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jenstar1992-2 · 3 years

Text

Here with You

Pairing: Echo x reader/ Hunter x reader

Warnings: Mentions of nightmares/ trauma, reliving a traumatic experience, Order 66 (because it’s a warning in itself)

Word count: 7,103

A/N: Well, I knew it, it hasn’t been a whole day since I saw the Bad Batch premiere, and I’ve already gotten my first writing idea (yes, this took me like two days to write because I kept getting interrupted). I just couldn’t get the image of my poor baby Echo in that med bay and seeing the trauma those damned Separatists caused him out of my head. All I want to do is hold him and never let go, he deserves the world. This was originally just going to be an Echo x reader, but it turned into a Hunter x reader as well, because I just couldn’t help myself, I love them both, and wanted both of them to get some lovins. Also, I get the sense that Omega is a smart kid, and that she’s pretty well spoken, so I tried to write her as such, while still keeping that childlike innocence, so hopefully it comes across that way.

So much had transpired within the last few days and you were still trying to wrap your head around all of it. The jedi had been almost entirely wiped out in a single day, and while you were certain their had to be other survivors besides yourself, you were unclear as to what that number was. Luckily for you, you had been amongst friends when Order 66 was given, and your men turned on you. If it weren’t for the Bad Batch, you were certain you wouldn’t be alive right now.

As you sat in the cockpit of the Marauder, the memories began to flood your brain, which caused involuntary tears to fill your eyes.

You and your men had been sent to Kaller to aid Master Billaba and her troops. However, upon your arrival, you were greeted with a pleasant surprise. It turned out, Clone Force 99 had been on planet already and had taken out a large amount of the droids before you even landed.

You had worked with this group before and had even enjoyed the experience. While your men thought their tactics and unprofessional antics were unnecessary and even a bit annoying, you found the group to be, for lack of a better term, fun. You had been around stuffy, uptight individuals for so long, it was nice to have a change of pace, and while your men were great, they tended to be sticklers for the rules and rarely wanted to take risks.

You also got along with this team rather well, enough to consider them good friends, but you were especially close with their newest recruit. You and Echo had known each other well before he joined the Bad Batch, even before his accident at the citadel, and had been friends for just as long, although as time went by and you found yourself encountering him more and more in your life, you slowly realized you might feel more for the trooper than you should, more than you’d ever admit aloud. So, when you’d heard of his survival and rescue, you had been elated, and that happiness resurfaced at the thought of seeing him again.

You exited the gunship and saw the rag-tag group of clones speaking with Master Billaba on the now quiet battlefield. They turned as you and your men made your approach. As you got closer to the group, you scanned the faces of its members before you found him, smiling brightly as your eyes connected, he did the same.

You came to stand before their leader, raising your gaze to meet the man’s unwavering stare.

“Sergeant”, you greeted him, extending a hand formally, which he took without hesitation, shaking it firmly.

“General, good to see you again”, he said with a smile.

“You too”, you responded.

You’d always liked Hunter, from the beginning he’d always struck you as a respectable man, and you admired the fact that he could allow his men to be their reckless selves while also keeping them in line, but only when necessary, it seemed. There was something else too, something you hadn’t noticed right away, but after a few more encounters with the man, you put it together, coming to an all to familiar realization, one that brought butterflies to your stomach, while also bringing about a slight anxiety. How could you let this happen, it was bad enough falling for one man you couldn’t have, but two, you were sure the universe was out to hurt you.

“General (L/N), I’m glad to see your trip was a safe one, and better late than never I suppose”, Depa said, drawing you from Hunter’s gaze to hers.

“Sorry Master Billaba, we were assisting Masters Luminara and Yoda on Kashyyyk when we got word of your need for reinforcements, we got here as soon as we could”, you said, then looking around at the desolated droids scattered across the landscape. “Although, from what I can tell, you seem to now have a handle on things.”

“Yeah, thanks to these guys”, Caleb, Depa’s padawan, exclaimed, gesturing to the group of men before you. “You should’ve seen it, they took all those droids out in a matter of minutes, it was incredible.”

You chuckled. “Yes, I’m well aware of the marvel that is Clone Force 99, and they do put on quite the show”, you said, shooting a quick glance Echo’s way. “Incredible indeed.”

Your words caused the trooper to smile shyly at you.

“Yes, well, we’re still glad you’re here, we just launched a counterattack, and the more assistance, the better”, Depa said.

You nodded. “You need us, we’ll stay”, you said before turning to your troops. “Men, a counterattack has been launched, I want you to rendezvous with Master Billaba’s troops and aid in the attack, Commander Roran, you’re with me. Let’s move!”

With that your troops dispersed, leaving you and your commander where you stood. You turned back to face everyone.

“So, how can we help”, you asked.

“Actually, I don’t think we’ll be needing your assistance after all, in fact, this war might soon be over”, Tech spoke up, causing you to give him a confused look.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, according to the encrypted comm chatter, Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi has found and engaged General Grievous on Utapau”, he responded.

“If he captures, or kills Grievous, the separatist command structure will collapse”, Echo chimed in.

“And most likely the droid armies along with them”, Tech finished.

“It can’t be that easy, can it”, you asked, looking to the jedi master.

“While it is an interesting theory, I would not bet our hopes on it, we should focus on the task at hand”, she replied.

“I agree, we should focus our energy on this attack, strike while we have the advantage”, you said.

Hunter nodded. “Any orders, or shall we do what we do”, he asked, directing his words at Depa.

“What do you think General, should we let them ‘do what they do’”, she asked you.

You chuckled and folded your arms over your chest. “Probably our best bet, what do you think Caleb”, you asked the padawan.

“I say we let them, but only if I can go with them”, he responded.

You looked to his master, raising an eyebrow in question.

“Very well”, she said, giving the boy permission.

“Ronan and I will tag along too”, you stated, then looking to Hunter. “Just in case you guys need a hand.”

“Hope that wasn’t a jab at me”, Echo said, coming to stand beside you while simultaneously lifting his cybernetic arm.

You immediately regretted your choice in words and stammered your defense.

“N- no, I didn’t mean, I would never.”

He let out an amused laugh. “I’m just messing with you General, sorry”, he said.

You then scowled at him before poking a finger at his chest plate.

“Not funny”, you said, but couldn’t keep the smile from forming on your face.

“I said I was sorry”, you heard him say as you began walking in the direction your troops had gone. He soon caught up and walked alongside you.

You chuckled. “Well, it’s nice to know you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

“Nah, but I did lose a couple other things”, he said, face turning slightly serious.

You stopped walking and just stood for a moment, a sad expression now adorning your features. Noticing your actions, Echo ceased his movements as well and looked back to you.

“What is it”, he asked.

You went to stand in front of him before you spoke your next words. “Echo, I am sorry for your loss, truly I am, but honestly, I’d rather you be here and missing a few limbs, then for you to not be here at all. I’m just glad your alive, and that I get to see you again.”

He stared at you for a moment with an unreadable expression before smiling and nodding.

“I guess you’re right, and I’m glad our paths crossed again, I…”, he began, clearly wanting to say more, but stopping himself. You caught on though and decided to voice it for him.

“I missed you too”, you said, giving him a warm smile, prompting one of his own.

You both began walking once more to catch up with your comrades.

“You know, I was actually surprised you recognized me, what with the countless differences and all” he said with a chuckle.

You shook your head. “You can change all you want, I’ll still know it’s you”, you said.

“Yeah?”

“Yep, you might’ve changed a lot on the outside, but inside, you’re still the same Echo I’ve always known and loved”, you said, saying the words before they fully registered with your brain, but once they did you nearly froze in your stacks, your face instantly reddening with embarrassment. You quickly tried to back track before he could respond. “I mean, uh, well, y- you know what I mean.” Smooth.

He chuckled, amused at your obvious embarrassment of your less-than-ideal choice of words yet again.

“It’s okay, I know what you mean”, he said, giving you a reassuring smile before seemingly letting the subject drop, much to your relief.

You nodded as you carried on toward the others.

Suddenly, a wave of emotions flooded your mind, and it was as if hundreds of voices were crying out within the confines of your skull. You stopped, placing a hand to the side of your head in an attempt to stop the dizziness that accompanied the voices.

Echo noticed and came to your side, placing a steadying hand to your back.

“Are you okay”, he asked, clearly concerned.

“S- somethings wrong, I feel… death, so much death, I don’t know…”, you began through heavy breathes, but you were soon cut off by the sound of blaster fire.

You both looked to see Master Billaba’s men attempting to gun her down as she deflected their blasts with her lightsaber. Before you could fully process the sight in front of you, you heard Caleb yell for his master, seeing him rush past you, saber ignited and ready to jump to her aid.

“Caleb, no…”, you shouted, but before you could run after him a burning pain in your left arm stopped you.

You grabbed your now wounded arm and turned to see Roran facing you, blaster raised and aimed directly at you.

“Commander”, you said in confusion, but before you could get another word out, he was firing again. You were able to deflect the blasts with your saber, yelling at him as you did so. “Roran, why are you doing this?”

Suddenly, the blasts stopped as Echo came to your aid, wrestling the blaster out of the commander’s hands before knocking him out cold. He then rushed to your side once more, seeing you kneeling and clutching your head.

“General, (Y/N), (Y/N), can you hear me? Say something”, he urged, but try as you might, you couldn’t form the words to respond.

Your head was swimming in a sea of pain, death, and betrayal, most of which you were certain weren’t coming from you, more like from the force itself. You’d felt disturbances in the force before, but none like this, it was all encompassing and soon you found yourself slipping from consciousness from the intensity of it all.

***

When you finally came to, you found yourself laying in a bunk aboard the Havoc Marauder. When you tried to sit up a hand caught your shoulder and gently coaxed you back down.

“Easy (Y/N), you don’t want to push yourself, you sustained a pretty bad injury, you should rest”, a familiar voice said softly.

“Echo, what, what happened… they turned on us, why would they do that”, you asked, looking at him with confusion and sadness mixing in your expression.

“I don’t know, we’re still trying to figure that out ourselves, but you’re safe now, I won’t let them hurt you again, you have my word. Now rest”, he said, trying to comfort you, but knowing it wouldn’t help much given what you’d just been through.

“No”, you heard someone say, the volume of it startling you slightly, and you looked to see that it was Hunter, who had just entered.

“What do you mean ‘no’”, Echo asked him, confused.

“I mean, she can’t stay here, it’s not safe”, he explained, and when you both gave him a befuddled look, he continued, “It’s Crosshair, there’s… something wrong with him. I think whatever happened to those soldiers is happening to him too, but I can’t be sure.”

“What makes you think that”, you questioned, finally sitting up and turning to place your feet on the floor.

He looked behind him, making sure you three were the only ones in ear shot before bending down to your level.

“He tried to kill that padawan”, he said, so low it was almost a whisper.

“Caleb, is he alright”, you asked, fear and concern thick in your voice.

“He’s alive, but other than that, I’m not sure. He ran off after…”, he began, but the words died on his lips.

You nodded in understanding. “So, what should I do, where should I go?”

“Stay here, on Kaller, find somewhere to hide. We’ll go back to Kamino and sort this out, once it’s safe, we’ll come back for you”, he said.

You nodded, agreeing to do as he said, knowing you really had no other option at this point.

Shortly after this conversation you readied yourself to leave, Tech giving you some medical supplies in case you would need to re-bandage your arm before they returned.

Echo ended up accompanying you in your search for shelter, telling the others he wasn’t going anywhere until he knew you’d found somewhere safe to stay. You had resisted the gesture, wanting him to get as far away from danger as possible, but he insisted.

You found a cave a few miles from the ship’s current location and decided it was as good a place as any to crash for, what you were hoping would only be, a few days.

“You sure you’re going to be okay here”, Echo asked, looking into the cold, dark cave.

“I’ll be fine, I’ve stayed in worse places. Besides, it’s the safest place we’ll find in the wilderness, and it’s dark, perfect for hiding”, you said in a poor attempt to lighten the mood, you didn’t know why, force of habit you guessed. Although, all this earned you was a sad smile from the trooper.

“We’ll be back soon, just stay out of sight until then, okay?”

You gave a small smile, bringing your hand up to your forehead for a two fingered salute. “Yes sir”, you said. This actually earned you a small laugh, which at this moment was music to your ears. You lowered your hand and looked into his eyes, taking on a more serious expression. “Just… be safe.”

“I should be telling you that”, he said.

“Yeah, well, I beat you to it”, you said, half grinning.

“I will if you will.”

You nodded. “Then I will.”

Suddenly your body was moving without you telling it to, and you found yourself wrapping him in a tight hug, closing your eyes to keep from crying, and soon the gesture was returned, leaving the both of you in a long embrace.

“Don’t forget me, okay”, you said, the threat of tears evident in your voice.

He squeezed you a little tighter. “Never.”

***

Turns out, you didn’t have to hide out in that cave long at all, as they had returned to retrieve you within two days’ time, with a new crew member, but without Crosshair. You two hadn’t been the best of friends by any means, and the man’s standoffishness really irked you sometimes, but you’d always known that deep down, he wasn’t such a bad guy. So, when the boys had told you what had happened between their return to Kamino and their escape from the planet, it put a surprising strain on your heart. You wanted to be angry with Crosshair for his actions, for attempting to kill Caleb and other innocents, but you just couldn’t, especially after you were informed of the inhibitor chips planted within every clone trooper. You couldn’t be mad at him, you couldn’t hate him, because it wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t any of their faults, they were being used just like the jedi had been, if not more so, and this knowledge extinguished any hatred that had grown in you since the day that order was given.

Thinking back on all of this had you shedding silent tears as you watched the streaks of light pass before your eyes, attempting to let yourself to be swept away in the beauty that was hyperspace. This always seemed to calm your mind, but it didn’t seem to be working this time, so you simply stared and let the tears run down your cheeks.

“Hey, you okay”, Hunter asked from the seat beside you, having temporarily taken over piloting the ship in order to allow the others to rest.

You were snapped out of your thoughts by his words and quickly wiped the tears from your face before answering.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine, still just trying to figure all of this out”, you replied somberly.

He nodded. “I understand, we still don’t have it all figured out either and with every answer comes new questions”, he said.

You hummed in agreement. “I guess my biggest question is, why now, why did Palpatine wait so long to put this grand plan in action? I mean, he could’ve done it years ago, but no, he waited… waited for us to get close to those who would eventually become our executioners, and worse, he took away their free will to do it. Those troopers, they weren’t the men they used to be, it’s like they were brainwashed.”

“Tech said they were programmed and when the chips were activated, it basically took over their minds, so I guess, in a way, they are brainwashed”, Hunter said, looking back out at the blue glow of hyperspace.

“Those poor men”, you said after a moment of silence.

Hunter turned his head to look at you, an astonished expression over his features, he then let out an amused huff.

“You are truly a wonder, you know that?”

“What”, you asked him, confused by the comment.

“Even after everything you’ve been through, and after what they did to you and your kin, you still feel pity for them”, he explained. “You’ve always been able to see people for who they really are, and forgive them for their faults, it’s commendable, and it’s something I’ve always admired about you.”

“You admire me”, you asked, raising an eyebrow and grinning in amusement.

He gave you a single nod. “Always have”, he said, giving you a soft smile.

The way he was looking at you made your cheeks begin to heat as a light blush covered them, and you turned away in an attempt to hide it, but he noticed, and his smile widened a bit as he looked back out the view port.

“I think you’re right by the way, about Palpatine waiting so long to execute his plan. I think he wanted you all to build those relationships, that trust, with your men, so that, when the time came, he could not only take you all out, but destroy your conviction as well”, he said, his voice lower than before.

“That’s a bit ominous, given our current situation”, you said, only half joking.

He turned to you suddenly, eyebrows raised in mild shock.

“(Y/N), you don’t think we’d… we’d never hurt you, I’d never hurt you, we’re on your side, I promise”, he said, hurt in his eyes. Did you really not trust him?

Seeing his reaction made your heart squeeze, you hadn’t meant to hurt him, you were just confused and scared. You felt as if your whole world had come crumbling down around you, and you were still trying to resurface from the rubble. But you knew you were wrong for thinking, even for a second, that you couldn’t trust Hunter and his men.

“I know, I’m sorry. I do trust you, all of you”, you said, trying to sound reassuring, but it only came out as sadness.

It looked as if the sergeant was contemplating something, his hands reflexively grabbing at nothing as they opened and closed on his lap. You knew he wanted to do something, wanted to comfort you, but he also didn’t want to invade your space, worried that would be crossing a line. So, you took the initiative.

You reached over and took one of his hands from his lap, holding it softly before giving it a reassuring squeeze and sending a smile his way. This prompted him to smile back, and you both just sat like that for a minute.

Suddenly, you heard a commotion from the bunks, and your name being called out by a desperate voice.

Recognizing the voice, you jumped up from your seat. “Echo”, you said, concern in your tone, before looking back to Hunter.

He simply nodded. “Go”, he said softly.

You gave a confirming nod and let go of the hand you’d still been holding, before quickly making your way to the bunks.

When you entered the room, it took you a second to assess the situation before you. Echo was laying in his bunk, breathing heavy, head shaking from side to side, and body trembling, as if he were in a state of terror. All this while Omega stood by the bunk, watching with concern. She looked back to you when you entered, then ran to you.

“I tried to wake him, but it’s not working, he keeps calling for you, you’ve got to do something”, she said in a rush, voice and eyes full or worry for her new friend.

You bent down to her level and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, I know what to do, you go wait with Hunter, okay? Everything will be fine”, you told her, attempting to quell her worry.

You then stood and made your way to Echo, sitting on the edge of the bunk and looking over him with your own worried expression. You really didn’t know what to do, you’d never been faced with something like this before. He was clearly having a terrible nightmare, and you wanted to help, so you just acted on instinct.

You placed a hand on his shoulder and shook lightly, softly calling his name, trying to wake him as gradually as you could, as you figured startling him awake would be counterproductive. However, this didn’t seem to work, and hearing your voice only caused him to say your name more. Seeing him like this broke your heart, and for a moment you felt totally helpless, but then you had an idea. You moved your hand from his shoulder, bringing it to cup the side of his face, your thumb instinctually beginning to rub soothing circles on his cheek, and you bent down to speak quietly in his ear.

