#I need a tag for “computer bullshit”

[transienturl]

went to best buy

the yoga pro 9i is definitely not as nice as the macbook pro 16. good device for the price I'm sure but it's just a step down in polish

the proart p16 really is that good. really interesting comparing it to its gaming-oriented sister. I do notice and want the higher resolution on the proart

I think I made the laptop guy's day

[mjrdm]

.

[alittleemo]

doing my annual check in on my ancient wattpad account and its lowkey crazy to see TOO has 15k views like hello . so sorry abt all of that btw.

[diiv]

hey you know how i said i might post art a while ago? yeah

[dooberific]

❝ 𝘏𝘰𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘤 ❞

woo jinchul x afab!reader

genre: slice of life in the office hehe, reader works in the surveillance department, part one of “how many fics does it take for ao3 to recognize a tag”, this is super niche and it shouldn’t be bc he is FINE, also idk anything abt horoscopes, no beta we die like E rank hunters that aren’t sung jinwoo

summary: he thinks horoscopes are bullshit, but you find them to be the spice of life

wk: 2.4k

It was his birthday.

Truly just any other day according to his calendar, he didn’t deign to circle it in red pen like it was some great accomplishment to have been born into the world. Just a blank square printed in black ink, the date burnished in matching block lettering under some ridiculous picture of kittens that changed with the month (it was a new years gift and he was not so proud to not use a functional gift even if it was given for laughs).

Just as every year previously there would be no mystical sign of good will: his coffee would taste just as bitter and laden with a plastic aftertaste from a cheap coffeemaker, his meetings would still drag by painfully slow, and the weather wouldn’t miraculously clear up and render him feeling silly for carrying an umbrella in with him today.

Just another twenty-four hour cycle, a drop in the bucket of a year.

He hadn’t even turned his computer monitor on before you sauntered into his office, pausing just a foot into the door to rap your knuckles against the frame for good measure. There was a newspaper tucked under your arm, your purse still dangling from the crook of your elbow.

“Goodmorning, manager!”

The daily ritual had begun in earnest with your arrival. It hadn’t been an existing routine of much note prior to you being hired into the Surveillance department a little over a year and a half ago, he simply arrived early and began working on extraneous paperwork that would otherwise force him to clock out late (which was unacceptable in his book). He had exactly forty-five minutes of quiet to get as much work done as possible, then the first of the others would begin to filter in and take their seats until the office grew to buzz with life.

It was a sacred moment of peace until you took the habit of arriving early as well…just not to accomplish any work. You said it was your “self-help” time to formulate your “daily affirmations”, but that was absolute bullshit and he called you on it as soon as he had gathered ample evidence.

For example, you would stow your purse and kick back at your desk perusing the newspaper you bought on the way to work which based on the title was more of a tabloid laden with cheap gimmicks and a hearty coupon section. Then of course there were your “daily affirmations”, sticky notes pasted to the edges of your monitor that were more like to-do and not-to-do notes based on your mood or observations of coworkers.

You weren’t even the slightest bit ashamed when he passed your desk and paused just to read aloud that you should “really ask Manager Woo what hair product he uses because his hair always looks so shiny.”

He would never admit that he was more mortified by it than you, as your face simply lit up as you swiveled in your chair to face him and ask, “So what is your secret, manager?”

He gave up after that, integrating you into his morning routine wordlessly, or at least he attempted to before you decided that he may also be in need of some of your “self-help” in the form of the daily horoscopes finished off with a coupon clipped from the centerfold usually for some cheap noodle place or a supermarket.

The only reason you even knocked on his door anymore was because he scolded you for it once, your mood terribly lax as you unceremoniously flopped into the chair across from his desk, the newspaper snapping to attention.

“Will you tell me what your birthday is today, or shall I read you all the predictions?”

“You could skip reading them at all today.”

You flipped the paper down momentarily over your lap. “But if I did that you would certainly be crawling with curiosity before lunch break.”

“Doubtful,” he countered, not sparing you a glance as he typed something on his computer, “if you aren’t to be swayed then by all means, continue.”

Your smug expression was hidden behind a thin veneer of black and white print as you dutifully began to share the horoscope of the day. It was largely as droll as the weather, many struggling to find the light at the end of the theoretical tunnel as it quickly began to sound more like you were unearthing a curse. It seemed even your lauded astrologer could have bad days, or maybe they just anticipated hating the whole world except the very select few whose birthdays happened to align within the weeks around his own.

You groaned loudly, head flopping over the backrest of your chair. “What a downer, looks like luck isn’t on my side today.” Your head rolled up just enough to peer across the space at him, “Any auspicious wishes coming your way, manager?”

He shook his head. One white lie couldn’t hurt you, even if it crossed his mind that you would be fuming all day at his luck that on the one bad day he had managed to walk out of it unscathed according to this cheap newspaper horoscope. What you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you in this case, but what you did know certainly seemed to have a tangible effect.

The horoscope was like the tip of an iceberg, or the event that triggered a butterfly effect. He blamed it first on the weather, half the department slogging in soaked from the rain and late by fifteen minutes. Then the power flickered and crashed all the computers on the floor, the elevator got stuck between floors, and another woman broke a heel.

The mood of the office was quickly deteriorating, your expression souring with each passing hour before you declared to him at lunch that the day was unsalvageable. He simply took it as proof that your ridiculous horoscopes were horseshit, whatever auspiciousness meant to shine down on him like a blessing from the heavens was out the window with the first incident of the day, the office more like a runaway train than a well oiled machine.

He hadn’t seen the department clear out as quickly as it did today, everyone anxiously watching the clock so they could abandon ship in hopes of a better day tomorrow. He would be a liar if he claimed he didn’t wish for a quiet evening himself, he didn’t consider himself a control freak but the organized chaos of the day had rendered him feeling like one from the mounting migraine he could feel throbbing behind his eyes.

Maybe he should write to that stupid newspaper you liked and tell them to fire that astrologer, as he found himself wishing to blame them for the foul luck that had rolled back onto him.

Speaking of that cursed paper, it now hung limply from your fingertips, waterlogged pages dripping down onto the tiles where you stood by the entrance door to the Hunters Association. Your brow was drawn in frustration as you paced back and forth speaking to someone on the phone before you ended the call with a huff.

“Oh hey manager, heading home for the night?”

Your tone was laced with poorly masked irritation, cheek drawn between your teeth. It wasn’t often that you got worked up like this, an admirable trait considering the strain of your job.

He nodded, eyes darting to his car in the parking lot, the downpour of rain shielding in a sheen of gloomy grey.

“I’m surprised you’re still here.” He noted, watching your expression shift uncomfortably for a moment as you let out an awkward laugh.

“Yeah my uh, car won’t start.”

How this would be something that would render you embarrassed was beyond him, but perhaps it was just your exhaustion getting the better of you as you shuffled in place and toyed with your phone.

“I called for a rideshare service but they said it will be an hour because of the rain, so I won’t be going anywhere for a while.”

A sigh blew through your lips. “What rotten luck.”

Rotten luck attributed to a rotten day based on the rotten assumptions of some person who made up a fortune for the day. You were lucky he was a generous manager, even luckier that he was feeling spiteful over the ridiculous nature of the day and determined to make you question your choice in reading material.

“Would you like a ride home?”

You perked up immediately.

It was a short walk to his car, slightly longer when dodging the standing water that puddled in deceptively shallow appearing pools. The rain thundered against the canvas of his umbrella, your body warm where you pressed close to his side to fit beneath it compared to the cold chill of water that soaked his opposing shoulder as he favored keeping you covered.

You thanked him profusely as he opened the passenger door for you, sliding into the front seat. Your mood had managed to shift dramatically in the time it took for him to round the car and join you, your face sheepish.

“I am so sorry.” You squeaked, earning a raised brow before you presented your sin before his eyes.

His sunglasses were cradled in your presented palms, the frame bent and one lens cracked down the middle. His hand quickly patted the breast pocket of his jacket as if surprised that his glasses weren’t nestled within it. He had pulled them from his pocket this very morning and tossed them into the passenger seat without second thought convinced he wouldn’t need them on such a dreary day.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

But it was obviously not fine because now you felt like you had intruded too far into his space and were wishing to be incinerated where you sat from the shame of crushing his sunglasses under your ass after he had been kind enough to offer you a ride home.

You further wished to die when he opened your door for you once you arrived, shielding you from the rain all the way to the entrance to your building. God, this horoscope was really kicking your ass in the worst way, and you had no lucky stars to even dream of thanking.

“Thank you again, Sir. And I’m really sorry about your glasses.”

He huffed, expression as stoic as ever, more miffed that you refused to drop the issue at hand. “Don’t worry about it, I can always buy another pair.”

“Here, before you go,” you fished a slip of paper from your purse as you pressed it into his palm. A coupon for a fried chicken restaurant from the newspaper insert, the edges crumbled from being in your bag. “Forgot to give you this earlier, hopefully it brings you a little luck today.”

He thanked you as he put it in his pocket, knowing he would certainly forget it there in favor of just showering and calling it a night, bidding you farewell as you parted ways.

Just as expected, his birthday was little more than a dreary day of underwhelming circumstance. Leftovers for dinner, whatever tv program he set to record failed to air from a power outage, a new suit to add to the stack for dry cleaning. He congratulated himself on another year of keeping his expectations low, and cursed that his tolerance to alcohol was high as the single beer he let himself have on a weeknight wasn’t nearly enough to ease the stress of the day from his shoulders before bed.

Delightfully forgettable, a single day in a grueling week of little import. Or at least he was under the impression that it was until he came back from lunch break a few days later to a small case sitting on the edge of his desk, a highlighter pink sticky note that looked suspiciously like the ones decorating your desk pasted on top of it.

He knew immediately what the case was, having thrown away an identical one a few nights prior after you broke his sunglasses on accident (the same glasses which he suspiciously couldn’t find any evidence of in his car after the fact). What he didn’t know was how the hell you figured it out, your curling script wishing him a belated birthday in black ink.

Woo Jinchul was not the manager of the surveillance department for no reason. He was a problem solver, that much you knew for sure the moment he rapped his knuckles against your desk when you returned from lunch and told you that you needed to have a talk. You genuinely thought you had done something wrong, as did all your coworkers based on the grim expression he wore as he told you to shut the door behind you as you entered his office.

“Who told you?”

You were practically perched on the edge of your seat. “Who told me what?”

“Who told you that it was my birthday?”

The conversation was oddly intense for such a dull topic to be the subject. Your eyes drifted to the side as your face pinched in a strange fashion. “You mentioned it in passing.”

His fingers drummed on the surface of his desk for a moment. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Your shoulders slumped. “I know, but I’m sworn to secrecy so I really can’t tell you.”

“So the Chairman told you then.”

“What, no—“

“You can drop the defense. He’s the only one who tries to make a big deal out of it.”

You propped your cheek into your palm, a halfhearted, “but you’re making a big deal out of it too,” muttering from between your lips.

“I don’t want it to be a big deal, because it isn’t one. So this conversation,” he plucked your pink sticky note off his desk and crumbled it up in his fist before dropping it into the trashcan, “never happened. You’re dismissed.”

You discreetly rolled your eyes as you stood from your seat, sauntering to the door before you paused, door cracked half open as you glanced at him over your shoulder. He was right to be wary of the dangerous look in your eye, as you both were keenly aware of the level of voice projection required to keep conversations private in the crowded space.

“Hey Manager Woo?”

He winced in anticipation, your tone loud enough to draw the attention of those nearby.

Your grin was wicked. “You smell so good today, what cologne do you wear?”

He pinched his brow between his fingers with a heavy sigh.

“Get out.”

“Of course, Sir,” you hummed as you pushed the door fully open.

“Cute cat calendar by the way.”

His eyes were narrowed on your back as you returned to your desk. You were feeling emboldened based on the fortune of the ridiculous horoscopes you recited for him first thing this morning.

He really should write to that newspaper and get that astrologer fired.

Rey 2025

[eureka-its-zico]

A Body of Stars

Ongoing series

Synopsis: With a galaxy at war, it’s hard to distinguish the stars from the metal of UNSC ships. You were told about the war that waged between the UNSC and insurrectionists; your planet opposing them since you were born. Your enemy was meant to be the UNSC and the Spartans they created, specifically John-117 - the Master Chief. Except, all isn’t as black and white as you were raised to believe, and the galaxy holds secrets far darker than you could’ve imagined.

Pairing: John - 117 x F!Reader

Genre: enemies to lovers, strangers to lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, Halo TV series/Mass Effect mashup

Warnings: mentions of war, violence

Word count: 11.7k

A/N: Alright. As hyper fixations go, the Halo series (and let’s be real, Pablo is a menace) has my ass in a chokehold. That being said, season 2 was amazing and made me want to work on a small fic that blended the series and my love of BioWare’s Mass Effect. Mass Effect is my favorite sci-fi space game about galactic war, friendship, love, sacrifice. I could rant but I won’t. There will be mentions of certain ME things in here, like the reader having biotics, to go along with the lore of the halo series. So, without further ado: its back story time. I hope someone out there enjoys this and as always, thank you for reading 🖤 much love, Jenn

Year: 2521

•Shadow Sea cluster•

•Lera system•

Destination: Laconix

ETA: 13 hours

The Midsummer Night came out of slip space without a hitch.

Not that he’d been worried. It was one of the few things that Captain Jacob Keyes hadn’t worried about during this current mission. What, or rather who, currently worried him was standing less than ten yards from him and came in the form of his ex-wife. He risked a glance where Dr. Catherine Halsey was hunched over with her nose deep inside another holopad. 

Those holopads had been one of the many reasons why their marriage fell apart. 

There was no doubting the brilliance her work contributed to the scientific field or the war effort. All of her research was the stepping stone humanity needed in terms of augmentation and the human genome. The contributions Halsey and her Spartans made towards this never-ending battle against the covenant saved lives, but, and it was a big but, Jacob knew that Halsey’s methods were questionable, at best. Hell, he’d been a part of those questionable decisions, driving the helm, while she did what she deemed was necessary. 

Vital. 

So, Jacob Keyes knew without her ever having to say a word that something was off. The Midsummer Night and the Pegasus holding Halsey’s darling Spartain-III’s were meant to go for a routine extraction. Intel indicated one of the leaders in the insurrectionist rebel groups, Kahn Montrello, was located on a planet within the Lera system of the Shadow Sea cluster. It was a typical snatch-and-grab unless they were met with resistance. 

Halsey requesting to tag along was more than just a surprise. It was suspicious. Jacob knew Halsey didn’t do anything without purpose.

“Tell me again why you’ve insisted on inserting yourself into a routine mission dealing with insurrectionists?”

Halsey hadn’t even looked up from the damn holopad to acknowledge he’d walked over. 

“I’m just here to gather some data while the Silver Team is dispatched to help your marines on the ground.”

