#maybe i should have spent that time learning Python | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sketching-shark · 2 years ago

Note

I really hope macaque's death was by his own hand.

Like a Disney villain

What you mean with that, well, love when the villain's actions end up causing his own destruction, I love that so much, it's so charming and poetic.

So here's a theory

Macaco's shadow powers are not original to him, he was not born with those powers, just like sun wukong, macaco learned from them somewhere maybe a demon taught macaco about them, but told him that those powers come with a curse. From time to time diyu chains would come to look for it, But it would only be once and can escape the chains if it is veils or struggle hard enough

So the chains appear to take him to the diyu at the worst possible time.

After losing his battle against sun wukong (which started because monkey attacked the tripitaka monk) monkey cannot move because he is exhausted and cannot teleport because he has no strength,

He tries to escape and ask sun wukong for help, but he had already left, Not knowing that macaque was sent to the diyu.

Ooooo you know @maidenofthecloud @ar-blackshaw came up with this really neat theory awhile ago that LEMH had made a deal with the Red Python Demon to get his shadow powers, as if memory serves correctly that snake was a pretty vicious yaoguai that had powers over darkness and reasons for a massive grudge against SWK (and could have potentially helped explain/helped create LEMH's henchmonkeys Rumble and Savage from the lego sets if Flying Bark had included them in the cartoon, as those two monkey yao do have some pretty snake-like fangs in addition to their red and black coloring).

Also I have to say I quite like proposal for what happens to the shadow simian here, as it does fit quite well with the Six-Eared Macaque of the og classic likely being partially an embodiment of the Buddhist saying (and I'm likely getting this somewhat wrong) that teachings should not be transmitted to the third ear; that is, teachings can only be best understood if transmitted from shifu to tudi, and someone else listening in on that private conversation or getting it secondhand won't truly understand what's being said. So since one proposal for how LEMH was able to copy SWK so perfectly was due to his ears letting him listen in on everything the Monkey King was saying and doing, including his lessons on gaining immortality from Puti Zushi, but in his actions was very much little more than a twisted version of SWK, that could very much explain how he was able to cultivate an imperfect form of immortality where instead of just having to avoid the three calamities and be immortal forever after he has to frequently avoid chains from diyu. This proposal could also make SWK at least a little bit less of an entire a-hole than the lego show as it currently stands would seem to suggest, as it's become downright baffling and pretty frustrating the level to which LEMH fully believes SWK killed him for purely selfish reasons & has spent like 3/4th of his screentime yelling about how horrible the monkey king is (but suddenly changed his mind about that & decided that his monkey king induced death wasn't worth mentioning even when asked directly lol) and yet for the entire show SWK has acted like nothing that bad happened lmao.

Also tbh it could make for a pretty neat story for LEMH if he gained an ally or even a genuine friend in the Red Python Demon but then left the snake to go confront SWK on the journey & then abandoned the serpent completely once he died & became violently obsessed with getting revenge on the monkey king in a parallel to what SWK seems to have done to him, & then got a chance to acknowledge that and start making a life for himself outside of the monkey king's orbit. Said it before, but I do think it sucks that there's still like nothing defining LEMH's life outside of his obsession with SWK, & I genuinely think it would do both him & SWK's characters a world of good if they were given opportunities to grow outside of each other's influence instead of the plot now routinely forcing them to interact.

#ask answered #monkey critical #haha man I've seen a number of really neat theories that do make me wish some creatives here on tumblr dot com #were the ones writing for monkie kid

19 notes · View notes

project-sour-grapes · 9 months ago

Text

I got up at 4:45 today, after realizing over the last day or two that something really needs to be done about my lack of time to get anything done. I'm getting more done than ever, but my research at my main job is really lagging. When I started that job in June, I had big chunks of time, and research was going well. Now, my time is disjointed, and on top of it, I have my first ever direct report (not on paper, but I basically dictate all of his tasks).

Anyway, I'm up and it's 5:49, and I don't feel like doing anything. I don't have "renewed vigor" for work, nor am I grateful for having the extra time in my day. I feel demoralized.

The feeling comes not only from reading on Reddit this morning that many college and high schools teachers are despairing that their students have no idea how to write like normal people but that I don't like the direction that my boss is wanting my research to go. Whenever I hit a block with my Python code, he suggests some new tool that can do it instead. I don't want to learn and use imaging tools. I want to get into the weeds and pixels with my code and analyze things nearly from scratch.

It's kind of like I'm trying to make a dinner, and I have all these dishes cooking, but when I hit a road block with one, he's like, "Hey, I want you to try this microwave dinner instead." That's more of an exaggeration. Perhaps, it's more like he's suggesting catering, except if that catering was done by IKEA and you still had to build some portion of it yourself. Yes, it gets the job done, but that's not what I'm here for.

I'm really sick of tools. That's not what I was hired for. It's also just an error that is industry-wide in software development that my boss does not have experience with. "Use this tool that only slightly does what we want it do but also does 10 things that we don't want. You will spend weeks getting familiar with it only to realize it is a dead-end and you still have to write what you really want from (almost) scratch." If I had a dollar for every time I saw that over the past decade in tech, I'd have... well, maybe $30. But my boss can't know that. He is primarily a doctor. These are the things you learn from working in tech at companies of varying sizes and industries. In the same vein, another error that we are all prone to that has been committed recently is what breaks Brooks' Law: "Adding more developers to a late software project makes it later." Having somebody to "help" with my code has actually slowed it down. I don't know how to tell my boss that having a "helper" is not helping. The energy and time spent getting into manager mode and thinking about what he can do or should be doing and how to develop him as a person is more than I would have spent just doing whatever task myself. How do I break that to my boss? "Hey, I know you're spending money on this kid to help me, but I actively dislike getting help on these tasks." Of course, I can phrase it more tactfully, but for someone who is not in software development, my boss may not take it well or get that these problems are industry-wide and that we're making mistakes that having nothing to do with my being selfish or a failure.

So I feel demotivated to work. I'm spinning my wheels and don't know what to prioritize or know what the end goal is. I kind of regret waking up early. I feel like I'm just going to wait for today to be over so I can talk to my boss tomorrow in person and tell him that my productivity sucks and the things that seem like they will help on paper are actually making it worse.

Another analogy for why things are worse, is that there is a difference between hiring an extra painter to finish painting a living room and hiring an extra painter to help Van Gogh. You can throw extra bodies at a problem like painting a living room. You can't just give Van Gogh another person and expect that to speed up an incomplete Van Gogh painting. As a painter, I cringe at the idea of letting somebody else touch my paintings. Research is the same. Research is largely about telling a story, and I wouldn't let somebody touch my writing either. I'll take critique, but ultimately, I am sculpting this thing. Having somebody else help in this regard is like starting a painting but taping off a little square for somebody else to come in a try to

You know what, come to think of it, I think I cringe at tools more than the average person, because that's what happened at my first, 7-year-long, enterprise tech job. There was always some tool that was going to fix our problems, and writing anything from scratch was considered a waste of time. We would spend millions on big, beefy apps, then spend several thousand on training for those apps. And then those big, ugly apps would just sit. Maybe a few folks would use some dashboards or the first tab or two on the UI. The rest of it was just expensive tech sludge. They were these monolith apps that didn't talk to each other and had big, fancy, stupid APIs that never went to good use. In what little time I had between managing security reviews for the entire fucking place, I would try to automate pulling and crunching the data and get it to play nicely between these stupid systems (when they even had the balls or capacity to give me API access) [and no, I'm not worried about the "security" of said systems' data in my hands, relative to the knowledge that Facebook was just caught storing 600 million passwords in plaintext and they and their "world-class," $300,000-per-year engineers are doing just fucking fine]. Anyway, I wince at the idea of a boss suggesting a tool to me, especially when I already know how to solve the problem. (The funny thing is he suggested it to me after only 6 hours of actual work, because I started the problem on Friday afternoon and he texted me Monday morning.) This is not a knock on my boss. I like the guy, and he's one of my favorite bosses ever.

But fuck the tools. Fuck downloading and reading the documentation for the tools. Fuck having to Google the bugs that the tools have. Fuck hitting a deadend with the tool because it's open source and written in Objective-C and Ruby, meaning that I'd have to read through their code for a month before having any hope of submitting a pull request that was only 99% dogshit instead of 100%.

I have these dishes that I have been working on and they're actually going well. No, I don't want to cater. Yes, I could cater, but that's not why you hired me to be a damn chef. If you want a tool monkey then don't hire an engineer. Literally, let me cook.

0 notes

aitian · 1 year ago

Text

Mon 01/29/24 1:57am

it's been more than a year. damn. couldn't write all year bc i have been so ashamed & traumatized.

back in school for electrical engineering & honestly i hate it. at least im (slowly) learning some useful things from within the massive amounts of bullshit. when does this end...

if i could have seen into the future, i would be so ashamed & sad to know what im doing now. maybe i wouldn't have made it to today. maybe i would have just done better. what a mess.

it's a bit painful to relive but here are the facts:

terrible teaching job. rude, dirty, sick. kids were funny. one kid won the spelling bee (we would practice together in the hall) & told me she wanted to be an artist. one kid never talked & had bad spoken english but wrote a rly good reflection essay abt boarding schools & american education (postscript "im hungry"). one kid told me stories abt learning to drive a motorcycle with his dad in DR & bragged to all the other kids that i was a great help for his high school application. that is all.

went to taiwan w the roomies. it was ok. really beautiful, wish i saw more of the mountains & oceans

terrible nonprofit job. abusive, useless, malicious. spent a lot of time studying soc*alism w chinese ch@racteristics & material origins of class society. honestly developed some optimism for human progress. fired for working too many hours & representing the org extremely well on a panel where the other panelists and audience really lifted up my perspective. everyone respected my work except the narcissist clowns. i met a nice friend named alan. that is all.

went to china, & felt saved & relieved to see people standing up. this time there was much less air pollution, especially near the coastal cities. luoyang had a bit more, but the city was a giant network of parks. i counted five rows of trees on each side of the streets. my uncles are so smart with critical analysis of history, human progress, world politics, and local affairs. sigh... feels bad to be treated like a dog in this backward country. i realized that i need training that prepares me for the realities of this strange world.

applied to school for electrical engineering. studied python & calculus in the meantime-- & thank god i did... i honestly felt good abt the decision, knowing that i need to develop myself if i want to survive in this world.. & i have reasons or energy to do it instead of waiting for death. is that the end of depression?

hung out w adele, erica, & tracy a bit bc they were all in town for the holidays. i missed my friends. they were rly nice to me.

started school in january. it fucking sucks. ppl r so stupid & rude. ridiculous. im tired & angry every day. i am running a huge marathon full of sloppy, impossible problems that take hours longer than they should. overworked & mad every day.

some reflections i guess..

emmy has been really hands-off with my life. idk if they dont have ideas or dont want to step in, or they r just observing what happens. idk. i dont feel like emmy approves or disapproves of anything. maybe relieved when i escape the shitholes i dug myself into. i hope emmy can help me become someone i feel proud of. i helped emmy apply to masters programs but idk if its the right step for emmy, & they dont have strong reasons honestly. they got accepted by the committee a few days ago. sigh.. i desperately want emmy to have my back.

im back to being so depressed. unsure abt what im doing, feeling doomy abt past present & future. will things get better? im in trouble if i need to tell myself that to cope w the present. im stronger than i was before, i think....

hang in there, love.