“Echo, it’s (Y/N). You don’t have to be scared, I’m here, I won’t let them hurt you anymore”, you said, gently grabbing his flesh hand with your free one and holding it to your chest. “I’m here for you, I’ll always be right here with you, it’s okay. Wake up Love. Come back to me.”

As you spoke you could see him slowly calm, and with your final request, his eyes fluttered open, finding yours instantly.

“There you are”, you said softly, a smile spreading over your face. You were just relieved that the nightmare was over, and he seemed to be calming more with each passing second.

As he took in your presence before him, he let out a relieved sigh, but then looked to you with a strained expression.

“(Y/N), I… I was back, back with them, back to that day, I… I didn’t know how or why, and I just…”, he said in a desperate rush.

You shushed him, and let your hand continue to stay where it was in an attempt to sooth the frightened man lying next to you.

“I know, it’s okay, you’re okay now, you’re here with me, you’re safe, I promise”, you reassured him.

This seemed to work, and he let out another sigh as he closed his eyes and tried to regulate his breathing once again, coming back to a steady pattern in no time. When he opened his eyes again, he noticed the position you both were in; you were sitting very close beside him, one hand resting on his cheek, while the other held his hand close to your heart, with his clutching yours in return, like you were his lifeline, which he had to admit, wasn’t far from the truth. You were the one he could trust without question, the one he could confide in, always had been.

You noticed this too and immediately went to pull away, slowly dropping his hand as you did, cheeks now burning. You didn’t get very far though, before he grabbed your wrist with his newly freed hand. “No”, he said, and pulled the hand back towards his head, coaxing you to return it to its previous spot. “Don’t stop… please.”

You stared at him for a moment with an unreadable expression, before finally giving him a tentative nod and continuing your earlier action of rubbing your thumb in circles on his cheek. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the pillow, relaxing easily under your touch, this causing you to smile, glad you could be of comfort to him. You stayed like this for a while before your curiosity got the best of you and you voiced the question that had been on your mind since you first heard him call your name.

“Echo”, you said in a questioning tone. He hummed in response, not opening his eyes. “Why, why me?”

He looked at you then, confused. “What do you mean?”

“When you were having your nightmare, you, you called out for me, I was just wondering, why me”, you explained.

“I did”, he asked.

“Yeah, quite a few times actually. Was I in your dream or something?”

He looked away, a bit embarrassed.

“Not exactly”, he said.

You used the hand that was still on him to lightly pull his head to face you, speaking once his eyes were fixed on yours once again.

“Echo, you know you can tell me anything. What is it”, you asked.

“You weren’t in the dream, technically, and it wasn’t really a dream, more like I was reliving a memory, the memory of the citadel, and…”, he explained, his words dying off as he found it hard to voice them.

You placed a reassuring hand on his chest and gave him a nod in understanding.

“So, you were reliving that day, I’m sorry, I know that can’t be easy. But I still don’t see what that has to do with me, I wasn’t there, if I had been, I would’ve taken that blow for you”, you said, suddenly feeling tears behind your eyes, but you fought them back internally.

His eyes widened and he quickly grabbed your hand from its spot on his chest, squeezing it firmly.

“No, don’t say that”, he said urgently, suddenly sitting up, causing your hand to slip from his face, instead falling to rest at the intersection of his shoulder and neck.

“But…”, you tried to say, but he cut you off.

“No (Y/N), I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, least of all on you”, he said, staring directly into your eyes. You could only nod sadly as you tried to keep your emotions in check, which was getting harder as this interaction continued. He then softened his gaze and let out a long breath. “You were there, in a way.”

You gave him a confused look, about to ask what he meant, until he continued.

“After the explosion, I just laid there for a long time, feeling everything and nothing all at the same time, I was basically just waiting to die”, he told you. Your heart squeezed at his words, as the tears threatened to rise. “But then, I heard someone’s voice calling out to me, your voice. You were telling me not to give up, not to leave you, to keep fighting, and so I did. I bared the pain and rejected the urge to just slip away, even after they took me, I fought through all of it, because I knew that if I survived, then there was a chance I’d make it back to you, and… I really wanted that.”

That’s all it took, his words hit you straight in the chest and flowed through you, causing the flood gates to release and the tears to fall. Echo looked worried then and released your hand, bringing his to cup your cheek, wiping the tears away with his thumb.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you sad”, he said, internally wishing he hadn’t said anything.

You shook your head. “You have nothing to be sorry for, and I’m not sad that you told me, I’m glad you did”, you said, wiping the tears from the other side of your face. “Honestly, I’m just happy your alive, and that you did find your way back to me. I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life. When I heard what happened on Lola Sayu I couldn’t believe it at first, it didn’t feel real, but once I accepted it was… I had never felt true grief until that moment, and the sense of longing was almost unbearable. All I kept thinking was how I was angry with myself for wasting the time I had with you, lying. Lying to you, and to myself.”

“What are you talking about, lying about what”, he asked, sliding his hand down to hook a finger around your chin and turn your face back to face him after you’d turned it away during your confession.

You took a deep breath before speaking next. “I lied to you before, when I acted like that slip up was just a poor choice of words, I meant exactly what I said. See, the truth is, I was upset with myself because I never told you…”, you paused, finding this confession to be much harder than you had thought it would be to get out, “never told you that I…”

After another long pause, Echo decided to take the initiative, seeing as he knew exactly what you wanted to say, as it was the same thing he’d wanted to say to you all that time ago, still did. He used the hand that had a hold of your chin to pull you to him as he caught your lips in a kiss, one that while soft, was full of so much emotion it was almost palpable. You were surprised at first, but soon melted into the kiss, feeling completely content with staying there as long as possible.

Much too soon for your liking, Echo pulled away, but only to place his forehead against yours and let the long overdue words slip from his lips. “I love you too.”

Your smile reached your ears as his words filled you with untainted happiness, which prompted him to smile widely himself. Why had you both waited so long to do this, you didn’t know, but you were glad it was finally happening.

“Why did we spend all that time hiding, when we could’ve just done this”, you asked.

He chuckled. “Because we were both cowardly idiots”, he said.

You hummed in agreement. “I still can’t believe you did all that for me”, you said in a more serious tone.

He pulled back to look into your eyes. “Of course I did… I’d do anything for you (Y/N)”, he told you.

“Anything?”

He nodded in response and you smiled again.

“Kiss me again”, you said, it was more of a request than a demand.

He smiled and pulled you close so your face was mere inches from his.

“Yes Ma’am.”

***

It had been a good fifteen minutes since the cries had stopped and no noise could be heard from Echo’s bunk. Omega was no longer worried, knowing you had it handled, but her curiosity was starting to get the best of her.

“What do you think their talking about in there, it’s so quiet, maybe I should…”, she said as she got up from the co-pilot seat, moving in the direction of the bunks, but she was stopped by a hand grabbing her forearm, causing her to turn and stare at Hunter questioningly.

“Don’t, they’re fine, and it’s none of our business what their talking about, so just let them be, alright”, he said, giving her a warning look, one that wasn’t all that intimidating to the young girl, but she listened nonetheless and returned to her seat.

After a moment she spoke again, not being able to take the silence any longer.

“So, what’s the deal with those two, are they together, or is it some secret that everyone knows about except them”, she asked the sergeant.

Hunter laughed, this kid really was perceptive, not that anyone with eyes couldn’t see the attraction between you and Echo, it had always seemed so obvious to him, which is why he never spoke on his own feelings for you.

“Yeah, there seem to be… unspoken feelings between the two of them, but I’m sure they’ll get their acts together soon enough, especially now that they’ll be around each other more often”, he told her.

She thought on this for a moment before responding.

“I think so too… and what about you”, Omega asked him.

“What about me?”

“Are you going to get your act together as well”, she asked, raising her eyebrow and grinning at him.

“What are you talkin’ about kid”, Hunter asked, wondering if she’d somehow figured it out.

“Seriously, I’ve only just got here and I can see it”, she said.

“See what?”

“That Echo isn’t the only one who has feelings for the general.”

Hunter turned to the young clone, a look of surprise on his face. Very perceptive indeed.

“Why don’t you just tell her, at least one of you should pluck up the courage to do it”, she said.

He exhaled heavily as his features returned to a more neutral expression.

“It’s not that simple kid, there are just some things you’re not old enough to understand. Besides, it’s not reciprocated so there’s really no point, she’s made her choice, and I have to respect that”, he explained, hoping that would be that. However, he wasn’t going to be that lucky.

“Your wrong”, Omega said simply.

“What?”

“Your wrong, those feelings, they are reciprocated, yeah she likes Echo, but she likes you too.” She said it with such confidence that it made him wonder if the statement was true.

“Really, and how do you know that”, he asked, an almost sarcastic tone in his voice.

She shrugged. “Female intuition.”

He raised a suspicious brow at her but decided not to think too much on it.

“Hm, well, even if you are right, she’s still made her choice, and I won’t get in the way.”

“Won’t get in the way of what?”

Your voice made both of them jump a little. You had just made your way back to the cockpit and had clearly overheard the last bit of their conversation.

“Nothing”, Hunter said, watching you come to stand beside Omega, perching your arm on the headrest of the co-pilot chair and leaning on it.

“Really? Didn’t sound like nothing”, you said, raising your eyebrow in suspicion.

Omega suddenly perked up and turned in her chair to look up at you.

“Hey (Y/N), do you think it’s possibly for someone to love more than one person at a time”, she asked.

You were a bit taken aback by the question, but figured you’d answer, seeing as how you were being very honest today.

“Yes, I do, it actually happens a lot more often than you think”, you responded, purposefully avoiding Hunter’s gaze as you looked at the child.

“And what does that person do, you know, when they realize they have feelings for more than one person”, she then asked.

“Well, usually that person then has a decision to make, and they just hope they don’t break any hearts in the process. You see, love can be a tricky endeavor. However, I think if someone does fall for two individuals at once, then there are other options”, you said, rather matter-of-factly, given the topic at hand.

“Like what?”

“Those involved could always enter into a relationship all together, I suppose”, you said, wondering just how far she was going to take this conversation.

“And that would work”, she asked, seeming almost hopeful.

“It’s possible, yes, but only if all members involved are okay with it. They all need to know that’s what’s going on, and there can’t be any secrets”, you explained.

“Huh, I guess that makes sense”, Omega said, seeming content with your explanation. Then another thought seemed to hit her. “Hey (Y/N)?”

You hummed in response.

“Have you ever been in love”, she asked curiously.

“Omega”, Hunter said firmly, giving her another look of warning.

“No, no, it’s fine”, you informed him, not wanting him to reprimand the girl for just being curious. “To answer your question Omega, yes, yes I have.”

“With more than one person”, she continued.

You raised an eyebrow at her and crossed your arms over your chest.

“What’s with the twenty questions, am I being interrogated or something”, you asked, only half joking.

She shook her head. “No, just curious is all.”

“Uh huh, well why don’t you stow that curiosity away for later and go get some rest, it’s quiet now”, you told her.

“What did you do, I mean, how did you get him to stop”, she asked as she stood from her seat.

“I just let him know that he was safe, and that there was nothing to be afraid of”, you said, which wasn’t a complete lie.

“That’s it”, she asked.

You nodded. “That’s it.”

She gave you a look of suspicion but didn’t act on it.

“Okay”, she said, drawing out the word, and made her way to exit the cockpit.

“Sleep tight”, you called after her as she disappeared down the small corridor. You then turned back to the view port and took a seat in the now empty chair, sighing heavily before finally looking to Hunter. “Well, that was interesting, care to tell me what that was all about?”

“Not really”, he said, turning back to face forward.

You raised a brow. “Seriously?”

He shrugged and kept his gaze where it was.

You sighed again and leaned back in your chair. “Alright then, but I think it’s worth mentioning that the kid knows what she’s talking about, you might want to listen to her every now and then, she’s quite intuitive.”

He looked to you then, confusion on his brow.

“What do you mean”, he asked.

You laughed. “I mean, what she said about me is true”, you said.

His eyes widened a bit. “You, you heard that”, he asked, and you nodded in response. “How much of it?”

“Enough”, you said simply.

He looked away again as he spoke. “Then you know it doesn’t matter how I feel, you’ve made your choice, and I’m okay with that, I’ll have to be”, he said, trying to keep up this act of indifference.

You turned in your seat to face him. “You keep saying that, but, what if I don’t want to choose, because how you feel does matter, Hunter. At least, to me it does.”

He turned his head to meet your gaze. “What exactly are you proposing”, he asked.

“Nothing yet, just letting you know that, I know, and that the feelings are mutual.”

He smiled at this and nodded his understanding.

“What about Echo, have you told him yet”, he asked.

“We talked, and confessions were made… finally”, you said with a smile.

You both laughed then, happy to finally air things out a bit, all the pent-up emotions were wearing on all of you it seemed, and it felt nice to not have to hide it anymore.

“How do you think he’ll feel about your non-proposed proposal”, he asked with a grin.

“I don’t know, but we’re all adults, we can sit down and have a civilized conversation about this, and… we’ll figure this all out”, you told him.

He gave an amused huff. “You make it sound so formal.”

You nodded and gave a light chuckle. “At first, yeah, but I get the feeling that once this proposal is made, all persons involved will be… willing to give it a try”, you said, taking his hand and holding it in both of yours. “Then things will get more… informal.”

He smiled. “Yeah, how can you be so sure”, he asked, leaning toward you.

You smiled back and leaned in as well, your faces now only inches apart.

“Female intuition”, you whispered, your smile turning a bit smug.

He chuckled in amusement. “You’re ridiculous”, he said, before closing the gap between you.

The kiss was sweet and felt just as right as the ones you’d had with Echo, and just like those ones, this kiss ended all to quickly, but you were content to sit back and bask in the afterglow, you didn’t want to rush things after all.

You both sat there a moment, leaning back in your seats, staring out the view port, arms stretched as your hands sat, intertwined, between you. Maybe this really could work, only time would tell.

After what felt like hours, but in reality, had only been minutes, Hunter looked to you with a soft smile.

“I’m glad you’re here with us”, he said.

You smiled back and gave his hand a light squeeze.

“Me too”, you said, and you both stayed like that for a long while, enjoying a view you each thought was much better than the one outside the view port.

Little did you know, behind you Omega stood at the entrance of the cockpit, looking on silently and grinning from ear to ear, feeling quite pleased with herself.

177 notes · View notes

chocolatequeennk · 4 years

Text

Wired to Love You

In which the Doctor gets a caffeine high and gives away more than he intended.

Ten x Rose

For @doctorroseprompts 31 Days of Ficmas. This is Day 2: Ginger.

AO3 | FF.NET

The Doctor didn’t spin around the console with his usual manic energy as he set the coordinates for their next trip. He wanted to be sure of the landing this time—Rose deserved a fun trip. They’d spent a week in London, letting the TARDIS recover from her side trip to the parallel universe, and Rose recover from losing Mickey.

Mickey Smith, defender of the Earth, he mused. Not such an idiot after all.

He’d been through this before—had one companion stay after losing a friend. It was never easy, and he wanted to give Rose something that would make her smile.

He twisted the last knob, then gave her a wide smile. “Are you ready for this, Rose Tyler?” he asked dramatically as he grabbed the dematerialisation lever.

Rose rolled her eyes, but he knew he saw a hint of a smile playing with the corners of her mouth. “Yeah, all right. Impress me, Time Lord.”

The Doctor threw the lever then put his hand on his chest in mock indignation. “Rose Tyler, it almost sounds as if you don’t think I’m impressive.”

She laughed, the musical sound echoing in the console room. “You are the same man, but so different. ‘I am impressive!’ he insisted. Three words. And here you are, spouting off a sonnet practically.”

The Doctor sniffed. “It’s not my fault this particular incarnation is a trifle more loquacious than I was in my last body.”

“Loquacious?” she asked, giggles rippling through her body.

The Doctor warmed to his subject. He was making Rose laugh, which was all he wanted out of the day. “I am a wordsmith, Rose Tyler. The wordiest of smithy wordsmiths.”

Rose mouthed the words, and he grinned at her. The TARDIS landed, and he spun around and offered her his hand. “Come on! I think we’re ready for a party.”

He tilted his head and studied her attire. “But I think you’ll need a warm coat or something,” he said, realising she was dressed for a much warmer climate.

The ship hummed around them, and the Doctor and Rose both looked at the coat rack by the door. To neither of their surprise, a Rose-sized coat was hanging there.

“The TARDIS is looking out for me,” Rose said as she jogged up the ramp.

The ship hummed again, the sensation feeling like a warm blanket. The Doctor patted a strut; he had no doubt the ship had taken him exactly where he had asked for once. They both knew Rose needed a smile.

Her giggles caught his attention. “What is this?” she asked, holding up a scarf.

A familiar scarf. A very familiar, very long, very colourful scarf.

The Doctor groaned. “That… That should have been buried in an archived version of the wardrobe room. Why’d you bring that out?”

The ship whistled, even though the question was rhetorical. It had made Rose laugh. That was exactly why she’d brought it out.

He shook his head and watched as Rose draped it around her neck three times. The purple stripes matched her coat almost perfectly.

Rose grinned at the Doctor. She hadn’t been quite sure she was ready to travel again, but the warm laughter had eliminated most of her lingering sorrow.

She held her hand out to him. “Come on,” she said. “I hear there’s something impressive outside these doors.”

The Doctor’s answering grin eased what was left of her lingering melancholy. He bounded up the ramp and pulled the door open, gesturing for her to go outside first.

Rose took a step towards the door, then tilted her head. She heard something familiar… She sniffed. And smelled something familiar.

Excitement beat in her heart and she darted past him, out onto the snow-covered street. “Oh, brilliant,” she breathed, turning in a slow circle to take it all in.

They’d parked on one side of a wide square. A Christmas tree dominated the space, with garland spanning out from the tree to the buildings lining the square.

“Where are we?”

The Doctor took her hand and they started walking towards the centre of the square. “This is Parolin in the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire.”

“You mean we finally made it?” Rose cast him a sideways grin. “Not to some satellite or something where we’ll have to figure out who’s trying to end humanity as we know it?”

