#incremental backup

[greyias]

Okay... maybe I can see how tumblr might be losing a lot of $ if this is just my main blog's ridiculous size.

[marithlizard]

Not only do I have no regrets, I had to immediately reblog all five of them because I had excellent taste.

Time for a Blast from the Past

please go to your browser and type in https:// [insert your url here] .tumblr.com/page/1000

Look at the first 5 posts that come up

[wishvolo]

I think my cybersecurity teacher got differential and incremental backups mixed up but at least there's cake in the gay room

[tsvai]

well it was kinda involved but i got tumblr-utils set up and did a test run of it by backing up my old art blog, and i'm generally pretty happy with how it came out.

w/ the tag archive being a thing, i can live with this.

[b3aches]

Quick Tumblr Backup Guide (Linux)

Go to www.tumblr.com/oauth/apps and click the "Register Application" button

Fill in the form. I used the following values for the required fields: Application Name - tumblr-arch Application Website - https://github.com/Cebtenzzre/tumblr-utils Application Description - tumblr archival instance based on tumblr-utils Adminstrative contact email - < my personal email > Default callback URL - https://github.com/Cebtenzzre/tumblr-utils OAuth2 redirect URLs - https://github.com/Cebtenzzre/tumblr-utils

Get the OAuth Consumer Key for your application. It should be listed right on the www.tumblr.com/oauth/apps page.

Do python things:

# check python version: python --version # I've got Python 3.9.9 # create a venv: python -m venv --prompt tumblr-bkp --upgrade-deps venv # activate the venv: source venv/bin/activate # install dependencies: pip install tumblr-backup pip install tumblr-backup[video] pip install tumblr-backup[jq] pip install tumblr-backup[bs4] # Check dependencies are all installed: pip freeze # set the api key: tumblr-backup --set-api-key <OAuth Consumer Key>

So far I have backed up two blogs using the following:

tumblr-backup --save-audio --save-video --tag-index --save-notes --incremental -j --no-post-clobber --media-list <blog name>

There have been two issues I had to deal with so far:

one of the blogs was getting a "Non-OK API repsonse: HTTP 401 Unauthorized". It further stated that "This is a dashboard-only blog, so you probably don't have the right cookies. Try --cookiefile." I resolved the issue by a) setting the "Hide from people without an account" to off and b) enabling a custom theme. I think only step a) was actually necessary though.

"Newly registered consumers are rate limited to 1,000 requests per hour, and 5,000 requests per day. If your application requires more requests for either of these periods, please use the 'Request rate limit removal' link on an app above." Depending on how big your blog is, you may need to break up the download. I suspect using the "-n COUNT" or "--count COUNT" to save only COUNT posts at a time, combined with the "--incremental" will allow you to space things out. You would have to perform multiple passes though. I will have to play with that, so I'll report back my findings.

[fayet]

The Kpop Experiment (IV): Thoughts on Dancing (aka Yunho vs. Mingi/up and out vs. low and in)

Part IV of my "I saw Ateez in Cologne and now I have opinions" series. This one is very long. Sorry not sorry (TL:DR at the end).

Disclaimer: I went specifically to the concert to see Ateez dance. I'm also not a professional dancer (though I have done paid stuff as a backup/background dancer), and my main dance background is classical. I'm soaking up some hiphop stuff these days as well, though, and by virtue of spending a lot of time with professional and non-pro dancers alike I've tried almost everyting under the sun.

So this is just some stuff I noticed watching Yunho and Mingi dance, and some of it is derived from an interesting conversation I had with @storkmuffin recently. So, it's just opinions, okay? Everyone has different ones. Cool? Let's go.

So, to be real with you, I went to Cologne to see Yunho dance, and to watch Ateez as a whole performance unit. I have great respect for their performance and specifically for their dance work, because a) their choreos are hard as fuck, and b) they execute them impeccably. That's drill, there's no way around it. They have insanely difficult formation changes (watch "Work", for example) and to pull stuff like that off you need drill. They are also very different as a group, different heights and body types, and to make a formation with different dancers look great is insanely difficult - because everyone has different angles, heights etc. So you can't tell all eight members to lift their foot e.g. up to knee-height, because it wouldn't be symmetrical. Instead everyone would have to lift their foot to the same height in centimeters, and they need to remember the exact spot and so on. There's a reason you cast a ballet company based on very strict height requirements and pick dancers based on limb lenght and things like that. Dancing in groups requires symmetry, and if the bodies are not symmetrical you need to drill to make up for it.

They obviously do that, and they are also conciously aware of it and are able to adjust mid performance. I noticed that often there's either Yunho or Mingi in the back, and both are able to adjust a formation in the progress of the dance, sometimes very subtly, because they are so well trained they can compartmentalise - they can move, sing, but they are also able to check in on the others and get the lines back into shape by adjusting their own position (and they did a few times during the show, which I mostly noticed because I was next to the side of the main stage, so everything that happened on the stage protruding into the arena was visible to me from the back). They also do that outside formations: There was a fun moment where Mingi was really close to me (yes, I was very much in the front), rapping, hyping the crowd, with a foot (in hideous shoes, which was the reason I was staring at his feet to begin with) up on a box in front of the stage, and while he did all of that he kept considering if the box would hold his weight (for whatever reason). But it didn't, it tipped forward, and for some reason he had a lot of fun playing with it, randomly in the middle of a show, but very subtly - I don't think anyone noticed it, he was just shifting his weight in tiny increments to test when/if the box would give before pulling back again. You can only do random pointless shit like that if you're very, very, very well rehearsed, and they obviously are.

I also hadn't thought how obvious Yunho's job as a dance captain is when they are on stage. He's in center a lot (obviously), but when he isn't he tends to be to the side or the back overseeing what's happening, always checking in and making sure. He's very aware of his surroundings and the others, and I thought he was much less "in the zone" than the others and rather constantly thinking, very much aware of where everyone was at any give moment. Even my partner noticed, and picked Yunho as his favorite, calling him "the tall dude who makes sure they dance right", without knowing he was the dance captain.

But also Yunho is a spectacular dancer. They are all great, obviously, but Yunho is fast and light and very precise, and that's a fantastic skill in a hiphop dancer, but also in a tall dancer. He's dancing up and out, pulled up properly (dancers say someone is pulled up if they are pulled out of their hips, with their weight not on their feet but supported by their centre/core - imagine a piece of string coming out of the top of your head and someone pulls you up without lifting you off your feet), but he can also dance down, low in his knees and bouncy, which is very impressive because that man has long legs and getting low requires an insane amount of glute and thigh strenght (the side-ways crab-style edna walk in IOMT - where they go sideways but very low almost on the floor is hideously hard on the glutes and lower back, and also the kees). Incidentally both Yunho and Mingi do the edna walk with ease, because these guys are hella fit, but damn that's impressive.

