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secretgamergirl · 6 months

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How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

#computers #computer science #history #electronics #education #relays #transistors #vacuum tubes

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cheriladycl01 · 1 month

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Miami Waves - Logan Sargeant x NewZealandOlympicSurfing! Reader

Plot: Miami boy wants to see if his Olympic surfing girl can keep up with the Floridian waves and you end up getting to know his colleagues more in the process

Credit to egg-waffles16 for the GIF

“Thank you for coming and being here with me” he smiles, his parents had been wanting to meet you for a while. You’d started dating when he first got into F2 and was put under the Williams Young Driver Programme.

“You knew I wouldn’t say no. I’ve been wanting to meet them just as much!” You exclaim. You were a little nervous to meet them, as in your mind Logan was it for you, this was the boy you wanted to marry and have a family with. And even if he didn’t feel the same way right now, that was okay. Not that you knew if he did as you’d never discussed your guys future.

But if you had, he would have told you he felt the exact same way.

Meeting his parents was so much fun, and you got to meet his older brother who teased the both of you relentlessly.

You were used to surfing in Australia and New Zealand. They were the closest to you, and there wasn’t quite any waves like their were on the Australian Coastline. That’s actually where you’d won, one of your first ever championships in surfing. Two years later and you were a Silver Medalists.

“Well my family love you. I’m pretty sure they wanted you to move in” he laughs, Logan lived at home all through his career in F2 and he still visited often as he always said how he felt like an outcast on the F1 grid.

Alex helped but he’d drifted apart from Oscar and had to watch him form a really strong bond with Lando.

He still talked to his friends from his days in Prema as well but everything but you felt so disconnected lately.

So spending those two weeks with his family and you in Miami in the beach villa you'd all rented was vital for the both of you. You felt like you'd been so busy running around, travelling the world with Logan all the time, surfboard rentals at every new place you went so you could train and sometimes travelling for your own championships.

You spent the two weeks doing the most mundane stuff, like cooking together with Logan, building sandcastles, teaching him how to paddle board before showing him the intricacies that came with surfing, which you thought considering his concentration and hand-eye coordination in an F1 car he'd be good at but he couldn't stay on the board once.

Your favourite thing was his family getting really excited to show your their favourite local restaurants in Florida.

You were currently sat on your surfboard with your legs in the water and hands on the middle part of it, watching everything in the neck high water below you.

The water's were crystal clear and you could see the little fishes swimming around playing through the sand. You were swaying a little bit where the quieter, unrideable waves were lapping over your board and sending you in random directions.

You were peacefully watching everything go by, until that peace was ruined by Logan, coming running into the water in his basketball shorts making you look over to him in shock.

"Logan?" you asked as he swam up to hold into your board, you scooted back so that he could haul himself up and sit opposite you on the board.

"Erm, so ... kind of last minute but you about to meet Oscar, Arthur and Freddie" Logan said, trying to give you his cute teddy bear smile, but all that was running through your body was shock.

It was a bit strange but you hadn't actually met his friends, you were very very busy with training for the next Olympics and another set of Championships in New Zealand when Logan was in F2, so you didn't see him in the paddock as much as you do now, and if you did you were nervous and kept to yourself.

"No, stop. I'm basically naked!" you exclaim looking down at your cleavage that wasn't well covered up by your bikini.

"Come on, lets go meet them. And get you a cover-up because I don't trust them" he laughs, placing a hand and the side of your neck before pulling you into a passionate kiss. You guys moved closer to each other to the point where you were basically sat on his lap. A wave a little to large came and toppled you both off the board making you both come up sputtering in shock.

You swim to where the water is knee deep and see three boys watching you.

"Oh" you mutter, knowing exactly who they were.

"Baby, these are my friends" he offers, grabbing your coverup and handing it to you so you could chuck it on.

"Yeah i gathered" you chuckle.

You spent the day with the boys, Oscar was the only one that could surf and you found yourself getting on with all of them, Oscar the most who became like a sort of Oceanic brother to you, being from Australia.

Arthur and Freddie were a whole other story, constantly flirting with you to try and get a rise out of Logan which you couldn't help but giggle at but always grab his hand, arm of leg in a comforting way to let him know none of it was affecting you.

"So, how are you feeling about the Paris Olympics?" Freddie asks as you were all sat around a bonfire, telling stories.

"Yeah confident, I'm excited to be able to participate in it for a second year running! Going for Gold and all that..." you grin.

"Well... we will all be there to watch you, right Logan?" Arthur grins, making you shake your head again.

y/user

Liked by logansargeant, arthur_leclerc and oscarpiastri

y/user: Missing NZ P1🇳🇿🥝 but Miami and Hubby are treating me well P2-4 🇺🇸🦅

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logansargeant: Out of all the pictures you could have used of me on the beach … 😩

-> y/user: baby, I had sunburn in all of our ones 💋

-> logansargeant: but you make such a pretty tomato 🍅

-> y/user: outside for you tonight

-> logansargeant: arthur_leclerc, oscarpiastri, frederickvestiofficial I’m in the dog house boys, help me out!

-> arthur_leclerc: sounds like a you problem, Y/N looking radiant as always 🌸

-> oscarpiastri: maybe you shouldn’t have called your girl a tomato? You hit those Miami waves Y/N 🏄🏼‍♀️🌊

-> frederikvestiofficial: Y/N deserves better 🫣🫶🏼

williamsracing: incredible stuff from you! 🦋💙

Instagram Story Caption:

I prefer the Miami sunsets 🌅

Taglist:

@littlesatanicassholebitch @hockey-racing-fubol @laura-naruto-fan1998 @22yuki @simxican @sinofwriting @lewisroscoelove @cmleitora @stupidandunnecessary @clayra-g @daemyratwst @honey-belden @moonypixel @lauralarsen @vader-is-hot @ironcowboycopnickel @the-untamed-soul @beebo86 @happylittlereader @ziejustme @lou-larcher5 @thewulf @itsjustkhaos @purplephantomwolf @chasing-liberosis @chillyleclerc @chanthereader @annoyingmoonballoon @summissss @evieepepi08 @havaneseoger08 @celesteblack08 @gulphulp @fandom1ruined2me @celebstories @starfusionsworld @jspitwall @sierruhhhh @georgeparisole @dakotatankbig @youcannotcancelquidditch @zzonsbeek @tallbrownhairsarcastic @mellowarcadefun @ourteenagetragedy @otako5811 @countingstacksandpanicattacks @peachiicherries @formulas-bitch @cherry-piee @hopexcroc @mirrorball-6 @spilled-coffee-cup @mehrmonga @bigsimperika @blueberry64857959 @eiraethh @lilypadlover @curseofhecate @alliwantisadonut @the-fem1n1ne-urge @21stcenturytaegi @dark-night-sky-99 @i-wish-this-was-me @tallrock35 @butterfly-lover @barnestatic @landossainz @darleneslane @barcelonaloverf1life @r0nnsblog @ilove-tswizzle @kapsylia @laneyspaulding19 @lazybot @malynn @cassielikereading @viennakarma @landosgirlxoxo @marie0v @jlb20416 @yourbane @teamnovalak @nikfigueiredo @fionaschicken @0picels0 @seomako @urdad-hot @tinydeskwriter @ironmaiden1313 @splaterparty0-0 @formula1mount @styl1shl1v

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jpmarvel90 · 9 months

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Saved

Masterlist Nat Masterlist

Relationship: Natasha x Reader

Summary: A girl with no memories but her time as a prisoner at Hydra, is found by the Avengers. Natasha instantly wants to help the girl to recover and enjoy a normal life.

Word Count: 6396

Nat's POV:

Another day, another Hydra base. This one was the home of their super solider programme. It's where the Winter Soldier was created. So, this base was personal. Steve had initially wanted Bucky to stay behind on this one, but he was determined to come and take down the base which had destroyed his life.

Whilst Steve and Bucky worked their way through the building to plant the explosives, Tony and I were exploring to get as much intel as possible. Tony had found their offices and was downloading as many of the files as he could whilst also collecting anything that looked of value.

I meanwhile had stumbled across what I can only describe as a hospital from a horror movie. I can see rooms with hospital beds, but they all had straps on them, medical tools filling trays alongside the beds. I try not to think about what had gone on here. I eventually reach what looks like a prison. There are a number of cells, but they are all empty. Well, I thought they were until I reach one in the farthest corner of the room.

I had to do a double take when I saw a young woman huddled in the corner of her cell. Her eyes were filled with absolute terror. I manage to unlock the door and slowly make my way towards her, but she shrinks back further, trying to get as far away from me as possible but the wall is preventing. "P-please. No. I-I can't take anymore." She begs, tears filling her eyes. My heart breaks for her. Looking at her body, I can see dark bruising and some lacerations. "It's ok. I'm not here to hurt you." I try to reassure her, keeping my distance so she can see that I'm not a threat.

"I'm here to help you. To get you to safety." I try once again, hoping that she can see that I only want to help. "Bombs are planted." Steve confirms through the comms. "I've got everything I can. Nat are you done?" Tony asks, but I ignore it, not wanting to scare the girl more. I felt like I had to help her. I have to save her. "My name is Natasha. What's yours?" She asks me. I activate my comms so the others can hear. That way they'll know I'm safe and that I can't talk.

"I. I don't know. I don't remember." She starts to cry at that and all I want to do is wrap my arms around her and protect her. "That's ok. We can help you with that. Can you come with me, and we can protect you. Make sure you're safe." I ask her, reaching out my hand to her, but keeping my voice as soft as possible. She looks between my hand and my eyes. The pain and fear are swirling through her blue eyes. "I promise we won't hurt you. Me and my friends are the good guys. We just want to help." I say with a smile, hoping to put her at some ease.

She goes to reach out, but she hesitates. "It's ok. You're safe now." I promise her. I can see those words have an effect on her and she reaches out her trembling hand to take mine. I slowly stand up and use my other hand to help her to her feet. She stumbles and I can see how weak she is. When was the last time she had a good meal or saw the sun?

"I've got you. You're ok." I continue to reassure her as we make our way slowly out of the base. As soon as we reach the outside, she holds her hand up to cover her eyes as she squints at the bright light. But I notice that she takes a deep breath too, as if she is savouring this moment. She surely can't have been kept in that cell the whole time, could she?

We get closer to the jet and her body tenses as she sees the three men waiting for us. "It's ok. They are my friends. They won't hurt you." I encourage her to carry on walking. Her grip on my hand tightens, but she trusts me enough to follow me onto the jet. Sensing her fear, all three of the men keep their distance. Even Tony is being considerate. I see her eyes go wide as we board the back of the jet. "Wow." She whispers as her eyes take it all in. "It's pretty cool huh. This is our quinjet. It's going to take us back to our home where we can get you checked out and looked after." I tell her.

She looks exhausted but I can tell that she's too scared to even attempt to sleep. I guide her to a chair and strap her in. I then grab a bottle of water and take it over to her. I had noticed how chapped her lips were, suggesting that she is dehydrated. "Here, drink this. We'll get you some nice food when we get home. I just need to go and talk to my friends. But I'll just be over there. You'll still be able to see me ok." I tell her with a soft smile. Her panicked eyes dart between me and the three men waiting for an explanation. But she nods, slowly bringing the bottle up to her lips. A relieved sigh escaping as she swallows the cool liquid.

I stand up and make my way over to the others. "Who's that?" Tony asks straight away. "I don't know. I found her alone locked in one of the cells in what seemed to be a medical area. She doesn't remember her name and she's clearly been mistreated for a long time." I explain. I can see pain on Bucky's face as he observes the young woman. "Do you recognise her?" I ask but he shakes his head. "No. But I know that they did some pretty horrible things to people in that place. She's probably been through hell and back." He says, pain radiating from his eyes.

"I'll start going through all the files we have to see if I can find anything on her whilst we head back. I'll also get Cho and Bruce ready for the new arrival. She'll need a full medical. Just from observation she's severely malnourished and has had some injuries." Tony offers up, heading to the other end of the jet, knowing that she needed space right now.

I slowly make my way towards her and take the seat next to her. "How are you feeling?" I ask her, but internally scold myself at such a stupid question. "Who are you?" She answers my question with one of her own. "We're the Avengers. We try to stop the bad guys." I explain loosely. "What are you going to do with me?" Her voice is so timid as she talks, her tone laced with fear. "We just want to help you. We'll help you heal and start a new happier life. No more being locked away or fearing for your life." I tell her with a wide smile.

She doesn't speak again, lost in her thoughts. But I can see that she is completely aware of her surroundings. At any noise, her eyes flick to the source, a small flinch appearing. I stay sat next to her as Steve flies us home. I want her to feel some comfort and know that we're not going to hurt her.

After a couple of hours, we start to descend into the compound. Her whole body tenses as we touch down and the door slowly begins to open. Wanda and Yelena are both waiting like they always do when I return from a mission. But they can instantly see to keep their distance at the added presence of our new guest. "The red head is my best friend Wanda, and the blonde is my sister Yelena." I explain to the girl as I help her out of her seat, showing that they are not a threat to her.

She nods slowly, but her gaze is searching every new thing that she sees. She was exhausted when we found her, I can't believe that her body is still functioning now when she's been so alert for the entire flight. Her body is in flight or fight and I can tell it's taking every ounce of her to be aware in case she needs to protect herself.