Jacob’s boots scuffed against the metal of the bridge as he moved closer to her. His eyes on Catherine’s back - willing her to turn, to acknowledge him - as her gaze held tightly to the readings she’d taken from a tablet from her lab. The data was transferred to the larger scale computer in the bridge’s main console. Halsey’s eyes roaming endlessly through data Jacob himself knew he’d never understand without her help. 

“Come on, Catherine. That may be the bullshit you fed Parangosky and the other admirals, but don’t feed me the same lies and expect it to go down smoothly.”

Halsey broke away for the briefest millisecond from whatever data she was reading. Her eyes skimmed over him before returning back to what was more important.

Research in the name of human exploration always was.

“It’s not bullshit. Data collected in the field is highly valuable for furthering my research; proof to Parangosky the Spartan research is worth her continued funding.”

“That’s a nice speech, Catherine, but I know that any collected data during the mission is recorded and sent back to your lab for analysis. So, when are you going to start telling me something honest?”

Honesty. 

Asking Halsey to be anything other than secretive was like asking a tiger to get rid of its stripes. Jacob knew even if she told him - really shared - it still wouldn’t be all of the actual information. Key pieces of information - the most valuable - would be forever stored within her; leverage for another day. 

Whatever it was she could see on those holopads had her sky blue eyes wide in excitement. Halsey wouldn’t be able to contain it - hide it - for much longer.  If the small rise at the corner of her mouth was any indication, all Jacob needed to do was push a little further. Find the right words to spark a rush of hypotheticals that might turn out to hold some truth. If she didn’t crack yet, it would take one more well-placed question and she would cave. 

“Jacob,” her voice was breathy, tinged with unrestrained joy. “I think I found something.”

“What are you talking about, Catherine? Found something?”

More cryptics. More hoops. 

A sigh heavy with years of fights - conflicts - departed his lips and Halsey rushed to recover some ground. Her body quickly took back the space he left to place her hand gently on his bicep. The grip was soft but demanding that he stay close; pleading with him not to pull away.

Halsey needed him. 

“A few weeks ago the UNSC sent over old documents from companies they’d disassembled. Conatix was one of them.”

It wasn’t hard to spot the confusion that deepened the lines in the crease of Jacob’s forehead and scrunched up his nose. His eyes roamed her face searching for a tell, but if Halsey had one she’d never show it. 

“Conatix was an old UNSC factory that produced our warships-“

“Yes, I know.”

“Why would you be interested in anything about warships?”

Halsey scanned the room to make sure no one was watching - no eyes lingering on the two of them - before she directed her attention back to him. The caution that darkened her eyes shifted with a spark Jacob knew all too well. 

Halsey had found something. Really found something. 

“Usually, nothing of value would be of interest in old documents and schematics for warships but, while scrolling through the files I stumbled upon an encrypted file.”

“UNSC documentation is always encrypted when it’s being shipped out to-“

“To be destroyed, yes I already know that, Jacob,” Halsey cut in. Her body directed back towards the holopad that she carefully picked up. Her fingers darted across the screen hunting for the files in question. “But this was different. It wasn’t schematics or calculations - it was redacted - sealed documents about an incident.”

No sooner had she started Halsey was finished. Her hand reached out to give him the holopad and waited patiently for him to take it. 

“Go ahead.”

Jacob looked around the ship's bridge to make sure no one was watching. He needed to be careful, not necessarily for Halsey’s sake, but for that of his crew. He should’ve known - did know - Halsey had a habit, a bad one, to go above the chain of command to get what she wanted. That leverage she saved for a rainy day coming in hot to throw around pawns and pieces as she saw fit to get her way. 

Cautiously, Jacob secured the holopad from her and started looking at the documents, or what little he could see. Almost with every swipe all he saw were broken links and documents with holes of information missing. Sentences that formed into two words with the rest gone or replaced by shapes and numbers. An elaborate break in the code. 

“I was able to decipher most of them. Get back what information they tried to hide-“

“Catherine,” he whispered her name in warning, not for himself, but for her. 

“Jacob - this wasn’t about warships or weapons or schematics. Something happened. A ship they’d used with element zero - eezo - had leaked out over a few colonies. A hole in one of the port engines that wasn’t caught in time.”

“Catherine,” Jacob pleaded again, “This isn’t news or anything that concerns you or me.”

Halsey wasn’t going to back down. He knew she wouldn’t. Not when the sheer joy of finding something undiscovered was close. The science behind furthering human evolution. The moment he realized what this was - what he held in his hands - Jacob knew his eyes were saucers. The sudden shock of realization stunning him to the spot. 

“Children, Jacob,” Halsey practically laughed. “The pregnant mothers who were infected by the particles gave birth to children with eezo ingrained into their nervous system. The abilities these files claim they saw…it’s like nothing I’ve ever read.”

In her excitement, Halsey reached out and took a hold of his arm. The startled warmth of her touch was enough to knock Jacob back out of his daze. His eyes skimming one more time over impossible things he saw in diagrams Halsey recreated. 

“Even if that was true, you don’t even know if any of them are still alive or where they are.”

With her lips curved up in victory, Halsey plucked the holopad from his hands. 

“Yes I do. We’re headed there now.”

————-

“You get caught staring up at the sky again and Caster is going to throw a fit.”

“When isn’t he throwing a fit?”

Your question wasn’t meant for an answer. The words barely made it above a whisper while you kept watch on the green hued light that streaked across the sky like a river. Calling it green felt like you were doing it a disservice. You knew it was more than that - the way it moved with purpose across the endless blue above. The different shades that reminded you of the grass on which you stood and dark as the forest that surrounded you. 

“Come on,” Thao called over his shoulder. Your name calling from his lips like it would be enough to coax you forward. “I want to get back to actually enjoy what little of my day I have left.”

“You can enjoy it now,” you reminded him. 

It took a few more seconds - another millisecond after that - for your eyes to turn back to the world around you. The snap of a branch somewhere off to your right informing you Thao had taken off without waiting for you to catch up. 

“Not when my friends are back at the colony having fun without me. And I’m out here looking for dumb ass yaks.”

A small tut of disapproval clicked at the roof of your mouth. Your stride easily brings you closer to the shorter eleven-year-old boy. It allowed you to gently ruffle his hair. Your efforts were greeted by a grunt of annoyance with his hand grabbing at your wrist to gently shove you away. 

“And just think, you would be there now, doing whatever it is you troublemakers do, if you and your friends hadn’t set a flare off inside Caster’s hut. And don’t disrespect the yaks.”

Thao’s eyes disappeared inside his head as your elbow gently nudged his shoulder. You must be making some kind of progress, because this time he made no move to push you away. 

“Old man deserved it. Always hoarding the chicken eggs.”

“He owns the chickens.”

“So?”

“So,” you drawled, “it means he owns the eggs. Owning the eggs also means he gets to distribute them however he sees fit.”

“How is that fair? You know he gave Lydia and her kids three eggs last week? Three eggs. What is a family of five supposed to do with that? It’s not right.”

You knew what Thao meant. You understood the feeling of anger that burned into sadness and ultimately to the ash of defeat. Kahn allowed those who proved useful in the fight against the UNSC to have a majority hold on most of the items in the colony. Those who allowed themselves to be shuffled around an unseeable chessboard like pawns. 

Willing to die, to give up everything, at his disposal. 

All in the name of fighting a government who grew more powerful everyday. The UNSC sharing their own videos of propaganda that showed thousands upon thousands of soldiers equally willing to die for a cause, and Spartans being the unmovable force needed to shift any battle back into the UNSC’s favor. It was this very reason Kahn looked for those desperate enough to join, to do anything he asked, to win. 

A devoted father agrees to be a walking bomb to blow up a UNSC building? His family is rewarded with food, wood, and blankets to help make it through the harsh winters. Attempting to infiltrate a building to release a virus, whether you were caught or not, Kahn took care of your family. It could be with livestock, guns for protection, or even the yaks whose pelts made the biggest profit at the markets. 

Every loss of life was just another reminder of the men and women who slowly disappeared from the colony. A senseless loss of life. You were still trying to figure out what it was for; what purpose you hadn’t been able to see, because for every life lost in the pursuit of justice against the USNC, their numbers only grew. The colony's numbers, however, weren't so lucky. 

“You could turn this war around.”

“I won’t kill for you, Kahn.”

You swiftly whipped your head to the side to rid yourself of the memory. Your eyes narrowing on the green rolling hills on the other side of the treeline. That was where you would find the yaks grazing. You gently patted Thao’ss shoulder - for whatever comfort it would give - before you moved forward to take point. 

“That’s because it isn’t fair, Thao.”

“See! Even you agree,” Thao huffed out your name. His small body broke into a jog to match your hurried step. “If anyone in the colony would be able to kick his ass, it would be you.”

Your feet were turning before you’d even realized it. Your body answered the piercing spike of adrenaline in your blood with your hands shooting out to grab his shoulders. The action made you crouch a couple inches until you were face-to-face with Thao. Your eyes scanned wildly across his features reading nothing but uncertainty. 

“Don’t ever say something like that out loud again, Thao. Do you understand me?”

“I was only saying-“

“I know what you're trying to say. The answer is no, and if Kahn or any of his dumbass lackies ever heard you even mention something like that we are both as good as dead.”

“But-“

“Tell me you understand!”

If anyone asked why you felt the sudden surge of panic ripple over your skin, you wouldn’t be able to say, or  place where it stemmed from. Technically, the both of you were out in the safety of the mountain fields and away from the prying eyes of Kahn’s dictatorship. Lost behind a sea of forest, the rolling fields of green, and poppies that puddled around you like blood. 

You’d seen what Kahn and his insurrectionists were capable of. Any whisper - false or not - and the person went missing. Kahn ruled the colony with the fear generated by the UNSC, but cultivated his own like the boogeyman. 

“Yeah I get it. Whatever.”

Thao shrugged out of your hold and turned away from you. His pre-teen feet stomped a path out of the tree line and out into the field. A sigh left you, worn and heavy, as you watched his retreat. 

I Should’ve been softer…

You let out a huff of air as a hand scrubbed over your face. It was supposed to be a simple ‘herd the yaks back to the colony’ type of day. Not grovel to one of the only people - kid or not - who wasn’t afraid of you. 

It was your turn to jog after his retreating form. Quickly, you noticed that he didn’t even look up to acknowledge your presence. He wasn’t sending jokes about being an old lady (you were twenty-four, thank you very much) whose brittle bones could snap under the strain of being a person. You would’ve taken being called an old lady than suffering through the silent treatment. 

Gently, you nudged his shoulder with your elbow. When he didn’t turn you tried again and again until, finally, you were rewarded with him turning an annoyed side-eye in your direction. You gave him your best apologetic smile and carefully looped your arm around his shoulders to bring him in close. 

“I’m sorry. Okay? I was kind of an asshole.”

“A major asshole.”

“Okay. I’ll accept that major part but only for today.”

“If there was an asshole award, you would’ve taken home the prize-“

“Okay, geez. I get it.”

You both settled into a comfortable pace with your arm still draped over his shoulders. Your mind raced back to the last time you’d been able to do this.  Thao had been younger - shorter - and with the rate he was growing, you soon might not be able to reach him. Soon, Thao might not care for your company. 

“You know, I am surprised you didn’t fracture an ankle running after me at your tender age.”

“Alright, that’s enough for today,” you grumbled in mock annoyance. 

You ended up having to shove him away just to try and hide the smile that threatened to lift the edges of your mouth. The sound of Thao’s laughter at your weak attempt at being mean - he 100% knew it took way too much to even make you raise your voice - made the crack of a smile begin to form. 

The yaks were about another ten or so feet ahead of you both. Their massive bodies moved in slow steps while they grazed along the long grass. You weren’t sure if it was their adorable long bangs that made it impossible for them to notice you right away (doubtful) or if they just didn’t consider either of you a threat (possible). Either way, they didn’t startle as the two of you closed the remaining distance. Didn’t jump up to try and kick or gore either of you with their horns when Thao produced the ropes from his satchel. 

It took a grand total of ten minutes, maybe less, to have all seven of the yaks securely held in makeshift collars from the rope. Their large bodies begrudgingly followed the two of you as you gently pulled the lead, forcing them to give up their meal of dewy grass and follow you back through the treeline. 

“You know,” Thao cautiously began, his eyes skimming between you and the trees. “This might be a lot faster if you just…ya know, float them up.”

“Float them up?”

“With your blue magic.”

This time you weren’t able to hide your smile as you shook your head. 

“It’s called biotics, Thao, not blue magic.”

“Blue magic sounds waaaay cooler than ‘biotics’. Who even came up with that lame name, anyway.” 

“You can thank the good folks at Conatix for that one.”

One of the yaks pulled back on its lead forcing you to give a slight tug back. You could understand if they were tired after eating, but you really didn’t have time in your schedule for yak naps. A huff of air came from the nostrils of the yak to drive home that it wasn't happy not having its nap. Or maybe it was the berry bush it was after, either way, napping and eating stops were prohibited. 

You weren’t aware the conversation had died until Thao’s voice interrupted the silence. 

“Is it true that you were born like that?”

His question was timid - afraid he would upset you. You were used to the questions; the stares. You remember sitting with your parents in a room, about Thao’s age, when Conatix came back around trying to clean up their mess. Said mess being spilling eezo from their ships across planets that later infected children. While some pregnant mothers had children like you, exposed to element zero in the womb creating a nervous system made of eezo, a majority were far less lucky. Children born riddled with tumors or horrific physical complications that left them in pain their entire lives. 

You were supposed to be a lucky one. 

One of the lucky ones they’d been trying to take back with them to their laboratories. A lucky one meant to be bought by a substantial fee that your parents quickly declined. It was the last choice they ever got to make for you before they mysteriously died in a tragic accident off-world. 

“Yes.”

You didn’t feel lucky and maybe it was the way the words crumbled out of your mouth. The way they sat suspended in the air in a swirl of regrets and dead wishes that Thao knew you didn’t want to talk anymore. Not about your past or anything that reminded you that what you are - who you are - has felt like one big burden. You wondered, most nights, if there was a possibility that curses could be born. 

————

The rest of the walk back was filled with an awkward silence. You weren’t sure if it was one you’d made by your lack of response, or if Thao no longer felt like talking. A part of you feared the image he’d held of you since he was young, full of mystery that made you seem cool, was slowly becoming destroyed. You knew it was a matter of time before it happened.

You were an anomaly. 

Children saw you as magical, while adults believed you could perform some kind of mind control or read their thoughts. It was the main reason Kahn wanted you to join the resistance. Who wouldn’t want someone who could read thoughts and control minds on their team? You’d know when and where attacks could happen and make them blow up their ships from the inside. Unfortunately, for Kahn, the only thoughts you could read were your own and, as of right now, they were desperately shouting at you not to lose one of the few friends you had left. 

Even if they happened to be a young boy who was notorious for being the most talkative kid in the colony. 

With a few more steps up the hill, you both came to a stop at the top of the hill. You took in the thatched roofs of the huts that lay scattered in a misshapen circle of rows. The outer ring of homes were made of clay and the only splash’s of color came from designs being painted on the sides of homes or flowers planted in the yard. 

