#it's mostly to explain sticky interfacing

[iliterallydecepticanteven]

I should probably make a valveplug guide for any new TF fans entering the fandom from TF:One so they're not confused

[littlepadika]

Calling Home (1) | Frankie Morales x Reader

Summary: You are a receptionist at the VA. Frankie Morales keeps calling. Yearning ensues...

Rating: M -> E in later chapters

Warnings: fem!reader, age gap (legal), praise kink, voice kink, discussion of addiction/PTSD/trauma, no use of y/n, no beta reader, reader is bad at Spanish, Frankie has a sexy voice 😩

Masterlist here

AN: My first fic. Pedro writers have inspired me to finally start writing again 🥺. Concept inspired by the movie RED. I hope you like it ❤️Set after triple frontier.

Chapter One

~~~~~~~~~~~

The first time he called was an ordinary Thursday.

“Veterans Affairs, how can I help you?”

You had been working at the VA office for about two weeks. Fresh out of college you felt lucky to have a job in the first place. You went to school to be a writer but your big idea for 'The Next Great American Novel' had yet to present itself. At least here you had access to the most inspiring stories and interesting people. Men and women who had seen more and done more than you probably would in your entire life. You loved talking to clients on the phone. It was weird but something about only being able to hear people’s voices excited you. You would sometimes write little stories in your head about the people you'd talk to, filling in the details that were unknown.

Your desk accessories reflected your love of books and writing. You had your growing collection of books sitting on your desk sandwiched between baby pink bookends. Next to them was a matching desk organizer filled with your favorite sparkly pens and sticky notes. You had decorated the plain cubicle walls with posters of quotes from your favorite books. You also brought your favorite candle from home. Even though you couldn’t light it you still liked to lift it to your nose once and a while and smell it between chapters. When you weren’t on the phone or scanning documents you would read. You finished To Kill A Mockingbird in your first week on the job and were now halfway through Murder on the Orient Express.

You were starting a new chapter when Frankie Morales called the first time.

You picked up the phone on the second ring already mustering your chipper 'customer service' voice. “Veterans affairs.” You stated your name. “How may I help you?”

“H-Hi. My name is Frankie- uh-Francisco Morales." A deep voice answered you. "I’m calling because I have gotten my benefits check yet. It’s been a month. I was hoping you could tell me if it got sent?”

“Okay Mr. Morales." You flipped on the computer. "Let me check. Can you spell your last name for me?”

“M-o-r-a-l-e-s”

“Okay... let's see.” You clicked on his account. You were momentarily distracted by his picture likely taken when he graduated basic if you had to guess based off the uniform. He looked sweet. Sharp nose and strong jaw balanced by kind eyes and a shy smile. You could imagine how age would continue to soften his expression making him even more handsome. The image was a strange juxtaposition to the voice you were hearing on the phone which was much deeper and rougher. His profile said he was special forces. A pilot. The rest of the information was blacked out. Something you were used to seeing on many people's accounts but even his years of service were redacted. He must have been involved in some dangerous stuff, you thought to yourself. The dates that were not redacted were mostly in Latin America. You clicked over to processing requests. “Looks like the check got sent one week ago.” You informed him.

"I'll look again but I haven't seen anything-" It sounded like he was apologizing when clearly it was not his fault.

"No no. It's probably a mistake on our end." You interrupted. With how shitty and outdated the payroll interface was you wouldn't be surprised if there was a mix up. "I’ll go ahead and let payroll know to send another."

"Great. Thanks." He replied sounding relieved. The roughness in his voice gave way to a smooth baritone.

“No problem. I'm sorry for any inconvenience it may have caused. We'll get it sent right away." You hoped he was not relying on this benefit check for anything important. While you could promise you'd fix the problem, the administration was notoriously slow. When he didn't respond you asked, "Is there anything else I can help you with today, Mr. Morales?”

“Uh-no" The roughness back in place. "Thank you." He paused before adding your name onto his thank you which made you smile. People usually never remembered your name.

“Alright. Have a nice day and thank you for your service.” You chirped before hanging up. The smile he put on your face lingered for a few minutes as you returned to your book.

The next time he called was exactly twelve days later.

“Veterans affairs” you answered, your routine greeting cut short as your eyes were still on your book.

“Hi- I’m calling because uh I still haven’t gotten my benefits check. This is Frankie Morales.”

“Oh Mr. Morales.” You recognized his voice even before he even said his name. You quickly shut your book, pushing your hair out of your face. Had you been thinking about him? No! Okay maybe you stared at his picture for a few minutes longer after he hung up. Yes, it was probably very unprofessional but you couldn't fight the curiosity. You were trying to rationalize the contrasting sharpness and softness of his features with his voice. How it all worked together. How one person's voice could change textures and colors so easily. You wondered what kind of things this man might have seen on the job. Most of the veterans you would help day to day did not have so many redacted missions and deployments. You were in the middle of Narcos season one so you immediately thought of drugs or something equally dangerous. After much pondering, you had come to the conclusion that Frankie Morales was both insanely attractive and insanely courageous. “Still no check, huh?”

“Nope.” He sighed the sound making the phone's shitty speaker crackle as you held it to your ear.

“Let me just check that it was approved...“ you found his profile again and scrolled to the status page. “Hmm... it says it was sent out last Friday after we spoke. That’s so weird...”

“Yeah. Really weird.” He echoed your frustration on the other end.

Typical payroll, you thought to yourself as you rolled your eyes. “I'll get another one sent to you right away. I'll see to it myself.” You tucked the phone under your chin and typed out a short email to Mary in payroll letting her know you'd be stopping by her office to explain the situation. You realized he hadn't hung up yet.

“Sorry for the back and forth.” You said, trying to fill the silence.

“It’s not your fault." The earlier irritation gone. "You’ve been really helpful.” His voice sounded warm and reassuring. Less gruff than it was last you spoke. Instead it was that rich baritone that you caught of glimpse of last time.

You feel your face warm at his compliment. It was this annoying reflex you had. Praise always made you blush no matter what context but it was worse when it came from a (you assume) gorgeous stranger.

“And just to verify that your address is correct- you’re on Maple Lane in Miami, Florida?”

“That’s right.” He confirmed.

“Okay. Sent!” You clicked send on the email, which caused the window to close and reveal Frankie’s profile page again. “I was curious-" You spoke before you really made the decision to speak. You didn’t want to overstep but once again your curiosity got the better of you. Honestly, you were just searching for a way to keep him on the phone. The day had been so boring.

“Your profile says you were stationed in Costa Rica.”

“For a bit.” He replied after a moment. He didn’t sound too defensive but there was definitely some tightness in his answer that made you feel bad for asking. Like you were scratching a wound.

“Did you like it? The country I mean.”

“Are you planning a trip?” He sounds a little amused.

“Yeah- well- kind of. It's more a trip in my head right now. I’d like to go there one day. It looks so beautiful.” You sighed closing your eyes trying to imagine the heat on your skin.

“It is." He agrees. "Really humid though.”

“Mm that sounds nice.” You would kill for some warm weather after such a long winter in DC.

“It was too muggy for me at times." He grumbled. "If you do go, stick to the costal areas where it’s more breezy or else you’ll just be sweating the whole time.”

“I don’t mind a little sweat” you shrugged, still thinking of the awful east coast winter you were currently suffering through. The sexual connotation of what you said hit you hard as soon as you heard the statement in its entirety. You felt your face flush again, though the man on the other end would never know.

“I’m learning Spanish!" You announced loudly trying to move the conversation past your awkwardness.

“Wow. Muy impressivo.”

“Si” you replied but after a moment you admit “I don’t really know what you said.”

Frankie laughed loudly on the other end and you couldn’t help but join in, drawing dirty looks from the elderly lady, Donna, working in the cubicle across from you. You ducked your head behind a stack of papers to avoid her glare.

“Fake it till you make it.” He chuckled.

“Maybe you should help me out.” You took on an indigent but still playful tone. “You sound better than duolingo” Your smile widened when he laughed again. His laugh was what you hoped it would be, by all your assumptions from his picture. It was an unencumbered, unburdened, rich sound with only a hit of roughness from the air behind it.

“Tell me you’re not using that dumb app to learn.” he scoffed, saying your name in an almost scolding tone.

“I’m got my thirty day streak today.” You boasted.

“You’ll be a total tourist if you go by duolingo.”

“But the owl is so cute every time I get something right!” You argued your voice taking on a more childish cadence.

“That’s how they trap you, silly girl.” He teased right back. Usually such a condescending nickname would piss you off but something about the affection behind him using it made you feel very differently. You felt warm like you were proud to be silly as long as it made him laugh.

“Then you saved me just in time, Mr. Morales.” You bit your lip. His scoffing and laughter died down on the other end.

“Frankie” He corrects you.

“Frankie…” You repeated it, smiling at how well the nick name suited the voice over the phone. Honest, sincere, and not pretentious at all. Way better than the pompous guys you know with equally stuffy names like “Edward” and “Christopher.”

“So what do you want to know?” Frankie interrupted your thoughts. “Dime”

You started asking him questions in Spanish to the best of your ability. Granted they weren't particularly probing questions. What is your name? What is your favorite color? What is your favorite animal? What's your favorite book? I am reading Gone Girl. He answered them all with patience and amusement, occasionally interrupting you to correct your pronunciation or explain what a word meant. Every time you’d repeat the word back correctly he would say something like “good” or “there you go” or “you got it”. You hated to admit that his kind words and his praise was doing something to you. You didn't even realize you were clenching your legs together unconsciously, almost in anticipation of his next correction or next answer. His low voice so sweet and encouraging against your ear, more tangible when he was speaking Spanish. You just wanted to hear more of it. Would it be this sweet in other situations? Would it get huskier or rougher? If you closed your eyes it was like he was sitting right next to you. It would be all too easy to slip into that daydream and escape the dull office.

Suddenly out of the corner of your drooping eyes you saw a flashing red light on the phone console meaning another caller was waiting.

“Shoot- i’m sorry, Frankie- I have to take this call.” You shot forward in your chair, legs uncrossing.

“Of-Of course. I should let you get back to work.” He sounded a little sad or so you hoped. You felt bad for interrupting him after you both were having so much fun. You wanted to say he could wait on hold but he killed that idea when he said, "I have work too. Technically I'm five minutes past my lunch break."

Your pout turned to a smile. He was spending his precious lunch break with you? Get a grip! you snapped at yourself.

“You’re welcome to call again if you want.” You threw out the offer in a small voice, scared you would be rejected. You peered over the cubicle wall to see if you were still being glared at. Thankfully Donna was away from her desk. Probably out for a smoke. “It’s really boring here and usually no one calls.”

“Maybe I will.” He replied and you could hear the smile behind those words. You felt your heart clench weirdly in your chest like it didn't know how to process the sudden spike in emotions.

“Bye, Frankie.” You beamed.

“Bye”

This time the smile on your face lasted for hours. Frankie’s laugh echoed around in your head, taunting you, sending your mind to the gutter. His voice went from grit to molasses on a dime. You wanted to be the one to bring out those sounds. You wanted to hear his voice bend and stretch and strain as you fucked him. What the hell is wrong with me? you screamed internally. You had never been so depraved and with a stranger no less! You clearly needed to get laid fast because this much yearning would not end well.

Frankie got the second VA check a few days later and this time he didn’t even feel bad about ripping it in half. He was already reaching for the phone to call you.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags: Message to be added 💕 no minors please!

[spaceiplier]

SPACEIPLIER: Crooked Man

“I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry,” Jack muttered over and over again, mostly to himself.

He and Ethan were sitting outside the infirmary, watching as Kathryn and Amy helped Mark stand and look over his rapidly-healed injury. The cut had been deep, and it had left a nasty-looking scar down the center of Mark’s torso. Jack had been staying with them for the past few days while the medical pod did its work, but the machine could only heal so much.

Ethan hadn’t said a word to him since he had arrived. He didn’t say a thing to Jack or any of his crew mates. He simply made sure the pod stayed running, and sat quietly next to Jack. There was no emotion on his face but stubborn determination to save his friend, and confusion at Jack’s insistence that he didn’t mean it.

“He’ll be okay,” Ethan finally said to Jack. “Mark is fine.”

The spines on Jack’s arms rippled with unease. He knew Mark would be fine. The pod had healed him, and the only sign of Jack’s stupid mistake was scarred across his torso. It wasn’t Mark’s injuries he was worried about.

It was how much he was going to hate Jack now.

“I know,” Jack mumbled. He jumped as the infirmary door slid open behind them. Amy smiled sympathetically at Jack. She was supporting Mark, who was still half asleep from the med pod.

“Heeeey Jaaack,” Mark slurred. “You still heeeeere?”

Jack nodded and rubbed the back of his neck, not trusting his voice.

“Coooooool. I want to taaaalk with yooou about thaaaat…. Whateverrrr that thing waaaaas. Don’t go hoooome,” Mark insisted.

“You need to sleep first,” Amy said gently, saving Jack from having to respond. “C’mon, let’s get you to our room.”

Mark nodded and yawned, “You’re preeeeetty.” Amy smiled and rolled her eyes, guiding him slowly down the hall.

“See? He’s fine,” Ethan said, gently elbowing Jack in the arm.

Jack flinched and shuffled a few inches away from Ethan. The android frowned, but covered it up quickly.

“Do you want something to eat? I don’t think I’ve seen you eat anything since you got here. If you want, I can make something for you.”

“I’m fine,” Jack started to insist, but Kathryn came out of the infirmary, arms folded.

“We’re getting food,” she said. “You’re still healing, and you haven’t eaten anything in three days. Come on.”

Ethan smirked, sharing a what can you do? look with Jack, and got to his feet. He held out his hand, offering Jack help. Jack reached out, but when he caught sight of his own hands, he hesitated. He pulled back, getting to his feet without Ethan’s assistance.

“Okay,” Jack said, avoiding making eye contact with Ethan or Kathryn. “Hope you have meat.”

.

.

.

Jack stood in front of the crew of the Barrel. They sat before him on the couches, staring at him. It felt like he’d been standing there for years, all of them giving him their undivided attention. All of them. Staring at him. Waiting for him to talk. His throat felt dry, and he couldn’t decide if the room was too hot or too cold. He forced his tail to stay still instead of betraying how anxious he was, but they probably already knew.

“Take your time,” Mark said gently. Jack was taking his time. He’d been taking his time for the past fifteen minutes. Ethan’s leg was bouncing almost as fast as Jack’s heart rate.

“I… I, er… I don’t…” Jack took a deep breath, forcing his voice to steady. “I don’t know how to start this. I haven’t told anyone about this… this thing… in years.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I- I didn’t think I’d have to. Meeting you guys… becoming so close to you guys… that was never the plan. I knew this would happen eventually, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I knew that I would end up hurting one of you. Of course it ended up being Mark, you fucking hero.”

“Hey!”

“I’m not safe,” Jack said, ignoring Mark’s protest. “I’m a ticking time bomb.”

“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Tyler suggested, his usually stoic expression relaxed and gentle.

Jack swallowed hard and allowed his tail to twitch nervously behind him. “Okay. The beginning.” Thinking back on dumb, newly-off-of-Varellex Jack, he wanted to go back and shake him. Tell him not to throw himself into dumb situations. Tell him that he would be safer without an AI. Tell him that he was safe with friends. Too late now, though.

“I don’t really know when exactly I had the idea first, but it was some time after getting my eye replaced and probably after one of Chase’s breakdowns. I had heard about people getting AIs installed in cyborg parts, but Robin said that they usually ended up with something going wrong.” Jack flinched as he watched the Barrel crew slowly all realize where the story was going. “I thought I could do better. Dumb, right? The guy who can’t even program a fucking robot right thought he could make an AI.”

They didn’t say anything. Just let him talk. Jack didn’t know if that was better or worse than someone breaking his rambling.

“I stayed up for days programming him. I hardly took a single break.” Jack decided to refrain from telling them he hadn’t taken any break. “He had some base coding already, but I had to do a lot of work to make sure he would work like he was supposed to.”

Mark looked like he wanted to ask something. Jack wanted him to ask it, but Mark stayed quiet.

“I had to route the installation through Sam, but it worked,” Jack continued. “I had an AI installed in my eye. Everything was working. Everything was fine. I thought I didn’t have anything to worry about, and for a while, I didn’t. SEAN-I was perfect.”

“SEAN-I?” Ethan broke the silence, earning a shove from Kathryn.

“It’s what I called him. My AI. Safeguard Engaged by Automatic Neural Interface,” Jack explained. “He worked really well for a while. Whenever I was in danger and couldn’t get myself out of a sticky situation, I’d take a backseat and watch as SEAN-I got me and whoever else out of there safely. I really liked him. We- we all really liked him. Chase, JJ, Henrik, even Robin started to come around to him. One day, though, I don’t know what happened, but he snapped.”

Jack’s breathing stuttered. He felt like there was a weight on his chest, and the world was spinning. He hated remembering that day. The stench of blood and gore. The tearing, clawing, and killing he had woken up to. The fear in Chase’s eyes.

If Jack could forget, he would.

“Chase and I, we were cornered by a ton of GLE officers, and I let SEAN-I take over to help get us out. I- he- he usually let me see what was happening when he took over. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t do anything. It was like I’d been knocked out of my own body. I was stuck in some black void. The back of my own fucking mind while he rode front seat and destroyed everything. He killed all of them. He- he-” Jack froze as he forced himself to not cry.

Mark stood and walked over to Jack, pulling him into a hug. Jack didn’t move. He couldn’t. He was forcing every part of his being to not completely break down. Mark hugged him tighter.

“It’s okay, man,” Mark said. “We got you.”

The rest of the crew appeared around them, their own arms joining the tangle of hugs. Slowly, Jack’s breathing calmed down and his hands stopped shaking.

“It’s okay,” Ethan said.

“Just breathe,” Amy murmured and patted his back while Tyler patted his shoulder.

“Take your time,” Kathryn added.

Jack slowly pulled out of the group hug as his body stopped shuddering. He still felt like shit, but he was no longer on the edge of a panic attack. “Thanks,” he muttered.

“You’re our friend,” Mark said, smiling. “We’ll always be here for you, no matter how bad it gets.”

Jack twitched a smile and stared down at his feet. “I- he got worse after that,” he continued, trying to ignore the warm feeling in his heart. “He took over with almost no warning except for a splitting migraine, and ended up destroying Jackie’s original head and half of his internal pieces when he was still being built. Jackie ended up being ANTI’s counter.”

Ethan opened his mouth, but was shushed by Kathryn.

“Automatic Neural Terror Interface,” Jack explained. “Whenever he took over, Chase and JJ would go with Henrik into his office, and Jackie would fight off ANTI until he knocked m- knocked him out. Eventually I built the safe room and got ANTI mostly under control. I learned ANTI’s signals. Headaches, an itchy feeling in the back of my head, things like that. I learned how to slow him down. I had him under control. At least, as much as I could. Then I just had to go and fuck it up.”

“I’m fine,” Mark insisted, but Jack shook his head.

“I know ANTI. I should have known that he would attack you. This is all my fault.”

“Hey,” Mark started to say, but Amy cut him off.

“Jack,” she said. “We don’t hate you. None of us do. It was an accident, and all we can ask is that you learn from it. Mark is fine. We’re all fine. We just want to make sure that you’re fine now.”

“I mean, I guess I’m okay,” Jack said. “At least, I’m okay as I’ll ever be. It’s hard to be completely ‘okay’ when you’ve got a homicidal AI constantly trying to take control so that you’ll always be ‘safe.’”

“At least his sense of humor survived,” Ethan snorted.

Jack smiled back, letting himself relax slightly.

“Thank you for telling us,” Tyler said. “We’ll make sure to take more precautions in the future.”

Jack flinched internally. He didn’t need more people taking precautions around him. He already had to take precautions around his own crew, and that hurt. It just confirmed that he wasn’t safe. He was a stupid, terrible, dangerous monster.

None of them noticed. Mark patted Jack’s back, smiling as he passed by him on the way out. “We got that new game, if you’re interested in sticking around for a little while longer?”

“Maybe some other time,” Jack said apologetically. “I still need to fix Henrik and make sure Chase hasn’t broken down again. JJ’s probably going to freak out at me when I get back, and I don’t want him to break down too.” He hesitated for a minute. “I have a new project I want to get started on too. For you guys.”

