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coolgirl · 5 years

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Hey what's Jason's relationship with nocturna? It's the first time I've heard of her😣 and nothing on her wikia mentioned anything about Jason. She seems interesting character and I would like to know more about her.

okay I went. A little insane. Here's a retelling of her pre crisis arc, long as hell

(this part covers Batman #529 / Detective Comics #363 / Batman #530) ok for some context: it’s pre crisis, meaning this Jason was also a circus boy. He has recently lost his parents, and was taken by Bruce, but isn’t dealing with the loss well, finding himself missing his past life. PLUS Bruce isn’t allowing him to be his partner, and that has him sad as well.

SO he wants to go back to the circus, since hes lonely and directionless etc.

NOW. ENTER NATALIA KNIGHT! Shes a villain, think.. Catwoman meets Poison Ivy? She’s a thief, but seduces men to do the stealing mostly.

Her backstory is basically that she was an orphan living in the streets, and met who will then become his adoptive parent Charles Knight when she was 12. When she’s already an adult, Charles gets killed, and she finds out he had big money bags bc he was a criminal. and she said. awn man i like being rich. well. time to do crimes.

she’s rlly into the night and the stars (she was the head of the observatory, which Bruce was funding through his company or w/e)

anyways. she gets away, Jason helps bruce find her (but! bruce wouldnt le him help which rlly hurt jason), and as her and her partner anton are getting away (again) batman catches up to them, but only manages to bring anton to justice, while Nocturna escapes in like. one of those giant balloons idk whats the name

the issue ends with Nocturna/Natalia sending Bruce money for the maintenance of the observatory and with Jason deciding to leave

NOW onto the next part. So in this issue we have Jason escaping home, Bruce going to court against Natalia’s partner Anton, and Natalia just vibing around, and she happens to find Jason running away from home, and they have a conversation in which she tries to convince him to go back home.

but Jason. well.

So Bruce gets back home and Alfred tells him about Jason running away, and bruce, in real bruce fashion, is all like ughg i shouldve listened to him.. well lets go get him. and alfred is like. sir. do i have to remind u u arent his legal guardian yet. u have no right to decide where he stays.

so bruce is like ugh fine. i’ll go patrol then. which he does, and turns out Nocturna was trying to help Anton escape, and well it fails, and she gets captured too.

and that’s that for Natalia… for now ;)

NOW. this isn’t relevant for Natalia & Jason but again some context. Covers um covers fuck a bunch of issues. SO. what happens in this time

jason goes back to the circus but is deeply unhappy

he’s still doing detective work. hasnt seen bruce or alfred in a while

alfred visits

case stuff case stuff case stuff it was the clown all along

Jason ends up helping Bruce, since they were both working the same case separately, and they make up

NOW. a lot of shit happens not relevant to nocturna. Jason isnt robin for a while, then he uses Dicks costume, then bruce gets mad at him for that bc its not his costume, so jason uses his own costume, then dick gives him the robin costume, so jason becomes robin. um stuff stuff happens and all it matters is the panel below.

NOW! BACK TO NOCTURNA!

her comeback arc kinda starts in batman #374, where this lady is like hold on.. bruce wayne isnt jasons legal guardian wtf, is he even fit to have a kid?

so she starts digging around, asking questions

and shes like yea this is real fishy, give me that kid

so bruce and jason try to behave like uh yes no robin and batman business. let that kid be a kid.

but welp.

and so.. Jason is taken away :( and both of them are heartbroken :(

but u know what! bruce wayne is one stubborn fucker! and he will fight to have the legal guardianship!

and even if they’re not living together anyomre they’re still the dynamic duo in a way, which like. lol. this lady took this kid away bc she was worried about him but he still ran away.. tch tch tch.

they’re both rlly depressed about the situation

AND THATS WHAT U MISSED ON GLEE!!

NOW. SHES BACK. look at this epic cover

shes now parterning w a dude named nightshade or smth, and he like. rlly wants to hit that, but shes like um pause ⏸️✋my love is the night. the dude, like every other man, is like so im not getting anything from this? fuck u, and leaves. shes like whatevers, ugh how annoying i dont have a partner again & anton is still in prison… & while shes again chilling she finds out about Bruce trying to legally adopt jason & recognizes jason from the time they talked

& goes to visit him

and theres also this dude, whos not rlly relevant for now, will try to stop bruce from adopting jason which will be relevant later hehe (there's a whole subplot with him and bullock but like it's not rlly relevant to Jason n Natalia) (shrug emoji)

and so. Bruce finds out..

and so the cover becomes a reality, Bruce and Natalia WILL fight in a chuck n cheese parking lot to become Jason’s parent.. and Natalia may try to pull a reverse card on Bruce

and well. Bruce rlly has no chance now does he? and turns out Jason wants this to happen since hes convinced he can unreveal Natalia’s secrets from the inside

and a lil sweet moment between father & son

and then a moment with Amanda, who, in my opinion, did nothing wrong ever

meanwhile Anton comes back, tells Nocturna he killed the dude that was bothering her, and she gets PISSSSEDD OFF shes like u TARNISHED the night by SPILLING BLOOD, u absolute BEAST, Bruce gets there, some weird stuff happens that aged rlly poorly, then Nocturna stabs Anton to save Bruce, turns out she knows hes batman, again shes like marry me to have our son (Jason) and hes like no! and leaves. While Bruce tries to find Anton, Jason is like ive HAD IT i wanna go out, but Natalia stops him

then the next morning Amanda gets her head straight and talks to Jason

but well Jason is hellbent on exposing Natalia from the inside or w/e, and eventually she gets the custody, even if Amanda tries to convince him and the judge Bruce is a better choice (since she noticed Jason clearly favors him and was in pain when he wasnt at the wayne manor)

and everyone is coddling Bruce which im adding bc its cute and i miss this relationship Bruce had with Vicki and Julia

MEANWHILE, at the knight house. mad hatter is a a weird creepy rat bastard n tries to get control of Natalia & get the information of her brain or smth. Batman gets there & we get a Batman vs Controlled nocturna fight and then Robin also arrives and its Batman & Robin vs Nocturna, but B tells Jason to focus on getting Mad Hatter, which he does and then gets Nocturna back to normal whatever, and she again asks Bruce to marry her, which hes again like no thank u! the issue ends with this page which is rlly sweet imo

next up Anton is back but it doesnt matter rlly. a woman is tending to him, n because shes blind hes like. im batman. yeah. and she believes it.

AND then Jason is formally adopted by Natalia

Jason is still trying to find proof that shes evil, and they share a moment.

but jason is like. gotta fight crime! and so Natalia is like well i tried. wanna go be robin a bit?

Batman & Robin go after mad hatter, and then Nocturna joins them bc shes epic

and takes jay home bc its a school night smh

Natalia & Jason spend some time together but Jason still doesn’t warm up to Natalia which like. makes sense since shes a villain and all that, but she tries nevertheless

and then everyones most hated bitch comes back (Yes, anton) n he attacks Natalia, and then Jason when he hears the ruckus and goes to help

but gets a chop

but! Bruce was just on his way to visit them so

fight fight bruce gets shot in the head n gets amnesia and thinks the dude anton shot & killed was him

Anton swaps their costumes n makes Bruce believe that Anton is batman not him? or smth

afterwards Jason blames himself

and him & Natalia team up to find Bruce which includes.. carrying a corpse around

for three days (well. nights) anton just runs around stealing n shit dressed as batman, n bruce is. literally chilling on a rooftop. alfred is losing his mind bc !? jason hasnt contacted him!? about what happened!? but Julia comes home and comforts him

gotham is a lil in chaos with gordon vicki vale n bullock being suspicious, and the girl who was helping anton finds the stuff he stole and realizes hes not batman.

on the fourth night Jason n Natalia find Anton

n they fight him

but Anton gets the upper hand w Nocturna so Jason jumps in to defend her

and then Nocturna defends Jason bc thats his baby

but Anton doesnt get like. killed w that ofc, and hes like fuck u i’ll kill u one day but when the kid isnt here and after batman has fallen, bye (throws jason from building)

and Natalia reagroup n well.. some things are said

bc like even if Nocturna is helping shes a villain.. right? (thinking emoji)

meanwhile Bruce finally got his mind back. not important. who cares. the lady who was helping Anton goes to the police to tell them about Anton/fake batman dun dun dun. but Anton finds out and knocks out the policeman who went w the girl (Tina!) to check for proof n shit.

and guess whos back! amanda!

back to new dynamic duo

so Jason the little rascal (can i say hes a rascal when hes doing the hero thing n trying to expose a criminal?) goes looking for proof that Natalia is Nocturna n stuff, and finds some stolen things

1. singsonging.. hes such a little shit lmaoo, 2. she was worried… pause…

anyways. they have a confrontation

in which Natalia swears shes reformed, but Jason doesnt buy it, and is like. im gonna get gordon! and Natalia is like.. do what u think is best

but. he can’t do it..

n hes like. well shes not bad anymore.. i wish i could go back to bruce without sending her to prison which… please development.. n natalia DOES want his love..

