#Yell Data Scraping

[hestzhyen]

On the Ao3 Data Scrape

Just some thoughts as someone who has a foot planted on both sides of the divide here. I'm a creative type who has a B.S. in tech and a career working with a wide variety of tech stacks. I love writing fan fiction and building my own PCs. I've written and read all my life, and I made a good living working with complex financial tech systems until the expectations of the field broke me. I still have a deep interest in tech though (especially where it intersects with policy and ethics). I understand the basic technical concepts that AI work off of. I've also followed the tech industry as a whole for many years not just as an enthusiast, but also as a necessity to have a career.

In the interest of transparency: while I acknowledge and actually look forward to the useful application of AI for future discovery purposes in sciences and mathematics, I have double the bias against it because it threatens both my career and my hobbies.

Alright... first up, let's figure out what I'm talking about.

"AI" is used to describe lots of things these days- virtual assistants, advanced data modeling, generative applications, pretty much anything that gets trained on a data set and set loose to perform some function in the world. I'm specifically focused on the third type mentioned: generative AI, the ChatGPTs and DeepAIs of the world. The type that hoover up art and text to generate a wide variety of output from user prompts, from answering questions to creating images to generating essays. User enters something like "what happened during the War of 1812" and the program spits out a response, first offering a summary then offering to go in-depth on certain topics. I've tried a few of these programs to see how they work and they do seem impressive at first glance. Then you realise you're one hallucination away from believing random bullshit that sounds convincing and it gets a bit uncomfortable.

Okay. But why Ao3 and fan works? Wouldn't these companies only want the highest quality stuff?

All types of AI are trained on as much data as possible- Gen AI isn't unique for using sketchy practices to acquire that data or consume a staggering amount of natural resources to do so. AI and exploitative practices are just the latest iteration of Silicon Valley's all-in bet on "move fast and break things" as a business model (i.e., act before regulators catch up, bribe lawmakers keep looking away until they can profitably give in to some ethical concerns as a concession, and offer insincere apologies a few years later if harm is proven to have been done). The quality of the data doesn't really matter all that much, it needs all of everything in order to account for all possible scenarios. Hence why amateur scribbles are gobbled up just as eagerly as a professional artist's portfolio, or why a fan fiction is worth offering up alongside the greatest literary classics. All of that information can be exchanged for money as a "training set".

What made Ao3 a particularly inviting target is the tagging system. Imagine a public repository of data that comes pre-tagged on the type of content it contains; the genre, sub-genres, and tropes invoked. It even has a pseudo ratings system (kudos+comments/hits ratio) to help roughly gauge the quality of an individual work, allowing for easy aggregation of types of works to target. Thousands of millions of works put out there for free! It doesn't matter that you'll get a bunch of Half Life: Full Life Consequence-tier stuff alongside a few works that are actually quite good. It's all valuable to help refine models- especially ones that want to communicate with users in a way that feels "natural" instead of like they're talking to a listener subroutine that will present output pulled from a constellation of data points spread across various data centres.

Maybe someone wants to create fan works that still appear authentic because they've got some charming flaws. Maybe they want to know what a typical fanfic for their favourite series/ship has in terms of content. Maybe they want to know what kind of fan art gets the most interactions what it looks like. So that's why Ao3 was scraped alongside amateur/hobby sites like Artfol, PaintBerri, and PaperDemon. It's basically a bunch of "amateur writer/artist" works collected into data sets for AI training.

As of writing this on May 7th 2025, the data sets for all the sites mentioned have been permanently disabled or deleted from the original site they were posted to. But that's not the same as the data being inaccessible for all-time.

The data sets were available for hours and they were downloaded for various purposes. Some people did it to see if their works or the works of others were scooped up. Other's motives are unknown.

The data sets were also spread to sites hosted in China and Russia, which notoriously do not respond to take-down requests from anyone aside from those country's governments. The Ao3 set is one of the ones that is still being distributed.

The person who did the scraping made their code publicly available for others to use or tune for their own needs. It can and will happen again.

So as a tech person, I understand why it happened. I'm not happy about it at all- I don't believe that AI models should be trained off of works that weren't negotiated for. I don't think AI has much business in the creative sphere at all honestly; artists, writers, and other creators are already struggling for proper recognition and compensation. Unfortunately many businesses see a chance to cut costs by having an AI model design their logos and write their PR statements instead of a real human being. The race to the almighty bottom dollar is being accelerated in real-time and many many people are getting left out in the cold in the pursuit. Even people like me -people with tech degrees and years of experience- are at risk as the models start getting good at various types of analysis- particularly risk and root cause. Why pay a salary + benefits or a consulting fee if an AI subscription can do it all?

All of this is both saddening and frightening. We're moving way too fast with no guard rails while the regulators aren't doing nearly enough. But as someone whose fanfics were scooped up in the Ao3 scrape... I'm really just fucking pissed.

Not even badly written smut is safe.

As a fan creator, I don't write analysis, impressions, fanfiction, collect data, or draw fan art to profit from it. Everything I do on here, Ao3, and in the LibreOffice suite or my sketchbook is out of pure love. Someone's creation inspired me to create something else and that's a wonderful thing, I think. Isn't that the heart of creating art, literature, any kind of media? Wanting to share ideas and inspiring others in turn?

But AI art isn't creating anything except more climate risks. It uses "training sets" curated without permission and takes out the human from the idea sharing process. My fanfiction about dudes getting railed is going to be a data point among billions to spit out some machine's best guess of what m/m erotica looks like. My very personal story based on my childhood SA experience is in there, too. That's not something I wanted to share with the world at large- only the very few people who would want to read that sort of account. I especially didn't want it to be rounded up and used to train an AI model for someone else's benefit.

Fan works are created from a place of adoration for the original work. To gather them up and claim that it's okay because they can't be copyrighted since they're derivative works (legally dubious argument, by the way) and feed some techbro's avarice is fucking anti-human.

Everything we make for joy and personal enrichment is made with bits of our own life stories. We put fragments of things we think, feel, and experience into everything- especially works of pure love for fandom. It's to do what the author of the original work did for us: get the idea out there, and inspire others in turn. Our own essence is not put out there so someone can avoid picking up a metaphorical pencil! It's not shared so someone can put it in a data set and sell it off without our knowledge or consent! It's especially not put out there to enable others avoid exploring their own potential while someone profits from providing easy, seemingly convincing results off those stolen bits of humanity! Art is not created to help others avoid creating art themselves yet still enjoy the benefits of it.

So that's where I'm at, I guess.

I don't need to be hired because AI's getting good at what I do for a living. My hobby isn't safe to share with everyone because it will get scraped and used for training AI too. So where do I go and what do I do?

Job front's terrifying right now and frankly I don't know what I can do to keep my house next year. As for my hobbies, well, I can restrict access. I opted out of Tumblr's data gathering and increased search engine visibility, and I'm not above closing shop if they are found to be selling the info after all. I locked my fics on Ao3 to logged in users only. I pretty much never share my sketches since it's a hassle anyway, and only on Tumblr. I use an open source applications suite that doesn't hoover up all my info to create all my fics and do data gathering. It's a goddamn shame that I'm incentivised to hide and lurk instead of participate in fandom if I want control over my own output. That's reality though.

Where's Ao3 at, though? I'm slightly confused where the official Ao3/OTW responses have been about this issue. The most helpful information I got was from a blog post on PaperDemon, who was also affected by the scrape. There's nothing on Ao3's official accounts about the incident that I can find. The most recent comment of any kind is buried in the April newsletter:

Not exactly the kind of response I was looking for. The initial mention in March was similarly vague and buried:

It might not even have anything to do with the scrape! Combined with them openly allowing AI-generated content, I wonder if there isn't a reason to find or make a different repository for fan works... I came across SquidgeWorld Archive, which looks like a fork of the OTW project. It might be worth considering.

I'm not going to let myself drown in hopelessness and stop creating stuff, but I don't feel great about it right now, I gotta admit. I wanted to share the joy with everyone who cared to check it out, not worry about who can see it and if they'll try to use it to put other creatives out of a job. Pilfering a community so selfless as fandom for such anti-human behaviour is awful and I wish there was a way to put a stop to it. But laws lag behind and there's no incentive for them to catch up, much less enforce what already exists, when techbro money is dangled with an implicit promise to look the other way.

I hope most people chose humanity being in charge of the business of self-expression, but with how under-valued the arts already are, who knows what will happen...

[ao3scrapesearch]

Alright! Sorry for being so absent today! I was building a tool so you can all check your own names on demand.

I am asking that you not talk about it on Hugging Face. I'm sure word will get there eventually, but I'd like to avoid them accessing this as much as possible. Feel absolutely free to spread around Tumblr.

AO3 search tool is here! Use page 1 to search scraped fics by username. Use page 2 to search by work ID (which you'll need to do if you're looking for an anonymous work).

In case this post breaches containment: this is a tool that only has access to the work IDs, titles, author names, and chapter counts of the scraped fics for this most recent scrape discovered in April 2025. There is no other work data in this tool. It originally also showed the number of hits at the time of the scrape, but I had to remove that since it was really slowing down the tool's loading. This never had the content of your works loaded to it, only info to help you check if your works were scraped.

Thanks to everyone who helped with the cost to host the tool! I appreciate you so so so much. As of this edit, I've received more donations than what I paid to make this tool so you do NOT need to keep sending money. (But I super appreciate everyone who did help fund this! I just wanna make sure we all know it's all paid for now.)

Please come yell if the tool stops working, and I'll fix as fast as I can. It's slow as hell, but it does load eventually. Give it up to 10 minutes, and if it seems down after that, please alert me via ask! Anons are on if you're shy.

The mobile view only works if you have the Power BI mobile app, which is kind of a silly thing for you to download if this is the only report you will ever load. The best alternative I can find is enabling screen rotation and turning your phone sideways. It's a litttttle easier to use like that.

At this time, I believe most of the fics that were missed were caused by deficiencies in the scraper's code. I will continue to research on that, and you guys will be the first to know if I find anything that seems to be an effective anti-scraping measure.

Some FAQs below the cut:

"What do I need to do now?": At this time, the main place where this dataset was shared is disabled. As far as I'm aware, you don't need to do anything, but I'll update if I hear otherwise.

"I don't want to know!": This tool is 100% optional. If you don't want to know, simply don't click the link. You are totally welcome to block me if it makes you feel more comfortable.