0 notes

scasuallypursuits · 1 year ago

Text

#7: Testing some stuff around.

Last week, I did me commission work and more studying around for textures and colors.

This week, I did me more commission work, applying the stuff I learned this week and started making a blog updater to my other social medias with python.

I'm currently watching color survival by Marco Bucci. I learned most of my current knowledge on how color works, value, hue and saturations wise all thanks to him and his free videos on youtube. The first topic discussed was how the color gray is great because it can connect a lot of color together.

I believe this is why a lot of people start their flat colors with a desaturated base. Since everything desaturated works together, it makes the picture much more cohesive, then you add saturation at areas when you need it.

cover of color survival.

I tried applying it on the final one but I think I did it too much here or maybe not, I'm not sure. I haven't tested raising the color here yet. But hopefully it'll good in the end. Saturday came so fast since I spent most of the time either working on me day job or working on the commission.

I tested it with the commission I'm currently doing. I wanna make them proud since they are my first ever client. That and all the art I'm doing is their stuff. Drawing other people's character are fun. I'm like an incomplete circuit that needs one last part to complete the circuit, then boom, my art get wayyyyyy better suddenly. The same thing happened since I ditch my original character and darted doing zelink instead.

My characters didn't really have much other than looking pretty to draw sex scene with but with zelink I was able to put more thought on how they position and expression should be so it feels more personal. Which is something I always want to add to my work.

progression of they're commission A. from thumbnail to flat color.

I didn't much time since last I promised to study art because then I suddenly thought to make an blog updater app. I know basic python but I haven't touched how to do APIs and stuff. But the plan was simple of course.

Access my blogs posts

Get all the post that has the sleepy_blogging tag

Get the valid post url

create a tweet on twitter with the valid post url

add valid post tags with sleepy_blogging_known

but I'm having a huge road block with the twitter of all things. I know that twitter is having a shit fest with their APIs and everythong around it but like, come on man. It's like, one tweet a week. I thought it would be easy and stuff. Like the code works on their code sample API on their github page. But like, it requires a manual input of a pin into the terminal in vscode to post. That's not automation.

Man, it was gonna be so cool. I wan planning to do host it as well with a PI. It doesn't need a lot of processing power to do so it doesnt need much but it would look so good to add it to a list of projects that I have done. I guess I have to do it on blusky instead.

#commission #art blog #sleepy_blogging_known #sleepy blogging

1 note · View note

superlinguo · 3 years ago

Text

Linguistics Jobs: Interview with a Natural Language Annotation Lead

This month’s Linguistics Job Series interview is with Hadas Kotek, who works as a Natural Language Annotation Lead. Hadas previously worked in academia before transitioning to the tech industry, a move she recounts in detail in this interview. Moving away from academia can be a nerve-wracking adjustment, and in this post Hadas gives her advice to those considering pursuing roles in industry and shares her experience from applying to jobs to accepting an offer for her current role at Apple.

You can follow Hadas on Twitter (@HadasKotek) and on LinkedIn.

What did you study at university?

I double-majored in linguistics and political science at Tel-Aviv University. I took some additional courses in mathematics and computer science but never completed a degree in either one. I got a PhD is in linguistics from MIT. My focus was on theoretical syntax and semantics but there was also an experimental component to my research. I then had several non-tenure-track teaching positions in syntax and semantics after I graduated.

What is your job?

My responsibilities as a Natural Language Annotation Lead have changed over the last few years. Initially, I spent a lot of time on project management: setting project priorities for teams, creating guidelines, tracking project progress, facilitating communication between engineers and annotators, etc. In other quarters, I’ve worked on ontology development. Most recently, I’ve been growing more in the data science direction, with a focus on annotation efficiency and quality.

How does your linguistics training help you in your job?

There are various aspects of my training as a linguist and as a professor that have helped me tremendously. First, the ability to explain simple linguistic concepts with examples off the top of my head, as I would in an Introduction to Linguistics lecture. Second, the ability to teach diverse audiences and to present complex concepts and results in a concise manner. Third, the ability to think in generalizations—this is a superpower linguists possess that they should appreciate more! Knowing basic typological facts about various languages has also been helpful in my job. In addition, the quantitative aspects of my research, specifically the ability to design behavioral studies and to engage in data visualization and statistical analysis, have come in handy. Being proficient in a scripting language (R which I used previously in experimental work, and now python), is also obviously helpful.

In fact, I would say the main thing that wasn’t directly helpful (although it didn’t hurt, either) is the detailed content of my work: my academic research is in the area of A-bar syntax and semantics, including wh-questions, focus, and ellipsis, and (at least thus far), I can’t say that the cutting edge theories I developed or learned have furthered my work in any way (but, who knows, maybe one day I’ll get to discuss the finer points of covert movement, islands, and focus alternatives with some curious engineering team!).

What was the transition from university to work like for you?

There were two main parts to my transition out of academia. First, a longer and slower phase of coming to terms with the decision, which wasn’t easy at all. I would describe it as a grieving process for what could have been. This was also the discovery phase, where I connected with some friends and acquaintances who had made the move into industry earlier. I had a lot of questions and knew very little when I started: what kinds of jobs are out there, what skills do I have that are desirable, where are companies located, how do I find job ads, what the interview process is like, what I should expect for compensation, to name a few. None of this was covered when I was in grad school or later at any institution I was teaching at. I was fortunate to have some friends who were willing to take the time to answer my questions and also tell me some things I wouldn’t have even thought to ask. They also helped me with my resume, sent me job ads, and submitted referrals for me when they could, which was truly invaluable. I did most of this work in the fall semester of the year I left academia.

The second phase was the active job search. That went exceptionally quickly and successfully for me, more than I think is the norm. I started by applying to a single job that ticked all the boxes for what I wanted. I got as far as the on-site interview but didn’t get an offer. That took about one month. I then applied to about a half-dozen other jobs that ticked almost all of the boxes. This round took another month, and I ended it with three offers, and was able to pick the one that made the most sense in terms of job description and team. I also had offers for roles with the titles “ontologist” and “computational linguist”. Within another two months, I had moved across the country and started the job.

One of the reasons I preferred the job I took was that there was clear support to help me get started. That was important, as there’s a lot to learn in the beginning. The pace, the terminology, the day-to-day routines, are all different. I would say it took me about six months to feel like I understood what I was doing. And like I said in a previous answer, it’s been a growing process ever since, changing focus areas on the job and learning new skills. It was also a longer process to understand how to use my linguistic training in my work and to establish myself as a go-to expert in this area. If you have the right team and manager, you can do a lot to shape your own experience and maybe take the work in directions that both you and they would not have envisioned at the outset. Generally speaking, whenever I’ve pointed out relevant expertise I could bring to the table, it’s been embraced by my manager and given the attention it deserves.

Do you have any advice do you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?

There are so many options out there. And not everything requires coding! It’s important when you get started to take the time to learn and understand what is available and to really think about what skills you enjoy using and would want to emphasize. If coding isn’t your thing, some basic knowledge could still be useful, but do you really want a full-time coding job where you’d be competing with people who are both more experienced than you and actually enjoy doing the work? Wouldn’t it be better to find roles that play to your strengths, where you’d really shine?

At the same time, because there are so many options, any single action and decision is less consequential. To explain what I mean: in academia, you generally strive for exactly one thing, namely a tenure-track position, which in time – often a long time – will lead to a permanent tenured position. Most people will have exactly one job for life, maybe two. Outside academia, the pace is different. You’ll move from job to job fairly frequently. This means that you can change focus over time, and the team you are on now is just one of several you’ll work on. If you don’t like the team or conditions or content of one job, you can always move to something else. You’re not locked into one single path just because you made one decision now. This may seem daunting, and it’s certainly a different pace than academia. Maybe it sounds like less job security; this is certainly what I thought. Now I think in terms of career security instead: there will always be other opportunities out there.

I would recommend thinking about this topic with some regularity and planning accordingly, especially if you still have some years left before you graduate. If you want to consider jobs that require coding or data science, then building some relevant coursework and projects into your work early on would be wise. If you’re into project management, find yourself things to organize or collaborations to lead. If you’re considering UX, figure out what you’d need to do to build a portfolio. Regardless of your direction, it’s very helpful to seek practical experience in the form of internships.

There’s also some common advice that is very true: spend the time learning and understanding what’s out there. Build your network. Understand your skills and their value. Learn the terminology of your new chosen field and understand how to translate your academic experience into this new language. Refine your resume. Start thinking of yourself as a “language specialist” or “linguist” or “(behavioral) scientist”, for example, rather than a “syntactician” or “sociophonetician” or any other narrow definition. Start out broadly and define the parameters of the job that matter most to you. When I got started, a friend told me that I had to answer three questions: (a) what do you want to do? (b) where do you want to live? (c) how much do you want to make?. The third question, especially, was hard for me to wrap my head around. But it was very useful in understanding how to approach a non-academic job search.

Any other thoughts or comments?

Network network network. It’s so important to make those connections. There are more opportunities now than probably at any time in the past. Grad schools are starting to understand that they need to support diverse career paths, and there are more and more materials out there that you can learn from, both online and in person. If your school isn’t inviting outside speakers to discuss career paths and how to prepare for them, you should be asking for that content! You’ll find that a lot of people are very generous with their time.

You can define your own path, and success can take on many different meanings over time and across individuals. Finally: academia can have a very narrow view. But despite common narratives, getting a non-academic job isn’t failure, unless you think that a fulfilling, well-paid job with lots of freedom to grow is somehow a negative. (It’s not!)

Related interviews:

Interview with a Senior Analyst, Strategic Insights & Analytics

Interview with a Data Scientist

Interview with a User Experience (UX) Researcher

Interview with a Computational Linguist

Recent interviews:

Interview with an EMLS/Linguistics instructor & mother of four

Interview with a Performing Artiste and Freelance Editor

Interview with a Customer Success Manager

Interview with an Impact Lead

Interview with an Online Linguistics Teacher

Resources:

The full Linguist Jobs Interview List

The Linguist Jobs tag for the most recent interviews

The Linguistics Jobs slide deck (overview, resources and activities)

The Linguistics Jobs Interview series is edited by Martha Tsutsui Billins. Martha is a linguist whose research focuses on the Ryukyuan language Amami Oshima, specifically honourifics and politeness strategies in the context of language endangerment. Martha runs Field Notes, a podcast about linguistic fieldwork.

#language #linguistics #ling jobs #linguist jobs #linguistics jobs #natural language annotation

41 notes · View notes

comfortbucky · 4 years ago

Note

Hey! Can i request a cold, lonely ex-hydra reader × bucky who falls in love with her. Adding some panic attacks and nightmares of the reader.

i love this idea!!! thank u for submitting🥰

𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲 ⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ ｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚ ⋆

pairing: avenger!bucky x ex-HYDRA!fem!reader

tags: enemies(?) to lovers, angst (if u squint), soft!bucky

warnings: canon level violence, description of injuries, blood is mentioned, panic attacks, anxiety, nightmares

A/N: i just came up with a random name for the HYDRA leader the reader is after🤣 so just ,,, ignore // also!!!! i tried out a different writing style than what i’m used to! hope u don’t mind🥺 just been feeling like a lot of my writing is the same and wanted to try something new!!!

word count: 3.5k (this is so long LMAO sorry 😭 literally why am i like this)

my masterlist!

completed requests!

The suit that you once considered a second skin, now felt uncomfortable and constricting, like a python squeezing the life out of you. Although, it made sense since the very organization of the uniform you were wearing did exactly that.

