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#I love the mids scientists

watertribe-enya · 2 years

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ygo5dsmonth-week 2022 Day 2 - Cozy Treat

Todays prompt was food, so I had Dr Fudo sending Rex to buy some groceries (mostly baby stuff for Yusei). It’s my personal headcanon that while Dr Fudo may have been a brilliant scientist ™ , he’s also a guy from Tops with no idea how money works. So he was going to send Rex off with an inane amount of cash money, and told him to keep the change on top of that

@ygo5dsmonth-week

#ygo5dsmonth2022 #ygo5dsmonthweek2022 #yugioh 5ds #dr fudo #rex godwin #rex goodwin #yugioh 5d's #5ds #hakase fudo #enya's art #this really reminded me how much I hate drawing dr fudos hair #I love the mids scientists #young rex was such a cutie

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danothan · 1 year

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(responding here instead of the post bc it’s not mine)

this is the best crossover ever, top 3 blorbos of my mind rn (the other is kira, that goes without saying)

i should draw them together sometime. my audhd bleeding heart scientist boys <3

#i don’t think they’d have a strong opinion of each other at all #they’d probably respect each other a lot tho #esp jayce who would love to have another scientist on board i’m sure #wait they both had their inciting incidents during their mid-20s #there’s just smth abt being 24-25 and having your science experiment literally blow up in your face as your origin story #🥪#arcane #barry allen #the flash #dc #danbles

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clarkgriffon · 2 years

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claire being like 16/17 throughout the events of heroes but looking the same young adult age as 90% of the other heroes is rough because ill think something like “yknow claire and elle’s vibe is kind of gay........” because it IS but then i have to remember she’s canonically like 17 or whatever

#boo heroes i cant ship claire with anyone except her canon-assigned love interests #and let's face it. they suck #heroes #this is a throwback to the time when cloak and dagger was airing and i passingly commented that tandy and mina would be cute together #and someone was like YOU CAN'T DO THAT MINA IS A FULL ADULT SCIENTIST.#and i had to be like. ah yes. olivia holt is supposed to be a high school student in this.#unfortunately she never goes to school and i forgot she wasnt mid 20s in this show

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dantakeyoman · 1 year

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You Want Your Avatar To Become Fully Na’vi, But Neteyam Is Firmly Against It (SFW / Slight-Angst)

Reader is Fem! Avatar

CW: Angry Neteyam, he means well, he’s just scared :’), reader is in her avatar body during argument, things for the humans of Pandora aren’t doing so great, this was NOT meant to take this long, i dont think this came out well

“Absolutely not! It is out of the question!” Neteyam harshly dismissed, turning his back on you.

“Neteyam, you are only looking at the possible downsides. I-.” “I do not find your death a downside, (y/n),” he cut off, whipping back around in anger.

He could not believe you were suggesting this, knowing how he felt about the subject.

You wanted to make the change, to ask Eywa to bond your human soul with your Na’vi avatar.

But there was no guarantee that the Great Mother would accept this request.

In fact, it was highly likely that she would deny it, taking you to join her sooner than planned.

Like so many had before you.

“Well, living in my human body is not much different from death, is it?” you huffed, angrily crossing your arms.

“Do not talk like that,” Neteyam glared, pointing a warning finger at you, saying Eywa forbid in his head for good measure.

“It’s true! I am a human, Neteyam! Living on a planet where anything and everything can kill me! My bones aren’t reinforced with carbon like you!” you burst, throwing your hands up in frustration.

“All it takes is one misstep, one wrong move, one place I’m in at the wrong time. And I’m done. Finished.”

“I will protect you, then! But there is no way I can let you go through with this!” Neteyam exclaimed, his eyes having the tiniest flicker of...something.

It was fear.

This conversation was truly frightening him.

You seemed dead set on this, not budging a single inch even after the screaming match you two had been having for the past hour.

“There is no guarantee that you will survive the transfer.”

“There is no guarantee that you will be there every time I need saving,” you countered, sharply.

“I WILL BE!”

“BUT WHAT IF YOU WON-?!”

“KEHE!” he loudly hissed, silencing you mid-sentence.

You looked at him, blankly. Shocked.

He had never hissed at you before.

“I will not listen to this any longer,” he said darkly, turning around and getting ready to walk out.

You could not let the argument end like this.

And you knew you had to share with him what you had found out from the scientists.

"There’s been talk, Neteyam,” you started, the Na’vi boy stopping in his tracks.

He was listening.

“I overheard Norm and Max talking about the oxygen tanks that were left over from the first Great War. They said that they can only last for so long. And with no way to replenish them, they’re guessing we only have about a year and a half of air left before it completely runs out.”

Neteyam’s eyes shot wide as he turned around, looking at you nervously.

Fearfully.

“That is why I have been so persistent with this. If I do not make the transfer, I will either be sent back to Earth-.” You paused, swallowing the lump in your throat.

“Or I will die.”

The horrible word sent Neteyam’s head spinning, his mind already coming up with images of you laying on the forest ground, gasping for air that was no longer there.

Both options were unbearable.

Your death was obviously out of the question. But going back to Earth?

He’d never see you again.

You’d go back to living with your people. And no doubt some human man would try to sweep you off your feet.

The very thought made his blood boil, and his heart burn.

Not you. Not his love.

He didn’t think he could physically function without you by his side.

Who would braid his hair? Who would cuddle him when he was tired? Who would help patch his wounds after battle?

The poor boy was so lost in his imaginary grief, that he didn’t even notice to walk up to him, until you cupped his cheek in your hand.

“Do you see now? The choice is death now, or death later-.” “Please,” Neteyam stopped you, pleadingly, his voice cracking as he rested his forehead on yours.

“Do not speak like that. Do not bring those pictures into my head.”

You sighed, allowing your thumb to caress his cheek as you placed a feather-light kiss on his lips.

“I will not go through it without your blessing, my Neteyam,” you assured, giving him a sad smile.

If Neteyam did not feel comfortable with you making the transition, then you would respect his wishes.

Neteyam took a deep breath, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you into a tight hug.

“You promise you will come back to me?” he asked, muffled as he lowered his face into the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent.

You cheesed, a small chuckle escaping your lips.

“I do not believe Eywa brought us together if she did not plan for me to.”

...

“Tìng mikun ayoheru rutxe, ma Nawma Sa’nok!” Mo’at exclaimed to the People, the Sully family, and the entire clan connected to the Soul Tree.

“Srung si poeru, ma Eywa,” the clan chanted in unison, the bioluminescent ground pulsing on beat.

You, and your avatar body, lay naked at the base of the tree, unconscious as the undergrowth made tsaheylu with the nape of both your necks.

Neteyam kneeled nervously before you, saying his own quiet prayer to Eywa for your good health.

To everyone else, he seemed surprisingly calm about this, as if the whole ceremony didn’t faze him in the slightest.

But on the inside, he was on the verge of a mental breakdown.

If you were to die, he didn’t think he could take it.

He wasn’t strong enough.

When he watched the beautiful eyes of your human body shut, it felt as if his heart was being ripped out.

What if that was the last time he could look into them?

His hands shook as he continued, the only one seeming to notice being his mother.

She knew how she felt.

She was in his exact place at one time. Years ago.

“Pori tireati, munge mì nga,” Mo’at walked over to your human body, shaking her hands above you.

“Srung si poeru, ma Eywa,” the clan chanted in unison.

“ulte tìng ayoer nì’eyng ngeyä ya!” she shifted to your avatar, shaking her hands above her as well.

“Srung si poeru, ma Eywa,” the clan chanted in unison.

“Tivìran po ayoekip,” Mo’at held her hands up to the air.

“Srung si poeru, ma Eywa,” the clan chanted in unison.

“Na Na’viyä hapxì!” she shouted, whipping her hands out to the People.

“Eo Eywa oe’ia. Eo Eywa oe’ia. Eo Eywa oe’ia.”

Mo’at’s eyes rolled in the back of her head as she continued to chant, Neteyam practically sweating bullets.

It’d be quite a funny sight if the stakes weren’t so high.

“Lu hasey!” she shouted, silencing the crowd.

The ceremony was done.

Quickly, Neteyam crouched over you, carefully removing the oxygen mask from your face and placing it next to you.

He leaned down, placing two, gentle kisses on each of your eyelids.

You looked so peaceful.

Moving over to your avatar, he carefully caressed her face, looking down at her so lovingly.

Don’t get him wrong, your human body was beautiful. One of the prettiest he’s ever seen.

But when it came to your avatar.....well....let’s just say your features, and a Na’vi woman’s features, mix very well.

“Please wake up, my love. I am right here. I am waiting for you,” he encouraged, raising your hand to his cheek as he sadly smiled.

He knew passing through the Eye of Eywa was very tiring, but he would be there to cheer you on the whole way.

And just like that, you gasped, your eyes snapping open.

The entire clan went up in uproarious cheers.

This was the first time the transfer had worked in a long time.

“My (y/n)!” Neteyam sighed, relieved as he pulled you into a bone-crushing hug.

He was at the brink of tears.

He was so, so proud of you.

That’s right. His soon-to-be mate was the one that survived.

She was a strong, beautiful, and tough woman, Na’vi or not.

“It....worked!” you looked down at yourself, turning over your hands to get a good look at them.

I had truly worked. You were Na’vi now.

And you had seen Eywa.

Oh, she was so gorgeous. Her beauty was divine, and beyond complete comprehension, but she was still soft and kind, like that of a mother.

You would have to tell Neteyam all about it when you got a chance.

Speak of the devil.

“Neteyam!” you squealed as the boy quickly scooped you up bridal style, turning to the clan with a smirk on his face.

“AUAUAUAUAUAUAUAU!” he ululated happily, holding you close as he paraded you down the aisle, his smile nearly blinding you.

You laughed, wrapping our arms around his neck as the people of the clan cheered, some letting out their own shouts of joy.

As you two approached his ikran, you smirked, sitting yourself down on the saddle.

“I told you I would make it back,” you teased, earning a playful eye roll from the warrior as he hopped on behind you.

“I am happy you proved me wrong,” he smirked, turning your chin with his thumb and index, landing a passionate kiss on your lips.

It was the type to leave you breathless when you separated.

Which it did.

As you stared at him, stupidly...lovingly. He smiled, a small chuckle escaping his lips.

“What am I going to do with you?”

...

taglist !!

@vane28282, @remutoast, @p1nkprint, @ladyorchidia, @anthonys-viscountess, @karmz-7319, @cantbuysophialove, @scarabruhs, @an0th3rsss, @deloe18, @mariiyoushi, @av1xar, @alexxcorona113, @may-and-lay, @overlyfancybreakfastfoods, @harshita-hiranyamayi, @qui-02, @myheartfollower, @morks-watermelon, @bangtanxberm

#avatar #avatar 2 #avatar the way of water #na'vi x reader #na'vi x y/n #neteyam x reader #neteyam x y/n #neteyam fluff #omitacaya #atwow x reader #atwow

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nellasbookplanet · 5 months

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Book recs: alien intelligences

Intelligent spiders, octupi, plants, bacteria, and even entire oceans, intelligence without sentience, extra terrestrials and strange intelligences evolved right here on Earth - alien minds can take many forms. Allow me to share with you some books featuring the most alien and fascinating ones.

