#data processing along

[drchucktingle]

my masks

hey there buckaroos. due to all of the attention the TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION situation has gotten i am going to take a minute to talk about my personal way as an autistic buckaroo. im going to tell you about my masks.

im doing this for a few reasons, some are good FUN reasons full of love and some are not so great. 

lets start with the GOOD STUFF. first of all, i am talking about this because speaking on my way can help other buckaroo feel more comfortable speaking on there own way, ESPECIALLY if they are good at ‘passing’ for neurotypical like chuck is. 

unfortunately the NOT SO GREAT reasons im talking about all this dang stuff are two fold. reason one: i have been put into a position of having to explain and justify my needs and boundaries by the TXLA. this is not something that i WANT to be taking up all of my time, but when large organizations do not make space for those who they have pledged to support, it puts us smaller buckaroos into position where were have to defend our existence. it is not plesent but it is necessary.

the second NOT SO GREAT reason is that ‘passing’ bisexual and autistic people like myself are ALWAYS just seconds from being gatekept from folks both outside and inside these communities. there will probably be a day on chucks deathbed where i take off my mask and say hello to this timeline (mostly so you can all see how handsome i am under here but I DIGRESS). i KNOW with absolute certainty (the same way other bi and autistic buckaroos are probably nodding along right now) that when that day comes i will STILL be accused of ‘not being real’ and ‘faking’ because i ‘dont look autistic’ and i have a beautiful ladybuck partner in sweet barbara.

ALL THAT IS TO SAY, i am taking a moment today to talk FOR THE RECORD about my neurodigence and my particular needs. hopefully i will not have to keep diving this deep every time an organization takes a discrimantory action against me, but i will also say this: at least it is a good fight on an important battlefield

anyway buds, here is the story of my way on the spectrum

when i was a young buckaroo i knew that my thought process was different. i could socialize easily, which is unique in contrast to many autistic buds (it is a spectrum after all), but my social ease was for an interesting reason. I ALWAYS KNEW WHAT OTHERS WERE ABOUT TO SAY. it was like a strange ‘human game’ where someone would say one thing and i would think ‘well you actually mean something else’ in a sort of logical way (this is why i later related to DATA from star trek so dang much). at first i remember thinking ‘well i am just NOT going to play along with this human game’. i quickly learned neurotypical buckaroos do not like this, that there is a BOB AND WEAVE to social interactions that must be learned. 

later i realized ‘actually if i WANT to make friends and prove love is real then i can do this like an expert because i can SEE the game where most cant’. this got chuck many buds and took me on many adventures. please understand, i am not saying these connections are not important to me, they are just different. they are full of love, but i express this in my own unique way.

HOWEVER, while growing up i felt disconnected from this timeline in other ways, like an alien or a reverse twin trotting along in a world that is not quite my own. i did not feel emotions the same way my buds did. they would get upset over the ‘human game’ interactions and i would not be moved at all, HOWEVER i could see the way sunlight hit a window and start crying my dang eyes out over the beauty. so my emotion was still there and VERY STRONG, i just felt it in more existential ways (like hearing the call of the lonesome train). these days that feeling has progressed to where i am pretty much in a constant blissed out state of cosmic emotional connection (make of that last sentence what you will, but it is the truth). when i make existential posts online i am not just FIRING OFF SOME CONTENT, i really mean every word. this is really my trot.

anyway as a young buckaroo these feelings made me worry sometimes. i thought about various mental health dianosises and marked the parts and pieces that matched with myself. am i this? am i that? sometimes, instead of just being’ different’ i worried i might actually be ‘wrong’. 

when i saw david byrne on letterman in my younger days i immediately recognized something connected to myself. i thought ‘wow this is the mystery being solved before my very eyes.’ i could hear it in the music of talking heads too. i started doing research and realized that i might be on autism spectrum, something that was later confirmed by a therapist (back then the diagnosis was called asperger's). it was a glorious and fulfilling moment. i was SO EXCITED TO BE AUTISTIC LIKE MY HERO. i felt very cool because of it, and i still feel very cool because of it.

one of the big reasons i talk so much about being autistic these days is because i want to make sure OTHER buckaroos can have that same moment that i did. they can see chuck and think ‘wow i really like this autistic artist, maybe being autistic is cool’

so what does an average day WITHOUT wearing the pink bag look like for me?

my thought process is exactly like ROSE from CAMP DAMASCUS, which is part of why i wrote the book. we have the same stim (complex order of finger taps), we prepare for social interactions the same way, we analyze things in the same logical trot that neurotypical people might think feels ‘detached’ but for me feels natural (certain reviews of camp damascus are very funny to me in this way. you can tell when a reader is just very confused by existing in an autistic brain for 250 pages.)

from the outside you would not be able to tell that i am on the spectrum. in fact you would probably find me very socially adept. 

the problem is, all of that masking can take its toll. i spent years trotting in and out the emergency room, talking to confused doctors who could not figure out the chronic phantom tension and pain that radiated through my body. i eventually accepted the fact that i would either live a life constantly on heavy painkillers or just stop living altogether.

eventually, however, i started noticing a correlation between the way that i felt, and the space that i allowed for chuck and the pink mask. i was exercising that tension, allowing my mental mask of neurotypical existence to take a rest. i started practicing physical therapy and this time THE RESULTS STUCK because i was approaching from two sides, MIND AND BODY. after a while, i got my pain down to about 5 percent of what it once was. i still have flare ups in times of stress, but the healing has been very real and life changing.

lets get VERY specific now. if i attended the TXLA confrence without a mask and gave my talk i can tell you this: i would do a dang good job. i can work the heck out of a crowd and (not to reveal too much about my secret way) I HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO DO THIS ON OCCASION VERY WELL. however, going home from this event i would very likely be in pain. i would likely need to do physical therapy. i would likely need to stim for a while. i would NOT be emotionally fullfilled in the same way. in other words, without my pink mask i can charm the heck out of buckaroos, but THE SPACE OF CHUCK TINGLE IS NOT THE SPACE FOR THAT. the pink bag is a place for me to not have to put up with that tension. it is a place for me to unmask mentally by masking physically.

this pink bag space SAVED MY LIFE and i am not going to risk blurring these lines. if and when that ever happens it will be MY decision, not someone elses. that is my boundary. the part of me that neurotypically masks could handle a library conference in a purely technical sense, but the part of me that chuck represents absolutely cannot and should not be asked to do that without the pink bag. unfortunately, the complexity of this point makes it even MORE difficult for me to think about and takes up even more of my time, because it forces me to START QUESTIONING MYSELF and my own needs. to be honest, that is the most insidious part of other people questioning your identify and refusing to accept your accommodation needs without ‘proof’.

the thing is, while all of this discussion of disability and accessibility is important, i have a much larger point to make by writing these words.

a conference should not uninvite someone with an unusual physical presentation or a strange way of speaking REGARDLESS of it being classified as a disability. it does not matter WHY i look the way that i look and wear what i wear. i should not have to spend all day writing this post instead of writing my next book, just because my sensibilities are unique and my presentation is unusual. 

fortunately the solution is very simple: let other people be themselves. its not hurting you to simply accept and nod at the buckaroos you think look strange. let us exist

[mobiloitte7]

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[haikyuupaladin]

TLDR; don’t give tumblr money until they start making visible improvements towards accessibility

I’ve seen a few posts around about something people are calling crab day where you’re supposed to gift the crab button to your mutuals to support Tumblr financially. Please don’t participate in this unless Tumblr starts making noticeable improvements towards accessibility between now and then. It’s been 5 months of me trying to get the bare minimum of accessibility for photosensitive users or even just find out who I can talk to to get anywhere, and Tumblr is refusing to make any changes.

@photomatt has doubled down on the suggestion that you should just pay for ad-free or install an ad-blocker instead of listening to any of the suggestions photosensitive users have repeatedly made. Please do not give money to Tumblr until they show a commitment to accessibility because they will continue to ignore our requests if it doesn’t impact them financially.

Some of the requests we’ve made are:

1. Allow us to disable autoplay on browser as well as the app. This is an accessibility feature, not a data-saving feature, and should be treated as such.

2. Include ads in disabling of autoplay, along with other formats that currently get around the autoplay feature. Currently even if you have autoplay disabled you can still end up with flashing lights in your face every few posts from ads.

3. Improve the reporting process for strobing ads. The quick reporting process doesn’t provide good options to ensure the person reviewing the report realizes that it’s being reported for flashing lights so you have to hope they agree it’s either malicious or offensive and don’t just brush you off as abusing the report function. The more complicated reporting process involves getting a screenshot and the link that the ad brings you to, which requires lingering on the ad, which if you’re trying to report the ad for your safety, is dangerous. You can also still get the same ad 10 times a row after reporting it until it’s been reviewed. Which again, presents a danger to users.

4. Add a community label for flashing lights. Flashing lights are commonly untagged or mistagged, even sometimes maliciously. It would be extremely helpful to the photosensitive community to be able to add a warning to a post that doesn’t have one.

I’ve talked a lot about the photosensitive community in this post because that’s what I have personal experience with and what @photomatt has explicitly come out and just said to buy ad-free about, but there are definitely other accessibility issues that need to be addressed as well (like the alt text function needing improvements to make it accessible to users who need it and don’t use screenreaders, or the fact that a lot of tumblr official stuff still doesn’t seem to use the alt text feature themselves). Please feel free to add on accessibility issues I’ve missed in the reblogs.

