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clarktooncrossing · 4 months ago

Text

DIDN'T WANNA FEEL OLD IN 2025? SUCKS TO BE YOU!

HEY THERE PEOPLE OF TODAY AND ROBOTS OF TOMORROW! IT'S ME, CLARK!

Y'know what's funny? All last year peeps kept liking my 'Didn't Wanna Feel Old' journal from 2023. One commenter said I should make a new one for 2024. Jee, ya' don't say? Guess you missed how that was already a thing. Was nobody interested in seeing what all reached a major milestone back in 2024? Ghostbusters, Ninja Turtles, Transformers, they all celebrated their 40th Anniversary, Lion King had its 30th, a lot of cool stuff got that much older. Shame nobody seemed to notice. Ah well, maybe 2025 will be better. Especially when a certain someone is celebrating his own major milestone this year. When, exactly? Read to find out!

Key

Movie

Television

Music

Video Game

Theme Park ride

Comics

Date of Debut

Anything from 1975 turns 50 this year, including...

"Low Rider" by War

Space Mountain (Magic Kingdom) - January 15th

The Jeffersons - January 18th

"Shining Star" by Earth, Wind, & Fire - January 21st

Barney Miller - January 23rd

"Mamma Mia" by ABBA - March 12th

Terror of Mechagodzilla - March 15th

"Sister Golden Hair" by America - March 19th

Disney Springs - March 22nd

Monty Python and the Holy Grail - April 3rd

Microsoft - April 4th

Super Sentai - April 5th

Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic - April 8th

Bronze Tiger (DC Comics) - May

"Rhinestone Cowboy" by Glen Campbell - May 26th

"Fame" by David Bowie - June 2nd

Chicago - June 3rd

"One of Those Nights" by Eagles - June 10th

"That's the Way (I Like It)" by KC and the Sunshine Band - June 10th

"Why Can't We Be Friends?" by War - June 16th

Jaws - June 20th

The Apple Dumpling Gang - July 1st

Moon Knight (MARVEL) - August

The Rocky Horror Picture Show - August 15th

The Great Grape Ape Show - September 6th

The New Tom & Jerry Show - September 6th

Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here - September 12th

Ben Reily (MARVEL) - October

Saturday Night Live - October 11th

The Wiz - October 21st

"Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen - October 31st

NBC's Wonder Woman - November 7th

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - November 19th

Lady Shiva (DC Comics) - December

Anything from 1980 turns 45 this year, including...

X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga / Emma Frost / Kitty Pryde (MARVEL) - January

Dazzler (MARVEL) - February

Hobgoblin (MARVEL) - March

"Funkytown" by Lipps Inc. - March 11th

Game & Watch - April 28th

Taskmaster (MARVEL) - May

Friday the 13th - May 9th

"It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" by Billy Joel - May 12th

The Empire Strikes Back - May 21st

The Blues Brothers - June 20th

Herbie Goes Bananas - June 27th

Missile Command - July

PAC-MAN - July

Airplane! - July 2nd

Cheech and Chong's Next Movie - July 18th

Caddyshack - July 25th

Xanadu - August 8th

"Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen - August 22nd

The New Teen Titans (DC Comics) - October

The Creature Commandos (DC Comics) - November

The Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo - November 8th

Alligator - November 14th

Flash Gordon - December 5th

Magnum, P.I. - December 11th

Popeye - December 12th

9 to 5 - December 19th

Anything from 1985 turns 40 this year, including...

Ice Climber - January 30th

Brazil - February 20th

"Crazy for You" by Madonna - March 2nd

Moonlighting - March 3rd

"We Are the World" by USA for Africa - March 7th

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears - March 15th

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning - March 22nd

The Care Bears Movie - March 29th

Casey Jones (TMNT) - April

Crisis on Infinite Earths (DC Comics) - April

Web of Spider-Man (MARVEL) - April

Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? - April 23rd

Commando - May

Mogo (DC Comics) - May

Rambo: First Blood Part II - May 22nd

John Constantine (DC Comics) - June

Silver Sable (MARVEL) - June

The Goonies - June 7th

"The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News - June 17th

Return to Oz - June 21st

"Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits - June 28th

St. Elmo's Fire - June 28th

Secret Wars II (MARVEL) - July

Back to the Future - July 3rd

Red Sonja - July 3rd

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome - July 10th

Ghosts 'n Goblins - July 17th

Day of the Dead - July 19th

The Black Cauldron - July 24th

National Lampoon's European Vacation - July 26th

R.O.B. - July 26th

Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird - August 2nd

Weird Science - August 2nd

Pee-wee's Big Adventure - August 9th

Teen Wolf - August 23rd

"We Built This City" by Starship - August 26th

The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo - September 7th

Ewoks - September 7th

Star Wars: Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO - September 7th

ThunderCats - September 9th

Super Mario Bros. - September 13th

Adventures of the Gummi Bears - September 14th

Care Bears - September 14th

Golden Girls - September 14th

Little Muppet Monsters - September 14th

The Wuzzles - September 14th

Spider-Man: The Death of Jean DeWolff (MARVEL) - October

Commando - October 4th

Gauntlet - October 15th

Re-Animator - October 18th

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge - November 1st

Rocky IV - November 27th

Santa Claus: The Movie - November 27th

Young Sherlock Holmes - December 4th

The Color Purple - December 18th

Anything from 1990 turns 35 this year, including...

Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III - January 12th

The Hunt for Red October - March 2nd

"Vogue" by Madonna - March 20th

Pretty Woman - March 23rd

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (film) - March 30th

Snake's Revenge: Metal Gear 2 - April

Ernest Goes to Jail - April 6th

Twin Peaks - April 8th

In Living Color - April 15th

Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light - April 20th

Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue - April 21st

Barney & the Backyard Gang: Waiting for Santa - April 30th

The Muppets at Walt Disney World - May 6th

Back to the Future Part III - May 25th

The Witches - May 25th

Barney & the Backyard Gang: Campfire Sing-Along - May 30th

Total Recall - June 1st

Universal Orlando - June 7th

Dick Tracy / Rollercoaster Rabbit - June 15th

RoboCop 2 - June 22nd

Gremlins 2: The New Batch - June 15th

Gambit (MARVEL) - July

Die Hard 2 - July 4th

Jetsons: The Movie - July 6th

Ghost - July 13th

Arachnophobia - July 18th

"Blaze of Glory" by Jon Bon Jovi - July 21st

Dr. Mario - July 27th

Pit-Fighter - August

DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp - August 3rd

Barney & the Backyard Gang: Barney Goes to School - August 15th

Darkman - August 24th

Jim Henson's Mother Goose Stories - August 25th

The New Adventures of He-Man - September 1st

TaleSpin - September 7th

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (TV show) - September 8th

Tom & Jerry Kids - September 8th

The Disney Afternoon - September 10th

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - September 10th

"Thunderstruck" by AC/DC - September 10th

Law & Order - September 13th

Captain Planet and the Planeteers - September 15th

Goodfellas - September 19th

Wing Commander - September 26th

Mega Man 3 - September 28th

The Secret of Monkey Island - October

Beverly Hills, 90210 - October 4th

Sega Game Gear - October 6th

Troll 2 - October 12th

Night of the Living Dead - October 19th

"Freedom! '90" by George Michael - October 30th

Child's Play 2 - November 9th

Home Alone - November 16th

The Rescuers Down Under / The Prince & the Pauper - November 16th

Rocky V - November 16th

"Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" by C+C Music Factory - November 18th

It - November 18th

The Nutcracker Prince - November 21st

Predator 2 - November 21st

Super Mario World - November 21st

Edward Scissorhands - December 7th

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: Movie Set Adventure (Disney's Hollywood Studios) - December 17th

Kindergarten Cop - December 21st

The Godfather Part III - December 25th

Anything from 1995 turns 30 this year, including...

X-Men: Age of Apocalypse (MARVEL)

Tales from the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight - January 12th

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys - January 16th

Star Trek: Voyager - January 16th

Circle of Life: An Environmental Fable (EPCOT) - January 21st

The O.J. Simpson Trial - January 24th

"This Is How We Do It" by Montell Jordan - February 6th

The Brady Bunch Movie - February 17th

blink182's Cheshire Cat - February 17th

What a Cartoon! - February 20th

Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye (Disneyland) - March 4th

Star Wars: Dark Forces - March 8th

Chrono Trigger - March 11th

Discworld - March 17th

Major Payne - March 24th

Mega Man 7 - March 24th

Tommy Boy - March 31st

Mortal Kombat 3 - April

Disney's Blizzard Beach - April 1st

Bad Boys - April 7th

A Goofy Movie - April 7th

The Pebble and the Penguin - April 12th

Super Bomberman 3 - April 28th

"Mr. Boombastic" by Shaggy - May

Die Hard with a Vengeance - May 19th

Braveheart - May 24th

Tales from the Hood - May 24th

Casper - May 26th

Congo - June 9th

Batman Forever - June 16th

Pocahontas (nobody's favorite Disney movie) - June 23rd

Apollo 13 - June 30th

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie - June 30th

Comix Zone - July

A Day in the Park with Barney (Universal Orlando) - July 11th

The Indian in the Cupboard - July 14th

Castlevania: Dracula X - July 21st

Waterworld - July 28th

Tekken 2 - August

"Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio - August 1st

Babe - August 4th

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island - August 5th

"You Are Not Alone" by Michael Jackson - August 15th

Mortal Kombat (film) - August 18th

Phantasmagoria - August 24th

Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest - September

Rayman - September 1st

Xena: Warrior Princess - September 4th

The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa - September 8th

Earthworm Jim (TV series) - September 9th

Freakazoid! - September 9th

Pinky and the Brain - September 9th

The Mark Walberg Show - September 11th

The Drew Carey Show - September 13th

Seven - September 22nd

Showgirls - September 22nd

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers - September 29th

Little Bear - October 7th

Street Fighter: The Animated Series - October 21st

Goosebumps (TV series) - October 27th

Leaving Las Vegas - October 27th

Dumb and Dumber: The Animated Series - October 28th

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream - October 31st

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls - November 10th

Twisted Metal - November 10th

Me - November 13th

GoldenEye - November 17th

Worms - November 17th

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest - November 21st

Toy Story - November 22nd

Mega Man X3 - December 1st

Warcraft II - December 5th

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective - The Animated Series - December 13th

Jumanji - December 15th

Dracula: Dead and Loving It - December 22nd

Final Fight 3 - December 22nd

Tom & Huck - December 22nd

Anything from 2000 turns 25 this year, including...

Malcolm in the Middle - January 9th

"Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down - January 18th

Jack of All Trades - January 22nd

Scream 3 - February 4th

The Sims - February 4th

The Tigger Movie - February 11th

Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue - February 12th

Reindeer Games - February 25th

Disney's The Weekenders - February 26th

An Extremely Goofy Movie - February 29th

PlayStation 2 - March 4th

Whispers: An Elephant's Tale - March 10th

Final Destination - March 17th

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes - March 23rd

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards - March 24th

Leprechaun in the Hood - March 28th

The Road to El Dorado - March 31st

Between the Lions - April 3rd

American Psycho - April 14th

"With Arms Wide Open" by Creed - April 18th

Mega Man Legends 2 - April 20th

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - April 27th

The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas - April 28th

Excitebike 64 - May 2nd

Gladiator - May 5th

Battlefield Earth - May 12th

"It's Gonna Be Me" by N*SYNC - May 16th

DINOSAUR - May 19th

Perfect Dark - May 22nd

Shanghai Noon - May 26th

Clerks: The Animated Series - May 31st

Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption - June 7th

Gone in 60 Seconds - June 9th

Titan A.E. - June 16th

Even Stevens - June 17th

Chicken Run - June 23rd

Deus Ex - June 23rd

Me, Myself & Irene - June 23rd

Diablo II - June 28th

Mortal Kombat: Special Forces - June 29th

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle - June 30th

Final Fantasy IX - July 7th

Scary Movie - July 7th

X-Men - July 14th

Thomas and the Magic Railroad - July 14th

Mario Tennis - July 21st

Nutty Professor II: The Klumps - July 28th

Paper Mario - August 11th

Dora the Explorer - August 14th

Come on Over to Barney's House - August 15th

Maggie and the Ferocious Beast - August 26th

Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman - August 29th

Spider-Man - August 30th

Clifford the Big Red Dog (TV series) - September 4th

Pooh's Hunny Hunt (Tokyo Disneyland) - September 5th

Jackie Chan Adventures - September 9th

Teacher's Pet - September 9th

MTV Cribs - September 12th

O Brother, Where Art Thou? - September 15th

The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea (yuk) - September 19th

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 - September 19th

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn - September 21st

Remember the Titans - September 29th

Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers - October

Jackass - October 1st

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command - October 2nd

Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders - October 3rd

Meet the Parents - October 6th

Spyro: Year of the Dragon - October 10th

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 - October 27th

Charlie's Angels - November 3rd

X-Men: Evolution - November 4th

Half-Life: Counter-Strike - November 9th

The Grinch - November 10th

Little Nicky - November 10th

Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas - November 17th

Rugrats in Paris: The Movie - November 17th

Tomb Raider: Chronicles - November 17th

Hitman: Codename 47 - November 19th

Banjo-Tooie - November 20th

102 Dalmatians - November 22nd

Unbreakable - November 22nd

Grinchmas at Universal Orlando - December

Evil Dead: Hail to the King - December 5th

Dungeons & Dragons (film) - December 8th

Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker - December 12th

Dude, Where's My Car? - December 15th

The Emperor's New Groove - December 15th

Cast Away - December 22nd

Be My Valentine Love, Barney - December 26th

Aqua Teen Hunger Force - December 30th

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law - December 30th

Anything from 2005 turns 20 this year, including...

