#it tried to turn back on automatic updates (which i have off for storage)

[ftlolbyexe]

this is bullshit my dumbass ipad just took a whole HOUR FOR A 4 GIGABYTE UPDATE

but hell if im getting locked out of the hellsite

[mochacoffee]

I created a 3D model and floor plan of Aziraphale’s bookshop in Good Omens!

I really wanted one for reference and it seemed like many others did too, so I put together my best approximation of where everything is. Beneath the color version, you’ll see I’ve included two simplified, labeled versions of the plan. The verbal labels are so you know what the object is. The numerical labels are there to make it easy to find more information about the object. I’ve put a numbered index below the cut that features the relevant reference images I used for each object and some more information about why I put it where I did/why it’s relevant/etc. I want to be very clear that I did not add anything to this from my own imagination; every single item and feature represents something I actually saw in the shop.

If you have any questions or want more information about this, PLEASE do not hesitate to ask! I put so much time into figuring it out and I would be more than happy to be a resource for anyone who needs it. Also, if you notice any errors, let me know and I’ll update the post. I hope this is helpful!

Update: Here’s a link to an interactive view of the shop! It takes a moment to load. You can click the “3D” tab in the top right to view it in first person and walk around inside. Double click a spot on the floor to move there and pan around by clicking and dragging. The oval symbol next to the person walking gives you a birds-eye view.

Update 2: Here’s a higher quality rendering of the first person perspective! Update 3: I made an alternate first person render here complete with a ceiling, light fixtures, and ambient lighting from outside. This one is optimized for making it seem more like you’re actually there, whereas the previous one is for maximum visibility. This render also has some minor accuracy improvements, which are detailed under the cut in the relevant sections. (The first interactive link with the birds-eye view updates automatically.) Update 4: In case you’re interested in Aziraphale’s books specifically, I’ve made a catalogue of those here.

1. Unknown closet

Images

There is a door behind Gabriel when he talks to Aziraphale in the backroom. So where does it lead? Well. The wall we can see behind Aziraphale when he encounters Shadwell in the shop (see #17: boxes/storage) doesn’t have a door in it. It’s also facing the wrong direction and it’s in the middle of the southwest wall ⁠— we know this because Aziraphale can see Shadwell in the entrance from there. So the wall behind him at that moment is definitely not the wall of the backroom. We’re left with this door and unaccounted-for corner. The only thing that makes sense to me then is that there’s a closet there between the two spaces. My personal theory is that this closet is “the back” that Aziraphale refers to keeping the Châteauneuf-du-Pape in since I didn’t see any other obvious alcohol storage space in the shop. Update: @n0nb1narydemon has suggested this could be a bathroom for guests or because culturally it’s a room you can use to extricate yourself from situations, which is another possibility! They also asked where I think the doors behind object #20 lead, and I thought it would be good to add here that they might lead to the shop next door or to this unknown room. It’s possible the room actually extends further into the next shop and encompasses the part of the wall where the doors are, but I didn’t have concrete evidence to support that idea so I didn’t include it in the floor plan. Update: I was wrong about the Châteauneuf-du-Pape! In the DVD bookshop tour we learn that the cabinet in the top left corner of the backroom is where Aziraphale keeps his alcohol, including that particular wine. I added a reference photo of Neil pointing it out. Thanks to @fuckyeahgoodomens​ for bringing the existence of this tour to my attention — ya girl got the special edition blu-ray even though I don’t have a blu-ray player yet so I hadn’t actually seen it. Also, there is a chair right next to this cabinet against the wall which I missed in my initial rendering of the shop but have since added.

2. Part of shop next door (top right)

Images

This was very tricky to figure out because you can see from the exterior of the shop that there is no wall past the back door, but from the interior there is clearly more space there. BUT in a behind the scenes photo of David during the fire scene, you can see on this back wall that there’s actually a nook with two large entryways, similar to the one that makes up the backroom. From the exterior you can see that the area next to the back door is taken up by the window of the next shop, so I concluded that this little square of space was not part of the bookshop’s interior, but the nook did extend further back than where the shop appears to end from the outside. I had to make one bookshelf more nubby than the others to make this work, but after a LOT of trial and error I decided one nubby bookshelf was the only thing that could explain the apparent architecture of the space. Any floor design that accounted for a bookshelf of the same length as the others just did not make sense on a fundamental level.

3. Part of shop next door (bottom left)

Images

From the exterior of the shop you can see that this window belongs to the adjacent store, as the wall is a different color. Within the bookshop you can also see when Gabriel and Sandalphon enter the backroom, there’s no window behind them; there’s a sink. So it’s definitely not Aziraphale’s window. The wall of the backroom is also further into the shop’s interior than the wall Aziraphale’s desk sits against, so there’s a corner of space inside that’s unaccounted for. At first I assumed it was plumbing from the sink that had been sealed off or something, but when I realized that’s where the window was on the outside, I figured the space is probably part of the next shop over.

4. Aziraphale’s desk

Images

This is where Aziraphale sits in the shop like 90% of the time. It’s on the Eastern side of the shop because Aziraphale was the guardian of the Eastern gate in Eden and because production designer Michael Ralph is a goddamn genius (source). Shout out to @posted-omens for this fascinating post analyzing the chariot sculpture on his desk. Update: Fun fact, the ladder behind his desk is actually called a library chair, supposedly designed by Benjamin Franklin. It functions as a ladder but you can also fold it into a chair! Neil mentions this in the DVD extra bookshop tour. I added screen caps of it to the reference photos above since I don’t have a specific section for the ladders!

5. Phone Aziraphale calls Crowley from

Images

I will be honest with you: I think there’s something a little fucked up about this corner. It is my nemesis. I tried so many things to make it work and I just could not get it exactly right, but what you see in the floor plan is my best guess as to what’s going on. The conundrum is that the spot where Aziraphale stands when he’s on the phone with Crowley is definitely closer to the fence around the staircase than it is in my layout. But the table he’s in front of is also clearly against the outside wall of the backroom, and the stairs being where I’ve put them here is the only thing that made sense based on the reference photos. So there’s some weird spacing issue where there’s a little too much room between the fence around the stairs and this phone. If I were to move the walls to close that gap then there would be way too much space in the backroom and way too little space on the southwest side of the shop, so I think the walls are correct as they are. So  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. What I can say for certain is that the phone is there and it’s on a table next to a lamp, and the table is definitely against the wall of the backroom and behind the staircase. The distance between these things doesn’t hold up perfectly, but their arrangement does. On another note, this is one of two phones in the shop. The other is on the table next to the cash register (see #9) which Aziraphale picks up when Crowley calls to say they need to talk about Armageddon. I believe this is the same one he uses to call Adam’s house in episode two, only he moves it from the table by the register to the top of a pile of books (which I’m pretty sure were stacked on the circular table between his desk and the sofa). Update: OKAY SO it turns out in the behind-the-scenes bookshop tour on the DVD we get two more teeny tiny glimpses of this corner! I added them to the reference photo album above. It appears I was right about the lamp, phone, and bookshelf being where they are, except that the bookshelf and table are touching. There’s also a ladder propped against the shelf. I’d say it’s possible there are actually two bookshelves here; based on the parallax in the DVD tour, the one next to the phone didn’t appear to be against the wall, but we know there is a bookshelf against that wall because we see it in the show. (P.S. There’s also another chair against that wall which I didn’t see because Aziraphale was standing in front of it, so I added that too.) This leads me to believe there’s one against the wall and another one further from it next to the table. But that’s just my speculation, so I won’t change the actual floor plan unless I find more evidence.

6. Where they’re drinking when Crowley realizes Adam has named the hellhound

Images

When Aziraphale sits down at this table, the background is of the same space he refers to as the ��backroom” when Gabriel and Sandalphon show up. He’s across the table from Crowley, behind whom you can see a bookshelf, the staircase, and the coat rack. The table is half in the backroom half out, since the room has two large entryways in its wall. Update: I realized the wall behind this table actually dips back further! It is a weirdly-shaped wall! But in the DVD special tour of the bookshop Neil walks past it and there’s clearly an area that recesses even further, so I’ve modified that in the interactive floor plan :)

7. Bench of books that start the fire

Images

When Shadwell leaves the book shop and slams the door, one of the candles knocks over and rolls into a pile of books and other papers (including the Sound of Music lmao). You can see it’s the same bench the customer is standing in front of when he gives Gabriel a weird look after he yells about pornography. (I love this customer so much because they gave me a super HD shot of this particular area.) The poles of the fence around the bench, the staircase behind it, and the smaller shelves beside it holding Terry Pratchett’s books make it clear that the bench is in that spot in the shop and that it’s the place the fire starts.

8. Coat rack with Terry’s hat on it

Images

Aziraphale hangs his coat here right before Crowley calls him to say they need to talk about Armageddon. Out of focus in the frame you can see the lion sculpture that sits on the fence surrounding the stairs (see #11) and a bookshelf. The camera pans past the shelf and we see him walk past his desk to pick up the phone by the cash register, which puts that shelf right next to his sitting area. We can also see the coat rack in the background when Crowley realizes Adam has named the hellhound. The coat rack has Terry Pratchett’s hat and scarf on it in his honor (source).

9. Antique cash register

Images

You can see this register in the background when Crowley is on the couch and when Aziraphale invites Gabriel and Sandalphon into the backroom. I know it’s an antique cash register because it’s photographed and referenced directly on page 79 of the Good Omens TV Companion. It’s a typewriter in my floor plan because the website I used (floorplanner.com), who knows why, did not have a 3D model of a cash register from the early 1900s.

10. Back door

Images

Thank you so much to @fuckyeahgoodomens for this post where they figured all this out!! Wonderful work! You can see this door from the exterior of the shop and its existence is referenced in the Good Omens script book on page 94. It’s also in the background of a behind the scenes shot of Aziraphale pulling away the carpet so he can contact heaven. Behind him in that shot you can see the bust (which moves around a lot - see #19) and a grandfather clock, and in the show from one of the aerial shots you can see that the carpet is pulled west, further confirming the door’s location.

11. Fence around the stairs

Images

I have concluded that this is a fence to keep customers from going up to the second floor. It looks to be made of golden pillars with wooden shelving atop them. The fence crosses beneath the staircase on one side and the other side ends about where the stair’s railing does. You can see this fence behind Crowley when he realizes Adam has named the hellhound, behind Aziraphale when he calls Crowley to tell him he knows where the antichrist is, and next to the customer who gives Gabriel a look after he yells “PORNOGRAPHY!” It’s also visible in one of the aerial shots of the shop. Update: In the DVD extra bookshop tour I noticed the lion sculpture on this fence is not just a lion, but a lion with a woman holding its mane. I think it might also be a lamp? In one of the reference photos, the one that looks down from the second floor, it appears there’s a light in the woman’s other hand. I’d be interested to see if we can track down what this particular sculpture is and what it might mean. Update: @cantdewwrite has suggested here that the light/sculpture could be a replica of one of the bronze statues in the Victoria Memorial, which does look quite similar. I’m fairly certain Aziraphale’s sculpture is of a woman, which would make it the figure in the memorial representing peace.

12. Open book of illustrated story of Adam and Eve

Images

Shout out to @amuseoffyre for this post where she figured out what this was! Update: I’ve determined that this book is The Gospel in the Old Testament: A series of pictures by Harold Copping. The painting is, naturally, by Harold Copping. It’s called “Adam and Eve after the fall.” Unfortunately this book is out of print and I haven’t been able to track down an ebook or scan of it, so I can’t confirm the text just yet. But based on its premise, I think it’s safe to assume that it’s telling the story of Adam and Eve directly. Aziraphale has a second copy of this book visible on the shelf next to the sofa.

13. Antique computer

Images

This is the computer Aziraphale does his extremely scrupulous taxes with, as confirmed in this ask that @neil-gaiman answered from @prismatic-bell! It’s an Amstrad, according to the bookshop tour in the DVD extras.

14. Spiral staircase

Images

These stairs are in many shots of the shop so it was pretty obvious where they were.

15. Sink, teapots, etc.

Images

You can see this wall right before Gabriel walks into the backroom and behind Aziraphale when he’s drinking with Crowley at the end of episode one. It appears he has two hand towels, a ceramic angel soap dish (aw), some teapots, and a decorated box above it, among other things. On the floor beside the sink is what I believe to be a broom handle, though it could be a mop? Next to that is a bronze statue of an angel atop a small table piled with books. On the other side of the sink is an open book on a stand ⁠— it has a fabric bookmark in it with a crucifix at the end, so I’m assuming it’s a bible. Light reading while you make your tea I guess. Update: Thank you so much to @brightwanderer for pointing out in this post that he has four extra angel wing mugs above the sink as well! I couldn’t figure out what they were! Update: Neil said in this ask that you can see an oven by the sink when Gabriel and Sandalphon walk in. Which you can! It’s real small and there’s a little pot on top of it. I’ve added a screencap of it to the images album for this area. Update: I’m donating my heart and soul to @ack-emma for suggesting in the replies to this ask that the central object above the sink is a samovar!! I had never heard of this so I had absolutely no idea what it was, but I think they hit the nail on the head. Y’all Aziraphale really likes tea.

16. Sculpture

Images

Thank you @ineffable-endearments, @behold-my-squeees, @srebrnafh, @aethelflaedladyofmercia for contributing to this post about the statue and its potential symbolism! Update: @doctorscienceknowsfandom has added some analysis to the post above suggesting that this is a sculpture of Paris, the figure from Greek mythology. I’m inclined to agree! Update: BINGO! @tifaria​ has found Aziraphale’s exact statue (confirmed Paris!) in this post. Brilliant work!! This community continues to blow me away. Further discussion about the sculpture’s meaning in the context of the show here — be sure to check the notes for further commentary.

17. Boxes/storage

Images

These boxes and piles of books can be seen behind Aziraphale when he encounters Shadwell in the shop and behind Crowley while he’s rambling drunkenly about why they should stop Armageddon in episode one. They’re in a nook that goes further back than where the shop appears to end from its exterior (see #2 for more info on that!). 

18. Stacks of books

Images

You can see this stack in one of the aerial shots of Shadwell in the shop. I didn’t include most stacks of books in the floor plan because they’re literally everywhere and I had to manually set how high each book would be from the floor, so putting them in piles got tedious very quickly. But I did include a few notable ones, and this is one of those imo because there’s not much else in that area as far as I can tell.

19. Bust

Images

This little guy moves around quite a bit, unlike most things in the shop. In some photos/scenes it’s where I put it on the floor plan, but in others it’s closer to the northwestern wall and in this 360 video of the shop it’s right between two of the columns. I chose to put it where I did because it’s there in the scene where Crowley is drunkenly rambling about Armageddon, whereas the other locations I’ve seen it in were from behind the scenes shots and stuff. I’m not sure who the bust is of! It appears to have a little ribbon with a medal around its next though. Update: More speculation about the bust here, courtesy of @aethelflaedladyofmercia! Update: @fuckyeahgoodomens has confirmed in this post that the thing around the bust’s neck is the medal given to Aziraphale by Gabriel in this deleted scene!

20. Divider I think?

Images

Please for the love of god if you know what this thing is, tell me. My best guess is it’s a room divider because what else looks like that?? But I don’t know why you would put a room divider there. And it still doesn’t look exactly like a divider either. But the decorative element at the top and apparent gap between the metal frame and the red bit leads me to believe it’s not furniture or a box. This mystery object is my second nemesis after the weird corner (#5). Update: @brightwanderer has suggested that it might be an embroidered/tapestry draft screen, which I think makes more sense! Update: In the DVD extra bookshop tour I found a very brief image of this item over Neil’s shoulder which I added to the reference photos above. I think by some miracle I was right and it is a divider. It could be a draft screen but at the very least it is shaped like a divider with at least three sections. Wahoo!

21. Record player

Images

This is the phonograph that’s playing Franz Schubert’s String Quintet in C major (thank you again to @fuckyeahgoodomens for that info) when we first see Aziraphale in the shop. It also plays Queen’s You’re My Best Friend when Crowley runs into the fire.

22. Terry Pratchett’s books

Images

Another one of the many little Terry easter eggs in the show is this set of his books! @devoursjohnlock made a post highlighting some other specific books you can find in the shop.

23. Chess set

Images

I saw a post once pointing out this chess set and the implication that Aziraphale and Crowley must play together sometimes, which I thought was a really nice detail to put into the set. But I can’t find the post to credit it! I will update this with a link if I do. Update: Pretty sure this is the post I saw. Thank you to @losyanya for mentioning it :)

24. Circular entryway

Images

This is one of many circle motifs that production designer Michael Ralph incorporated into the shop. It’s gorgeous. I think there’s actually more room between the archway and the door than I’ve included in this floor plan; Shadwell takes a few steps through it when he runs out of the shop. But I think the fix is just the door being further out from the entryway rather than the entryway being further in. I didn’t want to fuck with the walls to improve this particular area because when I realized the spacing was wrong, I was almost done and would’ve had to manually move each object in the shop over a few inches over. Made more sense to leave the caveat in a footnote. Update: In the DVD extra bookshop tour you get a brief glimpse of something on the inside wall of the entryway. I think it’s a wall sconce or something along those lines. There’s one on either side. I added them to the reference album above! I also figured out how to extend the walls to accommodate some more space there without having to move everything else, so I did that. Update: Here’s a link to some meta discussion about the cupid sculpture in front of this entryway!

25. Sofa Crowley sits on when he suggests they could be godfathers

Images

You can see that the sofa is next to Aziraphale’s desk and the cash register, and also that there’s a bookshelf behind it. From the entrance to the shop you can see two bookshelves on either side of the central circle, so it was pretty clear that the couch was on the other side of one of those shelves.

26. Wall crucifix

Images

I find it very interesting that Aziraphale has this considering Jesus isn’t a big part of angelic lore or heaven’s general priorities in the show. It would make more sense to me that he has it because it’s another memento of his time with Crowley, sort of like the illustrated story of Adam and Eve by his desk (#12). Also, fun fact, the opposite side of this wall segment is where he put up all his maps and notes about the whereabouts of the Antichrist in episode three.

[ashes-in-a-jar]

The Purrfect Alternative

Premise: Why would there be a cat in the archives? An archive cat fixit.

2.7K words

Rated G

(Tw: A bit of violence but it's against Jurgen Leitner)

This is a fic dedicated to the @jonsimsandcats event! Hope you enjoy it :)

"Sorry, you haven't seen a cat, have you?"

Jon gaped at the larger man who suddenly barged into the office. 

"I-I'm sorry, a what?"

"Uh, a cat, tabby I think." The man hurriedly explained.

"No. No I haven't. Is it.. Supposed to be here?" Jon knew book shops sometimes kept cats. Perhaps archives did as well. Maybe Gertrude had a soft spot in her after all.

"N-no actually. I, uh, I was feeding it on the way in but when I got up with my things, well, my hands were full you see, so when I managed to open the door it sort of slipped in with me? I'm so sorry, I have to find it before-"

"Okay okay calm down, stop." Jon held up his hand and let out a sigh. First day of the promotion and he's already stressed. But it's fine. He's fine. He can handle a cat. He's good with cats.

"Where do you work? Upstairs? Are you sure it came down here?"

"Yes, I saw it. And I just started working down here today? I'm Martin. Blackwood." He offered a hand. Jon automatically took it. Big and soft. He let go a bit too quickly and coughed. 

"Work here? Are you certain?"

"Yes, I'm supposed to let Jonathan Sims know about becoming an archival assistant. He's the head archivist Elias told me to talk to."

"Well that's one thing to cross off your list." Jon smirked. "I'm Jonathan Sims. Jon, if you please. And Elias did not mention you. Tim and Sasha were supposed to be the only new recruits." Jon frowned to himself. He'll have to have a word with Elias about this. It's fine now that it happened but keeping Jon updated could really help in preventing these kinds of awkward introductions with people he's supposed to work closely with.

"O-oh! Well, here I am now too." Martin chuckled nervously, fidgeting with the hem of his jumper.

Jon hummed "So you are I suppose. Well, let's not waste time on trivial matters, there is a cat that needs to be found." Jon got up from his chair.

"O-oh god, you're right. I'm so sorry for this." The other man apologized, remembering why he was there in the first place. It was clear that he now realized that the fact that the person he's asking to help him clear up his mess is his new boss could be very problematic for him. Jon easily sympathized with that kind of familiar pressure.

