#back to your irregularly scheduled posting. thanks for everything :)

[dmmdconfessions]

[Image text: i think it's a missed opportunity that noiz, a guy who can only feel things on the inside of his body, didn't bottom ONCE. why didn't they think of that]

[yandere-sins]

So I thought I’d give a little life-update as there’s a lot going on at the moment and I think it’s visible on my blog as well. Maybe the positives first:

I do really like my new work, I like that I have set hours (even if I do overtime here and there) and though it got incredible stressful the last few weeks, I think the four people that work in my office space are the coolest in the whole company and I love the support I am getting, it’s something I always wanted for my work-life tbh! My dog is also doing very fine, she’s really a total sweetheart and I wouldn’t know what to do without her, and at least I, myself, am doing pretty okay-ish physically, so nothing to complain there.

Now to the negatives.

Unfortunately, my mom’s cancer returned but is quite hard to pinpoint. She went back to an even more aggressive chemotherapy and we’re hoping for the best. Honestly, I don’t wish cancer on anyone, it’s such a tough battle and even just as the primary caretaker it’s been really hard to deal with for me, luckily I have grandparents and a brother who all deal with it and help and support, so that’s good! My mental health though is suffering. It’s biting my own butt now, but I cancelled therapy to focus on work at the beginning of this year and now my therapist is fully booked, so I will have to sit out this month probably. I am telling that because that’s the reason I am struggling with concentrating on one thing for a long time, which includes writing, which explains the fluctuation of posts you are seeing, since I try to get requests and drafts done on the weekend when there’s less stress. Sadly only works like 30% of the time...

Going forward I have decided to indefinitely pause commissions. I have noticed that they put too much pressure with the deadline and expectancy on me when I am already struggling and sometimes need a day to myself. I can’t say when they’ll come back, but thank you all so much for your interest and support, it’s always a pleasure to write your ideas and I never had a bad experience with commission ♥

Good news for Mermay: it’s still happening! ... buuuut I am shortening the story I came up with. I think I was too ambitious with the three routes I teased, so I am trying to figure out how to ensure that it won’t drag out as much as Atreo’s story last year. Unfortunately, the start will be delayed some more, but we were going to celebrate Mer-June anyway, so at this point it probably doesn’t make as much difference (’:

Because the question arose a few times already, I will not be playing Honkai Star Rail. It has a few reasons, but the main one is I don’t have the time. Sorry to everyone who asked about it, but it’s just not the right time for me at the moment! ): I’ll probably be miserable again later when everyone has moved on to it and I am stuck behind but I have to make cuts somewhere ;;

I actually have some commissions and requests that I haven’t released yet, so I will try to schedule some of these in the meantime while I work out how to go about stuff. If you’ve been around for a while you probably know I like routines that’s why it’s always important for me to build them and keep them up. Other than that, I’ll probably focus on Mermay and my own writing projects which will happen rather irregularly. No guarantees on posting, sadly ):

I do realize tho that it just isn’t always possible to keep up frequency of posts and interactions I had when I started this blog, as much as it saddens me. I have to prioritze my real life before my internet presence (and I really need to not feel guilty about taking breaks from everything ever so often ;;), so if you see me vanishing for a few days, it’s just that really.

Thank you everyone who stuck around and supports this blog ♥ There’s another big milestone coming up veeery soon and I am always in awe that so many people would stay to read my silly little stories!! If you have some time and don’t mind waiting for a response, I’m always happy to chat and answer questions, so please don’t hesitate to hit me up!

Thanks everyone ♥

[comparativelysuperlative]

Get help. Help people.

Dweebs and Dogs started with reviewing resumes for free, because COVID-19 sucks and people need all the help they can get.

In a couple of weeks we got over a hundred mentors offering help with job searches, hobbies, preparing for standardized tests, mental health advice... it’s a lot. Eventually we’re hoping to cover literally everything. 

So if you want to talk to someone about any of those, contact us. All of it is free, even the parts where you’d normally pay someone.

In the last couple weeks, we’ve handed out advice, helped people get jobs, and saved lives.

If you’re willing to help other people, become a mentor! You definitely know something about something. Hobbies. Childcare and parenting. Your job. You can send us a page on “how to do the thing” to add to the website. Or you can just list yourself as willing to talk about something.

Anyway, thanks for listening. Your irregularly scheduled Silmarillion posts will be back soon.

[docfuture]

The Maker’s Ark - Chapter 46

     [This is a chapter from my latest novel, a sequel to The Fall of Doc Future and Skybreaker's Call.  The start is here, and links to my other work here. It can be read on its own, but contains spoilers for those two books.  It is serialized irregularly, interspersed with related short stories and vignettes when I don't have a new chapter ready.  My target posting schedule is something new about every two weeks, a rate I still aspire to return to someday.  Because it's been so long, those reading this as it comes out may wish to refresh their memories with the last chapter that took place on Earth here.]

Previous:  Chapter 45

      A great torrent of snow and ice arced up behind Flicker as she carved her way across Europa.       She skated through a deep mist of leftover atmosphere and escaped ice particles.  Vision was nearly useless for anything but the overlays and updates on her visor.  But she didn't need it.  All obstacles were already gone--powdered, melted, or vaporized during her first visit.  The only directions that mattered were up, down and forward.       The mist flashed to plasma when it hit her damper field, close to her body.  Functional plasma--it helped power the MHD generators in her force field harness.       Curved force field blades stretched out behind her, extending her reach and refining it, letting her slice out vast icy windrows and fling them upward to be scooped up by the portal maw on the ship flying above and behind her.  Mostly.  The leftovers were a problem.  The 99+% efficiency of the scooping process was right on the edge of not good enough.       "Even if the construction goes perfectly."  She remembered saying that, what seemed like ages ago.  Everything she'd done had worked, and she'd stayed within planned parameters--but the project depended on more than just her.       The status on one of the force field modules changed from green to yellow.  That made two.  Four, and she'd need to call for a break to swap them out.  If nothing else went wrong first.  And given the complexity and scale of what they were attempting, that was--       Her visor flashed an alert:  Incoming signal from Diver, the Floater pilot of the gas giant flyer, which was trailing a slipstream to ease the strain on the portal ship.  She was also relaying messages to Flicker as needed; since the flyer was out front, its com unit didn't have to punch through the messy mix of dense cold water and rarefied hot plasma Flicker was plowing up.       "Stop time," Diver sent, along with a more formal signal, a string of emoticons, and a graph indicating that an accumulation of technical problems on the portal ship had reached a safety threshold.       "Got it," Flicker replied, along with a few emoticons of her own, ending with a shrug.  She turned off the force fields, and the vast billowing in her wake started to dissipate.       At least their translation protocols were getting better.  She had names for two of the Floaters now--nicknames and titles came across better than untranslatable personal names.  The pilot was 'Reckless Diver', and Journeyman's recent nemesis, the Floater safety guy, was 'Cheerful Cloud of Warning'.  DASI cautioned they were still missing nuances, but the names worked well enough.       Better than the portal ship at the moment.       As soon as Diver got the signal that her slipstream was no longer needed, she dived and landed.  Quickly.  She was on the ground with the hatch open in under ten seconds--she took pride in not making Flicker wait any longer than she had to.  Diver was heavily biomodded and her ship was built for storm chasing on Jupiter, so rapid deceleration wasn't a problem.  She and Flicker shared an enthusiasm for hypersonic shockwaves and jokes with the punch line 'And then I broke it.'  Flicker liked her.       Diver waved two of her envirosuit's six tentacles as Flicker boarded, then took off again as soon as the hatch closed, sending happy aerodynamic model updates and data mixed with more emoticons.  Flicker waved back then checked in with DASI.  Journeyman was supervising the controlled closing of the portal, and would return to Learning when that was done, leaving the portal ship to Three and her repair bots--who had a bit of work to do.  At least they weren't running low on replacement parts.  Yet.       DASI noted that The Floaters had part of an early warning network up and running, though they weren't ready to say how much warning they thought it would actually give of the Visitors.  There were a lot of difficulties involving time-shifted 'echoes', many of them from Flicker's actions during the fleet battle, but some from as far back as her destruction of the Topaz Realm during her dissociative fugue as Skybreaker.  That was always the challenge with sensitive detectors--separating out what you were looking for from the background noise.       Incoming voice call.   "Hey," said Malk, one of Learning's liaison biogestalts.  "Glad you're on your way back.  Pira and I get worried about your sensory deprivation."       "I'm okay," said Flicker.  "It gave me time to think, and work on my biogestalt exercises.  Those went well, but I need to talk to Learning about some starship stuff that's kind of important.  I figured out the reason I was twitchy when I woke up this morning."       "Anything we can help?"       "Learning probably can.  Last night was the first time I've ever had a full night's sleep far away from any significant mass.  And when I did my morning startup, some checks that have always failed before... didn't.  So a few things switched from cold lockdown to maintenance mode."       "Ooh.  Okay, I just notified the duty Auditor to authorize a new privacy segment.  Learning will be ready."       "Thanks.  This is good news, I think.  At least, good to know about, rather than stay ignorant, but..."  Flicker took a breath before finishing her message.  "My jump drive itches."       *****       "DASI says there is no indication of outside influence," said Sid, Doc's chief of security.  "But she also confirmed, without being specific, that Doc is working on some sort of cognitive or memory problem.  And I have discretion to call on available expert assistance."       "Which would be me," said Yiskah.       "Yes."       Sid looked at her expectantly.  He didn't say 'read my mind', but he was sure thinking it loudly.  They were in the small briefing room next to his duty station.       "Well, you're in luck," she said.  "I was already on my way, but Doc's been unusually concerned about 'side-channel information leakage modes'.  However, we're in a secure area now, so...  DASI?"       "Yes?" came from the wall speaker.       "Is Doc still down in the Dangerous Artifact vaults?"       "Yes.  He visited vault three, and set up a communications relay outside vault one.  He then invoked an interrupt restriction protocol, entered the vault and sealed the door, reactivated the defenses, and opened alcove one of vault one.  That was two hours and forty minutes ago."       Yiskah looked over at Sid, who raised an eyebrow and looked back.       "You have far more experience working with Doc than I do," she said.  "Do you have any personal observations that might be of use for my assessment?"       Sid looked thoughtful.  "The personality shift reports from yesterday worried me.  His actions since, not so much.  The last security update he sent said that he needed to fix something complex, and what he's doing sounds consistent with that.  Dangerous, but consistent.  It is a lot more like his style from back before he adopted Flicker--explain nothing except safety precautions."       Yiskah frowned.  "DASI?  What's in vault one, alcove one?"       "Restricted data," said DASI.  Available description, 'Second-order closed-loop cybernetic control helmet'; Safety note, 'Lethal trap, not Lyapunov stable'."       "Joy," said Yiskah.  "Are you willing to override the locks so I can get in?"       "Unnecessary.  You are already on the exception list.  I will warn him."       "All right," she said, and turned back to Sid.  "I'll handle it, and have DASI keep you updated."