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - January 3rd

Zoey 101 - January 9th

Resident Evil 4 - January 11th

Elektra - January 14th

Racing Stripes - January 14th

American Dragon: Jake Long - January 21st

Are We There Yet? - January 21st

Playboy: The Mansion - January 25th

Power Rangers S.P.D. - February 5th

Aloha, Scooby-Doo! - February 8th

Pooh's Heffalump Movie - February 11th

YouTube - February 14th

Constantine - February 18th

Son of the Mask - February 18th

Robot Chicken - February 20th

Avatar: The Last Airbender - February 21st

Star Wars: Republic Commando - March 1st

Robots - March 11th

"We Belong Together" by Mariah Carey - March 15th

The Suite Life of Zack & Cody - March 18th

God of War - March 22nd

"Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani - March 22nd

The Office (US version) - March 24th

Krypto the Superdog - March 25th

Doctor Who, Revival Era - March 26th

Grey's Anatomy - March 27th

"Beverly Hills" by Weezer - March 28th

Lego Star Wars: The Video Game - March 29th

Sin City - April 1st

Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama - April 8th

Deadliest Catch - April 12th

Popeye: Rush for Spinach - April 19th

Psychonauts - April 19th

The Muppets Wizard of Oz - April 27th

Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith - May 19th

Madagascar - May 27th

Hell's Kitchen - May 30th

House of M (MARVEL) - June

Cinderella Man - June 3rd

Mr. & Mrs. Smith - June 10th

The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D - June 10th

Tarzan II - June 14th

Batman Begins - June 15th

The Buzz on Maggie - June 17th

Breakfast with Bear - June 20th

Battlefield 2 - June 21st

Destroy All Humans! - June 21st

Herbie: Fully Loaded - June 22nd

Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds - June 29th

Fantastic Four - July 8th

Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix - July 14th

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - July 15th

So You Think You Can Dance - July 20th

Mario Superstar Baseball - July 21st

Sky High - July 29th

Worms 4: Mayhem - July 29th

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - August 4th

"Photograph" by Nickelback - August 8th

Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch - August 30th

Go, Diego, Go! - September 6th

The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King - September 8th

Hong Kong Disneyland - September 12th

Evil Dead: Regeneration - September 13th

Supernatural - September 13th

Johnny Test - September 17th

Loonatics Unleashed - September 17th

How I Met Your Mother - September 19th

Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks - September 19th

Tak: The Great Juju Challenge - September 19th

"My Humps" by Black Eyed Peas - September 20th

Everybody Hates Chris - September 22nd

Ultimate Spider-Man - September 22nd

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit - October 14th

The Batman vs. Dracula - October 18th

Quake 4 - October 18th

Shadow of the Colossus - October 18th

Call of Duty 2 - October 25th

Nicktoons Unite! - October 26th

The Legend of Zorro - October 28th

Star Wars: Battlefront II - October 28th

Saw II - October 28th

Shamu's Deep Sea Adventures - November 1st

Chicken Little - November 4th

Guitar Hero - November 8th

Zathura: A Space Adventure - November 11th

Shadow the Hedgehog - November 15th

Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie - November 17th

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - November 18th

Super Mario Strikers - November 18th

Rent - November 23rd

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - December 8th

Brokeback Mountain - December 9th

The Phantom of the Opera - December 10th

Kronk's New Groove - December 13th

Peter Jackson's King Kong (aka the best version) - December 13th

The Producers - December 16th

Kingdom Hearts II - December 22nd

Ben 10 - December 27th

Mulan II - December 28th

Smash Mouth's The Gift of Rock

Anything from 2010 turns 15 this year, including...

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep - January 9th

Mass Effect 2 - January 26th

Star Trek Online - February 2nd

Dante's Inferno - February 4th

BioShock 2 - February 9th

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief - February 12th

The Wolfman - February 12th

Aliens vs. Predator - February 16th

Heavy Rain - February 18th

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing - February 23rd

Mega Man 10 - March 10th

Alice in Wonderland - March 5th

Pink Panther and Pals - March 7th

God of War III - March 16th

Diary of a Wimpy Kid - March 19th

Just Cause 2 - March 23rd

Hot Tub Time Machine - March 26th

How to Train Your Dragon - March 26th

Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse - April 2nd

Adventure Time - April 5th

Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated - April 5th

"Teach Me How to Dougie" by Cali Swag District - April 12th

Fruit Ninja - April 21st

Generator Rex - April 23rd

A Nightmare on Elm Street - April 30th

Kick-Ass - March 26th

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands - May

"I Like It" by Enrique Iglesias - May 3rd

"California Gurls" by Katy Perry (and Snoop Dogg) - May 7th

Iron Man 2 - May 7th

Red Dead Redemption - May 18th

Shrek Forever After - May 21st

Super Mario Galaxy 2 - May 23rd

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - May 28th

"Dynamite" by Taio Cruz - May 30th

Marmaduke - June 4th

The A-Team - June 11th

The Karate Kid - June 11th

World of Color (Disney's California Adventure) - June 11th

Toy Story 3: The Video Game - June 15th

Inception - June 16th

Jonah Hex - June 18th

Toy Story 3 - June 18th

Transformers: War for Cybertron - June 22nd

Grown Ups - June 25th

Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4 - June 25th

The Last Airbender (ew) - July 1st

Despicable Me - July 9th

Predators - July 9th

The Sorcerer's Apprentice - July 14th

"Just the Way You Are" by Bruno Mars - July 20th

Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry - July 23rd

Limbo - July 21st

MasterChef - July 27th

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty - July 27th

Phineas and Ferb Summer Belongs to You - August 2nd

The Expendables - August 13th

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - August 13th

Metroid: Other M - August 31st

MAD (TV series) - September 6th

Regular Show - September 6th

The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! - September 6th

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions - September 7th

Amnesia: The Dark Descent - September 8th

Halo: Reach - September 14th

Alpha and Omega - September 17th

Easy A - September 17th

FЯED: THE MOVIE - September 18th

Pokémon Black and White - September 18th

The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes - September 22nd

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole - September 24th

The Social Network - October 1st

Shantae: Risky's Revenge - October 4th

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic - October 10th

Just Dance 2 - October 12th

Fallout: New Vegas - October 19th

"Firework" by Katy Perry - October 26th

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II - October 26th

Megamind - November 5th

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood - November 16th

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX - November 17th

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 - November 19th

Donkey Kong Country Returns - November 21st

The Nutcracker: The Untold Story - November 24th

Tangled - November 24th

Epic Mickey - November 25th

Tron: Evolution - November 25th

Transformers: Prime - November 29th

Black Swan - December 3rd

Doritos Crash Course - December 8th

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - December 9th

Tron: Legacy - December 17th

Yogi Bear - December 17th

Anything from 2015 turns 10 this year, including...

Strange Magic - January 23rd

Grim Fandango: Remastered - January 27th

Life is Strange - January 20th

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water - February 6th

The Lego Movie Videogame - February 7th

Evolve - February 10th

Fifty Shades of Grey - February 13th

The Order: 1886 - February 20th

Five Nights at Freddy's 3 - March 2nd

Helldivers - March 3rd

Critical Role - March 12th

Mario Party 10 - March 12th

Cinderella / Frozen Fever - March 13th

Transformers: Robots in Disguise - March 14th

The Late Late Show with James Corden - March 23rd

Bloodborne - March 24th

Star vs. the Forces of Evil - March 30th

Archie vs. Predator - April

I Am Bread - April 9th

Marvel's Daredevil - April 10th

Mortal Kombat X - April 14th

Monkey Kingdom - April 17th

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 - April 17th

Secret Wars (MARVEL) - May

Avengers: Age of Ultron - May 1st

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood - May 5th

Mad Max: Fury Road - May 14th

Pitch Perfect 2 - May 15th

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - May 19th

Tomorrowland - May 22nd

Splatoon - May 28th

Jurassic World - June 12th

Lego Jurassic World - June 12th

Inside Out - June 19th

Batman: Arkham Knight - June 23rd

Terminator Genisys - July 1st

Magic Mike XXL - July 1st

Minions - July 10th

Ant-Man - July 17th

Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! - Jully 22nd

Five Nights at Freddy's 4 - July 23rd

Pixels - July 24th

Angry Birds 2 - July 30th

Descendants - July 31st

"Hotline Bling" by Drake - July 31st

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation - July 31st

Fant4stic - August 4th

Fear the Walking Dead - August 23rd

Until Dawn - August 25th

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert - September 8th

Super Mario Maker - September 10th

Undertale - September 15th

My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games - September 17th

Skylanders: SuperChargers - September 20th

The Muppets - September 22nd

Lego Dimensions - September 27th

Hotel Transylvania 2 - September 25th

The Martian - September 30th

Be Cool, Scooby-Doo! - October 5th

Goosebumps - October 16th

Assassin's Creed Syndicate - October 23rd

Jem and the Holograms - October 23rd

Spectre - October 26th

Supergirl - October 26th

Halo 5: Guardians - October 27th

Ash vs Evil Dead - October 31st

The Peanuts Movie - November 6th

Fallout 4 - November 10th

Marvel's Jessica Jones - November 20th

The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar - November 22nd

The Good Dinosaur - November 25th

Krampus - December 4th

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip - December 18th

Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens - December 18th

The Hateful Eight - December 25th

Other Interesting Milestones

The Band Concert, the Mickey Mouse cartoon that inspired me to become a cartoonist, turns 80 on February 23rd

Pinocchio and Fantasia turn 85 on November 13th

Disneyland Resort turns 70 on July 17th

Popeye, Tintin, several more Mickey Mouse shorts, and the song "Singing in the Rain" falls into the Public Domain

Did seeing anything on this list make you feel old? Was there something I forgot to mention? Feel free to let me know in the comments. And what are your resolutions for 2025? Here are mine:

Finish what I start.

Beat Epic Mickey at long last!

Draw 2-3 DUDELZ of the Damned every month.

Post something new (mostly) everyday.

Bring back the 12 Days of Clarktoons this December.

Make money off my artwork somehow.

Get in shape and cut back on the soda.

Run a Dungeons and Dragons campaign based on Wizard of Oz!

Have an awesome year before turning 30!

MAY THE GLASSES BE WITH YOU!

12 notes · View notes

giftofgabber · 3 months ago

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we should distill python to get venom and do animal crossing trades for antivenoms

#trades #venom #python

9 notes · View notes

saritawolff · 1 year ago

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I was wondering, arguably how close are we to domesticating animals like ball pythons, leopard geckos, etc. I can't find any good info on it, but maybe I'm not searching well. I was just curious because we definitely seem to be on the course of domesticating them and they are selectively bred including for specific appearances. I was also curious if the amount and ease of reproducing these animals will make the domestication process faster vs the long time it took for other animals.

This is a matter of contention and I don’t think we can really know without doing extensive genetic studies on pet reptile populations vs wild ones. Breeding animals for special morphs and colors does not a domestic animal make, and for them to be fully domesticated they would have to not only be genetically different from wild reptiles, but also much tamer right out of the egg and dependent on humans for survival. (Now, personally, I don’t think my Idiot of a Sand Boa [/affectionate] could survive a week in the wild, but that’s just him.) And while a lot of reptiles are being bred en masse which allows for shorter generation times, they’re mostly being bred for looks and not so much for friendliness, calmness, and a willingness to seek humans out. If not selecting for those traits, it’s gonna take a lot longer to domesticate them.

That being said, while some of the animals listed were mostly bred for show, most domestic animals are bred with a specific purpose in mind. There’s not much purpose to a domesticated lizard, snake, or turtle other than having a cool pet.

#personally I don’t think ball pythons SHOULD be in the pet trade #they are so finicky and anxious #but I know I’m in the minority on that one #still they are being massively overbred for looks and not health and temperament

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bigulalgotrading · 3 months ago

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DeepSeek AI vs Algo Trading: Automate Your Stock Trading Strategies

DeepSeek AI is a low cost Artificial intelligence chatbot Integrating DeepSeek AI with Algo Trading can improve the decision making process in stock market.

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tecnicasdetrading · 1 year ago

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Cálculo de MACD con Python

En este artículo explicamos como podemos calcular el oscilador MACD mediante el lenguaje de programación Python. También explicamos como podemos trazarlo en un gráfico de precios junto con el precio.

#sistemas de trading #Forex #forextrading #python

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patrickbatoon · 1 year ago

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Building a statistically significant backtester

In discussions and study with popular trend following blogs, books, and videos I've always wondered why I struggled with profitability in my trades. This was really driving me crazy until I built by-hand my own even-driven backtester to help me prove to myself that this was not worth my time.

The backtester enters and exists trades based on a set of conditions on all the stocks within the S&P500. Using this approach, its roughly 2000 trades within a year!

For a more realistic simulation of what a swing trader would do, I've also included a snippet of code to randomly sample 30 trades from that population, 10000 times. Not only would give me a sense of the "true" average expectancy/profitability values, this helps build statistics to build a nice confidence interval to establish statistical significance.

My losing strategy is defined below:

January 21, 2023 - 2024

New highs after 20 days

Price > 20 EMA, 20 EMA > 50 EMA, and Price > 200 EMA

Relative Strength Index (RSI) > 60

Average Directional Index > 20

Based on the results, the average profit over the year is $5 based on $1000 capital at risk! Not only that, but the result is not statistically significant from Zero, so there is a high enough chance my yearly P&L would be negative.

