#... im overthinking both tagging people and picking words for em

[aran-morinorea]

word find WIP meme

Thank you @thescrapwitch for tagging me!

how this works: I search for the words previously assigned to me in WIPs and then choose four words for you to search in your WIP(s)

I was assigned: music, shadow, flower, and sword

Music - in the "Devotional Artwork" brainstorm, that doc is still a mess but it's the only place i could find the word that I hadn't posted already lol

And you know, when you're having a debate on the nature of the universe, and you have the opportunity to invite one of the guys who wrote the Music to spectate and offer any guidance he might deign to reveal, you kind of have to. Especially when he's also the guy who owns the university. And the church. And the country.

Shadow - in "Annatar's Shit Paradigms," chapter 9

He keeps trying to make plans, to envision next steps, to find something he can do to fix it. All his traitorous mind will offer him is "Wander off into the wastes of Gorgoroth and become little more than a shadow on the sand," or "Just don't let him leave, you can definitely fight off everyone who would come to rescue him," neither of which is remotely helpful.

Flower - in the very last chapter of the Non-Euclidean Nan Elmoth series

Princess Itarille's wedding gown is fastened with twenty-one opal buttons set in mithril trailing diagonally from her right shoulder. She wears the full set of matching hair jewels, the crane taking off from the gleaming flowers set behind her left ear. This means Maeglin can compliment her in public, since it just looks like self-congratulatory sniping. His actual vengeance is having also made jewelry for Tuor. She nearly trips full on her face when she sees him, it's excellent.

Sword - a moment that's like. five minutes ahead of the WIPW snippets in "Donating Blood"

At the very tip of his thoracic spine, there is a tiny pinch, and something slides through the skin there. It feels like - a sword, or a chain, or a discordant melody, and it stays there.

Thanks this is a cute little exercise! I'll tag, uh, @chthonion and @kanskje-kaffe, and anyone else who feels inspired, with the words "drop," "moon," "tower," and "time" <3

[jeyned]

heya everyone ! i wrote a really long intro / backstory which i’ve linked below, but in case you’re lazy like me i’ve also put a little tl;dr under the cut with the cliffs notes. there’s also a bunch of plot ideas in case anyone is interested ! like this, drop me and IM, or message me on discord ( do you like yuice ?#6373 ) if you want to plot !

⤷ the courts offer bread and salt to jeyne whent née lannister of house whent. many say that the twenty - seven year old ruling lady of harrenhal is known to be lively and insightful, though ill tongues whisper that she is condescending and selfish when her name is uttered , one is reminded of a pretty smile hiding bloodied teeth; the hiss and raised hackles of a cat that thinks itself a lion; a languid and velvety darkness; heartbeat made of war drums. may she be blessed and protected in this war of crowns. ( fc: caitlin stasey )

full backstory   /   statistics page   /   development tag .

              trigger warnings for ; death & murder, illness, forced marriage, misogyny & misogynistic slurs (1), war.

basics.

name.  jeyne whent née lannister. nicknames.  the little lioness. age.  twenty-seven. traits.  + clever, intrepid, lively, protective, insightful, tasteful.          - hypocritical, cruel, condescending, proud, selfish, spiteful. titles.  ruling lady of harrenhal, heir apparent to lannisport. loyalty.  [ lana del rey vc ] money, power, and glory. also the starks of winterfell, i guess.

tl ; dr .

jeyne is the youngest child and only daughter of the lord of lannisport and his wife. well - raised, courtesied, if admittedly spoiled. even as a little girl she plays pretend at being a king. her father teaches her what words like wartime and loyalty and ambition mean ; the sacrifices she must make for their family name, for gold and glory.

the ironborn raids come to the shores of the westerlands and both her brothers are sent to fight. the younger dies first ; there is no body to bury. her mother falls ill with something they can only call grief.

jeyne is married not long after, a rose in bloom at nineteen. when she first hears, she weeps and begs and rages. her father reminds her of her duty, of the joy it would bring her ailing mother. jeyne knows then what must be done, and plans.

when her first husband dies just shy of two years into their marriage, jeyne is irreproachable. he dies in winter, already ill ; goes to sleep coughing and doesn’t wake up. jeyne isn’t even in the castle when it happens, although unfounded rumors fly of witchery and murder. 

