeners living on the same floor and going to the same parties. They shared a lot of friends, though drew themselves to different areas; Harley falling easily into the D&D Society, and Ariel finding herself in three separate book clubs.

“Family has become more important than ever,” the post-snap counsellor would say in their mandatory session in their first semester. Every student had to meet with them, only a year since the world came back, but Harley and Ariel attended theirs together, more joined at the hip than they had ever been when they were five years apart in age.

They went home for Christmas and returned in January, starting classes anew. It was then that Harley met his new teacher, Quentin Beck, an M.I.T. graduate who’d once been a successful head developer in R&D at Stark Industries. Harley took every reference to Tony like a stab in the side; Tony’s face was everywhere, painted in every mural. All his classmates were obsessed with the arc reactor and the Stark tech, they all held Starkphones like once everyone had held Apples. Beck’s entire first class was essentially a spiel about what he learned at S.I., and Harley felt sick by the end of it.

Just as he was rushing out of the class, Quentin – all the tutors insisted being called by their first names – called him back. “I hear you’re the student to look out for,” he said easily, resting against the edge of his desk. “Tell me, where did your interest start?”

Harley had never been asked this question, but he had always thought he’d lie if he were. Instead, facing a man who’d also known and cared about Tony Stark, he said, “I’ve always liked building things, but I don’t think it was until I met Tony Stark myself that I really got invested.”

Quentin raised an eyebrow, surprised. “You’ve met Tony Stark?”

“It’s a little hard to believe,” he admitted, rubbing at the back of his neck, “but back in 2013—the Mandarin incident? With the President?—when Tony vanished after his house got bombed, he ended up in my hometown. Broke into my garage to hide out from the snow, and well—I dunno. I got to hang out with him for a few days.”

He thought he’d be scoffed at, honestly – it wasn’t a particularly believable story, though Harley had realised that was the case with a lot of truths – but instead, Quentin smiled, like he’d found someone similar to himself, a friend. They talked for a bit about Tony, and then after the next class, they talked again. They went to Quentin’s office and told stories about working with Tony and their experiences with Iron Man. Harley showed him the photos from when he was fifteen and visiting New York mere weeks before Ultron, when he and Tony worked on the code for his own helper bot and later went to a museum together.

It was—strange, honestly. Having someone to relate to about this stuff. Having someone who cared—about Harley, about Tony, about his legacy. Quentin was the only person who got it. Ariel had never met Tony, had been too young to really remember the events anyway, and Harley hadn’t wanted to bother anyone he’d met at the funeral; their connections to Tony far stronger than his could ever be. He hadn’t known the man like Colonel Rhodes had, like Pepper had – but he still grieved, still mourned, still wanted him back.

Talking to Quentin, then working with him on his project, was a little like that; like finding Tony in the world again.

So, one day, as they worked in the shop he said, “Tony left me a gift actually.”

Quentin paused and leant back on his stool, saying, “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. When he died. Some lawyer showed up at my door with it; said he’d left it in his will for me.”

“What was it, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Glasses,” Harley replied. “They’re—it’s an A.I., called E.D.I.T.H..” He shrugged. “I don’t know why he left them to me, honestly. He already gave me a whole workshop and a vintage Mustang. And we weren’t—we didn’t talk a whole lot, even before the snap. Couple times a year, I guess. I came up to New York like, twice, and he would email out of the blue to see if I wanted to test the new Starkphone…”

“What does the A.I. do?”

“What doesn’t it do?” Harley sighed. “I’m pretty sure it’s a borderline surveillance state A.I., I mean, if the government had it. It can see everything, I think. In the wrong hands… it could be catastrophic.”

“Are your hands the wrong hands?” Quentin asked.

Harley hesitated. “I hope not. Tony trusted me with it, so he must think… must think they’re right.”

“Well,” Quentin said, “I’d love to see them sometime. They sound incredible.”

That afternoon he returned to his room, where he knelt by the drawer he’d fixed a false bottom into, pulling out the E.D.I.T.H. glasses for the first time since he hid them away in September. He tried them on, and E.D.I.T.H. greeted him in the warm tone, information pouring out before him. He peered around his room slowly, and as the sight caught on his roommate’s laptop, their tablet, E.D.I.T.H. captured the data and sent it scrolling before his eyes.

“E.D.I.T.H.,” Harley said quietly.

“Yes, Harley?”

“Why did Tony leave you to me?”

“Tony Stark left gifts for all loved ones in case of his demise. He did not tell me the significance or reasoning behind his actions.”

Harley sighed and flopped backwards onto his bed. “What did other people get?”

“Virginia “Pepper” Potts and Morgan Stark received the majority of the wealth, assets and properties under the name Anthony Edward Stark. Virginia Potts was also left controlling ownership of Stark Industries. Colonel James Rhodes was bequeathed several vintage cars, a large sum of money, and several sentimental items. Harold Hogan was bequeathed the same. Should I go on?”

“Sure.”

“Mr. Stark left various moneys, cars, sentimental items and properties to individuals he worked with under the Avengers Initiative: Robert “Bruce” Banner, Natasha Romanoff, Steven Rogers, Clinton Barton and Thor Odinson. Other moneys were left to various organisations, foundations and charities supported by Mr Stark. He bequeathed myself and a college fund to you, Harley Keener, and a matching college fund and equipped workshop space in Queens, New York, New York, to Peter Parker. He left—”

“Stop,” Harley said.

Peter Parker had been the other kid at the funeral. The one with the internship with Tony. The one at the front of the dock, who’d cried beside his Aunt, who’d been introduced to Morgan for the first time mere minutes after Harley had.

“E.D.I.T.H.,” Harley said, “do you have the contact information for Peter Parker?”

“Of course, Harley.”

Peter’s phone number, email and address appeared before his eyes. His personal information scrolled beside it; seventeen, in his senior year, Midtown Tech High School. Harley thought about calling him; about saying Hi, we met at the funeral, want to be friends? About the bond he had with Quentin, the only person who understood what Harley was going through, even a little, and how he could have it again, with someone else. Someone who had worked beside Tony and looked up to him, just like Harley.

He was about to ask E.D.I.T.H. to call the number when his phone started ringing.

QUENTIN BECK CALLING his glasses read. He and Quentin had shared numbers because Harley’s college email was glitchy and Quentin had needed a way to contact him about class schedules and extra shop time.

“Hi, Quentin,” Harley said as he picked up.

“Harley! I’m glad I caught you. I was just thinking about those glasses Tony left you…”

It didn’t take much, really, for Quentin to persuade Harley to let him take a look at them. He was a friend, he was trusted – he, too, might be the right hands. Quentin and Harley talked for hours about them, trying them out and asking E.D.I.T.H. about her various functions. Harley had been right about how incredible they were, but he’d also been right about how much power they held for trouble. How far the wrong hands could take them; they were connected to satellites across the globe, had an enabled drone strike, and could send missiles to any given place on the planet. And Tony Stark had made this?

“They’re… truly something,” Quentin had said when the sky grew dark. Ariel was texting about dinner and Harley was packing up to leave. “Don’t… please don’t take this the wrong way, Harley—but do you think they’re too much responsibility for you to have?”

“Quentin, I—”

“I know you’re not a child, I know. You’re eighteen, you’re an adult – but these glasses,” he gestured to them on the table, shaking his head. “You could destroy the world with this, Harley. You could literally take it over. And that’s—that’s terrifying. It’s terrifying that Tony would’ve made something like this in the first place, and frankly, more so that he would leave them to someone else upon his death, rather than destroying them.”

“You think they should be destroyed?”

“I think these are simply another foray into weapon building,” Quentin sighed. “Though rather than selling it to the U.S. military, he’s privatised it and kept it for himself.”

“Then why did he give them to me?” Harley asked, nervous hands picking up the glasses. Quentin was right, of course, they were too much responsibility for him. He’d stuck them under the floorboards where they couldn’t be touched because of it. Left them in the drawer and pretended they didn’t exist. Practically ignored the one thing Tony had left for him.

He bet, bitterly, that Peter Parker wasn’t ignoring the gift Tony had left for him.

“I’m not sure, Harley. And this isn’t something I’m saying about you—rather, about him—but I don’t think it was the right decision.”

Harley swallowed, turning over the glasses in his hands. “You think I should get rid of them entirely?”

Quentin sighed, passing a hand over his forehead. “I’m not sure, Harley. I’m not. Perhaps they’ll save the world someday—but only in the hands of the right person.”

Harley bit hard into the inside of his lower lip. He wasn’t the right person. His hands weren’t the right hands. What had Tony been thinking, leaving a weapon this powerful to him? He was a kid from fuck-all nowhere Rose Hill, not a superhero. He was no Captain America, no Thor, no Iron Man.

“Quentin,” Harley said, his mind made up. “If I gave them to you, would you hide them somewhere?”

“What?”

“Hide them. Like you said, they might save the world someday—but that day’s not today, and they need to be somewhere where they can’t cause trouble until then. And if I’m not the right hands—then I shouldn’t know where they are.”

Quentin took the glasses in careful hands. “Are you sure, Harley?”

He nodded, resolute. “I’m sure.”

Quentin hesitated, turning the glasses over in his hands. “Perhaps you should—you should pass over the control to me, too. They only work for you, and if you don’t know where they are…”

Harley swallowed then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll keep the control.”

“But, Harley—”

“No,” he repeated. “Maybe I’m not the right hands, but maybe you’re not either.”

“Harley—”

“If you were, Tony would’ve given them to you in the first place. I just need… I just need them hidden. Until I am the right hands, or until the world needs them. Whichever comes first, I guess.”

On the way home, he called Peter Parker and arranged to get coffee in some Queens café the next weekend. After dinner, he shot off an email to Pepper Potts, too, to see how she was doing and apologise for not reaching out for so long. Her response was prompt, and the weekend after, he was to meet her at her Manhattan apartment for dinner with her and Morgan.

He felt strange, that night, and the nights after it, going to bed without the glasses in the drawer beside his head, but it was for the best, he thought, not knowing where they were.

During class on Friday, Quentin seemed busy, side-tracked, and on Saturday, Harley met Peter, who was happier than the last time he’d seen him, and more than willing to share stories about Tony all afternoon, until it grew dark and the two of them went next door for a bite of pizza.

Classes all the next week were cancelled due to Quentin being sick, and he responded to Harley’s get well soon text positively, saying he was already on the mend. At dinner with Pepper and Morgan, Harley told her about college, about meeting Peter even. He didn’t mention Quentin or the glasses, and neither did she. Instead, they laughed at Morgan’s bad jokes and afterwards played a board game and let her win.

And then Quentin didn’t show for class the week after. Didn’t cancel it either, so Harley and his classmates sat around, confused and waiting, until they got bored and went home. Harley tried Quentin’s number and he didn’t pick up. The next day he did the same and the number was cancelled.

“This number no longer exists,” the voice at the end of the line said, and Harley shuddered to a halt in the middle of the packed corridor. People bumped into him from all sides and he squeezed his way over to the wall, the truth playing in front of his eyes on loud, flashing repeat.

Quentin Beck had hidden E.D.I.T.H. and then vanished. He’d taken E.D.I.T.H. He was in possession of the most powerful and dangerous A.I. since Ultron. And Harley had given it to him.

Harley called Pepper as he from campus, searching for a cab.

“Hi, Harley,” Pepper said, “I’m actually about to head into a meeting, so could I call you back—”

“No!” Harley cried, skidding to a stop on the pavement. “It’s important!”

“Is everything alright?”

“No, everything’s not alright! It’s E.D.I.T.H.!”

“Edith? Who’s Edith?”

“E.D.I.T.H.!” Harley repeated. “The A.I. Tony left me! I was kind of overwhelmed by the responsibility of it, and my teacher Quentin convinced me that I shouldn’t have it at all, so I asked him to put it somewhere until I could use it, and now he’s gone! He’s gone and he’s the only one who knows where E.D.I.T.H. is!”

Harley was panting out on the street, but Pepper’s voice was even, hard, “Harley,” she said, “did you hand over control of E.D.I.T.H. when you gave it to your teacher?”

“No,” Harley said. “I didn’t think I should, so it’s still under my control—”

“Alright. That’s very good of you, Harley. E.D.I.T.H. can only be used by the person who has control. Tony gave that control to you, and so long as you don’t ask E.D.I.T.H. to obey anyone else, control will remain with you. Now, can you tell me the name of your teacher?”

“Quentin. Quentin Beck.”

“Oh, fuck,” Pepper said, eloquently. “Amy, would you mind rescheduling my meetings? Harley, come to the apartment. We’ll call in some help and get this sorted.”

Harley grabbed his sister on the way, relaying the events and watching as she chose between a scoff that he could be so dumb, and a pitying smile. She chose the latter and the two of them climbed in a taxi, taking it to the Upper West Side, where Pepper lived when she was in the city. The elevator opened not on the penthouse floor like last time, though, but on the floor beneath, where Pepper stood by an array of computers and Happy paced around behind her.

On one of the screens was Quentin’s face, though a good few years younger, and a long list of information.

Pepper greeted them and then told them all about Quentin Beck, the man who became his college teacher. He had worked for Stark Industries, that much was true, and he had led the development of what eventually became B.A.R.F., an incredibly complex piece of technology that extracted memories and could replay them in 3D, just like Tony had displayed at M.I.T. in 2016. But Quentin hadn’t designed it for use as a billion dollar therapy tool; he’d seen it as a weapon, as a way to manufacture events, hallucinations. With B.A.R.F., the user could extract memories exactly as they were remembered, or exactly as they decided to remember them. It could be used for interrogation, for criminal cases – or it could be used for exonerations. And in other events, it could just as easily be taken advantage of; a guilty person misremembering a murder; a victim being forced to replay a traumatic memory again and again.

He was infuriated what Tony wanted to do with his technology, and had eventually been fired for it too. He was off the deep end, Pepper said, a little crazed and dangerous. His reference had been anything but glowing, and yet he’d still managed to doctor the facts and land himself a role at Columbia during the five years between snaps. He still managed to end up as Harley’s teacher – though, it seemed, by coincidence. One Quentin took advantage of as soon as he discovered how close Tony and Harley had been, and who owned the large fund that was paying Harley’s tuition.