The crazy thing is that if I made a simple tweak, my mean P&L would be $30 and statistically significant to be profitable. However, $30 over the course of the year is likely less than the commissions paid!

Price < EMA200

All other conditions the same

#statistics #finance #stocks #investing #swing trading #python #backtesting

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artbyblastweave · 3 months ago

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One Monty Python Bit I think about a lot is the documentary on the village idiot, where being a village idiot is treated as a super professionalized guild-trade, and it's mining the typical humor out of that dissonance, and then just very briefly as an aside one of the idiots being interviewed mentions that the main pro-social reason for the position is that it gives everyone else in the community someone to gang up on and feel superior to, and. Well. Hmm.

#thoughts #meta

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mistycreativelilacs · 8 months ago

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Can you please write a Bruce Wayne imagine where he catches her singing or something cute like that?

Welp… it only took me -checks watch- three years to respond to this, but uh… here’s a 5000 word drabble I guess.

Kitchen Off Limits

About a year into living at Wayne manor you enacted an (ever growing) list of rules. Originally the list only had three rules on it:

1. Sunday is family day. Baring any Gotham destroying/world ending catastrophes everyone is to be in the dinning room no later than 11am for brunch followed by a previously voted on family activity.

2. Family Activity planning occurs on the first Saturday of the month, activities for the whole month will be decided then.*

*Attendance is NOT mandatory, however those who do not participate do not get to complain when we spend 3 Sundays in a row at the zoo.**

**No liberating animals from the zoo.

3. Monday thru Saturday the kitchen belongs to Alfred. Sunday morning’s the kitchen belongs to Mom*.

*That means no one, not even Alfred can enter the kitchen until AFTER brunch**.

**Yes Tim that includes you. You can wait for your morning cup of coffee***.

***ABSOLUTELY NO coffee pots, mini fridges, microwaves, blenders, hot plates, or dry food storage in your bedrooms or you WILL be personally hunting down every rodent and bug that comes crawling into the manor****.

****You can NOT train an army of cats to hunt vermin as a trade off for a mini fridge.

Certain amendments had to be made to the list with each new addition to the household. The final amendment to rule three inspired the creation of its own rule.

243. If you bring a pet into the house, YOU must personally care for it at all times. This includes feeding, grooming, walking, training and cleaning up after them as well as insure they have a proper habitat to live in*.

*Your bedroom is only a proper habitat for regular domestic animals (ie. dogs, cats, fish, small reptiles, small birds, caged rodents such as rats, Guinea pigs or hamsters and snakes, within reason - no large pythons). Large animals whether native to our region or exotic must be housed in a properly built enclosure on the grounds.

Needles to say the Wayne children kept you on your toes. Which brings us to now.

You awoke at the crack of dawn this morning to prep for the day. In a not so shocking twist, Damien had lied, cheated and outright bribed several of his siblings in order to get a zoo trip in this month. The Waynes were such regulars at the zoo (and contributed so much in donations) that they’d named an entire section after the family. The Wayne Reptile House (filled to the brim with several of the reptiles you’d ‘rescued’ from Damien’s room upon Alfred’s discovery of Damien’s unsanctioned renovation of his closet). It was important to you that the children experienced even just a smidge of normalcy amongst all the vigilantism.

You’re staring into the pantry, debating whether to do pancakes or waffles, when an old favourite song comes on the speaker. This was your favourite part of Sunday’s. Once everyone realized how serious you were about the rules, Sunday morning had become your alone time. If the kids were fighting, they handled it amongst themselves. If someone had a question, they went to Bruce or Alfred for answers. Mom was not to be disturbed.

The word Mom still brings a small smile to your face. You’d never really pictured yourself as a mother but when you’d stumbled your way into a romance with THE Bruce Wayne, he’d already gained 2 of your ever growing hoard of children. You’d stumbled your way into motherhood much the way you stumbled into Bruce’s arms.

You begin to softly hum to the song as you decide to just make pancakes and waffles. With a family full of crime fighters more was always the safer option. No one wants a repeat of Tim and Richard’s destructive fight for the last cinnamon bun. You had to spend a fortune redoing the dinning room after, replacing antiques was not cheap, and your heart still hadn’t recovered from the sticker shock. Needless to say the boys were still working off their debt by assisting Alfred in the daily runnings of the manor. As you got lost in the gargantuan undertaking of cooking for the whole Wayne clan, your gentle hums morphed to soft whispers of lyrics.

Just as you were frying the last batch of pancakes the opening chords of your and Bruce’s song came through the speakers. It would be more accurate to state that you’d unilaterally declared it your and Bruce’s song. During your second year of dating you had slowly begun introducing him to the world of romcoms. One particularly chilly fall day that year saw Bruce catching a cold. You took advantage of that to force him into a binge of some of the best and cringiest of your favourites from the 2000’s. Two particular movies seemed to make the notoriously stoic Bruce Wayne emotional. The obvious one being ‘Two Weeks Notice’, but it was the Hugh Grant, Drew Barrymore semi-musical ‘Music & Lyrics’ that would produce the perfect song for your and Bruce’s life together.

As the sounds of Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore came through the speaker you began to sing in earnest.

‘I've been living with a shadow overhead

I've been sleeping with a cloud above my bed

I've been lonely for so long

Trapped in the past, I just can't seem to move on’

Your mind drifted to how you and Bruce met. Recently heartbroken and determined never to let another man hurt you, you’d sworn of men and decided to dedicate all your attention to advancing at work. Your first steps were taking the assignment no one else wanted to touch with a ten foot pole. Being Bruce Wayne’s personal assistant. Those who succeeded at such a gargantuan undertaken seemed to excel through the ranks at Wayne Enterprises, but those who fell short well, you’d heard his last personal assistant had moved back home to small town Kansas and given up the corporate ladder completely.

Your first week had been a cake walk, seeing as Bruce had been away on business meetings in Europe. It’d given you time to get settled in and a system in place. You were determined to be the best personal assistant he’d ever had.

Upon Bruce’s first day back in the office, you’d mustered up all the courage you had and waltz into his office. With barely a good morning you’d launched into a tirade of how things were going to be and that unlike his past assistants you were going to set boundaries. He’d blinked at you slowly, and you were convinced you were about to be fired. His mouth opened and the word okay seemed to unintentionally fall out. You both stood there a moment, seemingly shell shocked at the interaction, before you gathered your wits. With a pivot of your heels you rushed out your own okay before returning to your desk.

Unbeknownst to you Bruce himself had been going through a touch of heartbreak, having had a fall out with his former paramour Selina. His accounts of your first meeting paint you in a much fiercer, more beautiful light. But you’re sure he’s simply remembering the day with rose tinted glasses seeing as you had a poorly concealed coffee stain on your blouse and your hair had definitely begun its escape from the clip you’d rushed it into on the train that morning. Nevertheless he claims it was your fierce determination that stunned him into submission and not his utter exhaustion from sleep deprivation.

‘I’ve been hiding all my hopes and dreams away

Just in case I ever need ‘em again someday

I’ve been setting aside time

To clear a little space in the corners of my mind’

The weeks following your initial meeting were a full of meetings, calls and insuring your boss took proper care of himself. It took exactly three days for you to realize he’d forget to eat, four to realize he seemed to not be sleeping either.

You quietly placed a standing order with the sandwich place down a couple blocks from the building, and then methodically went through Bruce’s calendar and put a two hour meeting blackout everyday around 2pm. You’d also had the couch that sat on the wall just outside his office doors moved into his office proper. The next day you simply waltzed into his office at noon and dropped the sandwich on his desk before returning to your own desk. Two hours later you waltzed in dropping a pillow and blanket on the couch and closed the blinds without a word. As you turned to leave Bruce questioned what you were doing. You simply informed him that you’d place a permanent daily block on meetings between 2pm-4pm and that his office doors would be locked for that period of time as well.

When asked, Bruce will claim that as the day he fell in love with you.

You continued on that way for months, the world seeming to move in a blur around you. Your friends encouraged you to start dating again, but you just weren’t sure you could ever trust a man again. Besides, work was so exhausting most days that you were certain you’d simply pass out at the restaurant if you did go on a date. What a terrible first impression that would make.

It was a seemingly unremarkable Tuesday morning when the world came screaming into focus again.

‘All I wanna do is find a way back into love

I can’t make it through without a way back into love

Oh’

You’d been tutting about the office while Bruce attended a meeting with Lucius in the lower levels of Wayne Enterprises. You had just started printing off a report for Bruce’s next meeting when your printer ran out of paper. Normally this would be a none issue, except for reasons unknown to you, the night cleaner had developed a habit of putting the box of printer paper on top of the bookcase in the corner. A bookcase that stood nearly three heads taller than you. He’d been doing it for weeks despite your many conversations with him about it. You had tried bringing it up to Bruce, but he just blamed it on the language barrier and claimed it as a non-issue since he could just grab it for you.

It was just your luck that the printer would run out when Bruce was in the midst of a meeting and wouldn’t be back for at least another hour, probably two seeing as his meetings with Lucius always seemed to go over their allotted time slot. You’d been certain the office would have a step ladder hidden around somewhere, but after nearly twenty minutes of searching and being put on hold with maintenance, you’d given up. You could just wait till Bruce returned, but you had only printed half of the first of ten copies of a 40 page report that was required for his next meeting. You’d begun cursing everyone from the night cleaner for his obsession with moving the paper to the head of marketing and research’s assistants for not sending the reports yesterday when you’d requested them. Difficult problems required creative solutions, however the only thing you had that was light enough to drag over to the bookcase while giving you enough height to grab a ream of paper was your office chair. As the head of the companies employee safety committee you knew this was a terrible idea, as Bruce Wayne’s golden assistant the risk of letting your boss down for the first time ever outweighed the risk to your personal safety.

Even with the chair you needed to climb the bookshelf to actually reach the shelf the paper was on. Ream firmly in your grasp you moved to step back into the chair. As your foot touched the chair your hand slipped from the shelf and you felt yourself go backwards. You closed your eyes and braced for impact but it never came. Instead you felt arms wrap around your back and hip, securing you to a firm chest. You opened your eyes coming face to face with Bruce. Had his eyes always been that blue?

“What the hell were you doing.” He was angry, his blue eyes tightening with worry. A warmth flitted through you at the thought that he cared about your safety.

“Grabbing the printer paper.” You gasped out, bending to grab the ream that had fallen to the ground when you’d lost your grip.

“You could have injured yourself if I hadn’t shown up in time.” Bruce was still in your personal space and it was starting to overwhelm you. ‘Had he always been this… large?’ He seemed to tower over you.

“Yes, well I wouldn’t have needed to do all that if the cleaner would stop placing my printer paper up there.” You’d stepped back from Bruce, needing something to keep you from ogling your boss, you began fiddling with the printer.

“You could have waited for me.” He got in your space again, his voice softer now as he took the paper from your shaking hands.

“Do you understand how ridiculous it is to have to wait for the CEO of the company just to load a ream of paper into my printer?” You huffed out, turning back towards him now. The two stood there, chest to chest just staring at each other. You didn’t want to be the one to back down first, but you weren’t sure how much longer you could keep from blushing while staring into to his eyes.

‘What was with you today? You’d never had a problem going toe to toe with Bruce before. Now suddenly your acting like a horny school girl, daydreaming about climbing this man like-

“Fine.” Bruce stalked off to his office, an indiscernible glower on his face, leaving you to ponder what the hell had just happened. And why you seemingly out of nowhere had very inappropriate thoughts about your boss.

That night marked the first of many failed blind dates, agreed to only after having decided that it was your lack of a love life that had you daydreaming about your boss.

The next morning the box of paper was on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.

‘I’ve been watching but the stars refuse to shine

I’ve been searching but I just don’t see the signs

I know that it’s out there

There’s gotta be something for my soul somewhere’

Things between you and Bruce changed after that day. You’d never realized how comfortable you two had become with one another until you suddenly weren’t. You’d taken to communicating with him almost exclusively through emails and his calendar due to how awkward everything had become. He’d try to ask you about your life and you’d just clam up, not wanting to tell the object of your recurring lusty dreams about your string of failed dates. Failed because after less than two minutes you’d start comparing all of them to Bruce. The whole thing was getting so out of hand, you’d started seriously contemplating putting in for a transfer.

You’d been so lost in thought it took Bruce loudly clearing his throat for you to notice him standing in front of your desk.

“Yes, Mr. Wayne?” You’d resolved that complete professionalism was the only sure way to put everything back to normal. Or at least it will hopefully allow you to cling to some semblance of normal until you stop chickening out and put in for reassignment.

“I was wondering,” he seemed nervous, fidgeting with the snow globe I kept on the edge of my desk. “Do you have a date to the Christmas Gala?” Oh. He’s not? Is he? He couldn’t possibly-“I was just thinking if you didn’t have one, we could go together.” He was- “just as friends. We are friends aren’t we?” n’t.

“Yes, Mr. Wayne I suppose I’ve come to regard you as a” the word friend seemed to catch in your throat “friend over these last few months. But, to be quite honest with you, I wasn’t planning on attending the Christmas Gala.”

“You have too. In fact, I’m making it a mandatory requirement of your job that you have to be there. I’ll pick you up at 7pm.” He didn’t even give you time to respond before waltzing back into his office. It took all of 30 seconds for you to follow after him.

“You cannot force me to go to the gala Mr.Wayne.” You’d stopped in front of his desk, arms crossed over your chest.

“Why not?” He leaned back in his chair, smug smile glued to his face.

“Because I’m a human being with free will and, according to the Wayne Enterprises Employee Handbook, attempting to force me to attend would constitute harassment.” The smile slowly dropped from his face as he rose from his chair.

