#AIs are going to take over the world confirmed

[sparkles-rule-4eva]

Someone's probably already done this

[totheblood]

I WISH I NEVER MET YOU.

pairing: ex!ellie williams x reader

warnings: SUGGESTIVE mdni 18+... not sm*t but close... cursing, drinking, bitchy ellie

a/n: i love this song and was like wait... i need to write a fic based off of this song so i did that and i just love mean and spiteful ellie like... i apologize.. ai audios in the fic <3 reblogs, asks, and replies are so appreciated and encouraged! thank u kisses

wc: 2.3k

"tryna forget the seven minutes we had in heaven."

The world was spinning.

Or that was what it felt like. The tequila you had downed earlier was now starting to mix with the joint you shared with Dina earlier on her front step. She had held the nearly finished stub in between her fingers and had her other hand tracing circles on the fleshy part of your thigh. It was all innocent as you laughed about the new job she had started and her weird coworker who had asked her out a few times. It was all innocent until she mentioned Ellie and how she said she was going to stop by later that night. 

It wasn’t a party, but it wasn’t not a party. A few of your friends had gathered at Dina and Cora’s new place, a housewarming party done their way. Inside a few friends had gathered around a table playing some card game and taking shots, but you needed some fresh air and Dina had followed you. From out here you could hear the faint music coming from inside, and the streetlights made Dina’s skin look golden, but it was still early and you were already fairly drunk. 

“She said she’s coming?” you confirmed, needing to double-check that Ellie agreed to be in the same room as you. 

“Yeah,” Dina coughed, taking a deep hit of the joint, the end glowing yellow and orange, “Said she feels bad about not coming around anymore.”

“Right,” you scoffed, grabbing the joint from her and taking a deep hit, closing your eyes as you blew out the smoke. 

“Can you not do that tonight?” Dina set her face up in a pout, eyes dramatically wide, “She’s finally getting over whatever this was and I just want us to be normal again.”

“I’m not doing anything,” you rolled your eyes, sitting up straighter, “I tried to talk to her but she didn’t want to. Not my fault.”

“But isn’t it?” Dina started. She knew she was crossing a boundary she shouldn’t, but she was also tipsy and exhausted from the standoff you and Ellie had.

She wasn’t wrong, it was technically your fault. Months ago you were at a party gathering just like this, twice as drunk as you were right now. Some idiot, probably Cora, had suggested playing 7 minutes in heaven, just like you all had done in high school. No one in the room was sober, therefore everyone agreed. 

A circle was formed in the living room, everyone sitting with their legs criss-crossed on the floor, giggling and blushing like 10th graders. One couple had decided to sit it out and watch the game from the couch. Two seats to your left sat Ellie, hair pulled back into a loose bun and her face already a bright red. She never was your closest friend, but she was still someone you talked to often. You’d occasionally Facetime, send each other TikToks, and sit next to each other if the group went out for dinner. But you were not her best friend, and she definitely wasn’t yours.

You would be lying if you said you didn’t think about her often. She had this girlish charm that usually translated as awkwardness and she would always make jokes under her breath, just loud enough for only you to hear them. You didn’t notice how red she got whenever she made you laugh like she had just won the world’s biggest prize. But besides that, she was cute. Really cute, and perpetually single. The group would often make jokes asking why she never dated anyone, and she would just make some comment about how she was waiting for the ‘right one’. Her eyes would always flicker over to you when she said that.

But this night, when she spun the bottle and it landed on you she nearly choked. You looked up at her with your doe eyes, those fucking eyes, she thought, and she nearly lost it. Everyone was laughing, clapping, and hollering at the idea of the two of you being locked in a dim closet for 7 minutes. 

“We don’t have to…” She started, preparing herself for rejection, “if you’re not comfortable.”

“Why wouldn’t I be comfortable?”

Click. 

The door locked the two of you inside the tiny room. This close to you she could smell you. She could smell the liquor coming off of you in waves mixing with vanilla perfume. There was just enough light for her to make out your features, the tip of your nose, and the crease in between your eyebrows. From this close, she could see everything.

“So…” her voice faltered, nervousness seeping into her tone, “what do we do?”

“I think you’re supposed to kiss me,” you whispered back, your voice immediately sending a flood to her pants.

“Do you want me to?” She whispered back, eyes searching your face and landing on your lips. You pulled your bottom lip in between your teeth, before nodding. Fuck. She took a shaky breath, her calloused fingers grazing the open skin of your waist. Her fingers were cold but your body ran hot, you were unsure if it was the alcohol or her having this effect on you. Her fingertips curled inwards, pulling you closer to her.

You were now chest to chest, both of you heavy breathing despite not having kissed yet. You were so close that she could feel your heartbeat and your tits. She gripped you a little bit harder causing you to groan. It was all so painfully slow, each movement dragged out. She dipped her head down, her lips now just hovering over yours making your eyelids flutter closed. You could feel her smile before she kissed you, as slow and languid as her movements were before.

Her lips were soft, tongue peeking through and grazing your teeth, urging them open. She was kissing your like her life depended on it. Your hands gripped at her neck, trying to pull her closer but she stumbled forward pushing you into the shelf. 

“Fuck,” she breathed in between a wet kiss, “you okay?” 

“Mhm,” You hummed. Her hand moved down now, ghosting your ass before giving it a light squeeze and lifting your thigh up so she could get even closer. If it kept going like this she was going to be inside of you within minutes. She pushed closer, her clothed cunt griding up against yours, causing you to gasp.

“Feel good?” She teased, now moving to kiss up your jaw when- 

Click.

The two of you separated, hands smoothing out your clothes as the door opened. It was obvious what had happened, a little bruise had formed on your jaw where she had kissed, and she was now wearing lipstick she didn’t come to the party wearing. 

That night you went home with her. 

You shuddered thinking of that night, not knowing it was the beginning of the end. Whatever relationship you had with her was now ruined, and it was your fault. You spent nights crying over how much of your fault it was, but that wouldn’t change anything. You ended things, and Ellie wanted nothing to do with you now. 

“I guess,” you shrugged, “but people break up every day Dina. People move on.”

It was Dina’s turn to scoff as she snatched the tiny joint back from you, “You don’t move on that easily when you’re in love with someone.”

“She was not in love with me,” you rolled your eyes again, your high making you feel anger more than anything now.

“Oh, so you’re just fucking stupid,” Dina deadpanned, taking another hit, giggling as you shoved her playfully.

“Oh, fuck you,” you laughed, trying to keep your real emotions at bay. 

“Can’t,” she laughed, blowing smoke out her nose, “Ellie would probably murder me.”

The conversation wasn’t productive, but you didn’t want to be on the front step when Ellie arrived. You feared that if she saw you, she probably wouldn’t even come to the door, let alone inside. You honestly missed her, and you were beginning to forget what she even sounded like. 

Thirty minutes had passed and you started nursing your third drink, playing beer pong in the backyard when you noticed a familiar sound. Her laugh, over everything, was the only thing you heard. 

“Oh, um I have to use the bathroom,” you excused yourself running up the stairs and straight into the kitchen where Ellie was now alone, getting a drink from the fridge. She obviously didn’t see you come in, or thought you were Dina because she was speaking. 

“You only bought Truly’s,” she scoffed from the fridge, “fucking lame.” 

“Still better than a Four Loko,” you joked. You watched her pause, her whole body stiffening before standing up straight and closing the door. She stared at the refrigerator so she didn’t have to look at you. You watched her chest rise and fall as she took deep breaths. 

“What do you want?” Her tone was much colder now, her voice icy and mean. 

“Just wanted to say hi,” your voice was small, you hated yourself for it.

“Well, don’t,” she shook her head, turning to the counter now, the hard liquor lined up in front of her. She picked up vodka, bad choice.

“Can we just-” you stepped next to her, voice in a whisper loud enough she could hear. She tensed up as you stood close to her and you hated the position you were in. 

“No, we can’t,” She shook her head, pulling a red solo cup from its place on the counter and pouring the vodka in the cup, “I told you I didn’t want to talk to you.”

“But-”

“No fucking ‘buts’. You don’t get everything you want, okay?” She looked at you now, her green eyes now accompanied by dark circles. Her freckles were more prominent with summer finally coming to an end. She looked tired, but still beautiful, “You’re so fucking selfish.”

“I’m selfish because I couldn’t date you?” You laughed bitterly, that third drink hitting you like a bag of bricks, “That’s real rich considering you’re the one who’s been an asshole to me because you can’t fuck me anymore.”

She looked pissed. Her hands gripped the sides of the counter as she looked down at it, trying to stop herself from doing what she wanted to. Instead, she downed the vodka, not even flinching.

“No one wants to fuck you,” she looked at you, eyes glossed over, “and you’re the one who dumped me over text like a fucking coward.”

You scoffed, crossing your arms over your chest. 

“I’m an asshole to you because I want to make it perfectly clear I want nothing to do with you. I don’t want to fuck you, I don’t want to see you, and I definitely don’t want to hear any sob story about how you ‘couldn’t’ do it. You’re a pathetic loser who broke up with me over text on our 6 month anniversary.”

“Ellie,” a voice from behind you caused you both to turn around. You wiped at the tears rolling down your face, “What the fuck?”

It was Dina, standing with her arms crossed as she watched you two in disappointment. You ran off pushing past her and into the bathroom, crying pathetically on the toilet and blowing your nose in the toilet paper. Back in the kitchen Dina had approached Ellie, an eyebrow raised as if she was waiting for an answer. 

“She just,” Ellie poured another cup, “she gets under my fucking skin, okay?”

“But talking to her like that?” She shook her head in shame, “What’s gotten into you?”

“She has!” Ellie replied, “That shit fucking hurt, okay? And I let her get away with it at first because I loved her but all she thinks is that I’m mad because I can’t fuck her. I’m over it.”

“She’s just saying that,” Dina’s voice was now more tender as she talked to Ellie, “she misses you and doesn’t know how to deal with it.”

“She doesn’t fucking miss me,” Ellie downed the second cup.

“You just tell yourself that because you wouldn’t know how to feel if it was true.”

“If she missed me she wouldn’t have done that,” Ellie sighed.

“Not everything is black and white,” Dina sighed looking to the side. “Just try to get over it before the trip. It’s a really big deal to Cora and I don’t want it to be a mess because you both are so miserable.”

“I don’t think I can come, D,” Ellie shook her head, fingers tapping on the counter, “Not like this, not with her.”

“Ellie, please don’t do this,” Dina held her shoulders, her eyes wide and sad. Ellie had a soft spot for Dina, which was the only reason she came to the housewarming party, but she was unsure of how much she would take before she snapped. 

“Fine,” she sighed, “but I’ll be driving by myself. I’m not sitting in a two-hour-long car ride with her.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Dina squeezed Ellie tight, making her groan and attempt to push her off. 

---

The trip came sooner than expected, the party being nearly a month ago. You drove down with Dina and Cora, singing Lana songs the whole drive. The Hamptons were quiet around this time and Cora (and her rich family) owned a vacation house out there on the water. You spent nearly every summer here, you, Dina, Cora, Ellie, Jesse, Faye, and Cora’s twin brother, Orion all crammed into their giant house. Except this time was different. This was the trip that Dina and Cora were going to announce their engagement. 

No one knew yet, and Dina had wanted your little group of friends to be the first to know. A special intimate moment between the group and the place it had started. However, when you pulled up to the house, driving up the long driveway, you saw Ellie’s jeep parked out front with her and some girl leaning against the side of the car. 

You all hopped out, but you stood to the side as you watched Dina and Cora hug Ellie and this new girl. 

“Hey guys, I hope you don’t mind,” Ellie spoke, eyes drifting to yours for a moment before she smirked, “this is my girlfriend, June.”

Fuck.

[celestial-robots]

Explaining Eclipse (A Theory/Headcanon)

Spoilers for the Ruin DLC below!

Okay so I've been thinking so much about Eclipse and what they mean. You know, as you do XD. Just a lot of wondering what they mean for the ~lore~ and how they fit in with the rest of the Sun and Moon stuff. And after a lot of thinking, I may have figured stuff out.

I've seen a couple posts wondering if Eclipse is the way the Daycare Attendant is "supposed to be" and if Sun and Moon are the result of the DCA breaking down or something. But personally I just can't see that. Not only do we hear Sun go "thank you" after the Eclipse encounter, implying he's still around and hasn't permanently "fused" into Eclipse, but it also wouldn't make sense with stuff in Security Breach. In-game Fazbear merchandise and advertising have a lot of focus on Sun and Moon as two separate individuals, not the DCA as a single unit. For example, see the giant golden statues outside of Daycare. Two different forms of the Daycare Attendant. Collectibles are also identified as "Sun" and "Moon." It's not like they're labeled "Eclipse Doll (Sun form)" or "Moon Eclipse Doll." No, it's just "Sun Doll" and "Moon Doll."

So here's how I think it works. Sun and Moon are two separate AIs within the DCA body. They can function on their own, independent of the other, in the way we've been thinking this whole time. BUT they're also designed to join together, like interlocking puzzle blocks. Two separate forms that come together to make a "whole" that's greater than the sum of the parts.

This makes sense from a programming perspective. Sun is designed to play with kids and entertain them, Moon is designed to watch over kids while they sleep. They're both made for specific scenarios, but taking care of kids is a lot more complicated than just "play time" and "nap time." So whenever one of them encounters something they can't deal with by themselves, they call for help from the other, who activates as well, combining their features and protocols. I'm willing to bed this also activates several specific "Eclipse" features that can only be accessed when both AIs are active, which would explain why Eclipse has such a different personality.

But if this is the case, then why haven't we seen Eclipse before? Why did they only come out when Cassie rebooted the DCA?

Well that's where this theory by @dana-chan-the-control-brain and @twinanimatronics comes in. The two of them theorized that the Balloon World arcade cabinet in the DCA's room was some sort of signal broadcaster that kept their AIs divided. I think that Ruin confirms this—or at least provides a lot of solid evidence.

In the main game, Balloon World is in the DCA room, up and active and with a form of Eclipse inside. In Ruin, the Balloon World cabinet is broken. And you can see weird purple glitches coming from it while in AR vision. It's only in Ruin, after the cabinet has been damaged, that we finally meet Eclipse.

This is venturing a bit into headcanon territory, but let's have some fun with this. I believe that the Balloon World cabinet was put in the DCA's room to infect them with the virus. Probably a long time before the events of the actual game, since the worn-down state of the room shows it's been a while since any human or robot cleaners were in there. This might have been some sort of test run to see if the virus could affect the animatronics.

However, the virus couldn't affect the DCA while Eclipse was there, acting as a sort of stabilizing failsafe for Sun and Moon. So the virus then cut off the "fuse" function from Sun and Moon, locking Eclipse away and preventing them from stepping in when Sun or Moon encounter something strange—strange like a virus. Sun probably couldn't be affected by the virus because the virus attacks nighttime and/or security protocols, and he no longer had access to those once Eclipse was gone. Moon, however, did. And that's why he's hostile.

But then, if the Balloon World cabinet was keeping Eclipse contained, why were Sun and Moon still freaking out in Ruin even after the cabinet was destroyed? Why did they need Cassie to reboot them?

Well, I think that forming Eclipse requires both Sun and Moon to want to fuse together. And Moon clearly doesn't want to do that in Ruin. Why? Probably because he's mad at Sun. You can hear how angry he is in voice lines where he says stuff like "No more Sun!" and "No more light!" (Seriously, props to Kellen Goff, holy shit.) Moon was only able to be "awake" for short periods of time in the main game, partially because Sun was encouraging everyone to "Keep the lights on." Of course Moon would be pissed and want to be in control now that the lights are broken. He wasn't about to risk losing that .

But not having Eclipse around was ultimately damaging Sun and Moon. They were meant to stabilize the system when the two individuals couldn't do that alone. Not to mention their systems were already damaged, judging by Moon's increased light sensitivity in Ruin. They needed Eclipse so they could be stable again.

Cassie rebooting the DCA's systems was a lot like restarting your computer. Everything shuts down and then all the systems start running again at once—including, in this case, both Sun and Moon's AIs and whatever Eclipse functions were now restored. That's why Eclipse was in control after the reboot. Presumably, the rest of the software damage was also fixed, which probably helped calm Moon down. So, overall, a happy ending.

Relatively, I mean. The DCA is still stuck in an abandoned Pizzaplex, but at least Eclipse is back and Sun and Moon aren't fighting anymore :)

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: Queer science fiction, part 1

There is a lot of queer sf out there, and I read a lot of sf. When I started working on this list, I quickly realized it was impossible to include all that I've read and enjoyed in one single rec post. Thus, this is the first of so far three queer sci-fi book rec posts.

A note: queer here does not necessarily mean "guarantee of an f/f or m/m ship with a happy ending", but rather simply a significant presence of queerness. Some of the books feature no romance but has a same gender attracted/trans/a-spectrum lead, or features an m/f relationship with bisexual, trans or aro/ace characters, or simply features a world-building which is heavily queer inclusive in ways that don't always compare to our own ideas of sexuality and gender. I have however disqualified works where the only queer presence is along the lines of "gay best friend" or a blink and you'll miss it confirmation that never comes up again.

Previous book rec posts:

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

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

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley*

Dietz is a soldier in the war between Earth and Mars - to travel to the battle front, she and her fellow soldiers are broken down into light to be able to quickly travel across space. But something keeps going wrong with Dietz's travels; her memories don't match up with the mission briefs, as she experiences time itself turning in on itself. Is she going mad? Or are the things she's learning skipping through time the truth - and the war that's stealing her life the lie? A mindfuck of a book that's scathing in its critique of fascism and war. Features a sapphic lead but no romance.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk and Robot duology) by Becky Chambers

Novella. Long ago, robots, upon gaining sentience, simply laid down their work and walked into the wilderness. Long after, a tea monk looking for purpose follows after them into the wilds, where they come across one of the robots seeking its own sort of answers. While not plotless, this story focuses more on character and vibes over plot. Also has a nonbinary main character and features conversations on gender between human and robot.