The middle ring was meant to be for men like Kahn and his commanders; men and women of importance so that they lived closer to the final, smaller ring, of storefronts and farmers. The middle circle was left open and featured a large walkway down the center of town and out into the hills. 

Kahn specifically had the colony built this way. The walkway was the most important, because Kahn believed it was good for his people to be able to watch those that fought for their freedoms return from another victory against the UNSC. You knew it was more about parading around having people kiss his ass than for uplifting any kind of morale. 

It was the same path that Thao and you took now as you brought in the yaks from the mountains. You knew it wouldn’t be long until you got them back inside their pen and with the irritated snorts and tugs on their leashes, the yaks knew it too. The sound of multiple small feet came rushing in on Thao’s side and the faces of a few village children came into view. They made sure to stop just before they got in the way of a yak. 

“Thao, can you come play?” 

“Not yet. I have to finish this choir for Caster.”

A lot of groaning ensued and you felt your free hand reach over the back of a yak. Your fingers waving for him to give you his leashes. Thao’s brow raised in question and you only answered him by pointing at the leash and waving him again to hand it over. 

“Hurry up and give them to me before I change my mind.”

You were trying to be grumpy. The way any elder in town would complain about the youth of today being too soft and not knowing the meaning of hard work and blah blah. You were sure they were all just stuck in super grouchy mode from having to be an adult with responsibilities for too long. And because of that, you knew, instead of looking grumpy, a smile was already brightening up your face. Thao’s face lit up in response and his eyes darted - unsure - from up the path and back to you. 

“Are you sure? Caster -“

“Will never know that you didn’t help bring them all the way back. Now, like I said, hand over the lead before I suddenly have a fit of amnesia.” 

He didn’t need further prompting. Thao’s hand smashed the remaining leashes into your waiting palm and turned on his heel to run off with the other kids. A soft, “thank you,” calling out behind him. 

You didn’t waste any more  time watching their retreating backs as they tore down a small alleyway between huts. You had your own things that you still needed to finish today. As you continued on your way, you greeted people who were outside in their gardens or hanging up laundry. Some of them returned your greetings of, “Hello,” with grunts with their backs turned to you or hurried inside. Apparently, if they didn’t look you in the eye or were behind the safety of a wall it kept you from using your mind control powers. 

You were willing to bet Kahn had something to do with that latest lie about your make believe abilities. If you wouldn’t fight for him, why not cause a little mass panic in your presence. You being the monster and him, the hero, forcing you to toe the line. No ‘mind reading’ unless it was for the ‘cause’. 

As you neared the pen in front of Caster’s shop, you started to rotate the leashes tighter in your hands. You were positive if the yaks felt a slack in their leash, they would attempt a revolt. They also weren’t the biggest fan of the metal pen of broken down ships Caster created to house them; the metal of an old hatch door from a USNC frigate - rusted and covered in moss - groaned as it opened. A sound the yaks knew well and instantly sent their hooves stamping into the muddy grass. 

“Alright, ladies, I don’t want any trouble. It’s time to get your butts back in here - whoa!”You shot around with a start as one of the yaks gently bumped its nose against your back sending you forward towards the pen. “None of that,” you mumbled. Your index finger pointing at your chest then back to every single one of them. “Your home, not mine. Now go.”

With a cautious glance over your shoulder you took a step forward leading the herd inside. It wasn’t until you’d begun to remove their leashes that the familiar sound of a man clearing his throat brought your gaze up to search the fence. It didn’t take long for you to find Caster leaning against it. An arm hanging over while the other held up whatever self-righteous bullshit questioning he was about to spew. 

“Where’s Thao?”

“He helped me bring them here, Caster. I sent him on his way once we reached the pen.”

“That’s not what he was told to do and you don’t have any authority to change orders.”

Every word reached you like a slap in the face. Caster’s irritation was evident with the click of his tongue. You tried to keep your face neutral; your gaze fixed on one of the yak's as your fingers ran through the tangled fur. You gave one final pat to signal your departure before you walked back to the pen’s exit. 

“I wasn’t aware Thao had to be the specific individual to deliver a bunch of yaks inside the pen.”

“Bullshit,” Caster snarled your name. His body closing the distance between you as you stepped through the pen entrance. “You can try and play dumb with me all you want, but we both know you aren’t that damn dense. Thao can’t shut up even for a second in his sleep, and you’re trying to tell me the boy magically didn’t complain the whole time he was with you?”

Caster invaded what little space you had once you stepped fully out from behind the pen. The door hadn’t even closed yet before Caster rushed you, attempting to trap you between him and the metal. The cold gray of his eyes roamed your face waiting for you to break at his intimidation. 

One of the Shadow Sea’s three moons would have to explode first before that ever happened. 

You jammed the cool metal of the pens chains into his chest. You didn’t bother to see if he would catch it when you released it. You knew he would, and when Caster did, you made sure to take a step towards him forcing the older man two options; hold his ground or back up. You weren’t surprised when he did the latter. 

“You’re right, Caster, I’m not that damn dense. Close up your own fucking pen.”

You didn’t give him the chance to reply. The first step you took forced him to take another step back, your shoulder ramming into his as you pushed your way past him. 

Could you have gone around? 

Yes, but, no matter what, it felt a lot better being petty for a couple of seconds than pretending for a second you cared. 

It didn’t take Caster long to find his bearings. The sound of the chains rustling in his hands and a slew of curses thrown at your back were the first to greet you before he yelled after you: “Just wait until Kahn hears about this!”

“Yea, yea,” you mumbled.

You were willing to bet no matter how the exchange between Caster and you went, Kahn was always going to hear how it went. Good or bad. Caster yelled something else at your retreating back. You responded with a wave and continued back down the main path before you veered off course into a smaller path. It was one you knew well since you were a child. One you knew led to your grandparents' hut. 

Smoke rose from the clay chimney and you knew, before you entered through the doorway, you’d find your grandfather working to dry his latest clay pots by the fire. Your grandmothers weathered fingers working tirelessly with a needle and her beadwork scattered over the small table. It was only a few days before everyone with goods left to try and sell them at the Market. You moved through the small space stopping to kiss the top of your grandmother’s head before you gently took over for your grandfather. 

“And where did you run off to this morning?” 

You didn’t have to look up to feel the weight of your grandfather’s stare. His scrutinizing eyes waiting for you to give him a response knowing full well it wasn’t going to be the one he wanted.

“There is no need to worry, grandpa. I was nowhere and everywhere all at once.”

“That sentence alone turned what little hair I have left white.”

“All of your hairs’ already white.”

“Precisely my point,” he groaned. 

The soft chuckle of your grandmother cut through the tension in the small room. Your eyes now directed to the open flame and focused on turning the pot slowly with the tongs. The last thing you wanted to hear on top of giving your grandfather white hair and an early grave was ruining a pot he’d worked on most of this morning. 

“Would you two stop it? I’m sure she has a perfectly good explanation for why she was missing this morning. Don’t you dear?”

Your grandmother sent a coy look in your direction and you couldn’t wait to completely crush her dreams. While your grandfather believed in hard work, your grandmother believed in finding a good spouse who could provide for the imaginary great grandchildren she’d already named. 

Either that or joining the resistance. 

“I was out helping Thao rally up the yaks that ran away this morning.”

A sigh so heavy escaped from your grandfather’s chest that you could’ve sworn all your ancestors before you joined him. 

“And there it is.”

The soft call of your name forced your attention back to where your grandmother now sat idle. Her hands placing the beadwork and adjoining needles on the table. Her small frame turned on the bench to make sure she had your full attention. 

“I’m happy you want to help but you already know Kahn will-“

“Will throw a bitch fit. Yeah, yeah, I know.”

A smack on your arm sent you jolting back in surprise. Your eyes cautiously roaming over to your grandmother to see if she was going to hit you again. With how tightly her lips were pressed together, you had a feeling, with some of the things that came from your mouth, the possibility of her doing it again was imminent. 

“Whether you like him or not, Kahn is our leader.”

“No, he is your leader. Kahn will never be mine. A real leader doesn’t sacrifice their people to gain information or so they don’t get locked up inside a UNSC prison.”

“And do you think there is someone more fit to lead if he was gone? Who do you think would run the rebellion?”

“Plenty of more competent individuals could step forward to take his place if he wasn’t aro-“

You realized you sounded like Thao who, hours before, you’d shushed him into complacency. Your fear for his safety was paramount over how right his words might have been. And here you were doing the exact same thing inside your grandparents hut. 

“Enough!” 

Your grandfather wasn’t known for raising his voice and when he did it was usually out of desperation; a fear that surpassed anger that delved into worry from the unknown. You could see it now etched into every wrinkle that creased in the sagging skin of his sunburnt face. The way he tried to hold onto the anger before it was swept away by something he wouldn’t voice in fear of giving it a name. 

“Whether you like it or not, Kahn runs this settlement. He is the only one working here to free us from the tyrant that is the UNSC! At least he is doing something, which is more than I can say for my own granddaughter!”

“Ernest,” your grandmother’s voice cautioned. 

“So you want me to just let him use me like some kind of weapon?”

You no longer cared about holding the pinchers over the fire or the clay pot - your grandfather's life’s work - held delicately between them. As you stood up from the stool you dropped the pinchers and the sound of clay cracking tapered over your shuddering breathing for just a moment. You moved away from the fire towards a corner of the room closest to the door. The thunder in your ears drowning out the shouts of your grandmother; your eyes coming in and out of focus as you tried to ease the panic from your veins. 

It would only take a second - a fatal second of panic to fill the room with a cobalt hue of flame that would ruin everything. 

“Kahn offers you a way to use your gift, to teach you how to use it, and better help our people and you spit in his face!” He hissed. “Your parents gave their life for the cause-“

“And what has Kahn given!?” You hadn’t meant to scream. Each word laced with a grief stricken with rage that only bloomed brighter over time. “He asks families to give their husbands, wives, their children to fight his battles and what the fuck does he do for us?!”

“Why can’t you ever see that you can help save us? Kahn can help teach you how to control it.”

“Help me control it or control me?”

“You ungrateful child.”

His words hissed through the air and buried themselves in the hollow of your chest. Your feet involuntarily took a step back, ready to flee the hut, ready to find peace in the hills of the forest when the collective raised shouts of the villagers rang out from behind the walls. 

“UNSC vessels spotted!”

It was the distraction you needed to escape the hut. The shouts of worried men and women pushing you to rush outside and greedily take gulp after gulp of fresh air until the flare, the warmth, of your power began to dig back inside your skin. When you dragged your gaze away from the grass you were greeted with villagers running back and forth. The ones who sprinted down the open lane back out towards the open forest only ended up coming back moments later. 

You made your way out into the crowd, weaving in between the bodies to get to the heart of the circle their bodies created. They all stood in large huddled groups; mothers clutching their children and the able bodied men moving in front of them, in front of everyone, to try and guard them. The villagers who tried running down the main road were coming, as if herded, back to the center of the village. You didn’t understand why they were all running back to the middle. 

This was a kill zone. 

Strategically the worst place to be for any of the resistance fighters if they were going to make any attempt to fight back. It wasn't until you made it to the middle that your earlier rage turned to ice as you watched the UNSC marines, and four very big fucking Spartans, make their way up the middle. 

If Spartans were here you knew no one stood a chance. A fight would be suicide. You needed to get back to your grandparents. You needed - 

“Attention settlers of the Lera system of Laconix: I am Captain Jacob Keyes of the USNC. We have viable intel that led us to believe that you are harboring a fugitive by the name of Kahn Montrello - a known insurrectionist. We are asking for your cooperation in this matter. We can resolve this matter peacefully, with no need to resort to any unnecessary violence.”

“Screw you! You have no jurisdiction here or any outer colonies.”

Fred. That was his name. Maybe. You didn’t know - couldn’t remember. Your brain couldn’t think past your own rushing pulse or speeding thoughts. He was just pushing past the crowd with angry shouts and limbs flying while he moved towards them. You watched as he made his way towards the marines like a man on fire, and was met by a Marine who burned brighter. The butt of their gun cracking against his cheek sent him spiraling to the ground. 

You weren’t sure if you were already panicked or if the sight of blood seeping through his fingers caused it. No matter what the real reason was you knew there was no getting around whatever came next. Like a swarm of locusts, the marines fanned out and moved forward. Their bodies corralled the villagers tighter together and kept any hope of escape at bay. 

It was the perfect time for Kahn to make his appearance. His form practically glided from between a lake of terrified bodies frozen in fear, clutching one another, as he opened his arms in welcome. 

“You say you wish us no violence, only want our cooperation, and yet attack a simple working man.”

“You need to stay where you are or you will be taken down with force,” a marine answered, their gun trained on Kahn who continued to take careful steps forward. 

He responded with his hands showing he wasn’t armed. Kahn made a show to come to a stop in front of Captain Keyes. 

“Maybe that was advice you should’ve opened with, Captain Keyes.”

Kahn was treating this like a joke. He was wearing that easy smile of his displaying he didn’t have a care in the world. He was either suicidal, genocidial in willing to let them completely kill the colony or, you realized with a sickening drop in your stomach, Kahn had another plan. 

“And you are?”

“I’m Malcom. Another humble merchant who lives here.”

Liar! 

The panic that settled like lead inside your gut dropped heavier, threatening to upend whatever was left from your morning breakfast. You didn’t have to guess what his plans were, because Kahn was laying them bare for everyone to see. The only difference between you and everyone else is that whoever he chose to sacrifice for the name of his ‘revolution’ would be met with silence. 

Captain Keyes outlined Kahn’s frame with suspicion and a pebble of hope was thrown your way. Maybe he could sense the lie that costed Kahn’s words. Maybe it would be enough for him to call bullshit. 

“Okay, Malcolm. And what is it you’re wanting?”

“I want nothing, Captain. I just want to show you exactly who you are looking for.” 

Kahn never intended to point the finger at himself - why would he when there were dozens of men brainwashed to think their sacrifice mattered. You followed his finger like everyone else drawn to the imaginary string he pulled and waited to see what poor fool he chose this time. 

Except this time - no…NO! 

It was your grandfather who took a step forward out of the dozens of bodies. The wooden tip of his cane met the ground with a depth of a shovel digging a grave with each step. Your grandmother reached out her arms - called for him to come back - but he continued to make his way forward. His head held high like he was making a decision everyone should be proud of. 

“I am Kahn Montrello. The man you seek.”

Captain Keyes took one look at your grandfather and you could see the disbelief reflected in his eyes. The way they darkened further on a decision you, or anyone else, would ever be made aware of until he made it. 

“I’ve never known an insurrectionist leader to give themselves up so willingly.”

Thank god Captain Keyes was smarter than he looked. Your grandfather, however, wasn’t backing down. He squared his shoulders and planted his hands coolly over the hilt of his cane. His head held high enough for his next words to strangle him. 