“If you truly don’t want to attend, I won’t push the matter.” He took slow, deliberate steps towards you, halting just far enough to be considered proper, but still close enough for you to catch the scent of his cologne. “However, it’d mean a lot to me if you did attend.” You’d been so distracted by his eyes and the seemingly sincere look on his face that you hadn’t even noticed he’d reached for your hand. You stood there utterly unmoored by the events of the past few minutes. You mentally shook your self out and opened your mouth to once again decline his invitation.

“Okay.” You were stunned with utter disbelief at the disconnect between your brain and your mouth. Bruce smirked.

“Perfect, like I said early I’ll pick you up around 7pm. If we’re going together, I really should match my tie to your dress. What colour is it going to be?” He’d started heading back to his desk.

“Mint.” You mumbled out. If you were going to be photographed on Bruce Waynes arm, even as just a friend, there was only one dress in your wardrobe that was even close to passable. Turns out you would get a second wear out of the bridesmaids dress from your sister’s wedding.

‘I’ve been looking for someone to shed some light

Not somebody just to get me through the night

I could use some direction

And I’m open to your suggestions’

The Christmas Gala was a disaster. The gala itself was wonderful, decorated to the nines, wonderful little hors d’oeuvres being passed around on trays that looked suspiciously like real silver. You however were a disaster. After entering the gala on Bruces arm, to the flash of what seemed like a million cameras, you’d been immediately pulled away to solve a crisis for the marketing assistants. The crisis turned out to be nothing more than a minor tear in her dress. One strategically placed safety pin later and you found yourself in the midst of the gala uncertain where Bruce had wandered off too.

“What’s a pretty girl like you doing standing alone?” Oliver Queen. You’d had several run ins with him whilst working for Bruce.

“Oliver, not that it’s any of your business but I’m looking for Bruce.” You didn’t even bother glancing at him, lest you encourage his flirtations. “You haven’t seen him recently, have you?”

“Does Brucie really have you working on Christmas? He truly has no shame. If you were working for me-“ You cut him off before he could descend into what was sure to be a thinly veiled innuendo.

“We’ve talked about this Oliver. I’m not interested in you, professionally or personally.” You levelled your iciest look at him.

“Sheesh, can’t even give a guy a shot in the spirit of Christmas?” You harden your glare. “Fine, fine. I can take a hint sometimes.” He raised his hands in surrender before placing them on your shoulders turning you in a full 180. “Your beloved Brucie is right there, and it seems he’s decided to use the spirit of the season to rekindle an old flame.” You were met with the sight of Bruce and Selina Kyle in an arch way locked in a kiss.

“Oh.” Logically you knew you had no right to be upset. Bruce had made it abundantly clear the two of you were just friends. But if that were true, why did this feel so much worse than any breakup you’d gone through in your near 25 years of life. “Excuse me, I need to- I should check- I…” You left Oliver standing there as you rushed from the ballroom.

‘All I wanna do is find a way back into love

I can’t make it through without a way back into love

And if I open my heart again

I guess I’m hoping you’ll be there for me in the end’

You wrote your two week notice on the train ride back to your apartment. You were sure you looked quite the sight, shivering in your evening dress, makeup running down your face from the tears you couldn’t hold back. It took an hour longer than normal to reach your corner of Gotham, it gave you time to compartmentalize. Due to the Holidays you’d only have to work out one week of your two weeks notice, but that was still one week of having to see the man who had unintentionally shattered your heart. The worst part is you couldn’t even be mad at him. He’d done nothing to lead you on or imply that you were anything more than friends. You’d simply allowed your imagination to get the better of you and now here you were crying because you’d broken your own heart. You were so lost in your own heartbreak you failed to notice the man standing outside your apartment building until you literally walked into him.

“I’m so sor-“ you began to tumble out an apology as you lifted your eyes to the face of the torso you’d just slammed into, only to be met with achingly familiar blue eyes. “Bruce?”

“You left.” He looked upset, almost as if he were the one heartbroken. “You didn’t even say goo- Have you been crying?” His hand lifts to your face, thumb trailing under your eye. You have to repress a shudder at the feeling of his warm hand on your cold cheek. “Was it Queen? Did he say something again? I’ll have him bared from the building.” You step out of Bruce’s embrace.

“No, it wasn’t Oliver Mr.Wayne.” Professionalism, detachment, that was the only way you were going to get through this final encounter with the man you’d come to love. “It was a personal matter and it’s been handled. But since you’re here I might as well do this face to face. I’m resigning from my position as your personal assistant effective immediately. I’ve already emailed HR and-“

“No.”

“No? This isn’t a yes or no, situation Mr. Wayne. I’m not asking your permission, I’m telling you. I quit.” You’re astonished at the level of strength in your own voice.

“No, you don’t. And while we’re at it you’ll stop with this Mr.Wayne nonsense and go back to calling me Bruce.” He’s agitated now, angry at you.

“Mr. Wayne once again it’s not up to you. I’ve already sent my notice to HR, and accepted a new position elsewhere.” A small lie, but a seemingly necessary one seeing how hard of a time Bruce seems to be having with grasping the concept of your departure from his life.

“Then I’ll buy this new company you work for.” He’s invaded your personal bubble once more.

“Mr. Wayne you can’t just buy a corporation to stop me from quitting.”

“Bruce, and yes I can. I’m a billionaire if you’ve forgotten.” You’re nearly chest to chest at this point. “If this personal matter is the reason you’re quitting, then let me help. I’m sure with your brains and my money we can figure out a solut-“

“I’m in love with you, you idiot.” You push at his chest, anger fuelling your every movement now. “I’m in love with you and I didn’t relish the thought of having to sit in that office day after day watching you moon over Seli-“ He’s kissing you. Bruce Wayne is kissing you. Your to stunned to do anything other than let him.

‘There are moments when I don’t know if it’s real

Or if anybody feels the way I feel

I need inspiration

Not just another negotiation’

When he’d finally pulled away, self satisfied look on his face, you began to berate him. It was his turn to be stunned into silence while you cursed him out in the middle of the street (unbeknownst to either of you, one of the teens from your apartment block filmed the whole thing. It went viral by morning and Wayne Enterprises PR team had to work overtime to spin it in the companies favour). It would take the better part of a week for him to convince you that what’d you seen was Selina’s last ditch attempt at winning him back. It’d taken him another two months of failed wooing attempts to finally get you to agree to be his girlfriend.

‘All I wanna do is find a way back into love

I can't make it through without a way back into love

And if I open my heart to you

I'm hoping you'll show me what to do

And if you help me to start again

You know that I'll be there for you in the end’

The song fades out and your left standing in the middle of your kitchen lost in thought when a gentle chuckle penetrates your subconscious. You whirl around to find Bruce leaned against the entryway, smile lighting up his face.

“How long have you been standing there?” You could feel a blush beginning to bloom across your cheeks.

“Does it matter?” He advances on you, wrapping his arms around your waist.

“Yes, I need to gauge how embarrassed I should be.” You sink into his embrace, wrapping your own arms around his neck. He bends down and plants a gentle kiss on your lips.

“What were you thinking so intently about?” He gently sweeps an errant strand of hair behind your ear. It was your turn to plant a distracting kiss on Bruce’s lips, the last thing you needed was to inflate his ego. “Ah, so you were thinking about me.” He smirks when you break for air.

“I was not.” Your blush deepens, as if thinking about your husband was the most scandalous thing in the world.

“Mom’s always thinking about you. It’s kinda gross actually.” Jason sat atop your counter eating a cinnamon bun. “What do you even see in the old man anyway? You’re young, attractive and funny. You could do a lot better than Bruce.”

“Off my counter.” You pulled out of Bruce’s embrace to admonish your son. “And put that down, those are for brunch.” You swat his hand away from the fruit tray. He hops off the counter planting a kiss to your check, as he grabs the fruit tray and starts carrying it to the table in the adjacent dinning room.

“It is brunch though mother.” You startle a bit at the sound of Damians voice coming from beside you, nearly 15 years in and you still got startled by the way they all seemed to move in utter silence popping up from seemingly nowhere. At 5’4” your youngest was nearly eye to eye with you, a few more years and he’d tower over you like his brothers.

“Did you all collectively wake up and decided today was the day to disregard all of mom’s rules?” You move to turn off the speaker, mourning your few hours of peace and beginning to mentally prep for the chaos of having all 7 of the Wayne children in one dinning room. “Tim you better be putting that coffee into a cup.” You had a sixth sense for Tim’s caffeine habit and, unbeknownst to him, had been taking steps to curb it. Your most recent ingenious plan was slowly mixing decaf into the regular coffee. Your current batch of grounds was 60% decaf and only 40% caffeinated.

“Of course mom. I wouldn’t dream of breaking your rules.”

“Bullshit.” You whisper under your breath. “Aren’t you all currently breaking rule number 3?” The boys had the decency to at least feigen sheepishness.

“But it is brunch.” Duke, Stephanie and Cas shuffle into the kitchen together.

“Technically the wording of the rule does state that we’re not supposed to enter the kitchen until after brunch, which is why I entered the dining room through the hallway.” Richard leaned his head through the entryway between the two rooms.

“We get it, your mom’s favourite little suck up.” Jason slaps the back of Richards head on his way back into the kitchen. He loads his arms with various platters from the counter before turning back to his siblings. “Well come on half-wits, if you’re gonna break mom’s rules might as well make ourselves useful.”

“Jason, don’t hit your brother.” Your admonishment is half hearted at best, knowing full well your second eldest was likely to simply pretend to listen, while waiting till you turned your back to strike his older brother once again. “And Richard don’t even think about retaliating while he’s holding those platters.” You lean against the back counter running a hand through your hair, releasing it from its haphazard bun. You watch the other kids with the eyes of a well seasoned mother, fear for your antique dish-ware seizing you. You really should just invest in plastic dish-ware at this point, or perhaps you can commission Lucius to develop a line of indestructible dish-ware. There has to be a market for that, right?

Bruce comes to stand beside you, placing a mug of tea in your hands. You lean your head against his shoulder, a content sigh leaving your lips.

“No regrets?” He asks, as the sound of a squabble erupt from the dinning room.

“Not a one.” You smile. No, you wouldn’t trade this for anything. CRASH Okay, maybe you’d trade out whichever child just broke- CRASH - TWO plates. “Boys what did I just say about fighting with my antiques in your hands!”

#bruce wayne #bruce wayne imagine #bruce wayne reader insert #bruce wayne x reader #batfam #fluff #angst #fanfiction #dc comics #dceu oc #jason todd #dick grayson #damian wayne

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anheliotrope · 7 months ago

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Rambling About C# Being Alright

I think C# is an alright language. This is one of the highest distinctions I can give to a language.