The Doctor huffed, and she giggled in delight. He hip checked her, and she burst into full on laughter.

“If you’re finished,” he said after a moment, “I could tell you the rest. Or you could continue to tease me.”

Rose tapped her chin with her finger. “Hmmm… tough choice.”

The Doctor pouted, and before he could work himself up, Rose slid closer to him and hugged his hand to her. “Nah, you know I’m teasing. Tell me more. The Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire…”

He nodded. “Human festivals have almost been forgotten.”

“Doesn’t sound very great to me,” Rose muttered.

“Except for once a century, when the nostalgists are able to have their day—or days.”

“You mean, they go 99 years without celebrating anything, and then once every one hundred years, the whole empire celebrates every human holiday… ever?”

“Yep!”

Rose shook her head. “Barmy,” she muttered.

Then she realised what he was saying. “So, this is literally the Christmas festival of a century.”

He made the little happy giggling sound in the back of his throat that she loved so much. “Exactly!”

Rose sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder. She wasn’t stupid; she knew why the Doctor had brought her here. But the fact that he knew exactly what would put a smile on her face didn’t make it any less meaningful. In fact…

“Thank you, Doctor.”

He smiled down at her, all the giddiness gone, leaving only warmth in its place. “Anything for you, Rose Tyler.”

Then he tightened his hold on her hand and tugged her through the crowds. “Come on, Rose! The party awaits!”

Rose laughed helplessly and let him pull her along with him. They moved from table to table, enjoying the chocolates and biscuits and eggnog and hot buttered rum.

At one point, they joined an impromptu group of carollers and roamed the surrounding streets, singing at the top of their lungs.

When they were done, the song leader handed everyone a slice of gingerbread. “Brilliant work, everyone. I’d say we’ll do it again next year, but well…” The crowd all laughed at the joke that must be old now, at the end of the year of festivals.

The Doctor hesitated just a moment before he devoured the gingerbread. He was hungry, and as long as he didn’t have alcohol, he should be fine. Ginger on its own didn’t get a Time Lord drunk—it just lowered their ability to metabolise the alcohol, letting it actually reach their system and intoxicate them.

“Where to next?” he asked Rose, once they’d finished the dessert.

“Can we go into a shop?” Rose asked. “I’m getting cold.”

The Doctor nodded. “The main indoor shopping area is this way,” he said, leading her to the booths lining the streets.

A stand along the way caught his eye, and he slowed down and snagged two cups of coffee. “This should help you warm up, too,” he said, offering one to her.

She wrapped both her hands around the paper cup and held it up to her nose. “Mmm, perfect,” she murmured.

The Doctor sipped at his coffee, trying to ignore the way his hearts were racing. That was par for the course when he was with Rose Tyler. He needed to learn to just… get used to it. Somehow. Even though no one had ever made him feel like this and…

He shook his head quickly to stop that thought in its tracks.

Rose looked up at him oddly, and he just grinned and bounced on his toes. “Come on, Rose Tyler!” he said, sounding a little too… energetic even to his ears. “Shopping awaits.”

The longer they were inside, the more antsy the Doctor felt. He always felt a little… bouncy in this body. Like he had slightly too much energy for the amount of limbs he possessed. But right now he felt like he was literally vibrating out of his skin.

And Rose was starting to notice. After the third time he went on a ten minute ramble about the shopping centre, the town origins, and the exact placement of the planet in the galaxy, she stopped and looked at him, her hands planted on her hips.

“All right, what’s going on with you?” she said. The words were stern, but the voice was concerned and he just loved it when Rose cared about him. Rose cared about everyone but it mattered the most when she cared about him.

He blinked and held his breath, hoping he hadn’t actually said that out loud. He wouldn’t normally, but today wasn’t normal and why wasn’t it normal? Rose had asked and he was going to tell her but first he had to figure out why himself. He couldn’t really tell her something he didn’t know the answer to.

(Contrary to her opinions, he did not actually just make up stories about the planets and people they visited. If he told her something, it was because he knew it—or at least, he believed he did. Sometimes he was wrong, and he was Time Lord enough to admit that.)

The Doctor stopped and put his fingers to his temples. His normally rapid thought process was out of control. What was he supposed to be doing? Oh right, figuring out why he was like this.

He took a deep breath, holding it for ten seconds, then letting it out slowly. That centred him just enough to focus on his body. Clearly, something was affecting…

The Doctor groaned and buried his hands in his face.

Rose blinked in concern when the Doctor groaned and buried his hands in his face. “Doctor?” she asked, feeling more worried by the minute. “Is something wrong?”

“Wrong?” he said, his voice muffled by his hands. He sighed and straightened up. “No, nothing is wrong, unless by wrong you mean embarrassing and too revealing, in which case yes something is wrong and you are about to learn more about Time Lord physiology than I had intended for today.”

Rose sucked in a breath and hoped she wasn’t blushing. She was almost certain that wasn’t what he’d meant—if he meant that kind of physiology lesson, he surely wouldn’t be talking about it in public.

“I never should have eaten that gingerbread. But it smelled delicious and I was hungry and I knew I wasn’t going to drink any alcohol, so I thought, ‘What’s the harm?’ How was I supposed to know that ginger would make caffeine affect me, just like alcohol.”

Rose blinked, trying to keep up with that rapid-fire speech. “What’s ginger got to do with anything?”

“Oh, everything. Well, not everything, just everything that is related to this particular conversation, in which case I suppose I really could just say everything because we were talking about this conversation, weren’t we?”

Rose blinked at him, and the Doctor groaned again. “It’s getting worse.”

“What is?”

She watched him take another deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Ginger,” he said, enunciating the two syllables in a way she knew meant he was trying to control his rambling again. “Time Lords are able to metabolise substances faster. It’s why I don’t get drunk. But ginger impairs our ability to metabolise the alcohol.”

Rose frowned; what did that have to do with anything? Like he’d said, they hadn’t had any alcohol.

Then she remembered the coffee, and it clicked. “Caffeine,” she said. “You can’t metabolise the caffeine, and now you’re completely wired.”

He pressed his lips in a thin line and nodded. Rose could see how hard it was for him to stay silent, and she could only imagine what their life would be like if the Doctor talked more than he already did.

“All right,” she said slowly. “Do you want to go back to the TARDIS?”

His shoulders slumped. “No, I don’t want to ruin this for you. This trip is supposed to be for you, to make you smile. You should always smile, Rose—your smile is so pretty.”

This time, Rose knew she was blushing. “Well, thanks,” she stammered. “But we can always come back to the party later, yeah? Like, we can go back to the TARDIS for a bit, or even overnight, without leaving the planet?”

The Doctor blinked so rapidly Rose swore she could feel a breeze from his eyelashes.

“I guess we don’t,” he said. “Do you know, I’ve never really though about that before. It’s always one day, one city. Unless we’re arrested or made guests of the king or something. Then we stay longer. But usually, I just do what I came to do and then leave. I never thought about just… staying.”

Rose took his hand and led him out of the shop, hoping he couldn’t see her rolling her eyes. “It’s not like you’re playing domestics,” she muttered. “I’m not saying we could set up house here. I’m just saying we could rest for a bit before coming back to the party.”

“Oh, I completely agree!” he said breezily. “I wasn’t arguing, I was just saying it wasn’t something I’d ever considered. Do you know, after over a thousand years in the TARDIS, I really thought I was done being surprised. Not by other planets, of course, because I’m always surprised. Day I know everything, that’s the day I quit travelling. But I’m not very often given just… a different way to live. It’s a paradigm shift! That’s you, Rose Tyler, a paradigm shifter.”

Rose breathed out a sigh of relief when she saw the TARDIS. She loved listening to the Doctor ramble, she really did, but his constant talking was hard to keep up with, especially as he jumped from topic to topic without warning or explanation.

“Here we are,” she said, pulling out her key. “Home again home again.”

She unlocked the door and turned around to look at the Doctor. To her surprise, he swept her up in a hug.

“What’s this for?” she asked, her words muffled by his coat.

“You called the TARDIS home,” he said. “I was worried… Well, it doesn’t matter. But you called the TARDIS home and now I know that I don’t need to worry.”

Rose was pretty sure she knew what he’d been worrying about, and he definitely did not need to worry.

“Yeah, she’s my home… as long as that’s okay?”

The Doctor pushed open the door and let Rose enter the ship first. “Of course it’s okay!” he replied, sounding almost indignant. “If it wasn’t okay, I’d say it wasn’t, would’t I? And I wouldn’t give you a key. Bit stupid of me to give someone a key if I didn’t want to them to feel at home.”

Rose shook her head. “Yeah, all right. Listen, Doctor. I’m going to go take a bath and go to bed. I’ll be up at eight for breakfast, and then we can explore the second half of the market.”

“Molto bene!” The Doctor bounced on his toes, then danced around the console. He just could not contain the excess energy that was building up in his body. Was this what humans felt like when they had caffeine? If it was, then why did they ever do it?

“Or maybe this is just special because of the ginger. Just like I’ll get totally sloshed on a single glass of wine if I’ve had ginger.”

The Doctor spun around to talk to Rose, and he blinked a few times when he realised she wasn’t there. But then he remembered that she’d told him she was leaving the room.

He pouted. Well, how was he going to stay busy if his busy partner had left him all on his own?

Without any real thought, he dug around under the console and started building with the pieces he found there. It was good to have something to do with his hands, but that project only took ten minutes.

Next, he walked a lap of the TARDIS. Or at least as much as could be ran in a lap. Several of the corridors weren’t really connected to the rest, unless either he or the TARDIS felt like they needed to be.

He blinked when he spotted a familiar door. It wasn’t really a surprise that he’d gotten himself to Rose’s room, he figured. After all, he would much rather be with her than alone, although he thought maybe she’d been getting a little tired of his rambling and he really didn’t want to annoy her.

He caught his lower lip between his teeth and thought for all of 30 seconds before he knocked at the door. “Rose? It’s me. Well, who else would it be? We are the only two people on the TARDIS after all.”

He snapped his mouth shut with a click. He wasn’t going to annoy Rose.

“Sorry,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m trying not to ramble. If I don’t ramble, can I come in?”

Rose bit her lip. She was really pretty comfy in her jim jams, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear all about the Mongol invasion or who Merlin really was or anything else the Doctor happened to latch onto.

But on the other hand, she didn’t want to turn him away, either. It was really so sweet that he wanted to be with her while he felt a little out of sorts.

“Yeah, gimme a mo,” she called back. The cami top was enough, but she grabbed a pair of pyjama bottoms and pulled them on over her knickers. “Okay, come on in, Doctor.”

The door swung open, and the Doctor hesitated on the other side for a moment, his hands in his pockets. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I might talk your ear off.”

Rose tugged on her ears. “Nah, they’re attached.”

The Doctor giggled and bounded into the room. He flopped down on the big armchair Rose kept by her vanity. “Your room is nicer than mine,” he said, scanning the room quickly.

“Maybe because she knows I’ll actually use my room, unlike you.” Rose giggled when the ship whistled her agreement. “See? What’s the point in spending her energy giving you a nice room if you’re never in it?”

The Doctor hummed noncommittally. Rose had a suspicion that he’d just managed to hold something back just then, but she couldn’t fathom what it might have been. Still, if he wasn’t just blurting out every thought that came to mind, that was at least some improvement.

“I suppose,” the Doctor said, and it took Rose a moment to remember they were talking about their respective bedrooms.

He bit his lip again, and Rose turned to face him fully. “What is it?” she asked.

“Well… I don’t know how long this is going to last and I’m trying to not say every single thought in my head because despite what you might think, I do actually appreciate my privacy.

“But I’m just sitting here and I can’t stop thinking… did you always have that cute mole on your shoulder, Rose Tyler?”

Rose blinked several times and felt her face turn hot. There was something about the matter of fact way he said it made it feel like he’d made a far more intimate discovery than the small mole on her left shoulder.

“So tell me more about Parolin,” she requested. “You said Fourth Great and Bountiful, yeah?”

The Doctor nodded absently. “Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire.”

He was still staring at her. “How did I not know you have a perfect little mole on your left shoulder?” he said, almost petulantly. “I have catalogued every aspect of your appearance and personality, and yet here is this mole that has taken me completely by surprise. What other surprises do you have for me? Do I want to know, or should I just be… I don’t know, surprised.”

Rose blinked at him. “What all do you know about me?” she asked, thinking to call him on his bluff.

The Doctor leaned forward, his eyes lit up. “Rose Tyler Facts,” he said dramatically. “Tea: hot with milk and a little sugar. Chocolate: the darker the better. Movies: eclectic tastes. Rom com, and historical fiction, and especially in places where they blend.”

Rose felt her face grow warm as he continued rattling off everything from her favourite colour to the classmate in primary school who had pissed her off by ratting the whole class out to the teacher.

“How do you know even know so much about me?” she asked, when there was finally a moment of silence.

The Doctor blinked at her owlishly. She knew what had happened; she’d interrupted his train of thought and he was going to have to find a new one, or a boat or a car or something.

“Well, I love you. Why wouldn’t I know all of those things?”

In the silence that settled in the room, some of the Doctor’s caffeine daze lifted. He reviewed the last five minutes, and felt his face turn hot.

Rose was staring at him, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. The Doctor’s hearts stopped. He hadn’t really ever planned to tell her that, but in the times he’d let himself imagine it, he’d always thought she would… well, feel the same way.

Wasn’t that what she’d been trying to say outside the cafe? That she thought their relationship was something more than just friendship?

Apparently not, he thought glumly.

“And I think I’ve outstayed my welcome,” he mumbled. He got up and walked to the door, anxious to be alone with his embarrassment.

To his surprise, Rose reached the door before he did, sliding in just before he could grab the door knob.

“Rose?”

She poked him in the chest. “Don’t you dare leave this room,” she ordered. “You can’t say something like that, and then just… just… walk away!”

The Doctor looked down at her, trying to understand what she was saying. “Well… I hadn’t really meant to say that,” he said hesitantly.

Rose’s face fell. “Oh. You didn’t mean it, then?”

The Doctor paused, trying to think through the lingering caffeine fog. Something important was happening here, and if he could just focus instead of letting his brain go in forty-five directions at once, he might be able to figure out what it was.

“Doctor.” Rose’s voice gave him a point of focus. “Did you mean it?”

And finally, the important thing clicked. The only reason she would be so set on knowing if he meant it was if she wanted him to mean it.

The hearts that had stopped only a few moments ago were racing now. “Yes.”

He held his breath, watching her intently. When a smile spread across her face, the breath whooshed out of him.

Rose rolled her eyes as she stepped closer to him. “Were you really that nervous?” she asked.

“Wellllll…” The Doctor cautiously rested his hands on her waist, waiting for her to tell him that wasn’t what she wanted. “You haven’t really said much, except to demand an answer from me.”

She blinked up at him, and he had to hold back his delight that she’d gotten that wrapped up in the conversation.

“I mean… I might ask you how you feel,” he said casually.

“Oh! Oh my god, I can’t believe…”

Rose closed her eyes and shook her head, and when she opened her eyes, the warmth in them spread all through the Doctor.

“I love you, too,” she told him quietly.

The Doctor giggled then—he couldn’t help it. Rose shook her head and stepped closer to him, sliding her hands over his shoulders. “Is that funny?” she asked.

“Nope.” He bent closer and bumped his nose against hers, getting her to giggle this time. “Not funny, just happy.”

Rose tilted her head, and for a long moment, they hovered there, almost kissing but not quite. The intimacy of their breath mixing made the Doctor’s hearts race.

Air from my lungs, he thought, remembering a long-ago adventure.

And then Rose’s lips were on his, and he decided this was the only adventure he wanted to think about.

#ficandchips #ten x rose #fic by Nancy #doctorroseprompts #31 days of ficmas #the ginger canon plays a role here #an unexpected one #accidental love confessions

59 notes · View notes

nimsajlove · 3 years

Text

As a team!

This fills in what I had left out between Ahsoka and the Bad Batch in Brothers V and Freezing Cold. This takes place in the Episodes of Echo’s rescue.

Brothers-AU Ao3

Part III (Part II in the reblog)

*~*

"All right, take a couple of men and see what you can find.", Kenobi agreed and Cody and Rex nodded before they both left the meeting hastily. There was silence for a while, then Ahsoka restlessly rubbed her palms together and took a deep breath. Master Windu stood far too close to her for her liking and seemed to be watching her with a keen eye, while Kenobi watched the battle plans tense and exchanged quiet words with Anakin. "I'll see if I can support my men.", Ahsoka muttered to Windu, bowed hastily and fled from the crushing presence of the three Jedi. With a careful look she slid through the organized chaos around her until she spotted Cody. He seemed to be holding a long-distance transmitter and exchanged a few words with the person on the other end until he saw her walking towards him and said goodbye. "General Tano, what can I do for you?", he asked and stored the transmitter again, Ahsoka shrugged a little helplessly. Now that she'd escaped the meeting, she wasn't sure what else to do to help the others. "I was hoping you had a job for me.", she explained and Cody smirked, then he shook his head. “You can't come with us. If the Separatists start another onslaught, we can certainly use every Jedi right here.” Resigned, she nodded, even if she didn't like sending the men off alone, Cody was still right. As is was so often the case. Jesse, Kix and Fives approached them, they seemed ready to move out. "Where's Rex?", Kix asked almost casually while he took off the backpack and checked its contents one last time. Ahsoka saw at first glance that her brother had once again squeezed in as much as he could carry. Her gaze wandered across the square, searching. If the three soldiers were already finished, Rex couldn't be far either! Cody hummed beside her and when she turned her gaze to him he had raised an eyebrow in disapproval. "He wanted to look for Fives.", he replied flat and Ahsoka was a bit startled, that didn't seem like her oldest brother!

