#he left without one ai to depend upon and came back with another

[jinxie-117]

hey so you guys ever think about how master chief nearly inserted the index into the core and pulled the plug on all sentient life in the entire galaxy? you ever think about how he thought it was the right thing right up until cortana told him it wasn't? you ever think about how he stood there realising the fact he nearly killed all the people he would have died to protect? you ever think? you ever think??? you ever think????????

[sserpente]

A/N: I received two anon requests quite a while ago and decided to keep them because the idea was… hot! I hope you all had some lovely holidays! Enjoy reading! ♥

Words: 2392 Warnings: smut, smut, smut… and a lot of fluff

Additional NSFW warnings: teeny tiny bit of dub-con, depending how you look at it, sleep fucking, cockwarming and forced orgasm (we’re going at it again, my lovelies! Prepare to take a cold shower after this!)

-

It was not that you didn’t care about the others. It was just that you cared about Loki more. The Avengers knew that—there was no point in pretending you were not selfish in that aspect. Besides, for a very long time, nobody truly seemed to care about Loki before, not until you stepped into his life and threw his emotions into turmoil. You grinned deviously at the thought. Together, you were one of a kind. An inseparable and invincible team against the nine realms.

To begin with, you had been unsure if he would let you win his heart even though he had been unable to deny his own reactions to you. Soon enough, however, Loki had begun courting you—right until this one, fateful night in Norway where he had kissed you under the glooming Northern Lights.

You missed him. More than you could couch in terms. Loki had been away on a mission with Thor, somewhere in the depths of Niflheim for several weeks now. Only a handful of einherjar as well as Valkyrie had accompanied him, the only life sign you received every other day when Thor contacted Tony to give him updates which left you worrying about him most of the time.

Your bed felt so empty without him, so cold. Loki had become the most important person in your life in such a short time period it almost scared you.

“Good evening, Miss (Y/L/N),” You looked up to the ceiling when you heard FRIDAY’s electronic voice ricocheting through Loki’s and your room. “Mr Stark has asked me to let you know that Thor and Loki have just returned from their mission. They are—” The AI was unable to finish delivering its message. You had already bolted through the door regardless of the fact you were already wearing your pyjamas.

Thor was sitting on the sofa in the middle of the massive living room, his dirty boots staining the soft carpet to his feet and his precious hammer resting on a cushion by his side. Frantically, your eyes scanned your surroundings. Loki found you first, greeting you with a mischievous smirk as soon as you laid your eyes upon him.

“Finally…” You dashed forward, throwing yourself into his arms. The God of Mischief grunted from the galvanic impact, making you push him an arm-length away from you with a concerned expression on your face.

“Are you hurt?!”

“No… just… exhausted.” He leaned his forehead against yours, pressing you tightly against his body despite the heavy tiredness in his limbs. Thor was taking all the credit, as usual. There were always two sides of a story and the Avengers, whenever the Asgardian brothers were involved, only ever cared to acknowledge Thor’s version.

“Did everything go well?” You asked him with a quiet voice all the while ignoring the heated conversation Thor had started with his rumblings about war, battle and triumph.

“There were minor complications. We had the element of surprise.”

You nodded thoughtfully. “Tell me the details tomorrow. You should rest, my king.” Loki smiled in response.

“Not just yet…” He mused. “First, let me show you how much I missed you, my sweet pet…”

Your loins caught fire the moment his hot breath brushed against your ear, promising a night filled with pleasure and passion. You clung on to him, desperately, as he lifted you up like a bride and carried you back to your shared room.

“But I do have to admit that we couldn’t have done it without my brother this time.” Thor said in just that moment. “Right, Loki?” He looked up, searching for him, but he was already gone. “Loki?”

-

His mouth came crashing down on yours before you had a chance to feel the ground under your soles again. Loki gently put you on the bed and threw the covers back, his lips never ceasing to explore yours. You could practically taste his longing for you, that burning desire setting your skin ablaze. Adrenaline from battle and violence still cursed through his veins, your willing body and mind an anchor to his aching soul.

His greedy hands dived under your thin shirt, caressing your naked skin. Your back arched when his fingertips reached the underside of your breasts, your nipples already hard and awaiting his touch. You whimpered—a soft sound urging him on to take from you what he needed, only to return more bliss to you than imaginable. Loki was a gentle lover, considerate. He took pride in how often he could make you quiver and moan underneath him before he sheathed himself deep inside your demanding quim.

Soon enough, he occupied himself with your knickers, his long digits travelling over your abdomen all the way down your body so slowly you shivered from the anticipation until he reached the hem of the thin fabric. He took his time sliding them off of you until you could kick them out of bed. You sat up, if only for a brief moment to get rid of your shirt. Loki eyed your body hungrily, taking in every single inch you so willingly presented to him. When you lied back down, bucking your hips already eager for his body to join with yours, an animalistic growl escaped his lips. Loki attacked your neck with a ferocity which made you tremble beneath him. His hands barely managed to free his aroused member from his dark leather trousers as he nibbled and suckled on your sensitive skin, determined to leave passionate love bites all over you to mark you as his. You would never belong to anyone else.

Breathing heavily, you dug your fingernails into his shoulders. More. You needed more, so much more.

“Loki… take all of your clothes off. Please… I want to feel you.” It was a silent plea, one Loki found himself unable to resist. There were, after all, certain perks of wielding seidr. His armour all but melted off of his body, along with, so you presumed, the dirt and sweat from exhaustion and his recent fights. A moan escaped your lips when his now naked skin touched yours, removing the last ounce of distance there had still been between you.

He was already hard, leaking precum from the pink tip. You longed to give his impressive length a long lick, tasting his arousal as much as he could taste yours when, without any forewarning, he thrust two of his long fingers into your leaking core and curled them just where you needed it the most, testing your wetness.

You were more than ready for him. Loki usually had you on the verge of madness the moment he kissed you, all your worries and sorrows drifting away from your troubled mind. This night was no different. In this very trice, you were his and he was yours. There was no one else.

Loki was demanding in the way he made you spread your legs to position himself between them, stretching your wet entrance inch by inch as he penetrated you to the hilt. Neither of you failed to cherish the moment as he shifted most of his weight onto you in an attempt to get as close as physically possible. He leaned his forehead against yours once more, his warm breath brushing against your moist lips. Only when you wrapped your legs around his hips to impel him did he retreat almost entirely and buried himself back inside you. His pace was steady, intimate. This wasn’t just passionate fucking—this was gentle and tender love making between two people who loved each other. Loki’s pelvis grinded against your clit with every powerful thrust, your breasts bouncing with the impact. It was a mesmerising sight, to say the very least. How could he resist not kneading them, caressing them and cupping them softly, one at a time? His thumb interchangeably rubbed over your hardened nipples, sending shockwaves of arousal through your entire body—they gathered right between your legs, promising release. You needed just… a little more stimulation…

Another, needy whimper escaped your lips when you felt his other hand sneaking down to where your bodies were joined, his teasing fingertips finding your clitoris with ease. He was panting, capturing your lips in another chaste kiss as he picked up his pace and prodded into you harder and faster, his fingers still massaging your sensitive bundle of nerves until he had you right where he wanted you—on the brink of orgasm.

“I can feel you tightening around me, pet…” He grunted hoarsely. A hearty moan accompanied by his name was the only sound you managed to utter in response. “Cum… cum for me.”

So you did, his soft command a dizzying invitation. Over and over, his name rolled over your tongue, echoing through the room. Your fingernails dug into his hips, wanting him even deeper inside you as your orgasm tore through you, setting fire to every cell of your body. Your toes curled, your back arched, your hips kept bucking up to meet his thrusts…

“Yes…” Loki hissed blatantly. At loss for more words, he began rutting into like an animal—like a tiger that had been caged and now pounced on its first willing victim. His hard cock, desperate for relief now, throbbed, pulsing against your tight walls. With a low grunt, Loki spilled himself inside you, filling your still quaking and contracting cunt until his warm seed dribbled down your inner thighs, tickling your sweaty skin.

His stamina never ceased to impress you—and he did not content himself with claiming you just once. No. The majority of the night had passed by the time you almost passed out from exhaustion, even more so than Loki after returning from his mission. He was more than compensating and making up for the time he had been away from you.

-

It was dark when you awoke again, your eyelids fluttering open only to be met with utter darkness. What was it that had so rudely ripped you from dreamland? It must have been in the middle of the night. Surely Loki had switched off the light with a simple wave of his hand after your passionate love making. And all too soon… all too soon you realised what was happening.

Loki was lazily thrusting into you again, whispering sweet nothings into your neck. His right hand was cupping your breast possessively, his thumb stimulating your hardening nipple.

“Oh… oh, fuck…” You moaned when he circled his hips, his pelvis grinding against your clit in such a delicious manner it fuelled your own arousal climbing up into dizzying heights within a matter of seconds. You were still wet from your passionate love making, remembered, after being taken times and times again and after clenching and cumming around his cock, letting wave after wave of pure bliss wash over you, and you recalled begging him groggily.

“No… Stay inside me, please.” You had fallen asleep with him still resting deep inside you, softening slowly. Loki had been unable to deny how wonderful it felt to have your warm cunt envelop and warm him for the night. He was slumbering soundly now—and he was… dreaming. Dreaming of… claiming you again? You bit your lower lip when his thrusts intensified.

“L-Loki? Wake up, my king…” You realised quickly he had a very deep sleep. Without ever opening his blue eyes, he rolled fully on top of you for better access. You tried to move your arms to control his vigorous rutting but found yourself paralysed, your eyes widening when you noticed. You could not move a limb. What… what was he dreaming? Had he bound you in his very own world? Tied you up with silk rope like he sometimes did in a conscious state? Shifting just a little, you raised your hips up against him. Loki had rendered you completely helpless, ravishing you intimately without his knowledge… and even though it scared you a little—so utterly at his subconscious’ mercy—you found yourself growing more and more aroused.

“Loki… I can’t move… Loki, wake up…”

Loki was not even touching you and yet… yet with a start, it almost felt like invisible fingers were stroking your clit, gently pulling an orgasm from you. Without a doubt, the God of Mischief was using his wicked seidr as he took his release from you. He played your body like an instrument, face buried in your neck and plastering wet and seducing kisses all over your skin.

He grumbled, eyelids twitching slightly. Finally, his blue gaze met yours in the dark, still drowsy and sleep-drugged.

“Oh God…” You moaned, too close to orgasm to grasp a proper thought.

Even if you had wished to, there would have been no stopping him from forcing you to climax for him. Muttering his name when pleasure took control over your body, you threw your head back, your tight walls clenching around him rhythmically, milking him for all he was worth. Loki came, too. He moaned quietly, sheathing himself as deep inside of you as physically possible as he marked you with his warm seed yet again, his manhood pulsing and jerking against your wet cunt.

The dark room was filled with nothing but your rapid heartbeats and your heavy breathing for a while. You were still quivering from your own high, your pussy barely contracting around his slowly softening member when he suddenly chuckled softly in his post-orgasmic haze, fully realising now what must have happened.

“My… it seems that even in my sleep, you are still utterly defenceless against me, my sweet pet.”

You groaned—though your half-hearted complaint sounded more like another eager moan. You could not deny how exciting it had been… and you certainly wouldn’t mind if it happened again.

“I’m glad you’re amused…” Raising an eyebrow, you landed a weak slap against his upper arm.

Loki chuckled once more, rewarding you with another lazy stroke. “You enjoyed it.” He stated matter-of-factly. “You were writhing underneath me and you are positively dripping wet…” His smirk sent pleasant shivers up and down your spine. He was already getting hard again, you could feel him twitch slightly inside of you. A devilish grin spread on your lips.

“Shut up and kiss me.” It was a wish Loki could never turn down before.

-

A/N: Check out my blog to find more Imagines and take a glimpse at my  first (to be) published novel! If you enjoyed this story, I would  appreciate so much if you supported me on Kofi! ko-fi.com/sserpente ♥

[highfunctioningflailgirl]

Whumptober 2021

Prompt #3: „Who did this to you?“

With a familiar tingling in his neural network, the EMH materialized in La Sirena’s sickbay. His biosensors kicked into action even before his holographic body had fully assembled and threw a barrage of medical data at him. Adaptive filters quickly cast the obvious, familiar facts aside (human, male, age 42, 6 ft, 80 kg) and prioritized the relevant ones: raised levels of cortisol and adrenaline (in the process of breaking down), elevated blood pressure, a dip in hemoglobin and an alarming level of blood alcohol.

Stress. Pain. Hemorrhage. Intoxication.

“What is the nature of your medical emergency?”

Captain Rios, standing by the hypospray dispenser, turned around unsteadily and used his hip to stabilize himself against the counter. Hunched over, he was protectively cradling his left hand in his right. Beneath the stark ceiling lights, the Captain’s face looked pale, and blood was glistening in his beard.

Potential hand fracture. Epistaxis of unknown origin.

“I need pain meds,” the Captain slurred, his tone hostile. “Can’t get the damn hypospray replicrate… precate…” He grunted in annoyance. “Can’t get the damn thing to work.”

The EMH pulled a tricoder from his coat pocket and pointed it at Rios. Processing its readings, he rearranged his forehead into a frown.

“I’m afraid the application of an acetylsaliciylic acid won’t fix a misaligned metacarpal fracture.”

The Captain gave him an irritated, blurry look.

“What?”

“Your hand is broken and needs to be set.”

Rios looked at the injured appendage in disgruntlement.

“Bullshit. I just need some ice and an aspirin.” He glared at the hologram. “Why isn’t there a single fuckin’ aspirin in here? It’s a fucking medical bay!”

Detecting a fresh release of stress hormones in the Captain’s system, the EMH’s programming switched to a de-escalation protocol. Automatically, his vocal frequency dropped and his timbre softened.

“I can give you something better than aspirin, Captain,” he said calmly. “A fast-acting analgesic. You will feel better immediately. And then we can take it from there.”

Rios seemed to consider yelling at him for a moment - something the EMH had become used to since his initial activation a few months ago - but then, swaying in place, the Captain asked with narrowed eyes: “You’re not going to sedate me, are you?”

“Not unless you want me to, Captain,” the EMH answered, mildly affronted.

There had been several occasions where he’d offered sleeping pills to Rios (all rejected), and one memorable day when he’d suggested an antidepressant and almost been wiped from La Sirena’s mainframe in response, but, unless the Captain’s behavior and brain chemistry scans fulfilled all the criteria for temporary mental incompetence, medicating him against his will would violate the hologram’s hippocratic coding.

“Do you want a sedative?”

“No!” Rios barked. Then he looked at his hand and tried to wriggle his fingers. The EMH’s biosensors detected a spike in pain intensity even before his patient hissed and winced.

“Alright,” Rios relented angrily, teeth clenched. “Give me the pain meds and set the damn hand.”

The EMH’s neural processors lit up in mimicry of human glee.

“Right away, Captain.”

He slid past Rios to reprogram the hypospray console and replicated the medication he needed. Swiftly, he loaded the vial into the dispenser.

“Sit down, please.” He gestured at the biobed.

Captain Rios grunted, but he clumsily did as ordered. The EMH pressed the dispenser to the side of his patient’s neck and administered the analgesic. On the monitor that had self-activated as soon as Rios’ body had touched the biobed, the hologram was satisfied to see an immediate physical response as his captain’s vitals settled down.

The decrease of pain was also visible in Rios’ body language and behavior. His tense frame softened as his muscles relaxed, his mouth unclenched and his eyes lost some of their aggressive sheen.

“On a scale of one to ten,” the hologram asked, “what is your level-”

“It’s fine,” Rios snarled tiredly. “Just fix the damn hand.”

“There is blood on your face. Would you at least allow me to examine your-”

“Madre de dios! I got punched in the face. It’s just a nosebleed. The hand, Emil! Just the hand.”

The EMH didn’t have a limbic system, but his AI coding answered to Rios’ use of his moniker with a quick burst of invigorating energy.

“Certainly, Captain.”

Gently and efficiently, he took Rios’ broken hand and, with a quick tug, realigned the index metacarpal. Rios, now intoxicated and medicated, barely flinched.

Looking at the broken skin on Rios’ knuckles, the EMH reached for the dermal regenerator.

“May I ask who did this to you?”

The Captain scoffed. “Why would that be any of your business?”

“Depending on the species, toxic agents could have entered through your injured epidermis upon contact. The Cal’thra, for instance, produce a toxin that mixes with their sweat when threatened, leading to necrosis in their enemies’ wounds, and in case you-”

“EMIL!“

The hologram shut his mouth. Inwardly, his processors bristled at the rudeness, but if he wanted to finish treatment before the Captain deactivated him (as he usually did at some point), he knew he had to stop lecturing him. He had learned a lot in recent months, and while dealing with La Sirena’s ever-belligerent, moody new owner wasn’t exactly pleasant, he at least gave the EMH ample occasion to execute his intended programming. This wasn’t the first time he’d fixed the Captain up after some sort of altercation, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

“If you would now lie down and let me configure the ossifier matrix…”

He began tapping on a holographic screen.

“No.” Rios shook his head.

The EMH stopped, confused. “Excuse me, Captain?”