“You don’t have to,” Mark tried to argue, but Jack waved his hand.

“I want to,” he insisted. “Just let me have this, okay?”

Mark nodded with understanding. “We’ll see you later, then.”

Jack nodded and watched the Barrel crew all leave the room. He sighed, letting all the tension in his body leave. For a moment, emotion started building up in his throat, but he pushed it down again. He left, walking quickly to his own ship. Mark meant well. They all did. They just didn’t understand.

Jack wondered if they ever would.

.

.

.

“Welcome back!” “Long time no see!”

“We were starting to wonder if you’d ever come back.”

The Barrel crew all welcomed Dark back as he stepped onto the docking bay. He gave them all a tense smile and adjusted the pack on his shoulder. He looked just the same as usual, if not slightly healthier and more filled out. The red and blue stripes running down his face were more vibrant, and he walked with confidence and purpose.

“Good to know you’ll still have me,” Dark said smoothly. Mark winced. There was that ringing in his ears again. “I was afraid you wouldn’t need me anymore.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Mark scolded. “I told you before you left that you’re family, and that’s still true. We’d never turn away family.”

“You’re too kind.” Dark set his bag down on the docking bay floor, looking a little surprised all of a sudden. “I just remembered, I picked things up for you all. Mark, would you help me grab them? They’re in my kitchen.”

Without waiting for a response, Dark slipped back on board his ship. Mark hurried after him, giving Amy a thumbs up as he stepped inside. Dark’s ship was just as pristine and orderly as before. If anything, it had gotten cleaner. Mark followed Dark into the kitchen. A few bags were stacked on the counter next to a small septic tank holding a Velm eye. Something felt familiar about it, but Mark didn’t have much time to think on it before Dark handed him a couple of the bags.

“No peeking,” Dark said, his teasing words coming out completely monotone.

A chill ran down Mark’s spine, and the familiar ringing noise returned.

“Got it,” Mark said, taking another bag. “I’ll put these in the common room, then.”

Dark nodded and turned to face the rest of the bags. “I’ll join you in a moment.”

Mark got off of the ship as quickly as he could. He had missed Dark around the ship, but now that he was back, Mark remembered just how unsettling he was. It was probably just how his species were, but the emotionless words and the weird presence he brought with him everywhere made Mark’s skin crawl.

The rest of the crew had already dispersed back to their own rooms. Mark passed Tyler in the hall, taking the dogs to eat.

“Hey, Tyler,” Mark said, readjusting his grip on the bags. “Can you tell everyone to meet in the common room? Dark got us gifts.”

Tyler raised a rocky eyebrow and nodded. “What are they?”

“I didn’t look,” Mark answered, mocking looking offended. “They’re gifts.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll feed the dogs and send everyone down.”

.

.

“I know gifts are usually wrapped, but I’ve never wrapped anything before, so I hope the bags are okay.” Dark looked nervous as he handed the crew each a bag.

“It’s fine, Dark,” Mark said. “We didn’t expect you to get us anything, so this is great.” He waited for Dark to sit down before opening the bag in his lap. It was a camera, similar in style and size to Jack’s robot, Sam. This one, however, was black, with a red-orange iris.

“What is it?” Mark asked, turning the ball around in his hands. It was heavier than he expected, feeling solid.

“A security camera,” Dark answered simply. “It should help keep an eye on things around here. If you rub the iris, it should turn on and register your face and finger prints.”

Mark followed the instructions and looked up in surprise as the camera floated slowly into the air. The pupil dilated and contracted a few times and then floated over to Mark’s shoulder. It remained there, humming quietly.

“Uh, does it have a name?” Mark asked, poking it. It moved slightly, but floated back to the same position.

“Why would it have a name?” Dark asked in return. “It’s a machine.”

Ethan winced, glancing over at Kathryn, then back at Dark. His hands tightened around something in his palm. His present. “I’m going to my room. Tha… thanks for the present, Dark.”

“Of course,” Dark said, apparently unaware of Ethan’s discomfort. Kathryn made a move to follow him, but Dark interrupted, “You haven’t opened your gift yet.”

She started to pull the gift out of its bag while Mark stared after Ethan. Dark had lived before the android revolution. Did he even consider Ethan alive? Or was he just a machine to him? A tool to be used and thrown away. Mark didn’t know where Ethan had come from, but he knew there were some heavy secrets in his past.

He should check up with Ethan afterwards. Make sure he was doing okay.

“Do you like it?” Dark asked, gesturing at the ball floating by Mark’s shoulder.

“Um, yeah,” Mark answered, pulled out of his thoughts. “It will be handy to have another thing to keep an eye out around here. I think I’ll call it Barry. Tiny Ball Barry.”

Dark looked puzzled and frustrated for a moment, then shook his head. “If you want,” he said. “It’s your camera.” He turned to the others still in the room. “Do you all like your gifts?”

Amy looked a lot less enthusiastic about the necklace she had received since Ethan left. The gold chain and blue gemstones shimmered in a way that looked almost artificial. Kathryn held up her own silver and green necklace, comparing it to Amy’s. Her nose wrinkled as she held the chain up to her neck. Tyler held a snow globe depicting his home planet. The snow drifted slowly, and didn’t need to be shaken.

“They’re great, Dark,” Amy said, smiling kindly. “It was very considerate of you to get us such nice gifts.” Tyler and Kathryn both nodded in half-feigned agreement. Dark looked satisfied.

“Excellent,” he said, clasping his hands. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have some business to attend to.”

Dark left the room without another word, leaving the rest of the crew in an uncomfortable silence.

Mark looked over at the others. “I’m going to go check on Ethan.”

Kathryn winced. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go?”

“If you want, but I want to make sure he’s okay myself. He’s my friend too.”

Kathryn nodded, and Mark left. Barry continued to hover at his shoulder, buzzing in his ear. It was going to take some getting used to. Mark walked down the hall until he reached Ethan’s room. Knocking, he slowly slid it open.

“Hey, you okay?” Mark asked.

Ethan was sitting on the floor, legs crossed. He tossed a little chip back and forth in his hands, staring blankly ahead as Mark stepped inside the room. “Do you know what Dark got me?”

“What?” Mark asked.

Ethan held up the chip. “A replacement chip for a personality core. He thinks I’m defective because I can feel things. He wants me gone.” Ethan sniffed, drawing his legs to his chest and hugging them. He stared at the chip, numb fear and sadness stirring in his eyes. “Just another machine. Just a mindless, useless tool.”

Mark sat down next to Ethan and took the chip from him. It looked expensive. Blue and yellow designs ran all over it. A proper replacement chip. Dark had gone to lengths to find something so expensive.

“You are not a robot,” Mark said quietly. “You are Ethan. You have emotions, and thoughts, and that’s okay. You’re a person, Ethan. I don’t think Dark understands that, but that just means we can teach him. I’m sure if you just talk to him, you could get something sorted out.”

Ethan snorted, “Right, like how we tried to teach those anti-android protestors on Kell? Or those brutes that tried to take me apart and sell me on Masyna? What about all those restaurants that kicked us out because I was with you? What about…” Ethan’s voice choked. He clenched his hands so tight, the metal caved slightly. “What about my creator, huh?”

Mark flinched. Ethan never talked about his creator. Never. Mark had attempted to bring it up several times, but stopped when Kathryn cornered him and threatened bodily harm if he ever made Ethan talk about his past. All Mark knew was that it wasn’t good.

“Dark’s not your creator, Ethan. He’s not those protestors, or those brutes, or any of those restaurants,” Mark said, placing his hand on Ethan’s. “He doesn’t know any different. This” — Mark held up the chip — “is all he’s ever known. Dark didn’t like me at first because my dad was Ir’al. He learned to accept me. I’m sure he’ll do the same with you.”

Ethan huffed, not saying anything.

“I’ll get rid of this,” Mark said, tucking the chip into his pocket. “And you don’t have to go on any missions with Dark, if you don’t want to. I’ll talk with him.”

“Thanks, Mark,” Ethan said softly, his voice muffled by his sweatshirt sleeve.

“Of course, buddy,” Mark reached around the android, pulling him into a tight hug. “Want me to send Kathryn in?”

Ethan hesitated, then shook his head. “I’m fine. It just… I didn’t expect someone on the crew to give me that.”

“Neither did I,” Mark said. “Don’t worry, I’ll work it out with Dark.”

He gave Ethan a pat on the back and then stood up to leave.

“Let me know if you need anything, okay?” Mark requested as he stood in the doorway. Ethan gave him a thumbs up, and Mark slipped out into the hall with Barry close behind.

.

.

It didn’t take long to find Dark. He was in his ship, sorting through papers at the table in his kitchen. He ripped one into pieces, tossed it into a trash can, and picked up another. Mark knocked on the door frame, but Dark didn’t look up. Instead, he just folded the paper in his hands neatly and set it aside.

Next to the papers was a turned off monitor, Dark’s jacket, and a few bottles of liquids that Mark really hoped were juice.

“What are those?” Mark asked, stepping behind Dark and leaning over his shoulder. Dark’s neat fold crumpled suddenly as he jumped in surprise.

“Ah, Mark,” Dark said, flipping the top paper over so it covered the rest of the stack. “Just some personal documents. I’m getting rid of the ones that are out of date. Being dead for over forty years has destroyed my documentation system.”

Mark reached towards one of the folded ones, but Dark grabbed his wrist before he could take the paper. “They’re private,” Dark said kindly, but there was a tense strain in his voice.

“Oh, right,” Mark said awkwardly. He took his hand back. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright. Did you need something?”

“Actually, yes,” Mark said, straightening up. “Why did you give Ethan that personality replacement chip?”

Dark raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I simply noticed a few malfunctions in his programming. He is quite attached to things he shouldn’t be, and I have noticed his programming is simulating emotions. His fear of fire, as well. He is a machine. He should follow orders, regardless of any ‘fears.’ Also his hyperactivity and forgetfulness are contradictory to how a machine should function. I hope the chip is the correct sizing. I only managed to see a few of his programming codes before leaving.”

“Ethan is an android,” Mark said. “He’s supposed to feel.”

“Androids are robots. They’re built as tools.”

“Maybe forty years ago, but now they have rights,” Mark explained. “They are recognized by the GAAP as citizens, and are given the same right to emotions, free will, and thought that we are. Giving Ethan that chip wasn’t okay. Insinuating that he needs to replace himself because of his personality was hurtful.”

Dark looked stunned. “I- I’m sorry,” he said, sounding genuinely regretful. “I didn’t realize. I assumed- I thought he was just broken. I see my mistake now. I shall apologize to him. Is there any way I can make it up to him?”

Mark hesitated. “Just give him space. Ethan has had a rough time with anti-android groups in the past.” Mark decided to forgo telling Dark about Ethan’s past. That was for Ethan to say. He handed Dark the chip. “And get rid of this.”

Dark frowned at the chip in his hand, and then with a sharp CRUNCH, shattered it with his bare hands. He brushed the shards into the trash bin. “Done.”

Mark blinked. How strong was this guy? Those chips were meant to be practically indestructible.

“I shall apologize tonight at our meal,” Dark said, turning back to his documents. “I do have to finish this, however.”

“Yeah, I’ll… I’ll see you later.” Mark left Dark to his papers. He was surprised to see Ethan in the docking bay when he stepped off Dark’s ship. The android looked anxious, and he was fidgeting with his hoodie strings.

“What’d he say?” Ethan asked, looking behind Mark.

“He said he was sorry,” Mark answered, placing his hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “He didn’t realize his mistake, and he promised to give you some space and apologize personally to you later. He destroyed the chip, too.”

Ethan didn’t look convinced, but his shoulders relaxed slightly. “Okay. Thanks, Mark.”

“Of course. Do you want to go blow off some steam? We can go play some video games, and I think Jack is free.”

“That sounds great,” Ethan said.

.

.

.

Jack wasn’t free, but that didn’t stop Ethan and Mark from playing Galaga for a few hours. They only stopped when their communicator began to beep loudly at them, signalling an incoming distress call.

“What is it, Tyler?” Mark asked his comms as he and Ethan rushed to the docking bay.

“Ship near us. I can’t quite make out what they’re saying through all the static.” Tyler said back. “Something about pain and hurry.”

“We’re on our way,” Mark said. “Send the location to our ship.”

“Right,” Tyler said.

As Ethan and Mark reached the docking bay, Dark stepped out of his ship. “What is going on?”

“Distress call,” Mark answered quickly. “They’re near us, and they need help.”

“Do you need me to come along?” Dark asked, looking concerned.

Mark looked over at Ethan, who started to shake his head, but then stopped halfway and nodded with a frown. “Uh, sure,” Mark said, looking back at Dark. “Hurry, though.”

Dark pulled on his jacket and followed Ethan and Mark onto the pod. “Just let me know what you need me to do.”

“Just strap in for now,” Mark said, climbing into the pilot seat and flicking it on. “Ethan, get the med packs ready.”

“Roger,” Ethan said, climbing into the back of the ship as Dark sat behind Mark.

.

.

.

The ship was badly damaged. Large pieces of metal floated around it as they approached. Docking was impossible as the port was mostly missing. Dark and Mark got into space suits, leaving Ethan to navigate the pod nearby.

“Stay in contact,” Ethan said, giving the damaged ship a nervous look. “Whatever destroyed that might still be around.”

“Will do,” Mark said as he and Dark leapt out of the airlock, speeding towards the damaged ship with the boosters attached to their suits. Barry floated a short distance behind.

Reaching it, Dark managed to pry a piece of ship, making a big enough hole for the two of them to slip inside. It was dark in the ship. Not even red backup generator lights glowed to give a little bit of visibility. Just dark and silent.

The artificial gravity and oxygen had both been damaged, so Dark and Mark floated down the halls in heavy silence with flashlights on as they tried to find the source of the distress call.

“Ethan, scan the ship for heat signatures,” Mark said.

Dark peered into another room, shaking his head when he found nobody.

“There is a heat signature ahead and on your left,” Ethan replied after a few moments. “Just keep flying straight for a bit.”

Mark grabbed a wall and pulled himself forwards, propelling himself down the hall. Reaching the last doorway, he looked inside. It was empty.

“Ethan, are you certain there’s a heat signature here?” Mark asked, floating into the room.

“I swear, there are three heat signatures in that room, including you.” There was a sound in the background as Ethan typed something out. “Maybe it’s just not coming through correctly? Are there any running engines in that room?”

Barry zoomed around the room, beeping when he stopped above a desk.

Mark leaned over the desk. He jumped as he saw two aliens huddled underneath, holding each other. Their spacesuits were dirty, and they both looked terrified.

“I found them,” Mark said to Ethan. “Get ready to open the airlock when we get back.” Ethan made a noise of confirmation. “It’s alright,” he added to the aliens. “We’re here because of your distress call. That was you, right?”

The one on the left nodded. The feathers on her face were matted, and as she started to stand, Mark noticed blood staining her suit in a few different places. Tape was crudely stuck over several places on their suits where blood seemed the most intense.

“That was us,” she said, voice like a chirp. She was holding onto her companion tightly. “We’re the only ones left here. We were left behind when there wasn’t enough room on the escape pods.”

“What happened?” Dark asked, appearing behind Mark.

“They got left behind,” Mark replied, gently guiding the pair towards Dark. “They’re both hurt badly too, so we need to move carefully. And quickly; I don’t think there’s much air left in those tanks of theirs.”

Dark nodded and started leading the pair towards the exit. Barry zoomed past Dark, leading the way out with his glowing eye.

“What are your names?” Dark asked, sounding a little unsure of himself.

“Sae, and they’re Gispi,” Sae replied. “Thank you for rescuing us. We thought we were goners. What are your names?”

“Dark,” the Xanhull replied, “and he’s Mark.” Dark gestured to Mark as he appeared beside them.

“Are you brothers?” Gispi asked quietly, wincing when they spoke.

“No,” Mark said quickly. “Well… no. We aren’t. He just… it’s complicated.”

Sae nodded and squeezed Gispi’s shoulders. They reached the exit, and Dark managed to pry it open just a little farther for the injured pair to go through. Dark placed his hands on the backs of the couple, pushing them slowly towards the pod.

Mark moved to follow. Staying a little ways behind them, he watched Dark and the two rescued aliens move towards the ship. As they moved, Dark kicked off of a piece of debris. It moved faster than Mark had expected and slammed into him before he could get out of the way.

The air flew from his lungs as he was shoved backwards. The debris pushed them both back against the damaged ship, pinning him there as several rods embedded themselves into the metal.

“I’m stuck!” Mark gasped as he sucked in a desperate breath.

“What? How?” Ethan asked anxiously over the comms. The voice fritzed slightly. Damn, his comms had gotten damaged.

“A piece of the ship got pushed into me,” Mark said, attempting to get out. He was seriously stuck. “It had some rods in it that got stuck in the ship, so I can’t get it off.”

Mark thought he heard some static from Dark’s comm, but it was impossible to tell. Barry whizzed up to his face, staring at him before floating to his shoulder. What a load of help this thing was.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Dark said, sounding very much not panicked about the situation. The apathetic calm was making Mark feel more distressed than calm himself. “I have to secure Sae and Gispi first.”

“I’m not telling you to hurry, but I am also telling you to hurry the fuck up,” Mark said.

“You should go back for him,” Sae said, sounding frantic. “It’s probably still out there.”

“What is? What is out here?” Mark asked, looking around in a panic. He hated being stranded in space almost as much as he hated the ocean. He loved space, but not when there were potentially dangerous monsters that could rip the wings off of a ship.

“We’ve never seen anything like it,” Gispi coughed. “It just tore through the ship.”

“Ethan, scan the area,” Mark ordered. He continued to push against the metal pinning him down. No use.

“For what?”

“Everything!”

“Don’t yell at me!” Ethan shouted as typing sounds filled the comms. “Faint heat signature… faint light signature... uh, there is a huge radiation signature nearby. It’s moving a lot.”

“Radiation?” Mark managed to pry one of the rods free. One down, too many more to go.

“Yeah, and it’s strong radiation too,” Ethan said quickly, clearly trying not to panic. “It could kill you just to touch this thing.”

“You need to go back for him!” Sae begged Dark. “He’ll die!”

“We’re almost to the pod,” Dark insisted. “He’ll be fine a moment longer.”

“But—” Sae started to say.

Mark interrupted, “You two are the highest priority. Just fucking hurry up already.”

“KREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Everyone froze.

“What… what was that?” Ethan asked.

“Look out!” Sae screamed.

Mark turned and ducked as much as he could just as a claw tore through the metal right where his head had been only moments before. Gaping at the giant creature, Mark felt his heart drop. Its giant mouth was open, revealing a dark void. Two solid fins protruded from its head. Several glowing yellow eyes searched the area and locked onto Mark’s wiggling body. The entire beast glowed an ethereal blue and white, with a trail of luminescent white trailing behind it.

“What is that?” Dark asked, sounding more curious than afraid. More than was appropriate for the current situation.

“Who cares? Just get back and help me!” Mark yelled.

Mark could see Dark help Sae and Gepsi into the pod, Ethan guiding them on board. He could have sworn Dark hesitated before turning around and flying towards Mark.

“Feel like helping?” Mark asked Barry.

Barry only hummed.

“Uh huh, great,” Mark said, managing to wiggle out another rod. “Can’t you move any faster, Dark?”

“I don’t want this thing to notice me, too,” Dark said flatly. “Unless you want to draw its attention some more with your flailing.”

“Not really,” Mark grunted, shoving against the debris one more time before going still as the beast wove its way around the damaged ship.

“Then don’t whine.” Dark said, carefully maneuvering around the debris. “I’m doing my best.”

The creature screamed again. Another piece of the ship sheared off as the beast passed through it with ease. The white trail followed it and enveloped Mark. Immediately, all of his systems started failing. Air, comms, boosters, everything that kept him alive.

“Oh, fuck,” Mark muttered. Barry gave a little “wheee” before his lights blinked and his eye went dim. He started to float away, but Mark grabbed him, holding the little robot close to his chest. He had enough air to last him a few minutes before things got deadly. “Okay, calm down,” he mumbled to himself. “Panicking will only use the air up faster. Just even breathing. Even… breathing…”

His heart, beating faster and faster, was beyond his control. Where was Dark? The white residue was covering most of his vision. It was like a cloud of light, obscuring everything from view. All he could hear was the occasional screams of the beast as it flew overhead.