Previous book rec posts:

Really cool fantasy worldbuilding, really cool sci-fi worldbuilding, dark sapphic romances, mermaid books, vampire books, many worlds: portal fantasies, many worlds: alternate timelines, robots and artificial intelligences, post- and transhumanism

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

The Doors of Eden is something of an experiment in speculative biology, featuring versions of Earth in which various different species were the one to rise to sentience, from dinosaurs to neanderthals. Now, something is threatening the existence of all timelines, dragging multiple different people and species into the struggle, among those a pair of cryptid hunting girlfriends and a transgender scientist.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

Millenia and generation spanning scifi. After the collapse of an empire, a planet once part of a project to uplift other species to sentience is left to develop on its own, resulting not in the intelligent monkeys once intended but in sentient giant spiders. Millenia later, what remains of humanity arrives looking for a new home, only to be met by the artificial remains of the ancient woman who once led the uplift project - and she is not willing to let them on her planet.

Semiosis (Semiosis duology) by Sue Burke

A generational story following a group of humans trying to survive on a new planet, where a strange and unkowable intelligence is finding ways to use them to its whims. As the humans come across an abandoned city wrapped in the roots of a strange plant, they slowly come to the realization that mutual communication is the only path to peace and survival.

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

While I felt the characters could’ve been better developed, this is undeniably a well-written novel featuring an alien race and culture developed on a planet vastly different from ours. Firmly in the realm of hard scifi, this is a realistic, fascinating and slightly terrifying look at how first contact may look.

Brain Plague (The Elysium Cycle) by Joan Sloncewski*

Chrys, a struggling artist, agrees to become a carrier for a sentient strain of microbes. With their help, Chrys breathes new life into her career. But every microbe society is different - some function as friends and brain enhancers to their carrier, while others become a literal brain plague, a living addiction taking over the life of their carrier. And like every society, the microbe community is in constant flux - inluding the one inside Chrys's head.

Rosewater (The Wormwood trilogy) by Tade Thompson

In Nigeria lies Rosewater, a city bordering on a strange, alien biodome. Its motives are unknown, but it’s having an undeniable effect on the surrounding life. Kaaro, former criminal and current psychic agent for the government, is one of the people changed by it. When other psychics like him begin getting killed, Kaaro must take it upon himself to find out the truth about the biodome and its intentions.

Dawn (Xenogenesis trilogy) by Octavia E. Butler*

After a devestating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on.

Blindsight by Peter Watts*

Vampires and aliens and questions of the nature of consciousnesses, oh my. A ship is sent to investigate the sudden appearance of an alien vessel at the edge of the solar system, but the crew, a group of various level of transhumanism, isn’t prepared for the horrors awaiting them. No, seriously, this book will fuck you up, highly recommend if you’re okay with a lot of techno babble and existential horror.

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson*

Utterly unique in world-building, story, and prose, Midnight Robber follows young Tan-Tan and her father, inhabitants of the Carribean-colonized planet of Toussaint. When her father commits a terrible crime, he’s exiled to a parallel version of the same planet, home to strange aliens and other human exiles. Tan-Tan, not wanting to lose her father, follows with him. Trapped on this new planet, he becomes her worst nightmare. Enter this book with caution, as it contains graphic child sexual abuse.

Fragment (Fragment duology) by Warren Fahy*

The reality TV show Sealife is having a rough time - as it turns out, a ship full of scientist doesn’t make for the kind of drama they hoped for. Hoping for some excitement, they reach Hender's Island, a fragment of a lost continent that may contain an interesting new ecosystem. But as they step foot on the island, they quickly come to realize the ecosystem isn’t just new, it’s highly dangerous and very hungry. Among all this life is one single species that may be more dangerous than any other, but which may also be the salvation of the scientists on the island. A bit wonky, but genuinely one of the most fun books I have read, I love it so much.

Axiom's End (Noumena trilogy) by Lindsay Ellis

It’s 2007, and a leak has just confirmed that the US has reached alien contact. Cora wants nothing to do with it, but as her absent father is the whistleblower who dropped the news the media won’t leave her alone. Even worse, she soon finds herself meeting and being pursued by the alien presence itself as it tries to remain in hiding - and discovering that there is a much larger threat on the horizon.

The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis*

Francie has just traveled to Roswell to attend her college friend's wedding to a UFO conspirasist. Not a believer herself, Francie is shocked when she finds herself abducted by an alien. Her abductor is not much what popular media would have you believe, looking more like a tumbleweed than a grey alien, and is clearly on some kind of mission it isn’t willing to put on hold for the sake of Francie attending to her duties as a bridesmaid. As more people get roped along - among those a conman, an old lady, a ufo conspirasist, and a retiree with an RV - Francie finds herself getting closer to the alien and wanting to help it succeed.

Bonus rec: if you like this book, you may also enjoy the movie Paul, which has a similarly humorous tone and similar plot.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir*

Ryland Grace just woke up up from a coma, unable to remember anything. He finds himself alone on a space ship, and as his memories slowly trickle back, he realizes he's been sent on a mission: to find a solution to the impending doom of the earth. Still struggling with holes in his memories, Ryland tries to fulfill his mission, but as he gets closer to his goal, he discovers someone else got there first. And they aren't anything close to human. Funny, heartfelt, and heavy on the science.

Survival by Julie E. Czerneda

Mac, a biologist studying salmon on Earth, has little interest in life beyond her own planet. Despite this, she’s sought out by Brymn, an alien archaeologist hoping her expertise as a biologist can help him solve the secret behind the Chasm, a region of space completely devoid of life. Trying as she might not to get incolved, Mac has little choice as she and her colleagues come under attack by the mysterious Ro, the species Brymn's people suspect to be the cause of the Chasm.

Translation State by Ann Leckie*

An exploration of the alien as filtered through the human. At what point does the human become something else? When does something else become human? Is it a question of biology or culture, nature or nurture? Can we choose it? Can it be forced upon us? Set in the Imperial Radch universe, Translation State follows three different characters embroiled in the question of what makes a human. The alien Presger can only communicate with humans using their translators - people they’ve created that are not quite human and not quite alien. But as news of a translator fugitive arises, conflict brews regarding what right they have to choose their own identity and home.

Exo (Exo duology) by Fonda Lee*

Young adult. Earth has long since been under the control of an alien presence. Donovan Reyes is an exo, a human enhanced with alien technology, working to keep the colony and its people safe. The biggest enemy is Sapience, a terrorist organisation opposing alien rule by any means necessary. When a mission goes awry, Donovan finds himself abducted by Sapiance, something that risks a war. While it took until the second book for me to be fully sold on this series, it features a genuinely nuanced take on oppression and resistance rarely seen in YA genre.

Needle by Hal Clement

1950s classic. A small island in the pacific ocean and a fourteen-year-old boy have just become the center of an interstellar chase between an alien Hunter and the criminal he's pursuing. Robert is a regular boy, but he has a very special passenger: an alien symbiont hiding inside his body. The alien became stranded on Earth as he pursued a criminal of his own species, and now they are both trapped on the same island, playing a game of cat and mouse as Robert and the Hunter struggle to find their prey before it finds them.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers series) by Becky Chambers

Rosemary Harper just got a job on the motley crew of the Wayfarer, a spaceship that works with tunneling new wormholes through space. With a past she wants to leave behind, Rosemary is happy to travel the far reaches of the universe with the chaotic crew, but when they land the job of a life time, things suddenly get a lot more dangerous. A bit of a tumblr classic in its day, this is a cozy space opera with an episodic feel and vividly realized characters and cultures.

Under the Skin by Michel Faber

A dark allegory of alienation and dehumanization, Under the Skin follows Isserley, a woman traveling along the roads of England and picking up hitchhikers. Little does her passengers know, she’s an alien hiding her true self, and they are her prey and a delicacy for her species.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

1960s Polish classic. Arriving on a station orbiting the planet Solaris, Kris Kelvin is meant to study the strange, possibly sentient ocean that covers its entire surface. But the effects of the ocean are far reaching - Kelvin finds the crew of the station secretive and unstable, and is shocked to wake one day to the embodiement of a long dead lover. Was it created by the brain-like ocean, and if so, why?

West of Eden (West of Eden trilogy) by Harry Harrison

65 million years ago, the meteor that killed the dinosaurs never arrived. Without it, the dinosaurs lived and thrived, allowing a the complex society of the matriarchal Yilanè to arise. Meanwhile, in the new world, humans still evolve, and when an impending ice age forces the Yilanè across the ocean in search for a new home, the two are destined to clash. A bleak story of the cycle of violence and hate leading to war, West of Eden is a marvel of world-building.

Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool

Triptych by J.M. Frey

Kalp is a widower and alien refugee newly arrived on Earth; Gwen is a language expert secretly recruited by the United Nations to help integrate a ship of alien refugees; Basil is an engineer who loves them both. Together they must defend their relationship against a violently intolerant world.

The Sparrow (The Sparrow duology) by Mary Doria Russell

When proof of alien life is found, the United Nations are too slow in their plans for a first contact mission. Instead, the Society of Jesus overtake them and send their own ship, but the crew could never have been prepared for what they will find.

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Something massive and alien crashes into the ocean off the coast of Nigeria. Three people, a marine biologist, a rapper, and a soldier, find themselves encountering this presence, and have to race to save humanity before it's too late.

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them: Salvaged by Madeleine Roux, Exodus by Nicky Drayden, The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull, Embassytown by China Miéville

#nella talks books #the doors of eden #children of time #semiosis #the three-body problem #brain plague #rosewater #xenogenesis #blindsight #midnight robber #fragment #axioms end #the road to roswell #project hail mary #species imperative #translation state #exo #needle #the long way to a small angry planet #under the skin #solaris #west of eden #there are more alien centric books that I love #but this list is pretty focused on books where the truly alien unkowable and inhuman is central #so anything featuring human looking or acting aliens got disqualified #same as books where the aliens themselves weren’t very central #also i need you all to know that i have had official art of the 'alien' from Fragment as my screensaver for a decade #that book is so silly goofy dialogue and absolute gory slaughter i love it so much #i still have one of these rec posts in my drafts but! will soon post a new poll in preparation for more

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eriexplosion · 1 month

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Yesterday everyone was posting their feelings on TBB. I'm glad I waited, because there's a lot swirling around. Cut for negativity again.

I was introduced to The Bad Batch in August 2022 and fell instantly in love. The characters, the story, the complex family dynamics, they all spoke to me. I wasn't even a Star Wars fan but I went through and devoured The Clone Wars, Rebels, The Mandalorian, all of it. I threw myself into this world and adored every second of it. I must have rewatched season one over five times before season two even came out.

