#it might happen. it’s not even officially tech week yet. but really truly I might burst into tears at any moment.

[makeste]

some follow-up thoughts about chapter 304

so now that the official scan is out, let’s revisit a couple of things really quick.

OFA

Viz makes a bit more sense out of All Might’s “I was able to hold OFA because I was quirkless” hypothesis, as well as the distinction between “souls” and “quirk factors.”

so All Might’s Vestige is unique, in that it’s the only Vestige who appears to truly be a part of the original wielder’s soul, as opposed to a piece of the wielder’s consciousness that was tucked away inside their quirk factor. this is all still extremely weird, but okay.

the Vestiges also seem to be treating OFA as a single quirk which just happens to coincidentally contain a bunch of other quirks within it. so to address a couple of asks I got about this, no I don’t think the whole SIXQUIRKS thing is going to affect Deku’s lifespan at all. they seem to all count as one big quirk. I agree that it doesn’t make much sense, but the Vestiges don’t appear to be too worried about it, so I’m still gonna assume this is the case. I’ll definitely be giving this one some more thought over this next week, though.

OFA the Second

so first off, the hair color thing has been debunked.

this is easily light enough to still be Bakugou’s hair (again, especially because in the wide angle shot the hair isn’t colored in at all).

second, now that the scan is clearer, we can see that OFA Two and Three are wearing near-identical outfits, aside from the color of the coveralls and belts, and the additional customizations like Two’s gauntlets, and whatever it is that Three is wearing on his head.

the belts also look suspiciously high tech, and I won’t lie, I immediately thought of Avengers Endgame and the special time travel spacesuits that they use. not saying the same thing is going on here, but I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind. again, my stance on all of this is basically just “we have no idea what’s going to happen” and trying to keep an open mind when theorizing. I’m not gonna pretend like my thoughts aren’t leaning more and more in this direction though.

also, as an anon on @class1akids​’ blog mentioned, Two seems to be wearing his pants lower and baggier than Three is, with them being tucked into his boots in a suspiciously familiar manner.

if it is him, leave it to Bakugou to refuse to wear his own fucking science fiction time travel getup properly, lol.

and lastly,

“tell me, can you kill Shigaraki Tomura?”

so for better or worse, this is the official Viz translation. now I happen to be on team “even if she really is asking Deku to kill her grandson, this does not make Nana a bad person”, as she’s clearly not happy about it (far from it, she looks like there’s no hope left at all in her eyes; it’s really painful to see actually), and I expect she views it as a necessary “for the greater good” type of thing. grandson or not, if he’s trying to destroy or take over the world then he has to be stopped, one way or the other. and even more than the destroying-the-world thing, I think the whole “AFO is now possessing him” thing is even more of a deciding factor in her decision. because AFO clearly needs to die. but AFO is now a part of Tomura. and so he’s gone and dragged her family into this, and now it may be that it’s impossible to defeat AFO without killing Tomura in the process. and there’s also the fact that Tomura is effectively AFO’s prisoner right now both mentally and physically, and so she may also see it as a mercy, idk.

however, several people have pointed out to me that she might not actually be asking Deku to literally kill Tomura. specifically, the fact that she uses “Tomura” rather than “Tenko” has led people to wonder if she’s asking Deku whether he can metaphorically kill Shigaraki Tomura, AFO’s Puppet, in order to save Shimura Tenko, Her Grandson. and this could be the case! so we’ll see.

either way though, it’s clear Nana is devastated by this latest development, and she’s just as much a victim of AFO’s fucked up manipulations as Tenko is. I’m very firmly in the “Nana did nothing wrong” camp just in general, and this chapter is no different. so again, even if she is asking for Deku to kill Tenko, it’s because she sees no other way out of this mess. TomurAFO has to be stopped, and it’s looking like Deku is the only one who can do it. she can hardly ask him to lay down his life and let the world be destroyed just to spare her grandson. so I’m thinking that’s what next week’s conversation is going to be about. because of course Deku, being a shounen protagonist, won’t accept either of those scenarios, and will naturally look for the renowned shounen Third Option. and will almost certainly find it somehow, too.

so that’s it! this has definitely been a very generous chapter as far as providing plenty of discourse material, and it sure doesn’t seem like we’re close to being out of the woods yet in that regard. next week should be pretty interesting.

[animepopheart]

Review: Human Lost

Imagine a future where death has been conquered—any injury or disease can be healed through a government-run medical system, one that not only cares for its citizens’ physical well-being, but upon which the entirety of society is based. Yet, the vision of such a future isn’t fully secure, nor is it immune to favoritism, malfeasance, and a form of dangerous transformation, a mutation that one man will manipulate while another must control as he decides how to approach his own powers and the critical role he’ll play for the future of the world.

Human Lost, inspired (mostly superficially) by Osamu Dazai’s masterpiece, No Longer Human, is a film of staggering sci-fi vision. Set just a couple of decades into the future, Japan is now under the auspices of the S.H.E.L.L. healthcare system, to which all humans are connected, kept alive, and restored through remote nanotechnology when illness, injury, or death occurs. The best benefits of the system are enjoyed inside massive city walls; on the impoverished outside, Yozo Oba, a disaffected youth, joins a friend’s biker gang and the mysterious Masao as they make a high-risk effort to push their way through the boundary. However, their operation reveals that Oba has powers previously unknown and connected to the “civilization bringing curve,” a model that shows the current path of civilization. It is also divulged that Masao is an “applicant,” a human who wields tremendous power, which he plans to use to destroy both S.H.E.L.L. and society itself, which has forced its workers into 19-hours work days to pay for a pension system for an aging population, led by elders who want to live longest of all as they “stabilize” society. But most of all, Masao hates a system that forces people to stay alive—the exception being those that under duress transform into monstrous beings with destructive power and the unique ability to die.

There’s a strong philosophical narrative at work here that will be familiar to fans of sci-fi. The ground is laid early when one character remarks, “In order for humans to be human, we need death.” That philosophy and the opposite one are the motivating factors for most of the major characters in the film, but not for the protagonist, Oba. When he first appears on-screen, Oba isn’t even alive. His corpse, brought back to life through S.H.E.L.L. tech, is an apt analogy for his life to that point, one that feels meaningless, one where he’s trying to make a connection but to whom or what, Oba does not know. His own awakening during the wall assault conducted by his friend begins to drive him forward, though it’s the friendship he forms with Yoshiko, another “applicant” like Masao and himself, that gives him purpose.

The direction of the film is as big as the narrative. There are some wonderful “shots” in the movie, with director Fuminori Kizaki makes careful choices throughout the film: close-ups are frequent, top-down shots dominate scenes conveying the grandness of inhuman monsters, and shaky-camera animation brings us into the action when necessary. The first act also has a wonderful aesthetic, one that has a touch of cyberpunk in it, with a chase sequence that feels like Mad Max meets Minority Report. In fact, those movies feel like strong influences on the movie, the latter being no surprise with executive director Katsuyuki Motohiro’s filmography including the Minority Report-influenced, Psycho-Pass. However, the energy spent in art direction seems to dwindle away in the last 2/3 of the film, maybe by design as the animators have so much story to tell, and such a complicated one, that it’s almost as if they don’t want the art to get in the way. But it does, with 3D animation that isn’t advanced enough to animate a film of this magnitude.

While 3D animation has come a long way, it still struggles to attain the beauty and fluidity of more traditional work. Dark sequences marked by brilliant bits of light dominate Human Lost, but they can’t hide the failures in animation. The action sequences are flawed, but more troubling are the characters themselves. They look too much like they’ve walked out of a video game and not far enough from the uncanny valley effect from the first photorealistic animated film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, developed some two decades prior. The faces, when not expressing any particular emotion, look really good, but as soon as they have to show anger or sadness, the facade is exposed. It becomes almost laughable when tears or sweat appear—they look like shooting stars streaking across the characters’ faces, not likely to incite the emotions the director wants us to feel. It’s a shame, too, because strong voice acting performances are wasted, both in the English dub (particularly from Macy Anne Johnson in playing Yoshiko, a challenging role as the moral center of the film, and Robert McCollum, who is making quite a career out of playing complex antagonists like Masao) and the original Japanese track—Mamoru Miyano is particularly expressive as Oba, but his voice seems at odds with the rubbery character animation; Kana Hanazawa fits better with Yoshiko, who is more even keel, but as her role grows more important and more emotional, the same problem occurs: the animation can’t properly convey her talent.

But ultimately, it’s not poor CGI that ruins Human Lost—it’s a screenplay that’s too grand in scope for 100 minutes. There are two tales simultaneously occurring—Oba is transforming from a (literally) brain-dead painter with a traumatic family history to a man whose heart (literally) can change the world, joining with a mystery sci-fi tale about S.H.E.L.L., the Qualification Ceremony, and Masao’s background, as well as a mental game of Who is right? The latter story is overly complicated, and despite giving the audience some wonderful questions to chew on, is told in a way that’s like jumping from the first two episodes of Evangelion to the clap-happy final two episodes (this is effectively what happens in a movie that runs the same length as four anime episodes and is obviously influenced by the property). Meanwhile, there’s no subtlety in the character development. We’re meant to see Masao as at once a frightening figure and one who may not be entirely wrong, but he comes across only as a crazed maniac since it’s difficult to comprehend why the system is so evil that it requires an entire “Human Instrumentality Project”-level reprogramming, as he intends. Oba, meanwhile, is wasted even further—nothing he does feels remotely human. He moves quickly from one world-altering decision to another, and while we understand why he might get to these places, the screenplay hasn’t earned his sudden changes nor his heroic growth. Lines like “I was always jealous of you” may work to help develop character in normal settings, but not when the speaker has only known the other character for two days.

The disconnected screenplay and inadequate animation veer what could be a great film off course, leading to a disappointing result. The good elements prevent Human Lost from being a truly bad film, but with it so chock-full of information that never quite connects, the end result might even worse: a film that’s forgettable. A movie lost.

Rating: C-

Human Lost’s limited theatrical release is this week, with showings today (subtitled) and Wednesday (dubbed) in the U.S. and November 6th and 9th in Canada. Visit the official website for theatrical locations and more information.

[saphsilver]

Inktober Day 28: Companion

Prompt from @ttimemachines​ ‘ Inktober

Voltron: Legendary Defender Happy Ending AU: Fly Me to the Moon

Fly me to the moon, Let me play among the stars Let me see what spring is like on A-Jupiter and Mars In other words, hold my hand In other words, baby, kiss me

Fill my heart with song and let me sing for ever more

You are all I long for All I worship and adore In other words, please be true In other words, I love you

-By Bart Howard, performed by Frank Sinatra

This is like 4 days late cuz the power went out while I was doing this and it stayed off for days lmao thanks pg&e anyway 

I followed VLD since 2016 and am veeery fond of sheith. As a form of self-care, I decided to completely disregard the existence of season 8 and I daydreamed a  sappy, romantic ending I would’ve liked to see and am accepting as canon. GAY RIGHTS.

In a nutshell, Shiro and Keith get together and live on Earth. But you can’t tie down a space exploring power couple to one planet, so they go off with the Blade of Marmora. In this picture, they’re dancing to Fly Me to the Moon, celebrating their (kind-of) elopement and new life together.

I wrote a rough outline and bolded the main points. It’s long, so if you want to read it, buckle up and hit that Keep Reading!

Picking up from what little I remember of season 7 cuz I watched it the day it aired in 2018:

After the big battle with the Galra, everyone is chillin. Shiro is officially captain of the Atlas and Keith is like hell yeah I’m the Black Paladin! Idk whatever stuff they did to conclude the fight with the Galra, but I guess they did that. 

Idk why they killed Allura, but that doesn’t fuckin happen. Everyone is happy!

They eventually settle into their new roles on Earth with Pidge/Katie working as a head of the tech department with the Holts. Hunk and Lance handle diplomatic/relief affairs. Allura becomes the queen of the Alteans they found with Coran and Romelle as her advisory. The mice are there too.

As admiral, Shiro gets a cool fancy house. So they throw a house party and the gang and some of the cool Earth/Galran/Altean people are invited too. It’s a great party 10/10 and 3 hours in, Lance gets wasted cuz Allura drinks him under the table. Hunk is getting some water while Pidge/Katie is taking blackmail pictures. Coran is still partying with the mice and Romelle.

Keith and his introvertedness has his social battery run out at this point,  so he finds a porch to sigh upon. It takes Shiro exactly five minutes to notice that Keith isn’t coming back yet, so he seeks him out in the big fancy house.

 Shiro finds Keith sighing on the porch or smth and jokes about this being their easiest time finding each other and Keith smiles at this. Shiro has a beer or smth and Keith asks to try it to break the ice. Shiro teases him about being old enough to drink. Then he’s like uh yeah remember the time I was stuck on a meteor for 2 years with my mom?? Fair point. Shiro lets him try it and Keith spits it out cuz it’s nasty even though bruh probably drank swamp water. They laugh and banter about that too.

The mood settles and then Shiro asks about those two years. And about  their lost time. Keith asks if he took any of Kuron’s memories since he’s got a clone body now. 

He does. He remembers it, but Kuron’s memories feel like it’s him, but he’s taken a backseat and is watching himself do things instead of doing them himself. Then Keith asks him if he remembers what he said when they fought. “You said you love me,” Shiro speaks softly as he turns back to face Keith. “Is that still true?”

Finally they talk about their feelings. Like a well-developed couple should. Keith does still love him and says that he always will. Shiro also admits his feelings too. Thought he was fam. Turns out he was bae. They almost kiss, but the Voltron gang interrupts because that’s how it be.

The two awkwardly get dragged back into the party and Lance is recovering okay. Also, he’s been offical with Allura at this point too. Lance teases them about being a couple and Shiro and Keith are internally screaming. 