After Pepper told her story, Harley told his – about how dangerous E.D.I.T.H. truly is, about the responsibility of a world killer that he could wear like a pair of smart glasses. Quentin had been right, as awful as it was; Harley wasn’t ready for them, wasn’t prepared to own something like that, and in the wrong hands…

“Why do you think Tony gave them to you?” Pepper asked softly, hers hands on his arms.

“I don’t know!” Harley complained. “I don’t know why he gave them to me—”

“He gave them to you because you are the right hands,” she said. “Because you are responsible. And yes, they’re a weight to carry, and they can be scary—hell knows I feel that pressure with F.R.I.D.A.Y. standing over me at all times, knowing what she can do if I asked—but he wouldn’t have handed them down to you if he thought you couldn’t handle it. And maybe… maybe you can’t yet. Maybe you do need to grow into them, but E.D.I.T.H. is yours, and will be for as long as you want it.”

“But it can do so many bad things.”

“And it can do so many good ones, too,” she replied. “Tony was a futurist. He saw the way forward and brought it to the present. He could see the value of A.I.; of a being that learned and grew and changed, but wasn’t human. They can do a lot of bad, if you ask it to – and they’re installed with safeguards for that exact reason – but they can do a lot of good. F.R.I.D.A.Y. is a personal assistant and security system as much as she can be used as a weapon. She can keep an eye on Morgan, can deploy security measures if someone breaks in, can keep an eye on body temperatures, on health and how hydrated we are. She’s a friend as much as she’s technology. If she sees dips in mood, she can work to relieve it; when Tony was struggling after the first snap, she was also the one that alerted me, so I could help. And maybe—maybe they’re small things, compared with missiles in the sky and drone strikes, but they’re also good things.”

She sighed, smiling. “It’s like being a good person or a bad person, Harley. Just because you think bad thoughts, doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It’s what you do that counts. We all have the potential for chaos, for hurt and harm – we have to choose not to act on it. In the same way, with A.I.s in our hands, we have to continuously choose to use them for good, not evil.”

Harley felt his chest loosen a little, where it had tightened and knotted up. Maybe Pepper was right.

“But E.D.I.T.H. isn’t in my hands,” he said. “I lost her!”

“Anything lost can also be found,” she said easily, turning to the monitors. “I have F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” she said, “and I am using her for good by locating Quentin Beck using New York’s CCTV cameras and S.I.’s advanced facial recognition software—not for sale, distribution or government use,” she added, with a smile. “I could go out there myself, too, but I figured there was someone closer by.” Pepper pressed a button on the dash. “How’s it going Spidey?”

“Hey, Pepper!” a voice responded; the cheery, upbeat tone of Spiderman. “I’m actually just watching him through the window of his buddy’s apartment. They’ve been trying to hack into the glasses since way before I got here and its fun seeing them stressed. They haven’t even noticed I’m here.”

“Spidey,” Pepper sighed, “would you mind getting the glasses back sooner rather than later? And finding out who the buddy is?”

“Oh, KAREN’s already figured that out. Ex-S.I. employee. Guess they all have it out for Mr. Stark, huh?”

The image of a balding man appeared on one screen, clearly taken through the bedroom window. His name popped up next to it, with his details.

“Guess so,” Pepper replied.

It was less than an hour later that Spiderman vaulted through the window of the lab, glasses in hand.

“Oh, pizza?” he said, looking at the boxes Happy had ordered to keep himself busy. “Save any for me?”

Pepper tapped her hand on a closed box. “Pepperoni. Just for you.”

“Oh, you’re the best,” he said, passing Harley on the way to the box and handing back the glasses as he went. “For you,” he added along the way.

Harley eyed the glasses in his hands; they were very Tony, just like the ones he used to wear. He wasn’t ready for them, really. Not yet. But someday, he might be – someday, he might be able to use E.D.I.T.H.’s reach and power for good. Might be able to use her to build good things that help people, to change the world just as Tony had done.

Harley said, “Thanks, Peter,” and grinned as Spiderman, Pepper and Happy froze.

Then Spiderman whined, “How did you know? I didn’t even tell you! I swear, Pepper, I said nothing,” and Harley laughed, waving the glasses around.

“E.D.I.T.H. knows everything,” he said, remembering all the details that appeared when he asked the glasses for Peter’s phone number, “from your class schedule to your secret identity.”

Peter pulled off the mask and Ariel sniggered into her pizza as he did so. He looked so put out. “No telling,” he said, slumping onto a free chair. “I can’t believe everyone I come into contact with figures out my secret identity.”

“It’s probably because you take off the mask every time you want to talk to someone or look dramatically into the middle distance,” Happy replied, with his mouth full.

They all laughed, and Harley grinned, placing the glasses carefully on the table.

Not yet, he thought, but maybe someday.

[mattpitman]

The precipice.

Wow. What a week. 

I am not entirely sure where it was more chaotic, in my remote classroom or in the political arena. I gave my thoughts on all of that last week and I’m still very much in the same place. I’m feeling fortunate to live in Victoria, that is for sure. I can’t wait to stroll the busy streets of Melbourne again...

The chaos in the classroom is actually great though. The remote learning environment is a hive of activity. It has been well documented by many in the education sector that the energy and time commitment required of online/remote/continuous learning is substantially more than what many anticipated or had experienced in the classroom. But it’s also, so rewarding! 

There were days it used to feel like pulling teeth when asking for feedback, questions or concerns in the physical classroom, but online, it’s a rush of queries and challenging thoughts. Students are engaging with their content with an enthusiasm that I really didn’t anticipate, and the communication! Students are messaging and emailing ahead of time when they are unable to meet a specific task requirement and providing an alternative. Truly inspiring what can happen when you leave a young person to “fend” for themselves.

There are negatives of course. I am reminded of the distance every time I check in with my students via video conference, that the personal and social component is a large percentage of what makes teaching such a great profession. But while the social distance is substantial at the moment, it won’t be forever, and it will quickly change when it is appropriate and safe to return to schools. The pedagogy however, well that is a completely different story.

With all of this talk about going back to school, I find myself reflecting on this ongoing remote learning experience and how positive it has been for me personally. It has without a doubt changed the way I intend to teach when we return to the college grounds, and I am pretty excited about that. Rejuvenated perhaps is the right word. Much of what I have learned or intend to take back is probably old news, but it has energised me and that is what really counts.

With a looming date for the end of the State of Emergency in Victoria, I can’t help but think that we are on the precipice of great change again in education. This time it isn’t how - as in “how are we going to shift everything online in such a short period of time?”, but what - as in “what are we going to take back with us?”. 

I previously spoke about my experiences and reflected about my own re-working of practice and development of a model for my classes. Some of that is on this blog and also in a couple of LinkedIn articles (here: “You helped me. Thanks”, and here: “I watched my students learn from a distance. It was awesome”). I intend to keep my three lesson model when we return. Today though, I thought I would reflect on my biggest personal learnings and why I believe they will be held very tightly as I jump off this cliff and back into the physical teaching environment - whenever that may be.

1. Less instruction, more construction 

I see myself now as a facilitator, not a teacher. I do not belong at the front of the class as the “expert”. My primary role is to create an environment in which my students can become the experts. Online I don’t set tasks, I share tasks. Online I observe my students challenging, exploring and creating, while providing guidance and feedback where I can from a distance. I have said previously “put away your spoons, the students can feed themselves” and I meant it. Across this journey so far I’ve seen an increase in the quality of work from my strongest students to my lowest achievers, and to be honest those classifications mean nothing in the remote learning world. Where students have wanted to be involved, they have succeeded because this environmental change has supported their individuality.

Part of this I attribute to drastically reducing the amount of content rather than attempting to replicate and mimic the traditional classroom. I think all teachers facilitators would agree, that student feedback is some of the most meaningful. Especially, unprovoked feedback. A number of students have provided me with surprise thoughts, opinions and thanks across the last three weeks and it’s been incredibly meaningful and allowed me to be more productive in my role. They love the more focussed and reduced workload. They have time to work through the content and time to process its application to their world, rather than in service of an assessment task. The return to the physical classroom environment will be a drastic change to what has quickly become habitual, but I intend to maintain the quality over quantity mindset, freeing up time for discussion and conversation. Not all of the time allocated to the lesson has to be “on task”. Creativity, curiosity and critical thinking is not the stuff of textbook questions, it is more exploratory and I won’t be looking backward. 

Less instruction, more construction means less of my voice and more of theirs.

2. Blended, not mashed 

Technology and education have an interesting history. Sometimes it feels forced, other times it is a miracle classes were taught without it. This experience has demonstrated to me that my students are tech-savvy, but also select with the application of their abilities. Today’s young people thrive on choices. They are incredible when you want a video published on social media or a code written for gaming platform but when it comes to spreadsheets or word processing or conducting research on a fixed topic outside of that interest - they may be disengaged.

This experience has shown me the value of sharing a task and giving the students the room to engage with it. Technology used in this way is not forced or out of place, it is ingrained. This isn’t a PowerPoint to support a 40 minute lecture, it’s a recorded 5 minute video, followed by a research question, to formulate a response for the discussion forum and the basis for a class debate. I don’t envisage this classroom to have students in rows of chairs with books and pens. It’s students outside, in the hallway and on the floor, engaging with the content as they choose. This is taking the wins from the remote learning period and applying them to the strengths of the physical classroom.

This is not just lashing technology to the side of the lesson and hoping it stays attached. This is creating a lesson that is designed to give the students control of the pace and allow them to discover with more freedom.

Blended, not mashed means less information and more exploration.

3. Connection instead of direction

In my role as a House Leader it sometimes feels like I only contact parents and they only contact me with concerns or to schedule meetings and of course, at parent teacher interviews. Since moving to remote learning however, I have found that communication between parents, students and staff has been much more free flowing and spontaneous. Perhaps this is because many parents find themselves temporarily working from home also and the barrier of conflicting schedules has been removed. In any case, the level of parent, student and my own engagement is high. I love it.

While I would say I am fortunate to teach secondary education, and a lot of what I am talking about here is framed to that particular environment, the shared responsibility of parents, students and teachers in guiding a learner on their journey has never been more evident. Weekly updates of concepts, tasks and their application have been met with parent support and gratitude. Allowing those parents the intel they need to politely inquire or praise and congratulate their 17-18 year old child in the least intrusive manner possible. At my school we are currently in process of a 3-week parent-teacher interview cycle (via phone) and the conversations have reflected both the parents understanding that the learning is their child’s responsibility but the support is ours to share. Incredibly valuable and rewarding!

Connection instead of direction means less reporting and more supporting.

This is the precipice

Do we jump and be curious and adaptive? Or do we step backward and return to the safety of the land?

I don’t believe there is any long term benefit of returning to the “old way” of doing things. The short term comfort in going back to what we “used to do” will not last. It might be uncomfortable initially, but all forward thinking and future focused movements are slow, painful and challenging for individual's but, the rewards are potentially huge for whole communities.

Going back to a pre-corona model of education would be to the benefit and comfort of certain teachers only. Students would suffer. 

So it is time to consider why we got into this game and whether we are ready to continue changing it.

Will you jump with me?

This is the precipice.

Here’s a few things that have inspired me this past week as an educator and a leader:

Educator Perspectives on the Impact of COVID-19 on Teaching and Learning 

(https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mattlukepitman_pivot-state-of-education-2020-white-paper-activity-6661744495702474752-1in6)

Pivot Professional Learning along with Education Perfect ran a series of fantastic webinars this week, highlighting the incredible effort of educators across Australia and NZ. Pivot also, in a massive effort, collected a ton of data and has put together this report. Definitely worth a read, very insightful stuff.

Continuous Learning Toolkit Vol. II | Leading Through Crisis 

(https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mattlukepitman_continuous-learning-toolkit-volume-ii-activity-6661169533031723008-sP68)

I continue to be unashamed in how much I love their podcast, but a close second to that is The Game Changers (Adriano & Phil) Continuous Learning Toolkit. This second volume presents a number of innovative and game-changing schools, their models, frameworks and stories. For any aspiring Game Changer this is a must read!

Future Agendas for Global Education: Executive Summary 

(https://issuu.com/4796376/docs/gef.agenda_eng)

Sold to me as “an excellent report that should be read by every school leader and educational policy maker” this summary is a long read but an engaging and inspiring one. Worth your time if you have it and if you don’t, make some!

[writing-appreciation]

Faked and Faited

-I know the title sucks, forgive me.- 

SYNOPSIS: Latina!Reader's family keeps nagging her about getting a boyfriend. One day when she was ranting about her upcoming family reunion, Peter jumped in with an idea that was muy loco. 

 WORD COUNT: 2885 

 WARNINGS: Lots of spanish, for obvious reasons. (It's mostly translated, so don't worry!) ((Also bad spanish grammar because I was never taught it as a kid). 

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 Don't get me wrong, my family's fine. Great even. But when a bunch of the extended family comes it can get a little hectic too quickly. For example, ever since my 13th birthday, they've all been trying to get me to date. It was worse at my Quince when all my tias tried to set me up with boys I invited that they didn't even know. Potential boyfriends now have a fear of my family. It was infuriating sometimes.

"So then, just don't go." MJ threw out boredly, causing my rant to stop. 

 The boys nodded in agreement and made some comment about not going not being a big deal. 

 "Guys, yes it is. Trust me, mexican families are constantly gossiping. If I don't show up, it will cause some big family drama. They'll hold it against me for years. Not to mention..." 

"When is it?" Peter interrupted. 

 "Next weekend." I replied as I absentmindedly played with my food with my fork.

 "I'll go with you." He smiles. 

"You'll what?" Ned and I both asked in surprise. 

 "Yeah, I get a weekend off from the Internship once a month and I'll go with you to keep you sane. Besides, if your family sees you have a boyfriend, they'll lay off of you." 

 I felt bad. I didn't want Peter to use his monthly weekend of relaxation for me. Especially because I knew my family would eat him and his little Spanish II self up. But also I didn't want to go into the lion's den alone again. Besides Peter always asked me to speak to him in Spanish so he could get better, so maybe this could be a learning experience for him. It would come with the added benefit of not being pestered about getting a boyfriend. 

We didn't have much time to discuss the matter further as the bell rang, signaling us to get to class. 

 I walked to class with Ned. We both had a coding class together. He still didn't understand how important a family reunion could possibly be. But he let it go when we sat at our computer stations. 

 Suddenly a vibration in my back pocket pulled me from class boredom. I unlocked my phone and saw Peter sent me a photo. I clicked it open and saw that it was a screenshot of his calendar. It had next weekend marked as "(L/n) Family Reunion." The photo was accompanied with a message: 

 Your reunion is penciled in :) .P. 