[malewifesband]

people do correctly identify that laios is autistic fairly often but a lot of the reasoning begins and ends with his special interest and social difficulties, but honestly it goes far deeper into the build of his character than just those two things

his pain tolerance is wildly inconsistent, unable to tolerate a drop of hot oil (or any heat) but able to shrug off both his leg being bitten off and it being reattached

hes sensory seeking in the extreme. he rubs the bat bones against his face, pets and fluffs the shapeshifter tail.

his desire to eat monsters comes from three very autistic places. 1) the rules for why monsters are not okay to eat but animals are are arbitrary to him so he cannot follow them easily: he cannot understand the 'feelings' argument others make. 2) this too is a sensory seeking behavior. he wants to experience these new things, new flavors and new textures. 3) it completes his knowledge of the monster in question to also have data on its edibility. because he cannot draw that arbitrary line around all monsters, he wants to evaluate them case-by-case and see if real patterns emerge. butchering and eating the monsters improves his knowledge of them greatly and highlights their importance in their ecosystem, as well as making him a part of that same ecosystem

he cannot emote the way others expect him to. he compartmentalizes his feelings (to an unhealthy degree) because he needs a pragmatic solution. so as long as there is a problem to solve, that matters far more than evaluating his emotions and allowing himself to experience them. while this is also a coping mechanism for ptsd, it is a trait found in many autistic people regardless of trauma, as we have trouble sorting the feelings we have and often need time to think about what we feel, so it becomes easier to simply not do it and pretend we dont need to. laios emotions certainly affect him, with or without his processing them, but others do not see what they expect to see and thus dismiss that he is feeling what they would feel

he is incredibly gifted with pattern recognition, observation, and analysis within realms he understands. to understand subjects that dont come easily to him, he must filter them through his established schema (his special interest--this is why they are so special! they help us sort the world). when he isnt sure about the social cues and details hes observed in the shapeshifter arc, he filters it through the lens he understands best: monsters. he was making correct observations about his friends all along, but he could not be confident in that the way he was about their behavior when it came to his interest (chilchucks caution, senshis passions, and marcilles carelessness)

[cherryredstars]

Ok so i have this fic idea where reader and mig are from different universes and reader is a scientist and one time mig and her get drunk and start talking about the multiverse and suddenly they are on the topic of what would happen if people from different universes had a baby together. (You see where i am going with this...) they end up drunkenly fucking and saying it's for "research" because they can't admit to themselves that they are in love. If this request is too complicated feel free to ignore. Thank you in advance cherry!! I hope u have a marvelous new year!! 💕

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x fem!reader

Warnings: 18+, NSFW, Penetrative Sex, Mentions of Oral Sex, Mentions of Animal Testing (for science), Breeding Kink

A/N: Thank you, love! I hope you're well!!!

You know there is a process.

And you know this isn't it.

There are supposed to be hypotheses and written out procedures. Dependent and independent variables, a control group. Fucking hell, you should be experimenting on fucking mice. You should be limiting the margins of error, should be going with the most direct, straightforward pursuit for results.

And yet...

You don't stop Miguel when he pushes you back onto the couch. You don't pause or even really think when he's pushing your pants down your legs, placing kisses along the skin as he goes. You lift your hips to aid him when his fingers hook into the waistband of your panties, shivering when his warm breath fans over your exposed sex. If this experiment was in any sense proper, you would get straight into it. Cut out all the unneeded steps. But you can't help but pull his head closer to your aching core, craving the way his warm tongue laps at you. If you weren't already drunk, you would be drunk on this feeling alone.

But god, nothing has even been more satisfying than doing the work. You know the data would be void in a real experiment. The trials bleeding into each other hardly make for adequate data, but the way you beg him for more is involuntary. It feels too good, to have him desperately thrusting into you. It makes your mind numb, and everything you know about your life's passion is erased. The only thing that fills your head is the words Miguel grunts into you ears, promises of fucking a baby into you. Vows to make you bloated with load after load of his cum. That all it'll take is one of his orgasms to make it happen.

You guess that is a hypothesis in itself: Miguel O'Hara can get you pregnant with just one orgasm.

Too bad he's too desperate to find out if that hypothesis is correct. Because he doesn't stop at one. No, he keeps going. One after the other with no breaks in-between. But you guess that's to be expected, he is a man of science himself. A passionate one at that.

He's almost crazed in the way he overstimulates himself. Sweat beading in his hairline as he grunts down at you, watching the way he creamy cock slides in and out of your abused pussy. You've lost count of how many times you've come alone, but you know based on the way your body shivers and jolts that it's far more than you've ever had before. It's almost painful now, the way your next orgasm rips through you and shatters your soul again. You let out strangled breaths as you fight through the aftershocks and the continued pleasure of Miguel's cock slamming against your cervix. You swear you black out before he finally stops, your eyes and mind groggy as he pulls your hips flush against his as he spills into you.

You can feel him trying to push deeper into you as he pants ruggedly, his cock twitching against your walls until he's milked dry. Even when he's done filling you, he stays connected. He collapses onto you, breathing in the linger smell of sweat and sex on your skin.

"Got to make sure it takes."

Well, does the process really matter if you get the desired result anyway?

Part 2

[crowns-of-violets-and-roses]

The Hugo Awards nominating statistics don't add up

tl;dr Along with works arbitrarily being deemed ineligible for the Hugo Awards the underlying numbers for the nominating data don't add up. The nominating statistics are junk.

Yesterday the Hugo nominating statistics for 2023 were released. Initial discussion focused on several nominees including R.F. Kuang's Babel being deemed ineligible for seemingly no reason.

After people started looking at the actual statistics a number of oddities were apparent. Heather Rose Jones has released a blog post with some graphs neatly illustrating this.

She suggests a number of hypothesis for what's going on: bloc voting, certain nominees below the cut-off being omitted or the one I now think must be true "The math is bogus. That is, the reported nomination statistics include large numbers of nominations attributed to the "top group" that do not arise from an actual nomination process."

In a previous post I discussed Peter Wilkinson's comment that showed that there are mathematical impossibilities in the statistics:

As (I think) a quite separate final remark for now, I think I have found a small mathematical impossibility in the Best Novel nomination statistics as given. Because of the way EPH works, every valid ballot gets counted in the first round of an EPH count, but ballots get eliminated as and when the last nominee on the ballot gets eliminated. It is therefore quite impressive that, of the 1,637 ballots received for Best Novel, 1,652 remained after all but the final 15 candidates had been eliminated.

To elaborate on this each nominators is given a single point divided equally between the works they nominate. In the first round the number of points equals the number of nominators.

In subsequent rounds if a work is eliminated the point is redistributed between the nominators remaining nominees. If no nominees remain it isn't redistributed. In essence the number of points represents the number of nominators who have nominees remaining on the ballot.

The number of points should never be higher than the number of nominators.

The only explanation I can see is that the statistics are made up.

Following on from Peter Wilkinson's comment Marshall Ryan Maresca ran the numbers for all categories:

His results match the ones I have previously checked. I posted about novel and fanwriter in the previous linked post and had checked novella as well.

I've now checked the other two categories where he showed the result is over 100% and my numbers add up to the same as what he has shown.

I've posted my workings below for reference.

First lets look at best novel which had 1637 nominating ballots:

My calculation matches what Peter and Marshall found.

Best novella had 1393 ballots:

This again matches Marshall's result and is the only category I checked where the points sum to less than 100% of the ballots.

Best short story has 1500 ballots but 1568.96 nominating points, again matching Marshall's results:

Best fan writer which I discussed yesterday has the largest relative difference with only 241 people nominating but 364.01 nominating points (again matching Marshall's results).

Finally let's look at the Lodestar which had 280 nominating ballots:

Again my result matches what Marshall found.

Heather Rose Jones has illustrated why the nominating statistics are anomalous. Peter Wilkinson showed that the numbers for best novel reflected a mathematically impossibility.

Yesterday after seeing Wilkinson's comment I ran the numbers and got the same result and found the even larger discrepancy in the fan writer category.

Marshall Ryan Maresca separately saw Peter Wilkinson’s comment and went through the categories much more systematically and has shown several are unusually high and that four have impossible numbers based on the reported number of ballots.

I've double checked the categories where Marshall demonstrated that there were over 100% of votes being reported and got the same results.

I do not see how the above is possible without extra votes being added to the totals. The math doesn't add up.

[zhongrin]

a highly important proposal

© zhongrin | 2024  ✼  no repost・translations・plagiarism of any kind・ai data mining. rebloggers get a free cup of tea ♡

✼ characters ┈ al haitham

✼ tags ┈ unspecified pronoun & gender of reader, fluff, crack, more of a brainrot headcanon dump than a scenario

✼ a/n ┈ i just... i love him a lot your honor

ᴏᴜʀ ꜰᴜʟʟ ᴍᴇɴᴜ (ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ)  ✼ ᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀꜱʜɪᴘ (ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ)

thinking about al haitham & confession...

considering his personality and the whole "a parade of providence" event long ago (with him doing such in-depth research of sachin unprompted), personally i think it would be hilarious if he wrote a whole-ass thesis about the pro and cons of you and him being in a relationship together, along with several insights and visions of how of your romantic dynamics and your life plans together could be.

oh it's a proposal, alright.

quite literally.

he also provides you a questionnaire at the very end, which allows you to agree/disagree with him and if you would get into a serious relationship with him from a scale of 1-10. in the scenario that you agreed to his proposal, there would be a whole other folder with forms containing the ranked list of proposed schedule for date nights, suggestions for date spots/ideas, chores that you like/dislike.... all for you to fill in.

hey, the man needs some basic information before he embarks on the hands-on voyage for forming a more intimate relationship with you, okay? naturally, he already did his own research and hypotheses beforehand, but it's always best to hear straight from the source and be prepared for important decisions such as this one; it just shows how much important you are to him.

kindly return the questionnaires to him along with your replies, thank you. oh, and of course, if you wish to have the evaluation verbally, he's up for that too. how does tomorrow 7pm at puspa café sound?

bonus:

he would 100% study your replies like he's reading the most interesting limited-edition book of his favorite author. which, in essence, is somewhat true. if you're into writing of any kind, he would be the boyfriend who read every single one of your works. hell, he'd absolutely love to read your journals if you let him... partly because he wishes to support you doing the things you like, but mostly just because seeing you write down mundane things or witness your thought process step-by-step is just incredibly fascinating to him.

imagine kaveh passing by and promptly double take because he's seen al haitham drafting that thesis for the past month and he's convinced that no sane person would accept such a method of confession, but?? someone actually read the whole thing and filled in all the questionnaires???? that's just. mind baffling. mind boggling. is there another al haitham in teyvat? dear gods. no. please. just one is enough.