I guide her to the medbay where Bruce and Cho are waiting. I can feel that Wanda and Yelena are following behind, but the others have left to give us space. Thankfully, they don't follow us into the bay, choosing to observe from outside. "This is Bruce and Dr Cho. They are here to help you. They won't do anything to hurt you. I promise." I reassure her, directing her to the bed in the middle of the room. But her breathing is becoming ragged, and her eyes are frantic, full of fear.

"Hey, look at me. You're ok. You're safe. They won't hurt you." I reiterate, cupping her cheeks so her gaze is focused on me. "I'll be here every step of the way. Ok." I smile and she nods slowly. "Hi, Dr Cho is going to examine you if that's ok. We can get an understanding of your physical condition and how we can help you." Bruce explains, his soft voice seeming to calm the girl slightly.

Bruce leaves the room, pulling the curtain to give us privacy as Dr Cho begins her examination. I have to fight off a gasp when the girl's shirt is removed, and I see that her torso is covered in scars and new wounds. "Did they do this to you?" I ask her, an anger bubbling inside of me. Her gaze drops to her hands as she nods. I look at Cho who's got a look of sorrow on her face.

She carries out the rest of her examination and we both help her into a clean pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. I take the girls hand and give it a squeeze. "You're doing great. You're being very brave." I comfort her and I swear I see her lips turn up ever so slightly. I look through the window and see Cho and Bruce talking before they both re-enter. "Ok. We just need to do some blood tests and then we'll clean up your wounds." Bruce explains, turning to get a needle.

But as soon as the girl gets a glimpse of it in his hands, she starts to panic. "N-no. No. You said you wouldn't hurt me." She cries, looking between me and the needle in Bruce's hand. "He's not going to hurt you. He just needs to take some bloody to make sure you're not sick." I try to explain in an attempt to calm her down, but she continues to shake her head. "No. No more needles." She states at whisper. I look to Bruce who is unsure how to proceed. But we're interrupted by Tony entering.

"Wait." He says and we all turn towards him. Bruce places the needle back down on the tray and I feel the girls body relax. "I found your file." Her says looking directly to the trembling girl with a warm smile. "Your name is Y/n. Do you remember that?" He asks softly. She thinks for a moment but shakes her head. "That's ok. At least we know what to call you now. Are you ok if I share what I have here?" He asks her and she slowly nods.

"Y/n here is 22. She was taken by Hydra when she was 12." He explains to us, and I let out a small gasp. She's been in that hell hole for 10 years?! "She was a subject in their medical testing. Though it doesn't go into too much detail as to why. It just states that they were successful in removing all memory of her past." I feel such a sadness for Y/n. For her only memories to be of that base, being tested on daily. "They tested serums." Y/n's voice breaks the temporary silence, making us all look to her.

"Go on." Tony encourages. I've never seen him like this. He's so paternal towards her. It's warming to see. "There was a group of us. They tested the serums they wanted to use on their super soldiers. The serums I was given were meant to induce self-healing." She continues to explain, her gaze firmly fixed on her feet. There's a shocked silence to hear that. She was there purely as a test subject, presumably only there until they had succeeded, or she died.

"That's how you got these injuries? They were testing to see if it worked?" I ask when it finally dawns on me why she has so many injuries. We all watch as her head slowly moves in a nod. "After each test they would burn, cut and bruise me to see if it would generate any healing." She explains. I feel like I could cry. She was tortured for ten years. It's a miracle that she is even here with us today. Her body must have taken a hell of beating.

There is complete silence in the room as we take in what she just told us. We've seen horrible things in our time, but never seen one person go through so much for so long. Tony clears his throat and takes a careful step forward. "Y/n. I can promise you that we will never hurt you. We just want to help you, but we need to make sure you are healthy. If they injected you with a serum, the only way for us to ensure you're ok is to take some blood. I know you have had enough of needles, but once this is done, we'll take you to your new room." She speaks calmly and clearly which works.

"Ok." She agrees quietly. "I can stay with you if you like?" I offer. I want to be here for her. I want to help her heal, to protect her and never let her go through anything like this again in her life. "Please." Another whispered reply. I take her hand once again and give it a squeeze. "Keep your focus on me. Ignore what Bruce is doing. When we're done here, I can show you your new room and you can have a shower if you'd like?" I offer, trying to distract her. It only partial works as her eyes scrunch up as Bruce puts the needling into her arm. "You're doing great. Y/n." I tell her, squeezing her hand to offer her some comfort.

Once Bruce is all done, he cleans up Y/n's wounds and clears her to go to her room. She'll have to come back daily to get her dressings changed and her injuries checked and cleaned, but otherwise she was free. Something that obviously was alien to Y/n. "Come. Let me show you to your room." I tell her, standing up and waiting for her to follow. She does so slowly, her body clearly starting to shut down without her consent.

Thankfully, it's not far to her room. "Here it is." I say, opening the door for her. "My room is next door and Wanda's is across the hall." I point to the doors so she can see. I then step inside the room but she doesn't follow. "You can enter Y/n. You are free to come and go as you please. This is your home, not a prison." I explain to her, realising that she probably has no memory of her own room. Assuming she ever had one in her childhood. "There are some clothes in the wardrobe and draws, but we can go shopping to get you something you like in the coming days." I explain, opening the doors and draws to show her.

"This is your own bathroom. There is shower gel, hair wash, a toothbrush and toothpaste." I point out and then show her how to work the shower. I'll leave you to get cleaned up. But I can come back to get you for some dinner later this evening if you'd like. Though you are free to leave the room before hand if you want to." I say, trying to make it clear that she doesn't have to wait for command here. "Thank you, Natasha." She gives me the faintest of smiles and I find myself getting a little lost. She really is beautiful. "Please, call me Nat. All my friends do." I tell her and her smile grows slightly.

After leaving Y/n, Wanda and Yelena are quick to question me on the new addition to the compound. I struggle a little to hold back the emotion when telling them how I found her and what she's gone through. What has she done to me? I normally have complete control of my emotions, but when it comes to her, my feelings are so much stronger.

They both promise to support Y/n as much as they can without overwhelming her. Wanda is probably best placed to help her. She's been through something similar, although not to the same extent. I hope that in a few days when Y/n has settled more, that she might be comfortable to talk to her.

I speak with Tony, and we agree that it is probably best that we don't throw her in the deep end with a team dinner. Instead, we keep it to just four of us. Tony and I, who's she's familiar with, and Yelena and Wanda, who we want her to feel comfortable with. As she is so malnourished, Bruce has given us some indication on the foods and portions she should have over the coming weeks until she's able to regain her body weight. Wanda takes this as her mission to cook her the tastiest of meals with the limited ingredients.

Y/n is very quiet during dinner. Only talking if directly asked a question and only moving or doing anything if she is given approval. It's going to take time for her to realise that she doesn't need to have permission to do anything here. That she isn't confined to her room until someone tells her she can leave, or that she can't eat until she is given permission. But I know that I want to be there for her through every step of the way. Supporting her as best I can.

__________

Y/n has been here for a little of three weeks now. She's starting to look a bit healthier. Her wounds are healing nicely, she's putting weight on and she's getting colour back to her face. She loves spending time outside, basking in the sunshine. I guess if you've not seen it for 10 years, you don't want to miss out. She's slowly becoming more comfortable with the team. Everyone is great with her, not pushing her and understanding her boundaries.

She's probably closest with Tony, Wanda, and myself at the moment. But she's getting better with Yelena and Bucky. She still won't do much of her own accord. We make sure that she's not cooped up in her room or missing meals because she's waiting for someone to say it's ok for her to do so.

One night, I'm not able to sleep. My mind is lost in thought of Y/n. She fills most of my thoughts each day. We're getting glimpses of her true personality and I love it. She has a quick wit, though I can tell she is hesitant to use it. Scared of any repercussion. But it's becoming more apparent as the days go by. She's also extremely kind. She's so thoughtful of others. She's making such an effort to learn about everyone on the team.

Wanda and Yelena tease me. It's very clear that I like her. I tried to hide it after the first week, but it's no use. Wanda can literally read my mind and Yelena knows me better than anyone. Besides, I don't want to hide those feelings. Not from them anyway. I think it's far too early to even broach that topic with Y/n. At the moment, I want to be the best friend to her that I can be. We have time.

Whilst my mind is replaying Y/n's laugh on loop, I hear a muffled cry. I focus on the sound and notice it's coming from Y/n's room. I jump up and make my way next door. I knock on her door but get no response. "Y/n, it's Nat. Are you ok?" I question. Again, I don't get a response, but I can hear muttering and crying. Worry taking over, I open the door to be greeted by an empty room. The bed perfectly made.

I rush through the room to check the bathroom, but as I pass the bed, I hear her voice. My head turns and I see Y/n lying on the floor with a thin blanket draped over her. She's having a nightmare. I kneel down next to her and carefully place my hands on her shoulders. "Y/n. It's Nat. You're ok. You're just having a nightmare. Come back to me." I say as calmly as possible. Which is hard when I'm seeing her in such a panicked state. Not a split second later, her body shoots up and she starts to gasp for air, her eyes flicking around the room, trying to find something to ground her.

"Hey, Y/n. Look at me. Focus on me." I tell her, cupping her face so her eyes land on me. "You're safe." I remind her. "Try and take a deep breath with me." I instruct her, doing exaggerated breathing myself to guide her. It takes a while, but eventually she's able to copy and her breathing become less ragged. I slowly run my thumb over her cheek to help calm her as her eyes flick over her room once again. "The bed too soft?" I question and she nods, looking at her hands in shame.

I place my finger under her chin and raise it. "Don't be ashamed. I was the same after I got out of the red room. Took me a few months to get used to sleeping in a bed. I always felt like it was suffocating me." I share. She's listening to me intently as I speak. "I feel the same. I'm used to the hard floor." She mumbles. "How about this. Why don't we lie together in the bed. You don't have to sleep. We can just talk." I suggest. This helped me when Clint would sit and talk with me.

She nods and I help her to her feet. I then move to the bed and pull the duvet off. I grab the blanket and lie on the bed and tap the space next to me. I know the quilt will be too much to start of with, but she needs to keep warm. She takes the spot next to me and I hesitantly place my arm around her shoulders. I smile to myself when I feel her relax into my hold. I lay the blanket over us both and we spend the rest of the night just talking. It was probably the most I've heard her talk. She would ask questions about how I adapted after the red room, and I would offer tips on what might also help her.

After that night, our relationship only grew. She still slept on the floor at night, but I would always go to bed with her, and we'd lie in the bed until she was feeling like she was drifting off. I would leave and she would get comfortable on the floor. As time went by, she started to sleep a little. I was so proud of the progress she was making. "It's ok Nat. You can go to your own room tonight. I need to start doing things myself and it's not fair to keep you from your own room." She tells me which makes me frown. "But I like this time with you Y/n." I admit easily.

She smiles widely at that. "I do too Natasha, but you're not always going to be here. I need to get used to doing this on my own." She makes sense but I still pout at her. "Doesn't mean we can't still cuddle." She says shyly. "One more night?" I request and she sighs. "Ok." She chuckles, opening her door for me.

I'm loving the person that Y/n is becoming. Or returning to be, I guess. She's finding herself and it's a journey I'm proud to be a part of. Her and Wanda have grown close. They have a sisterly relationship. Wanda has helped her come to terms with what happened to her whilst she washeld captive by Hydra. They have a shared experience and I'm glad she's got someone that she can share that with.

She's grown more confident, and I was so proud of her when she started doing things of her own accord. We were sat watching TV and I noticed Y/n's gaze kept going towards the kitchen. I paused the movie and look to Y/n. "Everything ok?" I question and she quickly nods, returning her gaze to the TV. "You can tell me." I assure her and she huffs. "I uh. I want a snack." She admits as if she's just admitted to a felony.

"The kitchen is there, and Tony did the shopping this morning so there is plenty on offer." I encourage her, trying to motivate her, not giving her the go ahead to do it. This was the first time she shared a want, and I was keen for her to take it without needing permission.

I watch as she hesitates, Wanda and Yelena's gaze also on her. Slowly, she pushes up off the sofa and makes her way into the kitchen. She's in there for about 10 minutes before she comes out with a small KitKat bar in her hand. I was so proud as I watch her eat the chocolate bar. When she was done, I wrapped my arm around her and held her close. "You never have to ask to get food." I remind her and she slowly nods before resting her head on my shoulder.

__________

It's been three months since Y/n joined us and it has genuinely been the best three months. She's a completely different person to the one that arrived with us. She's still shy, but she understands her freedom and she is finding her footing. She spends a lot of time with Tony in his lab. Turns out she's got a technical brain and loves working on his gadgets. The whole team have fallen in love with her. She's like our own personal ray of sunshine. Which, considering how she was when she arrived, is a miracle.

I think it is safe to say that I am in love with her. I want to spend all my time with her. She's the last thing I think of before I go to sleep and the first thing in the morning. I'm infected by Y/n, and I love it. I just don't know how to approach her about it. I don't want to scare her away. But I'm like 90% sure she likes me too. We've had a couple of moments where we've almost kissed, but it's never resulted in anything, and I never want to pressurise her to do anything.