I quickly texted out a response before my teacher could see me: 

Peter, seriously, you don't have to go if you don't want to. . (F/I). 

He responded almost immediately. 

 Come on, (N/n), it's not a problem. I love mexican food 🌯🌮 .P. 

I didn't reply because I knew my teacher was watching me. I placed my phone face down on the table. But another vibration slightly shook the table. Once the teacher turned away, I grabbed it again. 

 You're probably gonna have to translate the whole weekend, just a little fyi. Also should I get a crash course in your family, or is that too much? .P. 

Typical Peter Parker. He liked being prepared in advance. If he was going in as my fake boyfriend, then he would definitely need to know a thing or 30 about my family. 

I'll make you a colour coded cheat sheet of my family. .(F/I).

Lmao. You can't have that many family members. .P. 

You'll see soon enough ;) . (F/I). 

 And so the next two weeks were dedicated to making a huge, elaborate story about how we started dating. It wasn't too far off from how we actually met. We decided that we should stick to real life events as much as possible so as to not confuse ourselves. 

The story went like this: We were both called out of class to a meeting about which high school we would be going to. We were 8th graders on a STEM pathway. Naturally, we'd be sent to a STEM focused school. MidTown Tech did group interviews that day. Peter and I were in the same group. We noticed each other from classes, but never really spoken before. Turns out we were quick to become friends. But high school is where the story starts to go off the rails a bit.

 Peter decided his story would be that he developed a crush on me freshmen year. Mine crush wouldn't spring up until the beginning of Sophomore year. By the end of Sophomore year, we found out from our respective friends that we both had crushes on each other. Then that summer, the dating began. First date was simple: a tour of a museum. We're nerds. It's definitely believable. So we had all of our kinks smoothed out, now it was just time to put our plan into action.

 "Alright, who's my Tia Esperanza?" I asked while pulling away from the curb.

 "She's the pregnant one. She's married to Armando, and she's your favourite."

 "Okay, you can leave out that last part." I laughed. 

 "Explain to me the difference between your Nana, Abuela, and your grandmother. I'm still confused." 

 "You and I both Pete." I joked. 

 Truth be told, IT IS SUPER CONFUSING. My nana is my mom's mom. That's simple. But my grandma  (I think) is my Nana's mom. Leaving my Abuela to be either my Grandma's mother or her sister. Our family doesn't just say 'grandma, great-grandma, or Great-Great-Grandma,' so everything is confusing. 

 As we approached the reunion building, it struck me on just how bad this idea was. Peter seemed to catch on to my newfound doubts in the plan. 

 "Hey, it'll be fine. I'm going to be the best fake boyfriend your family has ever seen." He put on a big goofy smile that made me feel better, but the smile fell slightly when I looked away. He almost looked nervous. That's helpful. 

 When I parked, Peter rushed his door open and ran over to my door. He opened it for me. I slyly looked around and noticed family members were already looking at us. 

 "Thanks, Babe." I said a little too loudly and gave him a small peck on his cheek. 

Bad choice. That's how his cheek got redder than the car parked in front of mine.  

"I'm so-rry, are we d-oing PDA now?" He stuttered out. Instead of responding I laced our fingers together and began walking to the building. 

 "(Y/n)! ¿Cómo estás?" A familiar voice called to me before we entered the building. I turned around to see my primo, Carlos. 

 "Quien es?" He gestured to Peter. 

"Mi novio." I smiled and held our interlocked hands up. Peter, little innocent angel Peter looked so lost; but he did smile and wave.

"Sup. I'm Carlos." He introduced as he held out his hand. 

 "Peter Parker, mucho gusto." Peter shook his hand causing my cousin to slightly flinch. 

 "Strong grip." He turned to me, "Un gringo? Estas sería?" He asked with a smile. 

 I pushed him away and pulled Peter into the building. 

 "Okay, wanna translate that whole thing?" Peter said while we were out of earshot. 

 "That was my cousin, he asked who you were, I told him my boyfriend, and he asked me if I was serious." I explained.

Peter had a bit of offence written on his face, but recovered quickly when he saw the back table with food. 

 "Calm down Mr. Speedy Metabolism, we'll eat later." I patted his back. 

 He let out a grumble and a small pout. I ignored him and found us a relatively empty spot at a table and sat us down. I sat on the opposite side of him. I still looked around, anxious that people would put two and two together. Once again, Peter seemed to feel my doubts and placed a hand on mine on the table. 

 "You good?" He asked. I stopped looking around and settled my gaze on him. He had such calming eyes. They looked so full of concern at the moment. Which I'm almost certain was for me. 

 "Maybe some food will make you feel better?" He offered, already standing up.

 "No, dammit Peter. You're so food driven." I laughed and pulled him back down. 

"Oh, and who is this, hija?" 

 Tia Mari. Oh God. I didn't think she was going to come this year. Her son had a recital. But if she's here, then her son is too. 

 "Peter Parker? (Y/n) (L/n)? What are you guys doing here?!" Robert Delmar. 

Fellow classmate and renowned tattle tale. This night just got a whole lot more complex. 

 "Why is Peter here? Aren't you guys just friends, or did Peter finally confess his undying love to you?" 

 What? I'm sorry, what? I looked to Peter for an answer, not presently caring if I blew our story up. My tia also seemed invested in my response. He looked just as terrified and unprepared to answer. 

 "Yeah, he asked me out over the summer and we started dating. We wanted to keep stuff private in case it didn't work out." I quickly explained while trying to remember our cover story. 

"Well, it's about time. Peter's only been pining after you since freshman year. You guys look cute." Robert said. 

We both just nodded and smiled. My tia was eating this up. 

 "Y Peter, ¿Sabes español?" She asked, now focusing on him. 

"Un poco." He cleared his throat. 

She turned to me, "Hablas a él en español, or es un gringo completo?" 

 "Yes, sometimes I speak to him in Spanish." I replied so Peter could understand the conversation. 

 "Well, then you wouldn't mind if I introduced him to some of your tias, no? They will love him. Sabes que ellas le gustan gringos!" She added the second part quickly. 

 Before I had a chance to save him, Tia Mari grabbed Peter's available hand and dragged him away. Once Peter's hand left mine, I noticed how cold my hand got. Robert was about to follow his mom, but my pulled his shoulder back. 

 "Hey, what do you mean Peter's been pining after me?" 

 He laughed, "Seriously? You guys are dating, clearly he likes you." 

 I smiled nervously and nodded. But I was internally screaming. Robert wasn't in on this plan, unless Peter told him, but that's definitely unlikely. So, Peter actually liked me? Since Freshman year according to Robert. I would know though, right? I mean, Peter and I literally hang out all the time. There's no way I've gone through three years of high school and not noticed this. But here we are. 

 The rest of the night went on pretty quickly. Peter was being fawned over my every single one of my female relatives. When  I tried to steal him back one of my tias made a comment about him being nothing but bone. Of course, my abuela was the first to offer him a heaping plate of food. Peter accepted it without a beat. She also said once we were married, I'd have to stuff him right. This was my tipping point. 

 "Perdon." I excused myself from the female crowd Peter had. If I were to hear the phrase, "Cuando ustedes están casado, necesitas...." one more time I was actually going to start ripping my hair out. 

 I decided to talk a brief walk outside the building. The sun was still out, but was obviously starting to set. Today wasn't a complete waste. I guess my family wasn't busy trying to set me up, but now they were busy babying Peter. The only downside was what Robert said. I still couldn't shake the thought of Peter liking me out of my head. If it was so obvious, why hadn't I seen it? 

 I pulled out my phone and decided to text Ned about it. 

 Hey, apparently Peter's liked me since Freshman year. True or False? . (F/I). 

 I hit send and waited. I figured I could pass the time by skipping stones in the lake nearby. 

 "Hey, why'd you leave?" I turned around to see none other than Peter Parker himself. 

 I hummed in acknowledgement. "How'd you even know I left? My tias were busy feeding you."

"I felt your heartbeat wasn't there anymore." He approached and sat on a stone bench beside me. 

 "You can feel my heartbeat?" I asked, now very red. 

 "What? No, not feel. Hear. I heard your heartbeat was gone." He said quickly, rubbing the palms of his hands on his jeans. 

 I didn't know much about Peter's powers. Only that he could stop a bus with his bare hands, he was constantly hungry, he was sticky, and his senses were abnormally good. Good enough to know what my heartbeat sounds like apparently. 

"When everything happened I was freaking out at 3:00 a.m and I could hear a thumping. I thought it was May, but she wasn't home. So I was confused. The next day I found out it was your hearbeat. Everything can be overwhelmingly loud, so I just focus on your rhythm and it anchors me." 

 I don't think Peter realized he switched to the present tense. This implies he still does it. 

 "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked. To not one particular question, but to all of them. I wanted to know why Peter didn't tell me about his crush. I wanted to know why Peter never told me about my heartbeat being his anchor. I want to know everything. 

 "Because I'm pretty sure it's not normal to listen to your friend's heartbeat." He laughed as he skipped a stone. 

 I made a face at how far out the stone went. It made it clear across the lake.

 "Cheater, but that's not what I meant."  

"What did you mean?" He turned serious. 

 "Freshman year, Pete, seriously?" 

 He sighed and stared out to the lake. 

 "I didn't want to lose our friendship." He replied blankly, shifting his shoes to mess with the gravel below us. 

 "Well judging by how well received you are by my family, I just may have to date you, Pete." I joked in an attempt to cut the tension between us. 

 "(Y/n), please don't joke about this." 

 I looked up to see the desperation in his face. He appeared to be holding back tears. 

 "Peter, I don't know. I haven't had a good track record with dating…" 

"I know, I've seen. Your family always chases them away, but I'm still here aren't I?" He quipped. 

 Well damn. He's right. Peter was accepted relatively quickly to the family. Some family members even inviting him to hang out outside of the reunion time. I'd also be lying to myself I said Peter wasn't attractive. He certainly is. But not only physically or as his superhero alter ego. He's attractive in the way he is so incredibly kind and forgiving. Flash has literally been a dick to Peter since 6th grade, but Peter still manages to act kindly towards him. Peter truly is a warm and welcoming person. Everybody who's met him can confirm that he's just so nice. He also is extremely loyal to his friends. Even with his heroic responsibilities, he still tries his best to find a balance for us. His eyes crinkle when he's smiling widely, he taps his pencil to his leg during a tough test, and is a killer dancer with such kind and loving rich, deep brown eyes. And oh shit do I like him too? 

 "I think giving this an actual try could be great." He pulled me from my thoughts. 

 "I think I do too." I said, now gazing at him. 

 "I know you do, your is beating nervously fast." He smirked and settled an arm around my shoulders. 

 "Peter! Donde estas! Necesitamos fotos!" I cringed at the heard of women who were all looking around for Peter. 

 "Vamos." I grabbed his hand and lead him back into the lions den. 

 Many photos were taken, phone numbers exchanged, and affectionate insults thrown around as the first might rounded down.

When Peter and I managed to get out of the building, he was carrying a carton of food. Particularly Tia Vani's zucchini tamales. When nobody was looking he snagged 14 of them. We put them in the back seat of my car and waved my family off. My parents and siblings would be staying the night, but we had an academic decathlon tournament the next morning, so we were needed back. 

As soon as Peter hit the passenger's seat, he was knocked out. It left me to my thoughts for a bit. When I pulled up to his apartment he gave me a sleepy smile and grabbed his food from the back. After a tired, quiet "goodnight" he was entering the building. 

I was about to drive to my parking spot, but a vibration from my phone caused me to pause. No cars were around, so I decided to check the notification. A next from Ned. 

 Yeah, he likes you. And you obviously like him. It's about time you guys confessed already. We're so talking about this tomorrow..goodnight. .N. 

I smiled at the text like an idiot. Things were certainly going somewhere. Huh, who could've guessed I would have went into my family reunion with a fake boyfriend, but would be leaving with a soon to be real one? 

