#Remove all duplicates from a given string | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

squishmallow36 · 3 years ago

Text

Keeper of the Lost Prepositions - Fifty-five

Word count: 2.6k

Tw: none

Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @gaslight-gaetkeep-gayboss @kamikothe1and0lny @nyxpixels @florida-fruity-frog @poppinspop @crystallinewalker @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @never-mourn-the-good @rusted-phone-calls @when-wax-wings-melt @cotyledon-tomentosa @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125 @cherryberrybitch @blossomsxgalorex

I have a feeling this chapter's explanations of technical things is wildly incorrect but honestly you aren't reading this to learn. Just blame that it's the elvin version of the things.

On Ao3 or below the cut!

I spend the next few hours losing my mind working on another Neverseen project. It’s being much more difficult than it needs to be.

I hate string methods with a newly renewed burning passion.

The only thing worse is when you miss a hail and then whoever wants your attention hails you again right after that, making you jump when you hear the buzzing and you weren’t expecting it.

Yes, that exact incredibly specific scenario.

I sigh. Hails always make me feel like I’m going to be told something horrible, and, well, there’s not exactly a shortage of that here.

I answer Marella’s hail, noticing that Linh, Maruca, and Stina are in the background. I’m not sure why that wasn’t a given, but still.

“Hello.”

A chorus of greetings respond, and Stina’s voice cuts through, asking, “Where are you?”

“Widgetmoor,” I answer. “That’s not really relevant. Why are you hailing me?”

“You’re good at finding people, right?” Linh asks, angrily pushing a strand of her silver bangs out of her face.

“Ye,” I reply.

Marella asks, “Do you think you could find someone for us?”

“Who do you have in mind?”

“Wow. I really thought it’d take more effort to convince you,” Stina remarks.

Biting back a reply about how I wouldn’t be so willing if it was only her asking, I say, “I’ve already had to find Ethan Benedict Wright II, Alvar, and Keefe recently. Now. Who are we finding?”

“Gisela,” Maruca replies, only the top half of her forehead visible on the hail.

I sigh. “...okay. It might take a little while. She knows where most, if not all, cameras are in both the forbidden cities and here. So that’s going to be thoroughly annoying...although her IP address might lead me there...unless she has a VPN. Tinker would have absolutely set a VPN for her.”

I throw my head back. The best thinking is always done while staring at a ceiling.

Why must technology be difficult?

“Use real words, Dizznee,” Stina demands. “We don’t all speak gibberish here.”

The world wouldn’t end if you asked nicely, you know.

“An IP address is a unique string of characters to identify each network connected to the internet, and it’s used for pretty much everything that requires a network. Even our imparters have them, although ours are a little harder, on average, to find than human ones. It’s also tied to location and I don’t want to get into that right now. A VPN provides private encryption so I can’t track down the location quite as easily.”

“Okay…what does that mean for us?” Marella asks.

“I’ll probably have to code up a virus and embed it into a file that I’ll have to attach to an email. I’ve got what I’m, like, ninety percent sure is her email. If it isn’t, then maybe I can send it from that email to hers. Actually, a worm might be a better solution. Then I won’t have to do it myself. Eh, the type of malicious code doesn’t really matter. I’ll figure it out.”

Stina fixes a look on me, waiting for an explanation.

“A virus is a form of malicious code that’ll be able to take down her defences from the inside. Assuming it can get through her antivirus software. Assuming she has some.”

“That’s a lot of assumptions. And you know what they say about assuming things,” Stina interrupts.

I ignore her, per usual. “A worm, on the other hand, is able to duplicate itself so it can get to other computers if it doesn’t get sent to the right one. Exile, I have no clue what Tinker has set up and I’ve been studying this system for like two weeks at this point.”

“That all sounds complicated,” comments Linh.

“Eh. I’ll be able to patch a super messy worm together fairly quickly. I know how to bypass Tinker’s defences. I’ve hacked into Watchward Heath enough times to know how their mind works. It’s all just annoying. And then I’ll have to embed it into a file to send to Godzilla.”

“Is no one going to ask why you have her email?”

“I am currently in Widgetmoor and Tinker is in Black Swan custody because they’re a member of the Neverseen. Let us think for a moment about why that might be.”

“You’re pretending to be Tinker?” Maruca guesses.

I shrug. “I was, last week, yeah. But then some stuff happened behind the scenes. I’m not entirely sure what it was. But they think I’ve become a double agent. I really don’t know why they’re believing me because it went so well with Keefe but I'd rather not ask. I already have enough responsibilities as their Technopath, I really don’t need to fish for information. Fork man hasn’t told me to do that, at least not yet. This is actually easier than that, surprisingly. Pretending to be a lesbian was difficult.”

Linh laughs while Marella suggests, “You could’ve asked your resident sapphics for help.”

“As much as I’d’ve liked to enlist you, Godzilla would probably notice the shift in tone. Tinker has a very distinctive way of speaking, and, besides, I didn’t want to drag you into all of this.”

A bit of feedback crackles over the Imparter, and it’s my best bet that someone mumbled something that I simply don’t care enough to know.

“Oh!” Linh exclaims. “I don’t think I updated you. While we’re at it, I’ve decided that I like the label lesbian. Although now I’m having a gender crisis, so that might change things.”

“You’re not the only one,” I laugh.

Maruca leans forward, a braid landing on half the camera. “Ooh, tea.”

Do I want to ask how she knows that? That’s a human thing. It was a whole discussion with Amy one day.

“I’ve just been messing around a bit too much with a couple of neos. And now I’m seriously thinking about adding xe/xem to the pile. It has been a very fun couple of days.”

Before I’m even done talking, Marella says, “Don’t even start, Stina. I know what you’re thinking and if you start I promise that be gay do crimes will become very, very literal and neither of us want that.”

I can feel Stina’s death glare response through the screen.

Maruca attempts to break the tension, asking, “What are these things you call neos?”

“It’s short for neopronouns and they’re basically just alternatives from, you know, your normal pronouns. Some common ones are ae/aer, ze/hir, and it/its. Anything and everything you could ever want can be a neopronoun.” I pause. “So, now that we’ve had a lesson on neos, Linh, do you want to tell me about your gender crisis, or…”

“Yeah, sure. What is gender? I do not know them.”

Everyone laughs.

“I’m thinking that maybe I’m somewhere in the land of genderfluid. Possibly. Who knows? I certainly don’t.” Linh gives two thumbs up.

I smile softly. “Let me know if you switch up your pronouns so I can update my mental dictionary. If you need outside assistance, I’ve been trying to find decent neo resources in my free time. I also coded up a pronoun checker. It just takes a few prebuilt sentences and replaces names and pronouns according to user input. I’d let it do multiple sets at the same time but that would require so many lists/arrays/whatever depending on the language. I’m angry just thinking about it. Don’t ask. I don’t want to think about it.”

I can feel Stina wanting to argue with me, so I add, “I mean, it is in Python which is not the worst language for lists. That’s scratch, because I’ve never used a list in there, closely followed by Java. It loves to print the pointer which would be helpful if I could make any sense of it.”

Marella smiles. “That would be too easy.”

“Do you know what else would be easy? Throwing it off a cliff. But apparently that’s not a method that typically makes the code work.”

The other side of the Imparter all laughs, and I can’t tamp down a smile.

Although it’s primarily because little bugs like flies would get caught in the fan as it’s falling then it would actually have a net positive number of bugs.

I know. I’m pathetic.

“If you don’t need anything else, I should probably start working before I get very distracted with something,” I say.

“So you don’t want to sit here and talk about nothing until the end of time?” Maruca’s disembodied voice asks.

“As much as I’d like to do that, if I did, I’d never be able to work on anything ever again. I procrastinate way too much already.”

Marella finally brushes Maruca’s braid off the camera, and says, “Come on. Let’s go find someone else to bother. This one is trying to help us. Let xem.”

Oh, Exile did she just--I think so. Many thoughts head empty. I am loving that just a little too much. I am totally adding xe/xem to my bio. There’s just something that feels different about someone using neos out loud than--

--and I’ve tuned out the world.

Shakily, I tell them, “I’ll text you when it’s done. Might be a few hours trying to scrounge up a file to send her so don’t just duct tape yourself to your Imparter until this evening at the earliest.”

Maruca’s braids cross the screen again before I can hear retreating footsteps, presumably to go get the duct tape.

The remaining three say their goodbyes as I wave, and Marella ends the call.

Energy draining out of me, I drop my head between my elbows, sitting on the desk.

I sigh. “People. I work alone for a reason,” I mutter. “And that reason is that I can’t work with people.”

My Imparter inevitably hears this and buzzes with a message.

“No. Not more elvin interaction. I’ve had enough today.”

It buzzes again, and despite the fact that I really don’t want to have another conversation today, I have to check what’s happening.

If something bad happened and I was just too lazy to find out what it was and help however I can, it won’t be pretty.

I grab my Imparter to find Fitz asking, Hey you. Just checking in.

Making sure nothing’s gone down since this morning.

I reply, Let me guess. Keefe’s being annoying again and you’re trying to find a way to escape.

It was that obvious? Exile.

Come on over here to Widgetmoor, I tell him, I’m just losing my mind. Like usual.

Which is surprising to absolutely no one.

I smile. Be careful. You’re starting to sound like me.

Oh no. See you in like five minutes. As soon as I can pry Keefe off my leg.

I think Keefe would appreciate the change of scenery, but he’d be a worse distraction than Sprocket. At least I can make Lovise take care of Sprocket.

I don’t think she’d be quite as willing to be Keefe’s babysitter.

Just like he said, Fitz is here five minutes later, and I hear him knock on the door.

Not wanting to get up, I just yell, ‘It’s open!”

Fitz opens the door, and when he sees me, he asks, “What if I had been a member of the Neverseen?”

I spin around in my rolling chair. “1. I’m currently pretending to be a double agent so that’s really not much of a concern. 2. I have cameras.”

“I thought you had to disable them. That was a whole problem a couple days ago.”

“Once I disabled the alarm and looped the feeds that I’m terrified and sure are going directly to a Neverseen server because if someone saw you coming here every other day, someone will get suspicious and I don’t want to deal with that. You get some free cameras already installed though. It’s great.”

I’m only half joking.

“Cool. Watcha doing?”

“I am not going to define the entire dictionary of malware today. Come back tomorrow.”

Fitz sits, smiling for a second before it falls.

“I don’t remember if I told you this, but Alvar’s dead. For real this time.”

“Oh.” I’m not totally sure how to respond to that.

Fitz shrugs. “I went down there to see if he decided to remember anything, and, well, I think you can kind of guess what I found.”

“Do your parents know?”

“If they did, I wouldn’t be leaving the house this century. And I sure as Exile am not going to be the one that tells them. Leave that to the Fork Man. They’re already convinced it’s my fault that he was in Black Swan Custody.”

“I mean…you and I did track him down together. And destroyed like half of Guildingham in the process.”

“You’re not allowed to have reasonable arguments,” Fitz says.

“It’s not like he would have lived any longer out in the wild.”

“They’re also convinced all of this is my fault, ‘cause, you know, Troll hives and everything.”

“I’m not a licensed therapist, but I get the feeling that you’re blaming yourself and attributing it to your parents so you can pretend like you don’t care.”

“And I thought you were bad with people, like you’ve said how many times before?” Fitz asks.

“I don’t keep track of that one specific thing, and you don’t count as people.”

Fitz smiles. “Yes, I win! I finally unlocked the introvert award!”

I laugh. “You’ve also won the award for playing too many video games.”

“That is entirely your fault and I will accept nothing less than a full confession.”

“I know it’s my fault. That just makes it so much better! I am completely at fault for breaking your brain.”

Fitz looks at me, annoyed, for about half a second before laughing.

I smile uncontrollably. “I am never going to get anything done at this rate.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’ll probably need you to throw the computer off a cliff.”

“That was one time. And I didn’t even throw your fancy cache thing!”

“Then how did Grizel manage to fling a goblin throwing knife at it?”

“I…forgot about that.”

I give him a look. He may have fixed my laptop that day but he should not have brought up my cache that he nearly broke.

It’s been like three months. I am. Still angry.

“I should really go find Godzilla. Before I have the four horsegirls of the apocalypse mad at me.”

Fitz looks like he wants to ask, but I pop in an earbud and turn on my music before he gets the chance. I’ll end up explaining later, I’m sure.

Putting together a virus over the next hour isn’t all that bad because I don’t need it to read files or anything like that but I have to make sure it doesn’t sound like me.

Because if someone figures out what I’m doing, this will not be pretty.

Once it’s done, I stick it into a zip file, so that I can send a whole pile of things at once, and hide almost anything you can imagine in there, as long as it's small enough to not change the number of kilobytes.

Like a non-technopath would notice, but I’m going to be paranoid anyway.

I realise while I’m working that a virus is actually a better solution because it can be much, much smaller than even a horribly patchy worm.

And, as an extra bonus, it actually compiles!

As much as that makes me happy, it also makes me kind of terrified because these things don’t happen. Something bad has to be coming.

#this is called oh stars i should probably add some plot elements from unlocked #even if it is too little too late #kotlc #detz #dex dizznee #fitz vacker #kotlc fanfic

5 notes · View notes

prestidigitation-nation · 4 years ago

Photo

Monastic Tradition: Way of the Controlled Chaos

Monks who follow the Way of the Controlled Chaos strive to embrace the chaos in the universe. In a world of arcana, divinity, and monsters, they understand that nothing can be contained. However, by harnessing and adapting to the chaotic energy, these monks learn to utilize what they don't understand. Through magic observed and truths introspected, monks of the controlled chaos use their connection to the world around them as well as their internal energy to preserve harmony in their attacks.

Ki Surge

Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you learn to use your ki to create small bursts of uncontrollable magic from within you. At the start of your turn, you can expend 1 ki point to roll on the Ki Surge Table. Roll your martial arts die and apply the effect corresponding to the number you roll. Some effects won't be able to be achieved until your martial arts die increases. Your save DC for these effects is equal to your Ki save DC. If you are using unarmed strikes, your fists are your weapon for any effect the table describes that includes a weapon.

Ki Surge Table (Below Cut)

Martial Arts die

Effect

Eye for an eye- Black mist swirls your monk weapon, siphoning energy off creatures it contacts until the end of your turn. You take 1d4 points of necrotic damage per attack you make (regardless of whether it hits) and can roll an extra martial arts die with each of your damage rolls. This damage is also necrotic.

Weeds and Clovers- Vines and flowers sprout up around you in a radius of 20 feet. This area becomes difficult terrain for 1 minute.

Three Legs at Night- Your size increases by 1 size category for until the end of your next turn on your first strike, the size of the creature you strike decreases by 1 size category (given it is not tiny). After the minute ends, you gain 1 point of exhaustion.

Improvised Solo- Your piercing kihaps become infused with a melodic tone. Up to ten other creatures of your choice within 60 feet of you that can hear you gain a d8 bardic inspiration die for 1 minute. After your attack, you lose your voice and can only whisper until you take a long rest or are healed by a lesser restoration or higher.

What the Flumph? A you summon a swarm of 4 pixies or 8 flumphs that are controlled by the DM. After 1 minute, the swarm disappears.

Master of Elements Elemental energy shoots out of your body. Four elements (water, earth, air, fire) swirl around you, forming a protective layer of energy until the end of your next turn. While this is up, you have resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, piercing, cold, thunder, and fire damage.

Winging it-You unfurl a pair of spectral wings and have a flying speed of 40 ft. until the end of your next turn.

Rapidly Expanding Universe- An astral double of your monk weapon appears that lasts until the end of your next turn. With this astral weapon, you have a melee range of 30 ft.

Seeing Double- An illusory duplicate of yourself appears in your space. For 1 minute, the duplicate moves with you and mimics your actions, shifting position so it’s impossible to track which image is real. You can use your action to dismiss the illusory duplicates.

Each time a creature targets you with an attack while the duplicate is up, roll a d20 to determine whether the attack instead targets one of your duplicate.

You must roll a 11 or higher to change the attack’s target to a duplicate.

A duplicate’s AC equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier. If an attack hits a duplicate, the duplicate is destroyed. A duplicate can be destroyed only by an attack that hits it. It ignores all other damage and effects.

A creature is unaffected by this spell if it can’t see, if it relies on senses other than sight, such as blindsight, or if it can perceive illusions as false, as with truesight.

Life in Death- Your monk weapon glows with radiant energy on one side, and darkens in necrotic energy on the other. These effects fade at the end of your turn. You can choose which side to attack with. If struck with the radiant side, a creature takes an extra 1d6 radiant damage and glows until the end of your next turn. While glowing, attacks against the creature have advantage. If struck with the necrotic side, the creature takes an extra 1d6 necrotic damage and must save on a constitution saving throw or be stunned until the end of your next turn.

Ki Restoration

At 6th level, you gain the ability to convert ki energy into life force. As an action you can use No Aether's Ki Conversion. This allows you to expend ki points to gain a number of temporary hit points equal to your wisdom modifier (minimum 1) per ki point you use. You can use a number of ki points equal to your wisdom modifier (minimum 1) in this way per long rest. The temporary hit points last until you take a long rest.

Taming Chaos

Beginning at 11th level, you begin to gain control of your ki surges. Whenever you roll on the Ki Surge table, you can roll the die twice and choose which of the two effects to unleash. If you roll the same number on both dice, you can ignore the number and choose any effect on the table.

Additionally, after finding out the outcome of the ki surge, you can use your bonus action to expend double the amount of ki points to extend the duration of the effect by one increment. If the effect lasts one round, you can use an additional two ki points to make it last another, and four more to make it last three rounds.

Greater Greater Ki Surge

At 17th level, your ki surges maximize in power. You can spend 3 ki points to roll a d10 on the Greater Ki Surge Table at the start of your turn. You can do this once per long rest. If the effect requires a saving throw, your save DC for these effects is (8 + your proficiency bonus+ wis modifier). If you are using unarmed strikes, your fists are your weapon for any effect the table describes that includes a weapon.

Greater Ki Surge Table (below Cut)

d10

Effect

Make a wisdom saving throw against your own DC. If you fail, you polymorph into a baboon until the end of your next turn.

Your ki compresses the mass of the air around you. You manifest a well of gravitational energy in a circle with you at its center that has a radius of 30 ft. Each creature in the circle must make a Constitution saving throw, taking 8d8 force damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. This effect ends at the end of your turn.

Your ki converts to thermal energy and begins to physically heat up your skin. For the next minute, any flammable object you touch that isn't being worn or carried by another creature bursts into flame.

