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sirfrogsworth · 9 months ago

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Smartphone cameras are NOT getting worse. (See below for phone photography tips)

I've now seen 3 pro photographers reviewing the iPhone 16 and complaining the cameras are "worse" and blaming Apple for not including revolutionary new camera technology.

And I suppose this is partly Apple's fault. Their marketing and hype machine always goes overboard. But also, that's just how marketing works. Samsung has a "200 megapixel" sensor and Sony has a "Zeiss" lens. And I think it is unrealistic to expect smartphone companies to say "This product has entered the iterative phase and each new model will only be marginally improved over the last one."

Smartphones (from any brand) have become an appliance. You don't buy a new model of microwave every year. And you don't expect every new model of microwave to have new revolutionary technology. And that is pretty much the expectation you should have with most computer hardware from here on out.

And in some ways, that is a good thing. That means the design of the phone has pretty much been perfected and it will last you a long time if you take care of it. You will not be left behind and your phone will be able to handle any new software for most of its lifespan.

So, is Apple getting lazy or is there a reason their hardware is stagnating?

It seems that neither money nor marketing can change the laws of physics.

They cannot make transistors much smaller. Phones and computers are about as fast as current hardware designs can make them (unless there is a shocking scientific breakthrough). From here on out, heavy compute tasks that are beyond your phone or computer will be done in the cloud on giant computer clusters. Thankfully computers and phones seem to be plenty fast for the majority of tasks we ask of them.

I remember Katrina telling me her new computer didn't seem any faster. And I explained the computing tasks she does regularly were not really affected by the increased power and speed of her new computer. If something took 0.1 seconds before and now it takes 0.05 seconds, that is twice as fast. An increase in speed that looks fantastic in advertisements. But it is hard for our brains to perceive. She just didn't do anything on her computer that took it long enough for her to notice. But having a faster and more powerful computer/phone will increase its lifespan and resale value, so it is still prudent to get the best things you can afford at time of purchase.

And I'm afraid smartphone cameras are hitting their own hardware limitations. They can't make the sensors much larger to get better depth of field and low light performance. And cramming in more megapixels doesn't actually add much more detail, if any.

It's physics.

Again.

You cannot get any more performance out of a small plastic lens. Why do you think pro photographers haul around 10 pound lenses still?

There is a formula for detail that never seems to be explained in any camera marketing.

Here is the simplified version...

Detail = Sensor x Lens

Let's say 1 is perfection. You have a sensor that performs at 0.5 and a lens that performs at 0.2.

The total detail will be 0.1.

But in the new model you increase the performance of the sensor to 0.8. WOW! That's so close to 1!

The total detail will be... 0.16.

Now let's imagine we've discovered a magic, physics-defying tiny plastic lens that performs at 0.8 as well.

The total detail jumps to 0.64!

But we all get sucked into a wormhole because we violated the laws of the universe.

Even if you were to design a near perfect (perfect is impossible) sensor that scores 0.99.

Without that magic plastic lens... 0.198

This is why I put Samsung's "200 megapixel" sensors in quotes. Because when paired with the same tiny plastic lens, there isn't much improvement. And that's why a 12 megapixel DSLR from 10 years ago with a giant honking lens can still capture more detail.

Most of the quality from smartphone cameras comes from the computational software processing. Phones actually take many photos at once and combine them to get you a decent image.

While that is still improving a little bit each generation, those improvements are stagnating as well. Until image processing can do a better job of inventing more detail realistically, smartphones are going to have to obey the laws of physics.

So... why are photographers saying the iPhone cameras are worse?

First, the ultra wide angle lens looks softer in low light.

And if you zoom between 1x and 5x, the images look less detailed.

But neither of those things make the cameras *worse*. In fact, the cameras are better for the most part. It's just that Apple decided to compromise on one aspect to improve another. Probably due to market research telling them most people prioritize certain things over others when taking photos.

They increased the resolution of the ultra wide angle sensor to match the detail of the main sensor, but that seems to have lowered the low light performance of the ultra wide. So in good light, you will see an improvement in sharpness. But they could not increase the sensor size to compensate and smaller pixels can have trouble with dim conditions. They probably discovered that people mostly use that lens in good light and they would appreciate the bump in detail more.