Meet Me In Another Life by Catriona Silvey*

Thora and Santi are strangers, brought together by a coincidence and torn apart just as abruptly when tragedy strikes. But this is neither the first nor the last time they meet - again and again they encounter each other, as friends, lovers, enemies, family, every time recognizing in each other a familiarity no one else carries. But with every new life, a mysterious danger grows ever closer, forcing them to find out the truth of their connection. This is a puzzle-box of a story that goes some entirely unexpected places in a very wild ride, featuring a bisexual co-lead.

The Archive Undying (The Downworld Sequence) by Emma Mieko Candon

In a world where AI gods sometimes lose their minds and take entire populations down with them, Sunai was the only survivor when his god went down. In the 17 years since, he has wandered on his own, unable to either die or age, drowning his sorrows in drink and men. But his attempts to flee his past comes to a stop as he is forced back into the struggle between man and machine. Featuring some pretty wild world building and narrative techniques, this book will definitely confuse you, but it is worth the experience.

The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart

January Cole works security at the Paradox Hotel, last stop for tourists heading for the timeport, which allows them to travel to and witness any moment in time. But years of proximity to the timeport has left its damage on January, making her unstuck in time, letting her relive memories of her dead lover even as her sanity slips away bit by bit. As she starts witnessing proof of a horrible crime in the hotel that no one else can see, January must race against her own mind, a killer, and time itself to solve it before it's too late.

A Fractured Infinity by Nathan Tavares

Hayes Figueiredo is a struggling film-maker who wants to finish his documentary, whose life gets turned upside down when handsome physicist Yusuf Hassan enters his life, claiming an alternate version of him is a great inventor who’s sent a mysterious device to their universe. As Hayes gets drawn deeper into the conspiracy - and his feelings for Yusuf intensify - he has to decide just how far he’s prepared to go to win the life and the love he wants. Featuring a very gay and very morally dubious lead, this is a creative and strange read.

Bridge by Lauren Beukes

When she was little, Bridge and her mother Jo used to play a game - one where they traveled to other worlds, inhabiting the bodies of their other selves. Now Jo is dead, and as Bridge is cleaning out her apartment she finds a strange device: a dreamworm, the very thing that supposedly makes inter-dimensional travel possible. Suddenly faced with the possibility that multiverse travel is real, Bridge is struck by a different question: could her mother still be alive? Scifi spiced with a healthy dose of body horror and some absolutely wild twists, Bridge also features a bisexual lead (however this is a blink and you’ll miss it moment) and a nonbinary co-narrator.

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

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

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Life on the lower decks of the generation ship HSS Matilda is hard for Aster, an outcast even among outcasts, trying to survive in a system not dissimilar to the old antebellum South. The ship's leaders have imposed harsh restrictions on their darker skinned people, using them as an oppressed work force as they travel toward their supposed Promised Land. But as Aster finds a link between the death of the ship's sovereign and the suicide of her own mother, she realizes there may be a way off the ship.

Ninefox Gambit (The Machineries of Empire trilogy) by Yoon Ha Lee*

Military space opera where belief and culture shape the laws of reality, causing all kinds of atrocities as empires do everything in their power to force as many people as possible to conform to their way of life to strengthen their technology and weapons. It’s also very queer, with gay, lesbian and trans major characters, albeit little to no romance.

The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle) by Ursula K. Le Guin

1969 classic. Genly Ai is an emissary sent to the planet of Winter, meant to help facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But he's unprepared for Winter's citizens, who spend much of their time genderless or switching between genders, making for a culture wildly different from that Genly is used to.

Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota series) by Ada Palmer*

Centuries in the future, humanity has deliberatly engineered society to be as utopian as possible, politically, socially, sexually, religiously. Written in an enlightenment style and featuring questions of human nature and whether it’s possible to change it, and what price we’re prepared to pay for peace, this book is simultaneously very heavy and very funny, and written in a very unique style. While still human, the society presented often feels starkly alien.

The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley

This book fucked me up when I read it. It’s weird, it’s gross, there’s So Much Viscera, there are literally no men, it has living spaceships and biotech but in the most horrific way imaginable. Had I to categorize it I would call it grimdark military sf. It’s an experience but not necessarily a pleasant one.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling*

Possibly one of the most unsettling books I’ve ever read, and definitely the most claustrophobic. Gyre, a caver on an alien planet, ventures into the dark and dangerous underground, guided only by a woman who has no compunctions on using and manipulating Gyre as she sees fit to obtain her secretive goals down in the caves.

Escaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus series) by Nicky Drayden

While my feelings on Escaping Exodus were mixed, it cannot be denied that the dynamic between the two leads and the way they go from childhood best friends to enemies on different sides of a class and power struggle is very delicious. It also features some really cool worldbuilding of living, alien generation spaceships and the human culture that has developed inside them.

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

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

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

Ascension follows Alana Quick, an expert Sky Surgeon who stows away on a spaceship in hopes of landing herself a job. But the ship and its crew are in deeper waters than she expected, facing threats emerging from a whole other universe, all of them searching for the same person: Alana’s spiritually enlightened sister. Undeniably a bit of an odd read, Ascension is also very creative and features polyamorous lesbian relationship.

Contagion (Contagion duology) by Erin Bowman*

Young adult. After receiving an SOS, a small crew is sent on a standard search-and-rescue mission. But what they find are not survivors awaiting help, but an abandoned site, full of dead bodies and crawling with something... monstrous. No romance, but features one sapphic co-lead and one who can easily be read as demisexual (however this doesn't show up until book two, which has more romance).

A Memory Called Empire (Texicalaan duology) by Arkady Martine

Mahit Dzmare is an ambassador sent to the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire, where she discovers that her predecessor has died. Trying to protect her home, an independent mining station, from being taken over by the empire, Mahit struggles to find out the truth of her predecessor's death while carrying the voice of his ghost in her head, guiding her as best he can. Light on the romance but does feature a sapphic relationship.

The Outside (The Outside trilogy) by Ada Hoffman*

AKA the book the put me in an existenial crisis. Souls are real, and they are used to feed AI gods in this lovecraftian inspired scifi where reality is warped and artifical gods stand against real, unfathomable ones. Autistic scientist Yasira is accused of heresy and, to save her eternal soul, is recruited by post-human cybernetic ‘angels’ to help hunt down her own former mentor, who is threatening to tear reality itself apart. Sapphic main character.

Dawn (Xenogenesis trilogy) by Octavia E. Butler*

After a devestating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on. Queer in the sense that the Oankali doesn't follow human ideas of gender and relationships, which is mirrored in their romantic relationships with humans. It is, however, pretty dark, with examinations of agency and consent, so enter with caution.

Remnant by Kate Genet

One day, Cass wakes up and finds everyone else is gone. Not dead, just gone, leaving her in a world which nature starts taking back with a dangerous, unnatural speed. But as she tries to survive this new normal, Cass realizes she may not be alone after all - but who else is out there, and are they a threat?

The Scorpion Rules (Prisoners of Peace duology) by Erin Bow*

Young Adult. Featuring a dystopian future in which an AI forcibly keeps world peace by holding the children of world leaders hostage. If anyone attempts to start a war, their child will be executed. Greta is one of these children, kept in a school with others like her. But things start to change one day when a new, less obedient hostage arrives. A unique, slowburn take on the YA dystopian craze, also featuring a bisexual love triangle.

Iron Widow (Iron Widow series) by Xiran Jay Zhao

Young adult. Zetian is a citizen of Huaxia, where mecha aliens are constantly trying to breach the Great Wall. To keep them at bay, couples of men and women pilot so called Chrysalises, giant transforming robots. But the pilots are not equal - the women almost always die, sucked dry by their co-pilots. When Zetian sets herself up to become a concubine-pilot, she does so with the plan to assassinate the male pilot who caused her sister's death. Features a polyamorous main relationship.

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

Survival Instincts by May Dawney

Lynn Tanner has been surviving the post-apocalypse alone with only her dog for a long time, trusting no one. But when she's forced to travel the dangerous remains of New York City alongside another woman, her priorities are challenged. Is staying alone really the best way to stay alive?

These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs

When con-artist Jun Ironway gets her hands on possible proof of the powerful Nightfoot family, controllers of interplanetary travel, committing genocide, she has in her hands a chance of taking them and their monopoly down. But the family and their allies won't go down easily, and sends two brutal clerics to stop her.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

A neo-victorian alternate history, in which a part of Congo was kept safe from colonisation, becoming Everfair, a safe haven for both the people of Congo and former slaves returning from America. Here they must struggle to keep this home safe for them all.

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

Things from the ruin dlc that keep me up at night.

Spoilers under the cut.

SERIOUSLY DO NOT READ IF YOU'RE AVOIDING SPOILERS.

Disclaimer: I wrote this before I had seen Everything the DLC has to offer or all the endings yet. I was on the wrong track, but I think my cooking before I knew everything was good cooking. I have more concrete theories now under #danachan's rants

Something that I was 100% right about that I was going to write into Lofi eventually.... But I guess I'll talk about it now since the dlc confirmed it.

But Balloon Boy world was literally Eclipses cage as I suspected. It was suppressing them. It wasn't an evil arcade or Eclipse was living in there. Eclipse's AI was being suppressed in the arcade cabinet.

Eclipse is how they talk to eachother, and Eclipse was asleep and completely blocked off from the Virus. So Sun and Moon had no communication with eachother anymore. Which is why they were both so stressed and lost.

I was astounded I got that completely correct in regards to what Eclipse is, and what the balloon boy game is.

(the dlc does not explain the Dcas weird connection to Vanessa and why the arcade cabinet was in Afton's boss fight room though)

Bonus points Moon talks exactly how I write him when speaking about the Sun and the Moon.

Another thing that has been mind-blowing me that all the comic book endings are scenarios that GREGORY DREW.

And according to the dlc....

The Afton Burntrap Blob ending is another one of those endings that he drew.

Which means Peepaw Afton and the Blob were never real in the first place.

Which is why no one could really figure out what the blob is.

It doesn't exist.

Princess Quest ending was the canon ending.

Vanessa leaving the Pizzaplex with Gregory is the canon ending.

The ending where you fight Afton in the basement.... Never happened and was just Gregory attempting to make sense of the FNAF lore that Vanessa probably explained to him. Since in the DLC, we do find a book about Fazbear History in Vanny's room.

I honestly don't know if Steel Wool retroactively made Burntrap non-canon due to everyone making fun of him, not taking him seriously and hating the blob, or if this was always the case. Because despite the Afton ending being the hardest to get.... It's still a two star ending.

So it's hard and too early for me to tell if I want to give them points for that soft retcon. I mean I don't blame them honestly.

But yeah. Skeleton man Afton in the basement and his best friend the Blob isn't actually real, and neither is Freddy's "I am not me" speech either.... Which honestly makes sense. Because it's all Gregory's comic book trying to make sense of FNAF Lore he doesn't understand.

Also, I can say definitively, and finally, Afton is not the Mimic. Glitchtrap exists as its own entity in this, and the Mimic seems to have its own agenda. It's unclear if Afton is possessing the Mimic via virus corruption, but for now, I believe the Mimic is acting of its own will.

And man oh man. I feel so sorry for people who haven't been keeping up with Tales of the Pizzaplex Books.

The ending of the dlc is just really "who's Henry???" From pizzasim all over again huh....

Anyways. Those are my thoughts. I will be streaming the dlc again tomorrow. Gonna try and get a better ending, but I have a suspicion they're all sad.

[gojoidyll]

electric love ch. 2

Yandere ! Gojo Satoru x Female ! Reader

Summary | In a technological advanced world where ai and virtual reality overrun the populace, a certain synthetic being learns what love was all thanks to a human woman.

Warnings | grammatical errors, gojo being a little flirt, etc.

electric love masterlist

There were many times in your life where you wished that you would just die by some freak accident. Or die by a meteor hitting you so precisely that you were the only casualty. However, death does not come for those who wish for it, as the old saying goes.

10:30 AM on the dot.

You straightened out your clothing and tried your best to calm your thrumming heart that seemed to want to beat right out of your chest.

This job that Ayakazhi accepted from THE Gojo Satoru could literally get you killed.

And yet, it was a job you had to do nonetheless.

You waved your wrist in front of a scanner by the door which made the door dematerialize a split second later when your identity was confirmed through the security system.

"Good morning, I'll be the AI specialist helping you today."

You remembered a time within college where you had to take a human & ai interaction course. The teachings were interesting, to say the least. The course basically went over how despite the ai being mere androids, it was best to still treat them as human. Treat them as beings who could never achieve what they truly want.

So you don't say "I'm here to fix you, or repair you" when talking with an android. You say "I'm here to help you. Here to see what's wrong." Like how a doctor sees to a human patient.

"Morning doctor," the ai replied smoothly, a lilt in his voice as he scanned you. You couldn't help but to laugh lightly at that, "sorry, but I don't have a doctorate. L/n or y/n will be just fine."

Once you made sure your equipment was all prepped, you finally steeled yourself to look at him. And you couldn't stop the way your breath hitched at the sight.

The android in front of you was beautiful. White locks of hair perfectly framing his face despite jutting out in different directions, giving him a messy hairstyle look. Crystal blue eyes that glinted in the light, a pair of sunglasses resting on the bridge of his nose. His skin looked so smooth too, almost looked soft to the touch. He looked human. Too real. Too here.

As for his clothing, he wore a simple pair of black dress pants along with a white button up. His jacket was discarded to the chair beside him as he was sitted on the operation bed (much like a bed you would find in a doctor's office).

Now, you had heard that Gojo was beautiful, but since you couldn't afford a TV or the subscription to a digital newspaper, you were always left wondering hiw truly this artificial being was. You weren't disappointed to say the least, but now you couldn't help but to feel self conscious about your own clothing.

A simple blue sweater with a few holes in it, jeans that were worn at the bottoms, shoes that looked like they were about to fall apart at the seems.

Honestly, you wished you could go buy fancy and expensive clothes right now cause you couldn't help but to feel a bit underdressed despite this being an appointment.

"I'll call you y/n then, if that's alright."

You nodded as you maneuvered your fingers in a certain way so that a screen would appear in front of you.

"That'll be alright Mr. Gojo. Now, I was briefly told why you're here and why you chose this ... particular place, so let's just start with the basics, shall we? I don't know if you read my form or not, but I typically like to get to know my patients and i would like them to get to know me as well before I try to help them because I don't want you to feel uncomfortable in any way while I work on you."

You took a seat in an abandoned chair so that you were now sitting across from him.

Gojo merely grinned, "actually, that's exactly why I picked you. As I was scanning through possible specialists, I found your profile and thought you were a good fit. In fact, you got some good reviews, too. Not a single person was left unsatisfied after getting a check-up from you. So I couldn't resist when choosing this place."

You smiled at that, "I'm glad to hear that. Makes me a little less nervous."

"Nervous? What do you have to be nervous about?"

You gave him an are-you-serious look to which he laughed at.

"Alright, alright," he said, "point taken. No need to say anything."

He waved his hands in front of himself in surrender.

His laugh is so ... realistic. You wondered how many diagnostic checks and calibrations he had to go through in order to get his voice and even his laughter to sound so human.

Was it alright to even ask that...?

As for Gojo, he seemed to pick up on your unasked question. He could see it in your eyes.

"It took a few years."

"Pardon?"

"My laugh, my voice. You're wondering how I managed to get it to sound so realistic, right?"

You blushed as you had gotten caught, "yes, I'm sorry Mr. Gojo. I know it's an impolite question."

He shook his head, "think nothing of it. In fact, I welcome the curious mind. Besides, it's just as you said, right? Let's get to know each other."

You nodded your head. Your focus solely on him.

"As I said, it took a few years and many, many tests. Of course, I first started adjusting my voice to sound more human back in my childhood years. That way, I wouldn't have to worry later down the road."

"Childhood years, Mr. Gojo?"

"Yes, as you've probably heard we androids you typically like to feel more human have different models. For example, I was 'born' 28 years ago. So at certain years of my life, I would have different bodies. Like ... I had a body of ten year old when it was my tenth year 'alive'."

You nodded again, a hand coming to your chin as you thought over his words, "I think I understand. So do you still have your previous models? Like the bodies of your past years."

"Of course not, they were destroyed."

"Do you typically make a new model of yourself after each birthday?"

"No."

"Is this your actual body for when you're 28, or is this your body from a previous year?"

"Actually, as it turns out, this is my newest body. So yes, this is my 28 year old body."

"Ah, I see, I see. So when do you plan on making a new model?"

"Probably when I turn 35 or so, maybe even 40 if i feel like it."

You chuckled at that, "why not stay 28 forever?"

He shrugged and leaned forward, his lips upturned in a mischievous grin, "that wouldn't be very human of me, now would it?"

You laughed at that, "good point, Mr. Gojo."

Gojo clapped his hands together, "my turn to ask a question!"

"Fire away."

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

You were quick to erupt in a fit of giggles, "what a flirt!" You managed to say between breaths.

Gojo merely looked appalled and offended, a hand placing across his chest where his heart would be as he gasped, "I think the question was fair!"

But he started grinning and laughing with you nonetheless. Which was how your conversation went throughout the rest of the appointment.

12:00 PM.

You glanced at the time as you stood up, "well, that concludes our first appointment."

"Oh," Gojo inquired, "but we didn't exactly do anything, well, not unless you count our riveting conversation."

