#and best practices for that stuff in general

[tomato-greens]

this study is certainly a publicity stunt. as a note, they used both AI judges and human teachers to grade the resulting essays.

I have many critiques of generative AI, but we should separate those critiques - including of its potential impact - from the critiques of people’s brains. brains are delicate AND shockingly adaptable and resilient. if someone experiences “cognitive atrophy” without significant injury, they can almost certainly relearn skills they’ve lost. most people lose skills they haven’t practiced!

for me as someone who teaches in this field, some major things to consider:

arXiv is hosted and curated by volunteer reviewers from Cornell, not MIT. none of the scientific papers it hosts are peer-reviewed. submission to arXiv is actually free, which is unusual for open source academic publishing (usually the cost of falls on the researcher when publishing in a peer-reviewed open source journal). submitters must receive endorsements before becoming a registered user, at which point they are allowed to freely submit - which is to say, arXiv isn’t a scam, it’s a pretty normal academic archiving project that says very openly nothing in its site is peer-reviewed, but if you want to pull a scam and look legit, it’s a useful way to do so.

six of the eight authors are self-reportedly associated with MIT, which is where I presume that misinfo came from. the other two are with Wellesley and Mass College of Art and Design.

there were only 54 participants. at best the most this study could possibly say is “needs another study.”

the essays being judged were SAT essays: highly formulaic, timed essays with very little actual writing process. it makes sense why you would choose an SAT essay for an experiment like this, but it reveals the same fundamental misunderstandings of best practices, writing pedagogy, and ideal writing outcomes (with presumably related brain states) that many better-designed studies also share.

the LLM-using groups developed a critical relationship of the LLM over time, while the brain-only groups reported a sense of persistence, independence, and ownership over their work (pp 37-38). this is not what the study is especially interested in, but should matter to us, the audience.

from the human teachers:

(pp 62-63)

what does this prove? what does it mean to you, that brains show greater or lesser connectivity? why does that matter more than the self-reported changes in writing? (that’s a question for experimental psych, but anyway…) how is the cognitive debt created by LLM use different than the cognitive debt created by overreliance on Fox News? I only bring this up to show that while LLMs are damaging because of the context of their use and are currently being pushed by huge corporations, brains are impacted ALL THE TIME by ALL KINDS OF STUFF WE DO. judging and dismissing people as well as fearmongering is not usually helpful.

not to mention the crypto-ableism in all this, but whatever.

Nataliya Kosmyna works on NeuroChat, which is a frankly dystopian learning system that in my opinion is too invested in actual educational outcomes to compete with LLMs. Kosmyna also works on improving communication for AAC users, etc., and it’s hard for me to sense how well-intentioned she is. but it’s certainly worth thinking about her motives as lead author!

[justreadalot]

Through Your Eyes Part 8

Part 1-4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Meanwhile back in the ghost zone. 

It was a few hours later, Danny, Damian and Jason were raiding the kitchen and made large sandwiches. 

“I can't believe we have electricity in here.” said Damian looking around the kitchen with its light on and fridges going. 

“My parents have set up enough battery power for at least a couple of months. And they have generators too.” advised Danny trying to stuff a large sandwich in his mouth. 

Damian flattened his sandwich before trying to eat it, since he had the same problem. Jason was half way through his first sandwich, he had made a couple of sandwiches instead of using all the fillings in one.

Damian, considering the past hours, decided they had been well spent. “Do you think we have seen all the defenses in your home Danny?”

“All the ones I know about,” shrugged Danny, finishing his sandwich, he smiled “it was fun practicing with them.”

They had checked out the Fenton’s equipment, then had to ‘check’ that they all worked. 

There was a mini space ship that flew well in both earth air and green Ecto. 

There were metal flying surf boards which they raced around on. Danny (not surprisingly) was best at that.

They practiced with the nets and shockers on each other. Danny and Damian ganged up on Jason. 

Danny also went ghost and got Damian and Jason to use the Fenton thermos on him, so they could see how it works, and how to release him from it.

Jason also got Danny to demonstrate his other ghost powers, shoot green power beams, go invisible, allow solid objects to pass straight through him and fly around. 

Damian knew Jason was checking how good Danny would be in a fight, especially since he had no training. 

Damian had noticed, while Danny’s shooting was excellent, he had no idea on how to defend himself nor even was good at dodging, preferring to let objects pass through him instead. 