HYDRA.

For so long you were just another mindless pawn to them, just doing without every actually thinking. Unlike your younger brother, Alex. They indoctrinated him as well, getting a hold of both of you from a young age, but he was there when Captain America took down S.H.I.E.L.D. and it changed his entire worldview. You found everything he said about “freedom” to be stupid, naive, and dangerous. And you would later prove yourself correct.

You pull yourself from your thoughts as a group of HYDRA soldiers walk past the shrubbery you hid behind. Quickly and quietly, you get up and join them as they march towards the HYDRA base. As soon as you get inside, you manage to slip away from the rest of the group to search for your target.

Since HYDRA took the possibility of you ever having a normal life away, as far as you were concerned, your only purpose in life was to kill the man who was at the center of it all, Viktor Cross. And after months of tracking him down, formulating the perfect plan, that’s exactly what you were going to do today.

You make your way towards one of the main lab facilities, gun in hand when you see several unconscious guards lying on the floor in front of you. Shifting your gaze up, you see that the door has been ripped open, grip marks on the sides.

This was not part of the plan.

As you squeeze through the open door and enter the lab, you come to a halt, frozen in shock. There’s your target, Viktor, shoved against the wall by none other than Captain America himself. You almost let out a chuckle in disbelief at the irony of the situation. Instead, you take a step forward, and the glass cracks beneath your feet, alerting the men of your presence.

Shit.

Immediately, both sets of eyes are on you. Viktor’s lips curve into a smirk as you make your way to them.

“Agent- Miss Y/N,” he corrects himself. “What a pleasant surprise.” You ignore him and look to address Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America.

“Let him go and give him to me,” you start, Steve eyeing you cautiously. “So I can kill him,” you snarl, quickly turning to Viktor to see that his smirk had been wiped off his face.

“Aren’t you HYDRA?” He questions, nodding to your suit and eliciting a cackle from Viktor.

“Not anymore,” you mumble, before lifting a leg to kick Steve in his side. You hit him across the face with the end of your gun for good measure. He stumbles over, giving you enough time to grab Viktor’s collar, before he falls to the floor, and slam him back against the wall. His eyes are full of desperation and you felt nothing but pure, burning rage. You shove the barrel of your gun under his chin and place your hand on the trigger.

“You were such a gifted agent, Y/N. Don’t throw away such potential, come back.”

“Go to hell.”

Before you could pull the trigger, a force propels you to the ground and you feel a sharp pain in your side. Silence and then ringing fills your eyes as you squint your eyes to try and visualize the situation. Your vision is blurry, but clear enough to clouds of smoke engulf Viktor’s figure as he escapes. A muffled voice from behind you speaks, but you can’t make out any of the words they’re saying. You look down to see red. Just crimson red, staining your abdomen. Hands land on your shoulders, shaking you gently as your vision fades to black.

Viktor is in front of you, the barrel of his gun directed right at your head. He smirks as he moves his hand to the trigger.

“Hail, HYDRA.”

A gunshot goes off, forcing you to shoot up in bed, gasping for air. As you start to regain your senses, you realize you’re surrounded by a group of strangers. Well, not complete strangers, the Avengers to be exact. Part of your job required you to study their files, learn everything about them. You could recite from memory where and when they were born, their greatest strengths and weaknesses. Suddenly, your side starts to burn with pain, and you carefully lean back in bed. There’s an array of wires and tubes connected to you and you hear the rhythmic beeping of various machines. You’re in a hospital, or some sort of medical facility.

“That, is exactly why I said we should use restraints.”

You’re staring at the ceiling when you hear Iron Man, AKA Tony Stark, speak.

“Tony, she lost a liter of blood, she’s not going anywhere.”

Steve appears in your view, looking down at you.

“Hey, you’re okay. You’re safe.”

You shift your gaze away from him. The last thing you expected to come out of this mission was to meet the Avengers, let alone them save you.

Steve sighs, “We’re not gonna hurt you. We wanna find Viktor too.”

There’s nothing he could say that could get you to speak. Your hatred for HYDRA didn’t mean you suddenly liked the Avengers. If anything, they were part of the problem too, so you stay silent.

“Told you, she’s not gonna talk,” Tony quips. From your research, you had come to learn that he was an arrogant man, and his statement only proved you right. “Maybe you should get Manchurian Candidate to come down, give her an ex-HYDRA buddy,” he says sarcastically.

Upon hearing “ex-HYDRA buddy,” you furrow your brows. Maybe it was the lack of blood in your body, but it took you a second to process his words and understand who he was referring to. Your eyes dart back to look at Steve’s but he’s gone.

“I’ll be back.” His voice trails off as he exits the room.

You’re still staring at the ceiling when you hear footsteps return and then several others departing.

There’s only one other person in the room beside you. Without even looking up, you already know who it is. His breathing was slow and steady until you started to shift in bed to reposition yourself. His breath hitched for a moment, before returning back to his normal breathing pattern.

“Killing him isn’t gonna make you feel better.” His comment makes you roll your eyes as you slowly sit up to look at him. There were no logical thoughts in your head, all you could feel was pain and fury. Anger swelled within you, your emotions boiling over.

“That’s rich, coming from the Fist of HYDRA,” you spat out. As soon as the words left your mouth, you felt your stomach drop. It was an unfamiliar feeling, one you hadn’t felt in a while. What was it? Regret?

Bucky’s face fell but he kept his eyes on you. It was a look that made you feel worse, worse than the searing pain in your side.

“I’m not a killer anymore,” he said in a tone so gentle, you felt another strange, new emotion but couldn’t quite label it. You quickly shift gears to avoid addressing the uncomfortable feelings swirling around in your stomach.

“Are you keeping me hostage to lure Viktor in? Because it's not going to work." Bucky shook his head.

"We want..." he trailed off, causing you to tilt your head in curiosity. “We need your help finding him.” You scoffed.

“What do I get out of it?” Bucky’s silence gave you your answer. Shaking your head, you start to disconnect yourself from the multitude of wires attached to you and get out of bed.

“You’re gonna hurt yourself,” he started, as you threw off your blanket and sat on the edge of the bed.

Standing up quickly, the blood from your head pooled in your legs, causing you to feel dizzy. Your head spun and your arms reached out for something, anything stable to grab onto. It was a metal hand. Despite it being cool to the touch, it ignited a heat to rise to your cheeks. You look down and mumble a thank you as Bucky helps you back into bed.

Letting out a sigh, you realize with the condition you’re in, you can’t leave. Definitely not well enough to go after Viktor alone. Shutting your eyes and pinching the bridge of your nose, you curse under your breath.

“Fine,” you finally speak, keeping your eyes closed. Bucky nods, even though you don’t see, and you hear him walk off.

After a couple days of rest, you were cleared by Bruce to get discharged. Viktor had gone deep in hiding, making your job to find him a lot harder. Tony had so graciously given you an extra room in the tower, right next to Bucky’s. He was probably the one person you saw the most, purely due to location, and the fact that everyone else cautiously kept their distance from you. It made sense though, since you rarely spoke to anyone and spent most of your time in the lab looking for any clues of Viktor’s location. When you weren’t searching for him, you were training in the gym. Bucky was there a lot too, both of you waking up at ungodly hours of the morning. No words were ever exchanged between the two of you, and yet, there was some level of comfort you felt being around him. Must’ve been an ex-HYDRA thing.

“What’s on your mind?” You walk over to Alex and sit on the edge of the bed next to him. He sighs.

“What if,” he starts, furrowing his brows. “What if freedom is good?” He speaks quietly, fearful of HYDRA listening in on your conversation.

It feels like you’ve got the wind knocked out of you.

“Alex,” you grab him by the shoulders. “What the hell are you talking about?” You’re searching his eyes, trying to understand what’s gotten into him.

“Captain America.” The biggest threat to HYDRA’s existence. He looks down at his hands. “He was willing to risk his life for it. It has to be worth something right?” Alex looks back up to you with a look in his eyes that you haven’t seen since you were children. Uncertainty. You sigh and pull him into your chest, stroking his hair.

“I don’t know, kiddo. Maybe.”

You wake up in a cold sweat, panting. Hot tears fall from the corners of your eyes. It’s the same dream you’ve had for the last week. Although, you wouldn’t consider it a dream necessarily, but it wasn’t a nightmare either. Just a bittersweet memory.

Bucky could tell that something was up with you for the past week. Despite having gone through a bit of therapy, Steve’s idea, the nightmares still came to him. So Bucky was already wide awake when he heard your weeping on the other side of the wall. It didn’t help that he was also a light sleeper with super-soldier hearing. He didn’t know what was causing you to be so upset, but he didn’t want to intrude and ask. Neither of you had spoken to the other since you first arrived.

But this night was different from the rest. Usually, you would flip endlessly through channels on ur TV until you eventually fell asleep, but it wasn’t working this time. There’s a tight pain in your chest and suddenly, you’re suffocating. You rip off your covers and spring out of bed, tripping on your blankets along the way. At this point, you don’t even register the pain of slamming down, face-first on the ground. Panic has taken over your body, tears now streaming down your face. You squeeze your eyes shut, hoping for relief.

He wasn’t planning on doing anything until he heard a loud thud from your room. Immediately, Bucky gets up and arrives at your door. It’s rude to just barge into someone’s room, his mom taught him that from a young age, so he settles on knocking. You don’t hear it though, the only sound you hear is the sound of your rapid breathing as you hyperventilate. Bucky hears it too and ultimately decides on inviting himself into your room.

“Y/N?”

You’re lying on your side, curled up in a fetal position with your hands covering your face, when Bucky opens the door. He quickly arrives by your side, kneeling beside you, as he examines you for any injuries.

“Are you hurt?”

You manage to shake your head in response, anxiety still flowing through your veins. Unfortunately, Bucky’s familiar with panic attacks, having had them himself. But he also knows that everyone deals with them a bit differently. Guess he did manage to learn some useful things from therapy.

“Can you try breathing with me?”

He starts to take deep breaths in and out until he sees you start to follow along with him, your hands still covering your face. There’s a part of you that feels stupid for keeping them there, but they help ground you, so you continue to shield your face. After what feels like an hour, but was probably only 10 minutes, your panic subsides. That’s when a wave of embarrassment hits you, realizing that it had been Bucky with you during your panic attack.

Slowly removing your hands from your face, you’re greeted by piercing blue eyes. You blink a couple times, realizing that Bucky had taken a spot on the ground, lying on his side to face you, his hands pressed together under his head like a pillow. He smiles and you feel warm. It’s terrifying, the new feelings that Bucky has caused you to feel and yet, you don’t mind.

“You feelin’ better?” You nod and smile back, something you haven’t genuinely done in a while.

“Thank you, Bucky.”

You stare at each other in silence, lying side by side. There’s no physical touch involved but somehow, this moment, it feels intimate. Bucky breaks the silence.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” He speaks in a voice so soft, it almost sounded like a whisper.

It might’ve been the fact that he just calmed you down from a panic attack, but as you looked into his eyes, you felt the walls you had built up for the last year slowly come crashing down.

“He killed my brother,” you reply, maintaining your eyes on Bucky. You searched his eyes for any fear or pity, but all you could find was a look of understanding. His eyes were starting to become a safe place for you.

