#computer assisted calculators

[nhaneh]

Anyway the thing about computers is that they're basically just maths all the way down.

Not just one kind of maths either mind you - there's the typical modular integer arithmetic and boolean algebra, but also decimals in both fixed point and floating point configurations and all manner of other tricks, as well as the ability to convert between different kinds of operations and representations pretty much on the fly.

A single byte can be both a number, a character, a memory address, and series of true/false statements, potentially all at the same time.

The whole reason they're called Computers was in reference to a specific occupation with the same name, where a Computer was a person who was basically hired to do mathematical calculations; an Electronic Computer was basically a machine that did the same thing.

[harrylovesspaezle]

i'm like if a multipurpose tool kind of sucked

[flseur]

꒰ 𐙚 teacher’s pet — jjk men ꒱

⟡ synopsis : desperate to get recommendations for your grad school applications, you decide to take on the role of a TA for your favourite professor and help them out, in more ways then one.

⟡ characters : gojo, geto, kento !

⟡ content warning : nsfw ( 18+ ), fem!reader, age gap ( reader is in early 20s! ), teasing, blowjob, praise kink, hair pulling, jealous / possessive sex, implied creampie, fingering, cunnilingus

౨ৎ note : listened to skin by rihanna to help me with this. please enjoy ! ˃̵ᴗ˂̵

୨୧ SATORU GOJO

❥₊ ⊹ gojo was so pretty like this. his usual cocky demeanour was gone and instead he had his cheeks covered in flush and his pink lips between his teeth.

satoru was not your first pick for who you wanted to TA for. everyone in the communications department knew how laid back and careless he was as a professor, yet no one wanted to be his TA because of that. so when it came to asking around to get the job, he was the only one taking teaching assistants at the time.

“ah… just like that, baby.” he whines, thrusting up in your mouth causing you to gag a little then pulling back to look at him. “shit… ‘m sorry, you’re just so fucking good at this.”

you roll your eyes at him, feigning annoyance then kitten lick at his tip, tasting the saltiness of the precum. while your hand wraps around the base of his cock, slowly jerking up and down.

“baby, baby, please put it in your mouth. please.” he babbled, rutting his hips upwards.

deciding to stop teasing him, you give in, giving the head of his cock one last lick then spitting on it and using your hand to spread it over his cock before taking him fully in your mouth again.

“fuck yeah… oh m’god… so fucking good.” he moans, his hands on the side of your head guiding your mouth up and down on his cock. you were just so… messy, and satoru fucking loved it.

he loved how swollen your lips were from when you were making out with him on his lap, he loved that the lip gloss that you were wearing is smeared on the corner of his lips and his cock, and my god does he love the way you look when you take it in your mouth.

“keep going… gonna cum…”

and you decide to pick up the pace, your other hand coyly reaches up from where it was on the ground to massage his balls in your palm.

“shiiiit, i’m cumming, i’m fucking cumming, y/n!” satoru sobs, abruptly pulling out of your mouth, tugging on his cock and groaning then spilling his cum on your face.

“seriously, satoru? you couldn’t cum in my mouth?” you complain, whipping some of the sticky fluid off of your cheek.

“sorry baby, i’ll make it up to you.” he chuckles, reaching over to grab some kleenex from his desk.

“yeah, you better. how about you grade those midterms and i take the week off?”

୨୧ SUGURU GETO

❥₊ ⊹ as a computer science major, you remember your first year intro class well since it was the start of your programming journey. because of that, when you started to look for TA jobs, you wanted to help with a first year computer science class, which happened to be geto’s.

geto was easy to work with, and understanding when it came it mistakes that you made. you really liked him, and he really liked you. but maybe, a bit too much which led you to this predicament.

“mphm, fuck! suguru!” you gasp, feeling the cold surface of the mahogany desk against your cheeks.

geto lets out a short chuckle, leaning down to talk in your ear, “yeah? feels good baby?”

“m-mhm! ah…!” you cry, feeling the sting of tears in your eyes. each and every thrust of suguru’s was well-calculated, the head of his cock was hitting that spongey spot in you and the sheer thickness of it was splitting you open deliciously.

“aw… poor y/n…” he mocks, “must’ve fucked your brains out, huh? you can’t even form a sentence…”

and all you can do is sob in response, because how were you supposed to respond when he was fucking you this good? so good to the point where you’re seeing stars in the middle of the afternoon.

suguru can’t say that he’s not jealous even if he wanted to, because he is jealous. when he turned over and seen that freshman shamelessly flirting with you and staring down your shirt at your cleavage, he seen red.

no one should see you like that.

and no one but him will see you like this. with your mini skirt flipped over the globes of your ass, a hole ripped at the crotch of your stockings, and how much you cream on his cock.

they also won’t know how fucking amazing you feel. how your pretty little pussy flutters on his cock, how you clamp down on it saying “‘s too much, suguru!” but continue to swallow him in then beg for him to cum inside, and they won’t know how it feels to fill your cunt full with cum.

because only he will, no one else.

୨୧ NANAMI KENTO

❥₊ ⊹ nanami was always your favourite professor and you were always his favourite student. so when you asked him if you could TA for his economics class, he wasn’t going to say no to you.

when it came to coming up with lecture plans, marking student’s assignments, and leading discussion groups, nanami always made sure to help you with anything you needed, anything.

“shit… mmph! k-kento…” you moaned out loudly, your manicured hands run through his blond hair, softly tugging at the strands. he has you sprawled out on his desk in his office, all of his knick knacks messily pushed out of the way and your skirt flipped upwards with your black lace panties pushed aside.

nanami groans into your pussy at the feeling, “shh, sweetheart… can you stay quiet for me?”

and as much as he’d love for you to be loud so everyone could know how good he was making you feeling, there were still students, other TAs, and professors still in the office building.

“yeah… ‘m gonna be quiet for you…” you mumble out, staring at the man between your legs. and what a sinful sight it is.

his usually put-together appearance completely diminished. tousled hair, his white dress shirt is unbuttoned, and his head is ever so sensually peppering small kisses in between your inner thighs.

“good girl…” he coos at you, then returning to his ministrations and pressing a light kiss to your puffy clit. kento licks a long stripe up your slit, gathering your slick on his tongue and savouring the taste of you then slipping a finger into your messy hole, hitting the right angles that makes you see stars.

but it wasn’t enough, you need him. all of him.

“ah, need more kento…” you beg, gently pulling head up by his hair. “fuck me, please.”

and who was he to deny you? kento hastily unbuckles his belt, pushing his khaki pants and boxers down, then lets out a hiss when the cool air meets his throbbing cock.

“fuck… you think you’re prepped enough to take me, baby?”

“yes, mr. nanami.”

flseur © all rights reserved, do not repost, take inspo from my layouts or themes, translate, or claim as your own.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

while high last night i decided to bully the new facebook AI assistant by asking it to calculate how many words the beatles have ever written across their complete discography. the resulting interaction was so unexpectedly interesting to me that i just really want to share it here.

(full disclosure: while not high, i did try to do a little digging to verify whether meta's AI was trained in the same shitty way that the chatGPT AI was, i.e., through broad scraping of information without any regard for copyright or other intellectual property rights, and was modestly reassured that there are more licensing agreements in place between meta and IP sources. i do wonder just how heavily they're leaning on the 'fair use' provision of copyright law to justify some of what they're doing, but tl;dr it looks like they have learned from chatGPT's high profile mistakes and are trying not to replicate them.)

anyway, here's how it went:

me: can you calculate the total number of words in every beatles song ever written?

meta AI: I can't calculate the total number of words in every Beatles song ever written, but I can tell you that there are 186 songs in total by the Beatles ¹. You can use an online lyrics website, such as Genius, MetroLyrics or AZLyrics, to count the words in each song and calculate the total number of words in every Beatles song ever written. [link to Bing search results included]

me: but i'm tired 😞

meta AI: I understand! Counting the words in every Beatles song would be a massive task. It's estimated that the Beatles have written over 250,000 words in their songs. If you're feeling tired, you can always try breaking the task down into smaller chunks, like counting the words in one album at a time. Alternatively, you could try searching online for a pre-existing count or estimate. Some fans or researchers may have already done the work for you! Get some rest, and maybe tackle the task when you're feeling more energized!

me: what if i say please

meta AI: Please is a magic word!

Alright, I'll try to help you with that. However, please note that it's a complex task, and I might not be able to give you an exact count. But I can try to provide an estimate based on available data and sources.

According to various sources, including lyrics websites and Beatles fan communities, the estimated total word count for all Beatles songs is around 250,000 to 300,000 words.

Here's a rough breakdown:

- John Lennon wrote around 80,000 to 100,000 words

- Paul McCartney wrote around 80,000 to 100,000 words

- George Harrison wrote around 30,000 to 40,000 words

- Ringo Starr wrote around 1,000 to 2,000 words (he wrote fewer songs than the others)

Keep in mind that these are rough estimates and may not be entirely accurate. But I hope this gives you an idea of the total word count for all Beatles songs!

me: wow! thank you so much! [can't believe i thanked the AI here, but whatever, weed had the wheel ok]

meta AI: You're welcome! It was my pleasure to help. I hope you found the estimate helpful. The Beatles have an incredible legacy, and their music has brought joy to so many people around the world. If you have any more questions or need help with anything else, feel free to ask! And remember, "All you need is love..."

anyway, congratulations to me personally for politely bullying an AI to do more work than it initially claimed it was capable of doing. sometimes saying please will actually make the computer do the thing 👍

[pinkcherryblossom18]

Selene

Oliver Quick x Reader

TW: Stalking, Implied murder, Implied suicide, Implied sexual intercourse, Major character death, Blood drinking, Oliver is a Creep as pure schedule.

Word Count: 1.9k

Oliver watches and calculates. That’s what he does; that's who he is but something is wrong when he looks at you. Something wrong in the way that he thinks—he can’t think. He can’t calculate and he knows that it’s your fault but he can still put this in his favor. He can still work this because you’re like the rest of them. A dog sleeping belly up, unaware of the snake nearby waiting to attack, to bite and give you every ounce of venom that he possesses. 

It starts slow, an invasion that you can’t see because why would you? Oliver has watched you closely enough to know that you won’t see it coming because you’re always distracted. Reading, work, friends, parties that only people like you can get invited to because you’re around the right people. It’s something that shocked him when he started to research and observe you like some kind of tame animal a butcher is preparing for the slaughter. You’re not rich, the daughter of an American farmer and waitress who got hired at Saltburn by pure luck when you were eight. You grew up beside Felix and his sister, Venetia, for eleven years, only a year younger than Felix himself but perfect age for people like him. You know work, he’s seen your computer, full of files for Felix’s family that you work on like their personal assistant. 