No wonder why his body was so damaged that week ago.

“You must come and visit us all in Gotham often, when we get back, we can have more fun, practice, and we could train you a bit.” Damian advised casually. 

Danny looked fearful at the idea of meeting everyone again. Damian felt cross, he was going to yell at his family for scaring Danny.

“Or we can visit you at your home town” cut in Jason quickly. “And see how we can help you there.”

“I also want to get you a ‘safe house’ set up before we leave too,” he added.

Danny looked confused. “Safe house? What is that?”

“A house/home/place of safety that no-one else knows about in-case you are threatened. Can be a hotel, some place that is off the grid or a flat that is paid for in advance so no-one cares who turns up.”

“Probably need two locations,” added Damian, “one that your friends know about, and one that no one knows about.”

“Oh, that sounds like a good idea.” admitted Danny looking sad. “Just in case.”

“Anyway, you should always have a plan B,” jumped in Damian wanting to cheer him up. “Batman likes having plan B, C, D and E for just in-case.”

“Then they all go out the window when we start any mission, and he gets cross.” laughed Jason joining in. “Anyway, let's have a nap since we are still hours from all the bubbles linking. It has been a long day.”

“Right, this way to the bedrooms.”

[dicklessthewonderclown]

Hello Mr. AI's biggest hater,

How do I communicate to my autism-help-person that it makes me uncomfortable if she asks chatgpt stuff during our sessions?

For example she was helping me to write a cover letter for an internship I'm applying to, and she kept asking chatgpt for help which made me feel really guilty because of how bad ai is for the environment. Also I just genuinely hate ai.

Sincerely, Google didn't have an answer for me and asking you instead felt right.

ok, so there are a couple things you could bring up: the environmental issues with gen ai, the ethical issues with gen ai, and the effect that using it has on critical thinking skills

if (like me) you have issues articulating something like this where you’re uncomfortable, you could send her an email about it, that way you can lay everything out clearly and include links

under the cut are a whole bunch of source articles and talking points

for the environmental issues:

here’s an MIT news article from earlier this year about the environmental impact, which estimates that a single chat gpt prompt uses 5 times more energy than a google search: https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117

an article from the un environment programme from last fall about ai’s environmental impact: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/ai-has-environmental-problem-heres-what-world-can-do-about

an article posted this week by time about ai impact, and it includes a link to the 2025 energy report from the international energy agency: https://time.com/7295844/climate-emissions-impact-ai-prompts/

for ethical issues:

an article breaking down what chat gpt is and how it’s trained, including how open ai uses the common crawl data set that includes billions of webpages: https://www.edureka.co/blog/how-chatgpt-works-training-model-of-chatgpt/#:~:text=ChatGPT%20was%20trained%20on%20large,which%20the%20model%20is%20exposed

you can talk about how these data sets contain so much data from people who did not consent. here are two pictures from ‘unmasking ai’ by dr joy buolamwini, which is about her experience working in ai research and development (and is an excellent read), about the issues with this:

baker law has a case tracker for lawsuits about ai and copyright infringement: https://www.bakerlaw.com/services/artificial-intelligence-ai/case-tracker-artificial-intelligence-copyrights-and-class-actions/

for the critical thinking skills:

here’s a recent mit study about how frequent chat gpt use worsens critical thinking skills, and using it when writing causes less brain activity and engagement, and you don’t get much out of it: https://time.com/7295195/ai-chatgpt-google-learning-school/

explain to her that you want to actually practice and get better at writing cover letters, and using chat gpt is going to have the opposite effect

as i’m sure you know, i have a playlist on tiktok with about 150 videos, and feel free to use those as well

best of luck with all of this, and if you want any more help, please feel welcome to send another ask or dm me directly (on here, i rarely check my tiktok dm requests)!