“I’m not staying in sickbay,” Rios slurred defiantly. “Just splint my hand and I’m out of here.”

The hologram shouldn’t be surprised. Captain Rios had refused proper treatment before, in favor of letting his wounds heal on their own. The EMH’s hippocratic coding, however, still balked at the sheer stupidity.

“Captain, the ossifier matrix will expedite bone fusion. Foregoing micro-repair will prolong your regeneration considerably. You will be in pain, and your hand will be in a cast for weeks!“

“I don’t care,” Rios growled at him. “Just do it and I’m out of here.”

The EMH sighed. After all these months, and with all the knowledge the hologram had at his disposal, he was still unable to understand the Captain’s motivations. He’d browsed each and every of La Sirena’s computer files accessible to him, and he’d dived deep into his-… Rios’ memory base to find the cause for his self-flagellation, to no avail. Every time he came close to an explanation, a hole opened up in the data. A log entry that had been erased, a medical file that was incomplete, a classified Starfleet report, a face without a name.

Resigned, the EMH replicated a splint and bandaged Rios’ hand.

“All done?” Rios asked when he’d finished.

The hologram cast another look at Rios vitals: except for his blood alcohol, everything was back within normal range. He would have preferred to keep an eye on his Captain, here in sickbay. Something beyond the reach of his scanners told him he should. But there was no medical justification. His nosebleed had stopped; his hand would heal; he would survive another hangover in the morning.

“Yes,” the EMH answered truthfully.

“Good,” Rios mumbled and pushed off the biobed, swaying and tugging his bandaged hand against his chest.

“Deactivate EMH.”

Emil disintegrated with a woeful hum.

(You can also read and comment on this fic on AO3:)

[snake-habitat1]

s3x pollen (fem reader)

Summary: You and Peter were tasked with organizing powders from another planet. Something went wrong though :o!

Warnings: swearing, fingering, sex, angst

Word count: 1,874

Tony Stark charged you and Peter Parker with a “dangerous” task. You weren’t too sure what was so dangerous about organizing, but there you were on a Saturday, arranging color-filled test tubes with Spider-Man. 

    “Be extremely careful when handling these test tubes. They’re a sort of gas from planet Nimbus and if you happen to break one, you will feel like you’re dying.” Stark said to you and Peter earlier that day.

    Peter raised his hand, “Okay, but will we die?” 

    Tony rolled his eyes, “Technically no, you won’t die, but you don’t want to feel what this stuff is capable of.”

    You glanced over at Peter who gave Tony a skeptical look.

    “Look, just believe me. If one of you knuckleheads break something, press this red button,” Tony pointed to a red button near the door, “That button will seal this room shut, preventing the rest of the gas from leaking into the building.”

    It all seemed sort of sketchy, but who were you to say no to the man who gave you a job? You nodded at Tony’s words and prepared yourself for several hours of labor.

    Two hours later, you and Peter have only gotten through less than half of the test tubes. The tubes contained powders of all colors. Yellow, blue, green, red, and purple. You particularly liked inspecting the test tubes with the purple powder. 

    “This is so boring!” Peter groaned.

    You smiled, “I agree, but maybe this will go by faster if we play some music?” 

    Peter nodded, “Alright, but you have to DJ.”

    “Hey FRIDAY, connect to (y/n)’s phone.” You commanded.

    “Connected.” The AI voice stated.

    You clicked on a playlist entitled “Vibes” and placed your phone back into your back pocket. Peter began to sway his hips to the beat and you couldn’t help but giggle.

    “Is something funny, (y/n)?” Peter asked.

    You chuckled, “Nope, nothing at all. You’re a great dancer.”

    “I know,” Peter stated with a wink.

    You rolled your eyes. Peter picked up a test tube and continued to dance. You joined in and soon enough you two were having a dance party. The more you both danced, the closer together you became. Suddenly, Peter did a small spin but bumped into you, causing him to drop a test tube filled with the purple powder.

    “Shit!” You both exclaimed at the same time.

    You ran over to the door and slammed down on the red button. The windows and glass doors were soon shielded in a thick protection of vibranium. 

    Peter looked at you with a concerned expression.

    “(y/n), I am so sorry!” Peter said.

    “No, don’t apologize. It’s just as much my fault as it is yours.” 

    You both stood in silence as the powder began to rise into a gas. You tried to hold your breath, but soon enough you inhaled deeply, coughing and choking on the pastel gas. Peter also began to cough. He wheezed and wiped his eyes as they started to water. 

    “Do you feel anything yet?” Peter asked you.

    You shook your head, “What about you?”     “Nope, nothing.”

    Maybe Tony had been wrong about the gases. Perhaps not all of them had the same effect. But before long, you started to feel an ache coming from between your legs. You tried to ignore it but the more you resisted, the more powerful it became. Your core was longing to be touched. A wetness began to grow as your nipples were now erect. 

    “(y/n)?” Peter said.

    You looked at him and noticed a bulge growing in his tight jeans. Your eyes widened when you looked up at Parker and saw how red his cheeks were. 

    “Yeah?” You responded.

    “I-I think I know what that was.” Peter stuttered.

    A cramp coursed through your stomach causing you to hunch over a bit.

    “Fuck,” You moaned slightly.

    “I think we just inhaled a suh-s-sex pollen.” Peter tried to adjust his growing member.

    “A what?!” Your heart was racing. You crossed your legs, trying to relieve some of the tension  that was growing in your core.

    “A sex pollen. It h-helps...shit…the people of Nimbus reproduce. They don’t have hormones like we do so they use this gas in order to get stimulated.” Peter responded.

    You were used to Peter being a nerd, but something about his nerdy ways made you extremely horny in that very moment. A wave of pleasure caused you to collapse. Peter ran over to you to make sure you were alright. The feeling of his strong hand grabbing your upper arm made another shock wave to course through your body. 

    “I-I’m fine.” You managed.

    Peter decided it was best to back off of you. He’s always had a thing for you and this pollen was not helping. He just didn’t want to say or do anything he’d regret. He especially didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. Peter moved to the other side of the room and sat on the ground near the now sealed window.

    Little did Parker know, you also had a thing for him. You have for two years now. You were always sure he liked MJ, and you were still convinced of that, but who knows what’ll happen with this gas in the air.

    “How long does this last?” You asked Peter from the other side of the room.

    “I’m not entirely sure.” 

    You sighed but was startled when your phone began to ring. You answered, “Hello?”

    “Which test tube did you guys drop?” Tony asked.

    You furrowed your brows, “How did you know we dropped one?” You said.

    “I didn’t, but I do now.” Tony replied.

    “The purple one.” You said with a sigh.

    There was a pause followed by laughter, “Bruce! Bruce! You owe me twenty! I told you it would be the sex pollen!”

    You rolled your eyes, “Haha, very funny. How long does this feeling last?” 

    “Anywhere from a few hours to a few days.” Tony chuckled.

    Your heart dropped, “A few days?!” 

    “That all just depends on you two.” 

    With that, Tony hung up the phone and you were left to wonder what that could’ve meant. You looked down and realized you were involuntarily rubbing your heat through your jeans. Peter eyed you from across the room but didn’t say anything.”

“I have an idea but it’s well…” You began, but Peter cut you off.

“What is it? I’ll do anything to stop this!”

You bit your lower lip, “Masturbation?”

Peter became silent. You instantly regretted your words.

“That could work.” Peter finally said.

You grew wetter just thinking about Peter pleasing himself. Turning away from you, Peter unbuckled his pants. You did the same. Though you couldn’t see, you could imagine what was happening with the small sounds Peter were providing. 

“Fuck, (y/n)...” Peter moaned. 

Your eyes shot open when you heard your name. Is he thinking about you? While…  

“Peter?” You asked.

“Yuh-yes?” Peter said.

“Are you thinking about me?”

Peter let out a low sigh, “Yes.”

You turned around and began to crawl towards him. When you finally reached Peter, your breath was hitting his neck, causing goosebumps to rise on his warm skin. 

Peter gulped loudly, “wha-what are you doing?” 

You placed a soft kiss upon his neck. You were so hungry for the man in front of you, you were practically bursting out of your underwear. 

“I like you, Parker.” You finally confessed.

Peter slowly turned his head until his eyes met yours, “Really? Because I like you too.” 

His voice was so raspy and delicious, you wanted to taste every inch of him. Without warning, Peter’s lips crashed down on yours and you began to passionately kiss. Soon, you were on Peter’s lap, kissing him and grinding on his growing member. 

“Fuck, (y/n), I want you so badly.” Peter moaned against your lips.

The sound of his voice caused another cramp to form in your stomach. You pulled back and pulled your shirt off. Peter followed after you. You admired his perfectly sculpted chest and abs. He was beautiful. 

 “I need you inside me, Peter.” You whimpered.

Peter flipped you both over so he was now on top. He helped you shimmy out of your fitted jeans, your underwear being pulled down with them. Peter reached down and began to rub in small circles on your aching clit. Your breath hitched in your throat. Every nerve ending in your body was on fire and was begging for Peter’s touch. 

“Fuck, princess. You’re already so wet for me.” Peter mumbled. 

Your eyes rolled to the back of your head. Just his voice alone gave you butterflies. Peter slipped a finger inside of you and began to pump slowly.

“M-more!” You nearly shouted.

With a smirk, Parker slipped two more fingers inside. He moved quickly causing your back to arch. 

“My princess gonna cum for me?” Peter growled. 

That sent you overboard. A familiar but powerful feeling rushed over you, starting in the pit of your belly. As you climaxed, Peter moved and licked up your wet folds. You were over stimulated and at bliss, at least for a moment. When you finally came down from your high you realized how horny you still were.

“Lay down.” You demanded, pushing Peter by his chest. 

With him now laying on the cool ground, you straddled Peter, rubbing your heat on his jeans. 

“Take them off.” You said. Peter listened and now had his bare ass on the ground, his slick, hard cock resting against his belly. He was bigger than you expected, which only made you more aroused. 

You climbed back on top of Peter and grabbed his dick, making him hiss under his breath. You pumped his cock a few times before slowly sliding it into your wet pussy.

“Fuck me, princess! You’re so tight.” Peter groaned.

You moaned as you bounced up and down on Peter’s throbbing cock, your hands on his chest to stabilize yourself. You rocked your hips back and forth with Peter’s hands on your hips to guide you.

“Keep riding me like that and I’m gonna cum for you, baby girl.” Peter moaned.

“Cum for me, Peter.” You breathed out.

Peter lifted himself from the ground using his thighs so he could hammer into your tight cunt. The faster he went, the closer to your second high you got. 

“I’m coming, princess!” Peter moaned. 

With a few more hard thrusts, Peter finished inside of you. You slipped off of him, his cum dripping from your core. Laying down next to him, Peter wrapped an arm around you. You both were naked and panting.

“Do you still feel like you’re going to die?” You finally asked.

Peter giggled, “Not so much anymore. You?” 

You shook your head. In pure bliss, you realized your phone was ringing. 

“Hello?” You asked once you picked up.

“Yeah, just wanted to let you know whenever this uh, passes, the code to disarm the shields is 2001.” Tony stated.

“Sounds good!” You smiled.

“Wanna get out of here?” Peter asked.

“Yes, but we should probably get dressed.” You laughed. 

After getting dressed, you and Peter headed out, leaving that sweaty room. You knew things had changed for the better.

[fallenfurther]

Homecoming - Earthbound

Chapter 2 of Homecoming. John and Jeff.

Thank you for the response to my first chapter and Josie will return later on as the story develops.. The next few chapters are set  within the last episode of the series  , between Jeff returning to the island and stepping out Thunderbird Two and him sitting down to take the rescue call. There is no way Jeff is fit and health after eight years alone in space, so these chapters fill in that recovery and continues as he finds his place within the family and organisation again. 

This chapter is an emotional one, so trigger warnings for trauma, death, last wishes. 

*********

Jeff placed his cutlery down on the empty plate, before leaning back into the cushioned back of the chair. The food was excellent, though anything was better than what he'd survived on for the past eight years. It helped that he knew there was no expense spared for his stay. It felt so strange but comfortable to feel full again and his body was feeling better for it. The nurse popped her head around the door and smiled.

"Want me to take the tray from you?"

"Yes please."

Lauren swished her way over to him, picked up the tray and left him alone. Jeff had various therapy sessions and doctors checking in on him and he welcomed the breaks from them. He just had to keep looking forward, knowing that the light at the other end was to spend the rest of his life with his sons. How he'd missed them. Each one imprinted in his mind, clear as day, spurring him on. They visited him when they could, though it depended entirely upon the number of callouts and if someone was fit enough to fly. International Rescue seemed much busier now than eight years ago. Eight years away from everything. So much had stayed the same and yet the important stuff had grown and changed. Particularly his little Alan. He was the smallest, just, but he'd matured, become more confident and was an amazing astronaut. Normally he would have been angry at Scott and the boys for letting someone so young fly Thunderbird Three. He'd always known the dangers of space. A teenager doesn't. But having seen Alan pilot Thunderbird Three, making her dance elegantly between asteroids, he understood. Alan had flown the Zero-XL to save him. The talent that boy had was incredible. How could Jeff deny the boy who followed so much in his own footsteps, who shared his passion for space? It pained him to know he hadn't been around to help nurture it.

Jeff forced himself out of his chair, joints complaining from his physiotherapy session that morning. The gravity in the Oort cloud had been variable but being back on Earth it had an intensity he could get no reprieve from. John had suggested a skint on Thunderbird 5, but the doctors insisted he have no Zero-G exposure until he was medically fit, insisting his body needed to adjust to gravity first. They also ruled out a trip in Thunderbird Three as the forces that would be applied to his still healing body would be too intense. Jeff was itching to witness Alan fly the Thunderbird first hand. Jeff opened the patio door and stepped out into the warm breeze and sunshine. He still had moments of panic when he realised he didn't have a helmet on, or when he realised it wasn't close by, but the fresh air transported him back to the time before he was stranded. Even now it didn't always feel real, being on Earth. Almost two months and he still had to pinch himself sometimes, still shed tears at the sight of his boys visiting. The small private garden attached to his room was a small haven where he could get used to the world again. He followed the path to the plant-laced wooden gazebo beneath which a table and chairs stood waiting. He took a stroll down the small path circling it, not quite ready to sit yet, the wind chimes tickling above him as he brushed his hand through the purple flowers, sending a wave of lavender in the air.

Eventually he had to sit down. His tablet was on the table where he'd left it that morning. Flicking it on, he pressed his thumb to the corner, activating International Rescue's secure network. John had willingly let him have access, walking him through the new filing system before letting him loose on it. Jeff was sure John or that little AI of his was monitoring every document he saw. He opened up yet another mission report, he'd started making a timeline of rescues, only for it to be completed by EOS, listing the main statistics such as time, craft used, and which sons were involved. The timeline was worrying. International Rescue had started off slow, only going to major rescues, however nowadays barely two days went by without a need to be called out. International Rescue had response times and equipment that outmatched local agencies, but it meant his boys were often being pushed to the limits. There were meant to be fail-safes in place and compulsory downtime to stop back to back working, but all that had been side-lined so lives could be saved. He'd started with the older reports and with each one his sons got better and more efficient at writing them, but he was starting to see their exhaustion. International Rescue hadn't been designed for the workload it was taking on and something was going to snap. Jeff feared it would be his boys. He'd just got them back and now he feared he'd lose one of them.

It was never meant to be this way. Jeff had expected a little increase in workload, but nothing like this. The GDF had tried to help, as he'd found out from the last report about their robots, but that had proved unsuccessful. He didn't want to raise it with them, not yet at least. Jeff planned to finish catching up with the reports, machine specifications and chat with Brains to see what had happened and what could be done. An idea was already forming, but he knew he had to be careful, and knew he couldn't step on anyone's toes. He could see his place in International Rescue wasn't where it used to be, though it had been suggested that he take over the comms so John could rest or do other work. However, this wouldn't solve the problem. They all loved him, were so happy he was back and yet it was exhausted men that visited him. They came often in ones or twos, often with bags under their eyes, sometimes even straight from a rescue in Virgil and Gordon's case, showering on Thunderbird Two which would be parked on the green behind the facility. They would come in trying to hide how tired they were to see him, sometimes a guilty look if they hadn't come sooner. Jeff understood now, he would complain if he didn't want to see them so badly. He should send them home with a clip around the ear and set his mother on them. Instead he opened his arms and embraced them, forever thankful that he still could.

He turned back to the reports, chimes filling the air with each light gust. He only looked up when some light footsteps came along the path, and a smile crossed his face. John, still in his uniform, settled into the chair before him.

"Afternoon Dad."

The smile on his son's face reached his tired eyes. John's inconsistent sleep was something Scott had mentioned. Getting John to sleep properly or to get him out of orbit was a challenge. Though he would often find time to pop down using the space elevator and would get Mum to help EOS with monitoring the world.

"Afternoon John, I'm guessing everything is going well? Will your brothers be joining us?"

"It is and no, they won't," John yawned, "it was a nineteen hour rescue so they are all catching up on sleep."

"Like you should be."

John rolled his eyes bringing a smile to Jeff's face. How many times had the boy done that as a teenager? Memories flooded back of John curled up with a book, Gordon, Alan or both on the living room floor, only for him to roll his eyes at something one of them had said. It was mainly Gordon, informing Alan of things that weren't quite true.