Our little bubble is burst though when I'm sent on a week long mission. I've been away for day missions, but nothing longer. I've always been home by the evening, having a snuggle with Y/n before bed. I'm going to miss being with her and I can tell that there is an anxiety for her too. But maybe this will be good. It'll give me time to think clearly about how I'm going to approach this whole situation.

Y/n's POV:

The first couple of days of Nat not being here were hell. I realised that she was my security blanket. I knew I was safe if she was around. Don't get me wrong, I know none of the others would hurt me, but with Nat, I feel completely safe and protected.

It's been a bit of a whirlwind three months. I never knew that life could be like this. All I knew was the darkness of the place I was held. The pain and fear that I lived in constantly. I don't know why I kept fighting to stay alive. The easier option was to let go. But I didn't. Now I think it's because deep down, I knew I hadn't met Nat yet and she was meant to change my life.

She has been so patient with me, helping me acclimatise to being 'normal'. She's always there to support me, allowing me to find my way in my own time. In the odd moments that I'm not with her, I crave to be with her. It's a feeling I'm not familiar with. I don't have it with anyone else here. Yet I like all of them. They have become a family, something I didn't know about. Or at least didn't remember. But with Nat it's different. It's like everything I do is for her.

Seeing her smile and laugh is my favourite thing. To most people she has this tough exterior, but I've never seen that directed at me. I've never felt anything but kindness from her. She's a big softy towards me. Though I've learnt not to say that to her. Sam made a joke about it and he was swiftly on his ass. Much to everyone else's amusement.

After Nat had been away for a couple of days, I decided that I couldn't mope around without her. She wouldn't want that. Instead, I spent time with Wanda and Yelena. They both had become like sisters to me. Both protective, but also quick to make fun of me in a light-hearted way. I love the relationship that I have with them, and it's them that keep me sane for the rest of the week.

It's Friday and we've been notified that Nat and Steve are returning from their mission. I jump off the sofa and run towards the Quinjet landing pad. But as I get closer, I see Bruce and Cho waiting. "What's wrong?" I ask Tony who's just joined us. "Nat's hurt." Is all he says. I feel like someone has just kicked me in my stomach, making all the air leave my lungs.

I just stand there as I watch the jet land and Nat be rushed off the jet on a gurney. As she passes me, I rush to keep up, not wanting to be far from her. She looks in a bad way. There is so much blood. Too much blood. I watch as Bruce and Cho rush around trying to fix her. I can see from the machines that her heart rate is becoming thready.

I step forward and hold her hand, feeling her cold skin which sends a wave of panic through me. "Please don't leave me." I beg her as tears start to fall. "Y/n, we need you to stand back." Bruce asks quietly, but I don't want to let her go. I can't lose her. He asks again and I know I need to let him do his job. My mind is focusing on her being with me, alive and healthy. She has to survive. I go to drop her hand but there is a soft glow which makes Bruce and Cho stop in their tracks. "Y/n what's going on?" Tony asks me with a panicked voice. "I-I don't know." I respond, fear washing over me.

"Oh my God look." Tony points out towards Nat. I turn to see what he's pointing too, but I start to feel lightheaded. My sight starts to blur and all the sound around me becomes muffled and the next thing I know, I'm surrounded by darkness.

_________

"Please wake up." I hear a distant, pleading voice. But I still only see darkness. "You told me not to leave. I'm asking you the same thing." The voice begs. Is that Nat? Is she ok? Confusion washes over me as I try to figure out what's going on. Sounds become more prominent, and I can hear the slow beeping of a machine. "Y/n?" The comforting voice calls. "Her heart rate is changing." I hear a male voice now speak. "Is that a good thing?" Nat questions. Why can't I see anything? "Yes, very good. It's getting stronger." The other voice confirms.

I start to feel a pain in my head, and I squint my eyes to stop the pain. "She moved." Nat points out. Slowly, my eyes start to open, but the bright light only aggravates the pain in my head. "The lights. Dim them." A third voice says. As the glare of the light reduces, I open my eyes further and they land on Nat. I quickly sit up, shocked that she's beside me, conscious. "Whoa! Stay down Y/n." She tells me, gently pushing on my shoulders. "You're alive." I whisper and she nods. "I am. But you need to take it easy." She tells me in a warning voice.

I look around me and see that there are wires attached to a drip and a heart monitor. I then meet the concerned gazes of Tony, Wanda, and Yelena. "What happened? Last I remember you were the one in the medbay." I say, trying to sit up. "You healed me." Nat says with a look of disbelief on her own face. "Excuse me? I what?" I question, not sure that I heard her properly. "You healed me. But it drained you and you passed out. You've been unconscious for two days, your heart barely beating." She explains.

"How are you feeling?" Bruce asks, stepping forward. "My head hurts, but other than that ok." I admit and he nods. "It seems like one of the serums they injected you with enabled you to heal others. They were so focused on self-healing, that they didn't even think to check for that." Tony says. "I healed you?" I turn back to Nat asking for clarification. "Yeah. Not even a scar left on me." She says holding up her shirt to show where two bullet wounds once were. I reach out and run my fingers over her abs in disbelief.

"I thought I lost you." I agonised, remembering the fear I felt that she was slipping away. "I can't live without you." I admit through tears. "And you don't have to. I'm here. Safe and sound because of you Y/n. You saved me." Nat says taking my hand. I hadn't noticed that everyone else had left and it was just the two of us now. "I owed you after you saved my life." I tell her through a watery chuckle. "I would save you ten times over Y/n. You have changed my life. When I woke up and I saw you on the bed next to me barely clinging to life yourself, my heart broke." She expresses, her own eyes glossing over.

"Y/n, you mean so much to me. You have changed my life since you came into it. I can't hide my feelings from you anymore. I love you. I'm in love with you. I know you might not feel the same, but I have to tell you. I can't bare the thought of something happening to one of us and you not knowing the depth of my feelings." I'm in shock as I listen to her speak.

Is this what I've been feeling for her too? Love? I can see pain start to grow in her eyes as I don't respond, the shock almost incapacitating. Tears fall down her cheeks as she goes to leave, but thankfully, my body reacts, grabbing her hand and pull her back. Before she can even say anything, I cup her face and bring her towards me so I can connect our lips.

The sensation is electric as if the world had disappeared and it was just the two of us in this moment. Our lips move in perfect harmony. Nat's hands rest on my hips, giving them a gentle squeeze. My whole body feels a warmth rush over it, butterflies erupting in my stomach as our lips dance together, sharing every feeling we need to share in this moment. As our movements stop, I rest my forehead against hers. "I think I love you too. I've had this feeling I've not been able to understand for a while. But that kiss just explained everything." I say with a laugh as Nat's smile grows.

She leans in and kisses me once again, this one more hungry as my back hits the hospital bed. She deepens the kiss, our tongues exploring each other's mouths, as the passion and desire between us intensified. I let a small moan out into the kiss as she presses her body against mine. That noise causes her to pull back slightly, and I let out a little whine. "Patience my love. This is all new for you and I want to do this properly." She tells me, which causes me to raise an eyebrow at her in confusion. "I want to go on a date with you." She smirks.

Thank God, she made me watch endless rom coms these last few months or I'd have no clue how this whole thing was meant to go. But over time we grew together, not rushing our relationship. It was perfect to me. When I looked in her eyes, all I saw was pure love and I hope she saw the same in return.

She made me unbelievably happy. There was a time that I never thought I wouldn't get a happy ending. A time when I questioned my purpose. But now, led here in Nat's arms, feeling safe, protected, and loved. I finally understood why I had to keep fighting. I needed to get to her and live our lives together in happiness.

#natasha romanoff x y/n #natasha x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #avengers fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #black widow x reader #black widow

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y-rhywbeth2 · 1 day

Text

Ketheric continues to be the member of the Chosen I struggle to get a grip on. Like the other three I can tell you the details of why (I think) they grew up to monsters:

Long post.

Let's start with Gortash: spent his childhood being told he was a selfish monster for his thoughts - apparently from birth - for the way he perceived the world, for *checks notes* wanting his parents attention as an undeveloped human being that relies on its parents to survive and thrive.

Then his parents send him to hell as part of a deal. Because that's where monsters go isn't it? They go to hell to suffer eternal damnation because they were monsters in life.

So you grow up in one of the literal cesspits of the universe, where the only people you meet are the literal scum of the universe, or those you're going to learn to see as weak fools who had to rely on others - and were ultimately willing to commit atrocities themselves - who were taken advantage of by the scum of the universe. You get to the Hells by committing atrocities, either because you want something so badly you'll fuck somebody over for it (out of greed, or because you couldn't fix it yourself (weak)) or because you did them of your own volition. And curiously, some of these people had their price tags wrapped in such subtle terms they don't even realise they did anything wrong! Lesson learned; anyone will willingly be a monster if you make the evil sound nice. Every single devil you meet has had the humanity flayed from their soul, and they got to where they are in their existences by fomenting (and committing) hate and rape and murder and everything evil under the sun as a regular Monday morning in the ultimate goal to make the universe an evil place. Devils are also 'self made men', everybody started from nothing as a lemure and clawed their way to where they are now. Every social interaction in the Hells is manipulation and abuse. Everyone there hurts everyone.

But you do have one example of a good person! There's Hope! Lovely lady, kind and sweet... Trapped in hell being abused forever going insane because of it because your ambitious sister fucked you over. That's where trust and love being a good person gets you.

And that was his entire social life. That was the people he had to look to for examples. All his early experiences were limited to a sample of the absolute worst it has to offer, and he has a very skewed view of the universe.

And the fact that he's apparently so damn good at sex a lady gave him a ring worth everything she owns after growing up around a pleasure devil whose role is harming and corrupting people with sex and has built in charm person at etc is not ringing alarm bells(!) I'm not side-eyeing the boudoir at all.

I wonder why having a child/teen spend their formative years in the evil factory literally designed to spit out monsters... spat out a monster? Kudos to Karlach, though: just how many layers of defence mechanisms has she got in her brain?

Gortash's thought processes are 50% through the lens of engineering and 50% through the lens of a devil's perspective to me. People will sell out others for their own gain, because they're too weak to do it themselves or because they're bastards. If you don't get with the programme you're the victim. You only get ahead by being ruthless. Everybody is untrustworthy, and relying on them will get you betrayed. The world is divided into the weak and the ruthlessly strong who take what they want. Yes, he's a monster. And so are his parents. And so is everyone. And then Bane saw this perfect example of his way of thinking and said 'that one.'

Orin: obviously we've got grooming. The fact that her formative memories include her mother trying to murder her, and the fact that she feels like the only person who has ever cared about her or supported her is her grandfather. Who is implied to have been raping her, or intending to. All she's permitted is to have her brain poisoned by her faith, which her life revolves around, and then her kin 'does it all wrong' and inherits everything she's been groomed to believe is hers. But no, 'they're not wrong,' says everybody around her 'you are!'

She's a Bhaalspawn, so her relationships with her kin are "kill or be killed," as Helena proved. You will please father by slaughtering your siblings, or you will die - or worse. You must be and stay favoured by Bhaal above all the others to be truly safe ("safe"), and Durge outranking her is a threat to her existence. Actually Durge existing is a threat to her well-being. She has no way to live a life outside the cult, never has and never will. Her life is insanely lonely and mostly consists of paranoia.

But the overlaying theme here is that she's a changeling. She's mirrorkin with no unique physical identity of her own, she can only reflect those of others. To be dnd canon accurate: she has no real facial features, no pigmentation. She's not permitted an identity of her own, and was punished for trying. She's a mirror born and raised to reflect the glory of Bhaal, the glory of her failed grandfather, the rise of Bhaal's favourite child. Never her own. Gee, I wonder why she literally wears people's skins.

Denied the ability to do anything but live according to what she's told, she does her best to live up to it because to fail is to become her parents and the countless aunts and uncles currently enjoying their damnation in the Throne of Blood. And then she's told she's doing it wrong. By everybody. She's a 'rabid dog'. She, despite having doctrine poured into her ears and probably carved into her flesh her entire life 'doesn't understand Bhaal.' And everybody is insanely patronising about it! You're never allowed to be anything but what we tell you to be, but you're still not good enough! Which is death. The Temple of Bhaal needs murder feminism.

The Dark Urge is my favourite little nightmare, and I've talked about them at length: much of Orin's trauma also applies to them, although where she's a mirror made to reflect the egos of others, Durge is only allowed one identity: Bhaal's. Where Orin can never seem to reach the standards forced on her, Durge is never allowed to fail to meet them, or else. Every outside connection they ever had was brutally sabotaged, and they've had 'you're a monster and only I (your abusive Father) can love you' drilled into their mind. They hate themself. We got the threat of sexual exploitation (assuming it didn't happen), there's a subtle undercurrent of incest to some interactions. The prayer for forgiveness kind of sums it all up: 'I'm sorry for forming an emotional connection that isn't blind love for you father, but don't fret, I'll destroy it with my own hands just like everything else and then finally get to kill myself just like I've always wanted.'

But Ketheric? Like villains don't need tragic backstories to be terrible people, but it does make them more interesting.