✼ ᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀꜱʜɪᴘ (ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ) ┈ @abyssmal-skies | @hamdehlesmis | @sunnshineflxwer | @yuutasbabe | @queen-belial | @stygianoir | @silentmoths | @niktwazny303 | @dustofthedailylife | @marina-and-the-memes | @mixed-kester | @lordbugs | @anonymousficreader | @shizunxie | @ansy-tea | @irethepotato | @sassy-cat-in-town | @syrenkitsune | @smokipoki | @cakeboxie | @crystalflygeo | @ciexuvia | @illaasya | @celestewritestoomuch | @pams-comfortzone | @spidermanluvr444 | @ourstrawberryclouds | @ryuryuryuyurboat | @hrts4hanniehae | @fiannee | @jingyuansbird | @florapocalypses | @genshin-impacts-me | @scarasmood | @hellcatinnc

[evilminji]

Ya'll know our BELOVED? Little Baby Man?

The noodliest ghosty boy?

What if he WAS Baby? It wouldn't be the first time Danny's enemies plotting gave him offspring. Only this time it's not a clone! It's a proper GHOST baby. Like Lunch Box.

Who's the other parent I hear you ask?

Pretty human-centric view point there buddy, to assume Ghosts NEED two participants to make an offspring. OR are limited to two! Just cause Lunch Lady And Boxie are a couple doesn't mean that's the standard!

We lack data here! ASSUME NOTHING. *sciences harder in your direction*

*awkward cough*

*shuffles notes*

ANYWAY! The child! All it would really take is one(1) VERY poorly timed ambush attack. Imagine if you will, a cell. How does it multiply? While not even close, the simplistic images ARE pretty good as an explanation!

But isn't that just an ecto-clone? You say?

Close!

But THOSE? Are hollow bags of GOO!

No CORE! *slaps the chalkboard behind me*

However! If you wanted, say, a precious bundle off joy? Well, nothing can come from perfect void! You must contribute the building blocks of LIFE! And what are those, my students, in ghost biology??!

Two vital pieces! The Ectoplasm aaaaaaand? That's RIGHT!

The CORE!

A critical and ever vital part of ghost biological function.

Which, like every OTHER part of the body, is malleable. One could, say, make it smaller. Create part of a proto core. OR, should one be ALONE in this process, a FULL protocol.

Upon which, ectoplasm latches, builds, develops and grows. Becomes its own soul.

Now! Do Not mistake me! There is a WILDLY vast difference between the formation of a core and a shattered core. Between willing life and untimely second death. It is not, and never WILL be, easy to create the soul of a child. Tampering with your core is PAINFUL, dangerous, and leaves you WILDLY vulnerable.

There is a REASON Neverborn are so precious.

Buuuuut..... *pulls out a book labeled "Curses Though The Ages"* we must ALSO consider the famed Fenton Luck(tm).

Consider! Where would be the "safest" place to practice making clones of yourself? A place that's wide open. No one wearing white likely to take pot shots at you while your attention is divided in multiple places at once. No parents blowing up the basement at a delicate moment and leaving you trying to hide that extra arm for a week...

Maybe you forget... oh yeah... OTHER GHOSTS.

So there Danny floats. In the Zone. DISTRACTED. His core HUGE from all that recently Royal business as it tries to digest it. Feeling bloated. Trying to work off some energy, as it were. Then who should come along? Why, the universes BEST HUNTER of course! To say *gun powering up noise* :) HI :)

Like buddies DO.

Danny doesn't see him.

Danny is mid-split.

At his limit, honestly. Already made as many copies as he usually can. Is trying for ooooone moooooore..... when...

PAIN. Something cracks.

He loses concentration. Tries to curl in on himself.

Both 1.5 of him tries. He loses hold of the "clone's" Ecto. Somethings free floating leaving his chest along with it. Behind him, Skulker is freaking out. That was MEANT to be on opening volley. A gentle little "hey, come fight me". That crack sounded SERIOUS.

Danny can't breathe. It's like the portal all over again. He curls tighter and tighter. Feels the crown, which was not THERE until this moment, press down tight and gripping onto his head. Thrumming. And then... something feels like a muscle releasing.

His core is... smaller? He'd been watching its progress, it couldn't have digest so fast... how did it lose so much... mass...

Danny feels all the blood drain from his face.

He nearly died.

Again.

His... his soul... WHERE IS HIS SOUL?? That's a piece of him! A part of his SOU-!

He spins around... only to meet the eyes off a blearly blinking, noodlish, cartoon like gremlin with his color scheme. Who's floating along like they're in zero-g. Just... drifting in a slow circle.

They yawn at him with a mouth full of teeny tiny baby fangs. Then chirp.

That's his Son. He doesn't know how, he doesn't know WHY, but he somehow instinctively... just... KNOWS?

They blep.

Danny looks a Skulker. His eyes hold MURDER.

"You're paying child support."

"......yes sir."

@hdgnj @stealingyourbones

[hannie-dul-set]

STAR STUDDED BAGGAGE [3].

SYNOPSIS. the saying “never meet your idols” exists for a reason. you just didn’t expect the reason to be because said idols would end up declaring that you’re their alleged lover from a past life (past lives, rather). now you have three big celebrities vying for your attention, and it’s not as dreamlike as you imagined it to be.

PAIRINGS. choi yeonjun, choi soobin, choi beomgyu x female! reader. GENRES. reincarnation! au, celebrity! au (soloist! yeonjun, actor! soobin, rock band member! beomgyu), slight college! au, slight historical! au, rom-com, angst, reverse harem woohoo. WARNINGS. swearing, talks about stalking, talks about death, data privacy violations, so much emotional whiplash yummy, a very long conversation, google dependent historical information. WORD COUNT. 6.3k.

NOTE. this chapter finally made its way out hell 😭😭😭 per usual, please let me know your thoughts on the chapter! a single comment on ao3 inspired me to finish this, so ur feedback really means a lot! enjoy<3

MASTERLIST | NEXT >

CHAPTER 3 — can we go back to being parasocial?

IF SOMEONE HEARS YOUR SUMMARY OF THE EVENTS THAT UNFOLDED WITHIN THE PAST FEW DAYS, they may accuse you of lying. Delusional, even. You’d think the same had you not been the center of it all— yet the proof is in your pockets. Your phone. In the album Choi Yeonjun failed to sign, stuffed inside your bag at the last minute before you left your apartment earlier.

The summary. Right. Yes.

“Can they stop sharing that video of Yeonjun excessively flirting with a fan?! I’m going to kill myself if I see it one more time.”

You were lucky enough to nab a fansign slot. But instead of getting Choi Yeonjun’s signature, you ended up getting a kiss of a hand instead, along with a scrawl of numbers on your album that you’re far too terrified to try to dial.

“Hey, send me our photo with Soobin the other day,” nudges Huening from beside you. “I’m gonna print it out and put it in a locket and use it as a family heirloom.”

You bumped into one of your favorite actors, Choi Soobin, in the middle of a late night convenience store run with your friends to fuel your group all nighter, stained his shirt with your ice cream, and got a photo with him in the process.

“By the way, have you called the business card yet? What are you gonna do with your broken phone screen?”

And Choi Beomgyu may or may not have professed his undying love for you, asked for your hand in marriage, and started crying in front of you in less than ten fucking minutes.

“She’s zoned out.”

The problem is, you can’t even bask in the delightful absurdity of it all because one common thread from all those three separate instances has been keeping you up for nights. It’s clawing at your brain, lingering in the back of your mind like an incessant stalker— which, mind you, is not a pleasant feeling when the very causes of such disturbance were once the bringers of joy and all things good in your otherwise meaningless life as a cog in the capitalist machinery that is society.

“Hello? Are you awake?”

Said problem being the fact that you’re pretty sure they all called you by your name at one point.

How the fuck do they know your name?

“I deleted Twitter. I Airdropped it to you. No, I have not called it yet. Now please let me think in peace.”

Crazy. This is all too crazy. In the first place, what are the odds that you bump into three celebrities within one week’s time? Is this some sort of prank, or something? Are those three filming a hidden camera show together? No, no. That couldn’t be because there’s no fucking way a company is sane enough to stage a risky hidden camera prank during a fansign knowing full well how obsessive and insane fans can get. You’re lucky your face wasn’t caught in any of the videos circulating online— video of you and Choi Yeonjun, mostly him, acting out a fucking sageuk. You’re lucky you haven’t been doxxed yet.

“Finish your sandwich,” Taehyun clicks his tongue, nudging your food closer to you, and you sigh heavily. Maybe you’re just wrong, you think, taking a bite from the bread. Maybe this is just a misunderstanding. Maybe you’re just overthinking.

You eat your lunch and steal some wet wipes from Gaeul in between. Right. It’s not like you’re ever gonna bump into them again. You live in, as cliche as it sounds, two different worlds after all. You’re just gonna watch their dramas, listen to their music, enjoy their performances, and that’s it that’s it that’s it.