“Any leader should be willing to give themselves up for the safety of their people. Is that what you can offer me, Captain Keyes? The safety of my colony if I come willingly?”

“What are you doing?”

You were sure it was the panic that surged you forward. How you found yourself taking step after step until you were out from behind every last villager and into the clearing with Kahn and your grandfather. 

“Stay back!”

“Don’t take another step forward!”

You were vaguely aware of the commands being slung your way. The arms that lifted weapons as you took scrambling steps towards your grandfather who only looked on with distaste. 

“Go back with the others. I won’t tell you again.”

It was the voice he’d used countless times since you were a child. A voice that radiated with authority that now only showcased his age. A part of you wanted to follow his orders and run to your grandmother’s side. To be a good granddaughter and comfort her the way she needed. 

But she wouldn’t need comforting if Kahn wasn’t such a fucking coward. 

“No!”

He hissed your name as he nervously looked out over the marines. At Captain Keyes.

“Be good and do as you're told.”

“I won’t let you do this!”

“And I don’t need your permission-“

“What about grandma? You’re just going to leave her like this?”

“I wasn’t aware Kahn Montrello had grandchildren?” Keyes quipped. 

You could see your grandfather open his mouth to reply and you made sure to cut him off before he could say another lie. 

“That’s because he doesn’t because Kahn -“

“Apologies, Captain Keyes,” Kahn cut in. “This girl is unwell. Ever since she lost her parents -“

“Don’t you dare speak about them.“

“-she’s been desperately trying to cling to anyone willing to call her family.”

You weren’t aware you were moving forward until you heard the shouts from the marines; the gasps of fear from your own people. You were vaguely aware of the tingle of heat that moved like a shockwave from your fingertips up your arms until it consumed you. In another time, a different life, maybe you would’ve been aware that your biotics had flared to life and enveloped you in what looked like cobalt flame. 

A fitting image for the one Kahn so lovingly painted for you. An unhinged woman filled with crazy fantasies and a desperation for family.

The only thing you could focus on was Kahn who stood before you. The coward who easily was willing to give your grandfather up to the UNSC knowing what they do to insurrectionist leaders. The unspeakable torture done to collect secrets, and their executions televised on every available feed for all to see. 

With the thought of your grandfather’s future weighing behind your eyes you lashed out. Your hand rising forward to catch Kahn midway in taking a step back. Your biotics held him suspended in the air. You were vaguely aware of what sounded like your grandfather calling your name. The wood of his cane crunching through dirt and leaves to rush to you. 

There was more shouting - orders being relayed and metal clicks of safeties being released - and you knew chaos was about to ensue. 

“Spartan’s your orders are to grab the insurrectionist known as Kahn Montrello. Marines focus on providing backup and subduing any and all threats.”

A wash of relief rippled through you. The UNSC had come to their senses. They  must have realized Kahn for the liar he was. Captain Keyes caught on that the rouse Kahn created with your grandfather was all a lie. 

Except that wasn’t what happened. 

The marines who fanned out around the clearing were now moving in towards one sole target: you. The Spartans who Keyes sent forward to capture Kahn weren’t headed in your direction, but towards your grandfather who was visibly shaking as he watched two of the UNSC’s giants - their most powerful weapons - move towards him. 

“No! You have it all wrong! He isn’t Kahn!”

You released the hold you had on Kahn. No longer was he held suspended in the air as you sent his body flying towards the marines. Your feet were digging into the soil, pitching you forward in a hard sprint, as you barreled blindly towards your grandfather. You could hear him warning you to stay back - ‘stay away’ - but you never were good with doing what you were told. 

The closest Spartan,only identified by the numbers 028 on her chest, was almost on him. They were so close it would only take a couple more inches and this Spartan would grab a hold of him and you would lose him. Forever.

You were running on pure adrenaline. Your vision honed in on nothing else but the hand of the Spartan that reached out to grab at his arm. If they got a hold of him, that was it. You called on every cell of energy in your body, your arm drawing back - nerves frying - as the eezo inside your body compacted in the space around you, changing it into a powerful ball that you launched with a scream. The Spartan barely had time to react when the cobalt sphere of element zero slammed into her suit and sent her flying back. 

“Riz!”

You had a split second to make half a shield before the second Spartan’s fist slammed against it. The impact snapped like a shockwave of its own. The force of impact sent your feet sliding back against the dirt. The sound of heavy footsteps following your rolling body forced you to spring to your knees as you called on another surge of element zero and sent it flying like a fastball. 

It slammed into the Spartan but, unlike the first one, it barely slowed them down. The impact crackled against the air and the force field around his armor allowing your biotics to push them back only a few feet. It was all the feet you needed to scramble on all fours to your grandfather, who was kneeling in a heap in the dirt. 

As soon as you slide in next to him, you put up a small force field - a bubble of blue that encapsulated you both just in time before bullets bounced against the shield. Gently, you secured an arm underneath his shoulders and tried to lift him up to you. All while your right hand stayed pressed against the barrier you’d created. Your arms shaking with the strain of holding back another round of gunfire and the slamming fists of a very big, very angry, Spartan. 

You were running out of time. The strain of keeping the barrier up, of using powers you usually never touched, left a noticeable trail of perspiration to crown your forehead. If you kept this up much longer, you knew the nosebleeds would start soon. 

“Come on grandpa. We have to get up now. We gotta get you out of here.”

“Just let them take me, deheyah*.”

A heavy wave of memory, weighted with emotions thick and stifling, threatened to knock you off balance. The last time your grandfather had ever called you that, was before your parents died. When you were allowed the luxury of childhood innocence and the imagination that the world held the beauty of magic before it was destroyed by the gravity of reality. 

“That’s not going to happen, grandpa. I won’t let it happen. I can’t lose you too.”

Your body jerked with the next slam of a fist against the barrier. The impact sent a shutter down into the marrow of your bones and snapped at your nervous system. The pain was immediate and tore a gasp from you. 

“You will never lose me. I will always be with you. Wherever you go. Whatever you choose to be.”

“No.” 

You shook your head violently forcing him to reach out to steady you. The soft leather of his hand cupped your cheek quieting your protests and forced you to keep your eyes on him. 

“I’m sorry for what I said. Earlier. I just - I just wanted what was best for you. I always have. But…only you know what is best for your life. Never stop fighting. Don’t be afraid of who you can be.”

“Why are you talking like this? This isn’t goodbye grandpa. Come on, I have to get you back to grandma. She’s going to be pissed if you just stay here.”

But it was, wasn’t it? You’d felt it when your hands touched the layers of shawls that draped over his chest. It was wetter than it should’ve been. His eyes glassy and unfocused and struggling to keep them on you while he spoke. Somehow, you’d been a few moments too late when the bullets came your way, and those few seconds allowed the hollow point of a bullet to find a hole in the center of his chest. 

Blood covered your left hand as another sharp synopsis of pain resonated through your nervous system. Spartan 028, Riz, was back up and hammering away at the sphere of the barrier you’d created. The pain should’ve been unbearable but nothing compared to the last gasp of air that shuddered from your grandfather. It couldn’t compare to the feeling of his body, lifeless, and sagging towards the earth where the weight forced you to place him. 

None of this would’ve happened if Kahn wasn’t a coward. If he didn’t use people, the very people he claimed were his. People he swore to defend and liberate - for his own gain. 

The anger swelled brighter inside like a raging flame. Every beating your nervous system took holding up the barrier became a dulled sensation as you struggled to breathe around the loss of your grandfather. 

The Spartans had stopped but didn’t move back. A woman was off to your right. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Smiling like she was friendly but the mock kindness didn’t reach her eyes. They were bright with excitement; the way hunters spotted prey. A scientist finding a new object to dissect. 

“…I’m Doctor Halsey.”

Of course she was. She wanted to dissect you. The same way the scientists from Conatix tried many years ago by trying to buy you from your parents. She was saying your name but she had no right to it. 

This Dr. Halsey. 

False smile given under false pretenses. Just like Kahn has his fancy glittering speeches that kept hopes high and results low. 

“We don’t want to harm you. If you are willing to come peacefully we promise we will leave the colony immediately. No further bloodshed needs to happen.”

The part of you that wasn’t soaked in grief agreed. It was the best call to make - the right call. It promised no more suffering would happen. It meant your grandmother would be safe. 

Your grandmother. A woman who lost her son. Her husband. Now her granddaughter. Who would watch her if you left? The thought alone sprang a sharp refusal to your tongue until you stood, your eyes cast down at the warm body of your grandfather. In that moment, whatever reasonable human being you used to be ceased to exist. The only thing left was rage. 

Dr. Halsey must have noticed. No longer was she crouched to be eye level with you. She returned to her full height. Her hands placed out in front to shield herself, as if that would be enough to stop what happened next. 

“Whatever you’re thinking - don’t.” 

Your reply came in a scream that crawled its way from the pit of despair that had lodged itself inside your heart. The loss of your parents, the death of your grandfather,  and for your grandmother who would be alone. You used that hurt, bitterness, and rage and used it to erupt your shield into a burst of biotic energy that detonated like a bomb. The sheer force alone sent the Spartans back. 

It wasn’t enough but you only needed a minute or two. Just enough time for you to send your biotics crackling along the air in a line until it grabbed a hold of Kahn and pulled him like a slingshot of force back towards you. When he was close enough, you dropped your left hand that you’d use to control the pull of his body, and cocked back your right arm, your palm open, and launched it forward. The slam of the biotics hit home at the center of his chest launching Kahn back through the scrambling crowd of people, with the sickening crack of his sternum mixing with the scream that tore from your throat.

It was all the time you had before the Spartan marked with 117 came into view. His armored fist closes in like a warthog at full speed against your cheek, sending your body spiraling into the dirt. You could feel the earth shift with tremors as he moved to follow you. You could taste the blood from the hit and wondered if your jaw was broken. If you just lost a whole row of teeth. 

“John, Incapacitate her only! I need her to be brought back with us. Alive.”

For a glorious moment, your blurred vision swirled only with the uninterrupted view of the sky before the cameo green of Master Chief, savior of the galaxy - or John - 117 -  helmet came into view. A joke was brewing on the back of your tongue, covered in humor and blood before his fist came crashing down your line of sight, and the world became blissfully quiet.

_________

You found that the darkness wasn’t as quiet as you’d hoped.

The impact from the punch the Maater Chief, or John - 117 as that woman called him,  had launched you into what felt like a nightmare. Held hostage by a paralysis of your own mind. Unable to change the forms of what you saw. The images were vivid. The sounds carried a weight that sat heavy like lead in your skull. It made you miss the pain of being conscious. 

You weren’t sure if the screams that bounced around inside your head were real or if they were just a part of the nightmare. Over and over your broken mind played out the moment a Marine’s bullet found a hole inside  your grandfather's gut. 

No matter how fast you ran, if you launched yourself in front of him, you were never fast enough. Each step you took sunk deeper into the earth as if your legs were trying to race through quicksand. Your own biotics mysteriously grew quiet - refusing to work for the first time in your life. 

No matter what the outcome never changed. Your grandfather was gone, and there was no time travel to head back and change that startling fact. 

A sickening lurch, one you knew meant a ship was coming out of slipspace, sent the contents of that morning’s breakfast swirling in your stomach. You barely had time to register that it was real, the nausea, and that you were really about to throw up. You’d barely rolled to your side before said breakfast displayed itself onto a very shiny metal floor. 

As soon as you finished, you rolled back onto your back. Your eyes fluttered open to take in the fluorescent lights, the cool slated metal ceiling that matched the walls and floor. It was definitely a cell, and you most definitely found out much too late that your wrists were tied behind your back. 

When you were sure you weren’t going to upend anymore of your breakfast, you slowly began to maneuver to sit on the only bench they’d laid you on. The pain in the sockets of your shoulders informing you that you’d been like this for quite a while. 

You were still trying to gather your bearings when the sliding doors to your right opened. A woman with blonde hair stood at the forefront with a Spartan, the dusk green armor of John - 117, standing protectively behind her. When she moved, he moved. You couldn’t help but consider her a puppeteer and the Spartan the puppet. He didn’t move unless she did and you doubted he would be doing any of the talking. 

She entered the room with a cautionary smile and clinical eyes assessing you before she even entered. It was easy to tell she was a scientist and, more than likely, a very experienced one in whatever it was she specialized in. 

“Hello, Subject Cobalt,” she said brightly. Her smile never faltered once. “I’m glad to see that you are alright. My name is Doctor Halsey. I’ve come to do an assessment on you and make sure you didn’t sustain any life-threatening or mind altering issues after what happened back on Laconix.”

Subject Cobalt? 

Was that supposed to be you?

You eyed her warily as she took her first step inside the cell. The heavy footsteps of Mjolnir armor followed closely behind. If she suspected you were jumpy - a rabbit in headlights, as the old ones used to say - Halsey never showed it. 

A few more steps and she was beside the bench. Another breath and she was sitting beside you. The smile on her face beaming and hollowing out her eyes with rapture at what she must have considered a new species. You made a fine new specimen for any scientist, you would imagine. A nervous system full of eezo that lit your body up like an Earthen Christmas tree and the power to wield it like a weapon.

Doctor Halsey was practically giddy beside you. 

“I’m going to do a few simple tests to verify cognitive function isn’t impaired. To do so, I’m going to need your assistance. Do you think you could do that for me?”

Your eyes scanned over her as you considered your options. It turned out to be a very short list that was available to you. The only option being to go along with what she asked. 

“Okay.”

That one word was all the go ahead Halsey needed to cause her megawatt smile to go up a notch. She must have thought you would be resistant to following orders and she wasn’t wrong but, from where you were sitting, this seemed like the lesser of two evils. 

“Splendid. First, I’m going to run this pen horizontally and vertically. I need you to focus on the tip of the pen, and follow it as closely as you can.”

“Okay.”

Doctor Halsey lifted the pen up to eye level, a few inches away from your face, and waited for your eyes to train on the silver point. You hadn’t expected an examination as soon as you woke up. You weren’t sure if you should’ve felt happy or worried about it. If you were one misstep away from becoming a lab rat. 

You’d been so deep in thought - your mind considering all the outcomes and possibilities of this interaction ending well - that you completely missed her first question. 

“I’m sorry. Can you repeat the question?”

Another smile. Another deflection. It was enough, however, for you to notice the tightness in the fine lines of her face. It was so small you could’ve missed it. 

“Of course. During your biotic episode on Laconix, I noticed your nose started bleeding. Does it do that every time you use your biotics?”

“No.”

The tightness again. This time it was the edges of her smile - suspended in that mock sweetness - that reminded you of your mother. Waiting for you to give more detail without prodding and realizing, rapidly, you feared incriminating yourself. The pen dropped into her lap. Her eyes roaming over your face for a sign - a tell - that she could exploit. 