The party dies down and everyone starts to go home. The Voltron gang is the only few left and they help Shiro clean up. Lance gets benched cuz he’s still recovering. As they clean up, Shiro begins to notice how large and lonely the house is gonna get. He catches Keith before everyone leaves and slips him a key and says he’s always welcome just in case he gets lonely. Or something.... There’s some Shiro head scratching and Keith knows what’s up.

Everyone leaves. Shiro is alone. He tries to get some rest, but the house is too gotdamn big and unfamiliar. Being alone in a large space is not good for a guy with PTSD. He works out. He investigates his house, etc. Bro still can’t sleep. 

Afterwards, he just gives up and sits at his kitchen going like :( at a glass of water. Then the doorbell rings. Who is it? DING DING, It’s Keith!  With a duffel bag! Turns out he couldn’t sleep either. Shiro invites him to join him in the kitchen with his :( water and they talk a bit.

Then they pick up where they left off at the party and finally kiss. One of them asks if the kiss was okay, and the other is like HELL YEAH and so they keep going. It’s really spicy. One thing leads to another and then they go upstairs to Shiro’s large bed. (I’ll leave that to your imagination.) 

Either way, morning comes and Shiro wakes up with Keith in his arm(s). (HELL YEAH) Guess they got REAL official. He asks about the duffel bag. It’s literally everything Keith owns. So like. 3 outfits. And some weapons. Hygeine products. Etc. (Dude is a minimalist.) Kosmo is in the living room or smth. Bottom(lmao) line is, Keith planned on taking Shiro up on his offer the whole time. He literally just left to pack lmao (HELL YEAH) Shiro gives him his own closet and drawers since the room is big. Guess they live together now yeehaw. 

Eventually, everyone finds out they’re official and is like FINALLY and so they continue their lives on Earth with Shiro as admiral and Keith as captain. They sort out the war damage for a year-ish or so and then do whatever leaders do in peace time. Probably train their people idk. Shiro is up to his neck in papers. He’s not really digging it. He enjoys his peaceful life on Earth, but he often thinks about what it would be like exploring the galaxy now that the Galra aren’t a threat.

Allura and Lance get married. Lance still gets those blue marks but idk why. Why not lmao. It’s a big wedding and Lance throws the boquet. Keith catches it. He looks to Shiro and DING DING, the lightbulb goes off. The Altean Queen and King have many babies and they all have the marks too. Happy family. Goofy dad. Badass mum. Gotta rule the new Alteans too. That’s all good. They either live in space or get their own land cuz racism doesn’t exist on this earth. Cuz I said so. Either way, Lance and Allura visit the others often with their kids. Hunk and Pidge are GREAT with kids.

The Blade of Marmora calls. Krolia is like hey wus poppin’ son. Keith tells her he and Shiro are a couple and she’s like oh finally thank god. That guy was the only thing he’d talk about for the two years and like honestly it’d be awkward if they didn’t get together. But also, the Blade of Marmora needs Keith. For a while. Like, at year at least. He has a few days to decide to go with them. Keith’s torn between his people on Earth or his people in Marmora. 

Shiro tells him it’s okay to go. But before that, he kneels on one knee and presents Keith with a ring. An engagement ring!!!! It’s specially designed by Pidge with a one-channel track that won’t get in the way of any signals or whatever, but they can find each other, no matter where in the galaxy each is. (Since that’s been a recurring problem throughout the series.)

Keith goes. Keith Galra Facetimes whenever he can. Weeks pass. Months pass. Seasons fly. Shiro terribly misses his fiancé. Nothing goes terribly wrong since this is the endgame, but Keith is away for a looong time. More than a year. He misses Shiro terribly, but he knows his duty is to the Blade of Marmora, which has become a relief effort and guardians of the galaxy. No talking trees or raccoons, unfortunately.

Eventually, Keith makes his way back to earth. Krolia, Kolivan, Axca, and the other Blades are with him. Krolia has a mother-son moment with him and asks him what he truly wants. Keith wants Shiro, but he also wants the life with the Blade of Marmora. It’s way better than on Earth, (no offense.) Then Krolia asks, “Why not take your man with us? His skill is going to waste at that desk.” And Kolivan is like “Shiro is a man of honor. He will always have a place with us if he so desires.” And Keith is like :0

He tells Shiro to come with him and Shiro’s like :O But he’s got papers! And Duties! And... the ability to train a successor to be Admiral! He gets on it. But low-key. Cuz he doesn’t want everyone to freak out. Like All Might and Deku, but not as life-threatening a situation and no consumption of hair. It’s probably that guy who thought Keith was his rival. Jack? Jacob? James! Or someone else idk. Who’s Curtis? We can sprinkle him in, I guess. Not sure if Hunk would want to be admiral. But either way, Shiro steps down from his position and gives it to someone very capable.

Then the Blades are back on Earth. Keith leaps into Shiro’s arm(s) all dramatically and gay as God intended. Shiro and Keith get married!!!! Everyone is there and it’s such a happy day like wowie.

After the wedding/goodbye party and preparations, the newlyweds announce their leave into space. And they fly off! Shiro is part of the Blade of Marmora. They’re a happy family and visit Earth and Altea whenever they can. Everyone still gets together every year for Christmas or something.

The last scene is the space ship leaving earth with Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” playing. The planets and space stuff fade further in the background. They’re in a field of stars. It cuts to Keith in his uniform holding Shiro, who’s in his earthly clothing and kissing his husband’s hand. A golden ring shines on each of their fingers and they continue to dance. Gosh, they’re so happy and in love. The two never lose each other again.

THE END!!!

[nicosmh]

╰ * ✧ ˖ SHE WAS LOVELY. THEN THINGS CHANGED. ‖ have you seen NICO HAMADA at the beach recently? i remember them being so PASSIONATE, but they seemed a little HESITANT today. it must be tough going through such hard times at only TWENTY-THREE. even then, they still remind me of PERMANENTLY EXHAUSTED FEATURES, MUSIC SHEETS SCATTERED ALL OVER THE ROOM, ODDLY SHAPED CLOUDS, and BALLS OF FLUFFY, PASTEL YARN.

i’m dee, and i never sleep. let’s get it started -- shall we ??

tl;dr and headcanons --- big family, big money and even bigger pressure. a whole ass cutie. true personification of an exclamation mark at times. memes, memes, memes. says and writes things that sometimes make one wish they were jared, nineteen. will steal your dog, cat or literally any animal, ever. a toss up between the mom friend and the wine aunt. most likely to befriend everyone’s parents ( probably because she can’t stand her own ). a terrible cook, -5/10 would not trust her in the kitchen. will refuse to get out of the car because her favourite song is playing on the radio. puns. yoda jumped out. many would say she’s a trust fund baby on the lowkey, and they would be two hundred percent right... unfortunately.

nico mei hamada was born to a pretty affluent and strict family that moved to the states when she was just five years old. she may have not experienced the so-called ‘culture shock’ too much, seeing as she was tiny, but she still kind of feels out of place to this day ( not that she would ever have the guts to admit it, though ).

with her mother being a composer, herself, nico’s parents decided to sign her up for piano classes. safe to say, she didn’t particularly enjoy being told what to do from day one, and she didn’t know what she disliked more -- the pressure to do something she didn’t want, or the classes themselves.

but... later, she grew to appreciate the fact that they’ve decided to put her through something like that. nico had found new hobby, her new passion -- something that she could possibly consider her one true love. she fell in love with the technique, the music and everything else that entailed the magical world of instruments. she could go ahead and admit that this was the only thing that was making her truly happy.

as the time went on, she had picked up guitar and violin, having been focused on piano nonetheless. she didn’t necessarily wanted to overwhelm herself with the amount of instruments she had to keep up with. but, was it really hard for her? not really. it was her hobby, something she genuinely enjoyed doing. she was convinced that if she ended up doing what she liked, she would never have to struggle with it.

juggling between attending private high school and music school didn’t exactly belong to the easiest of tasks, but she managed to find the perfect balance. she could admit that having one or two friends and that’s it was pretty helpful. if she wanted to be the best of the best in her craft, she had to make some sacrifices and nico was aware of it.

after years, upon years of hard work ( majoring in music production in college and so on ), nico joined the ranks of an orchestra and she finally felt like she’d accomplished something that could make her family proud. they weren’t necessarily as vocal about it as she’d wished them to be, so maybe this thing would change it? and it did. if one could only imagine her mother’s face when nico told her the good news...

unfortunately, having found it too stiff and boring ( her words, not mine ) for such a charismatic being she was, she decided to leave. no hard feelings. nothing. it was just that. even her parents expressed that they weren’t exactly that surprised about her decision. apparently, they knew her daughter all too well, and it showed. they were still, however, disappointed... which wasn’t a new thing to her. nico was grateful for their calm reaction, no matter what -- she wouldn’t know what to do if they reacted in a different way, really. 

her decision made her father think that she was thinking about taking over his business -- he couldn’t be any more wrong, though. it’s not that nico wouldn’t want to help her parents out with anything, it’s just that she clearly had no interest in anything business-related. and that made mr. hamada change from a supporting father to someone who was giving her an ultimatum. all or nothing, so to speak. she was supposed to either take up necessary classes and learn about everything that has to do with owning a tech company, or at least make sure to help them out when they needed it the most.

how could she do that when there was no prior motivation, nor reason for her to be there? why did they put her through music school and everything else if they wanted her to become a businesswoman? it made no sense to nico. when she explained her point of view to her father, he lashed out, deciding to end all the forms of contact with her -- not without telling the girl how disappointed in her he was, of course.

nico’s mom tries her best to keep in touch with her, but every single conversation they have just ends with an argument. that doesn’t necessarily stop her from allowing nico spend their money, though. she thinks this might be something that will persuade her to change her mind. little did she know... it won’t do anything. she wants nothing to do with it.

now, without that much to do, nico is considering having a little bit of a break to experience everything she didn’t have the chance to do when she was growing up -- whether it be parties, getting a first tattoo... chopping a huge chunk of her hair off, things like that. she figured, that having a social life will be so much easier now that she has the time to actually indulge in all of these things. she’s got a whole new world to explore, and she won’t stray from throwing her parents’ money around. 

once she decides that her time off moment is over, she wants to find a job that she will actually feel satisfied with. she sells the songs that she’s composed and written the lyrics for, but she also wants to start recording demos for herself, and maybe even do some odd jobs on the side. but... that is something she definitely needs to take her sweet time with -- nico had found herself enjoying the lavish lifestyle she secretly craved ever since she was a teenager.

it’s more than safe to say that her closet and most shelves are filled with notebooks containing unfinished songs and random thoughts that were too precious to her to throw away. lyrics about falling in love, heartbreak -- anything one could expect from someone who went through it in such a short amount of time.

during summer vacation, three years ago, nico met elise. the two quickly hit it off and became each other’s first everythings. the pair was inseparable for the time being -- with elise choosing to pursue her degree in politics, the girl had to move a couple of states away. they swore to each other that it would never let it affect their relationship. at first, everything was going swimmingly well, as it should, but then... things started to get messier and messier. obviously...

nico couldn’t possibly put the blame on the girl, at first. after all, she was busy, right? well... as the time went on, elise started to avoid any means of contact with her, chalking it up to being buried under the books and working on essays and whatnot. seemed believable enough. again, nico couldn’t really question it, because she knew that her major was one of the toughest ones out there. it wasn’t quite right, still.  

after a long month filled with nothing but waiting and sleepless nights, nico decided to officially end the relationship only to find out that her now ex had found someone new, someone who goes to the same university as her. safe to say, it drove nico mad. how could she even think she was good enough for someone like elise? it made her wonder whether she was just a temporary place in the other’s bed, and even if her feelings for her were real. at this point, it could literally be anything.

it’s already been a year since it all happened, and while she might not act like she’s been affected by her ex-girlfriend ghosting on her without giving her a reason and finding someone new, nico is definitely FEELING it all. she’s just... not vocal about it, because why should she be? apparently, that’s what happens when you trust someone so much, and let them lead you on for so long. nico was convinced that having a long distance relationship with someone would be a piece of cake, but boi, was she dead wrong...

nico decided not to look for any kind of consolation from people. she is just... there, aimlessly going through the day, making a complete fool out of herself, probably as a defense mechanism. despite not seeking help for herself, she’s always down to talk about everything with just about anyone, because she’s That kind of person, really. don’t let that fool you, though! she’s grown a backbone over the years of acting like a doormat, and she truly won’t hesitate to voice her opinion if something is bothering her. she is a nice person and that will truly never change, though. 

more headcanons:

she is, and i cannot stress this enough, baby

but you know, she’s a baby that can snap

( yes, that’s a thing, fight me )

a pretty good dancer ( duh ), doesn’t do anything about it, though

a gym rat -- eats healthy most of the time, works out four times a week

music-wise, nico’s songs are a mix of nina ne/sbitt, king pr/incess and to/ve lo

ghostwrote a couple of songs for famous and semi-famous artists

and with that come the royalties, obviously......