“Prof Jang sent a message. Class is canceled.”

But still—

“Woohoo! Let’s go to the new dessert shop that opened downtown.”

Choi Beomgyu’s voice saying I love you, Choi Soobin’s cologne wafting in the air you were breathing in, and Choi Yeonjun’s lips pressed against your skin.

How can a sane person just forget about all of that?!

“Why do you look like you’re fantasizing about perverted shit?” Woohyun slaps you in the face with a reality check. This is fucking stupid.

“I’m not fantasizing,” you grunt, because they were events that actually fucking happened— they weren’t birthed from your brain’s insanity. “Anyway, dessert? Where is it?” You ignore your burning face, hoping that your friends decide to ignore it too, but Gaeul has her eyes narrowed at you. Crap. She didn’t recognize that it’s you in the videos right? Holy fucking hell, you’d rather die.

“Aren’t you gonna answer that?”

Oh. Well. That’s— that’s something. A good something because she hasn’t suspected you yet, moitioning instead to your cracked phone that has been buzzing under your notice because you’ve been thinking way too fucking much.

You check the caller ID, but it’s an unknown number, and it doesn’t match the business card you got from your run in with the alleged Choi Beomgyu. “Hello?” you answer, and a voice you don’t recognize says your name and asks if it’s you. “Yes, this is her. Who’s this?”

Another item added to the weird as fuck things that happened to your this week. You excuse yourself from your friends, and with knitted brows, you listen to the stranger at the other end of the line. “You met Choi Soobin the other day at a 7-Eleven in Gangnam, right?” The fuck? Did someone see you that day? Is this a stalker? “This is his manager. Lee Byeongho. I would like to speak with you regarding a certain matter.”

Now, hold the fucking phone.

“Is everything alright?”

You respond to Huening’s concern with a stiff smile before turning away from them. “Did I do something wrong?” you fuss into the call. “I didn’t post any of the photos from that day. I never talked about it online either, and I’m pretty sure my friends haven’t either. Wait. Wait a minute. How did you get my number?”

“Yes, it was difficult to obtain knowing only your first name and university.” That doesn’t answer your question. That just gave you more questions. “But, no. You aren’t in trouble. Actually...I called because you’re the only one who can help us— help Soobin— get out of trouble.”

Your face scrunches up.

“I’m at your campus right now. Parking lot. Do you mind meeting me for a moment?”

Just what did you get yourself into?

“You haven’t finished your food. Where are you going?”

“Somewhere,” you reply, quickly snatching your half-eaten sandwich from the table as your friends follow your swift movements with matching looks of confusion. “I’ll be right back. It’s nothing, don’t worry.” However, you are quite worried. You’re pretty sure Lee Manager, or whatever, is committing some data privacy crimes against you, but the one thing you want at the moment is answers. Your brain is about to explode from all the fucking questions and confusion. There’s a sliver of hope that meeting up with this sketchy guy can answer a few of them. You’d take that chance to air out your head.

There’s a black van in the parking lot. It’s the first thing you noticed because one of its doors are open, and there’s a familiar looking guy waiting just in front of the exposed seats. 

He notices you approaching. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” he says. What’s with men you’re meeting for the first time treating you with familiarity? You’re going to rip your hair out and throw yourself into moving traffic.

“Sure, but can you get to the point?” you stiffly say. “I’m a little busy. I still have classes in a bit.”

“Of course, I’m sorry. This whole situation must’ve come off as a shock to you.” Great, now you’re feeling bad. Soobin’s manager (allegedly) looks like he’s been through a whole lot as well. “Anyway. You are a fan of Choi Soobin, correct?”

“Well,” you blink. “Yes.”

“How about the dramas Kang Jaehee has written and directed?” he follows up. “Are you a fan of those as well?”

Your brows furrow. “I guess?” Peach Tree. That Summer. Mogi. Those are the titles that come right at the top of your head. “What does that have to do anything with me?” Manager Lee spares you a look of pity. You feel like this meet-up is just set out to making you even more fucking confused.

“I sincerely apologize. I didn’t want to drag you into this either, but I’m afraid you’re the only option I have,” says Manager Lee despondently. “Since...since you are a fan of Soobin, and I assume that means you also care about his career, so—”

He pauses. Like he’s practicing the next set of words he’s about to say inside his head.

“—do you mind meeting up with him to convince him to take the lead role for Kang Jaehee’s upcoming drama?”

But nothing could’ve prepared you for that.

What.

What the fuck?

“Mr Manager. Sir,” you start, appalled beyond comprehension. “I’d appreciate it if you start making a bit more sense.” 

“Trust me, I can’t believe I’m doing this either.”

You’re speechless. Your mouth is hanging open with no words coming out because, again, what the fuck? Manager Lee looks just as defeated as you, as if he weren’t the one who had just presented that ridiculous proposal. You are, quite frankly, at a discernible loss. 

Manager Lee lets out a sigh and digs a hand into his pocket. “I’m afraid this is all the time I have today. But please contact me once you’ve made a decision.” Another business card acquired. This is just dandy. “I am really hoping for your cooperation, miss. I’m sure you’re aware of Soobin’s inactivity lately, and my intention of approaching you today is simply in order to help my star’s career. Please consider the favor positively, and we will compensate you as much as my authority can allow.”

With that, you’re left with another laminated piece of paper in your hands. Gosh. This is a headache. When you get back to your friends, they notice the distress you’re in, further justifying a visit to the new dessert store, and seeing how your soul has completely left your body, you’re dragged along with them with ease.

“Hey, pick one. My treat,” says Woohyun. You let out a grunt and point at a random pastry on display. Next thing you know, you’re seated in between Huening and Gaeul at the store you don’t even know the name of. 

Huening is force feeding you an eclair. “Eat.” Your scowl disappears when you allow the eclair entry into your mouth. “Seriously, what’s going on with you? Who did you meet earlier?” 

Seeing as you show absolutely no intentions of telling them, they refuse to question you about it further. Good on them, because there’s no way in hell you’re spilling your predicament. Not until you find out exactly what kind of situation you’re in, at the very least. The two business cards feel like they’re weighing your pockets down, a constant reminder of their existence along with the scrawl Yeonjun left behind.  

“I know exactly how to make you feel better.”

The declaration comes from Gaeul, who slides her phone over to you, and when you look down to see what exactly her miracle medicine is to make you feel less manic, you hack out a cough upon seeing Choi Yeonjun’s face on her phone screen. “The hell is wrong with you?” asks Taehyun from across, giving you some water to push down the eclair lodged in your throat. “I know you like him, but even that is an overreaction.”

Jesus, you’re close to losing it. When you’ve avoided choking to death, Gaeul puts an airpod into your ear, and you hear Yeonjun reading out some comments. “Choi Yeonjun, you look really happy lately, did something good happen? someone asked,” he says while having snacks of his own. “First of all, why are you calling me Choi Yeonjun? It’s like you’re putting a wall between us. I don’t like it.”

Gaeul makes a noise of some sort and had you not been subjected to this week’s insanities, you might have reacted the same way too. Instead, you simply listen to his live in caution, feigning disinterest as you watch him nibble on some pretzels and churros through the screen, continuing to answer the slew of questions in the comments.

“Anyway, you’re right! Something good did happen.” Yeonjun hums while picking out a pretzel from the paper bag, rustling noise and a lively tune filling the audio for a moment— a short moment, right before he continues speaking. “That’s because I finally met the love of my life.”

Taehyun has to give you his water again.

“Oh? Oho, what’s with the exclamation points?” he laughs. “Did I meet them the other day? Hmm...that’s a secret. You’re curious? You think it might be you? Well, let’s see. Should I describe her?”

“God, he’s so fucking messy,” says Gaeul from beside you. “This is why I like him. How many calls is he getting for his manager and company this time?”

“What’s going on? Why is she so startled?”

“Yeonjun’s talking about his apparent soulmate, I don’t know. Wanna listen?”

“Didn’t he get in trouble for doing the same thing last time too?”

Now, you’re not one to give a shit about his love life, and you like to stay out of that side of celebrity gossip as much as you can, but Choi Yeonjun himself is droning on about the love of his life right now. You can’t not hear about it even if you want to. However, as much as you want to let things come into one ear and out through the other, you can’t. Because— wait. Wait. His description is eerily familiar. His description is making you double take and second guess what you’re fucking hearing.

“Sounds a lot like you,” Taehyun remarks without much thought, right after Choi Yeonjun says that the girl he likes has a bit of an attitude, but he likes that about her.

Huening lets out a snort. “Yeah, that’s definitely you. Why don’t you go in a wedding dress the next time you attend a fansign? Who knows, you might have a shot.”

You snap them a dirty look. Fuck. This is making your head spin. For the second time, Choi Yeonjun’s tendency of putting himself into headlines and the trending searches for doing something insane is giving you nothing but stress.

“I did give her my number, but she hasn’t messaged me yet, so I’m quite hurt.”

Number. Hold on a fucking second.

“The comments are going crazy.”

You grab your bag from underneath you, dropping it down to your lap.

“Hey, if you’re watching this, pl—eeeeease contact me. Kim Noona thinks I have a phone addiction now because I’ve been dying waiting for your call.”

You quickly get up from your seat.

“Yo, where are you going this time?”

“I need a minute,” you announce, eyes scanning the store for a quiet place alone while hugging your bag to your chest. There’s nowhere. Looks like you have to get out. 

“Damn, we were just joking. As if you have a chance with a celebrity like him.”

