#Web-based Learning Programs

[magentasnoodle]

please not again

[heyheyarnold]

Free ASL Class Online - Cincinnati State

For anyone interested in learning American Sign Language in a low-stakes environment, Cincinnati State offers a free online, cameras optional, all ages course. You can join via Zoom or access class recordings afterward if you can't attend.

More info, sign up, and resources from previous sessions are available here.

Link: https://www.cincinnatistate.edu/freeasl/#list

[thunderlina]

In the wake of the TikTok ban and revival as a mouthpiece for fascist propaganda, as well as the downfall of Twitter and Facebook/Facebook-owned platforms to the same evils, I think now is a better time than ever to say LEARN HTML!!! FREE YOURSELVES FROM THE SHACKLES OF MAJOR SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS AND EMBRACE THE INDIE WEB!!!

You can host a website on Neocities for free as long as it's under 1GB (which is a LOT more than it sounds like let me tell you) but if that's not enough you can get 50GB of space (and a variety of other perks) for only $5 a month.

And if you can't/don't want to pay for the extra space, sites like File Garden and Catbox let you host files for free that you can easily link into NeoCities pages (I do this to host videos on mine!) (It also lets you share files NeoCities wouldn't let you upload for free anyways, this is how I upload the .zip files for my 3DS themes on my site.)

Don't know how to write HTML/CSS? No problem. W3schools is an invaluable resource with free lessons on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and a whole slew of other programming languages, both for web development and otherwise.

Want a more traditional social media experience? SpaceHey is a platform that mimics the experience of 2000s MySpace

Struggling to find independent web pages that cater to your interests via major search engines? I've got you covered. Marginalia and Wiby are search engines that specifically prioritize non-commercial content. Marginalia also has filters that let you search for more specific categories of website, like wikis, blogs, academia, forums, and vintage sites.

Maybe you wanna log off the modern internet landscape altogether and step back into the pre-social media web altogether, well, Protoweb lets you do just that. It's a proxy service for older browsers (or really just any browser that supports HTTP, but that's mostly old browsers now anyways) that lets you visit restored snapshots of vintage websites.

Protoweb has a lot of Geocities content archived, but if you're interested in that you can find even more old Geocities sites over on the Geocities Gallery

And really this is just general tip-of-the-iceberg stuff. If you dig a little deeper you can find loads more interesting stuff out there. The internet doesn't have to be a miserable place full of nothing but doomposting and targeted ads. The first step to making it less miserable is for YOU, yes YOU, to quit spending all your time on it looking at the handful of miserable websites big tech wants you to spend all your time on.

[externalshield]

A Comprehensive Guide to Smart Contract Auditing: Best Practices and Strategies

In the rapidly evolving landscape of blockchain technology, smart contracts have emerged as a transformative tool, automating and securing digital contracts without intermediaries. However, their reliance on immutable code leaves them vulnerable to vulnerabilities that can cause significant financial losses and reputational damage. Smart contract auditing plays a crucial role in mitigating these risks by systematically reviewing code for potential flaws and vulnerabilities. This comprehensive guide explores the best practices and strategies involved in smart contract auditing, emphasizing the importance of thorough review processes, secure coding practices and proactive risk management. By understanding and implementing these principles, developers and stakeholders can enhance the security, reliability and trustworthiness of their smart contracts in decentralized applications (dApps) and blockchain ecosystems.

Understanding Smart Contract Audits

What is a Smart Contract Audit?

A smart contract audit is a thorough examination of the code and functionality of a smart contract to identify potential vulnerabilities, bugs or security risks. It aims to ensure that the smart contract behaves as intended, securely manages assets and complies with specified business rules and regulatory requirements. Audits are typically conducted by specialized firms or teams with expertise in blockchain technology and security practices, using both automated tools and manual review processes to assess the contract's codebase.

Key Objectives of Smart Contract Audits

The primary objectives of Smart Contract Audits include:

Security Assurance: To identify and mitigate security vulnerabilities such as reentrancy, overflow errors or logic flaws that could be exploited by malicious actors.

Functional Accuracy: To verify that the smart contract executes its intended operations correctly, adhering to specified business rules and ensuring accurate handling of transactions and data.

Risk Mitigation: To reduce the risk of financial loss or disruption by addressing potential weaknesses before deployment, thereby enhancing trust among users and stakeholders.

Compliance and Standards: To ensure that the smart contract complies with industry best practices, regulatory requirements and any applicable standards for security and reliability in blockchain applications.

Differences Between Code Audits and Formal Verification

While both are essential components of smart contract validation, code audits and formal verification differ in their methodologies and scope:

Code Audits: Involve a comprehensive review of the smart contract's source code to identify potential vulnerabilities and ensure adherence to best practices. Auditors typically rely on automated tools and manual inspection to detect bugs or security issues.

Formal Verification: Involves mathematically proving the correctness of a smart contract's code against specified properties or requirements. This rigorous process uses formal methods to verify that the contract behaves as intended under all possible conditions, offering a higher level of assurance but often requiring specialized expertise and computational resources.

By understanding these distinctions and integrating both approaches where appropriate, developers and stakeholders can effectively enhance the security, reliability and functionality of their smart contracts in blockchain applications.

Common Smart Contract Vulnerabilities

Overview of Typical Vulnerabilities:

Smart contracts, despite their promise of security and automation, are susceptible to several common vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious actors. Some of the most prevalent vulnerabilities include:

Reentrancy: This vulnerability occurs when a contract calls an external contract before completing its own state changes. If not properly managed, reentrancy can allow an attacker to repeatedly call back into the contract, potentially manipulating its state and causing unexpected behavior.

Integer Overflow and Underflow: Smart contracts often handle numeric values for calculations and storage. Integer overflow happens when a number exceeds its maximum value and wraps around, while underflow occurs when a number becomes negative due to subtraction beyond zero. These conditions can lead to unintended consequences, such as incorrect calculations or unexpected behavior.

Unchecked External Calls: Smart contracts may interact with external contracts or addresses. If these interactions are not properly validated and checked for potential malicious behavior, they can introduce security vulnerabilities, such as unauthorized transfers of assets or manipulation of contract state.

Logic and Design Flaws: These vulnerabilities arise from errors in the logic or design of the smart contract. They can include incorrect assumptions about user behavior, inadequate access control mechanisms or failure to handle edge cases properly, potentially leading to unintended consequences or exploitation.

Real-World Examples of Smart Contract Failures Due to Vulnerabilities:

Several notable incidents have highlighted the consequences of smart contract vulnerabilities:

The DAO Hack (2016): Exploited a reentrancy vulnerability to drain approximately $50 million worth of Ether from The DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization on the Ethereum blockchain. This incident led to a hard fork in Ethereum to recover the funds, highlighting the impact of smart contract vulnerabilities on blockchain communities.

Parity Wallet Bug (2017): A vulnerability in the Parity multi-signature wallet contract resulted in the freezing of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Ether. This bug was due to a flaw in the contract's initialization code, demonstrating the critical importance of rigorous auditing and testing in smart contract development.

Integer Overflow Bugs: Various smart contracts have been vulnerable to integer overflow and underflow bugs, leading to unexpected behavior and potential loss of funds. These incidents underscore the need for robust testing and validation of numeric operations in smart contracts.

By understanding these common vulnerabilities and learning from past incidents, developers and auditors can take proactive measures to mitigate risks and enhance the security and resilience of smart contracts in blockchain ecosystems.

Best Practices for Smart Contract Development

Secure Coding Principles for Smart Contracts:

Implementing secure coding practices is crucial to mitigate vulnerabilities and enhance the resilience of smart contracts. Key principles include:

Input Validation: Validate and sanitize all inputs to prevent unexpected data manipulation or exploitation.

Minimize Complexity: Keep smart contracts simple and minimize the number of operations to reduce the risk of introducing bugs or vulnerabilities.

Avoid External Calls During State Changes: Limit or eliminate external calls during critical state changes to prevent reentrancy attacks.

Use Safe Math Libraries: Utilize libraries that provide safe arithmetic operations to prevent integer overflow and underflow vulnerabilities.

Access Control: Implement access control mechanisms to restrict functions and data access to authorized entities only.

Use of Established Libraries and Frameworks:

Utilizing well-established libraries and frameworks can significantly enhance the security and reliability of smart contracts. Benefits include:

Security Audited Code: Libraries and frameworks that have undergone rigorous security audits are less likely to contain vulnerabilities.

Community Support: Established libraries often have a large community of developers who contribute to bug fixes, improvements and security enhancements.

Code Reusability: Reusing trusted code reduces the likelihood of introducing new vulnerabilities and accelerates development timelines.

Importance of Documentation and Comments:

Comprehensive documentation and well-commented code are essential for maintaining and securing smart contracts. Reasons include:

Understanding Contract Functionality: Clear documentation helps developers and auditors understand the intended behavior and logic of the smart contract, reducing the risk of misinterpretation.

Facilitating Audits: Detailed comments and documentation assist auditors in identifying potential vulnerabilities or areas of concern during the audit process.

Enhancing Code Maintenance: Good documentation simplifies future updates and modifications to the smart contract, ensuring continuity and minimizing errors.

By adhering to these best practices, developers can significantly improve the security, reliability and maintainability of smart contracts, contributing to a safer and more robust blockchain ecosystem.

Preparing for a Smart Contract Audit

Initial Code Review and Testing Phases:

Before engaging an external audit, it’s essential to conduct thorough internal reviews and testing:

Internal Code Review: Perform a meticulous internal review of the smart contract code to identify and resolve obvious errors and vulnerabilities. Involve multiple team members to ensure diverse perspectives and catch issues that a single developer might miss.

Automated Testing: Use automated testing frameworks to conduct unit tests, integration tests and end-to-end tests. Ensure that the tests cover all possible scenarios, including edge cases, to verify the contract behaves as expected.

Manual Testing: Complement automated tests with manual testing to explore unusual or unexpected interactions and user behaviors that automated tests might not cover.

Simulation and Mock Environments: Use simulation tools and mock environments to test the contract in a controlled setting that mimics the live blockchain environment. This helps to identify potential issues related to transaction ordering, gas consumption and network interactions.

Setting Audit Goals and Expectations:

Clearly defining the scope and objectives of the audit is crucial for a successful engagement:

Define Scope: Identify which parts of the codebase need to be audited. This could include specific smart contracts, libraries and integrations with external systems.

Set Security Priorities: Establish key security priorities, such as preventing financial loss, ensuring data integrity and maintaining user trust. This helps auditors focus on the most critical areas.

Communicate Expectations: Provide auditors with detailed information about the contract’s intended functionality, business logic and any known risks or concerns. Clear communication ensures that the auditors understand the contract’s purpose and the specific aspects to scrutinize.

Timeline and Deliverables: Agree on a realistic timeline for the audit process and define the expected deliverables, such as detailed reports, risk assessments and remediation recommendations.

Choosing an Audit Firm or Team:

Selecting the right audit firm or team is crucial for a thorough and effective audit:

Experience and Reputation: Choose a firm or team with a proven track record in smart contract auditing. Look for auditors with experience in your specific blockchain platform and technology stack.

Independent and Unbiased: Ensure that the audit firm is independent and has no conflicts of interest that might compromise the integrity of the audit.

Technical Expertise: Assess the technical expertise of the audit team. They should have deep knowledge of smart contract development, blockchain security and the latest vulnerabilities and attack vectors.

References and Case Studies: Request references and review case studies of previous audits to gauge the quality and thoroughness of the firm’s work.

Communication and Collaboration: Choose auditors who are communicative and willing to work collaboratively with your development team. Effective communication is essential for addressing issues and implementing recommendations promptly.

By carefully preparing for the audit, setting clear goals and choosing the right auditors, you can significantly enhance the security and reliability of your smart contracts, building trust with users and stakeholders.

Conducting a Smart Contract Audit

Steps Involved in the Audit Process:

Conducting a thorough smart contract audit involves several key steps to ensure comprehensive review and identification of potential vulnerabilities:

Initial Assessment: Review project documentation, including specifications and design documents, to understand the contract's intended functionality and security requirements.

Code Review: Perform a detailed review of the smart contract codebase, examining each line for vulnerabilities such as reentrancy, integer overflow, logic flaws and unchecked external calls.

Automated Analysis: Use automated security analysis tools to scan the code for common vulnerabilities and potential issues, such as security linters, static analyzers and symbolic execution tools.

Manual Review: Conduct manual inspection of critical parts of the codebase to identify complex vulnerabilities that automated tools may overlook, including edge cases and interactions with external systems.

Testing: Execute a series of rigorous tests, including unit tests, integration tests and scenario-based tests, to validate the contract's behavior under various conditions and ensure it meets functional requirements.

Risk Assessment: Evaluate identified vulnerabilities based on their severity and potential impact on the contract and its users. Prioritize vulnerabilities for remediation based on the assessed risks.

Reporting: Prepare a comprehensive audit report detailing findings, including identified vulnerabilities, their potential impact and recommendations for mitigation. Provide clear and actionable guidance for developers to address the identified issues.

Tools and Techniques Used in Audits:

Auditors employ a variety of tools and techniques to conduct smart contract audits effectively:

Automated Security Tools: Utilize tools such as MythX, Securify and Slither for automated vulnerability scanning and analysis.

Manual Review: Employ manual inspection techniques to scrutinize critical parts of the codebase and identify nuanced vulnerabilities.

Symbolic Execution: Use symbolic execution tools like Manticore to explore and analyze possible execution paths of the smart contract code.

Gas Analysis: Evaluate gas usage and optimize contract efficiency to minimize transaction costs and potential vulnerabilities related to gas limits.

Peer Review: Engage in peer review sessions among auditors to validate findings and ensure thorough coverage of potential vulnerabilities.

Collaboration Between Auditors and Development Teams:

Effective collaboration between auditors and development teams is essential for a successful audit:

Clear Communication: Maintain open and clear communication channels to discuss findings, clarify requirements and address concerns promptly.

Feedback Loop: Establish a feedback loop where auditors provide regular updates and interim findings to the development team, allowing for timely resolution of issues.

Knowledge Sharing: Share insights and best practices between auditors and developers to enhance understanding of security principles and improve future development practices.

Remediation Support: Provide guidance and support to developers during the remediation process, including verifying fixes and validating the effectiveness of security enhancements.

By following these steps and leveraging appropriate tools and techniques, auditors and development teams can collaborate effectively to enhance the security, reliability and trustworthiness of smart contracts in blockchain applications.

Mitigation Strategies and Best Practices

Strategies for Addressing Identified Vulnerabilities:

Once vulnerabilities are identified through audits or testing, it's crucial to implement effective mitigation strategies. These may include applying patches or code fixes to eliminate vulnerabilities, enhancing access controls and re-evaluating contract logic to prevent exploitation. Regular security updates and proactive monitoring can help maintain the integrity of smart contracts and mitigate emerging threats.

Importance of Emergency Response Plans:

Having a well-defined emergency response plan is essential to quickly and effectively address security incidents or breaches in smart contracts. This plan should outline procedures for incident detection, containment, mitigation and recovery. Clear communication channels and roles/responsibilities assignments ensure swift action during crises, minimizing potential damages and maintaining user confidence.

Implementing Updates and Version Control:

Implementing updates and maintaining version control are critical for managing changes and improving the security of smart contracts over time. Version control systems, such as Git, enable tracking of code modifications, facilitating collaboration and auditing. Regular updates should be accompanied by thorough testing and validation to ensure compatibility, functionality and security integrity throughout the contract's lifecycle. This approach helps mitigate risks associated with outdated or vulnerable code, promoting a robust and secure smart contract environment.

Post-Audit Considerations

Reporting and Communicating Audit Findings:

Prepare a detailed audit report outlining identified vulnerabilities, their severity levels and recommended actions for mitigation.

Clearly communicate findings to stakeholders, including developers, project managers and stakeholders, in a transparent and understandable manner.

Provide actionable recommendations for addressing vulnerabilities and improving overall smart contract security.

Re-Auditing and Continuous Monitoring:

Schedule periodic re-audits to reassess the smart contract's security posture and identify new vulnerabilities or risks that may have emerged since the initial audit.

Implement continuous monitoring solutions to detect anomalous behavior or potential security incidents in real-time.

Stay updated with the latest security trends, best practices and regulatory requirements to maintain a proactive approach to security.

Regulatory Compliance and Legal Implications:

Ensure compliance with relevant regulations and legal frameworks governing smart contracts, cryptocurrency transactions and data protection.

Consult legal experts to navigate regulatory requirements specific to your jurisdiction and industry.

Address any legal implications arising from audit findings or security incidents promptly and transparently to mitigate legal risks and maintain regulatory compliance.