...royalties that can cover up the cost of everything she needs, but you know... she’s saving that up and still uses the family’s money -- very Smart™ of her, lbr

( still under an nda, so... she can’t talk about it... yet )

huuuuuuge paramore fan

doesn’t drink much, prefers to smoke a bowl... or five

has to wear glasses most of the time -- does not do that

fluent in three languages -- japanese, english and french

sarcasm is up in there, as well, but i am convinced that it doesn’t count

knits a LOT

connection ideas ( not limited to only that, of course !! ):

fellow musicians ;; you know these people that fire off the creativity fuse ?? jam sessions until the early hours of the morning ?? staying on the phone for hours on end ?? friendly banter on social media ?? things like that. and who knows ?? there might be a few collaborations on projects, too ?? ( open ;; 1/?? )

saltmates ;; honestly, their entire relationship is based around the two of them being bitter together. whenever one of them is pissed, they just let the other know and they get together, pour a glass of wine or juice or what-have-you, and hash it out. ( open ;; 1/?? )

bad timing ;; for some reason or another, something always gets in the way of whatever they have. maybe they’re just not ready to commit at the time when the other is, or one’s in a relationship with someone else when the other was finally available. ( open to f ;; 0/?? )

unrequited feelings ;; is it just friendly, or is there a lot of sexual tension? either way, this can be plotted whether nico is the one to have feelings, or vice versa. they’re not entirely deep where one person is madly in love with the other, but enough to the point where tension is sparked. ( open to f ;; 0/1 )

unlikely friend ;; someone nico thought she would never be friends with but finds herself being friends with regardless. she definitely admires them for being who they are and genuinely has a great time whenever she hangs out with them, despite all their differences. ( open ;; 0/?? )

acquaintance ;; if you asked nico about that person, she would probably say they just “know” each other. she doesn’t ask them any questions, they don’t talk or meet up as much, but they still somewhat do care about one another. they just trust each other like that. they seem to be passing each other by a lot. ( open ;; 0/?? )

[theaceofgrapes-blog]

Restoration (Defender part 3)

"Princess. Do you honestly think this is a good idea?"

"No. Not at all, Coran. But it's the only thing we can do. I don't care what he did, we're not murderers, we can't let him bleed out like a dying beast here on the ground. He's not a threat anymore."

"But he will be if we let him heal! He'll try to kill us like he did back in the Rift!" Coran stomped his foot, furrowing his eyebrows. "He's a Galra, the son of Zarkon nonetheless, and as it has been proven, they cannot be trusted!!" The Gorgeous man was fuming with indignation, both towards the Princess, and the Galra Royal bleeding out on the concrete. Nonetheless, the Crown Princess of Altea did not heed to his words and lifted the man off the ground, carrying him inside Blue. "If his restoration will be my undoing, so be it. I already gave up my life once, don't think I won't do it again if we have even the slightest chance at peace. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an healing pod to prepare, whether you're going to help me with it or not."

That was three weeks ago, at least on the planet they were. Being in a different time pocket made days on Earth go by like doboshes in there. She remembered texting Lance in what she thought were two different days, yet the messages on his device were barely five minutes apart. -This is good- she thought. -this way, we have all the time we need.- to do exactly what though, she still had no idea. Allura had been staring at the man in the pod for what felt like ages to her now, a raging storm of conflicting emotions deeply distressing her. Her torturous stream of conflicting thoughts were brought to a grinding halt by Kolivan and Krolia entering the room, drawing a surprised gasp from the Princess. They bowed, and Allura absentmindedly gestured them to stand up as she turned her head to look at the fallen Prince.

"What news do you bring? Anything that may hint towards the circumstances of his exit from the Rift, or how he survived?" Asked the Princess apprehensively. The man before her eyes was a mistery, wrapped in an enigma and tied with a pretty ribbon of misdirection. He claimed to abhor violence and was shown to be suave, elegant and respectful in his ways. Yet. He killed. This man had his hands soiled in the blood of Alteans, and he kept such an information from her! How could he, how could he do such a vile thing, to someone as innocent as her people, as Romelle! It was that name that was uttered by the two Blades.

"We found news regarding Romelle. Rather... disturbing news, may I add." It was Kolivan speaking, his deep voice echoing lightly through the otherwise empty room. "After raiding Lotor's various hideouts, we found an encrypted datalog, that, once we cracked the code, revealed a series of video diaries dating back to when the Colony was first founded. And.. well, We believe it's better if you look for yourself."

While taken aback by that statement, the Princess couldn't call herself reluctant to comply. She would've done anything to learn more about the mysterious man that so inadvertently entered into her life, completely turning it upside down. She eagerly grabbed the device from Kolivan's hands and waited for the two to leave, before sitting down on a chair by the desk and turning the contraption up. She was greeted by a list of video files, all dating back thousands of years into the past. She clicked on the first with trembling hands and almost gasped as Lotor's face showed up, looking slightly younger than he was now. Unlike his current counterpart, the Lotor of the Diary had a much more emotional approach, given away by the weak smile and weary eyes he sported, she wondered what could have ever happened to turn that soft visage into such an unreadable facade.

"Hi! Uh.. I really don't know how to start this- but here we go. I guess introductions are in order. I am Prince Lotor, son of Honerva and Blood Emperor Zarkon. During the following years, I shall document the development of our colony through these video diaries. I.. I currently am in exile, on a planet beyond the Quantum Abyss. The wildlife is pacific and most of the flora and fauna is edible, so rations won't be an issue. The lakes and rivers are also devoid of any dangerous pathogen, although the construction of a water purification station is underway. The First Altean who joined me, Petrullius, he's extremely happy to be here. Currently, he's briefing the others on what the life on here will be like, away from the grasp of the Empire... no need to hide, to constantly change appearance... no running away. Not anymore. This is our new Altea, brought forth from the ashes of the Old one."

Allura wasted no time and immediately clicked on the next one, captivated by the apparent innocence of the young Prince.

"Entry number 2, officially marking three years since the start of the colony. Everything proceeds smoothly, and the empire is seemingly unaware of our existence. Our people are thriving, and apparently, they begun working on... some sort of monument. Project Lazon is still in its drafting moments, but it looks more than promising. If the pacing of our progresses remain stable, we may be able to restore our past back to its former glory. The universe will soon remember the might of Altea."

"The might of Altea..." Allura muttered, biting the edge of her sleeve and rapidly moving on to the next entry. What was shown did not make any sense to her, none at all. If the man was so enamoured with Altea and Altean culture, why exploit them for Quintessence? She hoped that this data may harbour within its cybernetic walls the answer to her doubts. And so, entry after entry, recording after recording, Allura fell deeper into the rabbithole that was Lotor's psyche, into the labyrinthine depths of the Emperor's mind.

"Entry number 16, this day marks eight full centuries since the Colony's creation. Project Lazon, the plan to create an elite force of Alteans piloting Quintessence-powered robots, has been put on hold for the time being due to a fallacy found in Alfor's writing. But I'm sure it must have been a translation error, which will be sorted out the soonest possible. Other than that, the Colony's population has been at its all time peak, to the point we actually seemed to have skipped one person during the latest census! Haha, those sentries can be... rather unreliable at times. Said person, Romelle, she's Bandor's older sister. God she's such a sweetheart, so interested in the functioning of our Galra and Altean tech... it's refreshing to see someone willing to learn with so much animosity and glee. Oh? I think they're calling me, I better get going."

And with that, the vlog ended. She then noticed that the next entry was way closer to sixteen then all the other ones were to their previous ones, hesitant, she pressed the display to the following entry and immediately held back a shocked gasp. The man in front of her looked utterly devastated! What could have happened to bring his morale down in the span of mere weeks?

"Entry Number 17: Dark, Darker, Yet Darker. Grim is the future I see, and even after pondering all my options, Grief seems to be the only constant. It's as if the Universe itself is mocking me, reminding me of my constant failures and shortcomings. My mother- no, she's unworthy of said title. Haggar, that witch, she's found out about the Colony! About us!"

Young Lotor slammed his fist on the table, making the camera wobble.

"Romelle is a spy, a treacherous snake acting as her eyes and ears behind my back! Oh how foolish I was, to let myself trust again! The Witch has given us an ultimatum. I am to provide her with the most gifted Alteans of our Colony for her to further her sickening experiments.. failure to do so will prompt her to reveal the Colony's location to Zarkon, thus marking the extinction of Alteans as a whole. For now, I shall comply. I.. I can't let my race be wiped out because of impudence.. I'll find a way to turn this around, I have to! Oh sages help me!"

Allura robotically moved on to the next entry, unable to process anything going on at the moment. In it, Lotor was admittedly more under control, but not less devastated in the slightest, for his eyes betrayed great grief behind his best attempts at a calm and collected expression.

"Entry Number 18: I decided not to tell the truth to the other Alteans, so that panic does not spread like wildfire. It is vital for their survival that the true purpose of the Moon Base is hidden. A medical ward, where I attempt to restore back to health all the victims of Haggar's failures. To the questions that they ask, for the people who do not come back, I tell them that they lost their lives during the exploration of the Quantum Abyss. And so they've repurposed my statue as a memorial, inscribing on them the names of those they 'Lost' as if to scalpel the proof of my failures deep into my soul. Romelle.. she isn't aware of what she did. She's a clone with implanted memories and a preset killswitch. The simple thought of that rotten hag doing something as dehumanising as this.. it sickens me to the core. But perhaps, perhaps I can turn this in my favour. She truly believes her brother is on the Second Colony, and she truly believes that I'm untrustworthy.. but I can plant a seed. I'll break one of the Alteans out, and have him tell her the truth, all the truth, nothing but the truth. I alone cannot fight her, but an organised rebellion with the Alteans, we may be able to subdue her!"

The next entry, nineteen, was nothing but a two minutes video of Lotor crying his eyes out before abruptly cutting the recording. She skipped to the next entry, the last they were able to salvage.

"Entry number twenty.. everything went wrong. As I was trying to break one of the Alteans free, the alarms rang. I managed to send the pod off but the kid didn't know how to properly land. The vehicle crashed into the Holo-sphere where I had Romelle secluded but he was in critical conditions and only managed to spew a few broken words out before I had to take him back to the medical ward. I can't afford other Alteans to die, not if I can prevent it. I let Romelle run off, in hopes she would do the right thing, but she seems all the more convinced that I am the Devil. Project Lazon is to be considered a complete failure.. and, as My Generals are tracking the Trans-Reality comets, my last resort has to be put in place. From this moment on, Project Sincline is officially open."

"And so.. now you know." A feeble, raspy voice beckoned from behind her. She snapped up in shock and immediately turned her head to see the broken Prince just now trying to raise his head to meet her gaze. She didn't think twice before tossing herself in his arms, hugging him tightly and breaking into sobs, apologising profusely. Lotor was shocked, yes, but too weak to fight back. He closed his eyes with a weak sigh and slowly, gently wound his arms around her, his fingers gripping the fabric of her clothes. As the Princess that stole his heart was wetting his bare chest with her warm tears, Lotor felt all the pent up betrayal, anger, and sadness melt away. Lotor cupped her cheeks, calmly lifting her chin so to meet his gaze.

"Allura." His voice was a whisper, a murmur lost to the weakness of his body, The words of a shadow trying to break through the light.

"Your Highness.. you hurt me. You were the first person in my millennia long life I was able to fully trust, the first I could be wholly vulnerable with. After our fight.. the years spent in the rift were spent reliving our last moments together for what felt like an eternity. It's a deep scar, one that will hurt for long. However, you tried to heal me. You tried to bring me back, after finding me again, even going against Coran. You.. you tried to understand me. That, Princess, is more than anybody has ever done for me in my life, and.. it's more than I expected. I would be foolish and childish to just ignore that and focus on the painful moments, for how brief and scarce they were. I won't forgive you, Allura, because there is nothing wrong that you have done to me."

Allura was shocked by Lotor's statement, and suddenly overwhelmed by rapidly resurfacing emotions. She clung onto him for dear life, her body shaking, broken from the outpour of whimpers. Her heart stilled as she felt one of the Prince's hands press its thumb over her altean mark, stroking it with infinite gentleness and care, wiping the tears away from her face. "Your Highness.. you needn't weep. Still those tears, Oh Muse, for I haven't lost what once we shared. I have not rejected the past we lived, I didn't sway from the path we walked. Don't mourn my loss, for you haven't lost me at all. My Queen, I love you." The Altean woman resisted no longer, she couldn't deny her need to share this passion with the man before her, and so she closed the distance between them. Her arms wound around his muscular back and held it tightly, her legs were now splayed over his, straddling him, and just as that, with fierce urgency she claimed his lips for her once more, earning a surprised gasp from the half Galra below her. She breathed his breath, she tasted his lips, but it wasn't enough. She pushed past the barrier of his teeth and brought the kiss on a deeper level, losing herself as her senses faded into the haze. Intoxicated by the coppery taste, and by the incredible softness of his flesh, the Altean royal pulled away after what felt like ages, only to notice that her retrieved lover's face had turned from its classic mauve to a deep red. From her position, she could feel Lotor's heart racing like a wild horse, something that brought a sly smirk to her face. Since the pod had finished its job, she climed down and helped Lotor exit the contraption, guiding him to a pair of crutches so that he may regain motion after such a long period of immobility. As they exited the room together, They noticed Krolia and Kolivan had fallen asleep waiting for the two to exit, nestled into one another for warmth. Chuckling at the cute display, Allura decided to carry a blanket to the two and cover them with it. To avoid embarrassments, the two royals agreed not to question them on the happening after their awakening. The following days flew by with Lotor and Allura doing some much needed catching up and planning the next steps to take against Honerva, especially now that she had several Alteans under her rule.

"And so.. the Alteans in the pods were the secret team that helped you build the portal on the ruins of Daibazaal, and it was the overexposure to the Rift that got them sick?" Asked Allura, looking down in thought. "Precisely." Stated Lotor. "It was basically a race against time. The earlier I could provide free, unlimited Quintessence to everyone, the earlier that filthy, filthy hag would've stopped her barbaric experiments. I lacked the magic of Oriande, and for that reason, I was not able to restore them... I am sorry."