When season two premiered I loved it. Every Tuesday night I stayed up until the episode drop and devoured it immediately. I looked ahead at the schedule and took days off work for the double episodes, for the big Crosshair episodes - he was my favorite early on and season two only made that grow. But season two also really brought Tech into my radar even more. I had always liked him, but here he was shining. The Crossing really solidified it, as an autistic person. I'd never heard someone describe the difference in processing so succinctly before, so clearly, and it spoke to me like very little had. Here was a character that was like me. Here was a character that I needed when I was an undiagnosed child, someone that would have made me feel like I had at least some way of describing my differences.

Then, well. He died. It was an affecting scene, but it felt out of nowhere, it felt unfinished. Tech didn't even get the climax of the episode. He just fell into the clouds, the Batch grieved for a few minutes, and then the plot steamrolled right along.

I didn't believe it, not after the mad scientist presented his goggles and claimed not to salvage anything else. It seemed like such an obvious fake out. The longer I sat with it the less satisfying it felt. It felt so brushed over, so pointless, all for a mission that they accomplished nothing on. Then came the social media circus. Again and again his fall was shoved in our faces on Twitter, demanding we stream it. TikToks were made that were so out of touch they felt like parodies, the wound ripped open again and again, and I thought surely there had to be a purpose to it.

So I waited for season 3 as interviews were done that seemed to almost intentionally avoid calling him dead. As tweets were made promising we'd be so fulfilled if we could only see who was onscreen in the mid-season! (A tweet that immediately garnered dozens of people hoping it referred to Tech, all without a single comment to try and quell the speculation.) It felt already like we were being toyed with, but I thought it had to be for a reason or a purpose. More weirdly vague discussions went up about his Sacrifice, his Fall, his Anything But Death, even as everyone insists that it was so meaningful, the way he died on a mission that accomplished nothing. Jokes were made around Valentines Day.

He Fell For You, get it?

The first official use of killed went up on the databank right after the trailer, on Hunter's page of all places. The first time the interviews used dead was the Friday before the premier. It all felt too late, theories had already grown for months by that point.

Season 3 finally came and I waited up for every episode drop just like I did for season 2, hoping for him to come back or at least for him to be properly grieved, since we had barely a couple of minutes in Plan 99 before it was swept away for the next plot point. Surely Tech's impact deserved an episode of focus, if he were really gone.

The previously on plays his last words twice. But then we skip months into the future. We don't see Crosshair find out the news - even though Tech died on a mission to retrieve him. We don't watch Omega grieve. She barely seems to notice she's missing a brother. We got a brief allusion in episode two. It took three episodes to even mention his name in passing. Five episodes in everyone got their chance to look sad about him, but only for a few seconds and only when his skills were relevant. Compared to the gorgeous callback to Mayday in the same episode, it felt shallow. He had to have been more important than this didn't he?

Episodes 6 & 7 felt like maybe there was a reason. We see a new masked assassin that gets extra focus, who got put through a series of Tech-adjacent situations, whose beef with Crosshair was just a little too personal, who survived longer than all the rest but stayed masked. Rex talks about losing brothers, but Hunter says nothing about the brother they lost. I hoped it all meant something, that this was the reason that he felt so much like he was thrown away, so that he could come back in.

More one off mentions that only really come up when it's about how useful Tech would have been. More poking at the wound that still felt open and raw because we'd never gotten any closure. The closest we get is a single scene in episode eleven, so late in the season and so brief that I thought that couldn't possibly be it.

CX-2 comes back, and he talks like Tech. He's still not unmasked. I really need him to be something because otherwise what was it all for?

The most emotion comes in Juggernaut, from Phee. Its a highlight because it actually feels like it was about him, like he mattered as a person. It's episode twelve and we finally talk about him like a person. We never saw her get the news either.

Episodes thirteen and fourteen pass without any mentions at all. We're running out of time. Episode 15 hits and we get one raw one from Crosshair that Clone Force 99 died with Tech. It's the first time they directly say he's dead in so many words. It's the season finale. CX-2 is a nobody it turns out, and he dies faceless. Everyone gets a happy ending and after over a year of wondering if we'd ever get closure, it turns out Tech's just dead. But look how happy everyone else is!

Everyone gets to grow old. Except the autistic one of course. He's just dead and it hardly feels like it mattered at all. Did you know Wrecker and Hunter don't use his name once in season three? Omega and Echo mention him once each. Crosshair twice, only once with any emotion behind it. Phee tops the charts at three mentions, two by name and one by nickname. We see his goggles four times. I kept count.

There was never a bigger plan, this was just all he was worth. We spent two seasons on Crosshair's absence. We spent a whole episode dealing with it when Echo decided to go with Rex. Tech dies though and all his life amounted to was a handful of mentions when his skills would have been useful, some shots of his broken goggles, and endless cooing out of the text over how meaningful his sacrifice was. Too meaningful to take back, of course, even as Ventress is brought back from her own sacrifice.

I had really, really thought that this time autistic life would be worth more than autistic death. That a character that felt so carefully handled couldn't have just been thrown away for shock value, barely to even be mentioned again, his memory used to string us along to keep us watching. If you added up every mention and shot through season 3 it might actually clock in at less time than was spent on Mayday's send off.

I'm an adult. I'll survive, though the sting of seeing yet another character like me used as a stepping stone for everyone else's happy ending will take a while to fade. But I think about the child I used to be who needed a character like Tech. And I think about how it would have felt to actually get that only to watch him die a handful of episodes later as a side note to his family's story, barely even mentioned again. How badly it would have hurt, how deep it would have scarred.

I'm not that child anymore. But there are a lot of autistic kids out there that are the same as I used to be, and they're learning for the first time that people like us don't get happy endings. Instead they die so that everyone around them can rise up, and they might even get mentioned a few times. But don't worry. Everyone will tell you how meaningful and special it is and how delusional you were to ever hope for anything else.

The Bad Batch still means a lot to me. I think it always will. I love the characters. I love the family, and all the potential they had. But the sting of not belonging in this happy ending is there, and it's deep. It's been a long time since I trusted a show. It'll be a long time before I risk trusting another. And I hope that the autistic kids trying to learn how to close their hearts off behind new walls are doing okay.

#the bad batch #the bad batch spoilers #tbb spoilers #could not sleep so I'm in my feels instead #it did help to type it out #I'm not going anywhere fandom wise but I have to admit I'm hurt

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weirdworldofwinnie · 9 months

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Oasis in a Desperate Land of Dark Desire - Part One: Arrival

Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer x Female Wife Reader, NSFW 18+ only

Summary: You are married to the man in charge of the Manhattan Project himself, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, and it's your first day (and night) at Los Alamos where tension and unspoken worry is getting high, but he finds time to show you how love can be an oasis in what seems like a rather barren land.

Word Count: ~7, 213

Warnings: Age gap (reader is mid-20s and he is almost 40, and they have been married for a couple years), period stereotypical gender roles (maybe sexism?), unprotected + oral sex, mention of miscarriage, and strong hints at infidelity

Disclaimer: Obviously NOT completely historically or scientifically accurate to real life and is inspired by the film with Cillian Murphy's portrayal of Oppenheimer. There are definitely mentions of Katherine and Jean Tatlock as lovers in this, but he does not have any children with Kitty and is not physically with either of them presently. I also want to clarify that this (while researched) is still just my interpretation with AU elements added in, and it isn't supposed to be in total support and reflection of the real man's life/personality. Scroll away and DNI if you are uncomfortable or take issue with this story; it is primarily for entertainment purposes only and it is just fantasy/fiction!

April 1943

The ride en route to the secluded destination christened as "Los Alamos" was long, hot, and bumpy through the New Mexico desert on a single primitive dirt road with the sun beating down on the windshield, glaring into your eyes and reflecting off the expensive dainty golden watch wrapped around your wrist that had been last year's anniversary present, and the jostling motion of the car made your breasts jiggle up and down slightly, reminding you that you'd been in such a hurry to leave with Robert this morning you'd regrettably forgone putting on a bra. He glanced over to you now, his porkpie hat shadowing the serious and contemplative expression that he had been wearing as a regular look for weeks now... Finally this plan was coming to fruition, but at what cost? It was the government's money and the scientists who were on the line. Robert let you know more details than most out of his non-physics inner circle because he trusted you to keep your lips sealed, but he never gave specifics about what exactly the coined Manhattan Project, or Project Y, was for in terms of a mission yet because it was national security level secret, however it didn't take a genius to figure out it was incredibly important and the development of something dangerous... Too dangerous to keep in a campus laboratory at Berkeley.

As the car approached the main gate and passed by the checkpoint, you realized just now fairly remote this barbed-wire location was and it made a small sinkhole crater in your stomach. But Robert knew this land from his youth and you partly did too, for he owned ranchland here and you both had spent many hours in the last couple years roaming on horseback and on foot into the twilight hours of the day, feeling the chill of the evening breeze and the rustle of shrubbery as the sun dipped down below the horizon and plum light bathed the landscape, bouncing off the backdrop of mountains and reaching deep into the canyons. You recalled fondly one time in particular during the early stages of being courted by him... It was technically only the second date and he had mistakenly trusted you with a horse, even though you were hardly an experienced rider, and of course it had gone ballistic and attempted to buck you off as you held on for dear life to the stiff dark brown leather saddle.

"Woah... Woah! Easy, easy," Robert had called out, grabbing a hold of the bridle and patting the stallion on the neck as you gasped and he kicked his hooves, thrashing the dirt and missing Robert's cowboy boots by inches.

"This one can be a bit rowdy, sometimes the wild never quite gets bred out, and he's not used to you," he explained simply over your panicked cries as he kept patting and verbally calming the animal down.

"But what did I do wrong? I swear, he dislikes me tremendously!" you exclaimed in shock and Robert only shook his head.

"Then he has very poor taste in women if he rejects you," he had joked and you went sliding off the horse's back to where Robert caught you, easing you to the ground gently.

"Are you alright?" he asked, eyes alight with a mischievous concern, but you merely brushed your pants off and smoothed your blouse, shaking the experience off.

"Of course I am. Now are we riding or not?"

He smiled at your confidence, but had hoisted you up onto his horse instead, straddling you from behind so you were facing front and clutching onto the reins. His arms loped around your waist and the horse began to trot, bouncing both you and him in a steady up and down motion, and you flicked the reins, causing the horse to take off into the expansive landscape and Robert let out a joyous whoop as the pace transitioned into a gregarious cantering gallop and the wind whipped your hair around like a battered Old Glory flag in a storm.

"This is too fast!" you had yelled out, but he only laughed, tightening his hold into a squeeze around you and spoke into your ear with a low murmur which instinctively made the goosebumps flare up on your neck.