Conclusion

In conclusion, smart contract auditing is an important process to ensure the security, reliability and trustworthiness of blockchain-based applications. By systematically reviewing and testing smart contract code, developers can identify and mitigate vulnerabilities that could lead to financial loss or breach of user trust. It is essential to implement best practices such as secure coding principles, thorough auditing and effective communication between auditors and development teams. Additionally, post-audit considerations such as continuous monitoring, re-auditing and compliance with regulatory requirements are important to maintain the integrity of smart contracts over time. By prioritizing security at every stage of development and beyond, stakeholders can foster a safer and more resilient blockchain ecosystem for all users and participants.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Free or Cheap Mandarin Chinese Learning Resources Because You Can't Let John Cena One Up You Again

I will update this list as I learn of any more useful ones. If you want general language learning resources check out this other post. This list is Mandarin specific. Find lists for other specific languages here.

For the purposes of this list "free" means something that is either totally free or has a useful free tier. "Cheap" is a subscription under $10USD a month, a software license or lifetime membership purchase under $100USD, or a book under $30USD. If you want to suggest a resource for this list please suggest ones in that price range that are of decent quality and not AI generated.

WEBSITES

Dong Chinese - A website with lessons, a pinyin guide, a dictionary, and various videos and practice tests. With a free account you're only allowed to do one lesson every 12 hours. To do as many lessons as quickly as you want it costs $10 a month or $80 a year.

Domino Chinese - A paid website with video based lessons from absolute beginner to college level. They claim they can get you ready to get a job in China. They offer a free trial and after that it's $5 a month or pay what you can if you want to support their company.

Chinese Education Center - This is an organization that gives information to students interested in studying abroad in China. They have free text based lessons for beginners on vocab, grammar, and handwriting.

Pleco Dictionary App - This is a very popular dictionary app on both iOS and Android. It has a basic dictionary available for free but other features can be purchased individually or in bundles. A full bundle that has what most people would want is about $30 but there are more expensive options with more features.

MIT OpenCourseWare Chinese 1 2 3 4 5 6 - These are actual archived online courses from MIT available for free. You will likely need to download them onto your computer.

Learn Chinese Web Application From Cambridge University - This is a free downloadable file with Mandarin lessons in a PC application. There's a different program for beginner and intermediate.

Learn Chinese Everyday - A free word a day website. Every day the website posts a different word with pronunciation, stroke order, and example sentences. There's also an archive of free downloadable worksheets related to previous words featured on the website.

Chinese Boost - A free website and blog with beginner lessons and articles about tips and various resources to try.

Chinese Forums - An old fashioned forum website for people learning Chinese to share resources and ask questions. It's still active as of when I'm making this list.

Du Chinese - A free website and an app with lessons and reading and listening practice with dual transcripts in both Chinese characters and pinyin. They also have an English language blog with tips, lessons, and information on Chinese culture.

YOUTUBE CHANNELS

Chinese For Us - A channel that provides free video lessons for beginners. The channel is mostly in English.

Herbin Mandarin - A channel with a variety of lessons for beginners. The channel hasn't uploaded in a while but there's a fairly large archive of lessons to watch. The channel is mainly in English.

Mandarin Blueprint - This channel is by a couple of guys who also run a paid website. However on their YouTube channel there's a lot of free videos with tips about how to go about learning Chinese, pronunciation and writing tips, and things of that nature. The channel is mainly in English.

Blabla Chinese - A comprehensible input channel with content about a variety of topics for beginner to intermediate. The video descriptions are in English but the videos themselves are all in Mandarin.

Lazy Chinese - A channel aimed at intermediate learners with videos on general topics, grammar, and culture. They also have a podcast. The channel has English descriptions but the videos are all in Mandarin.

Easy Mandarin - A channel associated with the easy languages network that interviews people on the street in Taiwan about everyday topics. The channel has on screen subtitles in traditional characters, pinyin, and English.

StickynoteChinese - A relatively new channel but it already has a decent amount of videos. Jun makes videos about culture and personal vlogs in Mandarin. The channel is aimed at learners from beginner to upper intermediate.

Story Learning Chinese With Annie - A comprehensible input channel almost entirely in Mandarin. The host teaches through stories and also makes videos about useful vocabulary words and cultural topics. It appears to be aimed at beginner to intermediate learners.

LinguaFlow Chinese - Another relatively new channel but they seem to be making new videos regularly. The channel is aimed at beginner to intermediate learners and teaches and provides listening practice with video games. The channel is mostly in Mandarin.

Lala Chinese - A channel with tips on grammar and pronunciation with the occasional vlog for listening practice, aimed at upper beginner to upper intermediate learners. Some videos are all in Mandarin while others use a mix of English and Mandarin. Most videos have dual language subtitles onscreen.

Grace Mandarin Chinese - A channel with general information on the nitty gritty of grammar, pronunciation, common mistakes, slang, and useful phrases for different levels of learners. Most videos are in English but some videos are fully in Mandarin.

READING PRACTICE

HSK Reading - A free website with articles sorted into beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Every article has comprehension questions. You can also mouse over individual characters and see the pinyin and possible translations. The website is in a mix of English and Mandarin.

chinesegradedreader.com - A free website with free short readings up to HSK level 3 or upper intermediate. Each article has an explaination at the beginning of key vocabulary words in English and you can mouse over individual characters to get translations.

Mandarin Companion - This company sells books that are translated and simplified versions of classic novels as well as a few originals for absolute beginners. They are available in both traditional and simplified Chinese. Their levels don't appear to be aligned with any HSK curriculum but even their most advanced books don't have more than 500 individual characters according to them so they're likely mostly for beginners to advanced beginners. New paperbacks seem to usually be $14 but cheaper used copies, digital copies, and audiobooks are also available. The website is in English.

Graded Chinese Readers - Not to be confused with chinese graded reader, this is a website with information on different graded readers by different authors and different companies. The website tells you what the book is about, what level it's for, whether or not it uses traditional or simplified characters, and gives you a link to where you can buy it on amazon. They seem to have links to books all the way from HSK 1 or beginner to HSK 6 or college level. A lot of the books seem to be under $10 but as they're all from different companies your mileage and availability may vary. The website is in English.

Mandarin Bean - A website with free articles about Chinese culture and different short stories. Articles are sorted by HSK level from 1 to 6. The website also lets you switch between traditional or simplified characters and turn the pinyin on or off. It also lets you mouse over characters to get a translation. They have a relatively expensive paid tier that gives you access to video lessons and HSK practice tests and lesson notes but all articles and basic features on the site are available on the free tier without an account. The website is in a mix of Mandarin and English.

Mandarin Daily News - This is a daily newspaper from Taiwan made for children so the articles are simpler, have illustrations and pictures, and use easier characters. As it's for native speaker kids in Taiwan, the site is completely in traditional Chinese.

New Tong Wen Tang for Chrome or Firefox - This is a free browser extension that can convert traditional characters to simplified characters or vice versa without a need to copy and paste things into a separate website.

PODCASTS

Melnyks Chinese - A podcast for more traditional audio Mandarin Chinese lessons for English speakers. The link I gave is to their website but they're also available on most podcatcher apps.

Chinese Track - Another podcast aimed at learning Mandarin but this one goes a bit higher into lower intermediate levels.

Dimsum Mandarin - An older podcast archive of 30 episodes of dialogues aimed at beginner to upper beginner learners.

Dashu Mandarin - A podcast run by three Chinese teachers aimed at intermediate learners that discusses culture topics and gives tips for Mandarin learners. There are also male teachers on the podcast which I'm told is relatively rare for Mandarin material aimed at learners and could help if you're struggling to understand more masculine speaking patterns.

Learning Chinese Through Stories - A storytelling podcast mostly aimed at intermediate learners but they do have some episodes aimed at beginner or advanced learners. They have various paid tiers for extra episodes and learning material on their patreon but there's still a large amount of episodes available for free.

Haike Mandarin - A conversational podcast in Taiwanese Mandarin for intermediate learners. Every episode discusses a different everyday topic. The episode descriptions and titles are entirely in traditional Chinese characters. The hosts provide free transcripts and other materials related to the episodes on their blog.

Learn Chinese With Ju - A vocabulary building podcast aimed at intermediate learners. The podcast episodes are short at around 4-6 minutes and the host speaks about a variety of topics in a mix of English and Mandarin.

xiaoyuzhou fm - An iOS app for native speakers to listen to podcasts. I’m told it has a number of interactive features. If you have an android device you’ll likely have to do some finagling with third party apps to get this one working. As this app is for native speakers, the app is entirely in simplified Chinese.

Apple Podcast directories for Taiwan and China - Podcast pages directed towards users in those countries/regions.

SELF STUDY TEXTBOOKS AND DICTIONARIES

Learning Chinese Characters - This series is sorted by HSK levels and each volume in the series is around $11. Used and digital copies can also be found for cheaper.

HSK Standard Course Textbooks - These are textbooks designed around official Chinese government affiliated HSK tests including all of the simplified characters, grammar, vocab, and cultural knowledge necessary to pass each test. There are six books in total and the books prices range wildly depending on the level and the seller, going for as cheap as $14 to as expensive as $60 though as these are pretty common textbooks, used copies and cheaper online shops can be found with a little digging. The one I have linked to here is the HSK 1 textbook. Some textbook sellers will also bundle them with a workbook, some will not.

Chinese Made Easy for Kids - Although this series is aimed at children, I'm told that it's also very useful for adult beginners. There's a large number of textbooks and workbooks at various levels. The site I linked to is aimed at people placing orders in Hong Kong but the individual pages also have links to various other websites you can buy them from in other countries. The books range from $20-$35 but I include them because some of them are cheaper and they seem really easy to find used copies of.

Reading and Writing Chinese - This book contains guides on all 2300 characters in the HSK texts as of 2013. Although it is slightly outdated, it's still useful for self study and is usually less than $20 new. Used copies are also easy to find.

Basic Chinese by Mcgraw Hill - This book also fuctions as a workbook so good quality used copies can be difficult to find. The book is usually $20 but it also often goes on sale on Amazon and they also sell a cheaper digital copy.

Chinese Grammar: A beginner's guide to basic structures - This book goes over beginner level grammar concepts and can usually be found for less than $20 in print or as low as $2 for a digital copy.

Collins Mandarin Chinese Visual Dictionary - A bilingual English/Mandarin visual dictionary that comes with a link to online audio files. A new copy goes for about $14 but used and digital versions are available.

Merriam-Webster's Chinese to English Dictionary - In general Merriam Websters usually has the cheapest decent quality multilingual dictionaries out there, including for Mandarin Chinese. New editions usually go for around $8 each while older editions are usually even cheaper.

(at the end of the list here I will say I had a difficult time finding tv series specifically made for learners of Mandarin Chinese so if you know of any that are made for teenage or adult learners or are kids shows that would be interesting to adults and are free to watch without a subscription please let me know and I will add them to the list. There's a lot of Mandarin language TV that's easy to find but what I'm specifically interested in for these lists are free to watch series made for learners and/or easy to understand kids shows originally made in the target language that are free and easy to access worldwide)

[scariusaquarius]

rehab. 46.

Avenger! Bucky Barnes x Winter Soldier! Fem! Reader

Summary: While on a mission to find any more possible super soldiers that were a part of the Winter Soldier program, Steve and Bucky make a discovery in an abandoned HYDRA base that was cleared out a few years prior to their mission. They discover the Reader, a long-forgotten soldier that was still asleep within a functioning cryostasis pod; still awaiting orders. While Bucky isn't happy about it, he is put up to the challenge of helping to rehabilitate the soldier in Wakanda where she may be able to become a person again.

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A/n: i got a new job :3 it's remote work, which means I don't have to sacrifice much writing time, but !!! I'm making some pretty big moves and I'm honestly proud of myself for manifesting the life I dreamed of having for so long <3 I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by it, ngl, but big shoutout to my ancestors, spirit guides, and the universe for being kind to me after teaching me so many lessons I needed to learn <3 Also, I had a hilarious thought of 'what if sebastian stan found my fanfiction' and the very next thought was 'block him' L;KSDJ;FLAJSF

Also, if you enjoy my work, please consider buying me a coffee! If you would prefer to read Rehab on Archive, you may do so right HERE!

This is an au where Bucky joined the avengers but still rehabilitated in Wakanda (sometime before Infinity War [canon divergent cause NOPE]). I am NOT fluent in Russian, so I did use google translate cause I couldn't find a good translator that I trusted. If anything is wrong, PLEASE let me know!! Also, I tried to list as many warnings as possible so you know what the story will contain as chapters are posted. Stay safe!

NOTE: I DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION FOR ANY OF MY WORKS TO BE FED INTO AI FOR BOTS, I DO NOT GIVE PERMISSION FOR MY WORKS TO BE TRANSLATED, REPOSTED, REWORKED, ETC, IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM!!!

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Genre: Slowburn, Enemies to Lovers/Friends to Lovers, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Humor, Drama, Dark Content Rated: Explicit Warning: Angst, Dark Content: Graphic Depictions of Sexual Assault, Blood and Gore, Mentions of Manipulation, Kidnapping, Canon-Typical Violence, Body Horror, Nonconsensual Body Modification/Scarring, Emotional and Physical Abuse, Mentions of Murder, Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts/Ideation, Graphic Depictions of Human Remains, Mentions of Sexual Coercion/Manipulation, Death, Misuse of Drugs/Forced Drugging, Self-Harm (Graphic Depictions and Mentions), Nightmares

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Author: ScariusAquarius

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rehab masterlist. / rehab masterlist 2. chapter 42 / chapter 43 / chapter 44 / chapter 45

The night was dragging on, tensions rising as everyone was beginning to prepare for the mission. Kurt's uniform had many little gadgets strapped to his belt, Tony continuing to fine-tune the tech as Kurt asked him questions about everything.

Peter was currently showing Hank his web shooters, the older biologist looking fascinated as Peter went into an in-depth explanation about the web fluid itself. Strange was currently in a conversation with Charles, and Bucky was standing against the wall by himself.

His uniform felt strangely claustrophobic, too tight and constricting, and his nerves were beginning to become shot. Everything was too loud, everything smelled so intense, and Bucky swore that everything was too in-focus; his blue eyes beginning to hurt. His muscles were phantom-spasming; feeling as though they were tensing and tightening despite him not moving a single inch.

Logan was on his own wall, simply smoking his cigar while shoving his Zippo into the pocket of his leather jacket. He was observing the room, keeping a keen eye on everyone, but particularly, Logan was watching Bucky.

The mutant knew exactly what Bucky was going through. The memories of his own trauma still haunted his dreams to this day; the feeling of the adamantium being forcefully implanted onto his skeleton and the feeling of his claws becoming heavy and too sharp still making appearances every now and then.

Logan could remember the fear and confusion that came over him when he became aware of what Stryker had been doing to him, and though Logan hadn't remembered who he was or who Stryker was or where he was and why, Logan had remembered how much he just wanted to run.

Just as Logan exhaled a slow stream of smoke, Charles paused in his conversation with Strange; a faraway look in his eyes. When Strange questioned him, Charles just smiled comfortingly before he sat up a bit more in his seat.

The doors to the armory slid open, and in walked Sam Wilson in just a hoodie and jeans, like he’d just sprinted in off the street. His eyes were looking perturbed, and Logan immediately kicked himself off of the wall with a growl.

"Who the fuck are you?"

Peter exclaimed in surprise as Tony and Strange looked confused by his arrival, and Bucky was taken back by his appearance.

"Sam! What are you doing here?"

Charles glanced at Logan as the man began a very intense stare-down with Sam, stating.

"It's alright, Logan. He's here to bring us news."

Sam tilted his head a bit, pointing at Charles with a raised brow.

"You were the dude in my head? Quick heads-up, but a lot of people don't like it when you just rummage through like that. Shit feels weird."

Charles chuckled, shaking his head as he comforted.

"Do not worry, Mr. Wilson, I assure you that no rummaging was done. Only a glimpse to make sure you are not a threat to the youth here at the Institute. You can never be too sure."

Sam looked perturbed before he glanced around the room before finding Bucky's eyes. Bucky and Sam stared at each other before Sam announced to everyone in the room.

"Listen, I know you guys are going Ghost, and I want to help. I got contacted by the FIS of Switzerland, which is why I came here. You're going to want to hear this."

Everyone immediately gave Sam their undivided attention, and Sam instantly went into work mode, glancing around the room as if he was giving a debriefing.

"Director Natalia Schwarz of Swiss Intelligence believes that Lukas Meier is behind everything and is using (Y/n) as a way to ascend the political ladder." Sam slipped out his tablet and tossed it to Tony, who caught the tablet in mid-air. The image on the screen was bright, and on the screen was the still frame of (Y/n). Tony's expression shifted instantly, his jaw clenching as he stared at (Y/n) standing ominously in the corner behind a man that he didn't recognize. Sam pursed his lips.

"There's more information I need to share. Three heads of state are dead, and Director Schwarz has discovered that Lukas has been in close proximity to every assassination except for the French Prime Minister. Lukas' career is too fast-tracked, too clean, and she thinks that he's part of HYDRA."

Strange scoffed, shaking his head.