Warning: This post is verbose and rambly and probably only good at telling you why someone might like C# and not much else.

~~~

There's something I hate about every other language. Worst, there's things I hate about other languages that I know will never get better. Even worse, some of those things ALSO feel like unforced errors.

With C# there's a few things I dislike or that are missing. C#'s feature set does not obviously excel at anything, but it avoids making any huge misstep in things I care about. Nothing in C# makes me feel like the language designer has personally harmed me.

C# is a very tolerable language.

C# is multi-paradigm.

C# is the Full Middle Malcomist language.

C# will try to not hurt you.

A good way to describe C# is "what if Java sucked less". This, of course, already sounds unappealing to many, but that's alright. I'm not trying to gas it up too much here.

C# has sins, but let's try to put them into some context here and perhaps the reason why I'm posting will become more obvious:

C# didn't try to avoid generics and then implement them in a way that is very limiting (cough Go).

C# doesn't hamstring your ability to have statement lambdas because the language designer dislikes them and also because the language designer decided to have semantic whitespace making statement lambdas harder to deal with (cough Python).

C# doesn't require you to explicitly wrap value types into reference types so you can put value types into collections (cough Java).

C# doesn't ruin your ability to interact with memory efficiently because it forbids you from creating custom value types, ergo everything goes to the heap (cough cough Java, Minecraft).

C# doesn't have insane implicit type coercions that have become the subject of language design comedy (cough JavaScript).

C# doesn't keep privacy accessors as a suggestion and has the developers pinkie swear about it instead of actually enforcing it (cough cough Python).

Plainly put, a lot of the time I find C# to be alright by process of elimination. I'm not trying to shit on your favorite language. Everyone has different things they find tolerable. I have the Buddha nature so I wish for all things to find their tolerable language.

I do also think that C# is notable for being a mainstream language (aka not Haskell) that has a smaller amount of egregious mistakes, quirks and Faustian bargains.

The Typerrrrr

C# is statically typed, but the typing is largely effortless to navigate unlike something like Rust, and the GC gives a greater degree of safety than something like C++.

Of course, the typing being easy to work it also makes it less safe than Rust. But this is an appropriate trade-off for certain kinds of applications, especially considering that C# is memory safe by virtue of running on a VM. Don't come at me, I'm a Rust respecter!!

You know how some people talk about Python being amazing for prototyping? That's how I feel about C#. No matter how much time I would dedicate to Python, C# would still be a more productive language for me. The type system would genuinely make me faster for the vast majority of cases. Of course Python has gradual typing now, so any comparison gets more difficult when you consider that. But what I'm trying to say is that I never understood the idea that doing away entirely with static typing is good for fast iteration.

Also yes, C# can be used as a repl. Leave me alone with your repls. Also, while the debugger is active you can also evaluate arbitrary code within the current scope.

I think that going full dynamic typing is a mistake in almost every situation. The fact that C# doesn't do that already puts it above other languages for me. This stance on typing is controversial, but it's my opinion that is really shouldn't be. And the wind has constantly been blowing towards adding gradual typing to dynamic languages.

The modest typing capabilities C# coupled with OOP and inheritance lets you create pretty awful OOP slop. But that's whatever. At work we use inheritance in very few places where it results in neat code reuse, and then it's just mostly interfaces getting implemented.

C#'s typing and generic system is powerful enough to offer you a plethora of super-ergonomic collection transformation methods via the LINQ library. There's a lot of functional-style programming you can do with that. You know, map, filter, reduce, that stuff?

Even if you make a completely new collection type, if it implements IEnumerable<T> it will benefit from LINQ automatically. Every language these days has something like this, but it's so ridiculously easy to use in C#. Coupled with how C# lets you (1) easily define immutable data types, (2) explicitly control access to struct or class members, (3) do pattern matching, you can end up with code that flows really well.

A Friendly Kitchen Sink

Some people have described C#'s feature set as bloated. It is getting some syntactic diversity which makes it a bit harder to read someone else's code. But it doesn't make C# harder to learn, since it takes roughly the same amount of effort to get to a point where you can be effective in it.

Most of the more specific features can be effortlessly ignored. The ones that can't be effortlessly ignored tend to bring something genuinely useful to the language -- such as tuples and destructuring. Tuples have their own syntax, the syntax is pretty intuitive, but the first time you run into it, you will have to do a bit of learning.

C# has an immense amount of small features meant to make the language more ergonomic. They're too numerous to mention and they just keep getting added.

I'd like to draw attention to some features not because they're the most important but rather because it feels like they communicate the "personality" of C#. Not sure what level of detail was appropriate, so feel free to skim.

Stricter Null Handling. If you think not having to explicitly deal with null is the billion dollar mistake, then C# tries to fix a bit of the problem by allowing you to enable a strict context where you have to explicitly tell it that something can be null, otherwise it will assume that the possibility of a reference type being null is an error. It's a bit more complicated than that, but it definitely helps with safety around nullability.

Default Interface Implementation. A problem in C# which drives usage of inheritance is that with just interfaces there is no way to reuse code outside of passing function pointers. A lot of people don't get this and think that inheritance is just used because other people are stupid or something. If you have a couple of methods that would be implemented exactly the same for classes 1 through 99, but somewhat differently for classes 100 through 110, then without inheritance you're fucked. A much better way would be Rust's trait system, but for that to work you need really powerful generics, so it's too different of a path for C# to trod it. Instead what C# did was make it so that you can write an implementation for methods declared in an interface, as long as that implementation only uses members defined in the interface (this makes sense, why would it have access to anything else?). So now you can have a default implementation for the 1 through 99 case and save some of your sanity. Of course, it's not a panacea, if the implementation of the method requires access to the internal state of the 1 through 99 case, default interface implementation won't save you. But it can still make it easier via some techniques I won't get into. The important part is that default interface implementation allows code reuse and reduces reasons to use inheritance.

Performance Optimization. C# has a plethora of features regarding that. Most of which will never be encountered by the average programmer. Examples: (1) stackalloc - forcibly allocate reference types to the stack if you know they won't outlive the current scope. (2) Specialized APIs for avoiding memory allocations in happy paths. (3) Lazy initialization APIs. (4) APIs for dealing with memory more directly that allow high performance when interoping with C/C++ while still keeping a degree of safety.

Fine Control Over Async Runtime. C# lets you write your own... async builder and scheduler? It's a bit esoteric and hard to describe. But basically all the functionality of async/await that does magic under the hood? You can override that magic to do some very specific things that you'll rarely need. Unity3D takes advantage of this in order to allow async/await to work on WASM even though it is a single-threaded environment. It implements a cooperative scheduler so the program doesn't immediately freeze the moment you do await in a single-threaded environment. Most people don't know this capability exists and it doesn't affect them.

Tremendous Amount Of Synchronization Primitives and API. This ones does actually make multithreaded code harder to deal with, but basically C# erred a lot in favor of having many different ways to do multithreading because they wanted to suit different usecases. Most people just deal with idiomatic async/await code, but a very small minority of C# coders deal with locks, atomics, semaphores, mutex, monitors, interlocked, spin waiting etc. They knew they couldn't make this shit safe, so they tried to at least let you have ready-made options for your specific use case, even if it causes some balkanization.

Shortly Begging For Tagged Unions

What I miss from C# is more powerful generic bounds/constraints and tagged unions (or sum types or discriminated unions or type unions or any of the other 5 names this concept has).

The generic constraints you can use in C# are anemic and combined with the lack of tagged unions this is rather painful at times.

I remember seeing Microsoft devs saying they don't see enough of a usecase for tagged unions. I've at times wanted to strangle certain people. These two facts are related to one another.

My stance is that if you think your language doesn't need or benefit from tagged unions, either your language is very weird, or, more likely you're out of your goddamn mind. You are making me do really stupid things every time I need to represent a structure that can EITHER have a value of type A or a value of type B.

But I think C# will eventually get tagged unions. There's a proposal for it here. I would be overjoyed if it got implemented. It seems like it's been getting traction.

Also there was an entire section on unchecked exceptions that I removed because it wasn't interesting enough. Yes, C# could probably have checked exceptions and it didn't and it's a mistake. But ultimately it doesn't seem to have caused any make-or-break in a comparison with Java, which has them. They'd all be better off with returning an Error<T>. Short story is that the consequences of unchecked exceptions have been highly tolerable in practice.

Ecosystem State & FOSSness

C# is better than ever and the tooling ecosystem is better than ever. This is true of almost every language, but I think C# receives a rather high amount of improvements per version. Additionally the FOSS story is at its peak.

Roslyn, the bedrock of the toolchain, the compiler and analysis provider, is under MIT license. The fact that it does analysis as well is important, because this means you can use the wealth of Roslyn analyzers to do linting.

If your FOSS tooling lets you compile but you don't get any checking as you type, then your development experience is wildly substandard.

A lot of stupid crap with cross-platform compilation that used to be confusing or difficult is now rather easy to deal with. It's basically as easy as (1) use NET Core, (2) tell dotnet to build for Linux. These steps take no extra effort and the first step is the default way to write C# these days.

Dotnet is part of the SDK and contains functionality to create NET Core projects and to use other tools to build said projects. Dotnet is published under MIT, because the whole SDK and runtime are published under MIT.

Yes, the debugger situation is still bad -- there's no FOSS option for it, but this is more because nobody cares enough to go and solve it. Jetbrains proved anyone can do it if they have enough development time, since they wrote a debugger from scratch for their proprietary C# IDE Rider.

Where C# falls flat on its face is the "userspace" ecosystem. Plainly put, because C# is a Microsoft product, people with FOSS inclinations have steered clear of it to such a degree that the packages you have available are not even 10% of what packages a Python user has available, for example. People with FOSS inclinations are generally the people who write packages for your language!!

I guess if you really really hate leftpad, you might think this is a small bonus though.

Where-in I talk about Cross-Platform

The biggest thing the ecosystem has been lacking for me is a package, preferably FOSS, for developing cross-platform applications. Even if it's just cross-platform desktop applications.

Like yes, you can build C# to many platforms, no sweat. The same way you can build Rust to many platforms, some sweat. But if you can't show a good GUI on Linux, then it's not practically-speaking cross-platform for that purpose.

Microsoft has repeatedly done GUI stuff that, predictably, only works on Windows. And yes, Linux desktop is like 4%, but that 4% contains >50% of the people who create packages for your language's ecosystem, almost the exact point I made earlier. If a developer runs Linux and they can't have their app run on Linux, they are not going to touch your language with a ten foot pole for that purpose. I think this largely explains why C#'s ecosystem feels stunted.

The thing is, I'm not actually sure how bad or good the situation is, since most people just don't even try using C# for this usecase. There's a general... ecosystem malaise where few care to use the language for this, chiefly because of the tone that Microsoft set a decade ago. It's sad.

HOWEVER.

Avalonia, A New Hope?

Today we have Avalonia. Avalonia is an open-source framework that lets you build cross-platform applications in C#. It's MIT licensed. It will work on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and also somehow in the browser. It seems to this by actually drawing pixels via SkiaSharp (or optionally Direct2D on Windows).

They make money by offering migration services from WPF app to Avalonia. Plus general support.

I can't say how good Avalonia is yet. I've researched a bit and it's not obviously bad, which is distinct from being good. But if it's actually good, this would be a holy grail for the ecosystem:

You could use a statically typed language that is productive for this type of software development to create cross-platform applications that have higher performance than the Electron slop. That's valuable!

This possibility warrants a much higher level of enthusiasm than I've seen, especially within the ecosystem itself. This is an ecosystem that was, for a while, entirely landlocked, only able to make Windows desktop applications.

I cannot overstate how important it is for a language's ecosystem to have a package like this and have it be good. Rust is still missing a good option. Gnome is unpleasant to use and buggy. Falling back to using Electron while writing Rust just seems like a bad joke. A lot of the Rust crates that are neither Electron nor Gnome tend to be really really undercooked.

And now I've actually talked myself into checking out Avalonia... I mean after writing all of that I feel like a charlatan for not having investigated it already.

#software #programming #anpost #csharp

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naomikozura · 10 months ago

Text

Playing With Fire: Chapter 6

Jason Todd (Red Hood) x Fem!Reader (Criminal)

Trope: Enemies to Lovers, Forbidden Romance

Warnings: strong language, mentions of guns, drinking (all overage), tiny tiny tiny angst (if you squint), stealing/heist, illegal coding (meh barely a warning), not too many this chapter but lmk if I missed any!

WC: 10K

Summary: In the heart-pounding midst of a daring heist, you encounter him for the first time behind the mask. As partners in crime, the stakes are high—this job could reshape your future. But amidst the adrenaline and danger, a connection sparks, complicating everything. Will you emerge unscathed by consequences, or will you find yourself entangled in a precarious dance where risk and intimacy intertwine, forcing you to confront the true meaning of loyalty?

Series Masterlist

Chapter 5 || Chapter 7

The night was filled with people from all backgrounds, business owners, CFOs, CEOs, COOs, jewelry heiresses, stock brokers, even those who dabbled in international trade and shipments of luxury goods were in the room. Every person with any sense of power on the money side of Gotham was present tonight. You were wearing a gorgeous golden dress with fabric that hung around your chest and drooped over your shoulder, covering the gunshot wound that you’d received a week ago. The dress complimented your skin and hugged your figure perfectly. Every curve of your body hugged by the fabric, showing off your form in a delicate yet seductive and classy way. You had your necklace under the wrap around neckline, but wore the matching green earrings adorning and balancing the outfit. It was simple and perfect for the occasion. You had your hair up in a slick back ponytail, the length hanging perfectly, giving you a soft glowy look versus your dark seductive alter ego. You wanted to be seen as the charming, beautiful, supportive partner that worked with Calvi himself.

Your heart was beating in your chest, pounding like a wild animal trying to escape from its cage. After weeks of preparations, the night was finally here. Ambushing and infiltrating Sionis’s business to make him crumble from the inside out. You hadn’t spoken to Red in a few days, his plan perfectly laid and seemed fool proof. One of the calls was ceased communication. It was the only way to ensure the plan would work in the end. You couldn’t be in ties with him since he had his own role to play which he had started before asking for your help. Befriend and gain the trust of Calvi’s business partner, Marcos. A powerhouse in Gotham’s elite. Working in foreign exchange, luxury goods, and security, he was almost as devastating as Calvi himself. Only he was more egotistical and cocky than Calvi was. He didn’t have the same charm or the same sense of formality. He was new money rich, everything spiraling and taking off after he created his security platform, Python.

You finished applying your lipstick, fixing your hair and grabbing your designer clutch off the sink. You needed to play the part of being the daughter of a wealthy businessman, trying to cover your tracks so no one could wonder how easily you had access to Calvi and ended up on his arm this night of the Gala honoring him. Calvi already knew your background as you were able to create a false one that lined up perfectly with the daughter of a businessman who’d disappeared and gone off grid. The family kept it a secret so as to not be caught in a scandal, so you stepped in as the replacement and since you were a beautiful, young woman with interest in luxury goods, everything checked out. No loopholes, no openings.

~~~

It was all selfish. It was personal. It was for your freedom. That’s what you kept telling yourself when you paced in the outskirts of the city, waiting for Red at the secluded location he’d embedded into the file for future meetings.

Could you actually manage to pull something like this off? Was it all a ploy or did he truly believe this could work?

“Y/n”, you turned at the sound of his voice.

“Red”, you breathed, your shoulders tense.

“You came.”, his voice had a hint of humor in it, but serious quickly took over as his body stopped only a foot away from you, his proximity sending you over the edge. He had a deep musk to him, a woodsy scent that filled your nostrils and made your veins flood with a sensation you couldn’t quite place.

“How serious are you?” your voice was a whisper, but the intent was loud. You weren’t here to play games. You needed answers.

“I’m dead serious about this, sweetheart.”, he replied. “I take you overlooked everything.”

“What interest do you have in the Blue Moon of Josephine that you need to steal it from the museum that Black Mask has under his protection?”

“It’s a hefty hit and a hefty payout. I thought you’d be the first to jump all over this.”

“It’s a suicide mission!”, you raised your voice slightly, your eyes slightly widening as you held back your confused frustration.

“It’s your ticket out of here. It’s my ticket to a direct hit at that son of a bitch and getting closer to completing my work.”

Your eyebrows furrowed as you looked at him, your eyes glossy with emotion you couldn’t quite place. Was it anger, frustration, false hope, or a sense of trust that you knew you shouldn’t be placing in him in the first place?