“You aren’t in any kind of trouble. I’m merely trying to help you -“

“Is that what you’re trying here, Dr. Halsey? To be my friend? To tell me I’m not in any danger when you took me off my planet against my will?” You inquired. Her mouth was still suspended open, forming around a word cut short by your desire to not hear anymore bullshit. “It feels like there is more going on than what you’re sharing.”

She schooled her face - even her eyes - to remain emotionless. A perfect blank slate to display only what she wanted without giving away what she didn’t. 

“Alright. I watched you. At first, you seemed in control, but after the third or fourth time your biotics displayed themselves, and you overextended their use, you suffered an epistaxis - the nosebleed. Further scans done here in the ship’s medical bay presented signs of swelling and hematoma on the brain. A few hours before you woke up, I had them run another analysis and both are gone. Which leaves me to believe it only occurs upon exhaustion.”

She watched you as she spoke. Her gaze searching, prodding, for signs of whatever reaction she expected but wasn’t getting. You would’ve loved to offer up whatever it was she wanted, if only you knew which specific one she was hunting for. 

“Tell me. Do you get migraines?”

“What is this?”

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s a lie,” you shot back. 

The tone in your voice matched the anxiety rising in your chest. It caused your words to be rougher than intended, alerting the Spartan in the corner who took a step towards you. Only the rising hand of calm - control - from Dr. Halsey kept him from taking another step. 

“I think you understand more than you’re willing to tell me or, at least, not wanting to show your whole hand, anyway. You’re a scientist, right? Probably super smart. Smart enough you probably come from some UNSC lab  from Reach or Illium?”

“Reach.”

The carefully constructed smile was back on her lips, but this time you could see a spark of something brighten up the soft blue of her eyes. You were doing something she didn’t expect, but her scientific mind found it fascinating. No doubt logging it away to draw it open later somewhere quiet to dissect. 

Your lips pouted around her admission. Reach. One of the top three planets, if not the first, for all private and commercial research filled with legal litigation and NDA’s to protect organizations and UNSC labs from the courts of public opinions. It was how Conatix got away with doing what they did to you and the other kids scattered across the galaxy. Only taking notice when it seemed like something that could benefit them. You weren’t stupid. Halsey had taken one look at what you could do - what you did - and only two things came to mind: control or destroy. 

You hadn’t figured out exactly which one you were to Dr. Halsey yet. 

“Are you going to kill me?”

Halsey didn’t necessarily give you a reason to think it was an outlandish guess. Everything - everyone - was expendable when it came to science and the betterment of humanity. Or whatever the UNSC’s science team's new slogan was.

“Why would we kill you?”

You tried to shrug off the growing anxiety that sat coiling inside your gut.

“To experiment on me. Take me apart and see what’s buried underneath, so to speak. Isn’t that what you people do.”

“You don’t realize what you are, do you? The advancement of human genetics - biology - that is flowing through you.”

“What’s flowing through me is eezo and it cost hundreds of children their lives.”

“Yes, but for one out of a hundred children there is something remarkable. You. The one out of a thousand. A stepping stone towards humans having a place amongst the vast and ever growing populace of space. I don’t want to kill you, Cobalt. I want to integrate you into my program.”

“What program?”

You wondered if madness was contagious. If you asked anyone else, they might have dismissed your words as too harsh. No doubt calling Halsey’s display of excitement for simply that, but you could see her eyes. Underneath all that perfectly concealed pleasant exterior was an intelligence that was willing to break the norms - rules - to get to whatever she needed. 

“I run the Spartan program. Granted, you are well past the parameters to become a Spartan, no, I…I want to make a subunit. I think Cobalt, we can help each other, and not only help each other, but possibly end this war.”

UNSC propaganda. 

That’s what the war was. Everyone in the outer colonies knew it was just a fancy attempt to stop the growing surge of colonists from joining the insurrectionists. Halsey sensed your doubt before you disregarded her words with a shake of your head. 

“No. The covenant is just a UNSC nightmare story to try and get the outer colonies to toe the line. To allow themselves to be governed under your jurisdiction.”

“I can promise you. It’s not.”

“Of course you would say that! You’re a USNC scientist for Christ’s sake!”

“John.”

Somehow, you’d forgotten that big hunk of tin was in the room. Halsey kept you focused on her - solely on her - that when the Spartan took a step forward, the reflection of the room mirrored in his visor, you almost jumped out of your skin. 

In his hand was a holopad that he deposited into her waiting palm. Halsey didn’t waste time logging in. Her fingers tapped wildly across the screen with a speed that left you dizzy. When she found whatever it was she’d been looking for she extended the holopad out for you to take. 

“This was transmitted to us only a few hours ago.”

Warily, you watched her. Your mind debating if you should take the holopad or tell her to fuck off. It was more made up videos or fancy speeches, you were sure of it. The grim lines of her face, however, left you wondering just how certain you were. It was her turn to place the holopad in your hands. Your gaze on her a few more seconds before it dropped down to the video that played on the screen.

Bright beams. It’s what you noticed first. Beams that erupted from the sky with such brilliant clarity you knew it could only be one form: plasma. You couldn’t understand - comprehend - what you were seeing. 

Plasma on that scale was impossible. It should’ve been and yet, you watched as it sliced through the planet's barrier, through molecules, and simple things like trees and mountains. Everything it touched turned red hot like lava from volcanoes you’d heard stories about that were on the original human planet of earth. While the plasma beam continued its destructive course, the magma it left behind flowed behind. 

You didn’t understand until you did. 

You knew that mountain. You’d glanced at it many times on walks to neighboring villages for trade. Attempted to climb it a thousand times as a child. 

“What is this?”

Your disbelief was met with something you couldn’t place from her. Halsey didn’t offer up sympathy. She offered up an understanding of watching everything you love disappear in a wave of destruction. But how could she understand the hollowness, the sinking feeling of dread that gripped your heart and threatened to make it stop?

“It’s Laconix. Shortly after we left the Covenant arrived. They glassed the planet.”

“Glassed? I - I don’t. I don’t understand.”

You were going to hyperventilate if you weren’t careful. 

“It’s gone, Cobalt.” That’s not my name. “The Covenant doesn’t take prisoners. They destroy everything. Kill everything. Your planet is gone.” 

Gone. 

Gone. 

Your home. What was left of your family - your people - your community. Gone. In less than 7.8 seconds of holopad footage. 

“But you can avenge them. You can fight for them and to protect every other planet still left out there in the galaxy and I can help you do it.”

Deep down a part of you knew this had been her tactic all along. If reason didn’t make someone join your cause, then using their emotions against them would. You should’ve seen it coming. Took the time to ask more questions but the growing hole in your soul moved on from shock and grief was rocketing towards unbridled rage at lightning speed. 

When you glanced back up at her, Halsey knew she had you before you even spoke. 

“What do you need me to do?”

As always, thank you so much for reading. Comments and reblogs are always appreciated.

[totallynotcoffeeturtle]

Kiss me under the milky twilight

Masterlist

(From the 6th to 30th April, I am having a mini 100 follower milestone event!)

Tags: Scaramouche x GN!reader, modern au, fluff Summary: Where Scaramouche celebrates Valentine's day with you, even if he's late.

Scaramouche pushes his glasses up while blinking tiredly. Not even the 10th cup of coffee can keep him up for any longer. The file and its blinking mouse begin to look like they are taunting him to no end with the tall pile of paperwork sitting beside him. He lets his forehead hit the desk with a ‘thunk’ while his eyelids shut under their own weight. The moment he is about to drift to dreamland, his own alarm wakes him up. Scaramouche looks at the clock on his cursed computer and is shocked awake. Fuck, he hasn’t prepared anything for you! It is already 23:00 on the 14th! He was supposed to buy the chocolate for you before the last store closed but of course his dumbass boss just had to dump more work on him. ‘You’re a great asset.’ He calls bullshit but he still needs money to buy you your favorite things. He groans. No matter how mean or rude he may act, he has never forgotten to buy you gifts on Valentine’s and any other occasion you like to participate in.

Scaramouche stands up abruptly, puts on his coat, grabs his wallet and clocks out. It’s okay to be late, he thinks, as long as he can get to you before the end of the day, even if there is only an hour left. At this time, only a convenience store would be open so he runs to the nearby Family Mart and looks at the various options under the clerk’s judging stare. And he understands because who even rushes to buy chocolate in a convenience store at 23:00?? Scaramouche looks at the many flavors before picking your usual favorite dark chocolate. He also quickly grabs your favorite tea, pays for them both and makes a dash for your shared home.

You stand on your balcony, fiddling with the little plant that you got from the local fair boredly. Scaramouche knows how early you often go to sleep so he would always go back on time but this is the first time you had to wait for him for so long. Even the fancy dinner you made got cold in the meantime. You pout and push against the succulent’s leaves until you hear rapid footsteps and the gate unlocking. You run down the stairs quickly, opening the door and bumping right into his chest in the front yard. Scaramouche huffs at your excitement despite his heartbeat increasing like a teenage boy in love. He shoves the gifts he got into your hands, “Sorry for being late. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow with something better.” You grins and hugs him tightly, “Don’t worry about that, just come inside. My gift is in the fridge, waiting for you, love.” He holds you tight and kisses you deeply, mumbling against your soft lips adoringly, “What will I ever do without you…”

A/N: This is kinda rushed and the ending is weird but happy Valentine's day~ i'll be suffering for 8hrs later but it ain't important rn Taglist: @amyminhminh (comment if you want to be tagged in future scara x reader posts <3)

[transienturl]

my dad just swapped the tv he uses as a monitor for a used hisense u8g at a great deal and oh man. it's so weird to experience a tv competent enough that configuring the settings actually consists of expressing preferences between multiple viable choices instead of simply selecting the only option that does not make the device objectively worse. truly wild

[elwenyere]

I saw a post the other day calling criticism of generative AI a moral panic, and while I do think many proprietary AI technologies are being used in deeply unethical ways, I think there is a substantial body of reporting and research on the real-world impacts of the AI boom that would trouble the comparison to a moral panic: while there *are* older cultural fears tied to negative reactions to the perceived newness of AI, many of those warnings are Luddite with a capital L - that is, they're part of a tradition of materialist critique focused on the way the technology is being deployed in the political economy. So (1) starting with the acknowledgement that a variety of machine-learning technologies were being used by researchers before the current "AI" hype cycle, and that there's evidence for the benefit of targeted use of AI techs in settings where they can be used by trained readers - say, spotting patterns in radiology scans - and (2) setting aside the fact that current proprietary LLMs in particular are largely bullshit machines, in that they confidently generate errors, incorrect citations, and falsehoods in ways humans may be less likely to detect than conventional disinformation, and (3) setting aside as well the potential impact of frequent offloading on human cognition and of widespread AI slop on our understanding of human creativity...

What are some of the material effects of the "AI" boom?

Guzzling water and electricity

The data centers needed to support AI technologies require large quantities of water to cool the processors. A to-be-released paper from the University of California Riverside and the University of Texas Arlington finds, for example, that "ChatGPT needs to 'drink' [the equivalent of] a 500 ml bottle of water for a simple conversation of roughly 20-50 questions and answers." Many of these data centers pull water from already water-stressed areas, and the processing needs of big tech companies are expanding rapidly. Microsoft alone increased its water consumption from 4,196,461 cubic meters in 2020 to 7,843,744 cubic meters in 2023. AI applications are also 100 to 1,000 times more computationally intensive than regular search functions, and as a result the electricity needs of data centers are overwhelming local power grids, and many tech giants are abandoning or delaying their plans to become carbon neutral. Google’s greenhouse gas emissions alone have increased at least 48% since 2019. And a recent analysis from The Guardian suggests the actual AI-related increase in resource use by big tech companies may be up to 662%, or 7.62 times, higher than they've officially reported.

Exploiting labor to create its datasets

Like so many other forms of "automation," generative AI technologies actually require loads of human labor to do things like tag millions of images to train computer vision for ImageNet and to filter the texts used to train LLMs to make them less racist, sexist, and homophobic. This work is deeply casualized, underpaid, and often psychologically harmful. It profits from and re-entrenches a stratified global labor market: many of the data workers used to maintain training sets are from the Global South, and one of the platforms used to buy their work is literally called the Mechanical Turk, owned by Amazon.

From an open letter written by content moderators and AI workers in Kenya to Biden: "US Big Tech companies are systemically abusing and exploiting African workers. In Kenya, these US companies are undermining the local labor laws, the country’s justice system and violating international labor standards. Our working conditions amount to modern day slavery."

Deskilling labor and demoralizing workers

The companies, hospitals, production studios, and academic institutions that have signed contracts with providers of proprietary AI have used those technologies to erode labor protections and worsen working conditions for their employees. Even when AI is not used directly to replace human workers, it is deployed as a tool for disciplining labor by deskilling the work humans perform: in other words, employers use AI tech to reduce the value of human labor (labor like grading student papers, providing customer service, consulting with patients, etc.) in order to enable the automation of previously skilled tasks. Deskilling makes it easier for companies and institutions to casualize and gigify what were previously more secure positions. It reduces pay and bargaining power for workers, forcing them into new gigs as adjuncts for its own technologies.

I can't say anything better than Tressie McMillan Cottom, so let me quote her recent piece at length: "A.I. may be a mid technology with limited use cases to justify its financial and environmental costs. But it is a stellar tool for demoralizing workers who can, in the blink of a digital eye, be categorized as waste. Whatever A.I. has the potential to become, in this political environment it is most powerful when it is aimed at demoralizing workers. This sort of mid tech would, in a perfect world, go the way of classroom TVs and MOOCs. It would find its niche, mildly reshape the way white-collar workers work and Americans would mostly forget about its promise to transform our lives. But we now live in a world where political might makes right. DOGE’s monthslong infomercial for A.I. reveals the difference that power can make to a mid technology. It does not have to be transformative to change how we live and work. In the wrong hands, mid tech is an antilabor hammer."

Enclosing knowledge production and destroying open access

OpenAI started as a non-profit, but it has now become one of the most aggressive for-profit companies in Silicon Valley. Alongside the new proprietary AIs developed by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, X, etc., OpenAI is extracting personal data and scraping copyrighted works to amass the data it needs to train their bots - even offering one-time payouts to authors to buy the rights to frack their work for AI grist - and then (or so they tell investors) they plan to sell the products back at a profit. As many critics have pointed out, proprietary AI thus works on a model of political economy similar to the 15th-19th-century capitalist project of enclosing what was formerly "the commons," or public land, to turn it into private property for the bourgeois class, who then owned the means of agricultural and industrial production. "Open"AI is built on and requires access to collective knowledge and public archives to run, but its promise to investors (the one they use to attract capital) is that it will enclose the profits generated from that knowledge for private gain.

AI companies hungry for good data to train their Large Language Models (LLMs) have also unleashed a new wave of bots that are stretching the digital infrastructure of open-access sites like Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, and Internet Archive past capacity. As Eric Hellman writes in a recent blog post, these bots "use as many connections as you have room for. If you add capacity, they just ramp up their requests." In the process of scraping the intellectual commons, they're also trampling and trashing its benefits for truly public use.