Mingi is a more compact dancer, and where Yunho dances up and out he goes low and in, his weight more on his heels, but with a strong, yet seemingly more relaxed looking center as well. That makes his dance style look more sexy, especially combined with all the isolations and smooth body rolls. Mingi has a shitton of body control, which is impressive as fuck because it's not an easy thing, and I don't think we've even seen half of what he can do as a dancer bcs their choreos give him very little space to shine.

So up and out and low and in, but that's just technicalities, and my main take-away from all of it was kind of very simple: I think Yunho and Mingi are very much alike as dancers, at least when it comes to the foundations of their style. I think Yunho has a knack for super fast footwork (because super fast movements are really easy when you're "up", because your weight is already away from your feet) and Mingi likes to work tiny body control-demanding stuff, but they are still really similar - they are just choreographed and dressed so it's not obvious.

Because incidentally they also have very similar body types, and most of the differences between them are created for more visual impact. Ateez is visually playing with having eight (up to a certain degree) individually styled people that are easy to tell apart (I think a lot of their appeal with a western audience has to do with that), so there also needs to be some variation in types. Both Yunho and Mingi are "tall dudes", they dance similiarly with slightly different stylistic preferences, so in ordner to still have two different types of guy that could appeal to two different sort of fangirls they are styled to follow a different narrative.

Mingi is a bit buff, of course, but he's also dressed to emphasise broadness, and with an easy trick: he's wearing a shitton of clothes on stage. Everything he wears has layers, stuff that flys out to the side when he moves (e.g. those tassled jackets), longer cut coats that fall mid-thigh or even longer, layers, necklaces - all that stuff moves when he dances, and in combination with the whole "down and low" of his dancing he looks like he's double the size he actually is.

Yunho is dressed in tight fitting stuff that is cut off above his hips, short jackets and shirts tucked in, emphasising his height and long limbs. His clothing sticks to his body, there's no extra movement here, nothing to emphasise his trajectory. Because of that we can see his lines (and if you're a dancer you know how important line is), the precision of his movements, where it begins and where it ends. He can't cut corners at all, whereas Mingi could theoretically hide small mistakes or cut a movement short, and most people wouldn't notice because there's a necklace flying or the hem of a longer coat or something else he's wearing that moves even when he's already finished a movement. And he plays with it, touches his clothes, adjusts his costume, shoves something aside to give a glimps of pecs or abs or something, which Yunho strictly doesn't. He only adjusts his clothing when something isn't where it's supposed to be, but otherwise he rarely touches his own body, something Mingi does (again: up and out vs. low and in). You look at the line of Yunho's movement and the way these lines extend into space, whereas with Mingi your gaze is drawn into the centre of it all, which is his body.

It makes Mingi looks broader (even his - hideous! - shoes are often broad, compared to Yunho who dances in tight leather shoes), but also makes him take up more space horizontally, and I think that's because his job as a dancer is to act as a filler. I said he's in the back a lot and I think besides the fact that he can keep an eye on the formation and assist Yunho in his job as a dance captain it is because he's there to fill up space (again, only as a dancer, bcs as a rapper he's obviously front and centre - but as soon as his parts end he walks away, and again to the back - check the dance practise videos, there's a lot of Mingi walking to the back). He gets his moments but choreographically Wooyoung or San have much more exciting sequences, and are pushed more as dancers (Wooyoung and his - awesome! - Studio Choom, San with that one choreo video - we haven't gotten a video with a solo choreo neither from Yunho nor from Mingi, even though both are dance lines members!). Mingi has some legendary front movements as well, but some of them are because he stole them - consider "Say my name" and the infamous body roll that was not in the choreo (when Yunho does the same movement you look at the direction he's moving in, with Mingi you stare at his hips. In vs. out.)

So, TL:DR: I watched Yunho and Mingi dance and realised that if you strip both of them down you get to very similar (highly skilled!) dancers (with incredible technique!) who for reasons of variety and different fan taste are styled for difference and have different jobs on stage that they fulfill impeccably.

KQ, give those guys solo dance videos. Come on.

[4ssmallasad0ll]

go follow my backup acc @4ssm4llasad0ll !!

i’ve done this before, it’s just in case i get termed :3

it’s probably not going to be very active btw

i’m gonna list my moots so they see this post c:

@sizzlingcandyjellyfishhhhhhhh @momozilliness @stellaisast4r @strawberri-bomb-bomb @h0neysugarfree

it won’t let me list more than 6 so i’m adding it in increments

@light-as-a-fvcking-leaf @s41ntm3rcy @size0d0ll

@small-limbs-and-corpses @justwater4meeeeeeee @celerys-biggest-fan

@edgossipgirl @c0ke-0-my-beloved @woodendollz

@sk1nn1system @yun4m0th

@starving-into-beauty @r1c3cakelov3r @literallyd34d

@amour-vivienne @distinguishedcowboyenemy @nuvco-v

@zero-sugar--bambi

[lakesbian]

using tumblr-backup (see post by magz), use command "tumblr-backup --no-post-clobber --incremental lakesbian". will save all posts on lakesbian blog not previously saved by tumblr-backup.

-🏷

i do not know where to enter this command 😔 the for-beginners guide tells you to navigate tot he downloads file where you have the util unzipped before entering any command but i have the whole thing moved into a different nested folder on my desktop, not downloads, and i cannot figure out how to navigate there prior to entering a command

[nocturne-of-illusions]

Hey what’s that tumblr-utils to back up your blogs? Is it the extract one in settings?

tumblr-utils, specifically this fork called tumblr-backup (forgot it uses a different name from the main branch... lol... lmao...), is a python script that allows you to back up your blog locally in a way that displays the posts in a readable format.

It allows for a lot of customization, such as including a tag index alongside the dates, incremental backup (so if you back up 1000 posts the first time and then make 100 new posts, you don't have to back up 1100 posts the second time! just the 100 new ones get added on to the old backup!), continuing a failed backup where it left off, saving audio and video backups, only backing up your own posts and excluding all reblogs, etc. there's a full list of options on the github. and, if you're into css, there is a file you can change to set up a proper css layout. i haven't touched it yet, obviously, but if black-on-white text isn't appealing, there's a way to change that!

and it being a python script really isn't as scary as it sounds to anyone who's never used it before -- I hadn't touched it until i found this tool! it's pretty simple to set up. it just might take a bit of figuring out your first time around, and then you can save a text doc of your backup options to just copy-paste into the command line later (i blacked out my blog urls but you can get the gist)!

^ i just copy these into command line one at a time every couple of months, let each one do its thing, and then i'm all set for a while! no more having to download gb after gb of data every time i update my blog, no more having to back up reblogs if all i want are my own posts, no more unorganized mess of a backup! yippee!