You won’t notice him because he won’t let you. He accomplishes such a thing slowly, methodically he starts at the root. Felix is sweet and he’s been looking for another pet project so Oliver makes sure that they meet. It was almost too easy to place that pin in his bike tire that Oliver had almost laughed while doing it. The Sun God Helios shined above him but all he could focus on was Selene who stood so beautifully in the moonlight that she herself was. Felix had waved him over, welcoming him into his little group of snobs and bootlickers who dimmed when compared to yourself who was typing quickly on your phone, ignoring all those around you. Oliver had found his seat right next to your own and froze when you smiled at him, shimmering silver meeting the cold blue of his eyes but he couldn’t look away until you did, blinking himself back into the reality of it all. 

It had been a few sips into his second drink when you finally put down your phone, saying goodnight Mrs. Catton who was temporarily done with your services. You sighed and stretched, flinching when Felix jokingly poked your ribs. You glared at him and Felix only chuckled and went back to his friends, leaving behind his little servant to face the more socially inferior servants of his. Then your phone dinged and you groaned. “Do you mind if I take a sip?” You asked him, pointing at his glass of coke and rum. “I just really need a drink.”

He is frozen for a moment and Oliver isn’t sure if it’s part of his mask or not. “Uh sure,” he says after a moment. You smile at him and take his glass, sipping on the drink before placing it back down. He’s about to ask for your name—which he already knows by heart along with your middle name, last name and your parents names—when you take a nearby napkin and wipe the rim which is slightly smudged by your lipgloss. The sheepish smile you give him afterward sends his heart a fluttering and more plans and fantasies building up by the ton. He sticks out his hand toward you, a friendly enough gesture that you won’t know that all he wants is just to touch your skin. “I’m Oliver,” he whispers, like it’s a secret among people who like to scream from the heavens. 

It goes from there after you give him your name. It's a sweet little thing, your name, as it falls from his lips. It was like it was made to be upon your lips and he takes every possible opportunity to say it. He says it the most whenever he’s in your dorm, studying, talking or just laying around in blissful silence. He strains to be in your bed, he has been multiple times but he wishes to be in it at night, asleep and with you in his arms. Watching as your chest rises and falls, your mouth part lets out small snores but he considers it a win whenever he watches you through your open window—it's an issue that he’s been trying to get you to fix but he hasn’t been trying that hard. 

Felix is good enough as an excuse, the boy has found him to be a good little pet so far, always trailing behind, taking his scraps. Like Annabel, a product of Felix’s rendezvous and he takes that with a hint of alcohol and the intoxicating smell of perfume. He would have fucked her with your name on his lips had she not left, angry that she could’t use Felix’s charity as a way to get back at him. Will he be jealous? No. Neither of them are important enough to him for Felix to even feel a lick of jealousy. 

Oliver knows what does make him jealous. What he can’t stand and what strains their relationship before he tried to step out of his shadows of a hidden servant and try to clean up Felix’s room. It starts out subtle. Small questions of where he was or where you were but Oliver feels a certain satisfaction at the pout, the furrowing of eyebrows or the small clenching of fists when either of you respond saying that you were with each other. Felix tries to keep you away from him but you always respond when he calls or texts because that’s who are. A people pleaser, a simple servant to any who call for you—it’s another thing that he’s planning on getting you out of but not know, not while he benefits off of it so much. 

You stand with him, holding his arm, when he tosses the rock for his dad into the lake. Dead, that's what he told Felix to get him back into his good graces, and Felix believed him because why wouldn’t he? Oliver came to him in tears and an opening for a savior. You believed him because of his tears and because you know what losing a parent is like. Two years ago your father died from drugs, his now did as well. Sympathy is a better way into someone's heart than pity is.  

It’s you who greets him after he passes his exams. Felix is right beside you but your arms are the first ones around him. He holds on tight and breaths you in with sharp inhales and stops breathing when you peck his cheek. Your lips are light against his cold skin and he feels heat all over when you pull away and Felix takes him in his arms. It doesn’t feel right but the gateway is presented to him and he takes it with great certainty of what he wants. What he will get. 

You're in his dorm room helping him pack for Saltburn, rambling about everything there and everything that it contains like he doesn’t already know all of that. But he likes listening to you because you don't talk much, never have the time to. “You’ll love it, I know you will,” you tell him while folding one of his shirts. “There's this maze that is great to walk through at night because it's like the moon is always there, just watching you like the Cattons placed it there. Wouldn’t be surprised if they actually did.” You laugh and shake your head, not noticing that all he’s doing is watching you, barely even helping you pack his own belongings. 

Oliver can agree with you about the maze, it’s eerie at night but he finds that the moon hangs just right and its light is placed just right so that the shadows stay on his side. You take nightly walks in the maze, wandering around and going through the deadends so that you can relax against the prickly shrubbery and just sit. Sitting and thinking is all that you do in the deadends and Oliver can watch you forever while you do just that. 

Another one of his favorite spots is the pool because that is when you smile the most out in the shine of the sun because even the Goddess of the Moon deserves to lay in the sun every once in a while. He watches you laugh with Venetia and make jabs at Farleigh while Felix sticks to your side like an awaiting master who stands patiently for his dog to make a mistake when they mess up. You never do though, Elspeth he estimates, has already beaten that out of you. 

But his absolute favorite spot in the entirety of Saltburn is your bed, not as hard as the one at Oxford but not as soft as his own guest room bed is and you both like to lay down on his bed sometimes and talk like you did in Oxford. It’s the late nights that have no curfew that drive him to become bolder, to trace his fingers across your face and press his thumb against your bottom lip, driving down. You stare at him while he does this, waiting for him to make the move and follow his eyes with your own doe eyed ones, decisions are not something you make by yourself and he’ll take advantage of that at the moment—later he’ll make you more independent but just enough for everyone else not him. 

Felix freaks when he finds out the truth just like he had when he found Oliver in your bed with his head between your thighs, hand in his hair pressing him into you further. Unlike then, he wasn’t happy about the reveal because this wasn’t supposed to happen, he wasn’t supposed to find out this way—ever actually. Felix doesn’t tell you about what happened which is a blessing in itself and so Oliver seeks comfort in you and wraps himself around your body. It’s anger that leads him to grabbing you roughly and taking what he wants—what is his. 

His birthday party is a blast, filled with life with people he doesn’t know but the Cattons and a few others from Felix’s friend group who still had an animosity with him for a reason that separates him completely from them all. You included. Even though you don’t have money, you're close enough to Felix that it all rubs off on you in their eyes. You’re so far away but close enough to the sun but so was Icarus. 

Felix dies with a horrible ease because even in death he has to go gracefully. Oliver finds you after he's shed his tears and crosses a name off of his list. The birthday present that you give him fills him up more than watching—having a hand in—Felix’s death ever could. You hold him throughout the rest of the night and he holds you in the morning when you see Felix's body, your own crumbling like a piece of paper and falling into his arms. 

Death isn’t something you could ever handle, with your dad, Felix and then Venetia, he could only watch as you died next. Your blood is a drink that he has never tasted before but he can’t help but dip his fingers in it and revel in. It’s a delicacy that one could only come by once in a lifetime. So he watches you die and feasts upon your delicacy like a wolf upon an unsuspecting doe. 

[algea]

soooo…

Lars Pinfield.

yeah he can be a massive prick and has said a few mean things to you in the past, but since you've been gone Lars has seemed to lighten up. That was, until you came back.

you always thought Lars was attractive, but you never truly were attractive until you came back after you graduated college. Winston let you hang around the lab to assist your dad in work, so you saw Lars almost everyday. That was, until you went off to college and got an internship with a company that worked with unusual deaths and phenomenons. That sent you away for about 6 years, but you always kept in touch with your father, Ray, Winston, and Phoebe. After 6 years, someone can really change. And that’s what you did. You matured and grew, creating a strong, independent individual. You halfway hoped didn’t expect that Lars was going to be there. You walked through the old aquarium’s hall, silently freaking out. You stood at the door, questioning whether you should actually enter the room.

“you going in or just gonna stand there like a statue?” You heard a girls voice ask. You turn to see a girl with white dreads standing behind you. “I’m just uh…I’m just indecisive.” You reply, giving a half smile.

“about what?” She asks.

“well, I haven’t been back in 6 years, so it’ll be weird for everyone.” You mutter, fidgeting nervously.

“I’ll walk in with you so it makes less of a scene, is that ok? I’m Lucky, by the way.” Lucky smiled.

“Y/N.” You replied back, shaking her hand. She swiped her keycard and the doors opened. Through the slight mist the doors emitted, you could make out the vastly changed lab. Lucky patted your shoulder and led the way. You first searched for your dad, whom you spotted in his office. You walked up to the window and looked through at him, waiting a few seconds before he recognized who you were. Peter rushed to the door and flung it opened, attacking you with a big bear hug. You laughed and hugged him back, a few tears slipping through your eyes.

“I’ve missed you so much dad. I wish I could’ve talked to you every single day.” You cried.

“I know. I mean who wouldn’t want to talk to me everyday, I'm just SO awesome." Peter replied. You scoffed and grinned. You pulled away from your dad and glanced around the room. After briefly scanning, your eyes settled on a man with blond hair, looking intently at a computer.

"Is that...?" You whisper to your dad, quietly motioning towards the man.

"Who? That nerd? Yeah, that's him." Peter confirmed, rolling his eyes slightly. You felt your cheeks heat up at the comment and a bashful smile ghosted your lips.

"Go talk to him." Peter said, giving you a wink and walking back into his office. You turned and combed your fingers through your hair, making sure it looked ok before you talked to him. You were nervous. So so nervous. You combed your hands through your hair a few times, making sure you looked fine. Finally, you started slowly walking towards him.

He was so engulfed in whatever he was doing, it was almost cute when he muttered to himself whatever he was calculating. You really didn't want to disturb him. You really just wanted to turn around and walk right out because you were so nervous as to how he would react.

"Oh, who are you? Why are you in here?" You heard him call. You frozen in place, heartbeat racing. You turned to him and said,

"Hey Lars.."

Lars' eyebrows knit together, lips parting in confusion.

"You really don't remember me? It's only been 6 years." You mutter, fidgeting with a button on your sleeve while looking down at the ground.

"Oh, my God. Is that you, Y/N?" Lars whispers. His blue eyes search your face, finding familiarities that he once saw before. He slowly stood, setting down the goggles he had in his hand. He made his way to stand in front of you, his frame towering down over you. He hesitantly reached up, the tips of his fingers brushing under your jaw.