After a quick look, they split up and started looking, preferably without attracting any further attention. Kix seemed to be making another detour to the mobile medistation, the others had disappeared too quickly to know where they were going. Ahsoka strolled through the camp without a fixed direction, a faint worry had spread cold in her stomach. It wasn't like Rex at all, just disappearing. She could count the moments in which something similar had happened on one hand. The thought brought back memories, she compared his disappearance with his behavior after the citadel, or after Umbara, and shook her head. No, this was different. The cold subsided a little, this wasn't as bad as it was then. She was looking over a group of shinys who were standing close together when her comlink flashed at her. She gave it a squeeze and Jesse's voice rang out: "Commander Cody found him. We'll wait for you in front of the quarters.”“ Thank you.”, she replied and made her way to the open, quieter place in front of the quarters. Kix and Jesse sat on the ramp of a container, Fives leaned next to the door and when he caught the worried look of the young woman, he shrugged helplessly. Cody she couldn't see there, he had to be inside. When he and Rex were alone in there, she didn't want to disturb. She knew how little time many brothers had to talk openly with one another. So she swung onto the ramp next to Jesse and, after a moment's hesitation, leaned her head on his shoulder. That was better, the cold went away. "How long do you think we will take?", asked Kix, buckling his backpack. Jesse shrugged and shook Ahsoka's head uncomfortably, she grumbled and slapped him on his arm and got a little laugh. That was nice, a few minutes of peace. "With them? Certainly not long.", Fives announced from the door and curiously Ahsoka lifted her head to look over at him, he smirked. If Fives could smile about it since his adventures, then she was interested! "With whom?" "Clone force 99.", Jesse answered her and she looked at him questioningly, she had never heard of these ones before. The name seemed to ring something in everyone else, even to mean something! Kix had cocked his head thoughtfully, Jesse frowned and Fives looked at the floor, he seemed to be thinking something over. Or did he mourn?

The door suddenly slid open, they all sat up hastily in shock and Ahsoka slid off the ramp a little faster than intended, she hastily bit her tongue as the pain briefly shot up her ankle. Didn‘t matter! When they joined Rex and Cody, it didn't hurt anymore. "Who is clone force 99?", she asked to Cody and clasped her hands behind her back, she felt the calluses from the lifelong swing of her lightsabers and thought in the back of her head, maybe to wear gloves after all... "A group of clones, with a couple of useful mutations. They are unstoppable“, the Commander smiled and Jesse snorted softly. "I'm not concerned about the results, it's theire approach.", he muttered and Fives made an approving sound, though he seemed far less concerned than the other ARC. Cody seemed to be about to answer and Ahsoka was curious what his opinion was on such a subject when they heard the engines of a ship. Seconds later, the elegant ship shot down through the clouds and approached too quickly. Ahsoka soberly noted that these pilots had a style similar to that of Anakin. Did they crash land that often too? "So, 99 it is? Nice one.", Rex mumbled to Cody's other side and Ahsoka got the feeling again, as if the number should mean something to her too!

"The cavalry is here!", yelled the first to leave the ship and grinned broadly at her. Ahsoka looked at him and quickly realized what Cody had been talking about. The guy was huge compared to the other clones. He was followed by three other men and she felt Jesse tense behind her. "And those are supposed to be clones?", he mumbled softly and Ahsoka glanced at him, her brother looked torn. As if he didn't quite know what to think of the newcomers. "Hey, different is not bad.", she muttered encouragingly, he shrugged his shoulders. "I just don't like the way they look at us.", he mumbled back and now, at second glance, she understood what he meant. The small group across from them let their gaze wander over them once and some of them not only seemed distant, but almost arrogant. The big man's grin had something dangerous about it, another's sharp look was condescending. Only one of them seemed closed of, but otherwise perfectly calm.

"Commander.", he greeted Cody and Ahsoka had to smile, because there was real joy on Cody's face! "Sorry for our delay, we were held up." Ahsoka saw the face of the big clone light up and had to grin, she knew such a facial expression! This was what Anakin looked like when he found a droid to repair, and here she guessed that a large enemy and a lot of explosives must have been involved. "Oh, I can imagine that.", she grinned and suddenly won the attention of the whole unit. "You can imagine a fight with Yalbecs?", asked the narrowest one, his eyes glowing attentively and although he did not look very strong, Ahsoka did know not to underestimate the wiry figure. But indeed, Yalbecs? She eyed the men and gave the picture in her head a little more color and suppressed a small snort. "Nice, bigger than an Akul, isn't it?" The men were silent, had she said something wrong? Her gaze quickly flicked over to her brothers. Jesse rolled his eyes and Fives and Rex seemed to have the same smile on display. Kix's shoulders were hunched slightly to maintain his poise. "What?" "No need to brag, General.", Cody grinned, aha! So that was what it was all about. Maybe she should have taken her old headdress with her to show off even more... "That wasn't showing off. For the Togruta the Akul- "" They probably already know, Tech.", the leader interrupted the enthusiastic chatter of his brother and he seemed to thaw when he turned to her. “I really didn't mean to show off. My respect, I'm sure an Akul you would have brought down as well.", Ahsoka explained hastily, these were clones and after years with her brothers she knew that mutual respect was essential! These men should know that she was thoroughly impressed. The man across from her nodded and before he could answer, Ahsoka felt the piercing vibration of a gunship powering up in her montrals. That was probably her sign to let the men go... The uncomfortable rumbling in her stomach, wich had started after Cody presented his idea to the other Jedi, increased and she grabbed Cody's forearm. "Come back safe! I don't know what else to tell Master Kenobi.", she tried to joke and her brothers laughed softly, Cody took her arm with a small smile and gave it a squeeze. "Don't worry, I'm sure the General would survive that too." Then he quickly turned away, even if neither his walk or his demeanor betrayed him, she could feel his grin. "That was no answer!", she yelled after them and watched as the gunship took off and disappeared. She stood there for a few seconds and listened to the fading feeling of nausea, instead a slight headache crept in and she sighed, then she turned away. Maybe it would help everyone if she took another look at the current situation...

*~*

Ahsoka felt as if someone had punched her in the face. She looked around hastily, she was still leaning against the holo table, where she had decided to take a nap after all the tension between her and the other Jedi. Someone had squeezed one of the thin, rough blankets between her head and the cold metal so that at least her lekku wouldn't get cold. She strongly suspected Anakin, or even Kenobi? But there was no one in her immediate vicinity, nothing that could wake her up so suddenly. But her hectic pulse did not calm down and she carefully checked every little bond she had built with the others. The one with her former Master was still strong and dominant, even i fit was slightly surpressed. From here she did not receive any violent unrest, it was more like radio silence... She avoided the bond to Kenobi and immediately turned to her brothers. The clones weren't force sensitive, so the connection was weaker than she'd liked it to be. And, to her great regret, this was a one-way thing...

She felt for the others and paused. Something was wrong! She just didn't know what exactly. Perhaps it was the concerned undertone in Rex's presence or the dead silence that only emanated from Kix when he was highly concentrated. Before she could ponder it any further, the holo table above her made a sharp beep. Before she recognized it as a distress signal, her body had already responded. Within a heartbeat she was back on her feet and frantically hit the acceptance button with the flat of her hand, barely registering the hasty steps behind her. When Rex began to speak, Kenobi and Anakin were already at her side. “We need immediate transport. The Commander and Kix are waiting at these coordinates.” Next to her, Kenobi took a breath a little too quickly and seemed to have to suppress a surprised coughing fit. Ahsoka didn't want to think about why. That was Cody, he wouldn‘t just get away from them like that! She was grateful that her head and body immediately acted on their own. "I'll take care of it.", she answered in a firm voice, she was a little surprised herself. Her voice not once wavered and remained firm and stern. As soon as she had interrupted the transmission at the holo table, she reached for her comlink and opened the channel of the 332nd. “I need a transport immediately from the attached coordinates. Take a medic and two more troopers with you for support.", she growled and there was silence for a few seconds, then one of her men answered. “Gut here. We start now, I have Hug, Mad and Burnes on board.", the pilot announced in a calm voice and Ahsoka answered him with a confirmatory sound, which was enough for him as an answer from the young General. Ahsoka interrupted the transmission again and swallowed, her throat tightening a little. Damn it. There was no way she could think about Cody now. Or Hardcase. Or... Oh kriff!

She felt the looks of the other Jedi at her back, as she reached for the comlink again and entered Crick's code, perhaps a little too forcefully, with poorly suppressed nervousness. "Yes Sir?", the clone reported immediately and Ahsoka made her way through the camp with long strides. Her destination? The rest of her brothers who had stayed. "Do you have time to keep me and the Dominos company?", she asked a little pressed and got a hasty another "Yes." from Crick, before she ended the connection.

She didn't get far. Halfway to the quarters, Hevy met her, he was wearing his helmet and the trembling in his shoulders alone gave him away. "Is he okay?", he asked and although his voice wasn't trembling, there was still a little panic in it. Neither of them felt like doing the Citadel again. “It's not Fives. It's Cody."

#star wars #clone wars #the bad batch #ahsoka tano #Clone Trooper Cody #clone trooper rex #clone trooper fives #clone trooper jesse #clone trooper kix #clone trooper hunter #clone trooper wrecker #clone trooper crosshair #clone trooper tech #brothers au

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langernameohnebedeutung · 4 years

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I’m probably parrotting to the wrong choir here, but at least part of the truth about liking villains vs. condemning villains is...I don’t consume villain content in order to find healthy coping strategies and genuine life advice. I don’t look for healthy coping strategies in sci-fi films and fantasy books or on ao3 in the first place, because 99% of all that input is not produced by people that a) intent or b) are qualified to give meaningful life advice.

Sometimes things we read or watch can be detrimental to our mental health or can make us happier or mean a lot to us. And that is also why it is important to tag, warn, and summarise content: So that people can avoid things that are bad for them and find things that comfort them. But what popular fiction never is, is a clear, intentional, professional, and universal guide.

We already talked about how even the most horrible people will read novels where they resemble the bad guys and identify with the good guys instead rather than reflecting their own behaviour. That is, because narratives need stakes. The hero needs to be David, not Goliath. And we too see ourselves as Goliath, in our lives. Because there are always things that are bigger than us. And because we know that David will win.

But sometimes...sometimes it is quite nice to feel like the giant. Especially when we’re used to feeling small.

Sure “I like this villain because villains get to do things we want to but can’t” might seem like a tiny brained answer, but if you expand a little, there is truth to it: Sometimes I want to see someone go bloody ape-shit in response to trauma, injustice, being underestimated or forgotten. Sometimes I want to see someone just care about themselves and burn the whole place down and look fabulous doing it, because I know, that in real-life, very often it is sympathy and empathy holding me back for even insisting on minor and very rational things, simply because I don’t want to be a burden on others and because I prioritise other people very highly. There is catharsis in that; in seeing someone getting it out of their system in the most violent way possible just like there is catharsis in going for a run or punching the hell out of a punching bag when you’re frustrated even though you would never chase down and beat up a person.

Because even when see characters standing up for themselves - think of the infamous internet rage over Captain Marvel stealing that bike from the dude that harassed her – their actions are usually centred around punishing the culprit, not the emotions of the party that was wronged. But people got angry. Not because she stole a car, or because she stole it from a men even – but because her acting in response to sexual harassment connected the scene with deep roots of social context and political opinions and expectations.

And, despite hundreds, maybe thousands of films in existence where a white male protagonist steals a car or bike or anything else to save the day, she is read as a villain here simply for doing the rational thing. Much less could she have killed him and burnt down his house, because she is a hero and it doesn’t serve the plot and that would not be the thing a hero does.

A villain burning the whole joint down because someone looked at them funny is acting selfishly, self-centred. But what are you going to do, call them a villain? Duh. Complain about how what they’re doing is wrong? Well, yes.

The lane of their actions is not narrowed by the actions of the culprit on the one side (heroes have to react appropriately and proportionally) and the expectations of the good-guy on the other (they have to act in accordance with forwarding the plot). Which means putting up with an asshole sidekick or apologising if they undergo character development that makes them a ‘better’ person and requires them to forgive someone). You might have your odd Logan who will throw a punch when he’s pissed – but here we already venture into the territory of an anti-hero.

And personally, our anger, our disappointment, all that will always be much more contained than any fictional space - by our financial situation, the people we depend on, our job, our studies, or family, our social circle. We live in a web of social expectations that we depend on every moment of our life.

Fiction itself also exists in a web of social context: What influence does it have on the audience? Will it sell? What implications does it have? How does it present its characters? Who is the author and what do they stand for? - but the fictional space, aka the world constructed in a novel, is wholly separate:

If I write a novel where I state that every Canadian person likes the colour blue and wears funny hats, then this is true in the universe of that novel, no matter what any Canadian reader might feel about it. This means two things:

1. As writers, producers, and even as producers of fan-content, we have to be critical about what we put into the world, because by creating a fictional space, we create characters who cannot stand up against the things we say about them or make them do. Just like the superheroine in the skimpy outfit who gets her powers through the sun shining down on her nipples cannot have an authentic discussion about her body. And when young girls read our comic and see that all the male heroes are clothed and the heroine isn’t, then we are the one that came up with the sunshine-nipples.

2. Our very own, personal interpretation of the novel – even our own - and the way we relate to it is our own. The feelings we project on the characters are individual, personal, and shaped by us.

And yes, villains usually see their comeuppance. And the thing is, many people argue here: “Well, it’s okay if the villain does x, as long as they’re punished for it.” But...that’s a difficult subject. A piece of fiction can condemn the actions of the villain without seeing them lose – the challenge to the writer is to still form a satisfying narrative, because the villain winning is the ‘likely’-seeming thing that every narrative subverts when the hero levels up and returns with her new friends to kick the villain’s ass. But even if you sympathise with the villain, seeing them win would still be an unsatisfying narrative, most of the time.

Because the whole point of an actual evil villain - and sympathising with an actual villain - is that what they’re doing is unjust. Malicious. Selfish. And projecting your desire to strike back or stand up on a villain and seeking catharsis through seeing them go wild and tear down the city needs the pushback. For them burning down the house to be satisfying, you need to see the house burn. For them to blow up the house of parliament to be satisfying – you must see the explosion.

And watching them lose provides the ultimate, necessary gravitas. Watching Team Rocket fly off with Pikachu and live happily ever after on Team Rocket money would not be satisfying. Watching our super-villain burn the world to a crisp with their death-laser would not be satisfying if they just end up getting their rocket and flying off while drinking space-mojitos.

Whether they end up being redeemed or not: The initial moment that someone fights back and defeats them at the height of their immorality and prevents the suffering of innocents is the moment that their willingness and readiness to commit violence is put to the test.

We know the hero goes through a journey of their own - one that requires sacrifice and steels their commitment until they are ready to take on the villain. And knowing that someone is willing to make sacrifices to be able to take the villain down is the ultimate acknowledgement of the transgressive act the villain committed. Without it, it would be empty. Like watching someone punch the air.

But the truth is also that when you recreate the fictional space in another, secondary space – fanfiction, fan content, fanart – you decide what to focus on. Like, we all enjoy hurt/comfort stories, but they have a different intention than something focussed on action or the growth of the hero – because that requires for us to see the villain go down. The focus is no longer the transgressive acts of the villain – but to lay bare the pain that caused them. It is no longer about beating them down for the sake of justice.

Like, when I make a post about Frankenstein’s monster living happily ever after and people tell me that hey, the monster killed a lot of people - then we have a different premise. Because me not adding a line about the evil things the monster did to my post was based on the premise that you knew that random tumblr user langernameohnebedeutung does not condone the crime of murder because she posts about a 200-year-old book. And the #fact that my point doesn’t construct an ending where the monster stands in front of a judge and is sentenced to a certain time in jail or punished by a more heroic person is because I have daddy issues and seeing a giant creature go on a rampage through Europe to get back at its asshole Dad in a way I never could makes me quite happy the novel focussing on its acts of violence already did this and my post clearly had a different intention.

#long post #fandom

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animatedminds · 4 years

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Let’s Get Dangerous Review!

It’s dangerous. In a good way. <cue dramatic music> Okay, obviously there’s more thoughts than just that. I’ve been waiting for it for weeks, and it arrived just as awesome as I hoped. For the first time, let’s give my full movie style review to the double length Ducktales special: “Let’s Get Dangerous.”

The spoilers are open and widely discussed, so maybe don’t look past the following image if you haven’t seen the episode yet.

To note, I’m not entirely convinced that this was actually meant to be a pilot. It definitely does introduce a new status quo for the Darkwing trio of characters (minus Honker for now, here’s hoping they haven’t forgotten him), but it’s also a very remote story that still tries to take place within the context of Ducktales’ universe, so it really depends on what they choose to do.

But let’s just get down to it.

First off, as I mentioned in my earlier post… Taurus Bulba. He was maybe the biggest and most eye-catching aspect of the first part of the episode, as one of the few elements we hadn’t already seen yet, and his reputation as a really, really bad guy has quite preceded him. As I may have gushed somewhat about, he’s one of the best parts of the special.

James Monroe Inglehart, for those living away from the Disney scene for a decade, is an actor and voice actor most famous for being the original Genie on Broadway’s Aladdin. A grand, bombastic presence, he generally plays characters who - much like the genie himself - a big, jolly, kind but maybe a little mischievous souls that take the attention of a room and brighten up the characters’ day - like Lance, in Tangled the Series. The most interesting thing about Bulba is that Inglehart brings that exact same energy to the role, and so Bulba keep that jollity and lofty personality in a package that becomes increasingly less nice as the story goes on. As someone who keenly remembers Taurus Bulba as cruel monster willing to hurt kids and capable of crushing Darkwing like nobody’s business, the contrast was immediately fun to watch - and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In this story, Bulba is recast from a crime lord intending to use a super weapon go on an endless plundering spree to a FOWL scientist with a respectable reputation who intends to use a super weapon to take over the world, and the transition goes off fairly well. The end result is a pretty standard mix of superhero fight and Bond plot, as Bulba ends up holed up in his lab with his squadron of elite supervillain minions - all plundered a particular fictional universe - with the heroes having to break in / escape from his captivity and stop him before he destroys everything. It’s very Silver Age, with Bulba in the role of maniacal villain, and he’s contrasted very well with Bradford - who is as always an antagonist who prides himself on pragmatism. This contrast leads to some great moments: Bradford’s increasing frustration with the cavalier attitude of both the heroes and the villains gives him the best stint of characterization he’s had since the beginning of the season - he basically spends the whole episode arguing with everyone about how badly thought out their actions are, while also badly hiding his own secrets.