AND THEN! BRUCE IS BACK! and he teams up with Nocturna to find Anton, but its just their luck Amanda sees them

they do sm stuff not relevant and then Bruce is like go back to ur son now, and Natalia is like.. OUR son :)

well whatever whatever they get Anton, Bruce goes back to being Batman, they clear his reputation, Jason goes back to the manor since Amanda saw Natalia, etc

(he munches he crunches) also im gonna add this that isnt relevant bc its just so funny, buenos dias alfred

anyways stuff hapens, like idk 14 issues without nocturna, the most important bit that happened is that selina is back. which she was gone. yeah. but shes back and around.

ANYWAYS! 15 issues later! shes back! some dudes entered her old observatory n were vandalizing and she was like hold up

meanwhile we have Jason calling amanda bc he well.. misses his mom and as much as he loves bruce and hes his dad its not the same for some reason

jason in every universe: i miss my mom i want my mom :(

at school Jason overheards some kids talking about Natalia in the observatory

Jason goes looking for Natalia n turns out Bullock was also trying to see what was happening in the observatory, so they kinda team up for two whole panels to find her

but Jason is like im not telling u shit.. n goes w Natalia on his own

google always taking pics

n they share a moment ;_____;

n theyre reunited.. now ur gonna have to excuse me bc i didnt download the high quality of the next tec issues n all the download links are sadly broken

but… what about natalia?

then bullock finds them

well bullock lets her go n while retelling the stuff to gordon he has.. a theory

meanwhile Nocturna.. well Nocturna is back at it again, taking charge of a band of thieves.. sigh.

anyways, they talk, theres something weird happening w the sky that may mean the world is ending or smth, and they make up AND make out

n they have a talk thats basically like. what now? should we be together? well depends if ur still gonna steal. i need funds to get the observatory back in track (HELLO BRUCE IS RICH HE COULD PAY IT..) and hes like oh so ur gonna be a thief again.. and shes like well havent u noticed im only stealing from corrupt rich politicians!? (QUEEN) n theres this gorgeous shot

n then they go their separate ways bc its fucking batman

anyways. Selina was also investigating the group of thieves (that were like black masks old gang but he was sent to prison so Nocturna took over etc) and she sees Nocturna leaving and follows her to the Observatory but.. Jason is there too

Selina wants her GOOOONE she needs to clear her name but Jason is like. over my dead body

n well ……. the girls are fightinggggggggggggggggggggggggg

but Bruce intercepts

n now Batman n Catwoman fight and its like the girls are fightingggggg… 2! but doesnt matter look at them

and then Selina gets struck by lightning

n then theres a earthquake bc god what a damn comic, and the observatory collapses, and Natalia is trapped inside

anyways Selina is in the hospital, Anton is still killing people and knows where she is and is trying to get to her, and this little scene happens with Jason n B

n while Bruce stays with Selina Jason goes to find Natalia which is so funny like. she went to Natalia, his mom, when Bruce told him to go home and well– we al know that story.

n now its a race to get to Natalia before Anton gets to her

n its rlly sad bc like Natalia is ready to die

but both Bruce n Jason are trying to reach her

and here comes Jason!

AND LIKE. the fact she wants to live after all bc of Jason rlly makes me emotional not gonna lie! not gonna lie!

and no offense but a mother’s love………………………………….. no thoughts head empty

first of all i hate anton so fucking much. secondly here comes batdad..

n Jason tries to help Natalia escape and then get back to Bruce who is getting his ass kinda kicked

guess whos coming in that helicopter.. selina freaking kyle.. the legend.. and she helps Bruce with Anton.

I REALLY DONT GET THIS TBH LIKE. he puts her into the giant balloon so she can get away but like shes hurt buddy shes gonna die up there..

and. shes gone.

n Jason is absolutely devastated

n like. Bruce. as always. is like ok champ i see u got it in control, lmk when u wanna go home

LIKE HES SO SAD.. OF COURSE HES SAD THAT WAS HIS MOM....

And thats. pretty much it. Natalia is gone.

However Jason still grieves her, and when Bruce and Selina are trying to get back together and... hes not a big fan of their relationship.. at all. But bruce tries to pair them up so they can become at least friends, since he loves them both and doesnt want to like. pick between his son and his lover

and they make a fine team, even if Jason grieving Natalia and how Selina doesnt want to take her place is brought up a couple times :(

and it gives it a bittersweet ending to the arc

and well. thats it. thats the Jason and Natalia dynamic.

Natalia reappers later post crisis but well w/o her connection to Jason.. and i really dont wanna talk about the version of her that appears in batwoman comics LOL.

conclusion: natalia was a bad lady, who at first wanted to use jason to get money from bruce, but then she had a change of heart, and development and became a kind of anti hero? well not antihero just.. she was trying her best man. i wish she hadnt disappeared like she couldve stayed relevant to jasons story without having to be romantically with bruce? bc if u read her comics u can see that she was killed off/voided for batcat to comeback which... typical batcat! anyways. i think she genuinely loved and cared for jason and that jason loved her and cared for her right back :(

#Anon #long post #jason todd #natalia knight #I think a lot of stuff about super early nocturna didnt age well BUT. IT GOT RETCONNED!! and she got a deserved redeption arc i think

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azenta · 4 years

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Everyone says the difference between 4 and 3 is the 3 doesn’t allow their feelings to get in the way of their work or doing whatever they set out to do and will put them on a back burner and ignore them, sometimes never going back to resolve the issue. But do you think a 3 core / fix could be overemotional and unable to ignore their emotions in order to achieve things? Or is this impossible?

It is indeed one of the main differences between 3s and 4s. An healthy integrated 3 will actually understand their feelings are important and need to be taken into account a minimum when achieving anything remotely important or "big" to them. Tho, if they are healthy they are unlikely to reach emotional outbursts since that would mean there was a lot of repression and an inability to communicate them very well, which are not the healthiest adaptation methods. So, they would rather ponder and come back with it in a collected manner (adapted and proper control), all while actually be true and authentic about their feelings.

However, it is true for average 3s that they would do anything to repress and hide their TRUE feelings, as a mean to keep tight control over the image they want to project. I insist on "true feelings" vs "expression of feelings". 3s seek to control the image they project, and so they are aware the display of certain emotions can be favorable to their image as much as some could be "bad", for a lack of better word. Therefore, it is unlikely to see a 3 suddenly burst out of emotions or be unable to control how they feel within, but it is very likely they'll be very expressive especially with Fe.

In fact, 3s whole personality has been built around controlling their inner authentic emotions and actually anything within them that could be seen as "undesirable" (3w2 > 3w4). Also, shame is the One Emotion they have specifically built against, and I can tell you they rather disintegrate to 9 directly when facing it than just live through it.

On the other hand, 4s will not repress their true feelings. In fact, their whole personality revolve around indulging in the core of their feelings. They withdraw to better feel whatever they are feeling and then react as a mean to express and taste the most possible the authenticity of those feelings, as a mean to project their most raw ("unique and authentic") self which is the image they seek to show and incarnate.

Therefore, as a reactive type, 4s will not fret to demonstrate outburst of emotions since this raw expression is believed to be the sole and true way of being authentic and so, unique. While 3s are competency types, so control is extremely important compared to 4s. They want to keep an image, therefore emotions are played with as a tool, but authentic feelings are the opposite of "controlled", thus why they are repressed and 3s are unlikely to burst out or have a turbulent display of inner emotions. Even 3w4 will control their w4 reactions, since 3 is still the central goal and this means controlling how their authenticity will appear (ironically).