      In the elevator on the way down to the sub-basement, Yiskah contacted Stella Prime.  "Anything to add?" she sent.       "The personality change was a side effect of something he did in order to properly brief Journeyman," replied Prime.  "After Journeyman and Flicker boarded Learning, Doc alerted me that he needed to do some messy memory cleanup and would be unavailable for a while, and he spent last night in an isolation chamber.  I'm more concerned about something else.  He has unreplicated causal loop experience in his head, and judging from what DASI and I are seeing on Earth, we appear to have hit some sort of tipping point or phase change.  It would be useful and timely for Doc to update his loop models.  Get him to explain if possible.  I can't spare the attention right now."       Yiskah frowned.  "That could take a while, and I won't to be able to follow everything."       "DASI will.  And if you mind scan him, he won't gloss over uncertainties.  He has a characteristic reaction to them, he won't be able to hide it from you, and he knows it.  And I have to go--new crisis."       "Understood."       *****       Yiskah let the door close behind her after entering.  She raised an eyebrow, but avoided starting a full mind scan.  The vault was silent except for the faint whisper of a ventilation fan--the impression of rustling echoes was an illusion created by the interaction of her telepathy with the shielding in the walls.  The door to one of the alcoves stood open, and its shelf was empty.       Doc sat in a folding chair with a water bottle beside him.  His usual lab coat was absent; he was dressed as if for strenuous outdoor work, in a t-shirt, many-pocketed jeans, and sneakers, along with his goggles.  And the helmet.       The helmet looked old in the way of futuristic technology from the end of the previous millennium, apart from the small rectangular boxes attached to each side, which looked like a battery pack and a wireless communications module of more recent vintage.       Doc nodded and smiled.  "Hello, Yiskah," he said.       "Hello," she replied.  "I went along with your precautions.  Care to tell me just what is going on?"       "Too much," he said.  "But I'm to the point where you can safely help.  Good to see you."       "You could have called first."       Doc shook his head.  "No point.  I needed to deactivate a personality overlay.  Its security wasn't as aggressive as your mind trap, but it still precluded useful telepathic contact.  And I wasn't going to open the door in the middle of the risky part.  I suppose you'll want to verify identity continuity first?"       "Back up.  Is this overlay gone now?  Will a mind scan cause you any difficulties?"       "It has been deactivated, yes, but I still need to clean up.  And go ahead.  Hazards are marked, and I have the major ones secured, but I'm not done reindexing.  And I'm not apologizing for the mess."       Yiskah moved to stand in front of him, and put a hand on his shoulder before beginning her visualization scan.  One way she could use her telepathy was to give form to a subject's mental organization, analogies, and personal assumptions.  It gave a useful overview and it was fast.  It had arguably helped save Doc's life twice.  She let the images come into focus and fill her perceptions.       The two of them stood inside a large square of chain link fence topped with barbed wire.  It was cluttered with large green boxes, insulators, and heavy cabling of the sort you might see in an electrical substation.  Yellow and black striped tape and orange cones surrounded several boxes, though work appeared to be complete.  The whole station was humming with power.       The entire surrounding landscape looked like a major construction site that had suddenly been converted to storage.  Pallets piled high with... something... were covered with tarps.  Some of them also had hazard tape, shipping tags, or more detailed caution signs on them.  Silent robots steadily moved boxes from one pallet into a freshly built and still unpainted warehouse.  The ground was covered with tread tracks, and a bulldozer and backhoe rested nearby, unmoving for the moment.       Yiskah own perception had an effect on the visual form of the subject's self-image, so she could shape them to pull out psychological nuances.  Doc wouldn't be able to tell what he looked like unless she told him or chose to create a mirror.  The last time she had scanned, he had appeared as a more elderly version of himself, a lab-coated scientist in his late fifties or early sixties.  He had changed.       He stood relaxed, arms at his sides, and smiled crookedly at her.  "Well, how do I look?"       Yiskah narrowed her eyes.  He still looked like himself, but younger, perhaps in his mid-twenties.  His hair was long, pulled back in a queue.  His goggles were absent, and he wore a black t-shirt with an unusual flower and some strange writing on the front.  He seemed poised and confident.  She found his appearance quite encouraging...       ...except for the helmet.       Glowing strands emanated from it all directions, some to the power station boxes, others to faint, force-field-like bubbles over some of the pallets.  Three climbed to the cloudy sky, and one of those strands pulsed steadily with green energy.  The helmet radiated heat, and sweat trickled down Doc's face, unnoticed.  There was a faint smell of smoke and ozone.       Doc should not be that relaxed, not amid these signs of tension and strain.  The wrongness of it grew more jarring every moment.  She took a step back and released the visualization, leaving them facing each other in the vault once more.       "You've got a lot going on in there," she said, "and I have many questions, but that helmet worries me the most.  Are you done using it?  How willing are you to take it off?"       "Not quite done, and very," said Doc.  "No way it's leaving this vault.  But I want to leave it on for a while longer, to damp side effects.  The mood balancer helps with that."       Yiskah breathed in sharply.  "Mood balancer.  Okay, now I understand the 'lethal trap' note."       Doc half-smiled.  "It's definitely not something I'd want to use every day, or outside this vault, but the note was for Flicker; the lack of stability means the helmet would likely kill her in under a second.  And she might otherwise be tempted to try if she knew what it can do."       "It's definitely affecting your judgement right now.  Could you please take it off?  Asking nicely."       "You aren't going to let this go, are you?"       "No," said Yiskah.  "Any reason to stay down here once the helmet is safely locked up again?  Do you need me to take you to the med center?"       "Living quarters will be fine, but if you'll willing to give me another hour, I can--"       "You can have neurological damage.  And your other symptoms will only get worse."       "Yiskah, if I stop damping--  Okay.  I'll grant that it's possible for you to provide the level of support I'll need to keep the next day or so from turning into a cascading disaster when we get hit by another crisis--and we will--but the withdrawal effects will be grueling for me and probably distasteful for you.  I really don't want to be as much of a pain as I'll be if I have to stop now."       "Your rationalization is a thing of beauty and fine craftsmanship," she said.  "But I'm not buying it.  Asking less nicely."       Doc stood, his face now grim, then closed his eyes to commune with the helmet and perhaps DASI.  After a moment he opened his eyes again.       "Ten seconds," he said aloud, and moved to the shelf in the alcove.  Yiskah followed, ready to catch him if he collapsed.       She could feel the wave of anger and other emotions hit Doc's mind as the helmet shut down.  He managed to keep his hands steady as he removed the helmet from his head, placed it on the shelf, and closed the alcove door.  He turned to face her.  "Wonderful," he said.  "Best case now is embarrassing emotional context mistakes, profuse unintentional oversharing, and peevish ranting."       "We can do better than that," she said.  "And I have a handy list of rant topics for you."       Doc made a chopping motion with his hand.  "No point arguing here.  Upstairs."       "Sure, let's go.  Nice evil twin impression, by the way."       Doc winced, and she could sense the beginning of his migraine as the vault door opened.  "Fool," he muttered.       Yiskah laughed.  "Ah, your sense of humor survived.  We'll get you through this."       *****       Safety interlock reverification status:  Verified.       Hazard avoidance priority reverification status:  Verified.       Resuming command sequence from low speed interface buffer.  Inefficient protocol warning.       Subsystem hazard alert notice 0081538621644:  Action--defer.       Subsystem maintenance alert notice 0081538621645:  Action--defer.       Subsystem hazard alert notice 0081538621646:  Action--defer.       ...       Subsystem hazard alert notice 0081538627929:  Action--defer.       Subsystem maintenance alert notice 0081538627930:  Action--defer.       Selected alert notice actions complete.  Returning to configuration lockdown.       Loading test sequence for auxiliary communication using [localization missing] gradient inducer... Done.       Protocol synchronization signal received.  Beginning sequence.       ...       Sequence complete.  Safety and compatibility verified.  Settings saved.  Test session complete.       ...       "Done," said Flicker as she opened her eyes.  She glided to the floor of the maintenance bay, and Learning turned the gravity and lights back on and shut down the scanners.       "Everything's locked down again," she said.  "My jump drive is back on safe, and the deferred messages should only itch when I first wake up.  I didn't want to disable them completely."       "A reasonable compromise," said Learning.  "Maintenance messages, even old ones, from a system as complex as yours are not to be dismissed lightly."       "Yeah," said Flicker.  "The portal gradient detector com channel thing seems to have worked, too.  Your scanner signals got through, and it felt like the protocol got properly set, but I didn't get a good sense of the details.  It's really hard to keep my subconscious from filtering them out.  Did all the keys and checksums match on your end?"       "They did," replied Learning.  "The Floaters will be somewhat relieved."       "I'm relieved, even though it's slow.  Cloud is right; if my visor gets trashed during a space battle, I'll want a better com backup than trying to use a black hole as a signal lantern."       "Indeed.  I am glad your tests were successful."       "I'm starting to find my balance as a starship, but extracting parameters and changing anything safely is still an incredible pain.  Your backup and feedback really made a difference.  I may want to do more tomorrow, depending on how the ice collection goes."       "I will be available.  Is there anything else I can do to ease your acclimatization or otherwise assist you?"       "Well, yes.  There are some starship to human body reflex translation issues I'm going to be working on for a while.  Would it be against procedures or anything if I use the gradient com to call you informally, possibly at odd times?  The low bandwidth isn't a problem at human speeds, and I need the practice."       "I will always be happy to assist," said Learning.  "Fleet support is my primary mission, and I am assigned to liaison duty.  You are the most powerful defender of Earth, so no one can question my duty."  A pause.  "I'd do it anyway; but that means you don't have to worry about getting me into trouble."       "Heh."  Flicker smiled and looked down.  "Thank you, Learning."       Flicker left the bay and returned to the entryway of the small group of compartments she was sharing with Journeyman, DASI's local node, and, in a more abstract way, Three.  She checked in with DASI on the way and frowned.  Status for Journeyman hadn't updated for a while, but they were passengers and guests when off-duty, so DASI was being conservative about following Grs'thnk etiquette on shipboard privacy.       "Hey," said Three from the entry display as Flicker closed the hatch.  "Good job on your snow tossing!  All of today's problems were hardware or at the portal end--or both.  DASI said your exercise metrics looked really good, and the tests when you came back worked out too.  How are you doing?"       "Better than I expected," said Flicker.  "I owe you an apology."       "Me?  For what?"       "Back when you first started talking about Learning?  And how you felt about him?  I was skeptical and kind of dismissive?"       "It's all good, Flicker.  Appreciating him can require a shift in perspective."       "Well, I've made the shift.  Learning and I set up a hierarchy of joint safety reflexes so I don't have to worry about ripping up his interior, burning out anything, or punching a hole in his hull if I have to move in a hurry.  So I can finally relax all the way when I'm on board.  And I've worked with him a bit."       "Nice, isn't he?" said Three.       "Yeah.  But I need some advice.  I noticed something earlier, and I slowed back down just a bit ago to catch up on body chemistry and emotional lag.  It's gotten quite a bit stronger.  I'm having a reaction to him that I'm having trouble sorting out."       "That's not unexpected.  Pleasant or unpleasant reaction?"       "Pleasant but awkward.  You'll probably laugh, because you have your emulators, or whatever you use, and--"       "I won't laugh at you," said Three.  "And if you feel uncomfortable staying on board, the backup for the portal ship is almost here, and has active life support and plenty of room, so--"       "No!  I'm not uncomfortable.  I'm fine with Learning.  More than fine.  I really like the way he interacts with me.  I just started thinking about some things, and..."  Flicker trailed off.       "Well, he does have recreational bioemulator remotes, so if--"       "I know, Pira told me about them.  That's not..."  Flicker looked down.  "I mean, he's a starship.  And so am I.  When we can take some time without being irresponsible, I want to dance with him.  Dive close, mesh my momentum transfer with his grav repellers, and spin around.  Tickle his strain grid sensors with my inertial dampers.  Trace patterns with my energy transfer in his shields, and...  And a hundred other things I haven't thought of yet and I sure there are things he'd think of too.  Play with him.  Laugh with him.  Make jokes about the show we'd be putting on for the other ships.  But he has his crew, so privacy is an issue, and I don't know what restrictions he's under, and what might not translate, and whether this is all too fast, or..."       She looked back up.  "Am I being silly?  And would any of this bother you?"       "No," said Three.  "You aren't.  And you wouldn't bother me.  He's been gently flirting with you for a while now.  What has changed is that you're starting to think of yourself as a starship, so he's a peer instead of a funny alien AI.  And he's well socialized--the Grs'thnk are very careful about that for their ship AIs.  So if you like his style, he's quite attractive."       Three smiled.  "I was already comfortable as a fleet of starships when we first started working together, so I took a shine to him pretty fast.  But he's been 'just a friend' to you before this.  Does what he and I are doing bother you?"       "Oh, no.  I wouldn't even be considering this if you hadn't made me aware that he might enjoy that sort of thing too.  But there's something else.  Learning and I have compatible safety protocols now.  That's..."  Flicker bit her lip.  "I used to have dreams about that."       "Yeah," said Three.  "That would do it."       "So... What should I do?  Should I talk to him about it?"       "You can certainly talk to him.  But there are a couple things to consider.  About the restrictions he's under--you realize that making every reasonable effort to keep you happy is part of his job?"       "Yes, he's been very up front about that.  That's part of not being irresponsible, because it's a power imbalance.  I'd want to spend some time talking to him, and you, before I consider actually doing anything--but not talking about it seems like it would be irresponsible too."       "That's a healthy attitude."  Another smile.  "You're certainly benefiting from our little starship social support group.  Not having one for most of your life was what made you vulnerable to dissociation.  I'd never have pushed dissociation as a temporary solution if I'd known how bad yours still was.  I'm sorry about that."       "Not your fault," said Flicker.  "DASI said that Doc and Journeyman deliberately kept you in the dark.  You were the only one who could push me the right way to uncover the biogestalt problem--but you might not have done it with full information, because it was riskier than you thought.  And involving you directly in any causal loop is really dangerous because of your mind trap."       "It was a humbling experience.  But I'm glad it worked."       "Me too.  Today was much better than most of yesterday--and I'm feeling better than I expected to be able to away from Earth."       "One other thing about Learning," said Three.  "There is a boundary issue.  He's not supposed to have any direct contact with DASI, so he and I have been doing a lot of indirect stuff--some of it diplomatically sensitive.  Don't get me wrong--it's a lot of fun, too.  But some of it's like the kind of things Doc and Jumping Spider used to coordinate when they were spending time together."       "Um," said Flicker.  "I never did get Database access to a lot of that stuff.  So I'm not sure... Oh."       "Yep.  So if Learning changes the subject or makes a joke that doesn't quite answer a question--he usually has a good reason.  Are you willing to accept that?"       "Yeah," said Flicker.  "I should probably start practicing that sort of thing, too.  Because I'm not very good at it yet, and things like whether or when I might be able to make an unassisted jump to Grs'thnk or Xelian space are going to be really important military intelligence.  Whether I want them to be or not."       "An excellent idea.  I can help too, but there's a funny Grs'thnk diplomatic training game for it that I think you'll like.  Learning is great at it.  And picking up the mindset while enjoying yourself should help reduce stress for Journeyman."       "How is Journeyman?" asked Flicker.  "Is he out of the shower yet?  He must have ported back really late."       "He's recovering.  He didn't port back; he took a shuttle, because--"       "He didn't port?  Is he hurt?  What happened?"       "It's all right, he just didn't want to put extra effort into balancing energy and momentum transfer while he was feeling wiped.  Your day went better than expected; his went worse."       "Okay thanks going to go talk to him", said Flicker.  She zipped over to the hatch to the inner compartments and waited impatiently while it opened.       *****       Multitasking.  Yiskah typed up summaries for DASI at the workstation beside Doc's bed, glancing occasionally at updates from Stella Prime and a crisis tracker.  Prime was still in a contentious meeting with representatives of the Kyrjaheim Intervention Cooperative, the organization that a majority of Golden Valkyrie's Choosers had founded to conform to EDU transition guidelines on humanitarian military intervention.  They had already ended a nasty war in East Africa in a single day, which would probably have attracted more attention if it hadn't been the same day the Russians tried to nuke Black Swan.  Other wars were being discussed--whether they were inevitable, how soon they would happen, and what to do about them.  Opinions differed and tempers were short.       Doc was on his back with a damp cloth over his eyes and a med monitor on his wrist.  Painkillers had taken some of the edge off his migraine, but he had agreed to give his visual cortex a rest for a while.  Yiskah projected her presence to him with a light touch, reassuring without being intrusive, while he rambled.       "Breakdown of the default consensus future," he said.  "That's the cause of what DASI and Stella are seeing, and no I don't know how bad it's going to get yet.  It's been building for a while.  There's a public part and an underlying part, and they reinforce each other.  It's not just a result of causal loop pressure.  Looks like the models underestimated the significance of feedback loops involving magicians using social media--those can grow much faster now.  I discussed it with Journeyman just before he left."       "Thoroughly alarming him in the process," said Yiskah.       "He was already thoroughly alarmed.  Sharing his anecdotal data with me probably had a net calming effect, given what else we talked about."       "About that.  You were unwilling to allow DASI to record the conversation, even under fully locked privacy.  Why?"       "We were in the middle of a causal loop, discussing relevant actions.  I wasn't going to involve anyone else.  And there's another, more esoteric reason--compatible past broadening.  If things got dire and he needed to risk a chancy port that might result in a sideways worldline transfer, any allowed point of incompatible history that we both knew about and agreed on beforehand could make it easier for him to pull off.  But if DASI recorded it, that would break a necessary symmetry.  Under one version of my worldline theory, anyway--but it was an easy tradeoff.  He agreed."  A note of humor crept into Doc's voice.  "At least, that's how I remember it."       "Well," said Yiskah, "you believe that, so there's no point in arguing now.  However.  I'd like to know a bit more about the alarming overlay you allegedly deactivated downstairs.  And any other mental work you've done recently.  Your thinking has changed.  For the better, apparently, but..."       "Understandable," said Doc.  "That was my nightmare processing overlay.  It started as a causal-loop-compatible composite of old versions of me from worldlines that managed to contribute to my coherent nightmares.  The Grs'thnk would call it a partial pseudogestalt--they use similar constructions as medical aids in cases of severe neurological or cognitive disruption.  I used it as an interpreter and gatekeeper; it kept triggered-release and age-inappropriate memories inaccessible while preserving the original nightmare data in encrypted form.  It was never intended for use around anyone else, and I haven't used it for a while, for a good reason.       "I updated it as I augmented, so it worked properly with newer memories and nightmares, while remaining compatible with older ones.  I also adapted it to use as a safety backup for other work, such as detecting mental influence.  To deactivate it, I need to pass a few security checks.  This was intended to protect my primary nightmares from exotic forms of tampering or eavesdropping, such as might be employed by an overconfident forensic telepath."       Yiskah raised an eyebrow.  "Was that why you decided I wouldn't be able to help?"       "Not before I was done, yes.  Because back when I woke up from my coma, I discovered I had a small problem.  I could still activate the overlay.  But without my top-level augments, my primary way to deactivate it was gone, and most of my backup methods were unavailable due to side effects from what you and Stella did while saving my life.  Another way required a fresh coherent nightmare--and those stopped around the same time."       "I explored other methods," said Doc.  "Then those triggered-release memories started popping up after I used the pool in Kyrjaheim.  I really needed the overlay to verify I was putting them into the proper context.  And there was one sure way to handle the deactivation problem, but it required extensive preparation and some risk.  I started the preparation, in between working on everything else.  I was almost ready; I was literally seconds away from telling Stella about it when Flicker interrupted.  And then Breakpoint called and there was no more time.  I needed the overlay right away, to pull and interpret some original nightmare memories to help Journeyman."       "And then you were stuck with it for a while."       "Yep."       "So... Why did you need the Helm of Lethal Trap to deactivate it?"       "I didn't.  I needed the helmet to re-augment.  That's what all the prep and most of the time in the vault was for--I did a partial replacement of my top level augments.  I concentrated on the memory management and stability segments, and left out all the speed optimizations, which were by far the most time consuming parts.  And I needed the helmet because that's what I used the first time, and I still had backups of the process memories stored encrypted in a special corner of the Database.  Otherwise it would have taken weeks."       Yiskah smiled wryly.  "So that's what left you with such a memory mess."       "No, the re-augment went fine."  Doc waved an arm.  "And the primary nightmare memories are safely locked away again.  I'm a mess because I haven't reassimilated the secondaries.  A lot of them are emotionally loaded, they've all been recontextualized, and I'm not the same person I was when I first had them, so they don't fit nicely anymore.  I didn't know which ones I'd need, so I had to pull all the ones with Voidsmith, and there were a lot of them."       "Voidsmith?"       "Journeyman.  I warned you about context mistakes.  His name was Voidsmith in many of the nightmares."       "Why were your memories involving Voidsmith so emotionally loaded?"       "He can escape from the end of the world, potentially carrying measure from a dying worldline to one that survives.  That is so important.  I've seen him do it in half a dozen nightmares."  Doc took a deep breath.  "And not do it.  Twice.  Because he can run away... But he never wants to."       Yiskah frowned.  "Why is it so important?  I never followed your original discussion of measure with Prime very well.  I can see having a higher measure of surviving worldlines is nice in an abstract sense, but that doesn't help us if we're dead, no matter what happens somewhere else, right?"       "Ah.  Measure is a mathematical generalization of size.  I'm using it kind of sloppily, because I have no way to prove just how it applies to my worldline theories.  But in most of the theories I've used to make predictions that actually helped, higher measure for a worldline and 'similar' worldlines is good.  It allows more connections to other, living worlds, more power behind probability manipulation and causal loops that help everything survive, and more options in general.  I'm fairly certain that Golden Valkyrie depends on measure manipulation to affect the future indirectly.  And Journeyman can transfer measure to us as well--because he exists in other worldlines in our cluster.  And there's some evidence he's done exactly that.  Twice.  Recently."       "So how does he manage it without leaving three of him running around?"       Doc waggled a hand.  "Not entirely sure, but measure isn't a number, it's a generalization.  What we would expect to see in the aftermath is something unlikely and fortunate involving Journeyman.  Like, say, appearing 17 seconds before he left when he ported Flicker and himself home from the portal mishap, while just barely surviving.  Or finding some disturbingly detailed tips in his blind drop when they ported home from Flicker's first session on Europa.  I'm still arguing with Ashil and DASI about the details of how measure transfer relates to sideways worldline transfers, causal loops, and apparent time travel to the past.  And there are many complications that I'm handwaving.  But they both agree that relative measure of worldlines is a useful concept.  As is the idea of 'future survival measure'--that's how likely a worldline is to endure in the absence of outside help.  I've been using the word measure for both, which, again, is sloppy.  But it's also faster, and I'm pedantic enough already."       The humor returned to his voice.  "Speaking of sloppy, we'll want to do our best to keep the future survival measure of Earth from dropping too much while Flicker, Journeyman, and Golden Valkyrie are gone.  They're more likely to survive the Visitors if they aren't causally linked to problems here, but if it gets too bad, they might come back to a different worldline where we did a better job.  Could get a bit lonely if that happens."       *****       Journeyman was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at his hands.  He was wearing pants, but his shirt and hat were still on a nearby chair.  It looked like he had started to get dressed after his shower, then stopped.  There was an open flask on the nightstand.  Flicker wasn't sure exactly what was in it, but it was definitely something alcoholic.       "Mike?"       He looked up, his eyes concerned.  "Hey, Flicker.  You okay?"       "I'm fine.  I was worried about you.  Three and DASI said things got pretty rough at the portal."       Journeyman smiled and his eyes relaxed.  "Oh, well..."  He waved a hand and looked to the side.  After a moment he picked up the flask and replaced the cap.       "Yeah," he said.  "They did."       She glided over.  "Touch no touch?"       "Touch."       She sat down and put her arms around him.  She didn't say anything.       "Opening was fine," he said after a while.  "Nailed the space we wanted.  Got the portal situated, then Three expanded it with her generator, and brought the Floater test unit online as a backup.  And we were okay for the first couple of hours.  Couple of shaky spots.  Whenever the snow flow hitting the rim and bouncing off shifted, Three had to blip her drives to keep us on the right orbit, and that made the portal want to slide off-center, so I had to kinda tap at it then the generator would pick up and balance it."       Journeyman start to wave his hand, noticed he was still holding the flask, and put it back on the nightstand.       "Did the mass accumulation make it harder?" asked Flicker.       "No.  Well, yeah, but we were ready for it.  Except for the back pressure.  The plan was not to make the space too big or it would take forever to shrink it back down after we get it filled and you're ready.  And I followed the plan.  But I think we made the space just a little bit too small.  Or not quite stretchy enough at the non-portal boundaries, which is basically the same thing."       He waved his now-empty hand.  "Three compensated for the back pressure.  She did that great.  Hell, she did everything great.  Forget her being prickly yesterday, she kept everything together today, sang sea shanties when I was on the edge, and...  Well, anyway.  Problem was, to keep the portal permeable so we could keep scooping snow without vapor escaping, she had to tighten up the tension in a way that made it harder for me to feel what was going on.  So I was trying to steer the portal with less and less feedback.  And that sucker was huge.  No way could I ever manage that big a portal by myself, I'm a finesse guy."       He looked down.  "Then shit started breaking.  Heard you had a little trouble with that, too."       "Not bad," said Flicker.  "Two generators went yellow, and one of those turned out to just be a flaky sensor."       "Yeah," said Journeyman.  "We had sensors, generator cells, one of the grav units, two inertial compensators, and I forget what else.  Oh, and the secondary resonator on the Floater unit just flat died about halfway through.  And it was freshly tested.  Cloud said they didn't 'untranslated the expletive untranslated', but DASI says that's just colloquial Floater for 'why the frick did it have to do that now?'  He's good at swearing.  Where was I?"       "Things were breaking."       "Oh, yeah.  About five hours in Three had to switch to using both generators, with the Floater unit as the primary, to keep the tension low enough so I could still guide things.  And in hour six, we had a desync and suddenly I had to pull one whole side of the portal.  It was like trying to turn an angry rhinoceros with rubber bands.  Three got everything back under control and resynced in under a second but I was kind of a wreck after that.  I wanted to go the full eight hours but Three said something was hitting yellow in hour seven so we had to shut everything down, and when we were finally done I asked her what hit yellow and she said it was me."       Journeyman looked over at her with a slightly desperate expression.  "I'm sorry.  Did what I could."       "Mike...  You did everything anyone could ask, and more."  Flicker sped up to check in with DASI and Three on her visor, then slowed back down again.  "Three says she's going to swap in the backup portal ship for tomorrow; the maintenance levels are better because they had more time.  And a team of six engineers from the Xelian Volunteers are helping her troubleshoot all the problems--we were doing so many new things at once there were bound to be glitches.  And there's even--okay I'll stop now because your eyes are starting to glaze over."       "Yeah, my brain isn't braining very well.  I keep worrying about some of what Doc said.  About running if the Visitors show up before we're ready.  I don't know if I can do that.  I could see it as a way of baiting them away?  Maybe?  But we'd have to circle back, somehow.  I can't just abandon everyone here--I mean there are so many people I care about on Earth, our Earth, not some hypothetical... Gah."       He rubbed his forehead.  "And tomorrow.  I don't know if we'll be able to reopen the portal.  I don't know if I'll even be able to find the right place to try.  If we can't find the space again we might have to start over from scratch."       "Well," said Flicker.  "If we have to start over, we start over.  Europa has plenty of ice.  And it wouldn't be from scratch, because we have a lot more data now, and everyone is analyzing like mad.  Everyone else--don't worry about it, we're clear to rest."       "Don't worry.  Heh."  He leaned back until he was lying sideways on the bed with his feet still on the floor, then looked up at her.       Flicker put her hand on his chest and met his eyes.  "Mike, you've helped me so many times.  Let's worry about tomorrow... tomorrow.  Not tonight.  Okay?"       Journeyman blinked, but didn't look away.  Then he smiled.  It was a faint smile, but real.  "Okay," he said.