"Can I see the exact content they scraped?": Nope, not through me. I don't have the time to vet every single person to make sure they are who they say they are, and I don't want to risk giving a scraped copy of your fic to anyone else. If you really want to see this, you can find the info out there still and look it up yourself, but I can't be the one to do it for you.

"Are locked fics safe?": Not safe, but so far, it appears that locked fics were scraped less often than public fics. The only fics I haven't seen scraped as of right now are fics in unrevealed collections, which even logged-in users can't view without permission from the owner.

"My work wasn't a fic. It was an image/video/podfic.": You're safe! All the scrape got was stuff like the tags you used and your title and author name. The work content itself is a blank gap.

"It's slow.": Unfortunately, a 13 million row data dashboard is always going to be on the slow side. I think I've done everything I can to speed it up, but it may still take up to 10 minutes to load. It's faster if you can use desktop, but it should work on your phone too.

(Made some quick edits to the post on 04-May-2025 to update information a bit!)

[space-mouse]

note: algorithms like chatGPT don't get their training data from prompts. they scrape it from the internet at large. most people's published fanfic has likely ALREADY been scraped without their consent.

feeding someone's work to an AI to generate an ending doesn't add that work to the training data set. what it does is disrespect the author in the same way that a comment section full of "PLEASE UPDATE!!" does; it treats the author, a human being who has invested countless hours in their craft and makes fandom community possible by sharing their work for free, as a content-producing machine that isn't working fast enough.

when you do this to authors, they eventually stop writing fic for you.

…Do people realize that “AI” itself isn’t inherently “evil”, it’s what is being used to feed / being replaced by ai which is the problem. 

Taking someone’s art without their permission and putting it into an AI generator in order to create what you want is wrong because you’re essentially using their art without their permission and for the purpose of avoiding paying them for a comission. 

The Spiderverse crew training their own AI to assist with the production of the movie is not theft, it is merely treating the AI as a tool used to help the animators. 

Taking someone’s unfinished fanfic and plugging it into an AI to generate the ending of it is messed up because you’re training the AI with someone’s creation that they didn’t consent to. 

Someone plugging their own writing into an AI in order to have the AI spit back writing in their style, while controversial within the writing community, is technically not stealing anyone’s content. 

I see a lot of posts that are like “ew we hate AI because it sucks. It can’t draw hands right. It only writes predictable plot points” okay but what about when it doesn’t. What about when it gets to the point where it can produce content that is indistinguishable from something purely human made. Then what. It’s not how it looks, or how it feels, that’s the issue, it’s the fact that stolen content and replaced labor are happening. It happens with any automated process. AI is a tool. It’s what happened with automation. Instead of humans having to do 100% of the work, automation helps so things are less strenuous for people. Did some people lose their jobs? Yes. Have we learned from this mistake as a society and provided either pay raises or alternate employment for these people? No. 

[sailorsoons]

Still Watching? (l. c)

PAIRING: Lee Chan x f. Reader 

SUMMARY: Blood and Popcorn with your newly minted boyfriend is your favorite. Except now you watch a lot less Buffy and a lot more of Chan. 

WC: 2,153

AU: Established Relationship, PWP

GENRE: Smut

RATING: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging in and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.

WARNINGS: Shameless pwp, explicit language, explicit sexual content including nipple play, vaginal fingering, a little bit of teasing/edging, cheesy banter. 

A/N: Happy Valentine's day pt II the remix! As always, thank you to @daechwitatamic for beta reading this :)

A/N 2: This is the same couple from Blood & Popcorn but you do not need to read the first story to read this one :) This was originally posted on my old blog.

MASTERLIST | PERMANENT TAG LIST | ASK

“HONESTLY, IT'S SO OBVIOUS THIS SHOW WAS WRITTEN BY A MAN,” You mutter, watching as Buffy yells at Xander. “He wants to be a hero for her soooo bad.”

“Xander is the worst,” Chan sighs. You rise and fall with his chest, your back pressed against his front where you lay against him. His knees cage you in on either side of your hips, your ass planted firmly between his legs with his arms around your middle, fingers playing with the hem of your shirt. “He really thinks he should win the girl just because he’s a nice guy.” 

“Truly, he has like… very few other qualities than being a nice guy.” 

He hums. “At least Spike knows he’s an asshole. It’s guys like Xander who think just because they’re not blatantly awful that it makes them dateable.” 

“A lot of guys think that.” 

“Mhmm. I’m a rare breed.” 

You crane your neck to look up at him. You can hear and feel the steady thud of his heart, smell the hint of aftershave and menthol from his shower earlier, feel the heat of his skin. It makes you a little dizzy and you unfocus on the screen, studying the gentle curve of Chan’s mouth. 

“You’re surely something,” you mutter in response, grinning a little as you look away toward the screen. His fingers slip under your shirt, skimming your waist. You suppress a shiver, suddenly hyper aware of the way his fingers scrape against you. 

“I’m a nice guy and I know that it takes more than being a decent human being to get the girl.”

“Oh yeah? Remember the time it took four years to confess your feelings to me? What do you know, Lee Chan?”

“Hmm. Data is insufficient. Need more evidence regarding that specific example.” 

For a moment, you’re unable to respond, lids fluttering as Chan continues to caress your lower stomach and hips. His touch is completely innocent, no suggestion that he intends anything. That he means anything. It’s a motion that is instinctual for him, so naturally to have his hands on you that it almost makes it worse. 

Just knowing how easy it is for him to love you never fails to surprise you. You don’t know how you never saw it before. 

Now it seems silly to have ever thought that Chan was anything less than in love with you. It’s in the way he naturally gravitates toward you in every room. It’s in the way he can be totally focused on something else, but his hand reaches out for you, not even really noticing that he’s seeking you out. It’s  in the way that you mold so perfectly into his chest, made to be there. 

“You don’t know your own data?” you shoot back eventually, snuggling a little closer to him. If you could crawl into his hoodie, you would. For now, this is fine. “Seems like you don’t know much.” 

“Hmm?” His fingers stop moving. You feel the question hum against you. “I don’t know much?” 

“Nope.”

Your heart starts to pick up. Chan’s fingers start stroking your skin again but you feel the difference. His blunt nails scrape across your skin, raising goosebumps on your arms. He skims his hands higher and back down, touch light over your ribs. Every time his fingers dance up your side, his reach goes a little higher. 

A tightness forms in your throat. You try to keep your breathing even and will yourself not to squeeze your thighs. You are pressed too close to him for him not to tell if you squirm. Chewing your lip, you stare at the screen totally unseeing. 

“Hm.” Chan’s deep hum hints at trouble. You feel your hands get clammy. “I think I know some things. Like for example…” He trails off for a moment, hand brushing under your left breast. Your teeth dig into your bottom lip, fighting a twitch. “I know that your favorite color on me is green.” 

“Green is a good color on anyone.”

“I know that you like the feeling…” His hand skates low this time, fingers dancing dangerously against the waistband of your shorts. “Of high thread count sheets.”

You snort. “Everyone likes good sheets, Chan.” 

“Good sheets are important,” he agrees. You feel him trace his pointer finger back up with deadly accuracy, following the swell of your breast upward, skating so close to your nipple that you stop breathing. “Everything alright? You stopped breathing.”

“What?” you squeak. “Oh, yep. I am great.” 

“I don’t know, baby. Are you feeling well? You seem… warm.”

Chan presses his palm flat to your chest, fingers splayed wide. His palm is warm and rough, his touch igniting a fire inside of you. The heat spreads outward, licking at every one of your nerves and setting them ablaze. 

In an effort to ignore him, you lick your lips and say, “Never felt better. I like her boots.” 

His chuckle is low. Throaty. You’re barely holding it together, feeling the ache between your thighs at the firmness of his touch. “See, I don’t know a lot about women’s fashion. But I do know those are not boots. Just like I know you’re not paying attention to the show, Bambi.”

You blink and stare at the TV. Chan’s right. Buffy is in sneakers, though in your unfocused haze they had been blurry and looked like boots from a distance. You swallow down the dryness in your throat, Chan’s hand still pressed flat and warm against your chest. 

“I know that your heart is pounding,” Chan murmurs, voice barely audible as he presses his mouth by your ear. Your eyes flutter shut. “I know that you’re trying really hard not to squeeze those thighs.” 

“You can’t possibly know that.” 

To prove his statement true, Chan’s thumb brushes upward, skating gently over a nipple. On command, your thighs squeeze and you feel the shake of his laughter behind you. 

“I know everything about you, Bambi.” His voice brushes against you like his soft touch. You melt, feeling your weight sink into him further. “I know that you don’t share your food with anyone but me. I know that your favorite episode of Buffy is Hush. I know that you think Buffy should end up with Spike. I know that you are probably soaked right now because being caressed drives you crazy.” 

“Insufficient data,” you breathe. “I recommend research.” 

“You know what? Agreed.” 

Chan moves fast. His hand moves from your chest to between your legs, hands slipping under the waistband of your shorts and panties before you can blink. Your lips part, a breathy noise escaping you as Chan drags a slow finger up your sticky folds. 

“What do you know,” he observes. His fingers idly trail up and down your slit, making you twitch against him. “I was right. Do I win anything?” 

“I thought you said nice guys shouldn’t just win the girl.” 

Chan presses his fingers firmly to your clit, a ripple of pleasure ebbing through you. Your hips lift off the couch slightly but he pushes you back down into his lap, other hand looping around your waist to lock you to him. “Maybe I’m not that nice.”

Slowly, he starts to retract his hand. You whimper, both of your hands shooting to grab the wrist belonging to the hand between your legs. He pauses, fingers pressed between your folds. “You are nice!” 

“Oh?”

“Very nice. You’re my very nice, very sweet boyfriend.” 

“I see.” 

He doesn’t move his hand at all. The space is filled with the low hum of Buffy fighting vampires, the blue flash of the screen falling against your silhouettes, body to body as he holds you tight. You try to get control of your racing heart, but that’s never been easy around Chan.

He knows it.  

“Maybe you know some things,” you admit slowly. “Maybe I was wrong.”

Chan’s resounding chuckle is dangerous, but he slides his hand back down. You loosen your grip on his wrist but keep your hands resting on his forearm, feeling the muscle flex under your fingertips as his fingers resume their debauched exploration. 