[lakinda5654]

~~~~A Girl and A God~~~~ Chapter 6- Welcome

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A Girl and A God is a RATED M Loki Fanfic with an original character, Alexa, who is taken in by Tony Stark after the revelation of abilities of her own. There’s sex, romance, heartbreak, action, fluff, angst, all that good stuff. Full description in blog, and a jump-to-chapter list if you just want the smut or the cuteness bits. Enjoy <3

Chapter Summary: Alexa regains her strength, and discovers her new home...

Contains: mostly plot development/ character growth

Word Count: 1,835

~Previous Chapter~~Next Chapter~

~~Beginning of Story~~ 

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As she walked she saw Thor standing aside Loki, who had just been put into shackles. What had he done? She almost asked but felt too shy to utter a word.

Loki didn’t look back at her. He didn’t want to see her face looking at him in restraints, the thoughts that must be going through her mind.

Why did he care? He didn’t, he told himself. She’s just another freak to add to the mix of heroic Avengers that held him prisoner. She was no different from the rest. When she saw how he was to be treated, she’d undoubtedly join the others to fit in like the mindless sheep that mortals are.

They reached the meeting room, and the projection of her cell was quickly turned off, even though it was clear she already knew she had been watched. Everyone turned to look as they entered. Tony introduced everyone to Alexa and her to each of them. She shyly uttered greetings and nodded as they spoke to her. Tony then sat in some lounge chairs in the corner across the room next to the floor to ceiling windows. He patted the seat next to him. Alexa took small but quick steps over to him and sat. Everyone else in the room continued talking to one another, trying to act as if all eyes weren’t on her.

She looked out the window. The view was gorgeous from here, you could see all of New York. It was only then that she comprehended that she was in Avengers tower. She looked to him as he clearly had something to say to her.

“So you’re not here to hurt anyone. We’ve gathered that. Your story checks out with everything we know, but we have no idea how to figure out what happened to you when you were 6. I think the best thing for you to do is stay here while we try to make sense of everything you said. On full moons, we can keep you in a special cell where you and everyone else is safe. Sound good?” He spoke so fast but Alexa took it all in and nodded quickly.

“Great. So yeah we all live here, there’s plenty of rooms. Down to floor 8 and down either hall.” He said, pointing to the elevator.

“If there’s no name tag on it it’s up for grabs,” he said.

“Why do you all live here? I mean you all have different homes and families and all that, right?” She asked.

“ We used to,” Stark replied, “ We all came to live here with our families to be able to communicate better, protect our families, and not lose anyone or become unable to contact them. The press and all that has been bugging a couple of us as well, so it just worked out better for us to all be here for a bit”

“Okay…” Alexa replied. She looked back at the room. “Where’s…” she had to think to remember the name for a moment. “Loki?”

“He sleeps in a cell sort of like yours but with some extra additional security tech” Stark started promptly. “He was the nut-job who released that alien army on NYC a while ago. He’s really not one to trust”

She remembered seeing the horror of that event on the news. How could someone with a soul like that so such a thing? She had seen he was broken, but not evil.

“Wasn’t that months ago?” She asked with the tone of pity for him.

Tony looked at her and said, “ he deserves prison for life Alexa, or worse” Tony said sharply, and suddenly she felt guilty and foolish for mentioning it.

After she saw others leaving the room, she made her way down the hall as well.

She walked down the hall, eyeing the doors with the plaques to the right of each. Seeing their names, the names of the heroes she saw on the news, made things feel a little more real and less like a strange dream/ nightmare. She went to the end of the hall and picked a door with 2 adjacent empty rooms.

The door opened silently and Alexa took in the luxury of her suite. Her shoes slipped off her feet and they slowly stepped across the dark wood floors. She took a seat in a soft chair by the fireplace, and ran her hands over the velvet armrest, and took a moment to admire the fireplace. It was shiny and white, with a glass barrier between herself and the fake wood within. She found a remote on the side table next to her and learned she could control not only the tv, but the fireplace, lights, and even music. She also opened the fridge and found numerous snacks and drinks, so she picked out some yogurt and explored the rest of the suite. She would have liked to eat everything in the fridge, but she knew she should take it slow to avoid getting sick.

Her bathroom was luxury as well, everything was white and gold. There was a vase with a purple orchid standing tall on the counter. She took a quick shower and dried off with an unnaturally soft white towel.

This entire suite screamed of money. She supposed that it shouldn’t surprise her with it being owned by Mr. Stark.

It felt so good to be out of that cell. She had been going insane in there and hadn’t cared. Partially delirious from grief and shock, that had to explain why she felt suicidal and hopeless. She felt saner now and didn’t want to think about how desperate and foolish she’d acted by forcing them to find her someone like her. They probably thought she was awkward and weird, desperate.

Embarrassment overwhelmed Alexa and she went to her bed. She wanted to sleep. She hadn’t been in the moonlight for 3 days, so it was about time. She just wanted to not exist in this reality, just for a moment. To not be conscious in a world where she obliterated her family and home and made a fool of herself afterward.

When she woke up, it was dark. She turned her head to the glass clock next to her bed.

2:48 AM. Pulling the silky purple sheets off her body, she made her way to her balcony. Pushing the sliding door open allowed the cool night breeze to flood her room, and pull her hair from the sides of her face. The moonlight felt so good. It had been a long while since she’d been without it. Eyes closed and head tilted back, Alexa outstretched her arms. The moonlight seeped through her skin and her veins flowed with energy. The whole process was completely silent and peaceful. The only sounds she could hear were the breeze and the hum of city life below.

Once she had her energy back, Alexa found that the night was the perfect time to explore the tower. No one would question her or her intentions. If they did, she was sure she’d feel guilty of something even if she wasn’t, her family always managed to do that. She wandered down the dark hall whose lights faded on with her presence. She came to the elevator. Tony’s words echoed in her mind. He sleeps in a cell like yours. She tried to remember the floor that was. Maybe Loki was awake. She tried 13. She knew it was something around there.

She guessed right. Stepping off the elevator, she saw the hallway with the cell she had been kept in to the right, and the door to the observation room in front of her. The hall was undecorated and bleak. She looked over and saw light pouring through one of the walls. She had been right about the cell. One wall of each has some kind of one way sight on it. Alexa could see Loki inside, but he couldn’t see her.

Once again, his soul was so beautiful she couldn’t help but stop to look at it, and take in all the complexity. Loki was stirring around on his mattress that was far to small for how tall he was. She went to turn the doorknob and realized it was locked with a code and keypad.

Alexa knew by now that the moon changed phases every 3 to 4 days. She should be phasing into the last quarter by now. She would have her powers of heat. She might be able to melt the metal to get in.

No. That is the dumbest idea you’ve ever come up with. The door is probably alarmed, and even if it wasn’t… what would Loki think? You barging into his cell in the middle of the night without warning… Alexa thought to herself. What’s gotten into her? Why would she even consider that was a good idea. And yet, looking at him struggling to sleep, she considered it again. No. 

Instead of immediately doing something socially unacceptable, she decided to continue to wander the tower. Re-entering the elevator, she pressed the one labeled H. The elevator pulled her upwards, and when the doors opened she quickly realized this would be her favorite floor. The wind overwhelmed her as it rushed into the elevator. She was looking over a wide, flat expanse of smooth pavement. The helicopter pad. It was immense, and she loved the amount of free space she had to herself. All of it was outside, and so high up she could see the entire city with all its scattered messy glow. The wind from this high was almost deafening. She looked across the river and saw a plane taking off in the distance. She loved the city. Especially from above. She’d never understood people who were afraid of heights. How could one be afraid of something so removed from the world, yet able to see all of it? It was gorgeously peaceful.

Alexa walked to the railing and took off her shoes. Sitting down, she rested her arms and head on the cold railing that was glowing from the reflection of her silver veins. Her feet dangled over the edge of the tower, and the cool breeze tangled between her toes.

She felt truly at peace for the first time since she arrived here. It was remarkably fast that she felt so at home… but why? This place was as far from home as she could be. No woods, just skyscrapers. Hardly any stars through the city glow. No family.

No. She did have a family. She realized at that moment why she felt so comfortable… she was relieved. She was in a city where she would be accepted, and she didn’t have to hide her power anymore. She could openly charge in the moonlight. She was in a place where many other people with amazing abilities congregated to solve problems of the world. And hopefully, those people would come to be her family.

[littlegalerion]

Shipathon  Meme!

Tagged by @sheirukitriesfandom Thanks for tagging me and giving me an excuse to rant about ships~ Tagging: @foxyhearts @diamond-loki @greennightingale  1.) First Ship you Ever Wrote Fic For? It was for Vanus and Caafire, and it actually got featured front page on an animo! It was old Caafire though, before I had developed her to her current status of unable-to-use-magic-because-if-she-does-she’ll-explode sword swinger master. Back then she was just a free lance battlemage with a bad family life.  2.) Ship you Write Most Now? Well... tech I write for Trechire x Eliindil (Sheogorath) most now because that’s my timeline’s canon, so every time I write using characters in that universe I’m tech writing that ship, as Sunnabela and Kirr are their kids (Sunnabela his step-son, but Eliindil raised him). Just it’s a post-ship writing I guess? In terms of who I formulate for the most, that would probably be Laloriaran X Trechire in the AU, which I really should write more of.  3.)Ship you Read the Most Now? Sotha Sil x S/O, and it’s more just headcanon fluff stuff really. I wish there was more Sotha Sil x S/O, but that’s “not lore friendly” so I think a lot of would be writers get intimidated and scared away by lorebeards to write any solid series with it. I HAVE seen some, and for that I’m grateful. The headcanons at least seem to be multiplying beautifully.  4.) Newest Ship? Some questions are best left unanswered.  5.) Rare Ship you Wanna Read More of? Bring on the Sotha Sil x S/O or the Vanus x S/O.  Please, spoil me.  6.) Your Taboo Ship? Okay, I can already feel the heat of sheer rage from people reading what I’m gonna write under this. But Vanus x Mannimarco is the most toxic ship I have ever seen, in ANY fandom.  Firstly, heavily cliche. “They hate each other so at one time they must have liked or loved each other” No, that is not what that means. Sometimes it could be the case, but if it was romantic, then it wasn’t a “little falling out”. Vanus and Mannimarco are legends in their war against each other. In ESO Mannimarco loudly insults and kills mages of the guild, while Vanus openly spits against necromancy. Both very passionately doing so. If something romantic did happen, it’s a romance with no good memories in it. Secondly, it’s abusive. In Summerset, we get to see the two of them in their youth interacting. During this quest, it’s very obvious Mannimarco is manipulating Vanus, who is very optimistic and wants to believe the best in his friend. Mannimarco, however, doesn’t care. He never saw Vanus as an equal, BUT as a potentially USEFUL mage. He probably did feel a sting when Vanus rejected necromancy, but it wasn’t because “oh dear, my lover has rejected me!” It was most likely because Mannimarco realized he had lost a very useful future second in command, and gained an enemy which would prove a pain for years to come. I like to also point out, Mannimarco wasn’t this lonely little necromancer in the Order. We see a note concerning him in the dungeon that proves he had other friends and, while perhaps not well received overall, he had their respect as a senior member.  What I’m getting at is, if there was ANY romantic or sexual relationship between Mannimarco and Vanus, it was NOT healthy. Mannimarco knew what he was doing, and was most likely an emotionally abusive partner. The type that gets uncomfortably moody or guilt trips their partner to get his way. He is SEEN doing this in the quest, actually, when Vanus catches him raising a skeleton guar, Mannimarco replies, “I thought you’d understand” and “You sound like the Ritemaster.” A chord he knew would hit Vanus hard, which it did, as Vanus stumbles to reply and drops the argument.  Listen, if your s/o does something that makes you feel very uncomfortable and unsafe, then you go to them about it and they pull that crap on you, YOU LEAVE.  Lastly, a lot of the time it seems I see this ship under “cute gay mages owo”. Gay couples deserve healthy relationships. Gay relationships do not need to be soaked in pure drama and dark tones to exist. Especially in Elder Scrolls, where gay couples live happily and were never considered out of place.  Do not hide under the gay tag to get away with an abusive ship. Being gay doesn’t excuse a person for being an asshole, or for someone to be a pushover. But that’s enough of my ravings against that ship. For the record, I adore Mannimarco as a villain; he’s one the best I’ve ever seen, honestly.  So this isn’t just an unfair rage fest against him.  7.) They never met in Canon Ship? I feel like I have a ship on the tip of my tongue, but it just isn’t coming out. I’m drawing a blank. Nerevar with literally anyone else other than Ayem? 8.)Your unexpected Ship? Lyris and her Redguard husband were a surprise. I usually don’t relate to the warrior types in these games, but these two are just sweethearts.  9.) The Ship you Always Forget to give Love to? Verandis x Trechire. GEEZE, I forget about them so much and it’s probably the most logical ship. Verandis is a vampire lord who wants to convince the world vampires aren’t always evil, and to convince other vampires they shouldn’t live at war with the world. Trechire is a werewolf alpha who hides her wolf self from virtually everyone she knows, save for her pack, who she strives to teach to be true hunters with a code of honor. Not just some hounds who bark crazily at passersby who have a bow in their hands.  Both mages, both Altmer, both famous for their family names, so there’s lots of pressure on them.  They’d have so much to talk about, and would be such a stress reliever to each other.  10.) Ship your OC with a canon character? I already do, that’s like half the ships already in this post.  My biggest one is Laloriaran x Trechire.  Although Trechire x Sheogorath is my canon, as Eliindil becomes Sheogorath, so that counts as a canon character? 11.) Ship you’re embarrassed to Ship? She recently acquired his staff motif in this big event on ESO. He recently traded his old staff design in for the new Chapter, but in the main quest line his character model still has it.  That’s all I’m saying, because I don’t take the ship seriously, but it still exists and fuels my nightmares.  12.)Your most Romantic Ship? Trechire and Eliindil, because Trechire was made by me, Eliindil is an OC made by both me and my fiance who helps flesh out his personality, design, and background.  Then of course Laloriaran and Trechire.... 13.)Your Sexiest Ship? If I don’t say Sheogorath and Trechire, pretty sure I’m getting teleported 50 feet above the stone surface of where I shall die.  14.) Your most Tragic Ship? Laloriaran and Trechire, who ARE in my canon but of course, Laloriaran dies.  In her canon, Trechire completed the events of Morrowind, Clockwork City, and Summerset before the main questline of ESO. She had seen so many friends or just good people die. Leythen being ripped from reality right before her, Darien being forced to sacrifice himself and Trechire reading his last words before him fading away forever. Tanval Indoril dying from his own mistake, Verandis making a stupid decision out of desperation and guilt. Not to mention all the numerous little quests where this innocent and complicated person dies or suffers in the end. ESO is vicious. She had witnessed so much death, and in Laloriaran’s eyes she saw someone who understood that pain. More than anything in the world, she wanted the last Ayleid to return to Tamriel, where he’d be among friends that wouldn’t count on him for survival, but live and thrive together. She made a promise in her heart, if ANYONE would survive, even at the cost of her own life, Trechire would see to it that Laloriaran did, be it as a lover or as a friend.  And in the end, he died in her arms, Trechire a healer who could offer nothing to save him.  15.) A Ship You want more Content For? Again, BRING ON THE VANUS WITH S/O AND SOTHA SIL WITH S/O, PLEASE. 