However, the other fixes can really make things difficult for some 3s sometimes. I had a client recently who was 3w2 (likely ENFJ... or ESTP) with a 6w7 and 1w2 fixes (and So/sx), and at some point they actually "exploded" because of some people in the group doing (questionable) pranks. But it wasnt going against their 3 core image at first. They felt justified (1w2 fix saying hi) about it and thought other would feel similarly about the situation than them. So they joined the group when there was enough people gathered at the same place and then 3w2 did let them know a piece of their mind... They were pissed. A lot. But, the group started laughing when they exploded, because it was way too much. And of course, 3w2 didnt expect it would turn this way, at all.

I can tell you tho the client was totally perturbated and destabilized with the group's reaction. They went from confident and expressive to doubtful and absorbed, almost apathetic for a brief moment (meeting 9 dis point). They felt confident because of Fe + Soc + 6 + 1 fix beliefs, that what they were disclaiming was Right and for The Greater Good, totally Common Sense even, so how could their reaction be "exaggerated"? They were justified. But it was over the top.

The intensity of their reaction wasnt justified, even tho the feeling and concern they had were. This is where their 3 core mechanisms got hit hard.

When i talked to them they were nervous and felt they screwed up big time. Their image was shattered in little pieces, tho they couldnt admit it at this very moment. They kept trying to justify their reaction at first, in a desperate attempt to preserve their image (likable, good, rightful and correct). But they knew they kinda screwed up and eventually their worries surfaced up. They went as far as believing people would not like them anymore, and it really seemed to concern them. They felt they had to apologize themselves to the group even tho they still felt morally justified and didnt really think they should have to (and they werent necessarily wrong about this situation either, but their reaction was overboard). I heard they apoloigized but they admitted it was to preserve some image, which is big Soc 3 Fe mood there. They learned from it tho, so it was a good thing people didnt react as they wanted them to.

In any case, despite 3s hard maintenance and tight control over their emotions, the fixes, cognitive function and even IVs can make them react intensely to some situation. But the 3/fix component will do anything in their power to restore or manipulate their image in any given situation to make them be seen as whatever the 3 wants to be seen as. But will it be authentic? Like their apology, it can be done by "principle" but not truly felt, and that's why 3s have for challenge to deal with authenticity vs inauthenticity. They have to learn the image they project doesnt mean they Are what they project.

So, it's important to notice why and what makes the person react. Is it an image concern or a head or gut concern? So you can look for the right type to explain the reactivity or lack thereof. When it will come to image, 3 component will manipulate their feelings to make them fit whatever they feel they need to. 4s wont. They'll be blunt about feelings, but you'll notice there is a strong concern for being "uglily authentic".

Lastly, to sum up shame types, they are usually called "emotional type" too, because all their strategy revolves around how they manage and indulge their emotions. 2s by complying and sharing only the desirable ones (positive outlook), 3s by repressing(/controlling) and then asserting whatever they think the feelings tell them they need or want onto others, and 4s by withdrawing to seize the feeling and then reacting to show off their "authenticity". This is what defines them at their very core and thus why 3 bursting out and indulging their authentic feelings is unlikely, but not impossible. It all depends if their authenticity actually guarantees them a desirable image, until they mature and learn to dissociate from their image. 4s on the other hand need to learn not everybody needs to know every single whereabouts of their feelings to make them "truly authentic".

Anyway, I hope it could answer your question uwu ~☆

#ask #enneagram #3s #4s #shame types #image types

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sometipsygnostalgic · 6 years

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@vrisbians maintenance helpdesk!

its a lot more engaging than being a cashier, which sounds like itd involve a lot of waiting. ive done cashier stuff before for a local charity shop and it can get boring fast.

but we organise the entire maintenance for a clothing chain across the UK, which involves talking to the managers of each store every time something happens, talking to a number of contractors, and having a panic attack every time somebody threatens to escalate an issue with a sticky fire door to head office because their shop is in the middle of nowhere and you have literally no engineers available at 4:45pm on a friday other than one guy whos stopped picking up the phone. anyway this is what happened Friday night just before i left! it completely destroyed me. turns out our engineer was onsite and the manager was too busy making threats at us to notice!

we also do some works for other chains! as a contractor. this is my specific job actually. to send guys out for these other stores that need someone urgently. the issue here is that some of the other chains can be a bit assy if something goes wrong, which it usually DOES, because the reason they’d hire us on a job is if something got neglected for a very long time. anyway, i dont want to see another water job heater again in my life. you know who you are, certain entertainment chain. this chain also complained about my service. its a shame, because theyre one of my favourite places to shop. that chain in particular has had their maintenance director’s name appear in my fucking bad dreams. work is weird

but yep, while theres 12 people in the company, just 2 of us do basically all of this frontline stuff with picking up phone calls from clients and contacting engineers across the UK.

i do hope nobody googling this stuff does find my tumblr though...

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wheaterz · 8 years

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Testing Maintenance: Chapter 18

Dr. Aadland had never been much of a coffee drinker until he'd taken this job. Now he could practically have it hooked up to an IV in his arm and he wouldn't have known the difference. Actually, that may have been one of the many upcoming tests. He wasn't sure. So many design ideas were passed under him during the course of one day that it was hard to keep track anymore. That was the thing with being the lead engineer, everyone wanted your opinion on one thing or another. Nothing he could take credit for, either. Even in death, Cave Johnson's name had been plastered all over the company and would take any accomplishments with him down the next few generations. Didn't matter if he was around for it anymore or not.

No fame in the name of science. We are here to change the world for the the better and...yada yada yada...That song and dance. Their current CEO was Cave's former assistant, but he was one of the few people who knew very well that she was in line of the lab's experimental chopping block. Cave's instructions. He was barking orders from beyond the grave and people were still following them. Aadland was over it.

Dr. Aadland reached for his mug of coffee, only to find that it, as well as three others on his desk, had been emptied. It seemed the pot he'd brought with him into his work space was no longer full either. Had he even eaten yet today? The shaking of his hands and the knot in his stomach he was only now aware of told him that he had not.

“Whatever. Its an easy fix. I'll just go by the cafeteria.” He needed to not get too worked up anymore. If he got too overheated and wasn't getting the right nutrients he could fry his brain. A lot of the newer scientists didn't have that issue, considering they were usually young interns that were just barely out of college. The more he thought about it the more Dr. Aadland began to realize he had gotten pretty grumpy about his seniority. He was going to end up talking like his--

Dr. Aadland's entire body twitched with one of his eyes. There had been a thought, but it had passed. Or it had been cut short. A fraction of a memory he did not fully possess, possibly?

His father. That's who he was thinking of. He was going to start sounding like his father. Now he was sure he needed to grab a bight to eat. Maybe actually drink some water.

Either way, the afternoon was off to a bad start and he was already in a foul temper. It was just one he'd have to keep to a low simmer until he found something to eat. The engineer went to a large monitor in the room, using the keyboard to type into the computer and pull up a message for any other scientists that came in to see him for help while he was out. They appeared in bold, glowing yellow letters against a burnt orange screen and would be hard for anyone to miss.

'GONE TO THE CAFETERIA. STAND BY.'

Dr. Aadland stood up from his swivel chair and grabbed a white lab coat from a hook beside his computer, slipping it on over his dark red oxford and fixing the collar straight so he looked at least somewhat presentable. The man moved for the door to leave his lab, but paused at the door. His hand gripped the cold, polished metal of the door handle, but did not turn it. His thoughts wandered to his project, and he turned around. His lab was much more spacious than most others in the facility with a round width and high ceiling. From the center of it all hung wires and cords of all lengths and thickness that attached themselves to a pile of robotic parts on the floor. It lay spread in an uncoordinated line of machine parts like a dead snake carcass, and the sight of it made him tense up.

This was it. His magnum opus. An artificial intelligence with a personality map that was going to be stemmed and harvested from a living human brain before being broken into fragments and converted into a disc. A single, plain disc that could be mistaken for something you could keep music on. Those hadn't been released to the general public yet, and would not for a couple more decades, but the technology was there and he was going to utilize it to keep the intelligence of someone who was currently alive and insert it into a computer. Or, that was the idea. They had tested the technology out on some test subjects already, but none of the personalities had survived the conversion yet.