Enriching tech oligarchs and fueling military imperialism

The names of many of the people and groups who get richer by generating speculative buzz for generative AI - Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Larry Ellison - are familiar to the public because those people are currently using their wealth to purchase political influence and to win access to public resources. And it's looking increasingly likely that this political interference is motivated by the probability that the AI hype is a bubble - that the tech can never be made profitable or useful - and that tech oligarchs are hoping to keep it afloat as a speculation scheme through an infusion of public money - a.k.a. an AIG-style bailout.

In the meantime, these companies have found a growing interest from military buyers for their tech, as AI becomes a new front for "national security" imperialist growth wars. From an email written by Microsoft employee Ibtihal Aboussad, who interrupted Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman at a live event to call him a war profiteer: "When I moved to AI Platform, I was excited to contribute to cutting-edge AI technology and its applications for the good of humanity: accessibility products, translation services, and tools to 'empower every human and organization to achieve more.' I was not informed that Microsoft would sell my work to the Israeli military and government, with the purpose of spying on and murdering journalists, doctors, aid workers, and entire civilian families. If I knew my work on transcription scenarios would help spy on and transcribe phone calls to better target Palestinians, I would not have joined this organization and contributed to genocide. I did not sign up to write code that violates human rights."

So there's a brief, non-exhaustive digest of some vectors for a critique of proprietary AI's role in the political economy. tl;dr: the first questions of material analysis are "who labors?" and "who profits/to whom does the value of that labor accrue?"

For further (and longer) reading, check out Justin Joque's Revolutionary Mathematics: Artificial Intelligence, Statistics and the Logic of Capitalism and Karen Hao's forthcoming Empire of AI.

[thezombieprostitute]

Tech Tuesday!Lloyd was for sure tingling when Reader called him, “sir” 😏

His mustache was definitely tingling. 😂

Previous

💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻

Lloyd was cursing up a storm. Everything that could go wrong today had. He'd even had to change into his emergency pair of pants when a minion bumped into him and spilled his coffee all over his lap.

And now his computer was broken. He'd ordered another minion to input the ticket to IT for him. He was not looking forward to dealing with any of those assholes. He hated the power they had over him. He literally could not work if they didn't do their job. And some of them were so damn smug about it. He knew he wouldn't get a quick response since he pretty much every encounter with IT led to an argument.

He was glaring at his computer like he could scare it into working when he heard the knock at his door. “Get in here!” He's not used to the IT guys bothering to knock.

You open the door, “hello, Mr. Hansen. I'm, um, I'm from IT to fix your computer?”

“Yeah, I figured that,” he bites back. “No one else would be dumb enough to knock on the damn door.” Lloyd sees you wince and almost regrets being so snippy.

“May, I...may I see your computer, Sir?”

Sir? he thinks. Sounds good coming out of that pretty mouth. Out loud he says, “it's about damn time the IT department hired someone who knows their place.”

He gets out of his seat and watches you get to work. He's expecting the smart-ass comments, the "have you tried turning it on and off again" bullshit. But instead you just get to work. He recognize the look on your face as someone in their element. He watches your hands move like a magician. Before he knows it, you're done!

“Do you need anything else, Sir?”

Lloyd swears he could get used to hearing you call him that. If the minions notice the smirk he wears for the rest of the day, they're wise enough not to say anything. Every moment he isn't working, and several moments when he is, he's thinking about you calling him Sir and begging him for more.

💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻💻

That kinda got away from me, as Lloyd's stories tend to do. 😅

Next

Tagging @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @ellethespaceunicorn; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory; @late-to-the-party-81; @lokislady82 ; @peyton-warren @ronearoundblindly

[resi4skz]

Title: Mi Amore (oneshot)

Pairing: nonidol!Chan x Grace (OC)

Warnings: swearing in italian, smut

This is for @gracebang143 (i cannot tag her in it, stupid tumblr)

!! MINORS DNI !!

"Ugh, for the last time, Steph!" I exclaim as I put ice in the blender, chatter of customers in the background. "Olivia is my cousin and he's her boyfriend!"

"So?" She says and turns at the till, smiling at the customer. "Thank you for choosing Stat Lost, have a nice day!" She turns to me as she closes the register. "Look, we both know what of a person Olivia is. She's probably moved on to the ne-"

The sound of the small hanging bell on the door cuts her off. We both look at the front door at the same time to see my cousin, Olivia and her boyfriend, Chris.

Or Chan, as I like to call him. He was dressed in a black shirt and blue jeans, topped off with a black cap.

Gosh.

Why did he have to be so damn attractive?

Olivia walks over to a vacant table as Chan approaches me. I put on the biggest smile, as if he isn't my regular. "Hey, you're back."

"Yeah," he replies, taking out his wallet. "She'll have a macchiato with a cheese scone and I'll have a-"

"BLT with extra bacon and a watermelon lemonade?" I finish his sentence.

His eyes light up, giving me a small smile. "Yeah. Wow. You even remember customers orders?"

Only yours, is what I wanted to say. "Sort of. Since you're a regular here so I took the liberty of memorizing your order."

"Wow."

I tap on the computer screen taking his order and scan his card before giving it back. "Your order will be with you shortly."

"Thanks."

When I turn around, Stephanie is looking at me with a smirk on her face. Rolling my eyes, I start on his sandwich. Just gotta get through it. You can do it, Grace.

Suddenly, I feel a sharp pain on my finger. "Cazzo!" I glance down and see a small cut on my finger. Great, just I need. Quickly cleaning my hand, I gently wrap my finger in a bandaid.

"Everything alright?"

I jump at the voice before turning around. He needs to stop being so god damn good looking. "Yes. Your order is ready. Give me one moment." I put their order on a tray a d hand it to him. "Thank you for choosing Star Lost, I hope you enjoy your order!"

He chuckles, nodding. "Thank you, Grace."

My heart does that thing again. Oh wait, that's my stomach. I groan when he sits at the table with Olivia. "Have you maybe tried confessing?" Steph asks from behind me.

"What good will that do?"

"Maybe he'll realize what a crappy of girlfriend he has right now and maybe likes you back?"

Hanging my head in defeat, I walks towards the back door. I need a break.

------------------------------------------------------------

But when I come inside, I hear Steph and Olivia in a heated argument.

"What do you mean I can't have a free muffin? It's my cousin's bakery!" Olivia shouted.

"Because if we started giving away free muffins," I state stepping behind the counter and face her, "We'd be out of business. And it's not my bakery. Steph and I are partners."

"You're greedy. Why can't you just say that?"

"Babe, maybe we should-" Chan began.

"No, you stay out of this!" She brushes him off.

The fuck.....did she just tell him off? My blood boils, my nerves lighting on fire. "Olivia, simply just leave before you piss me off anymore."

"What?" She blinks at me. "What the fuck is your problem?"

"You want to know what my problem is? You might need a notepad because the list is long."

"Fuck you," she spat. "I hope this shitty place rots."

"Ah, the words from the famous home wrecker Olivia James," I say.

"Home wrecker?" Chan says as he looks between Olivia and I.

"Chan, don't listen to he-"

But I cut her off. I've had it with her bullshit. "Let me ask you something, Liv. Did you also try to lure him into your trap so he would give you money? Or are you fucking his buddies too like you did with Mr. Stanley?"

Mr. Stanley was our neighbor and his lovely wife, Diana would always bake these pecan pies that was mouth watering. One day, Mr. Stanley came to our house to drop off a pie and Olivia was the only one home. One thing led to another, once Olivia saw he was loaded, she seduced him and ended up sleeping with him. Many, many times. It wasn't until Diana saw them going at it in her home, on the kitchen table because she had gotten off work early.

Safe to say, Diana is divorced and thriving by travelling the world with her friends.

The look on Olivia's face is priceless though. "You...bitch!" She lunges at me from across the counter but I was quick to dodge.

Chan pulls her back and shoves her back before facing her.

Steph elbows me and whispers, "$10 says they break up."

"It all makes sense now."

"Chan, babe. Please listen to me." Olivia pleads. "She's lying."

"No," Chan says firmly. "You're always putting me second. You're always asking to go to expensive restaurants and to think I was spending so much on you. Tell me something," he takes a step towards her, completely towering over her. "Did Jake treat you well?"

"What?"

"Did he tell you to come here with me? Did he also tell you I was also going here?"

"Wha....what are you talking about?"

And then I see a different person come out. A new person who I wanted to know so desperately about. He runs his hand through his curls and smirks. The man actually smriked. "Why do you think I wanted to come here, Olivia?"

"You asked me on a date," Olivia replies. "What does this have to do with-"

"I know about you and Jake."

Oh shit. I watch Olivia's face turn into horror as she opens her mouth. "You're the one always yapping about your music all the time. I don't get what the big deal is, you're never going to make it."

I saw red. My blood was boiling. "Fermati!" I march over to Olivia as she blinks at me. "You do not get to judge a person based on their profession. You do not get to make assumptions. YOU do not put negative things in their mind to the point they want to end their lives."

But she rolls her eyes. "Please, you just had a scratch-"

I shove my shirt up on my arm, showing her the long scar going up to my elbow. "Does this look like a scratch to you that YOU caused?"

"What the..." Chan says and looks at Olivia, who's seething in anger. "I though you said she fell."

"She's lying," Olivia replied, her eyes narrowed at me.

"Oh, so you're saying that I magically got a knife and stabbed myself, making a huge line on my arm?"

"You bitch!" Olivia lunges at me but Steph stands in front of me and pushes her back.

"No one is fighting in our cafe, okay?" Steph announces then points at Olivia. "As for you, get out. You're no longer welcomed here."

"What?"

"Better yet, you're black listed from this cafe."

Olivia huffs and stomps her way out of the shop. "You alright?" Steph asks

"Yeah, thanks," I smiled and she gets behind the counter, immediately apologizing to the customers.

"Hey."

I slightly jump at his voice and turn around.

"Are you okay?"

"I should be asking you that."

He scoffs. "I'll be fine."

I nod. "Alright, well. I gotta get back to work." I make it two steps when he calls my name.

"Grace."

I turn. "Yeah?"

He looks at me, almost as if he wanted to ask me something. But he just shakes his head. "Nothing. Have a good day at work." And then he's gone.

------------------------------------------------------------

It was Friday and rush hour was just finishing when something catches my eye outside. "Che due coglioni?" I watch as Olivia tries to kiss Chan and he keeps pushing her back.

"Is she for real?" Steph says.

"I've had enough of this," I snap, taking my apron off and walking towards the door. When I open the door, I hear her crying.

"Chan, please. You've gotta believe me," she wails.

"Olivia, what the fuck is wrong with you?" I say.

Chan's eyes flicker towards me, almost lighting up making my heart skip a beat. "This doesn't concern you," Olivia hisses at me.

"Porca miseria, questa cagna!" She blinks at me surprised and I stand in front of her. "This man," I point to Chan, "has been nothing but loving towards you, has given you the time he should've spent elsewhere other than your stupid ass. You," I jab at her chest, "do not have the right to control someone as kind as him. You," I jab at her chest again making her stumble back a step, "do not get to do that to him."

"Grace," I hear Chan say from behind me.

"Do you even realize how hard it is to chase your dreams when no one belives in you? Of course, you don't because all you get to do is use others and degrade them till they have nothing left in them."

"Grace."

"What?!" I snap as I turn around, sniffling. Was I crying? But I don't get to touch my face as I feel a pair of warm hands cup my cheeks. "Cha-"

His lips. Oh my god his lips. My hands stay at my sides because I don't know where to put them. As he lets go, I look up at him. "I've been meaning to do that."

"What?" I blinked, perplexed.

"She's gone," Steph's voice makes us jump apart a step away from each other and she comes to my side. "Jeez, she's like a lizard, always coming in between."

I snort which leads to laughter as she beams at me. "Come inside! I'll make you guys something to drink!"

I watch as she heads inside before turning to him. "So..."

"So."

"What did you mean by what you said earlier?" I asked.

"Look-"

"Why did you kiss me?"

He sighs. "I never liked Olivia. She was just there, I guess to fill that void," he flicks his eyes down at me, "but that void was never filled."

I scoff, not believing what he just said. "So you mean to say, that you dated her-"

"I never da-"

"-just so you could dump her and then coincidentally you thought that a kiss would solve all the problems?"

"Look, Grace-"

"No," I say firmly. "You look here, Chan. I'm not the one to messed around with. And you were the least out of all the people I knew that would do something like this." His eyes widen at my comment and raises his hand but I put my hand up, stopping him. "No. I can't look at you right now."

And with that, I turn around and leave. Steph gives me one look once I'm inside and immediately gives me space as I go back to refilling the ice machine.

------------------------------------------------------------

A few weeks later, I finally had a few days off. I wanted to destress and just chill and relax in my apartment. But what I didn't know was that Chan would be standing at my doorway looking like he had been run over by a truck while I was in a tanktop and pj shorts with a bag of chips on my hand.

"W-what are you doing here?" I asked, clutching the chip bag.

"Can I...can I come in?" His voice trembled.

"Yeah, come in," I stand aside to let him in. As he walks by me, the same vanilla and smoke scent fills my nostrils, making me a bit dizzy.

"Do you want anything to drink? Water? Soda?" I ask, closing the door behind me.

"Water, thanks," he replies taking a seat on my couch.

Fuck. Never in my 22 years of my life, I imagined a man in my living room. Let alone Chan, the 28 year old man that I had been crushing on since I was 19. I hand him the glass of water and sit beside him.

"Nice place."

"Thanks," I replied. After a beat, I say, "So, what brings you here?"

"Olivia paid a visit."

"Oh?"

"And smashed all the windows of my car."

"What?!" I knew she would stoop low but to this level? "Are you okay?"

His eyes flicks up at me. "That's funny."

"Huh? What is?"

"Olivia would've asked if my car was okay. She wouldn't even ask me if I was alright."

"Well, she's a bitch," I huff, crossing my arms.

He snorts. "She did teach me one thing though." He turns his body sonhe's facing me. "To never take what's already in front of you for granted."

Holy fucking greek god. Why does this dude have to be so damn pretty? "You're lucky you're attractive, Chan. Any woman would be happy to have you."

"Look, about the kiss then-"

But I stand up. "I'm going to make some tea." I hurriedly walk into the kitchen and immediately fill the kettle with water. It was a good distraction-

An arm snakes it's way around my waist. I gasp, dropping the kettle in the sink and turn around. "What are you doing?!

"Why do you think I kept coming back to your cafe?"

"Because you like the cakes we make?"

"I came to see you, even on busy days where I could catch a glimpse of you working behind the counter refilling stoxk items. Once, Steph caught me staring at you and made me buy 10 pastries," he explains snorting. "Let's just say my friends got a piece each."

"Why are you-"

"-telling you?" He finishes my sentence. "Because I like you."

"I'm sorry, what?" My ears are deceiving me.

He giggles, poking my cheek. "I like you, Grace. I have for a long time now."