But pro photographers often photograph in more challenging lighting conditions because you can capture a more artistic shot. I don't think I could have gotten this shot on a smartphone.

But photo normies are just taking pics of their kids doing weird kid shit.

They aren't really trying to push the limits of their ultra wide angle lenses.

And they increased the zoom of the telephoto lens to 5x from 3x because most people never used the 3x. So images at 5x look great now, but unfortunately if you use anything between 1x and 5x, your image will be *digitally* zoomed. Which is never as good as optical zoom. They basically crop the photo, zoom in, and add sharpening.

So they prioritized people having longer reach and more zoom at the expense of that middle zoom range. Every camera system makes tradeoffs and compromises.

And I hate that I always feel like I am defending Apple, because they do have misleading and dishonest marketing regarding a lot of aspects of their tech. But hating on Apple gets more clicks so content creators also make misleading and dishonest claims.

And so we are just surrounded in a circle of hyperbole from all sides.

Now, if you know these limitations, you can change your approach to photographing stuff to keep them from being an issue. You can reap the benefits without dealing with the new compromises.

Here are some tips to help owners of the new iPhone, but also everyone else too.

Smartphone Photography Tips

Whenever possible, try to use the main 1x camera at only 1x zoom. This has the largest sensor with the most detail and works best in the lowest light. Only use the ultra wide or telephoto if you cannot get the photo otherwise. If you aren't sure you have enough light for ultra wide, take the photo, and then as a safety, take two photos with the main camera side by side and stitch them later with a pano app.

"Zoom with your feet" and don't use "in-between" zooms. Let's say your lenses do 0.5x, 1x, and 5x zoom. Even though you have the option to use other zooms, like 2x or 3x, that is going to compromise your picture quality. It is essentially going to crop your photo and enlarge it, which causes a loss of detail. If fact, if you use 4.5x instead of 5x, your picture will probably look like trash. You are always going to get better results if you can move closer or step back so that you are using the native focal length of your chosen lens. For example, let's say you are taking a photo and you judge the best framing to be at 4x. But you still have 10 feet of space behind you. If you back up and then zoom in to 5x, the phone will switch to that lens and you will get a much clearer picture.

Rule of thumb...

1 to 3x... try to move closer.

4 to 5x... try to move back.

If you hit a wall and end up at 4.5x, you might see if you have a panorama mode and try that instead. Switch to your 5x and do the pano. Or you can take two photos and then stitch them together with software later on. (Stitching panos with an app later will give better quality than pano mode, especially in low light.)

Low light needs stability. Get some sort of stabilizing device for low light photos. Either a phone case that lets you stand up the phone on its own or a mini tripod.

This thing folds to the size of a credit card.

Your phone will detect when it is stable and not being handheld. It will then automatically extend its shutter speed allowing it to drink in more light and give you a better picture.

Tripods are photography magic and will improve your low light photos quite a bit. Motion blur of moving subjects can still be an issue, but photos of a cityscape or landscape will look great.

For selfies, shoot a little bit wide and then crop in. This goes a little contrary to my earlier advice saying cropping lowers detail, but this is specifically for shooting a face. The 0.5x and 1x lenses on smartphone cameras are fairly wide angle. This can cause unflattering proportions with human faces. Wide angle lenses exaggerate distance. Near things look very near and far things look very far. To a wide angle lens, the tip of your nose looks like it is super close but your ears seem like they are a mile away. And that's why you may look a bit "alien" in your selfies.

People's natural instinct is to "fill the frame" with a face. The outer edges of a wide angle lens are more distorted than the very center. So try to keep faces away from the edges of the frame.

And one other trick you can do for selfies and pictures of faces is step back a few feet. Sometimes this is hard, especially with selfies, as your arm is only so long... but if you can take your face photos from just a little bit farther back, you will almost entirely eliminate unflattering distortion. In some cases, just stretching out your arm as far as it will go is enough.