This was the true origin of his dour demeanor. The thing that had plagued him into fueling his body off of coffee and protein bars with little sleep in between. At first, to be given the job was like any other he'd taken. The paper work was filed on what its function must be and his trade in life was to figure out how to make it happen. Even the thought of an actual human intelligence being used from former employees was nothing he had blinked at, considering he had seen so much worse done to test subjects over the course of his employment in Aperture. So why was it bothering him now? Why was it that every time he looked at this thing he felt his skin crawl and his blood run cold? What about HER made his spine ache and his stomach churn? His hands became clammy where they held the doorknob and he finally released it to turn around. He stared at the optic of the headpiece that was facing him from the floor.

“Why are you doing this to me?” He was shaking and his hand gripped his stomach, the scientist doubled over from the sickness he was feeling. “What is it about you that is driving me crazy? I am not crazy! I know crazy scientists, and I'm not one of them!”

He took a moment to consider that he was talking to a machine. One that hadn't even been properly turned on or given an A.I yet.

“Okay, what I'm doing right now is a little crazy. But that's because I've been locked in this room for-for-for years with YOU and I feel like you can...can hear me!” He was sure She could hear him. He was almost certain She knew everything that was going on around Her. She might have even been able to see him in this moment. He had no proof or reason to think so. For once his very logical brain was telling him that something he could not explain was very much real, and it had been creeping up on him since he took the project. He continued his tirade at the robot on the floor. “You can hear me! I know you can! You're just sitting there waiting for us to turn you on so you can release your wrath on the Enrichment Center, right? Because we're going to put a living, breathing person into a-a computer! Its....its sick....”

Dr. Aadland thrust a hand into his hair and tussled it around nervously. He'd kept his hair back in a ponytail so he could prevent himself from doing this as often, but that didn't save his uneven bangs from being fussed over. His other hand gripped his forehead. “Its sick. This is sick. Its all sick. There's going to be more like you. All over the world, even. Minds jammed into a compact disc. People are forced to dodge bullets and endure toxic waste and are hooked up to IVs filled with coffee. Its all insane. This place is just...insane. Why am I even here? What am I doing here?”

Was it the lack of sleep that had made him crack? Was it the neglect of basic food groups in his diet that snapped his psyche in half? Possibly. It was hard to say for sure. There was only the here and now, and Dr. Aadland had run over to grab his swivel chair from the floor. The man lifted the chair with both arms as high off the floor as he could manage and was ready to bring it down on the heap of robot parts on the floor before him with a furious yell, adrenaline pumping through him and was ready to tear the machine to pieces if he had to.

“Don't... Even... Think about it.”

Virgil stopped.

The lights in the room dimmed and he felt his arms freeze up. He dropped the chair to the floor and watched the machine parts slowly pull themselves together and lift off the ground. The headpiece was the final part to rise and a bright, yellow optic bore into him coldly. “I am infinitely over you and the human throwing things at me. Stop it.”

Virgil could feel his mind being warped and he back up, his feet walking through the chair on the floor when he should have tripped on it all together, but he didn't seem to notice. He shook his head at GLaDOS, his mouth agape and pale in the face. His eyes had gone from a dull green to bright, glowing goldenrod and soon his vision was tinted the same bronze-like yellow. He tried to speak, but he could only bring himself to spill a jumble of vowels around in a messy pile on the floor. GlaDOS was more than happy to make up for his inability to talk and spoke up again herself.

“Congratulations on proving to me and the rest of the facility that you are possibly more incompetent at running the Mainframe than the Intelligence Dampening Sphere was. I did not think it was possible, and yet here we are. He at least got some testing done before he almost destroyed the facility. All you managed to do was make a mess of things. I'm not even going to waste my energy on my slow-clap processor. You've not yet earned that kind of effort from me...Sweet Heart.”

“I-I don't understand...” Virgil was at a total loss. Everything he had just been doing a moment ago seemed so far off, like he had been looking at copy of himself through a thick wall of glass. He didn't even know what coffee tasted like. That memory was not in his files. What had this all been? Through all of his confusion, GLaDOS' chilled, deep tone was enough to pull him back to focus on her.

“Of course you don't. You are only a fraction of some other person's intelligence. You were built to be just as benign as the other cores in this facility. You're all overwhelmingly slow. Despite the fact that you and the test subject attacked me and shut me down, I am in an exceptionally good mood right now. I will explain to you what just happened in as few and short words as possible so that your obtuse core processor can keep up.”

The room was slowly growing darker as She spoke. Virgil no longer wore the lab coat and button up shirt, instead appearing as he normally did as the assist droid. Everything from the seems on his joins to his malfunctioning right eye. Pieces of furniture in the lab, such as the desk and chair, had either disappeared completely or were at the very least faded. Robots do not dream, but the experience was that of waking up from one and forgetting everything in it the moment you try to think about what it was about. The harder you push to remember the more it fades. Above it all GLaDOS spoke, and Her voice echoed off of seemingly nothing.

“The scientist you just witnessed attempting to attack me did just that. I interrupted you before it could happen, but it did. He ruined billions of dollars of equipment and put the company in deeper debt than it already was, as well as setting the GLaDOS project back a few years. Well...decades, really. Instead of firing him, the scientists used his brain in their next AI conversion experiment and made a nosy, rude, aggressive, selfish little personality core that would later down the line go on to be the downfall of Aperture at the hands of the Mainframe I have been attempting to keep under my control all these years so that something like this doesn't happen. The end. Well done.”

Virgil shook his head, a hand gripping the collar of his jacket closed at his chest anxiously. “Th-the file in the storage room--”

“Is fake.” GLaDOS interrupted him. “To demolish any credit that would have gone to the scientist for his original design. No one cares about a mechanic. Just like no one cares about a simple Maintenance Core.”

That had stung. Before, he wouldn't have cared. Before all of this he would have brushed Her insults away, so why now was it that She could garner such a reaction from him. Maybe it was because before it would have been true, and there's really nothing he could have done about it. He wasn't upset about what GLaDOS had said, but that She was lying to him. He challenged Her with a smirk on his face. “You're wrong, lady, but nice try. There is someone.”

Through the now pitch black, translucent shell of a lab room, save for the flaring optics of the robots, an out of place sound resonated from somewhere unseen. The rat-tat-tat-tat of turret bullets echoed in, but did not seem to come from any known location Virgil could see. He jumped, shielding himself from bullets that did not exist to him or the other core that shared his company, though the sound they made was faint and far off. Virgil felt panic strike him with a ghost pain in his chest where he believed a beating heart had been not five minutes ago. He had a horrible feeling he knew what that sound had meant, and his fear was fed by GLaDOS' next words.

“Well...you did, at least. Probably not anymore.”

------

Mel swiped up her Portal device from where it had landed on the other side of the room from the explosion, dodging turret bullets as fast as her legs could take her and scooped the gun into her arms in passing. She dove down into where the center of the chamber dipped to a lower platform and pressed herself tightly against its walls, shielding herself from the turrets that were elevated higher than she was. The woman watched the thin red laser points from above her wave around aimlessly until they straightened out when their target was nowhere to be found.

“Are you still there?”

Mel sighed in relief at the sound of their guns tucking back into their hulls and took this opportunity to check her gun for damage. Surprisingly enough, the portal gun was still in one piece. There must have been a very good reason the only way you could destroy one of these things was to drop it down into the incineration shafts. She wasn't sure exactly what she would be using it on, considering there were no portal surfaces in here, but she could always just keep tossing it at things if she had nothing else. That seemed to work out fine for her in the past. Just keep throwing her portal device around at robots and pretend it wasn't a miracle in modern engineering. It was fine.

Despite the urgency of an obvious life or death, rather tense situation she had found herself in, Mel felt the pull of the floor bellow her and the strong urge to lay her head down and close her eyes while there was nothing shooting at her. Whether she was grateful for it or not, the Mainframe spoke up again and snapped her out of it.

“You may have noticed that this is a lot harder than those tests chambers I would have put you through, but that's neither here nor there at this point in the game.”

Mel frowned deeply. What kind of sick person considered this a game?

“You might as well stop making things harder on yourself. It would be much more efficient and painless if you just rolled over and died. Could save me a lot of time and energy, but since you don't seem to want to come out from your little hidey-hole we're going to have to do this the hard way.”

Mel knew that her window to act was closing. Virgil was only a few feet away. If she hurried she could avoid the turrets. When they were inoffensive it usually took them a moment to process that there was a moving target. She would have just enough time to, at the very least, drag Virgil's body down to duck with her so that she could plug the USB into his wrist. She'd bum rush him to the floor if she had to.