Allura interrupted his apology with a quick peck to the lips, having to stand on the tip of her toes to reach him. "You don't need to apologise, Lotor. You did what you could, with the methods you had. It's me, I should apologise for what I did back then... I should have trusted you, I should've let you explain yourself. I was blinded by my prejudice against your race, by the feeling of having another Altean close to me I abandoned reason completely in favour of a gut reaction. I'm.. oh so deeply sorry, Lotor, for having hurt you to such a cruel extent." Lotor smiled softly at the woman before him, and took her hands between his, holding them tightly. "Allura, my love. Worry not for the mistakes of your past, all is forgiven, and I love you." His voice was low and mellow, his tone was warm, soothing, sweet like molten gold for the Princess' ears. Allura's heart was caught in a deadly grip, threatening to crush it. This man really had given up everything to be with her, and she had shut him down so mercilessly, she wondered if she had actually been the villain all along. She bit her trembling lip and sunk into his arms again, weeping warm tears that trickled down his chest. The Galtean prince then combed a hand through her hair, smiling softly, and sheepishly kissed her forehead. "Shh, it's okay Allura, you don't need to cry. I'm here for you and with you, we will see the end of this together, I promise." Allura replied with a gentle nod, nestling into the man's thick chest and relaxing to the drumming rhythm of his beating heart. As the alien sun settled below the hills outside of her window, she guided Lotor to her bed, and the two spent the night in one another's embrace.

The following morning was wasted in softness and cuddles, with the Princess spoiling her man with chaste kisses and soft caresses, the likes of which he had never felt before. But as the noon came, the two had to rise from their shared bed and make preparations. For that day was the day the team would return to earth and organise the Universe's last stand against the Witch Haggar. Packing their things was a rather quick job, if intermitted by Coran's vigilant gaze and the knowing sneers of the two Blades, which brought a flush of red on the lovers' cheeks more than once. As they boarded the Blue Lion, a little more cramped up than before, the Princess' mind couldn't help but wonder how the paladins would have reacted to the news, in particular, a very clingy sharpshooter. The travel to Earth was safe and free from stops, and, as the Mecha landed, Allura couldn't help but wonder why the Hangar's door were sealed with the armoured blinds.

[darlingpetao3]

The Descendant Materialization (Barry Allen x Reader)

Rating: G

Summary: In a universe where you, the Reader, are National City’s very own Supergirl (and dating the ever-dashing Flash), a surprise arises when one of your descendants accidentally travels back in time to your present day…

Pow! Boom! Shazzam!

Ok, you really had to stop making sound effects in your head when tripping up and disarming criminals. But what you find especially amusing was how confident these bank robbers had seemed in the beginning. Even when you dropped down in front of them with your suit’s family emblem staring back at them, they simply laughed. As if being Supergirl didn’t mean anything to them.

Well, maybe if the citizens of National City didn’t give you such a girly superhero name they wouldn’t find you so funny.

Bam! Pew! Who’s laughing now, boys?

The man with the duffle bag full of cash grabs a civilian woman and points his gun at her.

“Careful, girl scout! Or the broad gets it!” You put your hands up as if to say, whoa now.

“Okay, okay. Relax, be cool,” you try to calm him down. “Just hand over the nice lady.”

“And you’ll let me run?”

“Sure.”

“Really?”

“Why not?”

“It’s just, that’s not really your thing.”

“Are we gonna talk about it all day or do you want to get a head start? Because you’ll need it.” Before the robber can think too much about it, he shoves the lady into you and makes a dash down the street. You know he won’t get very far.

Three… Two… One. A blur of red leaving yellow lighting trails darts by you, causing your hair to blow wildly. A smile curls on your lips. Taking a big leap, you land in front of the robber and his red-masked subduer.

“Well, Flash, fancy seeing you here,” you say in a voice coated with hints of an inside joke.

“Supergirl. What a pleasant surprise,” he replies. You look at the defeated crook.

“Told ya you’d need that head start.”

After the righteous takedown, you return home to your apartment in Midtown National City (in regular citizen clothes once again). Waiting in the elevator, you push your glasses up the bridge of your nose into place. When the elevator reaches your floor, you look down the hallway to see a male body leaning against your door checking his phone. You walk up to him and wrap your arms around him.

“Hi, Bare.” You kiss his cheek. He slides his phone into his back pocket and wraps you in his arms.

“Hey,” he grins. “You were great earlier.”

“Me? You’re the one who whizzed by and snatched the guy up!”

“But you giving him false hope of getting away? And saving that woman with your wit? Priceless!” You both laugh as you open the door to your loft apartment. Even though Barry has his own place on the other side of town, he still practically lives with you. Throwing yourself down on the couch, Barry follows suite and snuggles up next to you.

“I feel like I could eat the entirety of supplies from all the Big Belly Burgers in the city,” you say dramatically. Barry kisses the back of your head.

“I’ll go pick us up some grub,” he offers. “The usual?” You nod. “Be back in a flash!” Before you scoff at the bad pun, he has already returned with take-out bags.

“Barry!”

“What? That was funny.”

You seriously have the best boyfriend.

As Barry unpacks the food, his and your phone start going off. You answer yours as you drool over the fast food spread out in front of you.

“(Y/N), you gotta get down here.” It’s Winn. “There’s something you have to see.” His tone is strange. Not quite urgent, but sort of weirded out.

“Winn, what’s going on? Is there trouble?” You shoot a look to Barry, on the phone with who you’re assuming is Cisco. It sounds like they’re having a similar conversation.

“Not trouble…”

“We’re on our way.”

You fly at top speed to the DEO. What could it be now? Another alien attack? More high-priority superhumans on the loose? Whatever it was, you were ready.

You arrive at the building the exact second Barry does. Damn. You thought you had him beat this time. The DEO crew all stands in a huddle at the other end of the room. You stride over to them.

“Hey!” you call out to them. “What’s going on?” All heads turn at the sound of your voice.

“You’ll never guess. Like ever,” Winn teases.

“What was the call about?” Barry asks, very confused by all the secret keeping.

“Dude, I know it’s way too early, but congratulations,” Cisco says patting him on the back. Barry and you share a WTF? glance.

“What-?” The gang’s huddle opens up and reveals a beautiful long legged girl, possibly in her late teens. Long hair, bright eyes. And when she lays eyes on you and Barry, the girl’s face lights up like a Christmas tree. She walks up to both of you and wraps her arms around you in a big group hug. This pretty teen kind of looks familiar, but you don’t know why. Who is this? Should I know her?

“You both look so young!” she squeals with joy.

“Sorry, um, who might you be, exactly?” you ask her.

“I’m Ellie. Ellie Allen. Your daughter!”

Okay, maybe you weren’t ready. If your expression is anything like Barry’s, you’re wide-eyed and mouth left agape. You look around at your friends for help, an explanation. Anything.

“Dibs on godfather!” yells Cisco.

Winn argues, “Hey, so not fair!”

“What’s Back to the Future?”

“Oh my God!” Cisco shouts. “Barry, (Y/N), you’ve already officially failed at becoming parents.”

“I think what Cisco is trying to say, Ellie, is that it’s not good for someone to know too much about their future,” Barry tries to explain. “And, no offence, you might be that ‘too much.‘”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she apologizes. Whoa. That was a shock to the system. “When I ended up here, I didn’t know what to do. But then when I learned what year it was, I remembered you guys telling me you used to work for the DEO together when you were younger. So I came here.”

J'onn steps in with the question, “And how exactly did you come to be here in this time?”

“Training exercise gone wrong, apparently. See, my teammate slash rival has teleportation powers and I guess when she blasted them at me she overshot by many years.”

“What kind of training exercise are we talking about?” you ask. Ellie looks at you with so much awe and love. It completely blows your mind how much she looks like both you and Barry at once. Ellie giggles.

“Oh! I guess you wouldn’t know, yet! Watch this!” In a split second your daughter has left and returned, having placed a single flower in everyone’s hair (except for J'onn, who had one in his shirt pocket). You are even more stunned.

“You’re a Speedster,” you remark.

“That’s right!” Ellie says brightly. “Just like my old man. But don’t worry Mom, I have some of your awesome powers, too.” Her eyes grow red and the beams of light melt a potted plant in half, creating a mess.

“Oops.”

“Clean up on aisle twelve!” Winn shouts enthusiastically.

“Yo, that’s dope,” Cisco admires.

“Anyway, as much as I’d like to live in this retro time, I need to get back. I just don’t know how to go about it…”

“I might know a guy,” Barry says. At that, you and him escort Ellie to the lower levels of the DEO where the company’s resident scientists, Harrison Wells and Caitlin Snow, run experiments, tests, and come up with new tech. The two heads in the room look up from their respective works.

“Barry, (Y/N),” Caitlin greets. “Who have you brought with you?”

“This is Ellie,” you introduce. “She’s our- our-”

“She’s our daughter,” Barry finishes. The room is silent.

“How is that possible?” Ellie goes on to fill Caitlin in on what happened. Harrison slowly approaches your daughter and extends a hand for her to shake.

“Harrison Wells. Pleasure to meet you, Ellie.” He examines her face, then Barry’s, then yours. “Truly remarkable,” he marvels at the time travelling anomaly that is your teenage daughter.

“We need to get her back to her time,” you say.

“Do you think you can help me?” Ellie asks. Harrison makes a thinking gesture with his index finger and thumb over his mouth.

“Absolutely,” he says. “But first, Miss Allen, if I have the permission of your parents, I’d like to run a few tests…”

For the next few days, the members of the DEO are bustling around with the new task of trying to send Ellie home. Especially Cisco, Caitlin, Wells, and Winn (or as you sometimes call them, C2W2). In the meantime, while the crew works on creating a sort of time portal, Ellie stays with you and Barry at your apartment. It is the most bizarre thing in the world to live with your daughter who isn’t technically even born yet. At first, it was awkward, no doubt. But after awhile, things started to smooth out. She really was an extraordinary girl. You and Barry were clearly going to be very lucky parents.

Towards the middle of the week, Ellie appears to be getting antsy, so you decide to take her along with you to CatCo. A sort of secret take-your-daughter-to-work-day, but of course, you introduce her as your cousin. You show her your latest article and she’s thrilled with your piece. She even mentions she has an interest in the field and was totally acing her writing class in school back in her time.

Atta girl!

After hearing about her CatCo experience with you, Barry wants in on the parent-daughter action and takes her to the National City Police Department to work a case the following day. You get to hear from Ellie later on about how cool it was surveying a crime scene.

“She’s got a great eye,” Barry praises.

“What a talent,” you agree. Ellie beams back at you both. But then her eyes flick to the TV and becomes distracted. What is she looking at…

It’s breaking news. A high-speed car chase on the freeway heading out of the city. Inside the vehicle? Thirty million dollars worth of jewelry. You and Barry stand up at the same time, tense.

“Ready to go, Bare?”

“Always.”

“I’m coming, too!” Ellie insists.

“No.” The word was said in unison.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she protests.

“No, we’re not,” Barry says sternly. “You stay here.”

“Okay, well, I guess I’ll just…” Zip. She’s gone.

“Your daughter just disobeyed us!” you cry.

“Oh, so because she acted out, she’s my daughter,” Barry half jokes. “Let’s go.” Barry bolts away while you tear off your clothes to reveal your super-suit and fly out your window. Below you, Barry’s a red blur on the highway heading north-west. Keeping your top speed, you’re positive you can reach the speeding jewel thief before he reaches the city limits. Except… up ahead the police have the thief surrounded. He’s now in handcuffs! How-?

Ellie, that’s how.

You touch down on the ground just as she calls out to the thief, “Nice try, scumbag!” Barry shows up behind you and his hand finds your shoulder.

“She definitely picked up snarky comments and name-calling criminals from you.”

After about two weeks, you receive word that the DEO Labs team has finally finished the portal project. Something of this magnitude, you had expected it to take much longer than it did. Then again, the project was conducted by world genius Harrison Wells, so anything was possible with him at the helm. You knew Ellie had to get back home, but a part of you wished she wasn’t leaving already.

The portal hums the moment Cisco switches it on. Everyone groups together to say goodbye to your daughter, hugs and all. You hear Cisco reminding her to watch Spielberg’s time travelling adventure when she gets back. After Barry gets a little misty eyed saying his farewells, it’s your turn, and you hug Ellie tight in your arms. You aren’t sure what to say.

“Take care of yourself, my girl,” is what comes out.

“I will, Momma.” She lets go and addresses you and Barry one final time. “Dad, twelve year old me will beg for a puppy. All I ask is to just think about it. You have over twenty years to mull it over. And Mom- If, let’s just say, hypothetically in the future I happen to accidentally destroy your favourite vase. Go easy on me, please?” Ellie advances toward the portal, but not before giving the room a little wave.

“See you… later?” Her laugh that follows it almost makes you choke up.

You dreaded saying goodbye to Ellie. But you can’t wait to say hello to her again someday.

~

Anonymous Request: If you watch Supergirl and The Flash, would you mind doing an imagine where the reader is Supergirl and she and The Flash are a crime-fighting duo and are dating and know about each other’s secret identies, S.T.A.R. Labs doesn’t exist and Cisco, Caitlin, and Harrison Wells work with the DEO, and their daughter is a speedster from the future and she accidentally ran back in time while doing a training excerise with her team and the gang has to help her get back to her time?

[particlecounting]

The Xiaomi Particle Counter Is So Inaccurate It Should Not Control the Purifier

Tech companies love to talk about how automation, internet of things, and the connected house are going to make the machines we use every day more convenient. But does it work? Anyone who’s used Apple’s Siri or “talk to text” feature knows that the promises of technology sometimes fall short.

I tested the promise of automation in the Xiaomi air purifier, the Mi2 to be precise.

    Here’s the air quality readout coming from a small particle implanted on the side of the machine.

  The Promise

Here’s what it promises to do—detect how bad air is in your home, turn the purifier on when air is bad and turn it off when air is good. If it can do that, it means we can breathe clean air without the fan on high all the time. That’s awesome because it means less noise and less wasted electricity.

  The Test

We previously tested how good the Mi2 purifier was at cleaning the air, and found shocking results: it left air unsafe 86% of the time. This time around, we wanted to do a more methodical test of the particle counters inside the Mi purifiers.

