#Quantum Entanglement

[mindblowingscience]

An experiment by a group of physicists led by University of Rochester physics professor Regina Demina has produced a significant result related to quantum entanglement—an effect that Albert Einstein called "spooky action at a distance." Entanglement concerns the coordinated behavior of miniscule particles that have interacted but then moved apart. Measuring properties—like position or momentum or spin—of one of the separated pair of particles instantaneously changes the results of the other particle, no matter how far the second particle has drifted from its twin. In effect, the state of one entangled particle, or qubit, is inseparable from the other. Quantum entanglement has been observed between stable particles, such as photons or electrons. But Demina and her group broke new ground in that they found, for the first time, entanglement to persist between unstable top quarks and their antimatter partners at distances farther than what can be covered by information transferred at the speed of light. Specifically, the researchers observed spin correlation between the particles.

Continue Reading.

[shousetsubangbang]

Shousetsu Bang*Bang Issue 114: Quantum Entanglement

cover by serenity_winner

~*~

Scenario ATU-480 [F173.1, K1363], by Togi Kayako (土宜草子)

Biddable, by Greta Jia-Kang Cabrel

Good World, by Domashita Romero (地下ロメロ)

The Night Terrors and the Birthday Surprise, by Devin Ambrosia *

Hosing down the (other) public fuckhole at the mall, by Fil-in-the-blank

All Roads Lead to Rome, by Iron Eater and shukyou (主教) *

*illustrated

~*~

Stages of the Shousetsu Bang*Bang Life Cycle

1. Pollination: Brought in on the breeze, bits of queer ideas float until they reach a place where they can take root and become fertile. Some queer smut is self-pollenating, while others need inspiration from outside sources.

2. Seeds:  Self-explanatory.

3. Germination: Ideas begin to emerge, some over the course of several weeks or even months, some as quickly as in a single afternoon.

4. Root and Leaf Growth: As these ideas develop, they produce more mature (in all senses) contexts. Original character arcs and narrative complexity develop. Smut forms.

5. New Shousetsu Bang*Bang Issue: Every two months, a new free issue emerges. While no two issues are exactly alike, to survive in the harsh environment of the internet, each issue must contain the vital elements of queer romance, erotic satisfaction, and happily-ever-afters.

6. Fertilization: Community members leave comments of appreciation and encouragement. Distribution is aided by sharing on social media and through other platforms. New pollination ensues in preparation for the next issue.

—

(For summaries, creators’ notes, and more, we would usually tell you to see this issue’s entry on the Shousetsu Bang*Bang wiki. In the interim, however, please visit the relevant Google Doc of contributor commentary for similar content.)

[rbrooksdesign]

∑FEETc: Divisor Matrix Table (DMT) 19, digital painting, May 19, 2025, Reginald Brooks

∑FEETc

*Fractal

*Entanglement

*Entropy

*Time

*Consciousness

[worldbuildingwanderlust]

I could play a symphony

Strumming the thread

That connects our souls

[minmin-vs-physics]

HUP, EPR, and Bell’s Theorem

Abstract

An educational document discussing the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the EPR (Einstein- Podolsky-Rosen) Paradox, and Bell’s Theorem, written for an audience without a background in physics, but with their head still screwed on right.

1 Introduction

Ah, quantum mechanics. A bizarre theory which unfortunately describes our physical world exceed- ingly well. Einstein didn’t get it. Bohr didn’t get it. I don’t get it. And soon, you won’t get it either. As the saying goes, the more you know about quantum mechanics, the less you understand it.

I will be skipping around in terms of topics covered in undergraduate quantum mechanics courses to prepare you for the actual beast, Entanglement.

Entanglement, the property of quantum systems to remain correlated even when separated, is a concept which has transformed from a worrisome byproduct of a thought experiment [1] into a cornerstone of quantum mechanics itself. What is a quantum mechanics? Google is your friend, my dear reader. My time with you is limited„ and I cannot teach you the alphabet to make you read Shakespeare. I can only explain what you directly need to understand this article. Anything else shall be your homework, and if I am feeling kind at the end, I will provide a list of accessible resources on learning quantum mechanics the RIGHT way.

As we dive into the frankly confusing world of entanglement, it is vital that you remember one thing– A quantum particle is described by a wave function, Ψ. This wave function is a solution to the Schrodinger equation.

This is what they mean when they say something is both a particle and a wave; It’s behavior can be described by a special kind of wave equation, which we all know and love as the Schrodinger Wave Equation. But that’s not important right now. I’ll explain more if I need to. We need to get to HUP.

2 Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle

Formulated by Werner Heisenberg in 1927, the Uncertainty Principle is an indomitable tenet in the field of quantum mechanics. Its premise is simple. The more precisely a particle’s momentum is determined, the less precisely is its position. In one dimension, this can be summarized with the following mathematical statement: ∆x∆p ≤ 2

Here, ∆x is the standard deviation or “spread” of the position x, while ∆p is the standard deviation of the momentum p. As the spread of one quantity decreases, the other must increase in order to maintain the inequality. I will not bother proving the Principle in full, but I have Heisenberg’s original proof in the references.

Is that it?

Ummmmm, no. An important thing to remember about HUP is that it is not exclusive to x and p. HUP applies to any two quantum mechanical operators, A, B, which do not commute with each other i.e. [A, B] = AB − BA = 0. But that’s all mathematical nonsense, Min! What does it really mean?