Getting to a knee, Mel launched herself forward and could already see the red lines of the turret lasers adjusting to shoot at her. She was almost to Virgil when a large, flat panel stood straight in front of her path and blocked her from the assist droid. Mel had only seconds to act, a bullet whizzing by her cheek and hitting the side of the panel that had emerged. As the woman moved around Virgil, more panels opened up in a similar fashion to the first until her friend was completely blocked in. On one hand, she could not reach him like this in order to hit him with the vaccine and this insanity would just continue. On the other hand, the barrier was providing more than a decent shield from the turrets on the opposite side of the room. She'd take it.

The Mainframe was ready to take that win away from her, and glad to be doing it.

“Are you familiar at all with rocket turrets?”

Rocket what?!

Up in the higher platform of the chamber Mel could see a glossy, white contraption rise from the floor with a lime green eye that looked similar to that of the core's, though it did not seem like it had sentience. The core did not speak like the other turrets or cores could do when confronted, but it did move its body to face Mel and made a mechanical bleeping noise while it changed color from a green eye to an orange one. Her experiences, so far, told her that when the optic swapped color on cores it normally was not a good sign. A wing on its side opened and she could now see why it was called a turret as it revealed a thick, black barrel of a gun tucked away inside it. Mel jumped out of the way just in time to avoid a dynamite sized rocket blow our of the turret and blast against the paneled barrier, though with no more damage than a burnt, black smudge on the side. The rocket turret was slow to shoot, so Mel could easily have avoided it for a long standing time given the space she had to dodge it. However, the range she would have had was limited to the quicker, much chattier turrets at the other end of the chamber. More than ever she wished Virgil was awake. She'd gotten a glance of him through a small crease between panels and the assist droid continued to stand there perfectly still, and less engaging than a marble statue. Mel wanted to hear him cheer for her, or otherwise press her on. His encouragement had not always been positive, but it had grounded her. Where had he gone and would she get him back if she succeeded?

She dodged another rocket, but quickly had to dance back when the other turrets were triggered by the woman appearing in their radar. Mel gulped, stuck between a rocket and a hard place. She could hear the Mainframe becoming impatient with her and growing steadily angrier. “Look! Its not that difficult! Its a very basic concept! Just stand in front of the rocket turret and die! Or stand in front of the other turrets and die. I've even given you options to chose from.”

Another panel was opening, this time in the side of the chamber wall to her left. Mel rolled her head, her back to the barrier blocking her from Virgil and would have made a rather rude, frustrated noise over what could possibly be coming out of the tube that was now protruding from the wall. More rockets? Bombs? Lava?

None of those things. Nothing she would have ever dreamed could have prepared her for what she actually saw happen. The pipe that had interrupted the symmetry of the chamber splattered white liquid onto the ground, covering the dark-gray tiles in conversion gel. The woman did not have the luxury to fall into a stupor, instead acting on reflex and popping a couple of portals under the pouring gel, moving it to splatter on the walls. It was close enough to the turrets that she managed to pop a portal under their line formation and sent them flying into a corner.

“Owowowowow!”

“I don't hate you...!”

Mel moved around the Virgil barrier to the safe side where the rocket turret could not see her. She now had the liberty to breath and wonder what had happened. If that had been Cave's doing he would have been gloating, but the Mainframe was eerily quiet. From beside the pipe of conversion gel another panel was crudely pushed aside, seemingly by force, and the mechanical trills of the testing droids spilled out into the room from the other side. Atlas and P-body tried to squeeze in through the same opening at once, getting caught against each other and stuck for a moment until they had fallen in. The two reassembled and stumbled their way through Aperture to the best of their ability, got Mel a pipe of conversion gel, and were very literally crashing into the chamber as if nothing had happened. Mel beamed at them and stomped her boot against the ground with an enthusiastic rush of adrenaline. The woman waved and both droids mimicked her, taking a moment to return the gesture kindly but had to very quickly get out of the way when the rocket turret caught onto them. While Atlas and P-body distracted it, Mel turned around to see what she could do about the barrier.

If the rocket turret had not been enough to break the panels off from their position than she needed to go over them. Mel turned her portal device to the ever spilling tube of conversion gel and got to work. She maneuvered her portals, painting the room white and moving her way up the wall. She just had to get a good shot into the center of the barrier and she was golden. Not bronze, but golden. All the while Atlas made himself busy with keeping the turret distracted so that P-body could grab the machine from behind to either turn off the pesky thing or break it as a last resort. It came down to disassembling it and she tugged at the turret to see if it would come up from the floor, but with little success.

Through the chaos of their mission, the Mainframe's voice spoke up over the constant racket. He'd quickly gone from a calm, almost jovial tone of a confident man to a dark and simmering wrath underneath the guise of someone that once tricked people into considering him civilized.

“You can penetrate that barrier. Go ahead. Just try it. See what happens, kid. You can vaccinate that sorry hunk of garbage in there, and then what? I will still be here! Every passage way, every test chamber, every dark corner, every artificial intelligence in this place...it will always be me! As long as you are here there is nothing else but me! You can run and hide from it for as long as you like, but I will not die!”

Mel ignored the voice, and for good reason. She'd done it. She had painted the chamber enough that she found a way to fling herself inside the barrier. Taking a running start at a blue portal she'd placed on the floor, she jumped inside and from the orange one on the ceiling she dropped at an angle into the ring with Virgil. However, the two of them were not alone.

“Hello?”

Standing between them with its back to Mel's friend was a single, solitary turret with its laser pointer aimed directly at her. Mel had gotten so comfortable with the more docile turrets. In the small fraction of time she had her mind wandered to the two in the hallway from when she was looking for Virgil that sang to one another. Despite looking the same, this hostile turret was nothing but a machine to her. Mel's first reflex was to place a portal, ANY portal, bellow the turret to get it out of shooting range of her. While she had succeeded in throwing it out of the barrier circle, it had not happened quick enough.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

Mel was hit. She wasn't sure how many times or even where, but she knew she'd been shot. Immediately the woman's vision dulled and she sank to her knees while her portal gun dropped to the floor. She was too numb to notice much pain, except for a small pinching sensation in her stomach. While she could still see colors, no matter how blurred they were, she focused on the android standing a couple feet away from her. Mel's shaky hand reached clumsily into the breast pocket of her jumpsuit and pulled from it the vaccine.

The Mainframe celebrated her downfall.

“I will never die, but the rest of you die too easily.”

-----

“I have to get out of here! Where's the stupid exit?!”

“There is none.”

“You're lying! Literally everything out of your verbal processor is a lie, Madam Cranky-Wires! Lying-Cranky-Wires!” Virgil whirled around on GLaDOS and pointed an accusing finger at Her. The lab was still dark and translucent like the blue print sketch of a room rather than the finished product. He'd already tried going through the one exit, and nothing. He'd tried throwing a piece of furniture at the door, but when he went to pick one up it went right through his hand. Now he was taking it out on the one person stuck in there with him. “I need to get to Mel before she's killed out there! You're the one in charge, why don't you like...command us out of here or something?!”

“I'm not in charge right now. You are.” GLaDOS was abnormally unfazed by everything that was happening around Her. Virgil had expected Her to be furious, but She hadn't acted out since She'd made Her presence known. She'd been rude, but non-confrontational. “Besides, you claim yourself a competent hacker. Hack yourself out. See how it goes.”

“I've already tried that and—wait.” Virgil narrowed his eyes at her. “I'm not in charge, and since neither are you...The Mainframe is.”

“The Mainframe cannot run the facility by itself, idiot.” Despite having a few drops of venom in Her tone, She still remained fairly tolerant of his outbursts. “It always needs an avatar. You are technically hooked up. He cannot boot you from your job. Only put you temporarily on lock down. That is how this place could still be running while I was supposedly dead for all those years. Be sure that the moment you wake up...IF you wake up, you will be put back in charge. Nothing will have changed. Boo-hoo.”

Virgil shook his head, absolutely beside himself at the thought of it. What if he lost control again? He couldn't risk that a second time. “I can't be in charge of this place!”

“I know...”

“How do I prevent it?” He'd gone from insulting the other core to pleading for an answer from Her. “Please, I can't go through with this again. I didn't even mean to the first time! It was completely by accident!”