“See, that’s another thing I know. I know you hate being wrong, so if you’re wrong… it was because you were doing so intentionally.”

His words fall on unlistening ears. You’re too worked up by the simple way he plays you, too focused on the way his fingers gently circle your clit, the perfect stimulation. Too distracted by the way he dips his head down to sweep his mouth across your throat in open-mouthed kisses. 

“I know you’re… not listening.” He stops and you let out a strangled sound, nails digging into his arms. He presses a wet kiss to your pulse point. “Didn’t think so.”

“Chan.” 

“Hmm?”

“Please don’t tease me.”

“Why not? You were teasing me.” 

You pout. He can’t see it, but you know he knows it’s there. “I like to tease you. I have to keep you humble.” 

A long moan slips from your lips and you tilt your head back to Chan’s shoulder when he presses a finger into your aching cunt. You feel yourself twitch around him, hips swiveling for more friction. 

“Humble? How are you ever going to keep me humble when this pussy gets this wet after I’ve barely touched you?”

Well that’s true. You don’t care, though, turning boneless as Chan strokes you with his fingers properly. It feels so good. Only he knows how to touch you like this, familiar with every button to press and every contour to mold to. 

Heat flushes your neck. Chan presses his lips against your cheek, working your cunt with his fingers as he holds you steadfast. It feels like you might suffocate, totally trapped against him. His skin and breath are hot against you, the air thick. He breathes out a groan when your hips buck upward, Chan dropping all pretext of teasing you.

“Like that,” he breathes, heavy. “Do it exactly how you like it.”

Another finger drives you wild. You fumble over his name, squeezing your eyes shut and meeting the quick strokes of his hand. His palm presses firmly against your clit, letting you grind yourself against him for the extra stimulation. 

You burn up. Briefly you wonder if this flash of euphoric heat is what Icarus felt before the fall. The thought is chased away from the intense pressure in your stomach as Chan presses up against that spot inside you, making stars burst behind your eyes.

“Wait - I’m gonna come in my shorts,” you whine, realizing you still have them on. “Chaaaan.”

“So come in them,” he says simply. “Research has revealed that you have a washer and dryer down the hall, baby. Go ahead.” 

“Fuuuuck.” 

“Come for me. I know you want to.” 

You do want to. A moment of static builds up, your thighs squeezing around his hand so hard he can’t move and then you’re coming around his fingers, your nails biting into the skin of his wrist. His grip across your waist is like iron, holding you to him as you come undone. 

Chan’s mouth presses gentle kisses on your jaw, muttering soft I love yous and fuck yeahs against your burning skin. The burning doesn’t stop, your body flushed with heat as you sink away from your orgasm, turning to molten metal and melting into his hold. 

He leaves you like that for a few minutes, thighs shaking around the hand still shoved between your legs, fingers pressed deep inside of you. It feels intimate, and you crane your neck, driven by the desire to kiss him. Chan’s lips are already there because he knew you would want his lips against yours. 

Just like he knows everything about you. 

Chan’s lips are soft and gentle. His tongue brushes against yours in a slow dance and you lean up into him more, desperate for him. He laughs into the kiss, letting you have your way until you’re panting, sweaty and out of breath again. 

You sag, head on his shoulder as you pant. “Your fingers are still in me.”

“Mhm.” He presses them in harshly, making you jolt. It earns a deep laugh from him. “Maybe we should call this Popcorn & Pussy instead. We’ve barely gotten through a full night of episodes since we started dating.”

“Are you aware you make the worst jokes?” You open your eyes and glance at the screen, only to find that the show has paused between episodes, asking if you’re still watching and if you want to continue. “Are you still watching? No, Buffy. I’m not.”

“No problem.” Chan pulls his hand from between your legs, the wet squelch making you whimper. “I have something else you can watch.” 

“Oh?” 

Chan kisses your temple sweetly before getting up, letting you fall back against the couch while he kneels on the couch and pulls your legs toward his face. You inhale deeply, watching as he looks up through long lashes, a smirk on his face. “Still watching, Bambi?” 

PERMANENT TAGLIST:

@ddaddunugu @ourkivee @tie-nn @cookiearmy21-blog @thesunsfullmoon @stray-bi-kids @ldysmfrst @thepoopdokyeomtouched@eoieopda @onlywon4u @hopeless-foolery @iamawkwardandshy@gyuguys @codeinebelle @ateez-atiny380 @bultaereume @yoongznme @kaitieskidmore97 @coffee-addict-kitten @gyubakeries@archivistworld @asyre @kaepjjangiya @fancypeacepersona@beckyloveshannie @imujings @do-you-remember-summer-127 @jbluen@mingumi @kimsaerom @imlonelydontsendhelp @ddaddunugu @ourkivee @tie-nn @cookiearmy21-blog @thesunsfullmoon @stray-bi-kids @ldysmfrst @thepoopdokyeomtouched@eoieopda @onlywon4u @hopeless-foolery @iamawkwardandshy@gyuguys @codeinebelle @ateez-atiny380 @bultaereume @yoongznme @kaitieskidmore97 @coffee-addict-kitten @gyubakeries@archivistworld @asyre @kaepjjangiya @fancypeacepersona@beckyloveshannie @imujings @do-you-remember-summer-127 @jbluen @mingumi @kimsaerom @imlonelydontsendhelp

[transmechanicus]

look this is really probably unnecessary, but I've seen tons of posts about how everyone is mad about the page that's going to post unmasked pics of the st guys and how outrageously disrespectful it is to them and well... I gotta say that it's just not that deep.

it's been pointed out that they've only ever said that 'their identities aren't important to the music or the story'. and that's it in terms of the "extreme lengths" they go to hide their identities.

i'm a regular follower of the reddit page where their identities are openly discussed and there is a decent amount of evidence that one of them or someone from their team lurks there and plays around a little with that community. ie, a few of the recent "the summoning solo shenanigans" were suggested in that thread and then seen on stage the next show. but who knows.

some of the guys are actually still participating in other media to a small extent. one of them still streams with a friend on twitch often. one of them just put out some older official music project on Spotify. one of them gets his new tattoos posted unmasked on his tattoo artist's page.

look, I'm not saying that this person who plans to bring this stuff to Tumblr shouldn't be warned about and of course everyone should have the opportunity to block and avoid it to keep their experience of the band how they prefer. that's no question how it should be.

but like... everyone is saying that this person who's starting the unmasked blog is like, evil and so disrespectful to the band. and I think that's just not right. it's their right to start whatever kind of page they want. it's everyone else's right to avoid it.

like I said, this is not really going anywhere, and it's not personal, I just have seen so many people bashing that person on a personal level and I just gotta tell someone, it's not that deep. thank you for reading

To me it is that deep, from what i’ve heard there was a major panic on Instagram in 2023 bc freaks were using info on there to harass II and his family. Hell he still alters his voice in videos, which you only do if you’re concerned someone is dedicated enough to scrape the internet with audio of your vocal patterns. I’ve seen video footage of Vessel cussing out a guy at a festival for yelling real names in the audience. There is direct evidence that the band members dislike off-stage info being known and shared, and that a portion of Sleep Token’s fanbase cannot be trusted to respect the secrecy that allows the band members to live comfortable lives relatively peacefully and out of the public eye.

In my personal opinion, your examples of how they’re still on other social media, and that you know that info abt them are reinforcement of my dislike for unmasked data aggregates. Unless the tattoo artist’s posts or the twitch stream is tagged #SleepToken there is probably a reasonable expectation that they don’t want band related attention for those things. Even if somebody does recognize them as the band members, it would be a minority population if it weren’t for subreddits and archives directly connecting dots between those things and Sleep Token, which is presumably why you have that info yourself in the first place.

By aggregating and collecting unmasked info, a resource is being provided that essentially says “Hey i know these guys have almost entirely retreated from the internet for their own safety and comfort…but here’s their names and faces and loved ones and colleagues and past projects and every little activity they do in their spare time. All gathered together and directly tagged and marked in relation to the band they’ve purposefully tried to anonymize and distance their real lives from”.

It’s stalker behavior, it’s unhealthy, it could be genuinely dangerous for the members if the wrong person made use of it, and i reserve the right to passionately condemn it.

[andmaybegayer]

Look if you have never written a robots.txt I think you might not have a reasonable understanding of how AI training data is collected and what controls it is possible to enact. Everything on your Tumblr is and has been fair game for the entire internet to see forever unless you password protected it.

I get why everyone is yelling about this, because loudly complaining about AI is what's cool, but your data has probably been scraped by OpenAI years ago.

[taleeater]

Dangerously Stupid Part 2

Part 1

Donatello felt he was in a daze. He had checked himself top to bottom and found no concussion (thankfully) and nothing more than a few scrapes and bruises. So that ruled out brain injury as the source for why he couldn’t focus on any of his work in the full day since. He kept getting distracted by…. You. 

Donnie has a device that picks up the signal from any cell phone or smart device he comes within 30 feet of while out on patrol, and automatically registers the information of that device into his system. This comes in handy when the need arises to erase any photos or data that may come up on these phones involving him or his brothers, and to monitor the whereabouts of any thugs or civilians they may come in close contact with. Meaning, he had your phone number, right on his screen in front of him. He knew this may seem creepy but it was for security purposes, and Leo said he always needed to monitor any civilians that got close to them for safety. That was his job. And also his job to find your current location registered on your phone in your apartment. …..And your wifi network, and your laptop currently hooked up to said wifi network. It showed you were actively using it. He wrestled with himself for a moment about respecting your privacy, but curiosity got the better of him, and he quickly took a peek at what you were currently looking at on your screen. ……It was a google search on how to give yourself stitches from home. What??? Surely you weren’t- were you scrolling through poorly drawn reference pictures on a wiki-how page?!?! You then switched to another tab and googled ‘can I use a sewing needle and thread to give myself stitches’. Donnie paled. The next search: ‘how to disinfect thread’. 

He put his face in his hands and groaned. Did you not go to the hospital last night?!?! What were you thinking? He looked back up and noticed the screen had been idle for a few minutes and he was getting really worried. He quickly hacked your laptop camera, privacy be damned- to take a look to see if you were okay. The image that was brought up was an empty chair, and in the background was a cozy warm looking apartment. But there was no movement. You hadn’t fainted out of your chair had you?! He was starting to panic when you suddenly came back into screen, moving slowly and almost falling back into your chair wearing the same pants you wore last night. You had on a small tank top with the strap down, and a bloodied white towel slung over your injured shoulder, carrying armfuls of supplies that you set down on your desk by your computer with shaking hands. You looked far more pale than you had last night.