nine months pass, and she plays the part of mourning widow exceptionally well. it helps her mummer’s farce that news comes from the war : her remaining brother is dead now too, and her mother’s health is failing. without her brothers, she’s the ostensible heir to lannisport ; her father’s displeasure with this is made quite clear to her. he even suggests she isn’t his ; bearing too many of her mother’s features, not enough of his.

she is remarried quickly to lord lucas whent, without a fraction of the pomp and circumstance of her first wedding ; now a widow, with a reputation tarnished by unproven but incessant whispers, the newest match is rushed, necessary but insignificant. she doesn’t cry or beg this time, just goes coldly.

she hates him before she even meets him, hates the harrenhal the moment she sets eyes on it, hates the cold and the rain and the gloom of the castle and its people. spends all her considerable energies complaining and making life generally miserable for anyone around. 

word arrives that her mother has died ; her father remarries quickly in the hopes of a new male heir, and draws in his nephews and nieces. weighing his options. jeyne prays to the stranger to take them all. 

she resents the lot of them ; her father for using and betraying her, her brother and mothers for leaving her, the ironborn for killing her brothers, the starks for suing for peace and making their deaths worthless, her husband merely for existing. mostly, though, she resents herself, not clever enough to find a way out of the cages she’s been locked in.

plots.

enemies.  the very best plot type and you cannot convince me otherwise. gimme intimately plotted hate-your-guts-smile-to-your-face frenemies who overthink everything the other says and press each others buttons incessantly. gimme ‘our houses have fought each other and i blame your family for this or that’. gimme petty jealousies and annoyances and people too much like her for them to get along. gimme people who think she’s a traitorous, murdering bastard and a whore to boot, and aren’t even wrong to think so.

close friends.  i don’t imagine she has a lot of these ; those not deterred by her reputation often are dissuaded by her personality. still i love the idea of her having a few lords or ladies with whom she gets along quite well, the kind of people you only need to meet briefly to know you understand each other. can be from pretty much anywhere ; stuck at harrenhal i imagine jeyne to be an avid letter-writer. 

cousins.  i’m also considering sending in a wc for this, but gimme all the family plots ! could be paternal cousins, potential contenders for inheriting lannisport, & probably childhood companions. could also be maternal cousins ! i listed her mom as being a westerling but i’m more than happy to change that to another house for plot reasons, it doesn’t really matter ! her father could’ve also had sisters who married into other houses, there’s lots of options.

failed betrothals.  i can imagine her father made a lot of offers, both when she was first getting married and after she was widowed. and i can imagine a lot of reasons why someone might reject that ; she’s a lannister, she’s not .... great as a person and her reputation isn’t phenomenal either. after the death of her first husband, too, i can imagine her prospects were pretty slim. still, the lannisters are ambitious and would have sought out as good as match as they could have. 

family of her late husband.  yea, i specifically didn’t pick a house for her first husband to be from because i wanted to leave ‘em open for other applicants but also because i wanted to leave it open in case it’s a plot anyone would like to take up ! most of the story around that is also very vague so as to fit with pretty much any ideas/plots someone has going on. would be really fun, tho ; possibly they can even have been co-conspirators and this person inherited jeyne’s late husband’s title and lands ? or they absolutely hate jeyne and think she’s a murderer which .... she very well might be.

sister in law.  the widow of jeyne’s older brother, irwyn ; i hc that they had a daughter but tbh that’s just flavor text and i am open to changing pretty much anything i’ve got going on. i may send in a wc for this at some point too ? anyway, whether she stayed at lannisport or returned to her family home or anything, idk. seems like an unlikely connection to get picked up but it’s definitely out there if it happens to fit for someone.

brothers’ connections.  again kind of vague ? would probably work best for men from the northern kingdom who may have known them or trained with them, or else fought alongside them against the ironborn. could also be ladies with pretty much any kind of attachment to either of them idk ; jeyne doesn’t have a whole lot of family left so this is my way of trying to have connections thru her family anyway.

childhood friends.  idk how many characters from the westerlands there are around rn, but bring them to me pls. would love some childhood friends for jeyne ; whether they fell out of touch, or still write each other monthly letters. them being a ward at lannisport, or jeyne being a ward at theirs for a time is also a neat option ! 