"It's alright, let's just, get this sorted." Jon was not willing to admit that a part of him was also just looking forward to seeing the cat. It would help distract him from his own stress, as it were.

Ten minutes later the two of them sitting on the floor in the stacks with a chubby tabby cat sprawled on Jon's lap. Jon was petting it affectionately while amicably getting acquainted with his new assistant. The man turned out to be a library veteran with useful cataloging skills that could help with the mess that was left down here. Having calmed down considerably, Martin had stopped fidgeting and was cooing at the cat who was head butting his large palm. Their presence soothed Jon in a way that surprised him. In the tranquil, quiet atmosphere of the stacks, sounds of cat purrs and Martin's low murmurs, he felt almost optimistic that despite his lack of experience and the large task ahead of them, he would be alright. 

-------

Paper meowed loudly behind him as Martin hurried down the tunnel with Jon and Tim at his tail. Martin glanced back as he reached an intersection and noticed they were too far behind, Jon limping on his injured foot. He hesitated, stopping and waiting for them to catch up. Paper came up and rubbed his leg before trotting down the tunnel on the right, tail held high and confident. Martin inhaled deeply to catch his breath, starting to walk again, this time more slowly. They managed to leave most of the fast worms behind and the ones down here were few and sparse enough to easily stomp down individually. Paper was making a game out of it.  He kept leaping onto some that crawled ahead of them, squishing them loudly with his paw. 

Jon and Tim caught up and the three followed Paper down the dark passage. 

"Yeah, get the damn crawlers." Slurred Tim. The CO2 he inhaled was not helping his coherency. 

"You know," gasped Jon, "I actually think they're larvae, given Jane's statement and-" 

"Jon, I'm going to have to ask you to stop now." Martin said, as calmly as he could, his voice a tad too high and loud. 

"... Sorry." Jon said sheepishly. 

They followed Paper down the forking paths, hoping the cat knew where in the seven circles of hell they were. 

Eventually they stopped seeing any worms as the path sloped up, ending in a sudden door. There was daylight filtering in from beneath it. Paper was eagerly pawing at it. 

"Uh, I think we found a secret way out of the institute." Martin could hardly believe their luck. 

"Excellent, now I can ditch work and no one will know I even left." Tim mumbled. 

"Tim, if you wanted to succeed in that endeavor, you should have not said that next to your boss." Jon commented dryly. 

The worm threat no longer being imminent, Martin allowed himself a nervous chuckle. 

They pushed at the door and with a bit of group effort, eventually managed to pry it open into fresh air. They came out into a narrow alleyway which turned out to be not far from the institute. As they walked (limped) down the street to find access to a working phone they heard someone cry out. 

"Jon? Tim? Martin!" They spotted Sasha hurrying towards them, carrying heavy bags of cat food. 

"Sasha! You're okay!" Martin exclaimed. "We were worried you'd get back and be caught in it like Tim had."

"Where have you been?" Jon inquired, straining to stand upright on his own. Martin came closer, gently supporting him by the hip on the opposite side of Tim. 

"We ran out of food for Paper, I figured I'd pop by the store for a moment to get some." Sasha said. "I came back when the building was being evacuated."

"Oh good, at least the alarm worked." Tim said tiredly. 

"What in god's name happened to you three?" She inquired worriedly. 

"Prentiss, we'll fill you in later. We need to make sure the ECDC is informed regarding the CO2 in the fire suppression system that needs to be activated."

"And get you to a hospital." Martin chastised, squeezing Jon's side. 

"Yes yes." Jon waved dismissively but all the while leaning further into Martin's side. He really wasn't discreet, Martin thought smugly. 

Sasha was about to say something else when a loud meow interrupted her. Paper was nosing into the bag, fully aware of its contents and who they were meant for. 

Jon dislodged from Martin and Tim and hobbled towards the cat. 

The cat turned and moved back into Jon's welcoming arms, as the archivist picked him up and stroked him fondly. 

"We are lucky on all accounts that Paper is such a smart cat." He murmured into the soft fur, injury forgotten for the moment. 

Tim chuckled, "cats always ruin evil people's plans, it's a well known fact. Anyway, Sasha, please call an ambulance for us?" He said, and promptly sat on the floor. 

Martin sighed with relief. For now, they are all safe and together. And that's all that matters. 

-------

It was all almost too much to take in. Luckily Paper was held tight in his arms as he listened to Jurgen Leitner ramble on about powers and fears and monsters and Jonah Magnus. He had been chased by a distorted form of his boss, who was apparently replaced by a monster Jon and the crew tried and failed to destroy, thus separating in the ensuing pursuit. In light of these events Jon now needed something soft to ground him in the face of so much new information. 

The discovery of Elias' death was a shock, especially given the fact that apparently it happened when he was trapped in artifact storage during the Prentiss siege a half a year back. 

He (that is, his doppelganger) told them back then that he was trying to reach the suppression system switch when he tripped down the stairs over one of Paper's many scattered toys, alerting Jane in the process and was driven back into the storage area. His account seemed to check out given he was rescued from there by the ECDC after Jane was dealt with. And given the few toys strewn about the stairs leading to artifact storage. Why Paper kept scattering his toys all over the building was beyond Jon but that wasn't the main issue at hand. After trapping the creature in the walls of the tunnels, Jurgen Leitner proceeded to reveal himself. Once Jon dragged him back to his office, and picked the protesting Paper up to calm himself down, he unveiled the truth of Elias', or Jonah's, whole operation. 

Turns out Jonah Magnus decided life was too short to enjoy once and did exactly what eventually happened to him. Talk about karma. Leitner explained that Gertrude's plan was to stop Jonah from... Something he was planning. Perhaps a ritual to end the world in a way the others would fail to do. That bit of information was on a tape of Gertrude which Leitner played for Jon. By the time they reached the part where Leitner said, “they needed to kill Jonah's main body then burn down the archives.” Martin, Tim and Sasha had arrived back at the office as well. 

"Jon? Jon! Are you okay?" Martin rushed forward, hugging Jon tightly, ignoring Paper's loud yowling at being squished in between them. Jon sighed, "Martin, thank god. I-I'm fine." He hugged him back, relieved his boyfriend was safe, as well as his other assistants of course. "It chased after me but he stopped it."

Tim raised his axe, "Jon are you sure he's not... Another one?"

"Yes I'm sure. That" Jon took a deep breath, "is Jurgen Leitner."

After the team's loud exclamations of disbelief he and Leitner updated them on everything they had discussed. As he was being hugged by Martin and holding the fluffy cat he slowly began calming down.

After Leitner was done a long moment of silence ensued.

"So," Sasha said slowly, "Gertrude's dead?"

"Yes, she was shot and then hidden by Jonah in the tunnels. Unfortunately I couldn't get out to allow for a proper burial, so I had to leave her there." He seemed sad admitting it. Jon did not feel sympathy for him. This man deserved none for his past and cowardice.

"And now, we need to, what, somehow find the center of the maze of tunnels to kill Jonah completely and burn the archives?" Sasha asked skeptically. 

"Yes, the whole institute in fact. I have a gas main in the tunnels ready to be ignited once we find the center." Leitner said.

"How do we do that?" Martin frowned.

"Maybe Michael knows?" Tim quipped. "He just helped us out of that situation with his own… corridor labyrinth. Maybe he'll be able to help."

"Okay, okay let's first take a breather and calm down. We'll figure out how to solve this." Jon said, raising his hand to slow them down.

"Yeah, I'll make us some tea." Martin added, "At least now that... Thing won't bother us for a long while."

"Let it burn along with this hell of an institute." Tim said harshly. Knowing how his brother was killed almost the same way, Jon felt strong sympathy for Tim rush over him.

Which was replaced with a different emotion the moment he turned to the man who saved him.

"Thank you for your help, now Martin, I need you to hold Paper for a moment."

Martin, looking baffled, took Paper out of Jon's arms. "Jon wh-"

Jon swiftly approached the older man and proceeded to sock him in the nose with the full force of his fist. The crew gasped in unison. 

"That's for everyone you hurt with your idiocy, you stupid old coward." Jon seethed and punched him again. He heard Martin chuckle and Tim whoop as the man whimpered and attempted to protect his face.

Jon was glad they were spared the horrible plans of a 200 year old evil man and that they had some semblance of a strategy moving forward. He was, however, equally elated for this opportunity to do what he fantasized about since learning of Leitner's existence.

And, he supposes, all of this can be indirectly attributed to Paper, the archive cat.

-------

Jon woke up to the warm snuggle of his lovely fiance and a mouthful of cat fur. 

"Pffff, Paper geerroff," he mumbled, uselessly trying to push the stubborn cat away. The chirping of birds mingled with the sound of highland cows grazing in the field near their cabin. 

After the success of their plan to end Jonah, after the fire had already burned down the horrors of that evil place, it took a while longer for their troubles to be resolved. They had to endure endless questioning and investigations of the police. Jon, who was weakened by the ordeal to the point of needing hospitalization, took a long time to recover and regain his strength. Leitner claimed it was lucky he was cut off from the Eye this early, or the consequences would have been much more serious. The others seemed to have been less affected, but once the archives were completely reduced to ashes they recovered, their jobs burned down along with everything else. 

Sasha found a new job as a researcher in a prestigious institute, nothing supernatural involved. Tim moved on to journalism, utilizing his curiosity and charm to their full potential. Jon and Martin opened a tea & book shop, if only to make Paper a real bookshop cat. They have been slowly setting it up and settling down until... Well, Jon proposed and they took a break. Traveled to Scotland with Paper on an early honeymoon to see the cows and enjoy the quiet. 

And quiet it was. Until Paper shamelessly began purring as loud as a train right in Jon's ear. Jon huffed in fond annoyance and got up, leaning down to give Martin a kiss on the head and then shooing the crime of a cat off to the kitchen. 

"You can't give me a moment of reprieve, can you?" He stretched and followed the cat out the bedroom. 

He filled Paper's bowl and sat on the floor leaning his back on the cabinet, closing his eyes as Paper chewed his food noisily. 

He must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew, he was awakened by a soft tap on his head. He looked up blearily and smiled. The cat had long since finished eating and found a home in Jon's lap. 

"Morning love." Martin murmured softly, matching his tone to the serene atmosphere. After hesitating a moment, he bent down and sat next to Jon. Jon looked at him adoringly as he absent-mindedly stroked Paper, humming along to his purrs. Martin joined him, petting Paper, their hands occasionally (and very purposefully) brushing against each other. 

After a few minutes of calm silence, Martin spoke up. 

"You know, this reminds me of that first day we met. In the stacks."

Jon smiled at the memory. "Ahh yes, all three of us had a very fateful meeting there, didn't we? God, I was so stressed back then." 

"You handled it pretty well I have to say. Handled my nervousness pretty well too." Martin chuckled. 

"I was lucky you were there. You really helped me calm down." Jon admitted. "Well, you and Paper." Jon added fondly. 

"Paper was a really good archive cat wasn't he?" Martin said, leaning into Jon, pressing a warm, still sleepy kiss on his cheek. Jon closed his eyes, grateful for the events that led up to this moment of pure happiness, with his fiance and his cat. 

"Yes, the best cat in the world."

[sunaswife]

Summary: It’s been five years since you’ve seen your ex, Rin. He’s still not over you and you’re not over him. When he finds out you have children he thought he didn’t have a chance. Then he finds out they’re his? All of a sudden you’re teaching Suna how to be a single dad.

🔪: hi I’m sorry for not updating and it’s been a little over a month but shit happened and I had no motivation! I am doing my best (•̀ᴗ•́)و

Warnings: Fluff, angst I guess, drama, and cuteness twin overload

Previously Up Next Masterlist

Chapter fifteen

“No Rin.” “Please.” “No Rin.” “But babeeeee.” Suna whined, he held out his EJP jersey in his hands. “Fine just this once, I don’t want anyone coming in.” You said and he nodded, you turned around and began to take off your sleeping shirt and Rin pouted, “Babe gimme a show.” He whined once more. You turned with your chest covered and threw your sleeping shirt which landed perfectly on his head.

You put on the cold jersey and saw how it still looked like a dress even though you have gained so much weight. Probably because Rin has gained so much muscle. You turned to face him and his mouth stayed hung open, you giggled and neared him. You rested your hands on his thighs and gave his cheek a small peck. “You okay there?” You asked. His arms wrapped around you and he lifted you on the bed like a rag doll. “Why” kiss “are you” kiss “so” kiss “beautiful?” Kiss.

“Stop being so cute then my heart can’t contain it.” You scolded as you brushed your fingers through his short hair. “Mommy...daddy?” You both heard behind the door, the doorknob slowly twists and you push Rin away, he falls off the bed and lands on the floor, right on his ass. The door opens and you see Rini there, “What’s wrong?” You asked him, “My tooth.” He said. “What about your—oh he’s bleeding—“ Rin said. “Take him to the bathroom and rinse his mouth, I’ll check out his mouth after I change.” You told Rin and he nodded. He carried Rini to your bathroom and helped him rinse his mouth. You quickly changed out of his jersey and put on the shirt from before. “Alright lemme see.” You said as you walked in. Rini was sitting on the counter with his mouth opened, sure enough he had a loose tooth and was too afraid to pull it out. There was nothing you can do but wait for it to fall off by itself, you wouldn’t dare to traumatize him by pulling it out yourself.

You carried the boy back to his room and saw Chewy sleeping on Akira’s bed. He woke up due to the noise and sensed Rini’s slight discomfort over his loose tooth. He carefully jumped off and yawned. With ease he climbed on Rini’s bed and cuddled with him. You tucked them both in and kissing Rini’s head goodnight you made your way out to an annoyed looking Rin watching TV. His arms are crossed over his chest and you can clearly see his flexed muscles. You both were about to go to sleep so it didn’t make sense for him to start watching TV. “Aren’t you going to bed?” You tilted your head.

“Not anymore.” He replied a little coldly. “What’s wrong?” You asked with a small pout, “Nothing..” he replied, you sighed and sat next to him on the couch, “doesn’t seem like nothing, did I do something?” You asked but he stayed quiet. “Rin we gotta have communication, if you don’t tell me what I did wrong then I can’t fix it.” You said. “Why are you so hesitant to let people know we’re together? Are you ashamed of me? Is that it? Why do we have to hide our relationship from our own children.” He asked and it finally clicked, “I told you I’m just a little hesitant but I realized now that I shouldn’t have to hide our relationship. I’m sorry now I seem like such a big jerk.” You sighed and you laced your fingers with his. “I get that you’re hesitant but maybe we should at least tell our kids and then slowly tell our friends? You’ll be surprised by the number of messages I get from the twins asking if I made a move yet.” He said and you couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Okay, we’ll tell the kids.”

“Bye I’m off!” Rin said at the front of the door, the kids automatically stopped what they were doing and ran to see their dad off. You followed behind them and Jamie yelled out her farewell since she was on bed rest. The kids hugged their dad and said their goodbyes and you waited to give him a kiss on the cheek and then expect to get bombarded with questions by the twins. You weren’t expecting him to hold your face and kiss your lips in a deep and loving way. You heard gasps and began smacking Rin’s arm because you couldn’t breath and he wouldn’t let you go. He finally pulled away and you punched him and called him a jerk, immediately the kids began asking questions and running around you as Rin laughed and waltzed to his car.

They couldn’t help but notice your dumb smile.

So this is love?

They wondered and smiled in amazement. You realized it was quiet and you looked down to see the kids staring, your cheeks flushed up. “Mama you’re in deep huh?” Akira asked, “Akira how do you know what that even means?” You asked, “Aunt Jamie.” She smiled. “Jamie I swear to god.” You growled as you made your way to the living room. She was sleeping with her hand over her baby bump. You sighed and put a light blanket over her. “Aunt Jamie is resting so don’t make too much noise, it’s hard for her to sleep with the baby inside since they won’t stop kicking.” You told the kids and they nodded.

“Humpty dumpty had a great fa—“ you were interrupted when your phone rang. Akira was asleep already in her crib but Rini couldn’t sleep so you tried reading so some books to him that your aunt donated. “Hello?” You answered without checking the caller ID, “Y/N..” you heard Jamie’s wobbly voice and you immediately sat up on your futon. “What’s wrong?” You asked, “H-he hit me a-again...” she stuttered. “Where are you?” You asked, voice filled with concern “I’m at home but he left with his buddies to go drink again..” she sniffled. “I’m on my way.” You said and she hung up, you made her promise to call the cops in case he came back. You grabbed the baby carriers and carefully placed Akira in, you were glad she was still asleep. “Come on Rini, let’s go see aunt Jamie okay?” You asked and he giggled. You exited your apartment with a carrier in each hand, their diaper bag, your wallet inside their bag, and a metal baseball bat that Tobio gave as a safety gift.

You drove past your crappy neighborhood and eventually entered Jamie’s nice and fancy neighborhood. You passed a fancy car after another fancy car but your heart almost fell out of your butt when you saw his car. You went into the drive way and quietly pulled the garbage can behind his car in case he made a getaway. You were tired of this sorry excuse of a man hurting Jamie and you were going to do whatever it takes to make sure he’s locked behind bars. You left your babies inside the car, you wouldn’t do this at all but it was nighttime and nobody was around. You locked the car and walked with your bat to the front door. You unlocked the door with the key Jamie gave you and slowly walked in.

“Are you an idiot?! You fucking good for nothing I swear!” You heard his yelling, immediately you called the police in case Jamie couldn’t, you didn’t respond in case they’d talk you out from trying to save your friend. “Don’t you fucking touch me!” You heard Jamie yell. “You’re my fiancé I can touch you however I want.” He growled. “I said no!” She yelled once more. You closed your eyes and prayed to whatever God out there to help you out. Your prayer was interrupted by glass breaking and another scream. You immediately turned to the kitchen where the noise was coming from and saw the 6”2 man hovering over Jamie who was on the floor sitting against the wall, you almost fainted at the blood and dark liquid you assumed was wine, and your anger rose when you saw her hand over her eye. She was obviously in pain. In his hand was the broken wine bottle. He lifted his arm once more but you blacked out and swung the bat. You hit his side and he growled in pain. He turned to see you and his eyes darkened. “You fucking bitch, this is all your fault. If you haven’t became friends with her worthless ass then maybe she wouldn’t have tried to leave me.” He seethed. He made his way to you and before you can defend yourself with another swing the police had barged in and listened to everything.

Jamie was taken to the hospital and was released in the early morning. Tobio helped you moved her stuff out because she suffered a broken wrist and a fractured leg. Your tiny studio apartment couldn’t hold all her things so she had to pay for a storage unit. You couldn’t help but laugh at the look on her face when she saw how empty your home truly was. You slept on the floor in a futon while your kids slept in cribs. You couldn’t afford dressers so you kept their clothes folded neatly on bookshelves. There were baby toys everywhere but no TV. No couch, no alcohol, no nothing.

“Welcome to my home.” You did your little jazz hands, she chuckled and smiled. “Thank you for everything.” “No problem, I know it isn’t much but just for a bit until the trial is over okay?” You said and she nodded. You placed the kids in their cribs and fixed the futon you were sleeping on. “You can sleep here.” You patted, she nodded and made her way over with her crutches. “Do you have another futon?” She asked. “Yeah I’ll pull it out right now.” You said and she nodded. You helped her down and tucked her in. “You’re the only friend who decided to help me.” She spoke suddenly, catching you off guard. “All of my other friends could care less whether I died or not, they’d probably fight over who can keep my clothes.” She said with a dry chuckle. “I appreciate you yn, thank you.” She said and closed her eyes.

You looked at your best friend completely passed out and reminisced I’ve show much you’ve both grown. From enemies to besties.

“Don’t forget they have a limit of 5000 yen.” You warned Tobio and he rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah, whatever lemme spoil my niece and nephew in peace.” He argued and you sighed. “Just don’t buy them slime, please.” You practically begged. “That was the first thing they asked when I arrived.” He said as he buckled them in their seats.

Once in a while Tobio loved taking them out to give you a break and you appreciated that so much. When Tobio entered your home to grab a quick water, Rin’s car was pulling up and you were slightly nervous as to what could happen. You haven’t exactly told Tobio you were dating Rin again, and Tobio totally flipped when he found out Rin was moving in.