"I could have easily told you that."

Sam gave Strange an annoyed glance, and Charles asked with a questionable expression.

"And this woman, Natalia...she trusts you?"

Sam nodded, stating to Charles.

"Natalia stated that she's certain everything has been compromised somehow, and she won't trust Fury. She isn't sure how deep the infiltration goes. She confirmed something else: Baumann's death was staged. At first, the government wasn't going to release security footage of Baumann visiting Meier's residence, but then doctored footage came out, and Natalia recovered that frame of raw footage."

Tony suddenly frowned, glancing down at the tablet.

"For an organization that glorifies working in secret, they sure as hell were sloppy with this footage."

Hank pointed out, looking over Tony's shoulder at the tablet.

"It's...it's almost as if they knew we were going to find this footage. They want us to know what they're doing because HYDRA knows the Avengers can't touch them."

Sam interjected, his expression grave.

"Natalia knows this too, and she's not going to wait on us. She's already starting to move, and if we don't act now, (Y/n) either kills again or gets taken out before we even get a chance to try."

There was a long silence. Then, Charles looked up, his gaze steady as he looked at Sam.

"Then, it is about time that we begin. We have about four hours before the President-Elect is sworn into office, and we are not certain if he will bring (Y/n) along. Kurt, Strange, are you ready to begin?"

Kurt looked conflicted for a moment before he nodded, and he stated softly.

"She is in great pain...this little Sonnenschein. I can feel it deep within my gut...like a heaviness that not even my faith can chase away. We must retrieve her, and therefore, I am ready."

Charles nodded, and Strange stepped forward, rubbing his hands together as he informed Kurt.

"I will create a portal approximately half a mile from the estate's rear security fence. After that, it will be up to you."

Kurt nodded, and Sam asked, raising a hand.

"Wait, wait, give me the rundown here so I can make sure Bicentennial Man here don't do nothing stupid."

Bucky gave Sam an offended look, gesturing slightly with his hands.

"Seriously? This is the first time you acknowledge me and that's what you say?"

Sam just deadpanned at Bucky, and Bucky turned away from him, muttering.

"Unbelievable."

Strange just groaned, letting his head fall back, and Peter glanced around before he began to explain in true Peter fashion.

"So, the bad guys have, like, these security measures in place that make it hard for Strange to get through, and if we try to go through the front door, they're gonna know. So, Kurt, whose Nightcrawler by the way, can teleport so fast that the security wouldn't even notice him. So, Mr. Stark gave him some tech to scramble the security long enough for F.R.I.D.A.Y to take a scan of the inside, find (Y/n), and Kurt can grab her and get out, and then we're gonna throw her into the Danger room so she doesn't try to kill all of us while we try to figure out how to deactivate the failsafe."

After a long pause, Sam just sighed and muttered.

"Right. Danger room, huh? That sounds really welcoming."

Tony then spoke up, pointing a finger in the air.

"Listen, it was either the Danger room or my panic room, and I trust the Professor's holograms more than my titanium steel doors. Especially with knowing that (Y/n) has become much more stronger and, therefore, more dangerous."

Bucky pursed his lips at Tony's wording, but he stayed quiet, and Sam crossed his arms.

"Yeah, tell me about it. I still got a bruise in the shape of her damn boot on my chest. It's a solid plan, but what about Director Schwarz? How do we handle her?"

Charles then hummed, turning to Hank as he asked him.

"I'd like to seek your opinion about this...but...perhaps, we could have Ororo speak to Director Schwarz?"

Hank blinked wildly before whispering to Charles despite everyone in the room being able to hear him.

"Are you sure about that? I mean, Ororo is a great negotiator...but do you think it would be wise?"

Charles nodded before he glanced at Hank with an even smile.

"I trust Ororo's judgement and her ability to see people past their titles. If there is anyone that I believe can get through to Director Schwarz, it is Ororo. And, from what I have already gathered, Natalia is much more complex than her dossier suggests she is."

Strange glanced at Charles, raising his brow skeptically.

"You're betting a lot on a single conversation, Professor."

Charles replied steadily, tilting his head slightly.

"I am betting on empathy. It does not always have to end in a fight."

Bucky muttered with a deep frown, Sam and Logan glancing at him.

"It always ends in a fight. You said it yourself to be prepared for the worst, and I know what the worst is. This is going to end in a fight...maybe not right now, but soon. HYDRA won't like their asset being taken from them again."

Sam raised his hands, gesturing for Bucky to pause as he spoke.

"Wait, man, because if we can get Director Schwarz on our side, she has enough evidence to take Lukas down. Once it's exposed that HYDRA has infiltrated the highest positions possible, it's going to start a political firestorm."

Tony shook his head, humming as he replied.

"Uh, that's not always a great idea. You do remember what happened with SHIELD, right?"

Bucky involuntarily flinched, and Sam turned to Tony with a deep frown.

"That was a good thing. It doesn't matter how much you disguise fear as freedom when it all turns out the same in the end."

Tony's mouth shut and Logan couldn't help but to nod his head.

"That's pretty good."

Suddenly, the room began to get cold, and Bucky immediately froze up. His eyes widened, breathing beginning to quicken, and the feeling of frost began to crawl over him. Tony and Strange looked all around the room as Peter's Spiderman suit instantly heated up, steam rising over his body, and Logan, Hank, Kurt, and Charles looked completely unbothered.

Floating down from an open skylight was Ororo Munroe, her eyes encased in white as she kept her power activated, and when she landed, her hands were on her hips; a subtle distant crackle of thunder sounding as she spoke.

"Do you guys have to argue right now?"

Tony blanked, muttering to himself.

"Thor would be shitting a brick right now if he was here."

Peter's eyes widened with surprise and awe, and Strange was looking at the woman with an interested look upon his face. Bucky, however, was struggling with the climbing panic.

Despite the cold within the room dissipating once Ororo landed, his fingers still felt as though there was frost on them, and Sam was watching as Bucky closed his eyes and began to breathe, holding onto his arms the same way that (Y/n) did when she was trying to come down from a panic attack.

Logan was watching as well, an empathetic frown crossing his face, and his attention was stolen by Ororo crossing her arms and speaking to Charles.

"I understand what you are asking of me, but playing diplomat to a woman on a warpath to kill or apprehend a gifted individual? Are we sure this woman would even listen to me?"

Charles hummed, coming closer to Ororo as he spoke to her softly.

"I know that you are the most capable of us gifted to reach to the hearts of those around you, Ororo, because you see people. You see past their fear, their titles, and the orders they've been given. And that — that is what might save this woman.”

Ororo pursed her lips and she placed her hands on her hips, stating.

"Professor, if I do this, it risks exposing the X-Men — all of us. The Institute. The kids. Mutants are already being shunned, and some are hunted in places. How much more of this are we expected to take?"

Kurt suddenly spoke up, making Ororo glance at him, her eyes softening just the slightest.

"I said this earlier...but I can feel that she is terrified...trapped within a body that is no longer hers. If we do not help...then I fear that the consequences....they will be most undesirable for all. We must at least try."

Ororo was quiet for a moment, and Sam spoke up, crossing his arms.

"I'm with the blue man here. If we don't do something to help (Y/n), we're never going to get her back. And if we don't do that, a lot more people are going to die or (Y/n) is going to over nothing. I don't know about you, but I don't think you want to see Bucky go nuclear. He's got a pretty mean left-hook."

Ororo tilted her head, asking with an incredulous look on her face.

"Wait a minute, are you threatening me?"

"Not entirely, just forewarning you that Bucky's kind of an asshole."

Bucky mumbled, glaring down at the ground as he continued to attempt to steady himself.

"Standing right here, Sam."

Sam said nothing, and Ororo glanced between Bucky, Kurt, and Charles before sighing and letting her hands fall to her sides.

"Alright, I'll talk to Director Natalia. But we better get a move on if we want to do this before the Inauguration. Who is going to be watching the extraction point?"

Tony, Logan, and Bucky all hummed in unison while Hank announced, Peter glancing back at him with surprise.

"Peter, Strange, and I will be hanging back to begin working on a deactivation for the failsafe once we retrieve (Y/n)."

Ororo then nodded, asking.

"And what are we going to do once we get this woman? You're not just gonna let her run loose, are you?"

Logan scoffed, shaking his head.

"That's a rookie mistake. We're putting her into the Danger Room so it can tire her out. Once that damn failsafe activates, she's gonna be all machine, and the Danger Room will be perfect to tire her out enough for us to knock her out and get her put under."

Sam then spoke up, making Ororo frown at him.

"Listen, I think I should come with you. Director Natalia reached out to me personally. She might not take too kindly to someone else showing up. But if I vouch for you, we might have a shot at keeping this peaceful."

Ororo nodded before she turned to Charles, quietly waiting for the go ahead. Charles finally nodded before he stated.

"You may all proceed. I will be watching...just in case."

Everyone nodded, and Strange sighed to himself.

"With how great of a distance this is, there might be some magical turbulence with the portal. Just keep your legs straight."

Ororo, Sam, Kurt, Bucky, Tony, and Logan all stood together in one spot as Strange began to summon the portal. Orange sparks lit up in front of the group, and Hank couldn't help but to exclaim as Kurt's lips curled into a wide and boyish smile.

"Oh, my word!"

Kurt muttered to himself, his voice excited as Strange completed the portal.

"Das wird lustig." (this will be fun)

The next thing the group knew, the portal had opened, and there was a sudden sensation of falling. Then, suddenly, there was a thud, a grunted curse, and the sound of someone rolling onto grass.

"Damn it, Barnes!"

Sam groaned, shoving at the weight pressing against him.

"He told you to keep your legs straight!"

"Oh, I'm sorry I didn't take Portal Landing 101,"

Bucky snapped, untangling himself with a grimace before he added.

"Maybe next time we can hold hands and jump like it's gym class."

Ororo stepped gracefully through the portal behind them, her boots barely making a sound as she landed in a half-crouch. She gave both men a look — equal parts unimpressed and entertained.

"Are you two finished?"

Tony came through next, snorting behind his glasses as he informed Sam and Bucky.

"I want you both to know that I have that all on camera."

Sam and Bucky stood up, and the men glared at Tony as Logan walked through, his nose crinkling in disgust as he sniffed the air around him.

"Ugh, smells like shit."

Kurt arrived last, teleporting at the last second before doing a flip as he landed on his feet perfectly, a wide smile on his face as Bucky muttered beneath his breath and brushed more grass off of his uniform.

"Show-off."

"That was wunderbar! We must do that again sometime." (wonderful)

Tony became distracted as he pulled up a holographic map where a red dot was moving through the streets. He stated, turning to the group.

"Director Schwarz is already on her way here with an envoy. Bird-brain, Thor 2.0, you both go ahead and intercept her so we can get as much time here as possible."

Sam and Ororo nodded before they both flew away as fast as they could to get to Director Schwarz. Tony then turned to Kurt, stating as he gestured.

"Papa Smurf, you go on and get into the building. Like I told you before: the second you get inside, the equipment that I gave you is going to scramble the security system like egg-fried rice long enough for F.R.I.D.A.Y to get a thorough scan and identify (Y/n)'s specific signature so you know where to go. Manchurian Candidate, Mutton Chops, and I are gonna hang back here to keep an eye out for HYDRA or any other possible curveball."

Logan glared at Tony for a moment before snarling and lighting a cigar, and Bucky was glancing at Kurt as the mutant smiled.

"I will be back before you know it!"

Kurt suddenly disappeared into a puff of smoke, and the waiting game was on. Bucky, Tony, and Logan moved to a more inconspicuous spot behind a couple of trees as they gazed at the house.

The sun was just beginning to crest over the rooftops, casting long shadows across the quiet street. Geneva was waking up — birds chirping, lights flickering on in distant windows — and Bucky hated it. He wasn’t worried about the light. He was worried about the world opening its eyes before they were ready. If anyone inside that mansion stirred too early, this would all go sideways fast.

-WILSON-

The world was passing by fast, trees and buildings passing him by almost at NASCAR speed. Ororo was keeping up with him with almost no problem, and to Sam, it was quite impressive. He knew the woman was holding back to allow him to keep up, and he couldn't help but to yell over the wind.

"Man, I don't know whether to feel appreciative or offended that you're holding back on me like that!"

Ororo smirked mid-flight, the wind barely rustling her white hair as she called back effortlessly,

“I’m being considerate. You wouldn’t want me to embarrass you in front of Geneva’s airspace, now would you?”

Sam scoffed, flipping once mid-air just to show off.

“Please. I’d dust you if we weren’t on a clock.”

Ororo just rolled her eyes as she flew a tad faster.

“Uh-huh. Tell yourself that when you’re still catching your breath at the rendezvous. Look, that's Director Schwarz' convoy.”

A few yards away, Director Schwarz was sitting in the front seat of the vehicle, a deep frown on her face. When Ororo and Sam landed on the ground in front of the vehicle, Natalia's eyes widened, and she slammed on the brakes.

The vehicle skidded across the road, tires squealing loudly, and the three black SUV's that had been following behind her immediately gathered to her sides. Agents piled out, guns raised, and Ororo and Sam placed their hands up in surrender.

"We're not here to fight. We just want to talk."

Natalia snapped open the car door, raising her hand as she glanced around at the agents.

"Hold your fire and lower your weapons."

The agents hesitated, giving Natalia cautious looks before they finally lowered their weapons, and Natalia turned back to Sam before glancing at Ororo with a deep frown.

"You better have a damn good reason for dropping out of the sky like that. I'm on a very time-sensitive mission here, Wilson."

Sam raised his hands more as he stepped forward.

"I know. That's why we are here. Director Schwarz, whatever it is that you're about to do, I'm asking to you please leave (Y/n) to the Avengers and X-Men."

Ororo stepped forward then, cutting Sam off as she added.

"She isn't the true enemy, but she is being forced to work under Lukas Meier's control. The X-Men, and Charles Xavier, are asking for you to grant us jurisdiction over (Y/n) (L/n) as we have the means to deprogram her permanently."

Natalia's face became stone at the mention of Lukas, and she asked.

"You have solid evidence that Lukas Meier is with HYDRA?"

Ororo stated firmly, Natalia glancing into the woman's eyes as the mutant spoke.

"We have much more than that. Currently, a team from the Avengers and X-Men are attempting to retrieve (Y/n) at this moment of time. Not only that, but Doctor Stephen Strange has been watching through (Y/n)'s eyes up until the moment a neurobiological failsafe was activated; cutting off contact."

Sam nodded along, glancing at Ororo before looking back at Natalia.

"Director, we both want the same thing, and that's to stop HYDRA. However, we can't do that if we don't work together. Nobody that is innocent needs to die."

Natalia frowned heavily, pointing out.

"She assassinated our president. How exactly is (Y/n) (L/n) innocent in all of this?"

Ororo frowned, holding a hand out slightly as she spoke.

"(Y/n) (L/n) is by no means innocent. However, if you are familiar with James Barnes' case and were watching the United States vs Rollins & Holloway case, you know that (Y/n) (L/n) was, and is, a victim as well. She has no control over her body nor her actions. Do you truly want to punish a victim for something they couldn't control?"

Sam added, a desperation to his voice as Natalia's face softened slightly as she began to think.

"We wouldn't be trying to talk you down if we didn't think (Y/n) could be saved. Lukas Meier's is all yours, and on the behalf of the Avengers, we will help to take him down."

Sam then sighed before revealing, hoping that the information could finally convince the Director.

"Our mission was to get inside HYDRA and destroy them from within, but Lukas was anticipating on (Y/n)'s deprogramming in order for this failsafe to be activated. She is essentially trapped in her own mind, and if we let this go on any longer, there's gonna be nothing left of her but a killing machine."

Natalia was quiet for a moment before she asked with a raised brow.

"If the reports of (Y/n) being rehabilitated were true, then why was she sent to do this mission? You essentially hand-delivered HYDRA's weapon right back to them."

Sam became frustrated, shaking his head.

"Believe me, none of the Avengers wanted to do it. It was Fury's idea. He said that it'd be easier for her to slip in because HYDRA still trusted her and wouldn't have refused her. Bucky wouldn't have been able to because the whole world is aware that the programming is completely gone."

At the mention of Nick Fury, Natalia frowned deeply again, muttering to herself in disdain.

"This is why dead men should stay dead."

"Tell me about it."

Ororo glanced between the two of them before she pleaded softly.

"Please, allow us to take care of (Y/n). We're the only chance that she has. As Sam stated: if we allow this to go on or if (Y/n) is forced to kill anymore, there won't be a (Y/n) anymore...but a HYDRA killing machine."

Natalia frowned, her jaw tightening as she glanced down at the ground as she thought everything through. After a moment, Natalia looked at Ororo.

"Where will she be held once she is in custody? If I am not convinced it will be secure, then I am uncertain if it will be moral of me to allow her to leave."

Ororo explained, her arms crossing.