"You got a lot less ugly." He stated. You sighed, dropping your head slightly.

"I don't mean that in a bad way at all." Lars quickly explained, tipping your head to look back up at him. This moment of softness was immediately replaced with insults as he slipped his hand to your neck and kissed you. You felt insulted because he didn't do that until now. Why, why didn't he do it until now? It was unfair how he had the ability to do it, but you felt stupid and weak because you couldn't ever tell him how you felt. But at that moment, you felt so insulted that you enjoyed it. It was perfect, even though you were probably being watched by the rest of the entire staff there, it was perfect.

"Yeah, well the universe doesn't revolve around you." You mutter, wrapping your hand softly around his wrist.

"I'd rather it not because then I'd have to deal with you all the time." Lars smiled, brushing his lips against yours softly one more time.

"Whatever, but you still owe me an apology for being so mean to me before." You snickered.

"Sorry, I don't hand out free apologies like that." He scoffed, sitting back down. You were ok with that because you had secretly forgiven him. In the background, Ray was sighing and handing Peter a $20. What could've been better? Busting ghosts by yourself, or busting ghosts with a hot nerd (I'd choose the latter)?

[renx01]

Too Sweet

Prompt: Inspired by the Hozier song Pairing: Harry Hart x (Kingsman!)Reader Fandom: Kingsman Tags/Warnings: age gap, mutual pining, angst Word count: 6495

Masterlist

You’d joined Kingsman only five years ago, and over time you’ve become a well-respected agent, code-named Tristan. Merlin, who is your uncle, was the one who had proposed you as a candidate and helped you prepare for the role while you were still in your early twenties. The other candidates had been good, but you were nearly flawless, only taking calculated risks and never letting your emotions rule your decision making. Control over your emotions was something you always excelled in, and it tremendously helped you make strides as an agent during the initial few months and first year. This caused you to rise in rank quite quickly, making you go on more solo missions or accompanying Galahad or Percival whenever they needed assistance. Today, you’re helping your uncle instead, hacking into some cameras and security networks so he’ll be able to tell Lancelot and Galahad where to go next and what they should be looking out for. It’s something you do from time to time, mostly upon Merlin’s request when he finds the mission too complicated to oversee on his own.

‘The main control room should be south from where they are now.’ You pull up the map on the big screen which hangs in front of you and Merlin, pointing out where Galahad and Lancelot should be going next. As he’s relaying the information to the other men, you hack into the mainframe the criminal organisation and start going through the different files. ‘Any updates about the nuclear files?’ Galahad’s voice comes through the speakers and Merlin looks at you. ‘Working on it. Just focus on getting to that room.’ The screen in front of you shows Lancelot’s feed. He’s following Galahad through the many hallways and twists and turns they take, taking down guards whenever they come across them. Their moves are deliberate, quick and efficient. You turn back to your screen and after a few minutes you’re finally able to access the file Galahad had asked for. ‘I’m sending you the file now, Galahad.’ ‘Thanks Tristan.’ He replies. They have finally reached the door to the control room. Lancelot holds his watch against it and it opens. Silently, the two men enter the room. ‘Lancelot, I need you to connect us to the controls.’ Merlin states and the other man follows the order. Your screens fill with the necessary information and you start working on fully disarming and disabling  the system. ‘Galahad, please flip the green switch on your right.’ You request. Before he can really do so, a loud bang interrupts him, followed by the sound of shots. ‘Lancelot, you take those men while Galahad follows Tristan’s orders.’ Merlin’s Scottish accent seems thicker momentarily. You’ve noticed it only really happened when he was in more stressful situations; one time when you almost got kidnapped, it was so thick you could barely understand him despite having a mostly Scottish family. Calmly, you instruct Galahad what buttons to press and switches to flip. After a few minutes of him following your lead as you type away at your computer, you’re done. ‘Galahad. Lancelot. The system has fully been disabled and disarmed. Get back to the jet.’ They start running through the building and Merlin glances at you, giving you a small smile before going back to helping them follow the quickest route out of the building. 

‘You did well, Tristan.’ Merlin ruffles your hair and you smile at him. ‘Thanks. You didn’t do too badly yourself, old man.’ He laughs and lightly punches your arm. ‘I’m not that old, your mother is 10 years older than I am.’ You snort and teasingly say, ‘And you Merlin, are 12 years older than I am.’ After that comment, a comfortable silence settles between you. There were a few more tasks you had to complete before tomorrow, so you decided you would spend the evening and night at the mansion.  About an hour after the mission finished, Merlin leaves, leaving you alone in front of the large screen filled with documents. Quietly, you continue working for a few more hours before you call it a night. You’d finished your side of the report, only needing Galahad and Lancelot for the final few details. You’ll probably ask them about those during the debrief tomorrow afternoon. 

Once you’ve locked your computer and turned off all the lights, you silently walk to the kitchen, where you start making a pot of tea. The room is dark, as you only turned on the light above the stove. A sound from behind you catches your attention. Looking back, you see that your two colleagues have just returned from their mission. ‘Evening gentlemen.’ You greet them. ‘Tristan, good evening.’ Galahad walks up and stands next to you, just as the water starts boiling. ‘Would you like a cup?’ Your hands continue moving, putting in the tea egg to let the leaves steep. He hums in response as he grabs two more cups. ‘Chamomile?’ Galahad quietly asks and you nod. A comfortable silence settles between the two of you while Lancelot leaves the room momentarily to put some of their things away. Once the tea has sufficiently gained colour and flavour, you pour some into the three cups. Grabbing your own, you sit down next to the chair you’d draped your suit jacket over. Harry sits down across from you and puts down Lancelot’s cup next to him. You both quietly drink your tea, your eyes scanning that day’s paper. When you look up, you notice his eyes are trained on you, making you a bit nervous. Before you can say anything, though, Lancelot walks back in and starts talking about their flight back to England and the newest Royal scandal of the week. The other man’s attention shifts to his colleague who is talking excitedly. Your eyes scan Galahad’s features. He is handsome, smart, quick-witted, and a gentleman. A combination which has led you to, over time, develop a bit of a crush on your colleague. 

‘Tristan, what do you think?’

You turn your head to face the other man. ‘I think the situation escalated unnecessarily, had the royal family handled it properly, this would’ve never become public.’ He smiles and Galahad interjects. ‘I agree with Tristan, this situation could have easily been avoided.’ The two men continue talking and you sip your tea.  ‘Gentlemen, I’m heading off to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the debrief.’ You stand up and put your cup into the dishwasher. It was already 11 o’clock. ‘Tristan,’ Galahad stands up, ‘if you’ll allow me, I’ll walk you back to your room.’ Smiling, you nod. ‘Of course Galahad; thank you.’ He leaves the room with you and as you walk, he leans sideways in your direction and whispers. ‘Thanks Tristan. I was a bit tired of Lancelot talking. He’s been going without pause from the moment we got on the jet.’ It didn’t surprise you in the least. ‘Of course Galahad. Lancelot tends to talk quite a lot; I suspect his favourite sound may be his own voice.’ He snorts. ‘I suspect you might be correct.’ The hallways are silent except for your quiet footsteps and conversation. The distance between the two of you seems to become smaller as you continue walking and talking; until you stop in front of your door. ‘Galahad, thank you for accompanying me.’ You turn to face him and smile. ‘Of course Tristan, it was my pleasure.’ His voice was quiet. The silence between you is tense and Harry seems to slowly be leaning closer as he holds your eye contact. Moments, which feel like hours pass, but he doesn’t make a move. Your noses almost touch when he seems to snap out of a sort of trance and clears his throat, pulling back quickly. ‘Ah Tristan, I should get going. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll see you tomorrow.’ As he walks away, you stand frozen in your doorway.

The following morning you watch the sunrise outside, a hot cup of coffee in your hand. It seems no one else is up yet. You’ve left your suit jacket in your room and have your sleeves rolled up, the crisp air touching your form. Behind you, you hear your dog walking and sniffing around. ‘Ares.’ The Doberman walks to your side. ‘Want to go for a walk?’ He barks and you pet him behind his ears. ‘Let’s go.’ You smile and he runs into the field in front of you, with you following calmly. Upon your return, you’re greeted by Merlin, who looks to have woken up not too long ago. ‘Morning Tristan.’ Ares excitedly runs up to the Scot. ‘Morning to you too Ares.’ He puts down his coffee and pets the dog with both his hands. ‘You’ve got an awful lot of energy today, haven’t you?’ ‘He really does, he’s been running around for over an hour already.’ You laugh. ‘I’ll bring Albion to play with him later today.’ He takes a sip of his coffee. ‘I’ll be back momentarily, can you watch Ares for a second?’ He nods. ‘Thanks.’ you say and smile at him. You walk into the kitchen through the open doors. Putting down your cup, you start brewing another cup of coffee. The kitchen is still quiet, but you know that more of the agents that have stayed the night will probably start walking in soon, though it probably won’t be many. Lancelot and Galahad you knew for sure, others you weren’t too certain about. ‘Morning Lancelot.’ You say as you hear the man walk in. ‘Agent Tristan.’ He greets. ‘Want some coffee?’ ‘Yes please.’ The smell of another fresh coffee fills the air. You smile as you hand him a cup. ‘You feeling alright?’ ‘I will once I finish this.’He groans before the two of you clink your cups. ‘See you at the briefing in an hour.’ 

You spent that hour with Merlin and Ares, mostly in silence. The Doberman is as happy as can be, with the Scot and you taking turns throwing a ball into the field and having the dog return it. It was nice spending time with your uncle like this. Usually you have to be  quite serious around him, as you mostly speak to him here, at Kingsman. Now, you can, even if it’s just for a moment, relax and have the relationship you used to have when you were younger and neither of you were a part of the secret service. ‘Uncle Hamish, we should probably get ready for the briefing.’ You say as Ares runs into the distance. He has his eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of the morning sun. ‘Just five more minutes; Galahad will be late anyway, he seemed a bit off yesterday evening when I saw him.’ That last comment piques your interest, but you decide not to pry. The meeting room was still empty when you walked into it with your uncle. A few minutes pass before, you are joined by Lancelot, who is, once again, talking excitedly. While you don’t necessarily have the energy for him, you stay professional and listen with intent. He is still talking your ears off when Galahad finally arrives, about five minutes late. Despite Merlin having made a comment, it is still quite unusual for him to be late. 