Then you just crop the image with the framing you originally wanted, and your facial proportions will look great.

An example...

Here the distortion is bad because I am not in the center and the lens is too close to my face. The lens thinks my nose is really close and my ears are in Canada.

But when the lens is farther back the edge distortion is less prevalent and my nose and ears (relative to the lens) seem roughly the same distance away. So my proportions look great, but I don't quite have the framing I want.

But with a little cropping...

For social media there is still plenty of resolution to crop in. Cropping isn't bad, it's just always better to use it as a last resort or in a special circumstance like this. I get roughly the same framing as in my wide angle shot, but I don't look like I'm behind a door's peephole trying to sell you the Good News.

I wish they made a "mini" selfie stick that only extended a foot or so. With the main camera that is usually all people need to undo any wide angle issues. I have one of those mini tripods and that works well, but there is no activation button so I have to do a timer. Mirrors work great to help you get some selfie distance.

In any case, all cameras have limitations and compromises. Clickbait titles saying something is WORSE THAN THE OLD ONE are frustrating and wrong.

And people upgrading phones every year are silly. All current name brand smartphones have promised at least 5 years of software updates. I think Google and Samsung are offering 7 years on some models. And Apple has always just let you use your phone until it literally will not work with new software. Which has worked out to 8 years in some cases (with a battery swap).

Phones are now appliances. For now, hardware will improve 10 to 15% from generation to generation until physics breaks. So if you want a 50% improvement, wait 5 years and you'll think your new phone is awesome. If you upgrade every year, it is going to be difficult to see the change.

I hope to be starting a little course on smartphone photography in the near future. All modern phones are capable of taking amazing pictures. And as long as you understand their limitations you can mitigate or avoid them. And that is what I plan to teach.

#long post #photography #smartphones

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literaryvein-reblogs · 3 months ago

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Writing Notes: Self-Editing

Editing writing draws upon different skills than creative storytelling, which makes self-editing difficult for many writers. If hiring an editor isn’t an option, you will want to improve your own editing skills to increase your writing’s readability and overall quality.

Tips for Editing Your Own Writing

Print it out. Reading your words on the printed page can help you find spelling mistakes, sentence fragments, and run-ons more easily than trying to track them down on a bright computer screen; you can even change the formatting of the text if that helps you look at it differently. Use a red pen (or any other vibrant color) to track changes or edits along the way.

Read aloud. Hearing how your writing sounds can also help you listen for lines that don’t sound right, like wishy-washy sentences, overuse of particular phrases, and unnecessary words. Sometimes a writer doesn’t realize that their sentence structure is poor or that their main point isn’t clear until they hear it read aloud (you can even use a text-to-speech program or ask someone else to read it back to you while you jot down things you notice).

Take a break. Walking away from your writing project for a period of time and coming back to it with fresh eyes can help you gain a fresh perspective by creating an emotional distance between you and your work. If you’re finding it hard to be objective, give it space—when you return to your own writing, you may find yourself with an entirely new outlook.

Keep your voice active. With active voice writing, the subject of a sentence is performing an action. That action is represented by a verb, which is the part of speech that anchors all complete sentences. While passive voice isn’t completely forbidden in a piece of writing, it’s usually a good idea to keep your tone energized, as it keeps your readers reading.

Edit line by line. A good editor will systematically go through a piece of writing line by line, and that is what you should do as well. It may take time and be a painstaking task, but if you’re editing your own work, you’ll need to look closely at the words you’ve written to find any outstanding issues like grammatical errors or typos.

Get familiar with style guides. Professional editors may come equipped with extensive editing skills, but it’s possible to learn what they know. Look up which writing style guide applies to your writing (if you’re copywriting, you’ll likely want the AP style guide, whereas fiction writing will use the Chicago Manual). Follow the proper guidelines laid out and add them to your editing checklist: Are all the commas where they should be for this particular piece? Are words properly italicized or quoted? Knowing what to look for can not only expand your editing experience but help you become a better writer.

Avoid clichés. While they appear in good writing every so often, clichés are mostly boring unless you have a unique spin on them or can integrate them in a way that doesn’t seem tired.