"She will be kept at Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters. The Institute is equipped with the means to house a dangerous gifted individual. Nevertheless, we have many people who are capable of handling her."

Natalia pursed her lips before she huffed.

"Fine, you have until 8am. After that, if (Y/n) isn’t in containment, or if even one civilian ends up dead, I’m pulling the plug and taking her out myself."

Natalia then turned, her eyes filtering over the agents as she ordered.

"Someone patch me through to the Swiss Council — I need to stall the Inauguration briefing."

Ororo and Sam both breathed sighs of relief before they turned to take off. Sam complimented Ororo with a smirk, Ororo rolling her eyes as they flew off.

"Way to go there, Sky High."

"Trust me, this isn't my first diplomatic rodeo."

Sam laughed before he took off a bit faster, calling out.

"How about a little friendly competition?"

Ororo raised her brow before she shook her head.

"If only to deflate that big ego of yours!"

-KURT-

The second that Kurt had teleported into the mansion lobby, he could feel the dark and weary atmosphere that was within. The decorations inside oozed an essence of wealthy cruelty, and when Kurt's eyes landed on a statue of the Archangel Michael, Kurt pursed his lips from the irony before glancing around for any potential threats.

In order to keep himself from being potentially seen as the mansion slowly began to come to life, Kurt quickly climbed up the walls and hung from the ceiling as the tech that Stark gave him began to work its magic.

One of the small devices on his belt flickered green as the signal completed syncing, and it immediately began to send invisible pulses through the mansion's security grid.

Beneath him, the hallway lights began to flicker, security cameras focusing and unfocusing before twitching, and the hum of hidden electronics grew silent for a brief moment. For a minute, Kurt waited with bated breath before Tony spoke into the earpiece that he had provided him.

"Got it. (Y/n)'s located about three sublevels down on the southern side, closest to you. You got about five minutes until backup protocols start and everyone gets angry. Sending you the map and coordinates to you now."

Kurt whispered his thanks just as the watch on his wrist lit up, and he was given a 3D model of the home; objects and people included. For a moment, Kurt was impressed before the red figure on the lower levels showed up.

(Y/n).

Frowning slightly, Kurt whispered to himself.

"Ah, there is our missing Sonnenschein." (sunshine)

The soft glow from the watch faded as he disabled the display, not wanting to risk giving away his position as Kurt began to move. Without another moment of hesitation, he teleported through the nearest wall, emerging into a dark corridor lined with old paintings and marble busts, each one watching with hollow, judgmental eyes.

Every corner he passed felt colder, as though the air itself recoiled from what was hidden below. At the sound of voices, Kurt teleported beneath the floor and into another open hallway, and he braced himself within a shadow on the wall as two agents passed him by.

"Security's got a sudden issue...everything's down."

"Shit, do you think someone might be trying to get in?"

The one agent scoffed, his voice slowly starting to fade the further the two agents walked.

"Are you serious? The Avengers, and anyone else for that matter, would be idiots to try to infiltrate a place like this. It's probably just some maintenance."

"Yeah, let's hope. It's too early in the morning for this shit...and I still haven't had any breakfast yet."

Their voices disappeared around the corner, and Kurt popped out, glancing up and down the hallway before he teleported one more level. When Kurt arrived to the room, Kurt froze as he looked down the hallway. On either side of him were cells, and as he slowly walked, Kurt peeked into the rooms with concerned curiosity.

Some of the rooms were empty, thankfully, but others...Kurt couldn't bear to look. Instead, Kurt raised each of his wrists to the cells, the watches taking photos of every person that was detected in the rooms for evidence. Then, Kurt made it to (Y/n)'s cell.

Despite knowing that he had no choice to hesitate, the man couldn't help but to do so as he took her appearance in.

(Y/n) was curled on the cot, limbs limp, her eyes unfocused and trained on something that wasn’t there. There were bruises that looked new all over her body, dried blood in others, and there was grease all in her hair from remaining unclean. Moreover, Kurt was shocked at the scars that littered her skin. Kurt pursed his lips, and Tony's voice came through the comm link.

"You've got about two minutes. Tag 'em and bag 'em."

Kurt shook his head before he teleported inside, and at the sound of him bamf'ing into the room, (Y/n)'s head perked up. Immediately, Kurt placed his hand on her arm, an apologetic smile on his face.

"My apologies."

Immediately, they teleported out of the mansion and in front of Tony, Bucky, and Logan, and an orange portal was already open and waiting. Before anybody could say anything, greet Kurt, or take a good look at (Y/n), Kurt teleported through the portal and to the Danger room, dropping her off before teleporting back besides Strange.

He placed his hands on his hips a bit, a bead of sweat dripping down his temple, and Kurt exclaimed.

"She has been reclaimed."

Ororo and Sam flew through the portal, and Bucky wasted no time in running in, passing everyone by as he made his way towards the Danger Room. Logan and Tony stepped through next, and Tony was tapping on a holographic screen before he announced.

"Alright, Operation: Catch That Homicidal Maniac is closed. Great job, everyone."

Charles, Hank, and Peter came into the lobby where everyone was at, and Charles asked Ororo as the woman gave him a nervous glance.

"I take it that it went well?"

"Yes, and it seems that Director Natalia was also already onto Lukas as well."

Charles nodded, and Logan glanced at Charles, stating.

"We should probably get to the Danger Room."

Charles nodded, and Kurt hung back a bit, looking upset. Strange was confused, glancing at him before he asked.

"I'm asking more out of courtesy, but are you alright?"

Kurt pursed his lips before he opened up, clasping his three-fingered hands together as he spoke sadly; Tony hanging back just slightly to listen.

"The second that I touched her, it was as if I was beneath a waterfall of pain and emptiness. It was...heavy. I feel that there is a large part of her that has lost her faith...like she was beginning to accept the erasure, even though she didn't know what was happening."

Strange narrowed his eyes a little, but not out of suspicion, but rather intrigue.

"You talk as if you are an empath, but I don't detect anything like that from you."

Kurt's eyes were sad as he replied quietly.

"You don't have to be an empath to know and share pain. Our scars are more alike than anyone may realize...just for different reasons."

Kurt's words were cryptic, but Strange understood him instantly. Turning away, he began to walk with Kurt to the Danger Room. When the two men arrived, they were surprised to see Bucky gripping the railing just behind the glass, his metal arm bending the metal to the shape of his grip.

His eyes were trained onto (Y/n), his expression dark and jaw clenched, and Tony and Peter was standing close by, both wearing equal expressions of concern. Charles was watching silently with Strange, and Hank, Sam, and Ororo were wearing varying expressions of surprise and awe.

Logan was nonchalant, not allowing his wariness to be noticed, and Kurt looked upset as he wrung his hands together again, his tail twitching anxiously.

The soldier was going insane.

The Danger Room had conjured up a hologram, and at first glance, it was almost normal. The environment had turned into a basic rendering of Lukas' mansion; a complete rendering of the front lobby. However, after a moment, there was movement; curtains from open windows flowing from the wind; sunlight shimmering through; and the front door opening.

Holographic versions of Bucky, Tony, and Logan entered the room with their weapons holstered and expressions neutral. There was no hostility, no anger, nor any indication of frustration upon their holographic faces.

However, for the soldier, it didn't matter. Her body tensed like a spring snapping into place as she shot up from the floor, and her limbs were poised with an alertness that hadn't been there moments ago in her confusion of the change of environment.

The hologram of Tony opened his mouth to say something, but the chance never came. (Y/n) launched.

She moved like a tiger in the wild; her body twisting and moving through the air with calculated efficiency and intent. Despite not having a weapon, (Y/n) was moving with purpose as she threw a right-hook at the hologram of Tony.

Suddenly, a voice came over the intercom as the Danger Room reported to the X-Men watching behind the glass.

"Failsafe activation confirmed. Subject has been engaged. Protocol: Obey. Targeted Outcome: Elimination."

Peter was surprised by the voice, jumping back a bit, and Logan growled slightly in thought as (Y/n) fists collided with the holographic counterpart, sending the projection sputtering into fractured light. The sight caused the soldier to pause for a moment, but in the next moment, she was moving onto her next target. Each attack was controlled, flawless, and brutal.

There was no hesitation to kill.

Bucky grit his teeth slightly, and Ororo muttered.

"My god, it's like she's mindless."

Hank replied grimly.

"That's because she is. (Y/n)'s body is currently on autopilot while her conscious is trapped. Right now, you're looking only at the Winter Soldier."

Charles was quiet as he stared at (Y/n), and for a moment the room was silent until Charles suddenly winced and placed a hand to his head. Ororo asked with concern.

"Professor?"

"The failsafe is preventing me from being able to get through...(Y/n) is there, I can feel it, but the block that has been integrated within the failsafe is unlike anything I've encountered before."

Strange glanced at Charles before Peter glanced back, asking with a slight shrug.

"What if you and Strange and Wanda worked together? I mean, I know Doctor Strange isn't entirely psychic, but if we had three people who can mess with minds trying to get through...maybe we'll be able to do something."

Tony raised a hand, stating with a hint of enthusiasm to his voice.

"Right, three psychic's on one mind: one to open the door, another to hold it open, and one to get through. Almost like a much better, much more ethical Human Centipede."

Strange closed his eyes as Peter paled, and Strange muttered as he exhaled through his nose.

"I regret every single moment that I have known you."

Sam stated, shaking his head.

"Don't encourage the man. Here's the thing: how do we get Wanda here without giving anybody any idea of what's going on? I'm telling y'all, if any of the others get a whiff of what's happening, they're gonna want to come."

Bucky muttered as he watched (Y/n) defeat the holograms that continued to appear without breaking a sweat, tearing a table up off of the floor to launch it at a holographic image of Natasha.

"We'll use a secure line to contact her. Tell her the problem, Strange opens a portal, we get her in, and we start getting (Y/n) back."

Hank couldn't help but to ask, Logan nodding along with curiosity.

"Forgive me if this is a sensitive question, but why do you not want the other Avengers to know about us retrieving (Y/n)?"

Bucky didn’t answer right away. His eyes stayed locked on (Y/n), her body moving like a ghost through the fake battlefield, dispatching enemies without pause, without remorse. There was something mechanical in it.

Something too familiar.

After a long moment, he finally spoke, voice low.

"It's not the others that I'm worried about, it's Fury. He doesn't know her the way that we do...and because of that, he treats her like a threat, not like a person. Why do you think he chose her for the mission? It was a fucking test."

That silenced the room, Peter and Tony looking particularly forlorn as Sam's lips pursed. Bucky clenched his jaw, glancing over his shoulder toward the others.

“I’ve seen that look before...the one people usually wear when there's no other choice. Hell, I’ve been on the receiving end of it. And maybe Steve or...or Shuri wouldn’t say it out loud, but they’d be thinking it...wondering if it would be possible to stop her and if she’s worth saving.”

Peter swallowed hard, visibly uncomfortable, and Strange stayed quiet as he allowed Bucky to voice his thoughts.

“She's worth it."

Bucky said flatly, eyes burning.

“She’s worth saving. Even if she can’t see it right now.”

Strange raised a brow slightly, but he didn’t disagree. Neither did Charles.

Sam let out a breath, slipping his phone out of his pocket.

"Alright. Stark, secure a line. I’ll call Wanda."

Sam stepped out of the room to call Wanda, and Logan glanced at Bucky before looking back at (Y/n) as she continued to fight.

"She's not gonna hold back on ya, bub."

Bucky's jaw clenched tightly, and he muttered.

"I know. I'm hoping on it."

Logan then glanced at him, asking.

"Yeah, but what the hell are you gonna do when you're gonna have to hurt her to stop her?"

Bucky glared at Logan, and the two men shared a deep look before Logan muttered in warning.

"I ain't the enemy here, bub."

"Then fucking act like it."

Bucky stormed off, tearing off the sleeve of his uniform to reveal his metal arm completely before he stepped into the danger room. Logan growled before he muttered to Charles.

"I'm starting to think that boy is more trouble than he's worth."

Charles gave Logan a disapproving look, retorting.

"You were once that boy. Don't be angry with him, Logan. He's hurting very deeply inside...just as you had once."

Logan grumbled to himself before watching as Bucky stepped into the room, and Peter wrung his hands together in anxiety as he mumbled.

"This is gonna go so bad."

Tony took out a box of blueberries, popping one into his mouth as he replied and offered the blueberries to anybody who wanted them.

"Well, I think we'll be able to break them apart if need be. We've got a big group of people who could easily restrain (Y/n) if need be."

Kurt, Hank, and Peter all took some of Tony's blueberries while Logan frowned at the man.

"Where the hell were you hiding those?"

"Magic."

Strange deadpanned, rolling his eyes.

"That's a bold-faced lie. There's literally nothing magical about you."

Tony gasped before he said as confidently as possible.

"Uh, yes there is, it's my d-"

"-Alright, I'm shutting you up right then and there, Stark."

Ororo exclaimed, and Tony just sighed before Sam came back into the room.

"Wanda's all-in and ready whenever you are, Strange."

Strange heaved out a breath through his nose before opening a portal, stating.

"I really am not a magical taxi service."

Kurt snorted, and the two men shared looks of understanding before Wanda stepped through the portal. Her gait was calm but determined, her eyes glancing around the room in silent greeting before she asked.

"Where is she?"

Charles turned to Wanda, nodding his head gently before turning back and gesturing to the Danger Room.

"She is within the Danger Room. It is our training facility here for our X-Men and youth alike. James is already inside."

Wanda pursed her lips as she watched (Y/n) and Bucky fight for a moment, and Wanda turned to Charles.

"Tell me what to do."

-BUCKY-

The second that he had stepped into the Danger Room, the simulation that had been running glitched for a moment to account for the new signature within the program. The room changed into a replica of Shuri's lab, Doris Day playing quietly from the simulated speaker, but it did nothing to curb (Y/n).

The second she had felt his presence, she immediately attacked, launching herself at him from over a table, and Bucky immediately threw his hands up to block the punch. Her fist connected with his vibranium arm, the vibrations making his spine shiver uncomfortably, and Bucky blocked the kick she had attempted to land to his knee.

"(Y/n), I know you're in there."

His words meant nothing to the soldier, her lips curling back into a snarl as Bucky grabbed onto her forearm to stabilize her. However, (Y/n) spun, her elbow landing against his cheek. Bucky let out a yelp, stumbling back a bit, and (Y/n) followed up with a kick to his face. Bucky was thrown back a bit, wincing, and he wiped his lip of blood.

"You don't want to do this. I know you don't."

Her eyes were still dead, her body moving with murderous grace that had him almost hypnotized. The soldier swiped lowly, trying to take him down, and he jumped back; barely missing it. Instead, Bucky grabbed onto her arm, trying to get her into a judo lock, but the woman was quick to headbutt him with an angry yell.

Bucky cursed as his nose cracked, blood gushing down his nostrils again, and Bucky was starting to become agitated. His muscles were tense, that instinct to survive starting to rear its ugly head, and when (Y/n) tried to throw a punch to his ribs, Bucky blocked with his metal arm before shoving her away as hard as he could.

The soldier skidded backwards, crouching low to the ground before running at him again. The soldier was relentless, focused entirely on taking him down, and Bucky knew that he was going to have to stop playing defense at some point.

Just as she met him, Bucky sidestepped and tried to put her into a headlock. She struggled for a moment before biting down on his flesh arm, and Bucky let out a cry of pain before loosening his grip. Instantly, the soldier ripped herself from Bucky with a growl, her body twisting mid-air as she slammed her heel towards Bucky's head.

Bucky blocked just in time, his metal arm absorbing the force of the impact, but his bones still rattled; spine shivering from the pain of the metal tugging on his flesh. Bucky growled slightly, shouting desperately.

"Dammit, (Y/n), stop!"

But the Soldier didn’t stop. She pivoted on the ball of her foot and launched into another attack. The soldier was a dangerous tornado; a blur of fists and knees meant to incapacitate and kill. Bucky was blocking high and low, deflecting the best that he could, and he grunted as her elbow scraped across his ribs.

He was fighting with everything he had, and he was barely holding his ground.

He had to stop holding back if he wanted to survive.

-STRANGE-

In the control room, Wanda stood between Strange and Charles, her fingers lightly resting on each of their temples as they worked. Her eyes glowed red as her power manifested, waves of chaotic energy rippling outward like heat off asphalt.

Every psychic in the room had their eyes closed, straining under the weight of the mental fortress they were trying to breach. Strange was having a difficult time trying to push through the barriers, but when he was able to, he ordered with labored breaths.

"Wanda, I need you to make the bridge for Charles to get through."

She nodded once, and in her mind’s eye, a bridge began to form—red energy twisting into a path across the void and toward (Y/n)’s locked consciousness. The air crackled with tension. Charles slipped through.

Wanda nodded, and in her mind's eye, a bridge began to form. Red energy was twisting into a path across the void and toward (Y/n)'s locked consciousness, and as the air crackled with tension, Charles was able to gain access.