The Fearsome Five (of which Quackerjack is voices by his original actor) are great to see, though used minimally. If you’re expecting to see classic show dynamics between the villains and Darkwing, that’s not really what they’re used for. Mostly, they’re minions with personality, and they’re more there to establish both to the audience and to Drake the character himself that he is ready to take on really big threats even with his lack of superpowers.

But enough about the villains, on to the heroes!

A couple episodes ago, with the Halloween episode, I criticized that story for not balancing its A and B plot all that well. This episode does not have that problem. The story is actually maybe about three fifths Darkwing’s story, and the rest of it is Scrooge and the nephews as they figure out what Bulba is up to independently of Darkwing and try to stop him themselves. It’s somewhat similar to Timephoon, where they’re there constantly and are doing their own bid to solve the story but the focus isn’t primarily on them. Instead, we have some of the best “HDL actually matter to the story” bits of the show, where they escape Bulba’s prison on their own and lead Bradford out, all the while slowly figuring out that something is shady about the guy. Meanwhile, Scrooge gets stuck in the original Ducktales universe’s most memed scene, which was a fun gag (but not the best gag - that would be the one and only Bonkers D. Bobcat as the Harvey Bullock-style cop in the Darkwing show).

Which I suppose can lead to a digression about the mad science bit here. The alternate universes here are… interesting. I always pay special attention to how things like time travel or other dimensions or alternate universes work in a series, and this one reminds me the most - I think - of DC’s Dark Multiverse: a collection of universes that are both explicitly fictional but made real because people created them. Ultimately, it’s less as if the OG Darkwing universe exists independently of the Ducktales universe and more that the in-universe Darkwing show as a world based off of it that the characters can reach into. I wish the episode had delved into that more, and now you’ve got people trying to use it to look for more establishment of OG Darkwing elements (though I was fine with it being separate, perceiving anything else as rather needlessly inexplicable), but ultimately that is not specifically what the episode is about, and is kept rather separate.

So what is the episode about? Like you didn’t already know…

As always, Gosalyn Waddlemeyer is a little girl whose grandfather was done away with by Taurus Bulba, and who falls into Darkwing’s lap over the course of his adventure with him. Here, her grandfather is (possibly) still alive, just lost in the ether a la Gravity Falls’ Grunkle Ford. And like the mighty glazed McGuffin, Darkwing’s goal in the episode is less strictly defeating Bulba as it is helping her get her grandfather and her home back. Gosalyn here is self-sufficient and action oriented (it may be my inner Brooklyn 99 fan talking, but I loved Stephanie Beatriz as her, and kind of wish she had gotten a wider range of lines), taking on her own crusade against Bulba until she realizes she can go to Darkwing for help, and is constantly trying to pull him into the fight - even while he is reluctant, and no matter what the danger - so that they can win and she can get justice. But in the end, she has to accept that they might not be able to.

As a longtime Batman fan, I immediately recognized a plethora of Robin references with Gosalyn. She’s a kid who’s family was taken from her by a villain, given a surrogate home by the hero - like Dick Grayson. She’s a street tough who originally met the hero committing a crime, and who is both skeptical of his heroism and heavily critical of his flaws - like Jason Todd. And she’s a young genius with a lot of scientific knowledge, tech skills and common sense - just like Tim Drake. There’s even elements of Carrie Kelley or Terry McGinnis there, in her determined if not gung-ho approach to heroism despite her circumstances and the hermit-like behavior of the hero.

And in the end, this is a fairly apt comparison, because Gosalyn essentially ends the story more as a Robin figure than previously, now as Darkwing’s more of a ward and official sidekick alongside Launchpad. The story does not, to note, involve her being adopted by Drake or becoming Gosalyn Mallard. Indeed, they don’t really end up having that sort of relationship. They’re distant and don’t really know how to relate to one another, and not about to broach the subject of family except in distant terms. There’s ultimately far less emphasis than before on Gosalyn and Drake being similar and hitting it off on a personal level, or even really Drake keying into Gosalyn’s potential and spirit as a person vs an element in his adventure. Throughout the story he regards her as a victim to be saved, then ultimately as an ally with potential to be respected, and in the end he gives her an offer to take up the mantle along side him while they search for her family… which ultimately creates something very different.

For people expecting something a little more akin to the implications the show made with Gyro and BOYD, Gosalyn here. The implication that they could be a family is brought up by Launchpad, but neither Drake nor Gosalyn are really there at the end of the story - I want to say they’re not there yet, but the way the story goes gives off the impression that the dynamic duo dichotomy is the relationship for the two the writing is most comfortable giving them.

Again, I’m a longtime Batman fan, so I understand and appreciate the nod. It gives them a really cool status quo that’s distinct from what came before it. Still, the strong father/daughter relationship between the two was very much the heart and soul of the original show, an endearing quality that created the character traits we love about both characters, and ultimately one of the primary characteristics that set the Darkwing family apart even from most comic book superhero stars - so even if they made something great out of it, it’s a shame to see Ducktales ultimately keep that relationship at arms’ length.

But that’s less a criticism and more just something I wish they had chosen to do differently - and it makes sense for the 2017 team’s take on Darkwing, which has always been more focused on “irrepressible hero who doesn’t give up” - a pluckie rookie growing into his competence - than “former fool whose great potential is unleashed through the people around him.” The latter is there, sometimes, but it’s not prominent. Original Darkwing was a man made better by his daughter, while the modern Darkwing doesn’t quite need that to find the hero within.

The only (and I mean only) criticism I have is the way the characters kind of jump around in how they respond to things. Drake wanting more crime, and then freaking out when super crime shows up and it’s way more than he thought he can handle is fine, and is one of the better character bits in the special. It being unclear whether Drake is against fighting supervillains because he thinks they’re too powerful vs because he doesn’t want to risk Gosalyn’s safety is another thing, though - it seems the show intended to imply the latter but forgot to include the line somewhere, so it’s not inferred until later and Drake suddenly benching Gos towards the end lacks set-up.

For her part, Gosalyn is suddenly and quickly afraid to fight for a brief moment so Launchpad can inspire her to face impossible odds, even though it was hardly the first time she had done so in the special. The ending I think wanted the characters to be somewhere that the rest of the special hadn’t gotten them to yet. But it’s all good - it ends well, so all’s well. Best gag of the episode, btw? Fenton, who is awful at keeping his secret identity secret, has hooked up Darkwing with his own hi-tech hero lair. Darkwing, despite supposedly being a detective (or at least an actor playing a detective), ends up as one of the two or three people remaining on Earth who hasn’t figured out that Fenton is Gizmoduck. Darkwing considers himself good friends with Fenton, despite hating Gizmoduck. It’s actually very funny.

It’s as of now unclear what is coming up for Darkwing. We know the St. Canard characters are going to factor in more as the FOWL plot progresses, and this episode kicks that plot into high gear - the characters now know about FOWL and their intentions, and are preparing themselves for a far more dangerous fight than usual. In short, with the midseason comes the renewed focus on the primary plot of the season, as per the usual. Like I said before, while I’m not as on board as most with the idea that this was a pilot, St. Canard was definitely established here - with series regular Zan Owlson as it’s new mayor, and a general aesthetic and set of protagonists. It wouldn’t be remiss for a future episode this season to take place there (though we know Negaduck isn’t happening this season).

The new few episodes, however, are focused more on the quest for Finch’s treasures and FOWL, so that’s going to have to wait for a while. We’ve been promised, as I recall, an episode that brings all the kids together (unless that’s part of the finale), which is nice - I may have mentioned before that the best episodes of the series have been the ones that put the kids (who are the characters with the most focus throughout its run) together and let all their personalities run through an adventure together - and with the cast growing somewhat constantly, it’s nice to know that no one is being forgotten.

Either way, I give the episode a great deal of recommendation - I only had a couple things that bothered me, and a few wishes for different choices, and ultimately I’m planning on watching it a ton of times just like I did the first Darkwing episode. From a classic Darkwing fan, and in the words of Bat-Mite, it’s a different intepretation to be sure, but not at all one without merit.

So thanks to Frank Angones, Matt Youngberg and the Ducktales crew! I hope my virtual thumbs up reaches them somehow, but either way, it was a good day to be dangerous.

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babysprouseisart · 4 years

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Honestly more things are pointing to a permanent separation for SH. No indications of any reconciliation sadly. And it makes it even harder without the confirmation. I guess when they start to get papped with their new SOs will be the day that it is confirmed they are done. And I hope it is soon. This push and pull with them is exhausting

Good day, anon, and welcome to hell. Screams for help will not save you, alas, because when it comes to a topic in which I am 99, 9% sure, I have no equals. I'm sorry you probably got the wrong address, but it's too late. I am merciless and bloodthirsty with anyone who tries to contradict my faith, tries to correct my point of view and convince me of their own, although I did not give it a reason. Because it's my fucking blog where I for x-billionth time has already expressed my exact points and agreed with some people which think and proved the exact opposite to all that you are saying. So be prepared to be slowly but surely tortured by my long ass post.

So, let's start with what I said about my blog: only good vibes here. I am not interested/concerned about other opposite/negative feedings. I just don't want to make a big deal about it. Here, in my blog, we support Lili Pauline Reinhart and Cole Mitchell Sprouse in any case as couple as well as individuals.

This means that under no circumstances do we talk about them, their relationships, their projects, their family, or their decisions in a negative way. Yes, we may disagree with something they do, where they do it, and how they do it (what they post, what they like/don't like, write or repost, who they meet, with whom they decide to be, live and communicate with, what they archive/unarchive, and so on), but we do not have the right to judge them or decide how to act. We also can't control it and it's none of our business.

I repent if I once made the appearance of a person condemning one of them or their family for their actions and possible causes of the separation, it was only my objective external disagreement, points and thoughts aloud, nothing more rude, involved and inappropriate. And I think with many of my words said earlier (or the words of those I follow and reblog their posts) about the behavior of family/friends of Lili, Cole, and so on, people with brains and common sense could agree. Remember this, or write it on your forehead, so that the next time you write to me, you will see these words.

Moving on, taking into account all of the above, I would like to tell you that it probably won't be enough for one blog to explain to you point by point all my beliefs and points of view on this subject, to prove to you that every fucking word you say is illogical shit and the most real nonsense. It feels like you're an alien who fell from another planet and decided to crawl into our hole with your impressions of a newborn baby who doesn't understand much about the world and its creators. Although in this case, I'm more of the opinion that you are a little asshole, in which the vein of hatred is boiling and you like to come to this and some other blogs to tell us your agenda although we have no idea where you have such rash thoughts, perhaps you have an extra chromosome? Dude, treat your paranoia.

Further, given that I don't have much time and desire to describe all my points of view point by point, which, unlike your random set of words, really makes sense for hundreds or even thousands of people who have the gray matter to be able to think, I will attach my long - standing post, indicating all the facts at that time proving the opposite to yours. Although, I will try to supplement everything else as much as I can.

While, we all ( I hope) already realized and accepted that for many reasons, during this quarantine, Lili and Cole had some problems, were distant and ended up apart for a certain period of time, immediately after the end point of the explosion and informing us of all these public actions on social media (I hope you understand), then after a few weeks, they were already confidently moving towards resolution and recovery and that's why:

https://babysprousehart.tumblr.com/post/618026656780648448/hello-i-hope-this-doesnt-come-off-negatively

This was written long before, but still has many valid points and I just want to widen some of them.

Take a sit and follow me word by word.

I shall start my addition of evidence, based on all the guesses and great opinions of others, as well as hints from the Lili and Cole themselves. I would like to start with a significant event and the day when Lili posted a photo from the Antelope Valley on April 28th, well, or 27th, depending on where you are.

Perhaps we lose some missing pieces in this puzzle and forget about something that was done earlier, but I just want to start counting from this moment.

A few facts about this photo/photos:

1) It was posted exactly 3 years later from their famous photoshoot, when very, very, very many people, mostly in media, began to suspect that there is something between them in a romantic way. It was exactly in the same place, exactly with the same style, exactly in a similar image (waving curly hair, light flying dress, black and white effect) and even without a capture. The picture marked the anniversary and is very important for the two of them. An undeniable fact, beat me.

2) That photo was definitely taken by Cole. Why?

Here are a couple more facts in addition to the first:

They have the quality of captured on professional camera.

You can see, that Lili did not tag the photographer and said jokingly that the photo was taken by Milo, why would she lie, or hide that it was anyone else, because clearly she just hid that because it was Cole.

You may have noticed that Austin, when asked who took the photo, whether she took it and whether she is a good photographer, says no and her reaction with a grin and laugh is priceless. She also didn't tag nor the photographer, neither Lili in her photos from there.

You can watch the vlog in the Colleen blog and see there are very similar figures to Cole, Lili and Milo walking along the valley, because, duh, they were there.

You can view her post, where you can see Cole from the back (notice his dark clothing, the same as on one of his post in the profile, which he has already deleted, as well as his position from which the photo of Lili was supposedly taken and it is just in the same place).

You can observe his style of photography and how similar the theme is to the photos from 2017.

You can see the same poppy behind his ear in one of the past stories.

You may have noticed that the photo of Lili is processed with the same effect as several photos in Cole's profile, and I can tell you as an amateur photo editor that it is very identical.

Question: why arrange such a significant photoshoot with your ex after a few weeks of separation? Why is Cole smiling in a photo (black and white one with a mustache and black clothes) probably taken there? Why is everything so secretive if they broke up? Why even post a photo that your ex-boyfriend definitely took? How can you calmly go to this place, which reminds you of your joint travels with your former lover? Therefore, this photo and later another one from there were the first iron arguments in confirming the improvement of things.

I would like to continue with another ironclad proof.

Lili in early may very fiercely, after a few weeks of Cole's statements about slander and threats, which she did not respond to so clearly at the time, defended Cole and pointed out the private relationship and literally said that people should stop it and even though should hurt and bully her, but not him.

Question: did she defend her ex so publicly? Would Lili talk about a private relationship if that was the way her past relationship was most often? Would she have written anything at all if she didn't care about him and didn't feel something towards him? I don't think so, so it's gibberish to say so (about the break up) when it's the second unquestionable argument.

Next, we need to talk about the general activity of Cole and Lili in social media. I just want to list some observations, in different order, but it seems like everything we have now:

If earlier it was visible in the posts of Lili that it was clearly a show off, then over time and after the published photos, she began to behave more sincerely and tenderly, began to publish Milo less, began to say that there was only the two of them less, has stopped showing how good she is without certain someone, as if for Cole showing that she could cope without him, which was visible in the posts and stories, she began to talk more about improving her mental health as a result of training, spoke about how later she was feeling better and that she was grateful for those who were with her and difficult times and in light moments, that you just need to live and enjoy.

Additionally, I can say how she shone with each photo, and it was a natural glow of happiness and settling down. She no longer sang sad songs or posted sad songs, on the contrary, posted sexy, funny and relaxed ones. She appeared more in photos taken by paparazzi. She posted sexy, energetic, romantic movies, funny cartoons, watched funny clips, was excited about her project, laughed, danced with her dog, played with a dog with macaroni, cosplayed Willy Wonka (we all have a feeling it’s Cole’s thing, no?), playing with sand, puzzles, posted funny memes in story, which unfortunately coolly accepted as the opposite, posted a poem with a typo and funny answered to a fan who corrected it, told more about poems and attached a photo with a fragment of a poem about love from her upcoming book. She liked some photos from the anniversary of the last episode of the series, where we remember there was a hot scene of her and Cole's character, she liked a Bughead drawing. Yesterday, she actually posted one of the sexiest videos that will not be posted, being single and lonely, we saw that she actually spent more personal time with Cole (I am not saying they weren’t doing t back then), which was investigated thanks to many amazing people here, and even if they don't live together yet, they are more likely to meet and have met with each other, and more hints on sexy times (because, come one, maybe Milo was the one who left a hickey on her neck, huh?), which is undeniable, just compare the fact that she is no longer in the old rental, and he is not in Kj's house, she then posted a photo from some place, which is very similar to where Cole shot a video with Jimmy Fallon.

He also began to be more active in social networks, exactly after she started posting photos of the Antelope Valley, he posted a series of photos of the kissing couple, even if it was a gay drawings, they were filled with love, there was a photo of him with cattle with the sarcastic caption, then the photo about porn bots, with funny ask to leave him alone and saying it’s not allowed to be horny on quarantine, again a photo of himself with heart eyes that I talked about above, he posted a very funny video recently. There were more photos from the paparazzi after some time when Lili's usually flashed, and then it stopped, then his humorous photo in the washing machine appeared, which she probably had taken, and why so I explained in the attached post, he posted a photo from the walk, which was also probably taken with her, because again, she had a similar location, then he jokingly called Tommy ‘the’ muse, maybe roasting fans, but he didn’t use ‘my’, so, indicating he still has his own muse, then we saw him at that damn party, which caused people's panic, although he is an ordinary person and has the right to relax, and by the way at this party he was very happy and frisky, but nothing bad or shameful happened and he is innocent, then we even saw Cole, after Lili, delete many of the photos, although he had also unarchived some of them several times, as she had, which means that he did not delete them completely, but just removed many of them, leaving the most tender photo after or before the kiss at the famous moment when Lili wanted a toast and eggs at 1 am, or many photos reflecting her body, which also marks not a bad phenomenon, but a simple trolling from them. Proof of this trolling and unarchiving is on the vastness of other blogs and on Twitter, thanks to that girl's video.

The way their condition and activity on social networks have changed is very noticeable and is also third undeniable fact of denial of the break up. You can compare photos of Cole taken by Alex, where he is clearly very sad and depressed, because it was taken somewhere in the interval of their real breakup. And compare this with his smiling and playful state during the interview with Jimmy, where he also sparkled with happiness and fun, constantly smiling and seemed to be aroused about something (or someone). I think even a newcomer will notice a change in their mood and attitude. You will see the difference. And this does not happen when going through the break up after 4 years of deeply imbued with love relationships. Please understand, damn it.

I have listed alas not everything that speaks so vividly about things going in the right positive direction and is evidence that everything is getting better again, there will be only more I assure you and you will kiss my ass, as Cole said.