Huening’s joke is ignored and you quickly leave outside the doors, making a sharp turn around the corner, slipping through the passersby downtown until you find an empty alley. Your heart is racing. Your heart is racing like crazy and you may be reaching right now. You may be acting crazy, but what Choi Beomgyu said during the interview with Yeong-Il the other day is echoing in your mind, and— in conjunction with everything else that had happened— you’re starting to think that maybe he wasn’t joking.

Your cracked phone screen greets you when you take it out of your pocket. On your other hand is the first business card you got this week.

“Who’s this?”

“Hello. Good day.” You tell them your name, the events that led up to you receiving this number, with the hope that maybe you’re finally on to something. “I’d like to talk about the compensation for my broken phone.”

Whatever that something is, you’re gonna get to the bottom of it.

*

It’s already beyond closing time at Kwiyeomdongmoim Cafe (a mouthful, you know), yet your pink apron is still neatly tied around your waist as you pace back and forth, to and fro, in circles inside the breakroom. The time is half-past nine in the evening. You should’ve clocked out thirty minutes ago, but you’re still waiting. 

The knock on the door signified the end of your wait. You turn to see your boss’s head popping in through the half-open crack. 

“Three guys are waiting for you,” informs Seokmin. “They all seem handsome. Are they your suitors?”

When you ditched your friends at the still unnamed dessert store the other day, you did it to make a few calls. Three, to be exact. Today is the culmination of those calls, which is why you’ve been erratically nervous the entire freaking day. Choi Soobin, Choi Beomyu, and Choi Yeonjun’s managers all answered respectively when you called all the sketchy numbers you got and made some negotiations (apparently, the mess on your album is Yeonjun’s number, but he got his phone confiscated after that livestream). 

“As if,” you say, walking up to the door leading back into the cafe. Suitors, more like stalkers. Fans stalking their idols is common, but the other way around is a pretty fresh idea. “Anyway, thanks, Kyeom. Thank you for letting me use the store for a while.” Because this is the only private place you can think of outside of your own home— and there’s no way in hell you’re letting them in there when you don’t even know how they managed to get hold of your personal information.

“We’re closed anyway.” Seokmin smiles and makes way for you to pass by. “Go ahead and do your thing. Do you want me to stay inside or keep watch?” 

“You can stay inside, it’s alright.” 

He nods. “Call me when you’re done. Scream if you need backup. I can handle all of them.”

You laugh and thank him once more, a pat on his arm before you decide to peek out the door first as a precautionary measure. From your spot, you can see three thoroughly covered men in windbreakers, caps, and masks sitting on three separate tables in the store. The blinds have already been rolled down, so you can’t see anything outside, but there doesn’t appear to be any cameras around, so you take it as a safe sign to finally leave your hiding spot.

The moment you do, the break room door creaks, and all three pairs of eyes immediately fall on you. 

They stand up. They call out your name in unison.

Holy shit.

And when they do, they all look at each other with a sudden flash of hostility in the air.

Um. Well. How are you supposed to do this? “H—hello,” you manage to squeak out, prompting their attention once more. Soobin takes off his cap and removes his mask, the other two following suit, and oh my god. Oh my god. You suck in a deep breath. Today, you are not a fan. You are an interrogator. This is not a fansign. This is an interrogation. 

“I— uh, I asked your managers if I can meet you all to—today for a specific reason.” Wow. Good job. Your hands are shaking and you can’t look up from the floor or else you’d start losing your mind. “But—but, before that— would...would you like some drinks…?”

Interrogation paused. You need to get your shit together first.

“Please enjoy.”

With the help of your boss (because your hands wouldn’t stop shaking and you dropped the first one you made), you managed to whip up four iced teas and settle all three of them into one table at the very back of the store. You send a stiff smile at Seokmin after he placed all the drinks on the table.

God, you owe him so much— especially when he’s being unreasonably glared at by the three men sitting with you right now. Choi Beomgyu to your left, Choi Soobin to your right, Choi Yeonjun directly across from you and holy fuck, you have yet to look at them properly yet for your own safety. They haven’t been talking to each other either, simply sitting and waiting for you to speak. You’re pretty sure they know each other though, at least by name, being in the same industry and all. 

To say that the tension in the air is suffocation would be an understatement. How...how do you start this? The fuck should you say first?

“You know, I was really happy when Kim Noona told me you called.”

Apparently you don’t have to start it. Choi Yeonjun does it for you.

“But why are these two crashing our date?”

And that’s when things also start to get messy.

“Date?” Choi Soobin interjects. He sounds offended. Why does he sound offended. “What are you talking about?”

Choi Yeonjun doesn’t get a chance to make his case. Because Choi Beomgyu from your left suddenly snatches one of your hands from the table, prompting you to look at one of them for the first time tonight, and your eyes fly wide open. “I’d...like to apologize for the other day. I was just overtaken by my emotions. I hope you weren’t too freaked out.”

You are quite freaked out because holy shit, this is too much maybe. Not maybe. Yes. This is too much. Too. Much.“Hey, why are you holding her hand?!” you hear Choi Soobin exclaim from your other side. Choi Beomgyu’s soft expression suddenly disappears into a glare and a sneer the moment he shifts his gaze.

“You’re holding her hand too!”

“Why can’t I?!”

“Hey, this isn’t fair! One of you switch with me—”

Dizzy. You’re feeling dizzy. Your head is spinning and you’re suffocating from the heat emanating from your very face. Whatever they’re arguing about isn’t even reaching your ears anymore. You’re getting lightheaded and your sweaty hands start slipping out from the two’s weirdly tender hold on your hands because your body is physically breaking down.

“Shut up! Oh my god, my head—”

Your vision actually starts spinning for a second so you quickly bring the bottom of your palms to your temples, elbows on the table to balance yourself, only to be wobbled and shaken because the three suddenly jolted off their seats in panic.

“Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine, just please—for the love of god— sit down and shut up.”

They sit down and shut up. You massage your temples in silence. You remove your hands from your face and, after sucking in a deep breath and releasing it thereafter, feel your heartbeat settling into a normal rate. As normal as it can get in this situation.

“Whew. Okay. I think I’m ready. Let’s get down to business.” Finally, you’re the one steering the conversation. You give each of them a once over as quickly as possible because now you know that prolonged eye contact will only hurt you. You settle with looking at the gaps between each of them. That’s fine. You’re fine. “Choi Soobin, Choi Yeonjun, Choi Beomgyu.”

It’s like three bulbs just lit up in succession. Your brain is starting to hurt.

“A—as I was saying, you three are some of South Korea’s biggest celebrities and although I am, in fact, a big fan of all three of you—” Why is Choi Soobin growing pink. Why the fuck is he blushing. “—that— that does not make me fail to recognize the amount of weird shit that’s been happening lately, and I think I need answers.”

They are still sitting down and shutting up. They listen to instructions well, at the very least.

“First, how the fuck did all three of you know my name without any prior introduction. Second—”

The words get clamped in your throat. It’s lodged in there very tightly because you make the mistake of looking one of them in the eye, only to notice that all three of them are looking at you with the same expression. An expression you can only describe as longing.

And your face starts burning.

“Se— second, why…why do you all keep looking at me like I’m an ex you want to get back together with…?”

Maybe you asked the wrong question.

Because for some reason they all look sad now. Really sad. Really fucking sad and it’s making your stomach clench and nerves all numb and funky because making three big celebrities all sad simultaneously is a bragging right at one end of the spectrum, and a national crime at the other.

It’s Choi Soobin who cracks the silence. “I…I had a feeling when I saw you again for the first time at the store.” Again? “Do you not remember me?”

Your face furrows. “No…? Did we ever meet before you became an actor?”

Hurt. The look of sadness has now spiraled into hurt and one might think you just stabbed and twisted a knife into his fucking gut.  “How—how about me?” Your attention turns to Choi Yeonjun who isn’t looking any better. It’s like his entire world view was just proven to be wrong and why does it feel like you’re the one to blame. 

What else can you do but shake your head in denial? Now he looks like he’d just been told he’s adopted!

“You’re…you’re joking,” he tries to laugh it off, but it only comes off as strained and shaky, then, in one fell swoop— desperate. “R—right…?”

“Great!”

Before you start feeling even shittier, Choi Beomgyu finally decides to join in. 

“And here I thought her forgetting about me was the worst case scenario.” His tone is bitter. There’s a snap in his words. “I didn’t think there’d be other bastards in the same situation as me. God fucking damn it.”

There’s a moment of silence. You watch as realization hits the other while you’re still left in the dark. Choi Yeonjun juts his seat closer. Choi Soobin tries to reach a hesitant arm to your direction, but you’re  tugged to the other side by Choi Beomgyu, who’s suddenly a little too, too close.

“Hey.”

Your hands are clamped together. 

“I meant it when I said I love you. I do. I have loved you four hundred years ago and I still love you now, and if whatever god or deity decides to make you meet you for the third time, I’ll still love you then.”

Beomgyu’s holding both of them in between his in a firm grip.

“Second life is about you. Blue Spring is about you. You’re the person I’ve been waiting for from the beginning of this life until the last.”

Now, if this situation wasn’t crazy, your heart would be skipping a beat right now.

But it is crazy. This is fucking insane. And you look around to see that there’s a weird look of sympathy and understanding in the other Choi’s eyes, clearly not recognizing the visceral insanity of this situation, which fills you with a swallowing lump of existential dread. You pry your hands out of Beomgyu’s grasp (you swear you can hear glass breaking), and slowly turn to Choi Yeonjun and say, with a very hesitant, very cautious, “Y...you too…?”

The look on his face says it all. And then you swivel over to Choi Soobin.

“And you?” 