“Alright let's see…. Next it says to soak the thread and needle in the disinfectant for about 10 minutes…. I hope the thread is long enough. Hmmm… I don’t have sterile gloves so hopefully washing my hands well is good enough…” You thought out loud to yourself. Donnie was about to smash his head on his desk from your careless words. He couldn’t take it anymore. 

“What the SHELL do you think you’re DOING?!?!” After a few quickly typed commands he was patched into your laptop’s audio and yelling into his microphone, causing you to jump- startled from where you were about to reach into the bowl of disinfectant to grab the needle after only 5 minutes. You instinctually started to lower the volume on your laptop, cursing about ads on these websites always popping up and surprising you. 

“No no no! I’m not an ad- wait a minute-” Donatello quickly typed in some more buttons and your screen froze to allow his webcam feed to pop up and take over your screen, making you gasp and almost fall out of your chair. “Stop that! You’re doing to hurt yourself- well, more than you already are. You’re going to give yourself an infection!! What were you thinking-”

“IT’S YOU!!!” You shouted in surprise, holding onto your desk so you didn’t fall. If not for the deep cut still oozing from your shoulder and the attempted robbery from last night rerunning on the 6 o’clock news, you would have assumed you had dreamed of your fated meeting with the large turtle men. After waking up in a cold sweat on your couch late that afternoon, you had instead decided to focus on giving yourself first aid. “How did you- what?” You babbled trying to figure out why the purple masked man’s face was currently lecturing you from your computer screen. A worrying wave of lightheadedness made you grip your desk tighter.

“I hacked your computer. Anyways, WHY AREN’T YOU AT THE HOSPITAL?!!!” Donnie shouted in exasperation. He barely registered the sound of his lab door opening as his shouting probably attracted the attention of one of his brothers. 

You stared at him blankly for a moment, waiting for your brain to restart and register his questions after the shock of getting to see him again. “I… I don’t have health insurance.” You said a bit bluntly, settling back into your chair heavily, and bracing your good arm against your desk as a new wave of nausea overtook you from your racing heartbeat. 

“....what was that?” Donnie quickly turned around to acknowledge Leo, who had entered the door and taken up a spot leaning against the back of Donnie’s chair watching the interaction play out. At least of all his family, his most level headed brother had come in. 

You still heard the faint question and continued. “My new job… I just moved to New York two months ago for my new job. They promised me a good starting salary and a full time position, but after only 3 weeks they started cutting back on my hours. They don’t pay benefits to part timers, so I’ve already lost access to my health insurance. ….They really screwed me over, so I’m just working for them until I find a new job. I really, really, can’t afford a hospital visit after this expensive move, so….” You gently motioned to the white towel on your shoulder, a startling spot of red starting to seep through. Leo recognized the location of the wound from last night. The two brothers felt their gut clench remembering how you had gotten it. In defense of Donnie’s life. 

You were starting to slouch more over your desk, your head spinning, and your laptop’s microphone now picking up your labored breathing. Leo could see the red flush drain from your face, and Donnie recognized the symptoms. Most likely, you were about to lose consciousness. 

“Wait wait wait, hold on stay with me.” Donnie quickly ordered you through his mic, his tone becoming more serious. He quickly typed into his keyboard, now understanding the situation a bit more, and the gravity of your condition. “Do you have any roommates, anyone staying with you right now?” With a level tone he asked you some standard questions to keep you conscious as he robotically pulled up your current address. Leo had already left the room to rally their brothers and gather the first aid kit, clearly already on the same page.

“…. no. Just me.” You said quietly, now focusing entirely too much on staying upright. You really felt like you were going to throw up now. But you were too busy wracking your dizzy brain for what his name was…. D…. Donna… Donnie…. “Donatello?” You said out loud, trying to focus.

“Yes, (y/n?)” He quickly answered as he continued to quickly type something on his keyboard, he was glancing between you and another screen at his desk every other second. You smiled. He remembered your name. “We are coming to see you. If you can, try to leave your window unlocked, and go lie down on your couch or your bed. What is your apartment number?” He was quick and clear with his orders, speaking like a true doctor, you thought blearily. But you were too out of it to question how or why he was coming over.

“Mmm… Room 517, 6th floor.” Gosh why did you ever think you could do this on your own. You suddenly felt really stupid. You were trying to take care of yourself so you wouldn’t have to rely on your family for help with medical bills, but now you were just causing problems for the kind hero you met last night. “I’m sorry Donnie… I think I’m gonna pass out.” You said apologetically, head going to rest tiredly on your table next to your computer. You could distinctly hear the sound of the city filtering in through your cracked open window behind you in the living room. Your dizzy spell gripping you much stronger than it had earlier when you had first moved to stand after sleeping all night on the couch. The next thing you hear is the rattle of plastic wheels scooting as presumably Donatello was standing from his desk.

“Don’t be sorry. We’re coming to help you now, okay? Just try to stay awake.” There was a whoop and some excited chattering in the background now and some more keys being hit from his consol. “I’ll see you soon.” Came the quick but warm reply from the purple masked turtle as his webcam feed disappeared from your laptop. 

A silence hung in the room. As if it had never happened. You shifted to look up at the screen detailing a poorly drawn cartoon image of a needle poking at the edge of a wound looking back at you, and groaned audibly. Burying your dizzy head back into your good arm for a moment, you tried to sit up to go move to the couch to wait, careful not to bump into the bowl of antiseptic holding your good sewing needle and black thread. Only moments earlier you were about to try and sew up your shoulder like you were hemming a new pair of pants, only to be caught by one of this city’s apparent mutant super heroes you had met only just last night. And now he was coming here. To help you. 

Feeling another huge wash of dizziness pass over you, almost making your knees buckle as you stumbled over to the couch, you felt a larger twinge of pain in your shoulder again. Taking a seat on the cheap couch cushion, you reached up to move the towel you had soaked in the antiseptic aside to inspect the wound. You must’ve stretched the skin when you were startled earlier, because the wound was leaking deep red again as a small trail started to escape down your arm before you could stop it. Must’ve been deeper than you thought. 

That was your last thought before you passed out, head lightly falling against the couch.

✨✨✨✨✨

“Are we almost there yet?? Ow!” Mikey called out ahead to Donnie before getting the back of his head smacked by Raphael. They were racing across rooftops making a beeline for your apartment building. Donatello, who usually gave sassy directions from the rear, was silent and serious leading the charge with Leo close behind carrying their largest portable first aid kit. 

Leo was keeping a close eye on his younger brother. When he walked by Don’s lab earlier, attracted by the shouting, he was startled to find his younger brother was talking to the person who had saved him the night before. Before he could question why, or get into his lecture about the dangers of contacting a human they only just met, he saw the look on his brother’s face. Donnie’s expression was beyond distressed. His usually level headed brother was shouting and worried because a civilian who was kind enough to step in and take a hit for him while he was down was- from what it looked like- still bleeding, almost 18 hours after the attack. And even worse from what he heard walking in, had no means of access to medical attention. He could understand Donnie’s frustration, but he was still surprised his brother had gotten this worked up.

“Hey…. Donnie,” Leo called out. “Everything alright…?” He said just low enough that it wouldn’t draw the attention of their brothers.

Donnie knew what he was getting at, so he cut right to the point. “I caught them before they could try and suture their own wound. With a sewing needle.” Donnie took a very very deep sigh. “By following a wiki-how tutorial.” Leo almost tripped off the building.

“….what?” He responded smartly. 

There was a loud snort from behind them. “Sounds badass.” Raph deadpanned and Mikey wore an expression of surprise followed by a quietly muttered ‘dude…’

Donnie groaned audibly. Thankfully your apartment building was now in sight. “I need to make sure their wound is properly disinfected before stitching it up. It’s the least I can do…” He thought back to last night. The long stare you two shared, and the concern and lack of fear you held for him in your eyes. He longed to see those eyes again… 

The building next to yours was at just the perfect height to leap across from the roof to your room’s fire escape. Leo was the first to land and give the all clear for his brothers to follow. Leo opened the window and stepped in just barely before Donnie practically toppled him over pushing past him to get inside. Snatching the first aid kit off Leo’s shoulder, Donnie quickly found your still form on the couch. 

“Right… we’ll stand guard. You’ll let us know if you need any help, okay Don?” Leo offered. Mikey pushed in through the window and made a beeline for the fridge, and Raph took a seat on the windowsill peaking in curiously.

“Yeah, Leo.” Donnie knelt quietly next to your form on the couch. All his attention was already on you.

 Leo went to stand around the living room trying to find the walls interesting while occasionally glancing at Donnie’s work, trying to stay out of the way.

Don checked you over, breath taken seeing your face again up close in the warm light of your apartment. Your breathing was deep and steady. Good. A little sweat on your brow, he looked down to see angry inflamed red skin peaking over your bare shoulder. He carefully moved the towel, stained in dried blood, and winced as the fabric pulled unstuck from the sticky bloody wound. 

You flinched, and Donnie felt his breath catch in his throat. But you did not awake, so he swallowed and signed, reaching down to open his medkit and take out a disinfecting wipe. The little damp pad unfolded and he carefully began to clean away the dried and sticky blood from around your cut so he could get a better look at the damage. There was definitely irritation but he hoped that no infection had taken hold yet. Next he disinfected his hands and pulled out his suture kit, and with practiced ease began to stitch up your shoulder. 

About 15 minutes later, and about 10 stitches into fixing you up, your eyelids fluttered open. The poking and pulling around your painfully sensitive cut had finally woken you up. You still felt dizzy and light headed, so made no sudden movements. Glancing down you saw the light reflecting off of a large polished shell. That’s right, Donnie. You still had a hard time grasping your current situation. Maybe you were in a fever dream. But there was the strangely handsome face of a mutant turtle sewing up your shoulder with his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in focus. His large goggles down over his eyes and a portable lamp light over his shoulder illuminating his work. 

You felt the poke of a new stitch and this time flinched with a little muttered “Ouch!” and suddenly you were blinded by the light hitting your face as Donnie startled and turned to face you. 