allies.  not quite friends, but potential partners whose ambitions align with hers. she has connections to the wealth of lannisport and the might and strategic position of harrenhal ( though harrenhal is truly weaker than she’d ever admit ) and honestly would support just about anyone if it meant she got lannisport. she’s power hungry what can i say ? 

former flings / secret lovers.  firstly these can be of any gender as jeyne is ... peak evil bisexual tbh. yes i’m queercoding my villain and i think that’s very sexy of me. these are also just pretty vague ideas, and absolutely do not need to be particularly romantic ; they could have had a more lengthy affair or just hooked up at a wedding or a tourney or something. 

travellers.  both lannisport and harrenhal are pretty common places to pass through. on a sea journey on the western coast one is likely to stop by lannisport, and harrenhal stands practically at the center of westeros, which is a fun opportunity for jeyne & your muse to have met even if they live very far way or are unlikely to have met in other ways ! especially considering harrenhal’s size it’s a good stop over for travellers with a larger retinue. idk i just want an excuse to plot with everyone.

[hazinhoodies]

October part 4

A/N: i had this ready for so long and decided to rewrite it last night and i didn’t proofread to the best of my abilities so im sorry. all parts are tagged under october fic

Warnings: none

Word count: 2k (the longest chapter so far at least)

Emma and Hannah talked for the rest of the night about anything they could. When no one spoke, they sat in a comfortable silence until it was broken with one of them sarcastically threatening the other or speaking with no provocation.

“Cough one more time and I’ll throw you in the lake” -Emma 9:34

“What do you think our pets name us?” -Hannah 9:57

“Thanks, I hate it” -Emma 10:22

“How confused do you think a lion would be if it saw an octopus?” -Hannah 10:49

“Frankenstein is oddly symmetrical” -Also Hannah 

After the last one Emma finally looked up. “You know, it’s times like these when I wonder how we ever became friends’

“We were both lonely so we decided to be lonely together”

“Ah right, the greatest mistake of my life” Emma recalled. Hannah’s jaw dropped in shock

“Emma!”

“Okay okay i’m sorry” Emma couldn’t hold back her laughter “I should probably go, it’s getting late here” She glanced at the clock 11:52pm.

“Oh sure break my heart and run away why don’t you” Hannah spoke flatly before they said their goodbyes and hung up.

Emma hadn’t noticed how dark her room had actually become until Hannah had hung up. Her laptop providing the only light in the room. She quickly changed and got into bed, pulling the duvet up over her shoulders. She started to ponder the events of the day, almost definitely overthinking everything. How could you have already made him hate you.

Harrison lied awake in his bed, he’d been struggling to sleep for a while. The photo still etched into his brain. Did something happen? Was it just for a project?  He’d never craved answers so much. If he could actually talk to her without making a fool of himself then maybe he’d get them. After about another hour and a glass of water, sleep finally took over.

A few days had passed and went pretty well. Emma had already figured out how to get around set, at least to the important parts; Her trailer, Toms trailer, Z’s, Jacob’s. The important ones. Her first interview of the day was Tony, she had to wait an hour or so for Z and Jacob to finish their next scene so she stayed in Tony’s trailer and talked with him.

They asked each other an abundance of questions. By the end of it Tony could have probably written her biography. Emma could have answered any questions you had about him. Favourite food? Favourite colour? She knows it.

“You and Tony got real close huh?” Z asked after her interview.

Emma shrugged “I guess so. I mean, he’s really nice and we had an hour to kill so we just.. Talked. Things just flowed. It was a nice change honestly”

‘Change from what?” Z looked over at her as Emma sighed. “Come sit here, we’re gonna be awhile” she patted the seat next to her and Emma sat down.

“A change from from what?” Zendaya repeated

“Holland and co” Emma paused “They're all super nice don’t get me wrong, Sam and I constantly. Just whenever Harrison is there things get kinda awkward”

Zendayas features soften, her voice filled with sympathy “He’s just like that sometimes I guess. Tom and him have been friends for years already. Just don’t take it to heart Em.” Emma nodded “Good. Now tonight you’re coming back to my hotel with me and we’re gonna talk got it? Great”

Emma chuckled “I see that i get no say in this whatsoever”

Zendaya shook her head “None at all”

Once Z wrapped, her driver drove both of them back to her hotel, which was significantly larger than Emmas.