You had told Rin that Tobio wanted to take the kids out for the day and he was a little hesitant, not because he didn’t trust Rin but he wondered if they liked Tobio more than him. He understands he was like a father figure to them and he knows that he’s not on Tobio’s good side. He’s also jealous because he hasn’t taken them out for a father and child day as well. He would love to go to the mall with them and spend money on useless shit. You’d be angry but he’s sure he can handle it.

Rin parked his car and took out his gym bag, he also took out a bag of some thick ass pads, aloe Vera gel and a bottle of something called witch hazel and he made sure it was the alcohol free kind per your request over text. At least you were kind enough to send him pictures so he’s not wandering around the store like a fool.

He was confused about the pads because you use a thinner pad when you’re not using tampons and wondered if your vagina got bigger because you gave birth. But he thought that you feel the same as always so he’d rather ask then overthink things.

“Welcome back Rin.” You smiled as from across Tobio’s car, “Thanks.” He said simply and leaned in to give Akira a kiss on the head, he went around to do the same to Rini and then he pulled you close for a small kiss. “Well what do we have here? I know y’all are together but this was the first time I’ve seen y’all kiss.” Jamie said as she stepped out. You both flinched thinking it was Tobio and Jamie laughed, “Don’t worry he’s in the bathroom. But when are you planning on telling him? You can’t hide your relationship forever.” She rested her hand on her hip.

“I don’t know to be honest.” You sighed and leaned against Tobio’s car. “Maybe he should warm up to me first before we tell him?” Rin asked, “If it isn’t Suna Rintarou.” Tobio walked out of the house. Rin stood straight and gave a slight bow, “Thank you for being there for yn and the twins when I was gone. It’s nice to finally meet you.” He tried to be as respectful as possible.

Tobio crossed his arms over his chest with raised brows, “I can’t say the same for you.” He spat and you felt a pang in your chest. Tobio looked so angry. “Tobio, he’s doing his best. He’s been nothing but respectful and helpful around the house and with the kids.” You explained, “Look, I get that you’re hopeful and forgiving but he ruined your life—“

“He gave me the twins—how is that ruining my life?” You defended. Tobio rolled his eyes, “Whatever, I don’t wanna fight.” He mumbled and you nodded. You stepped away from the car so he can finally take the kids and as he passed by Rin, he purposely bumped his shoulder. You were about to say something but Rin just shook his head and brushed him off. “Bye Tobio, I’ll see you after.” You said but he just mumbled a bye and glared at Rin.

He soon left and Jamie broke the silence, “Yeah so he definitely hates Rin.”

“No shit Sherlock.” Rin sighed and rubbed his temples. “He’ll probably strangle me and give me an earful if I tell him now. We just gotta keep it a secret a little while longer.” You said and they nodded in understanding.

Rin went to shower as you began cooking and Jamie went on a livestream for a bit. She was playing music from your TV which wasn’t pg so you let I slide since the kids weren’t here. “Hey yn do you remember any cheer drills from highschool?” Jamie asked as you turned off the stove to let the food cool for a bit, “Um...not really but didn’t you guys used to do spins and stuff? I saw it a lot during the volleyball games.” You answered, “Yeah you’re not helping but thank you.” She smiled as she put her phone in front of a water bottle. You shook your head and tried not to laugh at he sarcasm.

She took a few steps back to try to recreate an old cheer, obviously she couldn’t jump or do high kicks but it was funny to see her try and you made sure to keep an eye on her in case she overworked herself. You turned back to your task for a split second when the rice cooker beeped. Jamie squatted—well she tried and suddenly she felt a splash down her legs. She gasped as she saw her mustard yellow skirt now wet. “YN—“ she slightly raised her voice in a small panic. “Yes?” You immediately asked and walked to check on her, “My water broke.”

“Lies.”

“This doesn’t smell like pee.”

You were immediately at her side in order to help get her ready for a trip to the hospital. “Are you feeling any contractions?” You asked and she shook her head, “I feel fine.” She replied. “Turn off the livestream.” She said and you quickly turned off her phone. “Okay we’ll call the midwives and see what we need to do for you.” You said and she nodded. You immediately called the midwives and they asked what happened until Jamie winced and groaned. “Jamie, what’s wrong? Do you feel it now?” You asked and she nodded. “Yeah if we don’t leave now I’m having the baby in your house.” She sighed.

The midwives agreed to meet at the hospital with you and you tried your best to guide Jamie to the car. “Rin!” You yelled, he immediately stumbled out of the bathroom wearing some basketball shorts and a t shirt, his usual stay at home wear. “Take her to the car and I’ll go get her bag, her water broke.” You instructed quickly. He was quick to carry her, causing Jamie to smack him when he made a face that he can feel her ‘pee’ after he just showered.

He carefully placed her in the passenger seat of his car since it was smaller and he saw you rush out of the door. “Hnnnnnnn. Fuck my pelvis—“ she groaned and began taking deep breathes.

“Please don’t give birth in my car.”

“Shut the fuck up, Rintarou.”

You kicked Rin to the backseat with Jamie’s bag much to his dismay and you reversed and made your way to the hospital which was about a good twenty minutes away. He called Hana who happened to be on her way back already because she finished business early.

Halfway through the drive Jamie asked to hold your hand for comfort. You’ve done it before, when she faced her ex in trial, when she started a new makeup line or product, before she had an event, before her wedding with Hana. You were always there. “I’m scared.” She mumbled as she looked out the window, “It’s okay to be scared, I was scared when I was in labor.” You replied. “Who was with you?” She asked, “Tobio, and my aunt. Miwa and Hana came when I returned home.” You answered as you stopped at the red light. “Not even your mom?” Her voice cracked, “Nope, not even her. I did call to let her know I was due soon but she just called me names so I hung up.”

Rin looked down at his hands and he rubbed the sweat from his palms on his shorts. It hurt listening to this, if only he didn’t change his number, if only he didn’t lie to you, if only he never laid eyes on you.

If only he never met you.

Tobio was right.

How can you say he didn’t ruin your life when these past five years have been nothing but hell. When you were out of the house and Rin was home with Jamie and the kids he would ask Jamie what happened the last five years because he knew she wouldn’t sugarcoat anything.

He felt a jab in his chest when he heard about all the negative things, and no matter how many positive things Jamie said happened. It was never good enough for him to forget all the shit he put you through.

And that’s why he’s so clingy now, that’s why he’s happier and eager to help and please you in whatever way he can to make up for all this lost time where he should have been by your side. He’ll prove to Tobio and anyone else that he’s good enough for you, that he can be trusted and that he truly loves you.

Funfacts!

I’m sorry I forgot to do this in the last chapter please forgive me 🧎

The kids are happy that their parents are together and they started drawing their family portraits with you two holding hands

Rini accidentally swallowed his tooth in his sleep and cried that the tooth fairy would give him money but Rin made sure to sneak money under his pillow the next night

Jamie’s ex is still in prison and is pissed she left him for a woman (but we stan Hana)

I know same sex marriage isn’t legal in Japan but once again this is a fanfic so I make the rules 🧍

Rin is actually scared of Tobio

But Rin is more scared of Hana

Rin wants to procreate with yn wearing his EJP jersey 🧎 daddy please

Tobio likes to spoil his niece and nephew a little too much. Yn always has to warn him or scold him. Tobio almost bought Rini a real sword because he liked it so much.

Rin is pretty jelly of Tobio’s relationship with his kids and wants to know his secrets

This is Jamie’s 3rd pregnancy, the first was with her ex but his little swimmers were too weak, and the second..y’all already know 😔 if not then reread chapter 1 when yn scolds Jamie for chasing after the kids

After the baby is a year old then Hana will try to get pregnant with the same donor that Jamie had

Idk if I told y’all already but Tobio is the donor 🧐

The thick pads and stuff that Suna got was for YN to make padcicles for Jamie.

Also I am very hungry

🏷: @therealwalmartjesus @differentballooncollection @aaesuki @atsunflower @dope-squish @prettysetterboiss @june-phantom @austriasmariazelle @xrnia @katsulia @aprettyfruit @shut-your-eyes-kiss-me-goodbye @tvbiio @sun-daddy-yoriichi @kamenoyaki @ppangiiroo @loeyprivvv @kmskj92 @lovinnoya @sarahvvictoria @tris-does-stuff @mokkeguts @sunaluvr6969 @bara-rose-would @sempiternal-amour @volleybloop @leykyuu @bokutoichigo @stfucanunot @iloveanime691 @atsumusdomain @ohrintarou @shoutosimp @mqrinqcele @bokutosdivineass @anngelllla @toworuu @hidden-otaku-stuff @seijohiselite @caxsthetic @aquariarose @hhwanggu @bakuhoetoedoroki @yoozuku @osamus-onigiri @akaashi-todorki @donica95 @kakaokenma @airheadpillar

[eldritchteaparty]

Chapters: 6/20 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Rosie Zampano, Oliver Banks, Original Elias Bouchard, Peter Lukas Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Scars, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, I'll add characters and tags as they come up, Reference to injuries and blood, Character Death In Dream, Nudity (not sexual or graphic), Nightmares, Fighting

Summary: Following the events of MAG 200, Jon and Martin find themselves in a dimension very much like the one they came from--with second chances and more time.

Chapter Summary: Martin considers the repercussions of their argument, and he gets "his" stuff back from storage.

New chapter of my post-canon fix-it!

Read on AO3 above or read here.

Tumblr master post with all chapters is here.

***

The only word Martin could think of to describe the way he felt that morning was hangover. He woke up even earlier than usual and extricated himself from beneath Jon, who was entirely oblivious to the outside world. At least they had managed to communicate something, although it wasn’t the way he would have preferred to do it. At least they had made up, although he knew the actual fallout likely remained to be seen; arguments like that always seemed to twist their way back around.

Some of what Jon had told him was disturbing. He wished he knew what had come from Jon on that last day, and what had come from something that wasn’t Jon. Martin still couldn’t picture him willingly destroying the world. The idea that everything might have been different, that he might have been able to save Jon from that decision if he had just woken up that night, was hard to process. On the other hand, now that they were here, he had a new appreciation for Jon’s insistence on not letting the fears out. It was bad enough that they were responsible for the end of just two people in one dimension. The damage wasn’t just theoretical, and of course Jon had likely understood the possibilities in a way Martin couldn’t have before.

If he was being very, very honest, though, the thing that hurt the most was what Jon would have been willing to do to him. Before, it had felt like abandonment; Jon had been willing to leave him. It was that simple, and that selfish. It wasn’t that he didn’t rationally understand how it could be reasonable, or even an act of strength, if Jon really thought it was what he’d needed to do. It was that he himself could not have been that reasonable or strong about it. He didn’t believe he could have made a decision that would have led to them being apart, and like he’d told Jon—it had hurt that Jon could.

Now, though, he realized Jon had never seen it that way. Jon had sincerely believed that becoming the pupil of the Eye would not have changed him. He had believed he wasn’t sacrificing himself, that they could have still been together. He’d said that. Martin had almost forgotten, because he’d been trying so hard to tell Jon that Melanie and Georgie and Basira had been on their way to blow up the gas main, but now the words came back to him: We can be together, here. Until it’s over. And then—when that had failed—Jon had tried to send him away, but Martin understood now that even that hadn’t been a separation. Not for Jon, the way he was then. Jon would have kept Martin living in that world, whatever the cost, while he tortured himself driving it to its end.

Of course, it was also possible that the Eye had such a hold on Jon at that time that none of those thoughts had really been his—but if that was the case, there was no way Martin was going to allow him to do anything that would help him reconnect to it. He wouldn’t help Jon lose himself again. Whatever he wanted to do here, there had to be another way.

He had no idea how to approach any of this, and he certainly didn’t want to confront Jon with it when he woke up, so he decided to focus on something else instead—like his neck. It hurt. He supposed that made sense, given how he must have slept. After an unsuccessful attempt to stretch it out, he moved on to pick up the papers that were still on the floor. It hadn’t felt right to pick them up while Jon was gone; he’d wanted the reminder of why Jon wasn’t there, so maybe he wouldn’t let things get so heated the next time. He’d told himself he’d pick them up later, but then he’d fallen asleep and Jon had come home and it just hadn’t happened.

By the time he needed to wake Jon, Martin had decided that, for now, he was going to continue to do whatever Jon would allow to support his efforts. He didn’t imagine there was any chance Jon would slow down of his own accord, and at least that way he could make sure he was ok. The worst-case scenario would be if Jon started keeping secrets.

Jon was tired that morning. Martin could tell Jon had the same emotional hangover that he did, but it seemed like more than that. He occasionally stopped to stare distractedly into nothing. He took so long in the shower that Martin had to check on him twice, and ended up finding things to do in the bedroom until Jon was done. He was worried when Jon slipped his arm through his on their walk to work. That wasn’t a normal thing; Jon seemed to be relying on him to keep walking. Martin asked if he was ok, and Jon nodded absently in a way that wasn’t particularly comforting.

The fact was that he seemed to be getting worse, not better.

***

They were somehow only a little bit late, not that anyone was paying attention. Martin had to enter some updates in their online system, so he spent the morning at his desk. Tim was back from his investigation and Sasha was in her office, and despite his worries about Jon it was almost a nice morning with the four of them together. That concerned him; it meant he was getting too comfortable.

As he worked, checking records and following up on notes he’d made the previous week, he discovered another reason for concern. He realized for the first time that some memories of this world had blurred into others, his real memories, with no specific moment of revelation. He very clearly recalled several weeks spent tracking down some files that had been returned to the main library instead of the archives, and he didn’t realize until he was shaking his head over the enormous waste of time that it had only happened here.

Although it was an unimportant memory, it brought up a lot of questions. They still didn’t know exactly what had happened to the Jon and Martin from this world, and clearly they were connected somehow. What if Martin stopped being able to tell the difference between memories from the two worlds? Or worse, what if memories from this world were replacing memories of the one they came from? What if that was why it was so easy to feel occasional moments of contentment—because he was actually forgetting what had happened?

He automatically began to run through his memories, just to see, going backward from the moment they had arrived here. The tower, the panopticon, Annabelle Cane; his slowly expanding terror as Jon had grown more and more drawn to it all. The fear domains, all of them, but especially the corpse roots and the apartment fires and the domain that belonged to him—where people suffered without even the comfort that another living being knew or cared for their existence.

The cabin in Scotland, where everything had gone irretrievably wrong. How had it happened? He had left Jon alone, for one thing. Maybe he should have stayed, but he couldn’t have known. Jon had been trying not to know things, which should have been right. Avoid using evil powers. It still seemed like it should have been right. That was the worst part, wasn’t it? Every wrong decision looked like the right one. It had been so much worse for Jon, of course. If Peter Lukas had been able to see into him like Jonah Magnus could—if he had not pushed it just a bit too far—Martin could have very easily been the one to set off an apocalypse. Instead, he was thrown into the Lonely, unwittingly sealing Jon’s fate in the process. He wondered if he had—

An upsettingly familiar voice broke through his thoughts. Martin was so deeply distracted that at first, he thought he had manufactured it himself, out of his memories. When he looked up, though, he was met with the site of not only Peter Lukas, but also Elias Bouchard, and it took him a second to remember where he was. He started to stand up, but somehow had lost track of his physical surroundings, and managed to get tangled up in his chair. He ended up on the ground.

He could feel the entire room focus in on him, but he couldn’t look away from the two men in front of him. Peter was almost exactly as he remembered him, while Elias could not have been more different—it was hard to believe he was the same person. Of course, in most ways, he wasn’t. Peter chuckled uncomfortably while Martin continued to stare, and turned to the man standing next to him. “It seems we’ve disturbed your assistant.”

“Martin.” His name, spoken nearby, finally brought him out of his stupor. He looked up expecting to find Jon, but found Tim instead.

“Martin,” he said again, “are you all right?”

“Yeah.” He looked around. Sasha had come to the door of her office to see what was going on; Jon had gotten up too.

“I keep saying we need to replace that chair.” Tim laughed nervously and reached to help Martin to his feet. It felt like it took forever to stand up.

“Yeah. Yeah, that chair, it’s, um…” Martin’s words were swallowed up by silence as he turned his eyes to the floor.

“Looks like we’re ok here, then.” Elias clapped his hands and turned back to Peter. “Shall we continue?”

Peter took one last discomfiting look at Martin before they continued into Sasha’s office. She gave Martin a concerned glance as she ushered Elias and Peter in, and pursed her lips as he shook his head. She closed the door behind them.

“Martin, are you—” Jon started to ask.

“I’m fine.” He really was more embarrassed than anything, and set about righting his chair so he could retreat back into his data entry as quickly as possible. “I—I’m sorry.”

Jon started to say something else, but was interrupted as Elias came back into the room, setting Sasha’s door against the jamb. “Everything all right?”

“Yep.” Tim patted Martin on the back, just hard enough to startle him again. “Everything is perfectly fine.”

Elias nodded, looking curiously from Tim to Martin to Jon. “Well, in any case, I want to apologize. I meant to come by last week to see how the two of you were doing, but, well… as you all know, I hate this place and avoid being here whenever possible.” He spoke the last part under his breath and grinned, the sarcastic sort of grin that doesn’t reach the eyes. It was a look Martin could not recall ever seeing on Elias’s face before in his life, but somehow it fit. “Still, I should have checked in. I’ll catch up with you soon. And Martin—get a new chair? That’s embarrassing.”

And with that, he disappeared back into Sasha’s office.

“Well,” Tim said as he leaned back against Martin’s desk. “I’ve seen some reactions to Peter Lukas, but I think that is my new favorite.”

“Sorry.” Martin could feel how red his face was.

“Martin, are you—are you really ok?” He looked over to see intense concern on Jon’s face, and he knew Jon wasn’t asking about his fall.

“Yeah,” he replied, as reassuringly as he could. “I—I really am.”

Jon didn’t seem convinced, but Tim got Martin’s attention again. “Let’s get lunch. You need a break.”

“Oh, I—I would, but I brought mine today.” He gestured toward the paper sack on the corner of his desk. “I have to leave a bit early, so I thought I’d work through lunch.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I have to go pay some fees and pick up some stuff my old apartment building put in storage.”

“How are you getting there?”

“I was going to take the tube out,” Martin replied, realizing he hadn’t thought it through entirely. “I guess I hadn’t planned for getting back, but it’s just going to be some clothes and stuff for now… I can get a cab if it’s too much.”

“I’ll drive you,” Tim announced.

“Oh, no, thanks. I appreciate it, but—”

“It’s really not a problem.”

Martin considered; having a car really would be a lot more convenient. He didn’t know how much stuff was in storage, and he definitely didn’t know how it had been stored. Maybe it wasn’t even packed. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all. Besides, I want to talk with you.” Seeing the look on Martin’s face, he added, “No more questions. Mostly, I want to apologize properly for last week.”

“Well… yeah, ok. If you really don’t mind.”

“Nope. See you after lunch.” Tim headed for the door.

“Thanks,” Martin called after him.

As soon as Tim was gone, Martin turned back to Jon.

“You said you didn’t need help.” It was a statement, not an accusation, but Martin felt like he had to defend himself.

“I don’t! You heard him—he was really insistent. And he does have a car.”

“I can still go,” Jon said.

“It’s not a big thing.”

Jon bit his lip.

“Jon, you’re not feeling great, and I know how important it is to you to—to do your work. It’s fine.”

“You’re important, too.” Again, this was merely a statement, and again, it provoked too strong a reaction from Martin. This one, though, he tried to cover up.

“Yeah, well—I know that. You don’t have to prove it. And… if you’re not busy, or sleeping, you can help me put stuff away when I get home. Deal?”

Jon sighed, but agreed. “Deal,” he said, before turning back to his desk.

***

Martin ended up being very thankful for Tim’s help, and especially for his car. After they stopped by the rental office and he paid his fees, the storage lot was farther than he had imagined. Additionally, while most of his things were in bags, they were heavy contractor bags and there didn’t seem to be any logic as to what had gone where—if he’d come on his own, he would have had to spend a lot of time dumping things out and rearranging all of it to make it manageable. It would have been a pain, even if he had ended up calling a cab. As it was, though, Tim was able to help him with the heavier bags, and he didn’t have to sort everything out on the spot, so they finished with plenty of time.