Suddenly, there was a hand reaching through the light. It grabbed the metal, and began prying it away slowly. At first, Mark thought it was Dark, but the suit was too dirty and damaged. As the light faded, Sae’s face appeared.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Mark asked, even though Sae couldn’t hear him. She pulled at the metal, getting yet another rod free. It was almost loose enough for him to get out. Just one more.

With their energy combined, Mark and Sae managed to pull the metal piece free. Mark squirmed out, grabbing Sae’s hand and pushing off the ship just as the beast crashed through it again. They spun out into space, hurtling towards the pod. Only a few more moments of air. They had to make it.

Suddenly, Sae started spasming next to him. Mark looked over to see her clutching at her throat. Her tank was out of air, and she was dying. Mark frantically looked around for the next chunk of debris to push off of. They were so close. Just a few more pushes. Mark’s head was going light at his own lack of oxygen. They had to make it, but it was so… far… away…

Suddenly, Dark was in front of him, attaching one of his air pipes to Sae’s. He nodded to Mark and began to pull Sae forward. Mark desperately grabbed onto her, and the three of them rushed towards the pod. The moment they reached it, Sae grabbed Mark and shoved him through the airlock.

The door slammed shut behind them, the one in front opening and air rushing into the room. Mark yanked his helmet off, gasping and coughing as his lungs filled with full air.

“Get us out of here,” Dark yelled at Ethan. The pod rumbled as it took off, away from the beast that continued to tear at the damaged ship.

“Where,” Mark rasped, his throat dying. “Where the fuck were you?” He stood up straight, glaring at Dark. The Xanhull frowned, opening his arms diplomatically.

“I was coming. I lost sight of you after the creature swooped so near to you.”

“Then how did Sae find me, and not you?” Mark was furious. “She almost fucking died because you didn’t come find me. Where were you, Dark?”

“I don’t know how,” Dark said, his tone still flat. Mark’s ears were ringing with fury. “I only know that I tried my best to find you. You should be glad I met you halfway. If I hadn’t, you’d both be dead.”

Mark wanted to shove Dark against the wall to yell at him more, but Sae began coughing, blood spattering into her hand. Mark shot Dark one more angry look before helping Sae to her feet and into the back of the pod for medical attention. Ethan followed him a moment later.

Mark let Ethan take over helping Sae and Gispi, and leaned up against the wall. He was absolutely livid, and the ringing in his ears had come back even louder, which only irritated him further. He wanted to throw something. If he saw Dark again, he probably would. He was half tempted to go back to the front of the ship and toss Dark out of the airlock. See how he fared with limited air and his stupid weak lungs.

Instead, Mark pulled up his personal comm and called the Barrel. Amy’s face appeared, looking worried.

“Are you alright? Did it go okay?”

“It’s fine,” Mark said, finally allowing himself to collapse into a chair. “Everything is fine. We saved them, and everyone is okay.”

“Everything doesn’t sound fine,” Amy said, frowning as she looked Mark over. “You’re sure you’re okay? You sound terrible.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Mark huffed. “No thanks to someone.”

“Wh-”

“He almost let us die!” Mark snapped, trying to keep his voice low. He slammed Barry onto the desk, the dead robot rolling around. “I was stuck, asking for help, and he didn’t come.”

Amy was quiet as Mark summarized the mission, angrily spitting out Dark’s name as he explained how he had left him pinned to a collapsing ship being attacked by a giant space… whatever that thing was. As he finished, Amy sighed.

“That’s really shitty.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“But,” Amy started, and Mark glared. “Just hear me out, okay? I’m not the biggest fan of Dark. You know that. But remember when Jack hurt you? You knew that it was an accident. It wasn’t his fault. I don’t know if this is the same, but maybe give him the benefit of the doubt? Just this once.”

Mark sighed, “You’re right.”

“Of course I am.” Amy smiled. “Although…” She hesitated, biting her lip. “I’ve been noticing Dark has been more… intense since he got back. I don’t know if that has something to do with it, but keep an eye on him, alright?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Mark huffed, glaring at the door to the front of the pod. “I’m not letting him out of my sight.”

.

.

.

“Did I do something wrong?”

Mark looked up from running his hands through Chica’s goop and pulling out a few loose bits of metal she’d picked up in Amy’s workshop. Dark was standing in the doorway of the common room, hands deep in his pockets.

“Did you what?” Mark asked, tossing a scrap of metal into a bucket.

“Did I do something wrong?” Dark repeated.

Mark hesitated. “Why do you ask?”

“You’ve been… distant,” Dark said slowly. “Ever since we got back from rescuing Sae and Gispi.”

It had been roughly a week since they’d gotten back to the Barrel. Dark had fixed Barry, but Mark now realized he’d never thanked him for that. He was still a little irritated with Dark for almost letting him and Sae die. It wasn’t like Dark had done anything to help Mark’s irritation. His apathetic and logical approach to everything was setting Mark’s nerves on edge.

“Oh, have I? I didn’t notice,” Mark said, sarcasm dripping from his words. “Kind of like how you didn’t notice me dying.”

Dark sighed, “Are you still upset about that?”

“Of course I’m not,” Mark huffed, flinging a piece of metal towards the bucket and missing by a lot. “Why would I be mad about that? It’s not like the person we went to fucking save almost died because you couldn’t find me. Which, by the way, is what we do when we save people. We find them, and we save them.”

Dark flinched. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I did try my best. I didn’t even see Sae leave the pod.”

Mark didn’t respond, just flung another piece of metal. He kept missing, and it was only making him angrier.

“You’re so emotional,” Dark muttered under his breath. Louder, he said, “Is there any way I can restore your faith in me?”

“Don’t let me almost die like that ever again,” Mark snapped. “Have my back, like you promised.”

“Of course,” Dark said, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.

“Good. Now go bug someone else,” Mark said, turning his back completely on Dark. He listened to him walk away, footsteps fading down the hall towards Amy’s workshop.

.

.

Dark avoided Mark almost entirely for the next couple days. He spent most of his time on his own ship, and only came out for dinner. He apologized to Ethan, but Ethan still avoided the docking bay as much as he could. Kathryn had grown colder towards Dark as well, sitting between him and Ethan whenever Dark came to meals.

Mark felt awful. He had been mad, but now Dark was avoiding them, and no one seemed to care that he was drifting away. Mark wanted to help. That’s what he did. Dark was with them because of Mark, so it was his responsibility to make sure Dark was comfortable with them. They were the only family Dark had, and now they were just pushing him away.

Amy and Mark were in her sculpting room. Mark handed her pieces of wire as she twisted them together. Henry slept on the floor in the corner, curled up into a little peanut with his metal legs sticking out. Barry floated lazily over Mark’s left shoulder.

“Do you think Dark hates us?” Mark asked absentmindedly, not really thinking as he spoke.

Amy paused wrapping the wire and shrugged. “I don’t think so,” she said, giving the sculpture a once over. “You were a little hard on him. Maybe he’s just afraid he’ll make you mad again.”

Mark sighed, twisting a wire around his fingers, “Yeah. I just couldn’t shake this feeling that he was going to leave me. I don’t know, maybe it was just the adrenaline.”

Amy opened her mouth to respond, but at that moment a knock was heard at the door. Looking up, they saw Dark’s face through the windowpane. Mark got up and let him in.

“Sorry to intrude,” Dark said, avoiding eye contact with Mark, “but considering how badly I feel that I have failed you, I prepared a sort of apology meal. It’s been a while since I’ve cooked, but I think it turned out alright. I understand if you reject the offer, but I feel I must try and mend my mistakes.”

Mark smiled, reaching out and grabbing Dark’s shoulder. He looked up and met Mark’s eyes. “Of course we’ll accept,” Mark said softly. “I’m sorry too, man. I was angry and probably a bit too harsh.”

Dark brightened visibly, the lines running down his face creasing upwards as he smiled. “Perfect. I have the meal ready if you wish to gather your friends.”

He turned on his heel and hurried away. Mark looked back at Amy, who was smiling proudly.

“See?” she said, coming next to him and knocking her hand against his. “He just felt bad.”

.

.

Dark took his seat after pouring everyone’s drinks. Each drink was a different color, specifically mixed for each person. The food spread out across the table smelled amazing, each plate appearing perfectly prepared. Kathryn gave her plate a suspicious sniff before taking a bite.

“This is delicious, Dark,” she said, looking surprised. “I didn’t know you could cook.”

“You find things to do when you’ve lived for so long,” Dark said, smiling pleasantly. “I’ve learned to cook many things in my different bodies.”

Mark took a bite of his own meal. It melted in his mouth, coating his tongue in a perfect variety of different flavors. It tasted like all of his favorite foods at once, all mixing harmoniously. Chicken and dumplings, sushi, several different cheeses, and a few other foods all mixed in what appeared to be a plate of stuffed pasta.

“I don’t know what you were worried about,” Mark said through a mouthful of food. “This is amazing!” Feeling something cold, Mark looked under the table to see Chica nudging at his leg. She whined, and Mark pointed towards her bed. “Go lie down, Beeka.”

Tyler grabbed his own food, digging in. The only one missing was Ethan, who refused to join them. Henry had decided to join him, while Chica laid under the table.

“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” Amy asked, glancing at Dark’s full plate.

He shook his head. “I’ll eat later,” he said. “I don’t need to eat as often as you do, and digestion slows me down.”

Chica continued to nudge at his leg. Mark groaned, “Come on, Beeka. Go lie down. Down, girl.” He got up, grabbing her collar and guiding her to the bed. Chica whined, staring up at him with big sad eyes. “You can’t eat with us, girl.”

Mark took his seat again and gave Dark an apologetic glance. “What are the drinks?” Mark asked, glancing at the multicolored liquids swirling in the champagne glasses in front of them.

“A home blend,” Dark said eagerly. “It’s different every time, but always ends up absolutely delicious. It’s a perfect palate cleanser.”

Mark lifted his drink towards the center of the table.

“I’d like to propose a toast,” he said, glancing around at his friends. “We’re all family here, and I think we should be grateful to have Dark as one of us.” He paused as the others nodded their agreement. “To Dark!”

“To Dark!”

They all lifted their glasses towards the center and clinked them. Just as Mark was about to down his drink, his chair shuddered and then toppled, taking Mark and his drink down with it. He yelped, his fall only slightly cushioned by Chica underneath him. The drink still spilled all over both of them. The glass hit the floor and shattered, sending shards flying across the kitchen.

“Don’t move!” Amy leaped up, running for a vacuum. Tyler moved slowly away, careful to not step on anything. Kathryn hopped up on her chair, while Dark watched with a strangely blank face.

“What happened?” Tyler asked.

“Chica pushed me!” Mark huffed, looking down at the green Dulcosi, who panted happily while glass stuck out of her goop. “Chica, what the fuck?”

Amy rushed over, starting to clean up the smaller pieces while Tyler gathered some of the larger shards.

Ethan appeared in the doorway. “What happened?” he asked, looking around at the chaos. “Is anyone hurt?”

“We’re fine,” Mark said. “Chica just pushed my chair over and a glass got broken.”

Ethan squatted down and looked over the drink that had managed to reach the floor. At first he started picking up glass, but then he touched some of the liquid. “Good thing she did,” he said, dipping his finger into the drink with one finger, then sticking it into his mouth. “She probably saved your life.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mark asked, glancing between Chica and Ethan.

“This drink had alcohol in it,” Ethan said shortly, glancing up at Dark. “A lot of alcohol.”

“Is that a problem?” Dark asked innocently. “You have alcohol on board. I have seen several of you drinking.”

“Mark can’t have alcohol,” Tyler said, helping Mark stand. “It’s super toxic. Shouldn’t you know that? You have his DNA.”

“I cannot get an entire read on the species’ DNA that I have obtained,” Dark said, sounding regretful. “The minute details of it often escape me. I have never had Ir’al DNA before.”

“It’s fine. It was an accident,” Mark said grumpily, staring at the stain running down his shirt. “This stain is never going to come out, is it?”

Ethan grabbed Mark’s arm and dragged him out of the room while still staring at Dark with a frown. “Come on,” the android huffed. “I know some tricks to get that clean.”

Mark let Ethan take him out, but called out behind him, “Thanks for the meal anyway! It tasted great!”

Dark nodded, flashing Mark a tense smile right as he left.

.

.

The next few missions the Barrel took on all seemed to end with cuts and bruises. Mostly on Mark, who threw himself in front of anything coming to hurt his teammates. However, it was getting harder going on mission after mission. Each one seemed to end in near scrapes with death. After Amy’s cyborg arm got severely damaged stopping an avalanche of rocks from killing Mark, he was starting to reconsider his career choice.

“Are we cursed?” Ethan groaned, picking some leaves out of his hair. “I don’t remember almost dying this much before.”

Mark slapped another nano-bandage onto a cut running up his arm. “Maybe I’m just bad luck,” he suggested, passing the container of bandages to Dark, who placed a couple on his face and collarbone.

“We’ve just hit a rough patch, is all,” Amy said, attempting to stay optimistic. Everyone could still hear the strain in her voice. “Things will get better. They always do.”

Tyler grunted, lying on the ground with an arm thrown over his eyes. “Can we take a break? Go on vacation? I don’t care, I would just love to have one day where I’m not carrying someone out of a fire, or out of an earthquake, or off a collapsing ship, or…”

“Okay, we get it,” Mark snapped and tapped Tyler in the side with his boot. It didn’t seem to bother the Graeldur, who continued to grumble under his breath. “I think we all need a break.”

Kathryn hissed, ears going flat against her head as she cleaned a cut on her tail. “Somewhere warm, please. I’m sick of all these cold planets.”

“Agreed,” Amy said. “Maybe Jack knows about some warm place to go…”

“He is a Velm,” Dark said, standing and offering Mark a hand. “Coldblooded. Probably knows of a few desert planets.”

Mark took his hand, getting to his feet and helping the others. “Let’s call him. See if there is anywhere we can take a few days off.”

.

.

“You realize I’m probably the worst person you could have asked, right?”

Jack voice came from off camera as he tinkered with something he wouldn’t show the Barrel crew. Chase shrugged apologetically at the screen, handing Jack parts as his hand appeared. JJ sat nearby, sitting cross-legged in a chair and reading a holo-book. Dark leaned forward, hands clasped behind his back as he watched parts disappear off-screen.

“What are you building?” Dark asked. “Those parts seem…”

“Shut your yap!” Jack snapped as his head appeared in the bottom left corner of the screen, glaring at Dark. “It’s a gift, and it’s supposed to be a surprise. Keep your weirdly specific knowledge out of it.”

“My apologies,” Dark said quietly, backing away but keeping an eye on the screen.

Jack huffed, then ducked back under. “You could always try Wustir, but they’re having their rainy season. Also, it’s a safe haven for bounty hunters. Maybe Ju’edairl? Just avoid the western markets and you should be fine. Yurdinia is always nice, but- no. If they find out you know me, you’ll be shot on sight. Naineo is nice but- well, not unless…”

“Do you know any place where we won’t die while we try and have a good vacation?” Amy asked, stifling a yawn.

“Well, if you don’t mind rain and bounty hunters, I think Wustir might be your best bet,” Jack said, cursing loudly as something hit the floor and, presumably, his foot. JJ’s head snapped up, and he glared at Jack for a moment before going back to his book.

“Well, thanks, I guess,” Mark said.

A hand appeared again, waving. “No problem. Oh, this, er… this thing will be done soon. I can come drop it off within two-ish weeks, right?”

“Of course,” Tyler said. “We’re excited to see what you’ve been working on.”

“We’ll see if it works,” Jack muttered, mostly to himself. Louder, he said, “Alright, catch you later, dudes!”

Chase waved as the screen flickered and turned off. The crew glanced at each other with uncertainty.

“Well, how does Wustir sound?” Mark asked, spinning his chair around to face them all. The others stared back blankly, covered in scratches and bandages.

“Fine,” Amy sighed. “Let’s go.”

.

.

“I hope you’re waterproof,” Mark said, looking over at Barry, who only hummed in response, hovering diligently next to Mark’s head. Mark shoved a couple more pairs of pants into his suitcase.

The plan was to park the Barrel on one of the outer moons and take a pod down to Wustir’s surface. They’d stay at a hotel in one of Wustir’s largest cities and spend a week just touring the streets and relaxing. Hopefully the downpours wouldn’t stop them from enjoying their time off.

“You ready?” Amy yelled from the bathroom.

“Just about,” Mark called back.

Suddenly, Barry began beeping quietly by Mark’s ear. He’d never done that before. Mark took the camera in his hands and looked him over. His iris was flashing blue with each beep, and they seemed to be getting faster.

“Uh, Amy?” Mark called out. “Did you do anything to Barry?”

“No?” Amy leaned out of the doorway. “Is something wrong with him?”

“He’s beeping and flashing blue,” Mark said curiously. “It almost sounds like—” Mark froze. It sounded like a bomb. Barry only beeped faster.

“GET DOWN!” Mark yelled, tossing Barry into the corner as the beeping reached extreme speeds. He dove at Amy, causing them both to tumble into the bathroom.

For a second the beeping stopped, and Mark wondered if he was overreacting. Then a flash of light and heat exploded from the room, accompanied by a loud BOOM.

They laid there for a second, staring at each other with shock. Mark’s ears were ringing, and his vision swam as he stood up. Their bedroom had been blown into disarray. The bed had tears and burn marks running across it and was flat up against the opposite wall. The area where Barry had been thrown was a giant scorch mark, and pieces of shrapnel stuck out of the walls.

“The fuck…” Amy muttered, carefully moving towards where Barry had been thrown. Red residue was left over, staining the floor and walls. There was nothing left of the camera. “What happened to him?”

“He just started beeping. Do you think he malfunctioned?” Mark walked up behind her as she looked over the room, knocking the back of his hand against hers.

The door crashed open, slamming into the wall and staying there. Tyler, Ethan, Kathryn, and Dark all forced themselves into the room at once. Ethan yelped and toppled over, jumping back to his feet instantly.

“What happened? Are you guys okay?” Tyler rushed over to Mark and Amy, looking Mark over for injuries, while Kathryn did the same to Amy.

“We’re fine,” Amy assured them. “Mark recognized the warning signs just in time. We’re both alright.”

Dark approached the corner, kneeling and carefully picking up a piece of shrapnel. “How did you escape the blast radius?”

“I was in the bathroom,” Amy answered. “Mark just jumped and pushed us down. It’s lucky he’s so fast.”

“We are cursed,” Ethan said, throwing his hands in the air. “Everything is trying to kill us! Even Barry tried to kill you!”

“I’m sure it was just a malfunction,” Mark said. He glanced over at the destroyed bedroom covered in scorched marks. “Not like we’ll ever find out, though.”

“How much did Barry cost?” Kathryn asked Dark, eyeing him suspiciously.

He didn’t meet their gazes, continuing to look around the destroyed room. “I unfortunately was unable to get the model I was going after. This one must have been shoddily made. You are lucky.” Dark looked up at Mark. His eyes were cold, and for a moment they flashed blue and red.

“Usually am,” Mark joked.

Dark stood up suddenly, a piece of shrapnel held tight in one hand. Dark’s breathing was heavy, and the shard cracked.

“Yes,” Dark said through his teeth. “Lucky.”

Tyler stepped between them, ushering Mark and Amy out of the room. “We still have reservations down on the planet. We should get going. We can clean this later.”

“What about our things?” Mark asked, trying to duck under Tyler’s arm to get to his broken suitcase.

“We can buy stuff on the surface,” Kathryn argued, following them out of the room. “We were planning on going shopping anyway.”

They walked out. As Mark looked back, he saw Dark still staring at him with a tight smile. The shrapnel he’d been holding was in shattered pieces on the ground.

Dark had weird ways of showing concern.

They all grabbed some things along their way to the pods, the others’ suitcases packed and ready to go. Amy’s things had survived, since they were in the bathroom at the time of the explosion. Henry, still shaken by the loud noise, stayed close to Amy.

“Mom Amy safe. Mom Amy safe,” Henry muttered repeatedly, growling when Dark walked past. “Dumb Mark stay near Mom Amy. Mom Amy safe.”

“It’s okay, Henry,” Mark murmured soothingly. He knelt down next to Henry and scratched behind his ears. It calmed him slightly, but the moment Mark stood again he began muttering again.