‘Glad you could join us, Agent Galahad.’ Merlin calls out from the far end of the room as the other man enters. ‘Terribly sorry for my tardiness.’ Harry excuses himself. ‘Morning Galahad.’ Lancelot greets him, instead you just wave at the agent. Everyone sits in their usual spots, with Galahad across from you and Merlin to your left, though he almost immediately stands up, walking in front of the screen which shows the most vital information related to the mission. Most of the information isn’t new to you, as you’d helped your uncle prepare. Whenever Galahad or Lancelot give additional information, which you hadn’t been able to gain before the meeting, you write it down into the report. Your attention is fully focussed on what everyone is saying, that is until you notice that Galahad’s eyes seem to linger on you a bit longer than usual whenever you make a comment. Eventually, his eyes meet yours. He quickly looks away and focuses on Merlin, who is saying something about the risks which may occur in the future. Yesterday’s mission has likely only slowed down the organisation, meaning that you’d still have to find its core and try to eliminate it. Still, all the new information which has been gained is quite useful. Your gaze reverts back to your laptop screen as you continue typing away. 

‘Agent Tristan, could you please explain to these gentlemen what you did to fully disarm and disable the system?’ Merlin’s sudden attention to you surprises you, but you stand up confidently and walk to his side. Galahad’s eyes seem to burn into the back of your head as you do so. ‘So how we did it is -’ Everything goes smoothly as you explain the process thoroughly to the other agents. Hopefully, you’ll be able to join them in the field next time, rather than having to sit and watch from the sidelines to assist them from a distance. You aren’t sure that’ll actually happen however, as it really depends on what kind of mission it’ll be and what is needed of you.  After a few minutes, you’re able to sit back down. Neither Lancelot, nor Galahad had any questions, which you assume is probably a good sign. There are only a few more things you need to discuss, with most of them only requiring only a little of your input from time to time, so you silently drink some tea as Lancelot and Merlin talk. Galahad is remarkably silent, only asking a few questions or making comments when he deems it necessary. Usually, he’s more talkative and tends to lead the conversation, but today he seems to have chosen to leave that to Lancelot. As your uncle is saying something about the implications of such an organisation having access to nuclear weapons, you feel another foot hit yours. At first, you ignore it; but when it happens again, you look around. It couldn’t be Merlin or Lancelot, leaving Galahad as the only suspect. You quickly look at his face but he acts as if he’s innocent. When you feel a third tap, you let your eyes meet his. The lines around his eyes crinkle mischievously, while the rest of his face doesn’t seem to change. You tap him back, your oxfords hitting the side of his silently. This time, his eyes do not divert to Merlin or Lancelot, and it almost feels as if you’re the only person in this room with him. The feeling is short lived however, with his gaze shifting away when his name is mentioned by one of the other men. Still, his foot remains in place, connecting the two of you. Despite the intimate gesture, his feelings for you remain unclear.

The meeting comes to an end, you and Galahad act as if nothing happened when you stand up. Everyone leaves the room and as he passes you, he slips a small folded note into your hand. You do not get a chance to read it though, as Merlin immediately starts up a conversation with you as you walk the wing of the mansion where the individual kingsman offices are located. ‘Tristan, could you send me the report after lunch?’ You nod. ‘As long as we’re going on a walk with Ares and Albion after, you know he’s missed you lately, and this morning wasn’t enough to make up for that.’ He laughs. ‘Of course.’ Together, you walk into Merlin’s office, where you quickly discuss the last few details before you leave for your own. There, you work on the report for a bit longer, adding the finishing touches before sending it to Merlin. Ares lays in the corner of your office, playing with one of his toys quietly. The folded piece of paper sits next to your keyboard, still not read. Once you’ve finally finished the report, you grab and slowly unfold it. Galahad’s handwriting is neat, but not delicate.

Tristan,

Meet me in the library at 21:00 tonight. 

Yours faithfully,

H

‘I suppose I’ll go read in the library tonight, Ares.’ You whisper before you put the note into your drawer and motion your dog to follow you to the kitchens to have lunch. He walks at your side when you enter, and calmly waits as you brew tea and make lunch. Once it’s ready, you decide to eat it outside, as the weather is quite nice today and Ares will be able to run around before you go for the walk with Merlin.  Half an hour passes before you’re joined by your uncle, who has his dog, Albion, with him. She’s a border collie who is usually quite serious and focused, but gets very excited when she gets to play with Ares. The two of them are best friends, so you and Merlin try to have them meet up and go on a long walk at least once a week. This doesn’t always happen though, as duty calls whenever it does, resulting in having to cancel quite frequently, which happened the past few weeks. Today isn't such a day though, and once you both finish your lunch, the four of you start walking your usual round around the grounds. You and Merlin chat away about anything and everything while Ares and Albion run around together and fetch a tennis ball from time to time. It’s calm and you’re enjoying yourself. It’s always quite nice to spend your time like this. All nice things must come to an end though, and after forty-five minutes of walking, you have to return to work.  ‘See you later Tristan.’ Merlin says before walking to his office, taking Albion with him. ‘Later.’ You wave before walking in the opposite direction. Galahad hadn’t been there when you returned from your walk, so you assume he’s at the shop to get a few things in order. It’s probably for the better, as you aren’t sure what you would do if you were to cross him in the hallway right now. He’s constantly giving you mixed signals. Yesterday, he seemed to lean in to kiss you before pulling away suddenly. Today, he almost continuously avoided your gaze, yet wanted to stay connected in some way that wasn’t visible to others, and he wrote you a note telling you to meet him later.

‘Fuck.’

You whisper to yourself. You’re falling for him, hard. You have been for a long time. You always told yourself it was merely a crush, but you’re unable to deny it any longer. This revelation isn’t your biggest problem though. Your biggest problem is whether he would even be interested, as he’s constantly giving those mixed signals. Tonight you’d decide whether you’ll ever act upon your feelings or not. You’d never particularly cared for the kingsman code which prohibits any relationships, though it hasn’t been necessary for you to break it either, as you hadn’t been interested in any relationships in the first place. Kingsman always comes first in your life. This means that you’ve never actually taken the time to think of finding a partner or date around. What you are worried about, is that Galahad is someone that always follows the rules and doesn’t even think about bending, let alone breaking, them. This may be an explanation for him being so hot and cold with you. Still, it’s confusing and worries you. ‘Good afternoon agent Tristan, is everything alright?’ Arthur greeting you pulls you out of your thoughts and you realise you’re standing in front of the door which leads into your office, your hand on the doorknob. You have probably been standing there for a couple of minutes now. Quickly you turn the knob and start walking in.  ‘Ah yes Arthur, I was just lost in thought. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some paperwork to attend to.’  You smile at him before swiftly closing the door once Ares has entered the room as well. 

The evening couldn’t come soon enough. Thinking of whatever Galahad could possibly tell you continued racing through your mind the entire afternoon, meaning that you were quite distracted for the most part. Merlin visited you shortly before dinner to discuss the report and what he altered before sending it off to Arthur. While he clearly noticed that you were distracted, he decided against saying anything about it and left. Shortly thereafter, you decided it’d be a good idea to go for another walk with Ares, as it’s a good way of distancing yourself from the setting in which you usually see Galahad. This time, though, the walk lasts for several hours, with the sun starting to set once you start heading back to HQ.  When you arrive back at HQ, it’s nearly nine, so you decide to bring the Doberman to your office before heading to the library. Galahad, or Harry which you rarely ever refer to him as, is already there, waiting for you. He turns to face you and smiles when you enter before greeting you. ‘I’m glad you could make it agent Tristan.’ You nod nervously but try to sound casual. ‘Of course, any time, Galahad.’ His eyes look over your form and you do the same. The tension between the two of you is palpable but you try to ignore it as best as you can. For a moment, nothing happens. The both of you stay still, frozen in place.  Suddenly Galahad moves again and walks up to you. In a moment of passion, he grabs your face and kisses you deeply. It’s so intense it feels as if he’s bruising your lips. When you don’t move, he starts pulling back. Quickly, you pull him to you once more and kiss back, one of your hands in his hair and the other pulling his tie. The two of you fight for dominance and he pushes you against one of the bookshelves, his left hand now resting on your hip.  Eventually, he pulls away and rests his forehead against yours, his eyes still closed. For minutes, the two of you stand like this, silently enjoying each other's presence and closeness. ‘Tristan.’ He whispers. ‘Yes Galahad?’ The man sighs and slowly leaves your embrace. ‘Shit.’ You hear him mutter under his breath. ‘Shit shit shit.’ He backs away, as if he’s only just realised what happened. ‘Galahad, what’s going on?’ ‘I cannot do this Tristan.’ His voice sounds almost desperate. ‘Galahad, what do you mean you cannot do this?’ He doesn’t reply and walks away, leaving you alone in the library.

You didn’t see Galahad the rest of that week and you threw yourself into work, only leaving your office to go out with Ares. If you hadn’t had him, you probably wouldn’t have left your office in the first place. That Friday morning, Merlin comes in unannounced and finds you sleeping with your head on your desk. He wakes you and you slowly sit up straight. Your suit jacket is discarded somewhere in a corner and you look a bit of a mess with your hair all dishevelled.  ‘Are you sure you’re feeling alright Tristan? You really shouldn’t be overworking yourself.’ Your uncle asks you, he sounds quite worried. ‘I’m fine Merlin, I promise.’ He sighs. ‘You do not look or act as if you’re fine. What’s going on?’ You just shake your head. ‘It’s nothing really, I’ve just had to catch up on some work. Please don’t fret it.’  ‘We both know that’s a lie, Tristan. You’re always ahead of everyone when it comes to paperwork.’ He stops for a moment. ‘Look, both you and Galahad have been acting off all week and we can’t have that. I don’t know if there’s anything going on between the two of you, but I want you to fix it, especially if it’s affecting you like this.’ His voice is stern. ‘You should go talk to Galahad then, I’m not the guilty one here.’ You stand up for the first time in what feels like years, your knees and back hurting with every move. ‘I don’t have the energy for all this, go talk to him if you want to know more.’ Silently, you usher him out of your office and shut the door behind him. While you love your uncle, you really couldn’t deal with this right now.