“Oh! You’re awake! Um… Sorry I’m uh… not quite done yet. I hope this is okay-” He quickly mumbled. His free hand that braced your shoulder gave an encouraging squeeze. 

You blinked a moment as your eyes adjusted to the light. He glanced back at his work and back to you and you nodded twice. 

“I need you to hold still for just a few more minutes, I’m just about finished. Okay? It’s going to sting a little.”

“...yeah. Got it.” You nodded, feeling your head quickly clear up as you felt the pinch and sting of the needle again, bracing yourself to hold still while your brows tensed from the discomfort.

You looked around your room to distract yourself from the pain. Looking across your coffee table you saw one of the other turtle mutants, the one wearing the blue bandana and caught his eyes for a moment before he quickly averted them to pretend he wasn’t staring. But after a moment he looked back at you and offered a quick nod in greeting. You supposed he might be a little shy and was trying to hide it. By your window you also caught the large cracked shell of another one. He glanced over his shoulder and met your eyes, studying you for a moment as you also took in the scar on his lips and the toothpick, before he also nodded at you with a little ‘hey’ in greeting. 

“Yo, is dudette awake? Morning sleeping beauty!” An energetic orange masked turtle man, holding a half full can of your soda, practically jumped into your line of sight, startling you a bit with a gasp. “You remember me? I’m Mik- Ouch! Leo!!” The blue masked turtle called Leo smacked him on the back of his head to quiet him with a shush.

“Mikey, I’m still working. Don’t freak them out.” Donnie quickly added, making sure you weren’t gonna move again before continuing.

“Yeah genius, your ugly mug almost made em’ pull a stitch. Save the dramatic introductions for later.” The red masked turtle sneered at Mikey. You vaguely recalled him being named ‘Raph’.

Leo, Raph, Mikey, and… “Donnie?”

You caught yourself saying out loud, making said turtle jump a little.

“Y-Yes, (y/n)?” He stuttered as he helped carefully pull you into a sitting position. The stitches were finished and it was time to wrap the wound. He reached into his bag and pulled out a package of fresh gauze.

You carefully watched him unwrap the gauze, his hands slightly shaking. “How do you know each other?” You asked him, meeting his eyes, then looking over to the others spread out in your living room.

“Brothers. We’re brothers.” Leo answered helpfully. 

“Brothers… that makes sense…” You considered how they all acted around each other and smiled warmly, looking back to meet Donnie’s eyes.

He was lifting up his goggles back to the top of his head and his eyes widened at your expression. He turned away to put his tortoiseshell glasses back in place, clearing his throat. 

“Yes, they’re… my brothers.” He tentatively smiled back at you, and began to wrap up your shoulder. 

You watched him thoughtfully for a moment, and glanced over at his brothers now quietly arguing about something over by the window. Mikey quickly looked back over at you with a bright smile before turning back to the conversation animatedly and shushing his brothers a little, earning him a smack as Raph and Leo both also shared a look with you briefly. You raised a curious brow at the antics. They were like gossiping school kids… definitely brothers.

“Hey Donnie… Sorry for causing you all trouble like this. …I didn’t want to involve anyone and thought I could handle it myself.” You said looking down. “....Thank you for coming to my rescue.” You looked up to meet his gaze and smiled at him.

“No no, this is…. It’s the least I could do. After all, I should be the one thanking you. You got this injury from coming to my rescue, I…. Thank you.” His hands stilled a moment in the midst of his wrapping and gave you a shy smile. He looked kind. 

Donnie finished the rest of the wrapping slowly, fastening the end in place carefully. 

“Um… You should change the wrapping every other day. Call me if there’s any trouble, like puffy redness around the stitches or if it starts bleeding or starts to show signs of infection-”

“Hey-” Leo suddenly cuts Donnie off, making you both look over to him where he was emerging from the group huddle. 

“How about, we come back- *ahem* Donnie, comes back again to check on you in a few days. Does… that sound good?” He asked carefully. Mikey jumping around excitedly in the background and getting a playful push from a grinning Raph. You turned with a raised eyebrow to Donatello. He was currently gawking at his older brother, glancing back between you and the blue leader. You couldn’t help but giggle a little at the antics.

“...Sure. I’d love that. If… you don’t mind, that is?” You asked the flustered purple masked mutant.

“I- I- Yes. Yes, of course. It would be my pleasure. Um. S- Next Saturday then? If you’re free?” He gathered himself and asked you kindly.

“That would be perfect.” You smiled widely, taking his hand in both of yours. “It would be nice to see you when neither of us are in danger for a change.” 

Donnie’s eyes seemed to soften as he looked at you warmly. “I would like that. Very much.” He held your hands back softly as he rose from his seat beside you. His brothers were already starting to filter out through the window, except for Mikey who was hooting and hollering quietly before getting bodily pulled through the window by his two older brothers. 

“So… next Saturday night? 9pm?”

“I’ll be here.” You responded, following him to the window. He carefully climbed out onto your balcony. He waved a final goodbye to you as he perched on the railing, and with a mighty jump, he leapt out of sight. You lunged for the railing where he just stood, looking out above you hearing whoops and cheers from the brothers as you caught a final sight of them running over the city skyline. And with a deep breath of the cool night air, you sighed in relief that you weren’t dreaming. 

Leo, Raph, Mikey, and

Donatello. You’ll have to remember that. You thought with a grin.

To the people who wanted to be updated when part 2 was released. Sorry for the long wait!! Thanks for the support!

@saspas-corner @misfortunekeep @valen-yamyam16 @genesis378

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

any particular reason youre not using GDocs? I didnt use to, but since getting my shit stolen ive chosen the lesser evils of CLOUD

I just generally try to use google as little as possible. (Which reminds me, I need to find a new email provider). I generally avoid cloud services just for grumpy old person reasons; they're fiddly and keep changing the rules and I'm not a fan of the sorts of "conveniences" such things tend to offer.

I'm not sure how the cloud makes it harder to have your work stolen. I don't think there's any particular danger to storing stories on the cloud unless you're particularly overzealous about protecting your work from the potential of future AI scraping (google absolutely are capable of using cloud-stored documents for this if they choose to do so, they already scan your emails for keywords to know what to sell you, any 'privacy' they offer applies to outsiders getting your data, not them using or selling it themselves), but just technically speaking it's far easier to get your work stolen if you store your drafts on the internet. I mean, that's where people are stealing it from. If they're stealing your devices to steal your work, the cloud doesn't help because pretty much everyone has their devices set to auto-login for things they use every day (like accessing your drafts). I just can't see a situation in which using the cloud makes your data safer than storing it at home.

I don't use gdocs because I don't like google, have a personal dislike of cloud services (just for Old Man Yells At Cloud stupid reasons), and it just... doesn't offer me anything I'd need. I can't see any advantage to using gdocs, I already have libreoffice. Why would I put myself in a situation where I need internet access to write? It doesn't offer me anything useful that my own computer doesn't already have.

I work between two computers (my desktop and my laptop, depending on if I'm writing in bed or not) and transfer files between them on a flash drive, so I have three reasonably up-to-date copies of my draft at all times. I also queue updates onto my site frequently so if there's a housefire or something almost all my work is uploaded to both Wordpress and Patreon, waiting to be released to the public, and easily retrievable. So losing my work isn't a concern.

[milkywayes]

dreamt a cipher

a shepard/garrus post-destroy ending longfic.

[AO3 link]

I’ve debated a while about when to start posting this. Now it’s the new year, and I’ve been working on Cipher for over a year and a half, and I’ve waited long enough to start sharing it with you all. I’ve decided it’s finally time to start uploading while I work on the final chapters.

I started writing this before I ever drew a single piece of fanart for Mass Effect. It’s all the things that were bouncing around in my head after choosing the destroy ending with a mostly-paragon Shepard—consequence and responsibility and self-recrimination; her relationship with Garrus and with herself; their ties to each other and how much weight they can bear; their differing perspectives and how they slot together—all that fun stuff—compressed into a story, a place, a narrative. 

I believe in the power of love, and I promise a happy ending. They’ve just been taking the long way to get there. Feel free to yell at me in the meantime.

A huge thank you to @callista-curations for her meticulous and invaluable beta work, and to @that-wildwolf and @gammaraydeath for being the best hypemen I could ask for!

A more detailed list of warnings can be found on AO3.

I've posted the full cover art here.

────

Summary:

Pairing: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian Rating: M (subject to change) Important Tags: post-destroy ending - angst with a happy ending - slow burn (of sorts) - arguing - reconciliation - survivor guilt - minor original characters Her own personal Noverian peak. That’s what it was supposed to be. Nothing but the discovery: no distractions, no comfort, no windows looking out—no familiar faces. But it's starting to look like her winning streak might have ended in that pile of Citadel rubble, if it ever extended that far to begin with. ──── “How does the Earth idiom go? No use beating a dead—” A long-suffering sigh. “What was it again?” “A dead horse. And yet, you’re here. Beating it.” Pot, kettle. She wishes he’d just fucking say it.

-> AO3.

Read the start of Chapter 1: Constant Velocity under the cut!

────

The overhead lights flicker as they always do when the data screens are up and running. It’s not something one gets used to, even so. It stings at her ocular nerves—or something like that, anyway, somewhere along the delicate wires that extend from her eyeballs into her brain—but her focus on the data doesn’t waver.

“In that case,” says Shepard, squinting against the ache, “what we need is salvage from a relay outside the immediate burst zone. Four jumps away. Five, if possible. There’s no point to any of this if we can’t scrape together a control group.”

She glances back at Elsawy, who so far hasn’t made it more than a meter into the room. She nods without looking up from her omni-tool; orange shimmers off her shiny, black hair, giving her the uncomfortable air of a Cerberus operative. Not the worst comparison, except that Miranda would waste no time letting her know if her logic took a faulty turn somewhere. Elsawy’s just as likely to agree now and write a message detailing all her crap conclusions later.

Leaning her hip against the conference table, Shepard shifts her weight off her left leg, bites down on the sigh that almost manages to slip out. Once in the clear, she grouses, “Where the hell is Meyer? He’s the one that called this meeting.”

As it is, it’s three people in attendance and she’s the only one talking. She could’ve achieved the same results with a voice call from her quarters, where she could elevate her leg in peace and without witnesses. In the dark.

