#so that means I need to update the fucking app. so I can get Lisa’s skin

[what-the-fuck-khr]

I CANT UPDATE GENSHIN I DONT HAVE THE SOACE GONNA NECK

[ao-anonymousobsesser]

Oops?

Hey! So! I’m not dead! Surprised? Me too!

This story was written for my good friend @comfortably-chaotic-mind -  I love them, please go follow them and read whatever they post. Some ColdFlash written just for you, buddy, since I know I haven’t written much...and this is honestly kind of garbage and not in any way explicitly ColdFlash until the end, and I might eventually continue it in a real story (probably not). But anyway! Good job with school! Here you go!

Oops? a ColdFlash Fic for @comfortably-chaotic-mind - 4700 words

“Allen.”

He glanced up, fingers pausing their furious typing but still hovering over the keys. “Yeah?”

“There’s some guy at the door, says he knows you.”

Barry’s brow scrunched. “Who?”

His roommate shrugged. “Didn’t give a name. Said he was your friend, asked me to get you.” A pause, and he looked over his shoulder almost nervously. “He’s creepy, dude—I think he might be on the run. Who the fuck you hangin’ out with?”

Realization dawned, and he laughed. “Oh, okay,” he said, still laughing. “Yeah, it’s fine. It’s just Len—you can let him in.”

“You sure?”

Barry rolled his eyes. “Yes, Hal. I promise he won’t steal your stuff.”

His roommate’s eyes narrowed at that. “Even more suspicious,” he muttered, but he disappeared back into the hall.

There were muffled voices—Hal telling Len where to find him—and then the front door shut and the TV in the living room turned on. If he listened really carefully, he could hear quiet footsteps on the creaky stairs.

The door to his bedroom-slash-office opened again, and he turned back to his computer. The data report wasn’t going to finish itself. It didn’t take long for the door to shut, and then a man’s figure came to lean against the desk beside his arm.

“No Cold-Gun today?” Barry asked, conversational. “How bold of you. You know, without that thing, I could take you to jail whenever I want.”

The man scoffed. “We have a deal, Scarlet—I don’t kill, you don’t turn me in. I haven’t killed anyone, so…”

He rolled his eyes. “What do you want, Snart?” he sighed. “And how did you even find me?”

“I asked Vibe.”

Barry waited for him to continue, but he left it at that, so Barry finally stopped talking and looked up with a raised brow and a completely nonplussed expression. “What do you want, Cold?” he snapped.

Len just frowned. “What are you doing here, Scarlet?”

“What do you mean?” He gestured pointedly around them. “I’m working.”

“You work in Central City,” the man corrected, almost…grumbling.

Barry shook his head, face scrunching in utter confusion. “No, I mean—I had to go back to school.”

“Back?”

“Yeah? Back? This is where I went to get my degree in the first place, and now I have to take an updated course. Just a few weeks. I should be back by next month. I’m even getting paid for it.” He grinned, though it almost immediately fell when Len just stared at him. “What?”

“When did you get your degree?”

“Every CSI has a college degree, Snart. It’s mandatory.”

“No. When were you in Coast City?”

He shrugged. “I moved the summer after high school. School for three years, training for one, and then I went home.” The other man was silent, and his brow scrunched in concern. “Why?”

Len shook his head. “No reason,” he said quietly, glancing around the room. The way he said it indicated that there was, in fact, a reason, but that he would not be disclosing it. “What are you doing back?”

“Refresher course,” Barry replied slowly. “They updated the curriculum for the new tech we have now, and Singh offered to send me back here instead of doing the course in Central, since Coast City is way better in the university department.”

The other man didn’t ask anything else, still looking around the room, and the speedster sighed deeply.

“Look, Snart, I have a lot of work to do, so if there’s a reason for this visit, please get to—”

“What was it like,” he interrupted, the words rough and halting, as if he were forcing them out of his throat, “for you, when you were in your coma?”

Barry blinked in surprise. “How do you know about that?”

“Humor me, Scarlet.”

“I…” He hesitated before shaking his head. “Well, it was hard, at first. Not just because I woke up with superspeed, but—when I was…asleep…I was just dreaming. About anything, everything—and it didn’t really feel like anything more than just regular dreams and stuff. And then I woke up, and it had been, like…nine, ten months without me even noticing. So I had to deal with that.” He sighed. “The world just kind of…I mean, the world doesn’t stop because a random CSI is in a coma. No one really cared—No one other than Iris and Joe, and STAR Labs kinda. So, yeah. It was rough for a while. Everything had changed, and I didn’t even get to see it.”

Len was quiet for a long moment. Barry watched him carefully, searching for any sign as to what this was all about.

Finally, the older man sighed and shook his head. “How did you know it was me at the door?”

“Hal’s description,” he replied without hesitation. “He’s pretty intuitive about stuff. Said you looked like you were on the run, and creepy, and suspicious, but if he thought you were actually dangerous, he would have come out and said it. And you’re the only one I know that could pull that off and still say, I’m a friend of Barry’s, can you get him? with a totally straight face.” He shrugged. “Anyone else who might have done that is still in Central. I got an update last night—they all went out to celebrate Caitlin’s first official catch.” He grinned.

Len rolled his eyes. “You left a bunch of newbies to protect the city,” he sighed disapprovingly.