OK, so your bio family is fucked up and I definitely get the impression that they sucked (Malus is giving me vibes that say he'd have been a villain anyway, and might've been secretly Sharran to start with; Gerringothe seems to be drowning whatever her issues are in gold), and then the loving family you made for yourself broke: your wife died, and your daughter died, sure. But plenty of people on Toril probably have similar if not the same stories and didn't go evil overlord! Why are you doing this? What is informing these decisions? Why does your existence hinge so much on your dead daughter that your son is basically named after her and you seem to hate him for existing and not being her? Does Shar have something to do with it? Has Ketheric just carved out so much memory and emotion, so much of his own identity, that all that's left is the grief and the hunger for the pain to stop but, as per Shar's intent, it keeps coming back, with less and less positive memories to soften the pain. A wound that festers and never heals. Is the obsession with Isobel because she's the icon of everything that was good in his life, and her loss was the moment everything good was gone? Was he a rational man who turned to Shar to stop the pain in a moment of understandable grief and rage at her sister, and then was trapped in a cycle that destroyed everything that was good in that man until we get the General?

Just guess working my way through his entire backstory...

#I just want to rescue Orin; she breaks my heart #and I kind of hate that she didn't win on some levels #I just want to rescue her ToB style but without the bad ending that got added in post-game #babbling #edgelord hours #villainous nonsense #the family circle #/durge #/orin #/gortash #/ketheric

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snowdropluck204 · 1 year

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How They React To Their SO Getting Stalked

PART 1

Sero Hanta

I feel like Sero would be the person to immediately comfort you, screw the person following you for right now! His baby is upset and he needs to take care of you!

~ Sero was out with the guys, they were hanging out at the mall after school, he got kind of sad sometimes knowing that you didn't go to UA, but he also knew that being a hero was dangerous and he didn't want you to get hurt. ~ He and his friends were laughing and messing around, when he got a call, looking at the screen, he saw My Love was calling him, he gave a bright grin to his phone, answering promptly. ~ "Hey darlin'! What's up with my angel today?" He asked cheerfully. ~ "Hanta..." You were whispering, sounding close to tears, the smile left Sero's face in less than a second. ~ "What's going on angel?" His voice was hard and tense, causing his friends to look up at him, the smiles leaving their faces too. ~ "Someone's following me, I just needed to hear you, I'm freaking out right now!" You were still whispering, but he could hear just how frightened you were. Could hear your walking speed up. ~ "Okay honey, take it easy, are you nearly home, turn on your location and I will be there, I promise." ~ He lived up to that promise, he met you just as you were walking up the street near your home, he saw a guy wearing dark clothing following fairly closely behind you, using his quirk, he wrapped the guy up in tape and called the police. ~ You looked up at him, surprised and grateful that he was there. You ran to him, jumping into his arms and attaching yourself to him like a koala. ~ "I'm so glad you're here," You whispered in his ear, trying your hardest to hold back a river of stressed tears. ~ Sero held you close to him, running a hand up and down your back, "I'm here angel, everything's gonna be okay," He kept his voice down and took you inside and up to your room. ~ Making sure you were comfortable and cosy in a mountain of blankets and cushions, he then went to different rooms of the house and collected what he though you could use. ~ "Alright gorgeous! I have some snacks, a hot water bottle, some of your favourite movies and this!" Sero told you, leaving a trail of things on your bed. In his hand, he held a warm face cloth that he brought to your red, tear stained face. ~ "My poor angel, I know today was scary, but I'm always going to keep you safe."

Shinso Hitoshi

Shinso wouldn't take any chances in a situation where you had been stalked. He would be attached to your hip at all times, to the point where it was annoying to every other person involved.

~ About a month ago, you and Hitoshi were going through some hard times, everything between the two of you was great! But unfortunately something bad happened to you. ~ Someone from school had begun following you, from school to home, to work and when you went out with friends. Then there were pictures and threatening, creepy messages, not only to you, but to Hitoshi and your parents! ~ Eventually, the stalker was caught but a lot of damage had already been done, your family was forced to move and you didn't want to be alone at any point. ~ Honestly, the dorm programme came at a perfect time, your parents jumped at the opportunity to move you into the dorms, protected by pro heroes and in the safe hands of your boyfriend (your parents loved him). ~ Hitoshi trusted you more than anybody and he knew you would be a fantastic hero, but he wanted to take care of you in what can only be described as a vulnerable situation that only you, him and your family knew about. ~ So after that incident, Hitoshi was with you at all times. Which was originally fine, until it got in the way of classes. You couldn't leave him for battle training, the two of you had joined your desks together and had to be touching at all times. Your boyfriend was either holding your hand, or playing with your hair, had a hand on your knee or your back. ~ Aizawa had had enough, this was in the way of the two of you learning and eventually, if it continued, could tank your careers! ~ "Shinso." Aizawa called, separating the two of you, keeping him behind after class. ~ Hitoshi looked back at you, leaving you with a kiss on the cheek, "Stay in the hall, I'll be right there." ~ Turning back to his mentor, he watched the tired man sigh. Hitoshi was getting nervous, tapping his feet, scratching his neck and running his hand through his hair, he needed to be with you. ~ "Shinso, you need to be less codependent with (l/n), it's becoming tedious." Aizawa began. ~ Shinso snapped. ~ "Tedious? Tedious!? My partner was stalked for over two months! Their life was uprooted, they felt scared and unsafe every time they left the house and trying to protect them is tedious to you!? I'm terribly sorry teach!" His voice was rife with sarcasm. ~ Aizawa was shocked. He didn't know something so awful had happened to one of his students, or that it was affecting the life of his protegee... He felt guilty, angry and... Useless. ~ Aizawa didn't really know how to apologise, so he simply placed a (hopefully) reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder, guiding him to the door of the classroom, where you were stood patiently, but were so obviously nervous. ~ He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed, that the massive change in one of his best student's behaviour had gone under his nose. ~ You were stood against the wall, eyes flitting constantly, monitoring the hall for any kind of danger, you were nervously wringing your hands and playing with your fingers, you seemed to almost be in tears. ~ "Go and help them, I'll keep an eye out for anything suspicious and extra security will be placed around the dorm." Aizawa spoke quietly, not wanting you to realise he knew, he was under the impression that, if you wanted him to know, you would have spoken to him about it. ~ Hitoshi looked at his mentor, grateful that now he could at least sleep soundly knowing his partner had more security. ~ Once he left the room, you were on him instantly, hand around his and an arm around his waist, both of which he reciprocated. ~ He whispered in your ear that everything would be okay. ~ "I'll never let you get hurt, you believe that, right?" ~ You nodded, of course you did.

Tokoyami Fumikage

Tokoyami would be a slightly different situation, he knew you could handle yourself and you did, but the idea of it happening again made him terrified, so he went overboard with his security measures and actually winds up annoying you (in a sweet way?).

~ You loved your boyfriend and Dark Shadow, but this was getting ridiculous! ~ You were a very logical person, so when you began getting creepy messages and pictures of yourself at times when you weren't aware you were being photographed, yes, you were scared, but you were also determined to be strong and fix it. ~ Obviously you told Fumikage that the stalking was happening, he was the first person you'd told, but you asked him not to go to anyone, that you had a strong feeling you knew who it was and how to handle it. ~ He had reluctantly agreed. ~ Dark Shadow was adamant that you needed help! He was begging Fumikage to check on you, help you, keep you out of sight and away from anyone who wanted to hurt you, or worse. ~ But he was your boyfriend, he trusted you, the way he wanted you to continue trusting him! If he took over and ignored what you'd asked of him, he was worried he would lose that trust. So he left you to it. ~ Less than a week later, police were outside the school, arresting a student who had admitted to sending you threatening messages, as well as other people in the school. ~ You were so smart, you followed the text messages, hacking and just being a genius and finding whose phone sent them. ~ You involved the police and Principal Nezu, who quickly looked over your evidence and made the correct assumption, calling the police and having the guy arrested. ~ You felt a lot safer now and were considered a bit of a saviour for the other students the boy was frightening, but Fumikage couldn't get it out of his mind that something similar could happen again. ~ Without you knowing, he placed tiny cameras outside your dorm room window and in the hallway (obviously he wasn't going to put cameras in your room, cause creepy), he wanted to make sure you were alright. ~ But you weren't stupid, as he now realised when you burst into his dorm room, holding his devices. "What the hell is this!?" You shouted. ~ Fumikage went silent, shocked that you'd even seen the cameras, he tried to explain but just released sputtered apologies. ~ "I-I just wanted to m-make sure you were safe!" ~ You looked shocked now, looking at your boyfriend who was now looking down at the floor, Dark Shadow curled up on the bed behind him, looking forlorn. ~ "Someone was following you and I didn't know, you're the most important person in the world to me, if something happened to you again and I could have stopped it, I would never forgive myself." ~ Looking calmer and sympathetic for the poor boy, you sat next to him on the bed, cupping his face and tilting his head to look at you. ~ "I know this was hard for you, but I'm safe and I can handle myself, you know that. But I know for a fact, you would never let anything happen to me, if you think this was a dangerous situation, then you feel free to take all the crazy security measures you need to. But I'm fine." ~ Your voice was practically a whisper, as you leaned in and left a soft kiss on Fumikage's feathered cheek. Then on Dark Shadow's, because he got jealous.

Shigaraki Tomura

This one seems pretty obvious, Shiggy would go nuts! Screw All Might and the plan, he had a new target to deal with, someone hurt his darling and there is no way in hell he was going to let them get away with it!

~ When Tomura got back to the bar, he was expecting the usual greeting, he had his gloves on already, preparing to be jumped on by his beautiful little love, but as he entered through the door, you weren't there. ~ He searched through the building, almost ready to tear off his gloves and disintegrate walls on the slight chance you were inside of one! ~ But then he heard you sniffling, he knew it was you, you cried that way when you were reading or watching one of your favourite shows, it was coming from Toga's room. ~ Bursting through the door, he saw you, being cradled by Toga and Dabi, he would have been upset that Dabi was anywhere near you, but he was more focused on the fact that you were crying hysterically. ~ Trying to get close to you, he stood on one of the many pictures he hadn't realised were strewn across the floor, they were of you. ~ Of you at work. Of you at the store. Of you out to dinner with your parents. That dinner had happened two nights ago. ~ "Where did these come from?" He asked, voice slightly raspy after his assault on the building. ~ Toga was the one who responded, for once, her crazed smile was missing, replaced with a scared frown. "Someone slid it under her apartment door, with this." She handed Tomura an envelope that had writing on it. ~ 'YoUr'E MinE' ~ The writing was scrawled and messy, the person who sent this, who took the pictures was obviously deranged. ~ You were being stalked. ~ Rage filled Tomura, who dared to come close to you, to believe you were theirs!? Hell no! You were his! His darling! ~ But he pushed the anger down so he could look after you. ~ Once you realised he had come home, you reached out for him, desperate to feel close to him, to feel safe. ~ He scooped you up, sitting next to the other League members as he cradled you in his lap. ~ "My poor baby," He whispered, leaving kisses on the crown of your head as you buried your head in his shirt. ~ "Kurogiri, you know what to do." ~ He did know what to do, he was under the command to follow you around, keeping you safe and find the stalker. ~ Tomura would have the joy of taking care of them...

#bnha #bnha x reader #x reader #sero hanta x reader #shinso hitoshi x reader #tokoyami fumikage x reader #shigaraki tomura x reader #love #cute #stalker #comfort #good ending #headcannons #bnha headcannons

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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Brinkwhump Linkdump

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then San Francisco (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

Once again, I find myself arriving at the weekend with a giant backlog of links, triggering a linkump, the 15th such dumpage, a variety-pack of miscellany for your weekend. Here's the previous editions:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Let's start with the latest incredible news from KPMG, the accounting and auditing giant that is relied upon as a source of ground truth for a truly terrifying share of the world's economy. KPMG has a well-deserved reputation for incompetence and corruption. They first came on my radar in 2001 when they sent a legal threat to a blogger for linking to their website without permission:

https://memex.craphound.com/2001/12/05/reason-4332442-not-to-ask/

The actual link was to KPMG's corporate anthem, which remains, to this day, a banger:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040428063826/http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/uknewsita/http://anthems.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/kpmg.mp3

Don't miss the DJ remixes (and the Nokia ringtone!) that the internet thoughtfully provided when KPMG decided that it didn't want the world to know about "Our Vision of Global Strategy":

https://web.archive.org/web/20011128153057/http://corporateanthems.raettig.org/

Now all this is objectively very funny, a relic of the old, good internet from one of its moments of glory, but KPMG? They were already enshittifying, even in 2001, and the enshittification only intensified thereafter. Nearly every accounting scandal of the past quarter-century has KPMG in it somewhere, from con-artists selling exhausted oil fields to rubes:

https://www.desmog.com/2021/06/03/miller-energy-kpmg-auditors-oil-fraud/

To killer nursing homes that hire KPMG to audit its books – and to advise it on how to defeat safety audits and murder your grandma:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/09/dingo-babysitter/#maybe-the-dingos-ate-your-nan

They're the architects of Microsoft's tax-evasion plot:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-tough-against-microsoft-microsoft-got-tougher

And they were behind Canada's dysfunctional covid contact-tracing app, which never worked, but generated tens of millions in billings to the government of Canada, who used KPMG to hire programmers at $1,500/day, plus KPMG's 30% commission:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/31/mckinsey-and-canada/#comment-dit-beltway-bandits-en-canadien

KPMG's most bizarre scandal is literally stranger than fiction. The company bribed SEC personnel help its own accountants cheat on ethics exams. The corrupt officials were then given high-paid jobs at KPMG:

https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/the-trusted-professional/article/sec-probe-finds-kpmg-auditors-cheating-on-training-exams-061819

I mean it when I say this is stranger than fiction. I included it as a plot-point in my new finance crime novel The Bezzle (now a national bestseller!), and multiple readers have written to me since the book came out a couple weeks ago to say that they thought I was straining their credulity by making up such an outrageous scandal:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

But all of that is just scene-setting (and a gratuitous plug for my book) for the latest KPMG scandal, which is, possibly, the most KPMG scandal of all KPMG scandals. The Australian government hired KPMG to audit Paladin, a security contractor that oversees the asylum seekers the country locks up on one of its island gulags (yes, gulags, plural).