“Alex was there when Steve took down S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA along with it. He wanted out, out of the organization.” Taking a deep breath, you continue. “Word got around about a “rat,” so I took the blame. Viktor was about to shoot me when Alex’s dumbass ran in front of me, sacrificing himself.” You let out a chuckle, your vision getting blurry as tears swelled in your eyes. “He was a goddamn idiot, but he also had a heart of gold.”

As you start to cry, Bucky hesitatingly extends an arm to hover over your body, trying to gauge your reaction. Physical touch was something he struggled with during the beginning of his recovery, and he didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. He’s reassured when you grab onto his shirt and pull yourself closer to him, and wraps an arm around you, his other hand softly stroking your head.

You hadn’t cried like this since Alex died, bottling up all of your emotions to focus on finding the man responsible for his death. But as you sobbed into Bucky’s chest, you realize that your love for Alex had transformed into an ugly, burning hatred for Viktor. He wouldn’t want this. You didn’t want it, at least, not anymore. The only thing you wanted was your brother back, and that was impossible.

Bucky held you in his arms until you fell asleep, listening to the sounds of your slow, rhythmic breathing, dozing off shortly after.

That night with Bucky had softened your cold, hard exterior that you initially presented yourself with. You would willingly spar with Nat in the training room and join the team for breakfast or dinner. Everyone noticed and, while at first thrown off by it, happily embraced it. Especially Bucky.

Initially, he got up to work out in the early hours of the morning as a habit. Now, he woke up to see you. His heart did flips in his chest every time he walked in the gym and saw you. Since that night, you started to acknowledge his presence, turning to smile and wave as he walked through the doors. It was something he looked forward to every day.

During the day, you were focused hard on tracking down Viktor and Bucky knew that. But he also knew he wanted to spend more time with you. He looked for reasons to enter the lab, whether it was offering snacks to you throughout the day or helping Bruce or, even Tony. Anything to see you again.

Bucky realized that there was a deeper, stronger emotion that he felt for you when he would wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare. The first thing he thought about was you. Specifically, how you were the only thing that could possibly calm him down. Although he’d come in that night to help you with your panic attack, you ended up helping him as well. He hadn’t slept as soundly and peacefully as he did with you. And you hadn’t either. There were several nights when neither of you could sleep and ended up running into each other. It slowly became a routine that would begin in the kitchen, exchanging life stories, and end on the couch in the common area, entangled in each other’s arms.

Tonight you didn’t show up and Bucky panicked. He stared at the kitchen clock. It had been 20 minutes and you still hadn’t shown up. Bucky racked his brain for anything he could’ve done to scare you off, but came up with nothing. It wasn’t like you two had been officially together, Bucky had no idea what you were to each other. All he knew is that he wanted to be with you, always.

You were soundly asleep in bed, passing out as soon as your head hit the pillow. It was a particularly physically exhausting day for you, training with both Nat and Steve.

Bucky was so caught up with the thoughts racing through his head, he hadn’t noticed that his feet had taken him right to your door. He stands there for a moment, silently debating what to do. Grumbling under his breath, he musters up the courage to knock on your door. Right as he was about to turn away and shuffle off to his room, your door opens. You greet him with a yawn and a tired smile.

“Oh, hey Bucky.”

He looks at the bags under your eyes and feels instant regret wash over him, realizing that you weren’t avoiding him, but just getting some sleep.

“Sorry,” he looks down at his feet. You frown and place a hand on his cheek to lift his head up.

“Something wrong?” He avoids your gaze, partially because he’s embarrassed and partially because his cheeks were turning red because of your touch.

“No.” You cross your arms and let out a sigh.

“You’re a bad liar.” It’s his turn to sigh, as he scratches the back of his head.

“You didn’t come to the kitchen,” he lets out, in almost a whisper. It hits you. You were so tired, you had completely forgotten about your nightly tradition. “It’s stupid, sorry. I shouldn’t have woken you up," he mumbles. Bucky begins to walk off but you grab his hand. When he turns to look at you, his brows are raised at your touch.

As you start to speak, you pull him close, facing you. “It’s not stupid.” His hands move to hold your waist as yours move to wrap around his neck. You pause, an idea popping into your head. “I’m kind of tired from training today, wanna just come sleep with me?” He nods and you drag him to your bed, nestling into his arms as he holds you to his chest, his chin resting above your head. You tilt your head back to see him looking down at you. There’s a fluttering feeling in your chest and you smile.

“Just for future reference, you have an open invitation to cuddle with me, anytime.” Bucky chuckles at your offer.

“I’ll keep that in mind, doll.”

Bucky cups your face in his hand and you nuzzle your cheek in his palm. His eyes dart down to your lips before returning to your eyes.

Then, the most delicate, sweetest kiss you’ve ever received is on your lips.

You flutter your eyes open as you both pull apart. He quickly kisses your nose before pulling you back into his chest, speaking softly.

“And you have an open invitation to kiss me, anytime.”

314 notes · View notes

insomniamamma · 4 years ago

Text

Safe: Ezra x f!reader w/Cee

A/n: What can I say? I'm hormonal and all my shit hurts and if I cannot get snuggles IRL then I will write something super soft and self-indulgent to make myself feel better. Part of the Prickle AU. Set sometime after Sacellum.

Warnings: Oh no! There's only one bed. Soft!Ezra. Language. Cee's best friend on The Pug is non-binary and also named after my little boy's favorite stuffy. Maybe the slightest bit of angst. But mostly super soft.

"You did this on purpose." "Right hand to Kevva, I did not. I asked for double occupancy and they must have misunderstood and--" "You don't have a right hand," "Let's go back to the reception desk," says Ezra, "We may be able to negotiate more appropriate accommodations." "Errgh," you groan. Reception had been a nightmare, three freighters worth of traffic trying to secure berths all at once. It was a lot of people. Too many for your liking. Cee was staying with Kit and their family. Kit and Cee had practically tackled each other right there on the dock, everyone else forgotten, walked away arm in arm. "We shove off in three cycles," Ezra hollered at her retreating back, and she flapped a dismissive hand at him. You had to smile. For three cycles Cee gets to be a normal teenager hanging out with her best friend without worrying about points and pulls and overhead costs and fuel margins. "I don't wanna go back down there," you say, "Too many people. I think twice the population of Falnost was waiting in that fucking line." You brush past him and into the suite. The ceilings are low and slightly curved and it feels strange to be under this much grav. The outer rings of Puggart Bench have something close to terra-normal gravity, but after so much time spent on little moons and worldlets, this much G feels weird and you have no desire to trudge back down to reception. "You sure?" Asks Ezra. "Yeah," you drop your day bag and press a hand to the mattress. "Look at the size of this thing. It's, like, five crash-couches wide. This seems above our pay grade." "They're overbooked," says Ezra, "We're paying the same points for the berth we should have gotten. I made sure of it. I can sleep in that recliner if--" "No." "No?" "Kevva, Ez, we're both adults," you say, "I think we can share a bed for a night without exploding."

Your suite has a real, honest-to-Goddess shower with a generous 15 minute timer. You scrub as fast as you can and then just let the water hit you, let the pressure pound on your tense back muscles until the chime sounds and the water cuts off. You towel off and dress, soft clothes you sleep in, and pad out into the main room. Ezra is reading, face far off and serious, and you just look at him for a minute, illuminated in the warm lamp-light, absorbed in his book, little furrow between his brows and then he looks up, all knowing smirk and dancing eyes, he's caught you staring. "Your turn, Ez," You say and turn your face away. Kevva. This man. You've been trying to keep things professional, but it's a losing battle. His flirtations make you flush, but he's never tried to push you, never tried to leverage the fact that it's his name on the ship's title, that you signed a contract, that you are junior-most crew. You feel safe with him. And, from your limited experience in the fringe, that is a miracle in itself.

Ezra sets his book aside and heads for the bathroom. You peel the sheets from the other side of the bed and settle in. There's a media player bolted to the wall, but you just want quiet. You switch off the lamp on your nightstand (we both have lamps, we both have a nightstand, how weird is that?) The sheets feel deliciously cool against your skin. To be clean and sleeping in clean sheets...if Heaven isn't like this Kevva's got some answering to do. Ezra sings in the shower. You're barely awake and you smile. Ezra can't carry a tune in a bucket, singing fringeling songs and reels, stories of mercs and pirates and ghosts and you drift off to the sound of him, the sound of the water running.

He sees you soft and loose and asleep. No rail-gun, no body armor, no thrower under your pillow. Your face slack, snoring slightly. You've kicked out of the blankets and lay curled as if chilled. "Hey Artichoke," he murmurs, pulls the blankets up and tucks them around you, "Let's get you warm, yeah?"

Ezra wakes. Bleared red numbers of the clock saying that this is still the deepest ditch of local night. Ezra is warm and confused. He feels you pressed against him, your chest to his back, an arm hooked around his middle, your legs entwined with his. You've sought him out in your sleep and folded yourself around him, your breath slow and steady against his nape. Ezra's eyes prick with tears. He can't remember the last time he's been held like this. He's had lovers. He has payed for sex on the less reputable Benches of the Great Arm, but for someone to hold him? For someone to touch him without payment, without trying to press some advantage, gain some kind of leverage, without priming him for the inevitable backstab? He is overwhelmed. He tries to wriggle away from you, but your arm just tightens around him. "...fixed the transponder," you mutter against his neck, "told you we didn't need...told you..." He pats your arm and relaxes against you. "Okay, Artichoke, okay, sweetheart. Go back to sleep."

You wake enfolded, Ezra's good arm wrapped around you. You feel the steady beat of his heart beneath your ear, the slow sussurration of his breath, the snores that catch in his throat and turn to murmurs, the rise and fall of his chest beneath your cheek. You've tucked yourself against him in your sleep. Your hand rests on his sternum. Oh Kevva. What are you doing? You go rigid. Your first impulse is to wrestle out of his hold, take one of the blankets and install yourself in the recliner that you wouldn't let Ezra take, but part of you wants to stay right here in the combined warmth of your bodies, feeling his breath, his heart, his calloused palm spread against your shoulder. You shift, making the smallest effort to pull yourself away and his arm tightens further, a low, sleepy chuckle reverberates through his chest. "Hi Ez," "Hi." He strokes the pad of his thumb along the exposed curve of your shoulder. "I'll get up," you say, even as he shifts and cups the back of your head in his palm, tucking you closer. "You don't have to," he says, voice rough with sleep. This gesture pricks at your heart. Coming up on Falnost has made you hard, guarded, there has been precious little gentleness in your life, pulling rocks out of the parched ground since you were big enough to lift a shovel. Learned to fight and shoot to chase water-thieves from the homestead. He strokes the back of your head like one might pet a skittish cat and your heart squeezes. "Ezra?" You hate how small your voice sounds, you hate the uncertainty you hear there, "Are we okay?" "Of course we are," he says, "Why wouldn't we be?" "I wrapped around you like a Bueller's world python and I did it in my sleep-" "The wrapping was mutual-" "You're not mad or uncomfortable or anything?" He laughs again, gentle huff of breath against the crown of your head. "Mad about waking with you in my arms? The day I'm mad about that you can just shoot me in the head and send me to Kevva because I will surely have lost my ever-loving mind." You smile against his skin and relax some, your hand unfists and you curl your arm around his soft belly, feel his breath hitch. "Tickles." "Sorry." You feel yourself drift, skirting the edge of sleep. He is warm and solid and you let yourself relax against him. “This feels...safe..." you say, so close to sleep that you're not sure if you've said it aloud or if you've just thought it. And you're not sure if you hear his response or dream it, one word. Always.