Barry frowned. “You know, when we first met, I was a newbie,” he pointed out. “I had only been a speedster for like—a month.” He huffed. “Cisco and Iris have it under control for now. It’s fine. The city’s in good hands.”

“I don’t like it.”

The speedster paused, head tilted as his eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“I just don’t. A lot can happen without the Scarlet Speedster around.”

“There are three other speedsters in town right now. I think they’ll be fine.”

“None of them are you.”

“What’s your point, Len?” he sighed, exasperated now. “Did something happen?”

“No.”

Just then, Barry’s alarm sounded, startling him. It was noon: officially lunchtime. He huffed, shutting down his laptop and standing to stretch. Then his phone started beeping again—not his alarm, this time, but his text-tone. And then it started ringing. Like, ringing ringing, in the way it only did when Cisco’s latest installation was being put to use.

He had only let him put the app on his phone a few weeks ago, before going to Coast City, just in case. If several people called him at once, he could choose which he wanted to answer rather than hearing the busy-line beeping noise when he answered the phone.

Barry raised a brow and reached for the device.

Len grabbed his arm, pulling him back. “Don’t answer that,” he all but ordered. “Trust me.”

“Why?” His face scrunched. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

“They’re just going to tell you that I’m on my way here,” the man explained carefully. “And since I’m already here, you don’t need to know.”

“How did you get here so fast, then?” Barry retorted.

“Kara lent me her generator.” Len shrugged. “She was…strangely nice.” His brow rose. “I’m guessing you only told her the good parts, and not that I’m a criminal?”

The speedster ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe? By the time I met her, you were with the Legends.” He paused. “How did you meet her?”

“Long story.”

“Obviously, I’ve got time.” He crossed his arms and glared pointedly. “What the hell is going on, Len? What did you do in Central that has everyone trying to get ahold of me? When did you get back from the Waverider? Why are you here?”

“I didn’t know where else to go!” Len shouted, expression crumpling. “Mick won’t talk to me, Lisa’s underground, Sara thinks I’ve lost my mind, and the rest of the crew—they can barely look at me after what they did! What they let me do!”

Barry was utterly confused, now, and he took a slow step forward as if approaching a scared, wounded animal. “What are you talking about?” he asked carefully.

“I died, Barry.”

He froze—actually froze, standing stock-still like a robot shutting down. This was… “What?” he asked. “What…That…What?”

Len sighed, slumping down into the vacated office chair. “The Time Masters were—They were gonna let Vandal Savage wreck the timeline. Kill whoever he wanted. They said they had to, to ensure the world’s survival.”

“What does that mean?”

“In a couple hundred years, we’re going to be invaded by Thanagaar—an alien planet with a warlike people. And the Time Masters don’t think we’ll make it unless Savage is there to help us. So, they let him do what he wants, shape the world into what he thinks is best, and he’ll save the world.”

“It’s Vandal Savage, Len. He can’t be trusted.”

“I know,” he snapped. “We all knew that.” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We decided to destroy their time-keeping device. The Oculus, they called it. It held the records for every timeline, every little change that would or could occur. Destroy that, and time is guided by freewill.”

“And?”

“And the only way to destroy it was to stand right next to it, holding down the button until it exploded.” He looked up, watching the horror dawn across Barry’s face, and nodded. “Ray was going to be the one, thinking his Atom suit would protect him, but we saw that it wouldn’t. And then Mick tried to step in, because Rip convinced him it was the way to repent—by saving his friend. I couldn’t—I couldn’t let him die.”

“Len…”

“I couldn’t let Mick die, Barry,” he snapped. “Not like that. Not when I—I was the one who dragged him into the whole thing. Into the Legends. He followed me, after everything, after everything I did to him, and…and I couldn’t do it.”

“I get it.”

“I knocked him out, took his place…blew up the Oculus. Took out half the Time Masters, too.”

“And then?”

“I died. Disintegrated. Became…Nothing.”

Barry reached out to set a hand on his shoulder, brow scrunched in sympathy. “How long?”

“I don’t know.” Len shook his head. “Days? Years? Centuries? I…I wasn’t sleeping, exactly, or dreaming. It was all…real. And then you were there. Every time I managed to pull myself together, every time I relaxed into the pain enough to think…You were there.”

He was confused again. “I don’t remember…”

The man was already shaking his head. “An older version of you,” he clarified. “You were…maybe thirty?” He sighed. “There were so many fragments, different timelines…It’s hard to keep track. Most of them didn’t make sense.”

“Why?”

“I’d rather not say. If you don’t mind.”

Barry shrugged. “That’s fine, I guess. It’s your trauma.” He sighed. “So this was maybe…three, four years in the future.”

“Most of it.”

“And the rest?”

Len looked away at that, silent for a minute. Then, quietly, “The last one was a few weeks ago. He brought me back to the Waverider.”

“He?”

“You…Future-You.” He chuckled softly. “I fell through a wormhole onto his kitchen floor.”

Barry laughed. “I’m sure that was surprising.”

Len shrugged. “He didn’t seem surprised. But it could have been because he was older.”

“What do you mean, he didn’t seem surprised?”

“He…” Hesitation, again. “He just leaned over and said, Finally. Then he helped me up, explained some science stuff that I couldn’t understand, and offered to take me back to my time.”

“How old was he—I?” Barry stuttered.

“Forty? Maybe forty-five?” Another shrug. “You might have been older, though—I had a feeling. Speedster aging must be slower.”