Ever since, Paladin has been the subject of a string of ghastly human rights scandals – the worst stuff imaginable, rape and torture and murder of adults and children. Paladin made AU423 million on this contract.

And here's the scandal: KPMG audited the wrong company. The Paladin that the Australia government paid KPMG to audit was based in Singapore. The Paladin that KPMG audited was a totally different company, based in Papua New Guinea, who already had a commercial relationship with KPMG. It was this colossal fuckup that led to the manifestly unfit Singaporean company getting nearly half a billion dollars in public funds:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/24/incredible-failure-kpmg-rejects-claims-it-assessed-the-wrong-company-before-423m-payment-to-paladin

KPMG denies this. KPMG denies everything, always. Like, they denied creating "power maps" of decision-makers in the Australian government to target with influence campaigns in order to win contracts like this one. Who knows, maybe, this one time, they're telling the truth? After all, the company whose employees gather to sing lyrics like these can't be all bad, right?

The time is now to lead the way, We share the same the idea That may win by the end of the day. Our strength is here to stay. Identity, one energy, One strategy, with sympathy. These are the words that will lead us into a new world.

https://everything2.com/title/KPMG+corporate+anthem

You may find it strange that I'm still carrying around the factoid that KPMG once threatened to crush a blogger for linking to its terrible corporate anthem, but that's just my "Memex Method," which helps me keep track of literally everything that seemed important to me through most of my adult life:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

One of my favorite quips from the very quotable Riley Quinn is that "leftists are cursed with object-permanence" – that is, we actually remember what just happened and use it to think about what's happening now. The Memex Method is object permanence for 20+ years worth of stuff. A lot of those deep archives never see use, but there's a surprising number of leading indicators buried in the stuff that happened in years gone by.

Take James Boyle's 2014, XKCD-style comic about the experience of driving a notional Apple car:

https://www.thepublicdomain.org/2014/11/07/apple-updates-a-comic/

Apple, it turns out, spent the next decade working on just such a car, and while that car has now been canceled, Boyle's comic correctly anticipates so much about the trajectory Apple's products took. It's uncannily accurate – real "don't invent the torment nexus"/"cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion" stuff:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus

But no matter how many times we insist that the torment nexus shouldn't be created, the boardrooms of end-stage capitalism continue to invent them. Take HP, the poster-child for enshittification, edging out even KPMG in the race to turn everything into a pile of shit. After years of tormenting people to punish them for wanting to print things, HP has announced a new service that so mustache-twirlingly evil that it lacks verisimilitude:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/

Here's the pitch: HP will sell you a printer that you don't own. In addition to paying a monthly fee for your ink – which you pay no matter whether you print or not – you will also pay a monthly fee just for having HP's printer on your premises. You are absolutely, positively forbidden from using third-party ink in this printer, and must use HP's own ink, which sells for about $10,000/gallon.

But while you aren't allowed to use this printer in ways that are bad for HP's shareholders, HP is absolutely free to use the printer in ways that are bad for you. When you click through the signup agreement, you grand HP permission to surveil every document you print – and your home wifi network more generally – and to sell that data to anyone and everyone.

What's more, HP reserves the right to discipline you with punitive credit-card charges if you disconnect this printer from the internet, on the basis that doing so makes it harder for them to spy on your printer.

I'm sorry, this is just more torment nexus shit, the kind of thing you'd expect to drop on Apr 1, not Feb 29, but I guess this is where we are. I can only conjecture as to whether HP's businesses strategists are directly taking direction from my novella "Unauthorized Bread," or whether they're learning about it second-hand from a KPMG consultant who converted it to Powerpoint form and charged $1,500/day for the work:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

All of this cartoonish villainry is the totally foreseeable consequence of a culture of impunity, in which companies like HP and KPMG can rob, cheat, steal (and sometimes even kill) without consequence. This impunity is so pervasive that the exceptions – where a rich criminal faces real consequences – become touchstones: Enron, Arthur Anderson, Theranos, and, of course, FTX.

FTX was arguably the largest-scale corporate crime in world history, stealing more than $10 billion dollars, mostly from rubes sucked in by hype and Superbowl ads. When news that FTX founder and owner Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and was in for a lengthy prison sentence made a huge stir, because criminals like SBF usually walk away from the wreckage with their hands in their pockets, whistling a jaunty tune.

One of the very best commentators on cryptocurrency scams generally and FTX/SBF in particular is Molly White, whose Web3 is Going Just Great feed is utterly indispensable. White's newsletter, "Citation Needed," dives deep into the wrangle of SBF's sentencing:

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-52/

Bankman-Fried's parents – prominent law professors at top law schools – helped brief the court this week on their son's punishment. According to them, SBF faces 100 years in prison, but should be sentenced to 5.5-6.5 years at the most. Why? Because he is a vegan, who is not greedy, and feels remorse, and cares for individuals (recall that SBF presented himself as the avatar of the batshit "effective altruism" philosophy while privately admitting that he used this as a smokescreen).

The most bizarre note in the 100-page filing is SBF's mother declaring that her son is an "angel of mercy," apparently unaware of the grisly meaning of that term:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_mercy_(criminology)

America's prisons are a travesty and I wouldn't wish them on anyone, but that's not the argument SBF's parents are making; rather, they're arguing that their special boy doesn't deserve the treatment America metes out to poorer, less white people who merely steal hundreds or thousands of dollars. A crook who steals ten billion should be handled the way a casino handles a whale – with concierge service.

The problem is, there are so many of these remorseless, relentless crooks that there's no way we could scale up that white-glove treatment when we finally round 'em all up and make them pay. Writing for The American Prospect, Maureen Tkacik tells us about the ransomware attack that shut down America's pharmacy system last month:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-03-01-zoomer-hackers-shut-down-unitedhealthcare/

The attack brought down Change Healthcare, part of the monopolist Unitedhealth, which serves as the "pharmacy benefit manager" to a vast swathe of American pharmacies. PBM is one of those all-American finance scams, a middleman garlanded with performative complexity put there to make you feel stupid for asking why independent pharmacies all have to pay rent to this malicious, unaccountable – and now, manifestly incompetent – gang of crooks.

Tkacik's breakdown of this scam – and how it rendered Americans' ability to get the drugs they depend on to go on breathing – is characteristically brilliant. Tcacik is fast emerging as my favorite Explainer of Scams, a print version of John Oliver or Adam Conover. You may recall her work from my post last week on how private equity has taken a wrecking ball to America's hospitals:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/#charnel-house

I always try to finish these linkdumps with some upbeat news to carry you through the weekend, and this week brought two genuinely wonderful – and totally underreported – pieces of amazing news.

The first is that Starbucks has sued for peace in the war against its workers' unions. Hundreds of Starbucks stores have unionized in recent years, but not one of them had a contract. Instead, Starbucks had waged dirty war on their own workers, from denying gender-affirming care to unionized employees to simply shutting down whole stores after they voted to unionize:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/14/starbucks-union-company-threatens-that-unionizing-could-jeopardize-gender-affirming-health-care.html

But the workers held fast and after years of this, Starbucks has caved, promising contracts for all unionized stores and an end to its campaign of terror against workers seeking to unionize more of its stores. In a postmortem for Jacobin, Eric Blanc rounds up "seven lessons from Starbucks workers' historic victory":

https://jacobin.com/2024/02/starbucks-sbwu-contract-bargaining/

This is the kind of listicle I can get behind. According to Blanc, the Starbucks unions won by deploying worker-to-worker organizing, a tactic that many of the new unions that are shaking up formerly impossible-to-organize jobsites are using (Blanc has a book about this coming from UC Press called "We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Unionism Can Transform America," so he should know).

Other tactics that made the difference for Starbucks unions: new digital training and support tools and partnering with established unions for support and infrastructure. Blanc also calls out the success of "salting" – the venerable but largely disused tactic of union organizers applying for a job at a non-union shop in order to organize it.

Blanc also mentions government policy, including the outstanding work of NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, a shrewd and committed tactician whose understanding of the technicalities of labor law have let her push for bold measures. For example, in Thrive Pet Care, Abruzzo is arguing that when a company refuses to bargain in good faith for a contract with its union, she can step in and order them to honor the terms of a contract at comparable unionized competitors until they produce a contract of their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

Abruzzo is one of several smart, competent tacticians in the Biden administration who are working to kneecap corporate power. Another is Rohit Chopra, chair of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, who just announced another bold, important initiative that will help Americans fight corporate corruption and get a fair deal:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-03-01-public-option-credit-card-shopping/

Chopra is taking aim at credit-card comparison sites that purport to show you where you can get the best deal. If you're an affluent person who doesn't carry a balance, this might not matter to you, but if you're an average working stiff, high interest rates can gobble up a massive share of your paycheck. What's more, credit card margins are higher than they have ever been:

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/credit-card-interest-rate-margins-at-all-time-high/

The most expensive credit cards come from the big, monopolistic banks, but you wouldn't know it from the leaderboards produced by Credit Karma, NerdWallet, LendingTree, and Bankrate. All of these sites take bribes from the big banks to list their credit cards above those offered by credit unions – who are typically 10% cheaper than the big banks' cards.

The new CFPB rule prohibits this fraudulent ranking, but the Bureau is going even further. They're using their administrative powers to force banks to report their rates to the Bureau, which will publish them on a publicly funded, neutral website – what David Dayen calls "a public option" for shopping for credit cards.

This policy makes a perfect bookend to the last CFPB initiative I wrote about here: a rule that forces banks to allow you to transfer your account to a rival with a couple of simple clicks, importing all your history, payees, and everything else you need to switch to a better bank:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/21/let-my-dollars-go/#personal-financial-data-rights

Combine that ease of switching with reliable information on which banks will give you the best deal and you get something that will directly transfer millions and millions of dollars from giant, wildly profitable banks to low-income people who've been tricked into paying them punitive interest rates.

So that's it, this week's linkdump. I promised you I'd end on a high note, and I did it. The world may be full of all kinds of terrible things, but workers and regulators are scoring big, muscular victories in battles where the stakes are real and important. Have a great weekend – we've earned it.

And remember!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/02/macedoine/#the-public-option

Image: Stacy (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/notahipster/4402860361/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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nothingelsematterswrites · 11 days

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logan IS NOT getting replaced at Imola (and not at Monza either), a CONFIRMED breakdown

that's right logan girlies (gn), Logan is SAFE. He's not going anywhere yet.

James was bailed up by Lawrence Barretto yesterday in the press pen, and was asked explicitly if Antonelli would be in the car at Imola. James straight up said that Antonelli will not be in the car at Imola, and that he is considering drivers for 25 and 26.

Here's the video:

youtube

James was also asked about it in the press conference, and Autosport did a write up of it which you can find here. Importantly:

“I know nothing about what's going on with the Mercedes tests right now,” said Vowles. “We are looking, as everyone else is, for where we want to be on driver line-up for next year. And we have our own young driver programme. “In the case of Kimi. I can't really adjudicate at the level he's at. In case of him coming into the car this year, I've always said from the beginning, it's a meritocracy. “Logan has to earn his seat and at the moment, he has some tough targets where he has to get much closer to Alex. But there is nothing on the radar at the moment for replacing him.”

That's the key point.

Now, the Autosport article also brought up another point. The FIA say they have received a superlicence request for Antonelli. They did not specify what type.

There are two types of superlicences. The one you hear about most commonly is a race superlicence. That's your standard one, need 40 points, etc.

But there is also a practice superlicence. This is what Logan had in 2022, enabling him to run FP1s for Williams while he tried to earn the points for his full superlicence.

It is actually entirely probable that Mercedes have put in this request for an exemption for a practice superlicence for Antonelli so that they can run him in FP1s.

