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xxgoblin-dumplingxx · 4 years

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In Tatters: Four

“Welcome Back to Chainmail Crop tops, Today’s Table Top Adventure is brought to you by Skillshare-” Your voice is cheerful, and it reminds Bucky off the ad breaks for Radio dramas. He catches Steve’s eye and snorts.

They’d practically begged to watch you record something. Usually, you worked in your apartment. In the second bedroom that served as studio space for most of the podcasts and youtube series, you did when you weren’t writing or editing for someone else. Currently, there were 6 people crowded around a card table in varying degrees of pajamas. You were, probably, the most comfortable in a sloth onesie that had little felt claws that flopped over your fingers.

Steve and Bucky weren’t quite sure what they expected, but it certainly wasn’t this, and they were enjoying it immensely. Like they’d enjoyed everything else that had gone on around them in the last few weeks. You’d forced a friend to watch CATS the movie with you. You’d reviewed a classic film. You did part of a video series breaking down Marxist theory using, of all things, Barbie Movies.

It was insanity. Utter insanity. But it was fun.

You made people laugh. You made them laugh. And by the time taping wrapped on that podcast, their sides had hurt from laughing so hard.

“Ugh,” you groan, flopping facefirst on the couch, cheek resting on your arm as an arm and a leg dangle off the cushions.

“What’s the matter, doll?” Bucky asked, padding over and lifting the hood of your sloth outfit back so he could see your face.

“My head hurts,” you tell him.

Bucky frowned and kissed your temple, going to get a glass of water and some Tylenol. Headaches, Bucky had learned, were the shorthand you used for a lot off discomfort that made other people uncomfortable when you talked about it. Depression. Anxiety. Whatever another way, your brain could twist itself into knots. He didn’t doubt your head hurt. It was a small room, and things could get loud. But he doubted that was the only wrong thing.

Steve tilted his head and watched you struggle to sit upright again to drink the water and take the pills Bucky handed you, ‘You hungry?” he asked, just generally. Bucky was always hungry. With you, it was hit or miss. When you shrug, and Bucky nods, he smiles a little, “I’ll order pizza,” he said, “Y/N looks too cozy to make her put on clothes.”

When you smile a little and lean against Bucky’s side, Steve feels his heart flutter. You don’t even flinch when his metal arm tightens gently around you and shifts you closer. And he knows it makes Bucky feel good when you don’t. He’d been worried about it, how you’d react when he took his gloves off. Or didn’t wear sleeves. But you hadn’t flinched, you’d laced your fingers through his the way you had before and kissed his cheek.

“Definitely too cozy to go outside,” Bucky said, snuggling you closer, relishing the way you fussed at him for tickling you.

Steve chuckled, and half turned, scrolling through his phone to find the app he used to order pizza. He liked apps. They meant he didn’t have to talk on the phone. At least not as much. And while he waited, he looked at the pictures that lined the shelf. One caught his eye. It was a group picture. You and a bunch of other people dressed for some sort of event. One that required matching purple t-shirts. A pretty girl was kissing your cheek, and it doesn’t escape his notice that she’s wearing a ring on the third finger of her left hand.

“Hey Y/N,” he said, picking it up and half turning, “What’s this from?”

You turn your head, and Steve watches several emotions flit across your face for a second. “Oh-” you say, taking a deep breath, “That’s from when I took my Fiance to California... We went to Disney for her birthday.”

“Fiance?” Bucky asked, not accusatory, just curious.

“Yeah- Passion,” you answer. “I- yeah. That ended badly.” You don’t really know how to talk about that. Getting your diagnosis as Bipolar. The cheating. The lying when she said she was breaking up with you because you were ‘just too much’ while it was really because she already had a new girlfriend. You hadn’t handled it well. At all.

“How badly?” Steve asked, sensing a story.

“Wound up in a psych ward for a couple days after I stopped taking my meds, badly,” you tell them, not looking at either one of them.

They both winced reflexively. Not in disapproval but at the tone of your voice. Like you’re waiting for them to be mad at you. Steve puts the picture back on the shelf carefully and comes to sit on your other side. They both want to ask. They want to know how things had gotten that bad. They knew about your medication. That you took it, and... thanks to google, more or less what it was for. They’d asked what you took. And looked it up. Not because they were judging you, bot out of concern for your safety, really. It was things they didn’t know were medications.

“Sorry,” you murmur, wrapping your arms around your knees.