“Strange.” He shook his head. “How long did you stay with the Legends?”

“Not long. Like I said, they can barely stand to be around me.” He sighed. “It didn’t take much to get them to drop me off in 2016.”

“You still haven’t told me how you met Supergirl. She’s on another Earth, Len—the Waverider couldn’t have taken you there, and I don’t think you have any favors left with Cisco. So how did you meet?”

Len nodded, thoughtful. “That…is complicated.”

“More complicated than literally dying?”

“Yes.”

Barry huffed and sat down on his bed, crossing his arms. “Hit me with it, then.”

“First of all, I didn’t meet her this year. I met her…probably at least fifteen or twenty years from now. It’s all a little fuzzy.”

“Why?”

“She—Well, her team, really…They were the ones who pulled my threads together.” He shook his head. “They didn’t mean to, not really—they were looking for some sort of robot, or something—but they got me out first. I was unconscious for that part. Woke up in a hospital bed next to Kara’s.”

“She was hurt?”

Len shook his head again. “Not exactly…More drained. The machine they used drew power from her. She insisted it was fine, that she just needed some Vitamin D, and she’d be fine.”

“Her power comes from the Sun.”

“I know that now—I didn’t know back then.” He sighed. “She asked who I was…and when I told her, she immediately asked if I knew you and Oliver.”

“Of course she did,” he muttered. “And then?”

“I don’t remember a lot of it,” Len admitted. “She gave me one of her spare generators, and then I woke up on Older-Barry’s kitchen floor.” A scoff. “And then I get home to a crew that no longer wants anything to do with me. They dropped me off in Central. I looked for Lisa, but it looks like she’s underground—she’s not at any of her usual safehouses.”

Barry grimaced, shifting slightly in his seat. “Um…”

The former villain narrowed his eyes. “What’s that, Scarlet?”

He winced. “Lisa’s not underground, Len.”

“What are you talking about? Is she in jail?”

“No…” Barry sighed. “She’s on Earth-2.”

“Why?” Len demanded, lurching from his seat.

“Because she’s sick,” he said calmly, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “Harry—Earth-2 Wells knew a doctor who specializes in her condition, one who’s much better than anyone we know on this Earth, and we sent her over there to get help. Cisco’s probably on his way there right now to tell her you’re back.” He paused. “Actually, she’s probably with the you who lives there, now that I think about it.”

“What?” That made him pause in his anger, at least, now confused and concerned. “Why?”

“I don’t think you want to know,” Barry hedged. “But she’s in good hands, I promise.”

“Just tell me, Barry.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “The doctor I told you about, the specialist? It’s her—Earth-2 Lisa Snart is a bio-engineer with a Medical Degree. Basically, she’s Caitlin. Minus the ice powers and with the addition of some pretty sweet inventions.” He grimaced. “Her brother is…the Mayor. Of Central City. They killed their dad when they were kids—self-defense.”

Len was quiet for a moment. Then: “You’ve met, then?”

He nodded. “Twice, actually. Once on accident…and then again when Harry introduced us to Lenny and Doc. They’re…nice. Safe. Very protective, which isn’t surprising.” He grinned. “Last I talked to Lisa, she was awake and feeling a lot better. She hasn’t had an episode in almost two months, and her brain activity is back to normal. She sounds better, too—more like herself. Even flirted with Cisco when they talked, which she hadn’t done in a while…”

“She’s okay, then?”

“Not at a hundred percent yet,” Barry warned with a shrug. “But yeah. She’s safe. Happy. Feeling better than she did when she first came to us.”

“What happened?”

“She just—Showed up at Joe’s one night, out of nowhere. I think it was maybe a month or so after you left—she had called Cisco before that, asking if we knew where you were, and we told her, and she was pissed at me for some reason.” He laughed, just a little. “Then she just shows up out of nowhere at Joe’s house, scares the hell out of me when she just walks right through the front door. Which was locked.” He shook his head. “Apparently, she stole your key?” His brow raised.

Len just smirked. “Lock-picking gets tedious after a while.”

“Where did you even—”

“Iris should be more careful about leaving her purse lying around.”

“…Whatever.” Barry huffed. “So, anyway, Lisa just walks in one night—middle of the night, out of nowhere—sits right next to me on the couch, scaring the hell out of me. She looks at me, and I could already tell something was messed up with her, because she just…she didn’t look right. She looked tired and sad and…sick.” He sighed. “She looked at me for a minute and then said, Don’t freak out. You know, like she hadn’t just appeared out of nowhere. And then she said, I need your help. And I was like, With what? And she told me she ran into an old boyfriend and he did something to her.”

“What the f—”

“Not that,” he assured quickly. “That was my first thought, but she kind of lost it when I asked her, and—yeah. So then, when she calmed down from that, she got this headache…migraine…thing, and that was when I first saw her get one of her attacks.” He grimaced. “It was…bad. Weird, and scary, and it actually kind of freaked me out.” A sigh. “So, uh, I called Caitlin first, and then Cisco and Harry, and asked them to meet us at STAR Labs. Harry had actually seen something like it before, on his Earth, and he knew a specialist—other-Lisa—who could help. So we took her there. She insisted that I had to come with her, and she wouldn’t let me leave until she was with Lenny and Doc, until she was sure she could trust them.”

Len thought this all over for a moment. “What exactly did this attack entail?”