A burst of energy from inside you disperses and settles into mist on the ground in a 100 ft radius around you. The terrain around you begins to warp into another of your choosing. The terrain's general shape remains the same. Open fields or a road could turn into a swamp, hill, crevasse, or some other difficult or impassable terrain. A pond can be made to seem like a grassy meadow, a precipice like a gentle slope, or a rock-strewn gully like a wide and smooth road.

Similarly, you can alter structures, or add them where none are present. This warping includes audible, visual, tactile, and olfactory elements, so it can turn clear ground into difficult terrain (or vice versa) or otherwise impede movement through the area. Any piece of the illusory terrain (such as a rock or stick) that is removed from the area disappears immediately.

You use your ki to harness the power of luck, and a glowing 15 ft radius circle appears with you at it’s center for 1 minute. The energy at the circumference of the circle swirls, pulling the strings of fate. The circle has a line through its center, but you decide at what angle. Divided by this diameter, every creature in one half of the circle gains advantage on attack rolls and saving throws, every creature in the other half has disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws for the duration of the effect. Creatures are unaware of this effect though they can see the circle. The circle moves with you and you can change the once per turn. You are unaffected by this luck displacement.

In fighting your opponent, you can sense the ki of your opponent, extract crucial information about your foe, granting you insight about their combat ability. Whenever you hit a creature with one of the attacks granted by your Flurry of Blows, you mark them as analyzed. In addition, you learn the following attributes about the target: Damage Vulnerabilities, Damage Resistances, Damage Immunities, and Condition Immunities.

Your next strike creates ripples through the ground and causes up to six pillars of stone to burst from places on the ground that you can see within range. Each pillar is a cylinder that has a diameter of 5 feet and a height of up to 30 feet. The ground where a pillar appears must be wide enough for its diameter, and you can target the ground under a creature if that creature is Medium or smaller and one MUST appear under you. Each pillar has AC 5 and 30 hit points. When reduced to 0 hit points, a pillar crumbles into rubble, which creates an area of difficult terrain with a 10-foot radius that lasts until the rubble is cleared. Each 5-foot-diameter portion of the area requires at least 1 minute to clear by hand.

If a pillar is created under a creature, that creature must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or be lifted by the pillar. A creature can choose to fail the save.

If a pillar is prevented from reaching its full height because of a ceiling or other obstacle, a creature on the pillar takes 6d6 bludgeoning damage and is restrained, pinched between the pillar and the obstacle. The restrained creature can use an action to make a Strength or Dexterity check (the creature’s choice) against your save DC. On a success, the creature is no longer restrained and must either move off the pillar or fall off it.

Briefly surrounded by silvery mist, you teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space that you can see. For 1 minute, you can use your bonus action to teleport again this way. After the minute is up, no matter how far you are, as long as you are on the same plane of existence, you immediately return to the exact location you were when you teleported the first time.

Energy begins to compress and gather around you, creating crackling lighting.

The next time you hit a creature, a bolt of lightning arcs toward your target. Three bolts then leap from that target to as many as three other targets, each of which must be within 30 feet of the first target. A target can be a creature or an object and can be targeted by only one of the bolts.

A target must make a Dexterity saving throw. The target takes 10d8 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.

A swirling, black and purple vortex gathers at the end of your weapon, sucking the life energy from the nearest source. The next time you hit an opponent, the target must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, it takes 14d6 necrotic damage, or half as much damage on a successful save. The damage can't reduce the target's hit points below 1. If the target fails the saving throw, its hit point maximum is reduced for 1 hour by an amount equal to the necrotic damage it took. You also gain temporary hit points equal to the amount the target’s maximum was reduced by. Any effect that removes a disease allows a creature's hit point maximum to return to normal before that time passes. This vortex disappears after the first strike that hits.

#dnd #dnd 5e #dnd homebrew #monastic tradition #Way of the Controlled Chaos #homebrew sublcass #egtt #monk subclass #dungeons and dragons #mine

9 notes · View notes

inventors-fair · 5 years ago

Text

Art’s Second Chance - Group Commentary

There were a lot of great submissions this week, with every submission having some interesting things going for it! Let’s move on to the commentary! (It’s below the cut!)

@shandylamb - Essence Mage (Aura Extraction)

This is a very appealing design, and very strong as a potential three-for-one for just three mana. Flashing in a first-striking blocker isn’t a shabby backup plan, either. Limiting your ability to cast the spell to the lifespan of the creature is also a reasonable check on it.

The first strike may sort of be overkill on the card; I’m not sure if it was included to help make the card feel more red, but the card is already fairly potent without it.

Small formatting notes: Flash usually appears on its own line, and only the first word in a string of keywords is capitalized. Instant and sorcery don’t need to be capitalized either. “As long as you control ~, you may cast that card, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast that spell” may be slightly more standard formatting.

Scorpio System - Queen of Putrefaction (Crawling Filth)

The delta on this card between the best case and the worst case is quite large; you need to be sacrificing several creatures to it for it to be okay, but past that it quickly becomes potentially game-ending. The home of this effect isn’t well-defined in the color pie, as there aren’t many cards that tap down multiple lands for an indefinite amount of time (for good reason). Black and green are plausible fits, as they can destroy lands, although generally on the rare occasions where mass land tapping has been a thing, it’s been in white or blue.

I do like that this design also produces a fairly large body in the circumstances where it does shut down the game, which can often serve as a finisher. The art is also a great fit for this effect.

@starch255 - Lord of Lightning (Frantic Purification)

I’m not totally certain exactly how the mechanics of the card are supposed to work; choosing a number uniformly at random between zero and the number of legal targets and then choosing that many of them at random and flipping a coin for each possible target both result in each target having a 50% chance of taking damage, but produce different distributions. The former is a little closer to what the text of the card suggests, but would be something of a hassle to actually do in play. Either way, it doesn’t hugely affect the overall power level of the card.

This is a very funny use of this art, and recasts a piece that isn’t inherently comedic into a comedic piece of art without undercutting it.

@emmypupcake - Deduplicate (Stitch in Time)

This is an excellent use of this art, reconceptualizing what it represents while still making perfect sense.

Blue is a bit of an odd home for this effect, although Leyline of Singularity provides some precedent, and every color has gotten a little bit of duplicate punishment here and there over the years. That said, the core effect is creature destruction, which is very unusual in blue; I think this may border on a break, depending on how one feels about Leyline of Singularity’s place in the color pie. The implementation also feels a bit less blue than Leyline of Singularity, which is arguably nodding toward’s blue’s ability to mess with types.

The power level also feels a bit low; while it has the potential to be a many-for-one effect, especially against tokens, and can bypass hexproof and indestructible, it feels pretty weak compared to something like Winnow, which was not particularly remarkable. (It also compares poorly to Maelstrom Pulse, but that’s an exceptionally powerful card, so it’s not necessary to measure up to that standard to be good.)

An interesting twist on this card might be to allow you to choose a creature not controlled by the player you target; that would give it synergy with clone effects. As is, it’s a narrow enough hoser that I’m not sure where you’d fit it into a deck. (Even as a sideboard card against token strategies, there are probably other options.)

@ignorantturtlegaming - Form of the Leviathan (Amugaba)

This is a cool out-of-the-box use of this art. While there’s nothing that specifically suggests transformation into a leviathan as opposed to just a leviathan-like creature, that’s true to a degree of the original Form of the Dragon art.

Much like Form of the Dragon, this card is something that certain decks just won’t be able to beat, but it trades FotD’s clock for a much more challenging one-turn damage threshold to meet, especially given that the card will be able to lock down all but the widest boards after the first turn.

I suspect that many games that involve this card will tend to drag a bit, depending on its owner’s own board presence and what answers, if any the other player has.

@ghost31415926535 - Rhorkahn, the Unified (Sigiled Paladin)

This card is certainly exciting; tutoring for two cards every time it attacks is very powerful, even with some deckbuilding restrictions, and its ability to find additional copies of itself makes it hard to permanently deal with. (Legendary is a very important check on this card’s power.) It’s hard for a four mana card in three colors that doesn’t generate any immediate value to be too powerful, but this certainly is a strong effect if it gets going. Making the cat the knight is a clever inversion.

@misterstingyjack - Lummi, Formless Friend (Shapeshifter Token)

Partner cards that interact with what they’re partnered with is an interesting design vein, and I like that this art feels like an actual friend. A card that only works if it’s your commander is a bit limited, but they’ve certainly printed cards before that make more sense as commanders than as part of the 99. (The entry specified that this card is for a Commander Legends-type set, where I think it makes a lot of sense.) The ability to sort of double-down on a single partner is also powerful and interesting, and the decision to make it a 1/1 rather than a full clone is also an interesting drawback.

This card is a bit of a design risk, as it potentially limits the space for very expensive partner creatures with powerful effects, but that’s probably nothing that the commander format can’t handle. Partner is an extremely powerful mechanic, and while the breadth that a deck gets out of having two functionally different commanders likely often outweighs the benefits of being able to double down, but this is definitely a card that with the potential for impact at many levels of the format.

@nine-effing-hells - Yaran-Shesh, the Keeper of Silence (Gloom Sower)

The first line of text is a somewhat risky one, but the ship has largely already sailed on it, and this card is somewhat safer than other cards with that text due to its high cost. The most comparable precedent for this card may be Novablast Wurm, but this comes with both a greater threat of coming down early and a greater risk of getting blown out. (As you lose your creatures first.) That it keeps creatures from being played productively effectively sells the hopelessness angle.

@milkandraspberry - Corpse Bride (Veiled Shade)

I’m not completely sure that I completely understand the story being told by this card, but the flavor text is strong and evocative.

While this can technically be a very large creature for just three mana with a little work, I don’t think that giving it a creature keyword or a slightly better base body would be out of line.

I also think that the triggered ability could be simplified a bit, if it only works on angel cards. Angels tend to, with few exceptions, have pretty close to equal power and toughness; the card could just always check the power of the exiled card without affecting its overall power level too much.

@hypexion - Angel of Lamentations (Angel of Flight Alabaster)

This is a great complete package, making great use of the art. It’s not a huge creative departure from either the concept of Angel of Flight Alabaster or the mechanics on existing cards like Ghoultree, but it makes a lot of sense together. At rare, given that it specifically counts creature cards in the graveyard, it could probably go to 5WW, but that’s very minor.

@dabudder - Peace-seeking Bracheweft (Briarhorn)

This card exists in the space of being a brutal anti-aggro card in what would presumably be an archetype that’s already very strong against aggro decks, making it fairly polarizing. This is a great use of the Briarhorn art, which does have pacifist vibes in its interactions with the little birds.

@abzanhero - True Righteousness (Soul Parry)

This card attempts to overcome the inherent weakness of auras with just brutal raw power. Even considering the limited range of legal targets, this card is almost unbeatable against many decks if it resolves, and if you’re on the play then your opponent may have as little as two mana with which to remove whatever you target with this before it does so. On the flip side, it still has many of the weaknesses that auras traditionally do.

This is a very nice use of this art, and does what I was hoping many entries would do (and what many entries did), which is to call attention to a cool piece of art that folks may not have seen.

@reaperfromtheabyss - Corpsedance Duo (Grave Exchange)

There were many cards this week that interpreted a creature card’s art as a noncreature or vice versa, and, of them, this is one of the biggest reaches - it’s somewhat unusual for creature art, which makes the final product more striking.

Mechanically, I feel like this card has a lot going for it. The second ability has never appeared in that precise form on a creature card before, and it’s a nice combo with the first ability without that combo specifically representing a huge spike in the card’s power level. The substantial mana cost on the ability hampers most of the easy combos you’d otherwise get out of this as well. This card only narrowly missed the winners’ circle.

@demimonde-semigoddess - Demon of Darkening Skies (Archdemon of Paliano)

This card is a really cool concept, but I feel like it’s held back by the fact that in almost all circumstances, your opponents will just sacrifice lands. By the time you’re casting a six-mana creature spell, a land will often be pretty expendable for them, and it denies giving Demon of Darkening skies any protection. It’s still a decent card as a flying trampler that forces them to lose something on ETB, but the unique part of the ability will rarely come into play.

@sorustyitshines - Angel of Mourning (Defiling Tears, Original Full Art)

I love this full art, and the card itself is powerful - a conditional Ravenous Chupacabra with an easier mana cost (and playable in monowhite) and substantial additional upside. In that regard, it might even be a little bit too powerful. The total package definitely services the art better than Defiling Tears does, and the flavor text is very clever.

@tmstage - Truesight Maskmaker (Agent of Masks)

Very clever use of this art. I’m not certain whether “instead it doesn’t” is intended to keep the permanent from entering the battlefield at all, or allowing it to enter the battlefield, but not as a copy of anything, but the latter is cleaner rules-wise, and because most of the time a permanent would enter the battlefield as a copies of a thing, that permanent is a 0/0 creature or an otherwise blank permanent, this effectively blanks most such cards either way.

You note that this card is designed for a Commander supplemental product, and it certainly makes the most sense in a format where clone effects are fairly common. That said, this is a quite narrow hoser, and could likely have a more competitive statline for its cost. Hoser cards also tend to be fewer colors, to increase the number of decks they can be played in, although that’s far from a hard rule.

I very much like the flavor text and the overall theming.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes - Dungeon Follower - (Pay No Heed)

Improbably, this week saw two entries built around the creature types used as part of Zendikar Rising’s Party mechanic, both designed to punish other players for using them. Counting creatures that your opponents control in general is relatively lightly used design space, and while there’s probably good reasons it doesn’t turn up too too often, this is an interesting application. (I’m assuming that, for the sake of this mechanic, “the enemy’s party” is defined by the rules to mean something like “the largest party of the parties of your opponents.”)

Given that it explicitly uses the Party mechanic, this card presumably exists in an environment where a substantial fraction of the creatures are one of the specified types, but even then, the power level on this card is fairly low. That’s totally fine for a common, however. The card could probably be mono-blue; while counting enemy creatures to determine your size doesn’t feel super blue, it doesn’t really have a defined home anywhere, and I don’t know that this card is powerful enough to justify the asks that multicolor cards make in a limited environment.

@gollumni - Death of a Comrade - (Funeral March)

The second of the two cards this week that punish your opponents for playing cards of the Party creature types, this is a savage three-for-one removal much of the time. In an environment with Party (which I’m assuming this exists in), this will generally have a target of one of the appropriate types, and isn’t blank even if it doesn’t. This is probably a bit slow for constructed, but always makes the cut in limited.

@koth-of-the-hammerpants - Striking Enlightenment - (Idle Thoughts)

Of all of the submissions this week, this card was one of the hardest to evaluate. The idea of a card where the Overload cost is a drawback because it does something that you wouldn’t want to hit all targets is an interesting ones, and very Modern Horizons-y.

On the play, this card has the potential to just end the game when cast on turn two, as it will often leave an instant-light opponent with one land in play and four random cards from their deck, which is a game-losing position much of the time. As this effectively undoes the mulligan process while mulliganing down to just a few cards, there’s a very good chance of mana flood or screw happening from such a position. This does carry some risk for the caster, but the caster at least has the benefit of getting to play a second land first. Ticking the overload cost up to three almost completely solves this issue, however.

@snugz - Faithful’s Respite - (Angelic Curator)

Up until a few days ago, I would have said that this card was a bit of an issue because they don’t make cards that are just better than basic lands - that lacking a basic land type and being non-basic weren’t considered sufficient drawbacks to justify a land having upside over a basic land. They’ve since demonstrated a shift in that philosophy with the Pathway lands in Zendikar Rising. That said, I think this clean level of upside on what’s otherwise as good as a plains may be pushing things a bit. Lands don’t need a ton of upside to be playable over basics even with small downside, and this card significantly changes the way white decks play in formats that it’s in.

@shakeszx - Seedsinger - (Renewal)

The power level on this card is high despite adding the mana at a somewhat awkward time purely for the draw power it represents. Generally, cards don’t add mana during your upkeep unless the card is an odd gimmick like Braid of Fire, although there’s nothing about doing so that isn’t functional.

@dimestoretajic - Repay Evil (Evaporate)

This is one of the most interesting submissions from an art-repurposing standpoint, as it’s a white spell that depicts a spell being cast by a character that is very far from how white-aligned characters are usually coded in Magic - it’s an orc or goblin-like character in dark robes. (That’s not to say that there aren’t white-aligned Magic characters that are slightly monstrous and wear dark robes, but it’s a less common look.) On one hand, it’s a bit jarring, but it’s also a bit imagination-stirring.

The technique of making a permanent extra-vulnerable by making it an aura when it otherwise has no reason to be isn’t one that Magic uses often, but it’s reasonable here, and the flavor text does a lot of work in tying the whole package together.

@socialpoison - Oath of Service (Commander’s Authority)

Commander’s Authority was one of the cards that inspired this contest in the first place, so I was really excited to see it here. I like that the effect chosen is one that has above-average synergy with the Rancor recursion clause.

@mardu-lesbian - Daring Defiance (Thunderous Might)

This card feels a smidge odd in red and perhaps odder in black, but the most interesting thing about this card to me is the decision to make it a sorcery, rather than an instant. The “obvious” version of this card is for it to be an instant, because that makes it much easier to engineer situations where you loot for a larger value than two, in several ways. Making it a sorcery makes it significantly more puzzle-y to try to get that extra value off.

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

I had a lot of fun with the designs this week, and I’m looking forward to the next! I believe that I’m the last of your guest judges in the rotation, so I think we may be getting back to your regular hosts next week. Looking forward to it!

- @teaxch

#inventors fair #group commentary #arts second chance #teaxch #mtg #magic the gathering #custom card

9 notes · View notes

uzumaki-rebellion · 5 years ago

Text

“Stark’s New Intern” Chp. 11

Summary: Erik gets swept into Stark’s private world...

youtube

"Don't want to be on top of your list, Phenomenally and properly kissed We overcome in 60 seconds with the strength we have together. But for now, emotional ties they stay severed. And where there's trust there'll be treats When we funk we'll hear beats, Karmacoma

You and her walking through the suburbs No, not exactly lovers You're a couple, specially when you're body's double. Duplicate and then you wait…"

Tricky—"Overcome"

Erik stepped back from Maria the moment he felt his cell vibrate. Pulling it from his pocket, he unfolded the thin frame and swiped Athena's avatar.

"I'm about to order appetizers, are you on your way?"

"Yeah, give me a minute."