"I couldn't sleep."

"How about we go sit on the bench in the corner, the cushions make it extremely comfortable."

John nodded. Jeff brought the tablet with him and got up, his pace slower than his son's. John already had the cushions out the base and was on the seat when Jeff got to him. They sat down side-by-side, Jeff placing his arm over John's shoulder and pulling him close. His son didn't resist, laying his head against Jeff’s chest. This was the contact Jeff craved. Devoid of it for so many years, he still needed to be reminded that this was real.

"People died."

Jeff sat still, not saying the many things he could, knowing John needed time. John needed to work himself through it, needed to speak and be heard. So Jeff waited.

"It was a mudslide following an earthquake. Collapsed buildings and mud. That's what they had to deal with this time."

"Mud is like snow, it takes and rarely gives back. Hundreds of people are still missing, many bodies that may never be recovered, or will have to be DNA matched to be identified. We can do earthquakes and mudslides, we're efficient, but it takes its toll."

"They are all exhausted, physically and mentally. Grandma's enforced downtime but I don't know how long it'll last. Another rescue and they'll all be up and away before she can stop them. I would ground the craft for her but that would only cause suppressed anger to rise."

John's gaze was aimed at the ground, his whole body was unearthly still except for the rise and fall of his ribcage. Jeff knew John was thinking, debating what to say next. As the minutes passed and John remained silent Jeff knew it was time to coax it out.

"What about you? What weight are you carrying?"

John's fingers flexed, a hesitation, debating whether to share what was weighing him down more than gravity. It was the reason John was here, Jeff knew John saw and heard things the others didn't think about. Or if they did, they were helpless to do anything about it. John needed someone he could trust. He needed his father. Jeff's thumb started to rub the man's shoulder, offering more comfort.

"I…there were just so many people. They all had phones, all calling in. Some were petrified, others screamed, children and adults all with the same fear in their voices. All asking for help, to be rescued. Some were fine but it was a friend or family member in trouble. I talked to one young man through first aid, he had to tourniquet his younger brother's leg. His brother had already lost a lot of blood and was unconscious. I got Gordon to go there but when he found them it turns out the young man was in shock. He hadn't wanted to believe his brother was dead and he had done the first aid on the body. He had refused to leave his brother. It took Gordon five minutes to drag him away."

"I went straight from that to a child who was hurt and her mother wasn't responding. She cried; cried so much. She screamed when Virgil unpinned her arm and again when she realised he was leaving her mother behind."

A tear skipped down John's cheek. Jeff kept quiet, knowing too well what the screams of a child for a dead parent were like; how much they pierce your heart and tear into your soul. No matter whose child it was always painful.

"I heard so many last words. I've a document of names and last requests. Things they wanted to say. They are mainly 'I love you' to various family members and spouses. So many people wish they had said it more. I heard so many phone lines go quiet."

Another tear.

"I was working flat out, Grandma was taking calls from the island, but I still want to have done more. I wanted to save more. Maybe if I had directed Scott here and Virgil there or if I could have kept her calmer her rescue wouldn't have taken so long. So many lives were lost. So many we couldn't save. It's our job to save people. We should have saved them."

Jeff reached his right arm up and hugged John, tears silently falling. He knew there would always be rescues like this, where no matter what they did, many people would still die. There was nothing that could be said or done to fix it. The pain would always be felt. Holding his son, he let John cry it out in a safe place. It was his job, as a father, to be there when his sons needed him. He knew from the reports that he wouldn't be going out on rescues, his body too old and damaged to keep up with his boys. But just as his mother had, Jeff knew he would find his place again. He was still needed, even if it was just to answer the odd call, to help as Mum had all this time, to shoulder that burden and still be there at the end of the day, to help them process it all.

His eyes fell onto the mop of ginger hair, messed up by the position they'd been in, and smiled. It was the result of a hidden gene that had popped up and Lucille had adored it. It shone in direct sunlight and would give John an angelic glow. He’d been their quiet angel. Hardworking, often out of sight, but always there. The man's eyes were closed and he had become a dead weight against Jeff. It'd been more than eight years since a son had fallen asleep in his arms. There would be no complaint from Jeff. He would sit here for as long as John needed. Jeff peered down at his boy, heart full of love and pride for the quiet reserved man.

"I love you son."

[musicfeedsmysoul12]

Second Chance

Somewhat inspired by @unmaskedagain and her stories. Or well the pairing came from it. 

If you like my stuff, maybe support me on Ko-Fi?

 After it’s all over, after Hawkmoth is dead, Marinette breaks down screaming. She screams and rages. Not just for the fact she finally can- she can finally break without worry- but also for her partner. Chat Noir lays on the ground… Adrien lays on the ground with a sword through his gut and her frantically trying to heal him while Hawkmoth- Gabriel whatever- stares in horror.

 “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Hawkmoth screams as he’s led away by police, as Paramedics try and heal Adrien. “It wasn’t…”

 It was.

 Adrien was pronounced dead five minutes after Hawkmoth was removed from the scene. And Ladybug left the scene. She left the scene and then as Marinette accepted an internship she’d been offered years ago, vanishing to New York while Lila sprouted claims of having helped lead Ladybug and Chat to Hawkmoth, of her fake sobs about being forced to go along with Gabriel’s plots. 

 Who’d believe the terrorist over a pretty Italian girl?

 Marinette vanished into America and never resurfaced. She didn’t care that Lila was lying. She’d gotten over that years ago thanks to Adrien finally realizing how bad her lies were and trying to help. She didn’t care that her class was still following Lila. She didn’t care her parents barely realized she was gone- treating her like an adult for most of her life helped with that. All she cared about was her shattered heart. 

 Luka and Kagami kept in contact. Chloe she saw when the blonde visited her mother. Everything else was gone.

 She was broken. After all, Ladybug and Black Cat holders were two parts of the same whole. They were yin and yang. And she’d lost her Cat. She was broken in a way only another Black Cat could heal. But she couldn’t let herself find one. 

 She was lost. 

 And then she ran into a redhead who was carrying a little girl and talking on the phone.

-0-

 “Yeah, I’ll be there. Just got to figure out who can watch Lian for about a week. Or more depending on how long this… stuff will take.” Roy Harper says into the phone while Lian whines about being bored. Jason snorts over the phone.

 “You have her with you? Trying to keep her vocabulary clean still?” Jason taunts his friend and Roy laughs. 

 “Oh bite me,” Roy tells him just as a young woman nearly runs into him, the woman busy talking into her own phone. “Whoa! Watch it!” The woman jerks.

 “Oh, Kwami- I’m so sorry.” She does look sorry. “I wasn’t- no Luka I’m talking- look can I call you back? Thanks.” She hangs up her phone as Roy hangs up his after a similar conversation with Jason. “Marinette. I’m sorry for nearly running into you.”

 “Roy. And I’m more worried about what would have happened to my kid.” Lian is hiding her face in his shoulder. Good girl for being wary of strangers. Marinette looks even more apologetic.

 “There’s a cafe near here with cute cookies that look like animals if you’ll let me make it up to you?” And well cookies and animals are Liam’s weakness. Or maybe they’re every seven-year-old’s weakness. Lian eagerly accepts the offering and Roy laughs while Marinette leads them to the cafe. 

 It’s fun and light and soon they’re trading numbers to keep in touch. Roy has his mission with the Outlaws but he finds himself texting Marinette often. Lian when he calls her- staying with Tim Drake for a few weeks- wants to see the pretty lady again. And Roy… wouldn’t mind it. 

 They meet up when Roy’s back in New York and Marinette isn’t running around dealing with a fashion show. They meet up at a park to play with Lian and get ice cream, Marinette telling the story of how there is a magic ice-cream seller in Paris who can give you ice cream based on the person you’re in love with and well Roy has heard weirder things. Sounds like this guy isn’t trying to take over the world. Not like that Hawkmoth guy who the Justice League only realized was real when he got arrested. That had Green Lantern looking stupid while Wonder Woman ripped him a new one. 

 Marinette tells stories about Ladybug and her team to Lian who loves them and adores hearing about any hero. Luckily she doesn’t mention Roy and his skills. It’s safe and wonderful and he loves it.

-0-

 Roy and Lian are bright lights in a long sea of pain for Marinette. She loves spending time with them, laughing and playing games together. She loves going to the park with Lian or going to a movie with Roy. 

 Roy winces when she mentions alcohol and so she avoids it- not enjoying drinking anyway- and focuses on other things like movies or museums or even some science expo Roy was thrilled about. 

 Max was there to and he’d seen her. He came up to her to speak and apologize for never believing her as a kid about Lila. Apparently, she was lying about dating him now as she tried to catch some fame Max had concerning his AI and robotics research. They hug and Marinette… she’s better then she was before. She’s still broken and pained but she feels human enough to say it’s okay and she forgives him now. Roy gets a bit of a rundown of how Marinette was treated in college and lycee, and also it brings up her parents and their expectations and treatment of her.

 She keeps in contact with them, but they stopped being parents long ago. They started treating her like an adult at ten and she never really looked back.

 Roy’s quiet for a few minutes after hearing this before he rolls up his sleeves to show track marks and begins his tale of being adopted by a billionaire from a Navajo reserve. He speaks of loving his adoptive father but being thrown out by him upon becoming addicted to drugs and struggling to get clean only to fall into alcoholism. How his friends helped him get clean, but Lian was what had him stay clean. 

 “I know a thing about bad parents.” He finishes and Marinette hugs him tight. It’s not the same but they both carry trauma from their parents. 

 They aren’t dating but something about Roy makes her feel alive again.

-0-

 Roy introduces Marinette to Kori and Jason when they’re in New York for Lian’s birthday. Marinette came to the party with handmade dolls of the Heroes of Paris. Lian adores them and happily plays with them while Marinette gets along famously with Kori and finds that she can tease Jason well enough. 

 She’s sunshine and adorable and Roy can’t remember the last time he laughed so much or smiled so bright. Jason and Kori sure notice and drill him about his relationship with the girl. There isn’t really one outside of friendship but both know they find each other attractive. There’s just something stopping them. For Roy it’s Lian and Jade and Oliver and his addiction. It’s being Arsenal and being part of the Outlaws. 

 For Marinette… well he doesn’t know but she hides her own scars. They’re just not ready yet, and his friends accept it. They still tease though.

-0-

 “He’s the next Black Cat isn’t he?” Marinette asks Tikki late at night. The Kwami nods.

 “He is. You need a Cat Marinette, you couldn’t keep going without one without going insane.” Marinette has come a long way since she was a teenager. She misses Adrien, misses her kitty but she’s no fool. Soulmates are a thing but many people can be soulmates. Souls come in many. 

 She just wishes it didn’t hurt so much knowing this.

 She has no idea how to tell Roy. She has no idea how to explain it all to him. She doesn’t know how to tell him she’s the Guardian for a box that holds what amount to magical nukes. She just doesn’t.

 She thinks she’s lucky when aliens attack and Roy suits up in front of her, apologizing for lying, saying he’s sorry. 

 She kisses him and it’s their first kiss and means so much. She grins at him and transforms.

 “Roy Harper.” She says to him, pulling out a silver ring. “This is the Miraculous of the Black Cat, the Kwami of Destruction inside. Every Ladybug needs a Black Cat with her. I fell for you without knowing you’re a possibility. But you are. Will you take this responsibility… and be with me?”

 “...Hell yeah.”

-0-

 It’s not perfect. Roy and Marinette know they need to speak more, that more stories need to be told, and more pain needs to be uncovered. But as Roy and Marinette power up and fight, all they can think is that they got their second chance.

[snini-9]

Excessive Aggression

All information and images are found on this site. Due to the manipulation of family units and the creation of artificial pods in captivity, incompatible individuals are forced into close proximity with one another. The resulting anxiety and tension, as well as the added stresses of living in an unnatural environment, causes excessive aggression between tank mates. This can be expressed in multiple ways such as ramming or tail slapping, but the most common form of aggression is raking.

​

​Wild orca rake marks

Raking is a natural assertion of dominance and aggression in the wild. It involves an orca dragging its teeth along the skin of another resulting in rake marks – characterised as thin, evenly spaced parallel scratches, usually in rows of no more than four. Rake marks are gained during determinations of dominance, reinforcements of the hierarchy (discipline) and rough play behaviours. However, orcas can also receive rake marks by being helped by another orca. Ingrid Visser recalls a stranding of a female orca who sustained deep rake marks from her pod members as they attempted to pull her off the beach.

​

Rake marks a beached orca sustained.

There have also been cases of pod members assisting sick or injured calves and others acting as midwives to help with births, unintentionally causing extensive scarring on their bodies. When J50 Scarlet (a female Southern Resident) was born in 2014, she was covered in teeth marks from a conspecific. Killer whale experts believe Scarlet became stuck in her mother’s (J16 Slick) womb during labour, leading to another orca intervening and pulling her out with its teeth. Thanks to the intervention, both mother and calf survived the birth. Although, Scarlet was left with prolific scarring resulting in her name.

​

Extensive scarring on J50 Scarlet.​

Another angle of J50’s scars. Seen most notably on her dorsal fin and saddle patch.

On a sadder note, when J28 Polaris died in 2016 she left behind her 10-month old calf, J54 Dipper, who was still dependant on his mother for milk. As Dipper was not adopted by any lactating females, he became weak and severely malnourished, causing him to enter a state of delirium. When Dipper became too weak to swim, his sister, J46 Star, and cousin, J47 Notch, carefully held him between their bodies to assist him. Once he started to sink, Star desperately grabbed her baby brother in her mouth to bring him to the surface causing severe rake marks on his dorsal fin. Unfortunately, despite Star and Notch’s best efforts, Dipper did not survive.

​

Near death, J54 Dipper is carried by sister J46 Star on the right, and cousin J47 Notch on the left.

​

A close up of J54 Dipper, showing the teeth marks from where his sister and cousin tried to hold him afloat.

In the wild, natural, socially healthy rake marks are generally shallow and subtle but some can be deep and draw blood. It is not something which frequently occurs as orcas live in family units and have strong social bonds which may last for life. When outbursts of aggression do occur, it’s often short-lived and no serious harm is done as their social rules prohibit serious violence against each other. Additionally, when fights do occur, they have an entire ocean to flee to. Extremely extensive, prolific rake marks which frequently occur are unnatural in the wild and are most commonly seen in captivity. On the rare occasions that a wild orca can be seen with prolific rake marks, it’s often due to an unstable social structure or a significant problem within the pod. In confinement, the vastly limiting and highly stressful conditions, as well as the mix of incompatible individuals from various populations and ecotypes, contribute to outbursts of hyper-aggression.

​

Earth‘s prolific rake marks

Photos of Earth at Kamogawa Sea World shortly after his sister, Luna, was born in 2012.

Tekoa‘s prolific rake marks

​

Hyper-aggressive encounters in captivity have led to significant injuries and even death.

​

In 1987, Icelandic female Gudrun was sent to SeaWorld Orlando on breeding loan. Upon arrival, Gudrun became a target of the park’s matriarch, Katina, who would frequently bully Gudrun by raking and ramming her. On one occasion, as the females swam around the main pool, Katina began shoving and ramming Gudrun who attempted to defend herself by raking Katina with her teeth. Just as Gudrun approached the matriarch with her mouth wide open, Katina hit Gudrun’s lower jaw hard with her tail flukes. The impact was so immense that it echoed loudly around the stadium and caused two of Gudrun’s teeth to be driven into the bone of her lower jaw. As blood and green vomit spewed from her mouth, Gudrun was directed to D-Pool (the medical pool) and purposely beached on the rising floor. Trainers and animal care staff pinned her down and forced a four-by-four block of wood into her mouth to keep it propped open. Veterinary staff then yanked out the teeth stuck in her jaw bone, all whilst she was in excruciating pain. It took two weeks of recovery before Gudrun could eat normally, although she was never fully able to close her mouth again after the incident.

​

Gudrun with visible gaps in her lower jaw where her teeth were pulled out.

More recently, in September 2012, 11-year-old Nakai was participating in a special night show for corporate groups with his half-brother, Ikaika, and tank mate, Keet. During the performance, the trio of males began fighting with one another without warning. Although an instigator could not be determined, Nakai split into a back pool whereas Ikaika and Keet returned to their trainers resulting in the continuation of the show. It was only when trainers called Nakai over for a final feeding that they realised a “dinner-plate-sized” chunk of flesh was missing from his chin – the detached flesh was later retrieved from the bottom of the pool. The severe laceration exposed underlying tissues and bone. SeaWorld provided little information regarding what caused the injury, simply contending that Nakai “came into contact with a portion of the pool” during a “normal social behaviour”. An investigation the USDA launched following the incident concluded Nakai’s injury appeared to have been caused by his jaw scraping the recessed track that holds the watertight gates between two of the pools at Shamu Stadium.

​

Nakai’s gruesome chin injury.