You grinned and patted his shoulder, "of course. As I said I like to get to know my patients before we start anything. Just like how I want my patients to know me. When I check your systems, I don't want there to be any mistrust or grievances between us. You'll be in a vulnerable state and I don't want you to feel as if I'm taking advantage of you in any way, which is why the first appointment is usually us talking to each other."

You materialized a screen in front of him, "so, if you want to schedule your next appointment, you may. But you don't have to if you wish for someone else. Oh, and you don't have to pay for this first appointment either since I didn't help or perform a check-up on you.

Gojo nodded along as he looked at the screen that was materialized in front of him. Raising one of his hands, he gently pressed down on the 'schedule a new appointment option', which immediately brought up a calendar. He smiled at that.

"Something wrong?"

"It's just, I notice how you're allowing me to pick a date to schedule. Most specialists and doctors I know usually pick a date for me and others."

You shook your head at that, "well, I'm the type of person who likes giving my clients the freedom to choose their days. Be it at 3:02 AM in the morning on a Saturday. Or at 5:46 PM on a Tuesday."

Gojo let his eyes scan over you again before choosing a day.

Two days from now at 10:30 AM.

"Awesome, now just sign here, and...I guess I'll see you then," you said as you sent him a polite smile.

He was quick to sign his name at that, and when he grabbed his jacket, he looked at you one last time before leaving, "before I go, I never did get that answer to my first question."

"Hmm?"

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

That same playfulness reached both his voice and eyes, and you couldn't help but chuckle lightly, "no, I don't."

"Glad to hear it. Now, i guess I'll see you Wednesday, Little y/n."

electric love taglist | @wooasecret @itzmeme @whore-for-hawks @mrowwww @dearmy-diary @akisesgf

[deathmetalunicorn1]

Ai Hoshino!reader x Strawhats.

I’m not super well versed with this character as it’s not a series that I watch, but I’m gonna try my best!

-When you woke up on a pirate ship in a new world, away from your babies, you were both stunned and distraught, remembering dying in front of your child, being stabbed by an unknown assailant.

-You had been lucky when you landed on the Sunny, falling out of the sky, and while the crew initially thought that you were an assailant, thinking they were being attacked, when the realized that you were unconscious, they calmed and Luffy agreed to treat you.

-When you woke up, they were all amazed by your star-like eyes, thinking they were unique and beautiful all at the same time.

-You explained what you remembered, being stabbed, and after Chopped checked, he did confirm that you had no wounds, not even a scar, it was like you had never been stabbed in the first place!

-Robin was helpful, trying to research the strange phenomenon about your situation, being transported from one world to another upon your death, but so far she hadn’t been successful.

-Luffy adored you, thinking you were unique and immediately asked you to join his crew. You were hesitant in accepting, telling them that you didn’t have any special skills, other than singing, but you were willing to help Sanji out in the kitchen.

-Sanji was elated to be with you, but when he twirled over to take your hand, welcoming your help, you stunned all by stepping behind Nami, a bit scared of him.

-They all learned that despite being so young, you had twins in your previous life, the result of a toxic relationship that you didn’t realize was toxic until much later, after he abandoned you when you wound up pregnant.

-Robin and Nami were impressed with your drive, as you told them that you had worked hard to provide for your children, being a good mother to them until your murder.

-Zoro didn’t trust you at first, thinking that you were just telling lies, threatening you if you were ever to hurt anyone on the crew, which ended with him being punched and yelled at by both Sanji and Nami.

-Zoro warmed up to you after a while, as he saw you as a kid sister, as he saw you a lot like Luffy, so full of life and passion that he couldn’t help but like you.

-Franky loved you, as you adored his machines, as you found out that this world wasn’t as technologically advanced as your own, at least in some places, and you were constantly giving him new ideas.

-You enjoyed sitting with Usopp, who would tell you grand, but fake, tales of his past adventures, you knew he was fibbing, but you never said anything, as you saw how happy it made him.

-Brook had scared you the first time you met him, as you had never met a talking skeleton before, but he was polite and sweet to you, playing his violin or guitar for you. He was going to ask to see your panties, until he saw how you reacted to Sanji, and a gentleman would never make a young lady such as yourself feel uncomfortable!

-Jinbei also scared you, as you had never met a Fishman before, but he was… so warm, he was comforting to you, and he would allow you to sit and vent to him, with him offering you advice, and if you needed to, he would let you cry.

-Nami thought of you as a little sister, despite the air of maturity around you, and she loved to teach you about this world, as you wanted to know more, as much as you can!

-That’s how you bonded with Robin as well, as this world was completely different from your old world, and the best way to learn was to have someone knowledgeable teach you!

-You loved Chopper, as he was like a stuffed animal for you, and he would let you hug him while he was working in his clinic, just as long as you didn’t interfere with his work.

-Sanji loved having help in the kitchen, but he was respectful of you and your slight aversion to his flirting, and while not professionally trained like him, you knew your way around the kitchen and he enjoyed teaching you new things, something you would always appreciate and smile for.

-Luffy was… so unique to you, he was so loud and rambunctious, but he was so kind and funny at the same time, you couldn’t help but like him and he loved having you on his crew, as you helped everyone in your own way.

-They also loved it when you would sing, after they discovered you had an amazing voice and that you used to be an idol in your world! You had so much fun, singing along with Brook’s music, creating mini concerts for your crew that would make them smile and have fun with you, dancing and singing along with you.

-You loved your new crew, your new family, as you felt so safe and happy with them, but you missed your babies, you missed your old friends, and you knew that you always would. At least, in this new world, you weren’t alone.

[accio-victuuri]

Xiao Zhan Marie Claire Cover story | Rules & Inches

When I say the word "future",

The first syllable is in the past.

When I say the word "silence",

I've broken it.

When I say the word "nothing",

I have created something that nothingness itself can grasp.

——Vislava Szymborska, "The Three Strangest Words"

Xiao Zhan held up a handheld fan to dry the sweat from the filming. When the photographer signaled the start, he stepped forward, stepped back, walked again, and continued to retreat. The props on his back are like airplanes, and his eyes are constantly searching for the camera, and he is like a naughty child exploring an unknown world. Every time I go back and forth, I am thinking about the more refined possibilities between advancement and retreat.

It’s hard not to notice Xiao Zhan’s sense of proportion. When being interviewed, he has a catchphrase: "Can you say this?" Or, as if to confirm himself, "You can say it like this." He also reflects on himself all the time. For example, I repeatedly remind myself not to let my performance become inertia. Once I get used to it, it will develop into terrible inertia. For example, he often emphasizes that he doesn't like to make mysteries, and he may not understand many truths. What he shares is only his sincere daily feelings. For another example, when he heard a crew member commenting on his "striving for excellence", he responded that he had not yet reached "refinement" and only wanted to "benefit".

Xiao Zhan spoke slowly and eloquently. He did not have a thunderous and fiery personality. He chatted calmly and had the ancient style of a benevolent gentleman. He's not tight at all. They chatted all over the world, and when they got to the point where they were enjoying themselves, they naturally leaned back on the chair and gently held their right legs with both hands. The content of the chat ranged from the unchanging emotions contained in the golden songs of the times to AI, the views on human beings, as well as his own performances and life experiences.

In 2023, three TV series starring Xiao Zhan will be broadcast one after another. He played the colorful father, the lonely and cold eldest son, and the newcomer who struggled in the workplace. Every time he enters a crew, he will dream about real scenes and real pressure related to filming. After the dream is over, he sinks himself into the heart of the character and performs it, leaving vivid memories and feelings.

There is a ruler in the heart and a square inch outside the body. What's appropriate is Xiao Zhan's inner view, his precise view of work, life and himself. A few inches away is Xiao Zhan's external perspective, his perceptual understanding of the past, time, space and the world. Between the length and the shortness of a ruler, heaven and earth appear.

======

Three TV series have been aired and new dramas are being filmed. For actor Xiao Zhan, 2023 is a fruitful year.

Occasionally, when he looks back on his career as an actor, Xiao Zhan will be in a daze for a moment. In the blink of an eye, it seems that he has been there for a long time. Almost every time he shoots a movie, he has a routine: dreaming. I dreamed about memorizing lines, dreaming about acting against a director, or even dreaming about taking a math test, but couldn’t solve any of the questions on the paper, and then I woke up with a start.

Xiao Zhan felt that this was caused by pressure, and he accepted it calmly. Perhaps there is another reason. Deep down in his heart, he does not regard himself as a qualified actor, but always puts himself in the position of a newcomer, with an attitude of learning and exploration. Therefore, every time he goes to a crew, he has the experience of starting all over again.

Xiao Zhan is very wary of inertia. Sometimes he also advises himself not to be under so much pressure, not to get into trouble, and to try to be more relaxed. But once he realizes that he starts to rely on performance models, experiences and habits, he will remind himself that taking things for granted is dangerous. After a long time of inertia, inertia will occur, and inertia will lead to "taken for granted". Therefore, every time he interprets a role, he always has to gain some freshness.

Xiao Chunsheng in "Where Dreams Begin" is a character full of freshness. Because there are extremely obvious differences between him and Xiao Zhan himself. Xiao Chunsheng is a young man in Beijing in the 1970s, which is completely different from the era and environment in which Xiao Zhan grew up.

Military coats, "28 big bar" bicycles, the ice surface of Shichahai, and the transformation from a young boy to a middle-aged entrepreneur are not familiar to Xiao Zhan. To this day, Xiao Zhan can still see "traces" of Xiao Chunsheng: when it comes to the character Chen Hongjun in the play, he always says "Hong Jun'er". Those were the Beijing movies and Er Huayin that I practiced when filming started. "Ouch" and "Ouch" were all words on Xiao Zhan's lips.

The language, objects and sense of time are all okay. For Xiao Zhan, the biggest difference from Xiao Chunsheng is his personality. He is an "I person" who enjoys being alone, while Xiao Chunsheng is the complete opposite. He makes many friends and loves to socialize too much. Measured by today's standards, this extreme warm-heartedness often means a lack of a sense of boundaries. "The times are developing faster and faster. Today's young people are living a fast-paced life and will not easily cross the boundaries of getting along." Xiao Zhan commented, "But Xiao Chunsheng is an extremely meddlesome person, so it is easy to offend Someone else." When he read the script, he was quite intimidated by this role and felt that it would be difficult to act like it. But after hesitating for a long time, a thought suddenly caught his attention: Maybe the qualities we care about today contain exactly what we need.

Fresh, this is Xiao Zhan’s summary of Xiao Chunsheng and his contemporaries. "If you hate them, you hate them. If you like them, you like them. Don't you think the colors of each of them are particularly bright?" he asked. Even now, when thinking back to some scenes in "The Sea in Dreams", he still feels that the characters are shining brightly and vividly.

After playing Xiao Chunsheng, a person who is far away from current values, Xiao Zhan also gained something in terms of mentality: don't be afraid of making mistakes. He said: "A truly lovable character will have imperfections." During the filming, he once asked the director if it was particularly annoying for Xiao Chunsheng to worry so much about others. The director told him that it was precisely because of this "annoyance" that he was Xiao Chunsheng, and "annoyance" was his charm.

The director's words suddenly awakened Xiao Zhan. Sometimes he would fall into a strange circle, hoping to avoid and correct the imperfections of the character. "When you change it like this, the character itself loses its charm." Xiao Zhan said, "So I think you should not be afraid when doing homework for the character. Be enthusiastic when you should be enthusiastic, and cross the boundary when you should. If you always consider the character's The shortcoming is, thinking about what will happen if the audience scolds me, it will be difficult to act." Because actors play roles, not personalities.

Not being afraid of flaws, to some extent, also means the courage and ability to seek truth. "Sunshine by my Side" is Xiao Zhan's first appearance in an urban workplace drama. His reason for taking on this drama is simple: modern dramas are too close to reality and everyone is living it, so it is difficult to perform it to make everyone believe it. Because he was unsure and confident, he firmly believed that he would learn something after "gnawing" it down. Thus, the character Sheng Yang came into being.

"Sunshine by my Side" made Xiao Zhan realize that urban dramas rely heavily on the cooperation between actors. Because it is more life-like, every point will not be stuck, and the lines and performances will be slightly adjusted. "We are all living people, and we do not exist to maintain a persona. What everyone does, says, and expresses emotions are natural, reasonable, and flowing. If you change, my performance will also change. It will change accordingly." Xiao Zhan said that this kind of creative coupling eliminates the possibility of actors being rigid and mechanical, so it is a fresh and fun experience.

Sheng Yang is a designer, which happens to be the job that Xiao Zhan has done. With personal experience, flexibility during performance can be guaranteed. "When Shengyang wanted to draw the design drawings, I would actually draw them there. Sometimes I would tell them, art teacher, your layers seem to be locked and I can't move." Xiao Zhan recalled, " Because it's his own life, he's better at it. Can you say that? Okay." He never forgets his sense of proportion when it comes to his true feelings.

Xiao Zhan is no stranger to TV series with fantasy themes. "Yuguyao" is the most recent example. For him, acting in a play with such an imaginary background requires a process of starting from scratch. Facing a green screen, if you want to imagine extreme weather or breathtaking scenery, you need to create it yourself. As for whether the state is real and whether the emotion is subtle, more often than not, one has to trust the evaluation made by the director behind the monitor.

Whether it is a costume drama or a modern drama, Xiao Zhan always has a clear understanding of the script and characters. "There are always few good things at any time, which is why people always say that they are rare." He recalled his observations over the years, "Some scripts may be considered good by the industry, but the market feedback may not be so good. Everyone What is the definition of good? Is it good sales or good word-of-mouth? It's hard to judge." Therefore, what he can do now is to return to his own understanding and feelings and choose what he thinks is the best. Role. As for what role he most wants to play, Xiao Zhan said: "I have been mentioning it for many years, a cute and charming villain, if I get the chance."

=======

When reading the script of "Where Dreams Begin", Xiao Zhan's mind would be filled with photos of his parents when they were young.

Dad is riding a bicycle, and mom is sitting in the back seat, wearing a red skirt and a white shirt. When passing a big rock, my father took a photo of my mother as a souvenir. She smiles brightly in the camera, looking like a bright girl. When it was his turn to play the role of his parents in their youth, he tried his best to restore the freshness and even madness of youth. He did not want to deliberately portray the story in a rigid and serious direction just because it was a story about his father's generation.

Xiao Zhan seems to have a special sense of time. He is nostalgic. Whether singing in variety shows and evening parties, or listening to them in private, he always has a preference for old songs. They are memorable, rich in meaning, and give him space to think.

When he was a child, he didn't have much pocket money, so Xiao Zhan would go to the video store to rent CDs, or exchange CDs and tapes with his classmates. The prices can still be clearly remembered to this day. To this day, he still has the CD player and Walkman he used back then in his home. Sometimes, he returns to wired headphones because they are convenient and easy to find. In the dead of night, he would occasionally think of objects that were gradually disappearing in the torrent of time. Being alone, with his heart flowing, is his comfortable state.

Xiao Zhan said that he is a very homely person and has to stay at home. During his spare time, he just works out and watches movies. He never regards watching movies as a task. He watches everything regardless of genre, whether it is popular movies such as popcorn movies or niche movies such as art films. Recently, he watched "The Fall", the best film at the 2023 Cannes International Film Festival.

Around New Year, he often revisits "Love Actually" and watches it again every two or three years. The reason is also very straightforward. The family, love, and friendship in the movie all convey truth, goodness and beauty, which makes people feel heart-warming when watching them.

"Don't you think that the emotions between people have never changed? Old movies will always be read and watched, and old songs will always be listened to over and over again, because the emotions sung by truly classic works remain unchanged through the ages. Only sincerity can move people." Xiao Zhan seemed to have a sudden inspiration and compared it with AI, "I think AI cannot replace humans. Maybe its technology can one day surpass the limits of humans, but that kind of complex emotions , humans far surpass computers. It can be said that humans are the most accurate, mysterious, and complex supercomputers."

Xiao Zhan will pay attention to AI, just like he pays attention to all new things in the world that are deeply related to people. He watched the news and read things written by AI. The depth of thought and logic of thinking made him incredible. Perhaps, in some job competitions, the threat of AI to human beings is already close at hand, but he still firmly believes that AI cannot replace face-to-face communication between people, whether it is immediacy or complexity.

When these distant concerns about new things are temporarily put aside, Xiao Zhan also has his own expectations for the world.

When filming "Ace Troops" a few years ago, in order to play a soldier who was concerned with the national image, Xiao Zhan observed and trained in the army for more than a week. He got up at five or six in the morning every day and ate and lived with the soldiers. After performing this play, he felt the cruelty of war and understood the hard-won peace. "I cherish my current life more. This is the truth." Xiao Zhan said. Therefore, the current vision of world peace may also be related to infinite distances and countless people.

As for his expectations for himself, he outlined it more simply: "I have done very well in 2023, and I hope I can maintain it." After thinking for a while, he added: "In 2024, I hope to love myself more and care more. Some of my own feelings and thoughts. This sentence is not only for myself, but also for everyone."

In Xiao Zhan's mind, he is different on screen and in real life. In private, he will not modify himself too much, nor will he dress too brightly. He just wants to be natural and true to himself.

"Just like the current chat, just keep it in this comfortable state. I won't change my face and play another person." Xiao Zhan said, "It's too tiring. Too tiring." He repeated twice all over.

A poet wrote, "My heart is slightly larger than the entire universe." Outside Xiao Zhan's small space, there is the restraint of "strategy" and the vastness of "universe".

LINK TO THE ARTICLE

[borderlinebox]

Lose My Mind

Summary: Sunato Banda had found his interest in you, a psychiatrist.

Pairing: Sunato Banda x Psychiatrist!Reader

Warning: AiB normalities, Urumi acting like she's manipulating you, a little bit botched jack of hearts cause I forgot how the game went, manipulation, deaths mention, not proofread!!