“What for?” Bucky laughed, “We got 100 years of history together... there’s no way we’ve told you everything. And it’s not like you could just casually bring up being hospitalized after a bad break up.” He kissed your head, and he and Steve wrap their arms around you gently.

“It’s true,” Steve said, kissing your jaw, “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

You sigh, “I just don’t know where to start.”

“Wherever you want,” Steve answered, “We’ll catch up. We’re old, not slow.”

You nod and tilt your head back to look up at the ceiling. “I guess it started when I had that first manic phase. Like. No impulse control. Straight lost my shit for a minute and wound up on the psych ward because Pash thought I was gonna kill myself or something.”

They stay close, listening and Bucky makes a soft sympathetic noise, “I didn’t know what was happening... Stuff had happened before but. Not like this. It was scary. And getting a diagnosis was kind of a relief... It told me that there really was something wrong. And that it could be managed. And it was fine. Until it wasn’t.”

You break off and take a deep breath, “Look. Long Story Short, Pash had been done with my shit for a while... and she was looking for an out. It didn’t take very long for her to find one. So she cheated on me for a while and waited until she could reasonably tell me “I just can’t handle this” and leave without looking like “the bad guy.” You know you’re leaving some details out. The fights and stuff. The people you’d caught her cheating with after your meds had tanked your sex drive for a little bit. The money she’d stolen from you and gaslighted you into believing you’d spent. They don’t need to know that. And you don’t really want to talk about it.

Steve and Bucky exchange looks over your head. Suddenly a lot of things made sense. They’d been letting you set the pace of the relationship. The number of dates, the amount of time they spent with you. How much intimacy there was. And they’d felt like you were holding back. Hesitating. They’d thought it was reticence about being a “unicorn” of sorts again. But the piece about your last relationship and being cheated on made things make a lot more sense.

“Sweetheart,” Steve says softly, “I’m sorry.”

You shrug, “I mean. It’s been a year. She and this other girl are happy I guess. And that’s cool.”

“You deserve to be happy,” Bucky said, tilting your chin up carefully, “You believe that, don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” you answer, smiling a little, “Mostly when I’m with you two dorks.”

“Dorks?” Steve said, mock offended. “Who you callin’ a dork, ya nerd?”

You shrug, “I mean. I did film studies and art history in college... I basically majored in ‘nerd’. So... I’d say I’m a pretty good judge of dorks.”

“You’re running off at the mouth again, Darlin’,” Bucky rumbled, kissing down your neck softly.

Steve smirks when your breath hitches and watches fondly. Bucky’s always had a gift for finding buttons to push and it’s honestly a joy for him to watch as he handily chases your train of thought out of your head.

“Let us take care of you, huh?” Steve murmurs, kissing your temple.

You whimper in need and Steve grins, reaching for the buttons on your jammies, “So snuggly, Buck. So soft and cute.”

“She is,” he agrees, leaving your neck alone and letting Steve pull you against his chest. “But I gotta say Stevie,” he teased, grinning when your face heats, “getting all three of us in her little bed is gonna be a trick.”

“We’ll make it work,” Steve said, kissing you slowly, “We gotta. Because we gotta show our girl a good time.”

“How good a time?” you ask breathlessly.

“Baby,” Bucky drawls, throwing you over his shoulder, chuckling when you yelp in surprise, “You’re gonna see stars.”

tags:

@past-perfect-future-tense, @lookinsidemyhead, @rinkashirikitateku, @dumbubblegum

#stucky #stucky x reader #Steve Rogers #bucky barnes #fluff #smut #past relationship mentioned #mental illness #past trauma #hurt/comfort

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extraquarterblog · 7 years

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The mysterious nature of Amiibo

Amiibo have easily become one of Nintendo most unique, creative and questionable ideas in years. While the rest of the Industry has pursued a path of downloadable content that is easily reachable, with a few simple clicks from the comfort of your sofa, you can download a plethora of DLC that's available. Nintendo however, decided to take a different direction for this.

Nintendo, always looking to take a distinct approach, constantly thinking outside of the box, decided to take a play from its roots. While it's commonly known, people often forget, Nintendo was a Toy company. Well, technically, Nintendo was many things throughout the 1900s, getting most attention in the 1960s, making playing cards and then in the 70s really started to plant the first gaming seeds, which would grow into the company we recognize it of today.