"She's late," says Ezra. "We still got a sixteenth to button up and board," "Still," says Ezra, "Yon freighter will leave with our pod wether we're strapped in it or not." You see Cee and Kit, trailed by Kit's parents, weaving through the crowd. Cee is beaming, her blonde hair has a brilliant streak of blue, and Kit has a matching streak in their hair. "Hey guys!" Cee hugs Ezra and then hugs you. "How was your shore leave, Little Bird? I like the fancy hair." "Isn't that cool? We've got matching streaks," says Cee. "It's semi-permanent," says Kit, "We'll pick a different color next time!" You have to smile. Cee looks revitalized. Three cycles spent with her friend, just doing normal kid things has been good for her. "Check this out!" says Cee and pushes a laminated drawing towards the two of you. Ezra makes a show of looking carefully. "I recognize you and Kit," he says, "I am not familiar with these other people, though." "They're from The Streamer Girl, dumbass," says Cee, "Here's Clo and Reive and Lily and Auri. See? Kit put us right in the story." Ezra gives Kit his best smile. “You drew this? You are very talented." Kit smiles big. "Thanks!" says Kit, "I'll put you guys in the next one! Maybe you could be professors at Bowsun Academy or something." "I look forward to it," says Ezra. "Time to go, Cee," you say and Cee and Kit exchange one more enthusiastic hug. "Later fringeling!" Calls Kit. "Piss off, stationer!" Cee calls back. Ezra curls his fingers around yours and squeezes. Cee tells you all about her three cycles with Kit, the movies they watched, the Real Food they ate. How Kit's little brother wanted a blue streak in his hair too and Kit's parents said no and how mad he got. I wanna be cool like Kit and Cee. "I told him he's got plenty of time to be cool," says Cee, "And he told me that I don't understand how the world works. He's like, four." Ezra laughs. "Wise for his years." Says Ezra. And the three of you fall quiet. You find the pod much as you left it, towed to the Polly Jean and clipped in, transferred by the station's tugs. You settle in and do a full systems check. Calling out the checklists and making sure everything is good for transit. "What are you guys so happy about?" asks Cee. "Whatever do you mean?" asks Ezra. "You been all smiles since I hit the dock," says Cee, "Both of you. Did we score a really good job? Did we win the Puggart Bench lottery or something? What aren't you telling me?" "That," says Ezra, "Is for us to know and you to endlessly speculate about." "Hmph," says Cee.

Tagging: @oonajaeadira, @grogusmum , @honestly-shite, @writeforfandoms, @ladyvengeancesposts, @the-blind-assassin-12

#ezra x f!reader w/cee #ezra prospect x f!reader w/cee #ezra and cee #soft!ezra needs his own warning #don't look at me #this is so soft

113 notes · View notes

rpmemesbyarat · 4 years ago

Conversation

RP meme from Werewolf: The Apocalypse "Black Furies" Tribebook (Revised Version) Ch 2 "Pegasus’ Flight"

"But how can you be here?"

"I’m sorry. I’m easily sidetracked. Where was I?"

"Every day the possibility exists that you will find some great treasure — a companion, a fetish, riches, secrets or whatever is important to you."

"Divine justice is not something that can be safely left in the hands of mortal men and women — or even certain sky goddesses, as Athena’s blindness showed."

"While limits and strictures are frightening to many, I take peace knowing that purposes exist for all things."

"The problem comes when limits become absolute."

"It’s a human mind-twister — and I love mind-twisters — that the only rule to which there is no exception is that there’s an exception to every rule."

"I said before I love mind-twisters, but it’s good to know when to stop twisting your mind."

"Change hurts."

"The questions do not always need to be answered, often just asking them is enough."

"If they lead only to more questions or to simple answers (I remember well learning the answer to “What do bees smell like?”), then that also is learning and therefore good."

"Laughter doesn’t have to be mirthful; it can be bitter or rueful as well."

"How many of these stories actually happened?"

"Take from a story the wisdom that is in it; one of humanity’s biggest problems, I think, is that many of them take their legends too seriously."

"Contemplation is good, but too much of it causes the topic to become irrelevant."

"Beautiful, isn’t it?"

"The average first-time mother can expect an ordeal of fourteen hours."

"Everyone agrees that breast milk is best for babies; doctors, researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and parenting gurus."

"I am sorry for your discomfort, but you can just suffer through it a bit longer."

"A woman’s sexuality is hers, and can be a closely guarded secret or a gift to the world, as she chooses."

"Only the weak deserve pity."

"And yet we’re still spit on as often as not. Unfair, isn’t it?"

"Sex and childbearing is all about responsibility."

"There is no honor in blood for blood’s sake."

"These assaults take place far from the eyes of humanity, and the large-scale ones are most frequently mistaken for natural disasters."

"First, while faith might be eternal, religion must evolve."

"The world is often random, and believing it to be loving and fair is just as false as believing it to be cruel."

"They aren’t thieves, mind you; they just seem to know where to find things."

"I’m quite sure you’ve heard it all. Stay awake and listen again. This is important stuff, you know."

"That kind of cruelty doesn’t really help anyone, does it?"

"Note that there’s a big difference between “breeding” and “having sex.”

"My opinion has always been that announcing one’s presence and intentions when entering another’s territory is polite and proper behavior."

"A predator sees any encroachment on her territory as a threat. If the intruder nears her den, expect her to become very violent."

"If you enter another’s territory and announce yourself, that doesn’t mean you can stay. The one who lives there can still tell you to leave, and you should respect her wishes."

"Be careful when traveling."

"Look, we’ve all got anger control problems. It’s part of who we are."

"If you’re hurt, quit."

"Die to be a hero if you want, but don’t die to prove you were right."

"When the challenge is over, when the winner is declared, accept the ruling and live with it."

"Challenges are serious business — never initiate one without good cause."

"Do not look away. I hardly need to explain what that will lead to."

"We all know why it isn’t good to eat humans; for one thing, their flesh is fouled by the chemicals they eat, and for another, we’re meant to protect and avenge them, not prey upon them."

"If it becomes necessary to kill humans, do so, but remember that you are what you eat."

"From the face you’re making, I can assume you find the notion of cannibalism to be truly repulsive."

"Find other ways to hide your action."

"The problem is that humans are resilient and tenacious, especially in fear or hatred."

"Sometimes, however, we must let go."

"When the time comes for me to die, assuming, of course, that I do not die in battle, I shall walk into the sea and let the waves take me on my last journey."

"They can’t be challenged if no one can find them."

"I’m not saying that the system is corrupt, only that it could be."

"Such a small place, yet so many differing cultures!"

"Any biologist will tell you that you may measure how well an area thrives by the diversity of life it supports."

"Women are, on average, not as physically strong as men. This means that they sometimes need protection. I hardly need to tell you who should provide it."

"Unless I missed a major theological event, there haven’t been any immaculate conceptions recently."

"No matter your personal feelings on men, they are and always have been one half of the equation."

"A man is not evil simply by dint of his sex; to believe so is no better than calling women “the weaker sex.”

"Weak people produce more weak people, and since humans have virtually no method of natural selection, it is up to us to try to correct their weaknesses as best we can."

"Something is urging the citizens towards these evils, for I cannot believe that they did this themselves."

"The idiot humans continue to think that if they could just clear away the trees, they’d have wonderful land for agriculture, never once realizing that it’s the forest itself that preserves the land."

"Tell me why you think you could do better."

"So many believe the courts will do nothing — and if their attackers are rich and privileged enough, that is sadly true."

"Celebrities and advertisements show thin and unhealthy looking women being adored and generally enjoying life. So, young girls are made to feel abnormal and loathe their bodies."

"The Church decries sexuality for any reason but procreation — and women learn to fear their sexual power."

"Time may dull the memory, but we still have blood on our claws."

"It’s harsh, but good exercise."

"Don’t let their foul behavior and mannerisms fool you. These bumpkins and slum-dwellers have contacts all over the city. I avoid them when possible, but when I am left with no other choice and need information in the city, I go to them. Of course, that information does not come cheaply."

"Some of them can get a little corny at times, I admit, but I’d rather have them with us than against us."

"A more serious bunch of assholes was never born."

"They are reprehensible dogs."

"They have money, they have places to stay, they know good places to party, and they have access to guns, and explosives, and body armor, and — well, you get the idea."

"They have a lot of hate, and the near-extinction of their species isn’t something that one just gets over."

"No one ever identifies herself as “evil.”

"You will get far more than you bargained for."

"Most national leaders are ridiculed without mercy, because every mistake they’ve ever made is on display for the world to see."

"Too much time spent mucking with forces beyond their control taints these people, if you ask me."

"Bloody opportunists."

"I’m not going to say they planned it that way, but they sure didn’t stop it either."

"Sure, they got fucked, but they’re still assholes."

"A quaint story, I thought, no more than a sort of urban legend."

"However, they do learn many secrets that we miss. Getting them to give up these secrets, however, is usually more trouble than it’s worth."

"Maybe they aren’t all dead?"

"Greek myths are replete with dragons; Ladon, Typhon, Python, Hydra, and so forth. They are never cast in favorable roles; most of them only exist for a hero to kill."

"I’ve never liked practical jokes, and I don’t like the notion of pushing someone’s buttons just to teach them not to respond. You can lose your head doing that to the wrong person."

"Other creatures share the unseen world with us, and it would behoove you to know something about them."

"The spirits of the dead do not always rest easily."

"The dead aren’t staying in the ground."

"Some of them are complete pigs, so I’m told, but even so, they can be quite seductive."

#rp meme #rp memes #rp starters #roleplay starters #roleplay meme #roleplay memes #black furies #Werewolf the Apocalypse #wta #owod #World Of Darkness

16 notes · View notes

shirophantomvox · 4 years ago

Text

Coding Creates Friendships

Author’s note: I got this interesting prompt from @vld-prompts about Pidge and Lotor bonding over programming. As I began to write, I thought programming and coding were the same...when they are not. This story is aimed at coding and not so much programming...sorry. The code that is mentioned in this story is presumed to be correct. I am still learning C++ myself, so if it’s wrong, don’t be obnoxious about it. Hope you all like the story and I think I’ll put this on my AO3 account for a collection of short stories. Happy Readin’!

Young Pidge Gunderson...always finding a way to pass the time. She loved science ever since she was a child. Now she seemed to be more interested in coding and programming. On Earth, there were several coding languages such as Python, C++, C#, and many, many more. She and Hunk would spend hours debating whether or not a code would work. As one knows, coding in any of these languages can be very difficult and can cause constant headaches, but it was worth it.

It was approximately 5 PM on an equivalent of an Earth Saturday evening and believe it or not, the team had downtime to complete whatever they wanted. Keith and Shiro spent their time practicing and sharpening their attack skills while Allura and Coran were reminiscing on old memories. Those memories allow them to keep pushing forward even though the road ahead looked dark. Both Hunk and Pidge were working on creating a jazz-like music producing program for musicians who were also on space missions to keep their spirits up and allowed them to stream on Earth’s internet platforms. Working and working for hours, Hunk decided to take a lunch break, one that was much overdue.

“I’m going to see if we have something other than goo. If we have pizza, do you want a slice?”

“Sure. Just set it on the table. Get me some pop too, please.”

“Sure thing!”