“Is everyone ready?” Tyler asked, looking over their belongings.

A general mutter of agreement rose from the crew.

“Watch something else explode,” Ethan said. His mouth dropped open in horror. “What if I explode?”

“You’ll be fine,” Mark said, grinning as he grabbed Amy’s backpack. “Besides, we've got luck on our side.”

Henry barked suddenly, making Mark turn around just in time to see Dark charging towards him, two long knives in his hands. For the first time, Dark’s entire face was twisted with anger and hate. Mark was frozen in shock, pulled out of the way just in time by Amy. The knife slid past his cheek, barely grazing his skin.

“What the fuck, Dark?!” Mark stumbled away.

“You…” Dark turned around, his breathing fast and shaky. His eyes were alive with hate. Mark winced, clapping his hands over his ears as the ringing grew louder.

“Mark!” Tyler tried to move between them, but Mark motioned for them to move away. His crew backed off, keeping a watchful eye on Dark, who snarled at them.

“How long do you really think you could protect them? And from me? If I wanted you all dead, you would be. You. Just.” Dark swung again, punctuating each word with a stab as Mark dodged. “Keep. Surviving. Through. Luck. Fucking luck! You miserable gret. Why can’t you just give up and die, already?!”   

“What are you doing?” Mark yelled, jumping back as Dark charged him again. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I’ve been waiting patiently,” Dark hissed. “You just always get lucky, don’t you? Lucky to be born, lucky to survive, lucky I haven’t killed you yet. You know how long I have wanted to kill you? How long I have wanted to tear your throat out? How long I have wanted to tear the life from your pathetic body? You believe you’re so kind-hearted, but you’re just a mistake. You are a disgrace to who you are!”

“What are you talking about?!” Mark asked desperately, crying out as one of Dark’s knives connected with his arm. Tyler made a motion to step forwards again, but Mark waved him off. Better to keep Dark’s attention on him. “I’m a half-breed! I thought we were past that! I don’t get your problem.”

Dark stood before them, his back to the ships as the crew watched him snarl at them. “You know nothing, gret.”

Mark felt something welling up inside him. Something vicious and angry. Mark’s hands clenched, feeling hot with fury as he let the anger spill out.

“I’ve given you nothing but kindness ever since you got here!” he snapped, pointing at Dark with a shaking finger. “You would have died if I hadn’t let you in. Ethan gave you medical attention when you were falling apart. Tyler watched over you. Kathryn fixed your ship. Amy protected you. We gave you a fucking home! I gave you every single chance. I thought you had changed. I thought you were actually warming up to us! But no. You just wanted to get close to us so you could kill me for no fucking reason!”

For a moment it was just Mark and Dark staring at each other. Then Dark laughed. He slipped his knives back into their sheaths. “Oh, so attached, aren’t you? Attached to your pets. Your ship. Your so-called ‘family’. That girl. You have so many feelings, and you care so much. That’s your problem, Mark. You feel too much. You care. Pathetic.”

Mark stared, watching Dark laugh and laugh. He felt the anger slipping away, turning to cold resolve.

“Why do you hate me?” Mark finally asked, his voice low and dangerous.

“Because you shouldn’t exist,” Dark snapped, his laugh ending abruptly. He walked slowly towards Mark, gesturing with hands that could crush him. Mark pushed the others behind him, staring Dark down resolutely. “You’re a mistake.”

“I am not a mistake,” Mark growled. “I have just as much right to exist as anyone else in this fucking universe.”

Dark was only a few feet away, still walking towards him with intent. His hands flexed, as if itching to wrapping them around Mark’s throat.

Mark took a step forward. “Now get off my ship.” Just to prove his point, Mark shoved Dark with both hands.

Searing pain shot through his palms. It engulfed his hands, and Mark screamed as everything burned. The scent of burning flesh flashed between them. Dark was burning hot, his chest scorching Mark’s hands. Dark blinked in surprise, stumbling back from the force of the push as Mark reeled back in pain.

Mark looked down at his hands through tears that had begun forming in his eyes. The skin on his palms was red and bubbling. The pain and shock were too much, and he collapsed onto the floor of the docking bay. Looking up, Dark smirked at him.

The pain was overwhelming.

Mark gasped through the pain as Dark made a move to finish him off, but then he looked up and frowned. “Your family seems to care about you, gret,” Dark said.

The last thing Mark saw before his vision went black was Dark running away, Kathryn and Tyler chasing after him, and then Amy’s worried face, her hands coming to cup his face a everything faded into nothing.

.

.

“They’re going to have scars,” Ethan said apologetically, holding Mark’s hands and showing them to him. “I’m sorry, the burns were too deep. I can’t fix this.”

“It’s fine,” Mark said, looking down at the bandages on his hands. He looked up and smiled sadly at Ethan. “You did all you could.”

Ethan smiled tensely back. “Hey… are you okay? Mentally, I mean. Dark said some pretty fucked up stuff to you.”

Mark shook his head, confused. “I just… I wish I knew what he meant. I don’t get it. I mean, I do get it. Purists are horrible, fucked up people who can’t see past their biases, but still… I really thought he’d changed.”

Ethan turned off one of his machines. “Yeah, so did I, for a while. Those kinds of people don’t change easily. Hate is hard to get rid of.”

Mark looked back down at his hands. Something still felt wrong. What Dark had said… It didn’t just feel like a purist attitude. There was something else. Something obvious that was just out of reach.

“Don’t worry too much about it,” Ethan said comfortingly. “He’s gone now. You don’t have to worry about it right now. Just go hug Amy or something.”

“Good idea,” Mark said, pushing himself off the examination table. He winced, the flesh still sensitive on his palms. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem,” Ethan said, continuing to pack up the rest of his medical equipment.

Mark wandered through the halls until he reached the common room. Amy was pacing back and forth, the dogs anxiously watching her from their beds. The moment Chica saw Mark, she rushed over, jumping up and covering his face in licks.

“Hey, Beeka,” Mark laughed, hugging her. Standing, Amy rushed into his chest. She pulled him close.

“It’s okay,” Mark said, hugging her back and running his hands through her hair. “I’m okay.”

She laughed, the sound tinged with choked tears. For a moment, they just stood there. Just holding each other, knowing that the other was safe. They were alive. They would be there when their eyes opened again.

“Next time there is a racist on board, I’m kicking them off into the nearest star,” Amy muttered into his chest.

“Deal,” Mark chuckled quietly.

[roseymoseyberry]

Used To It (one-shot)

Oops I accidentally did a smut fill. And a Ratchet/Rodimus. I’m not 100% sure how this happened but here we are.

Inspired by this prompt on @maccadams-filthy-fills. Dunno if this is what the prompter was expecting but hopefully they like it.

Series: TFIDW/MTMTE

Ship: Ratchet/Rodimus, mentioned past Ratchet/Optimus and Ratchet/others

Rating/warnings: M/E for sticky interfacing and, well, what the prompt discusses. Divinely inspired sex drives and attraction, with some characters being chill with it (the ones featured in the fic)and others not so much (only mentioned in conversation)

Inspired by the prompt:

There’s an aura about a truly Matrix chosen Prime that leaves the mechs around them slightly infatuated and more than a little revved up. Back in the day there was an entire class of priests dedicated to assisting those who had to spend a lot of time with the Prime. But many things were lost to history and war, and no one is prepared for Optimus and/or Rodimus

Summary:

Ratchet knew that siren’s call all too well.

“Slaggin’ Primes.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Truthfully, Ratchet was a bit embarrassed that he hadn’t foreseen it coming.

And that he hadn’t even noticed it when it was right under his nose.

No doubt Ratchet would have gone right on missing it completely if he hadn’t finally had the time and energy to self-service, stroking himself as he sprawled across his berth, and a stray thought crossed his mind.

Rodimus would feel incredible around his spike.

His servo stilled and he could feel the way his face twisted. Rodimus was far from the worst mech to fantasize about, but Ratchet couldn’t pinpoint just why Rodimus would pop up in the first place. All attraction to the boisterous speedster had been swiftly categorized as junk information from the beginning since Ratchet simply didn’t have time for that sort of mess. Ratchet had hardly been the best at avoiding mixing work with play during the war, and he was trying to remedy that to some extent. Things were crazy enough in this post-war world without that sort of madness, so it was better to just ignore it, even within the privacy of his own processor.

Rodimus being attractive was an ignored fact. He shouldn’t have crossed Ratchet’s mind in the first place.

But processors were finicky business where matters of the spark and, more importantly, matters of the interface array were concerned.

Best to just shrug it off.

So Ratchet abandoned his spike to slip down into his valve. New sensations would lead to new thought threads and—

Frag, but Rodimus would feel so good inside him.

Ratchet groaned a decidedly irritated groan as his helm thunked back against the berth.

But his servo didn’t stop moving. His spike throbbed where it had been abandoned as his valve calipers clenched around his digits at the thought of Rodimus – bright and glittering plating sleek under another’s touch, under Ratchet’s touch, as his gorgeous frame arched up towards him, pulling Ratchet in. Into the undeniable charm and magnetism that was Rodimus, that all-consuming aura, bordering on something sacred and holy—

Ratchet’s optics snapped online, shock and bewilderment warring in his processor, but his spark whirled nearly giddily as his frame teetered on the edge of overload.

But he kept his servo still this time and waited until the wave of desire had passed.

Ratchet knew that siren’s call all too well.

“Slaggin’ Primes.”

“Wait. Is that why everyone on this ship is charged up 24/7?”

“I’m sure the close quarters and easy access to engex doesn’t help, but yes,” Ratchet replied, his servos folded together on his lap. “The continued proximity to your spark is a large factor.”

Rodimus stared at him blankly.

“But I’m not carrying the Matrix anymore, in case you somehow managed to forget.”

“It’s not the Matrix itself,” Ratchet explained. Rodimus’s plush lips pursed with confusion and Ratchet retrained his optics to the captain’s to avoid any tempting thoughts about those lips. “It’s a result of the changes your frame and spark underwent when you were chosen by it. I’m sure you’re already aware how monumental those changes were.”

Rodimus’s face lit up at that.

“It was a pretty wild ride.”

Ratchet couldn’t help rolling his optics before continuing, “Whether it’s purposeful or not is debatable, but the fact stands that those changes give your spark an aphrodisiac-like quality.”

“Which is doctor talk for turning folks on.”

With a shrug, Ratchet leaned back in his chair. “Yep. It’s slight enough to not be particularly noticeable, but the effect builds up with repeat exposures over time. So when you have a crew that is exposed to you regularly–”

“A little turned on becomes full-blown horny.”

Ratchet nodded.

Rodimus leaned back in his office chair and lifted his pedes to settle on his desk. Ratchet had expected the captain to gloat, or at least be smug about his effect on others, but instead his lips were pressed tightly together.

“So how do I stop it?”

“You can’t,” Ratchet said plainly. “It’s a part of being a Prime, and that simply isn’t something you can turn off as you wish.”

Rodimus didn’t look happy with the answer. His mouth was a hard line.

“Ohhhhkay. Then how do mechs, you know,” Rodimus asked, waving his servo vaguely, “deal with it.”

“Assuming you aren’t looking to hire some comfort mechs painted up to look like Priests?” When Rodimus just looked slightly alarmed, Ratchet waved it off, explaining, “It’s a joke, kid. That’s how Primes used to deal with their advisors looking to jump their bolts. I guess most folks wouldn’t know that outside of Iacon.”

“Yeah, can’t say I knew about any holy shareware,” Rodimus admitted. He didn’t look much comforted by the realization either. “And I think I’ll pass on that, thanks. Seems a bit much.”

Ratchet nodded his agreement. “It hasn’t been a feasible option for a long time, and I wouldn’t suggest bringing it back.”

“Soooo…?”

“You want my honest answer?” When Rodimus nodded, Ratchet further warned, “You’re not going to like it.”

“I can’t say I really like anything about this situation so that’s nothing new,” Rodimus grumbled.

Ratchet couldn’t help lifting a brow.

“I would have thought you’d get a kick out of this.”

“Magnus can barely stand to be in the same room as me anymore because he’s so upset about the fact that he wants to clang me,” Rodimus stated, tone casual but the tightness of his face giving away how it was hardly only Ultra Magnus who was upset about the circumstance. “He apologized for it, Ratchet. Do you know how much it sucks to have someone apologize for that? And then when I want to hang out with Drift to talk about it, he’s ‘busy’! He’s busy all the time when he’s not staring at me! The only time anyone will be around is when they’re flirting and—and I’m tired of it! So whatever you can do to make it stop, it’s fine. I’m game. Whatever I can do to help.”

Ratchet frowned.

“There’s nothing that you can do about it, Rodimus.”

Rodimus stilled.

“Come on, Ratch. That can’t be true.” The desperation was palpable in his voice.

“But it is,” Ratchet admitted. He shifted to the front of his seat, elbows on his knees as he considered Rodimus seriously. Millions of years of practice shoved lustful thoughts from his processor. “This isn’t something that you can fix. It’s going to be a bumpy ride, and it’s going to be awkward, but everyone on this ship will figure out how to deal with their desires on their own and things will eventually settle down.”

All at once, Rodimus deflated, looking hopeless.

“But what if they don’t?”

“Trust me, they will.” Ratchet suspected that Drift was already in the midst of navigating the attraction to his friend and would come out the other side all on his own soon enough, but Ultra Magnus seemed the type who would need reassurance. After making a note to see the Second about it, Ratchet made another to contact Rung. Together they could probably work their way through the crew—

“How can you be so sure?”

“Do I really need to remind you the company I kept for the last four million years?”

Rodimus blinked. And then blinked again.

And then his optics went wide and bright as he lifted his pedes off his desk to sit up straight in his chair.

“Optimus?” he managed, at once shocked and awed, and Ratchet couldn’t help an amused huff of his vents.

“Oh yeah. It was mostly us lieutenants and advisors since we had the most continued time with him, but any ship he stayed on long enough would become a crew-wide game of musical berths.”

Rodimus’s mouth hung open and Ratchet would swear he could hear the captain’s processor churning from where he sat.

“You wanted to clang Optimus.”

“As much as anyone else,” Ratchet admitted with a shrug. “But my point, Rodimus, is–”

“Did you?” Rodimus asked, leaning forward in his seat as the shock gave way to a perverse curiosity.

With an exasperated ex-vent, Ratchet continued, “My point is that there are other ways for the crew to release their pent up–”

“You did. You totally clanged Optimus.” Rodimus seemed nearly giddy with his discovery, at once fascinated and entertained.

It was better than the sullenness of before, and it would be a lie if Ratchet said his spark didn’t leap at how beautiful Rodimus looked when grinning, even if it was at his expense. The Prime was so easy to please–

Ratchet sighed at the predictable way his frame reacted to the thought.

“We didn’t make a habit of it, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” Ratchet crossed his arms over his chest, as if that could contain the dancing of his spark.

But?” Rodimus wheedled, out of his seat now with his palms on his desk as he leaned over it, leering at Ratchet. While the circumstances were completely different – Optimus was never, at even his most light-hearted moments, so ridiculous and flashy and silly – the longing of his spark and the ache of his interface array was the same.

It had felt incredible to let himself give in to Optimus’s draw, and there was no doubt in his spark that Rodimus could easily meet those staggering heights.

Primus, how he longed.

“The allure of a Prime is hard to ignore,” Ratchet managed in lieu of the statement of fact that Rodimus was looking for.

Nevertheless, it gave the captain pause.

“Oh,” Rodimus said, almost more ex-vent than word, his optics tracking down Ratchet’s frame, as if really noticing him for the first time. Rodimus’s vents shifted minutely, opening that slightest bit wider. “You wanna frag me too.”

Ratchet couldn’t help a small, amused smile.

“I’m hardly immune, kid. Fortunately for you, I have a lot of practice keeping it behind my panels.”

Rodimus’s gaze finally lifted to meet Ratchet’s and a slow, heated grin pulled at those lush lips.

“You don’t have to,” Rodimus said casually, leaning that slightest bit closer and letting his spoilers flick out enticingly. “You could make it two for two.”

Arms stayed crossed over his chest, but Ratchet’s servos tightened where they clasped his own armor to keep them to himself.

“I thought you didn’t like this whole mess.”

The grin fell for a moment as Rodimus ex-vented, explaining, “I don’t like everyone acting weird and apologetic about wanting me. It’s making them uncomfortable to even be around me and straining our relationships. But you—” Rodimus shrugged as he actually let his elbows rest on the desk so he was bent over the surface, watching Ratchet’s face. “You don’t seem to really care about the fact that you’re horny and want to interface with me.”

“Course not. I’ve been in too many berths and around too many Primes now to bother with shame at this point,” Ratchet replied. “Doesn’t get anyone anywhere.”

“I’m so going to pick your processor about those berths,” Rodimus said. “But later. Because if you’re honestly ok with all of this, I’m totally serious about wanting to frag. All of this attention has got me revved up with nowhere to burn it.”

Ratchet rolled his optics, but that didn’t keep him from finally uncrossing his arms to instead lean them against his knees, allowing him to shift closer without leaving his seat. No need to give away the sheer want now thrumming through his lines. “Why wouldn’t I be ok with it?”

“‘Cause the Matrix made you do it?” Rodimus offered, shrugging, casual as could be except for the intensity of his focus, looking for any sign of—discomfort perhaps? Uncertainty?

With a slow ex-vent, Ratchet pushed up to his pedes. Rodimus straightened, watching him but not pulling away when Ratchet’s servos braced against the desk on his side of it, bringing their faces closer together.

“Listen, let me make something clear,” Ratchet started. “Your aura draws mechs to you, and as a result, yes. It makes us revved up and marks you as the target for release. But that’s it. It’s just an attraction and raised interface drive.” When Ratchet leaned in closer and finally allowed his armor to relax, Rodimus’s optics flared with interest and his spoilers gave another flutter. “We can get ourselves off. We can get off with each other. Hell, we can just ignore it. Nobody has ever died from ignoring their interface drive that I know of.”

The proximity of the Prime’s spark made Ratchet’s thunder in his chest, as if it could escape and join with Primus’s emissary.

“So you’re saying you could leave if you wanted to,” Rodimus clarified, and when Ratchet nodded, the wide, bright grin was back. “But you don’t want to leave.”

Ratchet’s vents opened as his fans started to whirr to life.

“Lucky for you, you were already my type, hotshot.”

“Rod, actually,” Rodimus teased even as he leaned further across the desk, close enough now that their ex-vents mingled. “But you’re old enough that I don’t expect you to remember.”

“Like you’re as young as you act.”

“Rude.” There was nothing about the way that Rodimus was looking at him that suggested he was anywhere close to actually offended. Not with the way he let his lips part, his glossa peeking out the wet them. Still though, a flicker of disbelief flashed across his face. “I would have thought you preferred mechs like Optimus. Someone more your speed.”

“And what do you know about my speed?” Ratchet asked, aware that his voice was taking on a gravelly edge as his systems heated and his array pinged him to open.

Rodimus snorted, concern evaporating as he grinned smugly.

“I know you couldn’t keep up with me.”

Ratchet’s engine revved and his panels felt constricting.

“Try me.”

“Then get over on this side of the desk, old man.”

For all that his spark screamed to scramble over the surface, Ratchet had enough dignity to pull away and walk around the desk. Once within reach of Rodimus’s servos though, dignity was a lost cause as digits slipped under armor plates and glossae slipped past lips and self-control slipped from Ratchet’s grasp as he groaned into their kiss.

He should have known better than to think he could refuse a divine mess like this.

Rodimus’s plating was smoother under Ratchet’s digits than he had imagined, silky even as he pulled Rodimus flush against his frame, reveling in the Prime’s aura and his enthusiastic kisses. Rodimus kissed like he did everything else – with nothing held back as his servos demandingly cradled Ratchet’s jawline to tilt and pull him as the captain saw fit to keep their mouths slanted together passionately. When he finally pulled away it was with a grin pulling at those kiss-bruised lips.

“How have we not done this before?” Rodimus asked as he tipped Ratchet’s helm up, making room to nuzzle in and start pressing open-mouthed kisses to his neck cabling. With a pleased hum of his engine and vocalizer alike, Ratchet let his helm fall back even further and curled a servo around the back of Rodimus’s, holding him in place. “Is it ‘cause my sexy Prime powers hadn’t started working on you yet?”