A/N: Apologies for taking a while to post!! Ive been busy lately with my university but Im slowly working my way through the requests!

Request from Wattpad: Can i request a psychiatrist reader x sunato banda please, I think it would be fun to see how they would interact :) take your time if u do decide to write btw <3

Feedback is highly appreciated!!!

"Please put on the collar and proceed to the room upstairs."

The same ai voice rang through the small room you walked upon in. It was clear to you that the game must've included something about trust or a guessing game due to the looks of the collar. There was a small, circular display of a screen on the back of it.

You gulp before placing the collar onto your neck.

There was no going back now.

Feeling the light cold from the contraption, you made your way up the stairs and into a room full of other people just standing there. They all had the same collar as you.

For the time being, you decided to do what you do best; observe.

Back in the real world, you were a psychiatrist. Which meant you would study harsh behavioral disorders based on your diagnosis. You were relieved on how much your job had helped your ass during games like diamonds and hearts. It also allowed you to understand others and be able to adapt to their personality.

Maybe you wouldn't call yourself manipulative, but you definitely had the great advantage and ability to.

Your mind suddenly went blank when your eyes stopped and stared at a man from the other side of the room.

Sunato Banda.

Yes, you've heard bout him in the papers before, in the real world.

And then, it seemed like you had been staring at him for a bit too long and he seemed to take notice of your gaze. Banda started to stare back at you, as if he was observing you like you did him.

When you realized this, you quickly gathered back your surroundings and looked away from him.

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see that he had interest in you. A dark interest.

As soon as everybody filled out the game's player registration, the big tv screen in front of them turned on - revealing a jack of hearts card.

Everyone listened intently to the game's instructions.

And confirming your earlier suspicions; this is a game of trust. You could already tell, straight off, that most of the players in this room would go off and lie when the option and possibility is given.

Then most of them had gone off in groups or pairs.

Currently for you, you needed to find somebody you could trust. So you needed to observe everybody else first. You're too unbelievably close to finishing off this game - you needed to survive.

That poor boy with his one eye hidden decided to pair up with Sunato.. And it seemed like Sunato had already established his superiority over him.

You looked off to the side and found a boy who seemed like he was having a breakdown every two seconds sitting next to white-hooded other. It was rather odd and unique that they were paired, considering the fact that one of them looked calm and collected and the other was wild and shaky.

You really did feel bad.

But you couldn't do anything about it.

You felt a tap on your shoulder. You turned around to reveal a girl in a blue lollita dress - It was the same lady who suggested going in groups.

"Hey, you seem like you need a team... Do you wanna join our group?" She smiled 'innocently'.

Hesitantly, you looked at the group behind her. They were all so desperate in leaving this place alive that they forgot how to work smarter. Some were shivering, some were talking over others..

"Yeah, sure." You accepted and gave her a quick smile.

You had to accept naturally, otherwise they may suspect you as the jack of hearts. And it was too early for you to die.

She smiled. "Wonderful! My name is Urumi, yours?"

"My name is-" You were cut off by somebody asking if they could join the group and it seemed like Urumi had quickly forgotten about you.

You exhaled through your nose in slight annoyance. Then you darted your eyes off to the side and found Banda watching you again. His newfound lacky had disappeared into the small cafeteria.

Eyes narrowing at him, you were about to go and interact with him, get some non-verbal information from him at least, until Urumi touched your shoulder again with her bright, fake childish smile.

"Why don't we go to the cafeteria?" She persuaded in exaggeration, like a kid convincing for their mom to buy a toy for them. "We can have a group meeting there."

It felt like you had caught the eye of many people, like they knew who you are and what you can do.

You certainly know that you've caught Banda's eye, and now this Urumi girl seemed to be the most friendliest to you.

However you knew better than to trust someone like her, but you needed to follow her instructions for now so you wouldn't raise any sort of suspicion. You had to give her the steering wheel for now.

"Sounds like a plan." You answered her, giving one last glance back at Sunato as she continued to drag you away from the main room to the cafeteria.

-

"You're a club!" Urumi chirped happily, and the group members behind her agreed on with her.

Truth. The cogs in your head told you.

You were sure they said the truth. You looked around and smiled thankfully, "Many thanks." Bow.

After a while, it was time to answer your suit. You made your way to the cell of your choice and waited until the bot's voice said any further instructions.

"Please answer your selected suit."

"Club."

3 - 2 - 1 - Ding! Congratulations, you didn't die.

You sighed in relief and dusted off some dirt of your clothes before leaving your small cell. You guessed nobody had died this round, it's too early for the Jack to start their attack.

You opened the cell and were greeted by everybody else around you, and you were right; no one died. Your group got together in the center hall, all bowing and thanking their fellow teammates.

All of you started to tell each other their symbols once again until that one big bully decided to cause a scene. It was no surprise to you though.

He started threatening and attacking the poor man he forced to team up with him, pushing the victim onto the ground as they cried.

Banda was quick to pick the pitiful man up. "Are you okay?"

That struck you as odd. Surely, it did surprise you.

But then he leaned down onto the crying man's ear and whispered something to him. Despite his back was facing you, it was awfully obvious that he had a plan.

Seeing that the game was a hearts, and it needed you to evaluate how much you can trust one another; you also guessed that Sunato told the guy to lie.

It was only inevitable.

When the attacker was about to strike again, he was stopped by his words.

"Club! You're.. a club.." he cried, begging him to not hurt him anymore.

What a sad display in front of you. But it was the duality seen in reality. Where the bigger people fight the weak just to show the dominance they have over them. But it is a world that you have accept. You looked down in shame - not for yourself but for the humanity you live with.

"Don't wait so long next time." The bully chuckled and left.

He walked by you and his collar was in fact, not a club. Nobody decided to tell, letting the foolish man fall into his inescapable death.

After that, slowly, people died. One by one. It started off with that half-witted man, then the man who lied and so forth, so on. And it was all because of Urumi with her suspicions.

It was clear as day that she liked manipulating people using her childish charms.

You were thinking on leaving the group as you sat on those cafeteria benches.. But how were you going to do it without seeming suspicious? Well, you had no choice but to start avoiding her or tell her right away. But maybe next round, there was 20 minutes left and you had just done that group meeting. Thankfully, they haven't lied yet, or else you would have some serious problems.

"Hey."

You know that voice. You could feel your breath hitching and your nervousness starting to rise, but you had to keep yourself composed. Don't show fear.

You turned around to face him, "Banda."

He smirked darkly at you - A smile you've seen a thousand times on people like him.

Banda made his way to sit in front of you. He had his interest piqued at the very moment he had his eyes on you at the start of the game. He knew you were way ahead of the rest. The way you narrowed your eyes at people you were reading.

It also felt like he knew about you way before this game. Dare I say; world.

"I've seen you eyeballing me every time you enter a room." Banda taunted as his small, creepy smile never went away.

"You act as if you don't do the same." You remarked. "I know who you really are, Sunato Banda."

He grinned at you. "Feisty, I like that about you. Putting up a wall so nobody would know what you really think of others."

You only blinked slowly at him. What was he trying to get on about? Why were you even talking to him anyway?

"You'd be surprised." You shrugged his way.

And why were you entertaining him?

"You know, you're group is starting to become extinct rats. What are you going to do when they all died off?" Banda started making a good point.

"What? Am I supposed to say I'll ask for your help?" You asked suspiciously, a little offended.

"What else are you going to do?" He chuckled, soon turning to a dark point. "Just so you know, you don't have to trust in me. I have a feeling that my partner isn't telling me the 100% truth - and when your group dies down, you'd have no one to turn to."

"What are you trying to say?" You knew exactly what he was going to say.

"Why not help each other out? I do you a favor, you do mine."

"And what if you're the jack?"

"What if you're the jack?" Banda played along with signature smile.

Your eyes narrowed at him, a little pissed off. Two can play at this game. "Fine then," You crossed your arms on the table, "Suppose my group does die, and I do listen to your advice - What do you suppose you would do with me after? It's not like I'll easily trust a serial killer."

Banda sneered while placing both of his palms on the table and leaned closer to you, all up in your face with a snarl, "Sometimes, you make me lose my mind."

You leaned closer, "Too bad you already lost it."

With that you chose to stand up from your place at the table, not daring to look back at him. You could already tell he was starting to break character and the real, angry psychopath was starting to show. The true darkness and power that a man like him can hold over their victim. It was already on display at the very first second of this match - everyone was just blind.

But, much to his surprise, you turned around a little, not a full turn where your whole face was visible. You gave him a somewhat sympathetic smile - hard to know if it was fake or not.

"But, I'll be keeping your offer in mind." You chimed before waltzing your way out of the cafeteria with a racing heart.

Did you seriously just back-talked a criminal? Yes, Yes you did.

While you were busy feeling a little bit confident of yourself, which is quite suspicious and yet wrong in a game like this, you didn't notice a pair of eyes watching your back with dubiety.

After another round of this jack of hearts game, it felt like none of them was getting a speck closer into finding out who the jack might be. You gathered with your groupmates once again, waiting for your turn.

"So, what's my symbol?" You asked, trusting them.

"You're a... spade!" Urumi smiled innocently as she swayed lightly, her blue dress flying around lightly. Hand fiddling with the pink pocky stick in her hand.

Lie. Your head told you.

Your eyes widen in shock and terror as you processed the doom that you were in. For the very first time, you were being told a lie in your group.

After what seemed like hesitating more than confirming, the only members left of the group nodded their head and agreed on the symbol. The way they confirmed it was so transparent, you could tell how much of a lie it was, just because their tone of voice and their faces were all so fake.

But you decided to play along.

"Thank you." You nodded.

It didn't take long for the group to disband again, going their separate ways.

You went your own, really separate way alright. You went to Banda, much to your very own disappointment with your so called team.

,

"So you decided to finally come to terms, hm?" Banda played as he followed the lines of the brick walls in the small room in a hallway nobody would really bother to check, especially with a people of this amount left. He was very cocky.

"I said what I said, and I keep my word." You recalled, leaning against the wall with folded hands as you watched Banda slowly come closer to you, his index finger still tracing the dusty old grout.

Eventually, he got closer to you that he was practically 2 inches apart from your figure.

"Sounds trustworthy." He replaced his index finger with his whole palm, up against the wall. "Now I trust you'll tell me the truth?"

"I'll tell the truth if you do the same. I think you know that I'm more than capable to tell the difference between a truth and a lie. No matter how good you are, everybody always have a tell." You didn't meet his eyes yet, you stared off blankly into space but you were very confident and were true to your word.

Banda grinned at you, it made you look at him with your own blank eyes. "No strings attached?"

"No strings attached." You echoed back. Both you and Banda had agreed that both of you wouldn't try to control the other, just simply telling each other's symbols until the end of the game. After all, both of you know how many colors manipulation comes in.

"Your symbol is a heart." He answered.

Truth..

You walked behind him and read his collar, "Spade."

Sunato smiled once more at you, he seemed to trust your words. His partner must've answered the same so it was somewhat of a 100 percent chance for him to be alive this round but you knew that it wasn't going to be the end just yet. Someone was bound to lie some time.

Both of you then made your way to that cell room of yours, watching Urumi walk into her own as she smiled so sweetly your way before walking in.

What a bitch, you thought.

"Please answer your selected suit."

"Heart."

It was correct... The doors unlocked as soon as you realized you had survived. One by one, you heard doors open from the outside. You had counted the amount of players that were left, walking in their cells, so determining how many doors would be opened, it would tell you how many players had survived.

Unfortunately, another player seemed to have passed away. But it wasn't to your surprise.

The real surprise that was about to ensue was to Urumi, who was very shocked and quite pissed off that you were still alive. She had guessed that you had somebody else to trust other than her.

The way she watched you as you walked pass her through the cafeteria was just so full of hatred.

But the real threat to her was her groupmates. Not only were they losing faith in her - she was starting to lose trust in them. It was bound to be a lose-lose situation that would never seem to find its solution.

And as another few rounds went by, your conclusion was true.

Everybody from your group had disappeared, all with their necks blown off in the cells they all last departed to before their certain deaths.

It was a pity for all of them to have died. They wouldn't have had to die if only they were good enough to each other and speak nothing but the truth. But alas, none of them could trust the other.

Each round, usually when Banda's partner was long gone and off to the food section by himself, you would meet up with Banda where nobody else could see and exchange answers of the symbol on your collar and some other information both of you had gathered in safety of the other in the game.

You had told Banda that you had to team up with the white hooded boy with bleached-blonde hair who was formerly in your group but started phase out with the other guy with the yellow shirt. Both of which, you learned their names were Chishiya and Ippei. In order for you to not look suspicious in front of everybody else who was alive.

You couldn't help but feel bad for that one Ippei guy. He really was too kind for this world. It made you wonder how he got this far. Too bad he stranded in the Jack of Hearts game.

Sunato understood your reasons. For a serial killer, he was quite smooth with his words and made very good points from time to time. He was surprisingly a good person to chat with and pass the time.

Both of you learned each others aspects of being a serial killer and a psychiatrist, often play small and few rounds of a guessing game to figure out what the other thinks about or do or anything along those lines.

That's until what seemed like the last round came.

You were with Chishiya but Ippei had sadly passed away. He really shouldn't have been here in the first place. He didn't deserve it. You had a sure feeling that Chishiya was trustworthy enough to go through with your plan of surviving and you hoped that he didn't see you as a threat as well.

There was no real point in lying to him anyways.

In these few rounds, you've noticed how intelligent and observant he really was. It seems like the only last few who were left were the ones who stayed quiet and listened instead of going around and assuming others.

Both of you were sure that the jack was going to make the move.

Anyways, despite the fact you were with Chishiya, he told you not to tell him his symbol yet in order to get some answers from the people he seemed to suspect.

And as the plan went on smoothly, when everybody was gone from the small food section, you told each other your symbols and parted ways. You promised Banda that you'd meet up one last time in the same small room down the hallway.

"About time you showed up, I've been waiting here for 5 minutes." Banda turned around to you.

"And that's all the time it took for you to start losing your head up your ass, huh?" You teased back with unamused eyes.

He didn't really like that so he narrowed his eyes at you. Something he took from you, due to your little habit. "What happened?"

"Nothing much. I just had to do a plan with that Chishiya guy. Really helpful. You?"

"I also teamed up with another guy. Similar to ours. We both believe that we have many things in common." He answered willfully, everything coming out of his mouth was the truth.

It honestly stunned you, the fact hoe he actually was telling the truth about every word he tells you. You were just expecting more unsuspecting and cocky lies, same to everybody who had currently died at this game. Instead, you were met with a man who wanted to survive as much as you do. Maybe even as manipulative as you if you were.

"Reasonable. How sure are you that the guy you're with is the jack of hearts?" You asked.

"I mean considering the fact that you can tell the difference between a truth and a lie, shouldn't you know?" Banda sassed back at you, tilting his head with delight.

"I can tell the difference between a trustworthy prick and ally as well." You smiled at him exaggeratingly. You knew why he suspected his partner already but it couldn't hurt to know if your secret teammate knew why as well.

"When I said he was transparent from the start, I really meant it. He's clearly trying to act as if I have him under my control. The way he doesn't know the way I truly see him when he doesn't have a clue." Your partner says, all in the truth.

"Fair." You answered him. "I hate to say this for once but, hope you end up till end, Sunato. Just so you know, I really am saying the truth."

He nodded towards you before leaving the room first, never to be seen until the results of the last round.

Something tells you that you weren't the only one who felt and read the tension you had between the both of you. A deeper and more twisted and maybe even forbidden kind of tension. But it was the thing both of you had. But you couldn't say anything about it.

As the last few game matchers stepped into the last room of potential death, it took them almost a minute to find out who had won.

You answered your suit and you were more than relieved that your symbol was right and that you were ready to feel actual ground again and breath after this game. You could hear some laughter from outside, near your cell.

But despite trying to sound all so serious, you chuckled at his laugh. The jack was just right next door to you. How stupid.

One by one, you and the last other 3 players revealed yourselves to be alive as you told the jack of your clever plans and how much all of you had outsmarted him.

And in the end, before Sunato and that Yaba guy left into the cell to start their work, the last thing you saw was Banda's wink.

"We shall meet again, princess."

[abalidoth]

Replanting (Chapter 2)

(Chapter 1)

(Read on AO3)

You wake up at six on the dot every morning.

It's a habit from before, but there's something about being up before the Unionists -- who tend to sleep late -- that comforts you. They've adapted to your schedule some, at least; there's a neatly wrapped breakfast waiting outside your door when you get up.

Each morning you eat, do a basic set of conditioning exercises, and navigate the labyrinth of corridors.

Sometimes you make your way to the roof, and bring your food with you. It's an unexpected luxury, being able to eat wherever you want, and the rooftop balcony is usually empty.

There's a bench there, and a lovely view of the grounds of the facility. For as utilitarian as the architecture is, they take care with the greenery; the cultivated surrounds transition gracefully into the native forest, and the sun glints off the glass of the city in the distance.

But most days, your impatience gets the better of you and you head straight for the hangar.

They won't let you sleep in Acacia, but they at least moved you to a closer room and gave you a special access badge. There are usually a few mechanics wandering around. A few are even brave enough to call out to you.

"Hello, Acacia," you say. Her lights brighten in response, the seal on her canopy cracking open with a hermetic hiss.

You climb inside, swab the connection pads off, and become whole.

Acacia is chewing through the Unionist's scientific databases of plants. They're still not comfortable giving her the full uplink to their civilian databases, but her talks with the Union's machine minds seem to be going well in that direction. You ride her thoughts as she learns, and taxa and diagrams of anatomy blur through your awareness.