She was trying to input a code that changes the color of text on the program but for some reason, it wouldn’t work. The continuous “error” message nearly made her throw her laptop through the airlock. She grunted in anger as she took off her glasses and placed her hand over her mouth. If she couldn’t figure out this simple step, how could they input various different plugins or VST’s? Maybe she should have taken a lunch break...that usually seems to do the trick.

The automatic doors flew open and assuming it was Hunk, she entended her arm waiting to receive her pizza.

“Were you waiting for something,” a smooth, chilled deep voice asked in curiosity.

“Huh?”

Pidge turned around and to her surprise instead of Hunk, it was Lotor, the biracial prince that the team had been working with to take down Zarkon and revamp the entire empire. Why was he just lounging around on the ship? No one knows. You’d think he would be with his own generals but instead, he was here.

“Oh, hey Lotor. Have you seen Hunk?”

“I saw him in the kitchen eating what you all call pizza.”

“I guess he forgot to get me a slice.”

“I can get it for you if you’d like.”

“That’s ok. I need to finish this project before it drives me insane!”

“What are you trying to complete?”

The price walked closer and sat down beside her to get a better look at what she was completing. He stared in utter confusion, trying to figure out what the symbols were that she was using and the alphabet to make the code.

“What are the symbols and letters you are using?”

“These are the alphabet.”

“All of Earth use the same alphabet?”

“Heavens, no. In America, we use the alphabet you see here but in other countries, they use different characters that look different than ours. Sort of like how the Altean alphabet looks entirely different than my alphabet.”

“How did you learn all of this? It’s so much.”

“You learn it over the course of several years. If you were there, you’d learn it in no time!”

“What is this code going to be used for?”

“Hunk and I are trying to make a computer program for musicians that can create and stream their music to various countries and in space as well.”

“That sounds excellent! Which type of music, though?”

“Remember that sultry music that you and Allura were listening to last night? Put your head on my shoulder? Yeah, that’s quite a popular song on Earth...”

His eyes widened and he frowned trying to portray that he did not know what the green paladin was trying to insinuate. No matter how hard he tried, it was obvious what was going on and he could no longer hide the fact that he was seriously dating the princess. She turned her head, facing him and smiling, nearly about to laugh so loudly that would disrupt the endless void of space. Lotor blushed and rubbed the inner corners of his eyes along the ridges of his nose and released a sign.

“How did you know about that,” Lotor asked imagining endless mortifying encounters with the rest of the team during the day.

“The walls are thin.”

“Oh, no…”

“Hey, don’t feel bad now. You didn’t feel that way last night.”

Pidge obnoxiously laughed a laugh of both awkwardness and truly out of amusement. The prince tried to hide his relationship with Allura to appear neutral when it came to combat and any other incidents but now? The cat was out of the bag.

“Oh, stop it. It’s not funny, it’s mortifying.”

“Ok, fine. But thanks for the laugh, though. I needed it. You’re not so bad after all.”

“It’s a shame that it took that for you to warm up to me. Can we get back to your code now?”

“Ok, fine Mr. Grumpy.”

“Wait! You said you were using the Earth’s alphabet and symbols to code?”

“Yes…”

“I think I know the problem here. The Altean and Galra way of programming is the same as Earth’s. We have the same languages, we just replaced your alphabet with ours!”

“Ok...I see what you’re getting at. But how can I solve this problem?”

“You’d have to input the following:

// C++ program to illustrate coloring

#include <iostream>

#include <stdlib.h>

using namespace std;

// Driver Code

int main()

{

// Print this message

cout << "Name your track";

// We can print the statement first

// and then changed the color

// E for background Color(Medium Gray)

// 4 for text color(White)

system("Color E4");

return 0;

}. We would use the same code, just replace your letters with ours.”

She was hesitant, but tried is the solution. Quickly typing, Lotor stared at the computer screen watching the young engineer at work. It surprised both of them how much both aliens and humans had in common; they weren’t that different. When the “successful” message appeared on her laptop, she rejoiced. Ugh! Several hours of inputting the same dead code were dreadful! Without thinking, she gave Lotor a quick hug, threw her laptop on her beanie, and ran toward the kitchen.

“Wait! Pidge...Green Paladin…?”

“Yeah…?”

“Don’t tell anyone about that, ok? I’m not ready for the team to know yet.”

“Sure. Your secret is safe with me.”

21 notes · View notes

wilwheaton · 6 years ago

Text

The Purge.

Earlier this year, I made some significant and substantial changes to my life, continuing the process of growth and reflection that I started when I quit drinking almost four years ago. (Sidebar: it's remarkable how much clarity I got, and shocking how much pain I was self medicating for so much of my life. I'm so grateful for the love and support of my friends, my wife, and my kids, who supported me when it was clear that I needed to get alcohol out of my life. Be honest with yourself: if you're self medicating emotional pain and/or childhood trauma like I was, give some serious consideration to working on the root issues you're using booze to avoid. I'm so much happier and healthier since I quit, and that's almost entirely because I was able to confront, head on, why I was so sad and hurting so much of the time. I'm not the boss of you, but if you need a gentle nudge to ask for help, here it is: nudge.)

Anyway.

As I was cleaning up my emotional baggage, working on strategies to protect myself from my abusers, and practicing mindfulness daily, I realized that I had a ton of STUFF just sitting around my house, cluttering up my physical living space the way my emotional trauma and pain was cluttering up my emotional space. So I made a call, and hired a professional organizer to come to my house, go through all my bullshit with me, and help me get rid of all the things I didn't need any more.

This process was, in many ways, a metaphor.

We spent several days going through my closets, my game room, my storage spaces in my attic and shed, and eventually ended up with FIVE TRUCKLOADS of stuff I didn't need. Most of it was clothes and books and things that we donated to shelters, which was really easy to unload. I acquire T-shirts so much, I regularly go through my wardrobe and unload half of what I have, so it's easy to get rid of stuff without any emotional attachments.

But there were some things that were more difficult to get rid of, things that represented opportunities I once had but didn't pursue, things that represented ideas that I was really into for a minute, but didn't see through to completion, things that seemed like a good idea at the time but didn't really fit into my life, etc.

I clearly recall giving away a TON of electronic project kits to my friend's son, because he's 11, he loves building things, and he'll actually USE the stuff I bought to amuse myself while I tried to make a meaningful connection to my own 11 year-old self, who loved those things back then too. When I looked at all of these things, I had to accept and admit that 47 year-old me isn't going to make that connection through building a small robot, or writing a little bit of code to make a camera take pictures. I can still connect to that version of myself, but I do it now through therapy, through my own writing, my own meditation. For the longest time, I didn't want to let these things go, because I felt like I was giving up on finding that connection I was seeking, but what I didn't realize (and didn't know until I made the decision to let it go) was that I didn't need STUFF to recover something I'd lost and wanted to revisit.

I think that, by holding on to these kits and similar things, I was trying to give myself the opportunity to explore science and engineering and robotics in a way that young me was never given. Just about everything I wanted to do, that I was interested in when I was 11, was pushed aside, minimized, and sort of taken away from me by my parents. My dad made fun of everything I liked, and my mom made me feel like the only thing I should care about was the pursuit of fame and celebrity. Without parental support and encouragement, I never got the chance to find out if any of these other things would be interesting enough to me to think about pursuing them in higher education. Yes, for some reason, even when I was a really small kid, I was already thinking about where and when I would go to college. I never took even a single class, because I was so afraid of so many things when I was college age, but that's its own story, for another time.

As we went through just piles and piles of bullshit, it got easier and easier to just mark stuff for donation. That drone I used to fly for fun, that I kinda sorta told myself would eventually be used to film something I wrote? Get rid of it, that's never gonna happen. The guitar I kinda played a little bit when I was a teenager, but never really learned how to play properly? Give it to someone who is going to love it and play it so much, it lets them express their creativity in ways I was never able to. All those books I bought to make me a better poker player? Gone. All the books I bought to learn how to program in Python, Perl, Java, and even that old, used, BASIC book I picked up because I thought it would be fun to finally write that game I always dreamed about when I was ten? Give them all to someone who is actually going to *do* that, instead of just think about it.

It was, at first, really hard to get rid of this stuff, because I felt like I was admitting to myself that, even though I *could* paint all these minis (like I did when I was a teenager), even though I *could* study all of these books on Python and Arduino hacking, and probably make something kind of cool with that knowledge, I was never going to. I came to realize that having these things was more about holding on to the *possibility* that they represented. It was more about maintaining a connection to some things that once made me really happy. When I was a kid, I LOVED copying Atari BASIC programs out of a magazine and playing the games that resulted, because it was an escape from my father's bullying and my mother's neediness. When I was a teenager, I LOVED the time I spent (badly) painting Space Marines and Chaos Marines, because it gave me an escape from everything that was so hard about being me when I was 14. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I spent hundreds of hours trying to learn the same five songs on the guitar, never mastering a single one of them. My time would have been much more wisely invested in learning the scales and chords that I declared were more boring than picking my way through the tablature for Goodbye Blue Sky.

And that all brings me to the thing that was simultaneously the hardest and most obvious thing to donate: all my Rock Band gear.

Did you know that the first Rock Band, which I and my kids and my friends played for literally a thousand hours, came out twelve years ago? Beatles Rock Band is a decade old this year. Rock Band 3 is ten years old, too.

I hadn't played Rock Band in almost five years when my friend asked me what I wanted to do with all these plastic guitars, both sets of pretend drums, and all the accessories that were stacked up neatly in the corner of my gameroom.

But a decade ago, Anne and I would send the kids off to their biodad's house, or to their friends' for a sleepover, have some beers, and play the FUCK out of Rock Band, almost every Saturday night. My god, it was so much fun for us to pretend that we were rocking all over the world, me on the drums, Anne on the vocals. Frequently, we'd get the whole family together to play, and we'd spend an entire evening pretending to be on tour together, blasting and rocking our way through the Who, Boston, Green Day, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Dead Kennedys, and others. It brought us all closer together, and was incredibly valuable for our bonding, at a time when we really needed that.

And I was holding onto all these things, these fake plastic guitars and who even knows how many gigs of DLC, because I didn't want to lose my connection to those days. Part of me hoped that we'd all get together and play again, like we did when my kids were in their teens, like I would when I hosted epic Rock Band parties at Phoenix Comicon, or PAX, back before the world was on fire.

But when I looked at those things, neatly stacked up and untouched except by dust for years, I knew that we weren't going to play again, and that I didn't need these things in my house to validate the memories.

Back in those days, when Ryan and I would spend an entire Saturday afternoon and evening trying to complete the Endless Setlist on Expert (we never did, but we got to Green Grass and High Tides more than once), real musicians would smugly tell us that we were having fun the wrong way, that we should be learning REAL instruments instead of pretending to have already mastered them. I would always argue that the whole POINT of Rock Band was the fantasy. Can you imagine telling a 100 pound kid that he should be playing real football instead of Madden? Of course not, and yet.

But it kinda turns out that some of those smug musicians were right. As I packed up those plastic fake guitars and drum kits, put them into the truck with my real guitar, I had a small twinge of regret, that I had been focused on the fantasy, instead of developing a skill that I could still use today (the last time I attempted Rock Band, maybe four years ago, I couldn't get through a single song on Hard, much less Expert. My skills had faded, and it wasn't worth the effort to restore them). And then I stopped myself, because that's EXACTLY the kind of thinking that stopped me from following my dreams when I was a kid. What was important to me ten years ago, what's still important to me today, was the time I spent with my wife, with my kids, with our family, with my friends, pretending that we were something we weren't. We were doing something together, and that is what matters. Today, I can't recall anything specific about all the nights Anne and I played, though I know we worked our way through hundreds of songs together. But I can clearly recall how much fun it was.