Fine! I’m only doing this because it will be useful when we get to measurements in the EPR paradox and Bell theorems. In order to understand what “not commuting” means in the physical sense, let’s use our favorites, position and momentum, as an example. In quantum mechanics, xˆ andpˆ are referred to as the position and momentum operators respectively. (Why the little hats? Firstly, they’re cute, and secondly, well, you’ll see.) The whole point of calling them operators is that they act on wave functions. And in the crudest sense possible (please don’t try this at home, folks), hitting an operator on a wave function and taking the expectation value, gives a measurement of the quantum mechanical system.

There is about three semesters of quantum mechanical education I’m waving off right now, but bear with me. When we act the momentum operator on the system, in some sense we extract the momentum. Same thing for position. However, the whole deal about x and p is that they do not commute. So, the order in which you conduct the measurements absolutely does matter. First measuring x and then p would give you a different answer than first measuring p and then x. This is because the very act of measuring a quantum state changes it. That’s right! It changes. This makes all the difference when you consider the standard deviation of a bunch of measurements. If my memory of introductory quantum mechanics serves me right, after about three pages of algebra you arrive at the familiar position-momentum uncertainty principle.

The moral of the story is that the non-commutativity of these operators manifests as a sort of granularity in the accuracy of measurements you can make on a physical system. This granularity is retained between any other kinds of non-commuting measurements you can make!

On second thought, do you really need this? Probably not. But, the algebra of uncertainty principles is a pet project to me. Especially the strangest of them all, the energy-time uncertainty principle. Enough on that! Here’s the main takeaway (other than the actual HUP statement) that you need from this section:

Making a measurement on a state changes its wave function. No exceptions. None. The detached observer is not a reality in the quantum mechanical world.

3 Spin

I realized that the following sections will not make any sense if you don’t at least know what spin is. So, let’s make a short pit-stop at Spin City to learn about this nonsensical physical quantity.

We’re all aware of angular momentum– its the rotational analog of linear momentum (which we talked about the previous section). We all agree that it is a property related to the motion of an object, right? WRONG! Sometime in the 1900s (Seriously, 20th Century Physicists should chill out), it was discovered this angular momentum from motion i.e. “orbital” angular momentum, as it was called in the atomic physics context it was first described, does not account for all the angular momentum of a particle. Long story short, the remaining angular momentum, which is intrinsic to a particle, is now called Spin. Every fundamental particle has a particular value of spin, which, in quantum mechanical jargon, is the eigenvalue of the spin operator.

For understanding the following sections, we really only need to care about spin-1/2 particles, which are lovingly called fermions, and are the building blocks of all ordinary matter. The shining feature of spin-1/2 particles is that their spin can either be +1 or −1 , which is often referred to as spin-up (↑) and spin-down (↓) respectively.

Physically, the up or down comes from whether the measured spin is along the axis it is measured, or opposite to it. Yes, spin is a vector, so it does have three independent components in the three spatial directions, but it is convention to consider the z-component of the spin for calculations and experiments. Any references to up and down in the next sections are along the z-direction.

Oh, and one more thing, spin-0 particles have no intrinsic spin. This will be important when we encounter the EPR Paradox.

4 EPR Paradox

After skipping a whole bunch of most-likely important concepts in the study of quantum mechanics we arrive at the EPR paradox.

The EPR paradox is a thought experiment first described in the groundbreaking paper [1] by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen in 1935. Einstein was quite vocally a hater, and the EPR paradox was proposed as evidence that the description of reality provided by quantum mechanics is incomplete. Reality doesn’t care, of course, and the EPR Paradox isn’t really a paradox. In fact, it is the foundation of entanglement– a magnificent, very real feature of reality which spans black holes, quantum computers and even my field of research: Entanglement in elementary particle physics.

In fact, I’m so self-centered that the example we will use to illustrate the EPR paradox is from particle physics. Just kidding, my explanation follows Chapter 12 in Griffiths’ Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, and is a simplified version credited to David Bohm

EPRB Paradox

Suppose a pion (funky particle with spin-0) at rest, decays to an electron and positron which fly off into opposite directions. Since the pion has spin-0, conservation of angular momentum dictates that the electron and positron occupy the following spin configuration.

√(1/2) (|↑↓⟩−|↓↑⟩)

BE NOT AFRAID of the mathematical jumpscare. The fancy bracket |·⟩ is what’s called a “ket”, and is used to denote the state of a quantum system. All the expression says is that either the electron is

spin-up (+1) and the positron is spin-down (−1) or vice-versa, because the total spin of the system 22

must add up to 0. (Since the initial state is spin zero, the system must stay spin-zero even after the decay occurs. That’s what angular momentum conservation is all about.) We don’t know which combination we will get, but it must be one of the above. Measuring the spin of one of the particles will automatically tell us what the spin of the other particle is. This means that the spins of the electron and positron are correlated. In modern terms, such a state is called entangled.

Now, let’s pretend that these particles fly off in opposite directions, until say, they are several light years apart. What would happen if we found the electron and measured its spin to be +1 ? We instantly know that the positron’s spin is −1 . This is obvious. Why are we mad about this?

Naturally, we may think that the electron really was spin-up from the moment it was created and it was only that quantum mechanics did not know until we made a measurement. But by the principles of quantum mechanics, neither particle had a definite spin, until we made a measurement, causing the wave function to “collapse” and instanteously produce the spin of the positron which is lights years away!