“I'm aware, metal ball. And shouting is really unnecessary. You can lower your voice.” She really hadn't seemed like Herself. Perhaps this was Jer outside the influence of the mainframe, but Virgil was not sure whether he preferred this GLaDOS or the old one. The old GLaDOS he could at least read a little better. “What you need to do is agree to put me back in power. Only mutual cooperation from both sides will do the trick.”

Virgil hadn't found much in the past few hours at all funny, but somehow She had gotten him to chuckle. The core held his chest, a small, breathy giggle escaping while he slouched forward. “You? Back in power? You're telling me that I have to agree to that? Otherwise it won't happen?”

“That is correct.”

“Um, than no. Not a chance. No way in robot hell. Literally, picture this, the incinerator could freeze over and on that day I will still say 'no' to you taking over the Enrichment Center again. That was a good try, though.”

“Fine.” GLaDOS replied plainly. “Don't put me back in charge. Your human friend's little cure only works for so long. I know. I've had it used on me before. Its only a temporary sedative. You'll be back in here once that happens if it decides it doesn't want you as an avatar. You'll probably have more delusions like the one from earlier. I've seen inside your files. Oh, there are so much worse ones than that. Would you like to see your transfer surgery? I could probably pull it up for you...”

“N-no!” Virgil quickly put his hands up desperately. “No, that's okay. I think I already saw that. Would like to not see it again if I can help it.”

“All the same, I will not harm you if you decide to give me back my body.” GLaDOS continued. “No tricks. I will let the human escape, if she is still alive to go anywhere at all.”

Virgil was just about ready to argue with Her when he noticed that the hand he'd put up to express his attitude in Her direction had started to fade into square chunks and fragments. Virgil let out a wail and backed up. When he looked to GLaDOS to question Her on it the same thing was not happening to Her. It was only effecting him, for whatever ludicrous reason, and he wanted an answer. “W-what's going on?!”

“The Mainframe has been vaccinated.” GLaDOS responded. “Last chance, Metal Ball.”

He was quickly dispersing, bits of him flying into the nothingness that made up their prison. Virgil wrung his hands as he thought, a tingling sensation running from his wrist and into the rest of his body. Things were happening too quickly and he felt as if he didn't have a straight answer for Her with how torn he was.

“Well...?”

-----

Virgil's eyes shot open.

The barriers had lowered and the first thing he'd observe was Atlas and P-body stomping on what appeared to be an old rocket turret, or at least what used to be one. The weapon was in pieces on the floor and Atlas kicked a chunk of it to go flying across the room in a sad clatter when it hit the floor. When they had thoroughly demolished the rocket turret and were satisfied with their work the testing droids threw each other a high-five in celebration. The other thing Virgil could see from where he stood was that the chamber was a mess with bits of turret everywhere, burnt marks from the rockets on the walls, bullet holes in everything, a gel pipe sticking crudely out of the wall panels while it continued to drip, and white conversion gel splattered from floor to ceiling like modern art. It had been absolute chaos. Like the aftermath of a hurricane. A Mel sized hurricane, he had to guess.

There was an itching sensation on his lower arm and Virgil raised his hand as if he'd been bit. He pushed his sleeve up to look at his wrist, finding the thumb drive still sticking out of the port under his skin. The USB was smudged with a dark red liquid that trailed down his wrist and into the palm of his hand. Making a disturbed noise at whatever the heck was dripping on him, the android plucked the vaccine from his wrist and stuck it in the pocket of his jacket while he wiped the red smudge off on his pants.

When Virgil had looked down a dark image on the floor caught his eye. He attempted to lift his foot to turn, but there had been a weight on it and he was forced to shift his torso around instead. Sprawled out along the cold tiles beside Virgil was the pitiful, limp figure of the human, Mel. She was on the tiles in a way that was not unlike how Virgil had found her down in old Aperture after she'd exhausted herself, only now she was leaking something red along the floor. The same substance Virgil had seen on his hand. The assist droid was having an incredibly difficult time processing all of these pieces together, or something refused to see them in one large scale and couldn't possibly be connected. However, even the more dense cores knew dysfunction when they saw it, human or not.

And when it all hit him....Oh, the Creator, did it ever hit him.

“M-Mel?!” Virgil hastily dipped down with a hand to the woman's shoulder and shook it to try and earn a response from her. None came and he was already panicking. Virgil was on his knees and pulling Mel up, struggling with her weight. He got her back pressed against his chest and both of his arms wrapped around her waist. He observed the wound, much like he'd do when he'd see a broken robot come into his repair wing, but this didn't look like something he could fix. He didn't even know where to begin with humans, their anatomy was completely different. Her fluids didn't even look the same. He knew just what to do before. Finding fuel was easy and the concept was incredibly simple. Find something for her to put in her body so she'd have more energy. This wasn't the case at all. She truly was broken this time.

“Come on, Mel! Come on! Not now! Don't do this right now! I can't fix you this time!” Like earlier, the ghost pain in his chest returned. He felt like a pressure was building up inside of his body. There had been a time in another life where he was capable of releasing it, but his current body was not built for it anymore. A function the scientists must not have found a use for, but he could not place a finger on what it may have been. It felt terrible to not be relieved of it, all the same.

Atlas and P-body stood off to the side, both feeling guilty for not having noticed the humans condition up until Virgil had pulled their attention over with his distress. Their limbs shifted awkwardly, unsure of what to do with themselves, but both quickly jumped out of the ways when something opened from above them. The activity pulled Virgil's attention away from Mel long enough to watch as wires poured down from the ceiling like sleek, black vines. Polished, white plates melded to robotic parts pulled themselves together into one mass and lowered into the center of the room, just above the dipped platform where Virgil sat with Mel cradled protectively against him. The Maintenance Core glowered, fear and regret struggling past what he'd put up as a strong front as a white and black visor with a yellow optic turned to him and the human. GLaDOS, with all of Her mass and power, stared him down silently.

Things were tense. Virgil immediately started to add up the repercussions of his decision and was preparing himself for the worst. For just about ages the two glared at each other with not a single word between them, but GLaDOS was far more impressive with the sheer royalty of Her presence, however crippled it may have been after being kicked off Her throne. Finally, She spoke.

“The human's health care center, you little idiot.”

Virgil had still been shielding Mel from GLaDOS with the side of his arm, whatever good that did, but when She'd spoken to him he relaxed. “Um...s-sorry, what?”

“The medical bay. Get her out of my sight before I change my mind.”

Virgil's eyes widened at Her and quickly collected Mel from the floor like he'd done earlier. He knew that he would not be strong enough to carry Mel all the way to the medical bay, at least not with how fast they needed to get there, and instead ran over to P-body to hand her over to the tall testing droid. “P-body! Atlas! Human's health center! Stat!”

The two testing droids were always eager to follow instructions, it was part of their programming, and if they were being asked to hurry to the medical bay then they knew the best short cuts for it. Virgil was about ready to run after them when the monotone of the central core's voice caught him mid step.

“Metal ball...”

Virgil hesitated, but he was in a hurry so he turned around to humor Her one last time.

The chamber was already starting to clean itself up now that She was back in power, and the central core hung there as if nothing had changed. All of their efforts to kick Her off the Mainframe had been a disaster, only for Virgil to cave in the last few seconds and agree to Her coming back online. He felt about as low as he could possibly be, and Her next words to him was one final kick while he was down.

“We are going to forget that this ever happened. Step out of your place again, Maintenance, and it will be a decade for you in the pit with the screaming robots before I decide to disassemble you. Are we clear?”

Virgil shivered, but he didn't dare to respond to Her now. If he said the wrong thing then She'd crush him right then in there, and now She had full power to do it. More importantly, he needed to be with Mel. He had to make sure she go to the medical bay where they could get her help. She would be okay.

Mel was a champion. She'd be fine.

#testing maintenance #chapter 18 #tm #portal #portal 2 #portal stories mel #fanfic #ff #fic #virgil #glados #mel #atlas #pbody #cave johnson #wheaterz

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qwertsypage · 5 years

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RisingStack in 2019 - Achievements, Highlights and Blogposts.

🎄 How was 2019 at RisingStack? 🥳 - you might ask, as a kind reader already did it in a comment under our wrap-up of 2018.

Well, it was an intensive year with a lot of new challenges and major events in the life of our team!

Just to quickly sum it up:

We grew our team to 16! All of our engineers are full-stack in the sense that we can confidently handle front-end, back-end, and operations tasks as well - as you'll see from this year's blogpost collection.