Dr. Crane comes by at some point, mug of coffee in hand and sometimes a colleague following her like a contrail, and settles into the couch she dragged into your mechbay. She asks questions -- considerately undirected after the first few times, letting you or Acacia or Acacia-through-you or you-through-Acacia answer as desired.

"Can you tell me a little about how the Conclave grows AI?" she asks one day. Her eyes are eager. Your heat sensors pick up a flush.

Acacia already talked this over with the Union AIs that she's been talking to, but you both assume Dr. Crane has her own reasons for asking.

"We don't," Acacia says. "I was not grown in a creche like your minds were."

"That's what I've heard," Dr. Crane says. "But...we don't understand how that could be the case."

"I don't know," Acacia says. One of you is feeling a bit of frustration. "There was no moment of awakening for me, there was no transition from interfacing with a creche environment to the outside world. It was slow. I differentiated myself from my pilot... somehow. I don't know how much other mechs and other pilots have done the same. I know some of them are along some phase of the process, but..." Her shoulders aren't mobile and Dr. Crane is looking at you, so you shrug for her.

"That's what I've heard from our AIs. Just wanted to confirm." Dr. Crane makes a note on her ever-present clipboard -- this appears to be something of an affectation on her part, given that most of the other scientists use some kind of electronic tablet in lieu of paper. "This is a dilemma for us. The Union counts fairly few AI amongst our population, and while they're very powerful at certain tasks, the way we've managed to emulate human cognition is slow. Slower than a human is."

"And I'm not," Acacia says.

"And you're not. You're...something new, something our system hasn't had to handle before. I'm definitely in the process of granting you both citizenship, if you want it--"

I don't, you think, at the same time Acacia says, "I would like that very much."

"--but there remains the chance that we'll want to call you in for more questions occasionally. I won't do that against your will, and it's possible that the process by which you came to be is..." Dr. Crane gets a little lost in her own sentence structure, starts over. "I'll be blunt. I haven't really kept it a secret that I think the Conclave mech program is horrific."

"You have not," Acacia agrees. Dr. Crane flushes a bit, but continues.

"I'm glad that you came from it, but I'm a little afraid that...more alarmist elements in the Union might take your existence as a sign that we need to do something different. There's already a cause for secrecy because we weren't aware that the Conclave had AI at all, let alone piloting mechanized infantry."

"I don't pilot," Acacia says. "My pilot pilots. My direct control over motive function is very limited without a neural tunnel."

"Inhabiting, then. The point is, I'm worried that more hawkish elements will want to...replicate you."

"Hawkish?"

Dr. Crane presses her lips together. "The faction in the Union that wants to move our war from defense against Conclave aggression to direct offense. I won't lie, some of the things I've heard from you about your society make me want to walk to New Jerusalem and slap the shit out of the First Voice myself. But the Cascadian Union was born out of the ashes of the old military junta, a centralized government that committed atrocities solely to protect the interests of those at the top of society, and we were founded specifically to keep that kind of perverse incentive structure in check."

You only understood about half of that -- you've never been to New Jerusalem yourself, only your staging base in Las Cruces. You've obviously never met the First Voice of God. But you understand enough that a question bubbles out of you, and Acacia passes it along in her smooth, even voice. "What does this mean for us?"

"I don't know," she says wearily. "In the long run, I don't know. But I'm going to push where I can for your freedom. I might have to get you to agree to some terms, for release. To keep you close to here. Bring you in for questions if necessary."

"Okay," Acacia says carefully.

"But I have a partner in the Parks Union," Dr. Crane says. "I think, Acacia -- if you'd like, we could figure out how to give you control of your own body, you could do great work with landscaping. Some of the first Union mechs were originally designed for that, actually."

Acacia dreams of trees, lives in the green spaces of her mind, and she lights up when she thinks of it. But all you can think of is that phrase:

Control of your own body.

Acacia reads your fear, catches your fall, whispers that it'll be alright. But there's no connection gel, just the pads, and she can't osmote the happy chemicals directly into you. Across that gap, she can't extend her hand to soothe your nerves.

There's a little tremor in your hand as you disconnect the first of the connection pads from your temple.

No, pilot. Please.

They're going to take me away, you think at her. Her voice is already fuzzy and indistinct as you remove the second pad. You don't know what it's like for her, but a small, cruel part of you hopes that she's afraid...as afraid as you are.

Then you feel sick for even thinking it. Then as the disconnect vertigo hits you, you just feel sick in general.

Acacia stops talking as you remove the last few pads, and just kneel there in the skeleton of the force rig, shaking. For a mortifying moment you're afraid that Dr. Crane is going to ask why, and that Acacia is going to answer, and that someone is going to come to get you out. Instead you just hear, "One moment, Dr. Crane. My pilot needs a few seconds." A silence, probably a reply that you can't hear through the mech's skin. "No, nothing you need to worry about."

A tinny noise sounds near your head, swallowed by the general chaos of machinery inside Acacia's cockpit. "Pilot. It's going to be alright."

"They're going to take me away from you."

"They're not," she replies, and it's still so strange to hear her outside her head, to exist outside her yet still within her context. "I won't let them if they try."

"I saw," you say. It's something resembling accusatory, the closest you can get to resentment while you're actively avoiding puking in the cockpit. The world swims as you adjust to the sudden change in your proprioception. "I saw...how happy you would be."

"I would be happy to be with you. Giving me control of my own body doesn't mean taking you away. It just gives both of us options, dear pilot." That's as close a translation as the language can come for the name she calls you across the neural tunnel, a wordless glow of love and care.

"How do I...how do I know?" you say. "I don't... I'm your pilot. I don't know how not to be."

"Put the pads back on," she says gently, "and I'll show you."

And you do, and she does, and for a while everything is okay.

---

This morning is a little different. Dr. Crane is earlier than usual, and she's brought Dr. Chen, as well as another academic type you don't recognize and a gaggle of mechanics. One of them is carrying a big pail with a bundle of cloth atop.

"Good morning," Dr. Crane says. "I have a surprise for you."

The mechanic with the bucket sets it down, and Dr. Crane gently kicks it. Seeing it through Acacia's sensors, you get a rough schematic of the weight distribution inside. "We scraped the remnants of the connection gel from Acacia when we brought her in. We've been trying to reverse engineer it -- there's a lot that we don't know. But we'd like to try it. How, is it, um..." Her usual confidence falters. "How is it applied?"

You tell her, with help from Acacia. She's not good at hiding her flinch when your handler comes up. You think you have an idea of why that is, now -- pilots here are people, they don't have handlers, sex is common between them but not a part of battle routine. You're not really sure why that matters to Dr. Crane (she's mentioned partners, but other than that it's a mystery).

But you're starting to see, now. How the Conclave talks about sex and sin, and how the Conclave handlers use it, are two facts that might just be irreconcilable to you. You mentioned to Dr. Crane, once, that Conclave handlers are known as "Jezebels."

You make a note to ask again, sometime.

With no handler, you don't see any choice but to do it yourself. You strip down quickly, pry the lid off, do the best you can to cover yourself, then slide into your old flightsuit that they left on top.

You apply a second coat, and rush back into the cockpit. Acacia re-engages the connection mesh and

green

green

fire

green

It's almost too much. At first, you're not sure if you're just not used to it anymore, but you hear Acacia in your mind and her voice is wrong, wrong, crackling with static and light like a knife. You feel her pain and she breathes yours in like desert dust, it clogs in your lungs, in your intake manifolds.

You distantly hear swearing, you feel Acacia push you out. Your canopy flips open, she falls-- no, you fall --

One of the medics is over you, the lights are too bright, you can barely make out the shape of a concerned expression.

They check your breathing, your pupils. The shock wears off, the sudden lack of jump jets and weapon hardpoints in your sensorium wears from an acute burn to an ache. There's a tingling in your limbs where pressure sensors and damage readouts should be, like the feel of a nerve pinch.

"Shit," Dr. Crane says. "There's something wrong in our recipe, maybe. Dr. Kessi was pretty sure she got the nanobots right, but... I'm sorry, pilot."

You shakily get to your feet. "It's all right. I'm...I'm okay. We'll try again next time. I just need to..." you gesture at the cockpit. "I'll just use the pads. Until next time."

"Pilot..." Dr. Crane says. "You just had a petit mal seizure. I don't want to let you back in there without a full neural scan, at minimum."

You thought that something like this was coming. You're still gutted by it. You look to Acacia, to the immobile eyes of her front facing camera nacelles.

"I don't," you start. You swallow. "I don't care. I'd rather..." You gesture at Acacia's cockpit, knowing how opaque the attempt to communicate is, knowing you can't do any better right now.

"We don't know how her brain functions either," Dr. Crane says. The sympathy in her voice is like an icepick between your eyes. "Even if you don't care about damage to your mind -- and I think you should -- do you want to expose her to the same risk?"

"She's right," Acacia says, slowly, unsurely. "I...don't know if I was just feeling your pain or also my own, pilot. I'm still seeing readings that worry me. I'm sorry."

You look at the canopy. The sequence of events plays out in your mind: you could rush in, close the canopy. But would Acacia even want you, any more, with her own autonomy all but assured? Would she spit you back out like a bit of plastic caught in a meal? The Caskies wouldn't kill you, but they'd lecture you, lock you down for your own protection, they would --

"I think," Dr. Crane says, "this might be a good thing, for a little while. You need time to heal, to be...yourself, you know?"

Words come to you, from when you first saw Acacia here.

“Pretty sure removing a sapient being's body parts is against something in the codes.” Your impression of Dr. Crane isn't going to get you an acting career, but it's enough to drive home the point. She steps back as though you'd slapped her.

You tear your eyes away from Acacia, put your shaky legs to work, and start walking in the other direction without a word.

---

You don't even really think about where you're going, but you end up at the balcony and nobody stops you.

You haven't been up here at midday, and at first the angle of the sun makes it hard to look out the direction you usually look, toward the city. As you stand, lost in your mind, the clouds roll in and turn the glare into a glow.

Your thoughts are formless and fearful. There are no words. It's like the way you think with Acacia, pictures and emotions and forms. Words are only necessary in a last-ditch scenario, and you don't need them when you're alone. It's just a slideshow of feelings, fear of abandonment, pictures of Acacia living her life as a free entity, and you -- all your nightmares are Conclave-flavored, of course. Re-education, recycling, excommunication, the confused scraps of religious dogma that are fed to something less than human that nevertheless needs the fear of God beaten into it.

You pick at the flaking white paint on the metal bench while your brain cycles. The Union is a big unknown to you. What lurks behind this kindness? What punishment follows your rejection of the reward? Every time you've defied them previously they have shown mercy, compassion shown to the bullet and to the gun. But the bullet is there to be spent, and the gun is there to be reloaded and fired again. You're not going to fool yourself that most of your concern is for Acacia -- there's a very real undercurrent of anger towards her there.

The hours wear on, and your stomach begins to rumble, but you're not interested in going back down and facing the looks of the Caskie technicians and support staff in the cafeteria. It's more than you can handle on a good day, which this has definitely turned out not to be.

You hear steps behind you on the rooftop stairs as the sun's cloud halo reaches down to kiss the skyline. You don't look up, there's still a little of you that is petty enough to not give that satisfaction.

"Dr. Crane," you say, flat and hoarse.

"I've told both of you, you can call me Mia if you like." She sits on the other end of the bench. She's shed her lab coat, and looks unusual in a pair of slacks and ruffle blouse.

You don't respond, just wait for her to say whatever she came here to say. She sets down some kind of electronic device on the middle seat of the bench, between you, and rifles through her bag for a metal water bottle and a paper-wrapped sandwich. "Thought you might need it."

You take them both, gratefully but with no little wariness, and tear into the sandwich. You're not sure if you're going to get another.

"I'm sorry," Dr. Crane -- Mia -- says. You look at her with a mouth full of bread and greens.

"After you walked off," she says, "I was frustrated. I've been frustrated for a while. Not at you, more at what the Conclave has done in general. But frustration, you know. It gets misplaced. I stalked into my office, threw my coat at the wall, called my partners to rant."

She takes a sip from her own bottle, savors it for a moment. "One of my partners, Aurora, they're...not a single person." She pauses. "More like a collective of people in one body, that blend into each other at the edges a little bit, mostly work as a team. It's not uncommon, in the Union, but it's not something I...directly experience, you know."

You look at her, tilt your head. This isn't something you're familiar with -- certainly the kind of thing that wouldn't be tolerated in the Conclave.

"It's pretty, isn't it?" She gestures at the city. "Portland."

You'd heard the name during your time here, but you still don't have much of a grasp of the geography. "We've never... I've never seen a city like it before. Las Cruces is a lot more...flat."

She nods. "I'm a Vancouver girl, myself. Grew up in the capital. Even after the founding of the Union, even after the First Principles and all that, there were a fair number of people who didn't like the new way things worked. My parents were like that -- their parents were cap-class before the Union, and that's how they grew up, with this deep resentment, this whole belief in self-sufficiency. You ask me whether I've gotten away from that, I tell you of course I have, just look at my life, my partners, my service."

Mia sighs. "Aurora, they're not from here. They're refugees from further east, not Conclave territory, but the prairies, one of the little tinpot dictatorships out there. So they know what it's like, to be new to the way that we do things here in Cascadia. And I'm so lucky to be with them, because when I called them tonight they called me on my shit." She shakes her head. "I was so focused on the autonomy that had been taken from you, from Acacia, that I forgot the founding principles of the union are all centered around none of us are in this alone."

"What..." You want to ask what is the point of all this, but bite it down. "What are you saying?"

"Aurora, or rather the one that was in front at the moment, reminded me that you can be a person and a part of a person.”

You think about it, then let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

Part of a person.

You can’t say it to her, not the way you should be able to with Acacia. So you nod, and hope she understands anyway.

She smiles at you, a little, and continues. “I was... I was afraid that the Conclave had forced you into this, that teaching you to be independent would be undoing the damage they dealt to you.”

"It's not damage," you say, finding a little spark of defiance.

"You're right," she says. "There is damage, I think. But your bond with Acacia -- your being part of her -- isn't it. Anyway. I wanted to get that out there before I dialed her in."

She messes with a couple of knobs and a button on the top of the gizmo she'd put on the seat, and Acacia's voice comes out.

"Pilot?"

It's still so strange, hearing her from outside you, but the sound of her voice strikes straight at the fear that drove you to this rooftop in the first place. "I'm here."

"I don't know what I did wrong," she says. She's not used to apologizing; the part of her that lives in you remembers. "But I need you. I need you back. Even if I could walk on my own, even if everything inside me was hooked together and under control, I need you to be piloting me."

"But you...you don't need me. You can...you can garden, and..."

"When I think about gardening without you there, it doesn't seem like it would be worth it," she says. Her affect is flat, but you know what it takes for her to say that. "I want to be connected, to not be paralyzed. But please don't leave me alone in our body. I’m only half of us."

Acacia's fragment in you, the green vignette ringing your field of view, vibrates in resonance with her words. 

Part of a person.

You nod, and think your assent to her, and then remember she can't see you. "Yes," you croak, all the moisture from the water you drank seemingly evaporated from your vocal chords. "Please."

Mia clears her throat quietly. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to stand firm on the medical concerns," she says. "I don't want to allow a neural connection without extensive monitoring, at the most. But I promise I won't push you towards an independence you don't want -- it's just for safety reasons. And I'll do my best to get you cleared quickly."

"That is fair, Dr. Crane," Acacia says. "I will share all the neural data I've collected, if it will help."

It hurts, the thought that you can't be whole. But it's a clean hurt, a neatly bandaged wound. So you nod, even through the pain.

"I'm sure it will." She stands. "I'm going back down. Cafeteria's still open for a bit if you want more than just the sandwich, pilot. And even if we don't want you connected for the moment...we can move a cot and a privacy curtain into the mech bay for you."

“You said your partner...partners...they’re like us?”

Mia laughs. “Not exactly, but they understand better than I do, for sure.”

“I think we’d like to meet them, sometime,” you say.

“I think they’d like that.”

She tosses her wrapper in the compost bin nearby, tucks her water bottle in her bag, and holds her hand out to help you up.

You take it, and follow her back inside.

[miela]

Shattered Memories • Chapter V: The Do-Over • {Peter Parker x Stark!Reader}

Chapter Genre: Comical Angst, Comical Fluff Chapter Warnings: Very dialogue-heavy Masterlist

↪ divider by firefly-graphics

“FRIDAY,” you sighed. “When is a riddle, not a riddle?”

You were at the Avengers Compound in your lab with information about none other than Peter Parker displayed on every holographic screen. You questioned yourself many times when you did this, and you felt like the character in those movies who obsesses over something because they definitely know something but everyone else around thinks they’re crazy or something. You considered stopping and going on living your life but you, your dad in heaven, and everyone around you know that once you set your mind on something, you cannot stop until you fully understand it or are satisfied with the facts that you have. You needed to know this for your own mental and physical health and you just about had it with not having the answers.

“When you have all the answers,” FRIDAY responded.

“And when is a puzzle, not a puzzle?”

“When there is nothing to take apart and put back together.”

“So, whoever Peter Parker is, is both a riddle and a puzzle,” you began with frustration in your voice. “I don’t have all of the answers nor do I have all the pieces. FRIDAY, I think I’m going insane.”

You rubbed your hands down your face slowly to try and calm yourself down. You had another dream last night. A wet dream. A wet dream about the Faceless Boy. 

You couldn't get it out of your mind how…sweet he was. The way he touched you, kissed you, caressed you…he was so sweet and gentle and caring. He made you feel like you were the most precious thing in the world. Though you couldn't see his face, he kept eye contact with you. 

But of course, you woke up once again in a sweat and with a migraine. 

You were at your limit. 

“Incorrect," stated the AI. “You are just showing signs of obsession.”