Ryan and I still talk about the time I accidentally turned the Xbox off, when I meant to just power down my toy guitar, after we'd been trying to play the Endless Setlist on Expert for five hours.

Over the years, I had accumulated all this stuff that I was unwilling to let go of, because I felt like that would also mean letting go of the memories that were associated with those things. I felt like getting rid of things without following through on their intended use was admitting defeat, or being a quitter.

But after a year or so of daily, intense, therapy and reflection, after ending contact with toxic and abusive people who were exerting tremendous control over me, these things stopped being the keys to unopened doors, and they just became THINGS that I had to constantly move around to get them out of my way. Because I didn't need them anymore. I didn't need to pain minis like I did when I was 15, because I'm not 15. I'm not living with an abuser and his enabler. I'm not working for a producer who makes it clear to me at every opportunity that he owns me and has complete control over whether or not I'll have a film career.

I didn't need ANY of these things, and once I realized that, unloading them and getting them to people who DO need them felt as freeing and empowering as writing a goodbye letter.

I kept a few things that were still useful, or brought me joy. Books, mostly, and of course all my dice and games. It felt GOOD to admit that I'm never going to learn guitar, or build an Arduino-controlled anything. It felt GOOD and empowering to know that I'm a writer. I get my joy and explore my possibilities through storytelling and character development. THAT is what I love, and by getting rid of all this old stuff (and its emotional baggage) I created space in my life to be the person I am now, a person I love, in a life that is amazing.

I still have some emotional clutter, which is to be expected and isn't a big deal. The really cool thing is that I have physical and emotional space, now, to deal with it.

1K notes · View notes

thinking-in-symbols · 4 years ago

Text

Quinquennial Life Assessment

So, it’s been a few years. When I was 19 I posted a sort of “roadmap” for the evolution of my life on this blog. Today I thought I’d revisit that. I want to take a look back and see what progress I’ve made, and then in a separate post I want to turn to the future, think about how my vision for it has changed, and consider how I can reincorporate these goals into that vision.

This is the list of things I wanted to get done in varying time frames. I’ve crossed off the things I’ve done to get a sense of my progress:

1 year:

At 19, my hopes were to accomplish the following things by age 20:

- Joined, and consistently participated in, at least 2 campus organizations that suit my interests, at least 1 of which should be competitive in nature - well, I joined the ISO and KVRX, my college radio station! Neither of those were competitive, but in retrospect I don’t really care about that :-)

- Made concrete plans to study abroad - Nope, unfortunately I never did this. I’m not quite sure I regret that, all things considered - I traded that experience for other things. I did make plans to spend a few months abroad of my own accord, and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling global pandemic. But as it stands I haven’t done this.

- Learned C++ and python to proficiency - Hm. “Proficient” is a relative term. But I think I have a tendency to downplay my skills, so in the interest of counteracting that I’m going to count myself as “proficient” in these languages. I think that’s fair.

- Gone on at least a several day road trip with at least 1 friend - I’ve gone on several trips with @meeshbug, my very lovely girlfriend and best friend in the world :-)

- Decided on a concentration beyond the extremely vague umbrella of “computer science” - Unfortunately as far as my education is concerned I never really did this. If anything my interests have *broadened* rather than becoming more focused. More on this later...

- Made meaningful, ongoing contributions to an open-source project - You know what? I’ve published the source of everything I’ve ever made, and I’ve gotten to the point where I can make stuff that’s not trivial. So I’m giving myself credit for this one.

- Learned to cook enough meals to eat in most days and not get sick of my own food - I wish. I’ve learned to cook a fair amount of stuff but I still get way too depressed and lethargic to apply that consistently. Whether I consider myself to have achieved this honestly depends on the month.

- Learned to keep my living area clean - I’m much better at this than I was at 19, but at 19 I could barely clear a path to walk across my room. So there’s more work to do. More on these last two later.

- Gotten a pet - Meesh and I have a dog named Courage (after the dog of cowardly fame) and a cat named Jax!

2 years:

- Independently written a piece of software to completion and deployed it publicly - I’ve always pretty bad at actually seeing projects through to completion, but I do have a few full, independent projects under my belt at this point. I’ve built a simple game engine, a pathtracer, plugins for games I like, and some other stuff.

- purchased and begun regularly using some basic amateur radio equipment - Ah man. I got my license but I still haven’t gotten any equipment. I guess I have to get on that...

- purchased and begun experimenting with some basic music recording equipment - This one I’ve done, but I haven’t done as much experimenting as I’d like.

- hosted a party - I did this for my 21st birthday and it’s one of my favorite memories! Honestly this was probably the last time I had all my really close friends in one place. I’m actually getting kind of emotional about that.

- done some kind of hallucinogen - I have now done this. I definitely did get something out of it, albeit not what I expected. This is something I actually only did pretty recently and it’s still having a pretty profound effect. Maybe I’ll write a separate post about this.

- Gone camping with friends - Despite my best efforts, this hasn’t happened yet. Pretty fucked up.

3 years:

- learned to play another instrument besides the piano (guitar?) - I don’t feel comfortable crossing this one off quite yet, but I went ahead and bought myself some guitar equipment and have been messing around with it lately :-) I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and pay for lessons if I’m serious about this, which I am.

- Written and recorded a song - Damn, I can’t believe it’s been 5 years and I haven’t even done this.

- Met a group of people I can play music with - nope

- Owned a leather jacket. I can’t believe I’ve still never even owned a leather jacket - I’ve done this and wore it frankly too much. Kinda cringe.

- Worked as a professional software developer - Yep! Worked as a software developer for a retail company for a couple years. I’m actually not working as a software developer right now, though; I’m working in a sort of adjacent position. More on this later.

- Participated in research related to my field - That’s pretty ambitious. Not sure I’ll ever do this, unfortunately. But we’ll see.

- Been to a film festival - Oh shit, I totally forgot about having written this. That’s a cool idea. I should do this, it’s not like it’s hard (well, at least in principle. I guess covid kind of changes the situation).

- Gotten a dog - Courage is one of those, I think, although he might also be part rat.

- collected 50 records - Lol, my dumb ass really thought I was going to buy $1,000 worth of records on college money. No, I haven’t done this, but I’m on my way there.

- Purchased a desktop computer - Well, my dad gave me his old desktop. That’s not really a purchase but I think it counts.

5 years:

- Begun accepting freelance development gigs - haven’t gotten here yet and I’m not totally sure this is a direction I want to go in my career. Freelancing has its own stressors as I’ve come to learn from others. No career path is sunshine and roses and I’m trying to internalize this fact.

- Participated in a student film - Nope. I don’t even know why I wrote this down to be honest.

- Gotten laid by solving a 5x5 Rubik’s Cube in front of a girl because surely that’s gonna have to work on someone eventually, otherwise I wasted a lot of time - These are getting weird. Surely I didn’t really expect this to happen, right? Well, either way I now have a long-term girlfriend, so I don’t - wait, Meesh has seen me solve a Rubik’s cube and she saw it before we started dating. So actually I’m going to give myself credit for it. I’m the one who makes the rules here.

- Fleshed out my political opinions - Yes, I now know everything about politics and can answer 100% of questions on political issues. Just kidding. But I know where I stand.

- Participated in a protest or some other kind of political event - Done! Went to a few protests as part of the ISO, participated in lots of their events, and attended some protests with friends as well.

- Studied abroad - Nope :-/

- Learned a language other than Spanish - I took a semester of French! But I don’t quite want to give myself credit for this one because I really would like to learn a different language to something resembling fluency.

- Run a marathon - Lmao. I am in much worse shape now than I was when I wrote this post, and even at that time I could probably do like 7 miles if I really pushed myself. How sad.

- Gone hiking outside of texas - This is weird because I’d literally already done this when I wrote this post. But I’ve done it more since then, so hey!

- Been out of the country with a friend - This I had also already done. I guess the point is to have done it without “adult supervision” or whatever. I haven’t done this since writing this list so I guess I have to leave it uncrossed.

10 years:

- Lived with a girl for an extended period of time - Meesh 🥰

- Spent at least 6 months living on the road in an RV, preferably with a dog and a girl - God, I am so close to being able to do this. I don’t want it to be an RV anymore - those things are expensive. But a van? Still pricey, but doable, especially if I’m willing to sacrifice some comfort. This has actually been front-of-mind for a while. I’ll let you know when I get the balls to pull the trigger.

- Started making Real Money - Well, yep, I have gotten to that point. I do have other thoughts on this, though. Money is weird, man.

- Lived in a long-term living space outside of Texas (i.e. not including RV time) - How long is long-term? Three months? If so, I’ve done this by living in Boston with Meesh for a few months after she went there for law school. However, I anticipate staying there much longer in the near future, so I’ll wait on this crossing this one off.

- Written a book about something, idk - Not yet. I’m halfway to the deadline on this one and I have some ideas, but ideas aren’t worth all that much, especially to me, who rarely sees them through. We’ll see where this goes. It’s not exactly a priority and historically I struggle to get even my priorities done. It might make more sense to replace this with recording a concept or narrative album, for which I also have ideas that I happen to take more seriously.

- Learned to solve a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Gotten laid by solving a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Lived in an apartment where I pay all the rent - Yes! :-))) We love independence

- Earned an advanced degree (this one’s iffy) - This hasn’t happened, and whether it will ever happen is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. I sort of decided half-way through college that I would be totally burned out on school by the time I graduated. But in retrospect it takes way less time to burn out on work than it does to burn out on school, and grad degrees are a different kind of thing. So it’s worth revisiting.’

- Given a best man speech (Sam, this means you have to get married within the next 10 years. Good luck out there.) - Holy shit, Sam, you maniac, you actually did it! Sam got married back in 2019 and I gave his best man speech! It’s another one of my favorite memories :-)

- Gone on a cruise with someone I’m dating - Hmm, not yet. I’ve gone on cool trips, but none on a boat. Maybe that’s something to aim for after the pandemic passes :-)

Retrospective:

1yr: Completed: 5/9

More than half isn’t bad! I’m not gonna worry too much about whether I got these things done within their assigned “time-frame”. I’m a procrastinator in my heart and I don’t see any reason to put that kind of pressure on myself. The point is, they got done. That’s enough for me.

The things I did best in in this category were academic things, and things to do with relationships. I’m proud of the academic achievements, I really feel like doing them has increased my belief in myself and my sense that I’m good at the thing I’ve spent the last four years studying. And of course, I am so happy to be in a loving, fulfilling relationship that brings so many good things into my life. I almost feel like the things I accomplished sort of fell into my lap - of course I’m gonna do programming stuff as a programming student, and getting pets / going on road trips are things I did as a result of my relationship with Meesh. I don’t say that to downplay the accomplishments, but I do think it’s worth noting.

The things I haven’t done are more to do with personal development, which is disappointing. I would like to be able to say, 5 years down the road, that I’ve done the personal development I expected to do in just a single year, but maybe that’s a lot to expect. These are problems I’ve dealt with my whole life. I think what this means is that I can’t expect everything to fall into my lap. Those things are going to take real concerted effort to change. I’m not quite sure how to go about that, though.

2yrs: Completed: 4/6

Two-thirds! Even better!