[nineoftoads]

so many workshops today 😵‍💫

[soupserum]

LITERALYL LIKE WE GOT QINGQUE IN PENACONY SUSHANG PRACTICALLY EVERYWHERE WE GET SO MUCH XIANZHOU CONTENT BUT NONE OF YANQING????? well i guess we got the wardance but I NEED MORE THATS SO REAL LIKE . his backstory rivals sundays to me because like both of them are the kids of high ranking officials with undue pressure put on them both to become the best child soldier/official they can be, only difference is jing yuan actually loves his kid (and sunday is an adult now) AND YEAH THATS SO WEIRD LIKE HE DOESNT HAVE A SINGLE OTHER MEMORY..? and his remembrance ties are so UUGH i hope we get more after amphoreus because why was he pink. literally why was this freak pink and why doesnt he remember shit WAIT THE WARDANCE CUTSCENE WHICH ONE (doesnt remember anything ever about anything) YES EXACTLY WE JUST DONT KNOW LIKE. ANYTHING. WE KNOW THE GENERAL TRAINED HIM BUT THATS FREAKING ITTTT (n what happened to his parents??? born on the luofu or offworld?? why is he freaking blonde??? is he really a a xianzhou native???? whats up with this freak. like the matrix of prescience is a divination matrix thats like the second best out of the entire xianzhou (only the yuques stuff is btr) and ur telling me they dont know. maybe i could excuse it if he was some random kid but youre telling me they wouldnt be curious if a CHILD PRODIGY showed up an was adopted by THE GENERAL?) I THINK I MGIHTVE READ THAT FIC IT WAS SO FUN yanqing deserves to be dressed up. YES ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. it went from mandatory movie nights to mandatory cuddle sesh. it is the only time dan heng is relaxed enough to bring out his tail around others (to the indescribable delight of stelle/cae/march) if theyre docked at the xianzhou they would invite bailu too bc shes their little sister. shes literally yanqing & dan hengs little sister

sneak peek of a tentative timeline for my erudition yanqing fic!! ughh ive only got like 3 chapters of the mainfic done and i need to post the prequel before i can post the mainfic & for this one im trying to get the whole fic written before starting to post, instead of like swmtbb where i write as i post. UGHH I HATE THIS KID

in case you're wondering why swmtbb updates so slow... its bc of 1. writers block and 2. this fuckign thing but i prommy its worth it i love this fic

[ismyteadoneyet]

~ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴀ sᴏʟᴅɪᴇʀ ᴡʜᴏ ᴄᴀʀʀɪᴇs ᴀ ᴍɪɢʜᴛʏ sᴡᴏʀᴅ,

ʜᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴛᴇᴀʀ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴄɪᴛʏ ᴅᴏᴡɴ, ᴏʜ-ʟᴇɪ ᴏʜ-ʟᴀɪ ᴏʜ ʟᴏʀᴅ ~

FELLOW LEGENDBORNIANS !! I'M BACK !! I may not be very active in the Legendborn spaces, but that's because I STILL HAVEN'T READ OATHBOUND 😭😭 I miss my lil goofs so much 🥺

Life has really taken its toll on both me and my reading-buddy, and we're still slowly but surely making our way through Bloodmarked. I HAVE seen some fanarts already from the new book and I am SALIVATIINNNGGGG 🤌🤌🤌🤌🤌 I just know that once I actually crack that book open I will absolutely devour it djsbdbhsbdj 🤭🤭

And THEN the fanarts shall follow not so very close behind, trust 🫡🫡

I have SO MANY three-people pose pictures saved on pinterest for referencing-reasons, and this is the first one of the bunch! 🤭🥳

Hope y'all have a great day ! 🩷🩷🩷

[psychomusic]

i don't understand when people criticize george lucas. he gave us ten thousand clones of TEMUERA MORRISON

[pigeon-butch]

I certainly have my own concerns about the treatment of moo deng but um. well i think some of you may just be racist

[sysig]

*chanting* Second pet, second pet, second pet! (Patreon)

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

How You Get The Girl

Contemporary romance

follows a basketball star who left the sport 8 years ago after an injury, who unexpectedly becomes the foster parents for her niece who she encourages to join the high school basketball team

and the team’s coach, who happens to have been a massive fan, and also needs a co-coach

they start to become friends, and when the latter reveals her insecurities about dating and relationships, the other offers to practice dating her so she can figure things out. but of course they start to fall for each other..

lesbian MC, questioning demisexual MC

[aipurjopa]

400 minutes (almost 7 hours) in deltarune in 1 day this “trying to replicate your old lost save file” shit is no joke bro

[tanukitsuneko-suki]

honestly i would've gone through the best match tag from start to finish if i just KNEW what they were using. i've tried the mandarin keywords + hiragana and katakana spellings but other fanworks are always mixed in...just how common are dragon and rabbit ships anyways. i'm going crazy

[todayisafridaynight]

me when i ship zhaohan 😔 there's next to no content unless i'm just not looking in the right spots

be the change you want to see in the world my man.... if i can trick people into thinking masadai is real then i know you can rally the troupes with them lovable goobers......