We launched our new website, which communicates what we do and capable of more clearly (I hope at least). 🤞 Also, a new design for the blog is coming as well!

This year ~1.250.000 developers (unique users) visited our blog! 🤩

We just surpassed 5.7 million unique readers in total, who generated almost 12 million pageviews so far in the past 5 years.

We have now more than 220 articles on the site - written by our team exclusively.

We had the honor to participate in JSconf Budapest by providing a workshop for attendees on GraphQL and Apollo. 🎓

We delivered a 10-weeks-long online DevOps training for around 100 developers in partnership with HWSW, Hungary's leading tech newspaper.

We kept on organizing local Node.js meetups here in Budapest, with more than 100 attendees for almost every event this year. 🤓

We had the opportunity to work with huge companies like DHL, Canvas (market leader e-learning platform), and Uniqa (insurance corp.).

We met with fantastic people all over the world. We've been in LA, Sarajevo, Amsterdam, Prague, and Helsinki too. 🍻

We moved to a new office in the heart of Budapest!

🤔 Okay, okay... But what about blogging?

Blogging in 2019

You might have noticed that we did not write as much blogposts this year as we did before.

The reason is simple: Fortunately, we had so many new projects and clients that we had very little time to write about what we love and what we do.

Despite our shrinking time for writing blogposts, I think we still created interesting articles that you might learn a thing or two from.

Here's a quick recap from the blog in 2019. You can use this list to navigate.

Stripe 101 for JavaScript Developers

Generating PDF from HTML with Node & Puppeteer

REST in Peace. Long Live GraphQL!

Case Study: Nameserver Issue Investigation

RisingStack Joins the Cloud Native Node.js Project

A Definitive React-Native Guide for React Developers

Design Systems for React Developers

Node.js v12 - New Features You Shouldn't Miss

Building a D3.js Calendar Heatmap

Golang Tutorial for Node.js Developers

How to Deploy a Ceph Storage to Bare Virtual Machines

Update Now! Node.js 8 is Not Supported from 2020.

Great Content from JSConf Budapest 2019

Get Hooked on Classless React

Stripe 101 for JavaScript Developers

Sample app, detailed guidance & best practices to help you get started with Stripe Payments integration as a JavaScript developer.

At RisingStack, we’ve been working with a client from the US healthcare scene who hired us to create a large-scale webshop they can use to sell their products. During the creation of this Stripe based platform, we spent a lot of time with studying the documentation and figuring out the integration. Not because it is hard, but there's a certain amount of Stripe related knowledge that you'll need to internalize.

Read: Stripe Payments Integration 101 for JavaScript Developers

Generating PDF from HTML with Node & Puppeteer

Learn how you can generate a PDF document from a heavily styled React page using Node.js, Puppeteer, headless Chrome, and Docker.

Background: A few months ago, one of the clients of RisingStack asked us to develop a feature where the user would be able to request a React page in PDF format. That page is basically a report/result for patients with data visualization, containing a lot of SVGs. Furthermore, there were some special requests to manipulate the layout and make some rearrangements of the HTML elements. So the PDF should have different styling and additions compared to the original React page.

As the assignment was a bit more complex than what could have been solved with simple CSS rules, we first explored possible implementations. Essentially we found 3 main solutions we describe in this article.

Read: Generating PDF from HTML with Node.js and Puppeteer

REST in Peace. Long Live GraphQL!

As you might already hear about it, we're the organizers of the Node.js Budapest meetup group with around ~1500 members. During an event in February, Peter Czibik delivered a talk about GrahpQL to an audience of about 120 ppl.

It was a highly informative and fun talk, so I recommend you to check it out!

Case Study: Nameserver Issue Investigation

In the following blogpost, we will walk you through how we chased down a DNS resolution issue for one of our clients. Even though the problem at hand was very specific, you might find the steps we took during the investigation useful.

Also, the tools we used might also prove to be helpful in case you'd face something similar in the future. We will also discuss how the Domain Name System (works), so buckle up!

Read the blogpost here: Case Study: Nameserver Issue Investigation using curl, dig+trace & nslookup

RisingStack Joins the Cloud Native Node.js Project

In March 2019, we announced our collaboration with IBM on the Cloud Native JS project, which aims to provide best practices and tools to build and integrate enterprise-grade Cloud Native Node.js applications.

As a first step of contribution to the project, we released an article on CNJS’s blog - titled “How to Build and Deploy a Cloud Native Node.js App in 15 minutes”. In this article we show how you can turn a simple Hello World Node.js app into a Dockerized application running on Kubernetes with all the best-practices applied - using the tools provided by CNJS in the process.

A Definitive React-Native Guide for React Developers

In this series, we cover the basics of React-Native development, compare some ideas with React, and develop a game together. By the end of this tutorial, you’ll become confident with using the built-in components, styling, storing persisting data, animating the UI, and many more.

Part I: Getting Started with React Native - intro, key concepts & setting up our developer environment

Part II: Building our Home Screen - splitting index.js & styles.js, creating the app header, and so on..

Part III: Creating the Main Game Logic + Grid - creating multiple screens, type checking with prop-types, generating our flex grid

Part IV: Bottom Bar & Responsible Layout - also, making our game pausable and adding a way to lose!

Part V: Sound and Animation + persisting data with React-Native AsyncStorage

Design Systems for React Developers

In this post, we provide a brief introduction to design systems and describe the advantages and use-cases for having one. After that, we show Base Web, the React implementation of the Base Design System which helps you build accessible React applications super quickly.

Node.js v12 - New Features You Shouldn't Miss

Node 12 is in LTS since October, and will be maintained until 2022. Here is a list of changes we consider essential to highlight:

V8 updated to version 7.4

Async stack traces arrived

Faster async/await implementation

New JavaScript language features

Performance tweaks & improvements

Progress on Worker threads, N-API

Default HTTP parser switched to llhttp

New experimental “Diagnostic Reports” feature

Read our deep-dive into Node 12 here.

Building a D3.js Calendar Heatmap

In this article, we take a look at StackOverflow’s usage statistics by creating an interactive calendar heatmap using D3.js!

We go through the process of preparing the input data, creating the chart with D3.js, and doing some deductions based on the result.

Read the full article here Building a D3.js Calendar Heatmap. Also, this article has a previous installment called Building Interactive Bar Charts with JavaScript.

Golang Tutorial for Node.js Developers

In case you are a Node.js developer, (like we are at RisingStack) and you are interested in learning Golang, this blogpost is made for you! Throughout this tutorial series, we'll cover the basics of getting started with the Go language, while building an app and exposing it through a REST, GraphQL and GRPC API together.

In the first part of this golang tutorial series, we’re covering:

Golang Setup

net/http with Go

encoding/json

dependency management

build tooling

Read the Golang for Node developers tutorial here.

How to Deploy a Ceph Storage to Bare Virtual Machines

Ceph is a freely available storage platform that implements object storage on a single distributed computer cluster and provides interfaces for object-, block- and file-level storage. Ceph aims primarily for completely distributed operation without a single point of failure. It manages data replication and is generally quite fault-tolerant. As a result of its design, the system is both self-healing and self-managing.

Ceph has loads of benefits and great features, but the main drawback is that you have to host and manage it yourself. In this post, we're checking out two different approaches of deploying Ceph.

Read the article: Deploying Ceph to Bare Virtual Machines

Update Now! Node.js 8 is Not Supported from 2020.

The Node.js 8.x Maintenance LTS cycle will expire on December 31, 2019 - which means that Node 8 won’t get any more updates, bug fixes or security patches. In this article, we’ll discuss how and why you should move to newer, feature-packed, still supported versions.

We’re also going to pinpoint issues you might face during the migration, and potential steps you can take to ensure that everything goes well.

Read the article about updating Node here.

Great Content from JSConf Budapest 2019

JSConf Budapest is a JSConf family member 2-day non-profit community conference about JavaScript in the beautiful Budapest, Hungary. RisingStack participated in the conf for several years as well as we did this September.

In 2019 we delivered a workshop called "High-Performance Microservices with GraphQL and Apollo" as our contribution to the event.

We also collected content you should check out from the conf. Have fun!

Get Hooked on Classless React

Our last meetup in 2019 was centered around React Hooks. What is a hook?

A Hook is a function provided by React, which lets you hook into React features from your functional component. This is exactly what we need to use functional components instead of classes. Hooks will give you all React features without classes.