Lots of these are one-time accomplishments, not so much long-term commitments to personal development. The good news is, I did them, and I think those resulted in some development in their own right :-)

Again, though, the things I didn’t do so well are the things that require long-term, concerted effort. For instance, while I crossed off the one about experimenting with music, it’s really only the initial investment that I’ve really done at this point. It remains to be seen whether I’ll be able to follow through on the commitment to actually experiment and learn.

3yrs: Completed: 4/10

This category also follows the same pattern I’ve noticed with the last two. The other thing I’m noticing is that so, so much of my effort over the past few years has been going towards developing a very particular skill: programming / computer science. Music and art are so important to me, but I’ve done very little real development in those areas. I mean, I’ve done some. But not as much as I would have hoped for half a decade.

5yrs: Completed: 4/10

This is getting a little more fun because less of my goals have to do explicitly with my degree. I’m starting to think beyond college, which is good, because the stage of life I’m in right now requires me to start thinking about the kind of life I want to build now that I’m done with school. Also, I’m at the deadline for this one right now! So this is a particularly interesting category because it really shows where I thought I’d be by this time.

The goals I accomplished in this timeframe are, again, mostly things I’ve done through my relationship, but politics also feature pretty prominently on this part of the list. I spent a lot of time reading and researching political issues during college and really did look for ways to participate. I honestly made politics a pretty big part of my identity over the last 5 years, and I think it will stay that way forever, but I’ve gotten to the point where I think I need to devote less of my mental energy to knowing more. I know what I need to know. It’s time to think about other things.

10yrs: Completed: 4/11 (and counting!)

There’s some career stuff in this section that I’ve been able to do, which is good news. I’ve always been scared about entering the working world. All things told, it’s gone more smoothly than it could have. But I also have lots of lingering doubts about what I want to do in the long term. So one of the most pressing goals I should aim for is to resolve those doubts.

Ultimately, I have a lot of time left, and I’m not even done with this time frame, so I’m not gonna spend much time dissecting the things I haven’t done. What I’ll do instead is say that while I didn’t do everything on this list, I feel proud of the things I have accomplished. I said when I first wrote this list that it’s sometimes hard for me to feel that my life is moving in any particular direction, and I’m still feeling like that five years later, to be honest. But looking back on these things has helped me see that I actually am making progress in my life. Not in all the ways I want to, but that’s OK. There’s still time.

In the next couple days I want to come back to this and reorganize this list into an updated set of goals, for the same time frames. Maybe that will help me think through exactly what it is I want out of the next five-ten years, with the benefit of having analyzed the things that I did and didn’t do well over the previous five.

2 notes · View notes

archaneanscribe · 4 years ago

Text

A Firefly In The Hand

Some pre-canon/pre-relationship Forsython, Forsyth trains at night, remembers a local tradition, and Python reminds him that he'll never be alone.

The moment Forsyth’s plans set into motion was after he heard his parents exchange goodnights the room over. He kept his eyes shut, but began reciting one of the old veteran’s war stories in his head to keep him awake for the next thirty minutes, listening closely for any noises in the house. When the only sounds he could hear was the distant bleating of his neighbor’s goats, he shrugged his blankets off and hopped out of bed.

Moving as quietly as his feet would allow, he made his way over to the window and pulled it open, climbing up and out into the quiet darkness.

Sneaking through the village late at night wasn’t a new activity for him by any means, nor was it for any of the local youth. During the summer, a mass of fireflies would light up the sky every year, and it was regional tradition to catch one in your hands and make a wish that was certain to come true, but the younger children were sent to bed long before they appeared. This, of course, began a long standing and unspoken custom to sneak out after everyone else had gone to bed. Forsyth remembered those evenings fondly, catching one for both him and Python (who couldn’t be bothered to do it himself) and gleefully refusing to share their wishes.

Usually, he would wish to become a knight one day, but there were other, even more secret things he hoped for too.

Tonight, however, he wasn’t off to hunt for fireflies, but train. If Father wouldn’t let him do it during the day, he would just have to do it when he was asleep.

It wasn’t long before he had made his way out to his favorite clearing in the nearby woods. It was a fairly open area surrounded by a ring of tall, hardwood trees, with many bushes scattered around for him to hide his training lances, lantern, and bandages for worse case scenarios (he often had to forcibly enlist Python to help him come up with reasonable excuses for the injuries). He never put his things in the same spot to avoid detection, effort that his best friend told him was unnecessary as no one was even looking for them, but that was Python, who told him any effort was unnecessary.

At the moment, his stash was nestled into a wild blackberry bush which will lay dormant for another month or so, where they had spent many a summer afternoon ruining their dinner. He pulled out the crude wooden lance, which only looked anything at all like a weapon because the blacksmith from the next town over had taken pity on him when he was in the village for a horseshoe delivery and helped him carve it.

That was how most of the adult’s saw his aspirations. Just a child’s fantasy to indulge in, even as he grew into teenhood.

He gripped his lance tighter.

After lighting the lantern with his flint and stone to give the night some small illumination, he took the frustration of never being taken seriously out on the invisible enemies laid out before him, swiping at them in his best mimicry of the forms in his book on combat. His father tried to take it away from him, but his mother had always felt bad and returned to him later on.

More pity.

“Haaaah!” he let out a huff of exertion as he lost his footing, sliding forward an inch further than he had meant to and nearly falling.

“Really? This again?”

As he righted himself, a familiar voice emerged from the darkness, and Python came into the dim lantern light, arms behind his head in judgemental nonchalance, “Yer pop is gonna be mad.”

“I know that. And you should know by now that won’t stop me,” he replied, swinging once more, “I do everything he asks of me all day, so I can do what I want at night.”

Python shrugged, taking a seat against one of the thick tree trunks. it was a common enough occurrence for his friend to join him, as he would often be up anyway, choosing to instead nap throughout the day like a cat. His parents weren’t all too fond of the behavior, but unlike Forsyth’s family, they had long given up on changing him.

“You know I’m all for doing whatever it is ‘ya want,” he said with a dismissive wave, “I just thought you might need the reminder. You actually seem to care when he yells at you.”

Forsyth paused, glaring down at the dirt like it had wronged him, “I don’t care about his opinion so much as it’s suffocating to be there when he’s angry. We just aren’t going to see eye to eye, which I’m fine with, but he refuses to accept it.”

A jab, and a snicker from Python.

“Are you picturing an enemy soldier, or your old man?”

“Both.”

They shared a laugh at that. Despite their differences, and how often they would get on each other’s nerves, if there was one thing he could never be in Python’s presence, it was dour.

“Any success with hunting lately? he asked conversationally as he resumed, now focusing more on his footwork than his lancework. It may have been hard to believe, but out of all the teenagers and the village, Python easily had the best bow arm, and thus the hunters always forced him to tag along. Forsyth suspected the only reason he gave in is because hunting had significant down time compared to carpentry.

"I guess. Been seeing a lot of wild boar lately, but I don't think I'll tag along for that. A lot of work I'm not willing to put in."

Forsyth scoffed, "Two boar could feed the village for a week and a half! If you helped, it would save you a lot of work in the long run."

Python hummed in consideration, snuggling into his relaxed position even more like he was barely listening, but Forsyth knew he was actually thinking hard on his words. One of the few things he would put effort into was the saving of effort, after all.

"We'll see. It's a problem for tomorrow."

"If you," step, jab, "Always," step back, block, "Put off," downward swing, "Your problems," upwards swing, "Until 'tomorrow', then you'll never get to enjoy 'tomorrow'."

"Your form was off in the middle there, more shoulder, less arm," Python pointed out, and Forsyth adjusted accordingly, "That might be true, but if yer always doin' everything today, then you can't enjoy the moment. Either way you lose something, and I'd prefer to reap my benefits before I'm old and wizened."

Shaking his head, it was Forsyth’s turn to shrug, "I will never understand you as long as I live."

"Feeling's mutual, pal."

And for the next few minutes, there was silence between them. When they were younger, their time was almost always filled with antics, arguments, and mutually prodding, and there was still plenty of that, but they were now able to enjoy long periods of quiet together.

Of course, nothing lasts forever.

"Python, look!" Forsyth called out, letting his lance arm relax, "Fireflies!"

True to his word, a group of fireflies formed a small bundle of light that was hovering near and on the bushes.

"They're a little early, but it is getting to be that time," Python supplied, getting up and brushing the dirt off his posterior, "Reminds me of when we were kids, staying up too late to see the lightning bugs."

"You're right..." he put his training lance aside, Forsyth reached out to trap two in his hands, a much easier task as a sixteen year old than a nine year old.

Python walked over to him, smiling in a soft way Forsyth thought might exclusively be for him, but didn't dare be so bold as to be sure of that, "Caught one for me too, just to finish the trip down memory lane?"

"Maybe I just want two wishes for myself."

"Ha!" Python gave him a friendly jab in the ribs, "You'd never be that selfish, it'd give you a stomach ache. Though your lofty dreams need as many wishes as they can get."

Forsyth’s heart fell. He often forgot that even his best and longest friend also saw his dreams as silly.

He did his best to sound chipper, "I think I'll just let them go this time. No need to rely on some bugs when I've got hard work!"

As he opened his hands to release them, he felt something, or rather someone, force them shut, "Hey now, what's all this about? That ain't like you."

"It's nothing."

"Don't give me that. Nothin, is ever just nothin' with you."

"You're being awfully pushy about this. Why do you even care?"

Even in the low lighting, Forsyth could see a unique flavor or anger flare in Python's eyes at that, making a feeling bubble in his gut he couldn't name. The look was gone as soon as he saw it, but it wasn't something he would soon forget.

"Dealing with you normally is already more work than I feel like doin', and it's double that when you're mopey. Better put the work in now than be forced to deal with it later, right?"

That's what Forsyth always said to him.

"It's- No one takes me seriously. Not my parents, not anyone else in the village, not even you. I won't give up no matter what anyone thinks of me, but I would rather not be dismissed anytime I open my mouth. My dreams aren't just some joke!"

"Forsyth," Python tightened his grip on his friend's hand, making Forsyth worry he was killing the poor torchbugs, "Listen. I do think what you're tryin' to do is impossible. But I know you're serious about it. I take everything you do seriously, even if they're wastes of time. Have I ever tried stopping you?"

"...no."

"And have I been there for all the nonsense?"

"...yes."

"Am I here, keepin' you company because I know that you get unto yer own head on nights like these, when I could be in my comfy bed back home?"

"Yes."

Python released him, so he could in turn release the fireflies, thankfully alive, though likely quite annoyed, "Then that's that. I would love it if you learned to settle for a little less, but I'm never gonna get in the way of your big dreams. Yer gonna need someone with a good head on their shoulders to keep your big old noggin' from floating away anyhow."

"Python..." Forsyth grinned, much more like his normal self, "I'm sorry for doubting you. Lazy layabout you might be, bad friend you are not."

"Glad to see your common sense came back. While we're here," he smiled mischievously, "Why don't you tell me what you wished for?"

"It won't come true if I do!"

And like that, they argued amicably until their exhaustion finally caught up to them (and Forsyth’s father was an early riser, so he had to return soon), and they walked back to the village together.

Forsyth hadn't come out here to find fireflies, but he had, and even better, rediscovered that no matter what he might feel in the moment, he'll never be truly alone.•

#2k #2k words #well its 1.8k lol #forsython #forsyth fire emblem #python fire emblem #forsyth sov #python sov #sov #fire emblen #fanfic #fanfiction #writer on tumblr #suu's scribbles

5 notes · View notes