“Hard to describe…” Barry thought about it. “She kind of…exploded? Not her body, but like…her spirit, kind of. Like an astral projection, except she couldn’t control it enough to actually appear as a person.” He sighed. “We met the ex-boyfriend a few weeks later…Roscoe?”

“Dillon.” He sneered. “He’s still around?”

“Not anymore,” the speedster said darkly. “He was a metahuman…some kind of tornado-hurricane-spinning abilities. Cisco called him Topsy-Turvy, but after he just kept coming and coming…it was an accident, but he died.”

“How did he hurt Lisa?”

“As far as we can tell…She was working on some sort of mercenary work or something, and he was robbing a bank, and they…literally ran into each other. She got thrown into a wall, got a knock on the head, and apparently the concussion triggered some kind of ability she didn’t know about.”

“She wasn’t in Central—”

“When the Particle Accelerator blew.” Barry nodded. “Yeah, we know.” He winced. “You’re not gonna like our theory on that.”

“Why not?” Len asked, very slowly.

“Because it might be my fault.”

He blinked, surprised. “What?”

“Turns out…I kind of…give off small amounts of Dark Matter because of the Speed Force…mostly when I run.”

“And?”

“And, the people that I transport, if they carry a metahuman gene, could, theoretically, absorb that Dark Matter in the same way that people affected by the Particle Accelerator did…and, theoretically, this would make them more likely to develop an ability when exposed to violent trauma.” A pause. “I transported Lisa a handful of times when we were helping you guys last year, and even before that for different reasons.”

Len didn’t say anything to this, instead looking down at his hands.

“I’m sorry, Len,” Barry said quietly. “If I’d known…”

“It’s not your fault,” he told him. “You didn’t know.”

“I…”

“Not every bad thing that happens is your fault, Scarlet,” Len said with a smirk. “It’s alright.”

Barry huffed. “Fine.” He was quiet for a minute. “If you want, I can take you to her. You know, so you can see for yourself.”

He thought about it for a bit before shaking his head. “No,” he decided. “If she’s getting what she needs, I don’t want to interrupt it. If Cisco does tell her and she wants to see me, I’ll go, but for now, she needs her rest.”

The speedster nodded in understanding. “Okay.” His phone was still ringing, and he looked at it. “I’m just gonna tell them that everything is fine.”

He picked up the device, ignoring the calls, and opened the group chat, which was full of about a hundred messages that all said pretty much the same thing. He sent out a text saying, Yeah, he’s here. Just wants to talk about some stuff. Everything is fine. Thanks, I’ll let you know later. Love you guys.

With that, Barry sighed and slipped the phone into his pocket. “So, what are you going to do now?” he asked the former villain.

Len just smiled. “Not sure. I could go back to robbing banks…but I don’t really need the money. Maybe I’ll offer your team some help in Central.”

“What do you mean, you don’t need the money?” His eyes narrowed.

“Blowing up the Oculus had a few benefits.” He shrugged. “I know all the lottery numbers for the next five years. I’ve already made four-hundred grand.”

“Len…”

“Technically not a crime.”

“Still.” Barry shook his head with a deep sigh. “Fine, whatever. Well, I’m sure STAR Labs could use the help. And I’ll be back in no time…as soon as I finish this course, which is…not what I expected.”

“Too hard?”

“Too easy,” he corrected, scoffing. “I’ve read all the material, and the projects are all…solved with very little effort. Nothing near as challenging as my actual job in Central. Science there is always complicated.”

“Because of the metas.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Superpowers make regular science look way easier than it did in college.” He nodded at the computer. “Actually, after the paper I’m working on right now, I only have two more and a final exam. I could be done by next week, if I wanted. I just don’t want Singh to think I rushed through it.”

“He already trusts you more than any other CSI, Barry. I think he trusts you to do the work on your own schedule.”

“Maybe.”

“Then I’ll see you back in Central next week.”

“I—”

“Next week, Barry.”

A sigh. “Fine. Next week.” His phone buzzed, he looked at the message and laughed. “Harry says your sister is attempting a prison break to try to see you. You might want to visit her.”

Len chuckled. “Alright then. I suppose it’s time to tell her what’s happened.” He stood, holding out a hand when Barry followed suit. When their hands clasped, the villain-turned-legend pulled the speedster forward until they were almost hugging. “I’ll see you soon, Scarlet.”

“See you soon, Cold.”

And with the press of a button, Len was gone, leaving Barry to wonder exactly what just happened.

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

6 Weeks Later

“Barry…”

“Iris…”

She sighed. “This is getting unprofessional.”

He laughed, a little nervous. “What are you talking about?”

“You and Len.” It had taken a while for everyone to get used to each other, but now he was just Len instead of Cold. Progress. “You guys have got to stop flirting in the field. It’s weird.”

“We do not flirt.”

“You’re literally blushing, Barry.” Her tone was amused now. “Do you have a crush?”

“Iris,” the speedster all but whined, pulling a t-shirt over his head. “This is weird.”

“Why? Because we dated?”

“Yes!”

“Barely.” Iris rolled her eyes. “Barry, it’s fine. You have a crush on Len, it’s fine…but you should probably tell him.”

“No!” he said immediately. “No, that’s—That’s a bad idea.”

“Why? I’m pretty sure he likes you.”

That made him pause. “Really?” He bit his lip, looking at her. “You think so?”