The EPR bros were NOT having it. Einstein famously called this phenomenon “spooky action at a distance”. They stated that the quantum mechanical standpoint must be wrong! The electron and positron must have had well-defined spins from their creation, even if quantum mechanics does not know it. Quantum mechanics is not a complete description of reality and there must be some hidden variables which describe a physical system that we do not yet know.

The fundamental assumption guiding the EPR argument is that no information can propagate faster than light. This the principle of locality. In order to appease this, we can say that the wave function collapsed at some finite velocity and is not instantaneous. However, this violates conservation– If we measured the positron spin as well before the information of collapse reached it, there is a 50–50 chance that both particles are spin-up, which means the system has total spin-1. Preposterous! You can mess with anything you want in this universe, but you don’t mess with conservation laws. What do we do now?

Okay, let’s calm down. The theorists may say whatever they want, but experiment doesn’t lie. Experiment tells us that in these cases, spin is perfectly correlated. The wave function collapse is instantaneous. That’s crazy. Call your mom and tell her you want to go home. The EPR Bros are frightening you— Quantum Mechanics is NOT local so it is NOT complete.

...Except. It is. Enter, Bell’s Theorem.

5 Bell’s Theorem

Now, what’s the situation? The EPR gang is not happy. I’m not happy. You’re not happy. Is quantum mechanics wrong? No, silly! EPR said it themselves: they think it’s merely incomplete. So, in order to completely describe a quantum mechanical state, you not only need the wave function Ψ, you also need some unknown, hidden variable λ. Lots of hidden variable theories were proposed after the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paper, but none of them ever gained traction. It was still a respectable area of study until 1964, when J.S. Bell proved that any local (Remember locality from the last section?) hidden variable theory is incompatible with quantum mechanics.

I’ll spare you the details of Bell’s work, dear reader. One thought experiment in an essay is gruesome enough. (It is also getting quite late and I still didn’t code my calculations. I have spent far too much time on this already.)

Bell’s proof involves the wonderful use of probability, and the barest assumptions that can be made about local hidden variable theories. Basically, in any local hidden variable theory, the probabilities of various outcomes are related by what’s known as a Bell inequality. If EPR’s conjecture is right, and there really are hidden variables we don’t know about, then any physical system must obey its Bell inequality.

Except, there have been various experiments since the 1960s confirming that Bell’s inequality is indeed violated. This came as a rude shock to scientists as it is not fun to learn that reality is very much nonlocal. It was all fun and games when this was all merely a mathematical artifact, but nonlocality felt like a gateway drug to a much grimmer violation.

Causality

Bell inequality violations, no matter how surprising, are merely wonderful correlations between two sets of otherwise random data. Sure, the measurement of the spin of the electron affects the positron, but it does not cause it in any meaningful way. The person measuring the electron spin cannot use this collapse of the wave function to send a message to the person with the positron, since they don’t control the outcome of the experiment. They can decide whether to measure the electron at all, but the other person only has access to the positron’s spin and cannot tell whether the electron has been measured or not.

Phew! This sort of nonlocal influence does not transmit any energy or information, so it is exempt from the speed of light. Meanwhile, causal influences, those which do transmit information or energy, cannot travel faster than light. According to special relativity, if this was possible then, there are reference frames in which information can propagate backwards through time. And that, my dear reader, is what we call a big nono. Since the EPR paradox does not imply that causality is violated, we can lie uncomfortably on our bed of nonlocal but causal theory of quantum mechanics.

So rest easy, quantum mechanics is weird, but safe. Entanglement is not a fairytale, but also not the boogeyman. It’s probably more scared of you than you of it. Just give it some time. More answers will follow.

What Do I Do Now?

So, you want to know more? Or curl up in a ball and never think about this again? Either is fine. I won’t judge. If your answer is the former, here are some resources to guide you through the thickets of quantum mechanics.

PopSci Sources

1. IDTIMWYTIM: Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle 2. Why did Quantum Entanglement Win the Nobel Prize in Physics? 3. Bell’s Theorem: The Quantum Venn Diagram Paradox

Surely, you’ll get more out of these wonderful science Youtubers than you did from me yapping for four pages. There are a bunch more probably, but you’ll have to find them yourself.

Academic Sources

1. An Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, D.J. Griffiths.

Of course, there are other quantum mechanics textbooks that I like much more than this one. But, this is the least daunting, so I’ll leave it here.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more silly academic style papers.

References

[1]  A. Einstein, B. Podolsky and N. Rosen, “Can quantum mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete”? Phys. Rev. 47, 777–780 (1935) doi:10.1103/PhysRev.47.777

[2]  Heisenberg, W. “Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik”. Z. Physik 43, 172–-198 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01397280

[3]  D.J. Griffiths, D.F. Schroeter, “Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, Third Edition” Cambridge University Press (2018) 978–1–107–18963–8,

[tiredwishes]

quantum entanglement (oscar piastri/carlos sainz, t-rated, 11.8k)

Quantum Entanglement: They say that when two particles are entangled, a change in one will affect the other. That is, the idea of love– of soulmates. _____________ Don’t provoke Sainz, is what she’s implying. I’m not trying to, Oscar grumbles internally, I quite literally have no idea what I’ve done to constantly warrant him pulling my hair. “Got it.” He nods instead, albeit a little sullenly. Because Sophie’s just doing her job, untangling him from the state he’s gotten himself caught in. “It won’t happen again.” Then it fucking happens again.