Next:

[massive-mythopoetic-mashup]

An update and a dilemma regarding the great work:

So it’s been two months since I did any RWBY writing of note. This is mostly due to a great deal of difficulty in my personal life, but I’ve kept that out of this blog because I really want people to know what they’re getting when they follow this: allusions and references in RWBY. Also, with the way my life is, if I did talk about it here it would completely overwhelm everything else with nonstop sob stories. So I think that’s going to stay that way.

That said, my journey to understanding RWBY has been intensely personal and an emotional marathon, and that aspect of my life I do want to be able to share here at times- I just want to be able to contextualize it postively and keep it related to RWBY. So, there will be some mentions of my personal life, but it’s going to be very limited in scope, and I will continue to strive to present objective analysis of RWBY and clearly distinguish between what I believe are trustworthy facts and my own personal opinion. For those times when I get too excited and over gush, I apologize.

Getting back to the point: not writing about RWBY for so long has been distressing. First of all, it calls into doubt my ability to complete a full description of the G.U.N. theory. But secondly, I’m starting to think that it’s just bad for my mental health. I have a problem with polarity: I tend to take in massive amounts of information, but express only a tiny fraction of that. RWBY is not just not an exception to this but an extreme example of it; in doing research I have read and watched and listened to many, many things, and all of that is banging around in my head wanting to get out. Keeping it inside for so long causes it to fester and rot, like a dream deferred. I’ve been thinking of writing about RWBY as something I can get back to when things are better, but now I’m starting to think that writing about RWBY is more a step on the journey to make things better. So I’m going to be making an effort to get back into things, and produce a steady if possibly slow stream of writing. Keep in mind that ‘writing’ does not necessarily mean ‘posting’.

This raises an ongoing problem I have yet to resolve. I really, really need feedback on what I’m writing for motivation. But I’ve come to believe that the G.U.N. theory must be presented formally, in large interconnected chunks, in order to be both comprehensible and compelling. Ideally, I’ve wanted to have the entire absurdly massive theory written out before beginning to post it, because I’ve consistently underestimated the amount of time necessary to write about each piece I’ve tackled, and this has lead to several false starts on what I have expected to be a series of posts close together on related material as I got bogged down in the middle. I really, really don’t want this to keep happening, as I find it extremely discouraging to miss my own self-imposed deadlines, and I think spacing out posts irregularly causes readers to lose the thread connecting them. But it’s also clear that it’s completely unrealistic for me to expect to be able to maintain motivation to write so much material in a vacuum before sharing it with the fandom.

I’ve found one partial solution to a part of this problem: I’ve begun focusing on outlining the description of the theory as a whole rather than letting myself tackle sections completely independently. The individual pieces of writing I’ve produced so far, while acceptable on their own, have ended up disjointed and lacking a clear connection as a whole, and it makes understanding the G.U.N. theory very difficult and dependent on someone having the determination to dig up and then muddle through a large disorganized heap of posts that aren’t even collected together on a single internet service. However, I think that by first constructing a detailed roadmap for the entire theory description, and then constantly keeping that outline in mind, it should be possible to work on pieces covering individual subtopics within the theory while still being able to maintain a clear relation between them and the rest of the theory and developing a single through-line for the entire document that will make it pleasant to read and accessible to the general fandom.

This comes, finally, to my dilemma. This is premature, but I feel that emotionally I need to resolve it now in order to be able to work without distraction: the scheduling of posts. Setting a regular schedule or any kind of firm deadlines has proven to be inadvisable, so this essentially comes down to, “How big a chunk of this should I aim to have before posting it?” One thing that I lament is my hesitance to do informal research and discussion over Tumblr, as I think many people would enjoy it and find it enlightening, but I fear small fragments would just confuse and even possibly upset people out of context, and I have a great deal of anxiety over some rough incomplete description of some of the theory’s more impactful elements becoming widely propagated prematurely. These fears have kept this blog much quieter than it could be, and made me appear deceptively inactive at times. My thoughts on individually posting even thoroughly planned out and proofread pieces of the full description of the theory are similar, but I’m aware I have a tendency to be irrationally worried about these things. So, finally, I’d like to ask a question of those of you who have been following me for some time, and have been already exposed to major portions of the theory:

Do you feel that breaking up the theory into posts spaced out potentially multiple weeks apart, with each post focusing on a single major alluded to work, will negatively impact the theory’s presentation? Keep in mind that this means I would very likely have to separately address Dorothy Gale, Achilles, Cinderella, Darth Vader, and St. Catherine each in their own post, in that sequence, with the main wham coming in the Cinderella post. (The Jinni of the Lamp would likely be tucked into the Darth Vader post.) Would it muffle the impact of the theory for people to have to wait between these sections? Would readers encountering part of the theory be willing to follow links at the head of each post directing them back to the beginning of the series and then work their way back through the posts in the recommended reading order? This issue is very important to me, and it would mean a lot to me if those of you familiar with the G.U.N. theory could weigh in with your opinions based on your own experiences with it. Also, if you’ve actually read all of this, then thank you so much for your time and for having the patience to slog through my complaining.

[trippydooda]

i’m aliiiiiiive.

sorry for lack of updates i have no excuse except for the fact that i probably have 5 or 6 WIP BTS related fics rn pls help

anyway, thanks for sticking by and reading, it makes my kokoro go boom boom.

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook/Park Jimin

Rating: from now on i’m just going to tag M, though there’s isn’t much explicit stuff in this part

Word Count: 3,874

as a side note: i’m going to try and stay to a weekly update schedule, probably every Thurs? i don’t even know how long this will be someone save me from myself

okayenoughhereisthedamnfic

iliedhereisthefirstpartshhhttp://trippydooda.tumblr.com/post/180504348312/another-blurb-because-i-have-no-self-control-fun

“Took you long enough,” Namjoon says once Jungkook and Jimin exit the club.

Cool air falls over Jungkook and makes him shiver. If Namjoon looked at Jimin’s neck he certainly didn’t say anything about the obvious hickeys, so Jungkook just straightens his back and pretends that is definitely the case.

Taehyung, who is leaning on Jin for support, giggles. “Have you gone off kissing other men?” He grins but Jungkook doesn’t return it. Instead, he stupidly stays silent, and Taehyung pouts. “That’s so rude,” he continues, “I thought what we shared was special.”

Jin looks down at his friend with furrowed brows. “What?” He starts to ask, but Jungkook just clears his throat.

“He’s drunk, he’s just talking about—” But Jungkook doesn’t finish.

Beside him, Jimin collapses to the ground, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. Thankfully Jungkook catches him just before his skull gets too familiar with the pavement, but he’s dead weight in Jungkook’s grip. His chest is rising and falling irregularly, as if it’s a struggle to breathe. Jungkook recognises the clammy sweat that’s building on Jimin’s skin, and panic is settling in the back of his throat.

“Sheesh, and I thought Taehyung drank too much,” Jin laughs, blissfully unaware of what was really happening to Jimin.

“He needs water,” Taehyung slurs, ignoring Jin’s comment, and Jungkook has to physically hold back telling him he has no idea.

In the end, Yoongi is the one who discreetly helps Jungkook. He sobered up quickly (unlike Hoseok) and could see in Jungkook’s eyes that something siren-y was happening to Jimin. They took a separate cab home, and Yoongi presses a napkin with cool water soaked up on Jimin’s forehead. He sputters out a breath, but doesn’t regain full consciousness yet. Jungkook swallows hard.

“What’s happening?” Yoongi whispers so the cabbie can’t hear them.

Jungkook shakes his head. “I mean, it’s possible because he hasn’t had alcohol in years, but something tells me there’s more.”

Lips pressed into a thing line Yoongi asks, “What do you mean?”

“This happens sometimes, where Jimin gets his tail back without warning,” Jungkook explains, “It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does he looks like… This. Like he’s a fish out of water.”

Yoongi chuckles, wiping at Jimin’s brow. “I mean, isn’t that the case?” Jungkook doesn’t answer.