So Nintendo making Toy figures of everyone favorite characters is actually a brilliant idea. Who doesn't mind official, beautiful crafted figures right? Nintendo then takes a modern approach by applying a simple NFC chip inside the base of each figure, when placed atop of the Wii U Gamepad or New 3DS, reads the chip information and unlocks new content with compatible games.

Many called it Physical DLC, and on paper it does appear that, but what I do enjoy is that where DLC is strictly attached to one game, Amiibo in theory can be universal. Long as Nintendo supports an Amiibo figure, you can unlock additional content across multiple titles. But as I said, long as its supported that is.

When first hearing about Amiibo and learning about the course Nintendo was taking with them, I was delighted but not sold on it. I would much rather spend my money on other things and honestly, at the time, only one game supported Amiibo anyways. Not really something worth burst through store doors to get. Though the whole idea of figures unlocking content was a pretty novel idea, you would figured it be pretty cut dry and simple. Nintendo makes figures, you buy it, tap it on your Wii U and your done.

Oh, how quickly everything went off the tracks.

Is Nintendo cursed, or is it Nintendo can't get a single project off the ground smoothly, whatever the reason, Amiibo, when releasing out to the public has been nothing short of a frustrating train wreck that for the life of me, couldn't quite understand. I kid you not, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if a Hollywood producer somewhere is writing up a story around these little figures and just how painful they are to come by for the fans, and for the fans who actually own a Wii U.

Let me break down the odd reality of the world with Amiibo.

"Previously, you couldn't purchase all the Amiibo from one source"

So let's say, you recently purchased a Wii U, and eagerly excited to start collecting Amiibo figures to use. Well, I hope you have plenty of gas in your tank cause you will be driving to multiple different stores. Nintendo cooked up this brilliant plan to have various Amiibo's exclusive to different stores. For example, if you wanted Shulk, you would have to shop at Gamestop, if you wanted Rosalina, you have to go to Target. What's that? You want Lucario? You have to find a ToysRus for that.

Why did Nintendo come up with this idea? !@#$ if I know. Basically, in the end, for a few different Amiibo's, all conveniences are simply stripped away, You will have to put in some serious effort on foot if you wanted to purchase in-store, that is if a store even has availability. Not to sound lazy, it's not difficult to drive up to a store or two, see what they have in stock. But when it comes to Amiibo, you'll find yourself traveling across town, several times over just for a few.

While it's tempting to simply shop at Amazon or other online retailers, you will end up paying prices far above MSRP listing for it. Making it incredibly frustrating, when you simply want to buy select Amiibo for the price Nintendo gives on it. So either you cave in and buy from Amazon or Ebay or you'll be driving across the state in hopes to find that at least one retailer has the figure you're looking for.

Nintendo barley prints any, let alone restock

You're stuck in the office, the meeting will run over the scheduled time and won't be able to leave till much later. Not to worry, very skillfully, like a Ninja, you pull out your phone, slowly and carefully, you shop online to place an order to buy an Amiibo. What's this? The availability is none? There must be some mistake. You try to remain your composure, or the boss will notice your not writing down notes. You start feverishly looking for in-store availability, but alas, all stores with-in a 100 mile radius, also show none available...

Story aside, for many Amiibo figures, it's like winning the lottery. Which absolutely no one saw coming. Why no one expected Amiibo to be so big? Simple, to date there's been 9.2 million Wii U units sold and only the New 3DS units can use Amiibos. Realistically, world-wide, there's only around 10 million people who actually have a need/use for Amiibo. If I were to break down the numbers down to per region, per state, per area code. There's only a few people in each area that have a specific need for Amiibo.

And yet there's literally people waiting outside stores to open, to be the first at a chance to buy Amiibo. Worse yet, Amazon had to list very specific instructions on how to purchase Amiibos; when they're available, and for only certain time slots of listed days.

What the hell? I'm just trying to buy a plastic figure that costs around $12.99, this isn't Super Bowl tickets or VIP concert tickets. And yet magically, despite there only being so many Wii U owners, the mass amount of traffic online, for when the next wave of Amiibo comes out, has caused stress for online retailers.

Who knows the reasons, but Nintendo is either asleep at the wheel or they feel the need to only produce a limited amount, which sadly, are the perfect conditions for a certain species to breed...

Amiibo are a Scalpers paradise

Nintendo more or less gave all the key ingredients for Scalpers to have a prime opportunity to make some easy serious cash. We know there's only so many Wii U/New 3DS owners, not near enough to cause online retailers' server problems or every store in the country to have Amiibos stripped off the shelves.