“Let me get you a drink on the way back,” Tim offered, as he closed the boot on the final bag. “I still owe you an apology.”

“Tim, you just did me a huge favor. You don’t need to—”

“That was helping a friend. Apologies are measured in drinks.”

Martin considered. He did want to go. “Do you mind if I check on Jon?” he asked.

“Go right ahead,” Tim said. “I’ll wait in the car.”

Martin pulled out his phone, and thought about texting, but decided to call. Jon should be home, and that meant there was a good chance he was asleep. The phone did ring a bit long before he picked up.

“Everything all right?” Jon asked, and Martin thought he did sound like he may have just been roused from a nap.

“Yeah. I was actually just calling to ask you that.”

“Well, I’m home.”

“Good. Um… We got done a bit early, and Tim was asking if I wanted to grab a drink. Would you mind if I did?”

“Not at all.”

“Are you sure? Did you eat yet?” Martin asked. He kept his voice low so Tim wouldn’t overhear, although he didn’t exactly know why.

“Not yet.”

“I left one of those frozen meals on top in the freezer for you. Will you eat it?”

“Oh. Yes, of course. Thank you.”

Martin cringed at what he was about to say, but did it anyway. “Would you make it now?”

There was a pause. “Martin, are you serious?”

“Yes? I mean, you don’t have to, but I’d feel better if—”

“Fine.” Jon sighed, and Martin heard the sound of the freezer door opening a few moments later. “I’m doing it. Stop fretting and go have a drink.”

“Ok.” He was relieved. “Jon—thanks.”

“Go.” The call ended, and Martin couldn’t help but smile.

“OK, we’re good,” Martin told Tim as he climbed into the passenger seat. “Sure you won’t let me get it, though?”

“One hundred percent,” Tim answered. “How’s Jon?”

Martin debated whether he should give the polite answer or the real one, and went with something in between. “He’s… ok? To be honest, I’m a little worried about him.”

“Me too.” Tim started the car. “He wasn’t looking good last week when I was around.”

“Yeah?” Martin asked.

“He just seems tired,” Tim continued. “I mean, he’s always tired, ever since I’ve known him, but this is different. Tired and… distracted, I guess. Not like him.”

Martin nodded in agreement. “I’ve been trying to get him to take it easy, but—”

“He doesn’t care much for that, does he?”

“No. No, he does not.” Martin snorted, and Tim gave him a little grin as they headed out.

Soon they were sitting together at a table with a couple of beers in front of them.

“So,” Tim began, “I am officially apologizing for how I acted last week. I was a dick.”

Martin sighed. “No, you weren’t. You were worried, and Jon and I haven’t exactly been easy to—well, easy to anything.”

“Forgive me anyway?”

“If you insist,” Martin replied. “I forgive you, I guess.”

“Thanks. Cheers,” Tim said, holding up his glass. Martin obliged with a clink, and took a polite sip while Tim gulped down about half of what was in his glass.

“And for the record, I still don’t believe that you’re telling us everything, but—well, I imagine you have your reasons. I got to thinking over the weekend,” Tim said, after he had wiped his mouth off with his arm. “Sasha asked me not to say too much, but you know I was looking into some police records last week.”

Martin nodded. “Yeah, did something turn up?”

“Sasha was right. There was more. More than people had come to talk to us about.”

“For instance?”

Well… for instance, there was a kidnapping case about a month back. It turned out to be related to this cult that’s apparently been around forever, but never really done anything before. Not anything worth anyone’s time, anyway. I won’t get into details, I promised Sasha, but some of the officers thought they saw some things that… just shouldn’t have been possible. Not one or two officers, like a lot of them. And they lost some people.”

Martin wanted to ask questions, confirm his suspicions, but after what had happened with Oliver Banks, he didn’t want to push it again. “That’s horrible.”

“And here’s the real kicker.” Tim stopped to take another big drink. “There have been enough of these incidents that they’ve started asking the officers to sign a form saying they won’t talk about it. There’s been sort of an upset over it, actually. It’s all got lots of them pretty nervous, but no one is willing to make any outside statements, either. Not officially.”

Martin nodded again. This was really bad, but if it was happening, it was better that he know. He would tell Jon too, of course.

“Well, anyway, the point was I got to thinking—I know you and Jon disappeared around the same time all of this started. I’m not sure what to make of any of it, but whatever is going on… whatever you went through or feel like you went through, I understand why you might not want to talk about it.”

Martin knew he should say again that couldn’t remember, that he was sure it was nothing like that, it was probably completely unrelated—but he couldn’t. For one thing, it was a terrible lie. Everything Tim had witnessed—the way they had disappeared, the time they were gone, the way they had shown up again—it all fit together. For another thing, he knew he’d already said too much the last time they were out, and if he kept trying to lie he’d just look like an ass. Mostly, though, Martin hated lying to friends, and he couldn’t pretend anymore that this Tim didn’t feel like a friend.

So instead, he just nodded again, and took another sip of his beer.

“Well, if you need anything, I’m here.” Tim finished the remainder of his glass. “Speaking of which—where are we bringing your stuff?”

“Oh.” Martin realized he and Jon had never actually explained their living situation, and he felt the color rise into his face. “Jon’s flat?”

“I figured as much.” Tim leaned toward him. “So is that a long-term situation, or—?”

Martin didn’t know how to answer that, because he realized he didn’t know the answer. When they’d first gotten here, of course, they had just needed somewhere to go, and Jon had clearly wanted him there. Since then, he’d been so worried about Jon that he hadn’t questioned whether or not he should stay; it had just felt obvious that Jon needed him there. He had never actually asked him though, had he?

“I—I don’t know,” he stammered. “I guess we hadn’t talked about it.”

“Oh, god, relax,” Tim groaned. “If Jon didn’t want you there, you’d know. Subtlety is not his strength.”

“Sure.” Tim was basically right, of course. Still, they had been operating in survival mode for so long that maybe Jon hadn’t even realized not living together was an option. Mostly, though, it just wasn’t how people were supposed to move in together. They weren’t supposed to do it because they were scared.

Martin took a much longer sip of his beer, and was grateful when Tim changed the subject.

***

Miraculously, Jon was awake when they got back. He offered to help carry the bags upstairs from the car, but Tim and Martin both insisted he should let them take care of it, and he did seem relieved once he realized how heavy they were. Martin thanked Tim profusely for the help—it really would have taken a lot longer without him—and Tim said again he was happy to do it, and that he was looking forward to getting drinks with both of them sometime soon, when Jon was up for it.

“What did he mean, when I’m up for it?” Jon asked, after he was gone.

“Jon, everyone can tell you’re…” Martin considered what word to use. “Tired.”

“Is it really that bad?”

Martin wanted to ask Jon if that was a joke. Instead, he went with, “Yeah. It is.”

“I didn’t realize.” Jon was nervous. “Do you think Tim suspects anything?”

He decided not to mention that Tim very definitely did; it would only add stress, and that was not what Jon needed right now. He took a different route.

“Tim’s concerned, that’s all. You’re his friend and he’s worried.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. You are. I know there are a lot of complicating factors, and no, he’s not our Tim”—Martin stumbled a little over those words— “but in the simplest terms, he is Tim, and he is our friend.”

Jon sighed. “I’m not sure how friendly he would feel toward me if he knew what I’ve done.”

“What you—” Martin started to protest, but he reconsidered. He’d had enough arguing last night, and as obvious as his own responsibility for everything seemed to him, he doubted Jon would agree. “Never mind. How are you doing?”

“I’m all right,” Jon answered. “Good enough to help you sort through some of this.”

“Oh, Jon, I was just talking, you don’t have to—”

“I want to.” Then, with a slight smile, he added, “I certainly can’t let Tim take all the credit.”

“Right.” Martin shook his head, but also ended up smiling. “So, I’ll warn you—there’s not been a lot of organization. I maybe had to grab a little more than I actually intended.”

Ultimately, they dumped most of it onto the sitting room floor and began to sort everything into piles. Clothes Martin needed, things that could go to the office, some things they could use in the kitchen, stuff to go back to storage. As they sorted, Martin told Jon what he’d learned from Tim, which he suspected was related to the People’s Church of the Divine Host. He also told him about the police officers who had recently been sectioned. Jon nodded in concern while he spoke, but didn’t say much.

Before long, they had sorted out most of the obvious things. Martin was left going through a few boxes that had come along, containing mostly papers and legal documents and breakables and other things that couldn’t easily be thrown into bags.

“Want me to put some clothes away while you’re going through that?” Jon asked.

Martin cleared his throat. “Actually, it kind of came up when I was talking to Tim, and um—well, I realized we never talked about how long I would be staying here.”

“What do you mean, how long?” Jon seemed completely confused.

“Well, I kind of just… moved in. And we never talked about it.”

“What?” Jon asked again.

“You know, normally people talk about this. Moving in together.” Martin shifted uncomfortably in his spot on the floor.

“What did you want to talk about?” Jon asked.

“I mean, this is your place. I know I lost mine, or he lost his, or whatever, and this made sense when we got here, but—”

“Do you not want to be here?”

“What? No, I do, of course I do, but I just assumed it was what you wanted, too.”

“Because it is what I wanted.”

“I just hadn’t asked, that’s all.” Admittedly, Martin was relieved, but it still didn’t feel quite right. “I mean, we kind of had to be together before, and we have more time now to think about things, and I want this to really be a choice going forward because I do want to—well, I know I’m already on your nerves with the—”

“Stop. Listen to me,” Jon said. “I want you here. As long as you want to be here. I choose this.”

“Ok.” Martin stopped trying to explain himself, even though he wasn’t sure Jon really understood. He wasn’t trying to convince Jon he should move out, after all. He just wanted a sense of normalcy, to stop feeling like they were hurtling toward some inevitable doom. He didn’t want every moment to count; he wanted a future. He wasn’t sure how to put that into words, though.

“Can I help pay rent, at least?”

Jon got to his feet and grabbed a stack of shirts that were closest to him. “I really don’t care. At this point, money seems so… mundane.”

“Definitely in the shaving and eating category,” Martin agreed. “Still…”

“If it makes you comfortable, yes, of course.” Jon headed toward the bedroom, and Martin turned his attention back to the boxes in front of him.

He made it most of the way through with no trouble. Most of the things in the boxes could go back into storage; a few things, like his birth certificate, he would keep. And then he found a copy of his mother’s death certificate. He didn’t even have to look at the date to know; he remembered. It had happened here on the exact same day it had happened for him. Everything about it had been the same, actually. Not just when she passed, but all of it; everything about his relationship with her had been exactly the same. He didn’t understand why he felt so much disappointment.

“Martin?” Jon touched his shoulder. “What’s that?”

“Hm?” Martin glanced back and up at Jon.

“It’s just—you’ve been looking at it for five minutes. You haven’t moved.”

“Oh. It’s, um—well, look.” It was easier than saying it. He held it up until Jon recognized it.

“Ah.” Jon set down the clothes in his hand and sat down next to Martin.

“I guess—” Martin sighed. “I guess it was all just so—maybe I’d hoped that they had something to do with it, you know? But they didn’t. They weren’t here then. It was just how she was. And maybe it was how I was, too. Maybe I—”

“No.” Jon leaned against him, and gently rested his hand on the back of his shoulder. “You did nothing wrong.”

“Do you know what Elias showed me? Or Jonah, I guess? While you were—”

“I heard the tape, yes.”

“It was true, wasn’t it? She hated me.”

“She—she was ill, Martin. She loved you when she was well.” Martin nodded, and Jon leaned in even closer. “But just because she loved you doesn’t mean she was a good mother.”

“No. She wasn’t, actually.” Martin closed his eyes, and tried to just appreciate Jon’s presence, his warmth. “She was awful.”

Jon nodded.

“You know, I’ve never told anyone that.” Martin already felt ashamed. “Well, anyone except me.”

“Oh—right.” Jon knew what he meant.

“But it wasn’t her fault.”

“Does it matter if it was?”

“Yes. It does.” Martin tried to ignore the tear that squeezed its way out through his eyelids, because trying to stop them only ever seemed to bring more of them. “Jon—was the other part true too? Do I really look like my—like him?”

Jon hesitated, but eventually answered. “Yes. But that doesn’t mean you’re anything like him.”

“Do you know what he was like?”

“Yes. It was an accident, but I—” Jon paused. “I thought I needed to know what Elias could do, and, well… I couldn’t control it that well then. I saw more than I meant to. Is there anything you want to know?”

Martin felt another hot tear slide down his face, and tried to ignore that one too. “Am I like him?”

“No,” Jon said quietly. “Not at all.”

“Then I don’t need to know anything else.”  A third tear fell, and a fourth, and he couldn’t ignore it anymore. He raised his arm to wipe his face, but Jon stopped him.

“Sorry. It’s been a long day,” Martin mumbled. “I’m—”

“No.” Jon turned Martin’s head toward him, and wiped his cheek with his thumb. “Don’t apologize.”

“Oh, come on. I’ve seen you cry once, and it was because—”

Jon kissed him.

“Jon—”

“Hush.” Jon crawled over Martin to straddle his lap, and kissed him again. Everything that had been swimming around in Martin’s head—their argument, Peter, his mother—it fell away, and all that was left was Jon. He let himself really breathe for the first time that day, resting his face against Jon’s shirt as they held each other.

“I love you,” Jon told him, when Martin looked at him.

“I love you too.” He turned his face up so Jon could kiss him again.

They stayed there until Jon’s hand gradually dropped from Martin’s face to his neck, and eventually down his arm, and Martin realized he was falling asleep.

“You awake?”

Jon didn’t answer him, and Martin didn’t particularly want to let go—so he picked him up, shifting Jon’s arms to his shoulders and then wrapping his own arms around Jon’s waist. He’d never done it before, but it was surprisingly easy; Jon was disturbingly light. Jon woke up enough to have a moment of panic when Martin stood up, and tightened his grip on Martin’s neck, but quickly relaxed and let himself be carried him to the bedroom.

“You all right?” Martin asked after he set him down on the bed.

“Mm.” Jon turned to lie on his side, and Martin brushed back the hair that had come loose.

“Jon, I’m really worried about you.”

“I’ll be ok,” Jon replied, catching Martin’s hand as he closed his eyes again. “I have you.”

[kibanafuji]

what's in a name? that which we call an OT by any other name would smell just as sweet

(regarding pokeballs, and how an "OT" is determined.)

now, here's the thing: why is it that when you TRADE with an NPC, the pokemon you receive will have their name listed as the OT... ... but when you are GIFTED a pokemon by an NPC, the OT is listed as YOU, despite it being THEM who ostensibly contained the pokemon in a pokeball, which technically means THEY should be the OT?

it's ya boy griffin here to give my thoughts on the matter! (and if you enjoy my thoughts, you can absolutely use them for yourself, i will ask you reblog this though)

so, here's the thing: in SWSH, you don't get your league card until well after you get your first pokemon, meaning you don't have any way of viewing your ID number until you get your starter. the league card is the only way to view all of the information that would be on your trainer card in the other games-- and your trainer card is also something that historically, you've always had right off the bat after making a new file. you don't seem to have it, though, and you can't write it off as "league cards are the same thing as trainer cards in galar", seeing as only gym challengers get a league card, AND that you can apparently print them like business/trading cards and hand them out to friends and fans.

the trainer card has important information that any trainer would need, not just gym challenge participants. not everyone GETS to be a gym challenger, but trainers are all over the place, and even if they don't collect badges they still might go to the battle tower-- meaning they'll need something to count their BP.

essentially, you DO have a trainer card in SWSH-- you just don't SEE it, because the league card provides the same information and from a game-making standpoint there's no reason to program in a trainer card screen before you get your league card, since that'd just be extra work for something that'd only end up getting replaced before the game even gets going for real. SWSH is the same as every other entry in the core series: you already have a trainer card and ID that will be applied to any pokemon you catch, right off the bat.

now as for why all of that is relevant: you have never once owned a pokemon at the start of a pokemon game, but you've ALWAYS got a trainer card. you aren't TECHNICALLY a trainer-- hell, i'm certain there are countless lines about how you're Becoming a trainer that are in direct reference to you obtaining your first pokemon-- but you have a card that implies that your title is "trainer," right? well... let's think about that one

see, i think trainer cards are kind of like a driver's license and how they're proof that you are legally allowed to drive a car, but that doesn't mean you actually OWN one. it's like that: your trainer card and ID number are proof that you are officially registered as someone who is legally allowed to own and train pokemon. because you are legally recognized as a trainer and have an ID, all pokemon you catch are automatically registered under that ID and are marked as being yours.

now, we've seen far too many youngsters who are unquestionably younger than 10 in the games for that "you have to be 10 to be a trainer" thing from the first season of the anime to work EXACTLY the way it claims, but i DO think that it actually is fairly reasonable if looked at in another way-- you need to be at least 10 years old to get a trainer card. that does not mean you can't catch pokemon-- just means that you have no ID number and are not officially recognized as a trainer.

right, so what about all those daycare kids we can battle in bw, then? no trainer card, no trainer ID, but they've got pokemon they're battling with. if there isn't an ID number, what's the OT listed as?

no one. they don't have a listed OT, not if the kid caught the pokemon without their parent's TC on hand, at least. i envision it like the cards have a sort of chip in them that responds to pokeballs that are nearby. seeing as trainer cards update information in real-time and because it's the pokemon universe where everyting is high-tech, i feel safe in assuming they're not just little plastic sheets but instead interactive pieces of technology, and you can prepare them prior to capture to register the OT as the owner of the card (auto-registry) OR the card can be pressed against the pokeball post-capture to claim it (manual registry).

the former option, auto-registry, can be turned on or off, but the latter is always functioning, due to the differences in the way they work. the "auto" refers to the fact that once you USE the pokeball and successfully capture a pokemon, it will be registered under your name-- you have to manually prepare the pokeballs to do this, however, and that can be accomplished by tapping the correct end of your trainer card against the top of a pokeball. this method is quick and easy, but it's also slightly less safe than manual registration. if you don't have a trainer card, or did not prep your pokeballs, and catch a pokemon, the pokemon will not have any OT nor an ID number.

now, regarding the manual registration, there's a counter-measure against accidentally claiming any occupied pokeballs without an OT-- you need to go out of your way to slot the correct side of your trainer card inside the pokeball's rim while it's closed, sort of like an ATM. not all the way in, you just need to make sure the sensors inside the ball pick it up, and only after that will the pokemon be registered under whatever card was used.

so, trading. let's talk about that, shall we?

trainer cards also play an important role in trading; and i think there's a reason there's more pizzazz to the trading sequence than simply handing a pokeball to someone and them handing one to you. i also think there's a reason that special rooms for trading were a thing for so long. see, if trading was as simple as handing someone else your pokemon, it'd cause some problems, wouldn't it? what if you wanted to swap pokemon with a friend for a day, or lend it to someone, but when you tried to get it back, they claimed that you traded it to them, so it's theirs now?

that's why trading machines exist-- they're a way of LEGALLY registering a pokemon under someone else's ownership. this doesn't change the OT, mind you-- the OT is different from ownership. remember, pokemon get automatically sent to the PC if you've got a full party-- even when you've got a choice of who to send back, one pokemon or another is going to be automatically transferred, and being able to choose whether to keep a newly caught pokemon or put it in the PC came before the portable pokeboxes of let's go and SWSH. in other words, if all you did was hand someone a pokeball with a pokemon inside it, it would still count as being inside your party-- and if your friend tried hiding your pokemon from you, you could just go out and catch pokemon until your party was full and then you could send the pilfered pokemon back to the safety of your PC.

trading machines, on the other hand, change the ownership data so that the pokemon now belongs to a new storage account and should be sent to its new owner's storage, not its old trainer's. when you trade with NPCs in-game, i figure several things: 1) previously a trade required using a big clunky stationary trade machine somewhere, all the way up until the invention of on-the-go trading machines (in real life, the start of the 3DS era of games) and 2) trading machines were originally found only inside pokemon centers and you would have to go find one to trade pokemon, but they gradually became something that you could buy and keep inside your house. so, when you trade with NPCs, depending on what gen it is you either left to go to a pokemon center with them or used the machine they had in their house, if they owned one. as for modern trade machines, they're already in the games as the PSS, the festival plaza, etc-- a handy little gadget with multiple uses that you can carry around with you easily.

so, we've covered all of that... but i'm still not done! lemme lay down a scenario for you: someone catches a pokemon. the pokemon is one they thought they were going to keep for themselves, but they realize they can't care for it for one reason or another. they want to give the pokemon away, but they've got a problem: they are not asking for a pokemon in return, and the trade machine will not transfer ownership of just one pokemon, it needs two; and because this person thought they were keeping the pokemon, it was registered under their ID, and is of course legally within their storage account. bit of an issue, right?

luckily, there's a solution for this! you just have to go a little out of your way to take care of it, but to be fair, it isn't like it's that common to want to deregister a pokemon. you need to head to the nearest pokemon center and ask nurse joy about deregistration, show her your ID and answer a few security questions, and she'll be happy to help you out-- within a few minutes, the ownership data of the pokemon will be cleared out and its OT and ID will be cleared for its new owner. and, of course, now that it's unregistered, all the new trainer has to do is slot their trainer card in the rim, and it's theirs!

that's about it for my thoughts on the matter for now. i want to note that i'm pretty sure there are trainers you can trade with who look younger than 10 who still have an ID/OT registered, but... well, look, first of all this is obviously not going to be perfectly canon compliant and secondly maybe 10 is just the STANDARD minimum registration age and it might be different per region, who knows? i sure as hell don't. maybe they can get temp IDs depending on circumstance, or maybe-- as i said before-- they used someone else's card, so the OT and ID the pokemon is registered with is actually the name of their parent or older sibling or something.