I tested the Mi1, Mi2, and the more expensive Mi2 Pro version against three particle counters. None of the Mi’s were new, but the Mi2 was relatively new, used to do just a few weeks of testing.

I set up the two Laser Eggs and the Air Visual Node on a chair next to the built-in particle counter on the Mi2.

    I burned a cigarette in a closed 12m2 room and then turned on the purifier on high until the air got clean again (about 30 minutes from start to finish). That way we can test for accuracy from clean levels to truly toxic levels. I set my phone to take pictures of all the readings every 30 seconds.

  How Accurate SHOULD It Be?

But wait, before I get to the results, I want to set expectations. I don’t expect the Xiaomi particle counter to be really accurate. It’s a cheap particle counter inside a machine that costs less than some of the particle counters I’m about to compare it to. We need to have realistic expectations.

So what are realistic expectations? I think a reasonable expectation is that it works well enough to do what it’s designed to do—run the auto mode.

  Results

Even against modest expectations, the Xiaomi was off by a lot. When the air was bad, the Xiaomi was off by an astounding 218 micrograms.

To give a sense of how large that discrepancy is, the WHO 24-hour limit is 25 micrograms. The Xiaomi’s error alone was over 8 times the WHO limit.

Here’s what that looked like live.

    The Xiaomi seemed like it basically stopped counting past 50 micrograms. At that rate, the Xiaomi was saying the air inside was at the orange AQI level (“unhealthy for sensitive groups”) when it was really in the purple (“very unhealthy”) range.

OK, so the Xiaomi undercounts—severely at times. It turns out that’s not the only problem. If we zoom into the low range, the Xiaomi was overcounting there too.

  I suppose a 9-microgram discrepancy might sound like not a big deal, but on the other hand, the Xiaomi was overestimating the real number by a factor of 10.

    The Xiaomi 1 Is Inaccurate Too

Maybe the Mi2 I got was just broken. Who knows? Maybe the shipping guy dropped the machine on the way to my home and damaged the particle counter.

To test that possibility, I tested an older Mi1 against the Dylos Pro (which also scored well against the official PM2.5 numbers). The results showed the same pattern as the Mi2.

    I also tested the Mi2 Pro, and it showed the same pattern. Thus, this seems to be a consistent problem with Xiaomi purifiers.

  How Do We Know Those Other Numbers Are Correct?

Hang on, aren’t we assuming the Laser Egg and the Node are the right numbers? How do we know that those are the right ones, and the Xiaomi is the wrong?

Smart Air ran comparison tests of the Node and Laser Egg with official PM2.5 numbers for six days. The Node and the Egg correlated with the official PM2.5 at a very respectable r = .98, with an average error of 4.8 micrograms for the Node and 6.5 micrograms for the Egg. That makes me confident their numbers are a good approximation of the true concentration.

  Bottom Line

The Xiaomi particle counter is extremely inaccurate—so inaccurate that it should not be used to control your purifier. The problem is, Xiaomi doesn’t give users a choice (which I explain below).

  This Could Explain the Xiaomi Left Air at Dangerous Levels in Separate  Tests

Smart Air tested the Xiaomi Mi2 air purifier in a real Beijing apartment for 12 nights, and the results shocked me. I honestly thought it’d do a fine job. After all, purifiers are just fans and filters. But the Xiaomi left the air at unhealthy levels for 86% of the time.

  The fact that the Xiaomi so severely underestimates pollution levels could explain why it so often leaves the air at those unsafe levels. I found similarly atrocious results when I tested the Philips auto mode, which convinces me that the technology behind air purifier auto modes just isn’t good enough yet. I would not use an auto mode in my home.

Why This Problem Is More Than Just an Accuracy Problem

The Mi2 is fine purifier when it’s on high. Our open-source tests show that it does a great job on high (check out the first three hours in the test graph above). But the problem is the Mi2 forces users to use auto mode. No matter what you do to the machine, it will switch to auto mode after three hours. Sounds weird, right? We asked customer service three times just to be sure.

  That means unless you wake up every three hours during the night and switch the machine back onto high, you have to use auto mode and the particle counter that controls it. I hope Xiaomi fixes this simple design flaw, but until they do, I would not use a Xiaomi in my home.

  Read more for extra data and methods. I also test the possibility that the particle counter is inaccurate because it’s on the inside of the machine and so sampling air that is different from air outside the machine.

Extra Data and Methods

Mi1 Test Method

I tested the Mi2 in the Smart Air office and the Mi1 at my home, so the room and methods were slightly different. In the office, I burned a cigarette to make the particle counts go up. At home, I don’t have any cigarettes, so I burned a piece of paper.

  The size of the office room was 12m2. My room at home was larger, probably closer to 15m2.

  Is the Xiaomi inaccurate because the particle counter is inside the machine?

I wondered if the particle counter is inaccurate because it’s on the inside of the machine and therefore not getting a good sample of air. One way to test this is to take the particle counter out of the machine, which isn’t very hard. Even when I did that, the numbers still consistently undercounted when pollution was high and overcounted when pollution was low. Thus, I don’t think the problem is the placement of the particle counter.

  What are the Xiaomi numbers exactly?

One frustrating part of the Xiaomi is that it doesn’t label the air quality numbers. Are they micrograms, China AQI, US AQI, or something else? I can’t understand why they wouldn’t label the numbers.

  This isn’t just a nerd concern. It could really affect the results because the relationship between micrograms and AQI isn’t linear.

    If you dig around deeply enough through the Xiaomi, they do say that the numbers are micrograms. Thus, I compare micrograms to micrograms in the analysis.

  Can the Xiaomi get below 10 micrograms?

The lowest number the Xiaomi registered was 9 micrograms, while the Node was registering 0.2 micrograms and the Eggs 1 microgram. That made me wonder, is it even possible for the Xiaomi to display numbers below 9? Is it programmed not to go below that number?

  To get to the bottom of it, I turned on the DIY 1.1 and pointed it directly onto the Xiaomi particle counter. When I do the same test with the Dylos particle counter, the numbers go down to zero. But with the Xiaomi, the numbers stayed around 10 micrograms. Therefore, I think the Xiaomi is either registering phantom particles or programmed not to go below 9.

Original Data

I’m making the original data available as an Excel file download here.

Node Numbers

Why Were the Node Numbers Low?

In the main graph in the article, you’ll see that the Node numbers were lower than both of the Laser Eggs. The Node I used in the test was about a year old (although the Laser Eggs weren’t new either). One problem with older particle counters is that dust accumulates inside the machine and restricts the air flow. The guy behind AQIcn.org tested an old Dylos and found it was undercounting when concentrations were bad. Then he cleaned out the dust inside with compressed air, and found it got up to higher numbers.

  I suspect the same thing was happening with the Node in our tests. That can be a particular problem when the particle counter is subjected to really high levels of particulate, like in our cigarette tests.

[siodymph]

Symmrat Week Day 4

And here's day four! We're officially half-way through Symmrat week!

This is my take on their role reversal. And personally, even if their background stories are switched I still like to think they both still keep their talents with explosions and hard-light. But instead of making his stuff from scratch Junkrat had a life-time of experience and tony stark-level attention over his weapons. And then Satya is the one who makes her turrets from scrap and is completely obsessed with reverse engineering hard-light.

You can check it out under the cut or over on my AO3 Enjoy!

When he’d first joined Overwatch, Jamison wasn’t sure what to expect. He’d never really had friends, going straight from school to a fully-fledged career all through Hyde Global he’d been one of their finest chemical engineers and weapons expert. But he’d always been called a shut-in and knew embarrassingly well that most the other engineers he worked with never thought highly enough of him. Not even in their days together at the academy. The one time he’d tried approaching them on the matter they said he always made things awkward, that he was always so loud and unfiltered, also annoying, never shutting up. He never bothered trying to talk to them after that. It still made him a bit bitter. He knew he was different, but that had just made him all the more important to Hyde. He could do things, make things no one else could. His controlled light explosions had been a breakthrough in the industrial world. At least, that’s what Hyde’s suits had always said to him when he was first starting out. He’d done so much for Hyde Global, he’d given an arm and a leg for that company. Literally.

So when Overwatch came back from the dead and HG wanted a representative on the team, he was very skeptical. Why would Overwatch want Hyde Global’s weapons expert when no one in that company seemed to care much about beyond his bombs and weapon designs?

He could have never predicted just how quickly the Overwatch team would worm its way into his life. That for one he’d be a member of a team, that the people he worked with would honestly have his back, and that he’d actually enjoy working in a group instead of on his own like usual. That after a year on the team he’d be best mates with people like the gaming legend Lucio, or pop-sensation Hana Song, that one was especially surprising seeing how she’d become famous for her blatant opposition to Hyde’s presence in Busan, South Korea. And yet now they were some of his best friends.

And he would have never, ever expected Satya.

A new recruit, just like he was. That however was where any initial similarities between them had come to an abrupt halt. When she arrived at the Overwatch headquarters, she was wearing tattered clothes, hair unruly and ragged, and a thick layer of dirt clung to her skin. He’d learned a bit later that she was from the wastelands of India, and allegedly she knew deep secrets about Vishkar tech, a company that had just begun developing something called “hard-light” when the Indian Omnium blew up and along with over a third of the nation and the rest of Asia, destroyed Vishkar before it could truly lift off the ground. Satya was one of many abandoned people left to fend for themselves. She was silent as death and never took her eyes off any of them, as if expecting them all to turn on her at a moment’s notice.

And for a while that’s how things were in their team. But slowly, slower than anyone could have truly seen, things began to change. Satya began to open up to the rest of the group, put more trust in them. And Jamison was too, much to his surprise. What had started as a temporary gig for him had turned into one of the happiest times in his life. People who started out as just heroes and strangers he would work with had turned into friends and family he couldn’t imagine leaving. And Satya. Satya had turned into so much for Jamie, he could have never prepared himself for how much Satya would mean to him.

How much he would fall in love with her.

Her eyes, there was just such an energy hidden in them. A fire she held as she turned metal scraps and rubbish into beautiful weapons in the labs. The fire that seemed to explode out of her whenever they went on missions, going from silent and calculating to striking down their enemies, the ones who’d been foolish enough to underestimate her traps and her power. In quieter moments, far away from battles and payloads, that fire would crackled softly with such a warmth whenever she laughed at his jokes, whenever she got lost in thought, whenever she smiled. She was brilliant, she was amazing and it scared Jamison to think that he’d fallen so hard for someone in such a short time.

Then one night Satya pulled him aside in the workshop. Said she wanted to tell him something important, but she couldn’t tell him in the Overwatch base. That there were too many cameras hidden everywhere and they needed to get somewhere unwired.

Jamison had foolishly agreed and now seemingly for hours the two of them drove out of Gibraltar. The city became a small blip far behind them as they drove further and further inland away from the sea. Until finally they reached a safe house hidden far into the woods.

“Mei and I set this place up during our heists.” Satya explained as she got out of the driver’s seat.

It certainly looked like the type of building quickly rebuilt while on the run. Once it might have been an old cottage but now high-security devices outlined every window and the door. As they stepped in Satya directed Jamie how to step over all the traps that lay hidden all around the front entrance. Until finally they were both sitting on the floor of the living room as the only furniture was a musty matress in one corner of the room.

After rechecking the entire safe house one last time, she sat down next to Jamison. “Nothing leaves this room.” She said steely.

“Of course.” Jamison said, unsure exactly what he had been dragged into.

“You swear?”

“I swear, Satya.” He wasn’t sure what Satya was about to reveal, but not matter what it was Jamison rationalized that nearly nothing her secret could be would make him leave this room.

“Ok...” Satya took a deep breath, looking quickly to the door before locking eyes again with Jamison. “You wondered how I know so much about Vishkar’s hard-light? Well… this is my secret.”

She then began taking apart her mechanical arm.

But instead of removing it from its detachable joint on what was left of her upper arm, she began ripping off bits and parts. The arm she’d held so much pride in, she always bragged about how she made her arm completely on her own from metal scraps and wiring she could find in the Indian ruins. It had been her pride and joy. She’d refused everyone’s help, even Jamison’s, when they offered to upgrade her arm. And now she was tearing it apart like it was nothing to her.

Jamison was about to protest when he saw a flash of white emerge as the she slowly took apart the arm. It couldn’t be… It was impossible…

But slowly Satya took off all the scraped pieces, Jamison realized that the arm had just been a shell. Made only to hide a beautiful, pristine, sleek arm. And when the palm began glowing with a brilliant blue light Jamison couldn’t deny it any further.

It was a Viskar prosthetic gauntlet. Possibly one of the last in existence.

Jamison felt speechless, Vishkar was a tall tale, an Arthurian legend. So many people he knew at Hyde had said “hard-light” couldn’t even theoretically exist. And yet here it was. Beams of light were being bent into prisms effortlessly in Satya’s control. “H-How?”

“One time when I was younger and foolish I attempted to scavenge the Vishkar ruins. It cost me my left arm but in turn I discovered something much more valuble…”

“Oh my god Satya… It’s amazing.”

She smiled and brought the gauntlet closer. “Try it, pinch the light to make a shape…”

Jamison was tentative to touch the light. He felt like he was about to touch the holy grail of engineering. He watched as his hand was illuminated by the light and he attempted to pinch the light as Satya had instructed. It took him a few times to try gripping the light but the fourth time he tried something seemed to suddenly connect and the hard-light followed his hand, fanning out in into triangles. He grinned up at Satya who smiled back.

“If anything happens to me. I want you to have my arm.”

Jamison looked up at her surprised. The way she said it, she sounded so certain.

She continued before he could say anything. “It’d be a pity if it ended up left in a museum, collecting dust and going unused. Something like this deserves to be used. To its complete potential. That’s why I want you to have it, Jamison.”