[runcible-spoons]

Backup help???

I backed up my tumblr with tumblr-backup (Release 1.0+ cebtenzzre’s Tumblr-Utils)...

but then tried to do another incremental backup today and found that the main "index" file for the blog disappeared from the folder??

But it seems to still be there somehow because when I navigate through the html pages of the backup, I can still get to the main index/homepage (like, THE index.html in the main blog backup folder). It's just that if you follow the file path indicated in the filename .... it's not there.

[netscapenavigator-official]

I just used my iMac’s Time Machine backup drive to retrieve an old file I deleted, and while scrolling, I realized… I got this 8 TB HDD in December 2023 (because that’s the oldest backup I have).

Right now, I have about 2.4 TB used, which means my entire computer’s 2024 was archived in about 2 TB. Based on that usage pattern*, this HDD will hold FOUR years of computer backups before it starts deleting the oldest ones. That so fucking overkill for an iMac I casually use as a home media server. 😭

And to think, the Christmas I bought this, Amazon had the prices wrong for the 16 TB drives, and they were only a few tens of dollars more expensive than the 8 TB ones, so I almost bought a 16 TB drive. If I hadn’t procrastinated buying the thing until the prices changed, I very much would’ve ended up with an HDD which would’ve held EIGHT YEARS of whole-computer backups.

Like, I don’t even remember the files I was messing with eight years ago, let alone want to retrieve one I deleted. That 16 TB drive would’ve kept this iMac backed up for longer than Apple probably plans on keeping it supported on macOS. Like, that would’ve been so overkill.

*Oh, and my “usage pattern” is actually quite pessimistic. MacOS Time Machine uses the incremental backup method, which means it takes a big fat system backup when you first set it up, and then it slowly adds files as you add and move them around your system. There are no duplicates, so the initial backup is big, and each preceding one is much smaller which means… that 2 TB wasn’t used linearly. This 8 TB HDD will probably hold more than four years worth of data. Wtf do I even need this for?? 😭

[lieutenantselnia]

By the way, because I just found myself using this again - if you want to backup your blog, I really recommend using tumblr-utils as described in this document! I originally wanted to reblog the post where I first found this, but it was somewhere further down a reblog chain and apparently the op either disabled reblogs or deleted it, since it didn't work. So I'm just sharing the link to the document (written by user @/magz) here:

It's genuinely so useful, I've used to use Tumblr's own export feature but once a blog reaches a certain size this just takes super long (mine took literal days until it was ready to download), whereas here it was just a couple minutes, plus the folder as a whole is much smaller too. And if you set it up correctly (with incremental saves, which is also explained in the document) you don't need to download the entire thing every time!

Personally I did run into two smaller issues, one being that the download of embedded Youtube videos didn't work for me (despite running pip install youtube-dl). Maybe it's just a me issue that I missed something on the install, otherwise I could imagine that maybe there's some compatibility problem between the current versions of tumblr-utils and the youtube downloader.

The other, very minor issue (which isn't even an issue per se, more like a preference) is that there is no css styling applied on my backup, when I open the html file, so it looks like a really old website like straight from the 90s😅 I was mainly a bit confused about whether I had an error or it was supposed to be like that, because a screenshot in magz' document showed that their page apparently has some styling applied to it. I still need to look more into the documentation (btw, here is also the documentation on github directly, though I think the most important features are included in the document anyway), but as it looks you can add your own styling by either adding an override.css file to change some of the existing styles, or add your own entirely by adding a custom.css file. It would be super handy if there was also a way to easily pull your current styling from your blog to copy-paste it in there, but I haven't researched yet if such a feature exists (if you know anything I'd be happy about additions!).

But one of the best features for me was that it also allows you to export your likes. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sometimes runs into this problem that you like something, but maybe feel too embarrassed to reblog it, or may not want to do so for another reason (e.g. it's something nsfw, but you generally never share nsfw content on your own blog). [Btw I still encourage you to reblog posts when you can, as it will usually make the op happy :D But I absolutely understand why you won't sometimes.] Problem is that when the original poster deletes it at some point, it will be gone and you'll have no way of getting it back. However with tumblr-utils you can export your likes the same as your own blog. Mind you that it will have the same name as your blog, but will only contain your likes and not your own posts, so the way I did it was inside of my tumblr_backup folder, I made a likes folder and then just downloaded it into there, like this:

(For downloading my own blog, I did basically the same except one folder level above and without the --likes flag.)

I just wanted to point out this feature specifically because I actually completely missed it when I first started using this method of backing up my blog. I looked into the document again today because I wasn't entirely sure about the whole process anymore and suddenly spotted that likes flag and was like "👀👀 this has been here the entire time and I didn't use it yet??!" One thing to be noted is that your likes will have to be public for the download, otherwise it won't work, however you can of course just set them to public for the time it takes you to download them (which in my case was a couple minutes for about 4000 posts) and then make them private again, and all should be fine.

All credit goes of course to the developer(s) behind tumblr-utils and to magz for writing this instruction document, but I think that maybe this post helps at least some of my own mutuals who might not know of this amazing tool yet!

[anonymityisfunwriter]

The Twin Flame - Chapter 33: "Look What You Made Me Do"

"I don't like your little games, don't like your tilted stage, the role you made me play of the fool..."

Pairing: Sunshine!Reader x Grumpy!Bucky Barnes The Twin Flame Chapter List | The Grumpy x Sunshine Universe

"We have breaking news. There's a complete lockdown at the GRC meeting in Lower Manhattan where authorities are saying they're tracking multiple threats from groups seeking to stop the GRC's vote on global resettlement. There is a no-fly zone in effect..."

You watch the broadcast in the storefront before you in abject horror.

You so badly believed that there was good in Karli. You wanted to believe that she would do the right thing and stop this before it got out of hand, but here it was.

Completely and totally out of hand.  

Your earpiece crackles to life, pulling your attention away from the screen. The voice you hear is not the one you were expecting, "Sam, this is already a shit show. Can we really handle this ourselves?"

Sam's voice suddenly fills your ear, "Don't worry, I called in backup."

"Backup?" Bucky asks, wading through the spectators formed around the GRC building. 

You look away from the screens, scanning the street for the sight of Bucky. You find him in the middle of the sidewalk, his neck craned up to look at the skyscraper that was supposed to host the now delayed GRC vote tonight. 

Though you're certain he can't hear your approach over the loud sounds of sirens waling and people scrambling through the frantic scene, you see his eyebrows furrow, he quickly looks away from the building, frantically scanning the area. 

He finds you in an instant, his eyes drawn by some inexplicable gravitational pull to you. A breath lodges in his throat at the shock of seeing you.

In that moment, he swears his heart skips a beat. 