[xplicitviewz]

“Who’s calling?” Your husband, Nanami, huffs from above you, his hips snapping into you. Your teary eyes glance at your phone while you let out small whimpers. “I-it’s our son.” You breathe out, your thighs tremble beneath his hands holding them down beside you.

Nanami groans and stuffs his dick fully into you, a whine escaping your lips as he picks up the phone. Between his work schedule and your 4 kids, there isn’t time for you and your husband to partake in a your shared activities other than the few times you guys got creative.

There was this one time you guys had your oldest watch the kids while you guys went to the pharmacy to pick up some medicine, which ended in a quickie in the dark parking lot before heading home.

Or the other time you guys had a pool day and you went inside to start getting the snacks ready. Nanami followed shortly after to have himself his own quick snack. Both of your days are pretty busy, but Nanami never fails to make some time for you and your pussy. You can admit sex hasn’t really been a priority, until tonight. Upon realizing all the kids would be gone, you immediately called Nanami to be sure he brings his ass home when he is off and not do any overtime- yes you used your mom voice too. Nanami agreed not wanting to be scolded.

When he did get home, he noticed a few things, there was any tv on, or music blasting from your two oldest rooms. There weren’t toys scattered in the living room or the dining room table from your two youngest, no yelling or screaming from all of them in general, it was just quiet. He smelt food in the air, he usually does every night he comes home but it’d be already eaten, or everyone will be eating at the dinner table (he insists not to wait for him because he often stays late) but since he left early from work, it isn’t ready just yet. He quickly rushes up the stairs, starting to feel the panic seep in just a bit, all the kids rooms are empty.

He opens his shared bedroom to see you just laying on your stomach, in the silky robe he got you, reading a book. He calms down because if you were okay, surely, the kids were too. His eyes gaze down your figure, your feet are in the air crossed, while you read. The robe sits at your upper thigh, and since it’s so thin, your ass pops out in the most desirable way possible. “Honey?” He eyes you suspiciously, taking a breath as he starts to settle down, “Where are the kids.”

You heard the front door shut, squeezing your thighs together, feeling the arousal hit you even more. The book you have been reading had been in your mind, and hearing your husband come home really made you ready to take him, full. You had dinner cooking in the oven, almost ready to serve for just Nanami and you. Your oldest son is at a movie with his friends and they are going to go eat after. Your second oldest daughter is spending the night with her best friend, and your two youngest are sleeping over with their grandparents. To say you were practically rushing your oldest son to leave already, since he was the last one to go, was an understatement.

“They are busy and safe.” You closed the book and turn your body towards him, your eyes hungry before you looked at him, but damn near starving when you did. That damn suit and tie. You explained where they all were as you sat up in the bed, impulsively pushing your chest out as you leaned back on your arms. Nanami didn’t ignore the lustful look in your eye, the way your nipples perked against the thin fabric, only assuming you had nothing on underneath. He quickly put a few things together, why you called him to not do overtime. He knew what his wife wanted, at least he thought so.

When your sweet loving husband started off kissing your neck, waiting to use the few hours to just worship your body, you, your hands cupped his chin and looked him dead in the eye, “Honey, I love you so much and I know that you do but tonight-right now I need you to fuck me like you don’t. I want y-“ His eyes darkens more at your plea, how desperate you were truly. How can he ever say no to his gorgeous wife. He cuts you off with a kiss before he started fucking you every way loose. Yes exactly what I said. But of course no matter what time it is, you guys are parents after all….

“What?” Nanami answers the call, still buried deep inside you, grinding against you as his thumb circles your clit.

“..Oh Hey dad, where’s mo-“

“She’s busy, are you okay, why are you blowing up her phone?” Nanami cuts your son off, his eyes focused on you squirming around, biting your lip to keep any lewd sounds hushed while he was on the phone with your son. He speeds up his movements on your clit, softly sucking in a breath when you clench tightly around his dick.