[adelina-shifts]

what was it if it wasn't shifting or lucid dreaming?

there are going to be hardships in my desired reality. hardships i may not face here–i don't know what this was, but i was being forced to cut my hair because we were going to war or something, and there was this woman. i asked her why she didn't have to cut her hair and she shrugged. it was weird, like she knew something i didn't.

it was also weird because i had a ton of knowledge the woman around me didn't, i was one of the young ones, but even the older ones were getting on me about what i was saying.

the younger ones said, "we're not suppose to talk about stuff like that." and i replied very sarcastically, "what? about sex? and the female body?" it was so preposterous to me, but i didn't know i was "dreaming", i don't remember touching anyone (i think, maybe the woman i'm not sure) so i don't think it was shifting either.

it was this weird in-between.

i knew all these things i shouldn't, but it didn't occur to me why that was or that it was odd for me to be more educated than the woman around me when we so clearly had the same education.

it was also first-person pov–but i don't remember touching anyone, but i do remember some woman grabbing me because i was waving a rolled-up newspaper, threatening to hit one of the generals.

can someone explain to me what in the hell i experienced?

[genericpuff]

On this week's episode of "Webtoon Controversies That Could Have Been Avoided If Only They Had Some Damn Quality Control"-

Oh boy, prepare yourselves, there's some TEA on this one.

Quantum Entanglement, a new Webtoon Originals series from creator Arts Angel (aka Sarah Ellerton) is uh... a teeny weeny painfully obvious that it was made with AI.

AI is getting better, but when it comes to comics, there are still a lot of "tells" you can pick up on once you know where to look. Hands are certainly one of them.

Not knowing how to draw hands efficiently and consistently is definitely an Artist Problem(tm) but it becomes a lot more obvious it was made by AI when you get weird little off-putting mistakes like a fingernail being just a little too long or missing joints (hot dog fingers, eyo) or the distinction between fingers not being clear.

But there's also hair and other detailed parts that are often lost in the translation process between prompt to final piece. Jewelry, text on a screen, phones, that sort of thing. The insinuation of a 'thing' is there, but it's like looking at it through a fishbowl.

And ultimately, a lot of AI art tends to just be a little too 'perfect'. Everything is just a little too smooth for it to look like it was naturally made by a person. Faces end up veering into the uncanny valley territory and there are inconsistencies between the eyes and the rest of the body. Backgrounds become lost in what I like to call "AI goop", becoming nothing more than weird blurred/filtered out insinuations of what's supposed to be behind the character.

Basically, at this point, it's undeniably clear that AI is being used to create this comic. While there are also plenty of signs in the handiwork that show a human was involved in some parts, there are other places that are undeniably filled in with the use of AI. So it's not necessarily a 100% made-by-AI comic, but it's absolutely AI assisted.

But what's REALLY absurd about this whole situation? The creator denies it. To the point of including a disclaimer in the first episode trying to "get ahead" of people who are assuming it's AI by saying, "No, it's not made with AI, here's the proof! Don't look at the blood on my hands or the body in the trunk of my car!"

Now, first off, the absolute absurdity of making yourself look guiltier by trying to prove your innocence before people have even started to suspect you... I'd like to think that this was edited into the first episode after the initial accusations started rolling in but considering it's an Originals series, it's hard to know if it was, as creators typically don't get as much control over just editing their episodes on the fly like Canvas creators do. Typically it's their editors who do that sort of thing for them. And even if it was edited in afterwards, it's still there for people who have no idea going into the comic blind and might not automatically assume it was made with AI, so it just looks like you're bringing up the potential of AI being used completely unprovoked. By planting the idea in your audience's brain that AI is even a question, you're making them suspect everything.

It's kind of like when Dream was suspected of cheating in a way-too-lucky-to-be-real speedrun of Minecraft a couple years back, so he went to all these painstaking efforts of hiring a quantum physicist to "prove" his innocence with a straight up THESIS documenting all of the reasons he couldn't have cheated through math and figures and jargon. Ironically, this just made Dream look guiltier, and sure enough, he eventually admitted he had cheated.

That said, did you notice something in that "art process" pic?

That finished panel isn't even what showed up in the final comic.

So the absurdity of this all, again, just makes Arts Angel look a lot more guilty of actually using AI, especially when it's basically undeniable in so many of those panels above. People don't paint like that.

But that brings us to talking about Sarah Ellerton, aka "Arts Angel", the creator. Many long-time readers of her work are defending this, claiming that she has, in fact, "always drawn like this".

What's insane? She actually is who she says she is. This isn't like some kid who came out of the woodwork with AI and claiming that they had 20 years of experience, Sarah Ellerton's main site, The Seraph-Inn, has been live and crawled by Wayback Machine as far back as 2005.

And you can see the art evolution over the years, starting with Inverloch-

-into Phoenix-

-and all the way to Immaterial-

But here's the thing about that last comic. The main protagonist is, apparently, the same girl from Quantum Entanglement, the newest installment in this series where it becomes abundantly clear the creator has started using AI.

You can see the effects of this being parsed through AI, because she's gone from being a unique character with two-toned hair and darker skin, to being turned into a generic Instagram anime girl. And lemme tell you, AI used in comics has NOT gotten better at depicting darker-skinned characters (I actually tested an AI-coloring tool WT was planning on putting out a year or two ago, it was uh... not great.)