Although Nakai’s injury was not directly caused by another orca, it was a result of an aggressive encounter between an artificial arrangement of animals. Although Ikaika is Nakai’s half-brother, the pair met each other for the first time less than a year prior to the incident. Keet, on the other hand, is unrelated to Nakai and is an Icelandic-Southern Resident hybrid. Earlier in the year, Nakai injured Keet by biting his erect penis during an artificial insemination procedure. The bite caused a lengthy period of extensive bleeding and resulted in Nakai being banned from being in the pool with Keet during AI procedures. Evidently, the trio of young males lacked the strong social bonds required for social cohesion in orca society leading to a severe outburst of aggression.

​

One fatal incident of aggression occurred on August 21st, 1989 at SeaWorld San Diego. During a performance, Icelandic matriarch Kandu 5 rammed Northern Resident Corky 2 with her mouth open, attempting to rake her. Either due to the impact of the collision, or whether Kandu missed Corky and struck one of the tank walls, Kandu fractured her upper jaw and severed major arteries in her nasal passages. Although Corky appeared uninjured, enormous amounts of blood blasted from Kandu’s blowhole. Kandu was directed to the medical pool, accompanied by her 11-month-old calf, Orkid, to diminish her activity and reduce her blood pressure in hope of inducing clotting. Sadly, attempts to help Kandu were futile as the damage was irreversible. As she began to lapse into unconsciousness, veterinary staff decided it would safer for the calf if the pair were to return to one of the larger back pools.

​

Kandu 5 spouting blood from her blowhole.

Over the course of 45 minutes, Kandu slowly bled to death, spouting a spray of blood every time she surfaced. Orkid remained by her mother’s side throughout the entire ordeal and persisted to swim helpless circles around her mother’s lifeless body as it sank to the bottom of the pool.

​

11-month-old Orkid circling her mother’s lifeless body.

Corky 2 and Kandu 5 originate from different geographical regions and would never have crossed paths in the wild. Unlike in a tank, wild orcas can flee from aggressive encounters and can remain a safe distance away from those they do not get along with. Corky and Kandu did not have this option. In fact, SeaWorld was more than aware of the growing tensions between Corky and Kandu but still insisted on keeping them together. By August 1989, Corky had lost seven calves, none of which survived to two months old. When Kandu successfully gave birth to Orkid in 1988, Corky sought to play the motherly role she was stripped of when her own calves died. As a protective mother, Kandu disliked the attention Corky paid to Orkid, leading to spats between the two females – one of which led to Kandu leaving Corky injured and bleeding after tearing a gash in her lower abdomen.

​

After Icelandic female Kenau was moved to SeaWorld San Antonio, and the park’s bull orca, Orky 2, died in 1988, four whales (Corky 2, Knootka, Kandu 5 and Orkid) remained at the San Diego park. With a four-pool complex, and two inseparable whales (Kandu 5 and her daughter, Orkid), SeaWorld had the means to keep Corky and Kandu separated. Yet, SeaWorld routinely kept Kandu and Corky in close proximity; sometimes pairing Orkid and Corky together during shows (as they did during the performance of the fatal incident), only adding to Kandu’s frustration. SeaWorld’s negligence and failure to provide their orcas with a safe environment ultimately led to Kandu’s brutal death. She was only 14-years-old.

[shellheadtmark2]

actually, because i’ve gotten a lot of new mcu mutuals lately, and i need to redo my 616 tony stark care manual bc i wanna tweak it and make some aesthetic changes (because i’m just Like That), things you should probably know because i am actually 616/marvel prime/main continuity-based.  i swear i’ll be serious this time.  maybe.

the original flavor tony is not going to be the same tony you’re used to from the mcu - mcu tony is actually more marvel ultimates inspired, which is a whole kettle of fish unto itself and that i have a verse for, but we’ll get to that at a later date.  instead, meet main continuity tony.

+  he started his path to iron man in a very similar way to mcu tony, in that he was injured by his own weapons (depending on where you pull from the sliding timescale, it’s everything from landmines to micromunitions) that damaged his heart and left him slowly dying.  we all know this story, right?  he built the first iron man to escape and the rest is history.

+  the difference is, main continuity was dependent upon the armor’s chestplate for a few years. the arc reactor ain’t really a thing in 616, instead we have the rt node.  similar in function, only tony could use it to do unibeams without the suit.  anyway, when tony came back, he took on iron man as an alternate identity, and told the world iron man was his bodyguard.  no one knew for a few years there that tony stark - handsome, generous, kind-hearted benefactor of the avengers who opened his home to them - and the metal-clad adventurer known as iron man was the same person.  it took a mishap with molecule man and a tiny red silk thong (no, i’m not kidding) for that little secret to come to light.

+  he was in his very early twenties when he became iron man - much younger than his mcu counterpart, and he’s very, very good at being iron man.

+  his relationship to most of the avengers - and heroes in general - is very different.  his best friend in the entire world is steve rogers - he’s had a captain america memorabilia collection since before the avengers pulled steve out of the ice (which is another thing - the avengers thawed steve, and tony has always idolized him - there’s no resentment there - and steve was not a founding member, he came in after the avengers had already formed).  his other best friend is rhodey, who was his employee-turned-military liason for stark unlimted (formerly known by many other names).  his other other best friend is pepper potts - they’ve never actually been romantically involved.  his other other other best friend was happy hogan, who died a few years back during the nightmare of civil war - which was much more us-based and much more horrific in tony’s universe.  he’s carol danvers’ aa sponsor.  he’s good friends with reed richards.  he’s been friends with stephen strange for years.  he and bucky barnes are fairly close and tony’s the one that got rid of bucky’s trigger words.  he and natasha have dated...ish, and are close.  he was never peter parker’s mentor, as his peter is a full grown adult, but peter did intern for him for a while.  and was on an avengers team with him before civil war.  he, steve, and thor are still the big three, but they have a friendship that’s been forged in the fires of really bad mistakes and they’ve come out the other side still close.  he knows the guardians of the galaxy because he was a guardian for a while during his big vacation in space.  he’s dated more avengers and x-men than you can shake a stick at.  and jarvis for him is edwin jarvis, his living, breathing, now semi-retired butler who served the avengers for many years and is part of the avengers family.

+  he was director of shield for a short time after civil war and steve rogers’ assassination.  he hated the job and he hated steve being dead and he hated what he forced himself to do so bad he literally erased that entire year out of his head.  and to get rid of the database full of superhero secret identities stored in his brain but you can’t tell me he didn’t have a more recent backup without it.

+  his first ai was named homer.  jarvis actually was pepper’s ai, for her rescue suit, and was never tony’s.  friday is and has been his main ai for years, and she has a hologram form.  she mostly runs the day to day stuff that doesn’t require tony to physically be there for the company.  which, also, tony is still ceo, he hasn’t handed that over to anyone, and pulls double fulltime duty as both a working stiff and an avenger.  his eyebags are designer.

+  he was secretary of defense for a year - he got himself elected when he found out someone in military research was reverse engineering and stealing things from the iron man.

+  he’s in his early 40s and looks younger:  being an extremis enhancile for a while and then undergoing a full-body reboot does wonders for the skin, apparently.

+  he’s canonically bisexual.

+  is known for using himself as a lab rat for incorporating experimental technology into his biology.  ask me about the suit he carried in his bones!

+  he’s 6′1 with blue eyes.  that’s, uh.  kind of important to know.  he’s tall.  he’s lanky.  and if you’re not a metahuman he might just can kick your ass, because captain america trained him in hand to hand combat (of which he’s very proud of).

+  the ten rings are literally ten alien rings used by his main archvillain, the mandarin.  they hurt.  a lot.  and he hates when he gets an up close and personal view of them smashing into his face.

+  he’s not as quippy as his mcu counterpart, and instead is more prone to bad puns and rambling awkwardly.  canonically he has depression, anxiety, and ptsd, and struggles with them regularly.  he’s also a recovering alcoholic.

+  take mcu tony’s tech.  then put it on steroids.  then make it the craziest scifi thing you can imagine.  and you’ve got the barest hint of what this tony’s tech is like.  seriously.  ask me about the suit he literally carried inside of himself.  or the time he could control machines with his brain.  616 is wild.

+  he’s been homeless.  and i don’t mean rich people homeless. i mean living on the street, nearly froze to death riding out a blizzard in a doorway and almost lost fingers and toes to frostbite homeless.  tony’s a Rich Boy but one who’s had a taste of how the other half lives on more than one occasion.  he’s also worked a regular nine to five like everyone else and lived in what was...honestly...a really shitty apartment.

+  he’s adopted, and he has a(n adopted) brother named arno.  his bio mom’s a former rockstar, and his bio dad a hydra double agent.  you literally can’t make this shit up.

+  he’s incredibly self destructive and self sacrificing.  if things look hopeless he’ll be the first to offer himself for the pyre.  because he has absolutely horrid self esteem.

+  he’s a liar.  he’s sneaky.  he tends to make decisions for other people without consulting their feelings on the matter - partly because of a tony knows best attitude, but also because there are people in the world he’d do anything, and i mean anything, to keep safe, even if they hate him in the end.  it’s kind of awe inspiring and terrifying if you manage to inspire that level of devotion in tony, because really.  anything.

+  he has a playboy reputation, but he’s anything but.  you either get casual sex out of him?  or you’re married now, sorry, that’s just how it is.  he settles and nests with a vengeance.  he’s one of those people that would love to be happy and safe and loved and married and all that happy shit but doesn’t feel like he’s worthy of it.  his issues with this have issues, to be honest.

+  if you call him in the middle of the night and need an evac and you’re on his People list he will come.  twice in two days.  dropping everything to go to the middle of indiana to do it.  if you are sad and text him about it he will bring you food.  if you don’t answer his texts he will find you and check in on you.  if you feel out of place and adrift he will try to buy your baseball team and move them back to brooklyn to make you happy.  if you die and he can’t cope with your death he will buy your first avengers indenticard for 2mil at an auction because he can’t stand the thought of anyone else having it.  if you’re really special he’ll call you “beloved” and “captain handsome”.  sometimes sweetheart.  please note these things are all canon.

+  he dies a lot.  it’s okay, he gets better.

+  his irrational fears are the dark and cockroaches.  his actual fears are waking up drunk and the suit becoming a coffin.

anyway this is a Lot.  and it’s not even really scratching the surface so.  i’m gonna just drop this on the dash as is.  and you know it helps for me to make dumb lists like this from time to time to refresh things.  anyway, i know it’s a lot!  i know it’s different!  but my (broken) ims and disco (shellhead#8434) are always open for questions and plotting.  and my inbox, too, ig.  so you know.  remember we’ve got a canon multiverse.  it’s real easy for me to drop him in the mcu to make your day annoying.

[kaibab-the-grumpy-dragon]

Kat Murata’s about page

//This is set for mobile user to see it, but if you can like this post after reading it would be great! 

General

Full name: Kathleen Murata

Nicknames: Kat, Katy, KitKat, Kiiro no ryū (Yellow Dragon), Boss, Sunflower(only Jou)

Age: 24 by default. Depending on the verse but 3 years older than Jounouchi

Birthday: 30 May ( Gemini )

Birthplace: Domino City

Current residence: Domino City

Nationality: Japanese

Ethnicity: Japanese/Russian/Swedish

Gender: female

Sexuality: Heterosexual. Sort of Demi-romantic

Marital status: Single

Religion: Atheist

Occupation: Student - 3nd years of Business economic / Leader of the gang, Kiiro no Ryū (The Yellow Dragons)

Appearance

Face: a mix between Asian and Swedish feature. Round, full lips, button nose with a scar on the edge. Freckles when she tans.

Preferred Hand: Right

Hair: Wavy bob haircut, golden blonde

Eyes: Blue

Body type: Muscular, shaped by dance, workouts, and yoga.

Skin Tone:  medium skin tones with neutral olive undertones

Cup size: A-B cup

Height: 1m83 (6′0”)

Weight: 72 kg (158lb)

Health: rarely get sick, mostly little colds. She seems to generally heal a little faster than others.

Energy: Because of her being possessed by a monster, her body needs and uses a lot of energy. To preserve her muscular mass, she needs to eat a lot of calories. Even more when Xeras takes control and uses his powers.

Scars: An inverted V one on the nose, razor ones on her left wrist, circular ones on her upper back (from the summoning circle), a line on her abs, several smaller scars on the arms, body and legs, and cigarette burns on the right arms.

Clothing style: flashy clothes, mostly crop top, hoodies, shorts, street-wear.

Makeup style: No makeup

Posture: Depends on her mood. Most of the time confident, imitating men behavior when with her gang, more feline and gracious when she flirts.

Tattoos: 3 dragon tattoos: one around her left wrist, one big on her upper back with his tail that ends under her left breast, and one small on her right inner thigh.

Scent: her cheap shampoo that smell candy for the hair, lemon for the body.

Personality

Mental/Emotional disorder(s):  Borderline personality disorder(false diagnostic: symptoms mostly due to Xeras’ possession), PTSD

Phobias: Musophobia(rodents), Nyctophobia (darkness), loss of limbs or paralysis.

Addictions: Risky gambles (involving her own security), coca cola, coffee, jelly coffee, sex.

Likes:

- Dance (hip hop, New Age ) She’s good at it.

- Drawing.

- 80’s songs and punk rock. But only people close to her know it.  

- Giving food related nicknames

- Roller skating

- Omelet

- Pizza

- Banana-chocolate ice-cream

- Mostly all food

- Coffee

- Dragons

- Playing Duel Monsters

- Even more Dragons

- Being the Yellow Dragons’ boss

- Bowling

- Tease People

- Flirting with people

- Space

- Horror / Monster/Kaiju Movies

- Star Wars

- Sitting on anything

- Dominant men in the bedroom

Doesn’t like:

- Bullies

- Doctors

- University

- Authority in general

- Serial killer movies

- Rodents

- Being in the Dark

- Be told that she’s crazy  

Hobbies:

- Roller skating

- Dancing

- Dueling

- Drawing

- Video games

- Combat sports

- Yoga

- Vogue fem

Fears: Rodents, abandonment, darkness

Habits: Turn things into competitions, stealing your food, entering where she shouldn’t.

Negative traits: Don’t know when to back down sometimes, can be pushy and loud, heavy eater, hot-tempered, don’t know how to lie for trivial things.

Positive traits: Seems to always smile, try until she succeeds, loyal, curious.

Abilities: combat and dancing skills. The monster inside her gives her some slight regeneration. Could learn to use shadows magics.

Equipment: A knife in her boots or under her clothes, another one in her backpack that she always has. Her deck and her duel disk, battle city version.

Trinkets: Her old phone. She always has in her backpack, a USB key that was from her dad.

Transportation: a pair of boots that can turn into rollers, with an electric motor, produced by KaibaCorp (offered by the close members of her gang)

Collections: Several ones. Knives, guns, duel monster cards.

History:

- Sharing the same passion for robotics, Kat’s parents met at an IEEE International Conference on R&A (Robotics and Automation) in Atlanta. Her dad, Hideyoshi, a young AI genius with a fragile health that had left him lame, was from an old Japanese family with some Russian ancestry, the Murata’s, who were not really into honest business. But his talent and original organic approach to programming led him to another path: Founding his own robotics company.

Her mother, Erika, a strong Swedish woman, that gave Kat almost all of her genetics, left her country and family to study and work in America. She had always loved to tinker but the creation of prosthetics and robots fascinated her.

Their meeting was a surprise, but they quickly became attached to one another and when he asked her to follow him to Japan, at Domino city, to accomplish his project, she accepted. With each of their specialties, they created Murata Robotics with the help of an American friend, Stuart Evans. After some time they had two children, Kathleen and Hiro.  

- Kat was a cheerful little girl, with curly blonde hair, always smiling and curious, even if she was a little too much naive. At 8 she was already interested in her dad’s work. He dedicated his secret project to her: creating a fully functional animal AI, based on what a dragon could be.

- Their lives turned upside down the day where Kat met a strange man in a convenience store. He talked with the 8-years-old girl a few minutes but disappeared before Erika had seen him. The night after, Kat woke up, upon hearing the sounds of a struggle. Before she could react the same man entered her room and captured her. She doesn’t remember everything from this night but some details are still clear today. Her family sitting in front of her. Her father telling her to look into his eyes as her mother’s blood spilled on the floor. Her brother’s cries. Their slit throats.

After that everything went quickly. He took her with him, locked her up in a cave, left her screaming in the dark, with only rats for company. When she finally fell silent and he was sure that she was broken and weak, he brought her into a room decorated with dozens of candles. It didn’t take her long to lose consciousness when he started engraving the summoning circles on her back with a ritual knife.

What was supposed to be a sacrificial ritual to bring a monster into this world, Xeras, the dragons slaver, trapped him in the body of this little girl. And it was furious. Using Kat’s physical and emotional pain, it merged their soul, releasing their wrath on the man who did all that. When the police arrived, they found her unconscious with the dead body of her kidnapper. They decided to close the case.

- After a stay in the hospital to take care of her wounds, which left her with scars, they took her to an orphanage, waiting for the family of her dad to come to get her. But under the influence of the monster inside her, she quickly became violent, hurting herself and the other kids. Her family, that only wanted the control of Murata robotics, put her in the Institute, a psychiatric hospital for children, for ‘her own good’. She was soon diagnosticated as having a borderline personality disorder and PTSD and was placed in isolation, under medication. The monster finally calmed down, too weak to take control anymore.