“I wanna buy some snacks and get some food after the movie, mom said she’ll send me m-“

“How much?” Nanami asked wanting him to get to the point so he can get back to his wife. He slowly pulling out before pushing himself back in. Your hand quickly covers your mouth as you shut your eyes. Your legs were shaking crazy. Your husband wasn’t one to always be rough in bed, but the times he is, you would feel it for days, in the best way possible. (He has that dog in him😞) Nanami definitely isn’t holding back, not when it’s been this long you guys were kid free for a few hours and together at that. Nanami was making up for lost time, fingering you until you couldn’t talk properly, eating your pussy like it personally offended him, fucking you left, right, up, down, diagonal, all up until your phone kept blowing up.

“Like about $40.”

“Okay, give me a moment.” Nanami grunts, as he bottoms out again, the way you squeezed his dick nearly knocked him out cold. He feels his dick throb inside you and pulls the phone away from his ear, breathing heavy.

“Thanks d-“

Nanami hangs up the phone and tosses it beside you before leaning in closer to you, peeling your hand away from your mouth and pulling it above your head. “Tell me something honey.” He hums kissing your swollen lips.

You whimper as he fucks you again, slow but rough this time, ”y-yes?” You gasp as he hits your cervix.

“When the kids ask for money, do you send it to them from my account?” He looks into your eyes, sweat dripping down his head watching your reaction to his question really his dick.

You’re screwed. Both literally and physically.

“Not alwa- o-ooh shit.” You moan, his hips moving faster than light. Nanami absolutely hates when you use your own money, hell, even when you were working. When you guys first started dating he already knew you were going to be his wife. Nanami would always say you didn’t need to work but you didn’t want him to be the sole provider. Eventually, you guys moved in together and you were still working. Though, he convinced you to work less hours and took you out on a date when you agreed. It wasn’t until you got pregnant with your first baby, did his wish come true. Shit, he was more excited when you both went down to your job to quit than he was to see the 2 pink lines.

“All the hours I work, being kept away from our family, my perfect wife -ngghh- my perfect wife’s pussy. And you still insist on usi-fuck- using your own money when you have access to my money- no our money, shit your money.” He moans grabbing your other hand and pulling it above your head with your other.

“Y-you pay for e-ever-“

“I’m supposed to baby. I want to.” He interrupts you, lifting your legs to his shoulders, and grabbing your phone with his free hand and sending your son $100 from his account. “Why must you make things complicated, love. I am the man, it’s my job to take care of you, our family. Let *thrust* me. Use my money for the kids, the house, the cars, whatever it is, I have enough, more than.” He kisses your lips softly, opposite to his thrusts. “Use your money I give you for you, whatever you want for you- shit for you. Everything I do is for you, everything I make, it’s yours, ours on paper, but it’s all yours. All for you.” He grunts into your ear, as if he’s teaching a lesson. Technically, he is.

“Don’t let me find out you aren’t using my money first again, okay hun?” He hums at you, a moaning teary mess.

“Now where were we?” He smiles before pulling out and flipping you on your stomach, lifting your ass up and spanking it. “Oh, right.” He chuckles as he spreads your cheeks apart, seeing your drooling sensitive pussy, clenching on air.

*edited but not proofread*

More:

Pussywhipped!Choso | part 2

Married!Eren x Maid!Reader

Ex-husband!Eren

Sylus mini

Nerd!Armin x reader x boyfriend!eren

Best friend!jean x reader

[parrish-the-thot]

A continuation of this post I made

I imagine Steve genuinely doesn’t think about Eddie, like at all. Besides the occasional “what is he yelling about in that table” or “ Munson actually showed up to class” or once in sophomore year he thinks “how much does Munson charge for an ounce of weed? Would he take a $50 for an ounce” which causes Eddie to wait around all day at the picnic table wishing for some shmuck to offer $50 for just an ounce, but no one shows up (Steve had to go pick up Dustin after school and didn’t want him to find weed the weed when he inevitably starts going through Steve’s car)

The lack of soulmate thoughts really irks Eddie, because he knows his soulmate is in Hawkins, but he never thinks about Eddie, like at all??? Positively or negatively?? Eddie jumps on more tables, he blares loud music from his van, he is in a band, he is the drug dealer for all the teens in Hawkins and all his soulmate thinks is “why the fuck did Munson double park his van, I’m going to be late looking for a parking spot now” it absolutely drives him crazy.

He eventually figures out his soulmate must be a jock of some kind because one day he hears “what is Munson doing under the bleachers?” when some sports team is let out of playing with balls practice. He is briefly heartbroken his soulmate isn’t a nerd like him, but then spends the night thinking about how a certain fluffy haired jock could play with his balls anytime.