Embrace re-reading. Editing isn’t a one-off process, and chances are you’ll need multiple read-throughs in order to find all of your weak sentences, grammar mistakes, punctuation errors, and spelling errors.

Mind your syntax. Be on the lookout for issues with grammar and word choice. Certain words can change the whole mood or feeling of a piece, and using weak verbs and weak adjectives will only exacerbate that. Make sure your writing feels strong and clear, and use a thesaurus with caution. If you’re not exactly sure how to use a word, don’t.

Save the proofreading for last. Whether you’re copy editing for content marketing or writing the first draft of a memoir, proofreading is the very last step you should take when self-editing. As you go through your piece, you’ll be re-writing sentences and paragraphs, so searching for grammar errors or doing a spell check before your final draft will only waste more time. It’s okay if you spot errors along the way (you don’t have to ignore them), but don’t make it the first step you take when tackling your own editing.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Editing ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

#editing #writeblr #literature #writers on tumblr #writing reference #dark academia #writing tips #writing advice #light academia #spilled ink #writing prompt #creative writing #writing resources

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bonbonly · 6 months ago

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a/n: a little thought to help me get back into writing (because god forbid im allowed to sit down in front of my computer without my family losing their mind asdfasdf), new au alert tho: hollywood!

↪ producer!carlos sainz that's more than willing to sign you onto films only if you showcase your gratitude on your knees. you're more than happy to oblige to help boost your career, but you realize he's slowly starting to see you less and is now more focused on a younger supporting actress, costing you some big films in favor for her.

↪ actor!daniel ricciardo who's still trying to make his big comeback with a good film, but can't stand having to share the screen with you and makes it more apparent when he decides to purposely outshine you in scenes that were made for you. you bite your tongue and play along, knowing you only had a few days left before filming ended.

↪ actor!max verstappen who garners all the praise on set, snapping his fingers and asking you to get his coffee. you tell him repeatedly that you're his co-star, not his assistant, and he slaps his forehead, apologizing and explaining that he just keeps forgetting. you find out later that he was one of the main reasons why you were snubbed from an oscar a few years ago.

↪ actor!charles leclerc that's the fresh face, the pretty boy that came in for an increase in audience viewership as you put it. he smiles at you, saying that's always admired your work but before you can rescind your statement he adds, "just your work, not you, though" and now you're trying all you can to get him fired from set for hurting your ego.

↪ producer!lewis hamilton who always sends you back to producer!carlos despite your pleas to work with someone new because you cannot stand being the second female lead, you want priority! he smirks at you, shaking his head and saying the only way for him to prioritize you is for you to only ever listen to what he demands. his offer isn't very tempting, but you'd rather stick with him than carlos. that was the best choice, right?

↪ director!sebastian vettel that loves to dote on you while filming, praising your skills in front of the other artists who aren't very happy. he loves to guide you through a scene, hands on your hips as he positions you just the way he wants in front of the camera. he likes to inhale your scent, leaving a flirty comment about how amazing you are. you soak all his words, at least someone was giving you the attention you deserved!

↪ retired scriptwriter!nico rosberg who you keep calling to come back into the field so you could work on something together and create an academy award winning film. he's not very thrilled and likes to be left alone, being fed up with the lifestyle of actors and actresses. but when he sees you waiting outside his house in nothing but a fur coat, he might reconsider your proposal. he has some good ideas on what to do with you... scriptwise that is.

↪ film critic!jenson button that loves to write a new article about how your films suck. he gets a kick out of seeing you all riled up, storming into his office at night with a scowl on your face. he twirls his pencil around his fingers, tossing you another critique he wrote. he circles around you, asking if you liked his new paper. when you tell him he better write an apology, or else you'd ruin his career, he shrugs and pulls you onto his lap whispering "we both know the real reason why you even bother to visit me"

↪ retired actor!fernando alonso that's your mentor and hates to see you perform poorly on screen. he lets you come over to his house for some private acting lessons that's only for you and none of the other rookies. most of the time, you're always tangled in his bedsheets, the script for your new movie on the ground. he might be sneaky enough to have his hand on your ass when you walk on the red carpet, telling the media he was just guiding you to the premiere nothing else!