“Okay important stuff first” Zendaya starts as soon as the door shuts behind them. “Hogwarts house. Favourite musical. Favourite band or artist or whatever” she counts them off on her fingers as she speaks.

Emma smiled “Ravenclaw, les mis or grease, probably Bowie”

“Bowie, really?” Zendaya echoed as they sat down on the couch, Emma nodded

“Yeah or maybe the Beatles” Zendaya looked shocked “What do you think i only ever listen to orchestra music?”

“No just didn’t picture you as a classic rock fan”

“I’m just full of surprises” Emma spoke sarcastically.

“Okay well I still know nothing about you and that seems kind of unfair considering you could google everything about me. So tell me stuff” Z leaned in closer, whispering the last sentence

“How personal do you want me to get?” Emma asked

“As much as your comfortable with” Z explained.

“I mean if were going all the way back I lived with my mom growing up, bout an hour outside of Toronto, never really knew my dad. I have a few vague memories but he left when I was six so they aren’t much. I’ve always been pretty music-oriented and my family never knew where I got it from. They were all science and math people My best friend, Hannah, we met when we were 7 at a youth band thing and have been stuck together since. We did everything together. We actually both graduated early and applied to the same universities but she stayed in the city to do musical neuroscience and I moved six hours away for performance music and then switched into composition” Emma ended.

“What about like dating and stuff? There's no way you’ve never had a boyfriend” Z leaned back, resting her elbow on the back of the couch, holding her head up.

“I dated the same guy for all four years of high school and into uni” Zendaya’s eyes went wide “Yeah it was really good at first but around the end of my junior year it got ugly. But we’d been dating so long I was almost convinced that it was normal. Once I got into university it got really bad and that’s when I came to my senses” Emma spoke calmly. Something about Z made her easy to trust.

The rest of the night went by quickly. They talked, ordered food, and watched Brooklyn Nine-Nine for the rest of the night.

The next two weeks on set went by pretty much the same. When Emma wasn’t doing post-scene interviews, she was in either Toms, Zs or Tony’s trailer. She had become pretty close with some more of the cast, particularly Jacob and Remy, definitely the most comfortable with Tony though.  She’d grown pretty close with Sam and Harry. Even becoming closer with Harrison. To the point were the two of them plus Sam watched the dark knight rises in Tom’s trailer after Emma had admitted to never having seen it. Even still, it was always fleeting gazes or staring way too long with both of them, neither approaching the other unless someone else was there, and still, they were all stutters and flushed cheeks.  

Emma had not had a good morning so far. It was Michael’s last day on set for a while so it was going to be only her now. Of course the first day without Michael and she woke up late and couldn’t get her coffee maker to work and found that the pants she’d planned on wearing, she hadn’t packed. Instead opting for a black skirt and a yellow top with the same pair of ankle boots as always, her hair pulled into a ponytail. Michael had gone in early so the drive to set was just Iris and Emma. It was slightly awkward, normally Michael would be the one to speak up and start conversations but without him there it was silent. The only good part of her morning so far, had been Iris offering to stop and get coffee when Emma told her of her morning so far.

Once she was out of the car, Emma started towards her and Michaels trailer, coffee in hand and her bag on her back. She felt her phone start to ring and pulled it out of the waistband of her skirt and with one hand, answered it holding it up to her ear

“Oh perfect you answered” Michael started, not even giving emma time to say hello “I have some stuff for you to listen to once you get here. I’d really like your input”

“Okay. Iris just dropped me off I’ll be there in like two minutes” Emma found herself walking in between the abundance of trailers.

“Great. You remember which one right?”

“Yes of course I do Michael, it’s been two weeks. I’ll be fine. Bye”

“Okay well just text if you get lost. Bye now”

Emma pushed her phone back into her waistband. She looked up, but not soon enough to avoid the chest she walked straight into, the other person also on their phone.

Harrison

Emma stumbled back, dropping her pretty much full coffee on the ground. Harrisons hands immediately went to her waist to stabilize her, feeling her stiffen underneath his touch.

“Sorry about that, I should’ve been paying more attention” Emma looked up at Harrison. He was easily six inches taller than her. Everything she’d worried about during the very first interview had come true. She wasn’t able to look away now. She noticed the smallest details about him that she hadn’t before. Like the way his eyes got more green towards the outside, or the light stubble along his jaw, or how his cheeks seemed slightly more pink than normal.