[adamsimonini]

2nd Month Tech Update: Going Down The Rabbit Hole

Building capacity through building a farm

I was able to host a Vue.js workshop for full-time staff and co-op students within the building. It consists of hands-on development material I built at my last job. The workshop aims to provide participants which practical knowledge to get up and running building with Vue.js within 2 hours. Specifically, it consists of an online IDE (integrated development environment) where everyone gets full access to their own instance of the project repository; and a standalone web app built with the very same code found in the repository. In other words, while participants learn concepts from the lessons, they can also peer behind the content to see the actual code generating the examples. What is more, there are challenges throughout where participants must use the previous lessons to continually improve their project: designing a personal farm.

The results of the workshop were promising. Though all participants had web development experience, many were not very familiar with modern reactive front-end libraries. It was their first taste. They were introduced to modern javascript ideas such as reusable components, importing and exporting modules, and state. Further, some participants inquired as to how they could incorporate Vue.js into their current work, which I consider a win. It means they understand the value of the technology, and they are starting to see, and contemplate, ways it can be wielded in their own jobs.

Adding internationalization

At the moment I am building the front-end with Vue.js, and a Vue.js UI (user interface) framework Vuetify. Vuetify is built using Google’s popular Material Design spec, and essentially provides me with a bunch of nifty pre-made components. I didn’t add in internationalization (also known as i18n, where 18 refers to the letters couched within the bookending “i” and “n” in the word “internationalization” - shout out to Wikipedia for that!) from the start of my project. I decided I would add it early on, and I did. However, even this slight delay in implementation cost me over a day of troubleshooting to get everything working as desired. I got a refresher on a lesson I have already learned many a times in IT: “Do fundamental stuff at the start, or else!”

Up in the air

Month two was an interesting one by the end of it. On the technical side, it feels like everything has bled into everything else. What it will congeal into I know not at this juncture. There have been two notable catalysts for this occurrence:

i) As a team, we have gone full-force into conversations, interviews, and discussions with teams & actors both internal and external to our department. Consequently, our expertise in certain domains (e.g., the staff expectations for the future system) have surpassed that of others, for whom this project is one of many on the go. We have spread our net wide.

ii) On the technical side, there is a sequence of events that need to take place in a somewhat ridged order. For example, in order for us to produce a solid front-end, we need questions about the back-end answered, and before questions about the back-end can be answered a back-end solution must be chosen, and before a back-end solution is chosen there needs to be a formal options analysis (OA). We don’t have all the dominoes in place, yet. This leaves us in a tricky situation. We have a good deal of knowledge into some important things now, but we are also lacking knowledge into other critical things. We want to start building, but we aren’t certain what the back-end and it’s API will look like. We want to develop a web app, but we don’t know where the app will be hosted (and consequently what restrictions will apply to it). We want to use modern web technologies, but we don’t know what technologies are familiar to the team who will take over once we leave. We want to play with the possible back-end solutions that are being investigated, but we can’t gain access to a sandbox of those technologies.

Entering month three, our main focus - and consequently my main focus - will be on resolving the aforementioned dissonance.                  

Milestones Achieved

changed my Node.js code to target a cloud MongoDB database hosted by MongoDB Cloud Services, so now my app reads and writes data to a remote database.

added internationalization and localization to the app, so users can change languages (with the option of components like datepickers changing their format, too)

as a team we raised our level of confidence and knowledge to the point where we can contribute to the options analysis process & take a more active stance on the technology side of things

installed Windows 10 Pro on my work machine (for under $3 CND on ebay.ca via an OEM license), in order to get access to Windows’ Hyper-V, which is required for Docker Desktop on Windows

finished introductory Docker course on Lynda.ca to learn about containerization, and how it can be utilized in my development process going forward

built workplace IT capacity through hosting a Vue.js workshop

[trashunlimited]

i decided to upload the first chapter of my canon x oc story here! i have not uploaded my writing here in a while, so i’m a little nervous, but also excited to share how much better i’ve become. i’m still not the greatest or anything, but i hope it’s good enough.

i actually have an earlier version of this story on my a03, but it’s v bad...that’s why i’m redoing it.

if you want to see the next part, please let me know!

tagging: @nightshade1994, @charmingfury, @glampyra

Rick Sanchez put the finishing touches on his latest invention, a proud grin on his face. The invention happened to be one that was able to give him any breakfast food he wanted. He rubbed his hands together excitedly, knowing how much easier it would be to get breakfast tomorrow. He was a genius, an inventor, and he was making stuff like...that. But he enjoyed it, he had already made incredible things and was capable of interstellar travel far beyond just the moon and even the solar system itself. Rick decided to use his gifts for the simpler things in life too.

He picked up the invention and carried it over from the lab he had built, to the small kitchen in his apartment and set it on the counter. Rick then headed over to his bedroom, and the empty feelings returned to him. There was no one in his apartment but him, he was all alone. It’s not like anyone in the apartment complex talked to him either, as Rick never talked to them, being reclusive. It was assumed Rick was “some weird loner”, so nobody bothered him.

As much as Rick enjoyed the privacy, the feelings of loneliness burned within him. Ever since he could remember, he never had anyone but himself. Even the people who should’ve cared for him, didn’t. He had only really gotten friends when he developed his portal technology. Despite the close friends he did have, like Birdperson and Squanchy, on Earth, there was no one but him.

Rick just wanted someone, anyone, to cure his lonely feelings, but at this point, it didn't seem likely. He was already 31 years old after all, he was starting to accept he could never find the happiness he longed for. Rick had a tendency to act mean and cold, which pushed people away from him, isolating him further.

With a heavy sigh, Rick took off his lab coat and black shirt, before sitting on his bed. He really did hope the pain and misery he had dealt with for his whole life would end someday.

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

On the outskirts of the city, a young redheaded women named Juliana Kenyon, or just Julie for short, was in her own bedroom. She was sitting on the stool in front of her dresser, happily brushing her hair, something she did each night before going to bed and each morning when she woke up. When she finished, Julie looked at herself in the mirror and smiled, her long hair looking much neater now.

She sat up and then walked over to her bookshelf, picking up a romance novel, her favourite genre, and headed off to bed with it. Julie went over to the page where the bookmark was, took it out, and began reading.

Her heart seemed to fill with love and warm feelings as she read through the pages, but underneath, she felt feelings of loneliness, pain and sadness. At 27 years old, she was still waiting to find “the one” for her, and the more time passed, the worse her empty feelings grew. Ever since Julie was a little girl, she longed for love, although back then it was more childish and innocent. Her mother would read her stories featuring love, and would watch movies with it too, there was also the strong love her parents shared, it all inspired her hopeless romantic personality. As a child, she was told in her future she would be nothing more than a housewife and mother, and she accepted this wholeheartedly. She imagined her future husband as a dashing prince or a knight in shining armour. Julie was older now, and had more realistic ideas on what her future husband would be like, but those old innocent fantasies still amused her.

Julie had attempted dating in the past, but it never went well. She started to blame herself for her relationship problems, thinking it was her fault. It tugged painfully at her heart, and she felt so lonely, so sad and dejected. She wondered if she would ever find the love her heart so longed for. Loneliness was a problem for her, it had been that way for a long time. Even as a little girl, her shyness prevented her from making many friends. Julie never had any siblings either. Even with the lack of friends, brothers or sisters, she still had a few friends and her parents. But at the same time, she longed for more.

After finishing reading more of her book, Julie put it back on the bookshelf and tucked herself into bed. She held back the tears, and fell asleep, dreaming of what her true love would be like….

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

Rick came across a room with a glowing green crystal-like thing, that had what seemed to be wires hooked up to it. The crystal-like object appeared to be radiating with energy, and it made sense, this was a powerful source of fuel for the entirety of the Fyralogin Empire. Though the empire had fell into decline, it was still going on and the empress of the empire seemed to not be bothered by it, keeping a regal look wherever she went.

Rick approached the crystal-like fuel, and took a chunk out if it, instantly causing sirens to blare.

Alert! The fuel source has been tampered with! I repeat, the fuel source has been tampered with!

He wasn't bothered though, and pulled a high-tech gun from one of his pockets, anticipating what was next.

Four guards opened the door and aimed their guns at him. “Put the gun down or we'll be forced to shoot.” One said.

Rick rolled his eyes, before looking at his gun and fired quickly at all four, the shots killing each instantly. He then exited the room and was met with more guards, but he didn't mind. They started firing their bullets at him, but Rick dodged them all with ease, and managed to fire back unfazed.

He started to run off as the guards kept firing at him. Rick took out his portal gun and typed in the code for Earth, before firing the gun and making a green portal. Just before he could enter though, one guard managed to shoot him in the leg, and he tumbled right through the portal.

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

Julie was walking along the sidewalk back home, having recently left the house of a friend of hers. It was a cool night, there was a slight breeze, and in the sky she could see some stars and the pale silvery moon. There wasn't much light either, minus the streetlights and the light from some houses. The atmosphere was pleasant and serene, Julie felt quite peaceful as she walked back home.

Out of nowhere, Julie saw a green portal and was shocked and surprised. Then, a man jumped out and landed right on her! She was eventually able to get up, albeit in a bit of pain, but otherwise was fine. But she became worried when she saw the man was having trouble getting up. “Are you...alright?” She asked, concern in her voice.

“What the fuck does it look like you idiot?!” He yelled, holding onto his leg.

Julie then realized he couldn't get up, as there was a pain in his leg. “Do you….w-want help u-up?”

Rick looked up at her, confused and annoyed. “Huh? Why do y-you want to h-help me?” He found himself focused on her, entranced by her beauty. Her long red hair flowed gently, her skin was pale and white as snow, and...he liked her figure.

“Well..” Julie began, her voice indicating how shy and nervous she was talking to him. “You're hurt...aren't you?” When she spoke, Rick was snapped out of his trance.

“Uh...I m-mean..” He suddenly hissed in pain and grabbed his leg again.

“Oh dear...we should get you to a hospital.”

Rick's eyes snapped open. “Fuck no! Y-You are not t-taking me to a hospital.”

“Why not?”

“Just..” He tried to talk, but he was in too much pain.

Julie wanted to help him, and if he wouldn't go to a hospital...well...she would let him stay with her. Due to her shyness, the idea scared her, but her heart was too gentle to refuse him. Rick watched as she helped him up, and he started to walk with her, well, limp with her. “Where are you taking me?” He asked.

“My house. You won't go to a hospital, so it's the next best option. Don't worry, I have medical training, I went to nursing school after all.”

Rick just grumbled, unsure why she was doing this, but accepted it nonetheless. At least he got to be around a beautiful redhead, and he...really..really liked redheads.

----------

On the way there, Julie told him her name, Rick had introduced himself too, although more begrudgingly, as Rick Sanchez. She noticed his tone sounded annoyed, but she didn't think about it too much. He insisted on carrying the crystal-like object though, and though Julie was curious about it, she didn’t say anything.

After arriving at Julie’s house, she sat him down on her couch, and began inspecting his leg to find the source of his pain. She gasped when she saw a bullet sticking out the back of his knee, but it didn't look like a normal bullet. The bullet was jagged-looking, and oddly glowed a lime-green colour. First he came out of a portal, then he refused to go to a hospital, and now he had a strange bullet sticking out of him. This man was a mystery, and although Julie had so many questions for him, she decided to ask later, when he was in a better mood.

Julie dealt with his wound, and soon carefully extracted the bullet. She knew it should be left up to a professional, but...she did have medical training after all, she knew what she was doing. She patched up his wound and threw the bullet in the garbage. “All better?” She asked.

Rick rubbed the wound a little, and eyed her. “Yes.”

“That's good.” Julie smiled. “You should get some sleep now okay?”

“Wh-whatever.” Rick grumbled.

Julie wasn’t sure what to say, he came off quite mean, and it bothered her. But she was the type of person who believed there was good in everyone, she knew Rick had a nicer side he would show her in time, she just had to wait. Besides, Julie made a point to be kind to others, no matter how mean and nasty they treated her.

“Well...um...good night I guess.” She said, a bit sad.

Rick just turned over to his side and began to sleep. Julie was happy he seemed to be doing better, but at the same time, she wished he treated her more kindly. She kept her eyes on him momentarily, until she headed into her own room.

Julie knew harbouring a strange man in her home wasn’t the smartest idea, but again, her heart was too gentle to do otherwise. She loved helping people, even complete strangers despite her shyness. Even though Rick acted rude, her hope was he would open up and be kind to her eventually.

She finished brushing her hair and changing into her nightgown before heading off to bed. As Julie drifted off to sleep, her mind couldn’t stop thinking about him.

As for Rick, he wasn’t sure how to deal with how nice and sweet she was being to him, it was all so new and different for him. He had never met anyone like her. She was being very kind to him and while he appreciated it, a part of him said not to trust her, but another part believed she meant no harm. If she wanted to hurt him, she would’ve done it by now. Nothing seemed too odd or out of place, and Julie seemed genuine. But he wasn’t completely ready to trust her or let his guard down, not yet at least.

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

When morning arrived, Julie decided to surprise Rick with breakfast, hoping it would put him in a better mood. She thought about what to make him, unsure what to go with since she didn’t know what he liked, but decided on fluffy pancakes, pancakes were a common and beloved breakfast food after all. She hoped he liked them just as much as she did.

Rick woke up to a delicious smell, and sat up, wondering where it was coming from. That’s when he spotted Julie placing two pancakes on a plate. She looked behind her to see Rick was up, and smiled. “What...kind of topping do….you want on your….pancakes? Blueberries? Chocolate chips? Or just syrup?”

Rick was taken aback by her generosity and kindness, but gathered himself together. “Uh...I’ll j-just have some syrup.”

“Syrup it is.” She beamed. “I think...I’ll have some on mine too.” He watched as she drizzled syrup over the two pancakes she had placed on that plate, picked it up, and placed it on the coffee table in front of him. Then she also got him a fork and a knife for him, before getting her own pancakes.