“Satya, you don’t have to

“Ok… but just in case.” Satya pressed moving closer, closing her gantlet around Jamison’s hand. “Please, promise me you’ll keep it safe?”

“I swear I’ll never let anything happen to your arm, darl.” He murmured, kissing Satya’s beautiful hand. And he raised his head to look Satya directly in the eyes. “But I’ll be a dead man before I let anything happen to you either.”

Satya frowned at that, looking away from him and down at her arm. “Thank you Jamison, but I’m not as important.”

“You are to me. And much more precious too.” Jamison said gently taking hold of her chin and looking back into her eyes. Ad before he could think against it he leaned in and pressed his lips warmly against hers.

That night he learned an invaluable secret, one that could destroy corporations, entire nations if wielded wrongly. But most importantly to Jamison, he realized just how much Satya loved and trusted him. And in that night he finally placed his whole heart and trust in her too.

[glopratchet]

simo-beeing

I cant even believe ive pulled it off either, took a while to set up and almost got caught a couple times but it all payed off! Was actually stupidly easy if i do say so myself! he has only started his official guard training but has already proved to be quite capable with the basics, not as good as me of course, if you are reading this then thats one thing you should take away, you must be better than the rest or you will not survive in this new world attached is is his note paper he left around his latrine board which lists all the other shifts so ive done them all now! , some of the older residents already queing up to use it when ive come on shift, he has already made 200 from me alone he is now the richest boy in the guard aside from me :) Too late to back out now does this mean im in charge now? i'm not sure about this, im going to need some help directly to the awaiting bows etched beautifully on the surface, they look like stained glass windows The church has a logo too but it looks different, perhaps its different in the bible times? Like this alligator bladder inflatables, alligator collagen and many others that are all neatly organized into these clever boxes via conveyer belt to each corresponding window There are also windows for people to put their wastes in as well!! lies on a tray which collects them from the windows and comes around in a cycle that reminds me of those claw crane games, whatever you can squeeze out of the vending machine is yours I guess as far as the waste goes, the amount you take is based on your ranking in society Poor people cant take much but they get more than sodarites so they can trade it i suppose are dispensed from chutes hidden in the walls next to the windows This seems pretty complicated i hope you all are happy its your asses if this thing breaks, apparently everything is monitored via those cameras from control so maintenance is not something i need to worry about, as for retrieving the profits if the creature has been killed is also pumped out from his magical portal costume or something, i dunno Also washboards tons and tons of them and bubble wrap the alligators must really love to sleep on that stuff anyway this is all to be expected We basically sold out completely, 7 minutes of every hour are taken up by products thats why they scampered around so much at first, gave them more room to pump out more crap simultaneously , a flatbrim ballcap and navy jeans standing at one of his windows cheerfully greets every customer with a big smile I sometimes break from my gatekeeping to inspect some of the meat, it gives me mixed feelings to see it go through not knowing if im sending dead gators to a warm cozy home or chucking it in a trash pit somewhere, i ponder this as im picking flesh chunks off my claws , a high ranking position to be sure The most obnoxious thing is it came with matching shoes with little gators on them like COME ON!!! You shouldnt advertis ewho you are on your shoes for god sake! They cant take you seriously in these things, they look clownish We have even had talks to passing alligator ranchers about potential business deals in the future In any case our family has started rolling in the dough, unfortunately GiGi is still a dog biscuit away from the good fairy granting her speech but she doesn't seem too bothered by it, we really dont talk too much anyway The shivers are happy Life is easy, all i have to do anymore is open the gate that's it a HUD, with the locations of all the turrets and cameras for the stadium, best to keep the customer experience top notch afterall Although I don't think it matters too much,there are so many shivers in now every one has a different path to their tunnel system that even at a 5% attrition rate the population keeps climbing! Its starting to reach overcrowding levels but its not like we're sending anyone back alright? Were not! encryption codes for all the conversations that happen so far using your custom security systems A fulltime worker you have hired helps manage the trading floor while you police the stock market multiple times a day incase any occurances need your attention You created jobs for everyone, you created a life and a grand beard that laves the belly area of his long coat He wears light hiking boots presumably to trek through the sewers with and a travler's backpack for over night trips, sure signs of a trader! The success has lead to others trying their luck in there, but only few have even come close to GiGi's success, it might be your tech or the shiver's that attract them but one thing remains true It's your name that sucks to them most of the time, most of it stuck in there own routines, seems like they barely tolerate him now Water is quite rare for us now so we have to wait until it rains before doing the wash,still worth it though! or we salvage it from the toilet tanks any way the guy is called Mike, goes by GiMMiX online, one of the newer traders that have recently started coming here Normally I don't hear them until they are at the top floor then they normally eat at GiGi's before they leave He must be pretty confident to try sell me stuff when he knows who I am You should do this more often Dad, this is a nice talk over dinner, see ya with that guy and helped create a community of thriving humans who enjoy the gifts this world has to offer You and Lena? Yep that'll do, you'll name your robot Lena as a sign of appreciation Once you have entered her name you are greated with a box asking for a last name, you type in GiGis and it accepts it CONGRATULATIONS! "Lena GiGi-S-I-S" has been added to your home! You have created a second living creature that enjoys your presence A screen pops up with her picture on the left and some more information about her on the right, this is where you can change her name, informaion, add or remove her from your home and much more Some buttons appear at the bottom letting you navigate through the various screens you are glad that you managed to get communications working on a large scale between herds again You decide to leave the GiGis identification screens for later, you have just noticed that it is already outside and the herd of Shreks haven't gone past yet! Last night when you saw them they were making sounds that the Calvary were coming soon and every one was getting excited You always felt that division was the ruin of the humans indeed a couple of weeks pass and the music has been rejoined by happy trumpets that could only belong to GiGis It's nice to see her so happy, she really loves that music next week you get a visitor You hear a voice on the PA asking for you and asking to visit outside You buff up, take your gun and head to the top floor You open your window and see a woman your age looking up at you,she is pretty obviously pregnant, has grown nails and dark green skin She speaks "Hey, I'm Lena" "I know" you reply cautiously "i also Know that you have GiGis" She says pointing at your robot who is sitting to the side of the window "Yes, she is mine" Lena nods "I want to add her to the herd, the music has brought all of us joy and peace for years, GiGis would be a welcome edition to our little community" You weren't really sure what to expect when you got your first visitor, but it wasn't this You complte the transaction and feel very HAPPY as a result Music truly is the mystical link that connects all creatures on this planet! You wonder how you never saw it before,of course the differentherBS would feel joy at GiGis playing, what kind of a horrible person does this to beings who love music as their mother plays piano in the next room! The happy GiGis announces a new song "Go die in a fire (Ilium update discussion #405)" You don't mean to listen, but you can hear it quite clearly as the topic of the songs is pretty relevant to you right now You leave your home and head straight for the gate, you aren't really sure what you will do when you get there, but you are really angry! Before you know it you are flying through the air and in a yard with a massive collection of shreks and GiGis himself He is strangely cheery You stand up and aim your gun at him "Downѕtand!" you shout angrily He laughs "No" You fire at him, and are surprised to see that you shoot a stream of confetti GiGis laughs even louder now YOu start firing in all directions and realise that all you are doing is shooting party favors into the air, including one very large one right behind GiGis You dart back inside just as your entire house explodes into a million pieces and rains down onto the remaining houses You peek outside a bit later and see nothing but rubble where there were once houses and the words "All are GiGis" hovering above it all

[webbygraphic001]

How to Pick Your Next Tech Focus

Every day, people are asking themselves things like, “React or Vue?” “VR or no VR?” “CSS Grid or Flexbox?” These are the wrong questions entirely, because the technology you focus on or use next should always be matched to both the job and the people at hand.

Besides, here are the answers:

Personal preference.

Not yet, wait ‘til the market starts to truly expand again.

CSS Grid for known quantities, Flexbox for unknown quantities. Except for all the times where that’s wrong. CSS is a bit like English that way.

And that “Except for all the times where that’s wrong” bit is exactly the problem with making definite pronouncements about which technologies you should focus on next. I can’t reliably do that. However, in my years of muddling through tech problems, I’ve discovered ways to make an educated guess. Since people often use the new year as an excuse to try new things, I thought I’d share my principles of educated guesswork with you all.

1. Watch People

Watch how people use tech: Don’t be creepy about it. Conduct studies with willing participants, if you can. Otherwise, keep a non-invasive eye on your spouse, friends, and any kids you might have just lying around. If you see them using an app (for example), try it out for yourself. If you notice them ditch an app, maybe ask them why.

If you want to understand why VR hasn’t taken off on billion-dollar wings yet, look no further than smartphones. The smartphone has something everyone wants, and just about anyone can use one anywhere, and at any time. VR has yet to make that connection with people.

Watch what people do, not just what they say looks cool.

Watch the people who make tech: Research the people who make the tech you’re considering buying into. Do they listen to their community? Do they consider the edge cases? Do they care? Can they write clear documentation?

While there’s something to be said for the brilliant visionary who drags everyone else along with them to distant visions of grandeur, you should mostly be looking for the people solving simpler, more everyday problems. Stable people make stable tech.

Unstable people are better advertisers though. ahem Steve Jobs ahem.

2. Look For Convenience (For Your Users)

Because your users are looking for it, too. If a new bit of tech only adds steps to the process of just… getting things done, users will be frustrated. Now, when choosing between programming languages, for example, it’s all down to what you build with it. PHP, Node.js, Python, and ASP.NET can all process form data, after all.

But if, for example, you’re choosing pre-built software like a CMS, this factor becomes a whole lot more important. People don’t care how powerful their new content editor is, if they now have to do more things before they finally get to hit “publish”. A new tool that’s more convenient for you is all well and good; your users may have an entirely different opinion. Do not sacrifice their convenience for yours.

3. Integration

No tool is an island. Everything you use gets used in tandem with a bunch of other stuff. It’s for this very reason that some companies have opted to stick to older operating systems or browsers, sometimes. Ask anybody in IT or InfoSec: new software can upset entire ecosystems if you don’t do your research first.

Now sometimes that’s a good thing. Using an OS after support has officially ended, for example, is not a thing you want to do. But as web designers and devs, the choice is not always so clear. With the sheer massive numbers of libraries we use nowadays, conflicts can come out of nowhere. So maybe—just maybe—if your entire layout up to this point is still based on Bootstrap 3.x, starting to use CSS Grid everywhere can wait until you have the budget for a full redesign.

4. What Happens When Things go Wrong?

How Does the Tech Respond to Bugs? An improperly coded WordPress theme, for example, can refuse to display anything at all if something goes wrong in a single function. It’s one thing for a single feature to break on your site. As long as it’s not the navigation, or anything else that’s critical, chances are your users will ignore it. It’s quite another thing to have your whole site go down because someone mistyped something.

What are Your Support Options? At the very least, you want an active community and a developer that responds to questions when things go really wrong. Paid support options aren’t bad, either. A little money for support, or other expert help, can save a lot of lost sales.

5. Extra Tips

Remember that your needs are not necessarily everyone else’s needs. Tech that sounds like it might improve things for your users needs to be tested on a smaller scale. The world is littered with dead products and features that sounded useful and even delightful until you actually bothered to think about them.

Buzzwords be damned. Most likely whatever you’re doing does not need to be on the blockchain, or whatever else is popular this week. Chances are that trying to implement a “fashionable” solution to your problems may cause more harm than good. Again: test.

Perceived value is value. Think of website optimization. A website that feels fast is almost the same thing, in the eyes of the user, as a website that actually is fast. They want things to be snappy. The same goes for value: no matter how amazing a new bit of tech actually is, it’s got to feel valuable to the people who actually have to use it. If they do not feel as if it does them any good, they may forget about it or worse, actively avoid it.

If it ain’t broke, implement all fixes with caution.

  Featured image via DepositPhotos.

Add Realistic Chalk and Sketch Lettering Effects with Sketch’it – only $5!

Source from Webdesigner Depot http://bit.ly/2XFpcxZ from Blogger http://bit.ly/2Gzf9nn

[iyarpage]

How to Pick Your Next Tech Focus

Every day, people are asking themselves things like, “React or Vue?” “VR or no VR?” “CSS Grid or Flexbox?” These are the wrong questions entirely, because the technology you focus on or use next should always be matched to both the job and the people at hand.

Besides, here are the answers:

Personal preference.

Not yet, wait ‘til the market starts to truly expand again.

CSS Grid for known quantities, Flexbox for unknown quantities. Except for all the times where that’s wrong. CSS is a bit like English that way.

And that “Except for all the times where that’s wrong” bit is exactly the problem with making definite pronouncements about which technologies you should focus on next. I can’t reliably do that. However, in my years of muddling through tech problems, I’ve discovered ways to make an educated guess. Since people often use the new year as an excuse to try new things, I thought I’d share my principles of educated guesswork with you all.

1. Watch People

Watch how people use tech: Don’t be creepy about it. Conduct studies with willing participants, if you can. Otherwise, keep a non-invasive eye on your spouse, friends, and any kids you might have just lying around. If you see them using an app (for example), try it out for yourself. If you notice them ditch an app, maybe ask them why.

If you want to understand why VR hasn’t taken off on billion-dollar wings yet, look no further than smartphones. The smartphone has something everyone wants, and just about anyone can use one anywhere, and at any time. VR has yet to make that connection with people.

Watch what people do, not just what they say looks cool.

Watch the people who make tech: Research the people who make the tech you’re considering buying into. Do they listen to their community? Do they consider the edge cases? Do they care? Can they write clear documentation?

While there’s something to be said for the brilliant visionary who drags everyone else along with them to distant visions of grandeur, you should mostly be looking for the people solving simpler, more everyday problems. Stable people make stable tech.