“I’ve lo—”

“No!” you snap. “Don’t finish that sentence. Please. Oh my god.”

You see Seokmin popping his head out from the corner, mouthing an are you okay? and you shakily bring up a weak thumbs up. “Well, isn’t this interesting,” you hear Choi Yeonjun say, which feels like a slap in the face because what exactly is interesting about this. “Here I thought I was special.”

“Get off your high horse,” retorts Choi Soobin, a sneer in his voice. You double take. Choi Soobin is supposed to be sweet and gentle and kind. Who is this man? “Whatever kind of past you had with her doesn’t mean anything. I met her first. I met her at the end of King Danjong’s rule.”

“Ha!” Choi Yeonjun starts. “We got married under King Taejong. I’ve loved her before any of you did.”

Now, what the fuck?

Choi Soobin’s face pales and he chokes over his words. “M—married?”

There’s a smug grin on Choi Yeonjun’s face. He leans back against the chair with his arms crossed in victory. “You heard that correctly. Married. Pack up your bags. Unless you want me to tell you everything we did on our we—”

“Shut up, shut up, I don’t want to hear it!”

Marriage. King Danjong. King Taejong. Second life. The gears are churning inside your head. You don’t like the direction where the gears are pointing.

“What about you?”

Choi Yeonjun raises the question and the attention is now on Choi Beomgyu. He’s been quiet. The other two wait for him to say his piece— a feigned air of disdain and arrogance but there’s an unconcealable undertone of nervousness underneath it all. Your iced teas have been left untouched. Choi Beomgyu simply scoffs and presses his crossed arms against his chest.

“I have no reason to tell you any of that. This is between me and her.”

And at your mention, you receive the undivided attention of three pairs of eyes once more. Your heart rattles. God fucking damn it. Listen, you’re an avid consumer of the entertainment industry. You’ve watched a good amount of dramas and have read a good amount of manhwas to surmise a conclusion with the bits and pieces of stray information being tossed back and forth between the three. And it’s all ridiculous. But you have nothing else to work with unless they come spilling their guts themselves.

“So,” you clear your throat. “Are you three, like…a couple…hundred years old…?”

They all look offended. 

“No!”

Well, maybe you’re wrong about that part. But after a very long, convoluted discussion, the “facts” (if you can even call it that), are finally laid down on your feet.

They say you’ve all met before. Separately, in three separate lifetimes, with this one allegedly being your fourth unless there were lives in between that they can’t remember. One thing for certain is that the three of them remember the life they had while loving you— and they loved you very much apparently because those feelings and memories got carried over even after they got reborn into the present day.

The problem is, you don’t have the same symptoms. You don’t remember anything about your past lives. Hell, you can’t even remember anything in this life before you hit two years old. 

You slump in your seat. The table rattles. They get up from their chairs and come circling around you in concern.

“Are— are you okay, do you need to lie down? You could rest in my van for a while and—”

You swat Choi Yeonjun’s hand away before it could land on your shoulder. You’ve now got your hands on your face in stress, and peeking through you see Choi Soobin on your right, crouching down and looking up at you with furrowed brows and big, sad eyes. On your left is Choi Beomgyu, half-seated on the chair. You let out a very long, very anguished and muffled groan. This is too much. “If— if what you guys are saying is true,” you say. “What does it matter?”

There’s a tense pause in the air. 

“What do you mean…?”

You spring up from your seat and turn around, Choi Yeonjun in front of you. 

“I mean what does it all matter? King Sejeong, Joseon era, or whatever— I don’t care about all of that. We’re in the twenty-first century right now. I’m neither your lover nor your wife. I’m just a fan of your dramas and music and performances and that's it.”

You squeeze your eyes shut. You don’t really want to see their faces right now. You let a huff of air slip past your lips, turning back around to collect the untouched glasses of drinks on the table.

“Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to meet me and explain. I hope it’s all settled. Thanks for clearing everything up today. You can now all leave.”

It’s Choi Yeonjun who races after you when you make your firm and quick strides to the counter. He cuts off your path. “I—I don’t understand,” he chokes out. You make the mistake of meeting his gaze and see the threat of tears glazing his eyes. “What—what do you mean?”

Admittedly, that hurled a giant pang against your ribcage, knocking the air out of your chest, but you move forward. You brush past him, setting the glasses back on the counter, and— after a moment’s pause— you turn around, a heavy weight on your shoulders. It’s like gravity is trying to suck you deep into the mantle. “What I’m trying to say is we should all just get over what happened all those hundreds of years ago and live our lives in the present. I mean, I don’t know any of you. Don’t you think it’s unhealthy to keep clinging onto the past, especially when you guys are nothing but strangers to me in this life?”

Dead silence. You don’t dare look at any of them in the face. You try and retreat to the break room as quickly as you can, hands fumbling to untie your apron along the way, but you stumble over your steps, screeching to a halt the moment you hear someone say—

“Do you think it’s that easy?”

You could hear your heart in your eardrums. 

It takes all the strength in your body for you to look back, to see the pained expression on Choi Beomgyu’s face standing the farthest away from you out of the three. “Do you think I put my name out there so that it’d be easier for you to find me, wrote all those songs about you in the hopes that I could see you again if you’re someone I can just easily forget?”

Your throat tightens. It’s like you’re swallowing a boulder.

“If you wanted me to forget about you, you shouldn’t have died right in front of me then. You shouldn’t have told me you loved me right before you went cold in my arms if you wanted me to fucking forget.”

Oh.

Oh, god.

Choi Yeonjun and Choi Soobin don’t look any better. It hits you that you might have been more than a little bit unfair.

“I’m sorry.”

You don’t know your history. You don’t know what the fuck happened between you and them throughout those years that made them feel so strongly about you. But it must be harder for those who remember than for those who forgot.

It’s not like they chose to live in the present with half of their souls stuck in the past, either. You’ve been acting awfully unfair.

“I was being insensitive. I’m so sorry,” you exhale. Your knees feel like they’re about to buckle. Your head is spinning in circles. “But to be honest, this is all still very overwhelming, and I’m having a hard time comprehending and making sense of everything. It doesn’t feel real.” You try to take a step closer, but your legs give in. Choi Yeonjun quickly rushes to balance you back on your feet.

“Don’t push yourself,” he says, softly. You can’t look at him. God, these guys really know how to bring your guilt all the way home.

“Thanks, um, anyway—” You breathe in. Shit, you can’t believe you’re considering this. “Again, I really can’t and won’t be able to understand the magnitude of your— well, uh— feelings, since I really don’t remember anything. But how about…I spend some time with each of you individually, and maybe…maybe it can help in jogging back my memories?”

The atmosphere shifts. Ah. This feels like a fucking trap.

“You— you mean it?”

To be honest, you’d much rather just not deal with any of this, just stay at home and continue living your life with these three men as persons you only know behind the screen. But those looks in their eyes— hopeful and melancholic— make you feel your organs are being rearranged every five seconds, and you’d feel bad leaving them with the pain of this conversation especially after they poured out their hearts to you.

You can’t deny the joy and escape they’ve given you for the past couple of years you’ve spent as their fan. Maybe entertaining this unreality is the least you can do.

“I mean, well,” you start, clearing your throat. “Choi Beomgyu, you still need to pay for my phone. Choi Soobin, your manager wanted me to talk to you about something, and Choi Yeonjun—”

You look at the guy who still has one arm pressed against your back, two hands in a firm grip on your shoulders. He’s looking at you and batting his eyes expectantly. You let out a sigh and set yourself loose.

“I need to discuss something with you soon, too.” As in, please stop vaguely mentioning me in your live streams because I fear I might find an angry mob in front of my house. “I think I have all your contact information anyway.”

There aren’t any more reactions coming from them. This seems like the best possible solution for all of you. You sigh again. This has been an emotionally draining evening. You can’t wait to get some fucking rest.

“I’ll be in touch with you or your managers soon. For now, let’s call it a day.”

STAR STUDDED BAGGAGE. © hannie-dul-set, 2024.

[debatablyspicydurian]

I know the full arsenal update is out and hype for that but I just found the gutterman's poem in 7-2 and I HAVE to type about it because its night where I am and I cant wake up my friends to rant about Ultrakill.

Anyway, absolutely indescribable how we have the thoughts of a machine just laid bear in a secret for the first and maybe last time. The fact that a machine made for merciless slaughter could not only feel sadness for the person powering it but also WRITE a POEM? A machine made art??? The knowledge that they understand how cruel it is to make a human a blood battery, recognize it as torture, but also feel gratitude for the life they've been given?? It was known that machines had a sense of aesthetic from Swordsmachine and Mindflayer's entries but. Goddamn. The gutterman refers to the human as their mother and it states it CRIED when it crushed her skull as it hoped it would redeem its life.

Also the excerpt, "I know I know you would hate me so, and mother of me, I do too." Does this mean the Gutterman hated itself as much as the human? Did it hate the human instead along with the feelings of love and gratitude? Probably the former. Gutterman angst is so in.

V2's mannerisms and Swordsmachine's data entry are intresting, but a gutterman's eulogy for its prisoner and its attempt at redemption is another level. Actual machine thought process recorded!! Sapient lifeform that knows only war and death! The fact that the gutterman crushing the human's skull seemed to be out of mercy. Ough.

Noone has to interact I havent proof read this I am just RANTING this is CRAZY HAKITA HOW COULD YOU AND THE TEAM DO THIS

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Young Earth-like planet with lava oceans spotted near the Big Dipper

Astronomers have discovered an extreme Earth-like planet that likely hosts lava oceans as it roasts next to its sun-like star near the Big Dipper constellation. 

It is the nearest, young Earth-sized planet ever discovered and – although life could not survive on its superheated surface – the young planet could teach us about the evolution of planets similar to our own.