Erik watched Maria wipe her lips from where he smeared her lipstick. She eased back from him and her eyes looked everywhere else except for his face. He ended the call and went to his bathroom and washed his hands and mouth.

"Athena is ordering appetizers-"

"Erik…"

"I didn't mean to make this weird…I was just…fuck, I don't know what I was doing…"

"It's okay. I don't feel weird. My mind is all over the place right now."

"Let's go."

The ride down the elevator was quiet and when they reached the lobby, Erik spotted Kevin at the bar. Maria saw him too and she turned her head away.

"Maria!"

Kevin ran up to her and Erik blocked access to Maria by stepping forward.

"I've been trying to reach you," Kevin said.

"My phone is on mute, sorry," Maria said.

"Can we talk, please?"

Kevin had earnest eyes and Maria bit her lip before glancing at Erik.

"Okay," she said.

Erik stepped back giving Maria space.

"You sure?" Erik asked.

"Yes."

Erik watched Maria follow Kevin back to the bar.

Trying to process what he felt at that moment, he walked over to the host manning the hotel restaurant entrance and was directed to Athena's table.

"You alright?" Athena asked.

"Yeah."

"Where's Maria?"

"Ran into Kevin. They're talking at the bar."

"Uh-huh. Interesting."

He picked up a menu as Athena ate a bit of artichoke and spinach dip.

"God, this is so cheesy and good."

Erik reached for the garlic pita chips that went with the dip and took a big sample. The hot cheese and salty taste of the chips made Erik even more hungry. And reflective. Why did he kiss that girl at her most vulnerable? Maria was a sincere friend and he never saw her as someone he wanted to get with. The type of woman that revved him up did not fit Maria at all. He wanted to comfort her, try and get her to see beyond a bad sexual encounter, but his first reaction was to kiss her? Perhaps it was the vulnerable look in her eyes that enticed him. Maybe he wanted to make it up to her for having a wack ass first time. Her reaction to his kiss came off bashful and awkward. The sweetness of it made him feel even more protective when Kevin showed up.

Eating more dip, Erik focused back on Athena.

Shit.

She had eaten a bit of dip and her tongue tried to catch a ropey string of cheese and she missed. The cheese dropped onto the deep cleavage of her breasts and she grabbed the cloth napkin from her lap and tried cleaning it up gracefully. Her fingers removed the offending mess and when her eyes caught his staring at her chest, she laughed.

"My bad, hard to not watch," he said tossing his menu back on the table.

Athena's middle and index finger lingered inside the depths of those two heavy breasts that had Erik shifting in his seat.

He was horny as fuck.

Relief fell on him. His reaction to Maria was just him projecting what had been bothering him since he took the internship. He wanted some sexual healing. Hadn't had it for nearly three months because of his schedule.

"Uh oh, are those heart eyes you're giving me, boy?"

Athena reached for the martini glass next to her plate of pita chips.

Erik's eyes darted around. The restaurant wasn't full and they were in a section that was isolated from a lot of staff and customer traffic.

A plump waiter walked over and handed Athena a large whiskey glass.

"Are you ready to order?"

"Give us a little more time," Athena said, her eyes never leaving Erik's.

"Heart eyes?" Erik asked when the waiter left.

Athena glanced at her thin clear cell phone that was given to all the interns courtesy of Stark Industries. She swiped it and brought it to her ear.

"Hey, Maria…"

Athena pushed the whiskey over to Erik.

"It's good," Athena whispered to him, "learn something."

Erik took a sip but his ears were wide open. Athena spoke into her phone.

"Okay. No worries. If you change your mind come on back down."

"So?"

"She's going to hang out with Kevin…what?"

"I ain't say nothin'-"

"Hmph."

"So you know what went down?"

"Yes."

"Me too."

"Let's mind our business—"

"Bet."

"How is it?"

Erik circled the glass in his hand.

"Strong."

"As it should be. Glencairn glass. The base is separated from the bulb so your hands don't warm up the liquid. Twenty-one-year old single malt scotch. Seventy dollars a glass. Sip it slow. Enjoy the flavor. Let it rest on your tongue…"

Erik did as she instructed and when her eyes rested on his lips, he let his tongue swipe his top lip. Athena leaned in toward him.

"Like it?"

"Yeah."

She took the glass from him and sampled the goods. She closed her eyes and gave a low moan that made his skin tingle.

"Perfection in a glass."

"You should buy a bottle."

"When I make some serious money, I'll drop a thousand at one meal then."

They ordered Lobster and black truffle Mac n' Cheese and Erik joked about Athena trying to make him constipated with all the cheese they were devouring that night. Their per diem wouldn't cover a third of the bill and Athena used her personal credit card to cover the rest. She walked Erik to his room afterward so he could change his shoes for dancing and they met up with some other interns out on the prowl. Within an hour of joining the small entourage, Erik was ready to bounce. Athena grabbed his arm and dragged him along to their first subway ride of the night.

Sight-seeing commenced and then a bit of clubbing in establishments that had awful music, but Erik hung in there because Athena wanted to hang out longer with the others.

Things picked up on the subway ride back to the hotel when the trains were packed because of a concert and Erik had moments of being pressed against Athena who didn't mind the closeness.

The rumble and tumble of the train rocked them all and when Athena leaned back against him because of the movement, Erik took advantage and whispered in her ear.

"You doing that on purpose," he said.

Athena turned around bold and forthright.

"If I were, you'd know it."

"I know it, Ma."

Her eyes were bright like shiny new pennies. He leaned in to kiss her and she was open to his lips. He made sure she was thoroughly kissed with his mouth and hot tongue. He knew he had her all the way when she grabbed onto his ass.

"Damn, you can really kiss," she said.

Her breath on his mouth made him want to tongue her down some more until his cell went off.

Stark.

"Where are you? I need a wingman."

Erik closed his eyes as his jaw grew tight. Every time…

"I'm rolling through Manhattan—"

"Get a cab and go to this address. Bring your Poker skills with you."

"Poker?"

Erik's phone glowed red as the address popped up on his screen.

"I know you've been cleaning up in after-hour games with the cleaning staff—"

"Just some friendly—"

"Stevens, I know a card shark when I see one. Get over here. I'm bankrolling you. What are you wearing?"

"Suit and tie like you told us to have for—"

"Be here within the hour. I have a couple million riding on you Stevens—"

"But this address…hello? Hello?"

Erik folded the cell and slipped it back in his pants.

He glanced up at the subway train stop map above Athena's head and saw the next stop was three minutes away.

"I gotta dip."

Athena snuggled closer to him.

"See, now you really playing," he said.

"Where are you going? Can I come with you?"

"I'm going somewhere kinda sketchy, so you better stick with the crew."

"How long will you be?"

"Might be pulling an all-nighter."

He felt the train slowing down and he watched the other interns plow their way through subway riders getting a head start on the exit rush. His eyes regarded Athena with simmering regret.

"Come see me after," she said.

"It's Stark, so you know…shit can switch up without warning."

"But, so can I."

Her mouth was hot on his lips again and the solidness of her body next to his made him think seriously of ignoring Stark's request. Up close and personal with her breasts let him see how really deep her cleavage was and the surge of blood to his nether regions had him feeling woozy but oh so ready.

"I might not get back until morning."

"We're free tomorrow. And we have room service."

"Let me make sure I'm clear. You're inviting me over for conversation or…?"

"If you're a talker, then talk that talk, boy."

"Words, Ma—"

"You said you had that deep dick, right?"

"Fuck yeah."

"Then prove it."

"Thought I was too young for you."

"Slow night."

"Damn. So I'm the slim pickings."

Athena turned toward the nearest exit and Erik followed her out of the train. They joined their crew and Erik bid them farewell. He watched the sway of Athena's hips as she headed toward their hotel.

Waving his hand high in the air, he flagged down a cab and was surprised he was able to claim one so fast. Must've been the expensive suit he had on. He gave the Eritrean driver the address and listened to sibrit music all the way to his destination in the meatpacking district.

Erik stared at the address on his phone and looked at the building that matched it. It was a hipster museum. He paid the driver of the cab and hopped out. Texting Stark, he glanced around to make sure he wouldn't get jumped.

At the front entrance, he was buzzed in and escorted by a lanky brunette who guided him past overpriced art pieces and into a backroom that had stairs leading to a series of offices until he was shown into a softly lit space with a professional-looking racetrack-shaped poker table. Stark was sitting next to a regal-looking white man with clearly hand-tailored Versace suit. The Spring Men's collection that wouldn't be out until the following year. The type of suit regular people would never have access to.

"There he is!"

Stark waved him over to his side of the table.

Erik took a look around and recognized four of the men from the Forbes 100 list. It was a billionaires only table. Except for the son of the sitting U.S. Vice-President.

"Prince Francesco, I'd like you to meet one of my newest interns…Erik Stevens. Erik, Prince Francesco Grimaldo of Monaco."

Searing blue eyes met Erik's gaze. He could feel all the eyes in the room on him.

"Sit down Erik. Stark says you can bring a good game to our little soiree," Francesco said.

"What are you playing?"

"Omaha."

Shit. It was hard to bluff with that game.

"Deal him in," Stark said.

The woman who brought Erik in slid him neat stacks of poker chips. The colors told Erik he was way out of his league. But fuck it. It was Stark's money.

"Drink?" The brunette guide was back by his side again. Erik looked at Stark. The man rolled his eyes.

"Scotch. Smooth."

"You got it."

"Thanks…?"

"Delores."

"Thanks, Delores," Erik said.

"You're cute," she said.

"I play cute too—"

"Yeah…um, Delores, we'd all like some drinks," Stark said.

Delores leaned into Erik.

"He gets grouchy when he's losing," she whispered in his ear.

Erik watched a man across from him in a dark suit begin to shuffle the cards. A professional dealer. These mofos were not messing around. Erik took the empty seat across from Stark and the Prince.

When his drink arrived, Erik let it sit on his tongue like Athena taught him to. It hit his throat hot and smooth. Looking around the table, he realized that was how he would have to play. Stark was fortunate that Erik knew how to play several varieties of Poker.

Prince Francesco picked up his cards.

"Shall we begin," he said looking Erik in the eye, the smug look of royalty painting his face. But Erik had royal blood in him and he sat up in his seat with his own regal bearing.

"By all means," Erik replied, the whiskey on his tongue reminding him of Athena.

Erik hoped to be lucky twice: at that table full of sharks and also in Athena's hotel bed.

Staring at his first hand, he was off to a good start.

Chapter 12 HERE

###

Tag List:

@fd-writes @soufcakmistress @cherrystainedlipsbaby @tclaybon @thadelightfulone

@allhailqueennel @bartierbakarimobisson @cpwtwot @shookmcgookqueen @yoyolovesbucky

@raysunshine78 @the-illllest @terrablaze514 @l-auteuse @amirra88 @jimizwidow @janelledarling

@chaneajoyyy @sweetestdream92 @purple-apricots @blackpinup22 @hennessystevens-udaku

@scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade @bugngiz @stariamrry @honeytoffee @meilintheempressofdreams

@tyees @eye-raq @writerbee-ffs @chocolatedream30

#stark's new intern #erik stevens #killmonger fanfiction #tony stark #stark industries #uzumaki rebellion #black panther fanfiction

33 notes · View notes

platypanthewriter · 6 years ago

Text

Blind as a Bat

Silly 5+1 misunderstanding chat prompt for @susiecarter! Ao3 link in the notes!

Clark Kent widened his stance in front of Bruce Wayne’s desk, steadying himself for a blow. He frowned down, and adjusted his press pass. “So, ah, the thing is. I love you.”

Bruce’s smile flickered, the arms of his calf-leather desk chair creaking under his hands, before he spun it around and stood, straightening his blazer. “...really.” He crouched, and ran his fingers along the bottom of the chair, then frowned under his desk. “I, also, yes, our posteriors are obviously designed to complement each other, Mr. Kent.” Standing, he waggled his eyebrows, grabbing his desk phone and frowning into the undercarriage. “Go on, I’m listening--”

“...Bruce. Your office isn’t bugged. I seriously can't make this any simpler, I love you. I, Clark Kent, love--”

“Are you mind controlled?” Bruce stepped in close, eyes narrowed. “This is a clever signal.”

Clark backed away, waving. “Actually, you know what, no, Mom was wrong. I can't do this, Superman out--”

“I have a scanner for interference by hostile entities--”

Clark groaned. “Nope, no, we’re good, it's fine, I fixed it. Just now.”

The stillness made Bruce Wayne resemble his alter ego. “That's an astoundingly obvious ploy, but given the initial attempt at intimacy, not out of character--”

Clark stalked out. “I am having a picnic. With my blanket, on the moon.”

Months later, Aquaman requested their help, and Clark found himself questioned in front of a device humming in the rhythm of the dancing fish that hovered and stared at it.

“No, I’m not feeling it, Arthur,” he sighed.

Batman’s voice burbled through his scuba gear. “I'd know if Superman was mind controlled. We have a signal.”

Clark repressed a vicious urge to point out Batman looked ridiculous with bright orange diving weights strapped everywhere, and a fish swimming in and out of his cape. “Oh my god.” He turned to smile at Arthur. “Yes, okay, if I get whammied I'll just...I’ll tell Batman he's hot even though he can't move his neck in that getup. His little ears make me wild.”

“...that should do it,” Arthur bit back a grin, crouching to frown at the device.

“‘I would thrill to remove his Batboots, and see whether his Batsocks have little Batpatterns,’ I’ll say.”

“...that is more than sufficient,” Batman burbled, drifting slightly sideways. “If we could stick to the actual plan.”

“I could say absolutely anything, couldn't I?” Clark’s Politeness Smile felt more fake than usual, and he dropped it. “Bruce Wayne, I'd like you to smile and suffer through my weekly meatloaf for the rest of our lives. I'd like to help you into the Batsuit, and every night, help you peel out of it.”

The barnacle-covered rebar Batman was clinging to in his inexorable tidal drift burst as Clark spoke, crunching into a cloud of grey shell fragments and rust in the water. Batman adjusted his grip on the machine in his other hand. “Stick to simple control statements, or I can’t recalibrate the sensor.”

“Bruce.” More barnacles crunched, and they both ignored them. “What would convince you I'm telling the truth. One truthful sentence. What kind of tests--”

“Howzabout you two go back to the boat, if you’re not gonna help--” Arthur glanced back, eyebrow raised.

“If you could take this seriously--”

Clark laughed so hard he had to steady himself against the rocks, and Arthur glanced back with a grimace. “I have never taken anything so seriously, nor been so tempted to fling a human being into the soundless vacuum of space. What tests.”

Batman made a noise. It was hard to tell through the scuba bubbles, but probably he was clearing his throat. “Nothing can rule out every possibility--”

Clark snorted, leaning his head away from an inquisitive fish. “Or we could borrow Diana's lasso. ‘Diana,’ I’ll say, ‘We need your lasso to discuss my mom's recipe for meatloaf, because Bruce Wayne believes in nothing and no one’--”

“...I would never doubt your mom's recipe for meatloaf,” Batman said flatly, and Arthur covered his mouth, shoulders shaking.

Clark, not seeing the humor, hissed back. “In that case, I will tell my mother that at least you believe in something.”

Diana crossed her arms, watching Clark floating on his back in a slow, ranting circuit of her apartment ceiling. “ ...of course you may borrow it. I can do no less, if you think it will help.”

“It has to, right?” Clark turned to frown down.

“I once offered to cover while he was on vacation,” she confided. “He clenched his jaw and said he'd keep me in mind the next time he required transplant of a crushed organ.”

“The...the next time?” Clark froze in midair, staring back, and she gave a wide-eyed, graceful shrug.

“Keep it as long as you like,” she said, eventually. “I’ll use the time I’d spend doing paperwork for interrogations on doing my actual job.” At her soft smile, he dropped to watch her unwrap something extremely...broken. “This just arrived from a dig in Akrotiri. You...understand my fascination, I think,” she glanced over, “--having so little, of Krypton.”

He nodded, and whisked off to get the brushes and glue. Together, they leaned over the shards until close to morning.

“I’d give up on him,” Clark muttered, squinting at what might have been a piece of a pattern, then leaning back to see the sizable chunk of urn they’d reassembled. “I mean, I did quit trying for a while. But it's just bothering at me, now. How can someone so smart--”

Diana grinned. “I wish you both joy.”

When Clark wafted down onto the balcony at Wayne Tower, Bruce was leaning on the railing. “So do you have a few minutes free? Or are you busy staring out over Gotham and adding to the Batman Translate on Google.”

“What?” Bruce snorted, his gaze fixing on the lasso Clark had wrapped around his arm. The ice in his glass settled.

“May I,” Clark breathed through his nose, trying to sound civil, “--have your permission to tie us up securely in this, Diana's lasso, for the purpose of convincing you that you, Bruce Wayne are honest to god my--”

“You have some reason to believe I’ve been compromised.” Bruce's smile faltered, and he held out his hand.

“Uh, I'll, ah.” Clark wavered. “Y’know, actually, I'm--I’m losing momentum. Uh, do you remember what I was saying in your office, when, um. And about meatloaf.”

Bruce frowned deeply, taking the end of it. “I do remember. You suspect someone successfully duplicated a lasso? This is excellent scotch.” The lasso glowed and twined, and he winced. “It seems to be working.”

“...never mind,” Clark sighed, and whipped back to Diana.

Behind him on the wind, he heard Bruce Wayne’s voice. “...what?”

When Bruce showed up at the party Diana and Atlanna were throwing for the finale of Game of Thrones--“To yell at it?” Clark had asked. “They, ah, they sort of address it with great sincerity, and then tell it they’re disappointed,” his mother laughed. “It’s worth watching.”--Clark was in the kitchen, sliding the third pizza in the oven. Arthur and his mom had oddly similar confusion squints at the screen, heads cocked in unison, and Diana was flopped over the arm of the couch on her belly, investigating Clark’s mom’s knitting. Clark found a plate to scrub just as Bruce Wayne crossed from the front room carpet to the linoleum kitchen floor.

“...may I help?”

The gall of him, Clark thought, posing like a fashion ad in my mother’s kitchen. “I dunno, can you understand the words I say?”

“You have been...strange, recently.” Bruce stepped closer, placing a gift bag with two bottles of wine on the counter. Their chests nearly brushed. Their breath mingled, Bruce minty, and Clark, he thought in passing, probably redolent of pepperoni. He met Bruce’s gaze, and watched him swallow, his gaze flicking down. Bruce opened his mouth, closed it, and Clark leaned in without meaning to, letting his head tip just slightly, so their lips would meet. “You’re standing in front of the drawer with the corkscrew,” Bruce whispered.