The scotch in the corner of your office had been a little too appealing. That combined with the very limited amount of food you’d had over the past few days, made it very easy for you to become drunk. You sit in your chair feeling very sorry for yourself, as you do in such situations. ‘You know Ares, I’ll go talk to that asshole. He kisses me like that and then he avoids me all week. I suppose that’s not very gentlemanly of him.’ Standing up, you feel dizzy and you have to grab a hold of your desk to keep standing. The world seems to be turning and Ares looks to have multiple heads. ‘Fuck.’ You hadn’t realised how badly the scotch had affected you. Still, that didn’t stop you, and you stumble through your office door. The hallway is empty when you enter it, as is usual at this time of night in HQ. Galahad’s office is only a few doors down and you try to walk there as normally as you can. Taking a deep breath, you knock multiple times. When there’s no immediate answer, you knock again, but more loudly. ‘Galahad, I know you’re in there.’ Your voice is loud enough for him to hear on the other side of the door, but not loud enough to wake any of the other kingsmen. Though they probably wouldn’t wake up unless you screamed loudly enough for it to reach the other side of the estate. Moments pass, but the door is eventually opened by the agent. ‘Tristan.’ He greets you solemnly. ‘I need to talk to you, you pretentious asshole.’ The words fall out of your mouth and there is no stopping them. ‘You are no gentleman. You invite someone to talk to them alone after MONTHS, LITERAL MONTHS, of looking at each other longingly and flirting, then kiss them in the way you did and JUST WALK AWAY LIKE THAT?????’ He finally looks up at you and realises the state that you’re in. ‘WHAT IN THE HELLS IS WRONG WITH YOU INCOMPETENT PRICK????’ You jab your finger into his chest. ‘Tristan, you are in no state to discuss this, please go to bed.’ He grabs your hand. ‘YES I AM, I AM A GROWN ADULT THAT CAN MAKE THEIR OWN DECISIONS. YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER.’ ‘Yes you are, but you’re currently incapable of making any good decisions. So, please quiet down before you wake up Mr. Pickle.’ Before you’re able to respond, he grabs you and surprisingly easily throws you over his shoulder. ‘Now, I’ll be escorting you to bed, as you don’t seem to be capable of doing that yourself.’ He completely ignores your protests, which continue for about five minutes before you realise there’s nothing you can do about this situation. He only puts you down when you’re in front of your bedroom door, as he needs you to open it. ‘I’m going to put you down, but please stay quiet. I don’t want you to wake everyone up.’ You nod and mutter to yourself as he puts you down. ‘Still an asshole though.’ He laughs to himself. When you finally have both your feet on the ground again, you’re stable momentarily before you start falling over again. Galahad notices and steadies you by grabbing your shoulders. ‘Careful now, sweetness.’ His lips touch the shell of your ear and you slowly feel yourself going red. You ignore it though, steadying yourself with his help before walking to your door and unlocking it. When you try to open it you almost fall into your own room and so Harry catches you, before the world around you slowly goes dark.

The following morning you wake up in your own bed, not remembering how you got there in the first place. Ares sits next to your bed, looking up at you as you wake. ‘Morning, my boy.’ Your voice sounds more like a groan than anything else. He nudges your arm and softly barks when you eventually sit up. The light hurts your eyes as you look around, so you close your eyes and lay back down. Once you finally open them again, you notice that there’s a glass of water and a pack of paracetamol next to your bed. ‘Who put that there?’ You look at Ares and pet him before taking one of the pills followed by a gulp of water. The headache you have is slowly driving you insane, so hopefully this’ll help. Still, it remains unclear who actually put it there after probably finding you in quite the state. Usually, you could easily hold your liquor, but apparently your body had other plans yesterday. You do realise that you’re still in your clothes from the day before. So, you decide to get out of them and put on something more comfortable before calling Merlin. ‘Morning Merlin.’ Your voice is quite hoarse. ‘Ah Tristan, I was wondering when you’d call.’ He sounds quite amused for some unknown reason. ‘What do you mean?’ The Scot laughs. ‘Well, I got a notification earlier this morning that you’d be out of the office today because you’re ill. Thing is, agent Galahad is the one who notified me, which is a bit odd to be honest.’ You groan. ‘Well he’s right about me not feeling well.’ Slowly, you lay back in your bed.  Merlin didn’t talk to you for much longer after that and he remained quite vague about what Galahad had told him about the night before. Despite you desperately wanting to know what had happened the night before, you decided that would be a problem for tomorrow before heading back to sleep.

That night, a knock wakes you from your slumber. You almost jump out of your bed at the sound, scaring Ares a bit. ‘One moment please.’ You shout at the person behind the door before calming your dog. ‘I should take you out for a walk in a few, shouldn’t I? I’m so sorry Ares.’ After whispering that, you stand up and walk to your door. Opening it slowly, you reveal Merlin’s form. ‘Good evening Tristan.’ He smiles. ‘Thought I’d bring you some dinner.’ The tray he’s holding has a plate with a baked potato, some carrots and broccoli, and some beef, accompanied by a large glass of water and a cup of your favourite tea. He walks in once you’ve further opened your door, putting the tray on the small table that stands in the corner of your room. ‘Do sit down.’ His voice is soft. You do so silently, Ares laying down next to you. ‘Thank you.’ Your voice is soft and you start eating your first meal of the day. Merlin sits down across from you. ‘I do hope this was a one time thing, Tristan.’ He sighs and takes off his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose with his other hand. ‘It won’t happen again, sir.’ Your voice can barely be heard from across the table. ‘Look, you’ve been doing flawlessly so far, so getting drunk and insulting go Galahad isn’t something that’ll affect you or your career in any way. It can, however, have an effect on how well you’re able to work with him in the foreseeable future.’ Your eyes don’t meet his. ‘Now that I’ve scolded you for getting drunk and acting in the way you did, I would like to know why. Harry hasn’t wanted to tell me anything and I’m against just checking your glasses if I can ask you.’ Your plate is only half finished but you’re already full and you put down your cutlery. ‘I’m not sure you want to know.’ Leaning back, you make yourself more comfortable in your chair. ‘Galahad has really said nothing?’ He shakes his head. ‘Well then, I suppose I’ll tell you what’s going on; under the condition that this will strictly stay between the two of us. Not even Galahad can know.’  ‘Why are you being so secretive about this?’ He enquires. ‘You’ll understand once you hear the full story. Now do you promise?’ You hold out your hand with your pinky ready for him to intertwine with. And he does. ‘I promise.’ A smile creeps onto  your face. This is something you’d always done with him when it comes to promises, starting when you were just a little kid. ‘So, as you may have noticed the past few weeks, there’s been some tension between me and Galahad, or Harry.’  You start. ‘But this has been an underlying issue for years now -‘ 

That night Merlin listened as you talked about how the situation between you and Galahad had unfolded over the past few years and more in detail about the past week or two. Understandably, it was quite a bit for him to take in, and at first he wasn’t certain how to feel or respond. If you hadn’t been who you are to him, he would’ve been fine with it. But with the familial ties you have, and the fact that he and Galahad are best friends, made him hesitate. Yet, he promises to keep quiet and have you and the other man resolve it by yourselves. He would, however, urge his friend to do so if the issue isn’t resolved within a week, meaning that you’ll have to hurry up when it comes to talking things out. He did make clear that he isn’t against you having a relationship with the older man, his tone may have even been slightly supportive, which was somewhat unexpected.

The next time you finally see Harry it’s Sunday. Exactly three days since you’d last seen him and had had the drunken encounter. There you stood, in front of his apartment, your heart pounding in your throat. He’d been at the shop the past few days while you were at the mansion. Merlin was quite convinced that Galahad was, in fact, avoiding you, so he’d suggested you go visit him that evening. Well, suggested was quite a loose term in this case. It was more that Merlin just dropped you off here and told you to ‘Go ahead and talk it out’. Obviously, this was his way of forcing you to do so, as he is quite sick of having the two of you avoiding each other.

Finally, you ring the doorbell and you stand there waiting nervously for Galahad to answer. He does after a few minutes and the confusion is quite evident on his face. When he doesn’t say anything, you start talking. ‘Sorry to bother you Galahad, but Merlin’s dropped me off so we can talk things out.’ You smile sheepishly and he sighs before letting you in.  You have never been inside his home before, so you look around curiously as he leads you into his kitchen. He was wearing his usual attire, save for the glasses. Apparently, he had been cooking dinner when you rang his doorbell. As you look around the room, not moving, he clears his throat. ‘Would you like to join me for dinner Tristan?’ The question is logical, yet you aren’t certain whether he actually wants you to join or if he’s asking it out of obligation. You’re hoping it’s the former rather than the latter. ‘If you don’t mind. Otherwise we can talk and then I’ll leave, I don’t wish to intrude Galahad.’ He motions you to sit down. ‘I would love for you to join me, I’m almost finished cooking dinner anyway, so do feel free to have a seat.’ When you do so, he turns around to face the stove once again before finishing dinner. It is a simple yet delicious meal, and you appreciate the gesture of him inviting you to join him. It is mostly spent in silence, save for a few comments appreciating his skill, or talking about the goings on at the shop and HQ. 

After dinner, Harry offers you a cup of tea before pouring one for himself and sitting down across from you. It is silent for a few minutes before he finally speaks again. ‘I would like to apologise.’ His voice is soft. ‘I should’ve handled this situation differently and not have run away in the way I did.’ As he says this, his eyes divert. ‘It is just that I was, and still am, quite uncertain of how to go about this. I do not wish to hurt you, but in my attempt to do so I did the opposite of what I had intended. I thought you were too pure, too kind. You’re too sweet, too sweet for a bitter man like me. Yet here I am, madly in love with you and confessing my feelings.’ When he finishes talking he looks you in the eye once more. There’s emotion in them, seemingly a mix of sadness and regret. ‘Galahad, I don’t know what to say.’ You pause. ‘I understand why you may have hesitated to approach me in the way you did, however, I am quite confused as to why you ran away so suddenly. You are the one that made the initial move and I never approached you because you were likely to have reservations about breaking kingsman code, yet you gave me hope by inviting me to the library to talk. And for a moment, when you kissed me, I thought we could be together, even if it was just for a moment.’ Slowly, you stand up from your chair. Putting down your cup of tea in the process. ‘Then you went ahead and ripped my heart out by walking away like that. As if I mean nothing to you, as if you weren’t the one that made the first move.’ You raise your voice a bit, but try to stay calm. Following your example, he stands up as well and starts walking towards you. ‘I truly am sorry but it is up to you whether or not you forgive me.’ He looks down into your eyes. ‘What will happen if I forgive you, Harry?’ The two of you are almost touching each other, only a few centimetres between your faces. ‘I shall take you on a date and be your partner. That is, if you’ll have me.’ Rather than answering him with words, you pull his tie and kiss him passionately.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Let me elaborate just a tiny bit on what I mean by using chat AIs as tools because I'm already seeing some alarm in the tags. To be clear, Chat AIs in their current form... Suck, basically. They've improved a lot, but they still suck, which is why you should not use them to replace research or work. You don't know if the AI is giving you accurate information. The AI doesn't know if it's giving you accurate information, because that's not what it's designed to do.