“Lab Two,” answers Elsawy, finally ripping her attention off the omni-screen and gracing Shepard with a second of eye contact. Maybe in another life she could appreciate the effort—Jesus, as if she hasn’t had her fill of lives already. “We’re close to a breakthrough on the initial output patterns. Sorry. He’s been feeding his data to me.”

“Right.” She blinks once, twice, in time with the flickering. It doesn’t help; it never does. “I’ll swing by later, then. Anything else he asked you to relay?” 

“Just that, Commander.” Elsawy is mumbling just enough that her voice has to compete with the drone of the air vents. The translator takes a second to filter out and amplify it. The result is less than perfect: “More salvage—” bzzrt—“bigger picture, you got it.” She narrows her eyes, and Shepard raises a brow. “Left leg or—” bzz!—“left hip?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Commander.”

“It’s nothing relevant,” she says pleasantly, forcing herself to stand up straight again. There’s a brief tremor shaking up her hamstrings; she waves a hand to distract from it. In the frenzy of the lights, the movement looks jerky, nervous. She soldiers on. “Old field injury. Unrelated. Anything can set it off.”

Funny, kind of, since it’s that very leg that ends in the most perfect, cooperative example of a foot she’s ever had the pleasure of treading on. It’s cloned; a replacement. Not the only one either. They should’ve just done away with the whole limb, but she hadn’t been consulted. Same with her trick shoulder. Not even Cerberus had managed to get that one back on the straight and narrow.

“I’d rather you bring it up with the doctor,” replies Elsawy. This is, apparently, what it takes for her to finally speak at a reasonable volume. “If we manage to fill even one of the data gaps…”

“I know,” she says. “I know, and I’m telling you, it’s unrelated.”

-> continue reading on AO3

[sleepyserena]

demos i've finally gotten around to playing recently

steel judgment: what if ultrakill was a roguelite? you've got your dash and your parry and your style meter and weapons with cool alt-fires, but also a hub where you can buy new upgrades and unlock items after each run! the main mechanic is taunting enemies, which when killed, will give you health, and taunting augments your basic movement abilities if you time them after a taunt. really cool stuff! i am quite bad at it! game does not have a release date

metal eden: majoring in doom 2016/eternal, minoring in ghostrunner, this game struggles to run on my aging PC but it's still pretty cool. weapons feel fantastic and are appropriately punchy, but combat flow is a little weird in that i'm just running around waiting for my core cooldown so i can get my super punch back to strip armor, when i think i should just be shooting? i don't know, when a game introduces a mechanic to me, i want to use that mechanic as much as possible, sometimes to my own detriment. game comes out in Q3 2025

reignbreaker: isometric action roguelite, if you like hades, you'll like this. spray paint artstyle is really sweet, characters are... okay i suppose, not really compelled by any of them from the demo, and the main gameplay loop of keeping your combo up and balancing your fists and javelin is engaging and fun. and the full game is available now for only 10 bucks!

unbeatable: ohhhhhhhhhhh i have a bias because i backed this game on kickstarter in 2021, however i played the new demo (not white label) and it's soooo cool. each character has a distinct personality, presentation and cinematography is striking and evocative, there's side quests and minigames and optional dialogue everywhere. and that's just the story mode! there's also, ya know, the traditional arcade rhythm game mode, which is excellent. the only bug that bothers me is that the controller just... stops working in the arcade menu? other than that, pretty much flawless two button rhythm game, backed by an incredible soundtrack. game comes out sometime in 2025

haste: i think if i were to describe this game in one word, it's "joy". like woody from toy story said, it's not flying, it's falling with style! one of those games where it's easy to learn, hard to master. you run fast and you control your falls so that you hit the slopes of hills just right so you can gain even more speed! the levels are just challenging enough to make you think about your trajectory, but not to break your momentum. character art and colour palette is wonderful, dialogue is pretty charming, soundtrack is banging. bonus points for having unique dialogue specifically for the demo. genuinely a really good time! game is out now for about 20 bucks

peripeteia: immersive sim very much inspired by ye olde deus ex (no clear objective markers, complex mechanics, multiple ways of interacting with the world and accomplishing tasks, interesting worldbuilding and characters), you play as a cyborg woman waking up in a scrap pile in poland and scrape together whatever you can to survive. game is in early access, so it's a little barebones, costs about 30 bucks, but it was rejuvenating to play this kind of game again

--

playing through these demos today brought me back to when i was younger and i was browsing the PS3 store and downloading whatever demos were available, and my dad subsequently yelling at me for exceeding the data cap

i'm glad i got around to these, and i hope you check out some of them too

[doodlemancy]

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhh

so here's the deal re: this fucking horseshit. god i hate this.

i, personally, have mostly given up on trying to dodge inclusion in AI datasets. the stuff i make generally isn't what they're looking for anyway and there's no real way to 100% avoid being scraped short of becoming entirely invisible online, which would um, lead to me having no money and dying. that's part of the cruelty of all this, but also, in a way, it's the same risk artists online have always taken; if you want people to see your work, you have to post it knowing that some of those people are fucking lowlife piece of shit scumbags who will try to resell it on redbubble or something for a quick buck. AI is just a new and exhausting way for garbagey people to stink worse. i am not in any way excusing that behavior or trying to imply people should not be mad about it or that we shouldn't condemn this move and fight back. "if you don't want your work stolen, don't put it online" is the kind of shitty Internet Tough Guy talk i've always hated since my dA days. it's as useless and heartless as telling people that if they don't want their bikes stolen, they shouldn't leave them at the bike rack. i'm saying that i, personally, will not let a bunch of soulless thieving shitheads drive me offline. i belong here. they belong in a wifi-proof dumpster.

nightshade and glaze eat my artwork alive. they make it look terrible. when you have to sell things on the basis that they look nice, it's a big problem when protective measures make them look like dogshit. my work is not a good candidate for these processes. even if that weren't the case, i don't have the stamina, especially right now while my chronic pain is flaring for the third month in a row and my adhd meds are scarce, to go back and shade/glaze everything, and it wouldn't work on reblogs anyway. given the way midjourney and its equally stinky siblings have already scraped years and terabytes' worth of image data from popular websites, it doesn't seem worth my time. if you think it is worth yours i am not going to like, yell at you. i am just one person. but i want to be clear about the kind of situations some of us are being forced into.

i think some of the doomsaying about AI and what it will do to us has been overblown-- they need you, for marketing purposes, to believe that someday their shitty robot will be as good at "drawing" and as practical to work with as a human-- but the consequences of "AI" (which is not even actually AI) are already real and visible and obvious to anyone paying attention. i unfortunately am not infinitely wise and powerful and therefore do not have an ideal all-encompassing solution to this deeply stupid problem that the Most Unlikeable Manbabies On Earth have imposed on us after NFTs fizzled out.

what i do have is a very large repository of nice anime and game screenshots i've taken, knowledge of many archives of nice public domain images, a computer that can run nightshade overnight or while i'm off doing other things, and, most importantly, near-infinite capacity for pettiness. i do kinda feel like the jury is still out on how well nightshade/glaze will work in the long run, but in the meantime, i suppose it wouldn't cost me a lot to... perhaps... every time i get Mad About AI™, channel that anger into dumping some thoroughly-but-not-spammily-tagged, high-quality, inconspicuous poison onto this godforsaken hellsite via a secret side blog. i could make a batch of poison ahead of time, keep it on my phone, use my Toilet Scrolling Time or my Public Transit Time to post and tag up an image here and there. it could be a fun challenge to try to make some pretty robot poison that some humans will still enjoy.

the other thing we need to poison at this point, IMO, is the word "AI" itself, by being loudly and mercilessly critical of any company that dabbles in it, the same way we all clowned on any company that pushed their luck with NFT/crypto shit a couple of years ago. we need to have every corporation terrified that association with AI will tank their sales and hurt their brand. AI must = number go down and lots of people screaming at you. companies will fuck around. we must provide the finding-out. we shouldn't have to. but we can!

so make sure to let tumblr know you hate this. maybe you could include this interesting link (tw child abuse) about how Stable Diffusion was trained on some extremely serious crime. or these screenshots of Midjourney devs just sort of admitting what their whole thing is, which i got here but which have kinda been spread all over since January.

spite and anger can be forms of hope. that's all i have to say, or at least all i'm willing to type with my left hand tonight.

[fionajames]

Tunnels

A/N: @transmascanakin this is for you, since I know you miss them so much! A tiny bit of Codywan! Please send requests people, I'm desperate!

Anakin shuffled closer to his former Master’s side as the tunnel ahead seemed to swallow them whole. The pair stood at the gaping entrance to a cave system that supposedly led right under the Separatists' base. Both the 501st and 212th’s troops were collected behind them, Cody and Rex murmuring worries to each other softly.

“Well, this looks cheery,” Anakin chirped, grimacing lightly as he moved his lightsaber in an attempt to illuminate the tunnel more. 

“Quite,” Obi-Wan shot back, and somehow his sarcasm seemed even stronger than Anakin’s. The brunette looked instinctively to his other side for his Padawan. Usually she was by his side, or by Rex’s. Now, he remembered she was back at the Temple catching up on her studies.

“Let’s get going,” Anakin decided bitterly, signalling to the troops to follow him as he headed into the dark. Obi-Wan followed by his side, glancing around.

“This seems too simple,” Obi-Wan worried and Anakin rolled his eyes subtly. “Surely the Separatists know of a tunnel system right below them. It’s quite hard to miss.”

“The data we have suggests these tunnels are unstable and abandoned,” Anakin reminded him. “They removed them from newer maps as a precaution.”

“Still,” Obi-Wan continued, but didn’t speak any more. Instead, the men travelled underground in the dim area, time escaping them.

Anakin chewed on his lip as he turned another corner. He shivered as his body reminded him of the cold air they were surrounded with. Then, abruptly, specks of dust fell from above in clouds. Anakin coughed, waving at the cloud blindly. 

“Retreat!” He yelled, realisation engulfing him. “Out! Get out!”

But he was too late, as the boulder in the roof above them collapsed inwards, separating both him and Obi-Wan from their troops.

Both men spluttered and coughed, brushing dust and dirt off of their faces. “Anakin?!” Obi-Wan called, blinking furiously as his eyes watered painfully.

“Right here, Obi-Wan,” Anakin managed weakly. He was collapsed by the tunnel wall, cradling his leg with a pained grimace on his face. Obi-Wan fell to his knees and scrambled to his brother, eyes widening as he saw the blood pooling around the brunette. “Leg got knocked.”