“Lisa keeps teasing him about it.” She nodded. “And you’re both clearly attracted to each other, and you’re always flirting, so…Why not just come out and say it?”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not.”

“What if it ends badly?”

“What if it doesn’t?” Iris laughed brightly. “Barry, sometimes you get in your own way. You just gotta go for it sometimes. Take a leap of faith. It’s gonna be okay.”

Barry was quiet for a long time, and Iris eventually left him to his own devices.

Ultimately, he decided to go for it; he went to find Len. Unsurprisingly, he was at “their” spot: a diner across from Jitters and CCPD, filled with leather booths and chrome and the smell of fresh homemade pie.

Barry slid into the booth across from Len, who looked up from his phone with a smile. “Hey, Scarlet. Look at this.”

He turned the device around so the speedster could see. “What’s that? Oh—Oh, that’s so cool!” He grinned. “Lisa-Squared?”

“Yeah. Lisa drew up the models, and Doc built it. It came out pretty neat, I think.”

“It did, yeah. I like the melting feature—there won’t be ice-streaks all over the city.” He laughed. “Of course they’re gold—Lisa’s choice, I’m sure.”

“Naturally.” Len shrugged. “You can’t take the Gold out of the Glider, I guess. Not completely.”

“No, I guess not.” Barry leaned his head on his palm, elbow on the table.

The newly-branded Citizen Cold raised a brow and put his phone away. “Something on your mind, Barry?”

He shrugged. “Iris came to talk to me today.”

“What about?”

“She said that we flirt a lot when we’re in the field.” He scrunched his nose. “I told her she was crazy, and she looked at me like I was an idiot…not unlike you’re looking at me right now, Len—what the hell?”

“Barry,” he said quietly, slowly, “I don’t know how to break this to you, but almost everything we say to each other is banter…which is a form of flirting.”

“But—But,” Barry sputtered. “But!”

“What’s wrong, Scarlet?” Len teased. “Can’t keep up?”

He frowned, almost pouting. “You never said anything,” he accused.

The other man shrugged. “I was told not to.”

“By who?”

“By you. Older you—The one who brought me back. He said you had to figure it out on your own.”

Barry stammered again, arms flailing. “What the hell!” he said, frustrated. “That’s stupid!”

“You’re calling yourself an idiot?” Len clarified.

“Yes! I’m an idiot, now, but like—that’s just stupid.” He sighed. “I mean, I guess it makes sense to keep the timeline the way it should be. But still.”

They were both quiet for a long minute. Long enough for a waitress to come by and take drink orders and then bring them back.

Once she disappeared, Barry took a sip of his soda and then suddenly blurted, “Will you go with me to Jesse’s party on Earth-2 this weekend?”

Len raised a brow. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? That’s a lot of pressure.”

“It’s just a party, Len,” he said with a grin. “All our friends will be there, and we can be together without doing the awkward first-date thing…I mean, we already did a lot of that without realizing. Unless you want to…”

There was a pause as he thought about it, enough to make Barry almost panic, but Len nodded slowly. “Alright. But I have two requests.”

“Shoot.”

“One: If Caitlin makes her Speedster Alcohol, you have to stop drinking at least two hours before we leave. I want you sober when we head out.”

“Why?”

“Because, two: I want to go for a walk. We’re not doing the first-date-awkward dinner thing, and movies aren’t something we have time for, but we can go for a walk and talk about things.” A pause. “It’s important, to me.”

Barry thought about this, about what it might mean, but he didn’t see a reason to say no. Besides… “That sounds nice. Okay. I won’t drink too much, and I’ll stop before we leave so we can go talk. It’s a deal.”

“It’s a date, Scarlet.”

“A date, Cold.”

[shitihaveheardatwork]

See You In Hell, Bratz Passion 4 Fashion: Diamondz!

Contrary to the opinions of many of my peers, I think weeding is awesome and I love it. There’s little I find more satisfying than an item of obviously low quality with no demand whatsoever coming into my attention and having the privilege of removing it from circulation.

Just to be entirely clear, we’re not talking about “extreme” or “controversial” content. I’ve had that conversation done to death a thousand classroom-polarizing times before. We’re talking about cheap. We’re talking about cash-grab. We’re talking about no artistic, cultural, spiritual, or even material value.

We’re talking about Bratz Passion 4 Fashion; Diamondz.

Some personal history first: I’m old enough that my last big toy phase before I reached the special level of adolescence where you have to openly condemn everything you once held dear as a child was Bionicles. I had the black bionicle from every generation up until that point, as well as a complete set of those little rolly-polly guys with the stretchy necks. I don’t know what they were called and I couldn’t be bothered to look it up for this lil micro-essay here.

What’s important is that they were cool. They did action-y stuff, I felt smart putting them together.

Waaaay Cooler, Smarter, Action-y, and REAL than my sister’s interests! Polly Pocket? Dumb! Pre-bronification MLP? Barf! Bratz? How fake can you get? Those were just shallow pieces of plastic made by toy companies. Not like my precious bionicles. So cool. So adult. So smart.

Then I watched the first Bionicle movie when it was on TV and realized I too was a cog in an elaborate toy commercial scheme. Something clicked in my horny mushy pre-teen brain, and I put away all my old favorite toys forever. It was now time to be shitty and elitist about intangible concepts instead, a hobby I’d keep until my early 20′s. But in addition to a change in hobbies, I also started to be a little bit less shit to my sister about her toys.