No, this is the massive success of Scalpers. Nintendo over the past few years have truly been the go-to company for Scalpers, due to Nintendo silent cryptic nature when it comes to availability and stock. Are the prime ingredients for anyone wanting to make a quick buck selling online. What also makes it so easy is the low cost investment. While $12.99 for a single figure might be expensive if you were just wanting a new outfit for an in game character, but for a scalper, that's friggen cheap compared to buying cell phones or consoles.

To highlight just how targeted Amiibo are, in the UK a truck filled with special editions Splatoon Amiibos was stolen.

Now, yes, there's plenty of other people who have interest in Amiibos that don't own a Wii U or New 3DS, and there's nothing wrong with that, like I said, who doesn't want a cool figure of a Pokemon or Link? It's just the combination or limited release with Scalpers that make it hell for anyone.

Nintendo remains quiet on how it handles Amiibo

As if the scalpers, multiple store shopping and limited quantity weren't a headache already, if you were looking answers from Nintendo, you won't get many. Rare is it for Nintendo to publicly state on Amiibo orders, quantity and releases. With each coming wave of Amiibo launches, Nintendo continues to promise the same broken song, that next time, it will be better. Same results every time.

Its why Scalpers love Nintendo, the company does little to address issues known or relies on retailers to react to customer complaints. Now, it is possible, Nintendo had no idea Amiibo were going to be this big, that the amount it pinned to make would previously thought to be more than enough. However, the amount of people being vocal across social networks is pretty alarming. Too big for a company like Nintendo to ignore.

Or maybe it's a brilliant play from Nintendo, an extreme measure of supply and demand. Have it appear they're making Amiibo raining from the sky and the demand is just so hot, there's no possible way they can produce enough. I'll give Nintendo a slight benefit of the doubt on this, but judging just how pressed everyone is for various Amiibo figures and being little hard facts from Nintendo to go by. Tells me Nintendo is dangling the Amiibo carrot in front of everyone.

Amiibo Rare? Collectors items?

Generally, whenever something hot hits the market, Toys, cards, electronics ect, and because the items are tough to get a hold off, people quickly presume its because it's extremely rare and should be held as collectors items. Always makes me cringe when I hear Collectors Item, as so often history has shown, it's not.

I remember how Tamagotchi, Furbies, Pokemon Cards, Beanie Babies, and so on, were held as collector items back in the day. That they would hold value and be worth something great years later. Yet here we are today, and many of the hot previous toys of yesterday, really haven't held their value, though not to say all are worthless, there will always be a few select items out of the batch that fans are willing to shell out for, but the mast majority, you'll be lucky to break even. True collectibles are rare in nature, and generally don't become collecting worthy until many years later, long past the hot crave. For example, let's look at Rosalina, the rare and limited released item to Target. Let's just see how rare it is on Ebay.

Well, would you look at that over 190 Rosalina Amiibo available. Not really something I would consider "Rare", and if you have been paying attention to prices, as more and more become increasingly available, prices drop. If you want to talk about Rare, try collecting Neogeo AES titles, then get back to me.

And sadly, most of those figures remained sealed with their packaging, never to breath the fresh air and be used on a Wii U. Truly a shame.

Wrapping up

Ok, I've ranted on long enough. Amiibo has been one of Nintendo most successful and over complicating, frustrating product in years. It's getting attention and being very profitable for Nintendo, but It all depends on your definition of success. For me, once again I find myself at odds. I've mentioned this again and again, at how I would love to buy in, drink the koolaid, become a believer in Nintendo methods, but, I just can't. Even owning a Wii U and actively enjoy it. Amiibo remains something I can't connect with, nor do I want to deal with the issues surrounding it.

As I really don't need Amiibo, seeing how some of the best additional content for Super Smash Bros has all been DLC, I can simply unlock from the comfort of my sofa, with a few simple clicks I now have Mewtwo unlocked to play. No need to rush around stores, wait hand n foot in-front of a computer screen, watching the clock tick down on a retailers website. Nope, none of that is necessary or required.

Now what does worry me as Nintendo started to flirt with games being entirely based around Amiibo figures, such as Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival. Which seeing how difficult and painful Splatoon Amiibos have been, I can only imagine the Hell it will be for Animal Crossing if Nintendo doesn't straighten out, which honestly, don't see any time coming.

#Nintendo #Amiibo

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