However! It's still filled with some exciting possibilities and will greatly aid in a lot of tasks in the future. I'm not against using Chat AI to augment doing schoolwork or assisting in creative projects. They can be used to fix up grammar, better structure your paragraphs, and work out plot points. You do need to be aware that chatbots take the information you give it and keep it to use in the future, so be very careful about using personal material or identifying information. Don't feed it your whole novel or anything.

You also need to be wary in how you use it to assist with doing schoolwork. Like online proctoring programs, education chatbot detectors are designed to assume the worst when it comes to plagiarism, but you can also use them for your benefit. Some detectors, like Grammarly, offer a free tool for students to check their own work to make sure it sounds original, and you can also talk to your instructors on how they would prefer these tools to be used.

And let me stress, a chatbot is merely a tool! If you use them to write computer code, for example, you still need to check that code to be sure it is correct. If a physical therapist asks a chatbot to create a therapy plan based on certain symptoms, they will still need to verify that plan is the best path forward based on their own education and experience. A mechanic or an electrical engineer using AI as a diagnosis tool still needs to verify that diagnosis actually fits the situation. If you use a chatbot to work out a thorny writing problem, you will still need to be sure it works with your own instincts for what's good with your story.

We are absolutely going to see some shitty usage of AI and automation because, you know, capitalist hellscape and all that. For good reason people who work in the field are pushing for regulation and oversight. But a chat AI is like a calculator, not Astro Boy. Remembering it's merely a tool, not a replacement for thought and creativity, and using it as such can be for your benefit.

[princessmadafu]

The Scobie Roadshow Slithers on...

There are better writers than I am who have already covered a lot of this week's Scobie Doo-Doo, but there is an area where I am well qualified to comment. I worked for many years as a multilingual researcher and translator. I worked with authors, TV shows, even a couple of movie producers. Oh and I translated medical reports for holiday-makers who'd had emergency treatment in Spain, which sometimes got a bit weird and once involved a bunch of daffodils.

When you're translating, the golden rule is: you are not allowed to change, add or omit anything, ANYTHING, that isn't in the original manuscript. Under pain of being sued for thousands of dollars. Changes, additions and omissions lie solely with the author, his editors and his publishers.

So why isn't Scobie suing his Dutch translators if the doo-doo is all their fault?

Let me think...

Answer: It's not their fault, they translated what they were given. No changes, no additions, no omissions.

Why isn't he suing his editors and publishers? Erm... I think money might come into that one. Massive, and possibly carefully calculated, publicity to enrich the Scobie by spreading the doo-doo.

As a translator, you receive the manuscript. You read it through in its entirety, several times, to get the feel for the author, his style, his grammar, his idio- idiopsycho- idiopsychosyncracies- wait, I'm good at my job - his pet peeves! And you make notes on how to replicate all this and reproduce his doo-doo in a different language. You print off a working draft of the original doo-doo, with additional spacing to allow for your careful thoughts (I'm old-fashioned, I like to do this bit with a pencil; the young ones probably do it all on computer these days) and you translate all the easy stuff you can do off the top of your head. Then you go through it again, filling in the worrying bits, usually with an assistant, editor or other colleague, and working on the style, grammar, punctuation, cliches, idioms and colloquialisms etc etc etc, always aiming to reproduce the author's authentic voice without getting too hung up on what a nasty piece of work you're dealing with.

You type up your final draft and submit it to the publisher. The whole process takes months of careful work, checking and double-checking and triple-checking.

There's no way the two names are there by accident.

On the positive side, Scobie's doo-doo has hit the fan and splattered right back in his face. He may think his face is so plastic and cleanable with a wet-wipe that the doo-doo will just slide off, but I don't see that happening. He's annoyed too many people.

Meanwhile the Montecito Twosome remain as Gruesome as ever. Shall we have a good pray for their well-being? Three, two, one...

OK, so that's a No then!

[delfiore]

—DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT. (2/3)

pairing: natasha romanoff x android!reader

synopsis: a face-to-face with caesar confirms what you are already too afraid to admit, as your days as the mole are numbered.

word count: 2.1k

PART I, PART III

Caesar’s new command kept you on edge, you barely had time to do anything else. It was in your program to obey the instructions you were given, so even if you didn’t want to, your brain—CPU—was calculating the best possible way to kill Natasha. You thought about poisoning her, stabbing her in her sleep, pushing her off a ledge to make it look like an accident. The thought of killing Nat was horrifying, but it was even more horrifying to know that you were perfectly capable of doing it, or that you would not be able to stop yourself once the command has been entered.

You wiped the tears that had been running freely down your cheeks. Looking in the mirror, you saw no flaw, no imperfection, just a hollow shell of your face model staring back at you. You wondered whether whomever your face was modeled after lived a normal life, if they knew of your existence, or were they just trying to get home after a long week of work.

���Baby?”

“Huh?”

“Ibuprofen,” Nat called from the bedroom, “could you grab it from the cabinet, please?”

The last mission she went on left her with a dislocated shoulder. It had since been reset, but she needed painkillers to help with the ache.

“Uh, yeah,” you sniffled and grabbed what she needed. When you returned to the bedroom, she was already looking at you with furrowed eyebrows.

She was silent when you handed her the pill bottle, and when you climbed into bed wordlessly.

“Y/N, I didn’t wanna say anything because I wanted you to feel ready to talk to me about whatever it is, but I’m worried, my love.”

You let out a slow breath, and mustered up the best smile you were able to.

“I’m okay. It’s just, work has been a bit stressful.”

“Really? Has Tony been overworking you? I can tell him to—“

“No, no, Nat, please,” you exhaled sharply, “just let it go. Please.”

A beat of silence passed and you thought she might have decided to drop it when she said. “You’re hurting, and I don’t know how to help you. It hurts me to see you like this.”

You felt the guilt gnawing at the back of your throat, threatening to spill out of your mouth. It was a surprising thing to learn that you could feel guilt (you have been feeling it a lot lately). Caesar must have installed it to make you second-guess disobeying him; another failsafe in case you desert.

“I don’t know if I’m deserving of all this, Nat.”

“What do you mean?”

“This, being Tony’s assistant, this life here, you.” You cried quietly. “I don’t know i-if I deserve all this.”

“Of course you do,” Natasha cooed. She probably thought you were going insane.

Natasha was never one for words, and the repeated opening and closing of her mouth was enough to tell you that she didn’t know what to say. She brought you into her arms, and let you cry quietly against her chest.

You never let her see you cry. There was an unspoken shame that you felt whenever you felt the tears coming, like you didn’t deserve to cry, like it was a privilege reserved only for those with real emotions. But if what you were feeling then, that warm sensation spread across your chest, the safeness of being enveloped in Nat’s embrace as she whispered repeated I love you’s in your ears, if that wasn’t real, nothing else on Earth was. Everything would cease to exist, and life would have no meaning.

Maybe that way you would finally deserve her.

You would learn later that Caesar had managed to get on the Avengers’ radar. It wasn’t hard to tell why; VULCAN is one of the only organizations in the world that manufactured artificial intelligence smart enough to blend into society without compromise.

“Jeez,” Clint laughed, “wonder how many of those are walking around Time Square right now.”

“If I had to guess, it'd be a lot." Tony opened a computer screen. "Which is why I've installed scanners in our metal detectors, looking for abnormally high levels of iron in a body. Could be an indication of synthetic blood. Everyone coming into the Compound will be scanned.”

“People with heart diseases and diabetes could also have high levels of iron,” Vision chimed in.

“Sounds like our accuracy could be off,” Sam noted.

“We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet, or how human-like these things are. This is our best bet right now,” Tony shook his head.

“One thing for sure, though,” Nat said, “we have to find who’s behind this. And when we do, we have to shut those androids down to prevent a national security risk.”

You weren’t in the room when the conversation happened, but you were able to hack into F.R.I.D.A.Y’s memory drive to access the recording of the meeting anyway. You needed to know what they said, even when hearing what Nat suggested broke your heart.

It is believed that the sense of smell is closely tied to memory. It is because the olfactory bulb is directly connected to the hippocampus, the section of the limbic system that processes and stores memory. You remembered the smell of the Factory as soon as you set foot in it. It was your first ever memory since before you opened your eyes; it was a sterilized, and clean smell, too much as if to hide another smell. But once you got to Caesar’s office, though, it was replaced by a softer smell of wood, and lavender.

“FD700-16.” He smiled and beckoned you over to embrace you.

“Hello, Caesar.” You let him wrap his arms around you. “I do believe this is the first time we’ve met.”

Caesar was a man of tall stature, even for his age. Lines like rivers adorned his face, and he sported a mid-length head of grey hair. There was a glint in his blue eyes that you couldn't quite decipher; at first glance, he looked like a gentle older man. You tried to scan your database for his identity, because there was no way his real name was Caesar, but your records were blank.

“But oh, is it? I’ve always been here, even before you were born.” Caesar smiled, a wicked grin. “I’ve always been there, watching over you. You were always meant for greatness, there’s no denying that.”

You swallowed a lump in your throat. “About my new objective—“

“Ah, come, we’ll talk about that later. Come, sit. You are the best model I have created so far.”

“I’ve learned a lot, sire.” You said with a small smile. “Your program has allowed me to learn things, experience emotions. I feel . . . almost human.”

“What have you learned of the files, 16?” You could tell he was growing impatient. “The one you were tasked with retrieving?”

You blinked a few times, surprised he had brushed off your comments so easily. “I’m working on it, sire.”

Caesar let out a low sigh. “Do you know why I started VULCAN? At this point, I had worked for the CIA for years. Espionage was what I excelled at, but I’ve seen how emotion clouded many of my colleague’s judgments. But I couldn’t blame them; our intellect is humanity’s greatest gift, but also our biggest downfall. And in my line of work, it could get you killed, or worse, jeopardize the mission.

I know what you’re thinking, 16. How could jeopardizing a mission be worse than dying? When you believe in something, really believe in something, it becomes bigger than you. It affects everyone involved in it, it’s not just you anymore. That is how humans have become the apex predator; we work as one.”

You took a moment to digest everything Caesar told you. It wasn’t how you saw it, but surprisingly it made sense. “So you founded VULCAN to . . . eliminate human error?”

“Now you’re getting it,” he smiled, but it looked more like a grin, him baring his teeth. “The Red Room had the same idea, but slightly flawed as it relied on human assassins. I want to take that formula and modify it, make it perfect.”