“You always seem focused on escaping this shit city, and now I’m giving you the chance and you’re doubting it.”

“I don’t want false hope.”, you clenched your teeth.

“The evidence was all in that drive. You can see for yourself it isn’t false anything.”, he replied as stared at you intently, his focus on you as he waited for your answer. His silence made the air around the both of you fill with tension, there was more to it than he led on. You took a step back, not noticing how his close proximity had affected you. You needed to focus.

“If you’re serious, if you truly believe we can pull this off…” Red noticed how you were overthinking the situation, his voice ringing out again.

“I won’t force you to do something you’re not confident in doing.”

You let yourself sit in the silence, his body still radiating heat and his hand on your chin to meet his eyes. You basked in his presence for a moment, snapping yourself out of the trance and looking at him intently.

“No.”, you breathed. “I’m in.”

~~~

“Ready, my dear?”, Calvi stretched an arm towards you as you wrapped your hands around him and walked elegantly next to him. He was tall, around 6’5, even taller than Red. You were wearing heels so your height would be closer to meet his eye line, but you were still far shorter than the both of them.

“Are we meeting any of your partners tonight?”, you asked softly, your eyes examining his face, his demeanor very relaxed and laid back.

“A few, but only one catches my attention tonight. He has a new development and I want to be the first to have it.”, he mentioned nonchalantly.

“You look stunning tonight. I don’t know how you get more beautiful every time I see you, Vivian”, his breath smelled like mint, his natural scent overwhelming with overpriced cologne. It was almost too much for your senses, giving you a slight headache.

“You clean up nice yourself, Cal. You sure you’re not holding back on me?”, you smiled as your words left in a flirty tone.

The two of you walked through the halls, taking in the cases full of jewelry spanning from rings, necklaces, crowns, bracelets, everything worth tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everything here was priceless. But you weren’t here for scraps.

You moved around, looking at the well dressed statues that were clothed in beautiful custom gowns that were hand crafted by the best designers in the city. You admired them deeply and loved the complex colors and the reflection of the light making the diamonds, emeralds, rubies, pearls, all the jewels illuminate beautifully.

Calvi followed behind but remained close at your side, allowing you to take your time as you moved through the entrance halls and into the main room, the music and the chatter of people filled the atmosphere. There wasn’t a single inch of the room that didn’t have a person standing in it. Servers, musicians, security, attendees, everyone was here.

It was almost as impressive as the Wayne Galas.

Almost.

It was a grand hall full of beautiful, timeless decorations, the curtains reaching the roof and the chandeliers hanging around the room as the music played in a lively tune that allowed people to have drinks and mingle with one another. The attendance list was full of the rich, powerful people of Gotham, all having their own born right to be here. Many of the names on Red’s drive were old money, generations of wealth passed down through each new member. Others were self-made businessmen and women, they had gone from middle class citizens to the highest ranking in the city, making them more respected by those who kept a watchful eye on them.

Calvi motioned towards the small bar area, walking over with you in hand as he ordered a glass of his favorite whiskey while you ordered your wine. You leaned into Calvi, reeling him in as he placed a hand on your waist, turning towards him as you smiled and lifted a hand to your face, brushing a small piece of hair back. How easy it was to have men wrapped around your finger and at your command.

“Is that Calvi Calbera?”, you turned to be met with the very man you were anticipating the whole night. Marcos Maroni. The unknown son of Sal Maroni. Except here, no one knew he was a Maroni. He did well hiding his background from everyone in this scene. Only you and Red knew who he was, who he really was.

“Marcos Morona”, Calvi walked up to him, shaking his hand and patting him on the back, laughing as they greeted each other.

“Excuse me, forgive my rudeness, but who is this lovely lady?”, Marcos turned to you, his charming smile hiding the intrigue in his eyes not missing the way they darkened as they skimmed your body quickly. You would’ve missed it if you weren’t so good at reading men and their mannerisms. You stood from your seat, stretching your hand out towards him as he took your delicate hand in his broad, rough one. “Vivian Lancaster”, you said softly, batting your eyelashes at him, letting him notice your obvious observation of his movements. It would inflate his ego, just like every other man in Gotham who took a liking to you. You knew you were beautiful, you knew men gravitated towards you. It made your line of work easy, especially when it came to getting intel you needed from these men. Just like Calvi.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”, he smirked at you before he kissed your hand and turned back to Calvi. “I heard you were looking for me. Wanting to take a look at my new software?”

Calvi let out a chuckle, taking a sip of his whiskey before setting it back on the bar. “I heard it’s better than Python. I want to see it and be the first to bid on getting the system for my trades.”

“You flatter me, Calvi. It is a good system, I worked with a programmer who is beyond my time and my years. I didn’t realize Bludhaven produced such intelligent people who worked in system informatics and security programming.”

“You can never underestimate people. Especially when you came from the same background”, Calvi mentioned calmly. The false life Marcos had made for himself was filled with the lie that he was completely self-made. A nobody that came from a small town in New Jersey and grew his skills and his company from the ground up. Yeah, right.

“That’s why we have to take risks when it comes to new minds.”, Marcos rambled for a few more moments, a part of you anxious of when your partner would show up. He hadn’t made his appearance yet, you wondered if he was actually planning on coming or if all of this was just to get you away from him for another night. He had been cutting communication off for the past week so it would make sense if that was his reasoning.

“There you are.”, you looked up from your glass, you had zoned out and didn’t realize until Marcos snapped you back to their conversation. “Calvi, Vivian. I want to introduce you to one of my partners. His intelligence and deduction skills are far beyond anything I could ever imagine trying to find outside of Gotham.”

You looked behind Marcos, your heart stopped in your chest. Out of everything you expected tonight, from the risk of getting caught to the possibility of leaving empty handed, you could have never expected this.

“Calvi, Vivian. This is Jason Todd. My partner in building my new security software and convincing me to take a risk on my programmer from Bludhaven. Not to mention the son of our beloved Bruce Wayne.”

Your lips parted from the shock. You were left speechless. He had dark hair that was slicked back neatly, exposing his face and making his jaw appear more sharp and defined than it already was. He was wearing a dark suit and a dark burgundy tie that made it obvious who he was to you. Only to you. His eyes were a deep, dark green that pulled you into a trance. His lips pulled into a charming smile, his eyes focused on your appearance as you noticed that same emotion in his eyes that you knew was in your own. Your face remained neutral, but you knew your eyes gave you away the second he looked at you. He was devastating, handsome, his eyes gentle and full of emotion as they took you in, your heart pounding in your chest while trying to remain calm.

You felt time stop, everything around you had disappeared and the two of you stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. His eyes bore into yours, holding an unwavering amount of attention, skimming down your frame and drinking in every inch of your body. He dressed in a suit that fit him perfectly, made him look muscular, toned, and perfect. You’d wondered what he’d look like under it all, what it would feel like against yours, the heat rising in your body as the darkness in his eyes swirled into something more. Something you couldn’t quite place. You noticed the way his hand flexed slightly but quickly relaxed. You held his gaze for what seemed like forever until his smooth, clear voice pulled you out of your trance.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Jason Todd”, he stretched out his hand, letting him take yours and kissing the back of it. “What a lovely woman you have with you tonight Calvi.” Jason spoke, never taking his gaze off of you. You hadn’t broken eye contact since he waltzed in.

“Vivian Lancaster. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”, you said, taking your hand back after noticing how he rubbed the back of your hand with his thumb.

You felt your skin ignite on fire, his green eyes holding you gaze as a small smile tugged at his lips.

“She is beautiful. We’ve been working together for some time. Who knows what the future holds for us, right my dear?”, Calvi spoke as he looked at you, your eyes still under siege by Jason’s green ones. How did you go this long, never seeing his face, his eyes… he..

“Right.”, you snapped out of Jason’s stare when Calvi wrapped an arm around your waist, almost like staking his claim. You looked at his face, no emotion showing in his eyes and his jaw was relaxed. So why was he being weird?

“Calvi, let’s catch up in the meeting room before they start the auction. I’m sure Jason can keep Vivian company for a short while.”, Marcos said as he and Calvi said another snide joke under their breath and walked away.

You watched as they left before meeting Jason’s gaze again, your heart absolutely betraying you in your chest. He looked at the ground, his smile spreading across his face as he met your gaze again. He cocked his head, pointing towards the balcony that was on the other side of the room and you followed him outside, stepping into the fresh, cool air leaving your skin feeling relaxed as the soft breeze hit your warm skin.

“You clean up nice”, you said, trying to keep yourself from stuttering. You needed to focus on why you were here, not on how devastating the man in front of you looked.

“I’d say the same to you. This dress really suits you.”, his voice was deep, suave, flirtatious, and it drove you absolutely insane. This was the first time you were seeing him like this, the first time you were on mutual grounds and he had this hold over you that you couldn’t shake.

“So, Jason Todd.”, you said as you looked at him, that charming smirk playing at his lips again. “Son of Bruce Wayne, I thought this was supposed to keep a low profile.”,

“It’s my real name.”, your eyebrows raised slightly, your head turning to look at him as he looked down at the garden, one hand on the railing.

“Your real name? Seems believable enough.”

“It is. Jason Peter Todd.”, he looked at you, meeting your gaze again.

“Do you really want me to take that seriously? Do you really think I am that gullible?”

“I know you’re not.”, he spoke again. “And, I really am the son of Bruce Wayne.”

You stared at him. The silence growing and the tension slowly getting thicker. You couldn’t believe him. He was pulling a prank on you. There’s no way he’s…

“Why do I feel like you’re lying to me?” “When have I ever lied to you?”, he was right. Over the course of the past few months, he never lied about anything he was doing. He wouldn’t tell you complete thoughts, sometimes keep small tidbits of information from you, but lying? He never did that.

“You’re Bruce Wayne’s son?”, you asked again, almost as if asking for confirmation of the truth once again.

“Yes.”, at this point, he was full on facing you, his hands in his pockets as he stood tall over you. His eyes bore into your soul, almost like he was breaking apart every one of your walls and getting under your skin, making you burn in your dress.

“Does he know… that you..”

“No. He doesn’t even know I’m back in Gotham.”, he answered.

Back in Gotham? Does that mean he left at one point? Where did he go? How long was he gone? Why did he leave?

“I see.”, you were at a loss for words. You felt like there was something about his background that just… left you wrecked. Why did you feel betrayed? Because he was a rich kid with a father who had all to Gotham in the palm of his hand? Did you feel deceived, did you believe he was just another vigilante fighting to make ends meet and he had no other choice but to enter this life like you had? Or was he just rebelling against his father?

You felt an ember of anger growing in your chest. You couldn’t look at him, couldn’t stand next to him. You just felt like you received the worst confession in your life. Jason Todd, son of Bruce Wayne, was the one trying to take out Black Mask’s business to take a shot at his money and make him miserable. A rich pretty boy was trying to take out one of Gotham’s most ruthless mob bosses in the city. He could get away with killing all those people because Bruce Wayne would convince the world it wasn’t his son, there was no proof either. He wasn’t known as Jason Todd, no one knew it was him. He was just Red Hood. The annoyance grew in your chest as you remained silent and lost in thought.

Did you even have the right to get mad at him? He’d helped you so many times, could’ve killed you throughout the past few months. He hadn’t shown anyone else within the city any form of sympathy or second guessed killing them, so why you? More importantly, why were you so bothered by the truth of who he was?

He owed you nothing.

You forced yourself back to the reality of the situation: get the job done.

“We can head back to my apartment once we’re done, just to get out of sight from the guards around here.”, you murmured, your eyes scanning the room in practiced scrutiny. Your focus on examining each attendee before arriving was paying off, but there were still internal updates that could have happened in the span of the past three days leading up to the Gala. Your eyes turned back towards Jason, his eyes looked at you in a soft glance, his focus on your words and actions as you scanned the room. He hummed lightly before creating distance between the two of you, your slicked hair showing off your features in a delicate manner that left him soaking in the sight for a second longer before turning away.

“If the blueprints are accurate and they didn’t move any of the jewels around, they should be located by the main entrance where the guests came in and every one can see them.”, his response was practical, focusing perfectly on the very reason both of you were here tonight.

Your mind raced through all the details, recalling every base of your plan down to the nitty gritty. You had calculated everything, trying to remember the blueprints exactly. Your memory was borderline photographic when it came to jobs like these. “We can leave at different times before the speeches and auction. We hack into the security system and set the cameras on loop, reprogram the sensors on the cases but we’ll only have around 10 or 15 minutes to get what we need and get out before the sensors turn back on.”

“What if we move the cameras into a blind spot that's only a few inches to the left of the main hallway?"

Your surprise was evident. "How do you know there’s a blind spot?"

"Hacking into the camera system a week ago helped a lot. I took it upon myself to cover the bases for a plan B in case we needed it."

You couldn't deny his resourcefulness, but the revelation of his background left you on edge. His clear, confident voice contrasted with the dissonance you felt in your bones. Your perception of him shifted, your judgment clouded by this deal with him and the payout at the end of this suicide mission.

“Let’s finish what we came here for.”, his deep voice rang out. Deep, smooth, not hidden behind distortion. He was clear, articulate, and it irritated you knowing his background. It’s like your entire opinion of him just… shifted. You moved around him, slipping back into the main room and finding your way through the hallways, leaving him alone while you carried out your part of the plan.

Back in the main room, Jason felt a tug in his gut, watching you with his deep green eyes, never leaving your form as you walked through the crowded room. He swirled his drink before throwing back the amber liquid, the burn offering him a momentary distraction from the irritation growing in the pit of his stomach. He watched as a group of men swept their gazes towards you, his hand tightening around the glass as he buried the annoyance under focus. If there was one thing he despised more than Galas, it was the people. He hated the social scene more than anything, everyone in this room included with the exception of you.