Rodimus’s snickering drowned out the dull ring of Ratchet smacking the back of his helm.

“Don’t make me regret this indiscretion.”

“Yes, sir, sorry, sir,” Rodimus teased with a nip to Ratchet’s chin. “You this mean to all your frag buddies?”

“Is that what we are now?” Ratchet shot back as he leaned against the desk, his aft meeting it as his free servo pulled at Rodimus’s hip. Rodimus easily moved in close to grind their pelvis’s together, and the proximity of their chests, of their sparks, made Ratchet nearly dizzy with the rush of need.

Rodimus’s optics flared as they drunk in the medic’s expression.

“Call me self-important all you want, but you look like you’ll definitely be back, so why not?”

Rodimus wasn’t wrong, so Ratchet let it slide. After all, there were far more important things at hand. His arching array for one which was at that moment responding to the strong pulse of Rodimus’s spark over the commands of his own processor. His panels transformed away before Ratchet could stop them, leaving his valve to drip onto Rodimus’s thigh and his spike to pressurize against his abdomen.

And Rodimus didn’t so much as pause before pressing in closer, rubbing his frame against Ratchet’s array, obviously reveling in Ratchet’s lust.

And Ratchet’s spark thrilled at seeing the Prime so pleased.

“You want to clang real bad, huh?” Rodimus taunted against Ratchet’s neck as his hips rolled and the pleasure had Ratchet revving as his cooling fans kicked up a notch.

“Whose fault is that again?” Ratchet groused before tugging Rodimus away long enough to seal their lips together again and lick his way into the Prime’s mouth. With a full-frame shudder, Rodimus moaned and a quiet click announced to reveal of his own array, spike quickly pressurizing to slide along Ratchet’s.

Rodimus’s lips moved against Ratchet’s as he replied, a bit breathlessly, “Oh, that’s one hundred percent on me and my sexy Prime powers.”

“Rodimus.”

Rodimus ex-vented a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, alright. How do you want to do this?”

A thousand different scenarios came to his processor, each more tempting than the last, but above it all was just overwhelming want want want–

“Whatever you want. I’m pretty easy,” Ratchet managed.

“Yeah you are,” Rodimus said, smirking as he pulled back before Ratchet could nip his bottom lip.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“And you knew who you were agreeing to interface with,” Rodimus countered as, despite his taunting, his servo quickly slipped down to find Ratchet’s valve. Ratchet’s hips jerked forward into his grasp, ex-venting hotly when Rodimus pressed his palm against his node and his digits massaged the lips around his rim. “How ‘bout I spike you, and if we’re still up for it after, you can return the favor?”

A single digit pressed effortlessly into Ratchet, his valve wet and pliant and so very open to the Prime in front of him, but it still dragged a groan from his vocalizer.

“Sounds like a fragging plan, kid.”

Ratchet reached behind himself to brace on the desk and push up to sit on it, his thighs spreading to let Rodimus slide right into the space, his spike brushing the swell of his valve lips. The Prime’s spike was ornately painted, which wasn’t a surprise, but Ratchet didn’t have the time or processor energy to think much on it when Rodimus’s digits drifted to his valve again.

“For someone intent on reminding me how old I am, you sure do love calling me ‘kid’,” Rodimus pointed out as his optics stayed glued to his valve, seemingly appreciating the sight as he parted the lips to trace the biolights blinking fitfully in the mesh.

“If you act like a kid, I’m gonna call you kid,” Ratchet managed around the growing tightness of his intake, his spark feeling as if it was swelling enough to choke him. The fact that the Prime found him worth appreciating was intoxicating, which Ratchet knew deep down was ridiculous – he didn’t need Rodimus to like how his valve looked – but Rodimus’s damned aura and the resulting desire to please was too strong to ignore with how close they were.

And, frankly, it felt so good.

Slagging Primes.

Two digits pressed inside this time, still easy with how slick and ready Ratchet’s frame was. His calipers clenched desperately and pleasure raced up and down his lines like wildfire.

“Then you won’t get mad when I call you an easy old mech?” Rodimus asked as he finally flicked his optics up, bright with arousal as his digits curled and spread.

Ratchet didn’t need to look down to know Rodimus’s digits were already dripping with his lubricants.

“Ask me again when I can hold a conversation,” Ratchet groused. His hips rolled forward with Rodimus’s movements and his engine growled when the Prime found the most sensitive bundle in Ratchet’s lining. “Primus, get on it with already.”

“We’ve barely even started the foreplay.” Rodimus’s digits were relentless against the newfound weak spot, curled just right to stroke it over and over, drawing a shudder and a tank-deep groan from Ratchet as his thighs tightened around Rodimus’s hips.

“There’s time for that later. Right now I need your fragging spike inside me.”

Rodimus laughed, but that didn’t stop him from finally showing Ratchet’s sensitive nodes mercy and moving to replace his digits with the blunt head of his spike.

“Well, what kind of Prime would I be to deny you my ‘divine grace’?”

“Rodimus–”

Ratchet’s reprimand was cut off as Rodimus sunk into his valve in one smooth push, filling him and inadvertently bringing that glorious spark closer, and that combined with the way the Prime shuddered and ex-vented, “Scrap, you feel good”–

Ratchet moaned long and low as his legs folded around Rodimus’s hips to hold him closer, pull him further in, urging him harder and faster and deeper. Rodimus was gorgeous, vents wide open and his mouth agape, taking the hint and setting a steady rhythm. He moaned against Ratchet’s lips as his servos pulled at Ratchet’s frame in turn, caressing and holding Ratchet in place for his thrusts. Each slide had charge crackling between their plates as Ratchet’s valve accepted and tightened around Rodimus’s spike, milking him, making each stroke that much more pleasurable for the Prime and him both.

And then Ratchet let himself revel in the overwhelming rush of his spark, the perfect joy in having it’s longing fulfilled by intertwining his frame with divinity.

Rodimus’s frame heaved to cool itself as he stared up at the ceiling. His plating was covered with paint transfers and lubricant and transfluid alike, though the majority of it was splashed across his hips and between his thighs. Truthfully, the Prime looked completely wrecked.

Primus, it wasn’t fair for one mech to be so damned pretty.

Ratchet doubted his frame had fared much better. But his spark hummed with satisfaction strong enough that the medic didn’t bother to check just yet. Not when the afterglow was so lovely.

“So. Uh. You normally have that kind of stamina, or did I really manage to rev you up that hard?” Rodimus asked. “Because listen, I know I have stamina, but I think we just had at least a dozen overloads altogether.”

Ratchet chuckled as he let his arms stretch out over his helm and silently thanked whoever was on cleaning duty that week that the floor was so clean under him.

Or, well, was at some point. There were definitely puddles of lubricant and the like next to him where those last couple of overloads had finally brought the fragfest to its conclusion.

“Honestly couldn’t tell you. I’ve had this heightened interface drive for four million years and counting, so who knows.”

“Primus.”

Ratchet shrugged. “You get used to it.”

Rodimus was quiet for a moment. Then, without warning, he rolled so that he was draped across Ratchet’s chest, helm perched on his servos, and grinned down at him.

“Oh, I definitely think I could get use to this.”

Ratchet huffed as he swiped a stray droplet of transfluid from Rodimus’s cheek.

Yeah.

This was a madness he could get used to.

[dctuk]

How many TacTiles do I need?

TacTiles are one of those great inventions that are so simple but just work. Produced by carpet tile giants Interface, we've been selling TacTiles at DCTUK for over a decade now.

Simply stick them to the underside of the corner of each carpet tile, securing 4 carpet tiles for each TacTile. Contrary to popular belief, only one side of the TacTile is sticky, the other side (subfloor side) has a grippy (not sticky) texture that hold the carpet tiles in place.

They are a genius method of installing carpet tiles that is fast and efficient.

The question we get asked the most, however, is not *what* they are, but "how many do I need to order?"

And that answer, well, requires some explaining. If you can't be bothered with the faff of explanations, scroll down to "What is the solution?" to get the answer and my Excel calculator tool.

The main problem is that we can't just create a calculator on our website that gives an exact answer based on the square metreage of the room, unless the room is an exact square.

This is because the number of tactile required depends on the shape of the room.

For example, if I said 8 carpet tiles need 15 TacTiles this would be true. If your room is a 2 x 4 grid of carpet tiles.

But if we create a line of 8 carpet tiles (1 x 8 grid) then the number needed would be 18 TacTiles.

Both rooms are 8m2 but the number of TacTiles required is different. And the larger the space, the greater the difference becomes. So when a customer comes to us and says "I need to buy 200 carpet tiles, how many TacTiles do I need?" we have mostly mumbled our way through these conversations with lots of mmms, errrs, and... "how about buying this lovely spray can adhesive instead?"

After thinking about this problem A LOT and trying to work out a formula that would allow me to create a calculator for our sales team to enter a square metreage that provides the number of tiles required I recently admitted failure and instead turned to be my genius, brain-box of a brother who I thought my know the answer. And he did.

What is the solution to the TacTile problem?

The small piece of good news is that there is a simple formula for square layouts that are the same length on both sides. For example, if we use the below 3 x 3 square grid of carpet tiles:

If we say the number of carpet tiles on each side of the grid is a (so in the above image a=3) then formula would be 4a+(a-1)².

To make this easier for customers I have created a simple TacTile calculator in Excel where the customer can enter the linear metres of the width (which would also be the height) of the room and the calculator will work out exactly how many TacTiles are required.

As mentioned above - this only works if the room is square. And so if the project space is not square then the room needs to be divided up into squares and then the linear metreage of those squares entered into the calculator for precise quantities.

To make it slightly more confusing, but more helpful for customers, on DCTUK.com we sell TacTiles in sheets of 6 because most customers will not need to buy a whole roll of 500 TacTiles. The calculator works out the number of TacTiles required and then lets our customer know how many packs they should order on our website.

Another solution (For those who were in set 1 for maths at school)

The other formula that my brother worked out that might be useful is for the maximum number of TacTiles that would be required for any possible layout, provided all the tiles are connected on at least one side to another carpet tile in that batch. (So this excludes a situation where, for example, the customer bought carpet tiles for two different rooms in the same batch).

If the number of carpet tiles is t, then the formula is 2t+2. So if our customer was supplied with 2t+2 TacTiles, then they would always have enough for the corner of every carpet tile, but they might have some left over, effectively "wasted".

At larger numbers, those wasted TacTiles become a mega problem that can't really be ignored (unless you're the *burying your head* in the sand type).

For example, if a customer orders 625 tiles, then if they are laid out in a square grid they will need 676 TacTiles. But the maximum number of TacTiles for all possible layouts is 1,252. So nearly half the TacTiles will be wasted and in fact as the number of tiles increases, the number of wasted TacTiles gets closer and closer to 50%.

What other flooring adhesives can I use to fit carpet tiles?

Well, we still highly recommend TacTiles, and if you need help working out how many you need, just get in touch with our friendly UK sales team. But there are some alternatives:

For small areas

Double sided tape is an easy and secure way of fixing carpet tiles to the floor for small projects.

Sticky Stuff Tackifier spray adhesive is also great for small areas, or even large areas that are being loose-laid but need a bit of stickiness at the edges of the room. It's our own brand of adhesive and always kept in stock. Plus, it's a tackifier so is not permanent and won't leave a horrible mess when the tiles are lifted up at a later date.

Bostik Spray adhesive is a spray solution for semi-permanently sticking carpet tiles to the floor - we also keep this in stock in our distribution hub.

For larger areas

Bostik Fix A320 Tackifier is available in a 5kg or 25kg tub and is perfect for larger installations. Spread the tackifier across the floor and allow to dry. Then simply lay the carpet tiles on top.

Uzin U2100 Carpet Tile adhesive is sold at DCTUK.com and is a great option. It’s got a super-fast drying between 30-60 minutes, so enough time to watch an episode of Line of Duty before its on to the next DIY task.

The F.Ball Styccobond F44 is often the fitter's favourite and well known for it's yellow branding. We stock this and can delivery next working day.

If you need any help with TacTiles or the above adhesives, just give our team a shout by calling 0345 222 1541 or jumping on our website Livechat.

[buzrushblog-blog]

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https://community.buzrush.com/

[captainbaneberry]

If I make a request some silly smut of some Beast Mahinces action? Obsidian and Strika just doing while Thrust walks/rolls in on them. The two make a deal with not to trash him if he just joins them, he takes the offer only to be the third wheel in the threesome? Please?

I hope this is what you wanted, anon.

Thrust was having a horrible, no good, very bad day. A humiliating defeat at the hands of the Maximals, a verbal and physical lashing from Megatron, and two new guys he thought would respect him as senior Vehicon officer backhanding him across the damn control room. Thrust was amazed he remained in one piece after all of today’s beatings–he certainly spent hours in a CR chamber getting his bearings back together.

As Thrust rolled down the empty corridor, thinking about his shit lot in life, he did not realize his day was going to get… simultaneously worse, but also kind of… interesting?

Go figure.

Thrust had been too busy mumbling and complaining to himself to hear their soft laughter. He entered the room, cursing; when he looked up, his visor bulged and he almost recoiled in alarm. Strika and Obsidian were in the room, spread out on a slab, clearly enjoying each others company after a very long deep sleep. Obsidian was nuzzling his consort, stroking her thigh while the spindly fingers of his free hand thrust and scissored her wet channel.

Both Generals looked up, and for a moment, the three just stared at one another.

“Well, well, well,” Obisidian snickered, “seems our new comrade is a bit of a voyeur.” He continued stroking Strika’s folds, a finger drawing circles on her node.

Strika groaned, deep in her throat. “He seems afraid,” she chuckled. “Are you… Thrash, was it?”

Thrust grunted. “I-It’s Thrust,” he rumbled, looking away. “And I’ll leave you two–”

“Wait just a moment, Thrust.”

Thrust winced. He looked up, and Obsidian was now moving Strika in his lap. She spread her legs, displaying her channel to the Vehicon. Thrust shuddered, but couldn’t deny the swelling of warmth in his groin. Dammit, stupid body.

“It’s been so long since we last embraced,” Obsidian explained, splayed fingers working up and down Strika’s folds. Enticing, inviting. “And it’s been even longer since we had any company during our interface sessions.”

“Oh, yes,” Strika chortled, reaching back a hand and cupping Obsidian’s head. He purred, nuzzling into her palm. “I think we ought to invite our new friend into the fold. For at least one night.”

“We’ll be working together from now on, after all,” Obsidian hummed, “what a perfect way to get to know each other.”

Thrust gulped. “Er… I ain’t so sure. This really isn’t my thing.”

“We can make it worth your while,” Obsidian purred, hooking a finger inside Strika, pressing hard into her node. Strika gasped, bucking her hips. Thrust felt that heat burn stronger in his loins, realizing he was half-mast beneath his armor.

“Come. I know we didn’t make the best of first impressions,” Strika said, “but now we can make up for it. Soldiers in arms, but friends first.”

“Sounds like a brilliant plan, darling.”

Thrust widdled his fingers. “… So no more punching and throwing me around like scrapmetal?” he scowled.

“Of course.”

“We promise.”

Strika stroked her inner thigh. “And we have a spot all ready for you, Thrust.”

Thrust gulped. Well… fuck it. He looked out the door, down that long hall, before slowly rolling inside. He moved over, between Strika’s legs–those legs could crush his head like a rockmelon, Christ. “I ain’t the biggest, so don’t laugh,” he snorted, releasing his mostly-erect, smaller unit.

Strika just nodded.

“It’s how you use it, friend,” Obsidian cooed. “Now… I’ll take her channel. While you,” Strika parted her panels, letting her much larger, flared unit pressurize, “spoil that lovely lady there.”

Thrust gulped. “O-Okay.” He raised his hands, shaky. Before he could ask when to start, Obsidian was already wiggling beneath Strika, sinking his unit halfway inside her channel. Strika groaned loudly, grabbing Thrust’s head and squeezing. Thrust stiffened, worried his CPU was going to get crushed–Strika let go a minute later, growling as she met each of her consort’s thrusts.

“Well?” Strika tilted her head, optic narrowed. “Don’t just s-stare.”

Thrust nodded. He quickly took the unit, hesitating another moment–then started stroking. He’d never really done this before–well, not on anyone else. He thought he was pretty good at self-servicing, though. Thrust pumped the unit in his hands, trying to keep an even but pleasant pace. However, Strika’s moans and praises all seemed directed at Obsidian, begging him for more. Maybe that was a good thing? He was doing better than Obsidian probably?

No, that was bullshit.

“Y-You likin’ this?” Thrust asked, voice dry.

Strika moaned, head thrown back. She bounced harder on Obsidian’s unit, her own almost hitting Thrust in the face in the process. He shook it off, trying to match the speed.

“Oh, Vector Sigma… Obsidian…” Strika whispered. She shoved past one of Thrust’s hands to reach her channel, pulling back the hood and massaging her node alongside the unit moving inside her. Thrust exvented, brought his hand back, continued; though… he did slow down. Even stopped for a full minute. Neither Strika or Obsidian seemed to notice at first.

Obsidian opened his optics, glowering at Thrust. “Keep going.”

And so Thrust did, even if it didn’t make a lick of a difference at this poi–

“Sigma!” Strika suddenly cried out, raising her large legs and throwing them around Thrust’s head. Thrust grunted, struggling in the vice grip of her thighs. She overloaded from her channel, squirting transfluid right in Thrust’s visor. Thrust scowled, wiping the mess off while still trying to pull free.

“I told you not to stop, Thrust!”

“I’m going, I’m going!” Thrust whined. Strika’s legs fell open; he grabbed her unit, pumping as fast as he physically could. Until there was strains in his actuators.

“Going… to…” Obsidian snarled, burying himself to the hilt in Strika and locking in place. He overloaded, triggering his consort’s unit overload. Not Thrust, of course, and suddenly Thrust was blinded by more transfluid splashing him in the face. He wailed, rolling and falling back on his aft, furiously wiping the sticky liquid from his optics.

“Sigma fraggit!”

Strika heaved, petting Obsidian. “You were perfect.”

“As always, so were you, my dear.”

They both looked down at Thrust, unimpressed.

“You… were pretty terrible.”

“Yes.”

Thrust screamed.

[awkwardhare]

Terminology: An App Story

In 2009, I was playing with ideas. I was an independent software consultant doing a mix of web and internal business software. I had been experimenting with iPhone apps for about a year. I had built and released one simple app.

The app itself did not do much, but shipping it gave me experience in the process and the confidence to know I could build something better for this growing platform.

I was doing well enough with my consulting business to let myself invest time in more experiments, with the hope that shifting my focus to building products could provide a more balanced and diverse profile for my business. Oh, and it was fun to build iPhone apps.

So I set out to build a truly unnecessary, niche app for writing short form poetry. An app that would launch with a resounding thud and quickly fade from obscurity.

While working on that app, I was looking for data sources to assist a writer in selecting words. I found WordNet, and started playing around with parsing and presenting its semantic reference in useful ways. While experimenting, I realized it could be the basis of a standalone product.

By now we've arrived in 2010. At approximately the same time this little light bulb flickered in my head, Steve Jobs was sitting awkwardly on a couch on the stage of the Moscone Center explaining the magical new device he held in his hand – the iPad.

I had the idea – build a standalone dictionary/thesaurus app. I had the inspiration – make it an example of what was possible on this exciting new device. So I set to work on what would become Terminology.

When it was launched in July, 2010, as an iPad only app, the iPad was only 3 months old. The iPad App Store was populated with mostly thrown together updates of iPhone apps which did not comprehend the new device or its new user interface opportunities. And, kids, like in the stories your grandparents tell, people were willing to pay for apps.

Terminology did well. It was featured. It made it to the Top 25 on the iPad charts. Phil Schiller even tweeted that Terminology was one of his favorite iPad apps. More importantly to me, it set me on the path I have been on since, creating and selling apps for Apple platforms. I built the iPhone version, then on to the next app, and so forth.

Fast forward to Summer, 2016. Reviewing my app portfolio, Terminology was languishing. Other than bug fixes, it saw its last significant update with the release of iOS 7 years earlier. It was still quite functional, and had a small but avid user base – but it was falling behind on iOS technologies. The development work that be required to modernize it showed little signs of being a profitable effort with its existing business model. Retooling it for a different model seemed liked a gamble at best.