"I wouldn't let you go even if that horse went mad and flew us off the ground over into a ravine to our deaths."

A little more than six months later after that frivolous adventure, he had dropped to his knee in that very desert and proposed to you, a diamond engagement ring encased in a black box in his palms and you were startled, taken aback at the promptness and faintly aware he was actively seeing at least one other woman at the time, but he had claimed he called it off with her a week ago.

You had cautiously accepted, knowing he was far from a wholesome man, but he was certainly one in a billion and you had unapologetically been with him ever since, even though some friends and extended relatives had openly judged, thinking you were only climbing up a social status ladder by doing so, and a couple of your more left-leaning girlfriends thought you were foolish to already settle for a man at your young age, but you truly loved him. Romance was rather odd; so rushed it could be and yet you felt comfortable around him as if you had known each other for life; soulmates, perhaps, if there ever was such a notion.

The wedding ceremony had been lavish enough to make you feel special, but it had been a more low-key event with only a small group of the closest friends and family in attendance, for he did not want much pomp and circumstance and you had spent the honeymoon at his secluded New Mexico ranch property, bizarrely a sort of prelude to where you both were ending up now. The phone hadn't stopped ringing for the past few weeks and since this work was taking up presidency, it was truth to be told that you hadn't really had time for each other and had been distant these past couple months as he diverted all his focus and intellect to the government and you hoped that after all this preparation, everything would settle somewhat now that he was at the ground level site. You felt trepidation but also excitement because this venture felt relevant and Robert was in his element with the company of like minded individuals all working towards a common goal. His vocation in teaching what he already knew of upper level physics had been boring him lately and he had told you multiple times he was haunted by the pressing need to be essential to the war effort outside of the confines of a classroom; he and his students had to make a real impact and change to the world, to this damned war. And if Robert wasn't the most ambitious, motivated, self-driven intelligent human being you'd ever met, then you'd be stumped to know who was right for the job; he could be dangerously dogged and was as loyal to this country as roots were to their corresponding corn stalks.

And now, starting today, he was the one man scientific director, a ruler really, of this militarized oasis in the middle of, well, nowhere.

Fractions of the place were still in progress, as evident by the trucks and the hammering with the occasional man lumbering past hauling construction boards on his shoulders. The Oppenheimers were still early in arrival, but everyone else on the project was supposed to be settled in by the end of the week. The house you and your husband were to live at was much better off than the cookie-cutter houses hastily put up suburban style along the man-made streets and it was tucked furthest away from the epicenter of town; a large spacious log and stone cabin (that had been formerly a boys' school) ranch style home surrounded by pine trees and shrubs along with a decent yard with that seemed ripe for cultivating a garden, and yet the home was modest and not overly luxurious; this was no vacation.

"The kitchen isn't finished?" you asked in surprise at once upon entry inside and Robert sighed, knowing you how much you had a penchant for cooking and he also knew that hosting gatherings here was going to be essential.

"I'll make sure they get it complete by the end of the week," he assured, resting a hand on the small of your back as you dropped down the luggage on the floor.

"Well, it is rather nice otherwise," you admitted, turning to him and smiling, but he couldn't quite return the gesture.

"Robert, what's the matter?" You reached to cup his cheek and he leaned into your touch before lifting up his own hand and placing it atop the one plastered to his face.

"I'm frankly worried how this is all going to work, how soon we can accomplish what we need to do. The death toll in Germany grows by the day, it may already be too late and..."

You placed a hand to his lips, shushing him with sadness.

"Please, shh, I'll have none of that talk when we just arrived in our new house. We are here now and that is the most important first step that matters towards any kind of accomplishment to your saving the world from this hellish war."

"I need to go do some oversight on the operations in town and at the laboratory," he announced abruptly, stepping back from your touch and picking up his briefcase as you nodded, moving with him to the front door.

"I'll see you tonight then. I think I'll make deviled chicken with a creamy coleslaw."

"I'm sure it will be delicious." He gave a tight smile and it was a somewhat ironic statement coming from the man who ate less than a thousand calories a day. That was one frustrating aspect about him that you had discovered when you had moved in with him back in California and realized he never had regular meals, and lately drinks and cigarettes were his main fuel. You hoped one of these days your passion for food would finally rub off on his aversion, but it probably wouldn't happen here with the increased supply rationing.

He disappeared out the door with his hat and you stood for awhile, taking in this new environment inside the main part of the house with its interesting architecture of high beamed ceilings and picture windows that allowed ample amounts of natural light at almost all hours. You spent most of the day unpacking and organizing, briefly going out to greet and visit with the other wives of top scientists, some you already knew, but others you had not met until today and you noticed that one of those you weren't familiar with was visibly pregnant... She was even younger than you and seeing her led you to wonder how quickly this little manufactured desert town was going to see a population boom in the next few years. Robert had brought up the concept of having children with you on more than one occasion, since you had already gone through one miscarriage (only in your first trimester and you never knew the sex of it, the doctor told you it could have been worse if you had carried to full term and lost the infant at birth, but it was still a gutting loss... Although you knew Robert was privately relieved, especially now since his work would likely leave no room in his heart to father an innocent, demanding child and all the burden would go to you alone) and there was the fact of possible infertility. The hardship of procreation probably ran in the family... Your mother had also miscarried, then had your premature brother who caught polio at two years old and perished weeks later, and then she herself had died during your own childbirth, leaving your father devastated and alone to care for you. You had a complicated, strained relationship early on with him and you wondered perhaps Freud was loosely right about the Oedipus complex since you always had such strong attractions to older men... but at least your father always tried to give you the best possible life he had with his wealth, which led you to moving out from your childhood home in New York across the country to pursue attending college in California in the field of psychology and medicine. You had been in the process of getting a degree in nursing, at least until Robert altered your life by his own ambitions and you had been forced to drop your studies temporarily to move out here with him, but you planned to be studying some by correspondence if the government allowed and also to be able to help out in the small hospital on site for an occupation.

To trim the excess fat off a long story short, it had been a bizarre fluke that you met and promptly fell in love with Robert... you were introduced on campus by friends who also knew Jean Tatlock, a budding psychiatrist and proudly Communist, and he had happened to take a bright shine to you. You considered him unattainable at first, a very well respected brilliant physics teacher with more life experience than you could have dreamed of... He was otherworldly at times, yet found grounding earth in your presence, but it would mystify you what exactly he found so desirable in you. You were as lovely as any other woman your age and smart, but you never thought of yourself as outstandingly intelligent when compared to the people he taught in academia, and not absolutely drop dead gorgeous in terms of prize worthy beauty. Perhaps the attraction, like Robert's scientific passion, was on a molecular scale and only bonded by invisible atoms making the illusion of being a solid relationship. Maybe it was as basic as the fact that you two were mutually compatible with each other and respectable of any differences, unlike his other fiery messy relationships with Jean and Katherine. Would you having a baby split that all apart? Personally, you weren't sure you were ready for any offspring yet and to be thrown into motherhood when you were still navigating having a successful marriage and you highly doubted "The Hill" (as the residents here were calling it) would be a healthy environment for children to thrive in, despite the efforts for a school and daycare, seeing that there were armed uniforms milling about all hours of the day and silent stress was already pervasive in every look, cough, and casual conversation you noticed through passing by. And it was only day one of, as Robert predicated, two to three years of hard work swathed in isolated secrecy.

As daylight began to fade fast and inevitably hand itself over to the darkness, you went back to the house to fry up the chicken. The stove was effective, although one burner seemed a little on the fritz, but half of the cabinetry was unfinished and the counter space was minimal.

Laying out the cream-colored napkins and the finest china you had brought packed securely in a box, you delicately set the table. Despite not having a birth mother to guide you through womanhood, you took to home keeping fairly well and religiously read the magazines, believing being married to an upper class man meant all these details and roles. But privately you also felt the crushing pressure and caught yourself wondering if you were immature to be in this mold. Robert never told you otherwise though and he would theoretically be the last man to stamp out a woman's sense of inner individuality, but you couldn't ignore the fact you, while willingly, still had to sideline your educational and career priorities to come support and live here with your husband. But it didn't matter too much, for you knew in your heart you could follow this man to the ends of the earth if you so desired.

For good ambient measure, you lit two pillar candles in the center of the tablecloth and just as you laid the food on a plate, you heard the front door crack open and the soft clomping of shoes.

Robert would never be the 'Honey, I'm home!' type of husband, yet he always managed to make an entrance regardless, especially now. His slender frame leaned into the doorway, hands crumpling his hat in front of his crotch and the candlelight flashed harrowing ghoulish shadows across his sharp cheekbones and dull pinkish lips.

"Well, what do you think?" you proposed, gesturing to the table spread when he didn't speak. He only gazed at your feminine features, his eyes full of desire that wasn't for the dinner you made, and when his mouth finally parted, he spoke in a husky voice, slowly coming closer and abandoning his hat to a chair, closing in on you.

"I'm sure it is very palatable, but I fear my hunger cannot be fulfilled by only earthly consumption," he confessed, ducking to kiss your cheek and moving his hands up to your neck, caressing your nape and moving his mouth to your lips, but you gently pushed him away, pressing into the fabric of his gray suit jacket.

"We should wait until after dinner," you told him earnestly, knowing what he wanted instead.

"Dessert, then?" he murmured, coming close again despite your light physical resistance and thumbing your bottom lip. You smiled and his arm snaked under your skirt and between your thighs, hand crawling upward to your panties and you breathed in, changing your mind.

"Maybe I can wait to eat after all."

His breath caught, a single finger inches from hitting your covered vaginal area, before he removed his teasing hand and pulled back, gripping your shoulders with conviction.

"Eat. You deserve it and you worked hard on preparing it, I can observe."

He bent down, gentlemanly drawing out a chair for you to sit down in, which you did, letting his hands linger at the neckline of your blouse before he walked around to the other side of the small round table and took a seat, rummaging out a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket and striking it up with his lighter, the smoke wafting in wispy trails around his head. You took a careful first bite, relishing in the flavor and spices (paprika in particular) as he sat there across from you, relaxing back in his chair and taking a drag on the cigarette, puffing out a sigh. You smirked, swallowing a forkful as he kept his gaze steady on you.

"You're making me self conscious, just sitting there surveying my appetite," you told him and he grinned, fiddling with the cigarette.

"I enjoy watching you eat. You are the very essence of life I see lacking in so much of this world."

You blushed in the warm glow of the candlelight, remaining humble.

"That is quite a compliment I don't know if I'm quite worthy of."

"You are, no jury would contradict me." He nodded sincerely as he smoked and you ate in silence for a few minutes before he then finally gave his cigarette a rest and poked at his food, politely taking a few bites of hot chicken and chewing at a snail's pace.

"How did today go?" you tentatively asked, finishing off your own chicken and moving to the rich, crunchy coleslaw.