This confession out of the way, I don’t think my sister would have stopped me from throwing this DVD directly into the trash. My sister didn’t become a high-fallutin’ working-class intelligentsia asshole like her big brother, and we have nothing comparable in terms of media taste, but I think she would support me 100% if I told her I sent this DVD straight to hell. In fact I might call her later just to confirm. This disk was bad, is the moral of my story.

It took six paragraphs, but let’s talk about Day 3 on the job!

It was just me and Lisa today. I’ve upgraded from liking Lisa to absolutely loving working with Lisa. We talked everything from how her kids are doing to politics (she brought up Tr#mps latest satire-destroying phone call) to video-gaming to the history of animation. I genuinely like talking to her and it’s a shame she’s just filling in. If a job opens up at her branch, I’d apply for it, no question.

My boss Wallace, “Yer dad”-level queerphobe and Ron Swanson-esque libertarian, was putting out a metaphorical fire at another branch and I didn’t have to deal with him at all.

I did my opening routine. Checking the drop box, collecting the pull list, putting together holds, refiling returned materials, preparing ILL material, checking my work email, and the like. I was done with it all in about 90 minutes, with 4 hours left to go on my shift.

Wallace had told me to fill the time with anything I can qualify as “professional development” the week before, so I spent some time reading articles on the ALA website and googling “anarcho-librarianism” just to see what would happen. I found an abandoned blog and a twitter.

Then I remembered oh shit. I have to make a twitter don’t I

I don’t like twitter. I’ve tried to use it. I don’t get it. I’m too old to learn a new app. It’s impossible.

And yet I must. That’s where The Discourse is happening. That’s where the minds in my field are saying things. If I’m taking my career seriously, if I want to get a grip on the currents in my profession, I have to bite that checkmarked bullet. Stand by for updates on my professional twitter.

I got bored of being on the ALA site and ran out of productive things to google, and decided to look around the building for abandoned projects and mysteries to solve. It didn’t take long to find one, when I found a cart in the work room with a pile of DVDs in paper sleeves.

“Scratched” a post-it note on top said.

I asked Lisa if she knew how long these had been here, and she confirmed that they were in fact a hold-over from the previous staff that had left in a mass exodus some months before.

Well cool, I thought. I’ll see if these are too fucked up to play.

Commence with an hour of consuming children’s media, a few seconds of a minute at a time. I was fortunate that the work computers both had CD drives AND VLC media player! Thank you, past cool supervisor who put VLC on the work machines! Good call!

So I “watched” a few Dora The Explorers, a Care Bears film, that Trolls movie, Hotel Transylvania, and a Barbie horse adventure film, watching a few seconds before skipping a minute ahead to see if it would choke and skip.

See here’s the thing about scratched CDs. They’re weird. You can have a CD that’s fucked up completely (looking at you, my copy of Rollercoaster Tycoon 1) that still somehow plays fine like it just came out of the box. Sometimes scratches will seem totally superficial but goof up just enough microscopic binary that no machine will touch it. All these DVDs were ugly as sin, but that didn’t mean they were broken did it?

And it turns out a lot of them worked fine. That’s how I ended up watching Bratz Passion 4 Fashion: Diamondz which, unfortunately, played fine.

As I put the disk into the drive I remembered my sister’s participation in the Bratz toy craze. As an adult, a real one not the one I told myself I was at 13, I told myself that I might have a bias against this content, to just check the disk and not get judgy about what might be a kids favorite movie.

I uh... I failed to do that. BUT IT’S OK BECAUSE MY BIAS IS TOTALLY JUSTIFIED AND MY JUSTIFICATION IS RIGHT HERE

If you didn’t or don’t want to click the link, it’s a scene where the Bratz Diamonds are about to head out on some sort of fashion trucking marathon/race. Like any proper racer, the blonde at the wheel has a white-knuckle grip on the wheel, has just put their rig in gear, and in proper high-octane fashion, puts on a knowing smirk.

Except the smirk is, well... the animators just stretched the lips across the face further. I can’t do it justice, you just have to watch it, but I’ve done better animating just by pan-and-scanning around Windows Movie Maker.

This... isn’t content anybody needs. But I’m a librarian. I’m sworn to access. So the question becomes, does anyone want it?

I had to know, I had to know, how much circulation has this gotten? When was the last time this disk was in the hands of anybody at all besides me?

I popped it into Evergreen and behold: 15 check-outs since 2006 when it was released. No checkouts in the last 2 years.

I asked Lisa the proper procedure for removing something from the catalog, and in only a moment the deed was done. The case was repurposed, the disk trashed, the DVD cover recycled. It was time to go. I’d spent my remaining hours quasi-consuming children’s media.

I placed most of what I’d watched in a new pile, which I labeled “SCRATCHED BUT WORK FINE.” I placed one lone Barbie horse movie in a different pile labeled “SCRATCHED AND DOES NOT WORK.”

I felt like I’d accomplished something. I turned off the lights and I went home.