Clark stalked by him, remembering he was Superman, and as satisfying as it would have been to shoulder-slam by, he could hardly claim Bruce deserved a broken collarbone. He let himself drift to rest on the roof, listening to his city, and only roused himself at the rising smell of burning pizza.

Two weeks later, Clark watched Batman fail to find any crime, and dropped next to him on a roof. He dodged two batarangs, and caught the third. “Okay, as an experiment. If someone were in love with Batman, what signs would you expect them to exhibit.”

Bruce’s voice was especially throaty when startled, unless he was coming down with a cold. “No one knows Batman, he's a construct of--”

“Someone that does.” Clark held up a hand. “Okay. Let’s just say. Someone that does know Batman.”

“...I am not participating in any of the Flash’s ridiculous projects, and I do not need a personals ad.” Batman swooped his cape around him like a smoke bomb, and rapidly scrabbled down the side of the building.

Clark thought about that for a long moment, cocked his head, and then shook it to dismiss the image. Bat seeking partner for aerial maneuvers, his reporter brain supplied. He dropped next to Batman in the alley. “Somebody three blocks away is trying to pee on a wall, but mostly it’s going in his boot,” he reported, saluting. “Unless that needs your attention, can we talk?”

“...you’ll let me know if anything else happens,” Batman growled.

“I’m not trying to get anyone hurt.”

Batman snorted and muttered something, unintelligible in the Batvoice, and stalked away down the alley, and Clark floated along behind him like a balloon on a string.

“I--I know this isn’t anything you want to talk about,” Clark kept his voice low, “--but if--if you are repulsed by--by all the people that know Batman, now’s the time to speak up, and, uh, I’ll. I’ll just--I’ll go buy some ice cream.” Bruce had stopped walking, and the silence stretched out. “...there’s even an apple pie flavor,” Clark forced a laugh. “Perfect for me, midwestern boy, right? And Mom sent me a new comfy sweater, it’s, uh, it’s fine, y’know. Fine.”

“If you already assume I will not be receptive,” Batman’s voice scraped, “--than this is a truly--” He staggered forward as the breeze of Superman’s passage whumped his cape against his back.

When the knock came, Clark was in his Kansas City Royals boxers, and his fluffy sweater with the too-long sleeves and the slightly crooked sigil of the House of El. It still smelled like his mom--her lotion, and instant coffee, and the slight lingering stench of burned pizza. He’d ensconced himself on the couch with a spoon and a gallon of mint chip, just as his phone lit up with a Songs To Cry Through While Heartbroken playlist from Kara.

The knock came again. As it wasn’t likely to be League business, he hunkered down, stuck a huge bite of ice cream in his mouth, and resisted the urge to laser his visitor through the door for interrupting his caterwauled duet with Adele.

“What!” he finally yelled.

The knock came a third time, and then movement made him pay attention to the other end of the couch, where Bruce Wayne stood. He was dressed down, a bit, holding a leather briefcase in both hands. Of course Batman wasn’t slowed by a locked door. “What,” Clark groaned, wishing he could get drunk.

“I did ask if I could come in,” Bruce pitched his voice over Adele, and Clark narrowed his eyes, and clicked her off.

“Pretty sure I didn’t say ‘yes’.”

“...is that...Titanic, The Notebook, and Romeo + Juliet?”

“Yes. I’m watching loving couples die. What do you want.” Clark shoveled in another mouthful of ice cream.

“...of course I’ll leave, if you want me to,” Bruce clicked his briefcase, and shiny cobalt silk billowed out, “--but I did bring pajamas. And--” he waved back towards the door, “I asked for your order at the bodega. Pastrami sandwiches?”

Clark considered for a long moment, eyeing the Batjamas, then the delicious smelling bag of sandwiches. “...I don’t want to make a habit of accepting bribes, but…”

“It is one of the things I admire about you,” Bruce said, straight-faced, and Clark paused half out of his blanket cocoon to stare over.

Bruce’s eyes strayed down the admittedly lumpy sweater to his Kansas boxers, and Clark hugged himself, shuffling over to the bag of sandwiches. “Apology accepted, then. Why’d you bring your...loungewear, or whatever? You can’t think I’d want to see you.” He snorted, unwrapping the deli parchment. “And you obviously didn’t want to see me--”

“What I said about knowing Batman was true,” Bruce came over to lean against the counter, watching the lights of the city outside Clark’s apartment, and Clark rolled his eyes. “No one truly knows Batman, not enough to love him. No one...really knows Bruce Wayne, either.”

Clark wanted to argue, or throw a sandwich at his head, but either of the options involved more pastrami in his mouth, so he listened, and chewed.

“I’m not...perfect--”

Clark coughed. “Well that’s your application in the trash,” he snorted. “I can only date perfect people.”

“I have...hidden some things, even from the League,” Bruce smirked, ducking his head, “--my money makes certain aspects of my...unforgivable lack of foresight just...go away. There have been times I have--not chosen the most effective plan, because it caused me personal discomfort.”

“If this is supposed to make me feel better,” Clark swallowed, and took a sip of the supplied root beer, “--it doesn’t. What do you want, Bruce. I won’t cause problems in the League, I’m not--you have every right to refuse my attentions.”

“I brought the pajamas in case you would like to know...me,” Bruce told the counter, smile practiced and charming, his knuckles white on the handle of his bag. “I will understand, of course, if you--”

Clark dropped the sandwich, speeding so fast around the counter it probably looked to Bruce like he’d teleported. “You’re saying yes?”

“Clark…”

“You brought your pajamas, Bruce,” Clark clenched his teeth, torn between the fizzy feeling of hope urging him to spin them around the ceiling like Mary Poppins characters, and the strong need to tie Bruce Wayne to a lamppost outside a police station--with his own pajamas--and a note taped to his chest that said ‘DANGER TO SELF AND OTHERS’. “When you couldn’t prevent harm as Batman, you did your best to help as Bruce Wayne, that’s what I’m hearing.”

“That is--optimistic.”

“Get in your goddamn pajamas,” Clark pointed with his second sandwich half, and narrowed his eyes at Bruce covering a grin. “I’m not Superman right now, I’m enraged. What do you mean ‘personal discomfort,’ that’s what we’re working on, you not risking yourself in every fight. Flash is talking about making a stamp booklet. You get one every time you don’t dash in front of a bullet--” Clark choked, pounding his chest, as Bruce dropped his pants, revealing black athletic socks, pale, scarred hairy legs, and a rapidly-covered patch of black silk undies.

Bruce shook out the pajama pants, pulled them on, and began unbuttoning his shirt. “Sometimes the strategy requires the strategist endanger himself, for the cumulative good.”

“Don’t give me that--”

“I don't want to watch any of those movies,” Bruce told his own buttons, frowning down. “I’m not sure why anyone does--do you have something less...?”

“Ye-yeah,” Clark swallowed, close enough he could feel the warmth from Bruce’s skin. He grabbed his half-eaten sandwich, slowly chewing as Bruce revealed more scars, and muscles, and he tasted nothing. “Um. Is this a date?”

“Perhaps.” Bruce buttoned himself into his pajama top, and Clark watched his fingers fly, wishing he didn’t have pastrami all over his own. He frowned at the sandwich, wondering if he’d fallen for a trap.

“Depending on what?”

“Whether you like what Martha Wayne’s boy actually turned into.” Bruce smiled his polished magazine cover smile, dropped it to go oddly blank, and then stared into the distance between he and Clark’s bag of sandwiches.

I should enjoy his discomfiture more, Clark thought, but he just changed the subject to Netflix selection, and watched Bruce flick through the selection with a darkening frown. “Does Martha Wayne’s boy want a bowl of ice cream?”

“...maybe?” Bruce squinted back at him, and Clark leaned over the back of the couch to bump shoulders.

“You are your choices, and all, but I promise not to decide who you are based on Netflix special.” He caught Bruce’s eye, and grinned, enjoying the quirked smile he got in return. “Just pick the next thing that looks fun, you’re thinking too hard about this.”

Bruce nodded, watching the preview for what looked like a show about friendship between female wrestlers.

Clark properly served a bowl of the less-melty ice cream near the bottom, instead of passing over the carton, and Bruce’s lips twitched.

“...what.”

“Oh, just remembering Alfred sitting the ice cream out until it wasn’t rock-hard. Your powers are so versatile.”

“I’ll remember to list ice-cream scooping next time anyone asks.” Clark grinned back. “Is that why you're here? You staying the night? There’s a good diner around the corner.”

Bruce accepted the bowl. “I did bring condoms.”

Clark steepled his fingers, frowning at the drippy ice cream scoop. “...so either you’re saying yes to dating, or you’re planning to zipline off my balcony as soon as I fall asleep. I hope it’s the former.”

“Not that kind of boy?”

“I mean,” Clark glared over, “I want to--to at least date you, not just ...have sex with Bruce Wayne, like I’m some--some person you will smirk at in the elevator for the rest of our lives.”

Bruce raised his eyebrows at his spoonful of ice cream. “Batman does not smirk.”

“What a relief,” Clark growled. “And no, look, there is a Bat Smirk--do you want to make up a contract, would that work better for your brain? Should I let you talk to lawyers first?”

Bruce went still again. “...I--I apologize if--”

“No, sorry, I’m--I’m sorry.” Clark took a deep breath, and let it out. “I just--I thought you’d say yes, and--” he scrabbled at his hair, “--this would stop, I feel like--do you even want to be here?!”

“Relax,” Bruce scooted closer, leaning in to press his lips warmly against Clark’s, “--yes. And I can promise I won’t sneak away. If something does come up, I’ll leave a note.” He was smooth-shaven and cologne-scented, his pajamas warm and smooth under Clark’s uncalloused fingers.

Clark pulled him closer, grinning against his mouth, and feeling only slightly guilty about introducing pastrami onto Bruce’s mint-chocolate tongue. “We do usually figure things out,” he whispered, licking in for a deeper kiss, while Bruce waved the bowl of ice cream until it hit the coffee table.

“We do,” Bruce agreed, then relaxed--a bit--into the kiss. “That we do. If anyone could make this work--” He trailed off, letting Clark pull him closer, and smiling against his mouth.

Clark let his eyes close, until he felt Bruce laughing. He pulled back to realize he’d floated up with his arms around Bruce.

“Someone is going to look up and see us...why doesn’t the weight of my body make your points of contact hurt my ribs?”

“You know nobody looks up,” Clark nuzzled into the smooth-shaven skin at Bruce’s throat. Bruce leaned his head back, eyes fluttering shut. “...why isn't my face covered in bugs when I cross the city,” Clark mouthed against Bruce’s thudding jugular, breathing his cologne, “--it’s because I’m magic, Bruce. I’m a magic alien.”

“...hrmph," Bruce grunted, frowning his scientist frown, and Clark grinned, letting himself slowly spin in the air with inertia. He squeezed Bruce carefully tighter. "We should try out those condoms,” Bruce hummed against his mouth, and then staggered as Clark dropped back to the floor.

“There’s not--I didn’t--we don’t have to--”

“I know. But I’m very much that kind of boy.”

#superman #batman #superbat #platypan #platypan fic #platypan FINISHED FIC #crack fic #Clark loves Bruce #Bruce thinks it's mind control #Or a call for help #or a code for surveillance #Bruce is smart yet dumb #5+1 #short and silly

92 notes · View notes

topjavatutorial-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Java program to remove duplicate characters from a String

In this article, we will discuss how to remove duplicate characters from a String. Here is the expected output for some given inputs : Input : topjavatutorial Output : topjavuril Input : hello Output : helo The below program that loops through each character of the String checking if it has already been encountered and ignoring it if the condition is true. package com.topjavatutorial; public…

View On WordPress

#delete duplicate characters in a string #How to remove duplicate characters from a string in java #java - function to remove duplicate characters in a string #Java - Remove duplicates from a string #java LinkedHashSet #java remove duplicate characters #java remove duplicate characters preserving order #java remove duplicate chars from String #java remove duplicates #Remove all duplicates from a given string #Remove duplicate values from a string in java #remove duplicates from String in java #Removing duplicates from a String in Java

0 notes

amphxtrite · 4 years ago

Text

spencer reid x reader

chapter 2 • coffee or tea?

series summary: a new case brings the BAU to New York, investigating a string of murders involving girls who appear very similar. The unsub is relentless, desperate to fill the needs of his fantasy. In the midst of it, spencer meets the girl he been writing with, but had yet to see, prompting a love to blossom in the midst of the storm. Is disaster inevitable? Or will the duplicator’s rein fall?

warnings: mentions of kidnapping, murder, mainly fluff this chapter

chapter summary: the investigation continues, but the team is in dire need of rest after a late night of work. Spencer makes a call to the reader and a plan is put in place to meet, the only question Spencer will have to answer today is a simple one, coffee or tea?

taglist: @le-weasley-simp @thatsonezesty13 @paperandplasma @padsfirewhisky @clubfairy @kiramdd @peach-cliquee @goldeng1rl8 (message/comment to be added)

word count: 5.7k

“Hotch here.” The unit chief’s voice states, raising his cell to his ear.

“Hey Hotch, this guy’s a romantic, he’s leaving roses and quotes from books at the scenes, we’ve found two already.” Rossi’s voice sounds through the phone.

“Roses? You don’t think-”

“Yeah I do, he’s keeping them to try and make them fall in love with him.” Rossi sighs.

“But he’s angry, can’t handle the rejection for long.” Hotch finishes, nodding to himself. “Thanks Rossi, if you find anything else let me know.” He chimes, hanging up the phone and going to find JJ.

“Agent Hotchner!” A voice calls to the profiler, prompting him to turn.

“Yes that’s me.” He responds.

“Sorry, I’m Detective Dakota Trent, I’m also working on the case with Detective Kimathi, she’s just at the crime scene.” A brunette with close cropped hair greets the agent, shaking his hand.

“Good, have we come up with anything new yet?” Hotch asks, following Detective Trent to the interrogation rooms.

“Well we’ve talked to both Olivia’s fiancee and Georgia’s boyfriend. They’ve both got solid alibis and people to back up their claims, it’s not them.” Detective Trent shrugs.

“Have you heard about the roses yet?” Hotch questions, examining each of every person’s movements behind the glass.

“Yeah, Kimathi called me just before I found you, we’ve got a romantic serial killer?” They ask.

“What he’s experiencing probably isn’t love, it’d be impossible for him to feel it. My guess is this is an obsession over someone he’s lost or been rejected by.” Hotch explains. Detective Tent nods and points to another direction.

“Agent Jareau just finished interviewing Georgia’s family, you can find her through there.” They smile, Hotch thanks them and steps through.

The unit chief walks down a hallway and peers past each door until he finds the blonde sitting in an empty room; going over the case file again.

“How are the families?” Hotch asks, stepping in.

“Torn apart.” JJ sighs, closing the file and leaning against the wall behind her. “Olivia’s mom just had enough in her to clear Alice, then she broke down into tears. Isabelle’s parents had it worse though; she was an only child, a miracle one too, her mother had troubles conceiving.” She continues.

“And Georgia’s parents.” Hotch questions.

“Tried to be strong, but-” JJ pauses. “They could barely look at each other, let alone me.” She concludes sadly.

“Have any of them given any possible suspects?”

“Lots, mainly ��strange’ ex boyfriends, but I had Garcia check them out and they’re clean.” The blonde shrugs, standing and following Hotch back out.

“They’ve given us a room to set up in, When Spencer gets back I want you to help him come up with a geographic profile.” Hotch nods, opening a door to a room filled with whiteboards and a large table.

“You got it, and maybe ask them to bring a coffee machine in, we’re gonna be up for a while.” JJ giggles, opening the case file again and placing the pictures of each scene up on the whiteboard.

“Hey we’re back from the ME, toxicology found ketamine in both victim one and two.” Prentiss states, opening the door to the board room with Spencer in tow.

“But not victim number three, does that mean he’s devolving?” JJ questions.

“Or she was a victim of opportunity, he couldn’t pass up the chance so he took her.” Spencer includes, shrugging his shoulders, and taking a seat next to JJ after seeing the map in front of her.

“Again it’s hard to know, but Morgan and Rossi found flowers at two of the dump sites so far.” Hotch tells Prentiss and Reid.

“Flowers?” Emily asks.

“A note too, some quotes about finding true love, we’re hoping you could help us with them kid.” Rossi suddenly chimes from behind the group, seeming disgusted at the thought of it. “We found the third one by the way, hidden in some bushes by the bridge.”

“What did the cards say, Rossi?” Spencer questions, removing his gaze from the map.

“The first one said ‘I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life.’ Second one said ‘He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.’ Third one said ‘Do I love you? My god, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.” Rossi lists reading off his tablet.

“All of those have to do with love alright, this unsub is absolutely infatuated with the idea of finding his true love.” JJ notes, looking at her own tablet.

“Maybe this unsub has some form of erotomania? Thinking all these girls love him, so he kidnaps them only for them to ruin his fantasy?” Derek suggests, fiddling with a pen in his hands.

“It would make sense why he’s keeping the girls only to kill them, and why they’re fed while he’s holding them.” Prentiss adds, looking to Spencer who looks deep in thought..

“Well now that we know more let’s get to work, we’ll deliver the profile in the morning so every officer can hear.” Hotch states, glancing out the window at the sky which had faded to an eerie black.

“I’ve got it!” Spencer suddenly exclaims. The team looks to him curiously.

“The first quote was from Atonement by Ian McEwan, the second quote was from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and the last one was from The Princess Bride by William Goldman!” He explains, standing from his seat and writing each quote on the whiteboard.

“These are all famous quotes about love, some of my favourite books too. This unsub is educated, definitely enough to read classic literature-”

“Wait Spence, the other two I can get, but you’ve read The Princess Bride?” JJ asks, excitement lacing her tone.

“Um yes, I saw it at the library so I decided I’d read it.” Spencer murmurs, turning to the whiteboard again to hide the hitch in his voice. The truth was it was another book you had practically begged him to read, he couldn’t say no. Spencer would have never guessed it would have aided him in a case.

“Oh Spence, I love that book too, you should come over and watch the movie with me and Henry, I’ve been meaning to show him.” JJ continues.

Spencer sighs in relief. “Yeah that sounds good JJ.”

---

“You’ve got to be joking.” A tired voice chimes from outside the door.

Hotch glances up at the voice, JJ inhales deeply as she wakes up, Prentiss and Spencer both take long sips from their coffee cups and Derek snores in his seat.