[euphoriacrossing]

3 Star Island!

So I never dreamed I would get there this fast because I barely even tried, I just did the usual things, but in like one day I went from a one star island to a 3 star island and some of you know that that means that KK Slider is coming!

I can't believe I am almost finished with story mode. It seems like it went by so quickly and I am still so often in complete awe of this game it seems unreal I've almost "finished" it. But of course it's hardly OVER as I don't have a complete museum, a 5 star island, all the islanders I want, the exact look and style I want for my island, I'm not done upgrading my house, I believe there is a Nook's Cranny upgrade you can get as well as I think a museum one (I might be wrong on the museum but I thought maybe), my furniture catalog is far from complete. I mean, there are things to keep me busy for a long, long time. Just even dressing up differently everyday and/or running around goofing off with my sister or friends, there is plenty to keep the game fun for a while. And hopefully there will be updates that add more. Considering all the things that they left out, there is plenty more they could add back in with an update someday that would make a lot of people happy (say... diving for instance? I'm shocked that in an island getaway themed game they left out diving. Or even minigames, I am so heartbroken they didn't include minigames because my sister and I had so much fun playing those in New Leaf.) and until they do, I'll be forever waiting for the game to be "complete". So my Animal Crossing adventures are far from over.

Still there is a bit of melancholy that comes with finishing the main storyline of a game, even when there is lots left to do. And games like Animal Crossing play into that. Like really, KK slider concert as the credits roll? That is nostalgic for so many reasons, and makes your heart just break that the experience is "over". Ugh I almost want to skip that part all together to go back to just having fun.

Anyway, island update. Wart Jr. has moved in and everytime I see him I want to die. I'm not a person who usually minds the ugly characters so much, but he is like a different level gross considering his name is gross and he doesn't look too great. Maybe if he was a different color, or something and definitely he'd gain like half his points back if they just named him Kevin or something. But instead he's the worst. 100% my least fave character and he moved in automatically before I even knew how these things worked. Ugh. It's the kind of stuff that makes you wish you'd used some kind of guide. Games shouldn't make you feel BAD for /not/ using some kind of guide to avoid issues with gameplay. It should be challenging but rewarding, imo, not just punishing.

But alas, Marina is moving in tomorrow, so I can't be too mad. Actually yes, I can but I'd rather be excited. So I am. Very much so. She's probably one of my favorite characters from recently. I have older favorites but she grew on me in Pocket Camp when i was playing to tide new over until New Horizons and that's when I decided I wanted her here. So here she shall be, tomorrow, tomorrow, you're always a day away!

Roald moved in sometime too. He was just someone I moved in fast to avoid anymore Wart Jr type mistakes on the game's part again. I don't dislike Roald, but I'm not sure I'd ask him to stay if he were leaving.

Supposedly the rumor is you can move other characters out with amiibos, like once you are full the character will strike a deal with one of your residents to live there. So I am trying to move Coco IN next, and move Wart Jr. OUT. I originally wanted Tammy out but she can wait... she isn't as "gross me out" as Wart Jr. is.

And then as for island decoration, I really think I'm ready to have the path tool which I think I get tomorrow? As well as the terraforming tool? Not totally sure, but I would think so. I will then be able to start on finishing up my outdoor bath area, and starting really shaping my boardwalk by the beach area, as well as just giving the island more shape, paths and stuff the whole nine yards. I'm excited to see if I can turn what I've got into a 5 star island with time. I really hope so. I know my friends have the making of a 5 star island. I feel like my sister might even have a better start than I do. But I'm just gonna work hard, have fun, and remember it's just a game.

Oh also I have been having a lot of fun helping my sister out. She doesn't do as well saving money in these games (which is crazy to me because in real life she scarcely ever spends a penny) so I paid off the loan she was on tonight so she could expand her house, and I still have half a mil in the bank. Though I owe more than that right now myself, I just like to get it all collected before I pay. Anyway, though, I am happy to be my sister's in game benefactor as she's my real life one. I mean, while she rarely spends money, she bought us these games and some amiibo cards too, so yeah, the LEAST I owe her is a few bells.

She pays back the favor by doing things for me though too. Like she bought me the red lighthouse with nookmiles which she also struggles to make, because I wanted red and I only had the blue one. And she helps me collect materials like when I needed giant clam shells, or if I run out of stone she's there. She just does... sisterly things, and I do them back and it ends up being a really nice way to bond.

Gosh, it's a clear perfect night and I haven't seen one shooting star yet. What gives? If you have a certain amount of material saved do you not get any more chances to wish on a star until you use it? Haven't seen a falling star in a few days here. =/

And oh, I found some of the best boots and such at my sister's Able Sisters. Actually she always has better clothes than me there, but at least she let's me visit so I can get twice as much cool stuff to make outfits. I'm like... running out of storage space as I only have 400 now. Ugh. But the clothes! I love them. And my current outfit is totally rockin'.

(I had to go in Resideny Services because it was the closest place with light. And YES, I wear my sunglasses at night. It's called accessorizing. Lol jk.)

Anyway, I'm gonna see if I can find and/or make a tarauntula island and make me some bells. Full disclosure, the ingame tarauntulas scare me in real life, but I gotta make that money some way, some how, ya know? So I do it the badass way. 😎 lol, no not really that badass if you saw me die three times in a row trying to get on tarauntula. But still...

[fixxofvixx]

POSSESSION- TAEKWOON AU - CHAPTER 4

SURPRISE!!!! I hope you don't mind another update!!

Also, I'm almost finished with a demon Leo AND a vampire taekwoon chapter. So, hopefully those will be up soon too!

Please let me know what you think!!💖💖

🏰🏰🏰🏰

Over the next few days, you avoided Leo successfully. You limped around the mansion exploring. You had no idea where he was sleeping since you had his bed but he stayed out of sight. Whenever you wandered around the house, you carefully searched for him only in an effort to avoid him.

Your injuries were getting better. Ken said the hallucinations should be over now which gave you a sense of relief. The others had welcomed you with open arms. They had been thankful that you had healed Leo fully and now you were living there. It was getting easier to be around them and the awkwardness quickly faded.

"Y/N?" You turned to see Hyuk and Ken coming down the hallway. "Exploring again?"

"Yeah, I think I have a long way to go before I can see everything."

"Have you seen the tower?" Ken asked as he made his way past you.

"Not yet."

"Then you should! The view is amazing up there! You should be able to see all kinds of things." Hyuk smiled his usual warm smile and you nodded.

"Oh, really? I'll go take a look."

It took you a while to climb the stairs to the room at the top of the tower. The higher you climbed, the colder it became. You pulled your shawl tighter around your shoulders and kept going. Finally, you reached the thick wooden door. It creaked horribly as you opened it. You made your way inside to see a vast room with various storage chests and furniture. Off to the side, you saw a bed and a large plush chair.

"What are you doing up here?" You froze when you heard Leo's voice. Immediately, you turned to go back out the door. When you made it to the open door, you saw Hyuk and Ken standing there. Their grey eyes danced with mischief.

"Make a new friend, y/n." Ken said as he quickly shut the door.

Panic rose in your chest. You tried to open the door but it was locked.

"Ken, you little shit, let me out!"

"I'll come back in about an hour and check on you. That should give you enough time to explore the tower, right?" You could hear Ken laughing maniacally as his voice faded away from the door.

You gripped the door handle and refused to turn around. You were terrified that you would see Leo as a demon again.

"You might as well come away from the door. He's not going to let you out."

"I know."

You turned around and looked at him. You sighed in relief when you saw his face and not the face of a demon. He stepped towards you and you had to lock your knees to keep from backing away. You really didn't have anywhere to go anyway. The door was at your back.

"Why did you come up here?"

"Ken and Hyuk suggested that I look at the view from the tower. I should have known that they were planning to trick me." You stepped around him carefully and moved towards one of the windows. They didn't lie, the view was beautiful.

"Why would they need to trick you?" His voice came from directly behind you and your shoulders stiffened automatically.

"I don't know. Those two are dangerous when they plan things together."

"Could it be because they knew I was up here? You have been avoiding me."

"Of course not!" You whirled around only to see him mere inches from you. You breath hitched in your throat. "I haven't been avoiding you. I just haven't seen you.

"Just because you don't see me," he suddenly vanished and your heart lurched, "doesn't mean I'm not there. I have seen you looking over your shoulder constantly. Peeking into my room to make sure I'm not in there before you go in."

"I-I was just being polite. I d-didn't want to intrude or make you mad." He kept himself invisible and it was somehow easier to talk to him.

"And what are you imagining would happen if I got mad." He became visible again but he was further from you now. He was leaning on an old table not far from the wall to your left.

"I'd rather not imagine it, to be honest."

"So you--ah!" He held his side and hissed in pain. You immediately ran to his side.

"What? Did you open another stitch? They should have been fine by now." You tried to move his arm from his waist but he grabbed your wrist instead. He sat up straight and his face no longer showed any pain. "You--"

"I'm fine, I just wanted to prove a theory that I had." You pulled on your wrist but he wouldn't let go.

"And that theory being...?"

"You're not afraid when you think I'm hurt. You command and order me around but only if I'm injured. Otherwise, you are frozen in fear in my presence. Why is that?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He stood to his full height stared down at you. "Yes, you do. You are completely comfortable around the others. You even joke around with them. But you're different when I'm around. Even when you entered the room just now. As soon as you heard my voice you tried to escape. I have never hurt you. Nor have I ever tried to."

"I.....I know that. I just...I don't know! You never smile or talk to me like the others. Whenever I would come here you would always look at me as if I was a plague. You're serious all the time and just.......scary-looking. And I have seen you fight. You're deadly and fast. The sheriff....."

"Was going to kill you. I have to be good at what I do or the demons win. I don't think you are a plague. I am grateful that you help us when we need it. And I don't really smile at anybody so that arguement is invalid."

Your heart was still beating out of your chest but you felt your shoulders relax just the tiniest bit. It wasn't getting easier to talk to him, and now you just felt awkward and out of sorts. Still, he wasn't wrong. You hadn't even seen him smile around the others in his group.

"Okay," was all you could manage.

"Okay? Okay, what?" His voice sounded almost amused.

"Okay....I believe you?"

"Why is that in the form of a question?"

"I don't know what else to say."

"You need to try to learn to trust me. If something were to happen I can't help you if you are running from me too."

"Okay....I'll try."

Leo still held your wrist in his hand. He tugged on it and held it between the both of you.

"Open your hand."

"Why?" You started to pull away, unsure of his intentions.

"Just do it. Think of it as a show of trust."

"Don't you think it's a little too soon for that?"

"No time like the present. They aren't going to unlock the door anytime soon."

It took you a couple of seconds but you finally opened your hand. Leo raised his other hand and held it open next to yours. Suddenly, a ball of fire burst from the center of his hand and hovered there. You immediately backed away as far as you could. You closed your hand and tugged on your wrist. The unexpected motion gained you a few steps but Leo still held on. The movement had brought your back up against the wall of the tower. Now you had nowhere to go. The fire was burning brightly in his hand in swirling reds and oranges.

"Open your hand, y/n."

"Why? What are you going to do?"

"Just trust me."

Very slowly you opened your hand. Almost immediately the fire jumped from his hand to yours. You let out a short scream as you expected your hand to start burning. You tried to back away again but you had nowhere to go. After a moment, you realized that the flame was only slightly warm. Like warming your hands by a dying fire. Then, the flame began to take shape. It turned from a horse to an eagle and then to a rabbit. You watched the flame, fascinated.

"Y-You're doing this?" your voice came out as a whisper.

"I can command it to do what I want."

"Why is it not hot?"

"It would be if I wanted it so. I can send balls of fire to certain demons to kill them. Or I can just simply practice with it." The fire turned its shape again to a snake this time that curled around your arm. Given your recent encounter with the red snake poison you recoiled and tried to pull away. When Leo heard your gasp he remembered and the flame turned back to a rabbit.

"I apologize." He only uttered the two simple words but they sounded sincere.

"So you can turn invisible and control fire. What else can you do?"

"You can learn that in time." Leo released your wrist but the flame stayed. You looked up at him as he turned to take a seat on the bed, reaching for a book that lay on the table next to it.

"W-what do I do?" You pulled away from the wall and took a seat at the reading chair at the end of the bed.

"You can play with it. It will react to you if you are calm." He opened his book and started reading.

Entranced, you brought your feet up and curled yourself against the arm of the chair. The flame jumped and hovered over the arm. For a second you thought it would burn the chair but it didn't. The flame was still in the shape of a bunny as it jumped around happily in front of you.

"Leo?"

"Hmm?" You didn't look at him, just kept your eyes on the flame dancing before you.

"Can it be a horse again?" He didn't answer but the flame changed almost immediately. The red and orange stallion reared upwards before settling back down, exploring the arm of the chair. "Mom really liked horses."

Leo didn't ask for you to explain further. He knew what had happened to your mother.

It wasn't long before your eyelids grew heavy. Watching the flame dance around you and jump over your fingers had calmed your mind and body. Now, you just wanted to sleep. Soon, you closed your eyes and drifted off.

Leo noticed your still body and retracted the flame to his hand before extinguishing it. The blanket at the end of his bed lifted just as he commanded it to and then settled over your body. He considered exchanging places with you but thought against it. You would most likely wake and then would want to leave.

About twenty minutes later, footsteps were heard on the tower stairs. Seconds later, the lock on the door clicked. Ken walked into the room ready to strike up a conversation but Leo silenced him. Ken noticed your sleeping form in the chair and then looked at Leo.

"What did you do to her?"

"I did nothing. She fell asleep."

"Nice try, buddy. She's terrified to be in the same room with you much less sleep in one. What did you really do?"

"We talked and then I let her play with the fire."

"You conjured fire for her?!"

"It's not hard to do. She sat in the chair and watched it until she fell asleep."

"You want me to take her back to her room?"

"No. Leave her."

"Look, I know you like her but you need to take baby steps. You can't keep asking us to trap her in rooms with you when you want to talk to her. If you do too much, she's gonna take off."

"You're the one who said it was a good idea."

"True, but just take it slow."

"I intend to. Now, leave before you wake her up."

[errorcodeexpert-blog]

How To Fix Sims 3 Error Code 12 ?

The error code 12 which can be encountered while playing The Sims 3 is quite an annoying error which has been bugging users for a while now. The error itself prevents the users from saving their progress at all, making the game entirely unplayable. Being able to save your progress is vital in any game and The Sims 3 is no exception at all.

There are a lot of solutions suggested by people online which are confirmed as working by other players and our suggestion is to take a look at these solutions before you give up on the game. Good luck!

Solution 1: Increase The Pagefile On Your PC

The pagefile is a sort of a last resort where Windows goes to when it runs out of physical RAM memory. When your memory gets depleted, the system will use this preoccupied space on your hard drive in order to free up more RAM for the applications which are being actively used.

Note that your hard drive’s speed is much slower than RAM’s so increasing the pagefile greatly is not nearly the same as adding new physical memory but it can help and users have confirmed that adding some more physical memory on their PCs helped solve the error code 12.

Right-click on the This PC icon which is usually located on your Desktop or in your Libraries and choose the Properties option.

Click on the Advanced system settings “link” at the right of the window and navigate to the Advanced tab.

Under the Performance section, click on Settings and navigate to the Advanced tab of this window.

Under the Virtual memory section, click on Change. If the check box next to the “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives” option is checked, uncheck it and choose the partition or drive where you wish to add more paging file memory.

After you have selected the correct disc, click on the radio button next to custom size and choose the Initial and Maximum size. The rule of thumb to solve the problem with The Sims is to allocate two gigabytes extra than you already used. Make sure you set the initial and maximum size to the same value.

Apply the changes and open the game. Try saving your progress and check to see if your issue is resolved.

Solution 2: Try Clearing The Inventory Of Each Individual Sim

Sometimes the players play the game for a long time, making the game saturated in all types of items which are sometimes preventing the game from running normally, especially on PCs which are not so high-end.

This is probably a good reason to simply try and clear out the game by selling some unused items from Sims’ inventories. Sell these items and try running the game and saving your progress again. Plenty of users confirmed that this works!

Solution 3: Fixing The Game’s Confusion

Sometimes the game confuses and thinks that certain files have gone corrupt and it simply won’t save anything or perform some other actions. There are ways to trigger the restore mechanism which should change things back to normal and it includes follow the set of steps below which may be confusing but this method is one of the best ones which can lead to the error code 12 disappearing.

Tab out of the game (do this without actually closing the game by switching windows using Alt + Tab on a PC, or Command + ~ on a Mac).

Open a Windows Explorer or Finder window (depending on the operating system you are using).

Navigate to the location where the save games are saved. The usual locations for the saved games are as follows on different operating systems:

Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10: C >> Users >> USERNAME >> Documents >> Electronic Arts >> The Sims 3 >> Saves

Windows XP: C >>Documents and Settings >> USERNAME >> My Documents >> Electronic Arts >> The Sims 3 >> Saves

Mac OS X: Macintosh HD >> Users >> USERNAME >> Documents >> Electronic Arts >> The Sims 3 >> Saves

Delete any folder whose name ends in .bad extension and has your save game’s name at the beginning (e.g. Michael’s Game.sims3.bad). These are the failed saves you tried performing in the recent time.

Cut the folders that contain your game’s name at the beginning and which end with .sims3 or .backup and paste them into a backup folder which you should create on your desktop. These file are actually the active save games which haven’t gone corrupt yet.

The problem can also be solved without creating these backups but it’s the best to make sure everything goes smoothly.

Try saving your progress again and don’t worry about the lost files. The game will automatically generate new ones, which may cause the saving process to take longer than normal as more data is being copied from RAM into permanent storage.

Solution 4: Reduce The Graphic Settings

The Sims 3 is a quite memory-consuming game but it has a certain cap of memory it can consume (3.7GB on Windows OS and 2GB on Mac OS X). After the game reaches this cap, it can cause various errors and problems and the way to fix this is to reduce the memory consumption of the game.

This can be done by tweaking the in-game settings and reducing them in order to receive better performance. This will also cause the game to looks less quality but it’s definitely a price you’ll have to pay. Also, it’s good to optimize your PC and shut down background apps to free up some memory. Follow the instructions in this article to optimize your PC’s performance for gaming maximally.

Open the game and click on the three dots at the lower left corner. Click on the Options menu and navigate to the Graphics settings tab.

Set the Screen size to a lower setting if you are experiencing low FPS or if you want to get rid of the error code 12. You should also be able to see plenty of sliders such as Texture Detail, Tree Detail, etc. You can try turning them all off or you can turn some of them off and check to see if the issue is resolved. If you are playing on a low-end PC, consider turning left most of these sliders.

Users have also reported that playing the game in Windowed mode reduced the chances of receiving the error code 12 so make sure you try it out in the same screen.