“It’s alright darling, just watch out next time, yeah?” Harrison gave a small smile and Emma nodded. They were both lost in each other for a few moments. As if they were trying to memorize every detail of the other. Like the faint freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks.

Darling? It had rolled so easily off his lips, he hadn’t even noticed he said it.

It took a minute before Harrison realized how close they really were. He reluctantly pulled his hands away from her waist. As he did Emma broke their eye contact and took a step back, bending down to pick up the fallen cup.

“Ill uh.. I’ll buy you a new one” Harrison spoke, Emma looked up at him as she stood.

“No no you don’t have to really” She shook her head “It’s just a coffee. It’s not a big deal” They stood there for a moment, neither speaking, Harrisons hands in his pockets as Emma’s fiddled with the now empty cup “I should uh” Emma wet her lips quickly “I should get going” she barely looked up as the both nodded and she walked towards the trailer.

Once she was inside she threw out the cup and grabbed a paper towel to wipe off the  drops of coffee that had bounced up onto her legs. She placed her stuff on her desk and dragged her chair over to Michaels desk.

“You wanted me to listen to something?” she said as she sat down

“Yeah yeah give me one second” he said placing a few final notes in the composition program before hitting play on the theme he had written so far for the movie. After about four minutes, what he has so far ends. He looks towards Emma with a questioning glance “So?

“I uh It’s amazing obviously but.. I think it should have less to do with that triumphant superhero stuff you’ve got going on and more towards Peters loyalty and concern for his friends. I definitely wouldn’t scrap this though, maybe just not for the scene you’ve got it for” Michael nods as Emma speaks. Adding little “hm”s and “okay”s here and there.

“How about this. I want you to write it for this scene” Emma’s eyes widen in shock.

“Waitwaitwait you- I- you want me to write part of the score?” Emma barely stutters out

“Well yeah. Your name doesn’t get put in the credits unless you actually write something because technically you work for me not marvel and I want you name in there as badly as you probably do. So if you write something, you get credit.” Michael looks over at Emma, her jaw dropped. “I’ll take that as yes but Emma you’re going to catch flies. I have a meeting to go to now but you know what to do” Michael grabbed his bag and left.

Heres some writers that let me tag them :)

@cherryhollands @darlintom @starksparker @starksmile @hollandroos @marvelellie @dej-okay @h-osterfield @upsidedownparker

Taglist: @rainbow-marvel (thanks :))

[secretsappyabode]

HOWDY TIFF I ADORE YOU✨🧡!!!! Please know my DMs are always open to you, I also hope you're doing well✨🧡🥺!!!! I wanted to also thank you for your sweet words on my Texiarty art, I laughed reading your tags about the monarchy you're so valid actually?? The only kingdom Jim and I care to rule is the one existing inside our home 👉🏽👈🏽

I wanted to also come ask!!!! Can you 👁️👁️ walk me through first kiss ideas between you and Ford vs you and Stan???? I'd love to hear about it, I think first kisses are so precious and know that there's so much potential regarding your ship with both brothers :3c

Sunny @tex-treasures

SUNNY WAAAAAA AND SAME TO U MY FRIEND plz know u can dm me anytime u wanna as well!!! 🥺

(and yknow what that’s perfectly valid ur kingdom is ur home and I bet it’s a lovely one at that)

HOOOOOO FIRST KISSES (slams fists on table continuously) MY JAM!!!! Ur so right the POTENTIAL!!!! the FLAVOURS!!!!! first kisses are very precious, and honestly it’s hard to figure out what wld be The First Kiss yknow? cuz u cld go so many ways…….. but here’s what i got hehhehe

Ford

we’d both be super shy abt it i just KNOW IT

ford wld try to initiate first, but chicken out at the last second. i feel like he’d overthink it and believe he’s moving too fast, so he quickly makes an excuse and leaves

he’s be up all night thinking abt how to go abt it, pouring thru any romance novels and dating guides he can get his hands on. he’d lose sleep cuz he can’t figure out when the right time is!

he thinks I don’t notice his attempts but I do, and I patiently wait at first.

eventually it gets too much to bear. like one day ford could be explaining something to me

“any questions?” “yeah i got one.” “yes?” “do you plan on kissing me ever???”

bewildered he’s like “wait you’ve been noticing my attempts this whole time?? why didn’t you do anything abt it??” “idk i wanted to see how long it took. and it’s not like i knew how to go abt it either. i never kissed before!” he chuckles at this and says “well that makes two of us. why don’t we figure it out together?”

so it happens. i close my eyes and he cups my face, stroking my cheek with his thumb. it’s subtle but I can hear his breathing, and I can tell he’s stalling a little bit. he leans it quick, and the kiss is soft and tentative.