Some of you may not trust James' word, and that's understandable! So, let's hear it from Toto Wolff himself, who was also asked about the rumours, and responded categorically:

"I don't know where this belief comes from that Mercedes was keen on pushing that forward. Kimi needs to concentrate on his F2 campaign and he knows that. "Everything else is just rumours, which continue to spin around and that are factually incorrect. He's an F2 driver for Prema, that is what he's doing, and this is what we're all concentrating on." Wolff stressed that Mercedes would remain careful not to burn Antonelli by promoting him too early, given his rapid rise through the junior series and his lack of experience. "Just 15 months ago, he was in an F4 car," he said. "We have great belief in Kimi, his abilities and also his future. "But there is a trajectory which we need to follow with diligence, rather than trying to dream about jumping from series to series in a way that is certainly not beneficial for him. "I think a champion is not going to be distracted by any of this. But certainly, at least it distracts me because everybody's asking me: 'What about Kimi and driving in Imola? "This is not going to happen. This is not something that Mercedes wants. These rumours have gotten their own spin. Let's do Formula 2. We as a team have lots of other issues to resolve."

So, to summarise: Toto doesn't want it. James doesn't want it. Neither of them are pushing for it. Logan has goals to meet and James is going to give him time and support to do it.

Now, James does say they're evaluating options for 2025, which I'm sure is not what some of you want to hear, but that's his job as the team boss. The market is busy right now, and if others are interested he is wise to listen. But Logan will be one of those options, if he hits the goals James has set him.

#f1blr #f1 #formula one #logan sargeant #kimi antonelli #james vowles #toto wolff #williams racing #mercedes f1 #keep calm and believe in logan #Youtube

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interact-proof · 11 months

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Info Masterpost

Hi everyone, you may know me from around the IF community, probably primarily from here, but you may also be familiar with some projects I've worked on as an editor (the two most prominent being @bodycountgame and @nyehilismwriting's Project Hadea) or other things I've done around the place. Regardless, it's my intention to set up a place here to provide proof-reading and other editing services in order to help people in the IF community who may struggle with doing it themselves for whatever reason (be that due to time, or difficulty, or anything else).

What's on Offer?

We all know that being an interactive fiction author is a HUGE undertaking - we're our own planners, publicists, programmers and also editors a large amount of the time - and sometimes it can be a lot to grapple with. I also know from personally interacting with a lot of authors that editing in particular can feel intimidating for people who don't do it often, and lots of people feel like they don't get it right or don't trust their own judgement with it. That's a normal feeling for anyone inexperienced in a certain skill to go through, but also it turns out that luckily, the internet exists!

For a fee, I can hopefully take some of the stress out of the process by doing copy, line or developmental editing for you, or a combination of the three in some way, shape or form. This doesn't give me any control over your work, obviously, and any suggestions that I make will be just that, suggestions - though like any editor worth their salt, I'll always do my best to explain what I'm suggesting and why, so that you can hopefully make an informed decision about what you want to do about it.

See below the cut for more information, along with pricing and some basic FAQs. Thanks for reading!

So, how does it work?

Well, it's pretty simple, really - you reach out and talk to me about what you want edited, I'll let you know how many (if any) jobs are in my queue currently, we'll confirm what the price will be, and then you decide if you want to go ahead with contracting my services. If we agree to work together, you'll sit back and relax after finishing the exhausting writing process, or, if you're really a glutton for punishment, start writing something new, and I'll do the editing. Then I'll return it to you, and send you an invoice. Easy!

I'm not going to hover over your shoulder demanding certain changes be made or be offended if you disagree with me - that's not a good editor's function, in my personal opinion. What you choose to do with my editing suggestions afterwards is entirely up to you!

FAQs

What's the difference between copy editing, line editing and developmental editing?

Most people editing for themselves do all three different types of these at once, but they are actually three separate skillsets. Copy editing is another term for what's sometimes called proof-reading; basically, it's checking for spelling and grammar mistakes (including homophones and so forth) but not for other purely textual elements like ineffective word usage or weak sentence structures. Anything beyond basic grammatical correctness is covered by what's called line editing, which looks at some common things people worry about like overused words, weak metaphors or other imagery, and sentences or segments of the text that can possibly be written in a way to more effectively convey the message they're trying to get across.

Developmental editing is a whole other ballgame - this is the part that most often makes authors nervous, the act of considering the text in terms of the effectiveness of each paragraph and story beat, analysing which parts of the narrative and various character arcs are working and which aren't, and so forth. This is a type of editing that is heavy on critique, and very subjective: it's akin to the kind of feedback you might get from beta readers in many senses.

You don't have to want all three types of editing in order to contract my services for, say, just one, but developmental editing on its own will be by negotiation, and likely be an hourly fee rather than a per word cost. You also can't have line editing without copy editing, as it would be impossible to make sure it's effectively-written without making sure it's correct. (You can have copy editing without line editing, however.)

Do you accept works from people whose first language is something other than English?

Yes, this is not a mitigating factor for me. I've worked on some pieces by French- and Brazilian Portuguese-speaking authors before. My editing suggestions come with explanations of why I'm making them, so it should be clear even for ESL authors what I'm suggesting and for what reason. I'm not a translator (unless you're talking about from Akkadian or Sindarin), but as long as you're capable of having a conversation in English, we should be fine.

How should I format my files for you to work on? And how will I get them to you/receive them back?

The two most preferable options are either in a Word Document, or a GoogleDoc document, as these formats both allow me to highlight parts of the work and comment on it directly so that you can see my suggestions. Any other format will make the whole process difficult for both of us as it will require cross-referencing between your work and my responses.

It doesn't have to be formatted in any fancy way, though - as long as it's in the document and readable, even just via basic copy/paste from wherever else you write, that's fine.

We can exchange the files via email or discord, whichever makes you feel more comfortable.

Do you accept jobs unrelated to interactive fiction?

Yes! I've edited novels and short stories before as well, and done work specifically providing developmental editing on outlines so that authors can feel they have a well fleshed-out plan before they begin writing. It's just that there's not many editors out there who are familiar with the IF scene, so that's my marketing focus, so to speak.

You write using British spellings... do you know how to edit for American spellings, too?

Yes, I know how to edit for AusE and AmE as well as BrE. Many authors also use a combination of multiple spelling systems, which I can work with as long as you let me know your style and parameters.

My game is written in the style of Shakespeare... can you handle that?

Individual style, both affected and inherent, is not really a roadblock for most editors. The job of a good editor is to consider each author's personal style and make sure to respect it, rather than try to overwrite it with their own voice, so if you're writing a Tolkienian or Arthurian or epic poetry piece, I'm capable of working with that as long as you let me know what you're aiming for beforehand.

If you have a style guide with particular specifications, feel free to submit it along with your documents, and I'll abide by its specifications. I've worked on projects ranging from high fantasy to scifi to modern fiction in the past.

Can I break my writing up into multiple parts to give to you over time?

Sure! All of the interactive fiction work I've done thus far has been chapter-by-chapter, and you can break it down smaller if you like. However, I can't necessarily bring forward developmental editing concerns from one job into another at peak reliability, particularly if a long period of time has passed between the different jobs.

That's probably all for the FAQs for now - if you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out and ask!

Pricing

How much the editing will cost is based on the length of what you would like me to edit, split up into three length categories: under 10k words, 10k-100k words, and over 100k words. Prices are in AUD, Australian dollars. Per-word rates round up (ie., at a rate of 1c per 5 words, 6 words would incur the cost for 10 words).

Under 10,000 words

Copy editing: 1c per word.

Line editing: a flat $15 fee on top of the price of copy editing.

Developmental editing: a flat $20 fee on top of any other costs, or an hourly fee by negotiation if without the other two services.

10,000 to 100,000 words

Copy editing: 1c per word for the first 10,000 words, followed by 1c per each 3 words for the remainder.

Line editing: a flat $30 fee on top of the price of copy editing.

Developmental editing: a flat $80 fee on top of any other costs, or an hourly fee by negotiation if without the other two services.

Over 100,000 words

Copy editing: 1c per word for the first 10,000 words, followed by 1c per each 3 words for the remainder, plus a flat $20 fee for each 100k words after the first (ie., 150,000 words will incur a $20 fee on top of the per-word price, while 250,000 words will incur $40).

Line editing: a flat $40 fee on top of the price of copy editing, rising incrementally per 100k words after the first (ie., 150,000 words will incur a $40 fee, while 250,000 words will incur $80).

Developmental editing: a flat $80 fee on top of any other costs, rising incrementally per 100k words after the first (ie., 150,000 words will incur an $80 fee, while 250,000 words will incur $160), or an hourly fee by negotiation if without the other two services.

Code-checking

If you're able to include your code with your writing (such as by viewing a proofing copy of a game via twine), and provide me with an outline of your variables and what you're using them for, I can by request check for possible errors (such as adding to a stat when it seems like it should be subtracting instead, or using a wrong or misspelled variable) for a flat fee of $80 per 100,000 words (in this case, the code is included in the wordcount, since I'll be checking it).

Outline Help

If you want me to look over an outline or plan and provide developmental feedback before you begin writing, this can be done for an hourly fee by negotiation.

Thank you again for reading! Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

#infopost #pinned post

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yesterdays-xkcd · 1 month

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I once asked an NSA guy whether they'd broken RSA. And I know I can trust him, because I asked if he was lying to me and he said no.

1337: Part 3 [Explained]

Transcript

[Outside, Adrian Lamo is helping Elaine Roberts over a barbed wire fence.] It was the late 90's. Elaine crisscrossed the country with Adrian Lamo, the 'Homeless Hacker', learning to gain entry into systems both virtual and physical. Adrian Lamo: So you just throw a rug over the fence and... say, what is this place anyway? Roberts: Nowhere special. Lamo: ...Elaine, is this NSA Headquarters? Roberts: ...Look, I just want to see if they've broken RSA.

[Inside, Lawrence Lessig is sitting at a table, Roberts is standing across the table swinging a knife.] She learned, from Lawrence Lessig, about the monstrosity that is U.S. Copyright Law. Roberts: So, how do we fix the system? Stab bad guys? Lessig: I'm starting something called "Creative Commons" Shink Elaine Roberts: I think we should stab bad guys...

[Steve Jobs is lying up in his bed, Roberts is balancing while crouched on the foot of Jobs's bed.] She met with Steve Jobs to discuss the future of Apple. Roberts: Compression and bandwidth are changing everything. Jobs: Who are you? It's 3:00AM! Roberts: Apple should make a portable music player. Jobs: I'm calling the police. Roberts: Hey, idea — integrate it with a cell phone!

[Scene has two of Elaine's activities. In one she is drumming, in the other she has an electric guitar on her shoulders, one hand on the frets. The other hand is holding a laptop by the touchpad.] She even, for a time, took up drumming, and helped start a movement among teen girls, a culture of self-taught female programmers and musicians, coding by day and rocking out by night— Riot Prrl.

#xkcd #xkcd 343 #1337 #1337: part 3 #2000s #2007

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torhues · 2 years

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iwaizumi hajime.

iwaizumi made it clear when you broke up with him— that you wouldn't get together— as if it wasn't an unspoken rule already. you weren't so sure of his words but, pride had your conscience in its hands and you agreed, saying you wouldn't even think about doing that.

now you're sitting in a fancy cake shop in Florence, with iwaizumi in front of you. the last time you saw him was in highschool, when you broke up with him on the way to airport, when he said the two of you would be just fine even in a long distance relationship, when you said it was hard for you, when he asked whether you trust him, and when you said you do but it had started to shake.

the last time you saw him was around five years ago, see you don't even remember the timeline. you've been keeping a blurry image of him walking away as a souvenir for your eyes failed to give you a clearer look back then.

the orders are sitting on the table but you don't care enough to tend to them. on other days, you would take a picture— multiple pictures— send it to your friends, post it on your social media account if you feel like it, make it another insignificant moment of your life saved in the gallery. on other days, you would enjoy the dessert but today, the pear sauce on vanilla bread seems to reduce your appetite.

"i can't believe we're meeting all the way here, in Italy," albeit, he seems to enjoy his cake.

you imagined meeting him in California or Japan, or somewhere in Canada, at most, since he always wanted to visit the country, especially during fall, and coincidently, you've enrolled in the fall course for post-graduate studies, at some university. not Italy, not in the middle of your vacation that was supposed to be some sort of self-sobriety programme.

you nod. "me neither,"

and then he starts talking about college, what he has been up to recently, directing the same questions to you while you do your best to give a brief response. it isn't the timing that is making you feel out of place but instead, it's how normal iwaizumi is. you don't expect an argument, not an iwaizumi who can never forget you for your impromptu breakup and, neither the one who would ask you to get back together because living without you feels like hell,

like diving deep into the ocean without oxygen.

you don't want to have a melodramatic conversation but, you don't want him to act like you didn't leave him with loose ends, as if you didn't hurt him when all he ever did was make you happy. you want him to hate you, to utter all the words along the lines of love and loathe, to tell you that he loved you and still did, that it was so hard to move on and every breath pierced like glass shards in the heart, that he spent nights crying while reading your texts knowing you'd never come back and when he has been doing better finally, you appear in his life like nothing ever happened, and drag him back to step one. you want him to tell you things that resonate with the yearning you have for him in his heart, desperately beautiful yet painful, so that you don't have to ask yourself over and over again, am i the only one who still feels this way?