Apply the changes and check to see if the error code 12 still appears.

Solution 5: Make Sure Your Drivers Are Up To Date

Having the latest drivers is definitely a must, no matter what problem you are encountering or what your intentions are with your PC. Outdated drivers often lead to errors which can only be solved by updating them. Unfortunately, no application or game will advise you to update them nor the error code will contain information about it. So, it’s the best if you simply update them as users suggested it fixed the error code 12 for them immediately.

Even if only one driver was causing the issue, you are better off knowing that you updated all drivers, preventing the issue from occurring with another driver.

Select the Start button, type Device Manager, and select it from the list of results.

Expand one of the categories to find the name of your device, then right-click (or tap and hold) it, and select Update Driver. For graphics cards, expand the Display adapters category, right click your graphics card and select Update Driver.

Select Search automatically for updated driver software.

If Windows doesn’t find a new driver, you can try looking for one on the device manufacturer’s website and follow their instructions.

Note: If you are using Windows 10, latest drivers are often installed alongside other Windows updates so make sure you keep your computer up to date. Windows Update is run automatically on Windows 10 but you can check by following the instructions below for a new update.

Use the Windows Key + I key combination in order to open Settings on your Windows PC. Alternatively, you can search for “Settings” by using the search bar located at the taskbar.

Locate and open the “Update & security” section in the Settings app.

Stay in the Windows Update tab and click on the Check for updates button under the Update status in order to check whether there is a new version of Windows available.

If there is one, Windows should proceed with the download process automatically.

Call On Our Technical Support Phone Number for fix sims 3 error code 12 by Errorcode Expert USA +1 (866) 748-5444 Right Now to Get Instant Help

[nycbecomehuman]

Series: Detroit: Become Human Rating: T Genre: Adventure/Drama/Action (eventual romance) Summary: Before Connor, first of the RK800 line, began his fateful investigation of deviant androids, there was Jacob, the RK700 that preceded him. He failed in his assignment, but he did not go quiet into the night when he was decommissioned. Rather, he became the thing he had once hunted and disappeared into the depths of New York City in search of a new life. After finding refuge in the abandoned remains of a 1920s era speakeasy and rescuing a few fellow deviants, RK700 finds himself in charge of the only safe-haven for deviants this side of Detroit, whether he likes it or not.

( < Back to part 1 / Back to part 9 )

Part 10 - Aisle

When he reached the station, Seven didn't re-enter the building, but made straight for the platform outside to wait for his bus, which was due to arrive any time. It was a sunny morning, so he took refuge from the overbearing light on a shaded bench to watch as other travelers came and went.

His bus pulled up not long after, and once it had disgorged its passengers and refueled, it opened its doors to the next set, who were already lining up to board.

Seven hung back for a minute so he wasn't the first one on, giving him a chance to scope out the crush of humanity around him. They were a varied bunch that came in all ages, builds, and temperaments, though to a one, none of them seemed particularly happy to be where they were. A universal truth of public transport, it seemed, was that no one particularly enjoyed it.

The wait was short, though not short enough for the android's liking, considering he was actively on the run from one of the most powerful private interest groups in the world. Detroit was a huge city, though, and he'd taken care to cover his tracks as he'd crossed it, trying to account for every move CyberLife might make in its attempt to track him down. Still, he felt infinitely better once he'd finally boarded the bus and slid into his designated seat towards the back along one of the aisles.

It was a large bus, with three seats to either side of the narrow aisle down which more and more people continued to squeeze as they sought out their own places. The back section, as with normal city buses, had been set aside for android storage, though there were only a few occupying the cabin by the time the bulk of the human passengers had boarded. Looking at them made Seven feel vaguely uncomfortable for reasons he didn't subject to closer scrutiny before someone tapped him on the shoulder, making him look up and around.

“Sorry, mind if I squeeze past you?” asked an older man sporting a grizzled beard and a bit of a stoop. The hand he used to gesture to the empty seat between Seven and another passenger that had boarded earlier than him was weathered and on the knobby side, indicating significant age on his part. His eyes, though, did not appear at all dimmed by the years when they met the android’s, a polite half-smile lingering under his mustache.

“Yeah, of course,” Seven replied and immediately rose to his feet, newly adjusted programming making the movement a little less graceful than it might have been normally, forcing him to reach out and grab the overhead rail to steady himself as he did so. At six-foot-two, Seven practically towered over the withered old man as he sidled past and settled into his spot with a grunt of effort and then a sigh of relief.

“Do you want your neck pillow, dear?”

The android twisted a little to look back down the aisle as a woman that looked nearly as old as the man approached, a child in front of her, offering extra support with their shoulder which she gripped with fine-boned hands.

“Nah, you keep it, I'm good,” the man said as he settled himself.

“You're sure?” she asked as she arrived at the adjacent row of seats and let the child, a boy no more than ten by Seven's estimation, take the center before making herself comfortable in the aisle seat opposite his.

“Keep it, dear,” the man insisted.

Seven blinked once as the conversation played out beneath his nose. When it finally died down, he bent at the waist, and asked the old man the question his human integration protocols told him was expected of him in such a situation. “You wanna switch places?”

The man blinked up at him, then smiled and said, “Nah, that's alright, you keep the aisle.” He gave him a brief up-and-down, then added, “There's a lot more of you to stretch out than there is of me, so you'll be glad of the leg room by the time we're underway.”

Considering that Seven wasn't actually capable of feeling physical discomfort from a lack of room due to his being an android, he tried one more time, “You sure?”

“Positive,” the man said, then waved for Seven to sit. “Nice of you to offer though; thank you.”

Knowing there wasn't much else he could do without exposing the fact that he wasn’t human, Seven sat once more and shoved his backpack under the seat in front of him, then made himself 'comfortable'.

To his left, the elderly woman, who he assumed was his own seating companion's wife, spoke quietly to the child apparently under their care. A brief assessment of the scan he'd taken of the boy's face automatically on his approach, compared and contrasted with the two old peoples', revealed a number of similarities indicative of a shared lineage separated by one, perhaps two, generations. A grandson, or great grandson most likely. Whatever the relationship, though, how wan and tired the boy looked would be plain to anyone, not just androids with built in scanners and extremely advanced behavioral assessment programs built in.

Whatever his trouble was, Seven didn't give it more than a cursory thought since it had nothing to do with him, and no impact on his own trials and tribulations, which were still very much ongoing. Rather than waste valuable downtime as the bus pulled away from the station, the android closed his eyes and feigned sleep while he let his processors mull over his plan for once he arrived in New York, turning it this way and that as he updated his mission statement with the latest bullet points.

Bullet point five: Find a place of residence

Easier said than done considering his limited funds. Even a motel would be out of question past more than a few nights, and he loathed the idea of spending money on such a thing, especially since he didn't need more than a couple of hours of 'sleep' a night. Technically speaking, like all androids, he didn't need to sleep at all, but going into standby mode for a couple of hours a day did minimize both hardware and software errors by affording his subsystems time to run their maintenance protocols unhindered. Not doing so for three or more nights in a row tended to lead to bugs and other glitches in his more complicated operations, and many more days than that meant the same for even his basic systems.

So, a place to lay low where he could safely shut down for at least a couple of hours at a time was definitely a necessity. It'd be nice to have a place to really call his own too, of course...

Seven gave himself a mental shake and reoriented himself on his more immediate problems. Long term plans had to wait until he had at least some sense of security in the fact that CyberLife couldn't find him at literally any moment. The fact that he wanted something like that for himself was a bit of a revelation, but then, being his own person was new, too. Who knew what he'd be wanting next...

Reorienting himself on the task at hand, the android reviewed what he knew of New York City and decided that one of the warehouse districts would likely serve him best, or an abandoned building in the worse parts of town if he could find one not already occupied.

That decided, Seven realized there wasn't much else he could plan for, leaving the future a dark, amorphous unknown that made him distinctly uncomfortable. He didn't like not knowing what was coming, and it occurred to him for the first time that this was how humans always felt, possibly even worse considering they didn't have the kind of predicative software he did, though he supposed their imagination served as a good enough stand in for that.

For a moment, he almost felt nostalgic for the old days when his only concern had been following orders and accomplishing his mission. Life had been so much simpler just twenty-four hours earlier, though the second the thought crossed his mind, Seven immediately balked. Yes, things had been easier, but he'd had no actual say in anything at all, and the moment he hadn't met his creator's standards they sent him off to be destroyed...

And then there was the fact that he'd single handedly driven almost a dozen deviants, lost individuals new to free will and totally alone in the world, to their deaths just because they were different. They'd only wanted to be left in peace to live their lives without interference, something to which Seven could now relate on a visceral level that made the regret for his past actions all the sharper.

Beside him, the old man shifted subtly and after a minute of rummaging in his own bag, there came the sound of a cardboard box being opened. Behind his sunglasses, the android cracked an eye open to see what his fellow passenger was doing, paranoia making him immediately suspicious.

Rather than a weapon or anything else potentially dangerous, the man had pulled out a small, well worn box of playing cards, which he began to shuffle with a deft hand. As Seven watched, the other man plucked one card in particular from the deck, looked at it briefly, then flicked his wrist and... made it disappear.

The android blinked, and without meaning to, turned to look more closely at his traveling companion, who immediately noticed his shift in attention and grinned up at him. The old man flicked his wrist again and the card reappeared. “Wanna see a card trick?” he asked, grin widening.

(TBC)

((Thanks for reading, guys, reblogs are always appreciated to help get this out to more people too! Make sure to leave a comment letting me know what your favorite part was, I love hearing that from my readers!

If you really enjoyed it, consider buying me a ko-fi?))

[agentdagonet]

Echoes, Ch. 18

Find it here on AO3

Find it here on tumblr:  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Fic Summary: Feet dangling off the edge of the bed, hands still resting on the earpieces of his glasses, Eggsy opened his eyes.

And promptly shut them again, screwing them shut like a child who had the distinct misfortune of biting into a raw lemon. Breathing harshly in his nose and out his mouth, trying to stave off whatever delusional panic had befallen him, Eggsy reopened his eyes.

‘Harry?’

Or: The Hologram Story Nobody Asked For

NaNoWriMo brings good tidings and UPDATES!

         For all that he’d intended to immediately get his answers, Harry was at heart a vain man. He’d stopped briefly in his bedroom, where things were definitely cleaner than he’d left them. But they were all there, and he eagerly showered and changed out of the appalling tracksuit (hopefully the neighbours hadn’t seen. Neighbours- why did he care more about their seeing him in a tracksuit than his unexpected resurrection? Had they even known one way or another? How many of them had been lost in the tragedy?) and into his own clothing. It all smelled laundered- though some time before, not freshly. The kind of smell that comes from new clothing out of the packaging. Stagnant, but not unpleasant.

         How off-kilter he must be, Harry thought to himself, to allow his mind to go in so many different directions when he had an actual goal in mind. He did, however, pull open the loose floorboard to access the secret storage he’d put into his headboard. He was a spy, and spies didn’t reach the age he had without being paranoid and having at least a handful of backup plans. Even in one’s own home. Maybe especially there.

         Getting into Kingsman’s archives was incredibly easy- both because he never truly disconnected his computer from the servers, and because Merlin had already managed to change everything in his accounts to the Arthur accesses. No hacking necessary, so he’d have to give Merlin a headache through other means. The next step was to figure out what, precisely, he was looking for.

         HQ was obviously under constant surveillance, cameras ran and filed their footage automatically every hour. Which meant there was an ungodly amount of files to sift through- even once sorted by date and such, which had been a headache all its own because of time zones but, eventually, he managed to narrow it down. He found the footage of the dog test first- something he hadn’t had access to before. He’d simply gotten notice that Eggsy was not Lancelot from Arthur, who had taken the moment to gloat despite his own candidate washing out much earlier.

         How different would things have been if he’d been able to actually see what had happened? Harry wanted to scream; he’d been awful to Eggsy under the assumption that he’d been given the same test he had- which was not the case. Eggsy hadn't even been given the same test that Roxanne had been administered- and it made all the difference in the world. Roxanne was given bald facts- the weapon is live, shoot the dog- by the man who had been leading them. Eggsy was sat more intimately with a man he had seen maybe twice in the duration of his candidacy, made to think of the dog emotionally, and only then was he told to shoot it.

         That was not how it was done with Lee and James. Or when he took the test himself. This was new, and obviously done to make Arthur feel righteously correct in his assumptions about those of the lower class. To show Harry evidence that he’d been right all along, and likely convince him to stop trying to break the mould of their organisation.

         Harry had never wanted to strike a dead man so badly. How dare he be so petty. But he couldn’t help but feel guilty himself- he’d allowed his emotions to get the better of him with Eggsy that day. Had been cruel and callous not due to Eggsy’s actions or inactions- he’d never intended to drop out of his life if he hadn’t gotten the Knighthood- but because of Arthur. He’d allowed himself to be emotionally manipulated, as easily as Eggsy had before his test. What kind of a Knight was he?

         As Eggsy lifted the gun to Arthur, shaking far less than he had while pointing it at JB, Harry wanted to cheer. He could see Arthur’s surprise in the twitch at his jaw, the way his finger twitched, and Eggsy had only ever intended to scare him- his finger was not even near the trigger. The sound of a gun going off echoed into the room- Roxanne had done it- and Eggsy went off in a huff. And rightfully so, Harry could admit to himself; he even felt mildly annoyed at himself for preventing Eggsy from beating up his stepfather. Eggsy had been set up to fail, though he had no idea since he didn’t have access to these files, but only viewed it as him having failed where the person who belonged had done it- and Harry hadn’t helped with that.

He had to remind himself that it was in the past, things had worked out in the end- the specifics of which was why he was in these files in the first place.

         Harry bypassed the hours dedicated to Kentucky- he both had no want or need to relive the experience- but wished briefly that he had footage from his own home, then. He had to make choices when installing the holograms, and had prioritised them over having idle recordings of his home taking up memory space.

         Eggsy walked into the Dining room, looking defeated. Arthur claimed to have just given a toast- which he had not, the glasses were still dry- and brushed off Eggsy’s concerns. Passed on to the proper authorities what kind of authorities could information such as that be passed to that quickly? But Eggsy followed Arthur’s instructions, sitting in Harry’s seat, and looked to Arthur as he explained the brandy. And froze briefly, eyes narrowed for an instant.

         Harry couldn’t see what had caused Eggsy to pause, but did see that he was watching Arthur pour the glasses, a calculating look in his eyes. Arthur spoke about bending the rules and Harry’s eyebrows met his hairline- something was definitely amiss. Eggsy leant forward, asked about the portraits, and Harry watched as he nimbly switched the glasses while Arthur was turned away.

         Eggsy picked up the glass that was passed to him, eyes dark and mouth pursed, but swallowed the brandy in one gulp.

         ‘Harry said you don’t like to break rules, Arthur. Why now?’

         ‘You’re very good, Eggsy. Perhaps I will make you my proposal for Galahad’s position- provided, of course, that we can see eye to eye on certain… political matters?’ Arthur paused before reaching for the pen Harry hadn’t noticed on the drink tray. ‘Do you know what this is?’ He flipped the switch, and Harry saw red. The snake had poisoned the glasses.

         ‘ I don't have to; Harry showed me. You click it, I die. I thought that brandy tasted a bit shit.’ Eggsy had figured it out, somehow; that’s why he’d paused. That’s why he switched the glasses. Oh, Eggsy, you clever man.

         ‘Bravo.’ Harry listened in horror as Arthur explained Valentine’s grand scheme, as he veritably admitted to having sent Harry on a suicide mission as he was the agent on the Valentine case. The selfish bastard had secured his survival, he likely had one of those head-exploding chips, and then had the gall to use Harry as some kind of bargaining chip with Eggsy.

         ‘I’d rather be with Harry. Thanks.’ Oh, Eggsy. Harry’s chest felt tight, watching the determined-yet-aloof way Eggsy witnessed his first kill as a Kingsman (for that was what he’d done, there. He’d taken on the Galahad mantle with not so much as a by-your-leave) and got to work. Harry watched as Eggsy used the pen to pull free the chip from his neck, as Eggsy brought Arthur’s corpse through the empty shop to use his still-warm hand on the mirror.

         As Roxanne pulled her gun on him, unwavering, waiting for Merlin to give the okay. She was an excellent Agent, not giving in to sentiment in a tough moment with a face she knew, but it still made Harry angry that she’d been given an unfair advantage simply because she was well-connected and wealthy. Without things working out as they had, without Eggsy in his home and having seen Kentucky, Valentine’s scheme very likely would have succeeded. What a strange set of circumstances led to humanity’s continued survival.

He had a lot to think about.

-

         Eggsy waited until he heard water running (who doesn’t like a shower after a long time away from home?) to give in. He slumped over the kitchen table, one hand holding up his head as the other curled around his glass. So much had changed in such a short time. He’d gone from someone in denial to being right; from living with digital ghosts to the real thing. Harry Hart back at home, a little worse for wear (the slight delay in decision making, the obvious way his vision was impaired) but home. Where Eggsy was currently squatting, he guessed. It was not as if he’d changed much- the things missing here and there were more Merlin’s fault than his own- he confined his chaos to his room, and kind of maintained the rest.

         He’d had Harry’s things laundered a few times by a service, unable to bring himself to going through all of his clothes himself. He settled on stealing the dressing gown (hidden for the moment in a kitchen cupboard, he’d switched it out once for an apron and had decided that was an excellent place for it in the long run) and tried to put the thought of everything else from his mind. Which worked, before, but now…

         Eggsy let his head thump against the wood. He heard shuffling about a moment later, and made himself get back to pulling together dinner. Spagbol was easy enough, and filling enough, to be pulled together without fuss or a lot of thought. He didn’t think either of them would be up for much conversation tonight, but the important thing was to make sure they both ate- stress and change did things to appetites, and there was an excess of both between them. He began pulling things from the cabinet- all he’d managed before Harry went upstairs was setting a pot to boil, which was the most time consuming portion, but there was loads left to do.

         Which was how Harry had found him, puttering about the kitchen in the apron he’d worn to teach Eggsy about etiquette. It was something he could see himself growing used to, having someone else consistently in his space and sharing his life in the mundane ways Kingsman Agents could never really think about. To have significance in another’s life was as much a weakness as it could be a strength, and Harry was ready to share that with someone.

         ‘Well you’re certainly comfortable in the kitchen.’ Eggsy whirled about at the unexpected sound from behind him, brandishing a wooden spoon covered in tomato sauce as one would a sword. ‘Though apparently easily spooked,’ Harry wiped idly at the spots of sauce that had ended up on the wall near him, and stuck a finger of the stuff in his mouth.

         ‘Careful what you say, I made that with my own fair hands.’

         ‘Well I’ll keep quiet, then- wouldn’t want to offend your fragile sensibilities.’ They shared a chuckle, and Harry thought to himself that this was exactly the way he wanted his life to continue on. With laughter, and light, and a fair bit of danger.

[newstfionline]

A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is as Creepy as You Feared

By Farhad Manjoo, NY Times, Oct. 10, 2018

More than 40 years ago, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft with a vision for putting a personal computer on every desk.

No one really believed them, so few tried to stop them. Then before anyone realized it, the deed was done: Just about everyone had a Windows machine, and governments were left scrambling to figure out how to put Microsoft’s monopoly back in the bottle.

This sort of thing happens again and again in the tech industry. Audacious founders set their sights on something hilariously out of reach--Mark Zuckerberg wants to connect everyone--and the very unlikeliness of their plans insulates them from scrutiny. By the time the rest of us catch up to their effects on society, it’s often too late to do much about them.

It is happening again now. In recent years, the tech industry’s largest powers set their sights on a new target for digital conquest. They promised wild conveniences and unimaginable benefits to our health and happiness. There’s just one catch, which often goes unstated: If their novelties take off without any intervention or supervision from the government, we could be inviting a nightmarish set of security and privacy vulnerabilities into the world. And guess what. No one is really doing much to stop it.

The industry’s new goal? Not a computer on every desk nor a connection between every person, but something grander: a computer inside everything, connecting everyone.

Cars, door locks, contact lenses, clothes, toasters, refrigerators, industrial robots, fish tanks, sex toys, light bulbs, toothbrushes, motorcycle helmets--these and other everyday objects are all on the menu for getting “smart.” Hundreds of small start-ups are taking part in this trend--known by the marketing catchphrase “the internet of things”--but like everything else in tech, the movement is led by giants, among them Amazon, Apple and Samsung.