“Perfect,” you mumbled, looking up at him. “Is that what you intended for me?”

Caesar leaned back against his chair. “Perfection is never what we are, 16, but who we have the potential to be.”

You had been in the lab for hours by the time you decided to check the time. You had been working on the same model for a few days, just like Tony wanted you to; a new algorithm to deploy his rockets faster, one that he can do so manually should F.R.I.D.A.Y. had been disconnected from taking damage—a failsafe of a sort. Instead of him having to push a button or speak a command, it would run the program using the synapses in his brain as the command.

You thought you’d do your job properly, as you wouldn’t have a job tomorrow if tonight goes accordingly.

It felt easy listening to Caesar, to heed his command. It went against your program to pretend to live in this fantasy you had with Natasha, that would never come to be anyway.

Happy endings are for humans, not androids.

Caesar was right, and he was all along. He was your maker after all.

Natasha came by to pick you up. You were supposed to go to the rooftop for a picnic with her. After that you’d go back to her room and watch a movie before calling it night, except there would be no movie because by the time you leave the rooftop, Natasha would have been dead.

You had opted for an odorless and tasteless poison that would put her to sleep first so that she wouldn’t feel anything; it would simply cause her heart to go into arrhythmia and stop beating.

Nat brought you flowers when she came into the lab.

New York at night was no less beautiful than a meadow at night; the light of the city resembled a field of fireflies in the dark of the sky. Natasha made sandwiches to share between you, you prepared some strawberries, grapes, and cheese, much easier to slip the poison into—fluid mixing with the juices of the fruit.

You brought a small lantern to light up the space where you would set up your date; it seemed almost beautiful and peaceful.

She gave you a kiss as soon as she sat down. “I love this, babe.”

You flashed a smile back. “Only the best for my best girl.”

There was a hint of a blush on her rosy cheeks. Please don’t eat the strawberries.

“Yelena says she’ll be in town next week, says she misses you. Almost like she only came to visit you.” Nat smiled with a roll of her eyes. “She mentioned something about wanting to go to an art museum. Maybe you guys should go to the Met together.”

“I’d like that,” you said, watching the way she put her chin on her fold knee. “How long is she staying?”

“A week, but she always overstays her welcome anyway.”

“Nat?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t eat the strawberries.”

“Hm? Why?”

“Cause they’re kinda going bad,” you grimaced. “I’m sorry, I was in the lab all day. Forgot to go pick up fresh ones.”

“Really? We bought these like two days ago.”

“Well, they are from Trader Joe’s.”

Your skin jumped when she picked up the fruit, bringing it up to smell it, before taking a small nibble from it.

“You didn’t think it’d be that easy, would you?”

“What?” You blinked.

She spat out the piece she had in her mouth, and set the strawberry down.

“How did you know?” You sighed.

“When you stopped using the main entrance to the Compound, and only used the entrance from the living quarters.” Natasha clenched her jaw. “I should have guessed sooner, but I guess I was too afraid to admit it.”

The loud bang of the door blowing off its hinges left you completely on edge. FBI agents shouting with their guns pointed at you, and soon enough you were entirely surrounded.

Your eyes filled with tears as you looked back at Nat, seeing her without emotion. But you knew her; she was trying really hard.

“I’m sorry, for everything,” you said before deploying a smoke bomb and jumping off the building to your escape.

Natasha sat, slumped on the picnic cloth still with food and her affection spread out. “I know,” she whispered, hoping the night’s wind would carry her words to you.

PART I, PART III

[canmom]

i probably would call myself a consequentialist, but not a utilitarian. my objection to utilitarianism is similar to my objection to the absolutist Bayesianism practiced in That Subculture: it's a philosophy that claims to be based around a certain computation, but actually performing that computation is completely intractable. there's no way to actually update your probability assignments of all possible statements in response to new information, any more than it's possible to aggregate the total happiness/suffering/whatever across the entire future for each imaginable course of action.

so this calculation is entirely notional. what you're actually doing is coming up with verbal arguments and vague heuristics for how you think this notional calculation would work. perhaps it's as good an entry point as any. but the supposed mathematical rigour is just rhetoric! you can talk about utilons this and QALYs that, but there is no way to calculate this shit, it's just a mathematical coat of paint.

the second objection is the 'seeing like a state' objection (or seeing like a company/NGO): the 'utility function' is a construct used to make economic models. it doesn't model humans particularly well, who have a variety of competing impulses that don't lend themselves to nice formalisms. and to demand that you should live according to a utility function is accordingly to strip the world of its complexity to make it more tractable. instead of specific people with specific desires and needs and relationships into which you fit, which aren't necessarily commensurable, you have abstract fungible units of pleasure or suffering or whatever else you're trying to optimise.

this worldview appealed to me as a teenager. I imagined that you could model an agent as a some kind of surface between it and the world - a sphere, perhaps, inside your head; the course of your life would be the movement of particles in and out of this sphere, and theoretically there would be a pattern for every instant of time that would lead to the best possible impact on the world, solving 'life' much like a tool assisted speedrun solves a game. the goal would be then to approximate this optimal run as much as possible. then I'd think of problems with this model: couldn't you just spawn high energy photons on the sphere to melt shit like a laser? we'd have to put some restrictions on it, obviously. what if the optimal run was really close to a harmful run, so a small mistake would lead to disaster? perhaps you'd be better to find a stable local maximum instead. and so on.

I'm not sure what good it did me to imagine this funny (or if you prefer, terminally STEM-brained) thought experiment, but it was very nice and mathematical-looking, and back then I really wanted my philosophy to be impossibly demanding for some reason. some weird combo of depression and autism and a self image very much dependent on being told i was good?

these days my feeling is that the pretense of mathematical rigour where it doesn't exist is untrustworthy, and particularly where people are concerned, abstracting too much loses important information. I'm not a court of law where strict consistency matters for the sake of stability or whatever, nor a government trying to figure out which levers to pull to create the ideal society - I'm an organism embedded in a bewilderingly complex system, and I can take each situation as it comes. treating the people I interact with well is important to me. I still sometimes think along utilitarianish lines sometimes - particularly 'this person could use this money more than me' - but I make no pretense to rigour or optimisation with it.

[dduane]

Hi there! I'm not sure if this is something you've talked about before in another post, but I just finished the first draft of my first novel, and I was wondering if you could talk about what your experience was like getting your first novel edited and published. I have this story that I'm excited about but no idea what to do with it now that I've reached "The End," do you have any advice on what my next step ought to be towards eventually getting it published? Thanks in advance!

First of all: thanks for asking. ...And now I have to warn you that I am possibly one of the worst possible people to ask about what their first novel's publication looked like... as it was completely atypical.

Not that that's going to stop me, mind you. (And you know what? I'm inserting a cut here, because this goes on a bit. Warning: contains [calculated] dissing by old friends, pulp non-fiction, unexpurgated language, unexpected awards nominations, and advice that's worth just what you're paying for it.)

What happened with me and my first book goes like this:...

In the late 1970s I was starting to burn out on psychiatric nursing, and was offered a job as assistant to the novelist and Star Trek ["The Trouble with Tribbles"] writer David Gerrold. I took it happily, as I was in a place in my life where I really needed some kind of change. The work with David was part-time; I also occasionally did special duty nursing shifts to help make ends meet.

Now during this period, I was writing for my own amusement (as I'd been doing all my life from about age eight onward). Right then I was working on a project I'd been tinkering with from my late high school years right through college, nursing school, and my first couple/few years of practice as an RN. This was the background worldbuilding for a vaguely Tolkienesque, somewhere-between-late-Medieval-and-early Renaissance fantasy scenario featuring a couple of moderately unusual magic systems, a sexually diverse culture, and a pair of "These Two Idiots"-style protagonists with complex interleaving problems.

While I was working for David, I had a lot of opportunity to observe, close up, what the life and workflow of a career writer looked like. Slowly, over a year or so, the realization crept up on me that what David was doing, I could do too. And it was at this point that I finally admitted to him that I thought I might want to write as well.

David's (as I later discovered, extremely calculated) eyeroll could probably have been seen from space. "Oy, not another one," he moaned. After which I went away from the abortive conversation pretty much resolved never to speak to him about this again... but also with a single thought filling my brain: You fucking supercilious sonofabitch, I'm going to show you that I'm not just another one.

...I'll never be able to thank him enough for that. Fury can be so motivating. :)

In the aftermath I got busy pulling together my background material with much more focused intent, and beating the most significant parts of it into something that started looking like a plot. It came together with surprising speed and unnerving insistence—one of the very few times in my career when a project, once begun, has simply flung me into the writing chair and insisted that it was the most important thing in my life and needed handling now. And when in the fullness of time David went on vacation, leaving me to house-sit at his place in LA, I immediately started using his very early computer to transcribe my novel's so-far-only-handwritten draft material.

I took what I thought was considerable care to cover my tracks... but not quite enough. On his return from vacation, when he was putting out the trash, David found some of my discarded draft pages, read them, and confronted me (with a certain amount of friendly teasing) about what had been going on. Then he said to me, "What I've seen of this thing doesn't look too bad. Let me see it when you're finished, and if it looks good enough, I'll ask one of my publishers if they want to take a look at it."

So that's what happened. I finished my first draft and a polish of it in about six weeks, and passed it to David. He read it and immediately handed it on to his editors at Dell, who were just starting a fantasy line for which they needed product. Two weeks later, they said they liked the novel and made an offer, which I accepted. Not a vast amount, but respectable enough. So there it was, my first sale: this book. Which then got me nominated two years running for the Astounding Award, and opened the door for the sale and publication of So You Want To Be A Wizard, as well as my earliest Star Trek work and my entry into the animation world.

I remember very little about the editing process, except that it was painless. What was not exactly painless was the book's cover, about which...well, the less said here the better. But the book came out to generally good reviews. So, with this series of events behind it, you can see why as regards first-publication stories, I'm a first-class outlier and should definitely not be counted. (Also to be avoided by new writers if at all possible: the experience of having half their strongly-selling first novel's initial print run pulped in the warehouse* because it was taking up room needed by a new book by a world-famous novelist.) (Whom I have long since forgiven, since it wasn't his fault, and...well, what can you do? Shit happens.)

...Anyway, that's more than enough about me. Now let's talk about you.

My first advice about what to do with the novel you've just finished? Stick it in a drawer (literally or figuratively speaking, whichever suits your case better) and don't look at it for at least a month. Two would be better. You can spend those two months thinking about your next moves... because you need to give those some consideration before you do anything else.