"How long?"

"3 years."

I blink at his answer. "I..I... don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything."

I look at him. "But you just told me you like me. How do you expect me to not say anything? To say that I like you as well?"

"Grace, you're not obligated to say- wait, what?" Turning his head, he blinks at me.

"What?" I try so hard to not smile.

"You just said you like me."

"No, I didn't," I lied, hiding my smile.

"Grace," his hand comes to cup my face, lifting my head to meet his eyes. "Tell me before I lose my mind."

"What happens if you lose your mind?"

His gaze hardens. "You don't want to know."

I wet my lips, partially opening my mouth. "Maybe I do." I hear him growl before he smashes his lips on mine. This time, neither of us push away. His tongue darts out and I open my mouth. His hand rub my arms, up and down. "Channie," I whimper, heat pooling between my thighs.

"Yeah, baby?" He says, his thumb brushing my lower lip.

"Can we, uhm, can we take this to the bedroom?"

He chuckles as he slides his arms around my ass hoisting me up. "Say less."

He practically sprints into my room and gently lays me down on my bed. His eye catches my blanket, the pink poka dots on the white colored sheet. "What?" I ask.

"Nothing," he shakes his head and takes his shirt off.

My breath hitches in my throat. Holy fuck. I knew he was fit but this.....holy fucking shit. Then his takes his jeans off, leaving a lot for my imagination when I see the buldge in his boxers as he takes those off too.

"Now you."

I sit up and take my tanktop off. My breasts bounce as I had no bra on. "Fuck me, Grace. You're beautiful."

My cheeks heat at the compliment and my arms come up automatically to hide myself but his hand stops me. "Don't hide yourself," he said as he hovers above me. "Fuck, I'm trying so hard to hold myself back."

"Don't," I gulp. "Don't hold yourself back."

"You sure? I don't want to hurt you."

I narrow my eyes and pull him down by his neck. "Channie if you don't fuck me in the next 5 seconds, I'm going to burn your clothes so you'd have to walk back home, butt naked."

"Feisty, damn," he groans as he takes my shorts off leaving. "As much as I would love to taste you, I need to feel you around my cock."

"Please," I whine.

He smashes his lips on me again, this time with desperation as he settles in between my legs. I feel the tip at the enterance of my cunt. "Ready?"

I nod. He lines himself before slowly pushing in. "Oh, shit- you're fucking tight."

I close my eyes, feeling the delicious burn as fully bottoms himself inside. "Mm, Channie. You feel so goo-" I get cut off as he pulls back and slams his hips.

"Yeah, fuck, you cunt feels so good," he pants and grabs my left breast. "And I love these, fuck, perfect."

He sets a fast pace and doesn't stop snapping his hips. He pinches my nipple, causing the familiar knot to form in my lower belly. "Fuck, I feel you clenching. Are you close?"

I moan in response and his thrusts pick up speed. The only sounds resonating in the room was the snap of his hips. "I'm going to cum," I moan. He brings his hand down to my clit, rubbing it with his thumb. And that was all it took for me to go over the edge. "Channie!"

"Oh fuck, milk my cock, baby. Make a mess," he groans as his thrusts become brutal and I'm pretty sure my poor cervix is bruised. "I'm coming, fuck, I'm gonna fill your tight little pussy. You want that? You want me to fill you up and make you mine?"

"Yes, yes! Make me yours, Chan."

"Fuck," he voice becomes strained as veins protrude in his neck and he stills, emptying himself inside me, painting my inner walls.

As we catch our breath, I notice he hasn't pulled out. "What are you doing?" I ask, still out of breath.

He suddenly grabs my thighs as I feel him harden. "Oh my god."

He grins, licking his lips. "Up for round 2, mi amore?"

A/N: this was for @gracebang143 hope you enjoy :)

[lovekylarforever]

PC Interview (anyone can play if they wannaaa <3)

Choose any amount of your OCs/PCs then answer the following questions. Make sure to be creative and have fun ^^ btw the Q stands for questioner so don't forget to have a little fun messing with them too! ^^ tagged by: @hysterical-luxury <3 thanks for the tag!!!

INTERVIEW:

Q: Let's start off with a brief introduction. -shuffles papers- (oh god oh fuck. how did i end up here? i can't do interviews, that's why i have the job i do, i bomb every interview! what the hell am i doing here? i need to get out of here but i've been chained to the chair and they seem to have made a point out of locking the door while i was watching. fuck fuck fuck) "lucian." he squeaks out, eyes trained on the ground beneath him. he's sweating profusely and his entire body shakes, his face is pale. Q: How would you describe yourself? (this is such a bullshit question, jobs always do this. they always want to pick you apart like this. i don't know!!! i don't know what this question means!!! how am i supposed to describe myself? do normal people know how to describe themselves? oh god. am i not normal? am i a freak? i'm a freak. i'm fucked. what is this interview even for? is this for a retail job? is this some fucked up retail job i applied for when i was wasted last weekend???) "i'm... good at social interactions and i can look people in the e-eyes when speaking to them..." he's not looking at any of the interviewers in the eyes.

Q: What's your height?

(what does my height have to do with anything?? is this not retail? are they trying to sell me off somewhere??? i didn't miss any rent payments to bailey, what the fuck did i do this time?) "5'11." he is fully panicking now.

Q: Boy or girl?

(can they tell? oh god they can tell. great. just great. they're already looking for "subtle" ways to let me know they've clocked me. this is so retail. or are they trying to figure it out before selling me off to someone??? i'll make a joke, if it's retail maybe they'll laugh and let me go because i suck so bad at this.) "d-depends on who you ask, if you asked the church, they might not give you the same answer i'd give you... haha..." it's silent. lucian peers his eyes up to get a look at their reactions, and the interviewers were all staring blankly at him, nobody laughed. his sweat is dripping onto the table in front of him. "boy..." he mumbles, trying his best to make himself as small as possible by shrinking into his chair.

Q: What do you do to relax?

(well, usually i relax by not getting chained up to a chair during a creepy interview for some fucking retail job i don't remember applying to, with freaky interviewers who feel like they were made in some fucked up lab!!!) "baths. computer. kylar." he says this like he's chanting a spell to make these things happen instead of whatever is going on here.

Q. What's your Favorite Color?

(okay, now i'm just getting pissed. is this some kind of experiment??? is doctor harper behind this?? i don't know whether that's comforting or scarier.) "red." he scratches at his arm.

Q: Do you want a hug? x3

(?????????????????? it has to be harper, right??? is he trying to do some sort of fucking personality test to decide what kind of animal he'll turn me into, or whether or not i get 20 nipples or elf ears? please, if it's anything, just let it be elf ears. i can accept that, i don't want it, but i can at least accept it. at least give me something cool, please. if any unethical experiments happen without my consent, let it be cool!!!!) "...don't touch me. please." he spits that last word out, nervous and irritated.

Q: What's your favorite food?

(this is definitely harper. is this my last meal as myself????) "uh. haha... um. that's a hard one. t-there's just so many..." he's shaking again. the interviewers continue staring, waiting for him to answer. "m-maybe pineapple fried rice...?"

Q: Do you love anyone? If so who? -raises eyebrow-

he doesn't think before his immediate answer, "kylar." with his head turned downwards and staring at the ground, his lips curve into a small smile at the thought of his love.

Q: Do you have any kids?

(doctor harper should know this already. am i being tested for my truthfulness as well??) "no..." but hopefully one day, he thinks to himself.

Q: Have you ever killed anyone?

(??????? is this an interrogation?? am i a suspect for murder?? oh my god. they're going to think i did it because i'm such a fucking freak!! what the fuck am i supposed to say??) "o-of course not! i would never k-kill anyone..." (great! that was the most suspicious way i could have said it. i'm so bad at this. why did i lie to them by saying i'm good at interacting with people? clearly i'm not, they're going to think i'm the murderer because i lied to them! nobody is stupid enough to think i really believe i'm good at talking to people. they can see right through me, they know i'm a filthy liar.)

Q: Do you hate anyone?

(fuckkkkkkk they definitely think it's me. whoever got murdered was probably someone i hated, but that could be anyone!! i don't really like a lot of people. they're all assholes to kylar, so fuck em. i'll just say i hate whoever hates kylar, that'll make me look like i hate too many people to hate someone specific so much that i'd kill them...) "i hate everyone who bullies kylar..."

Q: Have any deep dark secrets?

(of course i do!!! everyone has a secret or two, right? wait, am i the weird one for having secrets? do normal people have things they want to keep hidden so deep that they can't even feel or see them anymore??? do regular people keep secrets from everyone around them?? fuck. i'm such a piece of shit. are they trying to arrest me for doing mouth and hand stuff for rent money? is kylar possibly listening to this right now to find out about it? no. he would save me from this place if he knew i was here. he wouldn't allow these people to chain me up like this... he'd just follow me around town if he had any suspicions, he wouldn't do all this.) "m-maybe, i don't think about these things much..." he lies, badly.

Q: Do you have any bad habits?

(great, they're trying to find out if i kill animals for fun or something. i'm screwed. that's definitely what they're looking for. i don't do that, but still! what if rumors are being spread that i'm doing these things!! all i do is steal a little, get a little fucked up and (rarely, recreationally,) make kylar a little jealous! oh my god i'm such a bad boyfriend. what if he's doing this to me because i'm such a bad boyfriend and he wants to get back at me? what if he's breaking up with me??? what if this is him telling me that he doesn't love me if i can't be honest???) he looks like he's on the verge of tears, but nothing spills. his face is red and his eyes are scrunched up. his throat feels dry as he speaks, "a couple... n-normal ones, i think? just drinking some weekends... and, um. sometimes i'll have a smoke i-if i'm stressed..."

Q: Do you play any instruments?

he visibly relaxes. (finally, a question that doesn't make me feel like i'm being put under a microscope.) "piano, when i was a kid... don't remember much of it anymore."

Q: What's your favorite thing to do?

(maybe this is all just some big misunderstanding? what if i'm not being interviewed, or sold off, or being experimented on by doctor harper, or being investigated for murder, what if this is just a survey! haha, a totally normal survey!! yeah right. they're just trying to get me to lower my guard. i'm never getting out of here. i bet they've already made their decision on me, they know something's wrong with me. they don't know what, i don't even know exactly what's wrong with me!! but they're trying to find out so they can do something bad with me. i just know it.) "h-hang out with my boyfriend... talk to him, or, um. go to the arcade with him."

Q: Where do you think you'll be in ten years?

(hopefully not dead in a ditch or locked up somewhere because of whatever this is! i just wanna go home. i wanna see kylar... i miss him. i need him to tell me it's okay, i need his arms around me.) "...i just wanna be with my boyfriend, i want us to get our own house together... i want us to be happy." he sounds like he's mourning a future that he won't ever get to see.

Q: Thank you for answering these questions! That'll be all! :D

one of the interviewers gets up and unlocks the chains around lucian, stepping back after removing them. another one is by the door, having already unlocked it and now holds the door open for him. lucian wastes no time in running out of the door and exiting the building. it's still bright out, and lucian's first instinct is to run straight to the park to see kylar at the usual spot. he's drenched in sweat and wheezing when he finally spots kylar, and lucian barrels into him, pulling him into a big hug while he cries.

tagging: @dendrofiles @pinipig @beevosmeower @yaoipope @a-l0ve-that-b1tes <3<3<3

[tiny-steps-forward]

Organizing is the small things

i just got these tags on this post and im not gonna rb them cuz thats the kind of bad faith bullshit i dont want to engage with but i do wanna say to those of yall who arent pulling bad faith shit like this-

organizing IS the small things. it is helping people get housing, get medical care, get food, stay safe from cops. sure, helping someone apply for jobs or read medical texts might seem short sighted- but these are things ive done which have allowed people to vastly improve their situations.

the guy I helped with a job application now has stable housing because he was able to get income. the person who I helped with their medical stuff was able to use that knowledge to improve their health. and if two lives being vastly improved is not enough- both of those people are now community organizers. one of them was already an organizer and was just able to maintain that involvement, but the one who was unhoused simply did not have room in his life to organize while he was worrying where he would sleep- but getting income allowed him to get to a place where he could worry about people besides himself.

it also is a very incorrect assumption to make that everyone can do what you might consider traditional organizing. personally- i have a lot of health issues that would make things like protests or participating in food not bombs very dangerous for me- and trust me, ive tried. but with time, ive realized my specific effort is much better spent doing things like those i listed in that post.

for example, in a full year i might be able to go to maybe 3-4 protests or volunteer at a food co op for 3-4 days. And that would be all the energy I would be able to spare while keeping myself alive.

in the past year, on the other hand- i have given countless people first aid which allowed them to continue engaging with their community and continue getting their needs met, helped multiple people get safe housing and stay out of abusive homes, fixed several people's computers for free, and helped dozens of people better manage and understand their health.

i am simply not someone meant to be on the front lines. that is just not me. but care work is still work, and it is still very important. there are a bunch of people out there doing good work at least partially because I was able to give them a boost when they were struggling- and thats important- no matter what anyone says.

nobody can do more traditional activism for long without people caring in the background- and being one of those people caring, enabling them to go out and do those things, is still activism. period.

also- here is a drive of free disability justice books, if youre wondering where i got all these ideas. my faves of these are Care Work and Feminist Queer Crip- but ive heard good things about basically everything in this drive.

[killerpancakeburger]

Peace of mind // Miguel O'Hara

Pairing: Miguel O'hara x female reader

Summary: After a long day of tending to the multiverse, Miguel goes to you for some comfort.

Warnings: swearing.

Tags : fluff. That's it.

Words: 733.

A/N: Inspired by @/the-cat-and-the-birdie's post about Miguel's cooking.

You blindly reach inside the bag of chips on your desk without taking your eyes off your computer screen, grab one and eat it. Tonight’s your weekly online meeting with your friends on your favourite online game. You can’t afford to miss a single kill. You have your noise cancelling headphones on and are completely occupied by the things your companions are yelling are at each other and where your aim is.

It’s probably why, despite your usually sharp instincts, you don’t hear the interdimensional portal who opens in your living room. You don’t notice the imposing – yet looking like he’s buckling under an invisible weight – man in a faintly glowing suit who crosses it. You don’t spot him either when he gets behind you.

However you certainly can’t ignore his presence when he bends over your chair, closes his arms around you and lets his forehead fall on your shoulder.

“FUCK! Miguel! Are you trying to give me a heart attack!” you shout in shock.

He mumbles something unintelligible, his mouth pressed to your back. Your surprise has been clearly noticed by your friends as they don’t miss the opportunity to tease you for it. You grumble and mute your microphone.

You ruffle Miguel’s hair, taking the opportunity to mess it up a bit.

“So? Did something happen?”

He sighs and his warm breath tickles your skin.

“Can you please…?” He starts, but never finishes.

“Uh-Uh?”

You’re still playing your game, but way more casually, and even though you’re pretending to still be busy, you’re actually taking in Miguel’s every word.