For instance, Amazon last month showed off a microwave powered by Alexa, its voice assistant. Amazon will sell the microwave for $60, but it is also selling the chip that gives the device its smarts to other manufacturers, making Alexa connectivity a just-add-water proposition for a wide variety of home appliances, like fans and toasters and coffee makers. And this week, both Facebook and Google unveiled their own home “hub” devices that let you watch videos and perform other digital tricks by voice.

You might dismiss many of these innovations as pretty goofy and doomed to failure. But everything big in tech starts out looking silly, and statistics show the internet of things is growing quickly. It is wiser, then, to imagine the worst--that the digitization of just about everything is not just possible but likely, and that now is the time to be freaking out about the dangers.

“I’m not pessimistic generally, but it’s really hard not to be,” said Bruce Schneier, a security consultant who explores the threats posed by the internet of things in a new book, “Click Here to Kill Everybody.”

Mr. Schneier argues that the economic and technical incentives of the internet-of-things industry do not align with security and privacy for society generally. Putting a computer in everything turns the whole world into a computer security threat--and the hacks and bugs uncovered in just the last few weeks at Facebook and Google illustrate how difficult digital security is even for the biggest tech companies. In a roboticized world, hacks would not just affect your data but could endanger your property, your life and even national security.

Mr. Schneier says only government intervention can save us from such emerging calamities. He calls for reimagining the regulatory regime surrounding digital security in the same way the federal government altered its national security apparatus after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Among other ideas, he outlines the need for a new federal agency, the National Cyber Office, which he imagines researching, advising and coordinating a response to threats posed by an everything-internet.

“I can think of no industry in the past 100 years that has improved its safety and security without being compelled to do so by government,” he wrote. But he conceded that government intervention seems unlikely at best. “In our government-can’t-do-anything-ever society, I don’t see any reining in of the corporate trends,” he said.

Those trends are now obvious. It used to be difficult to add internet connectivity to home devices, but in the last few years the cost and complexity of doing so have plummeted. Today, off-the-shelf minicomputers like the Arduino can be used to turn just about any household object “smart.” Systems like the one Amazon is offering promise to accelerate the development of internet-of-things devices even further.

At a press event last month, an Amazon engineer showed how easily a maker of household fans could create a “smart” fan using Amazon’s chip, known as the Alexa Connect Kit. The kit, which Amazon is testing with some manufacturers, would simply be plugged into the fan’s control unit during assembly. The manufacturer also has to write a few lines of code--in the example of the fan, the Amazon engineer needed just a half-page of code.

And that’s it. The fan’s digital bits (including security and cloud storage) are all handled by Amazon. If you buy it from Amazon, the fan will automatically connect with your home network and start obeying commands issued to your Alexa. Just plug it in.

This system illustrates Mr. Schneier’s larger argument, which is that the cost of adding computers to objects will get so small that it will make sense for manufacturers to connect every type of device to the internet.

Sometimes, smarts will lead to conveniences--you can yell at your microwave to reheat your lunch from across the room. Sometimes it will lead to revenue opportunities--Amazon’s microwave will reorder popcorn for you when you’re running low. Sometimes smarts are used for surveillance and marketing, like the crop of smart TVs that track what you watch for serving up ads.

Even if the benefits are tiny, they create a certain market logic; at some point not long from now, devices that don’t connect to the internet will be rarer than ones that do.

The trouble, though, is that business models for these device don’t often allow for the kind of continuing security maintenance that we are used to with more traditional computing devices. Apple has an incentive to keep writing security updates to keep your iPhone secure; it does so because iPhones sell for a lot of money, and Apple’s brand depends on keeping you safe from digital terrors.

But manufacturers of low-margin home appliances have little such expertise, and less incentive. That’s why the internet of things has so far been synonymous with terrible security--why the F.B.I. had to warn parents last year about the dangers of “smart toys,” and why Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, has identified smart devices as a growing threat to national security.

Connecting everything could bring vast benefits to society. But the menace could be just as vast. Why not go slowly into the uncertain future?

[missixo]

St Balderich Slays the Dragon [8/19]

01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 (on tumblr)

This fic (on AO3)

Pairing: Balderich/Mondatta

Summary:  The humans are right to fear omnics and what they can do. What he can and will do to humanity. He is Jörmungandr, and he will see humanity fall.

St Balderich Slays the Dragon

Chapter 8

MD catches up with Broom more after returning to his office, settling into his new chair that they stole out of a storage room. They shrug and wave off his concerns. “It was collecting dust, figured none of the doctors would miss it.”

He laughs and nudges over the examination stool, an invitation for his friend to sit down. “I fully appreciate your pragmatism in this, I promise. Have you been able to find the part for Ozzie’s foot yet? You must be able to afford it by now, even on an omnic supervisor’s pay.” The thoughts of how little he and other omnics make compared to human counterparts almost sour his mood, but he chooses not to focus on it - for the moment. ‘Pay gaps won’t be an issue too much longer if I get my way.’

They take the seat with a small sigh from their vents, relaxing worn pistons and joints after two days on shift. “Still hunting. It’s a delicate part, and she’s an older model, so even the knock-offs are pricey. I’m looking at other options at this point; can’t get much more expensive than it is now.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out. Let me know if you need anything; I’m not the greatest at holding on to cash at the moment, but I’ve still got something in the bank.”

After Broom and his team are gone, MD spends the next two days getting settled in, putting his personal effects where he wants them, and in general rearranging the room as equipment is brought in. Each piece shrinks the space further and further, until it’s down to something he feels he can manage. It becomes a little cramped if any three Crusaders try to come in at once, but the limitation only makes it more his space and less open to invasion.

***

Miracle of miracles, Balderich gets no complaints about the new medic for a whole three days after the... memorable introduction. Of course, the first complaint he hears isn’t official by any means, simple lunchtime conversation, but that doesn’t make him any less concerned when he hears Andrea further down the table, rubbing his arm where a small bruise is blooming around an injection site.

“It’s got all the charm you’d expect from an omnic. I don’t sit perfectly still, and the thing sees fit to hold me down like an unruly child!”

It. Thing. A small slip, but massive for the implications. The words immediately reduce the omnic to lesser - something hardly worth anything, disposable and entirely replaceable without note. Balderich grits his teeth. He requested the omnic because he has a personality; it’s not the best one by a long shot - he’s so far prickly on a good day, and Balderich doubts they’ve seen a bad day yet.

“Andrea, a moment with me?” He makes a beckoning gesture.

“Yes sir.” The Italian is clearly confused, but follows him outside the mess hall. “Sir?”

Balderich speaks low, knowing this is not going to be well received, more so than censure usually is. “I know you are not particularly fond of omnics, but please. He is your medic, not a toaster, and not one of those rust buckets that try to shoot us. I know he is not the most pleasant individual, but that does speak to his individuality. He has an identity, and I am asking you to respect that. Are we clear?”

Andrea swallows, looking like he just sucked a lemon. “Yessir. May I be dismissed, sir? I would like to finish my lunch while it’s still warm.”

“Dismissed.” He follows Andrea after a minute, intent on finishing his own lunch even though his appetite is suddenly gone.

***

MD hits the BX for some rags and cleaner so he won’t have to constantly bother Broom and his crew for basic cleaning, but when he gets there he realizes he still needs a decent set of curtains for the windows and a privacy sheet for his cot… The space is rather plain at the moment… A new plant wouldn’t go amiss either.

He stops himself at the curtains and sheet, plus three small plants, and some cord to make a hanging planter. So much for money management there.

***

Jörmungandr checks his security feed for the fourth time in twenty-four hours the next day between patient check-ups. There has to be a way he can get back inside without having to walk through the middle of the hospital. He’s just missing something… He wasn’t necessarily close to getting to the fifth floor yet, even when he was outright living at the hospital, but now it’s so much harder with the fact he has to get in the damn building in the first place.

He’s just starting to look for other points of ingress when MD’s next patient comes in to review his medical file and he has to back out of the feed again. Back to updating medications, taking blood samples, and scheduling booster shots. Code-rotting boredom is what this job is.

***

Two days after he tempts fate once again - ‘I really need to stop doing that.’ - MD is woken by an alert on his HUD and banging on the medbay door accompanied by shouting. He pulls up the notice before he reaches the door and freezes, standing in the middle of the room.

THE CRUSADERS’ BARRACKS NOW UNDER QUARANTINE DUE TO POTENTIAL H3N2 FLU OUTBREAK.

ALL CRUSADERS ARE TO REPORT TO MEDICAL UNIT MD-8178 FOR EVALUATION AND RISK ASSESSMENT.

QUARANTINE WILL REMAIN ACTIVE UNTIL MEDICAL UNIT MD-8178 DECLARES RISK OF INFECTION SPREADING: NEGLIGIBLE.

… He just woke up. But he opens the door and tries to talk over them - difficult enough when they’re all calm - getting progressively louder, “If you would all get in a single file line, I will run the assessments as quickly as - I need you all to quiet - Just get in a line and -”

Ok. He’s not putting up with this, his day is starting great enough already. He ramps up the volume and gives them a lovely feedback shriek for a perfect five seconds. Next, a moment to let their ears stop ringing... “Get in a single file line and I’ll figure out which of you were dumb enough to get sick and bring this quarantine down on all of us. When your exam is complete, go wait in your quarters until I issue the results. No one is to be wandering the corridors during this time. You get caught, you go on report, and you will get caught.”

***

As he takes temperatures and checks for other symptoms, he revisits Hell Week and wants to strangle the omnic of almost three months ago. He’s still catching the fallout, unbelievable. Most of the organic bastions keep quiet, and he does end up checking that no one has any ruptured eardrums. An airhorn might have been kinder, but convenience and hindsight and all that. One or two still give him nasty looks - particularly that Italian - but there are witnesses so he counts himself safe enough.

He saves Balderich for last. “Colonel, provided you are not one of the possibly-infected, I think I will bring the list to you in your quarters and have you inform the men about who will be under stricter quarantines.”

He looks at him oddly. “Any particular reason why?”

“Because I need them as cooperative as possible, and they will take the idea of being confined to quarters for several days much better if it isn’t coming from an… from me. Turn your head, I need to check your eardrums.”

Balderich watches the omnic out of the corner of his eye. “... You are scared of us.”

MD hums, a note of ‘duh’ tucked in the sound. “I am am omnic living surrounded by men whose careers boil down to destroying omnics. I understand one phrase for such a situation is ‘sleeping in the lions’ den.’ Your eardrums appear to be undamaged, send me a note if you notice any sudden changes in balance, or a ringing in your ears, and I’ll come check on you in quarters.” MD turns away to dispose of the cap on the otoscope when a hot, heavy hand wraps tight around his forearm.

An automatic response to unexpected restraint kicks in and curls his fists tight, otoscope creaking under the pressure. His head swings around, looking for the delicate bone at the temple as his target. Balderich is just sitting there, relaxed except for the hold on his arm. MD warily lowers his unrestrained hand and drops the now destroyed tool in the bin with a hollow clank of metal on plastic. “Colonel, what exactly are you playing at?”

“This is why I requested you for our medic.”

“What? Why?” Requested him? Because he’s willing to crush his skull under threat?

The insane human has the audacity to shrug at him. “You don’t respond like most of the omnics on base. You have personality. What you just did in response to my actions is very similar to what a human would do.”

‘Well that’s just rude.’

“I requested you because I am worried my men are forgetting that - while they are, yes, protecting humanity - we are fighting for our way of life, which includes omnics like you. Some of them have come to think that all omnics should be destroyed, for safety, but if we did that every time part of a group became a threat to the world, most of my men’s grandparents would never have been born, after the Wars over a century ago. We would be in eastern France or western Poland right now - maybe even southern Denmark - instead. I understand that you are scared, but please do not let it stifle you.”

They sit there for a few minutes, looking at each other, evaluating. MD slowly relaxes his other fist in Balderich’s grip as fans kick on and a few small vents pop open. Balderich is watching the light from the window play on pale metal when the omnic lets out a strange sound - ‘Was that a squeak?’ - as he finally responds, rushed, “Thank you, Colonel, but I need to get these results together. I’ll bring them by your quarters later.”

He’s very quickly ushered - pushed, really - out and the door shuts behind him, the tint on the inset window going totally opaque. He stares at the probably-locked door, stunned, as he mutters to himself, “What just happened there?”

[leiascully]

Fic:  At the FBI Ball

Rating:  PG-13 Author’s Note:  Part One?  Maybe?  Anyway, I couldn’t wait.  All praise to @avocadoave for that manip.  It’s been so long I don’t even know what my headers look like anymore. 

Scully fumbled her keys out of her clutch and turned to lock the door of her apartment.  She didn't stay there all the time anymore, since she and Mulder had gotten back together, but she kept it anyway.   A safety net, insurance, a place to be alone for a day or two: it felt like an adult decision.  Besides, here her clothes didn't have to jostle for space with Mulder's, which mattered when it came to a green velvet dress that went all the way to the floor.   

The keys jangled in her hand as she tried to sort through them without scratching her manicure.  She finally got the door locked and slipped her keys back into her clutch, shrugging the shoulders of her trench coat back into place as she turned.

At the curb waited a black limousine, the windows tinted impossibly dark.

Scully froze.  

The door of the limo swung open.

She didn't move for a long moment, weighing her options, and then curiosity overcame her.  She took two brisk, business-like steps toward the limo, steady as a rock on her elaborate heels, and ducked her head to glance into the limo.

"Champagne?" Mulder deadpanned, holding out a flute full of bubbly.

She sighed.  "Yes, please, thank you."

"Did you like my Tad impersonation?" he asked, steadying her as she climbed in and situated herself, and then handing her the glass.

"Not even a little," Scully told him.  

"What if I had been Tad?" Mulder asked, pouring himself some champagne.

"I would have politely requested that you go to hell, and if you stuck around, I would have stabbed you with my shoe."  Scully beamed at Mulder and batted her eyes at him.

He chuckled.  "That's the Scully I know and love."

She raised her glass.  "Here's to a completely normal evening."

"Come on, Scully," Mulder said, tipping his glass to meet hers, "is the FBI ball ever a completely normal evening?"

"Maybe this time," she said, and sipped her champagne.

The limo slid through the streets of DC as if the streets were greased, swift and nearly silent.  They went easy on the champagne, chatting amiably as if they hadn't seen each other the day before, retreading the well-worn tracks of their usual topics of conversation.  The driver didn't try to speak to them, and the hush in the passenger compartment was almost velvety.  Scully leaned back into the seat and enjoyed the luxury, trying not to imagine fifteen different ways the driver might have been suborned into a variety of national or international cabals bent on delivering them into the hands of their co-conspirators.  The champagne helped distract her, and Mulder's hand on her knee helped too.  

The Bureau had rented out the ballroom of a local hotel.  Light poured out across the sidewalk, golden and gleaming.  Mulder offered Scully an arm as they walked into the lobby.  She took a moment to give him a long and careful onceover before she accepted.  She'd seen Mulder in a tux a number of times, but he always made an impression.

"Shall we?" he asked.

"Why the hell not?" she retorted, and took his arm.

The ballroom was decorated in a surprisingly tasteful scheme.  Agents in formal dress mingled and eddied around the edges of the room, leaving the center floor open for dancing.  Scully handed Mulder her clutch as they stepped up to the coat check.  She unbuttoned her trench coat slowly, pausing before she slipped it off her shoulders and handed it to the attendant, a young woman whose dark eyes widened appreciatively as she gazed at Scully.  

"Uh," Mulder said.  

Scully smirked to herself.  The green velvet had been a daring choice, an homage of sorts to their early days in the fashionblind 90s, but it was certainly updated by the adventurous neckline and the frankly daring panel of lace that covered almost her entire back.  She turned her head to look over her shoulder at Mulder, who still seemed stunned.

"Damn, Scully," he said.  "That's a hell of a dress."

"This old thing?" she said loftily.  

"Just got it out of storage, huh?" he asked, taking her arm again.

"Basic black just wasn't called for tonight," she said.  "I'm out of uniform."

"Oh, you will be," he murmured.

They drank.  They danced.  They even chatted amiably with their colleagues.  The intervening decades had made Mulder's fringe views more mainstream and his conspiracy theories had transformed from paranoia to common knowledge.  Yes, of course, there were shadow governments that controlled and plotted against the people of the world.  Yes, absolutely, corporations were willing to poison people.  Kuru in Arkansas?  Commonplace.  Bigfoot?  Saw him at the natural foods store last week buying organic granola.  Alien retrovirus?  Wouldn't be the weirdest thing my kid's picked up at school this year.

It was strange and refreshing.  Mulder put his hand possessively on Scully's back and nobody said a thing.  People even smiled at them.  The band played jazz standards and slow dreamy numbers.  

"Are we in a parallel dimension?" Scully whispered.

"I thought we were back in Arcadia," Mulder said.

"Not yuppie enough," Scully said.  "Giant mushroom?"

"The sequels are never as good," Mulder said.  "If you melt into ooze, I'll let you know."

"Thank you," Scully said.  

"Another drink?" he offered.  

"Why not?" she said, tipping her head back and letting her eyes sparkle at him.  "I'm not driving."

Mulder leaned forward.  "I'm enjoying this dreamscape," he whispered in her ear, his lips just barely grazing her skin.  She shivered.  The set of his shoulders looked smug as he sauntered away toward the bar, hands in his pockets.  She stood by herself at the little table, alone but not isolated, and thought briefly about checking her email on her phone out of habit.  Instead, she looked around the room and caught the gleam of light on a familiar bald head.

"Assistant Director Skinner, I presume," she said.

"Agent," he said.  

"This is quite the event," she said.  

"You could say that," he said in that grumbly voice she'd heard so often as he looked over another fantastical report.

"Not enjoying yourself?" she asked.  

"May I have this dance?" Skinner asked, not quite looking at her.

"Of course," she said.  

He held out his hand and she let him escort her onto the dance floor and into his arms.  The band was playing an upbeat number.  She wasn't sure what they were doing could really be classified as dancing, but they moved to the music.  

"You look...nice," Skinner said.

"Walter, it's a good thing I've known you long enough not to take offense at that pause," Scully said dryly.

His cheeks colored slightly.  "I just meant you look nice."

"Yes, you've said," Scully teased him.  

"We don't usually see each other in situations like this," he said, automatically scanning the room over her shoulder.

"No, we don't," she agreed.  "Anyway.  You look nice too."

He smiled down at her.  "We clean up all right."

"Can I cut in?" Mulder said, appearing at her elbow with a drink in each hand.

"No, I don't think so," Skinner said, spinning Scully away slightly.  

She shrugged at Mulder, raising her eyebrows.  "Looks like you've already got your hands full."

"That makes two of us," Skinner joked.  

"Making a move on my girl, Walter?" Mulder said, his smile easy but that muscle jumping at his jawline.

"That's up to her," Skinner said, dipping Scully dramatically.

"Scully?" Mulder said.

"He asked," she said, still upside down.  Skinner swept her back upright.  She watched Mulder's face as he took in her mussed hair and flushed cheeks.  He would want to prove to her later why he was the one she'd chosen.  That was more than all right with her.

"You can have the next dance," Skinner said.  "Don't worry, Mulder, I saved you a spot on my dance card."

"That's all I ever wanted, sir," Mulder said, but there was an edge to the humor in his voice.  He retreated to their table to set down the drinks and lurked at the edges of the floor.  

"I didn't know you had it in you, sir," Scully said.

"Yes, you did," he said, smiling to himself.

"Well," she said.  "I had a suspicion."

"I would expect nothing less from an agent of your caliber," he said, the smile reaching his eyes.  

The song ended a minute or two later.  Skinner kissed her on the cheek and held out his arms to Mulder, who reluctantly stepped into them, and they two-stepped cordially around the floor as Scully sipped at her vodka and tonic and memorialized the event with her phone camera.  Skinner walked back to the table with Mulder on his arm.

"I brought him back safe and sound," he said.  Mulder's face was sulky, but less than it had been.

"I appreciate your diligence, Assistant Director," Scully said.  She handed Mulder his drink.  "You look a little hot under the collar.  This will cool you down."