- Two years later a psychiatrist finally decided to give more effort toward her recovery. After some work, he declared her well enough to go, but not without supervision. Her family was powerful and didn’t want her to take back her inheritance one day. They made efforts to bribe for a ruling of ineptitude, claiming she was not able to care for herself, even into adulthood.

Of course, they never took custody of her, and she was placed in an orphanage, and then in a foster family until her 18th birthday.

- Being mostly free to go outside, she quickly mixed with the wrong crowd. Understanding that she was on her own and nobody would help her, she came closer to the only kind of people that would accept her, other outcasts, delinquents, gangs.

At 17, she fell for a 24 years old gang leader, Esteban. She tried to join his group, but he laughed at her. Why would he take her? She knew how to fight in the schoolyard but she was weak. He threatened her to take her as a prostitute, but he finally let her go. He liked her gaze.  

- Strangely, dance had been her salvation. She met a dance teacher that taught her to have control of her body and to be confident. She began to workout as well, she built up a fair amount of muscles for a girl of her age. When she went back to Esteban, he finally accepted. He saw potential in her but he also wanted her. Even if she was still young, she was crazy about him. Her relationship with him defined all the ones she had after. If anybody tried to say that she was only a prostitute, they would feel her wrath.

But she didn’t totally agree with how Esteban was leading his gang. And by that time, her ambition was more important than the feelings she had.

- At 20, she began to search for supporters within the gang and when she had enough support on her side, she led an attack on Esteban and the rest of the gang. After a knife fight that she won with difficulties (winning a scar on her abdomen), she had to choose what she would do with Esteban. He was already condemned. She could let him live with the shame that he lost his power against a woman, or she could kill him. But she knew him. He was psycho, a killer. But strangely enough, he loved her. In his own way. So she offered him to be her second in command. He accepted. After all, it was his only way to stay with her and keep some power.

- She changed the name of the gang, calling them Kiiro no Ryū, the yellow dragons but also changed their activities. Her goal was now to protect the people of the districts they controlled. Their main incomes were the attacks of other gangs, everything linked to the underground Duel Monster traffic (rare cards, illegal tournaments,…), but also drugs traffic and prostitution. Most of the gang’s members are loyal and receive a share of the profits. Kat mostly refuses to use that money, even if it could have given her a good life.

- During this time, Kat continued her scholar life without interest, being at Rintama High School and had to repeat a year. But she saw something that motivated her. She remembered that kid she saw on TV when she was at the Institut, that was adopted by the richest man in Domino. And now she was seeing him on TV again, CEO of his company. It impressed her. It made her realize that she could do it too. That even with a bad start she doesn’t have to stay in the underground. And maybe take back her parent’s company. After that, she began to studies seriously to graduate from high school with a scholarship for the American University of Domino City. She chose to study Business Economics, making Kaiba Corp her main subject.

- Being good at dueling she decided too to start a more official career, as the Dragon Warrior. So far she managed to win her duel disk, and participate in some tournaments, with some good results.

- But when everybody seemed to go better, the worst happened. Strong of years of wait, Xeras took advantage of a moment of weakness to take full control of Kat’s body. She only managed to be back in control thank to her friend Isabel, after a long and harsh combat. The discovery of her possession was a shock, it meant that all those bad things that happened to her, the Institute, all the violent events that she couldn’t remember, all this was because of him. It took her time to accept that, but after all, he was stuck in her body and they can’t do anything about it.

This part is valid for the default verse with @upbeatsunshine. If your muse is Jou, Kat doesn’t know him. If you still want to use this headcanons, send me  an IM/ask :) :

- She met him when she was 13 and him 10, and he became her first and best friend. They tried to learn together how to survive in their neighborhood.

- Once Jou was 18 he went to live in the same apartment than her, using one of the bedrooms.

Facts:

- She has great difficulties making friends, she’s very awkward socially speaking. She still doesn’t know how she made ones.

- She tends to be impulsive and vulgar. But in the presence of people she likes, she’s very energetic and radiant, always ready to laugh.

- She sings very badly and she is unable to play well to a game other than Duel Monster (include video games. Except from Otomes games. She good at it.).

Home: A converted brick building in the old industrial district. The first floor is big garages and her apartment is the half of the second floor. A big living room/kitchen, a bathroom and three rooms.

Family: Hideyoshi Murata (father/deceased), Erika Magnusson (mother/deceased), Hiro Murata (brother/deceased), Adam Sjögren (cousin), her father’s mother and brother (CEO of Murata Robotics)

Friends: Jounouchi Katsuya (@upbeatsunshine), Isabel Corazón, Imnah Hiwatari

Followers: Esteban, her gang members, her dancers.

Pets/Familiars: Doggo, a male golden retriever with a scar on his side and limping a little

[owlespresso]

Infertile Ground | #4

Tip Jar Also on AO3

Trouble.

That’s what your guests have brought you.

After rescuing Bokuto and Kuroo from the clutches of monstrous intruders, you spend three hours meticulously replacing the realm’s protective seals. As you expected, most of them had worn down, which allowed the mysterious horde of intruders inside.

Several of your familiars flocked home that evening, helping around the house and healing the injured. Usually, there would only be this many present if it were a holiday or festival, but you’re glad to know you can depend on them in times of need. A majority of your energy was spent during the grueling fight, so their efforts are much appreciated.

You would also need to report to the council of gods and goddesses, which you refused to do in person. You’d send them a letter and a picture of a hand giving the middle finger, because your maturity has its limits when you’re dealing with a group of stubborn deities.

“Were I younger, and in better condition, I wouldn’t be this tired,” You muse dejectedly. You shut your eyes and lean back on the couch, finally resting your weary feet. Half-an-hour ago, Ai came in and told you that both men were in stable condition. A weight lifted off your shoulders. But as soon as it did, you felt exhaustion dragging you back down. You could feel the fatigue in your bones, the lead in your legs. You’re out of practice, and you’re definitely feeling it. From beside you, Sugawara chuckles. You don’t even have the energy to open your eyes and glare at him, so you settle for questioning him quietly. “What’s so funny?”

“You talk like you’re much older than the rest of us,” You want to say that you are much older than the rest of them, but you hold your tongue. You don’t know how old Sugawara is, let alone your two other guests, “Sometimes, it feels like you’re a nanny, more than anything else.” It’s true. You’ve cooked for them, scolded them, and god knows you’re going to give them the lecture of a lifetime when they wake up. 

You feel weight dip down onto the couch, next to you, and know that Sugawara has taken a seat. Nimble fingers stroke through your hair and pull you gently to the side, encouraging you to rest your head on his shoulder. At any other time, you would have fussed about it. But you’re much too tired, right now.

You can worry about whatever comes next in the morning.

You relish in the warmth and the closeness. It takes you mere moments to fall asleep, lulled by his comfort.

Sugawara knew you were a god. A minor god, but still a deity. Those titles weren’t just handed out to anyone. By the time Bokuto and Kuroo arrived, he had grown used to viewing you as someone small and delicate. You didn’t know how to handle affection, most of the time. Interaction scared you. The idea of putting your mental health in someone else’s hands was off-putting. 

The weaknesses in your personality only encouraged him to think of you as fragile, as tiny and cute. He thought of you as someone he needed to help and protect, someone who needed gentle hands to encourage them towards a better life. In that way, he forgot who you really are and what you’re capable of.

When he watched you leap into the fray, eyes glowing and weapons ablaze, he was afraid. Not of you, but for you. Could you really handle a horde of vicious monsters? Even when Bokuto and Kuroo failed so miserably?

You proved him wrong. Your dexterousness and power was far beyond anything he had ever witnessed from allies back at home. If the tengu of Karasuno were a force to be reckoned with, then you were an unstoppable opponent, never still and always waiting to exploit your opponent’s weaknesses. Only after you fell asleep that night, did Sugawara feel bashful. He thoroughly underestimated you, just like Bokuto had. Sure, he wasn’t vocal about it. But for a few, shining moments, he thoroughly believed you couldn’t handle yourself.

It was the day after the attack. You were up late, and so you were still asleep. It was only natural to be exhausted. Sugawara is sitting at the dining room table and exchanging pleasant words with one of your familiars. The clinking of cookware and utensils echoes along the large, spacious room. Cats, owls, fare and other small to medium-sized creatures bustle about. 

There’s magic in the air and it has him bewildered and amazed. The only “human” among them is a young woman standing at the stove—the one he’s been chatting with for about fifteen minutes. By now, he’s learned that her name is Ai, and that she’s one of your oldest familiars.

Ai spares no details and answers every question he has without censoring anything. She tells him details of your past and personality that you might never bring up. However, he has to work hard to figure out what her words truly mean, because she speaks quickly and she speaks a lot. 

He has no doubt that she’s doing this on purpose, loading him with information and making him work to figure out what’s important and what isn’t. But why? Familiars are tricky beings. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever find out.

“—And then, they tore the butterfly’s wings right off! I thought she was gonna kill them, really did,” Ai chatters, animated, “I think that’s why she doesn’t know how to interact with kids that much. They’re so upfront about anything and they weird stuff without even thinking about it. I remember her saying that she didn’t like it when they cried, either. Not that they could help it. I don’t think she was ever like that, as a kid. I think she knew how to censor herself really well because she had to. Gods are chatty, y’know. They like to gossip and eavesdrop and sometimes all it takes is one out-of-context comment to ruin someone’s reputation. Just like humans.”

Sugawara can barely get a word in.

The scent of delicious food curls across the kitchen—spices and aromas from foreign realms. He hears small footsteps coming down the stairs and immediately knows who it is, even before you arrive in the kitchen. He takes one, long look at you and struggles to think of you as anything but cute. You’re still in your pajamas, and you’re clutching a blanket over your body.

“Good morning.” He greets, resting his cheek on the palm of his hand. “I hope you’re feeling better?”

“No,” You grumble. “I’m still tired. Bokuto and Kuroo should wake up today or tomorrow.” He can tell that you’re still annoyed by the sharpness in your tone and the scowl on his face. He almost pities them, knowing that they won’t get off lightly for this offense.

“You’re pretty scary when you want to be.” He says wryly.

“I’m scary when I need to be.” You correct him, nose wrinkling. How can someone be so fearsome and so adorable at the same time? It makes his heart beat erratically, and he steels himself, knowing that he shouldn’t be feeling the way he is, right now. “Thank you for coming, Ai. I’m sorry to trouble you,” You turn to the blond, who is still cooking away at the stove. Sugawara doesn’t like seeing you weary or upset. He wants you to be able to rely on other people. You’ve made so much progress since his arrival, but he supposes that Rome wasn’t built in a day. “I hope you haven’t been chatting his ear off.”

“First of all, it’s no problem,” Ai insists, voice soft like fresh linen. There’s mischief in her expression as she looks over her shoulder at you, “We’re your familiars. It’s our job to help you when you’re in trouble,” She clacks her spatula against the side of the skillet, sliding a fresh serving of eggs and bacon onto a porcelain plate, “Depend on us every now and then, alright?” Ai slides her green gaze over to him, wiggling her eyebrows, “Though, it seems like you’ve learned to depend on a certain someone.” Sugawara feels his face flush at the shameless implication she’s making. Before he can flounder out an excuse, you speak sharply and clearly.

“Ai.” Your voice cuts through the room, destroying the uncomfortable atmosphere before it can even settle in. Ai chuckles and turns back to the skillet.

“Second of all, I think Suga-san was really enjoying our conversation~!” She chirps merrily and you take a seat at the table. Ai hands you the plate of food she’s just prepared.

The interaction Ai was having with him was hardly a conversation, at all. He appreciated it, though. In her own skewed way, she was trying to tell him more about you. Why? He doesn’t know, but he’s grateful for it. He chooses not to remark upon it.

“How are you?” You raise your eyebrows at him, taking a fork full of fresh, scrambled eggs, “You looked pretty shaken, last night,” Sugawara briefly remembers the panic that seized his chest, the sight of crimson blood staining the grass, the rawness of Bokuto’s pained screams—then he remembers the soft glow of your weapons, the feeling of relief at the sight of you.

“I’m alright,” He gives you a soft smile, “It was scary, but I feel fine, now.” It’s not like he’s never been in combat, before.

“Good.” You murmur. The room goes quiet. Two weeks ago, the silence would have been uncomfortable. He would have been second guessing himself, wondering if he said something to make you retreat back into your shell. Now, he can tell that you’re comfortable by the subtleties in your expression and the relaxed slump of your shoulders.

The first thing Kuroo notices is the whiteness of the ceiling. The second thing he notices is the throbbing pain on the left side of his body. He remembers the sulphurous smell of demon breath and the numb horror that seized him before he lost consciousness. He had been trying to prevent Bokuto from making yet another, stupid choice, only to get wrapped up in it himself. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes and thanks the gods that he somehow managed to survive.

“Good morning,” Your voice, tired and small, breaks him further away from slumber. He wordlessly turns to look at you, observing the bags under your eyes and the weakness in your posture. You’re rested against the back of the recliner, next to his bed. Your legs are crossed, a book resting in your lap. Did he cause them? He remembers you ordering them to stay behind. For once, he has no smart-mouthed retort to offer.

“I know that you went after Bokuto, to stop him,” Relief sweeps across his entire body. “But it was still a poor decision. I’m not mad. Just think carefully, next time.” He feels more like a scolded child than anything else. But he can see how concerned you were, how concerned you are.

“Sorry to make you worry.” He says, voice raspy from lack of sleep. You wave your hand at him dismissively, shrugging your shoulders.

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t have much time to think about it.” Kuroo is briefly surprised that you’re not being harsher with him. You’ve yelled at him for much less.

“Eh? Really?” His lips quirk upwards into a small grin, “And here I was, expecting to be lead to the guillotine,” He drawls. Before you can get mad and snap at him, he changes the subject. “Thank you. For saving my life, and everything.” Fortunately, you’re content to settle him with a glare and move on.

“What? Was I supposed to let you die?” You question. His grin widens, glad to see some of your fire return. He doesn’t like to see you all mopey. He’d rather you chastise him for bad table manners than avert your gaze and speak too quietly. Your lip curls into a disdainful expression, before your features soften, again, “You’re welcome,” He really can’t blame you for the fatigue that’s clearly weighing your voice down. You must have been fussing all day and night over the two of them—

“Bokuto!” He blurts out, remembering the sorry shape his his close friend was in shortly before he passed out.

“Bokuto-san is alright,” You tell him and he shuts his eyes tight. Kuroo leans his arms back and sits up, slowed down by the throbbing pain in his ribs. He guesses that he’s alright to move, since you’re not telling him to lay back down. “Both of you are. Most of my familiars were able to come back. They used their combined energy to heal you. You’ll just be sore for awhile.” Kuroo leans against the headboard, eyes shutting.

“KUROOOO—!” Bokuto’s shout nearly gives him cardiac arrest. The door slams open, causing the pictures on the wall to shake. The owlish man has bandages over his forehead and a large part of his abdomen, but that doesn’t seem to deter him from running around. Kuroo gives a wry grin, knowing that nothing has ever been able to stop Bokuto from constantly being active. The damn guy can’t stand to sit still. He’s glad to see that his old friend is alright and as energetic as ever. 

You abruptly stand up from your chair, the movement sharp like all of your energy has come flowing back to you. Your posture is stiff and he can’t see your expression, but he imagines that your eyebrows are furrowed and that your lips are pressed into a thin, straight line. Bokuto freezes at the sight of you, undoubtedly daunted by the scolding he’s about to face. Kuroo gives him a smug grin from behind your back and makes a slashing motion across his neck. Bokuto pales.

“Judging by your expression, you already know what you did was wrong.” It’s not a question. There’s a purposeful drawl in your voice, stretching out your words to keep Bokuto in suspense. Kuroo knows that you’ll forgive Bokuto, if you haven’t already. He knows that underneath your gruffness and hard shell, you’re an empathetic person. You’re not going to write someone off for a mistake, not even one this major. Your words and your tone are purely to make sure Bokuto knows what he did was wrong, to make sure he doesn’t do anything this hair-brained ever again. 

“I don’t like to make a habit of giving out orders. But should you make a choice this foolish again, I might not be there to protect you.” Scary when she wants to be, he notes. He doesn’t envy Bokuto’s position, at all. Instead of making a threat or giving a stern warning, you’ve employed the kind of guilt-trip he’s heard his mother use, several times. Bokuto deflates underneath your chastising.

“I understand. I’m sorry.” There’s an unmistakable pout on Bokuto’s face, but Kuroo can tell that he knows what he did was wrong.

“Thank you for understanding that.” You nod cordially, “If you need to speak with me, I’ll be with you in a moment, Bokuto-san,” Bokuto doesn’t even need to be ordered to leave. He shuts the door and treads down the hall, leaving you alone with Kuroo, again. Now that you’re facing him, you can see the wide grin plastered on his face. “What the hell are you so happy about?”

“We underestimated you,” Kuroo notes, crossing his arms. “You’re pretty scary when you want to be. I think you’ve earned Bokuto’s respect. Just watch, he’ll be trailing after you like a lost puppy, from now on.”