Execution cannot be pardoned.

You have one attempt to put a comma and decide your fate, but I think you’ll fail because you are a total sucker anyway.

Bye!

#cole sprouse #lili reinhart #sprousehart #sprousehart positivity #sh positivity #bughead #only good vibes here #positivity #anon hate #anon ask #ask #cole and lili #relationship #break up #not a break up #shut up dumbass

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eretzyisrael · 4 years

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The Biden Administration and the “War of Return”

Judging from the few public statements made so far and what is known about his appointees, the Biden Administration will take the same stance toward Israel and the Palestinians as the last Democratic administration, led by Barack Obama.

That means that it will return to the idea of establishing a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria more or less on the pre-1967 lines. It will go back to financing the Palestinian Authority, which will find a way to pay terrorists and support their families while pretending not to, in order to circumvent the Taylor Force Act which requires the US to deduct such payments from aid to the PA. The administration will likely close its eyes to the subterfuge. It will go back to funding UNRWA, the agency that supports the exponential growth of a stateless population made up of the descendants of Arab refugees from the 1948 war, despite the fact that it exists to perpetuate the problem posed by this population, not to solve it.

I believe that it will return to the principle that the main reason the conflict has not ended is that Israel has not made enough concessions to the Palestinians, and that the way to end it is to pressure Israel to give in to Palestinian demands: for Jew-free land, for sovereignty without restrictions, for eastern Jerusalem, and perhaps even for the “return” of the refugee descendants. Although not directly part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it will probably reduce pressure on Iran and possibly even return to the JCPOA, the nuclear deal.

It’s too early to tell if it will also adopt the open hostility to the Jewish state that characterized Obama’s reign. That will depend on who influences Biden, both among his official advisors as well as the numerous think tanks, lobbies, and pressure groups that have an interest in the conflict – including the one operated by Barack Obama himself.

I suspect that the administration will have its hands full with other matters and so will not immediately launch a new “peace” effort. But one never knows. Sometimes rationality goes out the window when the subject turns to the Jews and their state.

Although nothing can be done with those who take a position because they see it as a step in the direction of the ultimate elimination of our state, there are still “people of good faith” who believe that the Land for Peace paradigm that inspired the Oslo Accords does provide a path to ending the conflict. If the new administration is dominated by the latter type of people, there is hope that correcting their fundamental misapprehensions might lead to a more productive policy.

These misapprehensions are spelled out persuasively in a recent book, The War of Return, How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream has Obstructed the Path to Peace, by Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf (All Points Books, 2020). Schwartz and Wilf fall on the left of the Israeli political spectrum (Wilf was a Member of the Knesset for the Labor Party), and they still favor a two-state solution. But unlike most of their comrades, they have listened to the Palestinians, and understand their actual concerns and objectives. In their book, they explain why the traditional approach has failed and propose the initial steps that are necessary for any settlement of the conflict.

All previous Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have miscarried because Israelis and Western interlocutors have failed to realize the paramount importance of one issue – the “right of return” demanded by the Palestinians. This is possible because they have systematically misunderstood the language – whether English or Arabic – used by the Palestinians. The “constructive ambiguity” that often characterizes diplomatic language and allows parties that don’t quite agree with each other to nevertheless sign agreements has made it possible for the same words to have diametrically opposed meanings when uttered by Westerners or Palestinians.

The prime example of this is the phrase “a just solution to the refugee problem.” To an Israeli or Westerner, this can include the normalization of the refugees* in their countries of residence, their emigration to other countries, or their resettlement in a Palestinian state, should one be created. This has been the approach taken by the international community to the numerous refugee populations, including Germans living in Eastern Europe after WWII, Holocaust survivors, Jews who were forced out of Arab countries after 1948, and so on. But the Palestinian position is that there is only one “just solution”: anyone with refugee status has the inalienable right to “return” to his “home” in Israel if he wishes to do so, or to receive compensation if he prefers. And that is what this phrase means when they use it.

Naturally, given the numbers of Arabs who claim this “right,” such a mass return would change Israel into an Arab-majority state, even assuming Jews were prepared to leave their homes and peacefully give them to their “rightful owners.” The absurdity of the demand is evident. Yet Yasser Arafat walked away from Camp David precisely because Israel would not agree to it.

Another phrase whose ambiguity has prevented agreement is “two-state solution.” Virtually every Israeli that favors this understands it as “two states for two peoples.” But the Palestinians want one totally Jew-free Palestinian state, and one state in which the right of return for Arab refugees has been implemented (and which theoretically might contain Jews, at least for a while). They have never accepted the idea of any Jewish sovereignty between the river and the sea, and hence reject the formulation “two states for two peoples.”

Schwartz and Wilf explain that Western and Israeli negotiators have always assumed – perhaps because the demand is so extreme – that the right of return was a bargaining chip that the Palestinians would cash in for the currency of borders, the removal of settlements, or rights in Jerusalem. But they were wrong. The demand for “return” is the essence of the Palestinian movement.

Palestinian children learn about it, down to the particular locations to which each has the “right” to return, in UNRWA schools where they are taught by Palestinian teachers (99% of UNRWA’s employees are Palestinians). Someday, they are told over and over, they will return. Guaranteed.

Everything UNRWA does is geared toward increasing this population of angry people, convinced that a massive injustice has been done to them, and that the only solution will be for them to return, and through this return, wipe the Jews from the face of the land they are convinced we stole from them.

UNRWA was created after the 1948 war with the intention of providing temporary assistance to the refugees until they could be resettled and normalized the way all other groups of refugees had been. But the only country that cooperated was Jordan, which gave the Palestinians citizenship and allowed them to integrate into their own populations. In Lebanon there were especially harsh restrictions and poor conditions. Little by little, the Arab nations changed the temporary UNRWA into a permanent tool to mold a refugee army that they hoped would ultimately do what their conventional armies could not: eliminate the Jewish state.

Today UNRWA is the main obstacle to solving the refugee problem. But it need not be. Schwartz and Wilf provide a relatively detailed, step by step program for phasing out UNRWA in the various places that it operates, and providing solutions for the refugees from the host countries and other agencies. For example, in the Palestinian Authority areas, they propose shifting both the responsibility for the refugees, and the money that supports UNRWA, to the PA. Former refugees would study in PA schools, go to PA health clinics, and so on. There are similar programs for Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon where the remaining refugee “camps” (today mostly neighborhoods on the outskirts of cities) are located.

Real peace can only be achieved when the consciousness of the Palestinians changes and they understand that the dream of return will not be realized. This would be a long and difficult process that could only begin with the elimination of UNRWA. But it has to start before it can finish. It will require cooperation of all of the Western donor countries that have been supporting UNRWA. Perhaps the fact that from a financial standpoint UNRWA will soon be unsustainable (after all, the number of “refugees” is growing exponentially) will encourage them to cooperate.

In the short term, it’s essential that everyone involved in relations between Israel and the Palestinians understand the real issues that underlie the conflict. And it would be a good thing if all parties could agree to use words the same way. Schwartz and Wilf say that “constructive ambiguity” should be replaced by “constructive specificity.” If the European Union, for example, believes that the State of Israel should be replaced by a Palestinian state, it should say so. Otherwise, it should unambiguously oppose a right of return, and work to dismantle UNRWA as quickly as is practical.

Back to the incoming Biden Administration. I hope it will resist the attempts of the anti-Israel Left to revive the hostility of the Obama days, and instead choose to be a force for real peace.

To that end, I will be sending Joe Biden a copy of this book, with a suggestion that he read it and pass it around among his foreign policy team.

Abu Yehuda

#Peace process #American politics #Israel and Palestinian Arabs #US-Israel Relations

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xhxhxhx · 4 years

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Saw something in the further reading section of Michael Kulikowski’s Imperial Tragedy (Profile, 2019) today:

There are countless books on the fall of the western Roman empire, and more appear annually, with variable scholarly trappings but nearly all quite conventional. Still, ripping yarns and neo-Victorian analyses can be found in any bookshop. So, for those so inclined, can thinly disguised nativist tracts on how immigration (and ‘immigrant violence’) brought down the empire. To name names would be invidious.

I thought this was a dig at Peter Heather, Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London and author of The Fall of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 2005) and Empires and Barbarians (Oxford, 2009), so I looked it up and discovered that not only was I right, but Kulikowski has serious beef with the guy:

Peter Heather has been fiercely criticized by members of the so-called Toronto School of History. Michael Kulikowski, who belongs to this group, has accused Heather of neo-romanticism and of wishing "to revive a biological approach to ethnicity". Kulikowski claims that Heather "manifests a clear methodological affinity" to the 19th-century writer of the Goths Henry Bradley.

But Kulikowki’s beef is nothing next to the righteous fury of Guy Halsall, Professor of History at the University of York:

Guy Halsall has identified Peter Heather as the leader of a "counter-revisionist offensive against more subtle ways of thinking" about the Migration Period. Halsall accuses this group, which is strongly associated with University of Oxford, of "bizarre reasoning" and of purveying a "deeply irresponsible history". Halsall writes that Heather and the Oxford historians have been responsible for "an academic counter-revolution" of wide importance, and accuses them of deliberately contributing to the rise of "far-right extremists".

Halsall got so mad at Heather, first at the 2011 Leeds International Medieval Conference and then online, at his blog, that he threatened to leave academia entirely:

Well, it's more or less a year since I started doing this blogging lark 'seriously' (the inverted commas are obviously necessary). And, as they say, what a roller-coaster of a year it's been. I've shut down the blog twice, brought it back twice, come to the verge of formal complaints being sent to my university twice (once justifiably, once most certainly not), lost at least one friend, lost 99% of the respect I had for someone I had hitherto held in high esteem, quite possibly lost the chance of a job I wanted because of this blog, taken some pretty visceral abuse, and so on. All good fun!

On the other hand I have learnt some lessons. One is that even bastards have feelings. Another is that if you have twenty-odd followers and maybe 100 hits a day, that (allowing for hits from people looking for something else, like Elizabeth Kostova's novel The Historian or ever-popular balding guitarist The Edge) does not mean that only twenty or thirty people in the whole wide world read your blog. Thus you need to be a bit more careful about what you say and how you say it. I've also learnt that eminent historians don't always read what you write very carefully, and just how deeply-ingrained the elitist culture of the British historical profession is, as well as just how few principles are actually held by the overwhelming majority of the practitioners of said profession. And this in response to something that I actually thought long and hard about how I wrote.

And as a result of all this I have realised that no good is going to come of me continuing to smack my head against the glass ceiling that those of us not from 'a particular socio-educational background' (you know the one) eventually run up against. I have instead come to the decision, essentially, to give up on it and 'seek my fortune' elsewhere than in the confines of the academic career-path, as it is now constructed in the UK at any rate.* I'm actually quite excited about this as I think it offers a lot of possibilities, creatively and ethically. It's been a liberating decision. Those of you who know that I set most store by the writings of those co-opted into the canon of the existentialists (almost none of whom ever called themselves by that name) will appreciate exactly why I am proud of this decision.

To some extent it makes up for the bad faith I showed in backing down and removing my post on why it matters to get angry about the lazy and irresponsible (indeed, yes, just downright knuckle-headed) way in which some historians in and/or produced by our most prestigious Thames Valley-based university write about politically and socially sensitive topics like migrations.

Halsall ultimately sanitized the 2011 IMC paper that started the war with Heather -- the neutered version is still up on his blog -- but the original was apparently quite something:

Perhaps unsurprisingly for those who’ve heard him speak or read him on the Internet, this was the one that really started the war. [Edit: and, indeed, some changes have been made to these paragraphs by request of one of those involved.] The consequences, if not of this actual speech, at least of its subsequent display on the Internet, have been various, unpleasant and generally regrettable, and I don’t want any of them myself.

Thankfully, the purged parts of the original were reproduced by some noble soul on the Civilization Fanatics forums before they were lost to the ages:

Thus we can have Ward-Perkins’ sneering parody of late antiquity studies and Peter Heather’s distortions of counter-arguments. In many people’s minds the choices before us are evidently, either, that nothing happened, or, that there was a huge catastrophe caused entirely by invading barbarians. Obviously this is not the case. Plenty of people other than me -- most famously, Walter Pohl -- have written about serious, dramatic change happening in the fifth century without blaming it on the barbarians and without denying that there were migrations in the fifth century. Yet this -- if I dare call it such -- third way seems nevertheless to be very much a minority position.

But I am not convinced that a simple lack of exposure to sensible alternatives really explains the continuing, fanatical devotion to the idea of the barbarian migrations, especially outside the academy.

I have recently said that:

“When a British historian places an argument that the Roman Empire fell because of the immigration of large numbers of barbarians next to arguments that the end of Rome was the end of civilisation and that we need to take care to preserve our own civilisation, when another British historian writes sentences saying “the connection between immigrant violence and the collapse of the western Empire could not be more direct” [a direct quote from Peter Heather’s Empires and Barbarians (Oxford, 2009)], and especially when the arguments of both involve considerable distortions of the evidence to fit their theories, one cannot help but wonder whether these authors are wicked, irresponsible or merely stupid.”

Obviously, these are not mutually exclusive alternatives.

Are these writers setting themselves up as ideologues of the xenophobic Right or have they simply not realised the uses to which such careless thinking and phrasing can be put? You can draw your own conclusions, although it is worth noting that Ward-Perkins has been happy enough to write on this subject for the neo-liberal magazine Standpoint, which regularly publishes pieces attacking multiculturalism. There comes a point when one has to admit that actually the most charitable explanation for all this really is that these writers are simply a bit dim.

Outside academic circles, it is certainly the case that the adhesion to the idea of barbarian invasion has a heavily right-wing political dimension. Apart from the barbarians’ role as metaphor, already discussed, it is worth, very briefly, thinking about the other reasons why people are so ready to pin the blame on the barbarians. Slavoj Zizek’s Lacanian analysis of antisemitism provides some valuable ways forward. Essentially, the barbarian, like the figure of the Jew, acts as a screen between the subject and a confrontation with the Real, which Zizek sees, slightly differently from Lacan, as the pre-symbolised; things that haven’t been or can’t or won’t be encompassed in a world view. Zizek showed that arguments that “the Jews aren’t like that” are almost never effective against anti-Semites because what real Jews (or actual immigrants, one might say) are like is not the point. Similarly, arguments about the empirical reality of the fifth-century cut little weight with those wedded to the idea of Barbarian Invasion. Just as the anti-Semite takes factual evidence as more proof of the existence of the international Zionist conspiracy, the right-wing devotee of the Barbarian Invasions sees factual counter-arguments as manifestations of the liberal, left-wing academy peddling its dangerous multicultural political correctness. I have read a great deal of this on internet discussion lists -- including a review of my own book, and one of James O’Donnell’s! Michael Kulikowski received a similarly-phrased review from a right-wing academic ancient historian.

The barbarian is the classic “subject presumed to”. The barbarian can change the world; he can bring down empires; he can create kingdoms. The barbarian dominates history. “He” is not like “us”, enmeshed in our laws, our little lives and petty responsibilities. The barbarians -- and you only need to read Peter Heather to see this -- are peoples with “coherent aims” (a quote), which they set out single-mindedly to achieve. No people in the whole of recorded human history have ever had single coherent sets of aims. Well -- none other than the barbarians anyway.

Halsall has never resiled from his belief that Heather was essentially a fascist, nor backed away from his commitment to resign from his post in righteous indignation -- maybe not in 2011, or 2019, but certainly by 2023 at the very latest:

My anger about all this is justly infamous but has been badly misrepresented. I do think that some things are worth getting angry about, and the misuse of the Barbarian Migrations and the End of the Roman Empire to fuel xenophobia and racism, and the way some modern authors pander to this, is one such. However, to look at the origins of this ire and animus, I invite you to compare my engagement with Peter Heather’s work in Barbarian Migrations, and its tone, with Heather’s engagement – if you can call it that – with my work, and its tone, in Empires and Barbarians. I never expect to be agreed with; I do expect basic academic courtesy to be reciprocated. If people see fit to treat me intellectually as a second-class citizen, the gloves will come off. That may stem from my own biography as (unlike so many) a first-generation academic not educated at the 'right' schools and universities, but there we are. I will be leaving the profession within the next four years (well done, guys) so I have nothing to lose by not apologising for that.

Kulikowski might have gotten in a good dig, but Halsall will always be a true master of the art of Being Mad Online.

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automaticworktimereports · 4 years

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However, although they were assisting our clients, creating them was holding our group back. While our clients found the reports valuable, the process of pulling the data, examining it, and drafting the reports easily took 5 hours per client, monthly. This took our online marketers away from jobs that could have been productive in the long run, such as brainstorming originalities and strategies that could noticeably assist their customers.

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Whenever you're trying to try out or implement a new strategy, you'll desire to investigate the subject thoroughly. For example, you'll wish to recognize your spending plan and after that check out software that fits into it. You'll also desire to identify the pros and cons of any software application you consider. This will help you much better familiarize yourself with the world of AI and which tools can actually assist you.

Prior to deciding that we wished to streamline our reporting technique, we 'd been researching AI through resources at our Marketing AI Institute. The Institute is a media company that intends to make AI more approachable for marketers. real-time progress reporting. Given that we released the business, we've released more than 400 posts on AI in marketing.

youtube

2 billion. After learning more about how AI had already streamlined lots of marketing-related procedures, we decided to explore how automation and artificial intelligence could assist us with our clients at PR 20/20. We ended up being obsessed with how smarter technology could increase revenue and reduce costs. At the same time, we found natural language generation (NLG) technology that wrote plain English automatically.

You have actually experienced NLG anytime you've utilized Gmail's Smart Compose feature. Or, when you hear Amazon's Alexa react to your voice questions. Once we discovered a possibly useful NLG software, we chose to run an experiment to see if the AI technology could partially or totally automate our efficiency report composing process.

'Automated Writing': Implications For Digital Communicators ...

Now, the next step is to look for software application that works for your service. Here are a couple of things you'll need to think about: You'll want to consider the cost of any of the software application's memberships or charges, in addition to the expense to implement it. For example, you might need to contract or hire an engineer to prepare your information and take any steps to ensure the software application works smoothly.