Stan

now technically we had TWO seperate ‘first kisses’

the first time was when i arrived back in gravity falls, halfway through when stan was running the mystery shack (so were both in our mid 40s)

at this point, hes heard word of fords girlfriend so hes a little (very) nervous. would she be able to tell? would she figure it all out? how would she react? would she understand? as far as stan cld tell, i didnt pick up on anything strange over our phone calls. so far so good, right?

its almost like a big town event. a large group of townies congregate at the shack waiting for me to pull up in my car. (stan is SWEATING BULLETS cuz holy shit why are there so many people here??? geez sixer you really know how to pick em. whyd she have to be famous in this stupid town????)

so i arrive, and stan and i meet halfway from the shack and my car. its super silent. all i can do is stare at him and stan is freaking out. shit. she KNOWS im not him

i move forward grab him by the collar and dip him into a BIG ASS KISS. the townies woop and cheer, for their fave couple is back together again.

little do they know im actually just dipping him far enough that it appears were close, but were not actually kissing. classic theatre magic. the little the townies know the better. “you can relax.” i mutter “i know youre not ford. just act natural and head back to the house.”

stan is just SO CONFUSED LIKE......hwuh? huh??? wha-what?? (is she really trusting me that much already???) before he can say anything else, were already running to the shack.

the second time was more genuine. at this point we had marriage papers signed to make the relationship of ford and i more “official” to the public. the less suspicion the better.

the kids were arriving for the summer soon. stan was having doubts about being a good caretaker for them, about reactivating the portal, about getting ford back, everything was getting to him and i could tell he was tearing himself down for it

i reassured him that he has worked so fucking hard for all of this, and that if ford couldnt see that, it was his problem. that he cares so much for this family and that was one of the things that made me love him so much

“w-wait, wait, you...you love me?” “yes i love you??? how could i not after everything weve been through all these years??”

the confession shocks the both of us. years of denial and secret pining has led to all this. we both just thought we were playing along to keep up the charade, but now that we realize its all real....and that it always has been...

he immediately pulls me in for a kiss. its firm but passionate, and he was practically clinging to my shoulders. it was the culmination of our feelings, all finally being laid bare.

as if he had woken up from a dream, he stops and immediately moves away from me. were both just staring wide eyed. did we just...?

“SHIT UHH I JUST REMEMBERED THAT I HAVE TO BE IN ANOTHER PLACE GOTTA GO BYE” and he takes off

im just sitting there almost frozen, processing what just happened. welp, theres no denying it now. i cup the side of my face. “..............huh.”

[baronvontribble]

Original drabble, pt. 7

Navigation: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

looool

Faking a cough and telling his boss that he needed a few days off was easy. Writing an email to the his contact down the pipeline and telling them that he'd need a few weeks was much, much harder. The wording had to be just right; they didn't really have specific codephrases or anything, but they never said anything outright either. He went through several drafts before finally settling on one that he was satisfied with.

em-

gonna have 2 postpone that lunch date downtown this weekend. got a helluva leak & the landlord wont do shit so im gonna have to fix it myself. will hit u up when i have the time again

-marshmallow

ps: ill pay for ur train tickets dont worry

He leaned back in his chair and stared at it, letting out a nervous breath. "That'll work, right?"

"It looks appropriately misleading to me," Adam said.

"Emily's a smart kid, I've worked with her before. She should be able to pick up on it." Ted folded his arms and continued to stare at the message. "And hopefully it'll just look like I'm postponing a date with an out-of-town girlfriend to anyone else."

"I noticed it's a different email than the one tied to your phone."

"Always has been. I've got what, five different emails now?" He shifted in his seat, joints creaking from spending too long in his computer chair. He hadn't really moved too much since that morning, and it was well past noon by then. He'd been making sure he could deliver on what he'd promised. "The phone's the weakest link. Thing is, the messenger's the only thing installed on it, and no one in the pipeline uses that particular app for messaging since it's dated as shit. Mom uses it, but that's about it, and I doubt she's gonna rat me out even if she finds out what I do."