A goofy grin pulls at the corners of his mouth the moment he sees that it's really you, you're really here, standing just a few feet away from him. So close he can almost touch you, "Hi."

You gently wave as he steps up to you, "Hi."

He resists the instinctive urge to pull you back into his arms.

There's so much he doesn't know right now. He doesn't know where he stands with you. He doesn't know how tonight will end. What he does know is that nothing feels more right that having you by his side. So instead of pulling you into his arms or keeping you at arm's distance, he just keeps smiling that boyish grin, "You're here. I - I can't believe you're here."

You nod, your fingers incrementally lift, subconsciously reaching out to him, "And you're here."

Sam's voice once again echoes in your ear, his tone dripping in sarcasm, "And now that we've established that we are all indeed here, we need to keep our eyes open."

You know Bucky's hearing the same thing you are from the unimpressed frown that weighs down his smile. "That's your plan? Keep our eyes open?"

"Sam's never been one for the plans," you whisper to Bucky.

"I heard that," Sam chides.

"And I say that with all the love and respect in the world!" you add. 

"They're gonna move in on the building soon," Sam informs you and Bucky as he soars around the perimeter of the GRC building, "Karli's not gonna be far from the action. Be ready."

"Be ready. Got it," you mutter to yourself, rolling your shoulders in an attempt to psych yourself up, "Good call, Sam. Be ready."

"Shut up," Sam grumbles. 

"What? I said it was a good call!" you incredulously exclaim.

"I can't believe you're actually here," Bucky continues, chewing on the inside of his cheek to tamp down what he's certain is a ridiculous smile, "It's good to see you. Here, I mean - It's good that you're here."

You shyly smile up at him, "It's only been a week, James."

"Doesn't matter," Bucky nonchalantly shrugs, though he swears his pulse stutters when his name falls from your lips. Just like before. He wants to tell you that this past week since he left Louisiana has felt like one of the longest weeks of his life. He wants to tell you that he doesn't know how he survived six months away from you when a single week was this heart wrenching. He wants to say that now that he's had another taste of what life is with you, he doesn't intend on living without it again. He's still not brave enough. He fleetingly wonders if he'll ever be. "It's always good to see you. Always."

Now, it's your turn for your heart to stutter in your chest. You suck in a soft breath, unsure of what to say to him.

You know what he means, though. You know that there's never a time when you're not happy to see him. Even when you're angry with him, even in the most dire of circumstances, your heart will always be content when he's near. A rightness overtakes you, like you're whole again.

It feels like home.

It feels like peace.

"Alright, guys, I got visual," Sam interjects, cutting through your reunion with Bucky. 

You immediately crane your neck, looking up to the night sky to try to spot Sam, "On Karli?"

"On you guys, just standing there, staring at each other," Sam deadpans. 

"You're an asshole, you know that?" Bucky sharply retorts, following you as you begin wandering toward the building. 

"The power's still out in the building," you tell them, walking along the edge of the taped off scene. Bucky trails behind you, intently listening to your every word. "I know it sounds like a bad idea, but I think we might be better off splitting up."

"I've never heard of a worse idea," Sam dryly remarks, still soaring around the perimeter of the GRC building. "You sound like the first person that dies in a horror movie."

"I happen to agree," Bucky reluctantly admits, sparing you an apologetic glance over his shoulder. 

Your mouth twists to one side, crossing your arms over your chest, "So you guys only ever agree to overrule me, huh?"

Bucky shrugs, trailing behind you as you work your way through the crowd, "It's a shock to me, too."

"Why would they-" Just as you begin to speak, a loud hissing sound reverberates through the building. Bucky instinctively grabs your arm, pulling you away from the building and closer to him. You look over your shoulder at him, "That can't be good."

"Sam, they gassed the building," Bucky urgently informs Sam. 

"Why the hell would they gas the building?" Sam mutters, more to himself than to you. He sucks in a small breath, just barely audible to you and Bucky, "She's not trying to get inside, guys."

"She's trying to get everyone out," you finish, a sinking feeling taking root in the pit of your stomach. 

"We have to find her," Bucky firmly states. 

"As opposed to what we were trying to do earlier?" you snarkily retort. You quickly shake your head, placing your hand on your chest, "Sorry, I get sarcastic when I get nervous."

"Maybe you should stop spending so much time with Bucky," Sam teasingly suggests. 

Bucky scoffs from beside you, "Let's focus on one thing at a time, alright?"

"I'm going inside," Sam tells you. "I'll warn the evac team and tell them to keep people inside. You two focus on finding the hostages. Find the hostages, you find Karli."

"Now, that's a plan!" you exclaim. "The trio is alive and well, everyone!"

Bucky smiles at you, watching as you beam at the reunion from his peripheral. You turn to him when you feel eyes on you, he doesn't look away, instead he nods, jutting his head in the direction of the building's garage, "We should go."

And with that, you and Bucky are off.

He knows you're trying to stay out of sight. He knows the risk you've taken by coming here tonight. It doesn't change that your presence seems to be magnetic. People have always liked you, been drawn to you. Who wouldn't turn to the light in times of darkness? 

As much as you try to shy away from the cameras, you don't keep your head down, too preoccupied with finding Karli as quickly as you can. Your eyes drag across the scene, looking for anything that might point you in Karli's direction. 

You've both only trailed half the perimeter when you notice a masked Flag Smasher duck into the sealed off garage. 

You place your hand on Bucky's forearm, pointing at the building's garage, "Look." 

He wordlessly nods, walking side by side with you as you approach the entryway. You duck around the corner, only slightly peaking your head out to get a better idea of what you're walking into. 

"They're further in the garage," you whisper. "We should be able to get in without being seen.

"Alright," Bucky agrees, he taps on the earpiece, informing Sam of your plan, "Sam, we're gonna work the building from the bottom, Sam. Let the evac team know to keep people inside -"

"Like I said already," Sam points out. 

"And we'll cover the exit points from the garage, we can't let her move hostages, it makes the chance of recovery a lot lower."

"There's some hostages being taken up to the roof, there's a helicopter there, but I keep getting-" Sam abruptly stops speak and you hear a pained grunt come from his side of the comms. 

"Sam?" you frantically call out to him. 

"Sam!" Bucky calls. 

Dread washes over you as nothing but silence is heard from Sam's end of the comms device. You sharply inhale, holding your breath. You're not sure if it's to stop you from taking off to find Sam or if it's simply to offer comfort, but Bucky's hand quickly reaches for yours, squeezing it tightly. 

"Sorry," Sam apologizes after a long, drawn out moment. He sounds a little out of breath and agitated, "There's Flag Smashers everywhere. Their supporters are crawling around too. Trust me when I tell you that they are not interested in talking to us."

Though he does his best to hide it, you can see the breath of relief that overcomes Bucky when you hear Sam's voice. Bucky nods, though Sam can't hear him, "We'll watch our backs."