Averaging a few of dollars a day in sales, I was close to removing it from the App Store and calling it a day.

Then something unexpected happened. Terminology was selected as a Starbuck Pick of the Week in October, 2016. Agreeing to this meant giving the app away, but I had little to lose, so I gave it a shot.

What followed surprised me. Not just the sheer number of downloads, but that quite a few of those downloads were "sticky". Daily and monthly active user numbers went up and stayed up. Retention numbers were very good.

When I built Terminology, iOS did not have a system dictionary. I wasn't sure there was still a market for a standalone app. But it seems there was...so I set to work modernizing the app and aligning its business model with the new App Store market realities.

This week I'm relaunching Terminology. Same great word reference that established it as a go-to tool for writers. Same great extensibility that distinguished it from the competition. Lots of cool new feature to set it apart from competition in the reference space (like a Share extension)...and a freemium business model that can improve its availability and sustainability.

Only time will tell if this was a good plan, but I'm encouraged that there are still opportunities to experiment and succeed in the App Store – even if the parameters have changed.

This release is the 40th App Store release build of Terminology. It's been a long, fun journey. I hope you’ll give Terminology a try. After all, it’s free.

[siliconwebx]

How to Add a New Post in WordPress and Utilize all the Features

Are you trying to create a new post in WordPress? Do you want to learn about all the WordPress post features you see on your screen?

While some may think that adding a new WordPress post is quite self-explanatory, many beginners find the interface a bit overwhelming.

Not to mention, sometimes even the more savvy users are surprised to find the hidden gems on the post edit screen.

In this beginner’s guide, we will walk you through all the features on the add new post screen, and how you can utilize them to create better content.

We have divided this guide into three sections to help you easily find what you’re looking for:

Creating a new post in WordPress using the default editor (Recommended)

Creating a new post in WordPress using the classic editor

Bonus tips for creating better blog posts

Ready, let’s get started.

Creating a New Post in WordPress Using The Default Editor

In December 2018, WordPress introduced a new modern block-based editor also known as Gutenberg. It is clean and simple, but don’t let the looks deceive you.

Behind its clean interface, there are tons of powerful features neatly tucked away. We’ll explain all of them and help you unlock its true potential.

Adding Title and Content Blocks

The WordPress block editor comes with a clean writing interface. At the top, you will enter your post’s title.

To add content, you need to add a block. There are multiple add block buttons on the screen that you can click to select and add a block.

If you don’t want to use a mouse to click on the button, then you can use a keyboard shortcut by typing / to search and add a block.

All content elements are wrapped in a block. WordPress comes with blocks for all the common content items including paragraph, columns, images, gallery, embeds, shortcodes, widgets, and more.

Some WordPress plugins may also add their own blocks to add other features like contact forms, SEO, etc (more on this later in the article).

Adding Images, Videos, & Other Media

You can add images by simply adding the image block and then upload or select the image you want to add.

If you want to text and image next to each other, then you can use the ‘Media & Text’ block. This block helps you wrap text around the image in WordPress.

WordPress editor also comes with a Gallery block that you can use to display images in rows and columns with a grid layout.

Simply add the Gallery block and then upload or select the images from your WordPress media library.

While the gallery block is powerful, you may need other advanced gallery features like albums, image sorting, etc. In that case, we recommend using one of these WordPress gallery plugins.

Want to embed a video in your content? No problem.

The default WordPress editor comes with embed blocks for all popular providers.

You can also just copy and paste the video URL to a paragraph block, and WordPress will automatically convert it into a video embed block.

While you use the video block to upload videos directly to your website, we recommend against that because it will slow down your website and can even crash your WordPress hosting server.

Instead, we recommend uploading your videos on a service like YouTube or Vimeo, and then embed it in your WordPress posts.

For more details, see our guide on why you should never upload videos to your WordPress site.

Adding Categories and Tags

WordPress allows you to sort your posts into categories and tags. These taxonomies help you organize your content into sections and topics.

They also help with SEO and make it easier for your users to find the content they are looking for.

The categories and tags meta boxes are located in the right-hand column, under the Document settings.

Adding Featured Image

A featured image (also known as post thumbnail) is the main article image which represents the content. They’re prominently displayed on your website on single posts, blog archive pages, as well as on the homepage of news, magazine, and blog websites.

Almost all WordPress themes support the featured image functionality. You will find the option to add a featured image to your post in the right column under the Document settings.

Simply click on the ‘Set featured image’ button and then select or upload the image you want to be used as the featured image.

It’s important that you don’t confuse featured images with cover images which is a new feature. See our article on cover image vs featured image for more details.

Adding Excerpts (Article Summary)

Excerpts are the summary of a blog post or article. Most WordPress themes can automatically generate the excerpt from the first few lines of your post.

However, this automatic excerpt may not always be meaningful or catchy. In that case, you may want to manually add an excerpt.

You can do so by adding it in the excerpt box located under document settings column on the right.

Changing Post URL Slug or Permalink

By default, WordPress uses SEO friendly URLs for your blog posts. It automatically uses your post’s title as the permalink.

However, some users may want to change it to be more SEO and user friendly. There are two ways to do that.

You can click on the post title, and you’ll notice the option to change the permalink above the title field. Alternatively, you can change it from the Permalink tab under the document settings column.

Changing Author

If you run a multi-author WordPress site, then you can also change a post’s author and assign it to a different author on your website.

You will find the option to change author under the ‘Status and Visibility’ tab in the right column.

Turn Comments On / Off

WordPress comes with a built-in commenting system that allow users to leave comments on your post. You can turn off comments for individual posts from the Discussion tab under the Document tab.

You’ll also see the option to allow pingbacks and trackbacks. These allow you and other blogs to notify each other when they link to an article.

However, it is mostly used for spam, so we recommend completely disabling pingbacks and trackbacks.

Options Added by WordPress Plugins

Most popular WordPress plugins will also add their own options to the post edit screen. Some will be available as blocks while others will be available as meta boxes.

For example, WPForms, the best WordPress contact form plugin adds a block to insert contact forms in your posts and pages.

Another great example would be Yoast SEO. They add a meta box below the editor for SEO settings and another one in the top toolbar.

Publishing Options

The default WordPress edit screen is divided into two columns. The left column is where you write content, and the right column has all post settings including publishing options.

Let’s take a look at publishing options in the right column.

1. Save draft link allows you to quickly save changes you made to a WordPress post. The editor will also automatically save your changes as you write.

2. The preview button will open a live preview of your post or page in a new browser tab.

3. Once you are done editing your post, you can click on the Publish button to make your post go live.

4. WordPress gives you a few options to control the visibility of your post. The default option is ‘Public’ but clicking on it will show you options to make a post private or password protected.

5. WordPress also allows you to control when a post is published. The default option is to publish immediately, but you can also schedule your posts to publish later or even select a past date.

6. Checking the box next to ‘Stick to front page’ will make a post sticky or featured. This makes the specific post appear on top of other posts. Learn more about sticky posts and what you can do with them.

7. Pending review option will add a custom status next to your post as ‘Pending review’. This feature is particularly helpful on multi-author blogs where contributors can just save posts and not publish them.

8. If you want to delete a post, then you can click on ‘Move to trash’ button. WordPress will send the post to trash. Deleted posts will remain in the trash folder for upto 30 days. After that, they will be deleted permanently.

Edit Screen Options

WordPress allows you to show and hide panels from the edit screen. You can do so by clicking on the three-dot menu at the top-right corner of the screen and then clicking on the ‘Options’ button.

This will bring up a popup where you can check or uncheck the panels.

Other Post Edit Screen Options

There are many other options on the post edit screen. Most of them are related to the appearance of the post edit screen and the editor itself.

Let’s explore them.

When you click on the three-dot menu icon at the top right corner of the screen, you will see options to move block toolbar to the top, spotlight mode, fullscreen mode, switch between visual editor or code editor, manage reusable blocks, and keyboard shortcuts.

Next to it, you will see a button with the gear icon. Clicking on it will show/hide the right document and block settings column.

On the top-left corner of the screen, there are a few more buttons. First, from the right, you will see the block navigation button which allows you to quickly jump to a block in your post.

Next, you will see the information icon. Clicking on it will show you post stats like the number of words, paragraphs, headings, and blocks.

After that, you have Undo and Redo buttons which allow you to undo changes you made to your posts before saving or publishing them.

Finally, you have the add block button which allows you to insert blocks to the post editor.

The default WordPress editor is quite powerful.

We encourage you to explore it on your own when writing blog posts and pay attention to the individual block settings. Each block has different settings, and you’ll discover a lot of neat tricks there.

Creating a New Post in WordPress Using The Classic Editor

If you are still using the old classic WordPress editor, then this section is for you.

The classic editor will be supported until the end of 2021, and we strongly recommend all users to create a plan for switching to the new WordPress editor.

Title and Content Boxes

In the classic editor, title and content boxes are the most noticeable areas on the Add New Post screen (see the screenshot below).

Yours might look slightly different depending on whether you are using the visual or the text editor.

You can switch between visual and a text editor while writing a post, but we do not recommend switching as this could mess up your post’s formatting.

Visual Editor is a beginner friendly text editor with formatting buttons and a nice visual layout for the content area. On the other hand, the text editor is a plain text editor where you can actually see the HTML or write your own.

The first text area on the top is where you add the post title. If you are using SEO Friendly URL structure, then WordPress will auto generate the post URL based on your title. You can edit the URL by clicking on the edit button.

The content area is where you will write your post. You can use the formatting options from the toolbar or use one of the many keyboard shortcuts available which will speed up your writing process.

If you are using the visual editor, then you may want to take a look at these 14 tips for mastering the WordPress visual editor.

In the footer area of the content editor, WordPress will show you the word count for your post. If you want to get even more detailed word count stats, then check out our tutorial on how to get word count stats in WordPress with Word Stats.

As you write, WordPress will automatically save a draft of your post. This autosave is stored in your WordPress database temporarily.

As soon as you save your draft or write more content, WordPress cleans up your autosave temporary draft and replaces it with a new one. This process ensures that you do not lose your content due to internet connection or hardware failure. See our guide on how to undo changes in WordPress with post revisions.

The post editor shows your current draft and autosave status in the footer next to word count.

Add Images and Media

Between the title and content fields, there is a large Add Media button. You will need to click on it when you want to upload an image or any other media to your WordPress post. This will launch the media uploader in a popup window.

Simply click on the select files button to upload images or any other media to your WordPress site. You can also create image galleries and audio playlists from uploaded files.

WordPress comes with some basic image editing tools. See our tutorial on how to edit, flip, rotate, and crop images in WordPress.

Publishing Options

The WordPress post edit screen is divided into two columns. The column on your left contains the post title and content editor. On your right-hand side, you have different meta boxes to configure post settings.

The top meta box in this column is labeled Publish. This is where all the publishing options for your posts are managed.

1. Save Draft button stores a draft of the post or page that you are working on. WordPress also auto-saves your posts as you write them.

2. Preview button shows a live preview of your post. You can use it to see how your post will look after publishing.

3. Status allows you to set a status for your post. WordPress automatically handles post status for drafts and published posts. Unless you are using a plugin to add custom statuses, you don’t need to worry about this option.

4. Click on the Edit link next to visibility to expand it. The first option under visibility will allow you to make your post sticky on front-page. Sticky posts in WordPress are like featured content that are displayed on top of all other posts.

5. The next option allows you to password protect a post in WordPress.

6. The third option under visibility is labeled private. This allows you to privately publish a post on your WordPress site. The private posts will be visible to users who have the editing privileges on your site.

7. Click on the edit link next to Publish, and WordPress will display the time and date options. You can use this option to schedule posts or create back dated post in WordPress.

8. Move to trash allows you to delete a WordPress post. Deleted posts live under trash, and you can restore them if you need to for up to 30 days.

9. Finally, the publish button makes your WordPress post public. Remember if you scheduled a post, then it will appear on your site on the scheduled date and time.

Adding Categories and Tags

You can sort your posts into categories and tags. The categories and tags meta boxes usually appear in the right-hand column below publish meta box.

Categories and tags help you organize your content in a meaningful and browsable format.

Not only does it help users easily find your content, it also boosts your site’s SEO. See our guide on the difference between categories and tags and how to use them to sort your content.

Featured Image (Post Thumbnails)

Most WordPress themes support featured images or post thumbnails for articles. Usually, it is the last box in the right column on your post edit screen.

Simply click on set featured image link, and it will bring up the media uploader popup. You can select an image from your previous uploads or upload a new image from your computer. For more detailed instructions, see our guide on how to add featured image or post thumbnails in WordPress.

Screen Options

Some of the options on the post edit screen are hidden by default to present a cleaner and simpler editing experience. These options are not commonly used by beginners. However, you may need them later.

Simply click on the Screen Options button on the top right corner of the page. This will show a menu with checkboxes next to option names.

As you can see some of the options will already be checked. For the others, you can display them by clicking on the checkbox next to an option name, and it will appear on your post edit page.

Let’s take a look at some of these options and what they do.

Excerpts

Checking this box adds a meta box below your content editor. You can use this box to add a short summary or excerpt for your post.

Ideally, you should display summary or excerpt for your posts on your site’s front-page and archives. Full content should only be displayed on the post’s single page. Learn more about this in our guide full post vs summary (excerpt) in your WordPress archive pages.

Send Trackbacks

Send Trackbacks option allows you to notify other blog owners that you have linked to their content. Take a look at our guide on trackbacks and pingbacks in WordPress to learn more.

If the other blog owner is running WordPress, then you don’t need to send them trackbacks. Your WordPress site will automatically send them a ping when you publish the post.

Trackback feature is misused by spammers so much that many site owners simply disable them. We have an article on dealing with trackback spam in WordPress.

Custom Fields

This option will display a user interface for custom fields below your post editor. You can use it to manually enter custom information in your posts. See our WordPress custom fields 101 guide for beginners to learn more.

Discussion

While comments are a great way to engage your audience, sometimes you may not want to have comments on a specific post or a page.

The discussion option displays a meta box below post editor to turn on/off comments and pingbacks for your post.

Since pages are supposed to be like static pages, most users want to turn off comments on them. You can do so by editing each page, or you can see this tutorial to turn off/disable comments on WordPress pages.

Once your WordPress site gets some reputation, you will start getting an increase of comment spam. Instead of turning off comments, you may want to try these tips and tools to combat comment spam in WordPress.

Slug

A slug is a cleaner title that can be used in URLs.

http://example.com/2015/07/this-is-post-slug

WordPress automatically generates a post slug and displays it as the post URL just below the post title. You can edit the URL slug by clicking on the edit link below the post title.

You can also enable the slug option from the Screen Options and edit your post slug there.

Author

WordPress will automatically assign you as the post author when you create a post. However, sometimes you may want to show another user on your WordPress site as the author. Enabling the author checkbox allows you to do that from the post edit screen.

Options Added by WordPress Plugins

So far we have only explained the default WordPress post edit settings. Many WordPress plugins will also add their own settings panels on the post edit screen.

For example, Yoast WordPress SEO plugin adds its own settings panel.

Bonus Tips for Creating Better Blog Posts

The reason why WordPress is the most popular blogging platform is because it comes with a great set of tools right out of the box to help you create new content.

However, there are many other tools and tips that you can use to improve your blog content.

The first tip we offer to everyone who’s just starting a blog is consistency. Make sure that you regularly publish blog posts. You can plan an editorial calendar and then stick to it.

We recommend starting with 1 – 2 posts a week and then gradually increase your pace.

Often new users struggle with finding post ideas for their blog. Here is a massive list of blog post ideas that you can use to get started.

You’ll also need to learn how to promote your posts and keep track of things. Our team has picked the best content marketing tools that will help you grow your blog.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add a new post in WordPress like a pro. You may also want to see our essential WordPress SEO guide for beginners to get more search traffic to your site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add a New Post in WordPress and Utilize all the Features appeared first on WPBeginner.

😉SiliconWebX | 🌐WPBeginner

[sheilalmartinia]

How to Add a New Post in WordPress and Utilize all the Features

Are you trying to create a new post in WordPress? Do you want to learn about all the WordPress post features you see on your screen?

While some may think that adding a new WordPress post is quite self-explanatory, many beginners find the interface a bit overwhelming.

Not to mention, sometimes even the more savvy users are surprised to find the hidden gems on the post edit screen.

In this beginner’s guide, we will walk you through all the features on the add new post screen, and how you can utilize them to create better content.

We have divided this guide into three sections to help you easily find what you’re looking for:

Creating a new post in WordPress using the default editor (Recommended)

Creating a new post in WordPress using the classic editor

Bonus tips for creating better blog posts

Ready, let’s get started.

Creating a New Post in WordPress Using The Default Editor

In December 2018, WordPress introduced a new modern block-based editor also known as Gutenberg. It is clean and simple, but don’t let the looks deceive you.

Behind its clean interface, there are tons of powerful features neatly tucked away. We’ll explain all of them and help you unlock its true potential.

Adding Title and Content Blocks

The WordPress block editor comes with a clean writing interface. At the top, you will enter your post’s title.

To add content, you need to add a block. There are multiple add block buttons on the screen that you can click to select and add a block.

If you don’t want to use a mouse to click on the button, then you can use a keyboard shortcut by typing / to search and add a block.

All content elements are wrapped in a block. WordPress comes with blocks for all the common content items including paragraph, columns, images, gallery, embeds, shortcodes, widgets, and more.

Some WordPress plugins may also add their own blocks to add other features like contact forms, SEO, etc (more on this later in the article).

Adding Images, Videos, & Other Media

You can add images by simply adding the image block and then upload or select the image you want to add.

If you want to text and image next to each other, then you can use the ‘Media & Text’ block. This block helps you wrap text around the image in WordPress.

WordPress editor also comes with a Gallery block that you can use to display images in rows and columns with a grid layout.

Simply add the Gallery block and then upload or select the images from your WordPress media library.

While the gallery block is powerful, you may need other advanced gallery features like albums, image sorting, etc. In that case, we recommend using one of these WordPress gallery plugins.

Want to embed a video in your content? No problem.

The default WordPress editor comes with embed blocks for all popular providers.

You can also just copy and paste the video URL to a paragraph block, and WordPress will automatically convert it into a video embed block.

While you use the video block to upload videos directly to your website, we recommend against that because it will slow down your website and can even crash your WordPress hosting server.

Instead, we recommend uploading your videos on a service like YouTube or Vimeo, and then embed it in your WordPress posts.

For more details, see our guide on why you should never upload videos to your WordPress site.

Adding Categories and Tags

WordPress allows you to sort your posts into categories and tags. These taxonomies help you organize your content into sections and topics.

They also help with SEO and make it easier for your users to find the content they are looking for.

The categories and tags meta boxes are located in the right-hand column, under the Document settings.

Adding Featured Image

A featured image (also known as post thumbnail) is the main article image which represents the content. They’re prominently displayed on your website on single posts, blog archive pages, as well as on the homepage of news, magazine, and blog websites.

Almost all WordPress themes support the featured image functionality. You will find the option to add a featured image to your post in the right column under the Document settings.

Simply click on the ‘Set featured image’ button and then select or upload the image you want to be used as the featured image.

It’s important that you don’t confuse featured images with cover images which is a new feature. See our article on cover image vs featured image for more details.

Adding Excerpts (Article Summary)

Excerpts are the summary of a blog post or article. Most WordPress themes can automatically generate the excerpt from the first few lines of your post.

However, this automatic excerpt may not always be meaningful or catchy. In that case, you may want to manually add an excerpt.

You can do so by adding it in the excerpt box located under document settings column on the right.

Changing Post URL Slug or Permalink

By default, WordPress uses SEO friendly URLs for your blog posts. It automatically uses your post’s title as the permalink.

However, some users may want to change it to be more SEO and user friendly. There are two ways to do that.

You can click on the post title, and you’ll notice the option to change the permalink above the title field. Alternatively, you can change it from the Permalink tab under the document settings column.

Changing Author

If you run a multi-author WordPress site, then you can also change a post’s author and assign it to a different author on your website.

You will find the option to change author under the ‘Status and Visibility’ tab in the right column.