But the most damning thing about Sarah?

She works in IT.

That on its own wouldn't be so telling if it weren't for the 20 years she clearly spent actually honing her craft, only to suddenly switch to using AI as a crutch.

Quantum Entanglement was picked up for Originals in July 2023. It launched two days ago, with four free to read episodes and 6 more under the FastPass paywall. Three months after it got picked up. That turnaround speed is insane for an Originals series. Now, I'm more inclined to believe that maybe she's using the exact same pages she used in the Canvas version (there's unfortunately no way of checking through Wayback, it never crawled the Canvas version, so unless someone has backups of the Canvas pages they're willing to share, we'll never know) but that short turnaround time is insane for a comic that's this insanely detailed. It likely means they didn't need much pre-production time to get a strong buffer going, and that it doesn't take them as long to produce these episodes on a weekly basis so they could be under way less crunch than creators who do this by hand.

By comparison, the winners of the Call to Action contest from last year are STILL working on their pre-production. Many other greenlit Canvas series are known for getting picked up and stuck in pre-production for several months and even a year or more simply due to how the company operates with when it chooses to launch these series and how much pre-production is necessary. Some creators have literally said that their pre-production was done, but WT still kept them waiting to launch. So three months for a freshly greenlit Canvas series to launch is NOT the norm.

All that said, I feel for the people who are trying to defend her. But it's so undeniably AI with the creator herself providing fake proof that it makes it really sad to think that this person was honing their craft for 20 years just to wind up utilizing AI. Being a good artist does not make you immune to the temptation of using cheap methods or developing bad habits. Going through "the struggle" does not make you immune to taking shortcuts that wind up cheapening your work or taking advantage of the work of others.

Now, maybe Sarah trained AI around her art. If this didn't play out the way it did, I'd be willing to give her benefit of the doubt and assume that. Training AI off your own work, while still up for debate as to how ethical that is, at least doesn't hurt other artists, because it's your own work the AI is "stealing". There are definitely ways AI could be used to make life easier for artists without replacing the art process entirely, the same way artists have learned to use 3D assets and digital art filters to make their process more efficient and boost the quality of their art up to the next level.

But the fact that she's being so cagey over it, claiming she's not using AI period when she very clearly is, providing "proof" that actually proves she definitely used AI, while operating under a penname that's strangely similar to a name Grimes - former tech wife of Elon Musk and staunch supporter of AI - used for one of her studio albums-

- that's what makes it a lot more clear she's using it maliciously.

The AI is very likely trained off another artist's work. Maybe someone whose art style is similar enough to hers that she could integrate it into her own and pass it off as legitimate. Someone whose art style is cartoonish but still modern, like if Disney made anime. Someone who's so prolific and consistent in their stylization that training an AI off it would seem like a no brainer to those who want to replicate that style quickly and easily.

Damn. What a disappointment. Do better, Sarah.

And for god's sakes, Webtoons, pay more fucking attention. I've been steadily picking away at moving the entirety of my comics over to other platforms on a weekly schedule, but at this point I kinda just wanna dump the last 30 or so chapters onto ComicFury all at once so I can ditch this platform for good, especially if it turns out AI comics getting greenlit is a feature, not a bug. The ratings for Quantum Entanglement have dropped significantly overnight, now sitting around 5.09 and still dropping, but is Webtoons going to do anything about it? That remains to be seen.

[not-a-fucking-mermaid]

There’s something so romantic about entanglement

[lagunaseca2013]

pecco/luca #14

prompt from here! dearest anon thank u for prompting me. u are the only person who did so that actually means a lot LMAO. struggled profoundly with this which is why it took me over a month and it's 3k long and it's also inexplicably a soulmate au. i hope u enjoy ur library sex!

—

QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT — pecco/luca, 3k

Maybe elbow-deep in the gnarliest of the rat cages hadn’t been the best time to bring up Marc, but, well. Pecco had also been more sleep-deprived than usual after the several all-nighters he’d pulled, trying to finish the new section of his dissertation that Valentino had proposed before he ran out of steam. Neither of them were exactly their best selves. And it wasn’t even their lab. 

Pecco was getting paid two hundred euros to clean the cages every three days, while Dr. Stoner and all his—hah— lab rats attended yet another conference. But he wasn’t sure what Valentino’s excuse was, considering he complained pretty regularly about Dr. Stoner getting preferential funding because of STEM privilege. Pecco wasn’t exactly sure how helping out in his lab fit into that equation, and he wasn’t about to ask. 

All Pecco had wanted to know, really, was if Vale could still feel him at all times. If the throbbing in Pecco’s skull was ever going to go away, if notoriously pain-averse Valentino had somehow learned to live with the ache.

“Well you see,” Vale had grumbled, scolding #93 when it tried to nip at his fingertips through the gloves as it settled into its new bedding, “I do not think the bonds, they are—” he gestured vaguely, nearly knocking over the stack of ungraded reports piled on Dr. Stoner’s desk, “not so rigid, right? I think they are a bit, allora. . . .” he trailed off, staring somewhere in the middle distance. “I think they are often deceiving.” He’d said, finally, punctuating it with a spritz of the expensive unscented cleaner that Dr. Stoner insisted was the only one that didn’t aggravate his migraines. 