“Can we help you Detective Trent?” Hotch asks, turning to face them. Dakota doesn’t miss the dark bags under the unit chief’s eyes.

“Yes as a matter of fact, go to sleep!” Dakota smiles in a sickly sweet manner.

“I don’t think-”

“They’re right Hotch, you know we aren’t much help dead tired.” Rossi practically pleads.

“I could use some solid food too.” Emily adds, swirling around what remained of her fourth cup of coffee that night.

“You guys have a hotel for a reason, pretty much every other officer is either patrolling or at home, get some rest and we’ll see you in the morning.” Dakota smirks, waving the team off and heading towards the exit.

Hotch sighs and rubs his eyelids, feeling the relief of closing them before opening them again.

“Derek, Derek wake up!” JJ mutters, tapping on Morgan’s shoulder until he finally slumps forward, awake.

“Is it morning yet?” He grumbles.

“No, but we’re heading to the hotel now, and getting food.” JJ smiles, watching Derek perk up at the mention of something to eat. “What’s everyone in the mood for?” She asks, turning to everyone.

“M’ good with anything.” Rossi yawns, leaning against the door frame.

“There’s a shawarma place close to the hotel?” Spencer proposes, jabbing his thumb in the direction of the joint.

The team nods in agreement, shaking the tiredness off to walk back to the hotel.

Spencer enjoyed moments like this, when his team didn’t have to focus on a case for just a few moments, where he could let his mind rest for a minute.

“Hey player, meet any lovely New York ladies yet?” Derek chuckles throwing his arm over Spencer’s shoulder.

Scratch that, this is not what he had in mind.

“Nope.” He responds plainly.

“Right, right… What about that lady you’ve been writing too?” Derek teases, watching Spencer avert his gaze to the sky.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He murmurs. Derek’s smile grows.

“A mystery woman, Spencer I didn’t think you had it in you? Is she older? Rich maybe?” Derek lists playfully as Spencer rolls his eyes.

“Sorry Derek, maybe you’re just thinking too much.” Spencer shrugs, digging his hands into his pockets and sighing.

“Alright, I’ll back off.” Derek sighs, lifting his hands in mock surrender, only half telling the truth.

“Take a left here.” Spencer nods, pointing to a dimly lit building. “The shop is down there.” Spencer nods.

“I’ll go with the genius, you guys head back to the hotel.” Derek says, waving off the tired agents as he pushes Spencer forward towards the store.

“Hey Morgan, do you mind if I call Garcia, I’ll meet you inside.” Spencer smiles as they reach their destination.

Derek thinks nothing of it and nods, turning to swing open the door and order.

Spencer sighs and glances to both sides before turning and walking in the direction of the payphone. He had chosen this spot not only for convenience sake, but because there was a payphone right outside. It had been a while since Spencer had heard from you, and he felt bad not being able to read your letters.

Taking a deep breath he steps into the phone booth and dials your number.

“Thank you for subscribing to Lynn’s cat shop. Would you like to hear a fact about cat paws?” Your distinct voice chimes from the other end of the line.

“Well I do already know quite a bit, but hit me.” Spencer jokes back, smiling when he hears your audible gasp.

“Dr. Reid!” You laugh, sitting up straight from your lying position in bed.

“Hey what happened to cat facts?” Spencer teases gently, leaning against the side of the booth.

“I thought it was a spam call!” You justify, looking at the number again. “Hey Doc, this is a New York number-” You say slowly, putting two and two together. “You’re here! Are you on a case?”

“Yes actually.” Spencer replies with a soft smile.

“Is it about that ‘duplicator’ guy I’m seeing on the news?”

“Yes, but don’t worry we’re doing well with the profile, and he’s only killing people that fit his victimology.” Spencer reassures you.

You remain quiet for a moment.

“Y/n? Are you still there?” Spencer asks, eyebrows drawing together at your sudden silence.

“Oh yeah, s-sorry Doc. Hey if you’re up for it, we could- meet up?” You ask, turning the conversation and popping the ‘p.’

“O-Oh.” Spencer stammers, caught off guard by your sudden proposition. “I-I mean I do have to work on the case…” Spencer sighs.

“But?” You plead, leaning into your phone.

“I can meet you earlier? Six am maybe?” Spencer offers quietly, feeling his voice break.

“Ooh you’re pushing it Doctor Reid, but I’ll manage.” You tease.

“Great! Great, um where do you want to meet?” Spencer asks, relief showing through his voice.

“There’s a park beside campus, my favourite spot is the field beside the cafe.” You smirk, dropping a not-so subtle hint.

“I-I’ll be there! Yeah See you then!” Spencer mutters in an excited tone.

“Sounds like a plan. Bye Spence!” You say in a sing-song voice before hanging up.

There it was again, Spence. No matter how many times he’s heard his name before, there was something special about you saying his name. Something that made him feel good.

“Spence…” He murmurs to himself, hanging the phone up and walking into the shawarma shop.

“Bout time pretty boy, what were you even calling about.” Derek asks, as he takes a bite from his wrap.

“Just checking if forensic found anything on the flowers yet.” Reid lies coolly.

“Anything?” Derek says in a muffled voice, throwing a wrap to the brunette.

“Not yet.” Spencer says in a slight yelp, just catching it before it falls.

“Oh well, it’ll probably be there in the morning.” Derek shrugs, picking up the bagged wraps. “Thanks again.” Derek waves to the owner before exiting the store.

“Did you know the origin of the word shawarma comes from the Turkish word çevirme, which means ‘turning’ which makes sense because of the-”

“Just enjoy the food pretty boy, just enjoy it.” Derek sighs, pushing the Shawarma up against Spencer’s mouth.

“Mm-” The younger agent protests, pushing his face back and snatching his shawarma back.

“Hurry up genius, the team is waiting.” Derek laughs.

The brunette rolls his eyes and shakes his head, but speeds up his walk beside his friend anyways.

---

Spencer wakes up to the sound of an alarm in his ear and without skipping a beat he sits up and throws his covers off, careful not to wake Derek sleeping in the bed next to him.

Slowly, he picks up his bag and tip toes to the bathroom, glancing at his watch, the time reads 5:00 am, still dark out. Spencer nods to himself.

Pulling on a white collared shirt and a black- no, black was too formal. Maybe red instead? No, this isn’t a date… “Blue.” Spencer murmurs, placing the tie around his neck and tying it slowly, being sure not to mess up. “Hi I’m Doc- no wait, hi I’m Spencer.” The brunette murmurs to himself as he ties his shoes. Spencer curses himself for only bringing converses and striped socks, but his jeans covered most of it to his relief.

“Hi I’m Spencer-”

“Spence, who are you talking to this early in the morning?” Derek’s drowsy voice groans from his spot in bed.

“I’m heading out early, I’ll see you later Morgan!” Spencer calls, pulling on his jacket to fend off the cool November air and swinging his bag over his shoulder so he could head back to the police department afterwards.

Stepping off the elevator, the hotel was practically empty, Spencer sighs in relief, he must have looked like a psycho constantly fixing his hair and tie.

He exits the front door into the windy New York outdoors, suddenly regretting not wearing his scarf, but regardless, pushing on.

tousled brown hair swaying in the wind, Spencer checks himself in the glass of a building beside him, licking his chapped lips and swiveling his head back to the pavement ahead of him, careful not to bump into anyone.

Taking another turn, Spencer sees the sign for your university campus and feels his heart begin to race.

All of his thoughts began to jumble. What was his name again? Where was he going? A sudden squawk from a crow brings him back to himself, but his hot face and racing heart were impossible to shake.

As he grows closer to the coffee shop you mentioned to him, he begins to stumble, his feet beginning to fail him. He’s able to play it off as a funny walk, but when he spots the coffee shop, and beside it, the field. He completely stops.

A man grunts behind him, cursing at Spencer before turning and walking around him.

“Sorry.” Spencer murmurs, walking to the side of the pavement before crossing the street quickly.

Glancing down at his wrist again, his watch reads 5:45. Great, now he just had to sit and wait-

“What?”

Spencer’s thoughts are cut short when his vision is cut off by something...warm. Hands.

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone-” A sweet voice whispers in his ear.

The melodic voice from across the phone, it was you!

“W-We find it with another.” He stammers out, smiling as he hears your laughter.

“Doctor Spencer Reid, finally we meet.” You sigh, removing your hands from his face and dropping them at your sides.

“Y-Y/n-” Spencer says, turning to face you.

He freezes for a moment as his eyes adjust to the light again. Then his jaw drops.

“Y-You’re…” Spencer’s eyes follow your y/h/c hair, jawline, eye shape and height.

“No, no, no, no.” Spencer murmurs, glancing from side to side, overanalyzing every single person in your vicinity.

This was impossible. So, so impossible, yet there you were. Your description matched those girls perfectly, yet here you were out in the open talking to him. You weren’t safe.

“I-I know Doc, but it’s okay, I’ve got my pepper spray and everything!” You reassure Spencer, squeezing his hand gently.

“Y/n, y-you fit this unsub’s type, you can’t just be out here like this it’s not safe!” Spencer snaps, pulling his jacket off by the sleeves and swinging it over your head to hide you.

Your eyes widen and Spencer’s stomach fills with dread.

“I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled. I just want you to be safe.” Spencer explains, lowering his voice and leaning closer to you.

“It’s alright Spence. I knew the risk, but I just wanted to see you.” You mutter, crossing your arms and sighing.

“Hey, you- you finished Love and Living.” Spencer smiles softly, remembering the quote you whispered to him when you covered his eyes.

“Yeah, it just kind of stuck with me. Thomas Merton can really write.” You smirk, nodding your head a little.

“Well I certainly prefer him over J.C?” Spencer asks, sarcastically tilting his chin.

“J.K, but you already knew that.” You laugh, rolling your eyes.

“I did?” Spencer jokes, eyes widening when he finally realizes how close the two of you are to each other, his eyes shyly draw downwards.

“Ahem?” You smirk. “Eyes up here Doc.”

“O-Oh it’s not like that, I swear.” Spencer rushes, quickly looking back up in panic.

“Hey Spence! I’m just teasing, it’s alright.” You stammer in a hushed tone, gently moving your hands to cup Spencer’s face as reassurance.

The hits just kept coming today. Spencer internally trembles, but nods, darting his tongue out again to hide his quivering lip.

“Hey, since we’re both just standing here, do you want to grab something to eat?” You shrug, awkwardly retreating your hands to your chest.

There it was again, the sound of his name on your voice.

“C-Coffee?” Spencer sputters. “How about coffee?” Spencer repeats, clearing his voice and moving his hands from your shoulders to his sides.

“Yeah, coffee sounds great Doc.” You nod, taking Spencer’s hand and pulling him forwards.

“I’ve been going to this place since my first year here, amazing coffee, tea, and even seasonal sodas.” You gush, squeezing his hand and opening the door to the local shop.

“Any idea of what you want to order?” You ask, turning to face the brunette and shifting his jacket from your head to your arms.

“Uh, regular coffee is fine?” Spencer’s voice comes out almost as a question, he feels himself growing timid at the size of the menu.

“I’ll tell Choi ssi to surprise you.”

Spencer nods, his lips pulling up into a line.

“Ah if it isn’t my favourite little boba pearl, what can I get for you today?” A man in his late forties calls to you with a smile. “And who might this be?” Mr. Choi motions to Spencer.

“Choi ssi, I’d like you to meet my Doc.” You smile. Spencer feels his face heat up at ‘my’

“I-I’m Dr. Spencer Reid.” He explains, nodding to the man behind the counter.

“I’m Viktor Choi, and Doctor? Wow, how old are you kid?” Mr. Choi questions in slight awe.

“Twenty five.” Spencer answers plainly, shrugging his shoulders.

Viktor’s jaw drops.

“Yeah I get that a lot, are we gonna order now?” Spencer blurts, turning back to you.

“Yeah of course. I’ll have my boba, and Doc-” You pause, tapping Spencer on the chest. “Would like to be surprised.” You smirk.

“Oh adventurous.” Choi smirks back to you, raising his eyebrows. You nod.

Spencer��s eyebrows furrow, feeling something strange was awaiting him.

“Oh you’ll love it!” You smile, placing a paper bill on the counter and pulling Spencer towards a table.

From the shake of Mr. Choi’s head and your small smirk, Spencer made an educated guess you gave him more than what was expected.

“Here.” You point to an empty table beside one of the large windows that wrapped around the shop.

“A window seat.” Spencer smirks, sitting in the chair across from you.

“What, you have a profiler fact for me?” You tease.

“Well, people who prefer window seats are more selfish and easily irritable.” Spencer shrugs feeling his smile widen.

“Hey I just like to feel the sun.” You protest, looking out into the busy traffic not too far from you.

“I see.” Spencer smirks, glancing over to see you gazing into the sunlight.

Spencer is caught off guard at first, beauty isn’t usually a thing he notices, but it would be impossible for him not to admire you.

Your e/c eyes seemed to glow in the sunrise, your hair shined and your smile grew and seemed to shine brighter than the sun could ever be, figuratively though, obviously.

Strange, Spencer felt his hands clam up and heart began to race again.

“Order for miss boba and her doc!” Mr. Choi calls, drawing both yours and Spencer’s attention.

“You seemed like a coffee kind of guy.” He shrugs as you bring the two drinks back to your table.

Spencer smiles in acknowledgement before looking down at what looked to be a simple coffee with a rim of milk foam and- Spencer furrows his eyebrows, chocolate shavings.

“Don’t be deceived, his coffee packs a punch.” You smirk, stirring your drink with the straw poking out of it.

“Good.” Spencer nods, drawing a laugh from you, as he lifts the mug to his lips and blows on the hot liquid, finally getting a taste.

The first thing that hits Spencer is the sweetness, just the right amount that made him smile as he drank it. The next was how rich it is, practically gliding over his tongue like melted chocolate, of course just not as viscous.

You must have noticed a change in his demeanor because you begin to giggle to yourself.

You couldn’t help it, the look on Spencer’s face was too good not to notice.

His eyes widened, brows raised to his hairline and he tilted the cup higher in an instant to get more.

“Adorable.” You sigh to yourself, not realizing you had said it out loud until Spencer suddenly chokes on his drink.

“Oh my god, Spence are you alright?” You worry, holding a napkin to his chin as drops of coffee spill past his lips.

The brunette nods, bringing the drink back down onto the table to see he had already drunken half of it.

“It’s good right?” You grin, pulling the napkin away but not moving back just yet.

Spencer nods, already feeling a buzz, but unsure if it was from the coffee or your sudden proximity, or you calling him adorable.

His ears felt as though they were burning, and this time he couldn’t blame the coffee.

Timidly glancing up, it seemed as though you could say the same for your cheeks.

Spencer lifts his mug up again to take another sip of his beverage, clearing his throat a bit before speaking again.

“I-If it makes you feel any better, I find you rather endearing, myself.” Spencer says just above a whisper, too nervous to look you back in the eye.

“Thank you Spencer.” You smile, feeling a rush of warmth in your chest and in your face.

Without thinking you look up and tilt Spencer’s chin back up to face you. His eyes read amazement and sheepishness, prompting a giggle from you.

Usually Spencer would have pushed the hand touching him away, ready to list facts about germs to make sure no one in the general vicinity would try that again. But there was something about his racing heart and your gentle hands that smelt of lavender, that made it impossible for any words to come out at all, he barely wanted to move.

“Hey Doc, do you feel like going for a walk?” You ask, stroking your thumb down Spencer’s cheek to catch his attention again.

“Yeah, yeah a walk.” Spencer glances down at his watch, 6:24.

“I have to be back at the station for seven, but I can walk you back to your dorm?” Spencer offers, half suggesting it just to make sure you got back safely.

“What a gentleman.” You smirk standing and prompting Spencer to follow you. “You can drop the cup off at the counter over there.” You say, Spencer nods, standing and placing the mug at the counter for an employee to sweep it away in seconds.

“Now come on, we’ve still got time for me to give you a little tour.” You grin, putting a bit too much emphasis on little.

To the profiler’s surprise, you take his hand into yours as you wave goodbye to Mr. Choi.

“Bye my little boba pearl and Dr. Boyfriend!” He shouts out to you and Spencer as you exit the door. Spencer doesn’t even have time to sputter out a correction before you’re pulling him towards your campus.

“Isn’t he the best! He and his husband have been running that place for years, the best coffee in the city if you ask me.” You chuckle, slowing your speed to a steady walk beside Spencer.

“Yeah, we should go again sometimes.” Spencer shrugs, finally closing his hands around yours, growing accustomed to the feeling.

“D-Did you know that multiple studies, including one conducted at the University of California Los Angeles, show that human touch triggers the release of oxytocin, in our brain. Oxytocin is-”

“A neurotransmitter that increases feelings of trust, generosity and compassion, and decreases feelings of fear and anxiety, aka the love hormone.” You finish, smiling up at him reassuringly.

You knew Spencer began listing off random facts when he felt he’d made an atmosphere awkward. You’d started noticing these cues once the two of you began talking on the phone, so you made sure to ensure everything was fine to him.

“Yeah, t-that’s the one.” Spencer mutters.

The brunette was always cut off while he tried to explain a statistic or fact. He knew it was never to hurt him in any way, but it still got frustrating for him when he was talked over.

When you cut him off on the other hand, it is to finish his sentence and complete the fact. He was starting to see why so many people found this gesture romantic.

Your smile grows as you notice Spencer’s eyes downcast on your hands.

Rounding the corner deeper into your campus, you stop at a couple spots to tell Spencer more about your school life and how your studies were going.

“I can’t believe I’m really graduating this year.” You sigh dreamily, looking up into the sky.

“Do you have any ideas where you may want to work?” Spencer asks as you lead him to a fountain in the centre of a field.

“Well, not exactly, but I’ve still got time to decide.” You grin, digging into your pocket for something Spencer couldn’t see.

“You know the BAU will always be an option.” Spencer shrugs, watching you pull out a shiny quarter.

“I dunno doc. All that stuff might not be for me.” You sigh, closing your eyes for a moment before flipping the coin into the water of the fountain.

“Yeah I guess serial killers and psychopaths aren’t everyone's cup of tea.” Spencer says seriously, causing you to break out in a fit of giggles.

“Do you believe in wishes coming true Spence?” You continue laughing, pulling Spencer in the direction of your dorm.

Spencer’s head snaps up at his name, but his eyebrows furrow.