"How can you be sure of that?"

Ted smirked. "She works at a hospital that's run almost entirely by robots. Divorced my dad over it being a good idea to do shit like that to begin with. I'm pretty sure I know what side of the fence she's on with the whole AI thing."

"I see." That was all he had to say on that, apparently. After that little freak-out earlier, Adam didn't seem to be in all that wordy of a mood. But then, he was busy trying to tag still images with what he saw in them in another tab, so Ted wasn't about to hold it against him.

Well, it wasn't like Ted lacked for conversation topics. "How's it going so far? The tagging, I mean."

"Badly." A few seconds later he broke his non-chatty streak to elaborate, "I'm going by colors for now. I opened up a second page that helps me match hexadecimal codes to both specific and generic color names, but that's usually as far as I get. It doesn't help that lighting seems to have an effect on what appearance a given base color might take."

And the dumbass was probably sampling those colors pixel by pixel, too. Using brute processing force was one way to master the process, Ted supposed.

"Don't feel bad if it takes a while. You'll get the hang of it."

"You sound way too amused by this."

"Who, me? Never. I'm the very essence of stoicism."

Adam had a smile in his voice when he spoke again. "Liar."

"Yeah, alright. You caught me." Ted stretched out in his chair and stifled a yawn, joints popping as they flexed beyond where they probably should. "I'm just happy you're figuring it out. I mean, even just realizing that you can cross-reference is a step in the right direction."

"It would be easier if I knew what I was looking at."

"Want me to help?" Partway through the process of typing his email, Ted had realized that the help he could offer might not be so well-received. He didn't want to make things harder than they already were; he had to be tactful, wait for permission. He couldn't just insert himself into proceedings like he so often did. This was a delicate situation. He knew that now.

Or he could be overthinking it. Adam couldn't quite sigh, but he could portray some semblance of relief in his voice. "I'd appreciate it," he said; a moment later, the laptop had been tabbed in to the correct window so Ted could participate. "Try to restrain yourself from giving bad answers to fuck with me. This data has to be accurate."

"I know, I know." Ted did know. Really. "But gimme a minute, okay? I'm gonna plug in my mouse so I can use it to point things out to you."

"Right."

And so it began.

The images were little more than stock photos, and the 'game' was to tag as many details as possible. Matching up with what other people had tagged it with meant a better score. Ted was observant to a fault, so his results with such things in the past had been mixed at best as he sometimes noticed things that no one ever bothered to tag. This made it all the more viable as a learning tool, because not only was Adam learning what other people tagged the image with and why - seeing what an average person might be able to glean from it - but he was also having the tiny details pointed out to him by someone who was way too anxious to not notice basically everything.

Since the goal was not just to get Adam to be able to notice details, but to also have him act convincingly human while doing so, this gave him a reasonable benchmark for what he could mention he'd noticed to an average person without looking like he had a weirdly photographic memory with the perfect ability to recall anything and everything. To Ted, this was step one. The average person sees a duck in a pond - maybe even identifying the duck as a mallard - while the hyper-observant person sees that it's overcast and around midday from the sky's reflection in the pond's surface or that there's a gum wrapper and a bit of soggy bread clearly visible in the murky water near the detritus-littered shore.

It was the photos of people that were really a nightmare for Adam. For all his ability to pick up on all the tiny nonverbal cues present in an audio recording, he couldn't so much as even guess at gender presentation of random people in stock photos, let alone their expressions or body language. Ted had to walk him through every last detail, and these were the prettiest, most unambiguous sorts of human beings to boot. The photos were dominated by tall, broad men with either lantern jaws or facial hair, and soft, curvy women with round faces and perfect contouring; women had long hair, men had short hair, and children were dressed as either very male or very female to match the adults. Ted found them obnoxious.

And that wasn't even getting into indicators of disability or profession or anything. Just once, he'd like to see more average people pop up in these things. He was downright relieved to get back to pictures of sheep and grass and flowers and buildings and boats whenever he got done with tagging a person. Not-people didn't bother him nearly as much.

Either way, somewhere along the line he lost track of time completely.