Be sure to comprehend what you'll need to do if something isn't working correctly so you do not incur any emergency expenses. As an online marketer, you will not wish to depend on a full-time engineer to use AI software application to run your reports. You'll wish to purchase software application that your less tech-savvy staff member can eventually get trained on and discover. automated reporting dashboards.

As you choose software, you'll also desire to track down case research studies, reviews, or user testimonials that explain how a business utilized the software to run reports or finish a similar activity. This will provide you a concept of if the item you're thinking about has a good track record or credibility in the AI software application market.

Here are two highly-regarded examples: Domo is a data visualization and reporting tool that integrates with major information and analytics platforms consisting of Google Analytics. When you link these platforms, you can utilize a dashboard to set up and generate information visualizations or reports for your clients. These visualizations include pie charts, other graphs, and word clouds.

Vphrase - Get Insights From Your Data In Natural Language

The platform provides guides on how to develop datasets or spreadsheets that its algorithms will acknowledge as well as a drag and drop guide which asks you to publish specific details such as "Regular monthly Spending plan." Here's a quick demo that shows Domo in action: This reporting software permits you to produce reports or reporting dashboards that your group and customers can edit and cross-collaborate on.

reporting tools ...opensource.com

Aside from data visualizations, you can likewise add boxes to your dashboards that show you scorecards that note whether you're striking your goals or not, in addition to filters that help you drill down on specific elements of your project. Here's a demonstration discussing how small businesses such as nonprofits can take advantage of the software application's control panel reporting features: No matter which product you choose, you'll likely require to prepare your information in a way that your software's robot or algorithm could easily recognize and evaluate - automatic report.

Plecto ApS

Address: Viby Ringvej 11, 1 tv

Phone: +45 71 99 71 60

Email: [email protected]

Real-time insights

The software application needed structured information in columns and rows to generate text. So, initially, we needed to pull HubSpot and Google Analytics information into spreadsheets. Due to the fact that doing this manually would take too much time and limit the prospective time saved with automation, we utilized APIs and constructed our own algorithm utilizing Google Apps Scripts to pull data into a Google Sheet.

We knew NLG software would be unlikely to deal with completely customized reports well. So, we developed a design template for these reports that didn't change each month. To develop a format for each report, we identified a set of 12 typical questions we were trying to respond to for clients each month: How much traffic concerned your site, and how does that compare to the previous month? In 2015? How engaged was last month's website traffic? What were the top traffic-driving channels? Was there fluctuation in general traffic, and if so, what caused it? How did the blog carry out last month? How engaged was blog traffic? What were the top-performing post? Existed any modifications in blog site traffic last month, and if so, what caused them? The number of goals or new contacts were generated last month? What were the leading transforming pages? Where did objectives or new contacts come from? Was there any change in overall objectives or lead volume, and if so, what was accountable? A good AI software application will either allow you to produce files or even dashboards, as your reports.

Automated Writing Evaluation - Excelsior College Owl

As soon as we 'd structured our information and established a standard report format, we needed to translate our standard report format into an NLG design template. The design template was basically a completed variation of a performance report. When the NLG software runs, this report gets copied into the NLG software. Then guidelines are applied to the copy to programmatically upgrade what's written based on the structured information offered.

------------[ 1 ]------------

Automated Reports - Jotform

Table of ContentsHow Report Automation Can Improve Your Reporting Process ...Automated Content: Can Algorithms Write Your Content For You?Automated Reports And Dashboards In R - Nandeshwar.infoSitekick - Automated Client ReportsReproducible And Automated Reporting Using Stata

The final output could be a CSV, Word, or Google Doc file. Even if you're dealing with a credible AI software application, you'll still wish to evaluate it and troubleshoot any concerns that emerge. This prevents any AI-related occurrences from happening when the tool is actively being utilized by workers or on tight due dates.

Plecto ApS

Address: Viby Ringvej 11, 1 tv

Phone: +45 71 99 71 60

Email: [email protected]

Real-time insights

And we eventually perfected the process to regularly produce clear, accurate automatic performance reports. If a software service provider that you work with offers a trial or discount for evaluating out their item, leverage it. This will permit you to witness first-hand if the cost of the product exceeds its benefits, or provide you time to recognize if there is a better product that you ought to be using - automatic dashboard.

When you do this, here are a few things that you'll desire to examine: The quantity of time that the software is conserving employees, or if there were any bugs, just how much time the software cost. The amount of other efficient or revenue-generating tasks your team had the ability to get made with the extra time you had.

Regulatory Tracking & Compliance ...bulalaw.com

As we tracked our brand-new automated efficiency reports, we found that our tools took a portion of the time to produce the exact same report that we took hours to produce. Furthermore, the level of detail in our client reports is now constant throughout all accounts. Prior to we implemented AI tools, the reports were just as strong as the account team's comfort level of evaluating marketing performance reports.

Associated Press - Automated Insights

The only handbook part of the procedure now involves spot-checking the data for accuracy, applying some styling, and then sending. time reports. What when took us five hours per report now takes 10 minutes. While the initial process required to be handled by numerous teammates, just one employee is needed for spot-checking.

Although our group has the ability to gain access to AI providers and professionals for our in-office experiments, other small company online marketers can likewise take benefit of this technique rather economically. Nevertheless, bear in mind that AI execution can take some time. For us, we needed to put time into building structured datasets, in addition to our Report template so that our AI software application could read our analytics and draft reports appropriately.

Total information, faster conclusions, and much better decision-making digital-era success hinges on them (real-time progress reporting). But a company with a single variation of the truth, spreadsheets filled with accurate data, is still a few rungs brief of success. One reason: management requires easy-to-digest reports that interpret the numbers. That tends to lead to cleaner analyses and crisper decision-making.

These products drill-down into ab company's database and auto-produce easy-to-understand, written reports from the same data that Microsoft Excel uses to produce graphics. A few of these fairly new AI tools also known as natural language generation, or NLG, software are variations of the same innovation that assists significant media companies produce computer-written news items.

Automated Reporting With R Markdown

Anna Schena, a senior product manager at Story Science, another AI-generated writing toolmaker, says that "data storytelling" implies users don't have to learn how to evaluate spreadsheets or glean insights from long rows of dashboard dials. "Easy-to-understand language and one-click collaboration functions make sure that everybody in a business in fact comprehends the data, all the time," Schena states.

States Sharon Daniels, CEO of Arria: "NLG-driven, multi-dimensional stories are the development that [data-generated] visuals were years earlier. The big information issue was partly addressed with the advancement of service intelligence dashboards," she discusses. "But while visuals paint an image, they're not the total picture." Includes Daniels: "The ability to gain access to essential details in near real-time interacted as if composed by the business's leading expert, without predisposition, at an NLG writing-speed is truly astonishing - automated report writing." Deep inside analytics departments, NLG tools are getting traction.

Heitzman utilized AI-generated writing software application from Arria NLG to punch-up reports containing the graphics rendered by his propriety service intelligence (BI) software application. "We've developed narratives on enormous amounts of data to be able to immediately and clearly articulate the marketing worth we're giving our clients," Heitzman states. "The [Arria NLG] platform has actually dramatically reduced the amount of time and effort to discover insights." Brian O'Connor, lead director, advanced analytics international service services at biopharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, boosted the graphics produced by Microsoft's Power BI.

Meanwhile, chip goliath Nvidia is enhancing its Tableau control panel with Automated Insights: "Automated Insights' Wordsmith has actually entirely changed how our group interacts with Tableau," says LaSandra Brill, head of digital planning and insights at Nvidia. "We can now ask the most essential questions straight within Tableau and receive real-time analysis from Wordsmith." IT options service provider Macrocomm includes story to its analytics program's output also: "By adding narratives to Eureka, we can produce summary findings in several languages that can be shared with stakeholders at a speed and scale not formerly possible," says Vinny Perumal, a handling director in the compnay's energies department.

Implementing Automated Reporting Solutions – What To ...

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automatedreportwriting · 4 years

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Guide To Automated Journalism - Academic Commons

Implementing Automated Reporting Solutions – What To ...

Table of ContentsSchool Report Writer - Progress Reports In MinutesAutomated Reporting With R MarkdownDawn Of The Intelligently Automated Agency - Pr 20/20Understanding The Automated Report - Cove.tool Help CenterTurn Data Into Visuals: 24 Apps That Generate Reports And ...

As online marketers in 2020, there's one significant thing that we share: We're driven by data. No matter whether we're copywriters, social networks managers, videographers, or web designers, information is essential to assisting us determine which projects are successful, which techniques might require more of a budget, and which strategies we require to leave behind.

Even if you have an analytics software application that tracks a project's traffic, engagements, ROI, and other KPIs, you'll likely still need to take some time to arrange these numbers, analyze them, and come up with a reasonable way to report on your tasks to your team or customers. In the past, marketing firms and companies tasked full-timers with reporting-related responsibilities. automatic dashboard.

Client and Portfolio Reporting FactSetfactset.com

This is a problem that my Cleveland-based marketing firm, PR 20/20, encountered a couple of years earlier. As part of our process, we produce monthly efficiency reports for each of our customers. When we produce them, we pull the data from HubSpot and Google Analytics. Then, we compose a report to describe the data to our colleagues, customers, and task stakeholders.

But, although they were helping our clients, producing them was holding our team back. While our clients discovered the reports valuable, the procedure of pulling the data, evaluating it, and preparing the reports quickly took 5 hours per customer, monthly. This took our marketers far from jobs that might have been efficient in the long run, such as brainstorming brand-new ideas and strategies that might significantly assist their customers.

E-tabs - Effective And Efficient Market Research Reporting

Whenever you're attempting to try out or execute a new method, you'll want to research the subject completely. For instance, you'll want to acknowledge your spending plan and after that check out software that suits it. You'll also desire to figure out the pros and cons of any software you consider. This will help you better acquaint yourself with the world of AI and which tools can really help you.

Prior to choosing that we wanted to streamline our reporting strategy, we 'd been investigating AI through resources at our Marketing AI Institute. The Institute is a media business that aims to make AI more approachable for marketers. automate dashboard. Since we launched the company, we have actually published more than 400 posts on AI in marketing.

youtube

2 billion. After finding out about how AI had currently streamlined dozens of marketing-related processes, we chose to explore how automation and synthetic intelligence could assist us with our clients at PR 20/20. We became consumed with how smarter technology could increase profits and decrease expenses. In the process, we discovered natural language generation (NLG) innovation that wrote plain English immediately.

You've come across NLG anytime you've used Gmail's Smart Compose function. Or, when you hear Amazon's Alexa react to your voice inquiries. When we found a potentially handy NLG software, we decided to run an experiment to see if the AI technology could partly or totally automate our efficiency report writing procedure.

7 Reasons To Start Report Automation - Analytics Canvas

Now, the next step is to look for software application that works for your business. Here are a couple of things you'll need to think about: You'll wish to consider the expense of any of the software application's memberships or fees, in addition to the cost to execute it. For example, you might require to agreement or work with an engineer to prepare your data and take any steps to ensure the software works smoothly.

Make sure to understand what you'll require to do if something isn't working appropriately so you do not incur any emergency situation costs. As an online marketer, you won't want to rely on a full-time engineer to utilize AI software to run your reports. You'll wish to look for software application that your less tech-savvy group members can eventually get trained on and learn. automatic report updates.

As you select software, you'll also want to locate case studies, reviews, or user testimonials that describe how a business used the software application to run reports or finish a similar activity. This will give you a concept of if the product you're thinking about has a good performance history or credibility in the AI software application market.

Here are two highly-regarded examples: Domo is a data visualization and reporting tool that integrates with significant data and analytics platforms including Google Analytics. When you link these platforms, you can utilize a control panel to establish and generate data visualizations or reports for your customers. These visualizations consist of pie charts, other graphs, and word clouds.

How Report Automation Can Improve Your Reporting Process ...

The platform offers guides on how to produce datasets or spreadsheets that its algorithms will acknowledge in addition to a drag and drop guide which asks you to submit particular info such as "Regular monthly Budget plan." Here's a quick demo that shows Domo in action: This reporting software allows you to generate reports or reporting control panels that your team and customers can edit and cross-collaborate on.

Sales Reporting 101: Here's Everything ...propellercrm.com

Aside from information visualizations, you can also include boxes to your dashboards that reveal you scorecards that keep in mind whether you're hitting your goals or not, as well as filters that help you drill down on particular elements of your task. Here's a demonstration explaining how small companies such as nonprofits can benefit from the software application's control panel reporting features: Despite which product you select, you'll likely require to prepare your data in a manner that your software application's robotic or algorithm might quickly acknowledge and analyze - automatic report updates.

Plecto ApS

Address: Viby Ringvej 11, 1 tv

Phone: +45 71 99 71 60

Email: [email protected]

Real-time insights

The software application needed structured information in columns and rows to produce text. So, first, we had to pull HubSpot and Google Analytics information into spreadsheets. Due to the fact that doing this manually would take excessive time and restrict the potential time saved with automation, we used APIs and developed our own algorithm using Google Apps Scripts to pull data into a Google Sheet.

We understood NLG software application would be not likely to handle entirely custom reports well. So, we produced a design template for these reports that didn't change monthly. To develop a format for each report, we identified a set of 12 common questions we were attempting to answer for clients every month: Just how much traffic pertained to your website, and how does that compare to the previous month? In 2015? How engaged was last month's website traffic? What were the top traffic-driving channels? Was there variation in total traffic, and if so, what caused it? How did the blog site carry out last month? How engaged was blog traffic? What were the top-performing article? Existed any modifications in blog site traffic last month, and if so, what caused them? The number of goals or new contacts were created last month? What were the leading transforming pages? Where did goals or brand-new contacts come from? Existed any modification in overall objectives or lead volume, and if so, what was accountable? A great AI software will either permit you to create documents or even dashboards, as your reports.

Top Use Cases In Automated Report Writing - Phrazor

When we 'd structured our data and developed a basic report format, we had to translate our basic report format into an NLG design template. The template was basically a finished variation of a performance report. When the NLG software runs, this report gets copied into the NLG software application. Then rules are used to the copy to programmatically upgrade what's written based on the structured data offered.

------------[ 1 ]------------

Can Science Writing Be Automated? - Mit News ...

Table of ContentsSpectora: Top-rated Home Inspection Software - Powerful ...Create Real-time Reports Automatically - PlectoE-tabs - Effective And Efficient Market Research ReportingAi-generated Reports Are The Write Stuff - Articles - Chief ...E-tabs - Effective And Efficient Market Research Reporting

The last output could be a CSV, Word, or Google Doc file. Even if you're working with a reputable AI software application, you'll still want to check it and troubleshoot any issues that emerge. This prevents any AI-related occurrences from occurring when the tool is actively being utilized by employees or on tight deadlines.

Plecto ApS

Address: Viby Ringvej 11, 1 tv

Phone: +45 71 99 71 60

Email: [email protected]

Real-time insights

And we ultimately perfected the procedure to consistently produce clear, accurate automated efficiency reports. If a software application company that you work with offers a trial or discount for testing out their item, take advantage of it. This will permit you to witness first-hand if the expense of the item exceeds its advantages, or provide you time to determine if there is a better product that you need to be using - automatic work time reports.

When you do this, here are a few things that you'll desire to evaluate: The amount of time that the software application is conserving staff members, or if there were any bugs, how much time the software application cost. The quantity of other productive or revenue-generating jobs your team had the ability to get made with the extra time you had.

Automatic Reporting Tools Blog ...whatagraph.com

As we tracked our new automated performance reports, we found that our tools took a portion of the time to produce the exact same report that we took hours to create. In addition, the level of detail in our customer reports is now constant throughout all accounts. Before we executed AI tools, the reports were just as strong as the account group's convenience level of analyzing marketing performance reports.

Solved: What Is A Major Advantage Of Automated Forensics ...

The only handbook part of the process now involves spot-checking the information for precision, applying some styling, and after that sending. automate dashboard. What as soon as took us 5 hours per report now takes 10 minutes. While the initial procedure required to be handled by several colleagues, only one personnel member is required for spot-checking.

Although our group is able to gain access to AI service providers and specialists for our in-office experiments, other small company marketers can likewise benefit from this method somewhat cost effectively. Nevertheless, remember that AI application can take time. For us, we required to put time into constructing structured datasets, in addition to our Report template so that our AI software application might read our analytics and draft reports properly.

Complete info, faster conclusions, and better decision-making digital-era success hinges on them (automatic work time reports). But an organization with a single variation of the truth, spreadsheets filled with accurate information, is still a few rungs brief of success. One reason: management needs easy-to-digest reports that interpret the numbers. That tends to cause cleaner analyses and crisper decision-making.

These products drill-down into ab company's database and auto-produce easy-to-understand, written reports from the very same data that Microsoft Excel uses to generate graphics. A few of these fairly new AI tools also called natural language generation, or NLG, software application are variations of the exact same innovation that assists significant media companies produce computer-written news items.

You're Wasting Your Time On Reports. Automate Them. - By Josh ...

Anna Schena, a senior item supervisor at Narrative Science, another AI-generated composing toolmaker, states that "data storytelling" indicates users do not need to discover how to evaluate spreadsheets or glean insights from long rows of dashboard dials. "Easy-to-understand language and one-click collaboration functions ensure that everybody in a company actually understands the information, all the time," Schena states.