“Ah.” Pecco had responded, lamely, staring down at #10 as it slept quietly in its little holding tupperware. “I think I understand.” 

The thing is, Pecco doesn't even really know when he figured it out. Maybe he always knew what the deep thrumming in the back of his skull was, what the tight aching feeling in the pit of his stomach meant. Why he was always sort of looking for Luca, regardless of time or place or reality. He doesn’t know why he thought asking Valentino about it would bring any clarity, but well. Luca was still his brother, technically. Even if he had gone down a path Valentino didn’t exactly approve of. 

“It’s just a good opportunity,” Franky tells him, when he brings it up again over lunch. He’s hunched miserably over his protein bowl, texting with one hand under the table. For some reason, he thinks they don’t all know it’s Álex Marquez on the other end, when he hides his screen from them and grins all dopily at his messages. Pecco isn’t an idiot, but he isn’t cruel, either, so he says nothing, picking at his own cold chicken. 

“Of course, Maro knows that Vale would fund his research until the end of time,” Franky continues, placing his phone facedown on the table. “But Dr. Hernandez already has the grants and the equipment. He’d be stupid not to take Marc’s spot! Plus, they publish all the time, and you know he’s been wanting to get more exposure.”

“Yeah,” Pecco hums, downing the rest of his now-cold espresso and grimacing when the grounds stick to the back of his teeth. “A very good opportunity.” 

Pecco is still stewing about it when he shoves their apartment door open with a grunt, three books falling out of his bag in the process. Bez and Cele make no move to help him from where they’re sequestered on the couch, the entire living room littered with pages of Cele’s senior thesis, marked up in what looks like sparkly purple gel pen. 

“ Ciao , Pecco,” Cele sighs dejectedly, against Bez’s shoulder. 

“ Ciao , my roommate who lives here and pays rent,” Pecco groans, leaving the books in the doorway and making a beeline for the mokapot. He briefly considers suicide, when he finds it unwashed in the sink, then grabs the scrubber brush with a sigh. Bez comes up behind him, a moment later, draping his long arms around Pecco’s waist until he reluctantly leans back into his embrace, closing his eyes so none of the tears he’s been holding in all day leak out. 

“What’s the matter with our Pecchino, huh?” Bez asks, pressing a kiss to Pecco’s cheek and then releasing him, leaning back against the counter with a tilt of his head that makes him look just like the puppy he’s been trying to ply Pecco with pictures of, lately. “Did one of Dr. Stoner’s evil rats try to bite you again? You could totally sue him for that, you know, let’s call up Mig and—” 

Pecco waves a hand at him with a sigh. “Leave Migno alone, you know he’s been too stressed studying for the Bar. And I’m not going to sue Dr. Stoner, the rats were fine. Allora, one of them did try to bite Vale but he—” 

“ Vale? What the hell was Vale doing there?” Bez interrupts him. Behind them, Cele pokes a curious head in the doorway. He’s wearing Bez’s boxers, Pecco notices belatedly. That probably explains the state of the living room, he realizes, resigned. 

Pecco shrugs, giving the moka a final rinse. There’s a stubborn burnt patch at the bottom which probably means that Cele was the last person to use it, but it’s the least of his problems right now. Everything feels like burnt espresso to him these days, it’s nothing special in the grand scheme of things. “I don’t know if they’re back together, honestly. They’re probably just fucking again.” 

Bez shakes his head with an exaggerated grimace. “I don’t know how Vale manages to bone so many of his colleagues,” he says, pulling Cele in with an arm around his pale neck. “Don’t the faculty meetings get awkward? Surely he could find someone he doesn’t work with to take on a date!” 

Against his will, Pecco thinks of the lab coat Valentino had been wearing when Pecco had walked in, the little Australian flag embroidered on the cuff of his sleeve, nearly invisible unless you were looking for it. These days, Dr. Stoner walks around in lab coats with the flag embroidered proudly next to his last name, impossible to miss. Vale must have been wearing an old one. Where he’d found it, Pecco didn’t really want to know. 

“I don’t think they’re doing much dating,” he sighs, dumping the espresso powder in and snapping the lid shut with a loud metallic clang. 

Cradled in Bez’s arms, Cele bursts into laughter. 

Pecco doesn’t know why he was the last to know that Luca was leaving them. The weeks leading up to Luca’s departure had been—euphoric, almost. If he ignored the sense of impending doom, which he had become very good at. They had been spending a truly unreasonable amount of time together that semester because Luca had still been living in the apartment, sharing his car, sleeping, working, eating together. 

Pecco had woken up from an involuntary library nap, one day last March, to find one of Luca’s jackets draped over him. He’d moved into the carrel next to Pecco while he was asleep, apparently. Valentino found them slumped over each other, napping on the couch in his office so often that semester, that he’d started calling them i dormiglioni , like they were little kids. 

It was easy to ignore, at first, because Pecco had been ignoring it for what was probably years, at that point. Since at least their second year of Laurea , when they’d been assigned partners for a semester-long project in Professor Nieto’s Modern Philosophy class. Pecco had known who he was, of course. Not even the different last names could hide that Luca was Dr. Rossi’s younger brother, quietly accepted into the Physics and Philosophy department an entire year earlier than they usually let undergrads declare. 