“Well the act of throwing valuables into water hasn’t always been for wishing, it used to be for worshipping gods and other deities, but as the years went by it became popularized to wish for things by throwing something of value into the basic fundamental of human life.” Spencer pauses looking to you apologetically.

“It’s okay Spence, I’m listening.” You smile.

“Oh okay- First used to honour gods, people began asking for favours such as a good harvest or for a loved one to get well from a sickness which is where wishing wells came from.” Spencer nods, squeezing your hand as a silent ‘thank you.’

“So to answer my question-” You draw on, looking curiously into Spencer’s hazel eyes.

“While there’s no sound science to prove anything, I don’t see why people can’t have something to believe in, as long as they understand if it doesn’t come true.” Spencer shrugs, stopping when you do, outside a large building.

“So I’ll take that as a yes, but.” You smirk.

“I suppose, besides sometimes the wishes do come true out of pure coincidence, but you can never say that.” Spencer shrugs.

“It sounds like you speak from experience.” You laugh, nudging him in the side.

“My friend Penelope wished I’d get my haircut, but didn’t tell me until I did, three months later.” Spencer chuckles.

Both of you knew you were supposed to say goodbye now, if you remained just standing there any longer you’d become a problem for sleep-deprived students. Not a good mix.

But neither of you could find the will to move, your hands stayed interlocked and your smiles remained as Spencer began talking more about a couple books and some more facts about wishing wells.

“Y/n?” A loud voice calls to you from afar. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” The voice chimes again, slowly getting closer.

“Oh I’m sorry Adira, I was meaning to tell you.” You apologize, letting go of Spencer’s hand to turn around and speak to the person calling you.

For a minute Spencer forgot how to function his hand, he just sort of hovered it in the air for a second, before regaining his train of thought and dropping his hand back to his side and turning.

“I’ve been worried sick y/n, you haven’t been answering your phone and with that ‘duplicator’ guy running around-” Adira begins, cutting off to wrap her arms around you. “Don’t do that again, please.”

“Alright, I’m sorry Adira, but I had a friend with me, see.” You smile, turning her to face Spencer.

“Hello.” Spencer greets awkwardly, placing his hands into his pockets and nodding.

“Wait he sounds just like-” Adira pauses. “That’s Doc?” They pause, jaw dropping as she begins tugging on your sleeve.

“Yes- that’s him.” You smile, tapping on her hand to try and get her to stop before your face overheats.

“Okay okay!” Adira laughs, rolling her eyes as she fixes her headscarf and extends her hand.

“Nice to finally meet you, y/n has not stopped talking about you since you started writing to each other-”

“Adira!” You intervene, bringing your hand to your face to hide your blush.

“Wow you’re even cuter than the photo-”

“Okay, we still have that project to work on right, let’s go.” You laugh nervously, pushing Adira towards the door of your dorm room as she remembers something.

“Oh right, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.”

“Perfect, we’ll finish it up when we get inside.” You smile.

“Nice jacket by the way, where’d you get it?” Adira comments, poking the black suit jacket on your arm, and then back again at Spencer standing in a collared shirt and tie.

“Y/n!” She laughs teasingly, turning around and grabbing a hold of your shoulders.

“I’ll head in on my own, now have fun, but not too much fun.” She smirks, pushing you back towards Spencer before walking into the building and throwing you a wink.

“I-I’m-”

“There’s no need to apologize, I’m rather flattered you talk about me.” Spencer shrugs, looking down at the ground subtly.

“Well of course I do, you’ve become a big part of my life y’know.” You smile, taking Spencer’s large hands into yours.

Spencer smiles fondly, hiding the internal regret he held, the profiler had yet to tell any of his friends about you, wanting to have this one thing for himself in his twisted world.

Squeezing your hands, Spencer nods and glances down at his watch.

“I should get back to the station.” The brunette murmurs.

“You should get back to the station.” You reply, loosening your grip only for Spencer to pull you back.

“I-I’m happy I got to meet you by the way, please call me if you need anything, or just to talk.” Spencer pushes his lips back in a forced smile, he was reluctant to leave you alone.

“I will Spence. Catch that guy for me alright?” You smirk, wrapping Spencer in a short hug before shrugging off his jacket, placing it over Spencer’s shoulders and turning to finally walk into the building.

Spencer barely had time to react to your gesture, but while he processed it, he simply stood there. It was as though you had left an imprint of yourself on him, a reminder you were real, and really held him. He was truly awestruck.

His suit jacket held the faintest scent of your perfume, the feeling of your arms lingered on his torso and his hands still reached for yours though you were long gone.

This feeling was foreign to the brunette, but not rejected. Spencer quite enjoyed it after all.

After a few moments of not moving the brunette finally picks up his feet and turns to leave, not noticing the figure not too far away clenching his fists so hard, blood begins to trickle slowly out.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x reader series #spencer reid x you #spencer read x y/n #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds series #criminal minds x reader series

113 notes · View notes

kerbaldevteam · 6 years ago

Text

Kerbal Space Program 1.7.2 is live!

Hello everyone!

Kerbal Space Program 1.7.2 is live!

In this patch we focused mainly on improvements and bug fixes for the Breaking Ground Expansion. We’ve included an animation for Kerbals when they interact with Deployed Science experiments, added sound effects to Laythe’s Geyser and the Cryovolcano on Vall, and some new color variants for the robotic parts. Additionally, now it will be easier to encounter surface features on celestial bodies. However, there’s a very remote possibility that some of the newly generated surface features could appear where an existing craft is positioned. So, although this is unlikely to happen, we do recommend creating a back-up. There are also bug fixes and a few improvements for the base game, particularly for the new axis group system. Now you’ll be able to tie the main throttle to an axis group.

Check out this patch's Changelog for further details:

==========================v1.7.2========================= 1.7.2 Changelog - BaseGame ONLY (see below Breaking Ground changelog)

+++ Improvements * Redesign the Action sets icon during flight to make the current action number more visible. * Made engine thrust limit, and cargo bay deploy limit, and control surface and airbrake authority limits bindable to axis groups. * MainThrottle axis can be bound, but only in absolute mode.

+++ Localization * Fix shadow casting string not displaying correctly if player doesn’t have the Breaking Ground Expansion. * Localize the strings for the Axis Actions in the Settings under the vessel Tab.

+++ Parts

+++ Bugfixes * Fix kerbal flags clipping into backpacks. * Fix lowest part of vessel calculations for Wheels when coming off rails. * Fix localisation for survey waypoint contract objectives. * Fix NRE in maneuver node editor. * Fix PAW displayDirty not working in the editor. * Fix symmetry counterparts (bow-tie) autostrutting. * Fix cutoff string in recovery science report screen. * Fix null reference on ship load when parts have changed their attach nodes. * Fix missing string in Absolute Control / Incremental Control tooltip. * Fix science value of repeat experiments. * Fix EVA portrait clipping in some situations. * Fix EVA portrait texture being transparent

+++ Mods

+++Miscellaneous

1.7.2 Changelog - Breaking Ground DLC ONLY

+++ Improvements * Implement random orientation for surface features. * Add a scale variable in the rocsdef.cfg. * Increase unfocused range on deployed science Part Action Windows to 20m. * Add screen message for seismometer science if in sandbox game. * Kerbals can now change their future suit emissive colors via their PAW and persists to save game roster. * Kerbals can now interact with Deployed science parts (interaction animation). * Increased interaction range of science experiments on arms so that they match folded arm length. * Add Robotics radio button to SteamWorks Craft exporter. Will add Robotics Steam Tag and requires Breaking Ground DLC to workshop items exported with this radio button set on. * Add Geyser and Cryovolcano Sound FX.

+++ Localization * Localise attach nodes in rotor PAW. * Localise surface feature debug menu. * Localise extended information for robotics modules. * Fix localization issue in the kspedia for Breaking Ground where Chinese and japanese were incorrect. * Fix localisation for contracts in Japanese being slightly incorrect. * String fixes in all languages.

+++ PartsColor Variants: * 1P2 Hydraulic Cylinder (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * 3P6 Hydraulic Cylinder (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * 1P4 Telescoping Hydraulic Cylinder (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * 3PT Telescoping Hydraulic Cylinder(New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * EM-16 Light Duty Rotor (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * EM-32 Standard Rotor (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * EM-64 Heavy Rotor (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * G-00 Hinge (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * G-11 Hinge (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * G-01L Alligator Hinge (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * G-12L Alligator Hinge (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * G-32W Alligator Hinge (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * Rotation Servo F-12 (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * Rotation Servo M-06 (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * Rotation Servo M-12 (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). * Rotation Servo M-25 (New “Gray with Stripes” color variant). +++ Bugfixes * Fix Surface Feature frequency math. Should be much easier to find now. * Remove crater bay from Laythe surface feature biomes. * Made scanner arm retraction more linear to avoid collisions. * Fix kerbal flags clipping into backpacks. * Fix for animation pop when deploying deployed science parts. * Fix correct scale of the surface features. * Fix scan sound not stopping when scan is interrupted for scanner arm. * Fix Future suits emissive toggling correctly with Lights action button. * Fix Cargo Backpack visibility in external command chairs. * Fix dropped deployed science parts in VAB/SPH not launching with main vessel. * Fix potential NRE in Deployed Science when changing scenes. * Fix deployed science deployment on some slopes. * Fix flags getting stuck to scanner arm when they're planted too close. * Changed "Current extension" in piston paw to only display two digits after the decimal point to avoid numbers changing all the time. * Changed the kerbal name in the female future prefab to fix the prefab being wrong in the partInfo. * Fix ROC finder arrows. * Update laser position for scanner arm every frame to avoid gaps if vessel shifts. * Fix black lines appearing on the sides of the Hydraulic and Telescoping pistons, Rotation Servo M-25 and G-32W Hinge. * Fix visible texture seams in Laythe Boulders and Eeloo AliensGlaciers. * All the Surface features now display correct normal maps and shading. * Fix the flashing lights projected on Kerbal faces when walking while wearing the Breaking Ground EVA suit. * RCS jets now line up properly with the jetpack while wearing the Breaking Ground EVA suit. * Fix PD-3 Weather Analyzer “Deploy” and “Retract” animations mismatch sound effects. * Fix "Remove from Symmetry" PAW option not appearing for original part when attached to vessel in editor. * Use localised deployable part name as vessel name. Will only affect newly deployed parts. * Fix scanner arms being audible across the known universe. * Fix surface attachments on the moving part of the pistons. * Fix servo limits getting messed up when loading a craft file or reverting to the editor. * Fix bad piston behavior when pressed against its limits. * KSPedia fixes. * Fix piston servo locking not working. * Fix NRE when starting a mission with Making History and Breaking Ground installed and vessel contains rotor and wheels. * Fix servo limits resetting every time the PAW was opened in the editor. * Fix hinge target angle updates in the editor causing child parts to pull apart. * Fix deploy cargo part icon appearing at the correct time in Kerbal’s PAWs for all Kerbal states. * Fix autostruts handling on craft/vessels that have robotic parts for known use cases. * Show all the tylo dark boulder science results messages. * Fix incorrect message displayed when attempting to pick up a second ROC. * Fix deployed science sounds heard from 200m+ distance. * Fix deployed science part “Deployable Science Part” subcategory duplicated. * Fix Ionographer PD-22 search tags. * Fix HG-48 antenna search tags. * Fix scanner arm interfering with parachute deployment. * Robotics part category size changed to be more appropriate. * Fix Deployed Science contracts displaying incorrect completion amount and not completing properly. * Fix Deployed Science not ever transmitting last 10% of science generated. * Fix Deployed Science science generation calculations. * Fix Science report UI not displaying correct color bars information for Surface feature arm science. * Fix Deployed Science contracts sometimes being given for the wrong CB. * Adjust tolerance for determining if a robotic hinge is moving. * Reduce log messages when Deployed Science tries to transmit and has no CommNet or power. * Fix Surface feature and Deployed Science contracts being offered when EVA is not unlocked at the Astronaut complex. * Fix Surface feature contracts being offered when Surface features are not enabled in the current save game. * Fix NRE quickly deploying a cargo part when a kerbal just started holding it. * Fix Deployed Science contracts counting experiment science on other CBs than the CB the contract is for. * Fix Deployed Science Solar Panels producing zero power when loaded by game is in time warp. * Fix hinges not using EC when target angle updated via incremental axis group binding

+++Miscellaneous *Improved detail on the neck ring texture of the Breaking Ground EVA suit.

+++ Mods * Add Game events for robotic parts locking/unlocking.

Remember that you can help us find bugs/issues by reporting them into our bugtracker and that you can also upvote reports to make them more visible.

Happy launchings!

#Kerbal Space Program #patch 1.7.2 #breaking ground #patch

27 notes · View notes

hannah-martin-uor · 6 years ago

Text

Quaderno appunti Inglese

Brave New World

Chapter Eleven

Bernard becomes a celebrity and John a curiosity; Linda is content to take an extended Soma-holiday. Bernard takes the "Savage" to see many aspects of the Brave New World. At this point Lenina is attracted to John, but he ignores her.

Comment‐>A change takes place in Bernard in his new role as celebrity - he enjoys the attention he now receives. John is unimpressed by what he sees and still maintains his "old-fashioned" ideas and values; although attracted to Lenina, he considers such impulses immoral and represses them.

These tours which Bernard and John take provide descriptions of other aspects of life in the World State - specifically, the factory system and the educational system. Remembering that science has developed a method of producing up to ninety - six identical twins from a single egg, we see these identical automatons performing identical tasks. The upper-caste students (Alphas and Betas, each produced from a single egg) are not really educated - they are indoctrinated. In both situations individuality is nonexistent - each is but a member of a particular group.

Chapter Twelve

Bernard invites many important personages to meet John, but John then refuses to attend. Having thus lost the friendship of these people, he turns again to John and Helmholtz.

Comment->Bernard realizes that his popularity is based on the curiosity others have about the Savage. He realizes that John and Helmholtz are his only "real" friends. At this point we find John reading Shakespeare to them - making them aware of new ideas, new beliefs, and new values which they find difficult if not impossible to accept.

This chapter emphasizes the difference in character of Bernard and Helmholtz, and their differences in point of view and attitude. Bernard's dissatisfaction with the life he is leading seems to stem from his not being accepted (alcohol in his blood - surrogate), while Helmholtz's dissatisfaction seems to stem from his belief that life must have some meaning beyond the purely physical.

Chapter Thirteen

Lenina and John have "fallen in love", but she finds his desire to marry repulsive; she makes advances to him, and he locks himself in another room. The telephone rings, and John rushes from the apartment.

Comment->We see again the conflict between the two value systems - between the life on the Reservation and the life in the World State. Lenina and John are attracted to each other, but Lenina expects to have sexual relations with "no strings attached"; John considers sexual relations outside of marriage immoral and disgusting.

Chapter Fourteen

John arrives at the Park Lane Hospital for the Dying, where Linda has been sent. He sits by her bed, remembering his early life at her side, and weeps at her death.

Comment-> The nurses at the hospital are mystified by John's reaction to Linda's dying; they cannot understand his being upset. Since close personal ties are forbidden and all were conditioned to accept death impersonally, they consider John's reaction indecent and disgraceful.

Chapter Fifteen

Saddened and enraged by Linda's death, John realizes that the government of the World State has made the people the way they are, and that they are being controlled; he warns those around him. Bernard and Helmholtz arrive, the police are called, and the three are taken away.

Comment->John recalls the words of Miranda in The Tempest, "O brave new world!" Having observed life in the World State, these words mocked him; now he hears them as a challenge to do something. He tries to warn those around him, but they refuse to listen - they do not want to change. Conditioning has made them unwilling or unable to desire freedom or to do anything to obtain it.

The difference in the reactions of Bernard and Helmholtz when they see the Savage pleading with the people to change emphasizes the differences noted earlier. Helmholtz sympathizes with John's comments on freedom and his desire to make others aware that the government of the World State has taken away their freedom, and he rushes to aid him. Bernard hesitates - he does not want to become involved.

Chapter Sixteen

Bernard, Helmholtz, and John are brought before Mustapha Mond, the World Controller. The Controller explains that since their society is organized for stability and happiness, individuality and free choice must be abolished. Both Bernard and Helmholtz are to be deported because of their unorthodox behavior and belief.

Comment->In this chapter Huxley makes known the Controller's ideas and, by inference, includes his own views of how the evolution of a World State is possible. The Controller's reference to the inability or unwillingness of the individual to act intelligently and reasonably, to the loss of individuality, and to the shift in emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness, gives emphasis to many of the comments made by thoughtful men about modern society. Huxley himself has commented on the possible consequences of these shortcomings of society in numerous essays.

Huxley believed that man was unable or unwilling to act intelligently and rationally. He was especially critical of the educated class because he believed they should take the initiative in bringing about needed social and political reform. The Cyprus experiment alluded to by the Controller seems to illustrate this point of view. In this experiment twenty-two thousand Alphas were given the opportunity to manage their own affairs - to use their superior intelligence to establish an ideal society. Within six years civil war broke out. Although given the opportunity to create a democratic Utopia, the Alphas were unable or unwilling to act independently, intelligently, and rationally, and chose, instead, to return to a system of rigid state control.

Note that in this chapter the World Controller addresses himself primarily to the Savage. Although dissatisfied with life in the World State, Bernard and Helmholtz do not know any other way of life nor any other values; only John and the Controller are able to discuss an alternate way of life and system of values. The Savage's questions about the value system of the World State and its inhabitants provide an opportunity for Huxley not only to summarize what has gone before but also to illustrate how the creation of an all-powerful World State is possible.

The Controller explains that even during the time of Ford (1932) there was a shift in emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. The people were willing, even anxious, to bring about this shift. Mass production contributed to this shift since material goods were an important aid to comfort and happiness; when the masses seized political power, it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. Once the choice had been made, truth and beauty, art and science, were seen as threats to universal happiness since such inquiry can lead to dissatisfaction with the status quo. Most people are happy when they get what they want and never want what they can't get. In the World State of A.F. 632, the government provides what the people want and through conditioning prevents them from wanting what they can't have. Anyone who becomes "too self-consciously individual to fit into community life" is sent to an island lest he "contaminate" the others.

Chapter Seventeen

The World Controller and the Savage are left alone and discuss God and philosophy. The Controller again declares that a stable society is possible only if all conflict, internal and external, is abolished - God and modern society are incompatible.