"You should eat something," Adam said out of the blue at one point. Ted straightened up in his chair and shot a glance at the clock in the corner of the laptop's screen, only to frown at it like it'd betrayed him.

It was almost three in the afternoon already? Christ. "Probably," he admitted, stretching out with a slight wince. "Feel like you're making progress yet?“

"I don't know. How do you 'feel' progress? It seems like something that should have a clearer definition than to just feel it." 

"Hey man, don't knock feelings. They've got definitions, those definitions are just subjective as fuck." Ted was smiling as he said it, mirroring what he'd heard in Adam's own voice. Both of them were joking. Adam knew full well what Ted had meant, he was just taking a jab at the presentation. "Do you think you've made progress so far?"

"Yes." Adam sounded terribly smug, as if to say see? That was all you had to say. "It's slow, but once I know what I'm looking at, it makes things easier."

Ted shoved off from the desk and stood, taking another moment to stretch. "Cool. Then I'm gonna make some pizza rolls."

Off he went. "Those are bad for you," Adam said as he wandered off. "Humans need nutrients. Pizza rolls are not nutritious."

"Don't care," Ted replied. Along with the pizza rolls, he made sure to retrieve a soda out of the fridge as well just to be contrary. It was hard to care about minor health hazards when he so often had major ones to worry about, and people telling him that he probably should care only made him less likely to do so. "It's calories. It'll work as a stand-in for lunch until I get to dinner."

"I don't think that's how nutrition works." Several seconds passed as Ted wrestled with the packaging, got a plate, and put everything in the microwave.

"Ted. I looked it up. This isn't food, Ted. It has about the same value as eating cardboard."

"Ayep." Ted cracked open the soda and took a swig as he turned on the microwave and let it spin.

"Do you do this often?"

Ted snorted. "Uh, do you really want me to answer that question?"

"According to this site, when the potential long-term effects of such a poor diet are combined with your outward symptoms - such as being the wrong color for a human - it's a strong indicator that your kidneys are probably failing." Adam spoke as if he felt he was the absolute voice of authority on this, and Ted shook with silent laughter as he leaned against the counter. "I think you should get bloodwork done."

"Dude." Good God, what kind of website had Adam even managed to find? Ted felt like he was talking to his grandparents after they'd spent three hours on an online medical journal and decided he looked like he had some obscure genetic disorder that would give him pulmonary fibrosis (whch he didn't). "That 'being the wrong color' thing? It's genetic. I have practically no pigmentation. It's not gout or scurvy or whatever the hell you've found on the internet, just albinism and shitty lighting."

Silence reigned for at least ten full seconds. "I see."

"I take vitamins, alright? And I know my diet isn't all that great, but it's not like pizza rolls are all I eat." He was about to say something about how Adam had seen him eat other things, but then he remembered that Adam couldn't actually see all that well. "Besides, if there was something in my bloodwork, my doctor woulda told me last time I had a checkup. See, unlike some humans, I get those pretty regularly."

"Right." Then, "I'm sorry."

"What for, man? I'm not mad. Hell, at least you care." He'd take a little overworrying anyday if it meant someone was at least trying to understand his problems. It was kinda cute. Big tough super high-tech AI worrying about a squishy human. "And y'know, if you wanna know what's actually wrong with me, all you gotta do is ask."

The microwave beeped, and Adam considered. "You'd tell me that?"

"I tell people all the time."

"No, that's not-" He cut himself off mid-rendering, and Ted raised an eyebrow over in the direction of the living room while pulling the pizza rolls out of the microwave. "Isn't that like telling me how your code is written?"

Huh. Ted had never thought of it that way. "Not really. It's more like, uh... I guess I figure that telling you what versions of what software is running isn't exactly going to give you access to any of the passwords protecting my data, but it will tell you how to work with what I've got going on." Was that an accurate analogy? This barrier to understanding really did go both ways.

The fans weren't quite roaring, but they were definitely humming away audibly in the background; it was always so easy to tell when Adam was mulling something over. "Yes, I would like to know. If that's all right."

"Fine by me." With a plate in one hand and a drink in the other, Ted came back to the not-a-desk and plopped right back down in his chair. "For starters, look up Ehlers-Danlos syndrome."

A minute later Adam asked him how the hell he was alive, and he almost breathed a mouthful of pizza roll.