“I’m scary when I have to be.” You reply, and he knows you’re right. “And I don’t think Bokuto-san will be following me around, regardless of how much he respects me.”

“You say that like you actually know the guy,” He raises his eyebrows and uncrosses his arms, moving to get out of bed. The sheets crumple and crinkle around his movements. It doesn’t hurt too much to move his legs, fortunately. But the aches from his recently-healed wounds are still present. Not like he was expecting to recover in a day. 

Hell, during the thick of the fight, he wasn’t expecting to survive, at all. He really doesn’t know how you managed to pull them both from the jaws of certain death, but he knows that you’re technically a goddess, and therefore possess powers beyond his wildest imagination. 

“Trust me. It’s like he was raised in a pack of wolves. If you’re better at something than he is, he’ll be impressed.”

He flinches when he sets his feet on the ground, but manages to stand upright just fine. You watch him with wary eyes, ready to support him should he need it. However, you won’t help him unless he needs it. Despite how hassled you may act, he knows that you trust him to take care of himself. You don’t coddle anyone. He appreciates that.

“I’m gonna go take a shower ‘n stuff.” He informs you and you nod, exiting the room probably faster than you walked in. He watches you go, observing the way your hips sway with intent interest.

[thedigitalpen]

Koutetsu Sangokushi - Anime

I remember watching this show ages ago but just thinking about it leaves me feeling that feels from that ending but even so, this show was actually a lot more interesting and entertaining than I would have initially thought. The reason I came across this anime is because although it’s got the makings of strictly shounen, it throws a bit of “ai” in there too and it becomes an action anime about guys who share affection (on a feelings level only) for one another. The characters are all men – including the ones that are rather feminine-looking with pink hair and pouty lips and penchants for flowers and high voices. You would be forgiven for thinking that those characters are actually women but you’d be mistaken. Be that as it may, the action and supernatural factor negates those details and it really is a story worth watching.

The show start off by introducing us to our main character, Rikuson – a Crimson Warrior that has been tasked with finding and protecting a magical object known as the Sovereign Seal – something that the members of his family had been doing for years until the moment it was stolen. Rikuson was still a boy at that stage and had lost his entire family and so a kind and gentle man named Koumei took Rikuson under his wing and became his Master (or teacher). Together they travelled and Koumei taught Rikuson about the stars and how to live out in the wilderness and although it was a bit of a tough life, Rikuson was never happier than when he was with his Master.

When Rikuson gets a bit older, Koumei informs him that they will soon have to part ways since it is now time for Rikuson to go and look for and retrieve the Sovereign Seal. Rikuson is apprehensive about this because although he doesn’t mind having to fulfil his duty, he doesn’t want to be separated from Koumei – the man that has come to be his everything. Even so, Koumei allays Rikuson’s fears and tells him that even though they will be separated, he will always be watching and that they will always be tied to each other in some way. With this reassurance, Rikuson leaves Koumei’s side and goes to the Kingdom of Go where the Sovereign Seal is rumoured to be with a man in charge there.

The Sovereign Seal is a mystical object that bestows power to those that possess it in the form of light – where they become superhumanly strong and the weapons they have transform into armour and weaponry that is far more powerful. Even though it seems like a good thing, it can also have an adverse effect on the mind of the ones who use it, depending on how they respond to this power. And this is why Rikuson is going after the Seal – to bring an end to people using it for the purposes of war.

So, he makes his way to Go and offers to be of service to the current possessor of the Seal but while he is there, this leader is killed and the Seal is stolen again. Although Rikuson is suspected of killing this leader, he asks to prove his innocence by being tasked with bringing the Seal back to Go and eventually joins their army. Along the way he meets a variety of other characters that eventually become part of this special unit of the army too, including: Taishiji (a general in the army that leads the unit), Shuuyu (Go’s strategist and friend to the royal family), Ryoutou (the son of a legendary member of the army and thus a legacy and also a close friend of the current leader of Go), Ryoumou (a civilian that tries out to become a civil servant but ends up joining the army instead), Shoukatsukin (a mysterious wanderer that we later find out is Koumei’s brother) and Kannei (a pirate that was saved first by his initial master and then again by Shuuyu who granted him his freedom). These men all serve the kingdom of Go which is under the leadership of Sonken. As the story progresses, each of the Six Steeds of Go (Rikuson, Taishiji, Ryoutou, Ryoumou, Shokatsukin and Kannei) receives powers from the Sovereign Seal which they use to protect Go and its people.

Initially, the quest is to retrieve the Seal from those who have it and bring it back to Go and so the Six Steeds have to battle other kingdoms and their armies and their special warriors who have also used the Seal to increase their powers.  But the plot thickens when Koumei enters the picture again having aligned himself with an opposing kingdom led by Ryuubi and his 2 “brothers”. In addition, Koumei has also created a false Sovereign Seal which also bestows powers but comes at a much greater cost. And so, Koumei sets in motion a chain of events that will test everyone involved, but most of all his beloved Rikuson. Hearing the news of Koumei joining another kingdom, having a false seal and all the misdeeds he’s plotting, planning and executing leaves Rikuson feeling conflicted whilst trying to reconcile the Master he knew with this new Koumei. What is Koumei planning? Will Rikuson succeed in getting the Sovereign Seal? Who will get it? Will he and Koumei meet again? There are many questions, stories and fights laced with instances of loyalty and betrayal… How it all ends? You’ll have to watch and see…

Koutetsu Sangokushi is a healthy dose of action/supernatural/magical/fantasy and even though it may seem like it could be complicated, the story is told in such a way that only the major players are introduced and you eventually get to know them and are easily able to recall who they are and who they have their allegiance to. The story is supposed to be loosely based in the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms but to be honest, having watched “Souten Kouro” I can say that the 3 Kingdoms element doesn’t play so much of a factor and you can easily watch this without having to know your Chinese history. The show itself has a nice balance of action and development of the interpersonal relationships between the various characters. You could say it was to be expected since there is a shounen ai aspect, but I think you would find a similar pattern in any good anime. You will find yourself pondering the motives, intentions, emotions and actions of the characters while you observe their interactions, e.g. Rikuson becomes like an older brother to Ryoutou; Rikuson loves Koumei but is completely confused by this turn of events; Koumei is Shokatsukin’s younger brother and they obviously share a past; Taishiji and Ryoumou become closer as the show progresses; Kannei has undying respect for Shuuyu and reveres him as the man that saved him; Shoukatsukin and Rikuson both share a bond with Koumei which in turn strengthens their bond since they both care for Koumei…

On and on it goes with each of the various characters having their own personal interactions. It’s one of the aspects of the show that gives it depth without having the boys love be so blatant, which makes it easier for anyone to watch this show without excluding any particular demographics. Although when they blush whilst looking at each other it is a bit of a giveaway. Lol! Then again, when the characters are also rather beautiful you can understand why the tag “shounen ai” remains. Personally, I thought both versions of Koumei was pretty hot (you’ll understand once you watch it) and probably Ryoumou in 2nd place and then maybe Ryoutou’s dad and let’s not forget…ahh nevermind, I’ll be here all day! On the whole, the show is good fun with a dynamic storyline that’s constantly changing and keeps you interested while you try to guess what happens next and how this is all going to end…

For those that don’t mind reading a spoiler or if you’ve watched the show already, feel free to continue reading but if not then you should TURN BACK NOW!

The ending of the show was something that completely flattened me because I was not expecting that AT ALL! I mean, I always knew that Koumei was up to no good but that it was all for the sake of Rikuson but when Rikuson sacrifices himself to save Koumei, I almost cried! It was a true testament to the love that Rikuson had for Koumei. It was obvious from the start – the way he would hang on Koumei’s every word while having his hair combed by Koumei – and when Koumei started to become “evil”, Rikuson never wanted to believe it. And even when he saw it with him own eyes he still couldn’t do anything against Koumei. Even before the development of evil Koumei, whenever he had the chance he would go to find Koumei. And how depressed and confused was he when he heard of the evil deeds Koumei was doing? He actually ended up just sitting around feeling sad and confused for most of the 2nd half of the season… but not that he can be blamed when you think that everything you shared with a person has been a lie all this time or that the person you’ve loved the most has changed and betrayed you. But at the end of the day, he just couldn’t let go of his love for Koumei and when he found out that Koumei was going to die/disappear as a result of the Sovereign Seal he took it upon himself to save him by absorbing all the power of the Seal. When he shouts that he doesn’t want this anymore and that he’s tired of being separated from Koumei, I just felt that moment expressed everything. All Rikuson ever wanted was just to be with Koumei no matter what and circumstances forced them to be apart and the thought of remaining parted from each other would be too much for Rikuson so he would rather that Koumei live and that he perish. That you would love someone so much that you would rather die yourself than have to see that person die instead. And all that in spite of all the sins that Koumei had committed against everyone, including Rikuson… Just thinking about it pulls on a heartstring there… And he never lost his respect for Koumei – always calling him Master to the very end. And you had to feel for Koumei, who had looked after Rikuson for so long only to have him looking out for him at the end and paying with his life. Man… it was just such an unexpected ending that it left you wishing for another episode where you would be able to see Rikuson and Koumei reunited… some way, somehow… One could only hope that Shokatsukin would be there for Koumei since Shokatsukin was kind of like an uncle to Rikuson and was the one that looked after him the most when he was going through turmoil trying to figure out Koumei’s motives. You know an anime is good when you think beyond the scope of the show itself and try to fit together the pieces left over. That ending cut so deep but what a way to show just how much Rikuson loved Koumei – that’s true love…

[captaincanarygotmelike]

Captain Canary Prompt #5

CrazedBatmanFan300 on FF.net requested: Could you do a prompt for Sara stealing Lenard's gun? Like while he was alive out from under his nose?

Read on AO3

Read on Fanfiction.net

It was no secret that when the team of Legends had free time, Sara and Leonard were going to spend it together.

Exactly what they did was less obvious to their team, but they had their speculations.

Ray and Jax always commented on how they were glad the bedrooms on the Waverider were soundproofed, but Kendra was fairly certain that whatever was going on behind closed doors was far more PG than the boys were implying. They were both too closed off for anything to really happen between them, at least not yet.

Of all the guesses amongst the team, Kendra was the closest.

Leonard was fulfilling a deal he'd made with Sara mere days after the mission began.

He agreed to teach her skills he’d learned over his years as a thief in exchange for sparring sessions with a trained assassin.

He was teaching her how to pick locks, break herself out of a jail cell, and pick pockets, but most importantly, he was teaching her how to use her already fine-tuned instincts strategically — to think with her brain and not with her gut.

Sara and Leonard had nearly finished up their bargain, but Sara had one more task she’d assigned herself.

With Leonard’s assistance, she had nicked Ray’s, Kendra’s, Rip’s, Stein’s, and even Mick’s wallet, but there was still one person who had yet to be on the receiving end of Sara’s newfound skills: Leonard himself.

She didn’t want to steal his wallet though; that was too obvious, too predictable. No, if she was going to steal from the master of stealing, she had to go big. Luckily, she had something in mind.

She chose the moment to carry out her plan strategically.

Leonard had taught her that perhaps the most important part of stealing was who you were stealing from.

Trust was key.

If you didn’t already know the person, you had to establish trust, even if you were going to break it in just a moment. When you break into a bank, you have just a second to gain the teller’s trust. You have to choose your words carefully, control your expression, your body language, because even a split second of weakness from the teller was the sign that you were in. It took an incredible amount of self-control and restraint.

But all that was easy compared to stealing from someone you already know, someone you had already formed trust with. You have to act natural, like yourself around them, which is harder than it sounds. Someone who knows you will be more perceptive to any unusual behavior, and Leonard was the most perceptive person Sara knew. If Sara wanted to test her abilities on anyone, it would be Leonard.

The target of her thievery was Leonard’s cold gun. Every few days, he’d sit in the cargo hold and completely disassemble the gun, clean every piece, and put it back together again.

If she was lucky, Sara could catch him at the end of this routine.

She hung around the door until she heard a familiar whirring, signifying that the cold gun was completely reassembled.

She took a deep breath to get into character and then stalked into the cargo hold.

Leonard was sitting against a black crate with his legs stretched out in front of him. The cold gun was by his side.

Sara dropped to sit across from him with an aggravated huff.

“Tough day at the office,” he said jokingly, “Let me guess, you just talked to Stein — no, Ray.”

“Rip,” she answered.

“And what did our captain want this time?”

“He wants to put off our shore leave another week,” Sara lied, the story seamlessly falling into place, “He says the mission may carry us elsewhere and it would be unwise to delay it any further.”

“Aren’t we on a timeship?” Leonard pointed out, “We shouldn’t have time constraints.”

“Exactly!” Sara jumped to her feet and started pacing around the cargo hold. Her goal was to get Leonard to stand up too, so she could get closer to the cold gun without him being right next to it, “He’s always saying that time doesn’t exist in the time stream, but as soon as it’s convenient to him, it does exist. He never lets us have any say in anything and he thinks we’re all stupid just because we’re not from the future!”

“I think you might have touched something besides shore leave,” Leonard said, and Sara caught a sense of nervousness in his voice. That had been her plan. Leonard had never handled his own emotions very well, never mind ones coming from other people. She had hoped that he’d be so flustered by Sara’s distraught state that he wouldn’t notice what she was really doing.

“So what if I did?” she said, “I’m sick of his whole holier than thou attitude that makes him feel like saving his family is worth just as much to us as it is to him, and that we’re bad people because our priorities might be different from his for even just a second. I swear, one of these days I’m gonna go visit home and I’m not gonna come back.”

At that, Leonard stood up, approaching where Sara stood with her arms crossed in front of her chest

“Don’t you think that’s a little unnecessary?” he asked cautiously. Sara turned to face him, forcing herself to not glance towards the cold gun..

What she didn’t know is that she had picked the best story she possibly could have. Leonard was just coming to see Sara as a friend, one that he could depend upon in a number of ways (although the rest of the team knew that they were more than friends and had been for a long time). Good friends were few and far between, and now one of them was thinking about leaving him. Selfish as it may sound, he didn’t want Sara to leave for his sake.

“I dunno,” she shrugged, pacing to the other end of the room, where the gun was still on the floor where Leonard had left it, “Sometimes it feels like that, sometimes it doesn’t.”

“You know more than anyone on this ship that I think Rip’s an asshole,” he turned to sit on another metal storage container and Sara took the opportunity to nudge the cold gun with her foot behind a crate and out of sight, “But I’d be lying if I said he didn’t have good intentions, not that I’d know anything about that.” Sara rolled her eyes, “I assume that a mission like that would give you a serious case of tunnel vision so it makes sense that he’d sometimes forget that we’ve all got other things going on too.”

Leonard stood and sat back against the crate he’d been sitting at when Sara walked in.

“Think it over,” he said as he pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket and started dealing out a came of solitaire, “But I can think of someone who’d miss you if you left.”

Sara nodded and moved to leave the cargo hold. She walked around the edge of the room so she could pick up the cold gun as she left. She held her breath all the way out, only exhaling when she had rounded the corner and was out of sight.

She took the gun back to her room, unsure of what to do with it now. She knew she should give it back to him, that would defeat the purpose of stealing it in the first place.

She set it down on her bed and picked up the book she was reading. It was a Leonard Snart recommendation and one she was thoroughly enjoying. She got through three chapters before Leonard noticed what Sara had done.

“Mis Lance,” Gideon said. Sara looked away from her book, “Mr Snart is looking for you. Would you like me to tell him where to locate you?”

“Tell Leonard,” she addressed the AI, “that if he wants me he’ll have to come find me.”

Hope you enjoyed! As always, shoot me a prompt in my ask box and I’ll get it done as soon as I can :)

[themikeymonster]

the last sith - p1.a

in which inexperienced General and Knight Skywalker leads a padawan on loan, a gaggle of shinies, and one newly minted captain directly into danger. After all, when you find a trap, you set it off and see what happens. Right? ... right? 

Anakin Skywalker is wrist-deep in the guts of the Jedi Interceptor, not because it needs maintenance, but because he can't focus. Breathe, he reminds himself, jerkily ratcheting the multitool. He'd done his best to focus in his personal room, the way his Master would have wanted him to, but peace had remained out of his grasp. So here he is, in the belly of the carrier where the hanger is, working on the single Interceptor, set slightly apart from the flight of V-19s nearby.

There had been talk about developing better Interceptors now that it seems as though they're in the war for the long haul. The one under his multitool has barely seen more than three flights; it seems like a waste. The Delta-7Bs might have been meant for transport to and from mission locations, but Anakin doesn't like the idea of them building the Order starfighters meant purely for battle. It feels a bit too much like they expect the war to go on for - for years.

Master Tahl had sat, quiet and still, and murmured to Qui-Gon that some Jedi have become padawans since then. "What then?" she wondered. "Will there be an entire generation of Jedi who know nothing else?"

The thought sits uneasily with Anakin. He wants the war over and done with, as swiftly as possible.

With a twist, Anakin fixes the last bolt back into place and lets his arms fall, sighing heavily. He's not feeling any more focused or balanced than he did before he came down here. Maybe it was that the Delta-7B didn't really need any maintenance done to it, or maybe it's that he's still stuck in the middle of the same stupid mission that has his back up in the first place. Clenching the multitool, he grabs the bottom of the ship and slides out from under it. He only glides a few meters before the creeper's magnetic stoppers click on, pulling him to a stop.