He’d noticed how quickly your body language changed at the mention of who he was, it left him with a strange sensation wondering if you’d really gotten upset at his identity. Your sudden change in attitude made him question if his true self would change your perception of him, if it would change your alliance and the results of the job. His jaw clenched as he snapped back to focus. Regardless of how much he wanted to contemplate his actions or breakdown your reaction, he had a job to do.

He slowly moved through the room, his body tall in confidence as he noticed some of the women staring at him, blushing as they whispered between one another. He couldn’t help but feel strange, he’d always been hidden in his brother's shadow, women never particularly liked him but now that he’s older he can’t help but notice how the attention has changed. It was a complete contrast to his past, used to be overlooked and now everyone noticed him. He couldn't care less about it though, he didn’t care about anything here except for a particular woman who just walked out on him.

He exited into the hall, walking past several people and groups of businessmen, giving them a slight nod in greeting before continuing through the corridors. He had turned down a particular hall, one he remembered from his intel and the blueprints he’d downloaded for this very night. It was the main server room, he could get to any of the cameras and completely shut them down to make the night easier on both of you. He couldn’t plant the chips there yet, he needed to touch base with you first.

He turned into the main hall, scanning through different bodies of people until he saw you in front of a painting in all your glory. He hadn’t admitted it out loud but the pang in his chest at how you were dressed tonight left him on edge.

“Van Gogh.”, he spoke out as he walked up beside you.

“Yeah..”, you replied softly, your attention briefly on the painting before looking down in contemplation.

After you’d left the main room, you walked through the halls with other groups and couples, seemingly talking harmlessly but then you took in every piece of information and camera angle to the best of your ability. You stopped to admire one piece in particular, a kick to the gut but when Jason placed a hand on the small of your back, you looked at him. To anyone else the gesture would have been discreet and simple, but between the two of you it carried weight - a silent form of comfort. All you couldn’t place if it was due to his reveal, or just the stress of tonight, but you knew he’d intended the subtle gesture as a comforting touch.

He turned to look at you, his eyes softening before flicking down to your parted lips, your lipstick beautifully painted as he took into account every detail of your presence. His jaw clenched before he removed his hand, turning back to the wall and you turned your head, not letting the heat show on your face due to his touch.

“It’s a beautiful painting.”, you looked up at him, turning and continuing down the hall. Jason had lingered behind a moment longer, his chest filling with a rush of emotion before following behind you. Now wasn’t the time to dig up hidden meanings and make sense of them.

Not now.

There was only half an hour before the auction started off, even less time than that before speeches and dinner started. You and Jason needed to be quick, needed to plant the chips, hack into the security system, and return before anyone caught on to your antics. You nodded at him, silently giving him an unspoken confirmation to complete your individual tasks before rendezvousing back to the main hall.

You had carefully taken in every inch of the building, watching and taking note of everything that came into proximity. You had to get to the server room and set up the security system to a no detectable loop, ensuring the system couldn’t be traced back to anyone just long enough to get what you needed and leave. You navigated the halls in focus, quickly scanning through while keeping complete composure and even nodding at a few people who walked past you to lighten suspicion.

You quickly hurried through the hallways until you backtracked, heading down a hallway that was more dim than the rest and noticing the nameplate next to the door. You stood a few feet away to stay out of sight of the camera, trying to have as little mess to clean up as possible as you examined the door silently. You played through every possibility in your head within seconds, trying to find the best route of action to move forward with.

You were able to find an opening just a few inches from a camera, a minute blind spot but it was all you needed to succeed. You had been keeping tabs on the security system long enough to see the actual entrance to the security room was blocked off. It gave you the perfect in to pick the lock, place the chip, set pre recorded footage, and delete any footage that showed your and Jason's entrance into the event and anything that could put you as suspects. You needed 10 minutes to pull the whole thing off.

You knelt down to the handle, inserting the pin you can tucked into your hair, and began to work on the lock. It was a simple thing even for being placed in an event like this. After a few seconds, the subtle clicks gave away the opening of the lock, turning the handle and pushing the door open.

It was empty.

That eliminated one concern you had. If someone was in here you’d have to get your hands dirty.

You closed the door, walked over to the desk and pulled the chair back to sit in it. You overlooked everything quickly, taking in every angle of the event being monitored in high definition. You could see the main room, the hallways, the club rooms, the library, the fountain where the art and jewels were displayed, even see the entrance to the gala as well as the outside cameras. Everything was here all in 30 tiny screens. You smirked at yourself.

They really knew how to cover bases when they needed to. No doubt they did an in depth review of every inch of the location to ensure tighter security.

You quickly typed in a virus code, connecting your chip to the server and watching the file download. You glanced at the camera that pointed into the hall next to the room you were in. Still empty. A good sign but it also left you on edge. You needed to hurry.

You watched the file download, turning green in completion as you quickly added it to the server and set the programming to start with the looped footage in 15 minutes. You needed to hurry and program your chip to delete footage from the past hour, coding it into the system as fast as possible.

You froze at the sound of the handle of the door turning, your heart pounding in your chest as you quickly finished the code. At least if you were caught they wouldn’t be able to trace this back to you. You removed your chip and shoved it into the inside of your dress, replacing the pin into your hair as you moved away from the computers.

The turning of the handle made you freeze, not wanting to take out the gun you had strapped to your thigh. You pressed your back against the wall, holding your breath as the door opened with a soft creaking before watching someone walk inside. A tall muscular figure walked into the room, probably a guard, you quickly rushed him from behind, feeling the turn of his body as the both of you slammed on the ground.

“If you wanted to get on top of me, all you had to do was ask, sweetheart.”, your eyes snapped up to him, your body completely flush with his as his hands laid perfectly on your curves. You felt a heat rise into your face, the flexing of his fingers on your waist making you burn hotter.

You pushed yourself off of him, fixing your dress and glaring at him. “You’re insufferable.”, you muttered as he smirked at you.

“I planted my chips. We have 15 minutes.”, he rolled his eyes, ignoring your momentary frustration. “We need to move.”

He gestured for you to follow as both of you slipped into the hall and navigated through the ornate corridors of the building, blending seamlessly among the guests. You couldn't deny the rush of adrenaline coursing through your veins; working with Jason was like walking on a knife's edge—exciting, unpredictable, and dangerous.

You both moved through the corridor, trying to make your way back to the main room in time to make your rounds before moving into the final stages of your plan. You’d haven't thought about Marcos and Calvi, knowing they’d probably be preoccupied in the sitting room doing their usual sketchy business. You didn’t see them on the cameras during your search earlier, but yet again, the probability of a secret room with no surveillance wasn’t too far off from what would be considered a possibility. Besides, it was better if Calvi stayed out of the way, especially when it would make things far more exhausting having to manage him and this operation.

You tried to focus, your head swirling with a hundred different thoughts but if you lost even a minute detail, the whole operation would go to shit. Jason seemed a lot more focused, maybe the years of practice or just being gifted with that skill. Either way, it made him a good partner in all things criminal, even if you wouldn’t admit it out loud.

Slipping back to the main room, everyone seemed to be within the grand walls of the ballroom, either socializing or in the middle of the open floor. You and Jason both slipped through the crowd, trying to make it back where Calvi and Marcos had left you before the harmonizing of orchestra instruments caused you to come to a sudden halt.

Shit.

You could not get caught in this right now, it would set your entire plan back. You grit your teeth before turning to find confirmation in Jason to get out of this situation but your irritation grew when you looked over at him. You watched him extend a hand towards you, your eyes widened slightly in shock as you hesitated to touch his palm.

He could not be serious right now.

His eyes urged you forward, showing the seriousness in reminding you of the role you had to play tonight despite the reminders it gave you of your past. You couldn’t raise suspicion.

You slowly grabbed his hand, letting him lead you onto the dance floor as the orchestra played a simple waltz. You felt him get into perfect position, your body moving in sync with his. It felt like he was almost trained to attend events like these, he truly did commit to the part but then again he was the son of Bruce Wayne. You were sure he had more experience with Galas than you did.

You recalled the moments you spent living with The Family, forced into a position of learning how to waltz and dance in order to better fit into the mold of their image. You didn’t mind it too much but you found it redundant, tiresome, tedious.

Jason’s body moved in sync with the orchestra music, his movement smooth and in pace. You could barely keep up with him as he twirled you around before bringing you back in, your chests meeting each other as you sucked in a silent breath. You felt his breath slightly on your lips, your eyes meeting his as your faces hovered only inches from each other. You held his gaze as you saw an underlying burning in his eyes, they were dark and hazy almost like he was a man starved. You breathed, your lips parting as your eyes flickered down, focused on everything that had to do with him and nothing with the reason why you were here.

You felt paused in time, like only you and him existed in this moment. Everything faded into nothing as the orchestra continued to play the waltz as it blurred into the background. You watched as his head tilted a millimeter, barely but enough to notice at the proximity you were at. His eyes flicked to your lips for a split second only to meet your eyes again. His body heat burned your skin, your pulse skyrocketing into a pounding sensation and slightly praying he couldn’t feel or hear it. His face was too close, his lips just a breath away from touching yours, everything in him burning at the proximity.

The clapping from tonight's attendees broke you out of your trance, forcing you out of the moment you shared with Jason and snapping you into reality. You blinked, stepping back as he removed his body from yours only to give the traditional bow and walk away. You watched as he headed to the bar, your eyes looking around at everyone going back to their conversations and ignoring the people on the dance floor.

What was that?

You felt a pang of emotion in your chest, your irritation brewing as you walked over to the bar where you watched him order another drink and down it in one go. You stood next to him, your heels helping you meet his eyeline as you tugged his arm back and forcing the green eyed man to look at you.

“What was that?”, you whispered in a sharp tone, only loud enough for him to hear you.

His hooded eyes looked at yours, he looked exhausted or maybe just drunk but you couldn’t bring yourself to care at that moment. Whatever was going on with him internally he needed to figure out outside of this mission before he ruined everything. Your eyes narrowed at him as a half-assed smirk appeared on his lips.

“I’m keeping appearances, wasn’t that the plan?”, he said lazily, his demeanor completely changing. This wasn’t his usual act, so why was he putting it on?

“You’re going to blow our cover.”, your spit through clenched teeth. “You’re going to ruin everything.”

“I think we both know that’s not the reason you’re upset, sweetheart.”, he retaliated.

“That wasn’t keeping appearances, Red!”, you whisper yelled at him, the burning in your eyes growing stronger as he stood upright.

“Maybe not.”, he shrugged, his voice carrying a hint of something you couldn’t quite place. His eyes flickered with an unreadable emotion.

You took a step closer, your voice a low murmur laden with urgency and frustration. "We have a job to do. This isn't about personal feelings or playing games."

“Yes, Ma’am”, he did a mocking salute before looking over your shoulder. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Why did he become an asshole all of a sudden? You were about to spit something back at him before you felt a hand on your waist.

“Vivian, Jason. Apologies for being gone so long, I hope the two of you were able to keep each other company?”, Calvi looked at you with deep eyes, his smile forced but he didn’t need to know you could tell.

“Everything has been pretty calm here. I think they may start the dinner soon.”, you smiled at him as you felt the dark stare coming from Jason.

“Then, let’s get to our tables shall we? Jason, I believe you and Marcos are with us tonight.”

“Let’s find our seats then.”, he pulled out a fake charming smile as he followed behind the both of you. The atmosphere crackled with unspoken tension, the weight of your shared moment just a few minutes ago hung between the two of you. You couldn’t deny whatever pull Jason had on you, but you needed to shove the thoughts away. Outside of this job, he was still a name on your list of targets.

Calvi pulled out your seat once you’d reached the other room where the dinner would proceed. Several other guests were already sitting at their tables as they surrounded the main stage, waiting for the speaker to come up for the night and proceed into the auction. Your heart pounded in your chest as you looked at the clock on the wall. You had less than five minutes to find an opening or you would lose your only advantage.

“Calvi, I need to step out for a moment. I'm just going to head to the washroom”, you asked trying to sound as calm as possible.

“I'll accompany you, I have a call I need to make.”, Jason’s voice rang out, Calvi nodding slightly as he looked towards Jason. “I can walk with you."

“Thank you, Jason.”, you forced. “I’ll be back before they even start with the first round of appetizers and the opening speech.”, you placed a soft kiss on Calvi’s cheek, trying to keep up the appearance of his adorned partner.

You followed behind Jason closely, his shoulders tense as he parted in the opposite direction once you exited the dining hall, leaving as you went into the women's restroom. You pushed the door open, opening the final stall and locking it behind you. You quickly removed the hidden compartment behind the wall. To anyone else it looked like the normal wall in the restroom, but you had managed to sneak your undercover clothing into the empty space behind it. You quickly removed your dress, pulling it off gently as you changed into the simple kitchen staff clothing. Black pants, black button up, non slip shoes and tying your hair into a bun. You had opted for makeup that was easy to put on and take off, quickly taking off parts of the eye shadow before letting yourself look more natural. The same with your hair as it only remained in a slicked back ponytail, making it easy to twist into a bun. You quickly put on the tie and the hat you had that the kitchen staff wore in order to hide your face.

You quickly zipped your dress into a seal proof bag and shoved it into the wall along with your heels, fixing it before looking down at your watch. You had less than 2 minutes before you needed to look for the diamond, 8 minutes to find the case and retrieve it, all while keeping a low profile.