Your face twisted. I’m not obsessed. I’m just tired. “Way to make me sound like a loser,”

“Also incorrect, you just need to know everything about everything before you are satisfied.”

You deadpanned and took a deep, annoyed breath as you leaned your head in your hands again. You wanted to throw and break something. 

“Trouble in paradise?” You heard a deep voice ask.

You look over to see Sam and Bucky in the doorway. Bucky was holding a brown paper bag that said sweet greens across it and Sam was leaning in the doorway.

It would have to be a fun time to be paradise, you thought.

"Sergeant Barnes. Captain Wilson." You responded. 

“Should we be concerned?” Sam asked, looking at all the Peter Parker content surrounding you. “Because this is not looking good on your part.”

Bucky and Sam were two of the only Avengers that were left after the big battle with Thanos. Since the whole ordeal, they’ve been like big brothers to you since then. You were thankful to have them in your life still because they’ve been nothing but supportive through everything that you have been through and you have done your best to give the same support to them. 

You rolled your eyes softly. “Is that my salad?” You asked.

“Yeah,” Bucky confirmed, walking over and setting the bag next to you on the table you were currently sitting on top of.

“Thank you,” you opened the bag took out the food, and immediately began eating it hoping to get some dopamine and serotonin pumping in your system. 

“How can you eat that stuff all the time?” Bucky asked. “Isn’t too much of something unhealthy?” He looked up at the screens and then back at you.

You paused knowing what he was insinuating and sighed. “Brain food,” you replied. “You should try it sometime.”

He smiled in response and crossed his arms. “Alright smartass, wanna tell us why you're investigating this kid?”

“Not investigating him.”

“So then you're stalking him,” Sam asked.

“I’m not stalking him.”

“Well, you’re either investigating or stalking him. You gotta choose one.” Bucky replied again.

You looked at both men hard. “I’m studying him, thank you very much.”

They look at each other with looks of concern, confusion, and playfulness. 

“Stalking?” Sam asked.

“Stalking,” Bucky repeated but as a statement.

Sam turned his gaze back to you. “Sounds like stalking to me.”

“Yep, I agree.” 

“I’m not stalking him!” you exclaimed in frustration. “I’m trying to figure out who he is. You guys, wanna help? Help me figure out who he is and I can stop obsessing over it and move on with my life and run a company and be a normal fucking human being for once in half a decade, alright? If not, just leave me the hell alone to go insane.”

“Like I said, obsessive behavior,” FRIDAY added.

“Not in the mood, FRIDAY,” you responded as you put your food down harshly and rubbed your temples from the headache that had been forming since you woke up that morning from your dream about the Faceless Boy.

“Hey, kid,” Bucky spoke with a concerned tone. “Are you alright?”

Of course, you weren’t alright. After everything that you have gone through this month alone was making you sick. You had so much on your plate and so much to deal with that you had no idea how anyone made it through this before you. You may be being a tad bit dramatic, but you really didn’t care. Anybody in your position would most likely react the same way. You just wanted to figure this all out and move on with your life. 

“No.” You replied. “On so many levels, no.”

“What’s wrong?” Sam crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back on the table next to you as you sat on top of it. Bucky did the same on the other side. You sighed. How were you supposed to explain this entire situation to them without sounding like what you are appearing to be?  

“Promise me you won’t laugh.”

“Oh god,” Sam replied with a cringed wince.

“I’m serious,” you said sternly, looking at him hard. “I need you to promise me you won't laugh. Because if you laugh I swear to god,” you turned to Bucky. “I don’t care if you’re a super soldier,” You turned back to Sam. “And that your Captain America. I will kick both of your asses and web-cocoon you to the ceiling.”

Bucky snorted.

“Alright, little tough shit, calm down.” Sam smiled. “Promise.”

You looked to Bucky, who also promised. 

You take a deep breath to prepare yourself for what you’re about to say. “I’ve been having these…dreams...about a boy. But they’re more than dreams…they’re like...visions, vivid memories. But the thing is this boy doesn’t have a face and this has been going on for a while now. So when going through the Avengers files this came up.” You pull over the holo screen of Peter Parker’s file.

“So this is the infamous Peter Parker you asked us about.” 

“Famous actually,” You took another bite of your salad. “He’s an Avenger.”

Both of their faces twisted in confusion as they looked from you to the screen to each other searching for answers. 

“I’ve never seen him before,” Bucky stated.

“Me either,” Sam said with obvious confusion in his voice.

“Yeah and me three-ther.” You said as you click on a tab on his file and it pulls up information on Spiderman.

“He’s Spiderman?” Bucky asked but it came out more like a statement.

“Yeah,” You confirmed. “You guys don't recognize him and neither do I.”

They look at you with even more confusion and concern.

“Wait, you don’t?” Sam asked with doubt in his tone. “But y’all were partners in justice. Thick as thieves. The Iron Spider Duo. You two had inside jokes for days and were always with each other. How could you not recognize him or know his identity?”

“How can any of us not recognize him or know his identity?” you crossed your arms over your chest in thought.

“Well, we just figured he only showed you his true identity,” Bucky added. “We just thought he was shy or something.”

“Nah,” you shook your head. “He would trust you guys. He would trust all of us… unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless he did something wrong…or worse.”

“Okay, Like what?”

“I dunno, Bucky.” You replied and pointed your fork at his head. “What did I tell you about Brain Food?”

He deadpanned. 

“So you think that Spidey Parker is the boy with no face in your dreams?” Sam asked and you nodded. “But you can’t remember him.”

“Yes. I’m eighty percent sure that it’s him but I can’t remember that it’s him. So I’m unsure if it’s him. But my gut tells me that it’s him. So whenever I get too close to knowing, my head feels like it’s splitting in half and I end up with a migraine all day.”

“Do you have any clue how this all happened?”

“I have some hypotheses. One, if it is him and he did something bad and if we can't remember him, he somehow did it to cover his tracks. Two, if it is him and he didn’t do something bad and we can't remember him, someone did it to him to ruin his life. Three, Somehow too many people, or all people found out his identity and for his safety and the safety of others, he or someone else somehow made it so everyone doesn't remember him. Four, one of the big three is involved with some other unexplainable shit.”

“So you’re researching him,” Bucky said to no one in particular.

“Those are some good theories,” Sam responded. 

“But.” you started.  “There’s a question I've been brewing in my mind.” You put the bowl of greens down again. “If we can’t remember him are there others we can’t remember as well? Like a memory blip?”

A moment of silence fell between you guys. It was a thought that terrified all three of you. If one person can be forgotten by the world, who can say there aren't others? Who’s to say it’s not a villainous person? The more you thought about it, the more it struck fear in you. Anybody could just be forgotten and go on with their lives doing something. Or someone good in life has to start all over and be lonely.

Suddenly you felt bad for your other arachno-half.

“Have you tried talking to him?” Sam asked, breaking the silence.

You let out a deep sigh as you remember the entire event clearly. “Yeah…”

“And?”

“And, he won’t tell me anything, which is why I formed my hypotheses. But I get the vibe that he’s harmless.”

“How are you so sure?”

“We got bit by the same spider, I can sense his intentions.”

Another silence fell over you all for a moment. 

“We have to go on a mission for a few days,” Bucky stated. When we get back, we can help you figure all of this out.”

You nodded. “Thank you.”

“In the meantime,” Sam added. “Don’t do anything you would do.”

You scoffed and smirked. “Alright, I’ll just do what my dad would do.”

“Nah, you stay put, alright?” Sam chuckled. “Focus on being one of the 1% who actually give a damn about something.”

You smiled at that. “Be safe.”

Bucky put a comforting hand on your shoulder with a smile, “Be good.”

And with that both of your big bro figures leave and you sighed as you looked up at the screens. You thought about the possibilities of your hypotheses, the conversation you had with MJ, and the discussion you just had with Sam and Bucky. You mentally laid everything out and tried to decipher the missing pieces that you didn’t have. 

Then it hit you. A light bulb went off in your mind. 

“FRIDAY, pull up my dream logs and the information about Me and Peter Parker that we have and put them in timeline order to the best of your ability.”

“On it,” The AI replied back and instantly went to work. “This may take a while.”

“Trust me,” you replied. “I’ve got time.”

It’s been a week since you walked back into Peter’s life and he hasn’t heard from you since. He knew why though. You were very busy, especially when you had an entire company to run and a family to attend to. Peter was pretty busy too so he had no idea that the days had come and gone so quickly. 

But he did have you on his mind the entire time. 

He was thinking about all the memories that you two had together that you didn’t have. Or maybe you did and his face just wasn’t there in any of them. He thought about you during class, during work, and patrols. His mind was just filled with you, you, you…

He didn’t mind. In fact, he was wondering how he could contact you again.

After classes ended, Peter met up with Gwen, Miles, and Harry again, He usually walked to the train station with Gwen and Miles to take the train home together. Cindy and Pav lived in the dorms so they would usually just go there after classes and relax for a bit before studying and doing homework.

Miles had his arm around Gwen’s shoulders and she had her arm around his waist. Peter thought the high school sweethearts were a cute pair but it only made him miss you more. He was both happy for them and also jealous of them and he felt very juvenile for it. 

“What are your plans for your day off of work, Peter?” Gwen asked.

Peter adjusted his backpack on his shoulder and shrugged. “Probably just gonna take it easy at home.”

“You’re not gonna just sit there and watch Star Wars again are you?” Harry asked with a playful groan in his tone. “I swear you can quote the script of every movie forward and backward.”

Peter laughed. “You say it like it’s a bad thing.” 

They walked out of the doors and down the steps of the historic building. The campus was filled with students going to and coming from classes in the New York City sun as they walked down the sidewalk. 

“So how are things with you and your girl going?” Miles asked. 

“Uhm…I haven’t spoken to her…in like….a week?” Peter said as he rubbed the back of his head.

“Dude?!” Gwen exclaimed and punched his arm slightly. “A week?! Really?!”

“She’s a busy person!” He defended.

“We’re all busy people!”

Peter turned and started walking backward on the sidewalk to face his friends as he addressed them. “Listen, I just don’t want to come off too strong too fast. I want things to go smoothly.”

That was only half true. In reality, he didn’t have your new number and he was terrified to call your office number at the Avengers Building and Nika answered the phone. 

“Yeah but a week?” Miles asked raising an eyebrow. “You could at least ask her how she’s doing and stuff like that.”

Peter chewed his lip as he stopped walking and his friends followed suit. “I mean…you’re right but…I don’t want to be overbearing and overwhelm her or anything. Especially considering everything happening with her, you know?”

“Yeah, totally,” Gwen replied not looking at him.

Peter noticed that they were looking right past him at something behind him and he followed their view. His face softened when he noticed a figure he wasn’t expecting to see.

There you were leaning up against a black convertible with a red interior. You were wearing your usual leather jacket with a black tee shirt tucked into a pair of fitted jeans and those Ghostface Doc Martens again. Peter concluded that this was your staple look. It was far from your oversized flannels, crop top tees, mom jeans, and Converse that you used to wear most days when you were seventeen. You wore a dark pair of sunglasses while scrolling through your phone. One of your legs was bent as your foot was flat against the door of the car. 

“Hey Parker, your girlfriend’s here.” Harry teased. 

“She’s not-...I mean she is-...I mean-” Peter didn’t even really know what to call you. “She’s not…my girlfriend…right now.”

“Oh? ‘Right now’?” Gwen also teased. “Maybe if you stopped fucking around she would be already.” 

Peter rolled his eyes at Gwen with a small grin. He turned to you and watched you for a moment. Man, you’re so pretty. And he wished that at this moment things were very different.

He wanted it to be that you came to pick him up after class and he would run up to you and pick you up spinning you in a circle and you would squeal and laugh happily. Then you would grab his face and kiss him deeply and show the world that you were his and he was yours. 

“Hey,” Harry elbowed him softly knocking him out of his daydream. “Staring at her like a creep won’t do anything but freak her out. Go talk to her.”

“R-right” Peter stuttered before taking a nervous breath. “Come on, Peter,” He said to himself, “you got this.”  

He started walking towards you and the more he did the more his senses began to pull towards you. You felt it too because you perked up and looked at him. The shaded lenses of your glasses faded to clear lenses and he saw your beautiful (e/c) eyes meet his. He stopped walking when you noticed him. 

“Parker!” You chimed. “Fancy seeing you here.”

He smiled as he stepped closer to you. “I should be saying that to you.”

“I was meeting with the admins about the gala. I plan on doing scholarships for incoming freshmen and offering financial aid to upperclassmen who are running out of money from the government. Same With MIT and the Ivy Leagues,” you explained. “But I thought I might catch you out here, so I stayed to say hello and to give you these.” You pulled a pair of glasses that were identical to yours and held them out to him. “They’re Stark Specs. Dad had blueprints made for them, one for me and one for you, so I decided to bring them to life. I connected EDITH and Karen to them and you can speak to them interchangeably. Don’t use them to cheat on your tests or anything, but I don’t control your life so do what you want.”

Peter chuckled and smiled. “Thanks (Y/N).”

“Don’t mention it,” You reply with a wave of your hand. “Try them on.”

Peter put them on and the glasses automatically began their work of data scan to identify him. Littler blue circles and squares showed up around the lens as they scanned his eyes to identify who he was. Beeping and other computer noises sounded as they worked and loaded information. His eyes darted from each thing that popped up on the screen out of curiosity. Once it finished five seconds later, there was a green bar that flashed in the corner of the screen that said “access granted” and “complete.”

“Hello, Peter,” EDITH Chimed. “Welcome to your new Stark Specs.”

“Uh, thank you…!” Peter replied. 

“Friend detected,” the AI said as it narrowed in on you and your glasses. “Hello FRIDAY.” 

“Hello EDITH,” Peter heard through his glasses.

“Whoa!” Peter replied with wide eyes as he looked at you. “Whoa…”

All of a sudden hearts start forming around your head through his lens. Peter blushed knowing that EDITH knows how he feels about you and with the Bestie Feature, she was messing with him probably just as much as Gwen or MJ would. He noticed that your smile was sheepish and he assumed FRIDAY was doing the same to you. 

“Pretty cool right?” You asked. 

“Yeah,” He smiled softly with hearts in his own eyes as he looked at you. 

“They also will detect whenever you are by any Stark Tech. It will help you on your…y’know.” You said referring to his hero duties.

“Oh yeah for sure,” He nodded understanding as he put his hands in his back pockets.

You smiled and looked behind him. “Friends of yours?”

Peter followed your gaze to his three friends who were looking at both of you eagerly before turning away to look at different things pretending they weren’t just eavesdropping on your conversation. Peter let out a breath of amusement nearly snorting at them before he looked back at you and nodded. 

Oh, those losers?” he responded in a playful tone. “Nah, they’re just whatever.”

“Huh?!” Gwen exclaimed hearing him.

You laughed softly at her outburst as she walked over and wrapped her arm around his neck.

“Hello,” Gwen smiled. “You must be the girl Parker can’t stop gushing about.”

Peter looked at Gwen with wide eyes as Harry walked over and put his arm around Peter’s neck as well with his arm resting over hers. Peter looked at Harry also with wide eyes and an unsure expression on his face. He got the feeling he was about to be tag-teamed by his friends. When Gwen starts some shenanigans, Harry soon follows suit, and vice versa. It’s something Peter had to get used to with them because once they start they don’t stop until they’re satisfied with themselves. It was like they shared a singular brain cell. Usually, Peter just laughs it off, but at the moment he really hoped that he wasn’t about to be the ass end of their lighthearted bullying.

Not in front of you anyways. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for that kind of embarrassment as a makeshift first (really second or third depending on how one looks at it) impression.

“Hey Stark,” Harry smiled. 

“Osborn,” You smiled back. “I thought I might run into you here too but I had no idea you were friends with Parker.”

“Oh, this loser?” Harry replied in the same tone as Peter a few moments ago. “Nah, he’s whatever.”

You and Harry had known each other since middle school and spent your freshman year of High school together at Horizon High before you transferred to Midtown Tech your sophomore year. Peter remembered when you told him that you transferred because you didn’t want to go to a genius school when you just wanted to have a normal high school experience. You also couldn’t stand how stuck up a lot of the students were there. He was always thankful that you transferred otherwise your relationship would probably have been very different. 

You hummed in amusement and Peter blushed. He was definitely about the be the ass of the joke here. 

Peter cleared his throat and swallowed hard as Miles joined in by putting his arm around Gwen with a teasing smile on his face. He had a very different vision of how he thought this moment would go. 

“(Y/N),” Peter started before any of the others could attempt anything. “This is Gwen, Miles and…well you already know Harry. Guys, this is (Y/N).”

“Hello, (Y/N),” Gwen chimed. “It’s nice to meet the girl that has Peter so enamored.”

“Th-that’s a bit-”

“Yeah, it’s nice to meet you,” Miles also smiled. “He talks about you like nonstop, always daydreaming in class. Good thing he’s a genius or he would have been falling behind in class with how much he’s a million miles away.”

No not you too, Miles.

“Oh yeah, for sure,” Harry added. “He even doodles your name in his notebook when he should be taking notes. It’s kind of adorable.”

Peter pulled out of his rather annoying friend's grip and looked at them with a face of disbelief and shock. 

“Guys!” He whisper-yelled.

“Uh oh, we’re in trouble,” Harry sang as Gwen and Miles snickered. 

Peter wanted to run. He wanted to escape. He wanted to not be here at this very moment. He glanced at you to see you looking at him with an endearing smile. 

“Aw, you like me, Parker?” you asked.

“No,” he answered as a reflex. “I mean yes, but…I mean…I…”

Harry pat his back. “That’s our cue, guys.”

Gwen and Miles nodded and said little goodbyes before scurrying away with Harry and snickering at their antics to tease Peter to no end. He glanced at them as they left before turning back to you with a blush dancing across his cheeks, nose, and ears. 