Unstable people are better advertisers though. ahem Steve Jobs ahem.

2. Look For Convenience (For Your Users)

Because your users are looking for it, too. If a new bit of tech only adds steps to the process of just… getting things done, users will be frustrated. Now, when choosing between programming languages, for example, it’s all down to what you build with it. PHP, Node.js, Python, and ASP.NET can all process form data, after all.

But if, for example, you’re choosing pre-built software like a CMS, this factor becomes a whole lot more important. People don’t care how powerful their new content editor is, if they now have to do more things before they finally get to hit “publish”. A new tool that’s more convenient for you is all well and good; your users may have an entirely different opinion. Do not sacrifice their convenience for yours.

3. Integration

No tool is an island. Everything you use gets used in tandem with a bunch of other stuff. It’s for this very reason that some companies have opted to stick to older operating systems or browsers, sometimes. Ask anybody in IT or InfoSec: new software can upset entire ecosystems if you don’t do your research first.

Now sometimes that’s a good thing. Using an OS after support has officially ended, for example, is not a thing you want to do. But as web designers and devs, the choice is not always so clear. With the sheer massive numbers of libraries we use nowadays, conflicts can come out of nowhere. So maybe—just maybe—if your entire layout up to this point is still based on Bootstrap 3.x, starting to use CSS Grid everywhere can wait until you have the budget for a full redesign.

4. What Happens When Things go Wrong?

How Does the Tech Respond to Bugs? An improperly coded WordPress theme, for example, can refuse to display anything at all if something goes wrong in a single function. It’s one thing for a single feature to break on your site. As long as it’s not the navigation, or anything else that’s critical, chances are your users will ignore it. It’s quite another thing to have your whole site go down because someone mistyped something.

What are Your Support Options? At the very least, you want an active community and a developer that responds to questions when things go really wrong. Paid support options aren’t bad, either. A little money for support, or other expert help, can save a lot of lost sales.

5. Extra Tips

Remember that your needs are not necessarily everyone else’s needs. Tech that sounds like it might improve things for your users needs to be tested on a smaller scale. The world is littered with dead products and features that sounded useful and even delightful until you actually bothered to think about them.

Buzzwords be damned. Most likely whatever you’re doing does not need to be on the blockchain, or whatever else is popular this week. Chances are that trying to implement a “fashionable” solution to your problems may cause more harm than good. Again: test.

Perceived value is value. Think of website optimization. A website that feels fast is almost the same thing, in the eyes of the user, as a website that actually is fast. They want things to be snappy. The same goes for value: no matter how amazing a new bit of tech actually is, it’s got to feel valuable to the people who actually have to use it. If they do not feel as if it does them any good, they may forget about it or worse, actively avoid it.

If it ain’t broke, implement all fixes with caution.

  Featured image via DepositPhotos.

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[letthesleepingdoglie]

From Whence He Sprang - 09

Title: Never Left or Right

Part: 09 of 18

Rated: M

The Batcave

Gotham City

January 17th, 2012

17:24 EST

Team Year One

“You look like crap.” Artemis noted as she stepped off the open elevator platform that had brought her down into the Batcave.

Dick tore his gaze from the screen in front of him and turned to look over his shoulder at his friend. At least, he tried to. The movement was stiff and sluggish on account of the many bandages and stitches covering his exposed torso. It had taken Alfred the better part of an hour to patch up all the wounds that Dick had received from the fight last night, and the last thing that he wanted to do was tear all the meticulously stitched cuts open.

Now that the adrenaline from the events of last night had worn off, each and every one of the wounds he’d received ached and throbbed as he moved. The fight with the mysterious assassins had been so intense that he didn’t remember receiving half of them.

“You should see Bruce.” Dick grunted as he finally managed to complete his turn.

“Seriously?” Artemis asked, an expression of surprise on her face. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen the dark knight seriously injured. “What happened to you guys?”

Dick shrugged. “Assassins, sword fights, explosions. The usual.”

A cursory glance told him that she must have come straight from school; she was still wearing her hated Gotham Academy uniform.

“What brings you all the way out here?” He asked her, which was a valid question. Batman didn’t have a Zeta Tube installed in the cave, and Wayne Manor was a relatively long trip from her home in the East End.

It was Artemis’ turn to shrug. “You missed class. I was worried.”

Dick suppressed a small smirk, though he tried to hide it. Artemis always put on a tough front so that people wouldn’t see how vulnerable she truly was, but it was always endearing to see that she cared.

“Plus,” she continued, pulling a handful of papers from her backpack, “Barb wanted me to make sure you got your homework.”

Dick groaned, but took the papers from Artemis and flipped through them. It wouldn't take more than an hour to get through, but it would be tedious, and he had bigger fish to fry at the moment.

Artemis took advantage of Dick’s momentary distraction to glance at the screen that he'd been working on. A meaningless scroll of names, numbers and code flashed across the screen.  “What’re you working on?”

“A difficult case.” He put his homework to one side and hit a few keys on the bat-computer’s keyboard, bringing up the relevant files and images for Artemis to skim through.

“About two weeks ago, Batman and I met a kid named Jason Todd and sent him over to the Catherine Hershey school. Yesterday, we got word from Commissioner Gordon that he’d gone missing. We went to the school to see if we could find any leads on what happened to him and ended up being ambushed by a group of assassins working for something called the Court of Owls.”

He pointed up at the corner of the screen, where the image of a man with inverted eyes was displayed. “He was their leader. Called himself Shrike.”

Artemis frowned as she looked at the picture. “What’s the Court of Owls?”

“We have no clue.” Dick sighed in frustration. “The assassins blew themselves up when they realized that they were going to lose. We’ve been looking since the attack and haven’t found anything. Batman’s never heard of it, and I can’t find any references to it in anywhere.”

Artemis’ frown deepened. It was rare for Batman to have never heard of something. “Do you have any leads?”

“Not many.” Dick admitted. He gestured over to the side, where several items sat arranged on top of a high-tech scanning bed. The mask that Robin had removed from Shrike. The swords and throwing knives the assassins had dropped in their fight. Charred pieces of limbs and barely identifiable chunks of tissue.

“Most of the physical evidence was obliterated in the explosions. We’ve run their DNA through all the databases we could and come up with nothing. Their gear is also untraceable. We’re analyzing what’s left, but nothing yet. Batman’s back at the school, looking for anything we missed.” Dick sighed. “All we really know for certain is that the Court of Owls is good.”

He tapped at the keyboard again, bringing up a series of case files bearing the GCPD’s logo. “Look at this.”

Artemis moved so that she was standing next to Dick’s chair and peered at the display. Dozens of names and faces populated the screen, each identifying a child between the ages of 10 to 13. “What am I looking at?”

“GCPD missing persons reports. Specifically, children listed as missing from the Catherine Hershey School. Notice anything?”

Artemis frowned. Some of the kidnappings stretched back decades, with some going all the way back to the 70s, when the GCPD had started keeping track of missing kids. She realized what she was supposed to be looking for as she read the dates listed on the files.

“Like clockwork… One kid disappears every four years. Jason was just the latest.”

“Right.” Dick confirmed. “And those are just the disappearances that we have official records for. Unofficially, I managed to dig up reports of similar disappearances stretching all the way back to the school’s founding.”

“Why?” Artemis asked, incredulous. For a school to have this many missing kids… Granted, this was Gotham City, but still, even accounting for the fact that a boarding school oriented towards strays and orphans would probably have more runaways and disappearances, how had someone not noticed?

“I don’t know.” Dick said. He was clearly frustrated, which was understandable. He’d been trying to come up with the answer to that question for the last few hours. The problem was, he didn’t know if that was the right question to ask.

At first, both he and Batman had based their theories on the assumption that Jason had been kidnapped because someone was trying to bait them; after all, it was a common enough strategy amongst their regular rogue’s gallery. But now that he’d dug deeper and found the reports of serial disappearances, he was forced to come up with new theories to work around.

It was like trying to put together a puzzle, except he didn’t have all the pieces, he didn’t know which pieces he had were useful, and he had no idea what the final image would look like.

Knowing that a child’s life was likely on the line, his inability to figure the situation out was maddening.

“Any ideas?” Dick asked her. “I could use a fresh pair of eyes on this.”

Artemis hesitated, considering how she could best contribute. It wasn’t that Artemis thought she wasn’t smart enough to help, or that she was intimidated by the fact that her mentor wasn’t a world renowned detective. The simple truth was that most of the things that she could think of right then and there would have already occurred to him. If she wanted to help, she needed to draw on the resources and skills that she had exclusive access to.

“How good were the assassins who attacked you?” She asked.

“Very.”

“League of Shadows good?” She pressed.

“No. Better. Much better.”

Artemis considered that for a moment before pulling out her phone. “I’ll ask my mom if she heard of anyone like them when she was part of the League. They try to keep tabs on anyone that has skills like that.”

“Thanks.”

As Artemis took a few steps away so that she could call her mom without disturbing Dick, an automated notification popped up on the Bat-computer’s screen to tell him that the detailed scan he’d been running on the assassin’s bodies was done.

“Whoa…” Dick breathed as he read through the results.

Almost every biological sample that he and Batman managed to collect displayed some evidence of either chemical or genetic manipulation. For example, the assassin’s blood contained cells that looked like normal platelets, but upon closer inspection, appeared to function much more effectively, clotting in a matter of seconds rather than minutes. Fragments of bone revealed that their skeletons had been coated in a porous material that allowed biological materials to pass through, but was as strong and as light as titanium. There were even remnants of organs that the bat-computer didn’t recognize as human.

No wonder he hadn’t been able to find a match in any of the databases he’d looked at. Even something as fundamental as their DNA had been re-written to include what looked like distinct strands of animal genes. This was almost Cadmus level gene-manipulation; there were parts that barely looked human anymore.

It wasn’t just the sheer scale of the enhancements that Dick found overwhelming, but also the amount of time it must have taken to implement them. He’d seen full body augmentation and reconstruction before, of course, but it wasn’t something you could do all at once. Even with advanced tech from STAR Labs, someone undergoing this much surgery and gene therapy would need, at best, several years to adjust to all the changes being wrought on his or her body.

Years… Dick realized with a start, as a disturbing thought crossed his mind.

Working quickly, he minimized everything on the computer screen except for the picture of Shrike’s face that the cameras built into his mask had captured, then opened up a program that had been designed for forensic investigators so that they could “age” pictures of young children to find out what they might look like several years after their respective disappearances.

Dick ran the process in reverse, taking a scan of Shrike’s face and reversing the aging process so that it displayed an approximation of what Shrike might have looked like at the age of 12. Granted, the image was very, very, very rough, but at least it gave him something to work with. He ran the image through every database concerning missing children that he had access to, both within the US and internationally.

Even with a super computer as powerful as the one that was built into the Batcave, the search still took a few minutes.

That gave Dick a moment to ponder. And to hope he was wrong. He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice Artemis was done with her phone call until she was standing next to him.

“Nothing.” She told him, tucking her phone away. “My mom says she’ll ask around though.”

He looked over at her. “Are you sure? I don’t want her to get into any trouble.”

Artemis waved his concerns away. “It’s fine. She knows how to take care of herself. Besides, I think she likes being able to help with hero stuff. It gives her something to do besides sit around the house all day, you know?”

“Mmm.” Dick conceded. He could empathize with that.

He sighed, rubbing his face, giving his eyes a rest. He’d been working non-stop on this since the ambush last night. Just because he was used to long hours of work didn’t mean that it never caught up with him. It was just hard to focus on things that seemed as trivial as food and sleep when someone’s life was on the line.

“Are you alright?” Artemis asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah.” Dick said, pushing himself upright in his chair. “It’s just been a rough day.“

“You should get some rest.” She said. Dick glanced at her. He recognized that tone. Despite phrasing it as a suggestion, Artemis’ voice made clear that she was prepared to frog march him upstairs if she thought it would be necessary.

Oh, to have an big sister like Artemis.

“I’m just gonna finish this search, then I’ll grab a quick nap.” Dick promised.

Artemis crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him. It wouldn’t have been the first time that he’d made a similar promise to her, only for her to return hours later to find him slumped over the keyboard, fast asleep.

“I will.” He insisted when she didn’t budge.

She continued to stare at him for a few moments longer before she uncrossed her arms. Inwardly, Dick breathed a sigh of relief.

“Fine.” Artemis said as she made her way back towards the elevator leading up to the manor. “But if you don’t give Zatanna a call by the time I get back from the Cave, I will beat the crap out of you.”

“Fair enough.” He conceded.

Artemis rolled her eyes, but gave a quick wave goodbye as the elevator doors slid shut.

The computer chimed in with a notification, letting him know that the search was done. Facial recognition had found a relatively close match for a child that had gone missing in Oregon.

“Matthew Board.” Dick said to himself, reading the name at the top of the report. Born to David and Serena Board, September 1975. The youngest of four children. Reported as missing January 16th, 1988. The official notes listed it as likely the child had run away from home.Interestingly, it hadn’t been his parents who had reported Matthew as missing, but a teacher at the school he had gone to. He ran a quick check and found that both the mother and father had criminal records, mostly for drug related offenses, though there were more than a few citations from Child Protection Services as well.

Dick’s discomfort was starting to grow. It felt like the picture on the puzzle was starting to become clearer. Matthew matched Jason’s profile almost exactly. A child from a rough background, around the age of 12, whose disappearance wouldn’t raise any eyebrows.

This being the United States, which maintained a national database of missing children, there were DNA records for Matthew on file that Dick could access. He pulled these up and compared them to the samples that he had recovered from Shrike.

After Dick edited the sequences of animal DNA and removed them from the analysis, they were almost a perfect match.

Shrike was, or had been, Matthew Board.