Obi-Wan cursed, activating his comm. “Cody? Commander, are you there?” He pleaded with the comm, glancing up for a moment in quick, silent prayer. Obi-Wan wasn’t much of a prayer, but now, in this war, they needed all the help they could get.

“Right here, General.” Even through his pained gaze, Anakin could hear the underlying fondness Cody spoke with, only to Obi-Wan. Anakin could hear the same tone when Obi-Wan spoke to his Commander. “Are you alright?”

“Anakin’s injured,” Obi-Wan hurried, glancing at the unnatural way his brother’s leg was bent. “We need a medic, fast.”

From the other side, Anakin and Obi-Wan could hear faint, muffled coughs and the sound of scraping. Cody’s voice came through the comm once again. “The boulder won’t move.”

Obi-Wan grit his teeth, stepping back. He outstretched both hands, calling the Force to his aid. The invisible energy wrapped around him like a gust of wind, and pushed the boulder with it. The boulder didn’t even budge, even as Anakin joined in.

It wasn’t moving, now or any time soon.

“We’re not keen to use rocket launchers with the unstableness of everything,” Cody explained further, and he too sounded anxious. “Have you got your lightsaber, perhaps you could cut through it?”

Obi-Wan grinned, muttering something before glancing around for his weapon. His briefly hopeful expression fell when he couldn’t spot it. He ignored Anakin’s scoffs as he grabbed the brunette’s lightsaber instead.

Activating it, a small part of Obi-Wan’s unease melted away, soothed by the comforting blue glow. He basked in it for just a moment, closing his eyes for merely a second to breathe. He plunged the blade into the rock, grunting as he pushed it further in. But the rock was solid and strong, and he couldn’t even get the whole blade in without too much strain.

“See anything on your side?” Obi-Wan huffed into the comm.

“Nothing, sir,” Cody replied and Obi-Wan groaned in frustration. 

“Alright,” Obi-Wan decided after a moment. “We’ll wait here, set up camp perhaps. I’ll scout the tunnel ahead, see if I can see any light.” He paused, before remembering. “Is my lightsaber there?”

Cody didn’t respond immediately, the sound of faint voices echoing through the comm. “Yes, sir.” Cody replied, slightly exasperated. “We’ll try to move the boulder, you rest.”

Obi-Wan didn’t protest any more, knowing Anakin needed his attention. He turned to the brunette, who was biting back tears, almost literally. The ginger settled next to him, examining the injury, although he refrained from touching it. “Looks broken,” he murmured, concern lacing his words like silk. Anakin grunted. “Really?!” He snapped. “I thought it was just a scratch.” Obi-Wan raised a brow and Anakin sighed. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologise,” Obi-Wan whispered, reaching up and running a hand through his brother’s hair once, scratching his scalp soothingly before standing up. “It’s not bleeding too bad.” It was true, the wound had stopped bleeding. “I’m going to go look at the tunnel ahead.”

Anakin sat up abruptly, blue eyes wide. “No, please!” The older turned to him, an eyebrow raised in confusion. “Stay.”

Obi-Wan was about to protest when he locked eyes with the younger. Pain and frustration swam blue in Anakin’s eyes, but not just those. There was a sense of loneliness and desperation too.

“Alright,” he murmured, settling down beside him. “Just for a few minutes.”

Anakin leaned against him, head dropping to rest on Obi-Wan's shoulder. His eyes fluttered shut contently, a soft sigh escaping his lips. Neither moved, warm sleep capturing the brunette. Obi-Wan smiled, wrapping an arm around his brother.

They would be alright.

Requests, please!

Love y'all!

<3

[ralfmaximus]

Microsoft will be delaying its controversial Recall feature again, according to an updated blog post by Windows and Devices VP Pavan Davuluri. And when the feature does return "in the coming weeks," Davuluri writes, it will be as a preview available to PCs in the Windows Insider Program, the same public testing and validation pipeline that all other Windows features usually go through before being released to the general populace.

Oho. Now they're "delaying" the rollout of Recall, so it can undergo more public testing & feedback. Fascinating.

Looks like all our yelling & bitching about what a fucking terrible idea this feature is, and WHY did Microsoft fast-track it in near secrecy instead of, y'know, doing its normal thing... paid off. For once.

Good work, y'all.

[smittenroses]

— Reject

Carrd | Ko-fi | Patreon | Archive of Our Own Mirror

Fandom No Straight Roads Pairing 1010/reader Chapter Summary Zimelu doesn't like the sappy soft feelings that are in his servos.

« Previous Chapter | Masterlist | Next Chapter »

Zimelu didn’t like having other people poke around in his circuit board. It felt invasive, it felt weird and if he was able to do it on his own, he would. It had taken a long time for Neon J to consider even giving him the ability to fix himself, but, it had been worth it, Zimelu sitting back on the couch as he tested his system, his tool box beside him as he watched everything flash up at once.

Like the fleshy performers and their injuries, Zimelu was just as prone to having issues come up. A loose bolt, his hair nylon being old, it was all things that he was used to having to deal with, but, when it came to entire parts of his body that’s when he started to get pissed. His knee had started out as just a gentle creak that he could ignore thinking that it was just water damage, but, when it had started to stiffen up and groan with every movement he made, he just couldn’t anymore. He couldn’t feel it, he couldn’t see the damage that he had done to his knee, but he could hear it, each groan of the metal underneath the fake flesh grinding his gears that made him want to disable his hearing.

Nothing appeared on the scans, Zimelu muttering cusses under his breath to himself as he sat up straight, looking down at his right knee before he pulled away the synthetic skin, pressing two buttons and watching as his leg fell to the floor with a thud just above his knee. It was easier to be able to grab a new part and put that on, but, Zimelu liked the challenge, propping the leg up between his thighs as he began to inspect the joints.

It was rust. He could see where the joints had been grinding against each other, the metal beginning to wear down with the effort of turning, but, it at least explained why it had been stiff and unable to move, Zimelu grabbing a screwdriver as he began to scrape away at the rust.

“What…” Reaching further into his knee, he pulled out a rubbery textured item, the casing clear and yet it was used, Zimelu putting the object in his mouth as he scanned his data base for what the item was. “How did— Never mind.” Spitting out the gummy water ball — which lacked the water — into the dish reserved for objects that shouldn’t be there, he returned to his knee. It explained the rust, whatever water had been left inside of it most likely getting between his joints and causing for them to malfunction. The metal of the screwdriver scraped against the joint, Zimelu turning his leg upside down every few seconds to empty out the red dust from the joint.

“I don’t get why Neon J allows you to do this yourself.” Zimelu hadn’t even realised that Eloni had entered the room, the green one sitting on the couch opposite to him, eyes trained on the leg that Zimelu had clutched between his legs, “Seems complicated.”

“He taught me, that’s it.” Zimelu knew that there was more to it, like how the motorcycle he had been given had served as a test of his abilities when they were developing, but, he kept his mouth shut on it, focusing back on the joint as he worked. “Why are you here?”

“Bored, there’s nothing else to do.”

If Eloni had anything else to say, he didn’t say it, Zimelu knowing that his eyes were on him without needing to look up as he detached the upper half from the lower half, peering further into the joints as his eyes illuminated the gears. He needed to touch them up, maybe even upgrade them if he would be lucky to convince Neon J to allow him to do so.

“Do you need to do that often?”

Slamming the lag down onto his thigh, Zimelu raised his head to yell at who he presumed to be Eloni casting a shadow, but, his gaze landed on skin — real skin — and eyes that didn’t hum with the electricity needed to keep his alight. He saw real hair and real teeth and real warmth all staring down at him, the maid peering at the detached leg, in one hand a cloth, the other a spray.

When had she come into the room? He hadn’t even heard her come in and yet she had been able to get this close to him — no, she had to be playing some sort of trick, Zimelu narrowing his eyes up at the woman as she tilted her head.

Cuteness didn’t get anyone far.

“None of your business,” he muttered, tilting his head down to avoid her gaze “Little maid.”

There was a part of him that wanted to snicker and grin when he heard the maid splutter with surprise, containing himself as he scraped more rust away, listening to the human make her little noises. Well, to humans, they weren’t just little; to them, it was their way of filling empty air when nobody was talking or knew how to talk, making the tension easier.

But he knew these noises well, knowing they were coming from someone who was incredibly flustered and being so cute… No, she wasn’t cute, she was just a pain in his ass who had to be around the manor, getting the attention of his best friends and causing for issues that he finds himself in the middle of.

“I’m not little!”

“You’re right, you’re tiny.” Zimelu allowed himself to snicker with some of his words, eyes flickering up to the maid as he watched her face warm with frustration, her cheeks puffing out and her hands at her hips. “You’re going to break the bottle if you hold it any tighter.”

“I am the perfect human height!”

It didn’t take long for Zimelu to reassemble his leg, the pieces attaching together and powering on so quickly that it didn’t even feel like there had been a time when he had no leg. It was petty, he knew, but, to stand up to his full height against the maid that had somehow bewitched the others, it was entertaining, it was hilarious.

Even more so as he pinched the cloth from her hand, still damp with the cleaning spray that was clenched tightly in her other. His senses picked up on eucalyptus and lemon that he knew he would adore if he could smell like humans, but, holding the cloth higher than her head, he watched as the maid attempted to reach it.

“You’re the average height for humans, yes, now jump for it, ruffles.”

There were a million things that his mind could calculate, a million scenarios that he could predict, but, one of them wasn’t the one that happened in front of him and made him stop. She didn’t yell, she didn’t get angry, she didn’t step on his toes, she instead laughed, beginning to jump after the cloth that dangled there in the air. It was genuine and it was sweet, dancing in his ears like something he could listen to over and over again, the heat of her body close as she hung off of him in an attempt to reach the cloth.

He lifted it higher, watching as her arm stretched further in an attempt to reach it.

A flash of green and the maid was lifted by her armpits, mischief in the eyes of the one who was meant to be on his side flashing in Eloni’s eyes and Zimelu knew he had to run if he wanted to keep this game up.

So, he did. Using the time that Eloni had to re-calibrate his balance to get enough distance, there was more laughter as they began to chase after him, ruffles and all.

Zimelu sat in the repair room as he watched Neon J tend to his leg, the older man’s sleeves rolled up to reveal the robotic arms underneath as he worked on repairing the leg, swapping out new parts for old ones, getting rid of the rust and gunk.