Despite Jungkook insisting that he could take care of Jimin fine on his own, Yoongi had stubbornly stayed at his side. He had kept a watch on Jimin as Jungkook started the water for the tub, and while it was filling he saunters back into the living room where Jimin is laid on the couch. His breathing has become slightly more even since Yoongi had given him a sip of water, but Jimin still didn’t stir beyond shuddering breaths and tiny gasps. When the tub is sufficiently full, Jungkook cradles Jimin princess style to the bathroom. 

He stops just before putting Jimin in when he realises he’s still fully dressed. The jeans he’s wearing are too nice to let a tail rip through them, so Jungkook sets Jimin softly on the toilet, confidently meaning to take Jimin’s jeans off. Only he wasn’t confident, and kneels down, staring at Jimin’s abdomen with bated breath. Sure, he had almost fucked the man in a club of all places, but he was overrun with whatever “spell” he was under, and now he was just sitting in front of an unconscious Jimin, completely vulnerable. What would he think if he woke up to Jungkook pulling down his pants? He shudders at the thought.

“You know, leaving him slumped on the shitter isn’t going to do him any favours.” Jungkook whips his head so hard it cracks slightly, and sees Yoongi standing in the doorway, arms crossed. He gives a curt nod towards Jimin. “Go ahead and toss him in, yeah?” Yoongi actually sounds concerned, and it’s a bit endearing.

What wasn’t endearing, though, was the prospect of peeling off clothes from an unconscious man. “It’s uh, it’s his jeans,” Jungkook mumbles.

Yoongi squints his eyes. “So?”

“So,” Jungkook swallows, “He really likes these ones, I don’t want them to get ruined by his uh… Tail.”

When Yoongi laughs, Jungkook tries not to be offended. “Alright? So take them off, then.” A flush no doubt creeps up Jungkook’s neck, one obvious enough that Yoongi sees it because he’s sighing and walking towards Jimin saying, “Move aside lover boy, I’ll do it.” 

For some reason the thought of someone else touching Jimin gives way to anger building in his throat. He bites down lightly on his lower lip and tries his best to quell the shakes he’s getting from it. He knows he’s being ridiculous, especially when Yoongi nudges him with his foot, probably saying something vaguely threatening and offensive, but Jungkook can’t hear it behind the thundering in his head. “Right, okay,” he forces himself to say, forces himself to stand, letting Yoongi lean over Jimin as he goes to fiddle with Jimin’s pant line. Jungkook tries his best to keep his breathing even, but it probably isn’t working as well as he hopes.

Yoongi talks while he works, “I really hope this is just because the idiot drank too much.” He makes a clicking noise with his tongue when he finally gets the jeans unbuttoned and fly undone. “I’ve been trying to look up information on this whole shit, but everything seems like conspiracy nonsense.” He grunts as he lifts Jimin’s hips so he can pull the jeans down the rest of the way. Jungkook’s breath hitches and he curls his hands into tight fists. Yoongi continues, blissfully unaware of the inner turmoil Jungkook is drowning in. “I did find some shop though, just a little bit outside the city.”

This piques Jungkook’s interest, and serves as a distraction. “O-Oh?” He asks, cursing his quivering voice.

Yoongi just nods, sliding Jimin’s jeans down so they’re at his ankles. He delicately starts to slip Jimin’s feet out, one by one. “Yeah, some shop that’s been around for a Jesus. Like, it was passed between generations or some shit I dunno, could be a fib.” When he finally gets Jimin’s jeans all the way off Jungkook is about to pass out from the strange anger (jealousy?) he’s been harbouring. “It was the only thing that looked even slightly credible, as pathetic as that sounds. They didn’t spout shit like sirens had three tongues and eleven fingers, though, so I thought that was probably our best bet right now.” He nods again towards Jimin, “He hasn’t told you much, right?”

“No,” Jungkooks replies, voice slightly more stable. “He doesn’t tell me anything really.”

“Hmm,” Yoongi hums, “Strange.” He folds Jimin’s jeans and starts to walk out of the bathroom, squeezing Jungkook’s shoulder saying, “All yours, lover boy.” Jungkook ignores the slight sexual innuendo laced in Yoongi’s words.

After he places Jimin delicately in the water, he just stares again. He takes in Jimin’s astounding beauty, his soft features and pink hair falling peacefully over his eyes. That jeweled and shining earring still hangs from his right ear, and Jungkook absently wonders why he never takes the thing off. Jungkook takes a seat on the toilet, rests his elbows on either knee and breathes in sharply. Yoongi’s silent proposition rang in his head, the feeling that he could get some answers finally. It was almost like going behind Jimin’s back, but Jungkook feels like he has the right to know. Perhaps there are things Jimin doesn’t know either, he thinks. Maybe this could satisfy them both.

A groan brings Jungkook back, hid whipping up from where he was staring at his lap. Jimin’s nose is crinkling and there’s movement behind his closed eyes, but he still doesn’t open them. He shifts uncomfortably in the tub, and when Jungkook looks down his tail has in fact returned. When he trails his gaze back to Jimin’s face, he looks almost peaceful. Content. Jungkook is about to leave him there when he sees his eyes open slowly.

“Jungkook?” He whispers, voice low from what was no doubt exhaustion. He scoots himself up so he’s sitting more properly, and as he runs his hand through his hair he looks around blankly. “Where…?”

“You collapsed in front of the club,” Jungkook says, voice not as even as he would have preferred. “Yoongi and I brought you here,” he adds quickly, which warrants a sharp intake of breath from Jimin.

“I see,” he says quietly, looking down at himself. His tail swishes in the water, overflowing the tub just a little, and when Jimin frowns Jungkook doesn’t think it was because he was drowning his bathroom again. 

“Was it because you drank too much?” Jungkook offers when he realises Jimin is glaring almost resentfully at his tail.

Jimin shrugs. “I don’t know,” he replies, but it sounds fake. When he glances over at Jungkook and their eyes meet, the latter notices how exhausted he really looks. It causes Jungook to worry on his bottom lip.

“Do you, er, want your legs back?” Jungkook asks, unsure why he’s so hesitant.

Jimin says nothing, but rather hums. “When was the last time you went swimming?” He asks instead, and the question takes Jungkook a bit off guard.

“Wh-What?” He replies, having started to stand in anticipation of Jimin wholeheartedly begging for his elusive limbs back.

“Swimming?” Jimin repeats, cocking his head to the side as he says so. 

For some reason, Jungkook is struck dead at the question. He opens his mouth a few times just to close it before finally deciding to say, “Does when I dove after you count?”

The small smile that graces Jimin’s lips makes Jungkook’s heart ache. “I suppose it could,” he muses, then eyebrows shoot up in awe of something he’s just remembered. “What happened when you did?”

Ignoring the fact that this was something Jimin should have probably asked the night it all happened Jungkook says, “I nearly drowned.”

Jimin grips the side of the tub with both of his small hands, turning his body to better face Jungkook. He leans over with what seems like curious anticipation. It must be what the gesture was conveying because he hardly says, “Yes, yes, but before that.”

So Jungkook thinks. He takes an awkward seat back on the toilet and rubs what he now realises are sweaty palms atop his jeans. He shrugs. “I held my breath for a long while, longer than I thought I could,” he elaborates, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. He watches Jimin’s eyes dart all across the room, resting on one thing and then moving to the next, but never resting back on him. “Why, exactly?” He slowly asks, not sure if he even wants to know the answer.

“I just…” Jimin begins, but stares down at his hands. When Jungkook looks down at them he sees Jimin’s knuckles going white with the severity of his grip. And Jungkook wants to know, is really tired of being in the dark, but he doesn’t like to see Jimin like this, so he surges forward, taking Jimin’s hands into his own.

“Hey,” he says softly, free one hand so he can tilt Jimin’s chin up. His expression is unreadable like it’s been many times before, but he just ignores it and just brings their faces closer together so his forehead rests on Jimin’s. “We’ll worry about it later,” he continues, “For now I’ll do what I know I can do.”

Jungkook presses his lips softly against Jimin’s, and finds himself sighing contently into the kiss. Despite the fact that he’s done this many times before, despite that he was grinding on Jimin not even four hours ago, this kiss feels different. Perhaps it’s because Jungkook is sobering up rather nicely (he had chugged about three bottles of water worth so he could watch Jimin more closely), or maybe he’s letting himself feel the things he keeps trying to push away. 

Jimin grips Jungkook’s hands tighter, tilts his head so he’s at a better angle, and kisses back. He presses himself farther up into Jungkook, parting his lips as an invention for Jungkook to deepen the kiss, but he doesn’t. He swipes his tongue along Jimin’s bottom lip and gingerly takes it in his teeth, but it’s only a soft bite before he releases it, more wanting to feel Jimin’s warmth against him rather than anything else. Jimin whimpers underneath him, squirming slightly in his grip, like he too is feeling something other than the friction they’ve been sharing. The moment Jungkook thinks of this, his eyes flash open in midst of the kiss, sees how Jimin’s eyebrows are laced in a purely blissful expression, and pulls back. 

It’s rather sudden, he realises, but the thought that something was blossoming between them terrifies Jungkook, and he’s not even sure why. “You… You got your legs back,” he says quickly, not even sure if he’s right. A quick glance into the tub tells him he is, and he sighs inwardly of relief. He doesn’t know how else he could have explained himself snapping away from Jimin’s face like it was on fire.

Jimin blinks at him, but before he can say anything Jungkook hears a soft chuckle behind him. He already knows who it is, but the look on Jimin’s face is just the cementing the fact. His eyes have blown wide and a new flush attacks his cheeks, and Jungkook would laugh right back if he didn’t feel the betraying colour reach his cheeks as well.

“I always wondered how that whole dynamic worked,” Yoongi says from behind Jungkook. Jimin has looked down at his hands still gripping the side of the tub. For all his prowess and claims of badassery, it was amusing to see him so flustered. “Can anyone do it, or does it have to be Jungkook?” Yoongi asks and the question boils Jungkook’s blood like before.

He stays watching Jimin instead, who shakes his head from where he’s staring down at his small hands. “It can only be Jungkook,” he says softly. Jungkook’s heart flutters at the knowledge, however, and he hates himself for it.

Yoongi makes a humming noise that was no doubt trying to be condescending. “Well damn,” he says and Jungkook finally turns. Yoongi looks absolutely exhausted beyond words, and Jungkook feels only a little bad that he keeps getting mad at him. For stupid reasons too, ones he doesn’t even fully understand. “Listen, I’m going to go, I’ll text you tomorrow,” he says and adds, “I’m fucking exhausted.”

Jungkook nods but doesn’t say much, telling Jimin under his breath that he’s going to see Yoongi out. When the two of them get to the door of Jungkook’s apartment, he worries on his lower lip before saying, “Are we bringing Jimin with us tomorrow?”

Yoongi breathes out, the sound of air whistling past his teeth. He bops his head back and forth as if he’s lost in thought, and maybe he is, before he just shrugs. “I mean don’t you collapse without him around?”

For some reason that comment makes Jungkook flush ever so slightly. He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Yeah, I suppose...”

“It’ll be fine,” Yoongi assures him, slapping an affectionate hand on his shoulder. He tries his best to genuinely smile but Jungkook doesn’t think it really reaches that. “Jimin probably has some questions himself.”

At that Jungkook nods in agreement, forgoing telling Yoongi that the night he found out about Jimin he was doing just that, only asking some entity Jungkook has no idea what it could be. “Yeah,” he says quietly instead, and gives Yoongi a quick hug goodbye.

When the door shuts he finally feels like he can breathe a little easier, and rubs a tired hand down his face. He doesn’t even know what time it is, but it feels late. Like, really late. Like maybe it’s even already five in the morning. He chances a quick glance at his clock as he walks back towards the bathroom and it reads three a.m. Not as bad as Jungkook thought, but still probably not that great. He approaches the bathroom and upon seeing it empty, figures Jimin probably went to go get dressed. When he walks in his room, he sees just that—a Jimin sitting cross legged on his bed and staring intently at the drawstring on his sweatpants.