Dick’s blood ran cold at the realization. Whatever the Court of Owls was, it had been kidnapping children in order to turn them into super-powered sociopathic killers. They’d been doing it in Gotham for years, decades even, right under their noses.

And he and Batman had put Jason right in their path.

——————————————————————————————————————————

The Labyrinth

Location Unknown

Time Unknown

Jason knew he was going to die.

That was his only rational thought as he stumbled forward through the dark, displaying none of the learned caution or stealth that he normally would have used. In truth, he was so consumed by the realization of his impending demise that he was scarcely aware of his surroundings, moving forward out of stubbornness rather than any real hope of going anywhere.

He was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The way he would die was irrelevant. Cut apart by another booby trap. Bludgeoned to death by the fists of ferals and torn apart to be eaten. Finally succumbing to the gnawing pit of hunger and thirst that was welling up inside of him. It would all mean the same thing in the end: dying, alone, down in the dark.

Strange, to think of his death in such dispassionate terms. In a way, the only thing that surprised him was the fact that he was still alive.

He hadn’t seen any signs of life for…

He didn’t know.

He didn’t remember.

He didn’t care.

Lorena. Joseph. Chris. Sean. They all probably thought he was dead.

Maybe they were right. It certainly felt like he was in hell right now.

For all he knew, they were the ones who were dead. The tunnels reeked of so much decay and abandonment that he couldn’t really believe that there was anyone friendly left in the world. Moving through the darkness, still covered with clotting blood and other visceral filth, he felt so cut off and isolated from everything that nothing felt real.

One of the few reassuring things he still felt was the weight of the knife in his hand. He vaguely recalled prying it, his own hands still sticky with blood, from the grasp of a fragmented skeleton that he’d tripped over as he’d stumbled through the dark. Judging from the size of the remains, it had probably belonged to a past aspirant. One who had fallen into the blood pool, just as he had, and somehow died, just as he would.

The knowledge had scared him at first. He had stared at the knife for a long time, knowing that he could have turned the weapon on himself, ended all of the pain that he had endured and the pain sure to come by slitting his own throat.

The prospect had, admittedly, been tempting.

But Jason hadn’t done it. Instead, he thought back to when he’d found James’ body.

His friend had known he was going to die the moment he realized he’d been caught in the floor trap that had dumped both of them down here. Even with everything that had happened to him, he’d gone down fighting, quite literally tearing the guts out of his feral killer.

Even in death, James would have avenged himself had Jason not intervened.

That seemed like a good example to follow.

If Jason was going to die no matter what he did, he wanted to die doing something, die fighting his fate. As much as he wanted the suffering to end, he wouldn’t take the easy way out. As much pain as it would bring, he would keep moving, resist, even if brought him to the bitterest of ends.

Jason clutched his looted knife tighter and kept moving forwards.

It was as good a direction as any other.

[heartbeatsonrepeat]

Ms. Jennifer’s Descent

I had seen cardiac arrest in action before. Most often, patients would arrive in the trauma bay unresponsive and in critical condition, and shortly afterwards their heart would falter, signaling the beginning of the end. The medical team would be left to administer the violent procedure widely known as CPR-- cardiopulmonary resuscitation-- which has a limited success rate and is severely traumatizing for all involved. Despite how it may be portrayed on television, CPR does not involve a few soft presses on the chest and a couple of puffs of air and VOILA, the owner of the troubled heart sputters back to life, breathing heavily and almost completely back to normal. No, real life CPR during a code is much more laborious in nature. I have heard nurses, ER techs, and doctors alike lament about how taxing performing chest compressions can be on their bicep muscles, not to mention the chaos of administering the rounds of Epinephrine, Bicarbonate, and other drugs meant to jump-start the heart. Then there's the famous shock, announced with the phrase "clear!", which is usually administered via a pad attached to the person's chest rather than with the recognizable paddles. Bodies momentarily jolt on the bed when the electricity is released, but then go back to being basically lifeless. And so the cycle goes on: compressions, check the pulse, shock, meds, compressions, check for cardiac activity, shock, meds, compressions. This cycle continues either until ROSC (return of spontaneous circulation) is achieved, or the patient is officially pronounced dead. How one decides when to stop CPR and essentially give up is a mystery to me as of now. 

I had seen all of this before, and yet Ms. Jennifer was the first person I had seen undergo over an hour of CPR. When one of the ER attending physicians rushed into the trauma room, pushing a bed along with her, saying loudly that one of her patients had suddenly become unresponsive, the team and I hurried to the bedside to assist her. Ms. Jennifer turned out to be in her early 30's, likely Latina, and was accompanied that day with a man we would come to know as her husband. The original cause of her unresponsiveness was thought to be a seizure; however, she had no history of prior seizures. After it was ascertained that she had become pulseless, compressions were started. People began to appear around me, drawn to the loud orders being given by the doctors and the suddenly rapid pace at which they were moving. The room got crowded, and Ms. Jennifer's husband would continuously move back and forth, starting closer to her head and winding up at her feet, telling her every so often to "pull through" or "wake up". Two other attending physicians left their respective teams and came to help, speaking with the patient's husband and their colleagues to try to figure out what exactly was happening within the confines of her thoracic cavity. 

Ms. Jennifer had no medical history that would have obviously led to her swift descent. It pained me to see her husband being asked the same question over and over again: "Did she have any medical history?" "Did she have any symptoms last night?" "What was she like just before you got to the hospital?" As he continuously gave the same answers to different people, I wanted to pull him aside. I wanted to find a way to let him focus solely on his wife, lying on the table underneath at least 8 sets of hands. I could see that his descent had begun, and it coincided with hers. He had been pacing before, but now he had wound up squatting next to me, his head buried in his knees with his hands tightly interlaced on top of his buzz cut. Though I couldn't see the tears, I could surely hear them, even in the loud and chaotic atmosphere. Being afraid that he would pass out, I put my hand on his shoulder and tried to convince him to sit in one of the chairs that had been brought to a spot near Ms. Jennifer's feet just for him. It took a few attempts, but he reluctantly got up and quickly took a seat, only to get up to pace a minute later. This was surely an insignificant interaction for the man, but I think I will remember it as the first time I directly comforted a patient's family member. As frustrating as it was to not be a part of the clinical team trying to save his wife, I found my purpose in simply being there to direct him to a chair. 

"Keep going! We are not letting her die." The first time I had heard an ER physician pronounce something like this so boldly was during Ms. Jennifer's descent. Time passed, and each subsequent ultrasound check revealed no cardiac activity. From where I was standing, I could see Ms. Jennifer's face, turned over her right shoulder, looking out through the many bodies moving quickly around. Her eyelids were open, and I couldn't help thinking that she was looking straight at me. I wondered what she could really see. Was she angry at this awkward, unknown girl with a clipboard, witnessing what might turn out to be her last hour? I wondered what she could possibly be thinking. Was she trying to picture her husband, her children, her pet, her parents? How could it feel to be on the receiving end of all the fear and anxiety in that room? What if she felt and thought nothing? Was she praying? I was praying. I said a brief Hail Mary in my head, not wanting to miss writing down any of the medications being administered. I wondered if Ms. Jennifer was religious. Being in close proximity to death makes you think a lot more about these things.  

Finally, a check of the pulse revealed a more promising outlook. The ultrasound showed a bit of cardiac activity, and ROSC was declared. Knowing that this progress could be ephemeral, the swarm of people in the room stood watching warily, looking for signs of deterioration. When some time had passed and Ms. Jennifer's condition had remained stable, she was taken to a cardiology floor for more close monitoring. There were whispers all around that she was unlikely to make it, given the strain on her heart. I watched her husband follow the bed carrying his wife out of the room, out of my sight, contemplating what it would be like to have a day like his today. 

Over the next few weeks, I continuously thought about Ms. Jennifer and wished I could find out what had happened to her. Being aware of HIPAA rules, I suppressed the urge to read the notes written on her condition by the cardiology and medicine teams during the weeks that she was in the hospital. This desire to follow a patient's progress, their story, is one of the reasons why I don't currently think that emergency medicine is for me; many times, ER doctors never see their patients again once they have either "fixed" them or passed them off to the appropriate department. However, I got lucky this time. One morning while I was working with the physician who had first pushed Ms. Jennifer into the trauma bay, I saw that she walked back to her computer with a gift basket full of snacks in her hands. She was saying how a patient she had taken care of had made a full recovery after coding for such a long span of time, and had returned to give her the basket. This couldn't be Ms. Jennifer, could it? But, in fact, it was. I told the doctor that I had been the scribe in trauma that day, and was elated to hear that Ms. Jennifer was already walking and talking again, discharged from the hospital to be with her husband and children. The relief I felt was palpable, like a small corner of my brain had been clenched tight and could at last relax. 

Not all stories in the ER, especially in the trauma room, have happy endings. I am sure that Ms. Jennifer and her family carry with them the wounds of emotional trauma, which will heal with time and love. But, for now at least, the scale of physiological wellness has tipped in her favor. Ms. Jennifer will likely need to take medications, go to rehab appointments, and face her own fears regarding the baring of her mortality. During this time, I truly hope that she takes time to heal. I hope that she begins her ascent once again. 

[coffeewithstrangers-blog1]

Breaking My 19 Year Monogamy Streak

So about a year ago (and over a year with no orgasms involving anyone but yours truly) I decided it was time to throw my, er, hat, back into the dating ring. I decided to go with Match.com because Tinder seemed too hookup focused and Eharmony seemed too “find my soulmate.” I was, and still am, looking for someone in between. True, I wasn’t officially divorced yet, but my ex and I had separated nearly a year before. And considering he was coming up on his third anniversary with his girlfriend, I figured I was justified.

Aside: if you have decided that your marriage is over, you should really clue your spouse in before you tell that to the new person you’re fucking. Just a little nugget of wisdom for you.

Anyway, so I get my profile and find myself exposed to a very wide, yet very shallow pool of applicants. If nothing else, online dating offers an extremely fertile comic field. 

Eventually though, some decent possibilities cropped up, and I found a few strangers with whom to have coffee. There was the nice looking tech geek who was very into his road bike. After coffee with I suspected he was more into that bike than he would ever be into a woman.

Then there was the Olympian - seriously, he has an Olympic gold medal. And he was cute! And funny. And wanted to meet for alcohol instead of coffee! Sign me up!

Then after a couple of drinks in, he starts talking about how a couple of the servers at this bar tried to fuck him and his roommate a couple months ago. Roommate? You’re over 50. What? And then he tells me about how he got his heart shattered by some twenty something a couple years ago and he really needs to focus on dating more “age appropriate women.” Trust me, he’s still out there trying to pick up 25 year olds and luring them back to his futon.

There were a couple more less memorable strangers, and then he showed up in my daily matches. Cute, in a business dude type of way. His profile suggested we’d be a good fit. We exchanged a few flirty emails, and yay he’s funny and gets all of my John Hughes movie references.

We meet for a drink (okay, 2 for me and 3 for him). It goes great. He’s funny, he’s smart, he doesn’t mind my less than ladylike vocabulary... We immediately plan on a second date.

The second date goes great as well. So great that I agree to go back to his place with him, but I’m very clear about the boundaries. No sex, no nudity, nothing below the belt. It’s all very high school, right down to the make out session that left me so chafed my friends were asking if I got a chemical peel on the lower half of my face.

Then the third date comes. This is it, I decide. In hindsight I knew I was rushing these things, but I figured, we have a good time together, he’s a decent kisser, he’s really I really just need to break the seal already. At this point, both my vagina and self esteem were equally rusty. 

So we plan to “watch a movie” at my house. There was a long lag between date two and date 3 due to summer travel plans, but we keep up with texts and emails. During this time I tried not to think too much about the tiny red flags that had popped up. Things like how much he drank (a lot, and anyone who knows me knows that when I say a lot, it’s A LOT). And how when he he talked about his work it was all about either how cool everyone thought he was, or how much joy he was taking in firing everyone. Look, I’m as sarcastic and into gallows humor as the next girl, but even for me it was a little mean-spirited.

But Mama needed to get laid. 

So he shows up, we have a few drinks, we start the movie. As you might guess, we didn't get very far into it until we were stumbling (thank you vodka tonics) back to my bedroom.  

I cannot possibly describe how weird it was to be naked with another man after nearly two decades. Especially when the last time I was with a new guy, I was a nubile twenty-something who hadn’t grown two nine plus pound babies inside my body. So I won’t even try. I try to keep myself in the moment and just enjoy what’s mostly happening, and for the most part I do. 

Until, I run my hand down his bare stomach, down, down, and...

Let’s be clear, I’m no size queen. For me, penises are like what boobs are for a lot of guys. Doesn’t need to be huge, but I like a nice vag full. In this case, it’s like a roll of certs. I can close my fist around it and the head doesn’t even clear my thumb. 

Once in college a guy friend of me told me, “You’re one of those mean girls. Your the kind of girl who would tell a guy, ‘come back when your dick is bigger!’”

In this case, I almost wish I had. Contrary to what that guy thought of me, I’m not that mean. So I went through with it. Even as he was on top of me, taking an inordinately long time - who do you think you are, Sting? - I thought, “I can never do this again.”

I didn’t tell him this, of course. I told him of course I would like to see him again. Which, due to our conflicting schedules couldn’t happen for another two and a half weeks. This time there were fewer texts and emails in between. And I was totally fine with that.

The last time I saw him was over coffee,  and I said I was going to be busy a lot with my kids and the start of the school year, he somewhat snarkily said, “Well, if you want to see me again, you let me know.”

Just call me Casper the Friendly Ghost, dude. 

I’m not proud of fading away without another word. And believe me I got served my Karma papers quite swiftly thereafter. 

But hey, I got back on the horse. Or in this case, a miniature pony. I’m all about celebrating the small, cocktail weenie sized victories.