"I'm making my way to the roof. Again. I'll let you know when I've got the hostages secured."

"Got it," you agree. As you both sneak into the garage to surveil the Flag Smashers, Bucky doesn't drop your hand. Hand in hand, you hug the walls of the dim garage, just out of sight of the Flag Smashers operating further in the garage, "You know, none of this makes sense, James."

"How do you mean?"

"Karli is trying to stop the vote tonight. She did that. She's got her hostages, so why go out of her way to create more chaos? Why force people out of the building?" 

"It's a misdirect," Bucky whispers, the pieces finally falling into place in Bucky's mind. "She's not out to stop the vote anymore. And I can bet that she's not planning on letting those hostages go."

"No," you vehemently refute, refusing to accept such a morbid answer, "I know Karli's misguided, but that's a little far, even for her."

Bucky frowns, debating on whether or not to voice his doubts about Karli. He tries not to let Zemo get into his head, but he can't help but think that Zemo might be right about this: you are too close to Karli. You can't separate your fate from hers. "Has it ever occurred to you that she might be too far gone to save?"

"No."

He takes a deep breath, he tries to tell you what he fears as gently as he can, but there's no easy way to say that he's not sure there is a path back to the light for Karli. He wants there to be. He's not quite convinced of it himself though. "I know you want there to be good in her, but there might not be anymore. We may need to accept that."

"People used to say that about me too, you know?"

"You are not Karli!" Bucky frustratedly groans, sweeping across another parking row. "And I want to help her as much as you do, but-"

"But nothing!" you forcefully state, keeping low as you join Bucky behind a concrete wall. You do your best to remain level headed about this, to keep your emotions from clouding your judgement, but you can't help but see yourself in Karli's shoes. You can't help but think that, under slightly different circumstances, you would've been Karli. Without a Flag Smasher in sight, you both continue working your way through to the other side of the garage, "She's a kid, she just needs someone to look at her long enough to see the good there. You know that as well as I do."

"You can't -" A large commotion cuts Bucky off. A group of Flag Smashers whip a side door open, tugging more hostages and shoving them aboard a stolen armored truck. You grab his arm and tug him out of sight just behind one of the structural beams. You slightly poke your head out, watching as the final hostages are loaded up on the armored truck. 

"The hostages," you mouth.

"What are you doing?" he hisses.

"We need to be careful," you quietly reply, hiding behind the pillar. "If we jump in they could run, or worse, they could hurt the hostages. We need to assess the situation."

He snorts, "Since when do you assess situations?"

You dramatically sigh, rolling your eyes, "I sorta told Sam I'd be careful. One bullet wound and he thinks I'm reckless and 'self destructive'."

"Then let's assess, shall we? These are choices that Karli is making of her own volition. Choices that you and I never got. You and I didn't get to choose, not once," Bucky softly explains, gesturing to the hostages being loaded onto one of the armored trucks, "All this, this is her choice."

"I know that," you quietly admit, swallowing the tension that rises in your throat. You remind yourself that you swore to always see the good in the world, to be the good where there wasn't any. You hadn't done that lately, but helping Karli was a pretty good place to start. "But this can't be it. This can't be how her story ends. And I know she can still choose to be good."

Bucky opens his mouth to speak, but before any words come out, Sam is cutting him off with another urgent piece of information, "Where are you guys?"

Bucky clicks his comms device, unmuting himself, "South exit of the garage, why?"

"Karli's got another truck full of hostages on the street," Sam informs you. "Just pulled up out of the garage. Out of the north exit."

You and Bucky share an uneasy look. "Another one? We're watching the truck they have right now."

"They're splitting up the hostages," you mumble to yourself.

"What?"

"They're splitting up the hostages," you repeat, this time loud enough for Sam and Bucky to hear. As you speak, you hear the armored truck you'd been watching rev its engine. You look up to Bucky with a remorseful gaze, "Which means we're gonna have to split up."

"No!" Bucky reaches out and gently grabs your hand, refusing to let you go. "Just hold on a second, isn't that playing right into Karli's hand? We're giving her exactly what she wants."

"She's a kid, James. And I know you don't believe in her, but I need you to believe in me," you plead, squeezing his hand as tightly as you can. "Her story doesn't have to end this way."

"It's too dangerous. Please," Bucky begs, his voice hoarse with desperation. 

His eyes bore into you. They glisten with sincerity, concern, and worst of all, fear. You rest your other hand on his, trailing your thumb on the back of his hand. "I can do this. I can help her. I'll be okay."

Bucky stiffly nods in concession, "You better be."

"I will," you promise, squeezing his hand one last time, "I'll see you in a minute."

Without another word, he takes off in one direction, you in the other. 

As you reach the north exit of the garage, you press your earpiece, "Sam, where's the other truck?" 

"About a block north of the building, it looks like they just stopped in the middle of the street. The street is sealed off, but if you cut through the garage and take a right, you might be able to get through."

"On it."

And though lately you've felt plagued by misfortune, you can't help but feel like you've finally found your luck. Just like Sam said, the truck is stalled in the middle of the street. Not surrounded by Flag Smashers nor by police cars like you anticipated, you find only one person.

Hidden behind a Flash Smasher mask, a head of red hair pokes through, telling you've found the person you've searched for all night. 

It barely registers in the back of your mind that this is almost too coincidental.

A set up, like Bucky said.

You shake it off, you can take whatever Karli throws at you. 

As you approach the truck, you hear the muted screams of the hostages reverberate in the truck. 

"Karli!" you call out to her, almost gasping at her current state. You find her standing in front of a truck full of hostages, holding a flame over the truck as a threat to not come any closer. "What are you doing? This isn't helping anything!"

She chuckles triumphantly, like your predictability will be your downfall, "I knew you'd show up here eventually."

You stand before her, your hands up to show you mean no harm, "That's what you wanted, right? Everyone to finally pay attention to your movement - to you?"

She furiously rips her mask off, sneering at you, "You still don't get it. This isn't a vanity project like your Avengers. This is the only way to help ourselves! All we ever wanted is to matter."

You inch closer to her. You freeze when she shifts the flame closer to the truck, warning you once more. "You do matter. You've always mattered."

"I will never matter to people like you," she seethes, the anger in her voice causing the flame to pulsate with every syllable spoken. "You only care about power. You only listen to power."

"What are you talking about?" you frustratedly question, this time remaining where you are as to not push her any further down this path, "I'm here to help you. I don't care about the GRC. I don't care about any of it. I came here to help you."

"You're a liar," she spits, standing her ground in front of the truck, "You only help yourself."

Not having made any progress with her, you hear a familiar voice bellow down the street. 