Steve isn’t not thinking about Eddie on purpose, but they just don’t run in the same circles, so he doesn’t really think about him too much, just in a genuine, “I don’t know them, don’t interact with them, so I don’t really think about them” sort of way. Especially after befriending the kids, Steve’s focus goes to keeping them safe and being a babysitter instead of finding his soulmate.

Steve’s experience with his soulmates thoughts is completely different. Starting in middle school he heard his soulmate think he was cute which he thought was nice. As he got older his soulmate would still think he was cute, but also handsome or pretty which, he doesn’t know any girls who call their boyfriends pretty but ya know, he can roll with that. He thinks he will have to roll with a lot of stuff, since hai soulmate seems to into a…a lot of interesting things, to say the least. Steve has dated a lot of girls but none of them seemed to want to rub their face in his chest hair like his soulmate did, who also wonder is Steve was that hairy everywhere which- he was but he didn’t think a girl would want to know about that.

He would be in the middle of a basket ball game and he hit with a 15 minute monologue about how wonderful his ass looked in “thise little green shirts that ride up his ass in the best way” and how his soulmate “wanted to be those shorts” causing Steve to miss three different shots. Also with all this wildly kinky stuff and even general sex things Steve has never heard of or thought about he figures he should become more knowledgeable to better be prepared for his soulmate.

One day when Steve is cleaning up a drink he spilled in the cafeteria and heard “god Harrington looks good on his knees, bet he would look even better with my cock in his mouth” figures chances are his soulmate isn’t a girl at all.

With not much else to loose and a new door opened up to him, Steve starts spending time thinking equally horny thinvs about different guys he sees in class, just to see if they will react to what he is thinking. This is how he figures out Eddie is his soulmate.

Steve notices eddies table is getting a little rowdy, as is always does before Eddie gets up on someone’s table and he rants about jocks and preppy girls while stepping on people’s lunches, Steve thinks “what if comes over here, spits in my stretched out hole, and fucks me right next to Heathers Halloways tuna sandwich”

Eddie, whose soulmate didn’t even think about Eddie that one time his car got spray painted a fit was all the school talked about for a week, was NOT expecting that at 12:30 on a Tuesday and promptly trips on a chair and slams face first into the lunch table, breaking his nose.

Eddies friends rush him to the nurse and Steve is torn between this being a sign Eddie is soulmate or Eddie just clumsy, Steve has seen him walk into a door twice, so he don’t 100% sure. Steve decided to test this anytime he has a clear viewpoint of Eddie and starts thinking the most horny, kinky things possibly about Eddie to see if Eddie reacts proves he is Steve’s soulmate (also revenge because Steve had to go through years of Eddie horny pondering interrupting Steve during important tasks games or tests so Steve figures he should pay that forward during eddies dungeons and dorks games)

[rin-may-1103]

Aspiring Escape Artist (part two)

Last | Master Post | Next...

"Why don't we all head inside, yes?" Mr. Wayne suggested, waving his arm in the doors general direction.

"Yes, that sounds great," Ms. Clance agreed, turning to Danny like she was debating whether or not she should drag him inside. Danny was very against that idea and glared at her. She huffed but turned and started making her way up the stairs.

The other, he can't really say kids because he's pretty sure half the people standing in front of him were over the age of eighteen, but they still lived with Mr. Wayne, apparently, so kids it was. The other kids continued to try to stealthily watch him as they made their way into the building. (He refused to call this place a house; it was bigger than Sam's manor for Ancients' sake.)

The gray-eyed girl waited for him, the not-so-happy but happy sparkle back as she watched him approach. Pausing for a moment, Danny turned and gently patted the bush closest to him, it had been practically begging for attention for the past ten minutes and Sam would have throttled him if he had just ignored it.

She treated them like demented puppies, and it's against every unspoken law (in danny's books, atleast) to ignore a puppy.

The gray-eyed girl (man, he was going to have to learn their names, Ancients, why were there so many people here?) tilted her head curiously, eyeing the plant he just patted.

"My friend has plant powers," Danny huffed, which was true. Sam still had lingering plant control and a connection to the green because of Undergrowth. Danny was just leaving out the fact that he also had plant powers. He wasn't sure why he always got new powers after beating new powerful ghosts, but it happens, and now he needs to pet the plants because they get sad if he doesn't.