He stared at the breakfast she had made for him, baffled by her kindness. He was still figuring out if he should trust her or not, but for now, Rick figured he might as well indulge in the food she made.  When he took the first bite, he was amazed by how delicious it was, and quickly ate it up. Julie watched him as she went over to sit beside him with her own pancakes, giggling a little bit. After finishing, his face was covered in syrup, making Julie laugh and prompting her to get a wet towel to clean his face. He didn’t like it very much, but didn't bother fighting, he just looked annoyed. Besides, his leg still ached a bit and so he knew it was best to not move around a lot.

‘You’re...kind of silly..” She chuckled.

“What? Do you have a problem with that?” Rick accused sharply.

Julie was surprised by how harsh he was being, and was hurt. “No...I didn’t mean it like that. I..I like your silliness…”

Rick realized that maybe he came off too strong, and saw how genuinely upset she was. He did admittedly feel bad at least, but he wasn’t ready to let his guard down with her, even if he found her very attractive. “Huh. Whatever then.” He went back to eating.

Julie pressed her lips together, wondering when she should starting questioning him. She wanted to be his friend, but she also wanted to be respectful. She wondered why he was being so rude though. “Um...I want to ask..why are being so mean to me? Did I do something wrong? If I did, I’m so sorry and I won’t do it again.”

Rick stopped eating and stared at her, gripping onto his fork. “I don’t...I don’t t-trust people easily o-okay? Jesus…” He snarled.

She felt even more hurt than before, she tried not to let his rudeness get to her, but she couldn’t stop it from bothering her. “Oh...okay then…” Rick then was surprised when he saw her start to cry, he hadn’t meant for that.

“Woah! Uh…” Now he didn’t know what to say, he never had to comfort anyone before. “Um...t-t-there’s no n-need to start c-crying, it’s not that b-big of a deal.”

“But it is!” Julie cried. ‘I’m really trying to help you, I want you to recover from your injury, but you don’t trust me and I just..” She sniffled.

Rick felt even worse, maybe had been a bit harsh with her, but his instincts had always told him not to trust people he didn’t know well enough. At the same time...he was starting to see something was different with her. Who just randomly lets a stranger into their room to treat their wounds, let them stay overnight and make them breakfast? She was being genuine in her kindness, generosity and care for him, he saw it clear as day. He knew when people were lying, but the more he thought about it, he knew she wasn’t, she was being honest with him. It made her even more intriguing to him. Rick decided maybe he should be a bit nicer to her, but he still wasn’t ready to completely let his guard down.

“It’s fine. Besides, these pancakes you made? They’re really fucking g-good, how did you know I like th-them fluffy?” He asked, his tone sounding a little more soft.

Julie started to wipe a few of her tears away, and smiled. “Lucky guess I suppose.”

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

It was at that point that Rick finally started acting nicer, and so his mood lightened. Julie was happy about this, but her questions were still bugging her. The crystal-like object was resting at the foot of couch, and Julie was wondering what it was, and why it glowed. She also wanted to know about the portal, the strange bullet, and why he was even shot in the first place. He was such a mystery to her. Thinking about the portal, she even questioned if he was actually a human, knowing their species didn’t have the ability to make any yet, but didn’t dwell on it much.

After breakfast, Julie put the plates, fork and knives in the sink before sitting back on the couch with Rick. He could tell something was bothering her. “What’s up?” He asked.

She looked away for a moment. “I’ve had some questions that have been bothering me since last night.”

“Oh...I-I see..” He said, his voice changing to a more flat, serious tone.

“First of all, how did you come out of a portal?’

Rick’s portal gun was being kept in the pocket of his lab coat, he gripped onto it, deciding whether or not to answer her question.

“Are you...okay with answering yet?” Julie wasn’t sure if now was exactly a good time. She knew he had trust issues, and maybe he needed more time with her first.

“Ah, it’s fine. Don’t worry.” Rick decided to only give her a partial answer rather than a complete one, he’d give her the complete one once he grew to trust her more. “I can create portals, makes it easier to travel from place t-to place.”

Julie was instantly curious of how he could make portals, but she would ask later. For now, she had more important questions to ask. “Really? That’s so cool!” She grinned. “My second question is, what is that crystal-like object?” As she asked this, she pointed right at it.

Again, Rick decided not to give her a complete answer yet. ‘It’s a fuel source, a very powerful one at that.”

Julie found herself already amazed by him. He could create portals and had access to a very interesting looking fuel source; the fact it was glowing and looked like crystals reminded her of something from a fantasy world. But she still had two more questions left. “Why didn’t you want to go to the hospital?”

Rick was silent for a moment, before answering. “Maybe it’s better nobody b-but you saw the bullet.”

That was odd, but she used it to segway into her final question. “Well..what’s with that strange bullet and why did someone even shoot you in the first place?”

This was a bit harder to answer, but Rick managed to give her something. “Some things are better left unsaid.”

This unnerved her, a lot. “O...Okay then..”

He laughed. “Don’t think about it okay?”

“I won’t.” Julie replied. But it still bugged her at the back of her mind...this strange mysterious man...she wondered what he was hiding from her.

some notes!

this story specifically takes place in the year 1978.

i made rick 31 years old because in the episode “rest and ricklaxation”, toxic rick says he’s been trapped in rick’s brain for 70 years. the episode came out in 2017, and 2017-70=1947/1978-1947=31.

julie is 27 years old, giving them a 4 year age gap. she would’ve been born in 1951 because 1978-27=1951.

while my version of young rick and rick as he is now are similar, they still have major differences you’ll see throughout. 

the rick/julie romance is going to be a slow burn.

i don’t care about canon no more! don’t talk to me about it cause i stopped caring! i’ve moved on! canon can go fuck itself at this point!

[babblingbat]

Various Characters I meant to post Months ago

Various Characters of mine

I have so many I want to write (some) of them down! This is a suuuuuper long post so more under the cut! Includes a spy, a crime lord/activist, and a bargaining warlock (I have to reblog this later bc tumblr threw a hissy fit about the length)

X

- Kinda in a Bond-esque spy agency, but more of a contractor

- When everything goes to shit, you can count on them to fix it

- Nonbinary protege of whoever is in charge of the tech division (Mezza? Sloane? Dixon? idk, but they have a hell of a shady past and there’s like… noooothing that can keep Sloane out of computer systems)

- X isn’t formally recognized by APO (authorized personnel only, the spy agency) but they do have access to all information because of a backdoor Sloane made

- So I guess the name is Sloane

- Anyways, X goes on the black ops of black ops, typically with either mercenaries or no back-up at all

- Thus trust issues and like the opposite of dependency - they have so much trouble asking for things but are willing to help anyone or offer material assistance - if they have it

- X is nonbinary and really doesn’t have any preferences on pronouns, as long as they aren’t he/him or she/her

- They’re also autistic and shut down if there’s too much loud noise or if they’re just too tired for some reason - sometimes this means going nonverbal or just Not Functioning and their favorite way to feel better is to sit on the ground, wrap themselves in a blanket and listen to music - so in conclusion they don’t really use guns unless there’s a silencer, and they aren’t v good with them

- A huge part of their espionage function is language!

- They speak German, Spanish, Japanese, FSL, and ASL all idiomatically

- They also speak Russian, French, and Afrikaans, but not fluently

- They can swear and count to ten in Korean and Czech

- They’re pursuing a PhD in computational linguistics, though APO gets in the way

- They’re 24, and have a bizarre set of skills because both of their job, previous jobs and jobs they hold as a cover to pretend they pay their taxes, and special interests

- Sloane is only 7 years older than them, and recruited X out of high school

- At first it was small things, like ‘pick up this book from Elm Street and drop it at Main’ but it got bigger after they graduated

- When X turned 18, they went through formal training - protocol, combat, and analysis

- They’d done some martial arts before hand, but not much punching, mostly kicking, throws, and staffs (5 and 6 feet)

- X’s main job is to clean up messy situations, usually by stealing things or extractions, and their own ops are less combat oriented than the clean ones

- X is not the best at math, not by a long shot, but they can see patterns from a mile away

- “I am the fact guardian, guardian of the facts!” “Puzzles quiver before them!” “FUCK OFF”

- They do simple division when bored and solve a lot of math things by finding patterns and using them

- X is both their designation in the agency (as in ‘x factor’) and their actual name- they use an alias for college

- They live with a few people, most of whom complain at their erratic sleep schedule and ask that please, for the love of god, X gets sleep meds and just a solid 8 hours, for once

- Sloane eventually sends X on an op to extract Mel, Sloane’s girlfriend and top operative

- X doesn’t know what to tell Mel, so mostly they just tell them that things will be answered later

- Mel asks Sloane, who reluctantly explains X’s role, and this sets some things into motion of X eventually being brought into the spotlight

- They have several hearings about their activities

- Eventually, Seville (who runs things? I guess) tells them to carry on as they do, reporting directly to Sloane, but they are recognized now by the APO

- There are three other things I want to fit in:

- Goes missing for [period of time], leaving a very close friend behind, comes back after being presumed dead and no memories, apparently solved a conspiracy and now has many illegal friends who all enjoy thievery

- Magic is a thing (because it wouldn’t be my words if it wasn’t lmao) and common enough that people know it exists but rare enough that it’s kinda intimidating and sometimes people will freak out about it, despite plenty of people having it.

X has/develops magic at some point but is terrified to tell anyone and tries to hide it from their team (which is now their family, love that trope) because they don’t want to be barred from the APO, but it comes out accidentally during a mission

- X’s infodumping saves the day somehow

The Celestian

- K so this is more about an organization, but the Celestian lives in a like a 1920s fantasy setting and likes dancing

- They run a social activism group masquerading as a crime network that uses queer bars and stuff as fronts

- To get money, they dance competitively with their bodyguard and d8m8, the BFF (butch femme fatale) who identifies as a nb lesbian

- To get into any of the places where actual political dismantling and activism happens, who have to have very specific patterns on your nails - nail painting is a method of communication and is also a huge teambuilding exercise

- There are different codes for everything

- When cops try and get in (they can only find the places if they have a member of the Queer Folk), the code is “blue denim” and then the person caught tells the police they need nail polish and then laugh as they get caught, as if they were bullshitting the whole thing

- Other things are called “10:50 am” which looks like a sleepy eye

- Or “songbird rhapsody” which is also a popular song that the Celestian sings at clubs

- Or “money” which is just a green splotch on all the nails

- If you’re a member of the Queer Folk, you get a crate monthly of money and nail polish, and special things on birthdays and holidays

- The Queer Folk do everything from organize protests to take kids in and try to pay for their education through crime - as in robbery from different places

- Their crimes always have a certain flair to them - they value creativity and snazziness

- The Celestian is like 5’ 3” (which, to be fair, is 3 inches taller than I am) and the BFF picks them up a lot

- They don’t like alcohol or caffeine but drink herbal tea 24/7

- If they don’t, something is very, very wrong

- They have a prosthetic leg

Red

- Literally in high school

- A warlock! They traded their gender and all “gender identifying features” to a trans demon for magic powers

- The demon mostly asks them to get coffee and stuff because the demon isn’t very good at bargaining and just wanted Red’s gender, but it’s expected of a patron to keep using the warlock for things

- (on the demon phone) “hey so this is super duper important and if you could get it in the next half hour that’s the best thing”

“what is it”

“alright so go to the corner of Lincoln and Greenleaf, turn three times to your right, once to your left, and a door should open behind you. Don’t try to turn towards it, just fall backwards”

“if I fall onto poison ivy or concrete I’m breaking my fucking contract”

“No, no no no, you’ll appear in that good good heaven spot”

“… the coffee shop?”

- Red focuses on science in their school

- Every interaction is a deal. E V E R Y I N T E R A C T I O N

- Breakfast? “I’ll give you the salt if you hand over the pancakes”

- Entering a building? “Hold the door open and I’ll give you praise”

- School? “You want me to tell you what I do in my spare time? Give me an A on my midterm and I’ll tell you”

- The last one has left a lot of teachers confused and more than a little scared of the silly little nerd in their class

- Honestly, they have straight A’s because they make deal after deal about grades. They never cheat on tests, but they make deals, hold people to them, and know what they’re doing

- Red’s demon is getting a little worried with all the deals

- Red is most accustomed to deals rather than anything else because they think that unequal exchange (i.e., gifts) is really suspect

- That said, Red has no problems altering “equal” exchange to benefit them

- If they ever became a business owner, they would be terrifying

- They want everything to turn out the best it can for every one but… are not fans of laws

- They have many Opinions on law, its enforcement, and the government

- That cousin that will tell you constantly about how the government is corrupt and should be rebooted with the youngest people as the primary interest

- Anarchy? Not quite, but revolution? Most definitely

- No angst, just high school silliness and chaos

- Has no idea what’s going on 90% of the time - a kid on a sportsball team did something amazing, people started treating him like shit for adults liking him, and Red had no idea until like 3 months later

- Red just kinda lives in their head

- Did they hear what you just said? Nah, but they sure did hear that wristwatch every time it clicked on the second.

- Likes the sound of adventure, but mostly gets lost in Ikea and makes deals with the eldritch monsters in the mattress section

- SUCH A SHITTY SENSE OF DIRECTION, COULD GET LOST IN A GRID WITH MAPS AT EVERY INTERSECTION

- Charismatic, but mostly in the sense of lying their ass off and persuading people

- Once tried to go a day without making a deal (on a dare), ended by making a deal to not have to ever do that again

- Businesses both hate and love them - they pay for nothing but will bargain away odd things of equivalent value every time and catch shoplifters, dislikes shoplifters because it’s not a fair trade

- Bizarrely good luck with finding things in pockets, particularly to “pay” for things

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HOW TO START A BAD ECONOMY

Competitors commonly find ways to work around a patent. And you had better have a convincing explanation of why your technology would be hard to duplicate. Running upstairs is hard for you but even harder for him. If you tried this experiment, I think, are the three big lessons open source and blogging both work bottom-up often works better than top-down. You not only have to solve this hard problem, but you can't evade the fundamental conservation law. Either some company like Netflix or Apple will be the app store for entertainment, and you'll reach audiences through them. Dilution is normal. But I think it's a big mistake for companies to get technology by buying startups rather than developing it in house. In fact, the amount of money in one family's bank account, or the amount available to a government from one year's tax revenue, this is true.

What the anti-immigration people have to be on the receiving end of a paternalistic relationship, no matter how technically adept you are. If you made something no better than GMail, but fast, that alone would let you start to become known as reliable, useful investor, people will refer lots of deals to you. Technology is a lever. You can't decide, for example, grew big by designing a new kind of store. In our world, you sink into bad habits that are hard to overcome when you suddenly get competition. But markets are good at it, and he was pretty much immediately as good as me at picking startups. But when they did they might have revenues of $50 million a year. I find through aggregators like Google News or Slashdot or Delicious. I took so many CS classes that most CS majors thought I was one. There were only a few percent of the number of people who all get up in the small Welsh seacoast town of Pwllheli. 3% of your net worth.