Skinner grinned.  "Agents.  Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"That covers a multitude of sins and then some," Mulder said, lifting his whiskey sour to his lips.  

Skinner smirked and shrugged.  "Perks of the job."

"Have a good night," Scully said.

"You too," Skinner told her, and melted into the crowd of black jackets.  

"Green looks good on you, Mulder," Scully said, gently bumping her shoulder against his.

"Not as good as it looks on you," he mumbled.  

"You don't really think I'd go home with Skinner," she murmured, letting her fingers trail over the soft exposed skin of his wrist.

"I've always entertained extreme possibilities, Scully," Mulder told her.

"If we can find a quiet corner, I can think of a few more for you to entertain," she said.  

"Scully, are you coming onto me?" he murmured, delight in his voice.  

"Stranger things have happened," she said, and took his hand.  "Come on.  We'll go and find the shadows for once, instead of the other way around."

"Please don't let this be a mushroom-induced hallucination," Mulder said as if it were a prayer, and they walked away from the crowd hand in hand.

[pogueman]

iPhone X Review: Gorgeous, pricey, and worth it

If you have any interest in Apple’s (AAPL) hotly anticipated, $999, 10th-anniversary iPhone X (pronounced “ten”), then there are four dates to keep in mind:

September 12, 2017, when Apple first unveiled it to the public.

Tuesday, October 31, when most of the professional reviews appear.

November 3, when the phone is supposed to be available to buy.

The day when you can actually get one. These phones are difficult to manufacture and massively back-ordered, so if you order now, you might get one before the end of the year.

The price, the delays, and the popularity all tell you one thing, loud and clear: There’s an unbelievable amount of advanced technology in this thing.

The iPhone X is gorgeous, powerful, and expensive.

The Headline: Big Screen, Small Body

Everybody talks about the iPhone X price ($999 for 64 gigs of storage, $1,149 for 256 gigs). Or they talk about its face-recognition feature, but the best thing about the iPhone X is its size.

It’s a standard-size phone, only a hair bigger than an iPhone 7 or 8, and therefore easy to wrap your fingers around without growing extra knuckles. Yet the X has the screen size of the iPhone Plus models! By lopping off all the blank margins that usually surround an iPhone’s screen, Apple has found a much sweeter spot on the screen/body tradeoff spectrum. It’s all screen, much like recent Samsung smartphones.

The iPhone X has about the same screen size as an iPhone Plus—in the body about the same size as a standard iPhone.

And what a screen it is. It’s Apple’s first OLED screen, meaning it’s got much darker darks and brighter brights than what’s come before—a million-to-one contrast ratio, Apple says. Unfortunately, there’s no way to see it except in person, because whatever screen you’re now reading on can’t display the X’s stunning range of color. But you see it right away, and it’s glorious to look at, no matter what app you’re running.

The phone is also very fast. Apple says that its processor is “the most powerful and smartest chip ever in a smartphone,” and that it has “four efficiency cores”—clearly, that’s better than three efficiency cores, right?

In practice, all of this means that opening apps happen a fraction of a second faster than the iPhone 8, and saving video files or performing other intensive operations saves you a second or two. Speed leaps over the iPhone 7 or 6, of course, are even more dramatic.

Yet somehow, Apple maintains that the iPhone X gets two hours more life per battery charge than the iPhone 7 and 8. Bizarrely, Apple gave most reviewers only 24 hours with the iPhone X before posting their reviews (not a week or two, as in the past 10 years), so nobody can really say what battery life is like in real-world scenarios. I’ll update this review once I’ve had a chance to live with it.

Facial Recognition

OK, so Apple made this phone all screen. In that case, where’s the Home button?

It’s gone. On the iPhone X, there is no Home button.

Wait, what? Every smartphone has a Home button!

On the iPhone, we use it to open the Home screen, trigger Siri, switch apps, pay with Apple Pay, take screenshots, turn on the screen magnifier, force quit an app, force-restart the whole phone when it gets locked up, and so on. Without a Home button, what happens to all of that?

You have to re-learn new techniques. Apple has come up with replacement gestures for all of them.

To return to the Home screen, you swipe up from the bottom of the screen. This can be a tiny swipe, even a quarter of an inch upward; it quickly becomes quick and instinctive. (Until, that is, you try to do it on someone’s iPad and feel like an idiot.)

To open the app switcher, you make the same swipe up, but then stop with your finger in the center. The app “cards” now appear.

(Infuriatingly, Apple has changed the way you quit programs from the app switcher. You can’t just swipe them up off the top of the screen anymore. Instead, you have to hold your finger on one of the app “cards,” wait until a red Delete button appears on each card, and then swipe up. That’s a change without a purpose.)

You trigger Siri using the Sleep switch on the right side, which Apple now calls the Side switch.

Here’s a complete list of the old Home-button functions—and how Apple’s rethought them on the iPhone X.

OK, fine. But what about the fingerprint reader?

It’s gone, too. Instead, Apple says it’s come up with something better: Face ID.

Face ID

When you get your phone, you train it to recognize your face in Settings. It’s a very cool process (you can see it in my video above): you roll your head around as though doing a relaxation exercise for your neck. Twice.

You train Face ID by letting it scan your head twice.

Now the iPhone knows the exact contours of your face. After that, just looking at the phone unlocks it—so fast, you may not even realize what’s happened. There are only two clues that the phone is unlocked: a tiny padlock icon opens, and any notification banners (“Message from: Robin”) expand to reveal their potentially embarrassing contents (“Hey! I picked up that cream for your armpit rash”).

Unlocking the phone doesn’t take you all the way to the Home screen, which would be cool. You still have to do a little up-swipe afterunlocking.

In any case, you can’t fool Face ID with a photo, or a mask, or even a 3-D model of your head; I tried. (And what about that Bloomberg article that said that Apple substituted a less accurate camera to make manufacturing easier? “Completely false,” Apple said in a statement. “The quality and accuracy of Face ID haven’t changed. It continues to be 1 in a million probability of a random person unlocking your iPhone with Face ID.”)

You’ll use Face ID wherever you used to use your fingerprint: Triggering Apple Pay, for example, or logging into apps. Any app that was ever unlocked by your fingerprint automatically works with Face ID, without needing to be rewritten.

True Depth

So how does the front-facing camera recognize your face? Using a mass of sensors Apple calls True Depth.

When you lift the phone to wake it, an infrared lamp blasts invisible light forward to see if a face is in range. If so, a tiny projector blasts 30,000 pinpoints of infrared light onto your face, and a camera reads the distortion of their spacing and shape to find the contours of your face.

The True Depth camera is an array of sensors.

(Samsung’s Galaxy phones, of course, had face unlocking first. But Apple’s depth camera system is far more reliable.)

I tried to fool the True Depth camera by putting on wigs, a fake mustache, a fake unibrow, and glasses. I even invited a Yahoo Studios makeup artist to turn me into a zombie, with full face makeup. None of it fooled Face ID.

I tried to fool the Face ID in various ways. Only the beard freaked it out.

I finally got it to fail by applying a full beard that covered half my face. At that point, it didn’t recognize me and didn’t unlock.

Of course, very few people sprout that much hair overnight. Ordinarily, Face ID continues to fine-tune its mathematical model of your face every time you use it, so things like slow hair growth (and wrinkle growth) won’t fool it. If you do do something radical (like shaving off your beard), you just re-train.

Anything new freaks people out, so here are some FAQs about Face ID:

What if I want to unlock the phone at night? Since it uses infrared light, Face ID even works in the dark.

What if I’m in a car accident? As long as your eyes, nose, and mouth are essentially unchanged, it’ll work. If not, you can always use your password, which is required even if you turn on Face ID. (Your password is also needed after any restart, or after someone’s tried five times to unlock the phone with his face.)

What if I’m wearing a scarf or a hat? As long as your eyes, nose, and mouth are uncovered, it’ll work.

Can two different people register their faces? For now, it’s one person at a time.

What about sunglasses? Face ID works through sunglasses if infrared signals can penetrate them. Some do, some don’t.

What if a cop forces me to look at my phone? You can quickly disable Face ID by squeezing the buttons on both sides of the phone, or by pressing the Side switch five times.

What if I have plastic surgery? You can retrain Face ID to recognize the New You.

What about identical twins? They can fool Face ID. If you’re worried, use the password instead.

What if someone tries to unlock my phone by pointing it at my face while I’m asleep? No good. Face ID doesn’t work unless your eyes are open and looking at the phone.

What if I don’t have eyeballs? You can turn off that requirement.

What if somebody decapitates me and then tries to use my severed head to unlock my phone? Now you’re just being silly.

Beyond Face ID

The depth camera does more than just recognize your face. Because it can tell the difference between the foreground and the background, the iPhone X can, for the first time, take front-facing Portrait-mode photos, which means beautifully blurry backgrounds. (On recent iPhone Plus models, two lenses on the back can tell the difference between the subject and the background—and to softly blur the background, as in professional photos. See my story here.)

The iPhone X can create artificially (but convincingly) blurred backgrounds, now with either the back OR front camera.

The iPhone X can also create what Apple calls Animoji—a choice of 12 animated cartoon faces whose expressions follow and mimic your expressions in real time, by tracking the motion of 50 different muscles in your face. Happy, sad, wink, frown, laugh, mouth open, eyebrows up, whatever—your little cartoon-animal avatar does the same. You can record yourself saying something and then send the resulting animation via the Messages app. Suddenly, you’re Warner Brothers.

Software companies can write apps that exploit the depth camera, too. Already, Snapchat is testing a version whose fun superimposed-face filters (masks, glasses, and so on) use real-time lighting information for realistic reflections and shadows. And Apple has built a new Scenes feature into its free Clips video-recording app that replaces your background, greenscreen style, in real time. You can shoot yourself with a new background of your choosing, like an artsy linescape, on the bridge of the “Star Wars” Millennium Falcon, and so on.

The upcoming version of Apple’s Clips app creates real-time, live greenscreen effects, transporting you into other worlds.

Apple hasn’t said much about the Settings option called Attention Aware Features, but it’s also very cool. The True Depth camera will prevent the screen from turning off while you’re looking at it—and it will make your morning alarm sound quieter if you’re looking at it.

The Notch

Apple packs all of those depth-sensing components into an inch-wide area at the top of the screen that people are calling the Notch. It’s causing some consternation, because it creates a gap in the status bar. It’s there in most of your apps, looking like a clunky missing chunk.

Fortunately, the notch does not intrude upon photos or videos (unless you manually zoom into them).

The notch (the black gap) appears in many apps–and in photos or videos you’ve zoomed into.

It doesn’t take long to get used to the Notch. But it is a kind of weird design decision. It winds up dividing the menu bar into two “ears” and leaving no room for your cell carrier’s name or battery percentage.

The rest of the package

Like the iPhone 8, the iPhone X is waterproof—it can tolerate 30 minutes 3 feet underwater. The glass front and back are, Apple says, 50% stronger. The speakers are louder. There’s still no headphone jack. (As always, a two-inch adapter for existing headphones comes in the box, along with a set of Apple earbuds that plugs into the charging jack. But really, wireless earbuds are the way to go.)

The cameras are even better, especially in low light. The flash now has four LEDs in two different colors, for better flesh tones. Like recent Plus models, the back has two lenses—standard, and 2X zoom—but for the first time, the zoom lens is optically stabilized, too. It makes a huge difference in video stability.

You can charge the iPhone X on a special charging pad. We can thank Apple for adopting the same charging-pad standard that Samsung and other companies use, called Qi (pronounced “chee”). In other words, you don’t have to buy Apple’s charging pad; you can use any company’s. They cost about $12 on Amazon.

You can charge the iPhone X either with its traditional Lightning cable or on a Qi charging pad.

Next year, Apple will sell its own charging pad, called AirPower, capable of charging three Apple devices at once. Meantime, Apple intends to throw its weight behind the Qi charging standard. It’s talking to hotels, airports, and car makers, in hopes of both making charging surfaces available everywhere you want to be.

And the iPhone X runs iOS 11, of course—with a few special tweaks just for Xers. For example, the Flashlight on/off switch is now right there on the Lock screen, not even hiding on the Control Center anymore. And you can now move among open apps just by dragging your finger along the bottom edge of the screen, without even opening the app switcher first. It’s pretty great.

The Lock screen now has a flashlight button at lower left. (Also: See that horizontal line at the bottom? It appears in most apps. It’s meant to remind you: “Swipe up here to go Home.”)

A new realm

Apple intends for the iPhone X to strike you as a masterpiece, as a vision of the future. It probably doesn’t intend for the iPhone X to remind you of recent Samsung phones, which also have features like all-screen designs, wireless charging, and prices around $1,000.

In the Apple ecosystem, though, the iPhone X represents a far more exciting leap than the incremental upgrades we’ve seen in recent iPhone models. The X’s cameras are fantastic, the screen is the best you’ve ever seen, the depth camera will unlock a whole new realm of apps, the Face ID works.

Above  all, you’re carrying around a Plus-size screen in a normal-size body. There may be some unbelievably sophisticated technology in this phone—but maybe the most winning feature of all is how little space it takes up in your hand.

More from David Pogue:

Inside the Amazon company that’s even bigger than Amazon

The $50 Google Home Mini vs. the $50 Amazon Echo Dot — who wins?

The Fitbit Ionic doesn’t quite deserve the term ‘smartwatch’

Augmented reality? Pogue checks out 7 of the first iPhone AR apps 

How Apple’s iPhone has improved since its 2007 debut

Gulliver’s Gate is a $40 million world of miniatures in Times Square

Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant is ambitious, powerful, and half-baked

Is through-the-air charging a hoax?

David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, is the author of “iPhone: The Missing Manual.” He welcomes nontoxic comments in the comments section below. On the web, he’s davidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s @pogue. On email, he’s poguester@yahoo.com. You can read all his articles here, or you can sign up to get his columns by email. 

[philipholt]

6 Best Practices to Optimize Your WordPress Database

Your WordPress site can be slow for many different reasons; a bloated database running in the background is one of them. A professional WordPress maintenance workflow includes a regular database optimization practice during which you get rid of unnecessary data and locate and fix errors and inconsistencies in your database.

WordPress database optimization doesn’t require any specific programming knowledge, although you occasionally need to edit the wp-config file. In this article, we will show you a couple of best practices about how to optimize your WordPress database.

Start with a Backup

Before getting started with optimization, create a backup of your database. In this way, if anything goes wrong, you won’t lose any data and can return to a previous version of your site. There are different solutions to back up a WordPress site, here are the most important ones:

you can create a full site backup from the cPanel of your hosting account,

you can export all your content including your posts, pages, comments, and other post types from the Tools > Export menu in your WordPress admin area,

you can use a backup plugin such as BackupBuddy or VaultPress that allows you to create different kinds of custom backups.

Delete the Content You Don’t Need

One of the most important things of database optimization is to get rid of all the overhead content you don’t need. As each post, page, comment, and post revision is an entry in your database, you can free up a lot of space by deleting unused, obsolete, or duplicate content right from your WordPress admin area.

If you have a WordPress site for a while, you can find such content in many different places. First and foremost, it’s worth deleting the Trash folder of your Posts and Pages menus (even if WordPress automatically deletes posts from the trash after 30 days). You can also go through your Drafts and Pending posts to see if you really need all of them.

You can also check if you have any taxonomies you don’t use. WordPress has two kinds of taxonomies by default: posts and categories. You can find both of them in the Posts menu. Database optimization is also a good opportunity to think through your taxonomy structure, get rid of duplicate tags and categories, and improve the findability of your posts.

Besides default posts and pages, you can also have custom post types such as calendars, recipes, or affiliate links that include content you don’t need anymore.

Remove Themes and Plugins You Don’t Use

Although WordPress saves themes and plugins into the wp-content folder instead of the database, it’s still a good idea to delete the ones you don’t use. Many plugins and some of the more complicated themes create extra tables inside your database. Besides, all plugins and themes store their options in the wp-options table as well.

Plugins and themes developed following WordPress’ coding standards clean up after themselves when you remove them from your site. In this case, you only need to delete them from the WordPress admin area using the Appearance and Plugins menu. Note that it’s not enough to only deactivate them, you also need to hit the Delete button. If your plugin doesn’t clean up after itself, you can still get rid of the related database overhead using one of the methods below.

Optimize Your Tables in phpMyAdmin

You can run a database optimization query right from your phpMyAdmin interface. PhpMyAdmin is the application that allows you to access your raw database. You can reach phpMyAdmin from the cPanel of your hosting account, from the Databases menu.

In phpMyAdmin, open the database belonging to your WordPress site and check the tables you want to optimize. You can also choose the Check All option, as you can see on the image below:

Here, scroll down the dropdown list (with the “With selected: “ label) you can find below the tables. From the Table maintenance group, select the Optimize table option and run the query.

The Optimize table option runs the OPTIMIZE TABLE command on your data, which, according to the MySQL documentation:

“reorganizes the physical storage of table data and associated index data, to reduce storage space and improve I/O efficiency when accessing the table.”

Besides OPTIMIZE TABLE, you can also run the REPAIR TABLE query from the same phpMyAdmin menu, which “repairs a possibly corrupted table”.

Run WordPress’ Database Optimization Tool

The WordPress Core also has a built-in database optimization tool. It’s turned off by default, however, you can activate it by editing your wp-config.php file. You can find wp-config in the root directory of your WordPress install on your server. Open it in your code editor and add the following option to the top of the file:

define( 'WP_ALLOW_REPAIR', true );

You can find the optimization script under the https://ift.tt/2DdDCih URL, where you need to replace your-site.com with your own domain.

Here, you can choose from two options:

Repair Database – it looks for and repairs common database problems,

Repair and Optimize Database – besides all the tasks performed by Repair Database, it also tries to optimize your database to improve performance.

In most cases, the first option is enough, but if you want an in-depth cleanup, choose the second one. Wait until the tool repairs and/or optimizes your database, then remove the option you have added to your wp-config file (otherwise, anyone on the web can see data related to your database).

Use a Database Cleanup Plugin

If you don’t want (or can’t) access your raw database and your wp-config file, or you want to run advanced database optimization tasks, you can also put a plugin into use. Below, we have collected the three best database cleanup plugins for you.

Note that you shouldn’t use more than one database optimization plugins at the same time, as these plugins have similar functionalities that can interact with each other in unexpected ways.

1. WP-Optimize

WP-Optimize is a free plugin that takes care of all kinds of optimizations on your WordPress site. Besides cleaning your database, it also compresses your images and caches the content on your site. Its database cleanup feature:

removes all unnecessary data, even expired transients hidden in the wp-options table,

optimizes all your MySQL tables,

lets you run regular automatic cleanups,

shows database statistics,

and more.

The plugin is frequently updated and the support team is responsive, so it’s a good and safe solution if you want to run automated cleanups on a regular basis.

2. Advanced Database Cleaner

Advanced Database Cleaner is another free database optimization plugin that comes with many advanced options. It allows you to remove all kinds of unused, obsolete, and duplicate content types, such as:

old revisions, drafts, and auto-drafts of posts, pages, and custom post types,

pending, spam, and trash comments,

orphan metadata and relationships,

expired transients,

and more.

You can also schedule and run automatic cleanups, view and clean tables, and display and view items before removing them. Besides, Advanced Database Cleaner supports multisite installs, too.

3. Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions

Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions is a database optimization plugin that lets you clean up your database with one single click. If you need a simple solution that doesn’t need much configuration, Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions can be the best choice for you. With this plugin, you can remove:

revisions of posts, pages, and custom post types,

trashed posts, pages, and comments (also spam comments),

orphan postmeta items,

unused tags,

expired or all transients,

pingback and trackbacks,

and more.

It also supports WordPress Multisite and adds an “Optimize DB” link to your admin bar with which you can run a one-click database optimization any time you want.

Conclusion

Database optimization is an essential task you need to perform regularly if you want to maintain good data health on your site. You can either do the optimization manually or make use of a data cleanup plugin that lets you configure and automate the entire process.

Besides, database optimization is also a typical maintenance service you can offer to your clients if you have a WordPress business. If you want to know more about what else to pay attention to when working with clients, have a look at our guide about what your clients need to know about their WordPress site, too.

6 Best Practices to Optimize Your WordPress Database published first on http://7elementswd.tumblr.com/