The connection was unsteady; fragile and shifting slightly with every second that passed. There wasn't enough time to have a full conversation, perhaps even to pull (Y/n) out, but when Charles arrived in the cell where (Y/n)'s consciousness was locked away, Charles was stupefied.

The prison cell was coated in ice, snow drifting down from nowhere as frost and ice continued to slowly manifest itself seemingly out of thin air. The walls shimmered with crystalline frost, and jagged mirrors lined the far corners like thorns in flesh.

In the center of the room was a cage, ornate and twisted into the shape of a birdcage. Inside of the cage was (Y/n). She was curled up, arms around her knees. Her hands were blackened to the wrists with frostbite, patches of her skin pale and blistered. One of her shoulders was entirely stiff with ice.

There was a mirror just behind her, and Charles was perturbed to see that there were parts of (Y/n) that were showing up in the mirror. An arm here, a shoulder there, a side of her face. She was slowly being sucked into the metaphysical mirror as the Winter Soldier continued to take over. Charles stepped forward the cage, stating softly.

"(Y/n), can you hear me?"

At first, (Y/n) didn't respond, and Charles urged.

"(Y/n), how can we help you?"

Charles placed his hands onto the bars of the cage, but he recoiled in pain. The bars were so cold that they burned the second he made contact, and he was startled by (Y/n)'s whispering voice; sounding so tired and in pain as she spoke.

"Lavender and Vanilla."

Charles was confused, asking.

"What do you mean?"

(Y/n) looked up, and Charles was disturbed by the sight of her eyes being frozen over, looking akin to rigor mortis as her bottom lip trembled from the tears and the cold.

"Lavender and vanilla."

Charles felt a presence behind him, dark and evil, and he whispered to her before whipping around to see the Winter Soldier standing behind him with a knife raised.

"Remember the sunlight, my dear girl."

Charles was sucked out the second that Strange detected the danger, and Charles sucked in huge breaths of air as she slumped over within his chair slightly. Wanda was disturbed, placing her hands on Charles' back as Charles continued to catch his breath. Strange was concerned as well, stepping forward as he asked.

"What happened, Professor?"

Charles sat back a bit, stating as he glanced at Strange.

"She kept repeating 'lavender and vanilla'."

Wanda looked confused, glancing back at Strange.

"Lavender and Vanilla?"

Strange's expression began to slacked as he remembered.

"The candle. The one from her aunt’s house. It was lavender and vanilla scented. I smelled it in her mindscape once—thought it was disgusting. She said her Aunt Mavis had it burning all the time.”

Wanda looked confused, but Charles understood almost instantly.

"The key for the deactivation...it must be induced by scent. Quickly, if we can program the room to begin emitting the scent, we might be able to deactivate the failsafe."

Wanda asked, stepping towards the console and looking almost flustered.

"What do I do?"

-BUCKY-

Bucky was almost covered in blood, his teeth grinding slightly as he clenched his jaw. (Y/n) was circling him like a panther on prey, her eyes watching him closely. She was reading his movements, calculating and strategizing, and Bucky was breathing hard. He had managed to get a few good hits in, a cut on her chin from where he was able to get a good left-hook in, but nothing was deterring the soldier.

HIs adrenaline was spiked, his heart racing and body trembling, and Bucky was starting to lose his composure. His instincts were kicking in, a long-forgotten haze subtly taking over Bucky, and he swallowed thickly.

If he was going to survive, he had to even the playing field. Bucky just didn't want to. He didn't want to have to rely on that training that was still engraved into him, but Bucky wasn't being given a choice as (Y/n) launched herself at him again. Their fists connected as Bucky grunted, pivoting his body to anchor himself, and her knee came up to land a blow to his diaphragm.

Bucky blocked, however, twisting and dropping low, and he let out a yell as he drove an uppercut into her sternum. The soldier choked on a breath, and Bucky followed up with a sharp hook to her jaw. (y/n) was thrown backwards, and there was a subtle and strange scent beginning to fill the room.

Bucky didn't make the connection, however. Bucky was running completely on survival instinct, and he didn't notice the moment that (Y/n) hesitated for a moment, her feet stumbling. Bucky threw a punch as hard as he could, yelling out, and his fist connected with her temple.

There was a sound of bone cracking, and (Y/n) instantly dropped. Bucky was breathing heavily, and for a moment, he waited for (Y/n) to get back up.

(Y/n), however, was completely still. Dread began to fill him as he waited, but it was almost as if she wasn't even breathing. Panic began to fill him, and Bucky immediately ran over to drop to his knees by her aside as the room became filled with the familiar lavender and vanilla scent.

"(Y/n)?"

-

STORY NTOES: 8.4k words ;-;

TAGGING: @ravenswritingroom @mggslefttit @softpia @thebl00dwyrm @buckvoidsyy @chonkybonky @seemsxsketchy @tilldeathripsusapart @vicmc624 @mgchaser @aash3 @samfunko @seventeen-x @valckenaux @babybeeelle @sc4rrc @cjand10 @bane-y-zane @notsostrangerthing @thenameswinter99 @bumblebeebutter @torntaltos @highhopes1008 @muchwita

[fordiaz]

Tangled Up (Evan Buckley) ִ ࣪✮🕷⋆˙💥

“It’s just—sometimes when I don’t know what to draw, I just sketch people I see often. You’re always walking around in that hoodie, looking like you’ve got some secret life.” 🎸⋆⭒˚｡⋆

Synopsis: Spider-Man!Buck finds peace in the quiet company of his fire escape neighbor—an unbothered artist who couldn’t care less about the city’s chaos. What you don’t know is that he’s the guy swinging over rooftops… until the night he saves you, and you thank him with a kiss that turns his whole world sideways.

Genre: Romance, Fluff

AU: Spiderman!au

Pairing: Spiderman!Buck x Artist!Reader

Warnings: None

Note: Fun fact, the character of the reader is based on me! I graduated just recently as an art student in highschool (It’s kinda complicated but where I’m from we have 2 extra years of highschool and you major in stuff like engineering, business, and in my case, I majored in arts!) so I thought why not put a little bit of myself into this fic to honor my major? Also here’s to a self indulgent little fic of Spiderbuck because it’s been plaguing my mind for weeks. Love you guys and happy reading! Thanks for the support as always, with every like + reblog and comment comes a token of why I continue to do what I love! (

Evan Buckley was the kind of guy who was always a little too curious for his own good.

At twenty-two, he was a college student juggling a full course load in mechanical engineering, part-time shifts at a local auto shop, and an inexplicable tendency to be at the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.

He lived in a cramped but homey Brooklyn apartment with his older sister Maddie, who worked nights as a nurse and had long since accepted her little brother’s chaotic energy as a fact of life—like gravity or taxes.

The day everything changed had started out completely normal.

Buck had cut class to fix the brakes on Maddie’s clunky old Corolla, spilled coffee all over his only clean hoodie (which he’d later keep wearing anyway), and gotten roped into a last-minute errand run that ended with him tagging along to a university-sponsored lab tour.

Science wasn’t really his thing. He liked taking things apart, sure—but the molecular level? That was more Chim’s speed.

Still, there was a certain comfort in watching the glass-encased spiders of the university’s bio-genetics program crawl in their terrariums.

Buck had stared at one particularly twitchy red-and-blue arachnid, laughing to himself about its resemblance to a Fourth of July parade float, before a series of moments blurred together: a distraction, a bump, a crack in the glass no one noticed. And then—

A bite. Sharp. Hot. Quick.

The pain had radiated up his arm and burned like wildfire through his veins. He didn’t remember much else except nearly blacking out on the subway home and waking up sprawled on his bedroom floor, sweating through his sheets with the overwhelming urge to… climb.

And so began the freakishly strange, secretly exhilarating new chapter of Evan Buckley’s life: learning to web-sling through alleyways, punch through steel, and crawl upside down on ceilings—all while still managing to grab groceries for Maddie and pretend he wasn’t literally climbing the walls.

But despite all the chaos—the nighttime patrols, the bruised ribs, the suit he sewed together by hand with shaky fingers and leftover fabric from Maddie’s DIY Halloween bin—there was always one constant in Buck’s world:

You.

His next-door neighbor. The girl on the fire escape.

You didn’t talk much, not to him anyway.

You always had paint on your fingertips and headphones on, lounging on the rusty fire escape outside your window like it was a throne.

Sometimes you sketched in charcoal, sometimes you painted in oils, and sometimes you just laid there with your eyes closed and a cigarette tucked behind your ear, completely unaffected by the world spinning madly around you.

Buck would catch glimpses of you when he came home from patrol, exhausted and aching. The moment he saw you sitting on that fire escape, illuminated by the yellow glow of your window, something in him stilled.

You never looked up—never noticed the way he lingered by his window to watch you—yet somehow, your calm bled into him through the walls.

He liked to imagine what kind of art you made.

Whether you drew the city like it was, gritty and unforgiving, or how you wanted it to be. Maybe you drew the man in the red mask who was starting to appear in headlines and blurry phone videos—the masked vigilante who flung himself between danger and disaster, who arrived just in time and disappeared just as fast. The man the internet had nicknamed Spider-Man.

He wondered what you would say if you knew it was him.

But for now, Buck kept his mask on — both literal and metaphorical.

He swung through alleyways and over rooftops with city wind tearing past his ears, adrenaline roaring in his blood, balancing the impossible weight of his double life:

Evan Buckley, college burnout with a tendency to care too much, and the faceless vigilante the internet had started calling Spider-Man.

And still, no matter how chaotic the night had been — whether he’d stopped a robbery, pulled a kid from a burning building, or barely escaped with a cracked rib — it was always your window that he looked for when he came home.

You, on the fire escape, one leg dangling off the side, sketchpad balanced on your knee, music low in your headphones. You never looked up. Never said anything. But somehow, your stillness reached through the chaos like a tether.

It grounded him more than any rooftop, any anchor line, ever could.

Maybe one day he’d say something. Maybe he’d knock on your window. Maybe he’d show you who he really was — not the mask, not the headlines, just Buck.

But not yet.

For now, he’d just watch from the window, heartbeat finally slowing, the world briefly at peace as you drew under the stars.

And for the first time all night, he’d breathe.

It was raining again.

A soft, cold drizzle that stuck to your jacket and turned the streets of Brooklyn into one giant watercolor palette—muted grays, splotched browns, wet cement smeared with light.

Buck tugged the hood of his sweatshirt tighter over his head as he jogged across the street, nearly slipping on the corner thanks to some particularly slick cobblestone.

“Of course,” he muttered under his breath, water dripping down his neck.

The city always had a way of testing his limits, even when he wasn’t in the suit.

He made it into his building, boots squeaking across the tile as he shook out his jacket and hit the elevator button, tapping his foot impatiently. He was running late — of course — and Professor Harley didn’t give second chances.

Then the elevator dinged, and the doors opened to reveal you.

And everything else just… faded.

You were hunched slightly under the weight of your tote bag, sketchbooks crammed into your arms, a few charcoal pencils sticking out at odd angles from a roll that looked like it was held together by a shoelace.

You didn’t seem to notice him at first — your headphones were still in, your hoodie sleeves slightly stained with paint, your mind probably a thousand miles away in some idea or image you were trying to pin to paper.

Buck stepped in quickly, offering a small nod, but his bag knocked into yours. Your sketchbooks teetered, and before he could say anything—

Everything spilled.

“Oh no—shit, I’m so sorry—” Buck dropped to his knees immediately, hands scrambling to catch one of your sketchbooks before it could land spine-first on the grimy floor.

Pencils clattered, a kneaded eraser bounced once and rolled toward the elevator wall.

You blinked at the mess for half a second before crouching down with him, laughing softly under your breath.

“Guess gravity’s not a fan of me today.”

Buck looked up just for a second before he fully looked up at you.

You were smiling.

The soft kind — not performative or polite, but effortless, like you’d found something quietly funny in all of this.

Your eyes met his, a glint of curiosity in them, and for a moment, Buck forgot where he was. Forgot the elevator. The rain.

The fact that he was, technically, very late.

It was as if the whole city paused.

The hum of fluorescent lights, the distant honk of a car, the muffled conversation from the floor above — all of it blurred behind the simple click of that one moment.

“Seriously,” Buck stammered, clearing his throat and handing you a battered sketchbook with a corner bent. “I’m really sorry. I wasn’t looking.”

You shrugged, brushing your thumb over the bent edge.

“It’s okay. Honestly, I’ve done way worse. Last week I spilled ink all over a professor’s desk.”

You smiled again, a tiny self-deprecating tilt of the lips. “This is nothing.”

“I’m Buck, by the way,” he said, still crouched, handing you the last pencil.

You tucked it into your roll. “Y/N.”

And then, something shifted.

You tilted your head slightly, studying him.

“Wait. You live upstairs, don’t you? I’ve seen you come home late sometimes.”

Buck tried not to panic. “Yeah, uh—night shifts. Campus security.”

Half a lie. It sounded like a job a sleep-deprived student might have. It also covered for the nights he swung home bruised and limping with smoke in his lungs.

The elevator dinged again, and you both stood. Buck didn’t even realize he’d hit the ground floor button.

“What major are you?” he asked as you rebalanced your tote on your shoulder.

“Studio arts,” you replied. “Painting concentration. You?”

He almost said, Spider-Man, full-time disaster, part-time community college bio major, but instead: “Engineering. Sort of. Still figuring that part out.”

The two of you walked out of the building together, the rain now just a whisper on the wind. Buck hesitated a second before glancing over.

“You taking the subway?”

“Nah,” you replied. “It’s only a fifteen-minute walk.”

He nodded. “Cool. I’ll walk with you.”

You didn’t protest. Just slipped your headphones around your neck and fell into step beside him like it was the most natural thing in the world.

For the first five minutes, neither of you spoke much. But it wasn’t awkward — it was easy.

You pointed out a mural someone had defaced and then half-fixed, a new bakery you were meaning to try, and Buck listened, letting your voice settle into the quiet corners of his mind.

It was stupid, maybe, but he felt like he’d stepped into one of your sketches — something warm, a little offbeat, a little messy but real. Brooklyn didn’t seem so gray anymore.

When the two of you turned the corner onto campus, he gestured toward the arts building. “You’re in here, right?”

You nodded. “Yep. First class is figure drawing. Which is basically two hours of wondering if your proportions are garbage.”

Buck laughed. “I think that’s just… college.”

From across the quad, someone whistled. Buck turned to see Chimney and Eddie walking toward them with Ravi trailing behind, coffee in hand. Chim cupped a hand to his mouth.

“Is that a smile, Buckley?”

Eddie raised a brow. “Didn’t know your face could do that this early.”

Buck rolled his eyes. “Ignore them.”

You laughed, already heading toward the doors. “I’ll try. Thanks for walking with me.”

He watched you go, shoulder brushing your sketchbag back into place, headphones back in. Then he turned back to his friends, still grinning.

“Who was that?” Ravi asked, clearly interested.

Buck didn’t answer right away. Just shoved his hands into his pockets, the morning gloom finally giving way to something a little brighter.

���Just my neighbor,” he said simply. “She’s an artist.”

Eddie nudged him. “You like her.”

“I—what? No—shut up.”

They all laughed, but Buck didn’t fight it.

For the first time that day, he really did have something to smile about.

Buck leaned back against the brick wall of the fire station’s rooftop, the city sprawling endlessly beneath him—a chaotic, restless beast that never truly slept.

The orange glow of streetlights mixed with neon signs and the occasional flash of emergency vehicles weaving through traffic.

The hum of Brooklyn at night was relentless, but somehow, it was the only soundtrack that made sense.

His classes were finally done for the day, and for once, he’d thought maybe he could take a breath. Maybe catch up on sleep, or hell, maybe even cook something edible. But the city had other plans.

A fire at a nearby warehouse, a car accident with trapped passengers, a mugging in a dark alley—each call pulled him away from any semblance of rest.

When the last siren finally faded into the distance, Buck swung silently between rooftops, the familiar rhythm of web-slinging a brief balm for his restless mind.

His muscles ached, exhaustion tugging at the edges of his focus, but the city was safe. For now.

He landed softly on the fire escape outside his apartment, the metal cold and slightly slick from the evening’s drizzle.

The window to his room was just above, cracked open to let in the cool night air. He wiped a hand over his sweaty face, peeling off his jacket and tossing it onto the floor inside before unzipping his hoodie.

Finally, some relief.

That’s when he saw you.

You were perched on the fire escape just a few floors down, knees pulled to your chest, sketchbook balanced on your lap.

Your hair was pulled up messily, strands falling around your face, illuminated by the soft glow of the streetlamp below. You looked up just as he shifted to climb inside, and your eyes met his.

You smiled and gave a small wave.

Buck smiled back, the tension in his shoulders loosening just a little. “Hey,” he called softly.

You nodded, your fingers twitching as if you wanted to say more but held back. For a moment, the world felt smaller, quieter, and somehow more manageable.