"how's life?" you ask this once, instead of letting him ask all the questions that you don't have a definite answer to.

iwaizumi pauses, he takes a breath, a look out of the glass windows, your eyes follow his gaze, there's a soft smile on his face.

iwaizumi lifts up his fingers. "i'm engaged," he's engaged. "and it'd be appreciated if you could make it to the wedding next month," and he's inviting you to his wedding next month.

he continues about how suddenly things happened and how sorry he is for not being able to invite you to the engagement; you don't mind any of it, quite frankly. you didn't even expect him to do that after changing your number. that's not what you're worried about, that is not even the worst part.

iwaizumi is engaged.

the sixteen year old boy who told you that he'd marry you the moment you both turn eighteen, the eighteen year old guy who promised to stay by your side— one who shared his firsts with you and swore to make you his last— is engaged. your heart is racing at a thousand miles per second, and for all the wrong reasons.

now that you notice, his smile has gotten wider, and he's talking about the girl he met in college and how she makes him feel like the happiest person ever. you notice the way he still fiddles with his fingers while talking about someone or something that he adores, the way he says those words with eyes that seem like they would never run out of love to give. the sunset shines upon him, he looks exactly the way he did on your first date.

do you smile the same way at her?

you know, you're in no place to complain, for you were the one to leave him when he begged you to say. it's not that you don't want him to move on in life, you said he deserved someone better the day you broke up, it still rings in your head as a reminder of your biggest mistake. you want to happy for him but, something about him moving on and you being stuck in the same place leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

"yn," he calls your name, you respond by shifting your eyes in his direction. "are you listening?" you are, albeit, you don't know how much you're processing.

you're picturing them together, doing everything you did with him; holding hands, going on dates, kissing, hugging, sleeping next to each other, movie nights that felt ever so intimate— you imagine her sharing every little memory but one that's a better version. you feel as if yo—

"if i ask you to get back with me, would you?" you ask, letting the words you've been suppressing for so long flow like water in a stream, one that could potentially flood everything around.

"yn, i'm engaged—"

"i mean, had you not been engaged and had i asked you to get back together," you clarify, "would you have agreed?"

there's a pause, a series of silence, strings of regret, traces of shared memories from the past that fill the little gaps in the air like blood in sinusoids. you remember your first fight with iwaizumi, and you want to know what he's thinking. it's not like you can tell, you forgot how to do that long ago. iwaizumi rarely ever looks disappointed or upset enough to give you a silent treatment. for a second, you think it's that, but it turns out you're wrong.

he doesn't look sad or angry, not disappointed at your question considering he's about to get married. instead, iwaizumi looks like he's hurting. as if he has waited for long, hoping to catch a glance of you somewhere even if it's in middle of a crowd because it's fine, that works. he can always reach you out amidst a crowd. iwaizumi looks like he doesn't have a definite answer to your question, but he is telling you that it's your fault.

a second passes and his phone rings. your eyes fall upon the caller ID, it's a name with a heart, you think it's her. it has to be, because iwaizumi, without sparing you a second glance, stands up, and puts on his coat, ready to leave. the little hope of getting an answer to that question goes off the moment he picks up his phone, or maybe even before that, because it doesn't look like iwaizumi has an answer to that.

but he stops. "no," he says.

and you realise, to him, you're the memory he buried deep in his mind while to you, iwaizumi is the air you struggle to breathe.

#♡ hues'.#♡ handmade.#iwaizumi x reader #haikyuu x reader #iwaizumi hajime #haikyuu #haikyuu fic #iwaizumi fic #haikyuu angst #iwaizumi angst #haikyuu drabbles #iwaizumi drabble #haikyuu headcanons #iwaizumi headcanons #haikyuu iwaizumi #my god what is this .#i swear this sounded better in my head #like rlly

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ravenstargames · 9 months

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✦ Lost in Limbo Devlog #5 | 08.31.23

August is OVER and that means a brand-new Lost in Devlog!!! 💜 We are very excited for September to begin because that will definitely mark a new era of Lost in Limbo's production as the whole team will be finally free of the shackles of the spanish education system!

This devlog contains mainly progress in the programming and writing department (yours truly in charge), but we have also made some progress in the art department.

In addition, we will use this devlog to discuss a few changes and decisions we have taken in regards to the course of the demo—so feel free to grab a drink and join us for the ride!

First and foremost...A glimpse of our main menu! 🎉💜 I have been working hard this month to implement the UI as we finally got the files, and I've also animated and programmed the main menu screen, the configuration screen, save/load, etc. The dialogue box and everything else is also implemented and working perfectly, and of course we have a custom cursor thanks to miss Raquel! 🎉

Needless to say, LiL is my first coding adventure, so I'm sure our code isn't perfect or in optimal condition, but hopefully our Kickstarter will allow us to hire a programmer to fix that. I think I've done a pretty good job considering my lack of experience!

Also, special thanks (again) to our dearly beloved @crescencestudio for bearing with me and graciously lending a hand when I struggled the most. They are officially my ren'py mentor and I'd like to take a moment to illustrate our my struggle to y'all with a simple screenshot:

(Also it's kind of funny we both have animal crossing pics in our discord accounts, that was ✨ a coincidence ✨)

<<Inside the holy judgement chamber of the Silver Spire, may your words carry only truth, lest punishment is what you seek.>>

This month our dear Raquel has been working on backgrounds when she's had a moment, and this is one of the pieces she has been rendering and polishing! We'll also take a look at another background (a really important one) to bring it up to our new standards. As I said in another devlog, the master degree we were (and still are, until the 15th) attending has changed our way of seeing and approaching art pieces, so we are looking into improving pieces that are still in the making!

First of all; we are super proud and happy to welcome a new member to the team of Ravenstar Games: Allie! They'll be our editor and proofreader, and I'm sure you know and love some projects she's been on, like Blooming Panic! or our recent and beloved Intertwine. They are a fantastic fantastic writer, an incredible person and a passionate dev that I've had the pleasure to know and work with for a while now, and I would trust no one else with the script of our baby! (and if you are a writer, you know how hard it is to let others read your stuff sometimes. It's like baring your soul to them; it could only be Allie for me!) So please give them a big warm welcome!!

For the writing department, some devlogs ago we talked about the script suffering some changes—well, they have officially solidified now!

We have cut some content that was not exactly relevant for the first experience we want y'all to have with the game. A lot of context and exposition that helps, but is not absolutely necessary to enjoy what is perhaps the most important thing for an indie team and their game; the first demo and the impression it leaves behind. That content has not been scraped and we have decided to save it for an extended demo; the first demo will still be as long as it was in the beginning, as a lot of new content has also been added to prioritize the LIs, which is what you are here for.

We also made this decision because we were once more faced with the reality of: there's only four of us and it's not realistic to do seven LIs + six supporting characters + their expression charts + 13 backgrounds + everything else for a first demo. We are learning as we go, for better or worse, and sometimes you have to sit back and say "right. this is not going to work" so we had to do that. Sadly, we were not realistic with what we wanted to do, but hey, we all get too excited and dream too big sometimes!

This changes will ensure you get the best first experience with LiL without losing important, meaningful content, and hopefully be excited for what will come later. In my humble opinion, the demo script is now in much better shape than it was a month ago. Trust. And just wait for Allie to edit it—that's going to bring it to perfection.

Oh! We'll also be modifying the Masterpost soon as some things are a bit outdated and can be improved, so expect to see some new stuff in there!

It's 1 am here right now as I write this. I'm in bed. Today has been a day. Tomorrow I'll take a look at this and correct a million typos. See? Another reason we need Allie with us. There's screenshots to take, videos to make, and everything is slowly coming together. We are in really good spirits, motivated and hopeful for the near future. This has been long enough as it is, so as always, thank you for being part of Lost in Limbo's journey, and for the love and kindness you give us again and again. We hope you all are doing great, staying hydrated, and taking care of yourself 💜 See you very very soon!!

#lost in limbo #devlog #indiedev #visual novel #otome

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batmanisagatewaydrug · 3 months

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Hello sex witch!

I am an afab person who hasn't ""lost their virginity"" with another person yet - but i do masturbate enough to know what i like, and so i would like to start having sex with people. Preferably casually, because I'm not really interested in relationships rn.

Problem is, I have lived my whole life in a small-ish town where there are hardly any opportunities for me to meet other queer people or safely approach anyone with sex in mind. I'm still living at my parents' house. My uni is in another bigger city, but I have to catch the train home every night, so I can't really go explore the club life there.

I will be leaving for a student exchange programme soon, going to another country. I thought this could be an opportunity for me to start having sex, but I'm not sure how safe it would be to "lose" my virginity abroad? My insurance covers gynaecologist appointments, but there will be a language barrier. I will be thousands of kilometers away from my friends and family who could provide support should anything go wrong. And what if i'm just being weird about all this and should really just find a way to have sex here in my country instead of treating it like a fun travel experiment?

I know it's mostly up to me to consider the pros and cons, but do you have any thoughts on this? Advice?

hi anon,

the amount of worst case scenarios you've already come up with regarding this plan suggests to me that it's maybe not the best idea for you.

in any case, I generally don't recommend anyone goes into any situation dead set on making it a sexual opportunity. that's not ultimately something that you can totally control - partnered sex definitionally requires at least one other person to be involved, and that's not something you can guarantee will happen unless you want to pay someone for it (which is a perfectly fine option, but I'm not sure it's the kind of experience you're looking for.)

it takes a lot of random chance and luck for compatible sexual partners to find each other, and if that doesn't happen when you were really determined that it would it can be devastating. trust me, I've been there - and I wasn't even doing something as exciting as going abroad. it can really suck the wind out of your sails during what could otherwise be a very cool experience if you're holding the trip to a sexual standard that you can fall short of through absolutely no fault of your own - after all, no matter how eager you are you've ultimately got no say over whether other people want to have sex with you.

I'd say you can certainly go into the trip with a mind open to the possibility of sex and assess your options if you find yourself meeting someone who you feel a possible connection with, but don't approach the trip with sex as a set goal.

#sex edventures 2024

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i-cant-sing · 8 months

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YAAALLLLL THIS MAN IS SO WHIPPED FOR ME(idk for sure but u guys tell me) AND HE DOESNT EVEN KNOW ME?????

So basically some random dude called me, he doesn't know me or has even seen me or even knows my name, and idk him either. He claims that he was randomly dialing a phone number and dialed mine because he wants to be friends (friends here means dating). I already know this is completely BS so I hung up on him, but after a few more calls from him, I decided to humor him.

So I gave him a fake name and a fake age and a fake career and like I'm telling this man that I am lying for most part and he's like "but why???🥺 I've been nothing but honest to you" and I'm like boy idk u and I don't wanna know u and I don't even trust u or ever will wanna be in a relationship with you. Cause I took a brief interview and he told me that he's 28 (but he sounds like he's 32, maybe 35), his highest level of education is 12 grade and he's working as a "programmer" at a small company (I think it's a clerk job because he calls me during his tea breaks, and then in the evening).

Anyways, he's like "come on, just give me a chance. What's the worst that could happen???" And I'm like no. And somehow the convo went from him trying pursue me to me telling him to go pray to the Lord (like real religious stuff) for help with his career (because I told him that I can't settle for a man who's not smart enough, pr rich enough or handsome enough) and then it went to me telling him to read some of my favourite novels.

Yall won't believe me when I tell u that this man researched fav book (after he figured it out that i took my fake name from that book) and he's proceeded to tell me the whole summary??? And like we've talking for the past 3 days? And everh single time, he asks "do I have a chance with you?" And I give a resounding NO. But I don't stop there, no no. He asked me reason for rejection and I GAVE HIM A WHOLE ASS LIST THAT WAS BORDERLINE MEAN LIKE-

You're wayyyy less educated. I bet you're not even street smart.

You're poor.

We are not in the same city.

You're not handsome (he said he was 6 ft tall, athletic build because he wakes up to run at 5 every morning, and he said his complexion was darkish)

Told him he must have something wrong with him, either the way he talks or looks or treats other woman that no woman in real life wants to be "friends" with him.

My parents would never approve, neither would my "8 brothers", my unckes would kill him.

You get the gist, right???

But he did not give up. He's like calling me up and asking "so what did you do today? What's your fav food? Hobbies?" And I'm like sir we are not at all compatible. I even went as far to tell him "I have a very bad temper. I am very high maintenance. I don't dress modestly. I dont cook. I have a lot of male friends, etc etc" things that were lies and would piss off most people.

But he's like "and???? I'll bear your wrath. I'll maintain you."

And I'm like???? What is he upto?

Anyways, everytime he'd ask me if I'd give him a chance, I'd tell him we are absolutely not compatible, especially because of his lack of education and he's like "so a man needs to be highly educated to date you? Why? Just because you're a doctor, does that mean only doctors can date doctors??" And I said, idk about others but that's my preference. And you know what he said??

"You should've been a butcher instead of a doctor, because you're really good at butchering up my heart🥺" HAHAHAHAHHAHA WHAT IS THIS GUY???

Girl I even pretended to be mad at him at the end of day 2 call, even though I was laughing at his jokes the whole time. Like I pretended to be mad at some of the jokes he made at my expense, just so that he'd leave me alone. I TOLD HIM TO NOT CALL ME BECAUSE I WONT PICK UP and as I was hanging up, he BEGGING and saying he was sorry, that he doesn't know what exactly he said was wrong but he's sorry.

I hang up, he calls a 2 more times before stopping. And I'm like " 👍 great, that's finished."