"We will be making progress. Although I will always say, that General Groves is the most obstinate man with the exact deposition one would expect from a bulldog," he answered with a touch of bitter amusement.

"Should you be saying that? They're... not listening, are they?" you asked in a hushed paranoid voice, glancing around the room and knowing that the phone lines were tapped for sure, but you weren't certain they would go as far to place bugging devices hidden in the house.

"Relax, I could say much worse," Robert admitted nonchalantly with a harmless shrug and you allowed yourself a chuckle, mentally picturing a bulldog in a General's uniform. You took a bite of cabbage, changing the conversation to your side of social contacts in this limited town.

"I met with our neighbors and the other ladies today. They seem cordial and we have already exchanged pleasantries and plans for a party next weekend. I also offered to babysit one mother's two rambunctious little boys and spoke to the doctor at the medical facility about assistance there."

Robert nodded, gesturing with his empty fork.

"Keeping busy I see, but I'll have to arrange to let you in the office sometime instead of spending your days cooped up here and at the neighbors. I missed you and your insight already today."

"But you know I am not privy to everything you and your scientists are doing here..." you started to protest before he cut you off.

"I'm well aware, but I doubt a visit to my own office will cause a security uproar. You are my wife, Y/N. The reason most of the scientists came to Los Alamos in the first place was not solely the work, but because they could bring their wives, their families. We do our best work with moral and... sexual support." He raised his eyebrows and you felt a tingle run through you, a yearning for exactly what he was suggesting, but you had to finish the meal first.

Once you cleared most of your plate, he surprised you by taking the dishes and quickly rinsing the plates in the sink before making and pouring out his signature martinis. You knew Robert must be silently stressed however, for he only took one sip of his drink before he moved outside under the roof awning with his tobacco pipe, settling down on a folding chair and gazing out at the landscape and listening to the low mumble of military personnel mingling about on patrol as though this were a prison (which it was).

You joined him with a cigarette a few minutes later (you had never smoked a single cigarette until you married Robert and unconsciously adopted the habit, but you weren't much of a smoker when it made you cough, yet you kind of enjoyed the nicotine having that convenient effect of temporarily soothing your nerves) and positioned yourself down next to him, letting the cigarette dangle from your lips while folding your hands neatly on your knees.

His eyelids were appearing heavy and his head drooped, chin tucking down. You gave him a bumping nudge and he looked over at you, teeth clamped down on his pipe.

"Tired?" you wondered and he gave a noncommittal grunt, fixing his eyes back straight ahead. You noticed how still he was - calm - and it was a welcome change from the past few weeks where he had been wound up, constantly on the phone at one point or another and gone for many hours in meetings. But now that nearly everyone was all here, it was almost too tranquil... giving the illusion of calm before potential chaos.

"Oppie!" a young man's voice suddenly called out and he came jogging into view on the rock slabbed pathway, halting slightly when he saw you.

"Oh, good evening Ma'am," he greeted courteously with a squinted smile. You smiled in turn, nodding, and he focused to Robert, who gave a tilt of his pipe in acknowledgement and stood up stiffly.

"Any news I should know about, Feynman?"

The man paused, glancing to you warily.

"Is it about the nature of our work?" Robert asked sharply and Feynman shook his head.

"No, sir, it is not pertaining to that."

"Well, whatever it is you can say in front of my wife and I then."

"It's just a communicative matter. There was a phone call from a young woman asking for you earlier that was flagged in the office for personal matters concerning security. Groves is in a fit and I was to inform you tomorrow, but I thought I'd give fair warning and-"

"Then I will address it tomorrow," Robert interrupted and without further word, took your arm and marched you back inside the house. You shook off his touch and shut the door hard, spinning to address him.

"What the hell was that about?"

He closed his eyes and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and rubbing his forehead while exhaling.

"There are intimate ghosts that continue to haunt me," he answered cryptically, taking refuge in the lounge and sipping his martini, but you had a hunch however who was the "ghost" because you knew her and you pointed a finger sternly at him.

"This is about Jean, isn't it? How does she even know to contact this location? And I thought you were all done with her, as you are with that Katherine!"

"I am, I swear to it. But she is different than any other woman I have been with before you, though. She can be... unstable and she may need to hear from me."

"She just wants your sex, that's all!"

"It's more complicated than that."

"You had nights with her while you were having nights with me during courting, I heard about it from our friends. It was still the sex that was the driving factor that she desired from you."

He looked down, unable to deny that entirely and you backed away, shaking your head.

"I can't believe this, the first day here and you can't shake those Communist ties trailing us."

"May I remind you that you considered fully joining once upon a time in the not so distant past? We met at such a social function, remember?"

You bit your lip and refused to meet his wide eyes staring a hole into you, for this was very well true.

"I did, but I overcame it. It's ridiculous to devote one's energy to an ideology and not to concrete, practical solutions. I was never devoted and absolutely do not consider myself a member. I never was."

This made Robert scowl, setting his glass down with a clink.

"It is my opinion that you should be free to choose your dogmas, if you want any at all that is. Belief is voluntary, but it shouldn't be a crime; we all deserve our wiggle room."

"Is that what she told you too?"

He licked his lips, stepping close so you were involuntarily arrested by his blue eyes boring into yours and his hand slid up your arm, finding your shoulder and the bra strap peeking out from the neckline of the blouse.

"I see you put one on," he muttered and you blinked, almost forgetting about that little detail and refusing to be seduced by his perceptivity.

"Yes, I did. My breasts are still sore from that uncomfortable car ride."

"It's a shame they are so contained now," he whispered, beginning to undo the buttons on the blouse and push his fingers into the crevice between your breasts, but you weren't quite having it after the unresolved discussion and the way he had been moments before.

"We are going to do this now? After what I just accused? And besides, I thought you were too preoccupied and planning to sit out there half the night smoking away by your lonesome while I go to bed."

"You make nights worth bearing awake, especially tonight." He shifted, groping at your breasts and you stumbled back into the wall, breathing in shallow gasps. He put a finger to his lips conspiratorially and hugged your body with his own, speaking discreetly.

"We should be quiet to not disturb any nearby neighbors."

"They can't hear us and besides, I'm sick of piping down," you whined, remembering the date nights out in the desert where he'd lay out a picnic blanket and fuck you right then and there with the horses grazing several feet away and the canopy of stars winking overhead. You'd make as much noise as merited, probably confusing the yipping coyotes far off in the distance.

"I think we can try to control our auditory impulses for one night," Robert whispered, hands going to your waist and tugging at your skirt.

"The bedroom," you gasped, rushing away from him and down the narrow hallway, twisting around as he chased you with a huff.

"Where is it?" you asked anxiously, opening a couple doors and unfamiliar to this section of the house in the minimal lighting, when he suddenly pushed you from behind into an empty room with a single large king bed.

"Only the best for us," he told you and you fell forwards onto it, kicking your heels off and quickly flipping around to your back as he loosened his tie, casting it off to the floor and unbuttoning his white shirt as you sat up, reaching needily for his belt buckle and he leaned over onto you now shirtless and when he met your lips in a frantic kiss, you then noticed the prudent stench of sweat on his skin that was disrupting his usual familiar smoky flavor mixed with cologne and aftershave.

"Wait," you ordered, pressing a hand up on his collarbone.

"What is it?" he implored worriedly, searching your expression for the solution.

"Bath, you should bathe. It's been a few days and this heat isn't helping. Hasn't anyone told you that you reek like a dog?"

He groaned mournfully, leaning back and unfastening the belt, tossing it to the floor with a clunk of metal.

"You won't let me have you until I do?" he asked sadly, but you had an idea.

"What if I join you?"

His eyes sparked at this notion and you moved off the bed, finding the bathroom across the hall. This house was one of only a few equipped with tubs instead of showers; they didn't call this street "Bathtub Row" for nothing.

Robert finished undressing in front of you, tugging down his trousers and boxers, springing forth an already ready penis.

"You're going to make me work for it tonight, aren't you?" he asked as he stepped into the large basin, turning on the faucet and letting out a gasp when a strong stream of water blasted onto his bare feet.

"J-Jesus Christ, it's freezing!" he exclaimed loudly with a sputter and frantically slamming a hand on the knob as you laughed from your spot by the sink, taking out your earrings and slipping off your small wristwatch.

"Get in, I was warned about the water supply around here possibly being fickle, even for us," he commanded as you finagled your skirt and blouse off with your bra and panties discarded to the bathroom floor before taking a leg over the tub and stepping in to sit down across from him, letting the tub fill up one third of the way as a sitz bath before awkwardly reaching around him to grab the bar of ivory soap from the dish and began to rub into his back with it.

"I should've put in a request for an even larger bath," he complained as you scrunched up your legs against his and scrubbed dutifully into the folds of his skin.

"It'll do fine, darling."

He took the soap and you both took turns lathering each other up, making frothy circles with the creamy soap and rinsing, the water streaming down into the tub again, flooding both yours and his soapy complexion, washing it all off down the drain before having it fill up again, this time three quarters of the way. The water now pleasantly lukewarm, Robert contorted his body to submerge his head under the waterline and he came up with a loud splash, his wiry dark hair flattening to a wet mess on his forehead as your own dampened and you watched the droplets of water collect on his somewhat pallid skin. He scooted closer, entangling legs, and couldn't resist a quick dart of a finger down to your vagina and you whimpered as he touched your clitoris, inserting into you and making you arch your back and buck your hips when he inserted another finger, exploring around your wet velvety walls.

"God, Robert..." you moaned, digging your nails into the grooves of his skin and up to his head, feeling the cropped soaked scalp and neck. He suddenly lightly shoved you against the side of the tub, pressing his mouth to yours and naturally winding his tongue in, kissing you passionately until the water temperature grew too cold and you shivered, glued to his body and burying your face into his wet shoulder.

"That was merely the first act, sweetheart," he whispered and you smiled, leaning back a few inches so he could get up and step out onto the bath mat, taking your hand as he did so to pull you up and guide you out. Robert grabbed a large towel from the rack and wound it around the both of you, letting his genitals press up against yours and you both stood there for a while, listening to the steady drip-drop-drip-drop-drip-drop of falling water to the flooring.

"I'm surprised you've held off this long," you murmured, feeling his rising erection in between your thighs.

"I truly can't wait any longer," he admitted urgently and the towel dropped with a flump to the floor, and with bodies still slick with water, you and him exited the bathroom to fumble to the bedroom and the blue light from the window illuminated the sheets, the ideal love making spot. He let you collapse on your back and easily came down on top, gripping the back of your neck and already plunging in to align, but you squirmed in dissatisfaction.

"So soon?" you whined, wanting to play with and taste him first, but he was antsy to get to the pinnacle.

"Your virtuous patience should be framed and put on the walls of this house, along with your divine beauty," he whispered, head moving down to your breasts and you dug your fingers into his bare back, running along the bones of his more pronounced spine.