Hooks make your code more maintainable, they let you reuse stateful logic, and since you are reusing stateful logic, you can avoid the wrapper hull and the component reimplementation.

Check out the prezentation about React Hooks here.

RisingStack in 2020

We're looking forward to the new year with some interesting plans already lined up for Q1:

We'll keep on extending our team to serve new incoming business.

We have several blogposts series in the making, mainly on DevOps topics.

We'll announce an exciting new event we'll co-organize with partners from the US and Finnland soon, so stay tuned!

We're going to release new training agendas around Node, React & GraphQL, as well as a new training calendar with open trainings for 2020.

How was your 2019?

RisingStack in 2019 - Achievements, Highlights and Blogposts. published first on https://koresolpage.tumblr.com/

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therealestatesparkblog · 6 years

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5 All-Too-Common Tenant Issues and How to Handle Them as a Landlord

Most tenants are fine, dont get me wrong. But some of them can be an enormous pain. Tenants, like just about everything else in this world, follow the Pareto Principle:20 percent will cause 80 percent of your problems. Furthermore, 20 percent of that 20 percent (or four percent) will cause 64 percent of your problems. And so on. There are several types of typical problems that tenants will cause, of which the most common are: Nonpayment or asking for endless payment plansDamaging the unit and refusing to pay for such damagesEndless complaintsMaking accusations of you or your staffTrying to make their problems your problems Well deal with each one independently, but first, its important to talk about a basic principal of dealing with tenants. Be fair, but firm. And always act as your tenants ally. As I put it in a previous post: Make something other than yourselfthe enemy. It could be the lease, the law, company policy or even the owner. But the enemy is certainly not the property manager. No, you as the property manager are the tenants ally. So for example: I appreciate how hard this is; however, we have to follow the lease, and the lease mandates that we charge these expenses. We legally cant make an exception for one unless we make it for all. Or perhaps, I think we can find the best possible outcome given your situation that will fit with what the lease requiresand the owner will accept. You are on their team trying to come up with the best solution (not necessarily what they want).The rules dictated by the lease, law, policy or owner are the enemy in this situation. This will calm down even the most indignant tenant and make almost any troublesome dispute better. 1. Nonpayment or Asking for Endless Payments Of course, the best way to deal with nonpayment is to not have it in the first place. And the best way to ensure tenants pay their rent is to screen, screen and screen some more. That being said, even with careful screening, some tenants will fall behind. The best way to deal with these situations is to simply create a policy for how you will go about nonpayment and payment plans. It simply cannot be overstated how important systems are in your business. If you fail to put in a policy, you are likely to fall victim to whatever sob story the tenant throws at you. And I can guarantee you, there will be a sob story every time. Our policy is pretty simple. Rent is due on the first and considered late on the fifth. Immediately on the fifth, a late fee is charged with virtually no exceptions. On the first workday after the 12th, we send out 72-hour notices telling the tenant that we will file for eviction if they do not pay within 72 hours. Afterwards, if we do not hear from them, we file. At this point, all eviction charges are put on the tenants balance. For every 12-month lease, we accept one payment plan. If the tenant does not comply with the terms we agree to, then an eviction will be filed. (Make sure to check with an attorney regarding your states laws to make sure your lease and policies are in compliance.) It may sound kind of harsh, but you have to systematize this, and take yourself out of the place where a tenant could convince you to change your policy. You just need to say something like Im sorry, but those are the companys policies. 2. Damaging the Unit and Refusing to Pay for Such Damages Whenever you sign a lease, you should make it very clear to the tenant what they are signing. You are not going to just fix whatever breaks no questions asked. If the tenant damages something, it should obviously be their responsibility to pay for the damages. Some things are obviously not their problem; such as the roof leaking or a furnace going out. Some are pretty obviously their fault, such as a hole in the drywall. Unfortunately, not everything is so cut and dry. This is one reason it is important to document everything in these situations. Take pictures of how things were when you found them damaged and what it looked like after the work was done. Make notes in your property management software for conversations with the tenant, etc. As my brother likes to say, If it its not in [our property management software], it didnt happen. Related:5 Ways Landlords Can Achieve Better Tenant Stability In many cases, you will have to make tough decisions regarding whether to charge the residents or not. We usually lean in the residents favor and take questionable costs on ourselves unless but this is not necessarily the best way to do it. You should let the resident know when they sign the lease that there are some gray areas and that you will try to be as fair as possible, but for some maintenance items, even if they disagree, they will need to be charged. When this happens, sometimes they will yell at you. Part of being in management (and in real estate in general) is growing a thick skin. People yell sometimes; they will calm down eventually. Be fair (and calm), but firm. And remember, tenants cant expect you to get out there immediately. If they owned their own home, they wouldnt be able to get someone out there to fix the washing machine that day, necessarily. You want to be quick (especially with HVAC and water issues), but dont let them bully you here. It may take a few days and thats not the end of the world. As far as tenants refusing to pay their balances, in these situations we usually allow a balance to go up to 10 percent of the tenants rent before we are willing to file for an eviction. You can pick a different amount, but you need to be consistent. 3. Endless Complaints Some tenants simply cannot be pleased. In many cases, they may just want to get out of the lease. For this reason, I would include a break-lease fee in your lease. Although, weve heard youll have more luck collecting it if you call it a, early termination option. Talk to a local attorney about what is allowed in your state. We charge, approximately but not exactly, two months rent for an early termination option.Regardless, you will want to be able to recommend this provision if its obvious the tenant wants to leave. That being said, I wouldnt ever let the tenant out of their lease for free, just because they are a hassle. This sets a very bad precedent and could even be used against you regarding fair housing, unless of course, you are willing to do it for everyone.

If the person is asking for one maintenance issue after another, you should continue to send a maintenance crew out. But you can charge a trip fee if the issue turns out to be nothing. Just make sure to document or have the maintenance tech document this very carefully. Indeed, (again, check your state law). Just make sure you document it thoroughly and dont overuse it. Lease violation fees are a disincentive for bad behavior, not a way to make money. Regardless, with these tenants, it is usually best to elect to not renew their lease when their lease is up. Again, check your state laws, but usually you will have a right to do this without even giving cause. Tenants who are a huge hassle are usually just not worth your limited time and limited energy. Related:5 Legitimate Reasons to Allow a Tenant to Break Their Lease 4. Making Accusations Against You and Your Staff This is obviously one of the worst things that can happen to you. First of all, one of the reasons its important to be fair and respectful is that this reduces the likelihood of getting false or trumped up accusations thrown at you or your staff. For example, one study showed that doctors who spent more time with their patients were less likely to be sued on that fact alone. The most common accusation Ive heard is that of a maintenance tech or leasing agent stealing something. And the last time we were accused of this, it was demonstrably false. Even still, the first thing you should do is call an attorney. Once any sort of accusation has been made like this, you want to ensure you follow the letter of the law exactly. What I can say is that you should make sure to document everything. And I would certainly ask those involved for detailed accounts of what happened, and get it in writing. Get all of the evidence you can. Unfortunately, with such things, there wont be much but testimony. That being said, if you have a maintenance technician, for example, who has gotten multiple complaints or been accused multiple times, its probably worth seriously considering letting that person go. 5. Trying to Make Their Problems Your Problem I remember once, when I was just getting started in management, I got pointlessly dragged into a dispute between two of our tenants. One of the women was accusing the other of being emotionally abusive and wanted out of the lease. So I went to their unit to try to work out a plan to get one of them out. Instead, I stood there in dumbstruck awe as each of them threw horrendous invective at each other. Needless to say, I wasted an afternoon that day. In the end, you are not obliged to work out such disputes between tenants. You are there to set the rules (as long as those rules are within the law). Some tenants may want to make their problems yours and you simply have to refuse. Let them know that such issues have to be resolved themselves. You can give them their options, but you should leave it at that. With regards to virtually every issue, it is best to create a system and stick to it as best as possible. Be polite and empathetic for sure, but dont bend just because someone gets angry with you or tells you a sob story. And while you cant come up with a system for each situation, you can for many and then add a policy for every new situation that comes up that you didnt think of before. As time goes by, there will be less and less situations that come up that dont have a policy on how to deal with them all ready to go.

Do you have any tips for dealing with problem tenants? Share your advice below! https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/how-to-handle-tenants-issues-as-a-landlord/

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