You pushed through the door of the restroom and walked confidently through the halls, your eyes taking in the different cases being showcased around you with all the different jewels. Some of them remained in cases, but according to your plan book, it would be on display tonight for the auction.

You paced through the halls, seeing dressed in all black Jason walk up next to you, his attire matching the security guards uniform as his words dropped into your ears. “We need to move quickly.”, he breathed as his eyes glanced over at the other servers moving through the halls carrying trays.

You hummed in agreement, your focus sharp as you fell into step with him before breaking apart once again. He went towards the east wing and you to the west, both wings holding different jewels but only one holding the one you needed.

45 seconds until the outage.

You moved through the halls quickly. Your eyes skimming every jewel showcased on the mannequins that were also dressed in beautiful gowns and wore other expensive jewels.

30 seconds.

Jason paced the east wing, his eyes taking in every case, keeping a close watch on the cameras and making himself look as normal as possible. Being dressed in security clothing and observing the rooms would cease suspicion. It was the perfect cover.

15 seconds.

You felt your heart pound as you looked at the last of the people head into the dining hall.

10 seconds.

Jason felt a tug in his gut as he heard the announcer start speaking in the other room, signaling his opening in a few seconds.

5 seconds.

You could hear the announcer in the other room, then complete silence before you heard the scream of one of the guests. The power had gone completely out and you watched the camera intently as the red light signaling its recording flickered off. You felt yourself go into overdrive, your body quickly searching through the mannequins as your watch gave you the alarm that you only had 8 minutes before the cameras and the security locks on the cases turned back on.

Adrenaline surged through you as the darkness acted as your cover, the loss of power would only give you so much time. You knew each second counted, quickly moving as you scanned each mannequin with precision, your senses heightened due to the lack of light. The echo of distant voices carried down the hall, the subtle sound of rushed footsteps heightening your awareness. Your heart pounded in your chest every time there was a noise down the hall, but you couldn’t let your anxiety get to you if you were going to pull this off. You needed to focus on this and only this. You only hoped that if you couldn’t find the diamond here, Jason had it already.

Time blurred as you felt the pressure slowly start to build as you felt the reality sink in. Where was it?!

You looked at your watch, only having 4 minutes to retrieve what you needed, get back to the restroom and change, find Jason, and return to the dining hall before security inevitably took everyone to evacuate the building. The adrenaline and pounding of your heart only increased as you watched the time go down, Jason still not having sent the signal to your receiver that he had found it on his end.

In the east wing, Jason felt himself struggling to keep his composure. He knew you only had mere minutes before the both of you would have to return empty handed or with the diamond in hand. He contemplated just taking a different diamond out of its place, but none of them would hold the same weight as Josephine would towards making a direct hit at Black Mask. Jason looked at his watch, not having received a signal from you yet. Would all of this have been for nothing?

His watch told him he only had 2 minutes left. His jaw clenched, the plan was to be back in the main room by the time 1 minute hit, he had to leave and get changed now if he was going to erase suspicion.

Dammit.

He turned, rushing back to the restroom and quickly changing, shoving the clothes back into the hidden compartment behind the wall as he fixed his suit and swept his hair back in his neat, yet messy style he had when he had arrived at the event for the night. He walked out of the restroom, fixing his cuffs and trying to wipe the sweat from his forehead as he navigated carefully back into the main room, the sound of chatter and mild chaos breaking out as the announcer called for everyone to follow the guards leading them to exit the building.

The hum of electricity signaled the return of power, followed by the faint buzz of security systems coming back online. Jason’s eyes moved through the crowd as he blended in, trying to find any sign of you within the sea of bodies. Everyone walked around him, the security yelling before Jason felt a hand grab him.

“Jason!”, Marcos’ voice rang out. “C’mon. We have to go.”

“What happened?”, his voice deep in confusion although he wasn’t naïve to the situation.

“Security breach. They’re evacuating everyone.”, Marcos said, annoyed as Jason followed next to him, his eyes still skimming through the crowd.

Where were you?

“They don’t want to be at risk for a possible hit. Apparently there have been too many raids around the city targeting the luxury businesses in Upper Gotham.”, Marcos continued.

Jason really couldn’t care at the moment, but he followed behind everyone as they made their way down the stairs and through the security checkpoint. The security were patting down each person, ensuring they didn’t carry anything from the inside out. It made Jason’s heart pump as he watched Marcos get patted down, him following closely behind as he continued to skim through the attendees getting checked by the line of guards.

The guard rushed him forward after being checked, fixing his cuffs Jason looked over at Marcos as he called for his car. “Do you need a ride?”, Marcos asked silently.

“No. I have my own car, thanks though.”, Why was he on edge? He was sure you’d gotten out, maybe you were already back at the rendezvous point. You both agreed to meet there in case anything fell through. His jaw tightened as he grew deeper in thought, waving mindlessly as Marcos left in his car and he walked through the streets until he reached his hidden motorcycle in the back alleys of the city.

He placed the black helmet over his head, kicking up the motorcycle stand as he revved the engine to life, the screeching of tires sounding out as he drove through the city pushing his top speed. His unease gnawed at him as his mind raced through each second he spent on the road. He forced himself to remember you were smart, resourceful, and were probably the best to get out of a tough situation. Yet, the weight of uncertainty hung around him like a 500 pound weight.

His anticipation made him tighten his grip on the handles as he sped through the city streets, weaving through traffic with his timely precision he’d honed throughout the years. The wind enveloped him in a blanket, doing little to ease the anxiety growing in his bones. Every turn, every stoplight, it all heightened his sense of urgency. He needed to be sure you made it back safe, that you were in your apartment and didn’t get caught.

As he pulled into the neighborhood, his focus intensified. He chose the familiar route he’d taken hundreds of times before, trying to find the fastest way to your apartment. He kicked down the stand on his bike as he left it in the alley, rushing up the stairs to your top floor apartment, his heart pumping faster no thanks to the stairs and the rush making him not even think about using the elevator. Each step, each floor, each second made his heart beat inside of him, he felt his anxiety creeping into his veins.

He jumped the last few steps, using his long legs to hurry up the stairs two steps at a time as he finally reached the floor you lived on. He knocked with a rush, the seconds elongating into excruciating seconds as he paced. He knocked again, the sound echoing through the night, his pulse pounding in his ears as he waited.

Did Calvi take her back to his estate?

Did she get caught looking for the diamond?

Did she get lost?

Just as he was about to turn and knock again, the door swung open, there you stood in your golden dress, your hair done as perfectly as it was when you arrived for the event tonight and your makeup still flawless. Your eyes were wide as you stared at him, the silence hanging in the air as he stared at you with shock in his eyes,

Relief flooded through him, overwhelming any lingering anxiety. "Y/n," he breathed, his voice rough with emotion.

“Jason.”, you breathed as you watched his eyes flicker into a calmness, almost like relief. “You didn’t use the window.” you said amused.

Jason ran a hand through his hair as he let out an airy laugh. “Figured this was more suitable for the occasion.”

You moved to the side, letting him enter the apartment as you closed the door behind you and locking it silently. You felt your heart calm from the anxiety you felt at not being able to find him during the final moments of the Gala. You had gotten lost and when Calvi found you, he rushed you out the exit and brought you home in his private car. When you arrived the only thing you worried about was if Jason was able to remember your plan to meet back at your apartment if anything had gone wrong, hoping he’d eventually show.

“I couldn’t find you after the power came back on.”, he muttered as he leaned on the kitchen table. “I didn’t find it.”

You met his gaze, letting the silence hover between the both of you as you let out a small laugh. Jason looked at you with confused eyes, his lips twitching as you laughed even harder. Were you laughing because the entire mission was a failure? Did you also fail in retrieving the diamond?

He watched you intently as you lifted the fabric to your dress, his hand twitching as it gripped the table. You showed off the part of your leg that held your gun, a small pouch attached to it. You carefully detached the small bag, your leg still on full display as Jason’s eyes lingered on your body, a flicker of lust burning inside of him as he forced himself to focus.

He watched as you opened the small velvet bag slowly, placing the 12 carat diamond ring on a silk cloth on the counter. The deep blue color radiating a kind of beauty you couldn’t recreate in a lab, it was definitely one of a kind. You walked over to the small cabinet you had against the wall, taking out a kit used by high end jewelers to decipher the worth and validity of diamonds like this one. He watched you intently, wondering why you could pull out a diamond loupe unless you suspected it was fake.

Though, he knew it was a good idea to do so.

He watched as you held the diamond carefully, examining it in the light and under the loupe to look at every detail and intricate curve within the jewel. You tried to work carefully, using your knowledge to properly decipher the validity of the diamond or if everything tonight had been for nothing. Your hands moved gently as you used the different tools in your kit to check every aspect of the diamond to leave no doubt that it was real.

The air between the two of you crackled with anticipation, the weight of your accomplishment hanging heavy in the room. Jason’s gaze flickered to you briefly, a smile hanging on his lips as he stood impressed by your resourcefulness and grace under pressure.

It was a 50/50 chance that the diamond was actually real, especially since it wasn’t uncommon for high profile events to use fakes in order to not take the risk of something getting stolen, the insurance would surely cost them a fortune.

$48.6 million was a lot of money.

You left him on edge, wondering why your silence had prolonged as he watched you.

It had been 15 minutes.

Was it a fake?

You pulled back, your shoulders slumping as you placed the diamond gently on the silk rag, a shuddered breath leaving your lips. He stood upright, his heart pounding at your body language. You slowly turned your head, meeting his gaze.

"Congratulations, Jason," you praised softly, your words carrying a mix of admiration and pride. "You're officially a millionaire.”. You pushed your baby hairs back, trying to let yourself calm down from the high as you turned towards him. “Oh my god, Jas-”

Jason's response was immediate and primal. In one swift motion, he closed the distance between you, pressing your back against the kitchen counter. His hand slid possessively around the back of your neck, fingers tangling in your hair as he slammed his lips on yours in a passionate kiss. His other arm wrapped firmly around your waist, pulling you flush against him, your body freezing at the sudden contact. Your heart pounded in your chest, your head spinning as he moved his lips against yours in a powerful and hungry way. His hold tightened as you moved your lips against his, breathing in his natural musk.

His hold on you became desperate, possessive, his muscular arms wrapping around you to make your frame push against his even more. His lips moved in a dominant manner, biting your bottom lip as he let himself lose all form of self control. Your hands found their way to Jason's shoulders, fingers tangling in his tuxedo jacket as you responded to his kiss with equal fervor. His toned body flexing under your fingers almost like it burned him but it left him wanting more of you.

The world outside faded away as you stood locked in a dance of desire and danger, your hearts beating in sync with the rush of adrenaline that still coursed through you. The kiss deepened, a testament to the electric connection that had sparked between the two of you amidst the chaos and danger of your mission. He couldn’t get enough of you, his mouth finally pulling away so the two of you could catch your breath. You opened your eyes slightly, looking at his hooded ones as his eyes flickered to your swollen lips.

Was it the adrenaline?

Was it the high?

Was it him?

Was it everything around you that led you to this moment?

“Jason…”, you whispered against his mouth as you tried to catch your breath.

You couldn’t even catch your breath before his mouth devoured yours again, pressing his body against yours and pushing you against the wall behind you. His body hunched over slightly due to the height difference but his dominance was overwhelming, pushing you into overdrive. Your hands tangled in his hair, his lips leaving your mouth and kissing down the side of your neck. Your body shook from the pleasure, your nails digging into his arm as his hand reached your lower back and pulled you against him again. His teeth bit the curve of your neck slightly, licking the sensitive area as a soft moan released from your lips.

In that stolen moment, as you kissed amidst the quiet of your apartment, everything else melted away—the heist, the risks, the uncertainty of your future. There was only the heat of the connection, the electricity that crackled between you, and the undeniable truth that you both had crossed a line you couldn't un-cross.

As you finally pulled apart, breathless and flushed, You looked up at Jason with wide eyes, your heart racing in sync with his. Jason rested his forehead against yours, your eyes locked in a silent exchange that spoke volumes of unspoken promises and newfound intimacy.

“Jay…”, his name slipped from your lips in a desperate tone, your body betraying you by reacting to the final swipe he did on your skin, nipping on your neck before pulling back.

“Y/n….”

Jason rested his forehead against yours, his voice husky as he murmured, "We did it."

You smiled, your fingers tracing lightly along Jason's suit. "Yeah, we did," you whispered, your lips swollen and missing his as you spoke.

In that moment, as you stayed in his hold and met his gaze in silence, you felt in your bones the truth of your relationship with him. Despite the anger, the hatred, the stupid hits at one another, Jason wasn’t the threat you believed him to be. The tension that had grown between the two of you, the moments of uncertainty where doubt had threatened to cloud your judgment, the anger that had been placed inside of you by Sionis, it all disappeared when you met his gaze.

You felt a familiarity in him, despite your denial, you couldn’t push it away. Not when there had been so many times he had helped you, taken you out of harm's way, and refused to make any hits that would result in serious harm.

You’d believed for months that he was irritating, a nuisance, the bane of your existence and yet… here you were completely wrapped up in him.

The cold realization sank into your bones…

What have you done?

AN:

Hey guys!

I want to thank you guys for being so patient with me and the release of this chapter. Uni has been picking up and being between summer classes and fulltime at work, sometimes my posting has to get delayed! So i really appreciate the grace in this!

This series is hitting its mid way point, so there will be more picking up of everything pretty soon!

Also I have a few drafts of a JJK fanfic that I made, one with SukunaxReader and one with GetoxReader that I will be posting either while I write this series or after. I still haven’t decided yet!

Please continue to leave feedback and comments! I love reading them esp the personal messages i’ve received from many of you!

See you next week! xx.

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