He climbed into his room and closed the window behind him, the familiar scent of his sister’s incense and textbooks greeting him.

Maddie was in the kitchen, humming softly as she stirred a pot on the stove. The clinking of dishes and the warmth of the overhead light made the apartment feel like a refuge from the city’s chaos.

“You’re home early,” Maddie said without turning, her voice carrying a teasing edge.

Buck shrugged off his shoes and tossed his hoodie over a chair. “Work’s been… lighter, today. Maybe the city finally gave me a break.”

He settled at the small kitchen table, rubbing the back of his neck. “You ever notice the girl on the fire escape downstairs? The one who’s always sketching?”

Maddie glanced over her shoulder, a knowing smile spreading across her face.

“You mean Y/N? Yeah, I know her. She lives alone in that little apartment with the big windows.”

Buck leaned forward, elbows on the table. “You’ve met her?”

“More than a few times,” Maddie said, stirring the pot again. “She’s quiet, but she’s kind. Always polite when I’ve bumped into her in the hall. Seems like she keeps to herself mostly.”

Buck nodded slowly. “She seems… grounded. Like she’s not trying to fight the chaos, just living through it in her own way.”

Maddie smiled softly. “Sounds about right. You think you want to say hi? More than just a wave?”

Buck felt his cheeks heat up and looked down at his hands. “Maybe.”

Dinner was simple—spaghetti and meatballs, just like Maddie’s favorite from their childhood.

They ate quietly at first, the kind of easy silence that only siblings shared. But Buck’s mind kept drifting back to you—your quiet presence on the fire escape, the way your eyes caught his in that fleeting moment.

After the last bite, Maddie pushed her plate aside and looked at him pointedly. “You’re going to talk to her, aren’t you?”

Buck hesitated, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I think I’m ready to try.”

Back on your fire escape the next evening, Buck found you again, sketchbook open and pencils scattered around your lap. He lingered a few feet below, careful not to startle you.

“You’re still drawing?” he called up, voice softer than he expected.

You glanced up, surprise flickering across your face before a small smile curled your lips.

“Yeah. Helps me think.”

Buck shifted on his feet, hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Mind if I join you?”

You didn’t answer right away. Instead, you patted the spot beside you.

He climbed up slowly, settling next to you. For a while, neither of you spoke, the quiet interrupted only by the scratching of your pencil on paper and the distant sounds of the city.

Finally, Buck said, “You ever think about how weird it is? We’re neighbors and never really talked until now.”

You chuckled. “Yeah. Guess we were both busy in our own worlds.”

He nodded. “Yours looks a lot more interesting.”

You glanced at him, eyebrows raised. “Oh really?”

“Yeah,” he said with a grin. “And I’m not just saying that because I want to see what you’re working on next.”

You rolled your eyes but didn’t push him away. Instead, you handed him the sketchbook.

“Here,” you said. “Maybe you can’t swing from rooftops, but you might have an eye for art.”

Buck flipped through the pages, genuinely impressed by the swirls of charcoal and bursts of color.

“This is amazing.”

Your smile grew softer, more real. “Thanks.”

For a moment, you both sat there, the city sprawling below, the night wrapping around you like a secret.

And for the first time in a long time, Buck felt like maybe the city’s noise could wait.

Because here, on this fire escape, everything felt just a little bit clearer.

The morning sun filtered through the early autumn trees on campus, scattering dappled light across the pavement.

The quad buzzed with its usual weekday chaos—students rushing to class with coffee cups in hand, flyers being shoved into backpacks, music playing faintly from someone’s speaker across the lawn.

Buck adjusted the strap of his backpack as he jogged lightly across the courtyard. He was cutting it close—again.

Physics class was on the far end of campus, and his last patrol the night before had stretched far too late into the night. But the city had been oddly quiet that morning, which gave him time for something he hadn’t done in a while: sleep.

He rounded a corner just as you were coming down the path with a friend, laughing at something she had said, your arms swinging a bit more freely than usual.

You had your sketchpad tucked under one arm, hair caught in a messy bun, glasses perched lazily on your nose as the clouds had started to gather.

Buck’s pace slowed almost unconsciously.

“There’s our friendly neighborhood science major,” your friend teased when she noticed him approaching.

You looked up, surprised but not unwelcome. “Hey, Buck.”

He offered a smile, adjusting the hoodie he hadn’t bothered to zip. “Hey yourself. Didn’t think I’d run into you before caffeine.”

“Me? I’ve been up since seven,” you said, lips quirking up. “Studio time.”

“I don’t know how you manage that. I can barely make it to class with both shoes on.”

Your friend snorted and nudged your elbow. “He forgot his coffee and his left brain last week.”

Buck chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. “Harsh, but not inaccurate.”

The conversation lingered for another minute—light and easy, the kind of small talk that made him wish he had nowhere to be. But your friend tugged on your sleeve.

“We’ve got to go if we want a table,” she said. “C’mon, Van Gogh.”

You rolled your eyes and started to walk away, waving to Buck as you did. “See you around?”

“Yeah,” he said, watching you go. “Definitely.”

As you and your friend disappeared down the path, Buck caught her voice floating back: “So, what’s the deal with Hoodie Guy? You two flirting or what?”

Your flustered laugh followed immediately after, and Buck found himself smiling like an idiot all the way to class.

That evening, the city still held its breath.

No sirens, no car crashes, no desperate police radios begging for backup. Just the normal hum of traffic and soft city chatter.

So Buck went to the fire escape early.

He didn’t even change out of his hoodie and jeans—no suit, no mask, just Evan Buckley in socks and sweats, sliding open his bedroom window with the casual ease of someone who’d done it a hundred times.

The cool breeze greeted him as he climbed out and onto the rusted steps. The scent of paint, graphite, and street-level incense drifted upward. You were already there, cross-legged on your usual step, sketchpad open and pencil in hand.

You glanced up, mildly surprised.

“Hey,” you said softly. “Didn’t think I’d get the early shift Buck tonight.”

“City’s calm,” he said, settling down beside you. “Thought I’d come hang out.”

You nodded and returned to your sketching, the moment folding into a peaceful, wordless quiet.

Buck let his gaze drift, watching how your pencil moved across the page—careful, deliberate, intimate. You worked like you breathed, natural and steady.

Then, almost shyly, you tilted the sketchpad toward him.

“I’ve been drawing you,” you admitted.

Buck blinked. “Wait, really?”

“Not like… creepy drawing,” you said quickly.

“It’s just—sometimes when I don’t know what to draw, I just sketch people I see often. You’re always walking around in that hoodie, looking like you’ve got some secret life.”

He laughed—sharp and genuine. “That obvious, huh?”

You shrugged. “It’s not a bad thing. You always look like you’re running toward something. Like you’ve got purpose.”

Buck’s throat tightened a little.

There was something too real about that observation—too close to the truth he constantly had to keep hidden.

He took the sketchpad and flipped through the pages, gaze softening.

There were drawings of him laughing on the fire escape, one of him in profile looking out toward the skyline, and even a half-finished one of him leaning against the brick wall, hoodie bunched up at the sleeves.

“They’re really good,” he said, voice quieter than before. “You’ve got an eye for… I don’t know. Soul.”

You shrugged again, this time a bit more bashful. “I draw what makes the world feel a little less loud.”

A silence settled, heavy but comfortable. Buck leaned back on his palms, letting the quiet wrap around them. Your elbow brushed his, barely, but it was enough to anchor him.

For a moment, he forgot everything else. The pressure. The responsibilities. The secret tug of the red suit folded away under his mattress.

Then—sirens.

Buck’s head snapped up as the whine of fire trucks echoed down the street, distant but growing louder. He turned just in time to see three engines blur past the avenue below, red lights flashing wildly against the apartment windows.

You straightened too, watching them. “Wonder what that’s about.”

Buck stood abruptly, his body already moving toward the window.

“I—uh—I should head in,” he said quickly. “Promised Maddie I’d help with some stuff.”

Your brows drew together slightly at his sudden shift. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Just… gotta go.”

You didn’t push. “See you later?”

Buck gave a tight smile. “Always.”

And then he was gone—slipping back through the window, heart racing, already halfway into the suit before you could even put your pencil down.

There were little things about Buck that didn’t quite make sense.

He always looked tired. Not just college tired, but the kind of tired that made you want to cradle someone’s face and ask, What are you carrying?

His hands were always scraped, his knuckles bruised more often than not. Sometimes you’d catch a fresh cut just beginning to scab over, and when you’d tilt your head questioningly, he’d brush it off with a half-lie about “tripping on a sidewalk” or “burning himself on a hot pan.”

You weren’t oblivious. You noticed things. Like how he always seemed to disappear right before something happened—sirens wailing, smoke curling into the sky, chaos blooming somewhere in the city.

But you didn’t ask.

You really, really liked him. And liking someone for once felt simple. You didn’t want to ruin it with questions.

Until the first time Spider-Man saved you.

It had been late. You were walking back from the print shop off campus, earbuds in, when a guy on a bike zipped past you and grabbed your bag right off your shoulder.

The adrenaline hit like a punch to the chest, but before you could even scream, someone in red and navy streaked across your peripheral vision and had the guy webbed to a telephone pole within seconds.

You remembered blinking, breathless, when Spider-Man dropped from the rooftop and handed you your bag, his mask wrinkled at the nose, his chest rising with heavy breaths.

“You okay?” he’d asked, voice soft but roughened by fatigue.

“Yeah,” you’d whispered. “Thanks.”

You were too shaken to notice then—but later, as you curled up in bed, a creeping familiarity itched at the edge of your thoughts. Something about the shape of his shoulders. The way he stood. The blue of his eyes when the mask caught the streetlight just right.

You didn’t say anything. Just tucked the memory away.

But it happened again.

And again.

Once when your cab skidded on a rain-slicked road. Another when someone tried to break into your studio space on campus. Always, somehow, Spider-Man was there. Steady. Reliable. Familiar.

And every time, afterward, Buck would show up to the fire escape looking tired, moving a little slower, smiling a little more like it hurt.

Today, the sky was clear and too blue—an omen, maybe, because that’s when the worst stuff always happened.

You were walking back from your last class, sketchpad under your arm, when you caught sight of a crowd forming on the pedestrian bridge near the quad. Your heart skipped.

There was shouting. Someone yelling about an unstable piece of scaffolding. You edged closer before anyone could stop you.

And then the world tilted.

You didn’t even register what gave way, only that the rail near where you stood suddenly cracked loose. Your foot slipped. The edge of your boot lost traction and—

Free fall.

For a split second, the only sound you heard was the rush of your own breath before gravity claimed you.

But then—

Thwip.

A web caught you midair. Strong arms followed.

You crashed into something warm, steady, secure.

“You really have a knack for this,” came a familiar voice.

You clung to the suit in stunned silence. He landed you both gently on a rooftop, crouched low to keep you close.

You looked up—his mask covering everything but his eyes, breath huffing out behind the fabric.

“Spider-Man,” you breathed.

“Hey,” he said, casual like it was the hundredth time.

And that’s when it hit you.

The voice. The hands. The way his shoulder curled slightly when he caught his breath—like he was carrying something heavy.

“Buck?” you whispered.

Spider-Man stiffened.

You blinked slowly. “Evan.”

He looked like he stopped breathing entirely. Your hands, still clinging to the suit, slid up toward the base of his mask.

“Can I…?” you asked.

He hesitated. Just for a beat. Then he nodded.

You reached up, fingers grazing the fabric, and tugged the mask halfway up—just enough to reveal his lips and his nose.

Yeah. It was Buck. No doubt about it.

You didn’t ask why. Didn’t press. Instead, you leaned in and pressed a kiss to his mouth—firm, slow, deliberate.

When you pulled back, you were smiling.

“I’ll see you later,” you whispered.

Buck was still frozen, stunned into silence, a dazed smile tugging at the edge of his lips. “Uh-huh,” he said dumbly.

And then you hopped down the fire escape, the echo of your kiss still buzzing against his mouth as you disappeared around the corner, sketchpad bouncing at your hip.

The city buzzed outside the window—horns blaring, chatter echoing up from the street below—but inside your apartment, everything felt warm, slow, still.

Buck sat cross-legged on your floor, a carton of Chinese takeout balanced on his knee. He was in sweatpants and a hoodie that had clearly seen better days, sleeves pushed up, hair still damp from a post-patrol shower. A smear of lo mein sauce sat smugly near the corner of his mouth.

You’d been sitting opposite him on your tiny couch, legs pulled under you, chopsticks dangling lazily from your fingers—but now you were leaning forward, elbow on your knee, fully focused on what he was finally ready to say.

“I didn’t mean for any of it to happen,” he began softly, eyes cast down into his food. “It was supposed to be a normal Tuesday.”

You waited.

“I got roped into running an errand for one of Maddie’s friends. She needed a signature for some campus form, and I was already nearby, so… I figured, why not?”

You smiled gently. That sounded like him.

“One thing led to another, and I somehow ended up tagging along on a university-sponsored lab tour. Just me and a bunch of overachieving STEM kids with clipboards and fancy pens. I didn’t belong there, not really. But I was curious. Always am.”

You nodded, heart open. “And then?”

He looked up, finally meeting your eyes.

“There was this spider. Red and blue. Looked like it had been dipped in fireworks. I remember staring at it, kind of laughing to myself about how ridiculous it looked. Like a walking Fourth of July.”

You stifled a grin. “Sounds cute.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t laughing when it bit me.” His voice turned wry.

“There was a distraction. Some guy dropped a camera, I think. Everyone turned their heads. No one saw the crack in the glass. No one saw the damn spider crawl out. Except me.”

His fingers flexed instinctively at the memory, like he could still feel the sharp pinch. “The bite was quick. Hot. And then everything changed.”

You stayed quiet, but your expression told him to keep going.

“I made it home, barely. Almost blacked out on the subway. And when I woke up, I was on the floor of my bedroom, drenched in sweat, burning from the inside out. I remember trying to grab my phone and instead sticking to the ceiling.”

You let out a surprised laugh, and Buck grinned, cheeks pink.

“Yeah. It was a mess. For weeks, I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Maddie. I tested things. Pushed myself. I got stronger, faster. Could see and hear things I wasn’t supposed to. And when I realized what I could do… I couldn’t not help. You know?”

You nodded slowly, still absorbing everything. “So that’s why you disappear. That’s why your hands are always bruised.”

“And why I’m terrible at texting back,” he added sheepishly.

You reached out, resting your hand on his knee.

“I figured something was going on. I mean, the disappearing, the exhaustion, the fact that Spider-Man always seems to show up five minutes after you vanish…”

Buck gave you a lopsided smile. “I thought I could keep you out of it. Keep you safe. But after the third or fourth time you almost got hurt…” He paused, swallowing thickly.

“I realized it wasn’t if you’d find out. It was when. And I needed you to hear it from me.”

You looked at him for a long moment, letting the weight of the truth settle.

“I love you either way,” you said quietly.

His brows lifted.

“I mean it, Buck. I don’t care if you’re Spider-Man or just the guy next door who eats like a raccoon and forgets laundry in the washer for three days.” He snorted, but you continued, voice soft and sincere. “You save people. You care. That’s what matters to me.”

Buck’s throat worked as he looked at you, expression open and stunned, like the floor had dropped out from under him and he hadn’t expected you to be the net that caught him.

You leaned in, resting your forehead against his. “You’re not alone anymore.”

He closed his eyes, the tension in his shoulders finally easing. “I really, really love you.”

You smiled, letting the moment stretch around you like a cocoon. The city could keep buzzing. Emergencies would come and go. But right now, you had each other, Chinese takeout, and a shared secret that somehow made everything more real.

© fordiaz 25’ -. no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any manner without the permission from the publisher.

[theresattrpgforthat]

Sci-fi games with minimal crunch - ideally that can be played solo, or at least converted into solo play!

THEME: Solo Sci-Fi

Hello there! I definitely have a bunch of solo sci-fi games, so I tried to mix it up a little bit - there's some games with space and aliens, but others that focus on other elements of sci-fi, like androids, the digital world, and time travel! I hope there's something here that works for you.

Tranquility Outpost, by KingDunnad.

Tranquillity Outpost. Humanity’s singular moon colony, located in the Sea of Tranquillity. Last week, you stopped receiving messages from Earth. From what you can tell, it doesn’t look good down there. Help who you can and we’ll all thrive here.

This is a tarot-based solo journaling game where you will take on the role of a moon outpost’s administrator while grappling with emotions of your own. It explores themes of grief, loneliness, hope, altruism, and the ways we can raise each other up.

This game uses the Major Arcana to represent each visitor, representing the kind of archetype they represent.These archetypes might be relational (the Father, the Child, The Leader) or they might be more related to societal roles (The Priest, The Patient, The Addict). The Minor Arcana are separated into four different piles, representing your character's current emotional state.

When you meet a visitor, you draw a card that represents how you're feeling when they visit. The Minor Arcana card that you draw will flesh out the themes of the visitor's request, but much of the suggestions are rather broad, which I think is very fitting for a tarot-based game.