"C'mon, Oppie, let's do this the fun way... Give it to me," you begged and he cringed slightly, but rolled over onto his side and you immediately found his stiff penis with your hands, clenching around it firmly and stroking. He moaned softly and it flexed in your grasp... He could be a decent size when engaged, which was impressive for his underweight body.

"But don't you dare let me go without seeding you inside," he warned as though you had all the control.

"That's the plan."

Wordlessly, you positioned yourself down to the head of his cock and licked off his pre-cum, the recognizable taste milky on your tongue and you sucked, bringing it halfway in and fondling his balls lovingly in the meantime. He was breathing heavily and you didn't linger long at his member however because you could tell he was getting very close and neither you nor him wanted him to release anywhere other than the intended internal target. Pulling out and licking your lips, you repositioned your body on top of his and sank down flat to his chest, and he thrusted his hips up to meet you, heaving in with a grunt. You winced at the initial entry; you were always so sensitive down there (especially since the miscarriage), and he steadily kept at it, probing in further without being too rough.

"Fuck..." you breathed with a cry and he came forward to smooch your cheek as you mounted your hands on his shoulders and he pumped in and out, shaking the entire bed.

"That's exactly what I'm doing, my love," he breathed, keeping an intense gaze trained on you.

"Robert..." you groaned, letting him push as far as he could go until the pleasure was overloading and you felt his hot wet spurt of cum hit, eliciting a long moan from him, his slender frame shuddering beneath you. He closed his eyes and you kept a firm clench around his shaft, not ready to have him pull out yet. Gasping, you began rocking back and forth with ecstasy, your insides stretched to their limit and he seemed to know you were struggling to hold him.

"I'm coming out," he muttered and gently pulled back wetly so he wasn't balls deep in you anymore and then you repositioned to lightly ride him, which was your favorite position, and you bounced up and down on his upright full cock, orgasming a few more times as he watched your euphoria in rapture, so proud he alone could make you like this over and over until you were out of air and exhausted, collapsing to the side of the bed and feeling the sheets very damp with bodily juices.

Robert spooned you from behind, arms draped over to dangle his fingers on your swollen nipples and you matched his breathing in rhythm. Every time was somehow better than the last... Sex with him was as natural as breathing and you appreciated the consistent chemistry that you worried would have faded after a couple years of marriage due to what you'd heard about stress and boredom destroying a couple's sex drive, but Robert was not a boring person in the least sense of the term.

"We should do this every night," you offered hopefully and he chuckled.

"And make me the most lucky, tired man in this whole community? I'd be up for that, although it'll be a wonder if I get any work done at all when I've got this memory lingering with me tomorrow," he replied and you heard the smile in his tone, but with it came the bitter resurgence of the likely phone call from another woman that was bile in the back of your throat and even though he supposedly broke it off with her before you got married, you knew he had stayed in contact and you couldn't help but wonder how he fucked her and if it was comparable to what you and him had with each other, since she seemed to want him so badly. That wasn't to mention "Kitty" who he had insisted on still being "friends" with. A bit depressed and irritated, you pushed away his hands off your breasts and turned back over to face him in the dimness that made even those prominent blue colored eyes of his too muddled to see into.

"How did you become the most desired physicist to women in the whole country?" you asked softly.

"Good genes?" he guessed in amusement and you shook your head, not requiring a punchline.

"You're known to be a womanizer, neurotic, eccentric, a tad arrogant, and yet everybody seems to want you, including me as your own wife. Tell me, why did the universe give you such magnetized gifts?"

He gave a subtle lift of his shoulders with a small lazy smile as you laid your head on the pillow, fending off fatigue.

"Why was Aphrodite the one chosen to be blessed with such beauty and fertility? Why are we the way that we are? There are some matters of the human being to be unfounded in the definitive and everything is relative." He sat up with his back against the headboard and proceeded to light another cigarette and you sleepily watched the hazy smoke drift off above the bed towards the ceiling. He sighed, setting it to rest in the ashtray on the nightstand and wrap his lean arm around your body, drawing you close into his side.

"You are my goddess, Y/N. You are the only woman I want to return home too, always. Don't you know that?" he murmured into your hair and you vaguely nodded.

"I do, but I also know you're not always the most faithful man."

He lifted his hand and touched his ring finger to yours, matching the simple gold bands you both shared as two united.

"I married you out of good faith and the vows we pledged might have well been written in stone in the language of the gods along on the pulmonary arteries flowing as though a river into my heart," he told you with no trace of doubt, but you knew the whole story that didn't need flourishing.

"Only because the two other women fell through on commitment - although tonight I suspect they both presumably still want you - and one was already hitched, so she was having an affair by being with you and wouldn't divorce unless you happened to get her pregnant. I just happened to be the most available, the convenient bride with no attached strings, even though everyone said it was abnormally soon and I am too young," you recounted bitterly and he frowned, tilting your chin upward.

"Is that how you see it? I have never fallen for someone as fast and as hard as I did for you. I still feel the way I did when I laid a glimpse on you at Mary Ellen Washburn's party."

You smiled despite yourself and he bent to kiss the top of your head as you snuggled into his chest, absentmindedly fondling his moist cock with your fingers.

"I do love you beyond comprehension, Y/N," he whispered and you glanced up, meeting his look.

"I do too and I want to believe I always will, until the end of our existence. I am not those other women and I do not want to become so."

A solemn seriousness grew over him and he closed his eyes as you felt tears suddenly spike and an unexplainable terrible sense of dread came over you.

"Promise me one thing, Robert." You paused, taking a deep breath.

"Promise me that whatever happens to us in this world, in this setting, that you will always find a way home and whatever we face, we face together."

He gave a single nod, but you sensed reluctance in the way a muscle in his jaw made a minor spasm.

"I will always do my best."

"Alright," you resigned and he sighed, relaxing back and settling down into the sheets, further roping his arms around you and you burrowed your face into his chest, feeling his light hair follicles tickle your forehead. Tomorrow - and the future for that matter - was uncertain, but at least tonight was building up to a promise of solid sureness, a safeness, bonding those atoms of love again.

Love, or the feeling of it, was a lot like quantum mechanics; essentially invisible to the naked eye and complicated, but the one difference was that it was unmeasurable. No amount of numbers or equations could add up the real affection you felt for your husband, even when the waters became too choppy to be comfortable and it was far from perfect. You just had to cement the fact that you were Mrs. Oppenheimer and that wasn't going to change anytime soon, any disruptive external factors be absolutely damned to hell.

Thanks for reading, expect a little drama for chapter 2... And I do not have a full outline to every part of this fic, so please be patient as I find spare time to work on it and upload. I always appreciate any likes, reblogs, and feedback ❤️

*If anyone would be interested in being tagged, drop a comment and I'll make a tag list for the next part!*

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biographydivider · 2 years

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Donatello’s Big Book of Contingency Plans In Case His Family Turns Evil;

April: The only thing that will halt April if she decides to turn to the dark side is a reminder of the pure, innocent love there is in the world. Show her pictures of Mayhem. If he is to hand, hold him up under the shoulders, so his legs are dangling impotently in the air. This is the only thing I have ever discovered that can stop April mid-sentence, reducing her to a puddle of high-pitched noises and googly eyes - see Video Evidence, File 21. If this does not work, I am not so proud as to turn down a position as Right-Hand Turtle/Head Scientist in the O’Neil World Order.

Mikey: If Michael goes rogue, it will most likely be a manifestation of his loving/nurturing instincts combined with his latent hot tempter; see Dr. Delicate Touch, page 54, paragraph 23b, see The Lou Mike Tony’s Incident, page 64, paragraph 82c. Isolate and psychoanalyse – let Mikey talk himself out of his own homicidal tendencies by prompting him on why this need to lash out is actually a representation of being the youngest sibling of four, and therefore an all-consuming desire to find someone to protect in much the way he has been protected and babied all his life. Then, hugs. Regrettably.

Raph: Raph needs people, and Raph needs comfort – see Raph Alone, page 90, paragraph 2e, see Raph’s Experience With The Krang...the whole chapter, essentially. The Mental Reprogrammulater/Pizza Fun Box has already been turned into an impregnatable holding cell for just this situation; lined with soft, padded foam (so our dear Spiky Leader cannot harm himself thrashing against his restraints), filled with weighted blankets and stuffed animals. The MR/PFB is also kitted out with speakers, out of reach, playing pre-recorded loops of the entire family saying comforting, soothing phrases. These speakers can also communicate with a microphone outside the MR/PFB, if it is safe enough for us to be close. Then, we can slowly and gently remind our oldest brother that we are here for him – that everyone is safe, that he is not alone, and that whatever he is going through, it can be fixed.

Leo: Frying pan to the face.

#it's always Supervillain Donnie this #Feral Donnie that #but what if the others turn bad instead?#of course my boy's got it covered #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt headcanons #rise donnie #rise raph #rise leo #rise mikey #rise april

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scoonsalicious · 2 months

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Unwanted: Chapter 15, Undermined - Pt. 3

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Summary: When your FWB relationship with your best friend Bucky Barnes turns into something more, you couldn’t be happier. That is, however, until a new Avenger sets her sights on your super soldier and he inadvertently breaks your heart. You take on a mission you might not be prepared for to put some distance between the two of you and open yourself up to past traumas. Too bad the only one who can help you heal is the one person you can no longer trust.

Warnings: (For this part only; see Story Masterlist for general Warnings) Language, Jade Carthage (she's a warning), delusions.

Word Count: 661

Previously On...: You confronted Sam to question him about Bucky's claim that he happens to get hard when he fights. Fortunately, it seems like he was telling you the truth... about that, at least.

A/N: Ah, tis my final day of Spring Break. Back to regular life tomorrow, and no further breaks until the end of the school year :( Well, we have Memorial Day and now Juneteenth, so that's something, but it's still gonna be a loooong 11 weeks :/ But I gladly welcome the better weather. Did anyone watch the eclipse? I'm in the path of totality, but I slept through it, I think lol. It was cloudy here, anyway, so I didn't even notice.

Banner By: The absolutely amazing @mrsbuckybarnes1917!

Thank you to all those who have been reading; if you like what you've read, likes, comments, and reblogs give me life, and I truly appreciate them, and you!