“Scraping it won’t get rid of the issue, Zim,” Neon J’s voice spoke up in the silence, the red-haired robot raising his head to look at his creator, his dad, watching as the screen didn’t even turn to face him, yet, he knew that he was still looking at him all the same. “You’ve been scraping away the rust here and it won’t just disappear because you got rid of the stuff you see.”

“It helps.”

“For a short while, yes.”

Zimelu didn’t have a quip for it, instead, he chose to keep his mouth shut, snuggling up against the wall as he watched him work. Unlike his own, still so hesitant to get help, he could tell that Neon J wasn’t afraid of getting it, his hands just as confident working on his leg as they were flipping through the books that he kept on the shelves. He always had help in mechanics and in music, but, even Neon J seemed to get fed up as the book he flipped through slammed shut, hand resting on top for a while.

“I’ll have to replace your leg for the time being, it’s far too damaged at this point for you to keep using it.”

Zimelu couldn’t contain the groan that ripped its way from his voice box, throwing his head back as he let the noise out. A new leg meant that he would have to re-calibrate himself to get used to it, a new leg meant that he would be thrown off balance for the time being, a new leg meant that he would have to spend more time than he’d like to having to relearn how to walk.

“Can’t we just,” waving his hands around before gesturing to where his lower leg should be, Zimelu would’ve raised his brows if he could, “gut my current one and put new parts in?”

The screen was silent before Neon J sighed, the movements that were just too human for a robotic body as he sighed, slumping against the bench. When you were still a tiny bit of a human inside of a cold, unfeeling body, you still felt those emotions, still felt the exhaustion and everything that humans wished they didn’t have to.

Despite the fact he knew that the humans didn’t want to feel them, Zimelu couldn’t help but feel… jealous. Jealous that he was able to feel like a human, eat like a human, touch like a human…

“Captain, how do you know if you like someone?”

The screen lightened up at the question, Neon J fully facing the robot as he sat there, staring.

“Do you think you like someone?” The question was tender and full of emotions that made Zimelu’s inner workings squirm with something he wasn’t familiar with, something that made him want to curl in on himself as he felt the heavy gaze of the one who created him. He didn’t like it, he wished he hadn’t said anything before he had opened his mouth.

But, the other part of him made him nod his head. Zimelu did like her.

[zafiro-anyejo]

i'm sorry if i sound like 'old man yells at cloud' but I feel like so much of my generation is characterized by fear. And isn't using 'generative AI' part of that fear? "Oh I worry I'll be a bad artist if I start to draw by hand. I'll just generate some and people will think I'm a good artist!"

"Ugh my writing feels so bland. I'll put it through ProWritingAid or ChatGPT. Wow! It looks so much better! I could have never thought of that myself!"

except... you could have. Learning to edit your work and make it better--stretching your artistic muscles and knowing your first attempts will be bad--is WHAT IT MEANS to be human?? It's what happens when you are an artist?? Or a writer?

Your voice is so unique and beautiful. There will never be another human being like you, with your experiences, who senses the world the way you do.

Yet you're deciding to offload all your personal, intimate experiences that make you an individual... into a computer. So they can tell you how they want you to write. Which is really just an amalgamation of data scraped from the internet.

Let your work be bad. Let your work need improvement. Believe me. Life will be so much easier if you accept you will not be perfect at everything from the beginning. It takes dedication and hard work. But you will get there. I promise. You really don't need to rely on generative AI to do it.

[thebrokenmechanicalpencil]

( @quibble-auk just a quick blurb, I had no idea where to go once I reached my destination. Every time Dropmix shows up its like I hit a roadblock, when I understand this man the world will know. I tried something new with medical programming, no idea if its true so..FOr FuNs. I may come back and edit it, I just needed to clear my head of it so I could actually do things)

(Takes place after Sunrazor is deado so no worries no scary women to hurt the children).......(Unless I dunno some other tall lady just likes torturing minors-)

-

Tw. War gore panicking (?) blood

-

Jeopardy had to admit, this was getting easier.

He landed in the foxhole, the way Dropmix had taught him, bending his knees and not forcing all his weight down on straight struts. The mechs inside muttered and huffed angrily as the shellfire grew more heated outside the dark den. Jeopardy moved quickly checking for injuries among the bots, codes racing with medical scans. He moved himself farther along the line, checking on a mech who’s energon covered plating was warped from heat. 

“How's your joints? Can you move them?” Around the left shoulder the metal had been twisted, other than light burns the mech would live. 

Past the mutters in the hole, Jeopardy worked quickly. He had to restrain himself to not treat every scrape that the mechs had around him, Dropmix had snapped him out of the habit long ago. 

“Its a waste, life threatening injuries only. Field medics keep their internals in, nurses back at an aid station can do the smaller things.” The older mech had seen his grim frown, and had added gently. “They just need to be able to fight..”

A ping caught his attention on his hud, he answered the com as he worked on pinning the armor back out of the joint of his patient. 

:Where are you?:

:Foxhole, there was a shell. I heard the keen, working on a bot now.:

Jeopardy jolted as the mechs around him began to move, a loud high pitched whine ringing through the air. 

“SHELL!”

Jeopardy scrambled half a moment, almost too late, out of the hole and back into the air. Their sanctuary was a crater within seconds of his exit. 

Shrapnel pelted his back as he hit the ground, his breath starting to become far too close to erratic at the close call. With a grunt he forced himself up, the mech he had been working on grabbing his shoulder to help him to his feet, “You ok Doc?” His voice was clicking with vocal damage, but that type of repair was not something Jeopardy could take care of in the field.

“Y-Yeah,” His medical programs slid over him in a cool wave as he scanned the mech’s still warped armor, “Are you good now?”

Grinning nervously the orange mech nodded, testing his shoulder as his other squad mates yelled for him, gesturing with the need to keep moving.

Jeopardy winced realising that meant the front was moving once more, he ignored the three pings that popped up on his hud as the mech nodded. “Good as new.”

Without hardly a goodbye the medic and soldier parted ways, Jeopardy’s internals murmuring data on his own injuries. Shallow gouges and scratched paint, hardly enough blood to worry about. He dismissed them and opened his now four pings from Dropmix.

:Im moving, don't worry, I'm not dead.:  Jeopardy winced once more, realizing now was probably not the time for such blunt humor. His back struts ached as he picked his way past the wreckage.

:You’re not funny, answer when I ping you. How far behind are you?:

Dropmix and Jeopardy had originally been sent out as field medics, not four hours ago they were out closer to the front helping where they could. But soon the larger mech had gotten a message, his skills as a surgeon were needed at a nearby aid station. Jeopardy was requested as one as well, the young mech during this conflict had gotten rather good at stitching bots together above his pay grade.

That is what had led to them slinking past the fire fight towards autobot territory, and Jeopardy getting caught in some shelling.

:I'm not too far, promise-:

He stuttered to a stop, his optics widening. Dropmix quickly pinged him again. Threats that if he didn't answer the large medic would be turning around to go get him.

Jeopardy however could hardly bring himself to answer back the message, his plating flaring and medical programs roaring to life.

The younger medic on his way to catching up to his mentor, had passed a large mixed graveyard of artillery and abandoned destroyed weaponry. It looked as though it had been sabotaged, burn marks and the large machines in bits. That wasn't the detail that had Jeopardy stiff with fear however, those marks were cold and old.

In a thick fresh glaze, yellow marred the field. On every machine it was splattered and dripped like a manic art piece. Jeopardy only knew one mech whose blood was that golden hue.

:Dropmix I think Comets here, and he’s hurt.: 

Jeopardy’s programs shoved him forward, optics following the trail and processor adding up the loss. 

:There's blood everywhere-:

If his friend had bled this much it couldn’t have been a small injury, Jeopardy continued almost not hearing Dromix’s ping.

:I'm coming to get you, get out of there.:

Jeopardy huffed to himself panic clenching his spark when the blood just didn’t stop, how could Comet have possibly bled this much? Where was he?

Mixed making a gut wrenching orange, pink fresh energon painted the war’s canvas as well. It was a sickening stretch of gore amongst the ruins, Jeopardy’s anxiety only doubled when the signs of a violent battle grew more apparent with every step.

The medic heard a crunch under his boot.

:Jeopardy, whatever hurt Comet could still be there. He’s fine, you need to leave it.: 

He lifted it and almost choked, under his boot was a thin slab of green armor. Soft comfortingly organic green, dappled in gold. 

His breathing stuttered at the sight of a piece of his friend, his programs to find and heal now overwhelmingly loud, drowning out the pings of his coms. 

Something had ripped Cometeater apart. That was the only way Jeopardy had just crushed his shell under his feet.

 His armor didn’t have snaps or latches; it was a part of him. Like finding pieces of someone’s protoform. Medical programs began to scream and tear through the knowledge he had about the pretender.

Whirring madly his processor calculated the averaged blood loss countered with the armor piece, what veins could be hit to cause so much damage?

 Main blood line in the thigh, inner plains of the extremities.

 No, Jeopardy bit his lip, if Comet’s main blood lines were split from the force he would be dead. Not leaving a trail this long. That means minor vessels had been broken, that would explain the trail.

 Jeopardy was walking now, frantically moving past the sharp deformed machinery.

How much time would Jeopardy have to patch the bleeding? On average due to the blood vessels on the skin, armor placement that was forcibly removed, and amount accounted for: ten minutes.

How much blood did he even have?  When not rejuvenating his blood supply: 5 liters. 

How much would he be able to even replenish? Depending on his weight, a missing variable, he would assume he was the same as when he saw Cometeater last.  Rate of regrown blood cells per minute of constant bleeding would be 0.005% and lowering in ratio to energy used.

In a whirlpool of calculations he began to add in the pieces of armor he continued to come across. Cross calculating the placement of the pieces and vicinity to large blood lines. His time frame for reaching his friend growing shorter with every recalculation. With every ping of an answer, the medic ran faster.

Jeopardy had to find Comet, he was bleeding out. He needed him, needed him right now. The trail was petering out, that could mean the absolute worst or Comet was finally able to stop the flow.

He needed to find him.

Jeopardy jolted when a large hand landed on his shoulder, tugging him back down from where he had started up one of the machines.

“Jeopardy look at me.”

He landed on a large frame, Dropmix catching his fall.