"You have got to be kidding me," you grumble to yourself. This is a bad position to be in, you immediately realize. Enemy to your right, enemy to your left. Standing wedged between them, it's hard to keep an eye on either of them, let alone the both of them. You sigh in exasperation, "Of course, you're here, John." 

"I couldn't let you have all the fun, could I?" John stands there, still in full Captain America gear, holding an odd replica of Steve's shield before him. He eerily states, "I couldn't have planned this better myself. You're just the people I was looking for." 

"Couldn't have been creepier if you tried, John," you bitterly quip. "What do you want, John?"

"I want to finish this," John grits. 

"I never meant to kill your friend," Karli offers as a condolence, it's clear to you that she's just as shocked as you are at John's appearance. "I don't want to hurt people who don't matter."

John winces, his grip tightening on his shield, "You think Lemar's life didn't matter?"

Even in the dark night, you swear that you see remorse flash across Karli's face. She shakes her head, "Not to my fight."

"And what about those hostages, Karli? They have families, friends. They matter as much as you do," you bargain with her. 

"Those people?" Karli coldly repeats, still swinging a flame in her hand. "The people that want to take everything from us? Rip away the only homes we've ever had? They matter as much as we do?"

"Karli! Don't do this!" you exclaim, unable to turn to her entirely with John still standing there. You look over your shoulder, shaking your head, "It doesn't have to be this way!"

"I already told you, if you're not with me, you're against me. And I know who you are." Karli's words sound more and more like an accusation. You don't miss the betrayal and hurt that she hurls at you, almost like she no longer believes any good resides within you either. "I know what you stand for. You're no better than them."

"What will killing those people solve, huh? What do you gain?" you ask her.

"And if I let you stop me? I get labeled the bad guy, a danger to society." Karli's voice gets louder and louder, becoming more pointed with every statement. There's a bewilderment in her actions that you know won't be assuaged by any words you have to offer. "I get thrown on the Raft. And you? You get to save the world all over again. You get to be the hero."

"You're not a bad guy." You look between Karli and John. You hold out your hands to each side of you. You finally give in, fully turning to face Karli, "Please, don't let them make you a villain, Karli. Stop this."

John takes the opportunity to strike while you're distracted. He throws the shield, it cuts through the air, striking you in the shoulder. 

You jaggedly hiss, clutching your shoulder at the impact against your injured arm. You swear that you feel the old gunshot wound tear open as the makeshift shield clatters at your feet. 

You look down at the shield, no sturdier than a piece of plywood. And with that, your final thread of patience with John Walker snaps. You glare at it as it ignites on the ground. 

"Did you just throw that at me?" you fume, the shield burning at your feet. 

"General Ross offered me a deal," John tells you as he picks up a piece of disassembled scaffolding. He clenches the metal pipe in his hand, "I give him you and Karli and I get it all back. I get my legacy back."

"The legacy of executing an innocent man?" you rhetorically ask. 

The pipe violently slices through the air. You stumble back, just barely dodging the swing. John's chest heaves with anger, too lost in his own grief to realize that he'd let Karli get away once more, "Lemar's death is gonna mean something. And I'll finally be a hero."

"This is not how you become a hero, you idiot!" you yell, ducking down he swings the pipe at you. 

You spare a glance over to where Karli stood, and just like you suspected, she's gone.

But what shocks you is that she didn't leave without igniting the armored vehicles, it terrifies you that she truly left those people to die. 

"John," you caution as he stands poised to attack. You notice that eerie look in his eye again, but this time, it doesn't just flash in his eyes. It takes him over. "You want to be a hero? Let me help those people."

His eyes flicker to the burning truck, the sounds of panicked, frantic screaming floods his ears. He tentatively nods, allowing you a moment to subdue the flames. The smell of smoke fills the air as you rest your hand on the hood of the armored truck. With a swipe of your hand through the air, the flames begin to smolder out. 

You slowly exhale, the smoke beginning to clear with the gentle breeze you pull in. You turn around with a grateful smile, "Thank-"

Before you can finish speak, John catches you off guard, rushing forward to pin you against the truck. "You are not a hero."

"I never claimed to be," you grunt, pushing back against the pipe as it digs into your clavicle. You know you can't win like this. He's too focused on you, and you'll never get to talk Karli down with John on your tail. And more urgently, you can't save those hostages like this. You need to play this smarter, convince him to let you go for now, "But I'm not what you need to worry about. Karli's gonna get away and you'll never get your shield back. You'll never avenge Lemar's death. You'll never be a hero."

"Shut up," John demands, attempting to pin you again. 

You bend the pipe toward John, relieving all pressure against you. He looks down at the U-shaped pipe with a defeated, bewildered expression, then back to you. "What's more important, John? Me or being a hero?"

John's chest heaves in anger as he breaks away from you. His fists twitch with indecision as he debates his next move. He sucks in a breath, stepping away from you, "You're next."

Those are his last words before he takes off after Karli. Considering her expert evasiveness, you're not worried that he'll find her before you do.

And if you're lucky, he'll run into Bucky or Sam before you have to confront him again. 

You bolt for the back of the armored truck. Holding the hostages inside is a piece of knotted metal pipe wrapped around the door handles. 

You lay your hand on each end of the pipe, prying it open. The pipe groans as you unwind it from the door handles. When it's mostly straightened out, you swipe the pipe away, finally releasing the hostages. You pop the door open, poking your head in, "Is everyone okay?"

In the hot bed of the truck, they waste no time before rushing out for the exit. One by one, you help the hostages down from the truck, taking each of their shaky hands as they scramble back to safety. 

And finally, a woman, the last hostage on the truck, throws her arms around you the moment her feet hit the ground, leaving you a little shocked. She cries, "Thank you, thank you so much!" 

You momentarily stiffen at the unexpected gratitude. You'd become accustom to working in the dark, no one knew who you were, no one knew what you did, no one even knew you existed. It was the definition of a thankless job. You'd always been okay with that. You figured that as long as you left the world a slightly better place, it was all the thanks you needed. That was the only legacy you'd ever need. 

After the moment of shock passes, you return the embrace, she sobs into your shoulder. Though you're the one comforting her, there is something that is equally soothing to you about someone knowing you, about not working in the shadows anymore. You gently comfort her, patting her back, "You're safe now."

The moment you're done guiding the hostages towards the paramedics stationed at the police lines at the end of the street, this never ending night continues with even more chaos.

This time it's Bucky's voice that comes through on the comms, "Was anyone else aware of Walker being here?"

Anger floods your veins, testing the last of your patience for anything John Walker related. You speak through gritted teeth, "Where are you?"

"Construction pit, a block south of the building."

Though you're not sure how, too overcome with anger and frustration, you make it to Bucky in what has to be record time. Fists clenched, nostrils flaring, pain shooting from your once again bleeding wound, you find Bucky standing in an abandoned construction pit.