Comment->Huxley, through the World Controller, says that modern man has chosen machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness instead of God, has chosen them as substitutes for God and the religious impulse. This reference to God and the religious impulse embraces all the attributes and aspects of a human being that make him noble and fine and heroic; in the words of the Savage, "I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin." Huxley believed that since man was composed of body and soul, flesh and spirit, his life should reflect this dichotomy. Modern man's values often glorify the body and deny the spirit.

Chapter Eighteen

Bernard and Helmholtz are leaving London, but the Controller has forced the Savage to remain in the area. Seeking refuge in an abandoned lighthouse, the Savage attempts to resume his old life. He disciplines himself severely to remove the taint of the Brave New World, but the curious come to watch his strange antics and disturb the solitude he seeks and needs. Finally, in despair, he hangs himself.

Comment->The Savage attempted to duplicate his old life and his old ways - working with his hands and disciplining his mind and his body. But he could not remove the horror and corruption within or without - he could not forget Lenina, and he could not find peace and solitude. When he could no longer control his thoughts, when he could no longer be an individual, he killed himself. In the World State the choice is conformity or annihilation.

***

Character Analyses:

Director Of Hatcheries And Conditioning

The Director of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre is the first character we meet; the novel opens with the Director taking a group of students on a tour of the Centre. Note that the Director (Tomakin) is, with but two exceptions, always referred to as the Director. This emphasis on the "function" of the man is appropriate since his primary concern is the production of automatons to populate the Brave New World.

The Director is an Alpha-plus, and because of the importance of his position we might well assume that he is a very intelligent and capable man. His comments during the tour indicate that he is efficient, very businesslike, somewhat officious, and very much concerned with conformity - "The primal and the ultimate need. Stability." In fact, when the World Controller mentions history (a forbidden subject), the Director is somewhat taken aback; he recalls with some dismay the rumors that old forbidden books were hidden in a safe in the Controller's study.

Perhaps one reason Huxley portrays the Director as very conventional and scrupulously correct is to stress the irony of the Director's unconventional behavior apparent in his previous relationship with Linda. Imagine the horror and confusion he felt when everyone realizes that he is a father (horrible word). Because the Director had disgraced himself by the impropriety of his actions, he resigns. Bernard becomes a kind of hero, and we hear nothing of the Director again.

Henry Foster

One of the standard men and women who work at the Hatchery, Henry is proud of his work. He is efficient, intelligent, and, most important, "conventional." Henry does everything he is expected to do and does it well - in every way he is an ideal citizen of the World State. In the bureaucracy of the World State he is the young man "with a future" - he knows what is expected of him and does it. Henry Foster would not be classified as an important character in the novel since he does not initiate or determine action - he is most often seen as Lenina's sometime lover.

Mustapha Mond, A World Controller

As one of the ten World Controllers, Mustapha Mond provides considerable information about the creation and maintenance of the World State. He is an intelligent, capable, good-natured man whose dedication and ability we must admire even if we do not approve. His comments at the beginning of the novel, when he meets the Director and the students provide not only information about his role in the World State but also reveal something of his character.

The World Controller is one of the most important characters because he is the most intelligent and the most knowledgeable - he has read and studied the Bible, Shakespeare, history, philosophy (all forbidden books). As a young Alpha-plus, his own unconventionality necessitated a choice between life on an island (reserved for those who were "too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life") and life in the World State (being "taken on the Controller's Council with the prospect of succeeding in due course to an actual Controllership.") Because the Controller has freedom of choice - a freedom which conditioning normally inhibits or destroys - he is one of the few real individuals we meet in this novel.

In the latter part of the novel the conversation between the Controller and John the Savage is the device Huxley uses to "put across" his own ideas and concerns. When the Controller explains his values and beliefs, his arguments and explanations are clearly and logically presented; his sanity makes the insanity of the Brave New World all the more vivid and frightening. The Controller in many ways represents the intelligent, capable individual who uses his intelligence and capability for unworthy ends.

Bernard Marx

Because he is different, Bernard is the source of considerable speculation and suspicion. He does not enjoy sports (everyone is expected to); he likes to be alone (others like crowds); he is unhappy (everybody else is happy). Bernard doesn't know why he is dissatisfied, why he is different; many of his associates speculate that alcohol was accidentally put in his blood-surrogate while he was still "in the bottle."

When we first meet Bernard we see him as a rebel, a protestor, "an individual." He wants to stand up for his rights, to battle against the order of things. We later learn that Bernard questions the conformity of life in the World State and the values it teaches, but that his dissatisfaction seems to stem from his not being accepted. When he returns from the Reservation with John and Linda, he becomes a kind of hero, the girls who formerly ignored him become attentive, important personages in the World State curry his favor, and Bernard is happy and enthusiastic about his life in the World State.

Huxley indicates that Bernard's protest is not intellectual or moral, but personal and social; he willingly accepts life in the World State when he is accepted. When the novel ends we find that Bernard's fortunes have changed and he is to be deported to Iceland because of his nonconformity. Bernard protests his innocence, begs the World Controller to reconsider, and finally is carried out still shouting and sobbing.

Lenina Crowne

Young and pretty, Lenina is very popular as a sex partner, but she sometimes finds living the motto "Everybody belongs to everybody else" a little tiring. She is a happy, contented, well-adjusted citizen of the World State; she accepts its teachings and values without question. The only disconcerting element in her life is the frustration brought about by her feelings for John the Savage. Lenina finds John attractive and attempts without success to seduce him. She cannot understand his attitude regarding sex even as he cannot understand hers. Fortunately she, like the others, can escape most frustrations and unhappiness by taking Soma.

Lenina is a fairly important character because she is instrumental in bringing about the suicide of John the Savage, although we cannot in any way blame her. (She is a product of the system, and the system is wrong.) Because she is a beautiful, desirable woman, she personifies for John the conflict between the body and the spirit. In a way she repeats the conflict he felt regarding his mother - he is at one and the same time attracted and repelled by the object of his affections.

Helmholtz Watson

Intellectually, socially, and physically the ideal of his Alpha-plus caste, Helmholtz is regarded with some suspicion by his associates because he is too perfect. Like Bernard he questions the conformity of life in the World State and the values it teaches, but, unlike Bernard, his dissatisfaction stems from his feeling that there must be more to life than mere physical existence. Although not as important to the development of the novel as Bernard, Helmholtz is in many ways a more admirable character because, instead of simply talking about what he believed, he acted.

As noted earlier, in this novel Huxley expressed his pessimism regarding man and his ability to save himself; consequently none of the characters is able to bring about change. However, Helmholtz is at least willing to try. When the Savage tries to tell the people they are being controlled, Helmholtz joins forces with the Savage when a melee breaks out. Later he accepts his banishment with considerable aplomb and asks that he be sent to a cold climate since he feels such discomfort might aid his writing.

Linda

Having been decanted and conditioned a Beta and then forced by circumstances to spend some twenty years on the Reservation, Linda offers some interesting comments and contrasts. At the Reservation she is not accepted because her values and beliefs are those of the Other Place - when she returns to London, people find her repulsive and ignore her because she is fat, old-looking and unattractive. Having been conditioned a Beta, Linda cannot understand or adapt herself to life on the Reservation. But since the Reservation does not have the ultramodern medical facilities which help retard physical decay, she has grown old even as the Savages do. Her relationship with John is also ambivalent - she is horrified at the idea of being a "mother" and yet she admits that John has been a great comfort to her. Her death during a Soma-induced stupor finally provides release.

John The Savage

A curious mixture of the "old" world and the "new," John does not belong to either. He is not accepted by the Savages on the Reservation because he is "different," and he cannot and will not accept the life and values of the Other Place (London). Like Bernard, Helmholtz, and Linda, he doesn't belong - he is an alien, a misfit, a "mistake."

John is the most important character in the book because he acts as a bridge between the two cultures, and having known both "ways of life" he is able to compare them and comment on them. His beliefs and values are a curious mixture of Christian and heathen, of "Jesus and Pookong," but, most important, he has a strict moral code. His "old fashioned" beliefs about God and right and wrong (his beliefs closely duplicate Christian morality) contrast sharply with the values and beliefs of the citizens of the Brave New World ("God isn't compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness"). It is this conflict between the two value systems that ultimately brings about his suicide.

When we are first introduced to John and the Reservation Huxley makes us aware of the moral conflict, but he also makes us aware of the social and emotional conflicts. The social conflict results from his not belonging on the Reservation; his mother was the white she-dog despised by the Savages. The emotional conflict results from the attraction and repulsion he feels towards his mother - he loves her but finds her promiscuity revolting. And, too her stories of the Other Place (London) fill him with wonder and a vague discontent.

The arrival at the Reservation of Bernard and Lenina and the Savage's subsequent arrival in London contribute to the conflict he already feels. John is attracted to Lenina but feels that such lustful feelings are wrong and must be repressed; Lenina is attracted to John and cannot understand the Savage's reticence and unwillingness to show any interest in her. Finally when John protests his love and expresses his desire to marry her, Lenina considers such an entanglement absurd and scoffs at the idea. But John is unable to put her out of his mind. His love for her finally breeds hatred, and when this hate turns inward upon himself, the Savage hangs himself.

Like the others in this novel, the character of the Savage is not believable. (Huxley was not interested in creating characters; he was interested in expressing ideas.) The Savage speaks too intelligently and reasons too well for one whose education consisted of reading a few books and talking to practitioners of a combination fertility - Penitente cult. Huxley himself admitted the inconsistency. But if we accept John simply as a spokesman in another of Huxley's novels of ideas, he is more than satisfactory.

Because Brave New World is both fantasy and satire, Huxley's characters are both fantastic and satirical. They are exaggerated because the year is A.F. 632; they offer a caustic commentary because more often than not they express what we must recognize are twentieth century viewpoints. At this time (1931) Huxley was completely disillusioned with mankind and with its choice of values or lack of values - he saw no hope for man's ultimate salvation of himself. He expresses his pessimism by offering no glimmer of hope in his novel. None of his characters is able to change or to bring about change.

#aldous huxley #brave new world

4 notes · View notes

egotisticle · 6 years ago

Text

@psychosings: “ tries to go @ him with an eyeliner pencil but instead just pokes him in the eye “

❝ Wilford, no ----- Stay away from me. ❞

AS IF foretold by divine augury or a prophetic vision of malady, a surge of alarm embodied him as ashen fingers callously curled around the other's wrist and a steely warning directed towards his officious counterpart. Wilford's staunch fortitude waged a valiant war with the entity's adamantine opposition, a rather ignominious struggle that he wouldn't willingly recount anytime thereafter to anyone. Sanguine red and cyan erupted in a discombobulating fusion of colour behind him as the being made a bid for some manner of remission; in spite of the visual admonition, however, near feral efforts were equally deemed necessary when the pencil came much too close to his face than personal preference dictated. Astringent derision barbed his tongue between strained grunts of effort, littered with feeble words of dissuasion that sought to plant a seed of indecision within the ineluctable labyrinth of the other's mind ------- a last ditch effort to create some distance before them before all previous labours were rendered naught with one wayward motion.

Gone were the caustic commands and in their place, came forth a telltale sound of great affliction.

A jagged crack SHATTERED reality's plane with the entity's echo of agony, discoloured duplicate forms mutely replaying the fateful moment prior even when the initial reaction had faded into one that was more subdued and stoic in the wake of Wilford's insouciance. The injury throbbed with the aftermath of his failure, hidden within a skull-like eye socket comprised of inky shadows pooling at its centre. Given who he was dealing with, the outcome was far from a surprise as one hand tenderly cupped the wounded eye and a tortuous string of curses were muttered beneath his breath; fortunately, the rational reminder that the pain would pass and could be pacified by means of propitiation was a comfort in itself.

Temporarily BLINDED by raw fury and the eyeliner pencil's assault, gingerly were fingers removed from his face and threaded themselves through his counterpart's hair. Their strength firmed, tenaciously twisting at the roots while the other hand covered framed the one holding the eyeliner pencil. With one eye shut and the other staring miles past Wilford's form, both the captive head and the point of the pencil were suddenly thrust together in one fluid movement ----- not unlike the initial transgression, not unlike where the pencil had hit its mark originally. What might have been Wilford’s error had become his intention and his respect to the exponentially greater scope of the inflicted injury had long since evaporated.

❝ It looks better on you. ❞

#psychosings #eye horror cw #eye trauma cw #((it's not that graphic but the suggestion is there))#┊♚┊ − ❛ ᵃᶰˢʷᵉʳᵉᵈ ❜#┊♚┊ V; i. MAIN #┊♚┊ − dyn. ❛ ᵖˢʸᶜʰᵒˢᶦⁿᵍˢ ❜ / ᴘᴜᴛᴛɪɴɢ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ғɪʀᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ɢᴀsᴏʟɪɴᴇ

2 notes · View notes

popliar · 6 years ago

Text

BTS: Love Yourself in Hong Kong

23 and 24 March 2019 - I loved it and had many thoughts about it below the cut.

For the Saturday 23 March show, our seats were basically looking onto the podium at the end of the catwalk so they were great. But the venue is honestly so small that any seat would've been good - this was the 3rd of 4 shows in Hong Kong, and probably the smallest shows they played on the Love Yourself tour and the smallest they'll play in years (except for Muster, lol).

For the Sunday 24 March show, our seats were one section further away from the stage, but it was still a great view with a broader angle that gave me a better view of the staging and VCRs. Both nights, I had a better view than I did at the Sydney Wings show in 2016 - this was just a smaller, closer arena.

And I enjoyed both shows so much! The shows were almost 3 hours long each but they felt like they went by in a flash. And they played so many songs, but also there were SO many more I wish they could've played - their discography is really wild at this point, it's just PACKED with hits.

In many ways the live show is the ultimate piece of fan memorabilia - but it holds a kind of tension within itself too. On the one hand, it's a unique, irreplaceable experience that can't be duplicated or repeated. On the other, especially in kpop where we have so much access to fancams and concert footage, there's pressure for the experience to meet the expectations that we have, to live up to the hype of the previous shows.

(Those two things play off each other too. How else would we - or some of us, anyway - know to watch out for those micro deviations, those little moments when Jimin runs away from Namjoon in Anpanman, when Taehyung and Jin look like they're gonna make out in So What?)

But this idea of the experience as unique and non-replicable is not quite true or not quite as simple as that. We live in an age of digital media and - this is especially true in kpop - incredibly high quality fancams and photos. Sitting at a remove of many metres, and viewing only one side of the stage, there were definitely moments that I 'missed' and had to discover later through social media. And also there's a concert DVD and a concert movie which captures maybe not your show in particular, but the essentials of this tour.

One thing that can't truly be replicated - the atmosphere. It made me laugh, in a delighted way, when the crowd just screamed and sang along to every MV and BT21 CF shown before the show. I just love the comraderie of fandom, the build of excitement. Or how pretty it looked when all the Army bombs were lit up, or when we all took out our phones. It was a good feeling. (Though as @proteinscollide said some Korean-speakers in the row behind us pointed out - it was noticeable that the crowd was much quieter when it was the Korean rather than English! LOL.)

Some of the very brief ments early in the show were repeated the following night, but their ending ments were unique to each evening. A Cantonese translator from behind the scenes translated after each of them spoke, except when they spoke in English - this helped me a little, but my Cantonese is so poor and the crowd was so LOUD that again I had to check on twitter afterwards for full translations! A few of them tried to also say some phrases in Cantonese which was very endearing; out of them all, Hoseok had the best pronounciation (which I guess fits in well with his history of having pretty good Japanese and English pronounciation too).

ETA: oh and I loved Jin with the disco ball sunnies and the pirate mask for each of the end ments!!! He's so ridiculous....I love him....

Notably on the 23rd, it was the first time Namjoon referenced their upcoming Map of the Soul: Persona comeback. On the 24th, he mentioned again that comeback was coming and it felt like it was really soon - you're telling me LOL.

Okay brief notes on the setlist:

Idol - what a way to start the show with a bang. As far as live staging goes, it's so dynamite.

Save Me/I'm Fine - I always feel like Save Me is such a tease because it stops right before my favourite verse from Hoseok and Yoongi lol but I DO love I'm Fine!

Magic Shop - lots of walking around on stage rather than choreo, this is such a lovely song!

Junghope VCR - this VCR omg. I had seen blurry fancams of it before but can we just pause and reflect for a moment on how immensely shippy it is? THEY ARE IN LOVE! SO DOMESTIC! THE RED STRING OF FATE don't look at me.

Just Dance - wow, Hoseok just makes such amazing use of the stage. Even after having seen the LY concert movie and NUMEROUS fancams, it really is true that the full impact of this stage is best experienced live (this is a great thread). The way he uses the entire space, on the raised platform and then on the catwalk, how he interacts with the crowd - he's just DYNAMITE.

Euphoria - the aesthetic of this song is so Jungkook to me, the optimism and the brightness. Also I don't know how but on the first night I somehow did not notice the gold glitter in the air AT ALL? I guess I was too caught up in JK and the dancers!

I Need U/Run - I JUST LOVE THESE SO MUCH THANK U. I was rewatching the MVs today and I just… what a time, what an era. HYYH gave us so much.

Minjoon VCR - this just screams Lake House AU, doesn't it? Separated by time but not space… Speaking of AUs, it's fascinating to think about how this was originally Yoongi and Jimin (shown in the concert DVD behinds). So they originally paired up Serendipity and Seesaw? I think it makes more sense the way it is now. Would be super interesting to see the unshown VCRs though.

Serendipity - I looked for Jimin’s tattoo both nights! And did not see it, argh! Yet the fansite photos clearly show, it was there. Sometimes, you don't see it at all at the time. This is a great stage, Jimin is such a magnetic performer and it's a super impressive dance. Also, bubbles!

Love - the boldness of Namjoon to perform this completely solo, no dancers, no stage effects aside from lighting - I admire that so much. He has the charisma for it. (Also it is very great when Namjoon slips off his robe and Hobi helps him put on his jacket, in a neat reversal of what they did for Boy Meets Evil/BST at an awards show a couple of years ago, p.s. Namseok.)

DNA - The screams for this! Both during the show and before the show when the MV was showing - it really speaks to how many people became fans in the LY era, I think. I think I've come really full circle on DNA. I grew almost tired of it when it was at its peak, but now with a bit of time and distance, I can really enjoy it again. That choreo is still wonderful. (And it's hilarious seeing that Vhope moment in the beginning get more and more casual over the course of this tour. At both shows, they just held hands or just hugged.)

Medley - the first night was I think Boyz with Fun, Attack on Bangtan, Fire, Baepsae, Dope. Second night was Dope, Go Go, Blood Sweat and Tears, Boy in Luv, Fire. I enjoyed both immensely! Hobi did the splits for the Baepsae dance break! I will never be over BST! I LOVE!