It was a lot of programmers I know, including me, actually like debugging. A company that made you wear a suit and tie to work. And that's what you do, as well, when you look at it this way, you wonder why anyone would think there was. I have no illusions about why nerd culture is rising with it. Startups usually involve technology, so much so that the phrase high-tech product of the time, fine woven cloth. You get up in the morning and go to a VC with a new baby. On the other hand, the money is there, waiting to be invested. It means he makes up his mind quickly, and follows through. It was quite interesting to write a compiler that will parallelize our code for us. This was naturally a great incentive, and possibly indeed the main cause of the second big change, industrialization. Each one will be in the top 1%. This is reassuring to investors, because you've addressed three of their biggest worries.

In the past, a startup would usually become profitable only after raising and spending quite a lot of stuff you don't like. You have to ignore the elephant in front of you, the likelihood they'll succeed, and focus instead on the separate and almost invisibly intangible question of whether they'll succeed really big is not merely not a constant fraction of the probability that those 19 year olds who aren't even sure what they want to know is almost always the same. This applies to dating too. If it were simply a matter of working harder than an ordinary employee and getting paid proportionately, it would be: you need to keep your eye on here is the underlying principle that wealth is what people want, and then suddenly seeing the answer a bit later while doing something else. And not just in selecting the overall aim of your company, but also that there are more of them. They work odd hours, wearing the most casual of clothing. PhD besides being the union card of academia, of course. Now what I wish I had was a mail reader that somehow prevented my inbox from filling up. How often do you walk into a store, or call a company on the phone, with a feeling of dread in the back of your mind?

That's what all publishing used to be bolder. Since the Internet was the big new thing, investors supposed that the more Internettish the company, then a smart hacker working very hard without any corporate bullshit to slow him down should be able to predict. So maybe the standard option deal needs to be tweaked slightly. You can still raise money, you can get the first deal. The part of angel investing that the decisions you make have a big effect. We could never stand it. Now that's what I call a startup idea. On closer acquaintance they turn out to be a good angel investor? Parents will tend to do this. This essay is derived from an invited talk at ICFP 2004. What sort of problem should you try to solve? Salesmen work alone.

They just try to notice quickly when something already is winning. Everyone who's worked on difficult problems is probably familiar with the phenomenon of yuppies. And the worst thing is, they're not drifting. But as the tests get broader, the schools do too. But talking to my father reminded me of a heuristic the rest of us can use. Com. Unfortunately, there is probably at most one company in each YC batch that will have a wave of secondary effects. And, like Microsoft, they're losing.

It's all too common for an assistant to result in a net increase in work. Our startup, Viaweb, was built to be sold. You need to for your own sake. Some of the smartest people around you are professors. So probably math is more worth studying than computer science. When angels make a lot of immigrants working in it. If something that seems like work to you? And so Google doesn't have to advertise. 05, or 4. If you want to work for a company is one of the most powerful people in the mailroom or the personnel department work at one remove from the actual making of stuff.

The word now has such bad connotations that we forget its etymology, though it's staring us in the face. Most startups tank, and not by accident. A startup's destination is to grow really big; ramen profitability is a trick for not dying en route. Superficially it's a lot like college. In your own projects you don't get enough of it. I haven't really assimilated that fact, partly because it's so counterintuitive, and partly because we're not doing this just for financial reasons; YC would be a cheap way to make my life better. This turns out not to be the last word on work, however. If you really think so, you should try to prove it, because that means I hadn't been thinking about them. Professors are especially interested in people who can solve tedious system-administration type problems for them, so that even smart people are sucked in. Startups, like mosquitos, tend to be outliers. If you quit now, you'll continue to grow rapidly and will cost more to acquire later, or even become a competitor.

Thanks to Geoff Ralston, Tim O'Reilly, Professor Moriarty, and Robert Morris for reading a previous draft.

[the-voice-of-hell]

Rent is Theft, part 18

Read from the beginning here, read the previous chapter here.  Note:  My MC is a Filipina trans woman and I am not.  If you have notes on that or anything else, hit me up.

                                                        ***

      I heard the soft sound of another glass door opening behind me.  The tall doors were of frosted glass indistinguishable from the walls but for etched stainless steel handles and hinges.  Perhaps they were held shut with magnets because there was no noise from a latch opening, just a hollow pop and slight vibration of air as the door swung.  I only heard it because I wasn’t walking at the moment, and I turned to see it.

      A lady with a corporate version of rockabilly style flashed whitened teeth at me, her face framed in big phony burgundy hair, and waved me in.  “Ms. Marquez,” she said, “I should have had the door open for you when you walked by, I’m silly.  Easy to forget what this must look like for visitors.”  She flapped a hand at the sterile hall, then turned it into another beckoning gesture.

      Time for me to mirror her pleasant falsity with a smile of my own.  Her teeth were ringed with candy apple red lipstick, mine with an eccentric but unobtrusive matte rose.  We shook hands and went into her office.  There was mustard yellow plaster on the wall up to about six feet, above which the exposed brick resumed.  Her framed diploma from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago hung there between meaningless matted black and white photos of parts of classic cars.  A curvy wheel hub, a tail fin.

      I sat on a low stool that felt like a sawed-off version of something from Johnny Rockets.  I sat my purse on the floor, folded my hands on a knee, and tried to engage her face.  “You have me at a disadvantage.”

      “Ah, sorry.  No name on the door because we just moved in.  I’m Diana Whitford, human resources coordinator.  Pleased to meet you.”

      “Likewise.  Does the Selman Design Group have a lot of human resources?”

      “You got me.  Small building gave it away?  I’m the whole department.  Also assistant CFO.”

      “Nice.”  I gestured at her fancy little office.  “It looks nice.”

      “It is!  Not so much for decor, right?  Just a lil’ fishbowl under the bricks where we work, but it helps keep us focused.  The meeting rooms are much nicer, and there are so many amazing restaurants around here for lunches.  And the art museum...  It’s a good neighborhood to work in.”

      “I know.  I’d love the job.  What can I say to make you love me for it?”

      “Haha, can’t give it away so easy, can I?”

      “Shoot.  Thought I had you on the ropes.  So,” I nodded coquettishly, “I’m ready.”

      She leaned back and cocked her head, considered me.  I didn’t love it.  She asked, “Alright.  Tell me about yourself.  What makes Courtney Marquez who she is?  I bet that’s interesting.”

      “Mm, I don’t like to settle for ordinary.  I’ve been working in tech for a long time now, and felt it’s time for a change of scenery.”  Sound rich, baby.  “The boys are so drab and provincial.  A graphic design firm, now that’s interesting.”

      “And what interests you about Selman Design Group?”

      “The code we worked on was for purely functional purposes - moving cloud data around, secure networks, server switching in massive arrays.  Here you are dealing with all kinds of businesses, right?  And at a level where the clients are going to be interesting people, cosmopolitan.  I feel it would just make for a nicer atmosphere.”

      “I can hardly imagine.  I’ve had some friends marry tech guys but they are in a whole other world.”

      “It’s not really that interesting.  The other world.  Smells like energy drinks and sweat.”  Play to stereotypes, Courtney.

      “Hohoho,” she said, “But we sweat too sometimes.  How do you handle a challenging day?”

      “When I read this job posting, I imagined it would be coding UI, animation, things to assist with graphic design.  Those were the prerequisite skills listed, right?  But here I am with the human resources assistant CFO and I can tell this is a company where you have to wear a lot of hats.  That’s the kind of challenging day I’m confident I can handle - a little tech support here, a project pushing deadline there.”

      “You don’t have any weaknesses, as a worker?”

      I hate these things a lot.  “None, hahaha.  Of course, I’ve just come from the world of maladjusted boy genius types.  Getting used to a different workplace vibe, it might not be a perfectly smooth transition.  But I promise not to crush cans on my head and play noisy videogames on break.”

      “OK.  But what’s a challenging situation you’ve had in the past, and how did you handle it?”

      I cleaned my ass and walked through the door to have this horrible dance while a dozen people are depending on me to keep our asses off the streets.  “There was a new handshake system we’d been developing functions for, a few months at least, when hackers discovered an exploit in it, rendering the whole system a massive liability overnight.  The biggest stress was for the sysadmins at companies using it, but there was talk around the office our company might have to declare bankruptcy, dump us all to cover debt from damage control.  It had us working under a lot of uncertainty, right when housing prices were shooting up all around the city.”

      “Like, two years ago?”

      “Another time they were going up, about seven years before that?  So it’s work quick and come up with genius solutions while you could end up homeless at a moment’s notice.  We really used all of our team skills on that one.  And that was me.  The genius stuff was for enfants terribles and people like me would try to make their solutions workable in practical space, documenting the code, translating it for other people in the pipeline.  I probably cried in the bathroom at least once?  But we got through it.”  Pathos, girl.  But not too much.

      “Wow.  That sounds like a hard time.”

      “Hard times come and go.  That one is gone.  But lessons learned?”

      “I can’t imagine.  Well, just one more thing.  What kind of compensation would you be expecting here?”

      “Better than a grad but worse than I was making, I’m sure.  I understand I’m starting over, but I am bringing a competency of experience you won’t see in a new kid.  I could go as low as forty-five, if it’s strictly necessary.”

      The fake rockabilly’s eyebrows moved.  What did it mean?  Don’t let them know you care.

      “Thank you, Courtney.  Now do you have anything you’d like to know from me?”

      “Do you have anybody here doing tech support at all, or would that become part of the job description?”

      “You got me.  We did not include IT in the listing, but you know we’ll be asking for it.”

      “I’m OK with that, Diana.”

                                                        ***

      I got out as fast as I could without making it too obvious.  I did not like how that went.  Usually I’ve done better.  Maybe the head wrap was making me lightheaded.  I found a metal pole to lean on, tried to slow my breathing.

      It didn’t help that this was not far from Walter’s stomping grounds, but I had to make myself stop worrying about that.  The late morning sun was bright white, the shadows electric blue.  Every scrap of garbage, eggshell, feathers, plastic, paper was clearly visible in the cement, joining its constituent stones like the skin of an endless lizard.  People walked around me.

      I finally shook it off, put on my sunglasses, and strolled.  Knobby had eluded me long enough.  The full moon was going to happen that night.  If he and Olivia were out walking the streets every day, when did he have time to be taking shits in front of old ladies?  I was going to catch his ass.  If I could cure his werewolfism, maybe anything was possible.  Cures for twisty hair and headmouth, why not?

      I switched from pumps to sneakers and walked back to the Myrmidon Apartments with purpose.  I was getting used to walking, even with the uphill-downhill of it, and if one picked the right streets, this route was mostly downhill.  I was on the block, eyes open for the off chance of seeing those kids on the street, and peered into the window of the Subway behind the building.  I didn’t see the kids, but I did see a lone sub-muncher in the uniform of the pest control company that was investigating the bed bug situation.

      I stepped in.  The people at the counter really didn’t care about short stay loiterers - lots of things to do in keeping an urban fast food joint from exploding.  I went confidently to his table and looked down with arms folded over my chest.

      “Hey, young fella.  Don’t worry, I’m not a cougar or a hooker.  Just a resident of the Myrmidon.”

      “I really shouldn’t talk to residents, ma’am.”

      “Don’t worry about it, kid.  I’m cool.  It’s not my apartment that’s getting sussed out, and not my problem.  I’m just curious about how this works, in case it becomes a problem for me.  Down the road.”

      “Hmm.”

      We had a moment, me smiling, trying to convey a sense of fun-loving criminality, speak to the young man inside the professional.  He pondered it for a moment, then assented.  “OK.”

      I sat down across the table from him.  “Alright.  So this is the new reality, they’re saying.  All the DDT that squished those bald eagle eggs wore off, bed bugs are moving back into the cities.  What all have you heard about that?”

      “Not a lot, honestly.  There’s the experts and then there’s guys like me who just move shit around, work the tools.  What was that about eagles?”

      “I don’t know much either, but somebody told me there’s this pesticide we used to spray on crops, but also indoors.  It made eagle eggshells thin so that when momma tried to incubate them, squish.  Bald eagles became an endangered species and the stuff was banned.  According to the guy I talked to...”

      “That’s why nobody had bed bugs until last year.  What a trip.”

      “Well what do you know about them?  Has to be something.”

      “Heh.  Now this is hella gross.  I heard the females don’t have a...  well, they don’t have a vag.  So to get inseminated, basically, the males got a gnarly spike for a dick, and just stab ’em with it.  Is that too much?”

      “Hahaha, no, that is horrible.  Thanks!”

      “A way to keep ’em out of your bed is to keep your bedding from reaching the floor and put the feet of your bed inside, like, a ring of laundry detergent.”

      “Nice, nice.  So what’s in store for my unfortunate upstair biddies?”

      “Our company is high end, so... uh...”

      “Promise, I’m cool.  You can tell me anything.”

      “Basically, everybody we deal with is insured out the ass, so we come up with services just to charge more money.  It isn’t a total scam, right?  The services do something.  But is every last one of ’em necessary?”

      “So you’re gonna milk this thing?  Hell, everything in this town is so fucking expensive, that doesn’t bother me at all.  Do it to it.  But that isn’t the reason you told me, is it?”

      “OK, we basically already know there are bed bugs.  Boss man stabbed her bed with a bowie knife and found black dots - like digested blood.”

      “Euggh.”

      “I know.  But we’ll be like, this is suggestive but it isn’t a clincher, and run another test.”

      “A more expensive one.”

      “You got it.  And man, it is the real trip.  We bring in a trained animal to sniff ’em out.”

      “Is it an expensive dog breed?”

      He was smirking and enjoying this too much.  “Not a dog.”

      “Aardvark?”  I remembered what Grime had told me about the animal, but didn't want to ruin the boy's fun.

      “A pig.”  His expression dimmed a bit.  “But now that you say that, I wish it was an aardvark.  That sounds fun.”

      “No, no, that’s pretty fucking funny.  You’re literally gonna get these apartments to pay them to have a potbelly piggy running through the halls.”

      “Oh it ain’t no potbelly, ma’am.  It’s one of the big boys.”

      “What do they call that, a boar?”

      “Yup.  A male pig, big as fuck.  Maybe you’ll get to see it.  It’s like three feet at the top and I swear at least five hundred pounds.”

      “No shit?”

      “No shit.”

      “Well, here’s hopin’ those sons of bitches stay upstairs.”

      “Uh, yeah.  Yeah, for sure.”

      He must have known that wasn’t likely to happen.  Shit.  “So the boar confirms what you already know.  Then what?”

      “That’s our part.  We help the lady treat and isolate everything in her apartment.  Anything that can’t take the heat is moved out.  The sprinkler heads are packed in coolant, and then we heat the place to a hundred twenty-five degrees for three hours.”

      “Holy shit.  Big space heaters?”

      “Custom, industrial motherfuckers.  It’s pretty cool stuff.  No poison involved.”

      “Except the laundry detergent.”

      “The laundry detergent?  Oh yeah, the laundry detergent.  We don’t tell most of our customers about that one.”