“You know…”

“No, I don’t. Still can’t read your thoughts.”

“Urgh.”

There’s a part of you that finds this way of speech endearing but there’s an even bigger part of you that enjoys making Miguel works for it.

“…lay down with me for a bit?”

You pat his head in congratulations.

“There we go! Knew you could do it!”

“Stop it.”

He grunts. You turn your mic back on.

“Alright, game’s over for today. See you later”, you announce before logging off and taking off your headphone.

“Can you have a look at the code I wrote for Gizmo n° 564 before we do that?” you ask.

You pull up said code on your screen. Miguel doesn’t raise his head.

“It’s great”, he says.

“You didn’t even look at it”, you retort, slightly annoyed.

“I don’t need to.” He replies with that unsufferable indubitable arrogance of his.

“Oh really now?”

Your voice is dripping with sarcasm.

“You made it so it’s good.”

You roll your eyes but you can’t help being moved.

“I think I prefer when you’re brutally honest.” You mumble to yourself. “Did you eat today?”

His stomach grumbles loud enough for both of you to hear, effectively stopping him from bullshitting you. You chuckle.

“Should I order food?”

He grunts something that you know means no.

“Oh so you want my cooking? I’m so flattered”, you laugh, the both of you pertinently knowing that while he’s great at cooking, you… are not.

He finally gets up.

“Just do as I say.”

You get up, give him the chips from your desk, and head to the kitchen. Since your relationship with Miguel got more serious, aka him crashing at your place whenever he felt like it, there is always tortillas, sour cream and salsa verde in your fridge. You stop halfway realizing Miguel isn’t following and remember he moves like a zombie in this kind of situation, the situation being “I just spent 24 hours non-stop monitoring the multiverse without eating nor sleeping so now I am on the cusp of a breakdown”.  You turn back to grab his hand and bring him with you.

He leans against the counter as you take out of the fridge and cupboards what you need. You put on some music and make conversation as you tackle your tasks. Once you’re both fed, you go lay down with him on your bed. You hug him against your chest, delicately stroking his hair. He closes his eyes and looks relaxed for the first time since he arrived. You feel his chest raising and decreasing and listen to his steady breathing while contemplating your ceiling. When you know for certain that he’s deeply asleep, you get up as discreetly as you can, leave a kiss on his forehead and go back to your nightly occupations.

[blubberquark]

The Future

It's always grating to read or listen to random members of the public talk about AI in the media, and it is much more grating to listen to "futurists" or politicians or so-called experts who have absolutely no domain expertise nor background in machine learning talk about things "AI" will be able to do in the future. A lot of the time, they will predict that AI (which means conversational agents based on large language models trained with transformers and attention) will do things in the future that can already be done by humans, and by computers without any AI, machine learning, or large text corpora, back in the 90s. Politicians on the other hand sometimes use "AI" to deflect criticisms of infeasible ideas. How will this work, exactly? AI!

Sometimes using AI as a buzzword is the point. Nobody wants to hear "we will develop another app".

It usually doesn't take extreme forms like "In the future, AI will allow us to transplant human hearts", but I have seen weaker forms like "In the future, technologies like ChatGPT will make genome-wide association studies and automatic drug discovery possible". You don't need large language models for GWAS or drug discovery. The data sets for this are very different, and I doubt a system like ChatGPT could just absorb a large CSV file of medial data if you pasted it into the conversation.

If you look at claims about "the future" from the recent past, you see the same thing said about blockchain, web 2.0 mash-ups and tagging, the semantic web/ontologies, smart homes, and so on. "In the future, we will all have smart fridges" – "In the future you will begin your day by asking Siri what your appointments are and what you should eat for breakfast" – "In the future your PC will print your newspaper at home." – "In the future you will pay for groceries out of your Bitcoin Wallet."

If you push back, and you point out that a this new claim sounds like a bullshit claim about blockchain, smart fridges, and the semantic web, you usually hear "That's what they said about cars. That's what they said about television." Never mind who "they" are. Never mind that they didn't say that about cars, they said that about Bitcoin. Cars are just a massive outlier. Cars were immensely successful, and they were largely unchanged for 120 years, with for wheels and an internal combustion engine that runs on petrol. Cars are noisy, smelly, and dangerous to pedestrians and occupants. For decades, leaded petrol used in cars distributed lead into the air and int the food supply. Cars depend on an infrastructure of asphalt roads and petrol stations. This is different from what they said about CDs or monorail or QR codes or pneumatic tubes. As for TV, it is usually invoked to say "People thought TV would rot our brains, yet here we are". There is no denying that TV had profoundly changed how people spend their time, changed politics, changed how fast the news cycle is, and so on, often for the worse.

It's so easy to refute "that's what they said about cars" that I could probably fill 50 A4 pages with the history of technologies that failed in some way, purely from memory, and then find old newspaper quotes from optimists and futurists that compared the naysayers (correct in hindsight) with car skeptics, and I could fill another 50 pages with ways inventions like cars and TV and the Internet profoundly changed society, and then find quotes from futurists that explain that the Internet is really just a better fax machine, and the car is like a faster horse, so we have nothing to worry about.

There's another way to dismiss skeptics of new technology, and it's harder to refute, even though it operates on the same kind of hindsight bias:

Imagine the year is 1995. What couldn't you achieve if only you knew that computers and the Internet would be big? Imagine you can send a letter to yourself in 1995. Wouldn't you want to tell your former self that the Internet will be the Next Big Thing? Wouldn't you want to tell your former self that by 2015, everybody will have an Internet-connected computer in their pockets?

It's easy to refute the hindsight bias of "that's what they said about cars" with example after example of technologies that didn't catch on for 100 years like cars did.

Where's the error here? If you say something like "Language-model AI is the future! Wouldn't you rather get on the bandwagon sooner than later?" you risk investing your money into a scam just to get in on the ground floor.

But really think it through: Imagine the year is 1985. A time traveller tells you that computers are going to be big. Everybody is going to have one. What do you do? Do you quit your job and work in the computer industry? If not, do you buy a computer? Which one? A C64? An IBM PC XT? Atari ST?

I don't know how much you could really do with this information. Should you invest your savings into Atari? Should you learn to program?

Imagine the year is 1985. A timer traveller tells you that the CD is going to replace vinyl and cassette tapes, then there will be mp3 players, but nothing will really replace mp3 players, and then streaming music from centralised servers will replace mp3 players. Nothing will really replace the CD, but the music industry will be completely different. Nobody will sell music on SD cards, mini discs are better than CDs in terms of technology, but they solve the wrong problem. All the cool indie bands that released free promo mp3s in the 2000s will split up or sell out. "What's an mp3?", you ask.

Imagine the year is 2005. Every pseudo-intellectual Internet commenter seems to think VHS won against BetaMax because of pornography. They are going to produce pornography for HD-DVD. You think Blu-Ray is dead in the water. A time traveller appears, and he tells you that actually, VHS won against BetaMax because the tapes are longer, and it allows you to VCR a long television program. Yes, they are going to produce pornography for the HD-DVD first, but it doesn't matter. Ever since Internet pornography, nobody goes to the sex shop anyway, just to risk coming out of the door with a shopping bag full of HD-DVDs, just as his neighbour's wife is coming out of the liquor store across the street. Still the Blu-ray won't replace DVDs like DVDs replaced VHS, because you can still play a DVD in a Blu-ray player, and it will all be streaming in a couple of years anyway.

What will you do with this information, other than buy a Blu-ray player?

Imagine the year is 1923. A time traveller tells you that cars are going to be big. Really big. Everybody will own one, and a garage. Petrol stations are everywhere already, but soon there will be traffic jams. Cities will be planned for cars, not people.

Should you buy a car now? Should you wait for the technology to mature?

The year is 2025. Somebody tells you that LLMs are going to be big. Bigger than they are. Bigger than ever. Bigger than Jesus. He tells you you're a sucker if you don't use ChatGPT. You think he's right, but you don't work in a job that can be done by ChatGPT. You work at a bakery. Maybe just not yet?

What should you do?

I think the idea that you should get in now, and you will "miss the boat" if you don't learn to use GenAI and conversational agents, that idea is just stupid. It's half special pleading, half Pascal's Wager, and a lot of hindsight bias. You couldn't really "get into" other technologies before they matured. Futurists confidently predicted in 2022 that "prompt engineer" was going to be a job, when obviously companies like Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI had every reason and every incentive to work on making their systems better understand users, to make prompt engineering obsolete. At some point owning a car meant learning to be a car mechanic or having a chauffeur who was your personal car mechanic, and then the technology matured. Cars are more complex now, and harder to repair when something breaks, but they are also more reliable and have diagnostic lights.

So should you use ChatGPT or Claude now, just to get ready for "The Future"? I don't know. All I know is that AI won't be a faster horse.

[madsworld15]

Just a little something on this beautiful Sunday.

This comes from Justin’s POV part of Just Know I Learned to Hide It Well.

Justin

The minute Brian went to take a shower, with a subtle shake of his head, I went back over to his computer and responded to Senator Baxter’s request. Knowing that we now had a deadline for Brian’s surgery gave me more confidence to agree to speak about my bashing at her Gay Rights fundraiser. Brian’s ability to take each new turn with this diagnosis reminded me that even if I don’t remember much about that night I can still speak about the lasting effect it had on me and my activism since.

I sent off the email and tried to distract myself so that I wouldn’t end up finding my way to the bathroom. Brian made it clear he didn’t want my presence this time. And honestly, I didn’t blame him. Where the date gave me something tangible to hold onto for him it was a ticking clock. I knew how much Brian relied on his beauty, youth, and sexual prowess to avoid difficult things. To him this surgery meant the end of the Brian Kinney he’d always been able to hide behind.

While Brian wasn’t “The Brian Kinney” when it was just us, he still struggled to let that persona go in public. I sat down at my art table, situated in the corner by the kitchen, just behind the dining table. Without a second thought, my next art creation just started to flow out of me. My hand moved swiftly across my computer screen as I added lines and swatches of colors. I was so wrapped up in my art I didn’t hear Brian get out of the shower.

He crept up behind me and slowly dragged his hands from the back of my shoulders to the front. It was one of my favorite moves and I subtly held my breath waiting for the kiss that was sure to come. Once his lips pulled away from my neck he nuzzled me and whispered.

“Working on something new?”

I grinned, reached my left hand back to cradle the back of his head, and then replied.

“Mhm. Been contemplating this one for days.”

It went without saying that this art was a representation of the emotions and turmoil currently raging through both of us. I watched silently as Brian’s hand left my chest and started gently tracing the lines I'd already created.

He was silent for a beat longer and then he said, “I like how the darker part looks like it’s intertwined with the brighter part.”

I twisted my body around so we could face one another, “That’s the whole point. No matter how dark things seem there is always hope.”

I knew the moment I said it Brian wasn’t going to react favorably, and I was right. He snorted and then rolled his eyes.

“What a bunch of Pollyanna bullshit.” But he kissed me on the cheek before he walked away.

I knew he was still trying to wrap his head around what cancer meant for his life moving forward. Not for the first time since all this started I wonder if he was actively considering me or if he simply went along with me knowing everything because I had found it. It wouldn’t be the first time that Brian had done something regarding me because it was easier for him more so than it was beneficial for me.

He told your mom unprompted. That has to count for something.

I still wasn’t fully convinced I was tagging along on this journey because he needed me. Ever since Ethan I’d felt like he took me back because he missed having a regular sex partner. Every time I did anything I still worried that the wrong thing would push him to shove me out the door.

As I thought about how he probably only kept me around for sex I also wondered if the rules still applied. It’s not like I could ask any of the guys if he’d kept to our rules while we were apart. It would ease my mind, but none of the guys knew we even had rules. Another one of Kinney’s secrets.

I glanced at the clock and saw it was nearing 9 p.m. I needed to head to bed soon since I had a morning shift at the diner and then afternoon classes. Just as I reached a stopping point, saved my art, and gathered up my various half-brained sketches Brian was back from the bedroom dressed in his club clothes.

He smiled at me with mischief in his eyes. “Oh good. Perfect timing, let’s go. Babylon awaits.”

“Brian,” I sighed. “Don’t you think we should have a night in?”

He leaned over and kissed me on the lips. “We aren’t dead yet, Sunshine. Now get changed.”

I knew saying anything more was a recipe for disaster, but my desire to feel like I was being heard and considered ruled out my preservation instincts.

“Do you ever consider what I might want?” My voice came out much more petulant than I intended, but I didn’t let it break me.

“Do you have fucking cancer?” Brian’s eyes were hard, almost cruel. “Come with me or stay home. Your choice. I’m going to dance and forget for a while.”

I stepped toward him, wanting physical contact. Brian allowed it but refused to make eye contact with me. I looked him up and down. He would never say it out loud, but I could see the fear just under the surface. Brian Kinney who everyone thinks isn’t scared of anything was terrified.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s your life changing. I’m being selfish.” I gently shove him in the hopes he will look me in the eyes.

“Why do you do that?” Brian mumbled and then glanced up.

His question threw me off. I couldn’t understand what he was referring to. I remained silent as I mulled the words over in my brain. Brian stepped back and sighed.

“You’re allowed to be mad at me. And I’m allowed to be irritated by you, too. I don’t know why you give in so easily and apologize. Haven’t I taught you apologies are bullshit?” He fixed me with a challenging eye.

So, I allowed my insecurities to boil up again. If Brian wanted me to never back down then, fuck, I would give that to him.

“Why is it always what you want?! Why can’t we do something I want for once?? You don’t get to pull the fucking cancer card because that’s bullshit! We ALWAYS go to Babylon so cancer isn’t even a factor here.” I paused to take a deep breath.

Brian moved so that he was leaning on the dining table, crossed his ankles and his arms, and waited for me to continue.

He smirked as I started to pace and continued ranting.

“For years I have let you run the show because I loved you so much I was afraid rocking the boat would push you further away. Hell you kicked me out when I had nowhere else to go because you wanted to put that robbery on my shoulders. Then, when I started up with Ethan I hoped it would force you to say even the smallest thing to prove I meant something to you. Instead you told me to decide!”

I stopped again, this fight between us had been a long time coming. I still wasn’t sure he’d ever respond or just let me rant uncontested.

“What do you want from me, Justin? Haven’t I proven over and over that you’re important? What more do you fucking need from me?” Brian uncrossed his arms and threw them out.

“I need you to say something to prove that I belong! That I’m not too much for you.” I stopped pacing and faced away from him, the pain in my chest too overwhelming. I couldn’t look at him when he denied me this one thing I need.

Silence fell between us as I tried to get myself under control again. I said more than I had ever intended to reveal to him. But the last few days had been a whirlwind and we were both emotionally raw in different ways. I roughly pressed my hands to my face, hoping it would stop the tears that had started leaking out.

I startled when I felt Brian against my back. “You’re the only reason I haven’t lost my goddamn mind.” His voice reverberated against my skin and warmed me up.

Well I asked him to prove it and dammit he did.