(Jazz theorized once that the new powers were due to his half-a nature, but then they looked at Vlad and decided it was probably something else.) (Also, why in the world did he get ice powers and then almost immediately plant powers? like, seriously, why?)

"Close friend?" Gray asked, turning to follow Danny inside.

"One of my best friends," Danny agreed. Man, he missed them. He'd have to figure out how to get out of here soon; there was no way he was going to just not see his friends on Tucker's birthday. Which meant he had about a week to bust out of here and get back to Amity. Oh, and stay under the radar so Vlad doesn't find him.

Glancing around the entry hall, or was the term foyer? like, the place was fancier then most five star hotels he's seen (which he wants to make clear, was against his dying wishes. fuck vlad and his not hard earned money.) like, sure, it wasn't all white modern minimalist like the hotels, but he's pretty sure the vase just sitting a little too close to the edge of a table was worth more then a human heart on the black market.

"Welcome to Wayne Manor," Mr. Pennyworth started, closing the doors with a heavy thud. He didn't lock it, though, Danny noted. Probably because Ms. Clance still needed to leave.

"may I have your coats?" he asked, holding out his arm to Ms. Clance and looking over to Danny. Ms. Clance immediately started to shrug off her jacket and dropped it onto his arm without a second glance, trying to talk to Mr. Wayne about an office or something.

Danny shook his head, "No thanks. I prefer to keep my things with me." especially in a new place, who knows what they'd do to his stuff. last time he handed anything over it had been locked up and never returned. (or well, not returned until he stole it back right before leaving, but that's getting into semantics.)

"So, Daniel was it?" the older guy from the first three asked, smiling brightly and trying to act casual. He was failing.

"It's Danny," Danny huffed, glancing around to study the others.

Gray was nice, he had a feeling they'd get a long fine. she was like an open book, all her opinions and emotions right there for him to see. Though that just meant she was awear of them and could easily hide them.

The others not so much.

Eyebags looked tired but alert, watching Danny like he was a new puzzle. Which was fine, Danny could deal with that. He probably wasn't as bad as Jazz or his parents were when obsessed with new things, so he goes lower on the list but not off.

Mr. Casual over here was watching him AND the others, which meant he was probably the peacekeeper. That or he was the one who antagonized the others into acting without them noticing. Same as eyebags, then.

Blondie looked like she was planning how to prank him right then and there, but also like she was evaluating him for something. Like he thought earlier, she'll probably stick around until she gets bored. So, hmmm. Keep an eye on more than eyebags, but probably not a problem.

there was a kid maybe two-three years younger than him trying to hide on the stairs out of view, he looked pissed off and annoyed. Something was telling Danny he should stay away from him. So, definitely going to the top of his list right next to butler man.

And finally, Mr. Wayne. He was smiling and chatting with Ms. Clance like he didn't have a care in the world. And it would have been believable if it wasn't for the fact that the man was easily steering the conversation away from the stuff Ms. Clance wanted to talk about, without Danny around, before leaving. Which means Mr. Wayne wanted Danny to be part of the conversation, probably to get both sides of the story.

He was smart and knew how to manipulate situations without people catching on.

Also, top of the list, then.

"Only people who want to kill me call me Daniel," Danny added, watching as Ms. Clance tried to bring up his file and fell for another diversion.

"Really?" Eyebags asked, actually surprised for some reason.

Oh, wait, murder isn't normal. Ha, to live a normal life. It must be boring. Couldn't be him, even if he wanted it. There was nothing normal about growing up with mad scientists, and nothing normal about being half dead and a vigilante.

"Yeah, my friends and I made a chart and everything. Granted, we didn't have many people to add to the list to compare with, but it's checked out so far." Danny admitted, turning to face Eyebags.

Honestly, it was just Vlad, his parents, a few GIW agents, and those very few times his friends almost killed him. But come on, they all called him Daniel at some point. Therefore, it totally checks out.

"Huh," Mr. Casual blinked, glancing at his siblings before shaking his head. "Right, so uh, why do people want to kill you?"

"Because they're Fruit Loops," Danny grumbled, finally deciding to approach Ms. Clance. Might as well get this done and over with. The longer she stayed, the less time Danny would have to scout the place by himself later, after all the introductions.

Next (to be written)