Ben Capistrant, a doctoral student in astronomy at the University of Florida, was part of the team that discovered the hot Earth and co-first author of the paper along with colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

The lava planet whips around its young star every four days. In contrast, our solar system’s closest planet, Mercury, takes a leisurely 88 days to orbit the sun.

“So it’s really moving around there. At that distance we expect it to be tidally locked, like how the moon is locked to us with one side always facing the Earth. That means the heating is uneven, and we estimated that the daytime temperature is consistent with molten rock,” making it a “lava Earth,” Capistrant said. 

The Earth-like planet was discovered in data from the Gaia and TESS telescopes, which look for changes in starlight as planets move in front of stars. The planet’s host star is fairly close, just 71 light-years away. The star’s proximity and relative brightness allowed astronomers to detect the subtle signal of the closely orbiting Earth-like planet. 

At just about 500 million years old, the lava Earth is young by planetary standards. That youth will allow Capistrant and the team to study the planet for signs of atmospheric loss. How planets lose their initial atmospheres is little understood and has implications for the habitability of Earth-sized planets. 

“We haven’t seen this process occur, and there isn’t a large sample of young rocky planets like these,” Capistraint said. “We don’t even know if these small planets have atmospheres.”

The Earth-like planet is the third discovered in the system. Two miniature Neptunes also orbit the star.

TOP IMAGE....The relative sizes of the three known planets in the HD 63433 system, with the young Earth-like planet with a lava surface closest to the star. The other two planets are mini-Neptunes. Credit Ben Capistrant

CENTRE IMAGE....A comparison of the orbits of the HD 63433 planetary system compared to our own solar system.  Credit Ben Capistrant

LOWER IMAGE....An artist's rendering of Kepler-10 b, which, like newly discoered exoplanet HD 63433 d is a small, rocky planet in a tight orbit of its star.  Credit NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Google falsely told the police that a father was a molesting his son

[Correction: An earlier draft of this story misstated a technical detail; Mark didn’t email his photo to his doctor; rather, he took the photo with his phone and the image was automatically synched to his Google Photos account, triggering a scan]

Mark’s toddler had a painful, swollen penis. His wife contacted their doctor, whose nurse asked Mark to send him a picture of the toddler’s penis, because the pandemic was raging and the doctor wasn’t seeing patients in person. Mark’s phone synched the photo to his Google Photos account, and Google’s scanning tools automatically detected the picture of a child’s penis and turned Mark into the SFPD, accusing him of molesting his son.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html

Mark and his wife took several pictures of their son’s penis, including one that contained Mark’s hand. The child had a bacterial infection, which was quickly alleviated with antibiotics that the doctor prescribed via telemedicine.

Google refused to listen to Mark’s explanation. Instead, they terminated his account, seizing more than a decade’s worth of personal and business email, cloud files, and calendar entries. He lost all the family photos he’d synched with Google Photos (including all the photos of his toddler from birth, on). He even lost his mobile plan, because he’s a Google Fi user. He lost access to Google Authenticator and couldn’t sign into any of his other online accounts to tell them that he had a new, non-Gmail email address.

Mark received an envelope from the SFPD telling him that Google had contacted the police department, accusing him of producing child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and that the company had secretly given the police full access to all of his files and data, including his location and search history, as well as all his photos and videos.

The reason the police had to mail him all this stuff? Google had shut down his phone number and so they couldn’t reach him.

To SFPD’s credit, they’d figured out what was going on and decided Mark wasn’t a child molester. To Google’s shame, they continue to hold all his data hostage — including his address book with the contact info for everyone he is personally or professionally connected to, denying him access to it.

Google says they won’t give Mark his account back because they found another “problematic” image in his files: “a young child lying in bed with an unclothed woman.” Mark doesn’t know which picture they mean (he no longer has access to any of his photos), but he thinks it was probably an intimate photo he captured of his son and wife together in bed one morning (“If only we slept with pajamas on, this all could have been avoided.”).

Writing for the New York Times, Kashimir Hill discusses another, similar case, involving a Houston dad called Cassio, whose doctor asked him to send in photos of his child’s genitals for diagnostic purposes. Like Mark, Cassio was cleared by police, and, like Mark, Cassio is locked out of his Gmail account, along with all the services associated with it.

Hill spoke with my EFF colleague Jon Callas, who criticized Google, saying that private family photos should be a “private sphere” and not subject to routine scanning by algorithms or review by moderators. Google claims that they only scan your photos when you take an “affirmative action” related to them, but this includes automatically uploading your photos to Google Photos, which is the default behavior on Android devices.

Also cited in the article is Kate Klonick, a cyberlaw prof and expert on content moderation. Klonick pointed out that this was “doubly dangerous in that it also results in someone being reported to law enforcement,” suggesting that this could have resulted in a loss of custody if the police had been a little less measured.

Klonick criticized Google for the lack of a “robust process” for handling this kind of automated filter error. Hill describes the “AI” tools Google uses to automatically flag potential CSAM. As is so often the case with automated filtering tools, the flagging takes place in a nanosecond, while the process for questioning its judgment takes months or years, or forever.

Last summer, I called Google and its Big Tech competitors “utilities governed like empires.” The companies deliberately pursued a strategy of becoming indispensable to us, declaring mission statements like “organize all the world’s information” and backing them up with vertical stacks of products designed to capture your whole digital life.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/utilities-governed-empires

That is, the tech giants set out to become utilities, as important to your life as your electricity and water — and they succeeded. However, they continue to behave as though they are simply another business, whose commercial imperatives — including the arbitrary cancellation of your services without appeal — are private matters.

Some people say this means we should just turn these companies into actual utilities, but I think that’s the wrong impulse. The problem with (say) Facebook, isn’t merely that Zuck is monumentally unqualified to be the unaccountable self-appointed dictator of three billion peoples’ digital lives. The problem is that no one should have that job. We should abolish that job.

Which is why I’m so interested in interoperability — including a mix of state-imposed interop obligations and protecting interoperators’ self-help measures like reverse-engineering, scraping and bots.

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

That is a path to pluralizing power over the necessities of our lives — use the power of the state to set limits on the conduct of online platforms (say, by passing strong privacy laws with a private right of action), which makes sure that no matter which choice a user makes, they won’t be exploited by online companies. Then use the power of the state to safeguard interoperability, so that users who don’t like the way an online host uses its discretion can easily leave, without surrendering their data or their social connections:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

Rather than entrusting the US government — including its policing and espionage arms — to run our digital lives, and the digital lives of non-Americans around the world whom the US government explicitly disclaims any duty to, we can ask the government to do a much narrower job. We can ask them to prevent companies from harming us, and we can ask them to force companies not to take our data and social connections hostage. That way, we don’t have to ask the government — which might be run by e.g. Ron Desantis in a couple years — to decide which conversations are lawful to have:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/right-or-left-you-should-be-worried-about-big-tech-censorship

Instead, we can create our own, community run and community managed online spaces and services.

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A desk with an open laptop on it. On the laptop's screen is a doctor's torso and folded arms. In the top right corner is a CCTV camera labelled with the Gmail logo. The camera's lens has been replaced with the staring red eye of HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.]

[itsfeckinwimdy]

3 times Toto was oblivious + the 1 time he was surprised

George Russell x Reader

Reader Pronouns: She/Her

Prompt: Toto Wolff may be a good team principal but that doesnt mean hes good at observing things.

Work Count: 1.2k (1257) words

Tree speaks: The physical restrain I had to put on myself to not write Grussell every time I wrote George was immense. This one is a lot better than last week's. I was able to actually enjoy writing this so I might change up what I post each week to keep it varying.

Also, I know that George doesn't have James as his race engineer but I can't part with him so he's in this.

Formula 1 Masterlist

Published: 24/12/2022

One

Barcelona

If Toto thought he was going to have issues with George and Y/n getting along with each other after Lewis' departure as a driver then he would surely be proved wrong.

To him he couldn't have asked for a better pairing, the exception being Y/n and Lewis as they were the dream team, but to him, the new duo seemed to get along a little too well sometimes. Maybe it was him overanalysing everything like he tended to do so, but he had to be critical of his team and ensure that it was the best it could be especially after the consequences of last year.

Toto looked over at where the two were standing in the garage talking to each other. The screens in front of them clearly displayed the data he presumed the two were meant to be reading but were they paying any mind to it at the moment? Of course not.

He had half a mind to go over there and strangle them as they needed to get ready for their first test drive in the W13. However, he paused in his movements. The two of them had descended into fits of laughter, Y/n's hand gripped George's bicep as she held herself upright whilst the younger lad smiled broadly at her. When their laughter ceased, their smiles never faded and they continued to stare at each other. And Y/n's hand never moved.

And Y/n's hand never moved-

Toto's eyes squinted as he stared at them. Was there- no, Toto shook his head ridding himself of those thoughts. There was nothing going on between the two of them.

Two

British grand prix

As Toto continued to discuss and dissuade George from going to the stewards, he didn't notice his other driver clamber out of her car. It wasn't until he saw a blur of black fireproofs barrel into George that he realised she was back in the garage.

He saw the way George pulled her in close to him and how he held the back of her still helmet-clad head whilst she hugged him tightly. His eyebrows furrowed slightly when he noticed that the hug was lasting longer than normal only for the thought to be pulled straight out of his mind as Y/n stepped back to pull her helmet and HANS device off.

"You out of the race?" Y/n asked George only for Toto to sigh in response. He really didn't want to have to listen to George's rant about not being allowed to race again when there was nothing wrong with the car bar a missing tire. Yes, he agreed that it was shitty that he couldn't have started the car up again, however, once the marshalls move the car, the driver is not allowed to continue racing in it.