Luca wasn’t particularly popular, really. Whatever magnetic charm that Valentino, known mostly around campus as il Dottore , walked around with must have come from Graziano, because Luca didn’t attract the same kind of attention everywhere he went, and he’d kept to himself, mostly, their first year. Pecco couldn’t help but notice him. He was much quieter than Valentino, of course, but he was still every bit as beautiful. Pecco had never dreamed that Luca would ever pay him any attention, even after they were assigned partners. 

It turned out he was wrong, about Luca, anyway. He was just like Valentino, in all the ways that mattered. It was kind of impressive that people who studied their field so closely could be so blind about it. 

Or maybe, Pecco had thought, watching Luca leave, inevitably, after everything—that was the caveat. 

Pecco had spent so long ignoring it, that he didn’t understand what he was feeling, the first time Luca intentionally tugged on the bond. He was on the fourth floor of the stacks section of the library in late May, enjoying the sunlight peaking through the skylights while he combed through the shelves. Choking on dust and trying not to make noises every time he encounters a dead spider, on some fruitless mission from Valentino to find the original copy of Bell’s Inequality he swore was hiding around there. Pecco was beginning to suspect he was just trying to get him out of his office for an hour so he could hook up with—whoever it was who’d been leaving ribbed condom wrappers in the Philosophy Lounge trash all year. 

Then, all at once, he felt the little ember he’d kept tucked away, all this time, a little shard of glass pressed up against his heart. It was like all of his muscles and tendons, bones and sinew, every part of his body could feel it. Feel him. Luca, reaching through.

In a lot of cultures, soul bonds were likened to strings, in mythology. When Pecco let himself wonder what theirs might feel like, he always pictured something like a ribbon or a cord, their connection loose and free-flowing. When Luca touches their bond for the first time, it feels nothing like that. It doesn’t really feel like anything else, or anything he could describe with words, though his whole job, his whole life, he’s been trying to describe what this moment might feel like. It’s not accurate, but he pictures himself getting struck by lightning through the library skylights, instantly engulfed in flames.

Luca finds him like that, rounding the corner of the H-K shelves, his eyes bright. A strange, manic energy to him that Pecco has never seen before. It’s hot, watching Luca stalk towards him like a predator, every nerve ending in his body lighting up, the closer he gets. Suddenly, Luca is right in front of him, breathing a little heavy, caging Pecco in, against the hard metal of the shelves. If soul ties were visual things, Pecco thinks theirs would probably be a neon red cloud, hazily encompassing them. As it stands, the only proof Pecco has that this is real, that Luca is going to stop pretending he doesn’t know and finally fucking do something about it is the tension he feels flowing through his body. It’s their bond, it’s Luca , wrapped around his chest like a vice.

Pecco’s always imagined their first kiss being a little awkward. Maybe a peck in the back corner of the campus cafe that Cele works at, or tiredly making out on the floor of Luca’s bedroom, where they both prefer to study at home. Something slow, intentional. The weight of the bond unburdened.

There’s nothing slow or soft or sweet about the way Luca kisses him for the first time, almost bruising. His tongue is hot and slick in Pecco’s mouth, brushing against the back of his teeth. Pecco whines into it, helpless, a hand finds purchase on his waist, the other tangling in his hair. He can barely tell if he’s kissing back, so lost in the sensation. He only realizes when Luca pulls away, ducking his head to suck marks onto Pecco’s flushed neck, that he’s been holding his breath.

“ Fuck, Luca ,” he gasps, his hips twitching up involuntarily when Luca finds a pressure point. He’s half hard just from kissing, but Luca’s no better. Pecco can feel the heat of his length straining against his thigh from where Luca had wedged a leg between them. “I need—” he cuts himself off with a hiss when Luca grinds them together.

“Shh, Franci,” Luca whispers, a little meanly. “You don’t want anyone to hear us, right?” Reaching down between them, he pops the button of Pecco’s corduroys with deft fingers. Pecco jolts forward, muffling his moan with the soft collar of Luca’s shirt between his teeth when Luca wraps a calloused palm around his weeping cock and gives it a dry tug. It’s equal parts pleasure and pain, and Pecco can’t help but sigh in relief when Luca pulls back just far enough to spit directly on the leaking tip. His breath catches at the sensation of it, Luca dragging his hand up and down until he’s wet everywhere, saliva and precum dripping down his balls.

“Luca we can’t —” Pecco gasps, when he brushes a blunt, dry fingertip against his hole. His whole body shudders as Luca does it again, circling and stroking until Pecco is clenching down on nothing; he can feel himself soaked everywhere . 

Luca drags his fingers down through the stickiness between his thighs, chuckling. “So wet, Franci, like a girl.” 

Before Pecco can even react to that, Luca flips them around pressing him against the cold metal of the shelves with a firm grip. His pulse is hammering in his throat and he wonders, absurdly, if Luca can feel it, every erratic beat. 

Luca is everywhere on him, all at once. His breath is hot against Pecco’s ear, his fingers digging into his hips, both grounding and overwhelming. The bond thrums between them, heavy, tightening around Pecco’s rib cage. It feels like a separate animal, alive and red and wild . “Tell me now, if you want me to stop,” he murmurs against the back of Pecco’s neck, his lips brushing against his skin, teasing.

Pecco whimpers again, pushing his ass back up against where Luca is hard. “Please.”