[acciomoondew]

hiya tumblr

i haven’t done this in.. well quite some time but here goes

just to update anyone who is reading this - hi i’m lisa and i am almost done my first year of law school. it’s gone okay, but the exams are murderous they’re so much harder than i could have ever imagined and i’m really struggling. but i just got a job with the prosecution services in a town just about an hour away for the summer. i’ve always wanted to be a prosecutor like genuinely always since i was like 12 years old. it’s hard to articulate why because it’s kind of shifted after going through a whole undergraduate degree where i learned all about people and society and psychology and criminology and stuff. but i still want to be one and i want to make a difference with my career and hope to make at least a small impact on the criminal justice system. but you see the thing is so many people are doubting me on this. just this past week alone two separate colleagues at school have basically told me that my reasons for wanting to be a prosecutors are stupid and i won’t be able to make any changes as a lawyer and you know i get it maybe being a lawmaker or a politician would be able to make more change. but i think it’s important for prosecutors to make changes from within the criminal justice system you know? by not focusing so much on incarceration and targeting of indigenous canadians and use more meaningful consequences that will decrease criminality. i know that’s idealistic and hopeful and probably naive but that’s what i believe and want to do with my life and it’s all i’ve wanted to do for like over 10 years. i’m also so lonely? i have friends at school but we don’t really hang out outside of class and lunch and school-related functions. i mean a couple times i have been invited out and that’s nice. but my friends pre-law school are not communicating with me. i’m always the one starting the conversation and rarely does it last long. so yeah i’m struggling. a couple weeks ago i had my reading week break and told them to let me know when they were free so we could get together and so one suggested the snow maze and then i immediately said yes that sounds great and it took the others (one of which is like the leader of the other two - they won’t go if the one main one doesn’t) until the day before to finally commit. but then when we got there (i drove because i’m the only one with a car) the three fucked off and did their own thing and left my other friend and i alone. and then you know i had to drive them home and they like didn’t talk to me on the drive back. so i feel like i did something wrong but of course i didn’t but my brain doesn’t let me think otherwise and yeah the depression thing is always fun but it’s really messing me up but i’m too scared to go to the doctor and do anything about it because i know just how expensive it is to get help and how long it takes to get help and i don’t know if i go see my gp if she just give me a prescription for antidepressants because i think i need them. the social anxiety is getting bad again too, and i think it might be merging into general anxiety which is super fun. i’m crying all the time now and i don’t like that it’s not fun and it makes me feel like shit and idk i just don’t feel like i have anyone to really talk to. i feel like no one wants to talk to me and i know i’m not the best person i try to be nice but i’m so fucking weird and awkward and i don’t know i’m not a good talker i don’t say the right thing i say dumb things all the time and idk maybe i can’t do this maybe i can’t do law school it’s so stressful and hard and i feel so dumb in class which is new i’ve always understood the things i’m learning before but now it’s like everyone around me is having no trouble but i’m struggling and i just i hate it i hate my self and how i am and i just want to sleep all the time and i do i go to school for like 10 hours and try and do some studying there and then i come home and i’m just so drained that i end up zoning out and not being able to do anything except watch netflix and sleep and it makes it really hard to keep up with courses and i’m really worried that i’m going to fail everything and that will ruin my life i will never be able to become a lawyer let alone a prosecutor and then what do i do with my life because i didn’t do honours psych because i was told i wasn’t good enough for the program so i woudl have to go back and do the 2 year add on just to be considered for the masters program and then i would have to go get a phd and i would still be in school when i’m 30 and i’m spiralling i’m spiralling hard and who knows if i would even be a good clinical psychologist i’m surely not good or smart enough to be a psychiatrist because med school would actually kill me but my peers are so smart like so smart they talk about their undergrad experiences and most of them never got anything less than an A or A+ whereas I got a mix of everything I’m talking like an even split between B+ A and A+ but i still got a bunch of B’s and one C+ and even on the midterms they’re all sad because they all got B’s and i’m sitting there like fuck really i would die for a B because I actually failed one of them, and got a C and a C+ on two others, and that means i’m very at risk of not doing well overall and holy fuck the finals are worth between 70 and 80% of my grade and that’s terrifying and i just know i’m going to fuck it up and i’m just so scared and worried and in addition to the crying you know when you can actually feel a strain in your heart like you heart is trying to leave your chest because you are just so sad and oh heart yeah still single still a 23 year old virgin who has been on 3 dates and is continually rejected on dating apps and i’ve never even been kissed and how pathetic is that i mean how do you get to be twenty fucking three without having any physical intimacy like i don’t even get hugs because i don’t see my friends because they don’t talk to me anymore and my immediate family are not huggers and i’m worried that i’ll never be able to find a partner because who wants someone so old who has no experience whatsoever and is emotionally and physically stunted in the romance department and oh yeah and questioning sexuality is fun too like that’s just one more thing to be worried about and i’ve been going between over eating and not eating and i’ve gained so much weight i’m so disgusting my body is repulsive to me so i can’t imagine ever showing it to another person and i really yeah i really wish i could just start over like die and start over or at least maybe go back to grade 4 and start over because that’s where it all started to go downhill my dad got laid off and then found a job in edmonton which is two provinces away and my mom was so stressed and i had to step up and help around the house and take out garbage and clean and do things to get the house ready for showings and i started to get acne and started to get self conscious and i’ve never really been the same little girl that i used to be and i just wish i had someone to talk to i really just wish i had some person to talk to me and want to talk to me and isn’t doing it out of some sort of obligation  just a person who genuinely wants to be my friend and do friend things i miss having someone to just be silly around i haven’t had that in like 15 years i just don’t like where i am right now in life as a person i just wish i had a different life 

anyway yeah i’m going to go sleep for probably 12 hours now thanks 

[pooklet]

unaesthetic asks (anon edition)

i usually use a psd for asks to make them look nice and transparent and number them but tbh it’s just keeping me from answering asks quickly, having to shift layers around and stuff. so this is me literally cutting and pasting the text of some asks into a text post instead, sry.

if i did not answer yr thing here i lost/never got the ask, need a separate post to answer it (community lot anon), or worked myself into an anxious lather when i did not have an immediate response at the ready and fled into the woods to hide inside an old damp log and mutate slowly into a creature composed entirely of moss.