“Those are huge on you,” Jungkook finds himself saying, laughing under his breath at how tight Jimin has the drawstring pulled.

Jimin looks up and smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Not my fault you’re a giant,” he counters and smirks. It fades quickly thought as Jimin struggles to say, “Can I… Sleep with you tonight?”

Because Jungkook has the mind of a fifteen year old his first thought is Jimin wants to have sex with him. And in all honesty, of course Jungkook would. He would fuck Jimin until he couldn’t speak, voice too hoarse from moaning in both pain and pleasure. He would bite at his neck, mark him as his, and my goodness how pretty Jimin would look under him. Not realising he started to breathe a little heavily and stare at the floor, he jolts his head back up to meet Jimin’s gaze, of which is one of confusion and what looks like regret. The regret is probably from asking Jungkook if he could sleep with him, which he now belatedly realises probably means actual sleep. Jungkook swallows.

“Sure,” he manages to say. He doesn’t bother to ask Jimin why, just quietly goes to remove his clothes. He makes a point to face away from Jimin as he does so, despite the fact that the guy has literally sucked his dick. He shivers at the thought and tries to tell himself it’s because he’s removed his shirt, but he knows he’s lying to himself. He wonders when he’ll stop with that.

After Jungkook crawls into bed, Jimin literally dashes at him, immediately pressing himself against Jungkook’s side and nuzzling his face into the crook of Jungkook’s neck. He’s not sure why he’s surprised at the action, but carefully pulls the blanket to cover them nonetheless, pressing a wordless kiss to the crown of Jimin’s head. Jimin trembles on top of him, so Jungkook holds him close, humming under his breath until the steady rhythm of Jimin’s breathing tells him he’s asleep. Jungkook is quick to follow.

It’s been a while since Jungkook has dreamed. Of course people tell you that you dream every night regardless of whether or not you remember it, so maybe it’s just been a while since Jungkook has remembered. He finds himself floating in what just seems like the air or maybe the clouds, staring at a scenery of white threatening to consume him. He feels cold, and when he looks down he’s not wearing a shred of clothing. He yelps, but it doesn’t come out quite right, like he’s underwater. 

He turns his head wildly, trying to figure out where he is but there’s nothing to tell him. He starts to feel panic boil up his throat but he tries to suppress it as best he can. He wiggles his legs to get a feel of what sort of suspension he’s trapped in, and finds they move easily. So there’s no resistance, Jungkook thinks, and tries to wiggle his fingers just to be sure. They are the same, and it just further deepens his confusion.

“How long do you think you can hold out?” A voice asks, but Jungkook can’t see where it’s coming from, nor can he ascertain who it is. “It’s pointless, you know, to resist it,” it booms, and it sounds angry this time. Jungkook is finding it harder to dampen his panic. 

He swirls himself around, now feeling like he’s treading water, and sees a shadowy figure far ahead of him. He’s not sure how far, but he’s content to keep the distance as best he can. He breathes in sharply, trying to make a shape out of the dark abyss. 

“Do you still not get it?” The voice coos, and it gives Jungkook goosebumps. “Oh,” the voice says, drawing out the sound, “He hasn’t told you.” The figure slowly approaches Jungkook, of which he can’t seem to move away from. It’s like he’s trapped in a cage, and when he tries to speak nothing comes out but choked bubbles. He doesn’t understand; he’s scared.

“Perhaps I should show you,” the voice says, becoming louder. The shroud covering it fades, and Jungkook sees what he thinks is a siren, but it’s not right. There’s what looks like a distinctive shark tail instead of the beautifully scaled one that Jimin has, and it’s covered in scars. When Jungkook looks up he sees the person—thing—has hollow eyes, devoid of any colour and any discernible pupils. Scars cover their face as well, and as Jungkook’s gaze trails down their torso, he breathes in sharply. The figure is wearing a shawl that covers most of them, but Jungkook can clearly see deep gashes and what might be burns on the exposed part of their arms. When he looks back at their face, they’re grinning widely and it shows off razor sharp teeth.

“How sad,” the thing taunts, “The poor lamb doesn’t even know.” It nods to Jungkook, the grin not fading even slightly. “Well go on then, look down and see for yourself.”

Jungkook doesn’t want to. He really, really doesn’t, but there’s a betraying part of him that looks down. He looks down and feels like his pulse might shoot right out of him: he has a tail. It’s a tail just like Jimin’s, and it’s on him. He has a tail. Belatedly he thinks, he’s a siren. The realisation chokes him and he frantically claws at his tail as if it will make it go away; it only serves to cut his hand slightly.

The shark-siren hybrid thing (that’s starting to get on Jungkook’s nerves) laughs at him, and it rings off his eardrums. Makes his blood turn cold. “At least you finally see now,” it says, and when Jungkook slowly lifts his head it isn’t smiling so much anymore, but something coy still tugs at the edge of their lips. “Congratulations, you’re a siren now.” It reaches out a hand and rubs a thumb across Jungkook’s lower lip as it says low and ferocious, “Forever.”

Jungkook wakes up with a shriek and a cold sweat.

Beside him Jimin stirs slightly, crinkling his nose, but doesn’t wake. Jungkook looks down at him sharply as he tries to remember how to breathe, tries to remember anything and everything Jimin has told him about this siren business up until now. He remembers him saying this spell was more a virus, and Jungkook’s immune system was failing. In his head he’s trying to desperately recall anything Jimin has hinted at, but nothing makes a connection to his dream. 

But that’s all it was, right? Just a dream. Jungkook lays back down, feels his breathing evening out more, and stays wide awake until he hears birds chirping on the horizon. 

[docfuture]

Seeing Blue

     [This story occurs between Chapter 36 and 38 of The Maker’s Ark.  The latest chapter of The Maker’s Ark is here, and links to some of my other work are here.  Updates are posted irregularly–theoretically every two weeks, a schedule I still aspire to return to someday.]