Turn Comments On / Off

WordPress comes with a built-in commenting system that allow users to leave comments on your post. You can turn off comments for individual posts from the Discussion tab under the Document tab.

You’ll also see the option to allow pingbacks and trackbacks. These allow you and other blogs to notify each other when they link to an article.

However, it is mostly used for spam, so we recommend completely disabling pingbacks and trackbacks.

Options Added by WordPress Plugins

Most popular WordPress plugins will also add their own options to the post edit screen. Some will be available as blocks while others will be available as meta boxes.

For example, WPForms, the best WordPress contact form plugin adds a block to insert contact forms in your posts and pages.

Another great example would be Yoast SEO. They add a meta box below the editor for SEO settings and another one in the top toolbar.

Publishing Options

The default WordPress edit screen is divided into two columns. The left column is where you write content, and the right column has all post settings including publishing options.

Let’s take a look at publishing options in the right column.

1. Save draft link allows you to quickly save changes you made to a WordPress post. The editor will also automatically save your changes as you write.

2. The preview button will open a live preview of your post or page in a new browser tab.

3. Once you are done editing your post, you can click on the Publish button to make your post go live.

4. WordPress gives you a few options to control the visibility of your post. The default option is ‘Public’ but clicking on it will show you options to make a post private or password protected.

5. WordPress also allows you to control when a post is published. The default option is to publish immediately, but you can also schedule your posts to publish later or even select a past date.

6. Checking the box next to ‘Stick to front page’ will make a post sticky or featured. This makes the specific post appear on top of other posts. Learn more about sticky posts and what you can do with them.

7. Pending review option will add a custom status next to your post as ‘Pending review’. This feature is particularly helpful on multi-author blogs where contributors can just save posts and not publish them.

8. If you want to delete a post, then you can click on ‘Move to trash’ button. WordPress will send the post to trash. Deleted posts will remain in the trash folder for upto 30 days. After that, they will be deleted permanently.

Edit Screen Options

WordPress allows you to show and hide panels from the edit screen. You can do so by clicking on the three-dot menu at the top-right corner of the screen and then clicking on the ‘Options’ button.

This will bring up a popup where you can check or uncheck the panels.

Other Post Edit Screen Options

There are many other options on the post edit screen. Most of them are related to the appearance of the post edit screen and the editor itself.

Let’s explore them.

When you click on the three-dot menu icon at the top right corner of the screen, you will see options to move block toolbar to the top, spotlight mode, fullscreen mode, switch between visual editor or code editor, manage reusable blocks, and keyboard shortcuts.

Next to it, you will see a button with the gear icon. Clicking on it will show/hide the right document and block settings column.

On the top-left corner of the screen, there are a few more buttons. First, from the right, you will see the block navigation button which allows you to quickly jump to a block in your post.

Next, you will see the information icon. Clicking on it will show you post stats like the number of words, paragraphs, headings, and blocks.

After that, you have Undo and Redo buttons which allow you to undo changes you made to your posts before saving or publishing them.

Finally, you have the add block button which allows you to insert blocks to the post editor.

The default WordPress editor is quite powerful.

We encourage you to explore it on your own when writing blog posts and pay attention to the individual block settings. Each block has different settings, and you’ll discover a lot of neat tricks there.

Creating a New Post in WordPress Using The Classic Editor

If you are still using the old classic WordPress editor, then this section is for you.

The classic editor will be supported until the end of 2021, and we strongly recommend all users to create a plan for switching to the new WordPress editor.

Title and Content Boxes

In the classic editor, title and content boxes are the most noticeable areas on the Add New Post screen (see the screenshot below).

Yours might look slightly different depending on whether you are using the visual or the text editor.

You can switch between visual and a text editor while writing a post, but we do not recommend switching as this could mess up your post’s formatting.

Visual Editor is a beginner friendly text editor with formatting buttons and a nice visual layout for the content area. On the other hand, the text editor is a plain text editor where you can actually see the HTML or write your own.

The first text area on the top is where you add the post title. If you are using SEO Friendly URL structure, then WordPress will auto generate the post URL based on your title. You can edit the URL by clicking on the edit button.

The content area is where you will write your post. You can use the formatting options from the toolbar or use one of the many keyboard shortcuts available which will speed up your writing process.

If you are using the visual editor, then you may want to take a look at these 14 tips for mastering the WordPress visual editor.

In the footer area of the content editor, WordPress will show you the word count for your post. If you want to get even more detailed word count stats, then check out our tutorial on how to get word count stats in WordPress with Word Stats.

As you write, WordPress will automatically save a draft of your post. This autosave is stored in your WordPress database temporarily.

As soon as you save your draft or write more content, WordPress cleans up your autosave temporary draft and replaces it with a new one. This process ensures that you do not lose your content due to internet connection or hardware failure. See our guide on how to undo changes in WordPress with post revisions.

The post editor shows your current draft and autosave status in the footer next to word count.

Add Images and Media

Between the title and content fields, there is a large Add Media button. You will need to click on it when you want to upload an image or any other media to your WordPress post. This will launch the media uploader in a popup window.

Simply click on the select files button to upload images or any other media to your WordPress site. You can also create image galleries and audio playlists from uploaded files.

WordPress comes with some basic image editing tools. See our tutorial on how to edit, flip, rotate, and crop images in WordPress.

Publishing Options

The WordPress post edit screen is divided into two columns. The column on your left contains the post title and content editor. On your right-hand side, you have different meta boxes to configure post settings.

The top meta box in this column is labeled Publish. This is where all the publishing options for your posts are managed.

1. Save Draft button stores a draft of the post or page that you are working on. WordPress also auto-saves your posts as you write them.

2. Preview button shows a live preview of your post. You can use it to see how your post will look after publishing.

3. Status allows you to set a status for your post. WordPress automatically handles post status for drafts and published posts. Unless you are using a plugin to add custom statuses, you don’t need to worry about this option.

4. Click on the Edit link next to visibility to expand it. The first option under visibility will allow you to make your post sticky on front-page. Sticky posts in WordPress are like featured content that are displayed on top of all other posts.

5. The next option allows you to password protect a post in WordPress.

6. The third option under visibility is labeled private. This allows you to privately publish a post on your WordPress site. The private posts will be visible to users who have the editing privileges on your site.

7. Click on the edit link next to Publish, and WordPress will display the time and date options. You can use this option to schedule posts or create back dated post in WordPress.

8. Move to trash allows you to delete a WordPress post. Deleted posts live under trash, and you can restore them if you need to for up to 30 days.

9. Finally, the publish button makes your WordPress post public. Remember if you scheduled a post, then it will appear on your site on the scheduled date and time.

Adding Categories and Tags

You can sort your posts into categories and tags. The categories and tags meta boxes usually appear in the right-hand column below publish meta box.

Categories and tags help you organize your content in a meaningful and browsable format.

Not only does it help users easily find your content, it also boosts your site’s SEO. See our guide on the difference between categories and tags and how to use them to sort your content.

Featured Image (Post Thumbnails)

Most WordPress themes support featured images or post thumbnails for articles. Usually, it is the last box in the right column on your post edit screen.

Simply click on set featured image link, and it will bring up the media uploader popup. You can select an image from your previous uploads or upload a new image from your computer. For more detailed instructions, see our guide on how to add featured image or post thumbnails in WordPress.

Screen Options

Some of the options on the post edit screen are hidden by default to present a cleaner and simpler editing experience. These options are not commonly used by beginners. However, you may need them later.

Simply click on the Screen Options button on the top right corner of the page. This will show a menu with checkboxes next to option names.

As you can see some of the options will already be checked. For the others, you can display them by clicking on the checkbox next to an option name, and it will appear on your post edit page.

Let’s take a look at some of these options and what they do.

Excerpts

Checking this box adds a meta box below your content editor. You can use this box to add a short summary or excerpt for your post.

Ideally, you should display summary or excerpt for your posts on your site’s front-page and archives. Full content should only be displayed on the post’s single page. Learn more about this in our guide full post vs summary (excerpt) in your WordPress archive pages.

Send Trackbacks

Send Trackbacks option allows you to notify other blog owners that you have linked to their content. Take a look at our guide on trackbacks and pingbacks in WordPress to learn more.

If the other blog owner is running WordPress, then you don’t need to send them trackbacks. Your WordPress site will automatically send them a ping when you publish the post.

Trackback feature is misused by spammers so much that many site owners simply disable them. We have an article on dealing with trackback spam in WordPress.

Custom Fields

This option will display a user interface for custom fields below your post editor. You can use it to manually enter custom information in your posts. See our WordPress custom fields 101 guide for beginners to learn more.

Discussion

While comments are a great way to engage your audience, sometimes you may not want to have comments on a specific post or a page.

The discussion option displays a meta box below post editor to turn on/off comments and pingbacks for your post.

Since pages are supposed to be like static pages, most users want to turn off comments on them. You can do so by editing each page, or you can see this tutorial to turn off/disable comments on WordPress pages.

Once your WordPress site gets some reputation, you will start getting an increase of comment spam. Instead of turning off comments, you may want to try these tips and tools to combat comment spam in WordPress.

Slug

A slug is a cleaner title that can be used in URLs.

http://example.com/2015/07/this-is-post-slug

WordPress automatically generates a post slug and displays it as the post URL just below the post title. You can edit the URL slug by clicking on the edit link below the post title.

You can also enable the slug option from the Screen Options and edit your post slug there.

Author

WordPress will automatically assign you as the post author when you create a post. However, sometimes you may want to show another user on your WordPress site as the author. Enabling the author checkbox allows you to do that from the post edit screen.

Options Added by WordPress Plugins

So far we have only explained the default WordPress post edit settings. Many WordPress plugins will also add their own settings panels on the post edit screen.

For example, Yoast WordPress SEO plugin adds its own settings panel.

Bonus Tips for Creating Better Blog Posts

The reason why WordPress is the most popular blogging platform is because it comes with a great set of tools right out of the box to help you create new content.

However, there are many other tools and tips that you can use to improve your blog content.

The first tip we offer to everyone who’s just starting a blog is consistency. Make sure that you regularly publish blog posts. You can plan an editorial calendar and then stick to it.

We recommend starting with 1 – 2 posts a week and then gradually increase your pace.

Often new users struggle with finding post ideas for their blog. Here is a massive list of blog post ideas that you can use to get started.

You’ll also need to learn how to promote your posts and keep track of things. Our team has picked the best content marketing tools that will help you grow your blog.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add a new post in WordPress like a pro. You may also want to see our essential WordPress SEO guide for beginners to get more search traffic to your site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add a New Post in WordPress and Utilize all the Features appeared first on WPBeginner.

from WPBeginner https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-add-a-new-post-in-wordpress-and-utilize-all-the-features/

[t-baba]

A Straightforward Introduction to 'Houdini'

#357 — September 12, 2018

Read on the Web

Frontend Focus

A Straightforward Introduction to 'Houdini' — Three years ago, Houdini was called ‘maybe the most exciting development in CSS you’ve never heard of’. And even now it can be tricky to understand what this collection of mostly incomplete CSS related APIs and technologies really represents. This mini-site helps clear it up.

Sam Richard

Latest Chrome Stripping 'www' from Hostnames in Location Bar — Chrome is hiding ‘trivial’ subdomains (such as www. and m.) in the location bar, but a lot of people aren’t happy about the change, and it kicked off one of Hacker News’s biggest discussions. You can turn the feature off though.

Chromium

Reduce Time Spent on Meetings & Increase Productivity — monday.com is a project management tool which is the next generation of visual tools, built specifically for developers. It’s designed to work with ease, and allows you to see what everyone on your team is working on in a single glance.

monday.com sponsor

Customizing Radio Buttons Without Compromising Accessibility — If you want to use HTML’s support for radio buttons to create more elaborate controls, this will be very handy.

Chen Hui Jing

Investigating Chrome's NOSCRIPT Intervention — Chrome on Android may, in future, disable JavaScript on weak connections to attempt to speed things up. This article looks at how to test the feature out.

Tim Kadlec

Designing a Textbox, Unabridged — You might think it’s as easy as putting an input type="text" element down but this article goes into much more depth about what’s involved in making a text entry field for the Web that does what you want.

Shane Hudson

Use React? Check Out Our React-Focused Newsletter — If you work with React and haven’t heard about our React-focused newsletter yet, check it out as that’s where most of our React links go. 🙂

Cooperpress

Two Amazing Conference Days on Design, UX and Code. Get 100 USD Off

SMASHINGCONF NYC sponsor

💻 Jobs

React & Redux Frontend Engineer (New York, Paris, Remote) — We transform complex datasets into beautiful visualizations and implement innovative browser-app UIs. Apply to join us here.

Datadog

Try Vettery — Create a profile to connect with inspiring companies seeking Frontend devs.

Vettery

📘 Articles & Tutorials

Chromium Intent to Implement: ElementTiming for 'img' Elements — The ElementTiming API will allow developers to know when certain specified image elements are first displayed on the screen.

blink-dev

How GitHub Removed jQuery From Their Frontend — GitHub.com has just completely removed jQuery as a dependency but it’s taken years and here’s how they pulled it off.

GitHub Engineering

Creating Sliding Effects using Sticky Positioning — A break down of a novel slider effect that uses position: sticky.

Preethi Sam

Five Reasons Why You Might Want to Join Us for SIGNAL on Oct 17 & 18

Twilio sponsor

The Web Font Loading Checklist — Four key points to consider when both getting the most out of Web fonts and keeping your perf budget tight.

Zach Leatherman

Using the Speech Synthesis Interface of the Web Speech API — Get your browser to speak back to you.

Manuel Wieser

Color Cycling with Workers — A classic, oldschool visual effect but neatly brought into the modern frontend era.

Dave Rupert

The Benefits of Using CSS Grid for Web Form Layout

Craig Buckler

Implementing Single File Web Components

Tomasz Jakut

Master the Latest Technology and Trends Impacting Software Engineering — Online & evening M.S. in Software Engineering. Advanced understanding of Java™, C# and Swift, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

Regis University sponsor

Babel Explained in Simple and Digestible Terms — Babel 7 came out recently and if you’re wondering what the fuss is about, this might help.

Kashyap Mukkamala

Progressively Enhanced CSS Layouts: Floats to Flexbox and Grid — How to convert a traditional, float-based layout into one that harnesses flexbox and grid, plus tips on graceful degradation and progressive enhancement.

Diogo Souza

🔧 Code

InfiniteGrid 3.4: Arrange Card Elements Infinitely on a Grid Layout — If you want to build a card-based layout, this could come in very handy. Check out this tutorial on making a Pinterest-style layout with it. GitHub repo.

NAVER

Splitting: CSS Variables for Split Words, Characters, and Other Elements — “Splitting creates elements and adds CSS variables to unlock amazing possibilities for animating text, grids, and more.”

Stephen Shaw

Ky: Tiny, Elegant Fetch-Based HTTP Client for Browsers — Makes the Fetch API tidier to use as shown here.

Sindre Sorhus

React Color: 13 Color Pickers from Sketch, Photoshop, GitHub, Twitter, etc. — A wide selection of color picking controls for your React projects.

Case Sandberg

luma.gl: WebGL2 Components for Data Visualization

Uber

by via Frontend Focus https://ift.tt/2N8hEmv

[sarahburness]

In Search of the Sacred: Escaping Facebook’s Sticky Web

“You leave the present moment every time you check your phone.” ~Deirdre Jayko

Facebook was driving me to distraction! One late-winter evening, I prepped for a mood-saving hike in the snow. Magic happened on the trails in the moonlight. I decided to check Facebook for a friend’s answer to a message.

Who knows what caught my attention, but I ended up skipping from post to post. Once I emerged from my Facebook haze, I realized it was too late to walk safely. What had I accomplished in place of my hike? What did I even read about?

As I put away my warm clothes and went to bed, I promised myself I was going to change my Facebook usage. It was eating away at my life. I was driving myself to distraction.

Social media usage bothers people for a variety of reasons. Drilling down on those reasons reveals a larger theme of loss of control. In spite of ourselves, we spend way too much time scrolling through mindless content. Seemingly against our best intentions (sometimes, against our will), we waste countless hours on the site.

My frustration level only escalated once I made the decision to torch my Facebook profile. Getting off the site seemed impossibly complex! What about people I only had contact with through Facebook? What about seeing photos of relatives and friends? What about the writings and photos I loved to share? Each time I planned on hitting “delete,” I would give up and decide it was too complicated.

Every morning, I would roll out of bed and check Facebook. The silly thing was: I didn’t want to check Facebook. It was a subconscious habit. I didn’t even realize I was doing it.

A red notification of some type would fuel my addictive response. Someone liked my post.  Someone commented on a post.  A close friend posted something new or had messaged me! That little red symbol is addicting, especially if your life is stressful. It gives your monkey mind an unsatisfying play date with the inane.

One of my passions has always been escaping to the woods for a solo hike. One cold, crisp February morning, I chucked my smart phone into the trunk and set off down the trail into the woods. I was the only human on the prowl, and it felt great.

Clambering along, I took a hard look at my Facebook addiction. I was bothered by the unhealthy anxiety reliever and the gambling-like satisfaction of the red-symbol jackpot. Yet, it seemed something deeper was bothering me about my Facebook use. I wanted to explore this feeling in more detail.

I sat watching squirrels scampering through the tree heights. I reflected on that slightly sick feeling accompanying social media usage. We become caricatures of ourselves on Facebook. The nature of the beast is such that experiences are condensed into soundbites for public broadcast—an exaggerated and polished version of a moment. My real-time sharing with family and friends was much different than this public sharing.  Online interactions lacked substance and depth. On some level, they are not authentic.

Thesaurus.com shares some synonyms for caricature: cartoon, parody. distortion… mockery? And (ouch): travesty and sham. Maybe too harsh in some situations, but, honestly, these words reflect my feelings about posting.

Instead of chilling with my squirrel friends, I would scroll mindlessly as time slipped away, as my life slipped away. I made a pact with myself to delete my Facebook account. I created a statement of intent in my journal, signed and dated it.

I still didn’t get off of Facebook.

A few weeks later, I cruised to work, jamming to my favorite Gordon Lightfoot songs. The open road and dreamy music made me feel young, wild, and free. Suddenly, texts from my kids began interrupting the music. I had notifications coming in on Messenger.

As a result of some of those messages, I began fighting the urge to check my work email before I arrived. I cursed silently that I had not taken the time to learn how to disconnect the damn phone, so I could just hear my music. Constant bombardment of stimuli. Not only irritating but also unsafe.

I turned my phone off and threw it in the back seat. SILENCE. As I watched the trees and fields skimming by, I thought about my life before all this technology. I was beyond revolted with perpetual connectivity. I drifted back to my resolve to delete Facebook.

I practice my spirituality in the woods. My nature time is sacred time, my interface with the Great Mystery. As I added gadgets, my secret, unique, sacred relationship with the earth had seemed harder to access. Would I ever feel that connection again? A hypothesis began shaping in my mind. Would I feel more spiritual and be able to access a deeper level of awareness if I got off of Facebook?

I thought about the sticky web that is Facebook. Not only did I have over 200 “friends” of varying levels of intimacy, I had hundreds of photos and memories all neatly time-lined for my reminiscence. I felt the stress of giving up a potential audience for my creative works.

I was stuck in an uncomfortable spot for several weeks. I wanted to get off Facebook to test my hypothesis, but I inexplicably felt trapped on the social media. I began to realize how I was being manipulated in an unhealthy way.

I couldn’t torch my Facebook despite my great desire to plunge deeply into my spirituality. I was hooked. I hate being hooked or controlled by anything. So, I redoubled my efforts.  I developed a plan to get off Facebook in steps.

In the first step, I deleted people I really didn’t know. I quickly deleted about thirty people. It felt good to finally start on my goal. I focused on being more in tune, being more aware, being more spiritual.

As I whittled down my friends, the people became more intimate. People that mattered in my “real” life. I started getting confused about who to delete next and how to delete them. Should I send them a note? Would that be strange? Should I make a public post?

I stalled for another couple of weeks. I was acutely aware that social media traps people and creates a labyrinth of complexities, a maze of prisons. I didn’t like how that made me feel.