Taglist: (Sadly, tag list is closed; Tumblr will not let me add anyone new. If you want to be notified when I update, please Follow me for Notifications!) @jmeelee @cazellen @mrsbuckybarnes1917 @blackhawkfanatic @buckybarnessimpp @hayjat @capswife @itsteambarnes @marygoddessofmischief @sebastians-love @learisa @lethallyprotected @rabbitrabbit12321 @buckybarnesandmarvel @fanfictiongirl77 @calwitch @fantasyfootballchampion @selella @jackiehollanderr @wintercrows @sashaisready @missvelvetsstuff @angelbabyyy99 @keylimebeag @maybefoxysouls @vicmc624 @j23r23 @wintercrows @crist1216 @cjand10 @pattiemac1@les-sel @dottirose @winterslove1917 @harperkenobi @ivet4 @casey1-2007 @mrsevans90 @steeph-aniie @bean-bean2000 @beanbagbitch @peachiestevie @wintrsoldrluvr @shadowzena43

Tumblr will not let me directly tag the following: @marcswife21 @erelierraceala @jupiter-107 @doublejeon @hiqhkey @unaxv @brookeleclerc

True to his word (almost as though he were actually trying to make it a habit), Bucky kept his distance from Carthage. Several times, FRIDAY had alerted you that Bucky and Jade had crossed paths somewhere within the Tower, and you would review the footage with bated breath, always expecting to see the worst, as if they would strip off their clothes and start fucking in the common room. But you were relieved to see that he continued ignoring her, acting as though she truly did not exist, and it seemed to be driving her mad with vexation.

She was so perturbed by it that she eventually came to you looking for a way to get to him.

“I need to talk to Jamie,” she said, interrupting you mid-conversation with one of the scientists in your lab.

“Okay,” you said, dismissing the scientist. No reason multiple people should have to suffer through this. “Then talk to him. It’s a free country.”

“He isn’t speaking to me,” she pouted. “He’s acting like I don’t exist!”

“That sounds like a ‘you’ problem,” you told her, trying to keep the smile from your face. “I’m not sure what you want me to do about it. Or that I’d actually want to do anything about it, even if I could, if I’m being completely honest.”

“I just don’t know what I did wrong!” she whined. You sneered at that. How could she be so completely lacking in self-awareness? Especially to come to you, of all people, after the things she’d texted to Bucky, after trying to destroy your relationship.

“Would you like the list alphabetically, or in chronological order?” you asked.

She rolled her eyes at you. “You know, you should have just stayed away from him. Everything would have gone according to plan if he wasn’t so fucking obsessed with you.”

“According to plan?” you asked her, eyebrows shooting to the top of your forehead. “What the fuck do you mean by that?”

Jade seemed to stumble for words. “I– he– you knew I liked him when I first interviewed. And just to get back at me because I was maybe a little bit rude to you, you went and stole him for yourself!”

You sighed and pinched the bridge of your nose. You wondered if you should ask Tony for a raise, because while you were paid extraordinarily well, you sure as shit weren’t paid enough to deal with this. “Listen, Carthage,” you began, “because I’m just going to tell you this once: My relationship with Bucky started long before either one of us ever even knew of your existence.” Technically not a lie, just a small fudge on the truth. Friendship was a type of relationship, after all. “And it’s going to keep going long after both of us have forgotten your name.”

“You don’t understand what you’re putting me through!” she cried, tears forming at the waterline of her eyes.

You stared at her for a moment, unblinking. “What I’ve put you through?!” you asked her, clenching your fists to keep from punching her in that annoyingly pretty face– you knew that would lead to a fist fight you had no chance of winning. “You have been nothing but a thorn in my side since the moment you first walked into this Tower. Before you showed up, I was the happiest I’d ever been, but you had to come along and try to sink your claws into the man I love. You ruined my relationship; fuck, you ruined my life.”

You didn’t know what effect you expected your words to have on Jade, but you weren’t prepared for her insidious smile as you finished speaking. “Maybe you should be asking yourself, if Jamie loved you as much as you love him, why your relationship was so easy to ruin.”

With a flip of her hair over her shoulder, she was gone, leaving you alone, speechless and freshly betrayed all over again.

<- Previous Part / Next Part ->

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky x you #bucky x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fanfiction #james bucky buchanan barnes #james buchanan barnes #mcu bucky barnes #james barnes

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goldenvulpine · 11 months

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ok here is a helpful guide for Superman fans in Tumblr when referring to different eras of Superman:

Golden Age Superman: Kal-L. The Original. Very cocky. Very charismatic. Couldn’t fly as a kid. Has no solid code against killing. Chaotic Good. Can actually fly now. Has a disturbingly high kill count. Loves Toxic Women (Lois Literally Drugged him one time). Literal WW2 veteran. Not from Kansas. Smallville, East Coast (likely New York). Is now married to Lois. Head of the Daily Star (not Planet). Is Power Girl’s cousin. Is very aggressive. Still saved people from suicide canonically. Canonically religious (Married Lois in a Kryptonian Ceremony). “What trauma?” Seen everyone he loves die.

Silver Age Superman: Kal-El. The Most Popular. Speaks fluent Kryptonese. Total “50’s Dad”. The Strongest. Also the most conformist. Strict Code against killing. Lawful Good. From Smallville. Is canonically Religious (For Rao, his culture’s God). Has multiple cousins. From Smallville, East Coast (likely Maryland this time). Says he wouldn’t hit a woman. Probably has. Sneezed a Solar System Away. Somehow the WEIRDEST one. Also the biggest Prankster. Was Superboy. Was part of the Legion. Saw Pa die. Refuses to acknowledge his trauma. Needs a hug but won’t say it. Works for the Daily Planet. Alan Moore loves him.

Bronze Age Superman: Kal El. Actually just Silver Age Superman but “weaker”. Still the Strongest. Your favorite writer’s favorite Superman. Neutral Good. Originator of the Clex Drama. Met God. Is a pure scientist. Has Three Canon Endings. All of them are literal tragic endings. Is best bros with Batman. Is the Original Nightwing. His cousin is the Second Nightwing. Dick is actually the Third Nightwing. Loves his bro Jimmy Olsen. Smarter than Batman. Made a vow to protect life. Newscaster. Grant Morrison and Mark Waid love him.

Dark Age/Byrne Superman: Clark Kent (Kal El). Still moody. Weakest Superman. Thinks he’s Neutral Good, still Lawful Good. Doesn’t like Krypton. Designer Baby. Best Journalist. Canonically a Porn Star. Died. Came back. Most insecure Superman. Loves ‘Murica. Killed like three people one time. Strict code against killing. “Superman is what I do, Clark is who I am”. Legion who? Superboy who? Supergirl who? Football Star. Pure Sarcasm. Agnostic. People say they hate him but is the reason Smallville, Man of Steel and STAS exist. Literally wants to fuck Jimmy’s Mom. Triangle Era (90’s) Superman: Clark Kent (Kal-El). Is less moody now. Makes more Jokes. Still a drama queen. Smarter. Stronger. Wants to write a Novel. Married Lois. Jimmy is the Best Man. Good Leader. True Lawful Good. The Superman you probably think of the Most. Coolest guy. 90’s Superboy (the best) 90’s Supergirl (Matrix). Was once Gangbuster (Chaotic Neutral). Mind so strong, he killed a psychic in his sleep without knowing it. Christian (Married Lois in a Church). Still knows Kryptonian Kung Fu (Torquasm Vo/Rao). Dick Grayson’s 3rd Dad. Tim Drake’s 4th Dad. Slept with a Mermaid in Collage. Is fun.

Post-Crisis/2000’s Superman: Clark Kent (Kal El) Retcons out the ass. Kara comes back. Knows Boxing now. Knows Kung Fu. Held a Black Hole in his hand. Destroyed Moons. Agnostic. Still Lawful Good. Loves his wife. Loves his adopted son. Chris Kent. His son is Nightwing. His other son is also Nightwing. Walked the earth one time because of war crimes. Saves people from suicide again. Was a Kryptonian general one time. Literal Genius. Smarter than Batman. Is the GOAT. Hates the President.

New 52 Superman: Clark Kent (Kal-El) Very cocky. Very charismatic. Couldn’t fly as a kid. Has no solid code against killing. Chaotic Good to Neutral Good. Lower kill count than Post-Crisis. Loves Toxic Women (Loves the craziest version of Diana). Had a Mid-Life Crisis in his Mid-20’s. Was a Wrestler. Talks like Jason Todd/Wally West/Nightwing/Peter Parker/every mid-20’s white boi in the 90’s-00’s. Everyone hated him. Wasn’t as bad as they say. Is the Andrew Garfield/Spider-Man of Supermen. Killed off without good reason.

Rebirth Superman: Clark Kent (Kal-El). Is literally just Triangle Era Superman. With kids. No Chris tho. Still Lawful Good. Strongest of the Post-Crisis versions. Tries to be a good dad. Is a decent dad. Except for the time where he left Jon alone. So he’s a bad dad. I’m still not over that. Bendis loves him. Says please alot. Watches Anime. Kind of a dead beat. I miss Chris.

if you want summations of other Supermen I didn’t cover you are welcome to ask.

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afeelgoodblog · 1 year

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🦜 - Why did the parrot learn to video call? Because he wanted to see his tweetheart!

The Best News of Last Week - May 2, 2023

1. Engineers develop water filtration system that permanently removes 'forever chemicals'

Engineers at the University of British Columbia have developed a filtration system that would permanently remove "forever chemicals" from drinking water. This news comes after a recent study revealed nearly 200 million Americans have been exposed to PFAS in their tap water. Dr. Madjid Mohseni, a professor at British Columbia, shares his research.

2. Berkeley diner provides free meals to anyone who's hungry, no questions asked

The Homemade Cafe in Berkeley, California, is giving away free breakfasts to anyone who is hungry, no questions asked. Owner Collin Doran's Everybody Eats Program started when he saw people panhandling outside his diner. Customers can add $5 to their bill to help the program or grab a coupon for a free meal. Doran's act of kindness has resulted in a 15% increase in business, and he hopes that more businesses will follow his lead in making the world a better place.

3. Pope Francis gives women right to vote in bishops’ meeting for first time

Pope Francis has decided to give women the right to vote at an upcoming meeting of bishops, an unprecedented change that reflects his hopes to give women greater decision-making responsibilities.

Francis approved changes to the norms governing the Synod of Bishops, a Vatican body that gathers the world’s bishops together for periodic meetings, following decades of demands by women to have the right to vote.

4. US adult cigarette smoking rate hits new all-time low

U.S. cigarette smoking dropped to another all-time low last year, with 1 in 9 adults saying they were current smokers, according to government survey data released Thursday. Cigarette smoking is a risk factor for lung cancer, heart disease and stroke, and it’s long been considered the leading cause of preventable death. In the mid-1960s, 42% of U.S. adults were smokers. The rate has been gradually dropping for decades, due to cigarette taxes, tobacco product price hikes, smoking bans and changes in the social acceptability of lighting up in public.

Last year, the percentage of adult smokers dropped to about 11%, down from about 12.5% in 2020 and 2021.

5. Scientists taught pet parrots to video call each other - and the birds loved it

When humans are feeling lonely, we can call or video chat with friends and family who live far away. The idea for this study was not random: In the wild, parrots tend to live in large flocks. But when kept in captivity, such as in people’s homes as pets, these social birds are often on their own. Feeling bored and isolated, they may develop psychological issues and can even resort to self-harming tendencies like plucking out their feathers. New research suggests that these chatty creatures may also benefit from virtually connecting with their peers.