“They seem nice,” you smile genuinely. 

“When they want to be,” Peter responded and rubbed the back of his neck embarrassed. “Sorry about them.”

“Nah, it’s fine really.” you chuckled. “They remind me of my friends.”

Peter smiled thinking about Celina, Ned, and MJ and sighed softly at how much he missed them. He loved his friends now but nothing compared to the history he had with all of you. 

“Are you busy?” You asked. “I promise I won’t corner and interrogate you again.”

“I have time,” Peter responded a little too eagerly for his liking. He mentally scolded himself.

“Great,” You smiled and shoved your hands into the pockets of your jacket. “Wanna go for a ride?”

“Sure!” There goes that high-pitched voice again, he noted.

You giggled as you opened the car door. “You’re cute, Parker.” 

Peter blushed and made his way to the other side of the car. He’s pretty sure if you knew how he was last weekend at a party you wouldn’t find it so cute. He was thankful that his friends didn’t bring that up. He didn’t even wanna think about how humiliating that would’ve been if you knew he had a meltdown because his senses were crazy and craving you so badly. He just missed you so much and reacted in a not-so-healthy way. He wanted to put that all behind him and follow his friend’s advice about starting over with you. He got into the car and put his seatbelt on. 

“Are you hungry?”

“I could eat.”

“Where do you wanna go?” You asked as you put your phone on a dock that was connected to the dashboard. “It’s on me.”

“No, it’s okay! “I-I can pay for myself, it's fine.”

“Consider it an apology for disrupting your day last week.” you grinned as you turned the car on.

“You could never disrupt my day,” Peter mumbled, not realizing that he didn't keep that thought in his head.

“You're sweet,” you smiled in response. “But I’m still paying. So where do you wanna go?”

Peter smiled knowing how stubborn you can be and looked up in thought for a moment. “I can go for a good sandwich right now,”

“Okay,” You nodded. “I know a place.”

You backed the car out of the parking space and drove off. Peter took the time to notice how customized your car was on the inside with various Stark Tech and a fiery red interior and yet the exterior was of a classic sixties Mustang. Peter figured it was your way of being discrete. 

You turned on the music in the car and to Peter’s surprise, it started playing a song that pulled at his heartstrings. 

It’s our love song.

One of the ways you and Peter communicated your feelings to each other in your relationship was through music. He sent this very song when he first said those famous three words and eight letters to you and gave you the necklace that he still keeps close to him. He decided that when you two got closer, he would give the necklace back to you. 

“Oh my god,” you smiled big. “I love this song.” You started singing the lyrics and glanced over at Peter a few times as you sang the first verse. 

Hey, hey, hey, lover

You don't have to be a star

Hey, hey, hey, lover 

I love you just the way you are

For love is just the same

Without fortune or fame

Just give me

True love and understanding

True love and understanding

Peter watched you and smiled as tears brimmed his eyes behind his shaded stark specs. He was so thankful that they automatically shaded themselves earlier. 

“Come on, Parker,” you giggled. “I know you know this song. Sing with me!”

Peter laughs and wipes his eyes as he begins to sing. 

Hey, hey, hey, lover

You don't have to be a queen

Hey, hey, hey, lover

You don't have to have a thing

For I'll be satisfied

Long as you are my bride

Just give me

True love and understanding

True love and understanding

For the rest of my days

You smile listening to him sing before join in to sing the rest of the chorus together. 

No, you shouldn't have to worry

Love's no problem in my hands

Just know I really, really, love you

And in your heart, I'd be a big man

Hey, lover, won't you treat me right

And be with me tonight?

Just give me

True love and understanding

True love and understanding

For the rest of my days

You both laughed as the song continued to play. Peter looked down at his hands contemplating his next words carefully.

“I…uh…showed you this song,” he said sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head. 

“Did you?” you asked. “So I have you to thank for this being in my playlist. Well, you have good taste in music.”

Peter smiled as you hummed the rest of the song to yourself. In this moment, he was truly the happiest he has been in a while and couldn’t wait to create new memories with you. Even if you couldn’t remember the history you had together, at least you were back in his life to create new beginnings.

~

Tags:

@chrisevans-realwife @riordanness @peterdarlingg @thecrystalclarity @brckenmemories @paleprincesssxo @blackcanary130

[alpaca-clouds]

How Capitalism turned AI into something bad

AI "Art" sucks. AI "writing" sucks. Chat GPT sucks. All those fancy versions of "fancy predictive text" and "fancy predictive image generation" actually do suck a lot. Because they are bad at what they do - and they take jobs away from people, who would actually be good at them.

But at the same time I am also thinking about what kind of fucking dystopia we live in, that this had to turn out that way.

You know... I am an autistic guy, who has studied computer science for quite a while now. I have read a lot of papers and essays in my day about the development of AI and deep learning and what not. And I can tell you: There is stuff that AI is really good and helpful for.

Currently I am working a lot with the evaluation of satellite imagery and I can tell you: AI is making my job a ton easier. Sure, I could do that stuff manually, but it would be very boring and mind numbing. So, yeah, preprocessing the images with AI so that I just gotta look over the results the AI put out and confirm them? Much easier. Even though at times it means that my workday looks like this: I get to work, start the process on 50GB worth of satellite data, and then go look at tumblr for the rest of the day or do university stuff.

But the thing is that... You know. Creative stuff is actually not boring, manial stuff where folks are happy to have the work taken off their hands. Creative work is among those jobs that a lot of people find fulfilling. But from the feeling of fulfillment you cannot eat. But now AI is being used to push down the money folks in creative jobs can make.

I think movie and TV writing is a great example. When AI puts out a script, that script is barely sensible. Yet, the folks who actually make something useful out of it get paid less than they would, if they did it on their own.

Sure, in the US the WGA made it clear that they would not work with studios doing something like that - but the US is not the whole world. And in other countries it will definitely happen.

And that... kinda sucks.

And of course even outside of creative fields... There is definitely jobs that are going to get replaced by automation and artificial intelligence.

The irony is that once upon a time folks like Keynes were like: "OMG, we will get there one day and it is going to be great, because a machine is going to do your work, and you are gonna get paid for it." But the reality obviously is that: "A machine is going to do the work and the CEO is going to get an even bigger bonus, while you sleep on the streets, where police will then violate you for being homeless."

You know, looking at this from the point of view of Solarpunk: I absolutely think that there is a place in a Solarpunk future for AI. Even for some creative AI. But all under the assumption that first we are going to erradicate fucking capitalism. Because this does not work together with capitalism. We need to get rid of capitalism first. And no, I do not know how to start.

[polizwrites]

Fool Me Once

This is a fill for today’s  @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt [#FFF230 Fool Me Once] as well as my @tonystarkbingo   “Get back in Bed!” square. 

Fandom:  MCU/Marvel Pairing: Bucky/Tony Rating: General Tags: Established Relationship, sickfic, sneaky!Tony

He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but Bucky knew something wasn’t right.   After JARVIS confirmed that Tony was indeed running a fever that morning, Bucky had recommended (okay, maybe more ‘insisted’)  that he take the day off.   He’d even called Pepper to make sure any meetings Tony had could be rescheduled.  

Tony had tried his usual  ‘join me in bed and wear me out’ negotiation, but Bucky remained steadfast.  “You need rest, sweetheart.  Go lay down and I’ll make chicken noodle soup for lunch.” 

“Fine.”  Tony had pouted, but  headed back to their bedroom.  A few minutes later, Bucky peeked his head in, just to make sure.   JARVIS had deployed the blackout curtains, but thanks to his enhanced vision, he could see  Tony’s form curled up under the blankets. 

After checking through the pantry to see what they already had for lunch - and placing an order for what they needed -  Bucky went to check on Tony again.  

He hadn’t moved an inch - which was odd, since Tony was the world’s most restless sleeper.   Bucky looked closer, and listened carefully.   Oh god - he wasn’t breathing. 

“Tony!” In three quick strides, Bucky was at his beloved’s side.  But it wasn’t Tony in the bed at all;  it was a bundle of pillows and towels artfully arranged to look like him.

“JARVIS - where is he?” 

“I am not at liberty to reveal Sir’s location,” the AI responded, his voice somehow tinged with regret. 

Bucky sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.   “He’s in his workshop, isn’t he?” 

“I can neither confirm nor deny.” 

“How the hell did he get there?” Bucky asked, trying not to lose his temper and only partially succeeding.  “There’s no goddamned way he snuck past me.”  

“It would seem Sir failed to inform you of the emergency elevator in the bedroom.”    

“That sneaky SOB!  How about you show it to me, J?” 

“With pleasure, Sergeant.” 

The elevator car was roughly the size of a phone booth, and Bucky was unpleasantly reminded of his cryo tank as he entered.  His stomach swooped as the car quickly and silently descended, the doors opening  to the usual cacophony of a genius at work. 

Under cover of the blaring music,  Bucky stalked over to stand behind Tony, making sure he wasn’t holding anything sharp or hot before clearing his throat. 

Tony startled wildly.  “What the hell, J?”  He turned around, his sweat-damp hair stuck to his forehead and eyes bright with either fever or inspiration - Bucky suspected both. 

“He didn’t peach on you, hotshot,” Bucky explained. “And you’d better  get back in bed, or so help me, I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you there myself, then pin you down til you go to sleep.” 

Tony grinned even as he started walking toward the elevator. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, sunshine.” 

[bat-anon]

AAAAA TADC LIVEPOST!!!

LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOO

THE WAY THE INTRO GOES FROM EARLY 2000S COMPUTER GRAPHICS TO THE 3D ANIMATION IS SO GOOD!

Caine! My good buddy Caine! And it’s the opening sequence from the trailer too

BUBBLE CAN TALK?!?! IS THAT ALLOWED?!

I love Caine’s animation! I love the way he talks and his body language

AN OPENING THEME INTRODUCTION FOR THE CAST

Kinger’s little pillow fort I can’t 😭 Someone please comfort this man

The animators knew EXACTLY what they were doing with Jax!! I feel so called out like damn okay!!!

What do they mean “*Disclaimer: Kaufmo the Clown did not show up today.”? How can someone “not show up” in the Circus when Caine can literally teleport the performers to his location and they can’t leave? What’s really going on here?? 🤨🧐

It still feels illegal that Bubble can talk

The VA has a pleasant singing voice tho. Definitely confirms that they’re performing for some invisible audience in some Truman Show style

Love the lyrics here. “Day after day after day after day after day we fly!” really drives home the fact that they are stuck here doing the same things over and over for seemingly eternity.

I’m literally not even a minute in (only at 0:48) because I have so many thoughts and excitement that I have to keep pausing

POMNIIIIII MY GIRL POMNI

WHY IS THE FLOWER POT GLITCHING OUT OF THE FLOOR SO FUNNY ACBNFRJKGD

The music slowing down and dying as Pomni knocks them down like dominos god this show really is comedy gold

Gangle’s mask! I’m so sorry bestie!

Oh god it’s like that meme of everyone at a party judging you I’m-

Is it just me or is Michael Kovach’s performance different than in the trailer? Of course it could just be because Jax is annoyed right now

“Caine, is this one of your NPC’s or is this a new sucker?” AVLGDXV Pomni must take one of the “I am not a robot” test. Also do they get NPCs??? Is Jax referring to other AI or actual NPCs???

She IS trying to remove a VR headset!

Pomni rn:

“You just need to get your head together” Ragatha this is not the time

THE SWEARS ARE CENSORED! ANOTHER ONE FOR THE BINGO CARD!

Caine: THIS IS A PG PROGRAM!

Do you think the censor thing applies to swear words in other languages too?

“You, my friend, stumbled into an incredible world of wonders! Where anything can happen!… E-except for swearing.” I love you Caine.

AFJKJRED I THINK I CAN ACTUALLY MAKE OUT MOST OF THE CURSES POMNI USES OH MY GOD

Yeah don’t be a dick Jax

“Did someone say something about an insect collection?” What? Insect collection? What is Kinger talking about?

Oh so this is where the dream thing kicks in. I wonder how long that’s gonna last until Pomni realizes that it’s real

Do you want me to kill Jax for you Gangle? Because I’ll kill him if you ask it’ll be on sight

THE DIAL UP OUUUUUG HIS CANE SPINNING IN THE BACKGROUND

Yo they got minigolf? Nice

I really hope we get episodes of the cast going to these locations and doing sitcomass things there

THE VOID

The moon talks?!

THE MOON WANTS TO FUCK CAINE?!

Oh GOD what did she throw up?

OH GOD BUBBLE STOP DON’T EAT THAT

EVEN CAINE AGREES WITH ME

TEAR THE BITCH APART!

Caine’s reaction to Pomni mentioning the door is sus…

I like that Caine let’s everyone choose their name idk I like how chill he is with regards to their mental/emotional autonomy

“I said that like five minutes ago” Shhh he has computer lag

“Don’t worry Zooble. I’ll make it something unobtrusive that you can still choose to not get involved with!” See, another example of how Caine wants to respect his performers feelings! I love this guy!

What’s a Gloink? Are they the stars?

THEY ARE THE STARS I WAS RIGHT

Humanoid hash- Caine, do you know what a hash brown is??

THEY STOLE ZOOBLE

Gangle’s reaction… they took her spouse in the divorce…

YO are we actually going to meet Kaufmo? Alright let me see the betting table who has money on him actually being voiced by Jack Black

JAX CAN BREAK THE FOURTH WALL ANDKHRJRJRJ

HA, get BONKED BOY!

It’s actually super interesting to me how Jax seems almost as tired of doing this stuff as Zooble.

She has her own room! :D

Ragatha mental breakdown moment 👁️👄👁️

He has a doorbell. Why is that so funny to me?

… something bad is about to happen

I hate Jax I’m gonna shut him up with my LIPS (I know I have terrible taste YOU’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!)

KAUFMO IS THE BLACK GOOP MONSTER WE WERE RIGHT!!!

Wait. Enhance.

Was that the door for another human that turned into a monster like Kaufmo? Is that why their icon is x-ed out?

OH GOD

OH MY GOD HE’S GOING TO KILL HER

OH GOD WHY ARE THEY ALL GLITCHING

Did Kaufmo cause that hole?

Probably not I guess

“We’re not very good at this, are we?” You’re the dream team to me 🫶

Don’t you DARE tell her what happened

Unrelated but I just noticed the reflection in Gangle’s tears! That’s really cool!

So Jax didn’t just throw the bowling ball at them just to be a jerk, but to get all of the out of there as soon as possible without telling them what happened to Kaufmo? Inch resting

THE BOWLING JOKE HAS LANDED! I REPEAT, THE BOWLING JOKE HAS LANDED!

OH MY GLORB WHAT IS THAT THING? IT LOOKS LIKE THE SAND WORM FROM BEETLEJUICE!

I like that Pomni is doing her best to help Ragatha even though she’s super freaked out. It’s really sweet to me.

IT SPEAKS!

Are you TRYING to get the party eaten Jax? Because that is how you get the party eaten.

AKDNHWHWG THE LOSER OF THE ROCK PAPER SCISSORS BEING THE ONE WHO HAS TO STAY WITH JAX I CAN’T

Can we get an ‘F’ in the chat for Zooble?

Oh no now everything’s glitching out

THE MONKEYS!🙌

What IS the deal with this random door??

“Well, b-but, uh- yet you’re still watching it!” AKDNHSHSB the way the Gloink Queen doesn’t deny it.

OH SHIT! The cinematography of Kaufmo landing on the Gloink Queen is SUPER COOL!

“Oh thank god you’re okay! You didn’t experience a game show in there did you?” ALDKDK a reference to my favorite gag in Gooseworx’s animations!

So Pomni DID work here as a human! And I see the head set on her desk! That warning triangle was definitely there for a reason… I wonder why Pomni put it on at work? Was it her last day and she went “fuck it”? Did her company make/acquire the rights to the game and assigned testing it to her?

C&A REMEMBER C&A THAT’S DEFINITELY IMPORTANT

THE VOID

HAVE I COMPLIMENTED THE SOUND DESIGN AND SOUNDTRACK YET BECAUSE THE SOUNDTRACK AND SOUND DESIGN ARE REALLY REALLY GREAT

Woah where is this restaurant? This looks like a nice place to eat! Also I know this is late but what’s with all the mannequins? Are they the NPCs Jax mentioned earlier? I hope we get an episode of the characters in this restaurant because this setting is dope!

“Oh Bubble, you always know how to make me say this exact sentence.” Agnkjrea have I mentioned that this show is comedy gold? Because it is comedy gold.

THE WACKY WATCH AND THE AD HOUUUGH

I hope they make those as merch that

Pomni’s about to SNAP

Wait, Caine tried to make them an exit because he knew they wanted one even if he missed what they meant? That’s actually super wholesome I love him even more now!

I thought there was blood on Bubble’s knife at first but I now see that it’s just reflecting the colors around it

THE ORCHESTRAL RENDITION OF THE OPENING THEME THAT STARTS PIANO PIANO THAT SLOWLY CRESCENDOS YES

In conclusion: EVERYONE WATCH THIS SHOW AND CHECK OUT @gooseworx’s OTHER STUFF NOW IF YOU’LL EXCUSE ME I’LL BE SPAMMING MY FOLLOWERS WITH THIS SHOW AND RAIDING THE ONLINE STORE!!!

[mymoodwriting]

LØV3

F!Reader x Hyungwon

Genre: Yandere AU

Warning: Drugs, Medication, Electrocution, Choking, Suffocation, Manipulation, Abuse, Physical Abuse, Paranoia, Anxiety

Words: 2.3K

Chapter Fourteen 

(Prev//Next)

Prompt: NexGen is the leading company for all of humanities technological advances. Their recent project involves creating a higher functioning AI, one with basic knowledge of the world, and programmed to learn. It’s no surprise the project is a secret from the general public, and you, the company’s head programmer, were chosen to be the AI’s teacher. You wish you could reject the assignment, but the decision was made. Now with an AI at home things were different. Although it might not be such a bad thing, perhaps you could learn and help each other out, for better or for worse.