Altogether, Tranquility is a highly interpretive game, so if you want to take the over-arching themes given to you and make a personalized story, you might like this game.

The Vacant Lot, by Invisible Cuts.

In this small solo game, you are a Vacant Lot, an android left to wait out in a tower after the end of the world slowly becoming sentient.

As you define who you are by your acts of violence, in relation to what you've learned of 'people' on 'the net', you will create a unique encounter to be used in your Corp Borg or Cy-borg game.

The Vacant Lot is combat-focused as well as descriptive: your stats are ambition, base programming and self-awareness, which feel very narrative, but you also have Rage and Energy, which can build or be depleted as you strive to avoid failure. The game requires three different-colored d6s; you place these dice on a wheel that represents your personality, and ink it in as you play.

The pattern by which you ink your wheel will connect to various advancements, such as extra damage, control over other machines, or an increase in motivation.

This game can be paired with a multiplayer game by turning the Vacant Lot into an encounter in either a Corp Borg or Cy_Borg game. I really love games like this, that can be paired with a group game down the road, although I don't think that you necessarily have to do that for this game to be fruitful in itself.

Net Divers, by Reyes Makes Games.

The digital landscape runs far and deep, some say there is a piece of all of us hiding somewhere. It is your job to collect those pieces, no matter how deeply buried they are. And this new job has perhaps the most obscure information yet. Its location is fragmented across the Net, and it is up to you to track down these pieces and the final hiding place. Do you work alone? Is this a favour or a task bestowed by something greater than you?

Net Divers is a solo tabletop journaling game about scouring the web for a secret. It can be used solo as is or adjusted for use with other game systems requiring research or Net Running. It is inspired by games like Hypnospace Outlaw and Welcome to the Game.

Net Divers is great for folks who like their polyhedral dice; it uses a good number of different sizes to roll for various stats and tables. You have three tracks: Stress, Peril, & Net Instability, which will all affect how well you're able to navigate the netscape and recover the fragments that you need to find.

When it comes to narrative and randomness, Net Divers has a nice mix. Your mission, the websites you visit, and the number of fragments you need to find are all randomly generated, but your user's personal details, like their name and their wallpaper, are all under your control.

Thematically, I think Net Divers is both an homage and a lament for the early internet, when it was interconnected, free and full of creativity.

Project Benthos, by Meghan Cross.

You are a member of the Biological Team for the Exploration and Examination of the Natural Terraquan Habitats of Obscure Subnautical Species, more colloquially known as Project BENTHOS, an elite research team devoted to uncovering the mysteries held at the bottom of the ocean. You and the other four members of Project: BENTHOS are stationed at The Forge - a first-of-its-kind ocean floor research station, equipped with everything needed to support life on the ocean floor for a four month deployment.

Earlier today, one of your colleagues left The Forge on a routine sea walk. It is now several hours past the time they were supposed to have returned and a tremor of anxiety is beginning to shake the station. There is only enough equipment for one person to go out in search of them, and it has been determined that you will be the one to go. You have four hours of oxygen, a finicky GPS unit, and a vague idea of where they were heading, and that is going to have to be enough. As you step into the airlock, you make a promise to them and to yourself - you will bring them back to The Forge, or die trying.

Project Benthos uses a deck of cards; you toss them around your room to replicate the sea floor, which feels like a very dynamic way of inviting play! It feels like there is the potential for horror, although the game is not categorized as such. I suppose that it might be a horror game if you want it to be. Since this is a journaling game, I suspect that most of game play has to do with drawing prompts from the floor and figuring out what they mean for you.

Stellanati: First Contact, by Drone Garden Studios.

Not much happens in the sleepy town of Annabell, Texas. Which made the bright light and thundering crash on your property in the middle of the night all the more surprising. You discovered a wrecked machine and an injured creature. Being the kind-hearted soul you are, you take in the creature and try to nurse it back to health. It shares with you visions of its home-world, which is desperate to return to.

But how can you get it home if you don't even know how to heal it?

Stellanati: First Contact is a game based on the The Wretched, which has been popularized as the Wretched & Alone game engine. Most of these kinds of games are expected to end in horror or tragedy, so don't expect a happy ending for you or Stellanati.

For this game, you need a deck of cards, a d6, a bunch of tokens, and (optionally) a tumbling block tower. Each house of cards represents a different kind of theme surrounding the care of an alien being. You technically have a chance to succeed, but in order to do so, you need to avoid drawing all 4 kings and having the tumbling block tower fall down on you before you can get Stellanati to full health.

If you want the experience of interacting with something alien from yourself and you like giving your characters a terrible time, perhaps consider Stellanati: First Contact.

Maintenance Log, by Damn Golem.

Maintenance Log is a solo rpg. You are a maintenance engineer on a decrepit colony ship.

This is a game with a lot packed onto two pages, revolving mostly around ticking tracks and trying to manage a number of problems all at once. Fill the wrong track too quickly, and you could alter the ending of the game, which inevitably comes once you've borrowed enough energy from the cold sleep pods.

One thing that gives me Traveller vibes about this game is the fact that your age determines your expertise: the younger you are, the more time you have to do maintenance on the ship, but the less equipped you are to deal with problems. You can only work until you hit your 70's, which limits the time you have to keep the ship running.

Maintenance Log doesn't have to be a journalling game, but it can be if you want it to be. If you want a game about managing resources as best as you can in the loneliness of space, then you might like this game.

Close the Loop On Your Way Out, by the_spongmonkey

Use a mysterious time device to travel in time and grab random items in your vicinity. Uh oh, now strange and dangerous things are trying to kill you as a result of your temporal meddling! Use those items in inventive ways to prevent your untimely demise. If you make it out alive, just make sure to return those to when/where you found them. That's right, CLOSE THE LOOP ON YOUR WAY OUT!

Close the Loop On Your Way Out feels like a lighthearted game, even though you're racing against the consequences of your actions. There are three stages to this game: the initial romp of finding random items, the consequences of meddling with time, and then your mad dash to try and put everything to rights.

The bulk of the game is focused on dice-rolling, but I think that if you want to add to it, you can journal all of your attempts to put things back together before the timeline falls apart.

Some More Thoughts..

If you want some more solo sci-fi offerings, here are some runners-up I was considering!

UFOs over Varginha, by Nekyia TTRPG.

Escape Velocity, by Euan.

Countdown, by buttersmooth.

Redshift Blueshift Generations, by Dallas J. Haugh

Digital Nightmares, by Uncharted.

If you like what I do, you can always leave a token of appreciation at my Ko-Fi!

[queen-simia]

now that ep 4 is live to the public, I can finally post what I've been sitting (and spinning) on for like a week, wheeee!

Major Monkey Wrench spoilers abound, so putting below a cut if you haven't yet seen the latest episode. And if you haven't seen it (or the rest of the series), you can do so here:

now ON TO THE INFODUMP

Shrike's status

so, since the beginning, I've been putting all my money on Shrike being an artificial being. Not in the sense of robotics/cyborgs and the like, but in the sense of a one-of-a-kind bioengineered creature. Since he was confirmed as an endling (as opposed to just hinted at in past episodes), I'm choosing to take that as a bit of reinforcement; his species is still marked as "unknown" by LAW, and if no one knows what you are and you're the only one they've ever seen, it's safe to assume they assume you're the last of whatever you are.

now, in a leap on my part, I'm further going to postulate that Shrike is actually an engineered squid. As in an honest-to-god Earth cephalopod, albeit in the same sense you can call a human a monkey. I think that maybe our boy Shrike is the end result of years-long genetic modification and breeding programs to create something closer to human shape and intelligence, but with whatever attributes his human creators wanted from squid...

...maybe attributes like producing ink.

"that's stupid, what makes you think that?" Glad you asked, Strawman! Here's what I'm drawing from:

Scratch's nicknames for Shrike

As much as these can be considered throwaways, Zeurel and Ash have been very good about sneaking in foreshadowing in dialogue. I don't fully think Scratch is calling Shrike "squidhead" just to be antagonistic (though in-universe, he certainly is; I doubt the character himself in canon has that kind of insight); I'm choosing to believe it may be a bit of a Chekhov's gun.

Shrike's design inspiration

In Tumblr ask replies, Zeurel's confirmed Shrike's design is based heavily on Humboldt squid, and he finds cephalopods and deep-sea life in general interesting. It's going into meta rather than narrative precedent, but I think for these reasons, having Shrike actually be an ascended squid wouldn't be that far out of the blue.

Shrike's terran connections

It's been established that Earth no longer exists, and what humans remain are persona non grata in LAW space. They're the reason behind the Cataclysm/the creation of Secondary Green, and what artifacts remain are traded on the black market (as implied by Scratch and Jaw Bone dealing in them, neither of whom are exactly upstanding citizens).

Yet somehow, Shrike speaks primarily in a canonically dead Earth language—Latin Spanish—and thinks highly of terrans/terran culture. He apparently is the only being in LAW space who does both. One could argue he picked up Spanish through exposure to contraband as a LAW officer, but even his translated speech is Spanish-accented. That to me is a clue it's his native language, as opposed to one picked up later in life. Maybe he doesn't speak it all that well, but it's what he learned as he grew up.

I believe that Shrike's interest in terran artifacts isn't so much fannish as it is nostalgic, though he doesn't realize it (yet). Remember, we don't know his true age—he's only estimated to be in his mid- to late 20s. He could very well be several decades or even 800+ years old, and for reasons yet unknown he isn't aware of it. Hell, he knows what VHS tapes are and how to watch them, something present-day kids are unfamiliar with right now. Even if he was treated as only a scientific specimen in his youth, something about Earth/its people may have been warm and familiar enough to endear terran mementos to him. But it's now too far gone in the past for him to remember why exactly he loves them so much.

Shrike got no dick

(originally posted to Twitter before the Shittening)

Canonically, the boy is Ken-doll smooth both front and back. Even though he has a gender (Questionably Masc™), he has no sex. Maybe his species could reproduce asexually, but it's pretty unusual for complex bipedal critters to do that. Plus, there's the fact that no peehole and no butthole also mean no bodily waste excretion, which is pretty much a death sentence for most life forms that run on metabolic processes. Therefore, I'm taking all these as artifacts of Shrike's artificial creation (and not just so it's more difficult to make show-accurate porn of him).

The Primaries, LAW, and Secondary Green

So there are three godlike beings that ostensibly also serve as the basis for government, referred to as the Primaries. Only one has been directly referenced as active in LAW government—Primary Red—but given the colors of the three LAW divisions, one can safely assume there must be a Primary Yellow and Primary Blue (whether they also govern, are off doing something else, or are AWOL is a mystery for now). It also just so happens that interstellar travel takes place in subspace pathways in the same colors as the Primaries (with varying speed depending on color), and spacecraft is fueled by "ink" in those corresponding primary colors.

It's also revealed in a news chyron in ep 4 that an intergalactic-capable drive had been in development (and had been stalled by bureaucracy) for at least 20 years, and is now ready to deploy. It's referred to as a Trinity drive, and required Primary Red's approval before it could officially launch. I think it's pretty safe to assume it's a form of propulsion that combines all 3 colors, however the in-universe physics work in that case. At the moment, it's been shown that using the wrong type of ink in a color drive will cause an explosion and a tear in space at best (at worst, we don't know yet), so whatever science went into developing a drive that combines colors must have been fairly dangerous (or potentially threatens to weaken whatever power the Primaries hold over LAW citizens).

Secondary Green

Background details are vital lore sources in Monkey Wrench. If you paid close attention near the beginning of ep 1 (and can easily read backwards text), you already know what's in the box the boys pick up in ep 2: something called "Secondary Green." It was evidently once in Chester's possession, but by the time Kara caught up to him, he'd already sent it on its way to LAW.

The second and third episodes refer to the Cataclysm being caused by terrans. The third episode explains the green corruption's effect on life forms, and LAW subsequently quarantining it to prevent its spread. It also shows Secondary Green corrupting the bit of Them that gets too close into the horrific black-green monster that overtakes the Bucket. The fourth ep has Jaw Bone directly refer to the terrans' "false idol" in reference to the Cataclysm.

While I was typing later paragraphs, I hit upon a possibility I hadn't even considered for what Secondary Green could be. So now, I've got 2 potential reads:

1. Secondary Green was the humans' attempt at recreating the Primaries' power for themselves. Whether this was to undermine LAW or to try to join the galactic stage at the Primaries' level has yet to be seen, but either way, it ended up biting humanity in the ass. Secondary Green and/or a byproduct of it/its creation ended up destroying Earth and a good chunk of its neighboring Milky Way space, and landed whatever humans remain squarely on LAW's shit list.

Now, those of you who remember me from pre-2018 Tumblr also know I'm pretty heavily into Mass Effect. That universe's version of the Milky Way also was governed by an alien-run coalition: the Citadel, which tightly controlled the means to interstellar travel (although the Citadel species did not create these means, they just found and activated them first). Thus, the similarities to the idea of a three-pronged alien government holding the keys to interstellar travel and commerce and forcing you to play nice if you want in have been resonating in the back of my mind whenever I watch Monkey Wrench.

The similarities end in that MW's answer to the Protheans are still very much alive and active, and are directly overseeing galactic travel, commerce, and government. There aren't established mass relays, but every ship contains its own "relay" in the form of ink drives. These can open portals into respective colors of subspace to get from one side of the galaxy to another faster than conventional propulsion (so far, red is the fastest, and blue seems to be the median speed everyday schmoes like our boys can access). And, most importantly, the means of this travel are less an external technological development and more appear to be tied to the nature of the Primaries themselves; these beings are not just obeyed, but worshiped (see Scratch's oaths in ep 3 and the red officer greeting Shrike and Armstrong exchange in ep 4).

However, there are still two very important similarities between these two settings that I think should be kept in mind:

i. Trouble started when humans started sticking their fingers into the galactic government's pie. In Mass Effect, it was shoehorning Shepard into the Spectre program and wriggling humanity's way into the Citadel Council. In Monkey Wrench, it was messing with fundamental forces it didn't yet understand and (maybe) creating human-made Great Value primaries, which resulted in at least one: Secondary Green.

ii. Control over interstellar travel—specifically, access to subspace—is a cornerstone of power. In Mass Effect, you need a specific form of reactor in order to engage the mass relays and "cheat" your way to FTL travel. These relays are heavily guarded and regulated by the Citadel; humanity famously learned this when it activated Relay 314 near Pluto and got a knock-knock from the police in the form of a turian armada. In Monkey Wrench, you need to equip specific color drives and fuel up at ink stations, which presumably are subject to LAW regulation and pricing.

In both settings, Earth appears to have taken a look at the galaxy already being run by someone else and immediately thought, "but how do I get around this?"

Engineering Secondary Green was MW Earth's answer to this question. Unfortunately, it backfired and drove humanity to (functional) extinction and criminal status.

2. Secondary Green is an unintended fusion of Primaries Yellow and Blue. This would explain their current-day absence (provided they don't directly appear in later episodes), and the subsequent fall of LAW enforcement into disorder that Armstrong alludes to in ep 4. Humanity was up to something that attracted the Primaries' attention—perhaps tapping into pocket dimensions, like the one embedded in Shrike's head?—and maybe things went awry. One way or another, Primaries Yellow and Blue's intervention ended in them fusing into a new anti-entity, Secondary Green. Instead of fostering life, their combined and imbalanced power corrupted it.

Left to their own devices (and likely hawkish methods, given Red oversees enforcement), Primary Red sealed off Earth's part of the galaxy and declared humanity LAW's enemy. The quarantine for justifiable safety/life preservation reasons, the outlawing likely to create the narrative that humanity was entirely to blame and not at all any fault of Primary interference (and maybe some vengeance for losing their comrades).

Or maybe, Red is covering their tracks.

LAW and Order

So the League of Aligned Worlds (LAW—yes, it's an acronym) is the current empire ruling civilized space in the Milky Way galaxy, under direct command of the Primaries (or at least Primary Red). There are three established branches: enforcement/military (red, which Shrike was once and has since defected from), science (yellow, which Dr. Agness impersonated), and commerce (blue, as represented by Killix and Sixty-Two, who appear to be led by an as-yet unseen Commander Tezzoree).

Being a centralized civilization, LAW has certain cultural and legal standards it expects its citizens to observe. Commerce and community are enabled by way of implanted universal translators á là Star Trek, but with one specific caveat: swearing is not allowed. It's so not allowed that it's physically punishable through painful translator auditory feedback—interestingly, people in earshot get punished this way as well just for hearing it.

Maybe it's a form of socialization, in that LAW hopes you're nice enough not to want to hurt your fellow citizens by swearing? Or that your fellow citizens, having had pain inflicted on them, will browbeat you into compliance? Either way, it's a window into current LAW space being severely authoritarian in both the moral and legal senses.