And the next day, he called me in the afternoon, but I was dead asleep. Then he called me again today in the morning, during his tea break and I picked up for the hell of it, and he started off apologising again and I pretended to just sigh and told him to just drop it.

And he's like "Okay... so how are you? What are you doing? Oh you just finished up with a patient? Oh, so what did you think about me?" And I said "I don't think about you. And I never will. You have a better chance with someone else than with me." And he's like "but I want you. You're sweet and kind and you speak in a gentle tone-" and I'm like THIS IS NOT A GENTLE TONE???

And anyways, he was like so did you eat? I told him no, I haven't ate since yesterday (which is true because I was sleeping non stop after class) and he's like "Oh no! Please do eat, how can u treat patients if you don't eat???" And I'm like alright, I need to go cause I have a surgery to watch (I did not, I am at home). And he said okay, make sure u eat something before u drop dead.

And then he called me again in the afternoon and he was like "so what up? How are u? What are u doing?" And I said I'm at work,have a massive headache and I'm studying (which I actually was) and he's like "BROO???? YOU STILL HAVENT EATEN??? WHY?" and I'm like (get in character) "cause I'm at work. Hospital food is nasty." And he's like "then order something???" And I'm like "No, I can't leave my ward to go fetch food." And he's like "Well it's not like u have told me where you work or live or what city you are in, otherwise I would've delivered some food to you!" And I'm like "really? You would've delivered food to me during your work?" And he's like "I WOULDVE FED YOU WITH MY HANDS!" anyways the convo was short because I needed to actually study so I said bye, but not before him telling me to please eat something.

Anyways, couple of hours later, he calls me again and is like "Hey, you free? I'm gonna get off work soon." And I was like yeah, and we started talking again and the convi revolved mostly around him trying to make me reveal some stuff about myself, I told him no. He's like "that's not fair. I tell u everything true about me." I said that's your choice, idk u. And he was like "u home yet? Did u eat something?" And i was like yeah, i had a cup of coffee at work, now im studyung again and he like loses his mond more "WHY HAVENT YOU EATEN? YOU WILL DIE?" and im like no, im too tired to eat and hes like "is it because youre at mad at me? Or at soemone else? Cause why else would u be skipping meals? Did someone say somwthing to you?" And i was like "no. I do have bad temper though, so if you were to piss me off, i would turn quiet and not talk to you for days" AND GUESS WHAT HE SAID????

"No, not the silent treatment. You can argue, you can yell at me, anything, just don't stop talking." And I'm like DUDEE???????

And then suddenly i remembered I should make him reveal how he got my number because it certainly can't be a coincidence THAT SOMEONE ELSE BEFORE HIM ALSO DIALED MY NUMBER (he was looking for another girl he was stalking but did not belive me when I said I'm not her. Maybe he did, but then he said okay then who are u cause I like u too. I blocked him lol). And I was like, he's gonna keep up with initial lie "i randomly dialed ur number" so I was like I'm gonna ask where he is from, like what city. And he was like "I'm not telling u because u don't tell me where u are from. So its not fair." Which is true but I needed him to answer. So I was like "Alright well, I gotta go." in a dismissive tone which he picked up on. Cause the next second he went on "Hey, hey. Are you mad at me? Look, I'm sorry. But just- please eat something. I gotta get back to work. You'll eat something right?"

And I said "ill eat when u tell me where you live."(like the city, not the whole address)

And he's like "aw come on, don't do that. That's blackmail-"

Me: "Okay, well goodbye."

Him: "no! NO GOOD BYE- I promise I'll tell u everything IF YOU promise to eat and tell me where you're from."

Me: I'm not gonna tell u where I'm from

Him: is that fair?

Me: no. You're right, it's not fair. So, you should go look for someone who will be fair with you. Bye.

Him: wait, wait- don't hang up!

I hang up. He calls again, I don't pick up. The second time he calls, I pick up (cause I'm putting him on the spot and he needs to break under pressure)

Me: yes?

Him: look, I promise I'll tell u everything on the next call if you promise to eat now.

Me: ill eat after u tell me.

Him: look, you're punishing me but this is harming you too! You should eat something. You haven't had anything since morning-

Me: okay, I have to get back to studying. You go back to your important work. Bye.

I hang up again. He calls, i pick up.

Me: yes?

Him: stop hanging up on me! Just- just promise that you'll eat something. I swear I'll tell u everything, all of your questions. I don't wanna lie to you.

Me: tell me now. And don't lie, God is watching.

Him: I know God is watching. But I tell you later-

Me: okay, you need to go back to your work-

Him: I DONT! I LEFT THE OFFICE TO TALK TO YOU. I GOT LIKE 20-25 MINUTES TO TALK TO YOU-

Me: then answer my question.

Him: girl just listen to me-

Me: goodbye then. I actually need to study and pray. Have fun at work.

I hang up.

Now he's gonna call again when he returns from work. Now what do u guys think is going on with this Wattpad character? Is he trying to scam me out of money?

Also, just to be clear before anyone of u cause me of leading him on, I specifically told him and tell him on every call that him and I are never gonna happen and that he should stop wasting his time. He's the one who always calls.

#HELP?

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papipopsicle · 10 months

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MERCENARY PART THREE

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Enhanced!Reader

Genre: angst, fluff

Summary: In which Hydra never seems to give Earth's Mightiest Heroes a break, and while dismantling every known base, they find a weapon. In which this weapon is a young woman whose known nothing but the life Hydra gave her, and a certain super soldier becomes protective of her from the first time they lock eyes. AU AWAY FROM IW&Endgame, ALSO THERE ARE X-MEN

Warnings: swearing, reference to scars

Song: Punching Bag by Palaye Royale

Words: 1.6K

MASTERLIST

feedback is always appreciated

"Stark Industries and and the Wakanda Outreach programme has helped thousands of mutants and inhumans, why don't we just hand her over to them and be done with it?" Kitty Pryde mulled over the idea, rolling her eyes as the clock ticked over into the third hour of bickering.

Y/N's sedation would wear off within the next half hour and the team were still yet to come to an unanimous decision on what to do with her. She was currently fast asleep on a comfy bed inside a room which restricted the use of her powers- but she didn't know that yet.

Bucky had tried his best to remain objective, but as he watched the large monitor streaming footage from her room, he couldn't help but be reminded of the girl he watched grow up into a woman and how he'd already missed four years of her life.

"I'll monster watch tonight, James." Y/N hummed, playing with a small flame at her fingertips. She looked over her shoulder and found him watching her with worried eyes, yet she just smiled, "You haven't slept for three nights in a row now. Trust me, they'd hurt you a lot more if you fail your mission tomorrow than they will if I'm a bit grouchy. Sleep, moya lyubov."

"She'd still be a great addition to the team," Tony sighed, standing up to stretch his legs, "and by team I mean the Avengers, I don't even know why you're here quite honestly."

Kitty flipped him off before storming out, probably going to find Charles or Raven to vent to them about how much Stark pissed her off.

Natasha leant over the table, eyes not moving from the tablet in front of her, "Is she like you were, Barnes?"

Bucky tensed and looked at the redhead, "In what way?" He asked slowly.

Nat glanced over at Tony before finding the super soldier waiting for her response, "Did they manipulate her mind and create triggers that'd turn her into a murder machine? Is she at all loyal to Hydra?"

"Come on, you saw her earlier, Nat, Y/N had tried to escape that many times they had to chain her up." Steve tried to reason as he saw Bucky's flesh hand clench up.

"We should consider every possible angle though, right?" Bruce spoke up from his seat towards the back of the room, propping his glasses on his nose and taking a better look at the security footage, "She seems harmless, but-"

"She is harmless." Bucky stressed, "Sure, when you look at her file you see a genetically engineered super-assassin with elemental powers, but not one day passed without trying to escape or planning our next escape. And okay, fine, she enjoys violence, but Hydra conditioned her to be that way and she's never had anyone to tell her otherwise. At the end of the day, she's scared- and I don't want her waking up alone."

The soldier felt Steve's hand squeezing his shoulder in comfort, but it felt cold and the sentiment felt short. Bucky watched each pair of eyes fall away from his sight and their voices stayed silent. He shook off Steve's hand and left the room, making his way down to the supervisory level. He looked down at the small piece of technology in his hand, matching the number to the cell like room and entering a six digit code into the keypad from memory. A single second later it pinged and the lights turned green.

The one armed man stood in the doorway for a moment, watching Y/N's healing figure peacefully sleeping. It was a sight to behold, even in tattered clothes and a thick layer of grime and dust covering her, she was anything but a weapon. She was soft and even delicate to the eye, resting as if her mind wasn't plagued with the tortured souls from her past.

Bucky sat down on the cool wooden floor, crossing his legs like he used to at the age of eight, playing tic tac toe with a small Steven Grant Rogers. Those memories didn't feel much like his own, more at peace with the ones of war he shared with Y/N.

"Stop pulling your punches, their hands are worse than yours." Nineteen year old Y/N warned James with a sharp whisper. His flesh knuckles were scorched from her most recent attack, goaded to use her powers by the watchful handlers. Metal collided with bone and he knew on impact two ribs had fractured, a further one would bloom with bruises soon enough. Training was often more taxing than the missions themselves, bored Hydra agents pulling on puppeteer strings to ensure they put on a good show.

Y/N estimated another ninety minutes had past before her handler pulled her away for healing observations, for research rather than well-being purposes. It wasn't long until she found herself flung back into the dingy cell with a kick to the back of her knees and an expired first aid kit thrown to the ground beside her.

Once the door cranked shut, James knelt beside the stoic woman he knew was hurting so deeply within. He collected any supplies for sterilisation and allowed Y/N to collapse under his touch. She curled into his chest as he cleaned the wounds he caused, burnt knuckles stung from the movements but that was numb compared to the torment of seeing her in pain.

James was past the point of blaming himself for any injuries Y/N incurred from training and vice versa, too much of their precious time had already been taken away in arguments of how much the other was not at fault. Hydra allowed them one hour a day together, usually after training, to decompress and recover and mostly hold each other. Y/N had a knack for sneaking out of her cell to be with the super soldier, it took more time stopping her, punishing her and hauling her back than their current routine. Teamwork on missions became more efficient, so they were allowed their hour of peace unless it became a weakness.

That was when Y/N was most aware of time passing by, fingers habitually running over the rigid scars between metal and soft flesh as a reminder James was entirely real. He watched between the fire dancing in her free hand and the peace within tired features, her own eyes burning bright at his constant touch. The hour would soon be up, and there was no fight to leave each other other than the lingering fingertips as they were pulled apart.

"You cut your hair-" Y/N's gravelly voice was cut off with a harsh array of coughs, spluttering dust from her cell's destruction stuck in her lungs. She squinted at the bright sterile lighting, everything in the room intensely white with the exception of Bucky and his all black clothing sat at the bottom of her vision.

He dialled the lights down noticing Y/N's discomfort and handed her an unopened bottle of mineral water. Her eyes carefully surveyed his movements, not considering him a threat as she chugged the liquid gratefully.

"Do you like it?" He asked after a few seconds of silence had filled the air, taking a seat at the side of the mattress apprehensively. Four years had passed and although he trusted the woman he thought was dead with his life, she was indeed alive and Hydra could do a lot of damage in much less time apart. He had so many questions, so many missed touches longed for and so little worry that she was no longer his Phoenix.

Even with grime covering her from head to toe, Bucky couldn't take his eyes away from her as she scrunched her nose playfully and answered, "I'll miss your long hair, but this suits you- you look like a person."

Unlike Bucky, whose memories were fuzzy around the edges, for better or worse Y/N held all of hers. She remembered cutting his hair short for a mission the once and wishing Hydra wouldn’t let it grow out again. But seeing him this time was immaculate- he was his own human, and she looked to the dirt and disheveled clothing on her person and knew she wasn’t. Purely what she was engineered to be and not a thing more, a biological weapon owned only by Hydra.

Bucky sensed the mental downward spiral as she scanned herself, brows knitting together and tears welling threatening to fall.

He corralled her away from those cataclysmic thoughts with a cool touch to her hot fingertips, metal thumb running across the back of her hand soothingly. “It took a bit more than a hair cut, but the days I feel like a person outweigh the days I don’t. And we’ll get you there too.”

“Can I start that tomorrow?” Y/N pouted and lay against the plush pillows behind her head, content with the sounds of metal whirring against her skin that only super soldier hearing could pick up on.

The team, fewer members left in the conference room, watched the interaction from the projection. A few more words were shared before Bucky lay down beside Y/N, both infinitely still but continuing the motions on their joint hands. Steve’s chair rolled back a few inches as he eyed Tony, “Listen, I can already see Bucky following if we send her off somewhere, we’ve got to at least try re-humanising her.”

“Great, we adopted another murder machine- when the first one gets lonely, at least now he’ll have company!” Tony held his hands up in defence when Steve didn’t appreciate his humour, “Alright, Cap. We’ll observe, give it a few days and get to work on project no murder and less machine.”

part four?

taglist: @kcd15 @killjoynotes

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#bucky x reader #Bucky x hydra!reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky Barnes #bucky #bucky barnes x reader #masterlist #bucky barnes angst #bucky angst #fluff #angst #hydra #marvel #bucky x enhanced!reader

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