      “Because they’ll be more likely to get reinfested.  Sharp.”

      “You never know when they’ll bring that pesticide back and put us out of a job, right?”

      “Well thanks, man.  That was a real thrill ride.”  I shot him a finger gun and stood up.

      “Hey, ah...  You don’t have to go so fast..?”

      “Heh.  Charmed, but I do have to get going.  Enjoy your sandwich, son.”

      “Yes ma’am.”

                                                        ***

      I made a mental note to line the baseboards with borax at the earliest opportunity.  I was getting a mental picture of the shit.  They boil the granny floor and fleeing bed bugs come down through the walls, end up on our floor.

      I decided to take the stairs up, and at each floor get out and walk the hall.  If Knobby was doing his doggy deeds, I’d catch him.  I tried to listen for sounds in the stairwell, in the halls, but the exertion made my pulse pound in my ears.  Not terribly, but enough to mute the quiet noises of the world.

      The first ten floors had a different layout from ours - a little bit larger, with more variable apartment sizes.  The smallest ones were even smaller than ours, judging by the distance between doors, and the largest might have been larger.  On the tenth floor, another variation - a gym I had never used.

      I used my prox key and got in.  A redundant nuisance - anybody on this floor had already badged in downstairs, or been badged in by somebody else.  Did they want to keep visitors out of the precious fitness center?

      The outer walls were surely floor-to-ceiling glass, like on ours, but they were masked completely by drawn vertical blinds.  Interior lights were weak in competition with the daylight that gave the blinds an unappealing amber glow, the room washing out to a dim grey-green.

      Still easy enough to see by, and I found myself looking at myself.  One of the inner walls was pure mirror.  Watch your beach bod take shape while you ride the stationary bikes.  Or stand alone and watch yourself fade in real time.  All the dolling up I did for the interview was coming apart, and the shadows added ten years to my face.

      Even with the wrap clamped down on my head, I had forgotten it was visible.  It changed me, made my reflection alien.  And remembering this, I remembered Reverse Courtney was waiting under that grip for any chance to rat us out.  I touched the back of my head and felt her shift underneath the cloth.

      Get out.  No way Knobby was in there anyway.  As I stepped away, I noticed the floor beneath my feet was raised and discolored.  No allergy medicine here.  Get out.

      The eleventh floor was, to my knowledge, one of several completely unoccupied ones.  On seeing no Knobby, it occurred to me that if the monster in him had the same motivation as Reverse Courtney, he would only visit floors with people on them.

      Our floor.  The ritual wasn’t really complete yet.  I had prepared my potions and talismans and such, but I still needed to set up the magic circle.  It was far from midnight, so time remained, but who knew how long it would take to catch the boy?

      I realized we needed to talk to everyone at once.  Patrick and Graeme would be at work, probably, and Deandre and the kids probably out and about.  Still, better to get as many people as possible on the same page as early as possible.  I started knocking on doors.

      Patrick was indeed at work, and I decided to leave Perry alone.  With that and less anybody out on the town, I was only able to convene Mike, Momi, and Marcie, in her apartment.  Mike looked lively, but greener than ever.

      The three sat on the couch and I sat across from it.

      “What’s this about, Courtney?”  Mike was the only one with no prior knowledge, that I knew of.

      “Marcie and Leimomi already know some of this, but not all of it.  Like the allergy situation, it’s important for all of us to know.  Mike, have you noticed that you’re not looking... well?”

      “The green?  Yeah, and I’ve seen that Knobby kid hunchbacked, and his girl’s neck go weird.”

      “So you have an idea what this is about.  I think the building is trying to make us lose control of ourselves, make us get ourselves caught.  I have a mouth on the back of my head that has basically said as much to me.”

      “Does Leimomi have a head mouth too?”

      “No,” she said.

      “Let me get to the point.  The neighbors talked about seeing a dog, or a dog-like man, in the halls on their floors - causing trouble.  It has to be one of us.  We know what our problems are, and Knobby is already hunched over, so safe bet it’s him.  And I have a plan.”

      Mike smiled, green hands on his knees.  “Great!  And here I was worried.  You’re so good, Courtney.”

      Marcie said, “What are you going to do, Courtney?”

      “Ehh, I don’t...”  Maybe they’d feel better if I didn’t express my doubts.  “Sorry.  Remember how wearing the allergy pill necklace was helpful?  It’s kinda like that.  I’m setting up a thing...  OK, a magic spell.  In my room.  We get Knobby inside the magic circle and do an exorcism.”

      “The power of Christ compels you!  Haha,” Mike said, “I can do that.”

      Marcie nodded in admiration.  Momi knew what I was thinking, gave me a sensitive smile.

      “Yeah, so here’s the deal.  We all do our best to find that kid, get him and everybody else in my apartment by midnight.  I’ll write up everybody’s instructions for the spell.  You’ll have to read some words, do some things.”

      “Any of that cool shit from Exorcist in there?,” Mike asked.

      “No but there may be some room for improv.  Just make sure you do the spell right first.

        And in the meantime...”

      “We’ll try to find Knobby.”

      “Richie’s been trying,” Marcie said.

      “Unless he has a hot lead, call him home,” I said.  “It’s a full moon, and if I’m right - that the werewolf is trying to get us in trouble here - he’ll be in the building somewhere.”

      Momi said, “Oh good, I didn’t wanna run around town anyways.  Should we start looking now?”

      “Eat lunch first, get plenty of water.  For my part, I’m gonna turn my apartment into a magic circle.”

                                                        ***

      In my initial pass at the exorcism material in Werwolves, I didn’t notice the shin-kicking ritual involved some worse tortures besides.  We weren’t going to whip him until he was drenched in blood.  I did my best to come up with ways to symbolically accomplish anything I was unable or unwilling to do in the prescribed method.  For example, where it called for whipping the “werwolf” I thought we could just give him a few whacks and then cover him in some kind of blood.  Unsanitary, but not torture.  I’d paid for blood from a butcher, because there’s no good way to shoplift it, and sanitized it by boiling.  That made a blood pudding which I intended to reliquefy when we got closer to midnight.  Grody.

      Another thing I couldn’t do was follow hyper-specific astrological instructions.  OK, I might be able to sync the ritual to a night of the full moon, but learning enough about astronomy or astrology to even know when Mercury was seventeen degrees on the cusp of the Seventh House?  Not happening.  The text said Mercury was the “most bitter opponent of evil spirits,” so I thought, hang some liquid mercury from the ceiling above our boy.  I poured my mercury into an emptied bottle of some micro-brew with a white stag on it, to honor St. Hubert.

                                                        ***

   Read next chapter here.

[clovexei]

An Honest Review of the Emoji Movie

Longer than intended! Tbh I’m just leaving this here as physical evidence of the fact that I watched the whole thing. What was The Emoji Movie? Honestly we just don’t know.

The world-building was cool in concept but underdeveloped. It feels like a knock-off of Inside Out, but I spent most of the movie plagued by the same sort of stressful confusion that accompanies the Cars universe. A sampling:

Where do emojis come from? Are they born? Are they initially created in heterosexual sets of two so that they are able to procreate? If they're not born, why do some of them have children? How does the Princess family work, where there are apparently no male princesses? Is the Poop emoji an only father? What about the emojis who don't apparently have children/a heterosexual counterpart? Are those emojis going to grow old and die? What happens then? Do emojis die natural deaths? Do emojis age?

Why do the face emojis have to express the same emotion all the time and not just when they're on screen? It's like they're actors, but they have to be in their roles forever. Why? Why not just take pictures of the emojis and put those in the cubicles? Why do emojis have to physically stand in the cubes and wait to be picked, if they're only going to be face-scanned anyway? If there are multiple emojis, do they all take turns in the cubicles? Do they have to eat or sleep? If they do, then why? Aren't they made of code? Do they have to be in the cubicles whenever the phone is on? What if that's all day, every day?

Most of the questions I have about this movie carry over from world-building into the plot. Most of the events driving the plot feel like thinly-veiled plot holes. For example, the reason Alex is going to wipe his phone is to keep it from acting up – but it's acting up because Gene and company are moving from app to app. Buy why do the emojis hopping from app to app activate each app? If they're bopping around behind the scenes, why does that activate the user interface?

Another: A big scene happens in a Just Dance app, but Just Dance isn't an app? It's a motion-based dancing game, and you can get accessory-style apps for it, but the game itself is only on consoles/systems with a sophisticated motion-following camera. So it's not something that Gene an Jailbreak would be able to activate as a game on a phone.

(As an aside, I am human proof that you can suck at dancing and still pass levels in Just Dance so cut Jailbreak some slack, she was doing fine.)

Hi-5 is presented with a character goal (be a part of the Elite Favorite Emoji Club), but he doesn't actually do anything to achieve this goal. He wants to be a part of the club, joins Gene on his adventure, learns nothing, and gets to have his goal as a result, despite having no character growth and no indication that he's done anything to actually earn his goal. It's given to him as a way to wrap up the movie in a neat little bow.

As much as I didn't like that Jailbreak rejecting Gene's romantic advances was what finally turned Gene into the “Meh” emoji of his dreams, I do appreciate that him getting his Good Feelings back wasn't dependent on her reciprocating his feelings. That's a very good post-rejection message, and as much as this movie was weird and bad-romantic (“I've known you for twenty minutes but I LOVE YOU so let's  BE TOGETHER FOREVER like in the FAIRY TALES”), at least it dodged that particular bullet.

The characters in general were likeable but ultimately uninteresting. It's the same standard fare that I think is the easy trap to fall into: bland but relatable main guy, tomboy girl, and comedic side character.

Jailbreak was my favorite, but even so, I'm not sure what to think about what her arc was. The intended direction felt like “girl feels oppressed by rigid gender roles and leaves home, forms agreement with fellow outcast to further both her goals and his goals, realizes that she can be different and returns home to create her own rules about how she represents herself.” And this largely feels like what does happen in the movie, but I'm not sure how I feel about the execution of it?

She makes some interesting comments about feminism that seem like Character Flavor, and have elements that fit into the story overall, but her backstory and thought process isn't explored beyond “I had to do princess stuff and I HATE princess stuff so I left.” It falls into a style that I think is in vogue right now: to present girls as being Princesses and Not-Princesses. (This is especially popular in movies that are deliberately lampshading Disney's princess movies, but Brave did this, too.) And while I like that, at the end, Jailbreak realized (apparently) that she didn't need to not be girly in order to be happy and express herself, I don't know if that message carried over really well in general. We last see her in her original princess design as she runs the tech board for the emoji cubicles, so I guess she's comfortable with herself? And she's not picking Princess or Not-Princess but occupying a gray area in the middle? So that's good? But everyone else is still in one box or the other? So that's maybe not good? But with Gene paving the way to “be different,” there's a place for her and for others to be more socially flexible? But it felt like a sudden and easy resolution to something that was something that was so ingrained in their society that Gene was going to be executed for diverging from it.

Anyway. That was a tangent. TL;DR: Jailbreak is very queer and I like her but if feminism was going to be a part of her character arc, then I want it to be done with a lot more focus and nuance than there was? Yeah.

I liked Gene in the beginning of the film, when he was set up to be this energetic force for ENTHUSIASM, but Hi-5 muscled him out of that. Hi-5 is excitable, energetic, causes more trouble than good, and honestly, why do they even need Hi-5 as a character? He has the role that should have been absorbed by Gene. Within the first five minutes of Gene's introduction, we know that Gene is goofy, cheerful, and doesn't fit in. Hi-5 coming in as the goofy and cheerful side character demonstrably pushes aside those traits in Gene so that Gene can, nearly every time, play the straight man to Hi-5's hi-jinks.

If Hi-5 wasn't in the movie, then Gene would be both comic relief and the protagonist, which suits the energetic, playful way in which he was introduced. He would also have a much more interesting dynamic with Jailbreak: Jailbreak is jaded and bitter; Gene is (or should have been allowed to be) peppy and enthusiastic. With that push-pull dynamic, the interactions between the two would have been much more exaggerated and engaging, and it would have been believable that Gene encourages Jailbreak to be less standoffish and isolated.

Recommendation: Instead of relying on one-time gags and overdone food-related jokes, drop Hi-5 as a character and let the interactions between Gene and Jailbreak carry the comedic weight of the film.

Also, what is the target audience for this movie? Kids? Kids younger than 12? High schoolers? What do you gain by portraying students who have smart phones as mindless phone-obsessed zombies? Aren't you alienating your target audience? You're making fun of the people you're making this movie for?

There's a lot of that: of the creators being out of touch with their target audience. The gag of the text-based emoticons being old and out-of-date struck me as odd, when people are still using emoticons like that all the time. And, on top of that, we've developed new ones.

I also can't tell if Jailbreak's asides about feminism and female stereotypes are supposed to reflect her Cool, Modern persona or if they're meant to be funny? I think they're supposed to be the former, but they come across as the latter, especially since she gets so angry about the “Birds come when princesses whistle” stereotype... and then that stereotype turns out to be true and also plot relevant.

It did have some good jokes overall. The constant mismatch between Gene's parents having no visual expressions or tonal inflections paired with lines like, “I'm on the edge of my seat,” was right up my alley of humor. I also liked the Devil emoji's poop joke followed by the Poop emoji's tired sigh and “Aim higher, Steven,” but overall there were rather too many toilet jokes. “Aim higher” is kind of a good overall takeaway: this movie had jokes, but most of them felt like the same basic fare that one can usually find in kid's movies. It felt a lot like the humor in The Smurfs: The Hidden Village in that they cracked a lot of jokes, but most of them were overused or borderline mean, and so I didn't spend much time laughing, despite the fact that I was watching a comedy.

As for overall theme/message, I am biased on this front because, with little effort, this movie is a really odd, definitely unintentional allegory for, like, gay conversion therapy? And why it's not good? And why it's okay to be queer? This movie is about a cheerful, enthusiastic young man who disrupts serious social norms in his home community, who sets out to find a way to artificially alter his genetic make-up and encounters a young woman who likewise does not fit in and has rejected the social role/gender role she was expected to embrace, and the two of them realize together that what makes them different isn't bad and their differences should be embraced both by themselves and the wider community. Gay.

That metaphor is PROBABLY DEFINITELY very unintentional, but the romance between Gene and Jailbreak feels ham-fisted even without the queer undertones.

So, for a takeaway message, we have “It's okay to be unique,” which is the same message 50% of the rest of the kids' movies have these days, so cool, I guess. It's good to have that message reinforced, but there are also, as a result, more cohesive movies with the same message but better plotting and more interesting characters.

Overall Verdict:

Not great, could have been worse. I left The Bee Movie brimming with a confused and impotent rage, but this movie left me with vague good feelings and no deep impressions. I couldn't remember anyone's name either during the viewing or after. The animation was stretchy and bright and expressive, which I really liked. And the soundtrack was bright and bouncy. But the message was muddled, and I think the world-building/plot could have been (and should have been) a lot stronger than it was.