"Don't-" Toto began, interrupting George from beginning his rant once again, "I don't want to hear another word, we just have to focus on your race now."

The Austrian continued with his avid discussion about what was to happen next not noticing the entwined hands of his drivers or picking up on the "Stay safe" that left George upon Y/n climbing back into the car.

Three

Circuit of the Americas

When the Mercedes crossed the finish line, eruptions of cheers exploded through the garage and the pit lane as Toto himself was ecstatic. Y/n had managed to get the first win for Mercedes of the year and George had continued his streak of being in the top 5 of each race.

That had transpired just over two hours ago and the team was in the process of getting the team photo's ready. The two drivers were currently in the cold air of the garage softly talking to each other whilst their physios were helping them with their cooldown routines.

Toto was currently conversing with James and Bono about how they could improve for the upcoming weekends when his attention was drawn to the back of the garage.

Y/n was hunched over in her seat, an ice pack being held to her lower back by her physio, her hands clasped in her teammates. A few tears fell from her eyes as Toto deduced it was from the pain of the cars' porpoising issues which was mentioned by both drivers earlier today.

George's hand came up to cup her face, wiping away her tears as he kept speaking to her.

Toto turned his gaze away from the two making sure to mention to the race engineers about the porpoising issue they were already aware of but making sure they knew it needed sorting instantly before he walked out the garage to check on the progress of getting the cars in place.

But what he missed in his absence was the two race engineers looking at the two young drivers, witnessing the younger lad place a chaste kiss on Y/n's forehead before resting his own against hers.

+ One

Brazil

The entire Mercedes team crowded into parc ferme underneath the podium, waiting for celebrations to commence. Toto stood amidst the crowd with Susie by his side.

The spray of champagne rained down on him from high above where George had chosen to spray it over the crowd whilst being doused in it himself by his teammate.

Toto couldn't be prouder of the two. Having been able to witness George's first win in both the sprint and the Grand Prix and the first Mercedes 1-2 of the weekend, he couldn't have been happier.

Except that now meant adding the W13 to the collection of race-winning cars.

Maybe there was a spot near the back for it.

Focusing back up on the podium, he saw Y/n pull Goerge into her arms and kiss him, hands reaching up to push the Mercedes cap from his head.

Wait-

Toto blinked in shock as the crowd around him roared in joy.

Are those two together?

He looked at Susie next to him, and then Bono at his other side only to see the two of them cheering the couple, no- the drivers, on.

Had he seriously missed this?

Bonus

"Guess they've finally stopped sneaking around then."

The ever so infuriating voice of Christain Horner flew into Toto's ears as the Austrian turned to look at the greying man.

"What do you mean by that?" Toto questioned him, not understanding what the red bull team principal was referring to.

"Y/n and George," Christian continued, but upon still seeing the confusion on Toto's face he chuckled to himself slightly, "You didn't know?"

"What? Have the two of them been dating for a while now?" Toto slowly put two and two together from the event that occurred on the podium a mere hour ago and Christian's words.

The short British man laughed at the taller man's confusion and blindness, "Oh Toto, everyone knew. They've not entirely been good at keeping it a secret."

And with that Horner walked back to his garage, leaving the Austrian standing in the pitlane contemplating where he went wrong. He heard some muffled laughter from next to him and his head turned to look at the culprit only to see his wife, Susie.

"Was it really that obvious?" he asked her, knowing that she would at least be honest with him.

"Oh, Toto-" Susie nodded as she kept trying to hold in her laughter at her husband's ruffled nature only for him to walk off into the garage and throw his hands up in frustration.

[dostoyevsky-official]

I will make a case for the notion, based on current knowledge of brain function and connectivity, that parcelling the brain into cognitive and affective regions is inherently problematic, and ultimately untenable for at least three reasons: first, brain regions viewed as ‘affective’ are also involved in cognition; second, brain regions viewed as ‘cognitive’ are also involved in emotion; and critically, third, cognition and emotion are integrated in the brain. In the past two decades, several researchers have emphasized that emotion and cognition systems interact in important ways. Indeed, I propose that emotion and cognition not only strongly interact in the brain, but that they are often integrated so that they jointly contribute to behaviour. [...] Anatomy is often used to suggest a separation between cognition and emotion. [...] In particular, lesion studies have been interpreted to show that specific areas support specific functions. Advances in our understanding of brain connectivity suggest that a given brain region is only a few synapses away from every other brain region. Indeed, it appears that the brain is configured according to a small-world topology in which the path length between nodes is small — typically, cortical areas are connected directly or by just one or two intermediate areas — and nodes are highly clustered. [...] In addition, the authors showed that the amygdala makes very widespread projections, connecting with all but 8 of the cortical areas they included in the analysis. They concluded that the amygdala “occupies a position at the very geometric centre of the topological map”, suggesting that this structure is one of the most highly connected regions of the brain. Overall, it appears that the amygdala, a core affective region, is at least as well situated to integrate and distribute information as certain prefrontal cortex territories. [...] The picture that emerges from connectivity data suggests a remarkable potential for integration of information. [...]An alternative way to conceptualize the mapping between a brain area and behaviour is illustrated in FIG. 4. A given brain area, A, is involved in multiple neural computations, NC. Note that this initial mapping is itself many-to-many, so that a given area (for example, A1) is involved in the computation of several functions (for example, NC1 and NC3), and a given computation (for example, NC3) might be implemented by several areas (for example, A1, A2 and A3). These neural computations collectively underlie behaviour. One can describe the space of behaviours using affective and cognitive axes. Thus, any behaviour is by definition both cognitive and affective. Importantly, the axes are not orthogonal, such that a behaviour that is changed along the affective dimension compared to a different behaviour, will also be changed along the cognitive dimension. In other words, behaviour cannot be cleanly separated into cognitive or emotional categories.

An important aspect of the present proposal is that individual brain areas do not work in isolation, but instead are part of networks. Therefore, most neural computations should not be thought of as implemented by an individual area, but rather by the interaction of multiple areas. [...] As stated by Gray and colleagues, “at some point of processing, functional specialization is lost, and emotion and cognition conjointly and equally contribute to the control of thought and behaviour.” [...] In other words, whereas many behaviours might be reasonably well characterized in terms of cognitive–emotional interactions such that emotion and cognition are partly separable, often true integration of emotion and cognition takes place, strongly blurring the distinction between the two. [...] The viewpoint presented in this article suggests that behaviour is a product of the orchestration of many brain areas; the aggregate function of these brain areas leads to emotion and cognition. [...] In the end, whereas there is some value to carving up the brain in terms of emotion and cognition, the understanding of complex, embodied behaviour necessitates comprehending the strong interactions between brain areas.

On the Relationship Between Emotion and Cognition

[dduane]

Hi! I just want to say that I recently got into reading the star trek pocket novels, and so far yours have been my favorite by far (Doctor's Orders especially made me actually laugh out loud more times than I can count)! Thank you so much for writing as much as you do and for sharing your gift with the world, because it has brought me endless amounts of joy! 😊

- Maeve

Thanks so much! I'm really glad you've liked them.

And I have to admit that writing every one of them was an absolute trip, no matter how often the process may have had its hiccups. It's just the damndest thing to be in the first generation of a fandom and then, decades later, to be invited to write in it at the professional end.

It never got old. And assuming I go down that road again at some point—which could possibly happen, as people currently working at the screen end of things seem to know where I am, and keep sneaking my written work into filmed canon—it never will. :)

ETA: to @druid-in-hiding: I don't have a list as such, but every now and then somebody drops me a note and says "Hey, did you know about this?"—and sends along the data. For example: pages from Spock's World were being passed to the cast of the 2009 Star Trek film, apparentl;y to fill in background and clarify some character issues. When I saw a (sadly cut-for-time) script page from that film with actual Vulcan terms that I'd coined for that book being used in dialogue, I was so astounded I had to sit down for a few minutes to recover. ...Bits of Rihannsu-language material, and Rihannsu cultural concepts, have also turned up in (I think it was) ST: Disco. And there are "nods" in my general direction that go right back to the late seasons of ST:TNG. (For these I tend to blame Ron Moore, who's an old friend and occasional houseguest of @petermorwood's and mine.)

The most recent example of this kind of thing, though, and maybe the showiest, happened earlier this year in ST: Picard, where an (alien-crewed) starship I came up with for My Enemy, My Ally turned up at that last big s3 battle. This one:

...What can I say? It's nice to be thought of. At such times, all you can do is go to bed smiling. I sure did. :)

[apod]

2023 October 7

The Once and Future Stars of Andromeda Image Credit: NASA, NSF, NOAJ, Hubble, Subaru, Mayall, DSS, Spitzer; Processing & Copyright: Robert Gendler & Russell Croman

Explanation: This picture of Andromeda shows not only where stars are now, but where stars will be. The big, beautiful Andromeda Galaxy, M31, is a spiral galaxy a mere 2.5 million light-years away. Image data from space-based and ground-based observatories have been combined here to produce this intriguing composite view of Andromeda at wavelengths both inside and outside normally visible light. The visible light shows where M31's stars are now, highlighted in white and blue hues and imaged by the Hubble, Subaru, and Mayall telescopes. The infrared light shows where M31's future stars will soon form, highlighted in orange hues and imaged by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The infrared light tracks enormous lanes of dust, warmed by stars, sweeping along Andromeda's spiral arms. This dust is a tracer of the galaxy's vast interstellar gas, raw material for future star formation. Of course, the new stars will likely form over the next hundred million years or so. That's well before Andromeda merges with our Milky Way Galaxy in about 5 billion years.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231007.html