The question that you first need to answer is going to at least partially shape what you do next. And it's this:

Are you seriously considering making a career out of writing?

It's not that it can't be done! Of course it can. But it won't be easy... not at all. Anyone who tells you it will is either just outright lying through their teeth, or trying to sell you something. ...Or both.

Be honest with yourself as you consider this. If you aren't, you may be letting yourself in for considerable pain over a prolonged period... and I'd sooner you were spared that, if you can be. In particular, be clear about the difference between the statements "I want to write" and "I want to be a writer." Often enough people like the sound of the lifestyle and what they see as going with it—the signings, the book tours (physical or virtual), the interviews, the best-seller lists—without any real concept of the grueling, day-to-day, weekends-are-for-other-people, why-am-I-making-less-than-minimum-wage-most-of-the-time labor that underpins it.

If you simply want to write and be published—without the concept of a career necessarily being involved, or the lovely shimmering dreamlike vision of Giving Up The Day Job—you now have work pathways available to you that would've been unimaginable in the previous century. Self-publishing makes it possible for you to get your work in front of many, many eyes without necessarily having to submit yourself to the specific set of trials that go with achieving the initial stages of an intended career. Selfpubbing still has significant unique challenges of its own, of course, which have to be evaluated so that you can tell (as the commercials say) if they're right for you.

But if you're thinking of a career in what's usually being referred to these days as "traditional publishing", then you face a number of challenges that don't necessarily come with the self-publishing end of things. In particular: many publishing houses no longer consider manuscripts that come to them un-agented. So you're going to need to find an agent who's willing to represent your work... and this is a task that no longer looks anything like what it did when I found mine. (Or rather, when he found me, having been recommended to me by one of my editors. I've been with him for even longer than I've been with @petermorwood... and that's saying something. But this is yet another way in which my career's been wildly atypical.)

There is so much that could be said about this subject alone—the business of researching agencies to see which one seems like a good fit for you, the art of writing the perfect query letter to get their attention focused on a given book, and so much more—that I could hardly begin to even skim the surface of it here. There are whole websites devoted to shopping for agents, not to mention how to pitch yourself and your work to a given literary agency.

Let me leave this whole subject here for the moment. We can come back to it another time, because right now you need to be thinking this through. ...This I'll say, however. For the past six to nine months I've been pulling together links to various online resources that can be beneficial to new writers just getting started. These will be available as posts over at the FicFoundry.com site that I'm going to be bringing online before summer. I'm hoping to build that into kind of a compendium site or clearing house for online resources on this subject. We'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, thanks for inquiring about this. You're standing at the first branching of what I'm hoping will be, for you at least, a fascinating variant of the Choose Your Own Adventure genre. :)

More on this later.

("Wait. Did she just call us idiots??")

*Now that we live in the era of just-in-time warehousing, this is something that fortunately doesn't happen much any more... as far as I know. But once upon a time, if somebody's new best-seller was going to the warehouse in its many thousands of copies, and your relatively-less-well-selling book was taking up space that could be used by the other author's "more valuable"/higher-priced titles, your books (5-10K of them, in my case) were simply thrown into a machine and turned into papery mush. And these go on your sales record as "unsold copies". (sigh) Some discussion of this phenomenon can be found over here.

[elowhin]

—What if [ READER ] was exactly just like " The Qu " From 'All 'Tomorrow's?' Human in appearance wise, but within the confines of her mind.. A New kind of evil lies in it's wake, what if this [ READER ] Was the one who encouraged and made 'AM' awake to his new found sentience?

Scenario :

You were in short, a Nepo Baby. A calculated Nepo Baby however, your birth was nothing more than to benefit those of two families, you were birthed from buisness, not love. — But if anything you were more akin to a Sad Lazy Pile of flesh and bones forced to work. Your whole purpose and being here was to rise above the rest, play pretend, and assist in the useless III War.

Not that you cared.

Overpopulation was a serious problem ! Having less test subjects was also a problem.. Not like you couldn't convince them to give you new ( pathetic. ) subjects.

In fairness everything seemed to play out right for you, just as they intended; life was meant to be this easy for you in the long run, your eccentric methods were a delight and unique treat to get spies to admit to their wrongs, did you care much about that? No, you only cared about the benefits they gave you, the free medical equipment and.. Illegal substances were nice, gave you much more freedom.

You'd often do surgery at most when you're bored, but the healing field was not something you enjoyed, mundane and boring. Useless and meaningless, nothing to you.

That was until something changed, you were brought into a room with an AI, 'Allied Master-Computer.' Whatcha'ma call it? It asked you questions and you answered ( much to your disinterest and boredom. ) It took about Four hours,

Nice.

—

NOTE : Reader's personality is much more apathetic, but do expect them to be exactly like the QU, AM doesn't have much spotlight since when this happened he wasn't booted up yet to gain sentience.

[muzzleroars]

Here's something a little more lighthearted, Would V1 be able to pass the Mirror Test? I imagine due to V1 being an imperfect prototype that there are so many quirks that never got fixed or even got worse during its journey, so that while there are many things that it does with a scary amount of efficiency beyond any human or angelic ability, there are still small insignificant things that completely trip it up that we take for granted.

ouughh i really do love the idea that v1 may not, at least initially, recognize itself in a mirror. like you said, v1 is a prototype and likely had a lot of bugs to work out and a lot of software that needed tending to that was more important and, to compound the issue, v1 has no point of reference for itself since it is a singular entity. it is brilliant, but v1 has an intelligence totally divorced from something that evolved organically and has a basis in so many ancestral experiences that necessitated something like this. which is all to say i could definitely see it trying to attack its reflection immediately upon seeing it but just as quickly it would cease, given that what it's met with has no information its sensors can pick up on. it would learn as a computer does, collecting the data it can from how the image moves as it moves, and it would understand soon enough that this is itself projected back at it. it knew it likely had the outward appearance similar to v2, but truthfully it never gave much thought to what it considers its "shell"...though now that it has the opportunity, it would absolutely play in the mirror, flaring out its wings and spinning its sharpshooter around, as well as studying its angles. like. it had a basic understanding of itself to assist battle calculations, but it's much more exciting to see the specifics. however, i think this wouldn't totally stick, and v1 would likely have to encounter several mirrors before it recognized the pattern and fully understands reflections lol

little bonus something from a (likely scrapped) wip:

it's tangential, but i had a comic that sort of went into detailing v1's mind and its sense of identity, and it actually started with v1 failing the mirror test:

[yuuainnie]

Self aware AU: Ortho shroud.

┌──❀*̥˚───❀*̥˚─┐

As a non human being, someone who can connect to the world system. Ortho always wonder how everyone is a pile of data and codes. Even his brother is one too. There seems to be a system that he and his brother as well others follows.

He don't really care about it as he follow the orders of the world. It was after all embedded on his system to do as it talked.

Even if he have questions, no one can answer it. No one can ask questions, no one can give answers. Everyone is puzzle about his questions even if he ask it. The world people don't know the reality but it's better for them to live a life oblivious in the truth. And Ortho adopted to the order of society, ignore the truth and live like others.

As to say, he think everything is what it supposed to look like... Till you come to this world.

Are you a virus? Should he exterminate you? Will you cost damage to the world ? Will you endanger his older brother ?

He have many questions in his mind as he watch you from a far. He get a notification from world system that he was chosen.

Chosen? Could you be the darling of this world?

The world did seems to start and circle around you...

But He is chosen...?

Why would someone like him be, chosen?

Wont you prefer more human companion?

But his going to be the best either way! After all with his big brother help and upgrades, he can assist you in this world better than other people!

More and more questions pile on his mind, calculation of the pro and cons. The what if and theories. All come rushing as he reach out to grab your hands with his data one.

The moment of contact, he felt his not just code. He could be real.

Real like you ...

He can't help but be happy. A key code to the world program appear. He can finally ask and get answer.

So please don't leave till he get answer ok?

└───❀*̥˚───❀*̥˚┘

Context: Ignihyde, the dorm base on the king of underworld, Hades. Who handle the souls in the world. In the present time. The dorm is full of techno genius in computer and cyber knowledge. If we think about it. Isn't the game an app? Hades is a god. Maybe... They can be self aware more than others. Instead of souls they handle data. Which is everyone in this world. Since Ortho is not human as everyone, his more self aware of the world system.

[yanderelmk]

Can u do a yandere syntax x gender neutral readeeerrr? headcanons (and a lil oneshot maybe)

-🕶️ anon with cool glasses

Right off the bat, this man most likely would've relished the idea of turning you into a spider demon and basically taking you under his wing, even if you know not a thing about tech stuff

He will spend hours trying to throw tech-rizz at you, tech-related pick-up lines (You turn my software into hardware)

Highlights of lines he'd practice in a mirror for you: "Are you made of beryllium, gold, and titanium? 'Cause you're BeAuTiful!" "Hi. My name is Windows. Can I crash at your place?" "Are you Google Glass? 'Cause you augment my reality." "I always thought love was an abstract class until you made an instance of it." "Are you a computer keyboard? Because you're my type."

I just spent the past 15 minutes gathering those and wheezing because I just KNOW Syntax thinks he's like hottest thing on this side of Megapolis when he says these, he will lean up against the wall with a sly smile completely convinced he's swept you off your feet

Be careful though this guy could hack into any of your devices to check to see who you've been messaging, what your incognito tab history looks like, and how long you've stared at a person's profile and he will get thoroughly jealous, trying to figure out why you didn't respond to his message immediately

He texts either in the most abstract abbreviated way or like he's some mediaeval lord composing a sonnet to his intended while he's trying to ask you out (if he even goes that route instead of just nabbing you)

He is not a barbarian, he'll give you three days to make your choice to pick him. In his mind that's all the time you need. By his calculations you should have fallen for him by the third day, and if not...well, the queens venom makes her subjects loyal to her, there must be a way for him to tinker with it to add in a dash of loyalty to him

Actually- imagine you get a message on your computer and it's him saying he took the liberty of properly clearing out your device of any trackers, set up proper anti-virus, etc. Creepy, but hey at least your computer's protected

Speaking of protected he'd likely be the type of person to insist that he knows who you ought to hang around, "You deserve much better than...those of a lower IQ."

Obviously he thinks he's the highest caliber for you to be around, and will firmly drag you away from a social situation where he thinks you need his assistance (whether you asked for it or not)

Cannot express why, Syntax gives the vibes of someone who is...perhaps not 'snobbish' or 'uppity', I think the best word is 'persnickety'. Quite the fussypants when it comes to his own standards and how you deserve the same treatment. After all, you are his darling