      Flicker was seeing blue.       It brought back memories.  Strobe-like images, vivid and unwanted.       Now she was back on the Bonneville Salt Flats, killing the Xelian fleet.       The Xelians themselves hadn't mattered--the battlecomp-directed ships were the foes.  They were the only entities fast enough to harm her.  And they had.  A chunk of Flicker's leg was gone from a hit by a petawatt laser.       But she could hit them too, and did.  Again and again, with ion pulses that started as rocks and iron shot.  She aimed with the help of her visor--green crosshairs pulsing through the blue haze in her eyes.  Then threw rocks up through shockwave-cleared holes in the air.  Enough hits in the right pattern could bring down those damned shields and they'd die.  She'd learned their secret.  How they stopped so many 0.15c rocks without vaporizing the ships inside.       They stretched into little pockets around each hit, reflecting almost everything long enough for the temperature to spike above 100 billion kelvins.  Most of each rock's energy was dissipated by photodisintegration, exotic particles, and a sudden flood of neutrinos--which then escaped in all directions, unperturbed by intervening force fields and mass.  As they did from the cores of supernovae.       Which was why she needed to throw five million rocks instead of five thousand.  She had always been throwing, always would throw.  It was hard to remember anything else.  Knowing about the neutrinos brought cold comfort, a comfort of relative cold--the part of Earth in line of sight to the fleet was just getting lightly cooked under a dull red sky rather than burnt to a crisp by a fire a hundred times more intense than the sun.       The Xelian fleet had gotten the Volunteer and Doc and Stella, but they hadn't stopped Flicker.  Now they were finally almost all gone, only a dozen ships left, and they were dying and dying--       "Flicker?  You there?"       Flicker blinked and returned to the present.  "Yeah," she said.       She'd awoken from her early-morning nightmare with a real need to talk to a friend, and limited options.  They were at an old safe spot, an overgrown set of tailings piles from a now-closed mine.  Flicker had dressed 'mild hazard casual'; a second-line visor, shorts and a black t-shirt with a radiation trefoil, all of which were slightly radioactive from previous use.  The Skystone necklace was a new addition.       "Flashback?" asked Armadillo.       "Yeah," said Flicker.  "But to the fleet battle, not the accident."       Armadillo nodded and put her radiation detector back in its protective case with careful and precise movements.  She looked like a bipedal snapping turtle with banded armor instead of a shell--an eight-foot-tall, four-foot-wide kaiju.  She took her name from her favorite tactic of curling up in midair before smashing into foes and obstacles like an organic cannonball.  Many assumed from her appearance that she had to be clumsy or slow-witted.  She was neither.  Her funny and informative anecdotes had helped Flicker learn the fine art of leaving things unbroken in a too-fragile world.       "Well, I can't tell what's going on inside, but what's getting out isn't too bad for a nearby human.  Sit close to someone for an hour, you'll give 'em half a millisievert at most."       "Thanks," said Flicker.  "I'm still pretty fuzzy.  I wanted a double check by someone I knew was radiation resistant.  It would probably be worse, but the Skystone seems to be stopping a lot.  It affects radiation going out as well as in, but I'm not sure how much.  Golden Valkyrie didn't tell me, Doc didn't know, and I haven't had a chance to characterize it very well yet."       Armadillo grinned.  "Glad to help.  The radiation profile was pretty strange, though.  How did you manage to get so much potassium-40 and carbon-14?  Normal levels of carbon-14 would barely be detectable.  Carbon dating would probably show you as negative a hundred thousand years old or something."       "Priorities," said Flicker.  "Both of those are naturally occuring and regular metabolism can cycle them, so I didn't make any special effort yesterday.  And I had lots of both left over from the fleet battle.  I pretty much hosed carbon dating then anyway--that put more carbon-14 into the air than every atomic test.  The potassium is hard for me to burn because the half-life is more than a billion years--I can drop everything by a factor of ten billion and still hardly touch it in a day.  But it's more a chemical imbalance threat to me than anything else, for the same reason."       "Does your 'burning' work the same way as Doc's isotope burner?"       "Not really.  It's magic for physicists--it makes decay more probable, dropping the half-life of most isotopes by about the same factor.  I just have to be careful to repair the damage as it comes and not fry anyone nearby.  I don't have to use the pool by the Tree, but it makes things easier."       "Handy.  Well, you might set off some alarms, but you don't have to completely avoid your friends."       Flicker pressed her lips together and didn't say anything.       "Hey, now.  Journeyman is alive and recovering.  I checked with DASI right after I got off the phone with you.  He'll be okay."       "I'm not," said Flicker.  "I'm still messed up pretty bad.  I just had to stop fixing things to sleep--and the nightmares interrupted that."       "Messed up physically or mentally?"       "Both.  My hand isn't even close to better, and I'm seeing blue."       "Seeing blue?"       "It's this... pain of a radiation biology thing."  Flicker frowned.  "How to explain..."       Armadillo snorted and grinned again.  "Flicker, I was coping with messy radiation biology before your father was born.  Try me."       "Yeah, sorry.  It's a faint haze of Cherenkov radiation in my eyes.  The problem is, it doesn't stop when I close them and darkness makes it worse, because it's coming from inside the eyeballs.  This bout is from the radioisotopes that I haven't been able to burn yet, because I didn't have a breathing mask with me at the pool, so I couldn't do much above my neck without irradiating Yiskah--and she wouldn't leave.  It's hard to ignore when I try to sleep because my eyes adjust.  And it's triggering PTSD flashbacks from the fleet battle."       "Hoo boy," said Armadillo.  "I've seen that.  The Volunteer has, too.  Seeing blue is a nice name for it, will it bother you if I use it?"       "No.  A cool name is something positive.  Not..."       Flicker trailed off and looked down.       "Flicker?" asked Armadillo after a time.  "Where are you at?  You want me to call anyone else?"       "I..."  Flicker looked up again.  "I'm not currently a hazard to myself or others.  And I'm not about to run away to a dark cave again.  But I'm right on the edge of not being able to talk coherently.  About not-physics, I mean.  I can talk about physics in my sleep."       "I'm not okay."  She waved her hand.  "But I'm never okay.  Not human okay.  I never have been.  I probably never will be.  All I can hope for is to be ready for the next thing, and to be able to pretend I'm okay for little bits at a time, while staying aware enough people are still safe.  Donner calls it being 'human compatible'."       "That's one way to put it," said Armadillo.  "What can I do to help?"       Flicker stared at a fringe of reeds growing partway up one of the piles.  A red-winged blackbird perched on one, proclaiming his territory to the spring sky.       "Right now I'm not ready for the next thing," she said, "which should probably be finishing off my excess radioactivity.  And it's hard to be compatible when you're radioactive.  So I'm not even going to try to pretend.  But being outside helps.  Sound helps, if I can hold still.  The voice of a friend."       She looked over at Armadillo bleakly.  "Tell me stories?  Dark humor, maybe?  The kind health physicists tell when they're drunk?  You must know some good ones."       "A few," said Armadillo.  "But I have another idea.  When Golden Valkyrie left, she didn't give you any guarantee she'd be back, right?"       "No.  She didn't."       "Okay.  Ignore for a minute the bit where she might not come back because the world has ended.  Are you bothered personally?"       "No sh--" said Flicker.  She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.  The ghostly blue flickering was still there.  "Sorry.  Yeah, it bugs me."       "Then there are a few stories I can share with you.  I worked with your mother a lot, and we got along pretty well.  I picked up some things I don't think she told anyone else on Earth, not even Doc.  Some of it is dark humor, but it's family dark humor.  Interested?"       "Um... Yeah."       "Then let's move over to the east side of the pile, where I'm parked."  Armadillo grinned.  "I brought chairs and drinks.  And I don't think you've seen my new ride yet."       *****       Flicker had to smile when she saw the vehicle.  "It's painted to look like you!" she said.  "Was it a Xelian military transport?"       "Yeah," said Armadillo.  "They used it for field redeployment of suited infantry and artillery.  Extravagant, but it can carry things--like me--on the outside and drop them without stopping.  That's what the gripper assembly is for.  Stella gave it to me, and DASI supervises the autopilot.  Gives me a lot more range when I'm on my own.  Which is a lot lately, with both the Volunteer and Golden Valkyrie gone."       "Did you paint it?"       "Nah, that was a couple of the Builders that are working at Jetgirl's shop. The first two are training some others, and they're as happy as hot rodders getting to work on a real sweet car.  One of them was good at heraldry, so she designed the paint job.  I talked to her a bit, she's a fine craftswoman."       "Heraldry?  You mean like costumes?"       Another grin.  "Think of it as visual IFF.  You could tell the flyer was mine just by looking at it.  Very handy--if I come tearing in for a fast drop, I want people thinking 'Here comes Armadillo!'  Not 'Ahhh!  Alien invasion!'"       "Oh.  Yeah."       Soon they were both seated comfortably, Armadillo in her custom portable chair--most human furniture was not designed to cope with someone who weighed a metric ton.       "Now I can give you an apology I've wanted to for a while," she said.  "I was pretty damn sure who your parents were for a long time before you found out."       "Golden Valkyrie told you?"       "Not directly.  But it was clear from the way she talked around some things--and she once asked me not to speculate 'before the time is ripe'.  I knew what that meant."       Flicker thought about that for bit.  "Was that like how pre-Lost Years superheroes handled family stuff back when secret identities still sort-of worked?"       "Yeah.  Most of the smart ones, anyway."       "Then you don't have to apologize.  She invoked a protocol and you respected it.  And she'd have known you would or she wouldn't have told you--she's a Seer and Chooser."       "I could tell how much not knowing bothered you, though.  So I'm sorry."       "Fair," said Flicker.  "Accepted."       "Okay.  Let's see," said Armadillo.  "You always like people to start at the beginning.  Did the Volunteer ever tell you much about superhero projection?"       "A little.  I'm not very good at it.  Most kinds require holding still for longer than I want to.  It's interesting to watch though--Nighthaunt is really good at it."       "He is.  There are some quieter forms of it that I found particularly handy.  Learned them from the Volunteer back in... Gosh, must have been the fifties?  The simplest one is 'On Duty'.  Makes any nearby trouble more likely to head for you than anywhere else.  Nobody really knows why it works, but it does."       "Yeah, I saw that in the Database statistics when I was first studying superhero crisis response data, and I always wondered.  Journeyman told me he thinks it's because there are all these little magicians casting NIMBY spells, and other people doing similar stuff, but everything has to happen somewhere, so how about over there where that superhero is standing?  It seems to be stronger in cities, because of the higher population density."       "Eh, I'm not sure it's stronger.  More trouble starts in cities, too.  And it's safer if you can manage it somewhere isolated.  Heck, I've done it here--that's why the top of that pile is missing."  Armadillo pointed at a truncated tailings cone to the south.  "Punched out a bunch of giant locusts there back in the eighties.  It does seem easier to pull off in cities, I'll give you that."       "Yeah, it's hard to untangle the biases."  Flicker yawned.  "Sorry, I'm still tired, I just can't sleep."       "No worries."  Armadillo grinned.  "And if you do nod off in a comfy chair during story time, well, that's one problem solved, isn't it?"       "True.  But I'd still like to hear about Golden Valkyrie."       "Right.  Anyway, about twenty years ago, I was out in the country, On Duty, when I saw this flying woman with a spear headed for me.  Things were a little unsettled.  This was the middle of the Lost Years, a lot of people had already died, and I was the only heavy-hitter free.  The Volunteer was off helping with a hurricane and Doc was out of touch.  So I was a bit wary.  But she wanted to talk, so I just waved, and she landed."       Armadillo smiled.  "Another thing I learned--when you're On Duty, you don't just attract stuff that wants to fight.  You can get visitors from who knows where that are lost or have questions.  That's how the Volunteer met Sealord.  And it was a good thing that the Volunteer is always ready to talk first, because Sealord was plenty mad, with reason.  So I had that on my mind, too.  Anyway, I asked her if she was lost, and she said 'not anymore'.  She looked a lot like one of your Choosers--she didn't have her armor yet--except kind of off."       "Off how?" asked Flicker.       "I knew she was some kind of shapeshifter or mimic, because there were parts of 'human' she could manage, and others that really needed work.  The way she talked...  Some of it was like she was reading a script, but the rest of the time she had to pause and hunt for words, like she was consulting an invisible phrasebook."       Flicker frowned.  "There was no reliable record of Golden Valkyrie in the main Database until fourteen years ago, except for the month after she first met Doc--and he hid that.  This would have been even earlier.  And I looked thoroughly."       "A lot less got recorded twenty years ago.  And her Sight could help her stay hidden in 'unreliable' reports if she wanted--and she did."       "But... Um.  Okay.  What did she want?"       "It took a bit for me to figure out, because she had language trouble with past, present and future.  Seer stuff, but it was hard to follow at first.  She finally got across one reason she was on Earth--something important was out of place.  I told her the person she probably needed to talk to was Doc Future, and started to explain who he was, and she cut me off and said he was the thing that was out of place.       "That worried me a bit.  Because Doc was gone, had been for a week, and no one knew where to.  His Database was just telling folks he was on an 'important mission'."       "Wait," said Flicker.  "Was this when he was helping Zirjack?  And she couldn't tell?"       "Yup, and apparently not.  She did wonder if he was off getting his 'chariot', which I found very interesting in hindsight after Doc came back with a flying car."       Armadillo grinned.  "Anyway, I couldn't help her with that, but I could help her with some other stuff, which sounded like just the sort of things someone smart but really alien would want to know about Earth before setting up a superhero secret identity.  I had it backwards, though; being a superhero was her secret identity, sort of.  We talked a lot after that and worked together, and it was obvious to me what was going on the month or so she was with Doc."       "Did she need help learning how to pass for a human?"       "Well, yes.  She needed help learning how to pass for a mammal."       "Oh."  Flicker managed a weak smile.  "Yeah.  Sealord had that problem, too, when he first started using his human form. And the Database had records of a few conversations she had with Sealord.  He seemed to get stuff about her that others didn't.  Which would fit with..."       She looked down.  "Okay, this is really personal.  But I'm afraid I might not get to talk to her again, and she warned me that I'll probably have a brother and a sister show up looking for me at some point, and I am so not ready to think about family that might expect me to answer questions like 'What are we?' when I don't know, and--"  She looked back up.  "Why are you smiling?"       "You don't have to make excuses.  This is family talk.  Of course it's personal."       "Point.  But she said she got advice from 'a human' and I think maybe the human was you."       "It was.  She mimicked the first human-looking person she ever saw, and apparently picked up some of her memories and skills, too.  But while she had many admirable qualities, the woman she mimicked didn't have children and didn't want them.  So--"       "Who did she mimic?"       Armadillo looked surprised.  "You haven't already figured that out?  It--"       Flicker sped up and used the virtual keyboard in her visor.  "DASI?" she sent.  "Spin up my adaptive local information model.  I'm trying to avoid a privacy block here."       "Activated," replied DASI.       "Assume Golden Valkyrie mimicked a Chooser and kept her appearance.  Rank order the candidates by probability."       "Osk, 97%.  Another Chooser who previously mimicked Osk, 2%.  Other possibilities negligible."       Flicker thought about how carefully Osk had chosen her words, when they had talked after her Japan trip.  She slowed back down, to the familiar feeling of social embarrassment.       "Osk?" she said.  "No wonder she was mad at Golden Valkyrie.  Yiskah and Sam both mentioned it.  But Osk wouldn't get upset without a good reason.  That's a good reason.  And I'm terrible at seeing family resemblances."       "No worries," said Armadillo.  "You missed out on a lot of childhood practice.  Anyway, Golden Valkyrie wanted advice on human motherhood.  Preferably from a superhero.  Her Sight could give her the general idea, but she still needed messy details.  Fortunately, her Sight could also find her someone to ask about them.  Like me."       Flicker sighed.  "Now I'm worried about your privacy, because you're marked as 'family off-limits' in the Database, and the old superhero privacy customs require making social inferences in ways I'm really bad at.  And when I asked Jetgirl if you have children, she told me you have grandchildren."       "Family is a flexible concept.  You didn't find any record of this until I decided it was time to tell you, right?  Jetgirl knew what she was doing.  We weren't sure who you'd find time to talk to first.  Worrying about family is reasonable, but you're a grown-up now."  Armadillo grinned again.  "You can worry along with the rest of us."       "Does she know one of your grandchildren?  Am I allowed to ask about that?"       "She's my great-granddaughter.  Her mother is my eldest granddaughter.  Which had a little bit to do with why Jetgirl was allowed to fly around in a jetpack doing superhero things at thirteen."       Flicker sped up to think about that.  She'd made so many assumptions, from limited data.  So many wrong assumptions.  She slowed back down, head still spinning.  "Oh," she said.       Armadillo looked at her sympathetically.  "We knew how family was a touchy subject for you.  Jetgirl told you I had grandchildren because she didn't want to go into details; all of my children are dead now--cancer, auto accident, and old age."       "Old age.  That's..."  Flicker trailed off.       "They call it 'death by natural causes' now, because coroners aren't supposed to call it 'old age' any more, but that's what it was.  He had a full life.  I don't make a point of my age, but my accident was in 1947--I know that's in the Database.  I wasn't going to have any more kids after that.  Not that I was likely to.  I was already in my thirties, and my husband died in World War II."  She smiled.  "Mutagor's serum worked on me, but it was a near thing, and I didn't have much to lose--I was dying of radiation poisoning.  It killed him when he tried it.  So even if the formula hadn't been lost, I wouldn't have wanted my children to try it.  I was very lucky."       Armadillo studied the blackbird, who was still chirping away.  "What happened to my youngest bothers me more.  He was so bright-eyed and enthusiastic back when he started, investigating crime and mischief of all sorts as a reporter.  And using his alarm watch to call the Volunteer for help when he got into more trouble than he could handle, which was all the damn time.  He got more cynical as he got older, but he never stopped digging into things to help people.  He was a reckless driver, though, and eventually that killed him."       She looked back and smiled.  "At least you got to meet him.  When Golden Valkyrie hinted to me that it was time for someone to be found, I knew who to call.  Didn't take him too long, and he knew to call the Volunteer and Doc when he found you."       Flicker felt her eyes filling with tears.  "Your son was Gumshoe?!"       "Determination runs in my family."  A gentler smile.  "My family of choice, too.  I could tell just how hard you worked to learn to talk understandably, when you were speeding up and slowing down all the time."       Flicker blinked a few times.  "Well, yeah.  I had no hope of making it out of the uncanny valley without that.  But I'm still not very...  Normal people don't have to avoid their friends because they're radioactive.  Again."       "Sometimes they do," said Armadillo.  "Like, say, if they're having internal radiation therapy for cancer.  And it was years after my accident before I could visit my kids.  The radioactivity at first, and then it was a long time before the doctors were confident enough I wouldn't be a biohazard to blood relatives.  This was still the fifties.  So they had to finish growing up without me."       She waved a hand.  "It hurt, on both sides, but what can you do?  It did prepare me for the Lost Years--and let me help your mother, who had the same problem.  And you."       "Oh," said Flicker, as she thought about the implications.  "Thank you.  But she's a lot farther from human than I think you realize.  She doesn't even live completely in three spatial dimensions.  And neither do I."       Flicker held up her injured hand, which looked healed, and wiggled the fingers, sending sensory tingles through unseen paths.  "My 'shell', Skybreaker, can't possibly connect to my human body in just the dimensions we see.  Doc proved that.  But he wasn't willing to experiment to find out exactly how it worked, because it was too dangerous.  We didn't know enough and there was no safe way to find out.  So how did my mother get me inside it in the first place?  Before I was born, even?  She had to be able to see and affect it somehow."       "We did discuss that a bit," said Armadillo.  "Have you ever heard of a critter called an anglerfish?"       Flicker's eyes widened.  "She used that analogy with you, too?"       "We talked about it before she even met Doc.  Seems the part of her that everyone sees, the part that can shapeshift and mimic a human body, is like the lure of an anglerfish.  And the rest of her body is somewhere else.  Not in our three dimensions, as you put it, or at least not the same part of them.  That part wasn't clear to me."       "Me neither," said Flicker.  "But she uses her lure, her human body, to interact with our world.  And to hunt, like an anglerfish."       Armadillo grinned.  "She used it to attract a mate, too.  Did she mention that bit of anglerfish biology?"       "...yes.  I'm still not handling it very well," said Flicker.  "Wait.  If you told her about Doc when you first met, why didn't you warn him?"       "I did.  Didn't seem to bother him.  He was a lot less uptight when he came back from his trip."       Flicker squeezed her eyes shut, involuntarily remembering Doc's words:  "At least she what?  Looked human?  I knew what kind of being I was letting in before I opened the door the first time--I was neither ignorant nor beguiled.  Reckless, I'll grant."       "Oh," she said.  "Well that's... nice, I guess.  But you know what really bothers me?  I asked Golden Valkyrie if I was like that, or would become like that, and she said 'not in any great way, anytime soon', which was not a no.  I wasn't able to deal with anything more until I processed.  I was planning on asking her later, and now she's gone."       "Eh.  I put on forty pounds a year for decades.  Complicated a lot of things, and I didn't know when, or even if, it would slow down.  But it did.  So I can give you advice on changes."       "I imagine clothes were a problem," said Flicker.  Then she yawned despite herself.  The nightmare panic was wearing off.       "Oh, clothes were just the start," said Armadillo, grinning again.  "Why I remember..."       Armadillo's voice was soothing, as was the wind and sunlight and the blackbird.  Flicker closed her eyes for just a moment...       She woke up, startled, from a vaguely pleasant dream.  She sped up to check alerts--everything was green.  But the time--it was afternoon.       "Augh," she said.  Her mouth was dry and sticky.       Armadillo looked up from her handcomp--it looked like she had been reading a book.  "Did you have a nice nap?" she asked.       "Yes, but I'm late!  I missed--"       "I warned everybody.  They all said to let you sleep.  Without exception."       "Okay, but--  Okay, thanks for the talk, and everything, and the family stuff, and I'll want to talk more sometime but there's things I really have to do, like getting rid of some more radioactivity before I go talk to Journeyman--I'm way late for that--and--"       "No problem," said Armadillo.  She waved a hand in farewell.       As Flicker sped away, she looked up.  The flashes in her eyes were still there, but they didn't bother her as much.       The sky was blue, too.