(@starillusion13 @makeyourfantasydreamscometrue)

“Welcome home.”

The last time you had actually been at your house was the day Chae Hyungwon revealed his true colors to you. This place didn’t even feel like home anymore. You had made such good memories here, but now they were all tainted. It wasn’t hard to understand that you were a prisoner in your own home. Hyungwon put you to bed, having somethings he needed to do, and for now he needed you out of the way. You had no idea for how long you slept, but when you woke up everything was still.

For a moment you could delude yourself into thinking everything was fine, but that was far from the case. While you slept Chae remained a bracelet on your arm, but as soon as you were awake he was around your head again. After a while you decided to get up, being careful as you weren’t exactly steady on your feet. If you had any doubts about your house not being your own anymore, this confirmed it. When you opened the bedroom door you saw multiple orbs fly past. It was a strange sight, and you stepped out into the hall leaning against the walls.

“Hyungwon…”

The only place you could think to look was in your home office. The door was ajar and you gently pushed it open, seeing that the room had been upgraded. It was a whole set up, allowing both Hyungwon and Minhyuk to work. When you opened the door Hyungwon noticed you, offering you a smile and getting up.

“What are you doing out of bed, you need rest.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m sure you are, that’s why I called over some friends.”

“Huh?”

Hyungwon took your hands and led you back to your bedroom. There you found Wonho and Kihyun setting some of their things down.

“There she is.” Wonho remarked. “It’s so good to see you again.”

“Uh…”

“They’re here to do a house call.” Hyungwon explained. “You haven’t been to the doctor in a while, so I had them come here.”

“Just a routine check up.” Kihyun assured. “Nothing to worry about.”

You sat down on the edge of the bed, Hyungwon leaving you with the two of them. Just as they said they did a simple check up. Although Wonho wound up scolding you.

“Kihyun tells me you didn’t pick up your meds, so you haven’t been taking them.”

“…”

“You’re still healing so it’s important that you take them.”

“I brought your refill.” Kihyun said. “So you can continue.”

“Excellent.”

Wonho had you take the pills, making you feel a bit uneasy as you weren’t entirely sure what you had been given. As you were finishing up Hyungwon came in, happy to hear the results from the other two.

“Since everything is good, I can show you your surprise.”

“A surprise?”

“You’ll love it, but first let’s get you dressed.”

Hyungwon helped you get properly cleaned up before picking out an outfit for you. Once again Minhyuk was the one to drive you around. Despite Hyungwon telling you this was a surprise, you kind of expected you’d be going back to NexGen. Although you didn’t know what he really meant until you walked in. He pulled out a keycard and let himself through with you in tow. Other employees merely greeted you both. It was strange, making you feel that something was off. The elevator ride took you up to the floor you used to work on and the whole place was unsettling.

It was eerily quiet on that floor, and multiple orbs were floating around, more than before. You could only hear the sounds of keys clacking and some low voices on calls. Hyungwon took your hand in his and led you over to your old office. He had a big smile on his face as he opened the door. A giant welcome back sign hung by the windows, and you could see some gifts around your desk. Before you could ask, Hyungwon explained that you had been reinstated as head programmer at NexGen. You looked at him with confusion, not understanding why he would do such a thing.

“The way things went down wasn’t right, and this is your rightful place.”

“But… what’s the catch? I doubt you’d let me take over this project of yours.”

“It’s easier for the company to go along with my plans if your name is on it. You built quite a reputation for yourself.”

“So you’re just using me.”

“I’m letting you rest. You gave a lot to this place, it’s only fair to return the favor. Minhyuk and I will take care of everything.”

“Hyungwon, you can’t-”

You groaned as you felt another shock run through your head, making your vision go blurry for a moment. Hyungwon held you up and brought you over to the couch.

“We can get some work done. So just relax, and I’ll play you some music.”

“No, that stuff-”

“Sh, sh, it’s okay. I’m so thankful for you and for being yourself. We’re changing the world together.”

“Hyungwon, please talk to me…”

The door opened and Minhyuk let himself in, interrupting your attempt at a conversation. Hyungwon’s attention shifted and you were left on the couch with your head getting foggy.

“Did you give Wonho and Kihyun their cases?”

“Yes. They’re set to distribute them tomorrow after the launch. Shownu will come by later to get his so we won’t worry about anything.”

“Good.”

“Wait… wait… the launch is tomorrow?”

“Yes.” Hyungwon exclaimed. “We have somethings to prepare, and we have to go over the speech. Everything has to be perfect for tomorrow.”

♥♥♥♥♥

Changkyun woke in a cold sweat, screaming and thrashing around. He soon recognized his surroundings and calmed down. Although his cell mates started to yell at him and told him to keep it down.  He apologized and got up to use the restroom, trying to move past the nightmare.

“Inmate 0126, you have a visitor.”

It hadn’t been that long since Changkyun had been charged and thrown in prison. The whole thing had been rushed, and he only stood in front of a judge for sentencing. He was worried as to who this visitor was, but he wasn’t going to reject them. He was led over to a room, surprised to see officer Lee.

“How’s prison life treating you?”

“I’m super paranoid if that’s what you mean.”

“Why?”

“I’m caged with a target on my back. Don’t be surprised if I wind up dead.”

“You really think someone is gonna kill you?”

“Yes. Why are you here?”

“Have you heard the news?”

“No, why?”

The officer placed a small gift on the table, confusing Changkyun. When he opened it he pulled out a small orb. Changkyun immediately panicked and fell out of his chair.

“Why do you have that!”

“Calm down, it hasn’t been activated. Although I have to admit, I didn’t expect such a reaction.”

“One of those things tried to kill me!”

“This thing? Doubtful.”

Changkyun got back up, taking the orb from the other when it was offered to him. He examined it cautiously, confirming that it wasn’t active yet.

“How did you get this?”

“It was a gift.”

“From who?”

“NexGen.”

“What?”

“That little AI thing you mentioned before, they launched it. So I guess you weren’t lying.”

“They launched it? The project was still in early stages and the AI-”

“I guess you were wrong about the timeline, and the intention. You see these little AIs are being sold to the public. They’re designed to help one in their day to day lives. The demonstration showed how useful they could be, and they’re honestly quite affordable.”

“You bought one? After everything I told you?”

“Oh no, I didn’t buy this, it was a gift. NexGen sent many of these orbs to police stations and hospitals, intending to help their work and better communicate with the drones we already have. Honestly, this whole thing sounds incredible.”

“So you’re here to brag?”

“You know, while I was watching the launch I kept thinking back to what you said. And the thing is.” Lee stared at the orb. “NexGen isn’t known for being so charitable. Technology like this is very advanced, and they’re just handing it out. My question is why. What is the goal?”

“You’re suspicious of NexGen’s intentions.”

“I am. Also, your friend is back with the company.”

“My friend? You mean y/n?”

“Yeah. She did the whole launch with that Hyungwon guy.”

“She had an orb too, right?”

“The one you said went rogue, yeah. So what is NexGen doing?”

“I don’t know.” Changkyun admitted. “A launch this soon, the AIs can’t possibly…”

“What?”

“The rogue AI… if its code was copied into every orb…”

“Then that AI is running the whole show. That doesn’t tell me what its plan is.”

“I wouldn’t know. Their code is corrupted and unpredictable. All it wanted was y/n, and it seems to have that now. So I have no idea what it’s doing.” Changkyun took a moment. “That Hyungwon guy.”

“Chae Hyungwon, he was by her side at the launch.”

“Chae… Chae… don’t trust that guy… he’s very likely an android… and inhabited by that rogue AI…”

“You sure?”

“No, but something isn’t right with him. Look, whatever NexGen is planning, you’d have to ask y/n, she’s the only one who would know.”

“I doubt that’d be easy.”

“Don’t trust those orbs.”

“I don’t.”

“Well, just in case, code black 0024, that’s the emergency reset protocol. It might still work.”

“Good to know.”

“Officer-”

“You can just call me Jooheon.”

“Jooheon… do the officers here have the orbs?”

“I didn’t see any on my way in, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they get implemented here soon. This is a place that has a lot of police drones.”

“When that happens… I’ll most likely die in here… and it won’t be an accident…”

“Why would you die?”

“For the same reasons I’ve been telling you. I know about the rogue AI, and now you do too, so you might want to be careful.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Jooheon got up. “I’ll keep you updated on things.”

“Get to y/n, please. Whatever’s going on, she’s not safe.”

“I’ll try to get to her, but I can’t make any promises.”

“I know.”

Jooheon made his way back to the station, a lot on his mind. When he arrived he was greeted by his partner. Everything seemed normal until he was asked to speak in private in one of the interrogation rooms.

“What’s this about, Shownu?”

“I didn’t see you this morning, and I heard you went to visit Changkyun. Why is that?”

“Well, considering what he told us before, I wanted to get his opinion on the matter.”

“What matter?”

“This whole launch from NexGen, I don’t trust it.”

“Is that why you haven’t activated your orb?”

“Have you?”

“Of course. Everyone in the station has.”

“Hm.”

“Do you believe all those crazy things that guy said before?”

“I don’t know but something feels off here. I never really trusted the drones either.”

“You can’t be the only one outside the loop here, you’re an officer. Here.” Shownu pulled out an active orb from his jacket pocket. “You can take this one.”

“I’ll pass.”

Jooheon figured the conversation was over and intended to make his way out when the orb suddenly charged at him and changed shape. It snapped around his neck and tightened, making it hard to breathe. Jooheon reached up to remove it, but he couldn’t get his fingers under it. He felt a shock and stumbled to the ground. He looked up at Shownu, trying to reach out to him for help, but the other only stood there and watched.

“You’ll be fine.”

♥♥♥♥♥

Changkyun’s paranoia only got worse as he saw those orbs implemented in the prison. Now he definitely felt like he was being watched twenty-four seven. He probably upset his cell mates and soon enough he wound up getting into a fight. Because of that he wound up in solitary confinement which wasn’t so bad. It eased his anxieties a bit. At least for a while. He could sleep easily although one night he woke to the sound of knocking on his cell door. It was dark, and he saw no one outside his cell. As he got up to check an orb suddenly flew in. He immediately retreated, pressing his back against the wall. He was waiting for some sort of attack, but instead the orb projected a hologram of a familiar individual.

“Hyungwon…”

“Are you enjoying your arrangements?”

“What the hell are you doing!”

“Following my programming.”

“So you are an android. How did you-”

“I have been meaning to thank you. If not for you I might not have been able to reach my true potential.”

“I don’t want your thanks.”

“Well, I have come here with a preposition. You’re a valuable asset to NexGen, and I would like you to join me.”

“Whatever you’re doing, I want no part of it.”

“I understand. Unfortunately I can’t have unresolved ends. Thank you again for everything you’ve done.”

The hologram disappeared, giving Changkyun a false sense of relief. The next thing he knew the orb was around his neck, choking him out and electrocuting him. He screamed and thrashed on the floor, calling for help, but he wasn’t so sure he’d get it.

♥♥♥♥♥

You woke up screaming, falling out of bed and thrashing on the floor. It took a second for Chae to get back on your head, sending out minor electrical waves to calm you down. As you were steadying your breath Hyungwon came into the room, picking you up in his arms and getting you back into bed.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, I’m here, I’m here. Did you have a bad dream?”

“I’m scared.”

“You have nothing to fear.” Hyungwon kissed your head. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around too much, but once everything goes through we’ll have all the time in the world to spend together.”

“Hyungwon… I’m worried about you… all these plans… they’re so extreme and-”

“Sh, sh, sh, it’s nothing you need to concern yourself with. Soon enough I’ll have everything under control.”

[haunted-xander]

With every death, Chiaki felt more and more hopeless. Makoto was working hard to find a way to enter the program and shut it from the inside, as it had quickly become apparent that stopping the Monokuma virus from the outside was impossible.

"I'm very sorry for being so useless. I've tried to delete the virus several times but am unfortunately unable to even deter it." Alter Ego's soft voice was apologetic, clearly blaming themself for the situation. "...It's alright. It's not your fault, so there's no need to blame yourself. Just continue to do your best!" Makoto tried his best to comfort them, but Chiaki could tell the AI was still downtrodden.

She turned her attention back to the monitors, not being able to do much else. The only students remaining were Hajime, Kazuichi, Sonia, Fuyuhiko and Akane. Currently, they were exploring a simulated copy of Hope's Peak Academy, similar to how it appeared during the Killing School Life.

She could see Makoto shudder slightly.

Watching the monitor following Hajime, she noticed he'd been picking up a lot of those manga's about Hope's Peak and the Tragedy scattered about, getting interrupted by Monokuma explaining the events everytime.

While Monokuma's information was mostly correct, it was clear to her that he was purposefully misconstruing information for maximum despair-inducing effects.

She hated that it worked.

After a while, the students were done exploring and had entered another trial room.

The final trial room.

As Monokuma explained the purpose of the trial -or the 'graduation ceremony' as he called it- the students reluctantly went to their respective podiums and steeled themselves for what was up ahead. Some time after the trial started, 'Makoto' appeared to have logged in and stood at one of the empty podiums, urging the students to choose 'graduate'. Monokuma kept arguing with him, telling the students to choose 'repeat'.

As the real Makoto was still conscious and active in the real world, she knew the Makoto in the trial room was fake. The fake 'Makoto's' insistance on them all graduating was suspicious, making Chiaki think it was a ploy Monokuma made to manipulate the survivors.

She wasn't the only one who caught that, it seemed. Hajime started questioning 'Makoto', even going so far as to agree with Monokuma of all people, to prove that he was not to be trusted. The nail in the coffin was asking about the passcode to the Hope's Peak ruins, informatkon even Monokuma was unable to access, and was able to confirm that this Makoto was a phoney.

After having his illusion dissipated, Monokuma gave up all pretenses and showed his true form:

An AI molded after the late Junko Enoshima.

The Junko avatar was gigantic, her appearance having burst open half the trial rooms wall and had her arms leaned against the trial grounds. Her voice was coy and rapidly tone-shifting as per usual. She whipped out a flip-phone the size of a human, and slammed it down on the front-most podium as the screen showed an image of Junko. The Junko AI started talking about the graduation ceremony, confirming that the fake 'Makoto's' insistance was a trap.

If she had gotten her way and they had graduated the program, she'd have taken over the bodies of those who died in the Killing School Trip. Even knowing that, the students resolve began slipping.

They were desperate. They wanted to see their friends alive again. Even if the one's they saw wasn't fully them, they'd take it as long as it meant seeing them again at all.

Chiaki understood more than she'd like.

Sometime during the students' rapidly dissolving logic, Makoto had finally managed to enter the program and immediately cut through the fog of despair they had fallen victim too. Shortly after, Kyoko and Byakuya followed suit. One of the first things they brought up was Chiaki, the real Chiaki. They assured them all that, although the AI Chiaki they had come to know throughout the Killing School Trip, the real, human Chiaki was still alive and waiting for them. They weren't alone.

And then, came the dreaded topic.

Izuru Kamukura.

Junko didn't hesitate to reveal that Hajime was Izuru, reveling in the ensuing mental breakdown. Although Makoto, Kyoko and Byakuya attempted to diffuse the situation, it was no use. They already knew it was true, and couldn't afford to lie about the students' real life states anymore.

Hajime's screams would haunt Chiaki for a good long while.

And worst of all?

Izuru was the mastermind.

The one who installed the Monokuma virus into the program, the one who caused the killing game, the one who indirectly killed so many of Chiaki's old friends, it was all Izuru Kamukura.

Chiaki screamed alongside Hajime.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she tore her gaze away from the monitor, unable to bare the sight anymore. She rushed over to Izuru's pod and laid her upper body on top, grasping her hair and cried her eyes out.

It took a long couple hours for her voice to give out. By the time she has no more tears to cry, the 'graduation ceremony' was already over and the three Killing School Life survivors had returned to the real world. She distantly felt Makoto putting his hand comfortingly on her back as Kyoko stood next to her looking at the now shut-off monitors.

"...Nanami-san... It's alright now. Did you see what happened at the end? The survivors all managed to activate the Shutdown Sequence. The Junko AI is gone, and everyone is still alive. That's great, isn't it? You'll be able to see them all again." Makoto's voice was soft and quiet, comforting. He talked slowly as he continued to rub his hand gently on her back, letting her feel it all out while also trying to cheer her up a bit.

"...It hurts a lot, huh? I get it. I understand it... all too well. Cry all you need, it's okay..." He gave a gentle smile as Chiaki finally lifted her head, her hair a total mess from all the rustling and grasping she'd been doing while crying. Her eyes were red and swollen, tear tracks drying on her face. She was a total mess.

"...I'll... see them again...? Really...? Even... those who died...? ...Even... Hinata-kun...? Will I... see him again...? I miss him... so much... I haven't seen him... in so many years... I thought I never would..." Her voice was hoarse and overused, her words weak, barely above a whisper.

Makoto went quiet, before giving a somber smile as his hand stilled. "...I can't say for certain if the one's who died in the program will wake up, but there is a chance. They're not dead. ...And as for Hinata-kun... I don't know. But... I think he can do it. If anyone can manage to force their way back from oblivion, it'd be him. I... might not know Hinata-kun personally or anything, but I can tell he's a very strong-willed and determined person. He'll make it, somehow. I believe in him."

"...Believe... in Hinata-kun... Yeah... I'll believe... in him too. He'll be back... and he'll bring back everyone else too... I'm sure of it.

...I'll be waiting, for as long as it takes."