New Jedi, new captain, new ship and new crew: if Anakin can't believe in the mission, can they really succeed? His whole knighthood depends on it.

Tahl would tell him he's being foolish, and maybe he is, but the feeling persists. He imagines for a moment that his old master is here to set her hand on his shoulder and dryly observe that they're hardly wide enough for more than one Jedi to stand upon, let alone the entire Order.

"Two, perhaps," she'd say thoughtfully, "if the three of you tried very hard."

Anakin stirs out of his thoughts and glances up just in time for the doors to the hangar lift to slide open and a young Togruta to step out. Togrutas, as well as many other species with similar developmental stages, gangle a bit at her age; Qui-Gon has mentioned that she's likely to grow quite tall. Anakin sympathizes.

Ahsoka waves to the hanger manager, who has been lingering around the floor ever since Anakin has come down here; undoubtedly, he'll relax when Anakin leaves. She doesn't stop to talk, spotting Anakin without difficult and walking toward him with purpose. Most padawans, he thinks, kind of scurry about. At the awkward age of thirteen, Ahsoka strides with her chin in the air, like she's a knight already.

Catching the floor with his boot, Anakin gets up from the hovering creeper and dislodges the electromagnetic locks with an absent minded kick, sending the board sliding across the hangar floor and toward the hanger chief. He almost wishes that it'll cause some trouble.

"Master," Ahsoka says the moment she's in comfortable talking distance. "You're wanted on deck; they're picking up a distress signal."

"A distress signal," he echoes in surprise; Ahsoka had seemed determined, but there'd been no alarm on her face. Anakin had assumed this was a social visit. "From what? Who? Why didn't someone comm me?" He's already striding past her, heading for the doors before he's finished asking questions.

"Hey! Wait up!" Ahsoka says, hurrying after him. She bounds up just as he slaps the multitool into the hangar chief's hand. "You didn't let me finish," she says as she joins him in the lift. "It's not a Republic distress signal, or even a civilian one."

"Then what?" he says, turning to look down at her. She gives him a meaningful look, and he frowns for a moment. "A Separatist distress signal? Why would we be - why would they send one?"

There's a lot about the Separatist movement that Anakin doesn't understand, no matter how hard his Master has tried to explain it to him. Tahl seems to find it easy to see things from another point of view; he's always been impressed, if exasperated, with her ability to empathize with any enemy. A 'Jedi among Jedi,' Qui-Gon always says, admiration in his voice.

Anakin just can't see how any amount of frustration with the Republic could possibly drive systems to ally themselves with the CIS. Separatist representatives were always quick with aid when courting favor, but the moment a system committed, they turned their back with alarming ease and a sneer. Winter on Hoth was probably warmer than Dooku's heart, Anakin thinks. The idea of any Separatist sending a distress signal out here, in contested space, is -

"A trap?" Anakin wonders aloud.

"That's what we're thinking," Ahsoka agrees, "That's why I came down to get you, instead of calling you over comm."

The door of the left slides open, and Anakin strides out onto the command deck where Rex and the crew were waiting. "Well," he says, moving to stand at the viewscreen, a few steps away from Rex. "If it looks like a trap, and sounds like a trap, then it's probably a trap."

"But what are we going to do about it?" Ahsoka asks. "Don't you think it's a little bit suspicious that we're picking up what's probably a trap when the number of people who should know we're out here includes the Chancellor, the Council, and no one else?"

Anakin doesn't reply; somewhere in the back of his mind, the part of him that would always be Tahl's padawan desperately yearns for his master's advice, but she would probably make him figure this out on his own anyway. Turning, he gestures for the communications specialist to replay the distress signal for him, and after  moment, the screen flickers to light. It's not just a signal, but an entire holo: a B1 battle droid is on screen, bobbing around erratically as it jerks it's long, wedge-shaped head back and forth, trying to absorb data from both the screen it's addressing and keep an eye on the chaos behind it.

"Ah!" it barks, as if its limited AI supports a 'panic' response. "Mayday, mayday! We are under attack! I repeat: we are under attack!"

Behind the droid, several more rush back and forth in a disorganized manner, yelling at one another. They seem to be trying to organize some kind of line of defense against the door to the command room, but are failing. A sound like shearing metal scrapes through the jittering, distorted signal, and a handful lose their nerve, tossing their weapons aside to race past the droid at the communications station.

The droid that's sending the signal also loses its nerve, jerking violently as it suffers a critical formation error. "It's inside the building," it wails, ignoring the computer sending the distress signal entirely and lunging for something offscreen. "It's inside-"

The signal freezes on that last fragmented frame, the image of the droid shattered with static. Beyond it, the doors to the command deck are barely visible. It could be static, or it could be sparks flying from the door.

"The signal terminates there," the officer at their own communications station says. His voice is loud and grim in the silence on deck.

Given the B1 battle droid programming specs, Anakin thinks that several things could have resulted in an incident like this; that's why they weren't allowed to operate independently. He turns to the crew, folding his arms across his chest. "What about the command crew?" he asks, looking around. Ahsoka is a tight and ready presence at his side, like a wound spring prepared to unleash its pent up power. The ship's crew are less ready, a shiver of nervous energy rattling through the Force. Rex stands stoic and ready.

"No further communications, General," the communications officer says, shaking his head. He's older than Anakin by several years, but the look on his face isn't all that different from the brand new men from Kamino.

When no further information is immediately offered, Rex speaks up. "We'd need to get closer if we wanted to take a look, Knight-General," he says. "As far as we can tell, no one even knows this outpost is out here. At least not on the official channels."

There's no particular bitterness in his tone, but Anakin feels his mouth twist unhappily. "Credit where it's due," he says dryly, glancing back to the man at the comms. "Any analysis on that signal?"

"Everything seems normal, sir," he says. "The disruption at the end is genuine. I think. Computer suggests that it was metal strain, like that of an EMD."

"Somehow I get the feeling that's what what it was," Anakin says.

"Difficult to know for sure with the distortion of the signal," Rex points out, fair but hardly confident in his words. "If men were using it, and not a droid, we wouldn't hear it locking in place."

"Well, there's always the possibility the command crew was trying to reestablish leadership," Anakin says without enthusiasm. "Maybe the droids have mutinied?"

Ahsoka's raised brows are the most immediately obvious, but a quick glance around the deck shows that the reproach and skepticism is on every face, even Rex's. "What," Anakin says, glancing between Ahsoka and Rex. "Oh, come on! You've seen the way the Separatists treat their droids. That's enough to make anyone mutiny."

"That aside, sir, I don't think a droid coup would have much success," Rex says. "They aren't smart enough, and they struggle to cooperate and work in concert with one another. No flexibility. Not like we have."

"We could only hope something like that could happen and cripple enemy forces," Anakin says with a sigh. "So trap it is. Any visual on the outpost?" He turns back to the screen in time for it to change from an analysis of the signal to the space outside the ship.

"One step ahead of you, General," the ship's captain says. "We're still out of their sensor range, but we have visual confirmation."

The screen shows a moon barely one step above a glorified asteroid, hidden by the mass of the gas giant it orbited. A section is magnified to show the Separatist outpost - the same hastily constructed modular design that many of the Republic's outposts had. While by design, it's difficult to tell if the outpost is in distress, there seems to be some kind of debris outside its main doors.

"Huh," Anakin says, focusing on the debris. Their sensors are good, but getting a clearer shot would require pulling in closer and bringing them into the base's range - not just of detecting them, but into attack range, too. The ship simply isn't maneuverable enough to dodge fire from the base any closer, and if there is an enemy ship hiding in the blindspot of the planet...

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Ahsoka says from beside him.

"You worry too much," Anakin says, reaching back to rest his hand on her narrow shoulder. She doesn't sound particularly worried; he's not sure he has ever heard her worried. But then she's fairly inexperienced - a combination of Qui-Gon's age and her own has kept her from most missions.

"You don't worry enough," she counters, which is - more of an illusion than a truth. Anakin worries constantly, about everything, but it's gratifying to know that he isn't obvious about it. He squeezes her shoulder and lets go, turning back toward the navigation officer.

"How far are we out?" he asks.

"Two days SGT," she says. "Slightly ahead of schedule, sir."

Slightly ahead of schedule and faced with what was probably a trap - but for who? Ahsoka was right, no one should know they were out here. This is contested space, but it isn't a front for the war - not yet, anyway. "Rex," he says. "I'm thinking small precision team. You have something like that?"

"'Course I do, Knight-General," Rex says, even though they both know that's not entirely true.

"Gather them," he says. "I want to have a closer look at what's going on down there. If nothing else, we may be able to remove a threat from the map."

"Right away, sir," he says, saluting.

"Please tell me you're joking," Ahsoka says, following on Anakin's heels as he heads for the lift. "You're joking! Right? You wouldn't really walk directly into what is clearly a trap."

"You're not the slightest bit curious about it?" he asks, glancing back at her.

"No," she says emphatically.

"You have much to learn, my Padawan," Anakin says, and discovers it actually feels really good to do so. No wonder that was Qui-Gon's favorite phase while Anakin was under his guidance.

Ahsoka should be use to it, but she simply looks annoyed, folding her arms across her chest as she stalks after him. "I've learned not to walk into traps," she says. She steps into the lift and takes the Padawan's position at his side, even though her posture is entirely too insubordinate for it to mean much.

He sighs. "Look," he says, "think about it. It's a trap, or it's not. If it is, I want to know who it was set for. They shouldn't be expecting Republic forces to be out here. But if it's not a trap, then we're either looking at a battle droid mutiny or - someone is really wrecking the Separatists' day, and I want to know who."

Ahsoka stares at the side of his face for a moment longer, as if waiting for what she consider an actual compelling reason. Too bad for her, Anakin doesn't answer to her. "Oh," she says with audible disappointment. "I'm so glad we're risking life and limb for the sake of your curiosity."

"You could always stay on the ship," he offers as the lift arrives and the doors swish open. He steps out, placing his hand in the doorway to keep them open, and arches his brow. "Since you have such a bad feeling about this."

Ahsoka gives him a dirty look, dropping her crossed arms. It's her right as padawan to be so disgusted with that suggestion - Anakin is aware of just how offensive their lineage finds the idea of letting any of their members go into danger alone. It's how he knew that she would fit right in. It's why he agreed to train her in Qui-Gon's place.

"I'm just saying," he says, waving off her offense with both hands. "The possibility is there if you want it. I'm not making you come with me. It'll probably be dangerous."

"You're doing a really bad job of reassuring me, if that's what you're trying to do, master," she says flatly, and follows him into the starfighter bay.

--

They don't take any of the starfighters; the fighters are more maneuverable than the landing craft they take instead, but Anakin is reluctant to commit multiple fighters to investigating, just in case. The lander is nimble enough to avoid most land based firing systems, and takes up far less space than an entire flight would anyway.

Besides, it's easier to miss one object on sensors than several, if anyone is looking. No one must be: the base remains silent and still, and nothing comes sailing out of the shadow of the gas giant to shoot them down. The Jedi and their men don breathers for the thin, inhospitable atmosphere, and close in on the base to investigate. Nothing stirs on the surface of the still, frozen moon.

Anakin leads the way as Jedi should, as open to the Force as he can be with his shields raised high enough to obscure his presence. He's the first one to arrive at the front doors of the base, and so he's the one that first sees what the debris is. Golden scrap metal lays scattered and forgotten in twisted tangles, not even sparking. He suddenly wishes he had acted as a master should and told Ahsoka to stay behind.

Rex and his men pause at Anakin's back, but only for a moment; seeing the way mostly clear, Rex leads them forward to investigate. Anakin doesn't budge his feet, only too aware of the young padawan at his side. Ahsoka breathes shallowly into her respirator, standing in her spot but craning her head to observe Rex bend down to see the scrap more clearly.

Lifting one limb from the pile, Rex scrutinizes it, turning it around to study where it abruptly terminates. "Vibroblade," he declares, tossing the scrap aside. He stands, looking around at the battlefield - if it could be called that. "Droids are shit shots, sir," he says, "but it looks like our friend is more than ballsy enough to take them on with just the blade."

Somehow, Anakin isn't surprised, glancing up to Rex; the helmets prevent eye contact, but Rex nods all the same and turns to order his men to spread out and secure the area. No point in getting ambushed, though despite Anakin's misgivings, he doesn't feel as though they're exactly in danger at the moment.

"Maybe they shot the droids into submission first?" Ahsoka suggests.

"Unlikely," Rex says, not unkindly. "No scorch marks on the building. You'd need  hell of a marksman to hit only the droids. But if you look at the droids...?"

Ahsoka glances perfunctorily toward Anakin before she breaks out of formation and joins Rex at the scrap pile. Behind them, one of Rex's men is working on the door with another, the two of them communicating quietly. One makes a gesture Anakin recognizes as the sign for 'let the Jedi at it,' and huffs into his respirator. Give it a few weeks on the field and the survivors will be just as bad as any of the other troops about trying to do everything for their Generals. Anakin isn't sure what it is about working with Jedi that inclines the troopers to change their way of thinking like that.

"No scorch marks on the droids," Ahsoka says after a moment, sounding surprised.

"Even in this atmosphere, there'd be blaster pitting if they'd been shot," Rex agrees patiently. "See how shiny the marks are? Vibroblades leave that kind of pattern on metal." He kicks over one of the fallen droids, nudging its head over with the toe of his boot. "And look at this. Clean diagonal cuts right through the processor. Every single one is like this."

Anakin moves forward to join them. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ahsoka grimace at the damage done to the droids. It isn't that the cuts are messy - the cuts are actually surprisingly clean, especially considering the weapon they were made with. A lightsaber is a scholar's weapon, Tahl told him; it can kill, but it's primary function is escape and defense. Any use of a vibroblade on living flesh tends extremely difficult to heal at best, and lethal in most cases.

However, this one seems to be working at the peak of performance. There's no bending or breaking of the metal casing, or the brittle circuitry of the processors inside the battle droids' heads. The cuts are clean - almost dangerously sharp and uncannily straight. The few that are sprawled at just the right angle from Anakin appear to simply terminate as if they were built with only half a head.

"I know they're just droids," Ahsoka says, looking around at the scattered scrap, "but I feel like I'm standing in the middle of - carnage." Her lip peels back unconsciously, baring the edges of sharp Togruta teeth, her hands resting on the hilts of her blades.

"Just a bunch of ones and zeros," Rex assures her, then tilts his helmet. "If you'll excuse me for saying so, Knight-General."

"They are the enemy," Anakin says, as little as he likes it. He knows it's better that there are droids laying here in a pile rather than people made of flesh and blood, but it wasn't like the Separatists really programmed the droids to make a choice. It's not like anyone does. "No offense taken, Rex."

He looks around again at the remains of the droids, envisioning how it must have played out. They would have been lured out. It would have happened before they could even register a threat to fire at. He looks up, imagining that the intruder would have perched there, on the miniscule ledge above the doors. The intruder would have dropped down on the middle of them: a whirlwind with a blade, or some kind of devouring storm.

The limbs first, falling in a clatter. Then the head.

"Master?" Ahsoka asks, soft and concerned.

His body quakes in a bone-deep shudder, and Anakin shakes the squirmy feeling it leaves in his limbs out. "It's nothing," he assures her with a quick smile before focusing on Rex. "Captain, you've read the reports?"

"Aye, sir," Rex agrees. "Every last one of them, when we thought it'd be a concern."

"Looks like it's turning out to be one," he says grimly. "What about the men?"

"Not yet, sir. I'll get right on it."

A one in a one billionth chance, Anakin recalls - no reason to think theirs out of any company would run into the Mid Rim Reaper. From here forward, Anakin will assure his men are prepared for even absurd possibilities. The situation is just as bad as it can get: out of the entire crew, from the lowest ranking man all the way to Ahsoka, only Anakin and Rex have any combat experience, and even them only little enough.

Whose bright idea had that been? He vaguely remembers Chancellor Palpatine saying it would give them time to adjust to one another, to grow into working together, or something. He can't remember if he agreed or not.

He probably agreed; the Chancellor understand the pressures of the battlefield even less than Anakin does, and he constantly feels out of his depths. He glances one last time at the scrapped droids as the doors squeak and squeal open under the men's efforts.

"What reports was he talking about?" Ahsoka asks, lingering as the men redouble their efforts to get the base open.

Anakin glances at her, taking a moment to feel her tension in the Force. "I've run into this guy once before," he says. "It was - unexpected. The Order doesn't really track criminals, you know. It's not our place. But this guy - this guy, the Order has information on, and this-" he jerks his head down at the scrap pile - "is why. Someone out there has a really sharp vibroblade and really hates the Separatists. We're lucky it was only droids this time."

It takes a moment for his words to sink in, and then Ahsoka seems taken aback. She glances one last time at the fallen droids and scowls deeply, her expression firming into grim lines of determination. "Got it," she says.

As if Anakin is going to let her within three meters of the Mid Rim Reaper. "Come on," he says, nodding his head toward the door that the men have finally pried open. He'd spare her all of this if he could; he'd argued against the Council, that the battlefield was no place for padawans, but the Council had turned deaf ears. It's almost as if everyone has lost their reason since the start of the war.