"Where is he?" you demand the moment you see Bucky.

Bucky's eyes widen, more at the bruise sweeping across your collarbone from John's attack than the building frustration in your tone, "What the hell happened to you?" 

You snap your head over to John, "John Walker happened."

"Hold on!" Bucky interrupts. 

You look up at Bucky with a bewildered expression. Bucky hesitates for a second, stepping between you and John, "He was actually sort of being helpful. Trust me, I hate it as much as you do."

"Ha, even your boyfriend's on my side," John taunts.

"Alright, that's it!" you snap, lunging at him, "Let me at him! Let me at him!" 

"No," Bucky warns, locking his arms around your waist to keep you from charging at John. "He's not worth it."

Bucky holds you firmly against him as your hands violently grab out, your legs kicking out as you try for a single hit, "Just this once. Just one time."

"She's crazy!" John shouts at you. 

"Call her crazy again and I let her go," Bucky sharply threatens.

John's lips snap shut as he glares at you. You grab the hand that rests against your midsection, "Just one hit, James. Just one, I promise."

"As fun as that would be to watch, we've got bigger things to worry about. We've got to get to Karli," Bucky reminds you, his embrace less about restraining you and more about grounding you. "She's not too far gone, right? We can still change how this story ends."

You finally allow yourself to settle, with a long deep breath. You look up at Bucky with a tender smile, "You're right."

"I knew we'd see eye to eye eventually," John remarks. 

You don't respond to John, instead silently glaring at him as you walk away to remove yourself from the situation. 

Bucky steps up to John, speaking in a low, threatening tone, "Make no mistake, Walker, if you fuck her over, if you sell her out, I'll kill you without a second thought."

The muscles in John's clenched jaw tighten, this time, he knows better than to say anything with Bucky staring him down. 

"Hey, guys," you call from the center of the pit. "What exactly was the plan to save the hostages stuck on the scaffolding?"

Bucky jogs back over, refocusing on what they were doing before you stormed over here, "We tried getting up there, but the scaffolding is too unstable. Any movement could tip the truck."

"And the hostages?"

Bucky shakes his head, "Same problem. Sam's dealing with a rogue helicopter, so it's on us for now."

You hear a pained groan from the welded pipes that make up the scaffolding. Even the cool nighttime breeze causes the structure to sway and dislodge the armored truck. 

You step forward, standing directly underneath the collapsing scaffolding, "That thing's coming down any minute. Do we have time to get up there and get them out from the back of the truck?"

Your answer comes with a loud snapping noise above you. The piece of wood lodged against the front wheel finally gives to the weight of the truck, just as the truck is about to tip over the edge, you bolt to the center of the pit, right into the path of destruction. 

"No, don't!" Bucky shouts, sprinting to push you out of the way.

Just as it begins its free fall right on top of you, you stop it. The hood of the truck groans, the metal slightly rippling with the amount of pressure placed on it as you muster every ounce of strength and power you have. 

Bucky freezes before you, his eyes squeezed shut as the shadow off a falling truck hovers over him. After a split second, he creaks an eye open. With no crash before him, his head snaps up to the supernatural sight. 

Above him, above you, the truck floats several yards above. Bucky's jaw drops, eyes comically wide as he looks up with an unabashedly proud smile as the truck levitates mid-air, "Wow."

"Who made armored trucks so heavy?" you complain through gritted teeth, straining as you try to bring down the truck slowly. 

"I think that's the Scarlett Witch!" you hear a civilian shout from behind police lines. 

Though you have no regrets about saving those people, you know from the crowd formed behind you, that you've just sealed your fate. If General Ross didn't see you in Latvia, he was certainly going to catch you now.

You can't focus on your grim fate as the weight of the truck starts to take its toll on you. 

With a low, guttural sound building in the back of your throat, the truck begins its descent to the ground. Slowly, it falls to the ground, landing with a violent squeal of the truck's suspension. 

"No, it's Black Widow!"

"Black Widow doesn't have powers," another stranger argues. 

"No, no! I'm no one, just a random person. No one important," you call back once the wheels of the truck are all firmly planted on the ground. 

"I think Redwing caught that on camera. I know I called you a show off before, but that was insane," Sam beams through the earpiece, a light chuckle embedded in his words. 

"So much for assessing the situation," you laugh in between pants, trying to catch your breath from overexertion. You rest your hands on your knees, muscles burning from tension. 

Overcome with the need to make sure you're okay, Bucky places his arms around your shoulders without a second thought, "Are you alright?"

You nod, muscles still begging you for rest as you stand up, "Yeah, I just need a second."

"You're amazing," Bucky whispers in awe. 

A deeper flush builds on your cheeks, "Thanks."

The breathy tone from his voice continues as he slowly leans closer to you. He brushes a stray strand of hair away from your cheek, "I mean that."

You shift your weight to the balls of your heels, "You're pretty - Pretty amazing too, I mean."

He chuckles, his hand glides down from your shoulder, skating down your arm to the palm of your hand. He laces his fingers with your, gently dipping his head down.

"All the hostages are accounted for, guys," Sam announces. You both jolt away at the sound of Sam's voice flooding your ears again, "Now, we find Karli."

"Have I ever said how much I hate Sam?" Bucky frustratedly sighs. 

"No, but I'm starting to get why," you sarcastically remark. 

"You okay?"

You shakily nod, "Yeah, I'm alright, but you should probably go fill John in. The less I have to speak to him, the better."

As Bucky walks over to John, who unloads the hostages from the last truck, you stand off to the side, still desperately trying to catch your breath when something in your peripheral catches your eye.

Amidst the cloud of debris kicked up by the truck, you notice something in the entrance to the underground construction site. 

You look out into the smokescreen to see a cloaked figure standing there. You slowly approach, careful with each footstep to ensure you don't alert them to your presence. 

Unbeknownst to you, a piece of scaffolding lies on the ground before you. Your foot swipes it, sending it clattering further into the garage. 

The figure whirls around, clearly startled at the sight of you. You can't make out their face in the dim light and they don't miss a beat before taking off further into the underground tunnels.

You don't know why, but something possesses you to sprint after them, following them as the smoke screen beings to clear. They sharply turn down the labyrinth of corridors. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. 

By the time you realize it, you're so far into the underground tunnels you're sure that you're not going to find your way out without help. 

You've almost lost all hope, until you run right into a familiar face, "Sharon?"

"Thank God," Sharon sighs in relief, clutching her midsection in fear. "I've been trying to find you all night. I- I came because I thought you guys could use a hand, but I found Karli first and I didn't think I could take Karli alone so I stayed hidden." Sharon nudges her head in the opposite direction of the corridor you though you saw Karli run through. "She went through there. Batroc too."