A few weeks later, I opened my journal to write. My signed pact stared back at me, forcing me to address this disturbing phenomenon of being trapped on Facebook.

That evening, I curled up on the couch with a cup of coffee. My sole intent was to reduce my social media presence. I sent a private message to select people, explaining I was leaving Facebook and providing my contact information.

A few wrote back, asking, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” My ego raised up a bit. Wow, they think something has gone wrong in my life. I should stay on Facebook to prove nothing is wrong. I slayed that ego dragon and pressed on with my quest.

As I mass deleted my friends, Facebook acted like a real creature, bombarding me with more “people I may know” than ever before. It made me wonder if the site is programmed to recognize when someone starts deleting friends. Maybe not…but the new potential friends were very intriguing.

How did they manage to target my profile with these people? I was tempted to click on some of the new profiles but moved on towards the goal. At times, the process of deleting friends felt great, but mostly I felt a sense of loneliness.

Eventually, I had no friends. I experienced a mix of relief, sadness, and anxiety.

Even the shell without friends proved a sticky trap. I belonged to groups that only posted on Facebook. I also had “liked” very entertaining pages. Could I give up Randy Rainbow videos, and adorable pictures of cows and elephants from the Gentle Barn and the Elephant Sanctuary? Yes, I can access their websites when I need a fix. I ‘unliked' all my awesome pages.

The hardest sacrifice was abandoning all my kids' pictures and my life experiences neatly time-ordered. I pressed on because I wanted a deeper, more authentic life.

I was ready for the final step—deletion! I couldn’t find the deletion button. Deactivation is not the same as deletion. All your info is stored and ready to be resurrected. I didn’t like this privacy issue, and I didn’t want the option to reactivate! I found it easier to google “delete Facebook account” and follow a link from a separate website, than try to find the instructions on Facebook.

Finally, I found the delete account button and smelled freedom. Like a creepy, ex-partner who decides he isn’t going to be rejected, Facebook notified me deletion would take two weeks, and I could hop back on anytime in that two weeks.

Thinking back on all the sticky traps of Facebook and the recent media attention on privacy breaches, I thought, “Why do we allow this? Why are we okay with this?” It is not authentic or satisfying to live this way.

The first afternoon free of Facebook felt super!  A few days later, I felt similar to when I left home for a new job in a new city. Kinda lonely and lost, but ready for a new adventure. I definitely missed my friends back in Facebookland. I wondered if I would ever talk to some of them again.

I jokingly asked my kids, “Do I still exist?” Sometimes, I caught myself clicking through news sites more often, simply out of habit. I realized some of my clicking provided a method of anxiety relief. The other sites just didn’t have the addictive quality of Facebook, and I eventually quit the mindless clicking.

As the days move on, I notice subtle differences in my thinking. I feel a soft, calm sensation as I drive to work or create projects. I notice light patterns as the day shifts to dusk. I am more present in my own life. I feel a novel sense of boredom from time to time. Surprisingly, I really like feeling bored. It has stimulated my creativity and my humor. You have to work a little harder when there is nothing to do.

One morning, I was goofing around with my dogs on the couch, playing with their paws, scratching their ears. I had not really connected with them in that manner in a long time. A kind of bored goofiness came over me that had been destroyed by the constant clicking. I felt like a little kid, lazing on Saturday afternoon. Boredom is not a bad thing.

I also became really aware when my loved ones were ‘hooked up.’ It seemed weird that they would be so intent on staring at screens. It should seem weird, shouldn’t it? We’ve been deconditioned to this insanity.

Occasionally I have moments of discomfort about my exodus. What about when my son graduates? Or, I have an article published? Or I travel to an exotic location? What if I take a killer photograph or observe a rare animal in the woods? Who will know?

I guess I’ll share these experiences, successes, and photographs during lunch with my close friends and around the table with my family. At this point in my life, that feels so right to me. My smoother, more relaxed, unplugged mind is savoring the days I have left.

I went to the woods today. I walked quietly and softly on the earth. I left my iPhone at home. The perfect scene for a photo and an unexpected animal sighting went uncaptured. With no phone to grab, these snapshots won’t be shared with the masses. How refreshingly beautiful.

A little squirrel scampered on a tree, chattering to me. It was so quiet, so calm in the woods. I became lost in the moment. I felt that deep, scared connection with nature that is so precious to me. I transcended into that other world, the world that remains hidden from a noisy mind. A place void of anxiety, of ego, of caricature. A place rich with connectedness, with earthiness, with authenticity.

About Amy Funk

Amy has degrees in psychology, gerontology, and nursing. She loves to hike, bike and canoe. Her passion is empowering others by presenting on the topics of aging, grief and nature. She writes a quarterly post on authentic living. You can sign up for the newsletter here and learn more at agingwithamy.com.

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The post In Search of the Sacred: Escaping Facebook’s Sticky Web appeared first on Tiny Buddha.

from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/in-search-of-the-sacred-escaping-facebooks-sticky-web/

[abckidstvyara]

Tenor is now going to exclusively power GIF searches in LinkedIn messaging after Google a few weeks ago, adding yet another service to its already pretty large portfolio of messaging platforms.

Tenor has long positioned itself as a GIF search tool working across a number of different platforms, ranging from its own keyboard to Facebook Messenger. As such, it wasn’t a huge surprise that Google — a search platform — decided to acquire the company toward the end of march. Tenor at the time said it powered more than 12 billion GIF searches every month, and that kind of search volume fits pretty neatly with Google’s quest to index the world’s information in a way that’s easily searchable. LinkedIn adds another component to that Swiss army knife, and it also gives Google another entry point to a different platform when it comes to some variation of GIF search.

The new engine is available for 50% of users today, and will be rolling out to more users over time. This gives LinkedIn messenger a robust GIF search platform, as well as ways to find trending GIFs, as well as a custom trending stream based on GIFs most often found in their network.

GIFs are increasingly popular in messaging apps, and Tenor is one example of how it’s become almost table stakes for any messenger platform. While LinkedIn is mostly a place where you’d expect to be closing deals and acquiring customers — or searching for a job — it doesn’t really change the core value proposition of what a GIF provides. Companies like Tenor seek to position GIFs as a way to compress more information (or some kind of emotion) into a compact form factor that has very little friction inside a messenger platform.

Tenor is going to exclusively power the GIF search engine, which is going to be another pretty substantial win for Google as it looks to expand its search capabilities into other areas of the Internet — even if it’s just a consumer-oriented GIF format. Tenor can places sponsored GIFs inside its quick search interface, offering brands a unique opportunity to capture the attention of users as well as creating a new advertising category that could be very appealing for larger marketers. Google, at its heart, is an advertising business and finding these new use cases (even if it doesn’t plan to get started on them right away) is something that would fit neatly inside its model.

This also gives Google a unique entry point into different platforms, including even Facebook Messenger, which may seek to find GIF search platforms and use them indiscriminately. Google already has its own keyboard with GBoard. As Google looks to further integrate with a typical user’s lifestyle, tapping the popularity (and potential) of GIFs is something that will be important down the line.

Messages on LinkedIn have grown 60% year-over-year, the company said as part of the announcement, as messaging increasingly becomes a core component of any platform that has any kind of sticky human communication component. That’s especially important for trying to explain the nuance behind a connection while building that relationship through a faux-warm intro as well as finding ways to appeal to customer acquisition. Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in mid 2016 for $26.2 billion, essentially picking up one of the largest customer acquisition channels in the world.

[sheminecrafts]

GIF search is coming to LinkedIn messaging through Google’s GIF engine Tenor

Tenor is now going to exclusively power GIF searches in LinkedIn messaging after Google a few weeks ago, adding yet another service to its already pretty large portfolio of messaging platforms.

Tenor has long positioned itself as a GIF search tool working across a number of different platforms, ranging from its own keyboard to Facebook Messenger. As such, it wasn’t a huge surprise that Google — a search platform — decided to acquire the company toward the end of march. Tenor at the time said it powered more than 12 billion GIF searches every month, and that kind of search volume fits pretty neatly with Google’s quest to index the world’s information in a way that’s easily searchable. LinkedIn adds another component to that Swiss army knife, and it also gives Google another entry point to a different platform when it comes to some variation of GIF search.

The new engine is available for 50% of users today, and will be rolling out to more users over time. This gives LinkedIn messenger a robust GIF search platform, as well as ways to find trending GIFs, as well as a custom trending stream based on GIFs most often found in their network.

GIFs are increasingly popular in messaging apps, and Tenor is one example of how it’s become almost table stakes for any messenger platform. While LinkedIn is mostly a place where you’d expect to be closing deals and acquiring customers — or searching for a job — it doesn’t really change the core value proposition of what a GIF provides. Companies like Tenor seek to position GIFs as a way to compress more information (or some kind of emotion) into a compact form factor that has very little friction inside a messenger platform.

Tenor is going to exclusively power the GIF search engine, which is going to be another pretty substantial win for Google as it looks to expand its search capabilities into other areas of the Internet — even if it’s just a consumer-oriented GIF format. Tenor can places sponsored GIFs inside its quick search interface, offering brands a unique opportunity to capture the attention of users as well as creating a new advertising category that could be very appealing for larger marketers. Google, at its heart, is an advertising business and finding these new use cases (even if it doesn’t plan to get started on them right away) is something that would fit neatly inside its model.

This also gives Google a unique entry point into different platforms, including even Facebook Messenger, which may seek to find GIF search platforms and use them indiscriminately. Google already has its own keyboard with GBoard. As Google looks to further integrate with a typical user’s lifestyle, tapping the popularity (and potential) of GIFs is something that will be important down the line.

Messages on LinkedIn have grown 60% year-over-year, the company said as part of the announcement, as messaging increasingly becomes a core component of any platform that has any kind of sticky human communication component. That’s especially important for trying to explain the nuance behind a connection while building that relationship through a faux-warm intro as well as finding ways to appeal to customer acquisition. Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in mid 2016 for $26.2 billion, essentially picking up one of the largest customer acquisition channels in the world.

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2JD1A79 via IFTTT

[dalepwithchari]

GIF search is coming to LinkedIn messaging through Google’s GIF engine Tenor

Buy some great High Tech products from WithCharity.org #All Profits go to Charity

Tenor is now going to exclusively power GIF searches in LinkedIn messaging after Google a few weeks ago, adding yet another service to its already pretty large portfolio of messaging platforms.

Tenor has long positioned itself as a GIF search tool working across a number of different platforms, ranging from its own keyboard to Facebook Messenger. As such, it wasn’t a huge surprise that Google — a search platform — decided to acquire the company toward the end of march. Tenor at the time said it powered more than 12 billion GIF searches every month, and that kind of search volume fits pretty neatly with Google’s quest to index the world’s information in a way that’s easily searchable. LinkedIn adds another component to that Swiss army knife, and it also gives Google another entry point to a different platform when it comes to some variation of GIF search.

The new engine is available for 50% of users today, and will be rolling out to more users over time. This gives LinkedIn messenger a robust GIF search platform, as well as ways to find trending GIFs, as well as a custom trending stream based on GIFs most often found in their network.

GIFs are increasingly popular in messaging apps, and Tenor is one example of how it’s become almost table stakes for any messenger platform. While LinkedIn is mostly a place where you’d expect to be closing deals and acquiring customers — or searching for a job — it doesn’t really change the core value proposition of what a GIF provides. Companies like Tenor seek to position GIFs as a way to compress more information (or some kind of emotion) into a compact form factor that has very little friction inside a messenger platform.

Tenor is going to exclusively power the GIF search engine, which is going to be another pretty substantial win for Google as it looks to expand its search capabilities into other areas of the Internet — even if it’s just a consumer-oriented GIF format. Tenor can places sponsored GIFs inside its quick search interface, offering brands a unique opportunity to capture the attention of users as well as creating a new advertising category that could be very appealing for larger marketers. Google, at its heart, is an advertising business and finding these new use cases (even if it doesn’t plan to get started on them right away) is something that would fit neatly inside its model.

This also gives Google a unique entry point into different platforms, including even Facebook Messenger, which may seek to find GIF search platforms and use them indiscriminately. Google already has its own keyboard with GBoard. As Google looks to further integrate with a typical user’s lifestyle, tapping the popularity (and potential) of GIFs is something that will be important down the line.

Messages on LinkedIn have grown 60% year-over-year, the company said as part of the announcement, as messaging increasingly becomes a core component of any platform that has any kind of sticky human communication component. That’s especially important for trying to explain the nuance behind a connection while building that relationship through a faux-warm intro as well as finding ways to appeal to customer acquisition. Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in mid 2016 for $26.2 billion, essentially picking up one of the largest customer acquisition channels in the world.

[Read More …]

GIF search is coming to LinkedIn messaging through Google’s GIF engine Tenor

[akashamichelleblog]

Best Practices for Scrolling

Infinite, or long, scrolling is quickly becoming a standard navigation pattern. This navigation structure lends itself well to all sorts of sites (commerce, social media, etc.), translates well from desktop to mobile, and has some clear user experience benefits.

With the popularity of social media, infinite scrolling has become a must-have feature for discovery interfaces such as Flickr. When the user searches for something specific, they are able to browse through a large number of items to find the one thing they like. People visit sites for content first, with everything else secondary. And scrolling helps people access the content they need.

Additionally, infinite scroll creates a linear structure that storytellers can leverage. As the reader scrolls down the page, different layouts can be paired with subtle animation effects to build a rhythm that gets the user wondering “what will happen next.” One good example of this is The Boat, where the infinite scroll enhances the story, offering a new medium to layer visuals with text.

Scrolling opens a lot of new doors to designers. However, this pattern is not without its drawbacks. It requires designers to pay a strong attention on content, navigation and animation. If long or infinite scrolling is the right choice for your design, keep the following best practices in mind:

Encourage users to scroll

Adjust navigation for scrolling

Use animation to enhance long-scrolling

In this article, I will discuss some of the benefits, things to consider, and quick tips for infinite scrolling.

Encourage Users To Scroll

Despite the fact that people usually start scrolling as soon as their page loads, content above the fold is still very important. What appears at the top of the page creates initial impression and sets quality expectation for your users. Users do scroll, but only if what’s above the fold is promising enough. This is true on any size screen, be it mobile, tablet, or desktop: anything that’s hidden and that the user must uncover will only be seen if the user things it is worth it.

Provide Interesting Content

What is visible on the page without requiring any action is what encourages users to scroll. To make sure that people will scroll, you need to provide content that keeps your visitors interested. Thus, put your most compelling content above the fold:

Offer a good introduction (Good Introduction sets the context for content and helps users find answer on the question: What’s the page about?)

Provide interesting facts (Factually rich content will attract readers and keep their attention)

Use engaging imagery (Users pay close attention to images that contain relevant information)

Tip: Using a free online tool called Where is the fold?, you can identify how much of your content is above the fold for some of the most common screen resolutions.

Avoid the False Bottom

The area above the fold also sets the stage for future content. The content above the fold should signal that there is more valuable content below the fold. When you have a false bottom, or an end to content that appears to be the end of the page, you don’t give users a reason to believe there is something below the fold. As a result, they will attempt to scroll less often.

Avoiding a false bottom is pretty easy — just provide a visual cue that there is information below the fold. For example, for content such as grid or card-based layout it’s good to cut off grid/card tiles in the view’s initial scroll position to communicate the scroll direction for content overflow.

Or alternatively you can directly ask users to scroll. A subtle cue, such as an arrow pointing off-screen or a text “scroll down,” can inform users that most of the content will be laid out linearly.

Adjust Navigation For Scrolling

Navigation is a make or break aspect of the user experience of a site. It is crucial that navigation works well, because users need to be able to quickly locate themselves on the page, and figure out how to get to where they want.

Use Sticky Navigation

Long scrolling can make navigation problematic for users: if the navigation bar loses its visibility when users scroll down, they will have to scroll all the way back up when they’re deep within the page. The obvious solution for this problem is a sticky navigation menu: it’s best to keep the navigation persistently visible, so that navigating to different areas of the site or app is fast and easy for users

However, if you want to save a valuable screen estate, you can hide the navigation based on the scrolling direction and make it available upon request.

This solution works especially well for mobile devices: since mobile screens are much smaller than tablets, laptops, or desktops, a navigation bar can take up a relatively largely portion of the screen. If the screen is a scrolling feed, the navigation bar can be hidden when people scrolling for new content and revealed if they start pulling down trying to get back to the top.

Consider Jump-to Options

Another common problem of long and infinite scroll is disorientation: users may have difficulty finding something they have previously seen on the page. This can be a serious problem when content is broken into multiple number of equally important sections or blocks (e.g. long tutorial). A jump-to-section option is able to solve this problem.

A jump-to-section option is a series of links that take the user down the page to related content. It works almost the same as a table of content. For example, on Tumblr, users can jump down the page, or jump back to the start if they become lost. The content on the page is broken into several blocks, which are clear to distinguish and big indicator dots are fixed on the left side of the screen.

Make Sure Back Button Works Properly

When users follow a link on a page, and then click the Back button, they expect to return to the same spot on the original page. But if the user’s position on the page is not maintained, using a browser’s back button will generally reset the scroll position to the top of the page. Losing their spot on the page forces users to have to long scroll through content they have already seen. It’s not a surprise that users get frustrated quickly by not having a proper “back to position” functionality.

Flickr is a good example of matching the browser’s back-button behavior to the user’s expectation. The site remembers the user’s scroll position, so when the user press Back button he returns to the original position.

Use Animation To Enhance Long Scrolling

Considering that user attention span on the web is about 8 seconds, a delightful scrolling experience certainly prolongs user interest. Properly used animations help guide users along long-scrolling experiences.

Scroll-Triggered Animations

Consider breaking up your page into scrollable “chunks.” Within each chunk, you can introduce the content through animations. As users scroll, animations transition them to the next screen while creating a path of content to follow. It’s a useful way to show users the flow of content while keeping them interested in what’s next.

Parallax Effect

When your site wants to tell a story in a smooth, linear fashion, long scrolling paired with parallax effect is able to create a completely immersive browsing experience.

Parallax scrolling involves the background moving at a slower rate to the foreground, creating a 3D effect as you scroll down the page. When used sparingly it can provide a nice, subtle element of depth. This style lends itself to storytelling sites, building a more immersive and stimulating experience with better visuals.

Tips:

For help on coding for parallax sites, read the article “Parallax Done Right” by Dave Gamache

Always consider how much CPU and memory resources your page consumes if you’re using long/infinite scrolling with animation. Scrolling multiple pages of photos, GIFs and videos without reloading the page can take a significant toll on system resources. Test in different devices and use tricks like pausing animations and videos when the user scrolls past them.

Provide Visual Feedback When Loading New Content

This particular tip is mostly relevant to the infinite scrolling, but also can be useful for content-heavy long-scroll pages. When new content is loading, users need a clear sign that the site is doing this. Keep them informed by using a progress indicator to show that new content is loading and will soon appear on the page.

Since loading new content is a fast action (it shouldn’t take longer that 2–10 seconds) you can use looped animation to offers feedback that the system is working—literally, animation that is very short but appears on repeat.

It can also be helpful to add additional clarity for the user by including text that explains why the user is waiting (e.g. “Loading comments…”).

Avoid Scroll Hijacking

Websites that implement scroll hijacking take control of the scroll and override a basic function of the web browser. Scroll hijacking is bad because the user no longer has full control of the page scroll and unable to predict its behavior. User’s expectation of a website’s scrolling interaction shouldn’t be destroyed for the sake of narrative experience.

Mitigate SEO Drawbacks

Long scrolling can have a negative effect on SEO, but this can be avoided by following Google recommendations. Conduct behavior analysis (like in Google Analytics) to see how your design is actually working.

Here’s a peek at what they recommend:

Chunk your infinite-scroll page content into component pages that can be accessed when JavaScript is disabled.

Determine how much content to include on each page.

Divide content so that there’s no overlap between component pages in the series (with the exception of buffering).

Be sure that if a searcher came directly to this page, they could easily find the exact item they wanted (e.g., without lots of scrolling before locating the desired content).

Maintain reasonable page load time.

Conclusion

In web design, the journey can be as enjoyable as the destination. Long scrolling can create a completely immersive browsing experience. As Josh Porter said: “Scrolling is a continuation, clicking is a decision.” If users like the UI and find it intuitive, then they won’t really mind the length of the scroll. Thus, focus on your user goals and make things more convenient for your users.

Source URL: UX Booth