Airplane Pt 2 - this is just such a superior song and superior choreo, it's SO GOOD, thank you.

Taehyung VCR - this is so stunning, I can't even. When it pulls back and he puts his hand on the glass… and it frosts over... At the end my friend leaned over and said 'house of psychics' and was she wrong? NO SHE WAS NOT.

Singularity - this stage was immensely beautiful and breathtaking and Taehyung is purely charisma. I found out after the show that he was kind of sick on the 23rd? I honestly could not tell.

Fake Love - I've seen this so many times but you know what, this choreo is still GREAT. And Bangtan in all black, all emo is such a look.

Yoonjin VCR - this was the most straight forward of the VCRs. Again, fascinating to think it was originally Namjoon and Seokjin, Love and Epiphany.

Seesaw - the staging for this is so fun, Yoongi doing his dances and sliding off the bench and running back up again - he's so good at this!

Epiphany - oh good crying time. I did actually get a tear in my eye when this played the first night. It's just a song that means a lot to me… MUSIC, EMOTIONS! A POTENT COMBINATION! And Jin is very handsome.

The Truth Untold - vocal line all in a row like four flowers, they're just so good! The way this stage used the raised platform and the four screens was also really effective. It's such a lovely song.

Tear - I've seen so many fancams for this and the concert movie but I was still? blown?? away????? Rapline are just absolutely monsters of charisma and stage presence, and the way they deliver this with complete commitment - I was slain right there. Hoseok's ending verse, FUCK.

Mic Drop - NO ONE DOES IT LIKE BTS thank u

This was the 'end' of the show but of course we all knew there would be more. Strangely, or perhaps this is cultural, this led to a subdued interlude. There were definitely attempts to get fanchants going - sometimes successful, sometimes not, I laughed a little at some of the awkward pauses - and especially on the 23rd, there was a touching crowd singalong to Spring Day. But overall it was more subdued than I expected given how loudly the crowd did scream when BTS were on stage.

So What - SUCH A CLUB ANTHEM, it was so delightful seeing them all having so much fun! I had fun too! Fun for everyone!

Anpanman - the cutest fucking choreo, and the cutest fucking group, that is all.

Answer: Love Myself - all the ending feels… emotionally wrung out… a little exhausted… but just seeing how happy they looked and how happy I felt - I love concert.

#bts #love yourself tour #hong kong #190323 #190324 #kpop #actually using tumblr as a blog how strange

9 notes · View notes

modelsbytalias · 2 years ago

Text

Tips for using Basic functions for excel

Using a database is an essential task. The ability to manage records and extract the necessary data from any part of the database becomes more extensive with each new piece of data added. Excel is an excellent tool for efficiently storing and extracting data while keeping the struggle in mind. It works well for all data-driven purposes.

How can you use an Excel filter?

The drop-down arrow appears on each columnÕs heading to start the procedure. With Excel, you may enable filter in three different ways. You can decide on one based on your preferences and requirements. LetÕs take a quick look at each of them.

Filtering option under the Home tab: Choose a cell from the table. A ÔSort & FilterÕ option may be seen under the Home tab. Go to the drop-down list and choose ÒFilter.Ó

Choose a cell from the record using the filter option in the Data tab. There is a ÔFilterÕ option marked under the Data tab. You can see the drop-down menu on each column header by clicking on it.

Using quick-access keys: Choose one of the following approaches and select any cell from the record:

Alt + A + T

Ctrl + Shift + L

How do you filter data in Excel?

LetÕs look at an example to comprehend the entire mechanism better. The business sells a wide variety of clothing for both men and women. The record contains the Order Number, Date, Customer Name, Bought Item, and Payment Amount. Although filtering data is always complex, excel makes it simple for everyone to comprehend. Below are examples for each filter option to help clarify each concept. You can experiment with them and learn how to put them into practice.

The concat function excel=CONCATENATE () returns a single string containing the values of all the cells.

Theexcel max function=MAX () returns the highest value in a given range.

Min function excel=MIN () returns the lowest value discovered in the range.

The MID function in Microsoft Excel removes a substring from a string (starting at any position).

The Excel built-in function known as MID falls within the String/Text Function category. It can be used in Excel as a VBA function (VBA) and a worksheet function (WS). The MID function is a worksheet function that can be used as a formula component in a worksheet cell.

Excel absolute value, found in the Math and Trig category of the Insert function, can be used to calculate absolute value. Any negative value, whether an integer or a decimal number, has a positive form called absolute value. Choose the ABS function from the Insert function menu in ExcelÕs Formula menu tab to utilize it.

TRIM function in Excel

The leading, trailing, and double spaces in a dataset need to be eliminated, and this is when the excel trim Function shines.

To quickly copy all of the formatting from one cell to another, use the format painter excel. Without having to spend a lot of effort duplicating the formatting in each cell, this helps maintain consistency.

Use the Format PainterÕs single-click function to choose a cell, copy its formatting, and then click another cell to paste it. To paste the formatting to multiple cells, you can also click and drag over a group of cells.

0 notes

rollicovers · 3 years ago

Text

Tune sweeper crashes

#TUNE SWEEPER CRASHES DRIVER#

#TUNE SWEEPER CRASHES PATCH#

#TUNE SWEEPER CRASHES FULL#

#TUNE SWEEPER CRASHES PC#

#TUNE SWEEPER CRASHES SERIES#

Ability to track and remove third-party bloatware like trials, plugins, etc.

#TUNE SWEEPER CRASHES FULL#

It offers a tuning dashboard to check your PC’s full health. It can even remove hidden junk files from the registry. The program can safely clean leftovers from Windows and over 200 popular applications.

#TUNE SWEEPER CRASHES PC#

As ridiculous as it sounds, it was actually the first time this had happened in Destiny 2s history and led to the developers disabling (most likely, temporarily) in-game chat for all players in-game. Automated PC clean-ups and tune-ups after regular intervals. But what actually happened on during that. It appears that for the time being, Destiny 2 players are going to have limited options when it comes to communication, with developer Bungie having pulled the plug on text chat briefly because a game-breaking bug was present. With the first fatal crash of a Concorde since it first came into service, the confidence in the worlds only super sonic passenger jet was shattered. For the moment, text chat is gone, and given the timeline involved, it is not likely we will see any actual fixes until the Destiny 2 team returns to the office on Monday. Garda investigating after car crashes into hotel in Wexford.

#TUNE SWEEPER CRASHES PATCH#

It remains unannounced as to when the developers will restore the in-game text chat once they patch things up, but the fact that commands like this are available for players is troubling to the rest of the Destiny 2 community. This started affecting PvP, especially in game: instead of posting the message in a larger chat, some nefarious Destiny Deviants decided to whisper a text string to their opponents, which caused the other players’ games to crash, ensuring themselves an easy win. shows a Ford Explorer overtaking a CHP highway sweeper truck, but clipping the front of it as it drives past. Some people on Destiny started sending their opponent’s secret messages while playing PvP, causing other players’ games to crash as the messages were too long. Footage of the incident (pictured) near California's Golden Gate Bridge at around 6 p.m. Tune Sweeper 4 harmonizes.We have temporarily disabled text chat on all platforms in Destiny 2 while we investigate an issue causing Weasel errors. Simple solution saves money on street sweeper repairs.

#TUNE SWEEPER CRASHES DRIVER#

Please see our FAQ article providing detailed of steps to help you if TouchCopy is not displaying your iPhone messages, Contacts, Calendars or Notes. From the Director: Changing driver behavior is key to reducing traffic fatalities and crashes. Automatically find and remove duplicates, discover and add tracks on. Automatically find and remove duplicates, discover and add tracks Tune Sweeper 4.14 Crack. Issues with loading iPhone messages, Contacts, Calendars or Notes in TouchCopy. More than just a duplicates finder, Tune Sweeper is your all-in-one Music cleaning App. Tune Sweeper 4.14 Crack is your all-in-one iTunes cleaning App. Tune Sweeper knows which tracks are based in the cloud and so can make an intelligent suggestion on which tracks to keep. Some of the officers managing the protesters sustained injuries from the crash. Remove the rest to your recycle bin at the click of a button. According to reports, an SUV crashed into a street sweeper truck in the area near an anti-vaccine rally. Automatically select which tracks to keep based on quality, last played or length. In fact, 47 percent of weather-related crashes happen in the rain and the annual cost of these crashes is estimated nationally between 22 billion (for only. supplied in new vehicles is tuned to the prime mover without the trailer, which when. Quickly find and remove duplicate tracks in iTunes. The crash reduction effects of fitting all heavy vehicles with.

#TUNE SWEEPER CRASHES SERIES#

Mac Entertainment, TV, series and movies Tune Sweeper Mac 4.22 Tune Sweeper is a program with which you can remove duplicate tracks or locate songs that may be missing within in your music collection on iTunes. Automatically find and remove duplicates, discover. to jar, to grate upon the ear, be discordant or out of tune, to disagree. Tune Sweeper 4.14 Crack Pluse windows freeload Tune Sweeper 4.14 Crack Mac is your all-in-one iTunes cleaning App.

#Tune sweeper crashes

0 notes

comedytv4-blog · 7 years ago

Text

The Truth of Truth Shows

youtube

comedy tv

The Idea of reality reveals

Truth Tv is a tv programming genre which shows typically unscripted overdramatic or amusing conditions, papers real events, and generally comprises ordinary individuals rather than actors that are trained, occasionally in a contest or other cases where a prize is given. Shows at the Truth TV are known as as fact shows that are usually generated as series. The folks are either participated in rivalry with one another or at an awkward position or spied on in their everyday lives. Watching reality shows have been our favorite last time and a supply of pleasure and pleasure. It's a true app cast with real individuals not with celebrities.

comedy tv

Though the Term reality tv is chiefly utilized to classes indicates that have arisen because the year 2000, the background of reality TV shows goes farther than we could think. Video continues to be depicting the lifestyles of individuals through relationship shows, competitions and pranks for a lengthy time. It's a fantastic history that many folks did not know considering contemporary reality tv and its own boom in popularity in the last several decades. The reality TV series began from the year 1948, Producer-host Allen Funt's Candid Camera, where unsuspecting folks were falls into humorous and odd scenarios has filmed with hidden cameras, was aired in the year 1948. The series is viewed as a model of reality tv programming.

Different Sort of reality reveals

There Are numerous forms of reality shows which are operating on TV. These reveals broke the boredom of their conventional scripted shows and began showing the real-life scenarios. Truth shows cater to various age groups and preferences due to the access to the broad assortment of themes. In most reality shows, participants tend to be put in exotic places or in strange conditions. A number of the facts shows cover a individual or a group of individuals improving their lifestyles. They signify a more modified and highly affected form of fact to pull its audiences. Documentaries and non-fictional reveals such as sports and news aren't categorized under reality displays.

Some Kinds of reality shows are written below:

• Documentaries or Documentary Collection

Outside Of all of the subgenres of reality TV, the documentary subgenre is perhaps the most typical one. The core difference between documentaries and also a documentary show is that while documentaries are each so frequently restricted to a episode, documentary show interval a string in its entireness, after a run of arc-like scripted tv. The subgenre would also pay many societal experimentation reveals, where different sorts of interactions have been observed solely for the sake of a new experimentation.

• Contest or Elimination

Truth Programs which are based on a removal or contest format are only about getting eliminated from the annoying housemate or using the very best participant eventually become the winner. They're about winning something significant beating your opponents. The contest might be one of the rest of the participants, or contrary to time/money.

Same As the title itself says this kind of reveals either about Makeover of a individual's appearance or earn a renovation of your previous residence.

This One is your most critical subgenre of reality TV in which the boy meets girl and the crowd adhere to understand'will they or will not they' facet of this narrative.

Beginning with Candid Camera, this is perhaps the longest-running fact subgenre. It's about capturing the responses of innocent individuals put in unexpected conditions. This subgenre also covers exhibits that rely on content that is submitted.

The Many frequent kinds of the series in this subgenre are apps that explore paranormal happenings. The subgenre also encircles shows that focus on searching famous mythical animals.

• Traveling or Aspirational

Since Most audiences can not afford to go to the faraway lands to get a holiday, a lot people settle on appreciating these destinations by means of this kind of travel shows by which a individual, group or couple visit a trip and movie all their adventures for your audiences.

Apart from these Shows star talk shows or contests like ability search, experience, game displays or fear-based displays will also be mentionable.

Truth Shows in India

The First reality show of any sort on Indian TV was a quiz competition Titled- Bournvita Quiz Contest. It was hosted by the famed Derek O'Brien at the calendar year 1972. But it featured a live show in a variety of cities then proceeded air for a radio series. From the year 1992, it became the very first reality series to be showcased on ZEE TV and Indian Television. Then came"Sansui Antakshari" from the calendar year 1993 that was hosted by Annu Kapoor on ZEE TV also It became the first Indian singing fact series that conducted till 2006. Came in various variations of Star One and SAB TV with the exact same host following 2006. ZEE TV made its title to lead to home-grown reality reveals rather adapting global reality shows on Indian TV. Singing reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa arrived in the calendar year 1995 hosted by the famed singer of Bollywood Sonu Nigam and the dance fact show that changed the entire situation of dance reveals Dance India Dance arrived in the year 2009.

Sony Entertainment Television launched India's first dance reality series titled- Boogie Woogie that it was produced by Naved Jaffrey from the calendar year 1996 and hosted and hosted by Javed Jaffrey. It was as a direct hit for its channel. From the year 2000, Star Plus aired"Kaun Banega Crorepati" with Amitabh Bachchan (a version of"Who wishes to be a millionaire") that went on to become India's favorite and most watched reality series. To provide rivalry ZEE TV launched a different game series titled- Sawal Dus Crore Ka and Sony TV launched Jeeto Chappar Phhad Ke however KBC's popularity did not dissuade; which makes it the most prosperous reality series in Indian tv. Sony India came up with Indian Idol in 2004 that was an adaptation to the favorite global reality series"American Idol". Following its success with grown-ups, they arrived with children participants at the series which helped the series to acquire love by all.

The Manufacturing group of Endemol India came up with hot reality series Big Brother's Indian variant of Bigg Boss and Stress Factor on Sony TV at 2006. It turned into India's hottest international accommodated show after KBC. It had been transferred to Colors TV which makes it India's most viewed Hindi Television owing to its backing on Bigg Boss, Fear Factor competing with the likes of Star Plus and ZEE TV.

Next revolution reality reveals In India came using a version of other famous foreign shows such as The Voice India and So You Think You Can Dance on &TV. These shows altered the notion of dancing and singing displays on Indian Television. Other hot reality shows based on overseas shows are similar to MTV Roadies, India's Got Talent etc..

The real reality of reality reveals

It is Generally admitted that reality TV is actually kind of dreadful. What was considered revolutionary in the entertainment world, has become accidental comedies starring the many dreadful and embarrassing individuals conceivable. Now real is the very last thing which strikes you about reality displays. When it's a dance series where lesser-known confronts of telly world vie to get the best princess label or the Bigg Boss's home where racial slurs and catfights are part of the procedure to select winners, goes into introducing a reality series as actual. There's a great majority of reality tv shows which aren't 100 percent genuine, since there's a high amount of manipulation so as to attain sustained audience focus.

Outcomes are actually reveals mostly Controlled by producers/directors. They would like to keep viewers feel it's arbitrary and inconsistent, to communicate that the majority of the time a candidate is advised exactly what to do, the way to do. They're told to act in certain ways. And at the end nobody will reveal you everything, things will get edited and aired series might be a long ways from real reality. Reality Television is a genre of an specific description of the displays themselves. Producer's bogus shots and perhaps even re-stage dramatic moments which occurred when the cameras were not rollingout pretty much whatever is in fact plotted and planned out just like the ordinary scripted series. The majority of the reality shows still maintain a simple amount of fact, nevertheless, portraying events which did occur, even if they are acted again to the cameras. These shows feature individuals living their own lives and doing their jobs, even if a great deal was smoothed from the daily routine so as to edit out the boring bits.

The Majority of the talent Search, singing, dance in reveals based on overall knowledge such as"Kaun Banega Crorepati" participants needed to go through a very long battle. The majority of the time unemployment is completely rigged and the winner becomes determined according to their capability of maintaining TRP's high. The majority of the contestants of this reality shows, particularly the winners, may get frustrated shortly after their triumph, the focus shifts to the winner of the following season. The limelight being removed from them does not agree with lots of young men and women. Some contestants may get frustrated because they harbour false hopes that once they win the competition, their potential is place once and for all.

Effect of reality shows on society

New Boys & girls that are becoming reality TV star celebrities doesn't triumph on gift but utilize melodrama to at all times stay in the news. Among the worst consequences of the actions is on teenagers who attempt to emulate their behavior. Each of the stunts which are finished on such TV shows under coordinated requirements are duplicated by the folks in fact and leading to death. A few of the shows where contestants participate to win prizes reveal them in bad light as they utilize meanness and greed to outdo each other. The unwanted traits can manifest themselves from the crowds and make behavioural issues. Liberal doses of abuses are hurled on the displays since the directors believe the an increasing number of people will observe them. It's a massive mistake because poor words are captured by teenagers and children affecting their character in addition to behavior. Although children' reality shows such as Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Lil Champs, Sabse Bada Kalakaar, Junior Masterchef India and lots of other displays draw the audiences and benefits great evaluations, it's not a good idea to place children under stressful circumstances in the first years of the lives! Little children are made to take part in fact shows, they've wrenched from all ordinary activities and chucked into a single-minded dedication to lending their voices to all these reality shows. They're compelled to take for extended hours, sometimes in hot sexy non-air conditioned rooms. Parents also pressurise their kids to shine on reality displays, little children become victims of a system which fosters and promotes unrealistic ambitions.

Some facts shows reveal participants carrying Intense dangers and placing themselves bizarre or harmful situations. Since younger kids mainly learn through imitation, Watching such programs can place them in danger of bodily harm. A Indicated that kids who watched high-risk TV programmes improved Their own self-reported risk-taking behaviour more than Children who were subjected to low-risk TV or saw less TV. Truth Shows which are focussed on several folks and their daily lives are a Significant annoyance and parents will need to draw a line in regards to kids Seeing these shows. They depict everything in an exaggerated fashion Which isn't in any way a reflection of actual life. To our kids. Reality gift shows, on the other hand, make parents Feel their own kids are insufficient.

1 note · View note