1) hey friend i think i can actually help with this one! slig did my poor lover for momma lisa, and has a few of my other skins linked to different body meshes in this tag here. @asimplevampire​ also did rehash for androgyny. those are the two i know off the top of my head but if anyone else knows any others pls reply to this post!

i don’t personally make showerproof skintones for body meshes because i a) am lazy and b) don’t usually take pics of my sims in the shower or naked in general so the occasional floating head just gives me a lil chortle when it does happen.

2) yis, it is the second to last one in this post by @magpieplayssims​ with a bunch of face masks piled on.

3) i use a personal edit of gunmod’s 3.1 A camera which alters the, like, central pivot axis so i can swing the camera underground into any basements i might be using. as a result, whenever i load the lot, it starts me off zoomed inside the floor, you just gotta zoom out with the scroll wheel to get above ground and it works normally from there. i haven’t figured out how to mitigate this while still being able to access underground rooms. which is why my edit never got its own post, but i did share it here.

4) nah, not really. i mean i have an outdated one at the back of my catalogue but my face is boring to me cuz i see it every day n stuff & i’m less and less interested in making human features now that custom sliders have let me go absolutely mad with power.

5) ye sorry i put that on my to-do list and promptly forgot about it cuz my brain seems to think that putting something on a list means it’s done forever now!!!! but now it’s actually done and i’m fixing the other links too.

6) yr phone is a craven liar and i will not stand for this libel. earlier today i was genuinely bewildered by a discussion about channing tatum cuz i thought his name was tatum channing. i sat there for minutes, convinced that there were two guys in hollywood one named channing tatum and the other named tatum channing and wondering if that ever got confusing for them.

7) u would be surprised, friend! my memory is a lawless wasteland but i do not end up chatting back and forth w/ many ppl b/c i am a seething pit of social anxiety. if we talked, like, more than twice, i probs remember u!

8) omg i was about to be like “nah i never made nosemasks for those” but that is a fucking lie of the highest caliber, i totally did make one (1) set and then forgot entirely about it. i will post them with the next batch of bodyshop content which should be Shortly (and if i don’t just yell @ me and i’ll just lazily put them on sfs and link them in a reply).

also thank u anon i am glad u like my content! :D

9) omg thank u so much anon that is so sweet of u to say!! truly i don’t feel like i have accomplished a whole lot beyond managing to snag @resurrection-failed​ but that is definitely the Best thing i could accomplish so i am 100% fine w/ that

10) oh ts4. i want to play it real bad but i have discovered that playing games that are still being updated and could break at any moment due to a new patch or ep gives me hives. esp when it’s sims games b/c those are held together exclusively w/ wishes and prayers as it is. they’re like the bottom panel of an expanding brain meme on spaghetti coding. at least when the game is Done there nothing else for EA to break (... right?). plus i only have base+pets and no money to throw at the other expansions so i could maybe download 1/10th of the cc available out there ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

but i am excited to be late af to the party. lemme tell u. thank u for saying such nice things, anon!! i hope u have a good day also. like, lots of ‘em.

11) hey anon! it’s built into tumblr’s text editor. u type the text first, highlight it, and click on the fourth button that looks like a slouchy figure 8 to insert yr link. i’m not sure if it’s the same on mobile, tho, cuz the tumblr mobile app is self-elected torture.

12) i do not right now but i can make one. idk if it would interest you but i am also doing a big ol’ blend of the hq eyes and wifezaya’s favorite ephemera mist eyes and will make a default version of those too when they are done.

13) nah i am still using my v3 texture for straight hairs and for waves or natural hair i just use nouk’s originals. i’m old-fashioned and boring. if u need help w/ making yr own, tho, i would suggest checking out @furbyq​’s tutorial here!

14) hey friend! i did have plans to do that, in that vague way where i have plans to do many things but most of the time end up taking a five-hour nap under a cat instead or watchin game grumps. luckily, @digitalangels​ is a doll and did it for me so consider this my official endorsement. i am pooklet and i approve this action.

15) hey anon. when did i call it that?? i think usually i just call it marriage or equal marriage if i need to specify (or gay marriage if i’m feelin Spicy cuz nonbinary-for-nonbinary is pretty gay). if i did say same-sex it was probs w/ implied air-quotes since that was the term du jour when we got married, which was 3+ years before the supreme court mandate, when it was only legal in some places and everyone was still ‘‘‘‘debating’’’’ the ‘‘‘‘issue’’’’ of queers gettin all married.

16) i been gatherin’ links for u anon but lemme look around a lil more. i will either give this its own post or add it as its own section in the resource post that is like .... five years overdue. meanwhile if anyone reading this has anything they either know is made for dark skin or works well universally or knows of a list like this that already exists, i would appreciate links!

17) I KNOW THAT’S YOU, AZAYA