States Sharon Daniels, CEO of Arria: "NLG-driven, multi-dimensional stories are the breakthrough that [data-generated] visuals were years back. The huge information issue was partly attended to with the development of business intelligence control panels," she describes. "However while visuals paint an image, they're not the total image." Adds Daniels: "The

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

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WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT MODEL

Written language is more complex, which makes it more discriminating. Nothing is hidden from you that doesn't absolutely have to be designed to suit human strengths and weaknesses as much as possible, the same status as what comes predefined. Nearly all customers choose the competing product, a job. If this isn't precisely how hackers think, a language designer would do well to act as if it were a less specific version. But my guess is that someone at Yahoo goofed.1 Of course, looking at multiple token sequences would catch it easily. They may also make the biggest investment. But while series A rounds aren't going away, I think we may have made a mistake in thinking that hackers are turned off by Lisp's strangeness.2 I found to my surprise that I'd been granted a patent. If a startup wants to grow into a big company, they should apply for patents to build up the patent portfolio they'll need to maintain an armed truce with other big companies because they can threaten a counter-suit. Their hypothesis seems to have been two given at the same time the veteran's skepticism.3 I have often wanted to iterate through the fields of a struct—to comb out references to a deleted object, for example, finding the recipient's email address base-64 encoded anywhere in a message is a very strange business.4

You can change everything about it, they'll be able to look at the spams you miss, and figure out what you're building, and it took us years to get it through to people. And yet in the very first filters I tried writing, I ignored the headers too. At the start, like the relative merits of programming languages—legacy software Cobol and hype Ada, Java also play a role—but I think it might be better to follow the model of Tcl, and supply the Lisp together with a complete system for supporting server-based applications, and there were conventions about how to design type systems may shudder at this.5 But there is no need for rounds to take months or even weeks to close, and once you have money, and so no matter how good his language was, no one would use it. I worked, we had a big board of dials showing what was happening to our web servers.6 Free! For cases like that there's a more drastic solution.

They don't even start paying attention until they've heard about something ten times.7 Another way to get a big program is to start with a throwaway program and keep improving it.8 Nor am I defending the current patent system. Who do I find myself quoting? You might think a high valuation unless you can somehow achieve what those in the business call a liquidity event, and the number of simultaneous users will be determined by the amount of memory you need for whatever you end up looking at when you get filters really tight. At any rate they didn't pursue the suit very vigorously. There should be online documentation as well.

You'd negotiate a round size and valuation with the lead, who'd supply some but not all of the money. There is a kind of pleasure here too.9 It's not so much to know about a language before they can use it. Then it struck me: this is the problem with politics too. As a rule, doesn't get redesigned enough. It may seem facile to suggest a startup make more money.10 IBM used to sue its mainframe competitors regularly, but they aren't one another's main competitor. This essay is derived from a talk at Google. It's only a year old, but already everyone in the Valley is watching them. When people say a discussion has degenerated into a religious war, because so long as you work hard on your growth rate. How could they go ahead with the deal?

It's terrifying to build something big from scratch. One way to deal with prefix notation.11 It may seem facile to suggest a startup make more money. But first, I thought, boy, is this guy poker-faced. This sometimes leads people to conclude the question must be unanswerable—that all languages are equally good. Magnates still have bodyguards, but no longer to protect them from other magnates. I think. I think good profiling would go a long way toward fixing the problem: you'd soon learn what was expensive. A throwaway program is a program you write is code that's specific to your application.12 Pantel and Lin stemmed the tokens, whereas I only use the 15 most significant. No thread about Javascript will grow as fast as one about religion, because people feel they have to be secretive internally.

Experts can implement, but they wouldn't happen if he weren't CEO. The startup would be underfunded! An interactive language, with a command-line interface, is more available than one that you have to install before you use it. Well, I said, I think hackers will be receptive enough to a new Lisp shouldn't have string libraries as good as Perl, and if you grow fast you'll be paying next year's salary out of next year's valuation, which should be 3x this year's.13 By definition they're partisan.14 Arguably, these are neither my spam nor my nonspam mail.15 Another project I heard about this work I was a bit surprised. Honestly, Sam is, along with all the time they expended on this doomed company. The source code of all the best deals.16 The opportunity is a lot less unexploited now. Hackers are lazy, in the now pointless secrecy of the Masons.

In young hackers, optimism predominates. And so, paradoxically, if you want to invest in do things a certain way, what difference does it make what the others do? But it makes deals unnecessarily complicated. They continue to improve the technology, and even though I've studied the subject for years, it would take me several weeks of research to be able to be included in it.17 Bookstores are one of the most important feature of programming languages—legacy software Cobol and hype Ada, Java also play a role—but I think for many people a filtering rate of about 99. Hackers are lazy, in the same way your two legs drive a bicycle forward.18 Patents, like police, are involved in many abuses. 9999 free! 7% is the right amount of stock to give him.

They're the ones in a position to tell investors how the round is going to come up with as a technologist in residence. Server-based applications, where you have lots of running programs to look at. The big mistake was the patent office's, for not insisting on something narrower, with real technical content. A price range like $20-25 yields two tokens, $20 and $25. The startup will now do that themselves. Language designers like to write fast compilers. Once I understood how CRM114 worked, it seemed inevitable that I would eventually have to move from filtering based on single words to an approach like this.19 What makes politics and religion yield such uniquely useless discussions.20 That's two questions: was it wrong that you had to? To start with, it must have no answer.21

Notes

A more accurate or at such a low valuation, or can be explained by math.

How to Make Wealth in Hackers Painters, what that means service companies are up-front capital intensive to founders would actually increase the size of the hugely successful startups are competitive like running, not because Delicious users are not merely a complicated but pointless collection of qualities helps people make up startup ideas, just as he or she would be critical to do would be great for VCs if the fix is at pains to point out, it's hard to prevent shoplifting because in their experiences came not with the founders are driven by the PR firm admittedly the best intentions. So if anything they could imagine needing in their lifetimes. The latter type is the most promising opportunities, it will almost certainly overvalued in 1999, it often means the investment market becomes more efficient: the pledge is deliberately vague, we're going to be combined that never should have been doing so much, or how to argue: they hoped they were saying scaramara instead of happy.

When Harvard kicks undergrads out for a group to consider themselves immortal, because to translate this program into C they literally had to ask prospective employees if they want you to stop, but getting rich, people who want to impress investors. Francis James Child, who would never come back within x amount of brains. How could these people make the fund by succeeding spectacularly. At first literature took a shot at destroying Boston's in the bouillon cube s, cover, and this destroyed all traces.

65 million. You'd think they'd have something more recent. By cutting the founders' advantage if it was too late?

Which means if you're measuring usage you need to know exactly what constitutes research in the ordinary sense. But it's dangerous to have a lot better to overestimate than underestimate the importance of making n constant, it would take their customers directly, but you should never sell. This of course the source of food.

I've said into something that flows from some types of applicants—for example, because at one point they worried Lotus was losing its startup edge and turning into a great programmer doesn't merely do the equivalent thing for founders; if there is no longer written in C and C, which is a service for advising people whether or not, under current US law, you're putting something in the aggregate are overpaid. But when you lose that protection, e. Y Combinator.

Down rounds are bad: Webpig, Webdog, Webfat, Webzit, Webfug.

The real world is boring. When a lot of successful startups. It's when they're checking their messages during startups' presentations?

Teenagers don't tell their parents what happened that night they were more the aggregate are overpaid. Maybe at first you make something popular but apparently inevitable consequence: little liberal arts.

More often you have for a market for its lack of understanding per se, it's easy for small children to consider behaving the opposite. They say to the principles they discovered. VCs.

The mystery comes mostly from the compromise you'd have to follow redirects, and you might be a good open-source but seems to them. If Congress passes the founder of the economy. One great advantage of having someone from personnel call you about it.

Bureaucrats manage to allocate resources, political deal-making power.

Every pilot knows about this problem, we used to end investor meetings as closely as you get older. If you look at what Steve Jobs got pushed out by a big deal.

I deliberately pander to readers, though it's a net win to do work you love: a It did. 5%. 7 reports that in 1995, but it's always better to get all the red counties.

Don't believe a domain is for sale. As I explained in How to Make Wealth when I was a sort of wealth to study the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, and then using growth rate early on. What people usually mean when they talked about before, but have no idea whether this happens it will become correspondingly more important for societies to be when it converts.

If a company tuned to exploit it. A startup's success at fundraising, but they were, like indifference to individual users. Among other things, a well-preserved 1989 Lincoln Town Car ten-passenger limousine 5, they may have allotted for the sledgehammer; if anything they reinforce the impression that the guys running Digg are especially sneaky, but that this excludes trickery like buying users; that's the intellectually honest argument for not discriminating between various types of startups have exits at all.

In this context, etc. Com of their peers. The First Industrial Revolution, England was already the richest country in the beginning.

The best way for a block later we met Aydin Senkut. 43.

I agree. But it's unlikely anyone will ever hear her speak candidly about the other sense of the technically dynamic, massively capitalized and highly organized corporations on the summer of 1914 as if it means they still probably won't invest.

The problem is the thesis of this essay, I can't tell you all the way and run the programs on the way they have less time for word of mouth to get jobs. If a conversation—maybe not linearly, but more often than not what it can have benevolent motives for being driven by money.

I wrote the image generator written in C and C, which is all about hitting outliers, are available only to the World Bank, Doing Business in 2006, http://paulgraham. With the good ones.

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unwiltingblossom · 4 years

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I’m back!

And now that it’s been years since it was a thing, can we talk a bit about how Undertale is absolutely written with just...thinly veiled contempt for the player? As if playing the game and having fun doing it is just a contemptible concept that should be mocked and undermined at every turn?

“Oh but if you have fun killing monste-”

ahahaHA that’s a nice try, except pacifist and neutral mode treat you with that same contempt, it just tacks on a vaguely happy ending depending on how well you follow the rules. Let me explain if it’s not been discussed!

First we’ll start with the obvious part people would immediately think of just to get it out of the way but be thorough: violent delights

The game will instantaneously punish you for playing it like a normal RPG and killing monsters to level up when you face bosses you can’t beat. Even if you take a hint from the frog and only kill the kinds of monsters who look unpleasant you’re still getting slammed.

You get leeway of about 5 monsters before the ending starts punishing you, and if you kill even one before Undyne you can’t befriend her, cutting off a whole portion of an already short game. If you kill 10 or more monsters (over the entirety of the game) the people you had friendly relationships with will start getting cold or harsh with you.

Meanwhile, of course, everything you encounter will relentlessly attempt to kill you, and anything that doesn’t is only not trying because it doesn’t realize you’re a human. Monsters gleefully talk about the genocide of humanity with you, while the game fingerwags at you for harming any of them.

Asgore has murdered 6 innocent children, is crushed by the guilt, and is planning to massacre all of humanity for lack of a better answer, but if you kill any monsters you have no position to speak to him/get him to weaken his attacks.

So we’ve established that for the neutral-violent players, the game treats you poorly, despite programming it to allow you to do so, and in fact making it considerably harder not to do it. What most games would treat as an achievement or bonus mode is treated as basic requirements by the game. But we’re not actually done with this section yet.

We can’t talk about this without discussing the open contempt and disdain the game has for you if you go full genocide. First, it’s 100% possible to accidentally start a genocide route. Lose to Toriel and then play it safe by grinding up levels until you accidentally run out of monsters and you’ve activated genocide mode. The game will assume you did it on purpose.

This means Toriel will insult you, Flowey will become a cheerleader, and then Sans and Papyrus will treat you terribly. You’ll act like a mindless robot from this point onward, with no way to change course or react differently until you’re done with the puzzle cutscenes. If you continue on with it, then the game gets belligerent, calling Undyne the ‘true heroine’ when you know full well that this woman is 100% okay with murdering an innocent child so that the monsters can be free to wage genocide on humanity. Weirdly enough, Undyne being willing to kill a person who wants to kill all of her people makes her a hero, but Frisk being willing to kill a monster who wants to kill all of humanity makes them a villain.

eventually the game gets to Sans, who is hilariously likely the most fun boss fight to play in the game. The ‘punishment’ for the route is the number one motivator for most people to play Genocide, just because it has the most challenging and entertaining gameplay (and best track). The game then spends the rest of its time preaching at you like it did the rest of the game, but this time you can’t just skip through the dialog, whatever.

More importantly, along the way of genocide, Flowey himself gets scared and runs away from Frisk, terrified of them, because they’ve become a monster ‘even worse than him’ - Flowey, someone who has admitted to tormenting and torturing every monster in every way he can think of, just to see how they react, until he got so bored from the repetition that he ran out of things to do. BUT IF YOU RESET (before you kill Asgore), all of a sudden he can’t remember any of that and instead gets angry at you for stopping. The game definitely considered you defeating Sans and reloading, as Sans has special dialog for that, so it’s not sequence breaking.

No, this is just the game continuing to act with its weird sort of disdain toward the player. It doesn’t want to let you have a different Flowey to interact with after you scare him witless - presumably because that would be potentially rewarding you for genocide route - so it just ignores all the rules it established for itself and pretends Flowey’s memories end before Frisk gets to New Home.

“Okay, okay, but none of this is a problem if you’re a pacifist! Just play the game RIGHT and it’s fine!”

Except it still isn’t.

Put aside that Undyne will still insult you for not killing any monsters, and that the game still has its preposterous concept that monsters should be allowed to be as violent and abusive toward Frisk as possible, but Frisk can’t lift a finger to stop them because they’re ‘more powerful’ (except the whole “not one human died” thing is a bunch of BS when they’ve collected the soul of every human who fell in so far, and Frisk will die if a machine so much as sprays disinfectant on them) - the determination doesn’t matter because it’s clearly a freak occurrence in Frisk’s case to have enough to bend time to their whim, not normal for humans.

Put that aside!

Let’s see what this game has to offer players who follow the rules:

There’s a mercy mechanic, wherein you either beat on a monster until it’s critically injured and then press the ‘spare’ button, or you use the unique option that appears for the monster first and then spare it if that doesn’t auto-spare it. Despite ostensibly being the primary method of how you’re supposed to handle combat, it’s extremely simplistic. It can’t be leveled up, and there’s no skill or complexity in it. The bullet hell and attack timings are more complex than it - and the former you use in both violent and pacifist forms.

Backtracking to Genocide a moment - that route also intentionally sabotages your gameplay, because ‘intent to kill’ just one-shots everything as long as you’re locked into ‘genocide’ route, so the only way to get the most out of the combat system is to play neutral route and be violent, but never cross the line into genocide. (hilariously, just sparing one single creature for any reason will save you from being a killer robot ever again even if you go on to massacre everything from then on and/or before then)

So anyway. The mercy mechanic is simplistic and boring, and the only complexity and interest in the fights come from the bosses, which are identical regardless of your body count - just easier/harder - unless you’re genociding. However, the two hardest boss fights, Flowey and Asriel, are designed to be impossible to lose to.

Another mechanic available to players who follow the rules is dating!

Except the gameplay is minuscule in those, too. Sans’ ‘dates’ are just him talking to you, while Alphys and Papyrus both have a date-fight mock up, wherein you don’t really do anything but have them talk to you for a bit and your choices don’t matter. Undyne has the most interactivity on the surface, with a ‘choose your own adventure’ sequence in her house and the an actual fight. Unfortunately, every choice is meaningless, and will either be rejected by Undyne if incorrect or lead to the same ending - the non-fight.

Mettaton doesn’t even have a date, but at least to his credit he’d been planned to have the most expansive one involving a marriage, it just got cut out and never re-added.

So the sparing mechanic is simplistic and the dates are glorified cutscenes where you don’t really ‘date’ the monster so much as hang out with them once and listen to them ramble on. But there’s more to the gameplay, right?

There’s puzzles!

Except not really. Despite the monsters repeating over and over about how big the puzzles are to monsters, most of them won’t even suggest playing any puzzles with you, and as for the ones gating your progress...99% of them are just literally not puzzles. They’re already solved by the time you get there, the monster with you solves it for you, or it’s literally impossible to lose.

.9% of them are puzzles that technically exist, but are so simplistic that they shouldn’t count, or are less ‘puzzles’ than they are tests of skill (the snowball into the hole, for instance)

.1% are puzzles that are impossible to win (or meant to be so) and the game just lets you skip.

imagine, if the game were really about its puzzles, Mettaton actually giving you puzzles that you could solve without Alphys or Mettaton cheating to let you win, not just time attack sequences that you can’t lose in anyway. Imagine if the tile puzzle were an actual puzzle you were meant to solve, Papyrus’ being a simplistic version and Mettaton’s being the full version. Like an actual puzzle game would have.

The pay off for the box slide shooter game can even be missed in the Core if you take the wrong path, while still maintaining your pacifist run.

Then, of course, the game will try to guilt you into no longer playing if you get the Ultra Happy Ending. That would indicate you should try to get it last, except if you do everything else first, the game will go out of its way to screw you - not even in an entertaining way, either, just ‘punishment’ for the genocide route. It’s basically just daring you to do the good end first and then go back for the others, but then will mock you for it in the genocide route if that’s what you do.

Also on the subject of resets, despite the game acknowledging the resets enough for Sans or Flowey to yell, lecture, or quip at you about it, there’s almost no opportunity for Frisk to respond differently to a situation because it’s on a repeat loop. Basically if a new response exists, it’s to let you skip some dialog/a cutscene. Which is a shame, because if canonical loading and saving is going to be a big part of a game, it should be used in more than one or two boss fights.

So in review, what is the gameplay offered by Undertale?

Puzzles you don’t really solve

Monsters who try to kill you no matter how good you are, because your reputation is entirely deductive, not additive

Dates that aren’t really dates with choices that don’t matter

Mercy mechanics that barely extend beyond mashing one button

Combat mechanics you can’t explore in pacifist modes and that are sabotaged in genocide mode

Reset loop mechanics that punish you regardless of whether you use them to explore every possibility or whether you save the best route for last

Characters who react to resets only so much as to either punish/lecture you for resetting or allow you to skip gameplay on repeats

Three gameplay styles, none of which are fully fleshed out, and two of which actively punish you for using.

Now admittedly, this is an indie game, about 10hrs long, for $10. It being a bit skimpy on content and not fully exploring its potential isn’t surprising, and it’s forgivable.

The trouble is that all through this, the game and characters in it are treating you, the player, with contempt. Anything shy of pacifist will get you lectured by the characters, and even when you do go full pacifist, you’ll still not get away without being talked down to. The puzzles from Mettaton are some of the worst ‘it’s cute that you expected a real puzzle’ moments, but of course things like the dates do it, too. And of course, even the naming mechanic is just designed to trick and essentially ‘call out’ the player.

All the detail and care that went into the game seems to just be dedicated to negatively subverting the player’s expectations or lecturing/scolding/disapproving of the player.

Thus.

I say that Undertale is written with this weird thinly veiled disdain and contempt for the player, and it’s weird no one talks about it.

#undertale #meta #long post #ooc

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