Domesticated parrots that learned to initiate video chats with other pet parrots had a variety of positive experiences, such as learning new skills. The parrots that learned to initiate video chats with other pet parrots had a variety of positive experiences, such as learning new skills including flying, foraging and how to make new sounds. Some parrots showed their toys to each other.

I wanted to see this experiment so bad, so here’s a video from the paywalled study. I uploaded it on my youtube channel.

6. World’s First Carbon Import Tax Approved by EU Lawmakers

The European Union’s parliament approved legislation to tax imports based on the greenhouse gases emitted to make them, clearing the final hurdle before the plan becomes law and enshrines climate regulation in the rules of global trade for the first time.

Tuesday’s vote caps nearly two years of negotiations on the import tax, which aims to push economies around the world to put a price on carbon-dioxide emissions while shielding the EU’s manufacturers from countries that aren’t regulating emissions as strictly, or at all. The tax gives credit to countries that put a price on carbon, allowing importers of goods from those countries to deduct payments made for overseas emissions from the amount owed at the EU’s borders.

7. Genetic Driver of Anxiety Discovered

An international team of scientists has identified a gene in the brain responsible for anxiety symptoms and found that modifying the gene can reduce anxiety levels, offering a novel drug target for anxiety disorders. The discovery highlights a new pathway that regulates the brain’s response to stress and provides a potential therapeutic approach for anxiety disorders.

Critically, modification of the gene is shown to reduce anxiety levels, offering an exciting novel drug target for anxiety disorders.

That's a driver I'd like to uninstall.

----

That's it for this week :)

This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation:

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Also don’t forget to reblog

#best news of last week

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txttletale · 10 months

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I just wanted to let you know that I just found your tumblr within the past week and you have immediately become my 2nd favorite tumblr, being only behind Blogatog. Love your ttrpg takes.

Anywho, you said to ask about flags, so what is your biggest/are your biggest red flags when it comes to ttrpg design?

thank you! i'm glad you enjoy my silly little posts. anyways i think my biggest red flag is unintentionality--the feeling that the writer of a TTRPG has done something by 'default', the inability to put myself in their shoes and understand (or even better, be told by the text itself) the reason why a particular decision has been made.

one of the biggest places this rears its head is in terms of tone and voice. let me quote jay dragon's really good the storyteller technique:

Another advantage of getting to know the narrator of your RPG is that it helps mitigate unconscious bias in your design. Dungeons & Dragons has a notably anthropological narrative voice, explaining other cultures and creatures like a scientist in the field. The language of D&D mimics the writing style of mid-century scientists traveling to “exotic” locations and cataloging non-Western experiences as part of a documentation of the Other. It’s easy for newer designers to want to “write a game like D&D” without regard for how even the narrative voice of Dungeons & Dragons carries unintended political baggage. Is a bird’s-eye and judgemental perspective really the energy you want to bring to your whimsical fantasy world? Or is there another perspective within your world that can be more useful, and allow you to find new perspectives on the world you’ve created.

narrative tone is a choice--the attempt to use a 'neutral' tone for rules text and description is also a choice, how formal and how informal you get with it is a choice, and when i read a text that seems to have made that choice thoughtlessly it imo bodes very poorly for the rest of the game.

other examples of this kind of unintentionality are games that have a comabt system despite not being about combat in any way--games with equipment rules despite them not setting out to tell the sort of story where which sword or gun a character has matters--games that measure themselves in exact distances without actually using a battlemap--&c.

while most of this unintentionality takes the form of 'falling back onto what DND does' because DND is the market leader and many people's first TTRPG, so imitating it without purpose is something that both cynical market-share chasers & unexperienced designers without a wide range of expereicne can do--it's absolutely not unique to it. one form of unintentionality i see a lot in indie TTRPG circles is creating far more Moves for your PBtA game than necessary--clearly more out of a sense that 'AW/MotW/Masks has a Move for this' than any specific understanding of what that move will do in your game

in game design--as in any art--there is no such thing as a 'neutral' choice or a non-choice. there are only choices, and how much someone's thought about these choices is important!

#ask #aork14 #nicey ask :)#ttrpg

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gutterfuuck · 11 days

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can you do sfw/nsfw headcanons for rex? i love your writings, can i be 🦊 anon?

of course! i will be naming you foxie anon!! here you go! (also this has been in my drafts since a long time, i am so sorry!! please do enjoy, this one is a little short i developed evil writing block at the end and did not finish it 😭 i am so sorry please spare me)

rex sloan x reader (anon requested fem reader/pronouns, they forgot to mention that in original ask!!)

sfw!!

just being at your place is enough for him. wether it’s an apartment, you have roommates or you live with your parents, he’s always eager to stick around wherever you are. you notice the way little things become misplaced, rearranged to his liking. it wasn’t something that made you upset, just inconvenienced you when you were trying to get out of the house in the mornings. you woke up to your keys in a little cat bowl instead of on the coat hanger, courtesy of your boyfriend.

“i just thought it’d be nicer.” rex mumbles as he rolls around in your bed, eyes closed with strands of hair falling over your pillows, the blankets shifting as he rolled over onto his stomach. you roll your eyes, having spent almost 15 minutes searching for your house keys when you could’ve just looked into the new little bowl he’d placed on the counter. you place a kiss on his forehead before leaving for work, nodding in agreement. “it did, i really like it… it’s cute, rex.” you smile, panic over as you rush to get into your car. he was such a heavy sleeper, you’d had to shake him awake five times before he’d opened his eyes.

when he first meets you, he tells you he’s a hero straight off the bat. he really liked you, okay!? he couldn’t risk messing up, especially not when he had something so perfect at the moment. he’d seen and heard what keeping secrets could do to relationships between heroes and civilians. you aren’t surprised, maybe even a little bit insulted when he’d told you, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out ‘rex sloan’ was ‘rex splode’.

his sense of humour is immaculate, makes you giggle with just a side eye sometimes. you have an inside joke going where you give each other a glance while talking to others, something that makes you both almost burst out laughing mid conversation. you didn’t mind if it made you both look a little bit rude. you guys only enjoyed each others company, anyway.

romance is top tier; personalised fireworks just for you, coming home to see that you wouldn’t have to worry about making dinner because he’s already bought home takeout by the time you’re home. one night, he’d placed everything like he had made it himself but you’d caught on that he hadn’t as soon as you tasted the food. (he wasn’t a good cook by any means, you had to learn that the hard way)

get ready for your home/room/whatever to be rearranged, he’s really big on home design and your space is his space. just like the cat dish, you slowly start to notice things appearing until you enter your bedroom one day and realise it would look like a whole other home compared to the way it looked last time. you really didn’t mind too much, you welcomed it. he really needed this, maybe it was his way of winding down.

“blinds or curtains?” rex asks, face buried in the magazine you’d picked up on the way home for him, his finger circling the page, “you just put curtains up last week, rex.” you roll your eyes, laying down next to him so you could rest your head in his lap, letting him balance his pages on the side of your head. almost every week you’d find him setting up a new dresser, installing lights into your ceiling, the whole nine yards. it was refreshing being with rex, it seemed like he never wanted to sit down, always doing something, you were just grateful that he’d make all the time in the world just for you. “right, yeah, but hear me out on this one: sparkling blinds this time.” he flips the page around to show you the nardo grey blinds with glitter embedded, you nod your head in agreement, “i hear you, i do… next week maybe.” you smile back, giggling when he closes the magazine to kiss you on your nose.

you liked to shower with him but rex loves to bathe with you. he loves sitting in front of you with the back of his head on your chest, loves having you wash his hair for him even if he had to bend his legs uncomfortably for you to both fit in the tub. rex flinches when he stands up to get out and your palm connects with his butt, taking him by complete surprise. he almost slips and falls which makes you laugh so hard you thought you wouldn’t be able to breathe, “ouch- hey!” he says, steadying himself before wrapping the towel around his waist quickly. “i would never do that to you- okay, maybe i do but that’s besides my point!” you can only laugh back in response, watching as he sticks his tongue out at you and grabs you your towel, wrapping it around you when you emerge from the bubbly water with suds sliding down your back.

he’s really big on pda. whether you’re in line for a movie, waiting to pick up food, shopping or out in public just be ready to have arms wrapped around your waist or his lips on yours as soon as you get to the cash register. he wants everyone to know that you’re his, he’s so proud of his relationship you’d think he’d been with you for a hundred years if you spoke to him, every sentence starting or finishing with “my girlfriend”. everyone is tired of it but not you, you knew how much it meant to him.

nsfw

his stamina is borderline evil. after you’d finish, he’s straight back to rolling over onto his back and pulling you on top of him. makes you ride it til you’re exhausted, likes to whittle you down before he’s on top of you, large hands squeezing your hips and moving them back and forth in time with his messy thrusts.

“shit, shit- squeezing down so tight-“ rex pants, collapsing forward onto you with his head right next to yours, stuttering hips making slapping sounds between you both. “r-rex..! too much-“ you whine, legs numb and pussy raw, you’d been at it for hours now, the sun was setting outside. he could hardly hear you, lost in his own pleasure as he felt your walls clamp around his dick again, cockhead twitching with sensitivity. how many times now? three, four..? five, maybe? he didn’t know, he lost count, all he could focus on was the way sweat dripped between you both and the way your face scrunched up again, mouth hanging open with hot breaths fanning his shoulder.

“y’know h-how pretty you look-“ he slurred, voice breaking as he pushed in again, a long groan escaping his lips, “cummin’ again, princess…?” rex holds your face in his hands, trying to hide his own disheveled face away from yours. your stomach knots up, eyes rolling back behind your eyelids as you let the sensation of your nth orgasm take your body by surprise, back arching up off of the bed as you clawed away at his back. you’d look them over later, he could worry about the red scratch marks when you weren’t trying to hold onto him for dear life.

be careful!! he likes to grab and change positions as fast as he’s put you in one so be prepared to wake up with finger shaped bruises in your skin. you scold him for the marks he leaves, but can’t deny the way your stomach flipped like you were on a roller coaster when your coworkers notice your hickeys and bites and they know exactly who you belong to. you’re not the only one covered in bruises and love bites; his teammates comment on them whenever they notice a new one which would be rare because of rex’s costume, though he liked to show them off on purpose. rex belonged to you just as much as you belonged to him.

#💬 sparkie is typing…#rex sloan x reader #rex splode x reader #rexplode x reader #rex splode smut #rexplode smut #dark blog #invincible smut #invincible x reader

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big---tasty · 2 months

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bethesda is genuinely hilarious imagine "working on" a game for over 10 years and teasing it all the while and just making it the most mid experience ever. they have scientists in a lab making sure that most people are kinda having fun but get bored of it after like 5 hours. they chemically engineer the mid. they seek high council with the world's leading psychologists to make sure that they can perfectly attune an experience that looks cool for a little while and then gets egregiously boring. i love it so much.

#mickey talks #bethesda #starfield

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