This extreme authoritarian approach doesn't prevent corruption, however. Corporate lobbyists exist, as demonstrated by Chester in ep 1, and LAW officials patronizing vice industries like sex work (see the end of ep 3) is not unusual. And current LAW is disorganized to the point of each division being largely ignorant of what's going on in the others: Neither Killix nor Sixty-Two were aware Shrike is a defector, nor do they bat an eye at him admitting as such. Armstrong is able to impersonate a red officer with either stolen or purchased equipment, and even he's astonished that LAW keeps such loose tabs on itself that they still have Shrike registered as an active officer. Dr. Agness is able to get away with impersonating a LAW scientist, and the LAW representatives who collect her don't appear especially ruffled by it.

It's possible that this rigid adherence to authority and subsequent breakdown in the ability to enforce it is due to Primary Red being the only Primary left. The harder you clench your fist, the more sand slips through your fingers, and all that. However it happened, Red is at the moment the only one at the wheel, and they don't seem to be able to keep it together on their own.

aight, so where's this leave us

so for now, I think these are where we may be headed:

a: Shrike was genetically engineered to be in the running as a peer to/defense against the Primaries, but aligned with Earth. He has a means to access a pocket dimension/subspace, could possibly be a source of ink (either as secretion or in the form of his blood), is an exceptional marksman, and possesses anthropomorphic form and (allegedly) intellect. The problem is, he turned out anti-authoritarian, impulsive, and kinda stupid. He was disposed of at some point and now wanders space as the only one of his kind.

b: The same program that produced Shrike also created Secondary Green. Unfortunately, something happened—whether through accident or external manipulation—that turned it into a rampaging force of destruction. We have yet to see whether humans really did just monumentally fuck up, or if LAW is rewriting history.

c: LAW is on its way to collapse through Primary Red's mismanagement. Whether said mismanagement is through the other Primaries going missing on their own, or through a power grab on Red's part is the main mystery.

hooray done for now oh god

[posttexasstressdisorder]

CNN 5/19/2025

‘Sesame Street’ taking up residence on Netflix

By Lisa Respers France and Liam Reilly, CNN

Updated: 12:32 PM EDT, Mon May 19, 2025

Source: CNN

We can definitely tell you how to get to “Sesame Street.”

It was announced Monday that the popular longstanding children’s program has found a new home at Netflix.

“For more than a half a century, ‘Sesame Street’ has been a beloved cornerstone of children’s media, enchanting young minds and nurturing a love of learning,” a press release states. “Now Elmo, Cookie Monster, Abby Cadabby, and all their friends are coming to Netflix later this year, with Sesame Street’s all-new, reimagined 56th season — plus 90 hours of previous episodes — available to audiences worldwide.”

The news comes after Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company, opted not to renew its contract to stream the series on Max (returning to the name HBO Max.)

“The new season will feature fresh format changes and the return of fan-favorite segments like Elmo’s World and Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck,” the streamer announced. “Additionally, episodes will now center on one 11-minute story, allowing for even more character-driven humor and heart.”

The series will still be available on PBS. President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order to end federal funding for PBS and NPR.

“I strongly believe that our educational programming for children is one of the most important aspects of our service to the American people, and ‘Sesame Street’ has been an integral part of that critical work for more than half a century,” Paula Kerger, the PBS president and chief executive, said in a statement.

Sherrie Rollins Westin, the president and chief executive of Sesame Workshop — the organization behind the show — emphasized that the deal combines Sesame’s research-based curriculum and Netflix’s global reach, “ensuring children in communities across the US continue to have free access on public television to the Sesame Street they love.”

Netflix, meanwhile, touted the acquisition as a major win. The company announced the deal on X with a video of Cookie Monster devouring the Netflix logo, accompanied by “N IS FOR NETFLIX!”

The new deal provides the beloved children’s TV show with a much-needed lifeline after months of turmoil following HBO’s and Max’s decision to opt out of renewing a contract with “Sesame Street.” Since the December announcement, Sesame Workshop’s coffers have been stretched thin, leading it to lay off staffers in March as it approached production of Season 56.

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[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

By David Brooks

Opinion Columnist

You might have seen the various data points suggesting that Americans are losing their ability to reason.

The trend starts with the young. The percentage of fourth graders who score below basic in reading skills on the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests is the highest it has been in 20 years. The percentage of eighth graders below basic was the highest in the exam’s three-decade history. A fourth grader who is below basic cannot grasp the sequence of events in a story. An eighth grader can’t grasp the main idea of an essay or identify the different sides of a debate.

Tests by the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies tell a similar story, only for older folks. Adult numeracy and literacy skills across the globe have been declining since 2017. Tests from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that test scores in adult literacy have been declining over the past decade.

Andreas Schleicher, the head of education and skills at the O.E.C.D., told The Financial Times, “Thirty percent of Americans read at a level that you would expect from a 10-year-old child.” He continued, “It is actually hard to imagine — that every third person you meet on the street has difficulties reading even simple things.”

This kind of literacy is the backbone of reasoning ability, the source of the background knowledge you need to make good decisions in a complicated world. As the retired general Jim Mattis and Bing West once wrote, “If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.”

Nat Malkus of the American Enterprise Institute emphasizes that among children in the fourth and eighth grades, the declines are not the same across the board. Scores for children at the top of the distribution are not falling. It’s the scores of children toward the bottom that are collapsing. The achievement gap between the top and bottom scorers is bigger in America than in any other nation with similar data.

There are some obvious contributing factors for this general decline. Covid hurt test scores. America abandoned No Child Left Behind, which put a lot of emphasis on testing and reducing the achievement gap. But these declines started earlier, around 2012, so the main cause is probably screen time. And not just any screen time. Actively initiating a search for information on the web may not weaken your reasoning skills. But passively scrolling TikTok or X weakens everything from your ability to process verbal information to your working memory to your ability to focus. You might as well take a sledgehammer to your skull.

My biggest worry is that behavioral change is leading to cultural change. As we spend time on our screens, we’re abandoning a value that used to be pretty central to our culture — the idea that you should work hard to improve your capacity for wisdom and judgment all the days of your life. That education, including lifelong out-of-school learning, is really valuable.

This value is based on the idea that life is filled with hard choices: whom to marry, whom to vote for, whether to borrow money. Your best friend comes up to you and says, “My husband has been cheating on me. Should I divorce him?” To make these calls, you have to be able to discern what is central to the situation, envision possible outcomes, understand other minds, calculate probabilities.

To do this, you have to train your own mind, especially by reading and writing. As Johann Hari wrote in his book “Stolen Focus,” “The world is complex and requires steady focus to be understood; it needs to be thought about and comprehended slowly.” Reading a book puts you inside another person’s mind in a way that a Facebook post just doesn’t. Writing is the discipline that teaches you to take a jumble of thoughts and cohere them into a compelling point of view.

Know someone who would want to read this? Share the column.

Americans had less schooling in decades past, but out of this urge for intellectual self-improvement, they bought encyclopedias for their homes, subscribed to the Book of the Month Club and sat, with much longer attention spans, through long lectures or three-hour Lincoln-Douglas debates. Once you start using your mind, you find that learning isn’t merely calisthenics for your ability to render judgment; it’s intrinsically fun.

But today one gets the sense that a lot of people are disengaging from the whole idea of mental effort and mental training. Absenteeism rates soared during the pandemic and have remained high since. If American parents truly valued education would 26 percent of students have been chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year?

In 1984, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, 35 percent of 13-year-olds read for fun almost every day. By 2023, that number was down to 14 percent. The media is now rife with essays by college professors lamenting the decline in their students’ abilities. The Chronicle of Higher Education told the story of Anya Galli Robertson, who teaches sociology at the University of Dayton. She gives similar lectures, assigns the same books and gives the same tests that she always has. Years ago, students could handle it; now they are floundering.

Last year The Atlantic published an essay by Rose Horowitch titled “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.” One professor recalled the lively classroom discussions of books like “Crime and Punishment.” Now the students say they can’t handle that kind of reading load.

The philosophy professor Troy Jollimore wrote in The Walrus: “I once believed my students and I were in this together, engaged in a shared intellectual pursuit. That faith has been obliterated over the past few semesters. It’s not just the sheer volume of assignments that appear to be entirely generated by A.I. — papers that show no sign the student has listened to a lecture, done any of the assigned reading or even briefly entertained a single concept from the course.”

Older people have always complained about “kids these days,” but this time we have empirical data to show that the observations are true.

What happens when people lose the ability to reason or render good judgments? Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Donald Trump’s tariff policy. I’ve covered a lot of policies over the decades, some of which I supported and some of which I opposed. But I have never seen a policy as stupid as this one. It is based on false assumptions. It rests on no coherent argument in its favor. It relies on no empirical evidence. It has almost no experts on its side — from left, right or center. It is jumble-headedness exemplified. Trump himself personifies stupidity’s essential feature — self-satisfaction, an inability to recognize the flaws in your thinking. And of course when the approach led to absolutely predictable mayhem, Trump, lacking any coherent plan, backtracked, flip-flopped, responding impulsively to the pressures of the moment as his team struggled to keep up.

Producing something this stupid is not the work of a day; it is the achievement of a lifetime — relying on decades of incuriosity, decades of not cracking a book, decades of being impervious to evidence.

Back in Homer’s day, people lived within an oral culture, then humans slowly developed a literate culture. Now we seem to be moving to a screen culture. Civilization was fun while it lasted.

[talonabraxas]

Archangel Khamael Talon Abraxas

Geburah (Tree of Life / Sephira)

SEPHIRA - GEBURAH (Strength) GOD FORCE - ElLOHEEM-GIBOR (God of battles, judging and evening evil, and at whose steps are lightening and flame) ANGELIC ORDER SERAPHEEM (Fiery Serpents) ARCHANGEL KHAMAEL (Severity of God)

SOUL

Geburah is the sphere of might and strength. The energy here transmits courage and the ability to tear down old and outworn patterns to make room for new ones. It is the sphere where you learn to fight for what you want when there is opposition in your path.

Geburah is also the place to go to tap into the natural powers of the universe and to learn how they work and interact. It also teaches you responsibility and respect for the use of these great energies and powers. A magician or a wiccan often tap into the power of Geburah before they cast a spell or do magic.

It is important to develop a sense of high order or authority when dealing with the power of Geburah. This energy can easily be misused for destruction and cruelty and of course karmic repercussions would follow. Towards this end the beings and archangels here will help you to develop these higher qualities so that you can use the power of Geburah wisely and safely.

Kamael is the archangel here and he is a good being to seek out if you are in need of someone to protect you because you do not have the strength to protect yourself. He can also help you to remove those that block your path or your efforts to evolve and grow. The rule of thumb here is that Kamael will help you if your cause is just and in harmony, but don't ask him for assistance if your intentions are selfish or short sighted.

Because the energy in Geburah is so physical like it is also a good place to go for athletes or for competition. The energy here can help you greatly in the sculpting of your physical body and perfecting of physical skills requiring muscle, strength, focus, and agility.

[foone]

What is the best programming language to learn

I’m thinking of trying to learn to code cuz why not

It really depends on what you want to do with it. C# is heavily used for games. Python is great for scripting. Javascript is still pretty much your only option for web-based stuff, outside of some tricky and heavy cross-compiling nonsense. 

Python’s pretty simple so I’d recommend it for starters. You can always switch to something else if it doesn’t jive with you 

[buf309]

Pose Reference Resources

I promised Dia (aka aerequets) that I will make a collection of pose references in the reply of one of her art posts, and then I completely forgot about it. Until now. I'm sorry for my bad memory.

So, yeah, better late than never I guess?

The pose collection I use the most is no longer free. They used to let you download a whole album (more than 8GB worth of data) to use offline, but now you have to pay $40/package or $200 for full sets. I still have the zip file for a very old version of theirs, but I can't legally share it. So, let's skip to the other options.

1/ First, you heard of those 3D dolls program that let you model your own reference pose? This one is an online one and for free, the whole ordeal. Of course since it's online and free, you can't save your model for next time, and it costs quite a lot of time to set the model up. So, you should take as much screenshots in as many tricky angles as you need once you done with the setting. Best using for complicated scenes where those below don't have what you need already available.

2/ This one is free and in 3D, you can rotate the model to any angle that you need. The only set back is the numbers of poses are quite limited. This one is best for using as a basic blocks then build up what you want to draw, or just as a practice to improve your understanding of human anatomy.

3/ This one is free for personal uses and the pose collection is massive. The setbacks are the language barrier (it's in Japanese, English is sometimes tag-a-long) and you have to search through their pages for what you need. The pics for each pose is static but they are in different angle in almost 360 degrees. There are many 2-person and 3-person poses too. Great for illustration inspiration.

4/ This one will only show reference photos of human head, at whatever angle you rotate the model. The web interface is easy to use. There are options like searching based on gender, ages, emotions, glasses, facial hair or not, etc. Good for practicing face drawing.

5/ This one will show reference photos for human body parts, at whatever angle you rotate the model, read the instructions for how to do it. The web interface is quite hard to use at first, just tinkering around for a bit, and you will be fine. There are options like searching based on gender and which particular parts that you need refs for. Good for that moment when you go "huh? how is this <body part> will look in this <situation>????"

6/ This one will only show reference photos of animal heads, and only the head, at whatever angle you rotate the model. The accurate skull refencence list is their best point. There are enough common species in the drop down list. Tbh, I don't use this much because I often need refs for the whole animal most of the time. But it's best for furry artists, I guess?

7/ Real model photos. They sell pose reference in themed packs, but there are enough free packs to use as drawing practice too.

8/ This is the best for general background reference. Lots of options. Not really good for very specific location results, but good for random background in drawings.

9/ Lastly, for specific objects or background references at strange angles, I often search for 3D models on this site then take screenshots of whatever I need.

That's all, folks. Hope this list can help ease some of the struggles that we will encounter on our quest of learning the art of drawing things 😂

[arminaa8]

Saving Fic Epubs and Metadata Using Calibre

I FINALLY spent time learning how to set up Calibre with the FanFicFare plugin in order to easily keep track of fics that I've read. What's really awesome about it, though, is it does way more than just "keep track":

It saves epubs for future downloading (in case the fic is pulled from AO3)

It automatically "scrapes" metadata (title, tags, warnings, etc.) from the fic and includes it in Calibre's built-in spreadsheet

Allows you to create custom categories for things like notes and personal ratings, as well as categories for metadata not scraped by default (word count, for example).

Every bit of information scraped is SEARCHABLE and SORTABLE! Tags, authors, published date, etc.

However, the instructions for how to do all this are not clear-cut and are scattered on different sites and forums. So I've created a little guide based on what worked for me!

Here are my categories (if you know me the fic shown is not a surprise). I couldn't fit them into one long horizontal screenshot so I split them into two.

Most of these are default categories, but some (Thoughts, Words, Summary, Ratings, and Notes) are not. I've excluded default categories I didn't need, and created custom ones for the information I wanted to include.

Tutorial below the cut!

Download and install Calibre.

Once the program is open, click Preferences > Get plugins to enhance calibre Search for and install the FanFicFare and EpubMerge plugins (EpubMerge works in tandem with FFF and allows for downloading an entire fic series into one file).

_________________

Custom Columns

Preferences > Preferences > Add your own columns The custom column screen is shown below. Anything unchecked is a category I didn't want to include in my list. Anything with a column icon next to it means its a custom column I created. To create a new column, click +Add custom column.

The settings I made for each of my custom categories are shown below. Take note of the "column type" for each category. You can make any kind of columns you'd like!

Once you've made your custom categories make sure to click Apply on the "Add your own columns" screen. Now we need to configure the FanFicFare plugin to assign data to some of the custom categories. Click the down arrow next to the FanFicFare plugin icon on the main Calibre screen, then click Configure FanFicFare. On the next screen click the Custom Columns tab.

You will see a list of your custom columns with drop-down menus next to each. For columns you want the plugin to automatically fill, click the drop-down and select the matching data from AO3. There are many options to choose from, including pairing, language, warnings, etc. Note that I left the Notes and Thoughts columns blank. This is because I will input that information manually for each fic.

_________________

Downloading Individual Fics

Arrow next to FanFicFare > Download from URLs Paste in entire-work fic URLs into the black box. I personally found it tedious to copy/paste each link, so instead I found a Firefox extention called Copy All Tab URLs that does exactly what it says on the tin: copies all URLs from any open tabs. Much easier. Click OK. Then, WAIT. It takes a minute to fetch the data. If a fic is restricted, the plugin may show a pop-up asking you to log into AO3 so that it can access the fic.

You're good to go when you see the following pop-up in the bottom-right corner. Click Yes.

_________________

Downloading An Entire Series

FanFicFare combined with EpubMerge allows you to download an entire series into one epub file!

Arrow next to FanFicFare > Get Story URLs from Web Page

Paste in the link to the SERIES page.

Click For Anthology Epub to download everything in that series into a single epub.

The next screen lists all the links in that series. Nothing to do here but click OK.