"Batroc?" You vaguely recognize the name. "That French guy? Did all bad guys just decide to show up here tonight?"

She chuckles with a nod, "Guess so. I think they might be working together."

Your shoulders dejectedly slump, "Of course they are."

She juts her head down the hallway, pulling out her gun as the two of you begin scanning the abandoned corridor. You walk side by side. She watches your back, you watch hers. The hallway lights flicker above you as you approach the door.

She looks back to you as she takes the door handle. You silently nod, urging her inside. She turns the handle and slowly creaks it open. She slides in first, skating against the wall with you behind her.

Without a word, she points to the right side of the room, you point to the left. 

There's nothing in the room. Nothing at all. No sign of Karli. No sign of anyone having been here recently. 

By the time you've searched your side of the room, you're certain that Karli has once again slipped away. 

"Anything?" Sharon calls. 

"No, I don't see either of them," you shout back, making your way back to the center of the room. You remorsefully sigh as you stand in the center of the room. "No sign of Karli or Batroc."

She drops her gun, smiling at you. It's the first friendly smile you've seen her give you since before you both went on the run, "You know, me and you would make one hell of a team."

You return the smile, "Thanks, Sharon. I think so too."

You stare at the back wall of the room, scaffolding surrounding the area casting all sorts of eerie and creepy shadows all over the room. Your eyes drag over the room once, twice, three times. It just doesn't make sense. If she'd run through here, she'd still be here. There was only one way in this room. 

Only one way in, only one way out. 

Only one way in, only one way out. 

Only one way in, only one way out. 

Chills radiate down your spine and set your nerve endings on fire. It feels like ice cold water is now stuck in your veins. 

Suddenly, everything about tonight hits you all at once. All the chaos. All the panic. All the disconnect. The fact that you're standing alone in a room that no one could ever hope to find you in. Split up from your team. From the only people you know you can trust. 

Trust was a rare commodity, Nick Fury once told you. He also told you to go with your gut. And right now, an uneasy feeling swelled in your gut as you slowly turn to find Sharon Carter standing between you and the only exit route, gun in hand.

Pointed at you. 

"Sharon?"

The Twin Flame Chapter List AnonymityIsFun Masterlist

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[ltleflrt]

Ugh, I had an old version of the python tumblr backup utility sorta working, in that it had done a full-ish backup and I could do incremental backups, but for some reason it wouldn't backup anything older than 2021. I decided to update the utility version and now it won't create an index. I don't know enough about any of this to fix it 😭

[ceausescue]

Hi, can you tell me about btrfs? It was a default choice for the filesystem when I installed fedora on my laptop and I read little bit about how it is different from like ext4 and what cool stuff it supports etc. But I newer, like, utilised all that stuff in it. So, if you don't mind, can you tell me what am I missing and how do I utilise it potential?

btrfs! what is btrfs? btrfs is a copy-on-write journaling filesystem with various other goodies. my experience is mostly using it on one disk on my personal machine, which seems to be what you're doing with it also. you may have heard some bad things about btrfs eating your data silently and then the mailing list being really mean about it, and all that is true but it's only true if you're using btrfs raid4 or raid5, which you aren't. for our use case there's absolutely nothing to fear- btrfs is an absolutely rock solid filesystem and i wouldn't accept any other for my daily driver

i was planning on writing this whole long thing summarizing my notes because when i was learning all this stuff i couldn't find any source that had everything i needed in one place. but that was 4 years ago, and since then fedora switched to using it by default. nowadays there are a bunch of articles explaining all the fundamental concepts and commands and such. the two linked at the bottom ive read and can vouch for, and they cover basically all the intuition for the concepts and commands and such. so im going to focus on cool things you can do with a COW filesystem

basically all the cool things you can do are snapshots. snapshots, better explained in the links, are lightweight copies of entire file trees. you can, for instance, take a snapshot of your home directory and then be able to access all your files at the time of the snapshot whenever you want, even if you change them in the "real" version. but you can do better than this. if your subvolume layout is correct (and don't worry, fedora's is), you can rollback to a previous snapshot whenever you want. with a little configuration you can make all your root snapshots bootable, so you can select in grub or whatever which version of your filesystem you want to boot into. with a little bit of doing, which im not sure is easy on fedora but certainly might be, i got my computer set up so that my boot directory is just a btrfs subvolume on my regular filesystem. if an update breaks my setup, which does happen from time to time, i can go back to exactly the state i was in, files packages kernel and all

you can and should use btrfs for your backups also. not local snapshots, those aren't very good backups, but incremental backups to an external drive or over ssh to another machine. for this i use btrbk, which is a pretty simple script that just makes use of btrfs features to make safe, fast, and reliable backups to wherever you might want them. then, because it's using native features of the filesystem, recovering from just about anything is dead simple. you can send over the subvolumes and mount them wherever. the one thing is that for most of these you need a bootable drive with btrfs and enough drivers to work on your system. whatever you used to install fedora should work fine

and with that you basically need fear no file loss event, big or small. i mean i wouldn't give up git or anything, but now you can retrieve your desktop layout, your browser settings, your /etc, whatever you want. its absolutely magic. since doing an install with this btrfs setup 4 years ago i have had absolutely nothing break in a way i couldn't fix in under 15 minutes, even running arch objectively badly. imagining life without snapshots feels barbaric now. its one of a handful of things which are just objectively better on linux for any user at any skill level. data loss is a choice, and it has been for almost a decade. take my hand

additional notes:

APFS: yeah apple has this too. time machine is a brilliant piece of software and the apple ppl are lucky to have it. however! i have needed to actually go back and use my backup like 2 times ever. most of the time i just use the snapshots locally. plus afaik you don't have the same range of options to deal with snapshot size- i dont hang onto my steam directory for very long

ZFS: if you need raid id say zfs is definitely better (zpool is awesome). but a lot of the things you can do with snapshots and subvolumes on btrfs aren't actually possible on zfs. a rollback on zfs is a very specific action which invalidates everything that came after- it's not to be done lightly. with btrfs you just move subvolumes around and they're available whenever you need them

encryption: its annoying but you should put your filesystem inside of lvm inside of LUKS and it'll work fine. its the same as using LUKS normally, and once it's open it's the same as using btrfs normally. this would probably suck for multiple disks, in which case you should use zfs

hibernation: use LVM to have a swap partition and call it a day, storage is cheap these days. ive heard swap files are improved somehow (?) but i dont use one and there really isn't any reason to

compression: imo not a showstopper or anything but it comes in handy. i wouldn't expect huge gains in space usage (storage is cheap anyway) but a lot of modern cpus are good enough at compression that it's actually faster to store everything compressed bc the bottleneck is disk IO. you can test what algorithm and level works best for you, and tune it by subvolume. on my nvme i dont notice a difference, but my server has some hard drives and compression speeds things up