But for now, the safest place for Ahsoka on this moon was at his side. With her there, they approach the silent base, and the uncertain troopers at the breached doors. Time to see just how far down the rabbit hole it goes.

--

[clarenceomoore]

Will We Really Lose Half our Jobs to Automation?

The following is an excerpt from GigaOm publisher Byron Reese’s new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity. You can purchase the book here.

The Fourth Age explores the implications of automation and AI on humanity, and has been described by Ethernet inventor and 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe as framing “the deepest questions of our time in clear language that invites the reader to make their own choices. Using 100,000 years of human history as his guide, he explores the issues around artificial general intelligence, robots, consciousness, automation, the end of work, abundance, and immortality.”

One of those deep questions of our time:

When the topic of automation and AI comes up, one of the chief concerns is always technology’s potential impact on jobs. Many fear that with the introduction of wide-scale automation, there will be no more jobs left for humans. But is it really that dire? In this excerpt from The Fourth Age, Byron Reese explores the prospect of massive job loss due to automation.

The “jobs will be destroyed too quickly” argument is an old one as well. In 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes voiced it by saying, “We are being a afflicted with a new disease . . . technological unemployment. This means unemployment due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.”

In 1978, New Scientist repeated the concern:

The relationship between technology and employment opportunities most commonly considered and discussed is, of course the tendency for technology to be labour-saving and thus eliminate employment opportunities—if not actual jobs.

In 1995, the refrain was still the name. David F. Noble wrote in Progress without People:

Computer-aided manufacturing, robotics, computer inventories, automated switchboards and tellers, telecommunication technologies—all have been used to displace and replace people, to enable employers to reduce labour costs, contract-out, relocate operations.

But is it true now? Will new technology destroy the current jobs too quickly?

A number of studies have tried to answer this question directly. One of the very finest and certainly the most quoted was published in 2013 by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, both of Oxford University. The report, titled The Future of Employment, is seventy-two pages long, but what has been referenced most frequently in the media is a single ten-word phrase: “about 47 percent of total US employment is at risk.” Hey, who needs more than that? It made for juicy and salacious headlines, to be sure. It seemed as if every news source screamed a variant of “Half of US Jobs Will Be Taken by Computers in Twenty Years.”

If we really are going to lose half our jobs in twenty years, well, then the New York Times should dust off the giant type it used back in 1969 when it printed “MEN WALK ON MOON” and report the story on the front page with equal emphasis. But that is not actually what Frey and Osborne wrote. Toward the end of the report, they provide a four-hundred-word description of some of the limitations of the study’s methodology. They state that “we make no attempt to estimate how many jobs will actually be automated. The actual extent and pace of computerisation will depend on several additional factors which were left unaccounted for.”

So what’s with the 47 percent figure? What they said is that some tasks within 47 percent of jobs will be automated. Well, there is nothing terribly shocking about that at all. Pretty much every job there is has had tasks within it automated. But the job remains. It is just different.

For instance, Frey and Osborne give the following jobs a 65 percent or better chance of being computerized: social science research assistants, atmospheric and space scientists, and pharmacy aides. So what does this mean? Social science professors will no longer have research assistants? Of course they will. They will just do different things, because much of what they do today will be automated. There won’t be any more space scientists? Pharmacists will no longer have anyone helping them?

Frey and Osborne say that the tasks of a barber have an 80 percent chance of being taken over by AI or robots. In their category of jobs with a 90 percent or higher chance of certain tasks being computerized are tour guides and carpenters’ helpers.

The disconnect is clear: some of what a carpenter’s helper does will get automated, but the carpenter helper job won’t vanish; it will morph, as almost everyone else’s job will, from architect to zoologist. Sure, your iPhone can be a tour guide, but that won’t make tour guides vanish.

Anyone who took the time to read past the introduction to The Future of Employment saw this. And to be clear, Frey and Osborne were very up-front. They stated, in scholar-speak, the following:

We do not capture any within-occupation variation resulting from the computerisation of tasks that simply free-up time for human labour to perform other tasks.

In response to the Frey and Osborne paper, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental economic organization made up of nations committed to free markets and democracy, released a report in 2016 that directly counters it. In this report, entitled The Risk of Automation for Jobs in OECD Countries, the authors apply a “whole job” methodology and come up with the percent of jobs potentially lost to computerization as 9 percent. That is pretty normal churn for the economy.

At the end of 2015, McKinsey & Company published a report entitled Four Fundamentals of Workplace Automation that came to similar conclusions as the OECD. But again, it had a number too provocative for the media to resist sensationalizing. The report said, “The bottom line is that 45 percent of work activities could be automated using already demonstrated technology,” which was predictably reported as variants of “45% of Jobs to Be Eliminated with Existing Technology.” Often overlooked was the fuller explanation of the report’s conclusion:

Our results to date suggest, first and foremost, that a focus on occupations is misleading. Very few occupations will be automated in their entirety in the near or medium term. Rather, certain activities are more likely to be automated, requiring entire business processes to be transformed, and jobs performed by people to be redefined, much like the bank teller’s job was redefined with the advent of ATMs.

The “47 percent [or 45 percent] of jobs will vanish” interpretation doesn’t even come close to passing the sniff test. Humans, even ones with little or no professional training, have incredible skills we hardly ever think about. Let’s look closely at two of the jobs at the very top of Frey and Osborne’s list: short-order cook and waiter. Both have 94 percent chance of being computerized.

Imagine you own a pizza restaurant that employs one cook and one waiter. A fast-talking door-to-door robot salesman manages to sell you two robots: one designed to make pizzas and one designed to take orders and deliver pizzas to tables. All you have to do is preload the food containers with the appropriate ingredients, and head off to Bermuda. The robot waiter, who understands twenty languages, takes orders with amazing accuracy, and flawlessly handles special requests like “I want half this, half that” and “light on the sauce.” The orders are sent to the pizza robot, who makes the pizza with speed and consistency.

Let’s check in on these two robots on their first day of work and see how things are going:

A patron spills his drink. The robots haven’t been taught to clean up spills, since this is a surprisingly complicated task. The programmers knew this could happen, but the permutations of what could be spilled and where were too hard to deal with. They promised to include it in a future release, and in the meantime, to program the robot to show the customers where the cleaning supplies are kept.

A little dog, one of those yip-yips, comes yipping in and the waiter robot trips and falls down. Having no mechanism to right itself, it invokes the “I have fallen and cannot get up” protocol, which repeats that phrase over and over with an escalating tone of desperation until someone helps it up. When asked about this problem, the programmers reply, snappishly, that “it’s on the list.”

Maggots get in the shredded cheese. Maggoty pizza is served to the patrons. All the robot is trained to do with customers unhappy with their orders is to remake their pizzas. More maggots. The robots don’t even know what maggots are.

A well-meaning pair of Boy Scouts pop in to ask if the pipe jutting out of the roof should be emitting smoke. They say they hadn’t noticed it before. Should it be? How would the robot know?

A not-well-meaning pair of boys come in and order a “pizza with no crust” to see if the robots would try to make it and ruin the oven. After that, they order a pizza with double crust and another one with twenty times the normal amount of sauce. Given that they are both wearing Richard Nixon masks, the usual protocol of taking photographs of troublesome patrons doesn’t work and results only in a franchise-wide ban of Richard Nixon at affiliated restaurants.

A patron begins choking on a pepperoni. Thinking he must be trying to order something, the robot keeps asking him to restate his request. The patron ends up dying right there at his table. After seeing no motion from him for half an hour, the robot repeatedly runs its “Sleeping Patron” protocol, which involves poking the customer and saying, “Excuse me sir, please wake up” repeatedly.

The fire marshal shows up, seeing the odd smoke from the pipe in the roof, which he hadn’t noticed before. Upon discovering maggot-infested pizza and a dead patron being repeatedly poked by a robot, he shuts the whole place down. Meanwhile, you haven’t even boarded your flight to Bermuda.

This scenario is, of course, just the beginning. The range of things the robot waiter and cook can’t do is enough to provide sitcom material for ten seasons, with a couple of Christmas specials thrown in. The point is that those who think so-called low-skilled humans are easy targets for robot replacement haven’t fully realized what a magnificently versatile thing any human being is and how our most advanced electronics are little more than glorified toaster ovens.

While it is clear that we will see ever-faster technological advances, it is unlikely that they will be different enough in nature to buck our two-hundred-year run of plenty of jobs and rising wages. In one sense, no technology really compares to mechanization, electricity, or steam engines in impact on labor. And those were a huge win for both workers and the overall economy, even though they were incredibly disruptive.

To read more of GigaOm publisher Byron Reese’s new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity, you can purchase it here.

[babbleuk]

Will We Really Lose Half our Jobs to Automation?

The following is an excerpt from GigaOm publisher Byron Reese’s new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity. You can purchase the book here.

The Fourth Age explores the implications of automation and AI on humanity, and has been described by Ethernet inventor and 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe as framing “the deepest questions of our time in clear language that invites the reader to make their own choices. Using 100,000 years of human history as his guide, he explores the issues around artificial general intelligence, robots, consciousness, automation, the end of work, abundance, and immortality.”

One of those deep questions of our time:

When the topic of automation and AI comes up, one of the chief concerns is always technology’s potential impact on jobs. Many fear that with the introduction of wide-scale automation, there will be no more jobs left for humans. But is it really that dire? In this excerpt from The Fourth Age, Byron Reese explores the prospect of massive job loss due to automation.

The “jobs will be destroyed too quickly” argument is an old one as well. In 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes voiced it by saying, “We are being a afflicted with a new disease . . . technological unemployment. This means unemployment due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.”

In 1978, New Scientist repeated the concern:

The relationship between technology and employment opportunities most commonly considered and discussed is, of course the tendency for technology to be labour-saving and thus eliminate employment opportunities—if not actual jobs.

In 1995, the refrain was still the name. David F. Noble wrote in Progress without People:

Computer-aided manufacturing, robotics, computer inventories, automated switchboards and tellers, telecommunication technologies—all have been used to displace and replace people, to enable employers to reduce labour costs, contract-out, relocate operations.

But is it true now? Will new technology destroy the current jobs too quickly?

A number of studies have tried to answer this question directly. One of the very finest and certainly the most quoted was published in 2013 by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, both of Oxford University. The report, titled The Future of Employment, is seventy-two pages long, but what has been referenced most frequently in the media is a single ten-word phrase: “about 47 percent of total US employment is at risk.” Hey, who needs more than that? It made for juicy and salacious headlines, to be sure. It seemed as if every news source screamed a variant of “Half of US Jobs Will Be Taken by Computers in Twenty Years.”

If we really are going to lose half our jobs in twenty years, well, then the New York Times should dust off the giant type it used back in 1969 when it printed “MEN WALK ON MOON” and report the story on the front page with equal emphasis. But that is not actually what Frey and Osborne wrote. Toward the end of the report, they provide a four-hundred-word description of some of the limitations of the study’s methodology. They state that “we make no attempt to estimate how many jobs will actually be automated. The actual extent and pace of computerisation will depend on several additional factors which were left unaccounted for.”

So what’s with the 47 percent figure? What they said is that some tasks within 47 percent of jobs will be automated. Well, there is nothing terribly shocking about that at all. Pretty much every job there is has had tasks within it automated. But the job remains. It is just different.

For instance, Frey and Osborne give the following jobs a 65 percent or better chance of being computerized: social science research assistants, atmospheric and space scientists, and pharmacy aides. So what does this mean? Social science professors will no longer have research assistants? Of course they will. They will just do different things, because much of what they do today will be automated. There won’t be any more space scientists? Pharmacists will no longer have anyone helping them?

Frey and Osborne say that the tasks of a barber have an 80 percent chance of being taken over by AI or robots. In their category of jobs with a 90 percent or higher chance of certain tasks being computerized are tour guides and carpenters’ helpers.

The disconnect is clear: some of what a carpenter’s helper does will get automated, but the carpenter helper job won’t vanish; it will morph, as almost everyone else’s job will, from architect to zoologist. Sure, your iPhone can be a tour guide, but that won’t make tour guides vanish.

Anyone who took the time to read past the introduction to The Future of Employment saw this. And to be clear, Frey and Osborne were very up-front. They stated, in scholar-speak, the following:

We do not capture any within-occupation variation resulting from the computerisation of tasks that simply free-up time for human labour to perform other tasks.

In response to the Frey and Osborne paper, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental economic organization made up of nations committed to free markets and democracy, released a report in 2016 that directly counters it. In this report, entitled The Risk of Automation for Jobs in OECD Countries, the authors apply a “whole job” methodology and come up with the percent of jobs potentially lost to computerization as 9 percent. That is pretty normal churn for the economy.

At the end of 2015, McKinsey & Company published a report entitled Four Fundamentals of Workplace Automation that came to similar conclusions as the OECD. But again, it had a number too provocative for the media to resist sensationalizing. The report said, “The bottom line is that 45 percent of work activities could be automated using already demonstrated technology,” which was predictably reported as variants of “45% of Jobs to Be Eliminated with Existing Technology.” Often overlooked was the fuller explanation of the report’s conclusion:

Our results to date suggest, first and foremost, that a focus on occupations is misleading. Very few occupations will be automated in their entirety in the near or medium term. Rather, certain activities are more likely to be automated, requiring entire business processes to be transformed, and jobs performed by people to be redefined, much like the bank teller’s job was redefined with the advent of ATMs.

The “47 percent [or 45 percent] of jobs will vanish” interpretation doesn’t even come close to passing the sniff test. Humans, even ones with little or no professional training, have incredible skills we hardly ever think about. Let’s look closely at two of the jobs at the very top of Frey and Osborne’s list: short-order cook and waiter. Both have 94 percent chance of being computerized.

Imagine you own a pizza restaurant that employs one cook and one waiter. A fast-talking door-to-door robot salesman manages to sell you two robots: one designed to make pizzas and one designed to take orders and deliver pizzas to tables. All you have to do is preload the food containers with the appropriate ingredients, and head off to Bermuda. The robot waiter, who understands twenty languages, takes orders with amazing accuracy, and flawlessly handles special requests like “I want half this, half that” and “light on the sauce.” The orders are sent to the pizza robot, who makes the pizza with speed and consistency.

Let’s check in on these two robots on their first day of work and see how things are going:

A patron spills his drink. The robots haven’t been taught to clean up spills, since this is a surprisingly complicated task. The programmers knew this could happen, but the permutations of what could be spilled and where were too hard to deal with. They promised to include it in a future release, and in the meantime, to program the robot to show the customers where the cleaning supplies are kept.

A little dog, one of those yip-yips, comes yipping in and the waiter robot trips and falls down. Having no mechanism to right itself, it invokes the “I have fallen and cannot get up” protocol, which repeats that phrase over and over with an escalating tone of desperation until someone helps it up. When asked about this problem, the programmers reply, snappishly, that “it’s on the list.”

Maggots get in the shredded cheese. Maggoty pizza is served to the patrons. All the robot is trained to do with customers unhappy with their orders is to remake their pizzas. More maggots. The robots don’t even know what maggots are.

A well-meaning pair of Boy Scouts pop in to ask if the pipe jutting out of the roof should be emitting smoke. They say they hadn’t noticed it before. Should it be? How would the robot know?

A not-well-meaning pair of boys come in and order a “pizza with no crust” to see if the robots would try to make it and ruin the oven. After that, they order a pizza with double crust and another one with twenty times the normal amount of sauce. Given that they are both wearing Richard Nixon masks, the usual protocol of taking photographs of troublesome patrons doesn’t work and results only in a franchise-wide ban of Richard Nixon at affiliated restaurants.

A patron begins choking on a pepperoni. Thinking he must be trying to order something, the robot keeps asking him to restate his request. The patron ends up dying right there at his table. After seeing no motion from him for half an hour, the robot repeatedly runs its “Sleeping Patron” protocol, which involves poking the customer and saying, “Excuse me sir, please wake up” repeatedly.

The fire marshal shows up, seeing the odd smoke from the pipe in the roof, which he hadn’t noticed before. Upon discovering maggot-infested pizza and a dead patron being repeatedly poked by a robot, he shuts the whole place down. Meanwhile, you haven’t even boarded your flight to Bermuda.

This scenario is, of course, just the beginning. The range of things the robot waiter and cook can’t do is enough to provide sitcom material for ten seasons, with a couple of Christmas specials thrown in. The point is that those who think so-called low-skilled humans are easy targets for robot replacement haven’t fully realized what a magnificently versatile thing any human being is and how our most advanced electronics are little more than glorified toaster ovens.

While it is clear that we will see ever-faster technological advances, it is unlikely that they will be different enough in nature to buck our two-hundred-year run of plenty of jobs and rising wages. In one sense, no technology really compares to mechanization, electricity, or steam engines in impact on labor. And those were a huge win for both workers and the overall economy, even though they were incredibly disruptive.

To read more of GigaOm publisher Byron Reese’s new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity, you can purchase it here.

from Gigaom https://gigaom.com/2018/05/10/will-we-really-lose-half-our-jobs-to-automation/