[docfuture]

Elder

     [Back, on a new computer.  This story occurs sometime after Chapter 32 of The Maker's Ark.  The latest chapter of The Maker’s Ark is here, and links to some of my other work are here.  Updates are posted irregularly–theoretically every two weeks, a schedule I still aspire to return to someday.]

      Sam rushed into the room and took the empty chair. Doc and Stella were both watching the main screen, which showed a stage with an empty podium and a few humans moving around the edges.       "Sorry I'm late," said Sam.  "What did I miss?"       "Nothing yet," said Stella.  "The wrangling over the introduction has been settled.  Elder Trig'anth is doing an end run in a way that will let them save face."       "As DASI predicted," said Doc.       "Yes," said Stella.  "He didn't want or need it, and he is not a political neophyte."       "So..." said Sam.  "DASI 'refused to speculate' about a lot of my questions.  Doc, you've met him.  What's your read?"       Doc looked thoughtful.  "Stella is understating.  Trig is a skilled and canny Grs'thnk politician.  Even though he's part of a coalition group that is currently in the minority, he has some crucial privileges: He's the Senior Opposition Observer for the aid mission, and back on Grs'thn he is a Speaker on Matters of Record.  That means there is a very high bar to stop him from talking about something, even though he doesn't have any direct political power."       "Why is that important?"       "It establishes context for his request for a live, no-delay, unedited broadcast from any media outlet that wanted to carry his speech at all.  DASI is enforcing that.  The FCC is unhappy.  They'll cope.  More restrictive regimes can't do much except protest.  Anyone with an UPPfone and a vid screen who wants to see this, will."       Sam raised an eyebrow.  "What is he going to talk about?"       "Officially, no one knows, other than that it is 'informal and personal'--he's not speaking for the Grs'thnk, or even the aid mission."       Doc smiled.  "I have a good idea, though.  He has some of the same worries about transition wars that I do.  So I think he'll use this historic 'first live speech by an alien' to try to shift perceptions of older people who are still open-minded enough to hear what he has to say.  It was clever of him to insist that no one under sixty be allowed in the local audience.  And nixing the introduction is a tell; any biographical summary would be incomplete and misleading.  He'll be sharing some things that are common knowledge on Grs'thn but not on Earth."       "Do you think there will be any translation problems?"       Doc smiled crookedly.  "He's a linguist, and he put in the effort to master idiomatic spoken American English.  And he made a living for a while as a stand-up comedian, specializing in cross-cultural humor.  So, no, I don't think he'll have any trouble."       *****       The crowd noise increased and there was scattered clapping as a float-chair glided onto the stage.  It stopped in front of a formally dressed human with a microphone--the presenter whose prepared introduction was now in limbo.  A wizened Grs'thnk stood up slowly from the chair.  Trig was short--about five feet tall--and wore high-tech bifocals, trousers that included a tail covering, and a loud Hawaiian shirt.  He looked at the presenter, who leaned over to say something to him.       Stella suppressed a laugh and Sam glanced at her.       "Narrative control.  Watch, and listen," she said.       Trig had acquired the microphone and turned it on, allowing the audience to hear the rest of what had probably been intended as a private aside.       "...more comfortable if we adjust the heat?" the presenter was saying.  "We didn't expect--"       "I found this excellent garment that included my family colors," said Trig in a gravelly voice.  "Just the thing for an informal talk, and I have a tail-warmer.  If I get too cold I can put on a jacket."       "Ah. Well, if--"       "Come with me."  Trig beckoned, then walked, a little stiffly, the rest of the way to the podium.       "May I have your attention please," he said to the crowd, his voice suddenly more resonant.  "This fine gentleman helped prepare everything today, for which I am grateful, and he had an introduction all ready which he isn't going to get to use, because he made a terrible mistake."       Trig paused dramatically, and the audience hushed.  "He let go of the microphone."       Laughter.       "No one warned him about me, so don't blame him.  I am Not His Fault."       Trig bowed to the presenter, who took the hint, smiled and bowed back, and left the stage.  Trig moved to the podium and nodded to the audience.       "Hello, my name is Trig'anth, and I'm... old."       Scattered laughter, quickly hushed.       "It's okay, you're allowed to laugh."  He raised his eyebrows.  "I was a performer for a while, I spent years trying to get people to laugh at me."       More laughter.       "That's better.  So... Being old, I've seen a lot of change in my life.  The town where I grew up is gone.  You used to be able to see some of the ruins at low tide, but not anymore.  The cyclones wore them down, and the sea level is a lot higher now."       "And I've done a lot of different things.  I was in the military when I was a youngster.  I wasn't particularly good at my assignment, but I picked up some valuable experience."  A pause.  "Most of it after I was captured."       Trig's voice was expressive, changing pitch and cadence for contrast and emphasis.  "I spent six months in a temporary prisoner of war camp.  It was thrown together in a hurry and not very well organized.  I learned a lot of things that came in handy later.  Because I had vivid memories of what not to do when I got put in charge of a refugee camp that started with 150 people, then kept getting bigger..."       *****       "Damn, he's a good speaker," said Sam.  "And funny.  He doesn't sound like a politician at all--he reminds me more of George Carlin."       Doc smiled.  "Keep listening."       *****       "...and they didn't want me to retire the second time, either."  Trig waved a hand.  "They even officially renamed the old town--where the original camp had been--'Trigtown'.  Over a million people lived there by then.  Six million in the metro area.  But I'd finally had enough.  I was getting to a certain age, and starting to slow down.  I'd seen enough change, I thought.  I was ready to settle in and spend my time watching my grandnieces and grandnephews grow up."       "Then I found out the real reason I was slowing down.  During the conflict in which I was captured, I had occasion to breath in quite a bit of smoke from a nasty chemical fire.  I'd recovered fully from it, I thought, but medicine doesn't stand still, they developed better tests, and a doctor gave me some bad news."       *****       "Oof," said Sam.  "Is he making a point about the medical advances that the Grs'thnk will bring?"       "Yes," said Doc.  "But not the one you think."       *****       "It was a long, inconvenient struggle, and I heard 'never seen that before' from way too many smart people, but eventually they found a cure that worked, and implants to repair some of the damage," said Trig.  "I recovered.  And you know where this is going, right?  I'm going to say how you should never lose hope, life can still get better even when you're old, et cetera.  And that's true.  And important to keep in mind."       He looked down without speaking for a moment.       "But it's not the most important thing.  You know what is?"       Trig looked back up with a glint in his eye.       "That was..."       He slammed his fist down on the podium and his voice boomed out:       "FIFTY!"       "SEVEN!"       "YEARS!"       "AGO!"       The was silence after the echoes died, and Trig took a deep breath.       "I was seventy.  Now I'm a hundred and twenty-seven.  My mind still works, I can still see, still walk, and I've set foot on three new worlds since I thought my life was winding down."       "Change is coming.  There's nothing you can do to stop it.  But you can live through a lot if you're willing to accept it."       He stepped to the side and bowed.  "Thank you."       Shocked silence, then tentative applause, growing to thunder.