Luca pulls away, this time to fumble with his belt. The clink of the metal buckle as he undoes it rings louder than a gunshot in the stillness of the library. Pecco keeps forgetting they’re in public , that any moment someone could walk in and see him bent over the periodicals, squirming as Luca feeds his cock between his slippery thighs. Whimpering as Luca drags achingly slow up against the sensitive skin of his balls. It’s filthy , the wet heat of it, the lewd slide of skin on skin. Luca fucks between his thighs like he doesn’t care if Pecco gets off, like he’s just a means to an end.

His hips stutter, his grip turning bruising on Pecco’s waist, like he’s afraid to let go. With a grunt, muffled against the damp curls at the nape of Pecco’s neck, he spills onto the shelf beneath them. He doesn’t even glance down, uncaring of the carnage. He just flips Pecco around, still panting, eyes blown, looking like he wants to run or maybe sink his teeth into Pecco’s throat.

Instead of softening, instead of giving either of them a breath, Luca crushes their mouths together. The bond between them is electric, fraying, tightening—too much. Pecco feels like he’s being squeezed from the inside out, like something is about to snap in his chest. For a brief moment, he thinks, hysterically, maybe he wants it to. 

Luca is still hard against his thigh, still wanting, still taking . His hand snakes into Pecco’s hair, pulling, tugging, keeping him exactly where he wants him.

“Luca, this—” Pecco gasps against his mouth, fingers twitching at Luca’s wrist, nails biting into his skin. “This isn’t—I don’t want. . . .”

He bites down on Pecco’s bottom lip, just enough to make him flinch. “ Tesoro .” His voice is low, almost coaxing. “We don’t have to.”

As if they haven’t already. As if Pecco can’t look down between them and find Bell’s Inequality , covered in the evidence of their desperation.

But the thing is, Pecco still wants . He wants Luca to get him off in here, the AC blowing dust around and the motion sensor lights flickering off every ten minutes. He wants to see Luca’s face when he finishes, this time. He wants Luca to kiss him, gentle, and be there in the morning when he wakes up. It doesn’t feel anything like Pecco imagined, holding Luca in his arms. It feels like the end of something, instead of the beginning.

The bond isn’t soft, like threads of fate weaving them together—it feels like a chokehold, also, like a noose. Luca presses him back against the cold metal shelves like he wants to imprint him there, leave fingerprints on his soul as much as his skin. Pecco wants to do anything in his power to keep Luca here, in this moment, for as long as he possibly can.

“Say it,” Luca murmurs, dragging his lips down Pecco’s jaw. His hand tightens in Pecco’s hair, yanking his head back so their eyes meet. There’s something frantic in his gaze, something uncertain and desperate.

Pecco swallows, pulse jumping under his skin. Heat and hunger and fear tangled together. “I can feel it,” He whispers into Luca’s open mouth. 

Really, Pecco had thought, as Luca had sunk to his knees on the faded carpet, pulling Pecco’s pants all the way down with something like reverence , that zing at the base of his spine practically singing when he’d taken Pecco into his mouth. He’d known then, that it was a feeling you could only get when you were physically, mentally, emotionally connected to your soulmate.

It kind of just felt like Luca was running away.

[shousetsubangbang]

Signups are now open for the April 28 issue; the text deadline for the issue is Tuesday, April 15 and the art deadline is Saturday, April 26.

Please reply to this post if you plan to submit a story or artwork for this issue, indicating whether you are interested in contributing to the issue as an author and/or artist, and whether or not you are looking for a collaborative partner. As always, you don’t have to sign up to participate, and you’re not creating an unbreakable contract by signing up, but it’s always a good idea!

This issue’s theme is Quantum Entanglement: Our April issue is all about bringing things together, no matter how far apart they may be.

SPECIAL NOTE: Obviously there are a number of ways to interpret this theme, especially along isekai lines, and we’re happy to see all of them. However, for this issue, we’d especially like to encourage submissions that are “entangled” with other SSBB stories and art. One way to do this is to come back to older pieces: retelling a story from a different character’s point of view, writing a story based on a standalone illustration, or creating a radically different version of a story or illustration that already exists in our archives. Another way is to team up with other creators for this issue on completely new pieces and either collaborate on a single submission or create two (or more!) submissions that work as counterparts to one another. As always, stories have to stand alone and should not necessitate someone’s having read something else before — which should also mean that stories submitted together should be able to be read in any order and must be complete stories with a self-contained beginning, middle, and end. Note that this is not about continuing someone else’s story without their permission, much less just plain rewriting it. While you are welcome to use someone else’s work as a starting point, your finished product should be substantially different, yet still recognizably tied to the original. Works inspired by other SSBB pieces will have linked credit to their inspiration(s).

Quick Answers: Interested in participating but don’t know where to start? Bring your quick questions here!

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[saviouroflord]

About to start Hidden Inventory, pray for me

[rbrooksdesign]

∑FEETc: Divisor Matrix Table (DMT) 16, digital painting, May 16, 2025, Reginald Brooks

∑FEETc

*Fractal

*Entanglement

*Entropy

*Time

*Consciousness

[worldbuildingwanderlust]

I can taste you

On my lips

Despite the distance

I can feel you

On my thigh

From the other side

Of the world

When you exhale

I inhale

And in the silence

Of breath

We ascend

[entheognosis]

[awaitingrain]

A vampire and a werewolf? Get a grip.

Happy Halloween! 🎃🧡

Day 31: Spookycorp