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cherry-coffees · 2 days ago

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gamer!Caitlyn hcs ♡

cw: 837 words | gamer!Caitlyn x gamer!reader, established relationship, fluff, PC games mentioned but these can apply to any type of gaming

Gamer!Caitlyn who isn’t a gamer at first. She’s never played a video game in her life, as Cassandra usually dismissed them with a wave of her gloved hand, saying there were much more productive things her daughter could be doing.

Gamer!Caitlyn first gets into video games because you really want to play with her. She starts to protest when you bring it up, listing her seemingly endless paperwork as an excuse, but eventually caves to your pleading eyes. She grumbles when she downloads the game on her high-quality hextech computer, but she doesn't really mind. Not if it makes you happy.

Gamer!Caitlyn smiles adoringly at you while you explain all the mechanics of the game to her. She can’t help it. You’re just so cute, rambling about the controls and how she can access her inventory. Though, being that she’s never played any video games, she assures you that she’ll catch up. “I’ll figure it out, darling. I’m quite good at investigations, you know.”

Gamer!Caitlyn who actually does figure things out. She struggles for the first few minutes, having bad aim when you face off against enemies. She’s extremely annoyed about this given her talent as a sharpshooter, and it only motivates her to become good. So she does.

Gamer!Caitlyn starts playing nightly after her fumble. She spends her time practicing so she can catch up to you, learn all the skills you seem to naturally possess. So when you spend the night at her place a few days later, you walk into her bedroom to find her with headphones on, furiously clicking her mouse. You jaw goes slack with shock, and you have to blink a few times to entirely process how quickly your girlfriend became a gamer.

Gamer!Caitlyn is so proud of her progress. Caitlyn prides herself in being a composed, proper woman, but she’s beside herself the next time you play together. “Look, darling!” She beams, pointing to her rapidly increasing levels and full inventory. She's like a child that wants to show off their underwater handstand at the pool. “Now we can win together!”

Gamer!Caitlyn who becomes better than you, much to your annoyance. You sulk when she outscores you in matches, teasing you with her proud comments and a nudge to your side. She softens, though, when you spin your chair around to face away from her. “Love,” she complains when you’re hidden from her view. She tugs your chair towards hers, spinning you back around so she can kiss your cheeks. “I should be thanking you. Without you, I would have never played a video game in my life.”

Gamer!Caitlyn doesn’t understand trash talk. She doesn’t know the culture of playfully fighting with people on chat, arguing about who will come out on top. So when someone starts chatting you gloating about a win, she is not happy. You have to grab her hands and pull them away from her keyboard, but by the time you do, she’s already scolding them for how badly they had performed. Even when you (gently) explain that it’s part of gaming culture, she sends you a glare. She does not tolerate anyone bad-mouthing her beautiful, beloved girlfriend.

Gamer!Caitlyn buys you any game you want. You fall in love with a new skin for an avatar? Caitlyn’s logging on to buy it the second you mention it. You want to go out shopping for a new game that caught your eye? Caitlyn’s handing you her card. The second Jayce tells her about the newest hextech PC, it’s in a package at your doorstep, along with a note written in Caitlyn’s neat cursive. “I have some meetings today, darling, so let’s play together tonight. I love you.”

Gamer!Caitlyn ensures that she’s still true to being a morning person. No matter how late she stays up with you, she’ll be up and ready in the mornings, leaving a steaming teacup at your bedside with a kiss on your forehead.

Gamer!Caitlyn who, on the flip side, loves staying up late if it means you get sleepy. She glances over when the battle ends, noting your slow blinks and limp posture. “Oh, my love,” she coos, unable to help herself because you’re just so cute. “Let’s get you to bed, hm?”

Gamer!Caitlyn sits you in her lap when you need a break. Even if you just want to skip a round to eat something or drink some water, she’s already tugging you into her lap, wrapping her arms around your waist as she hits the controls on her keyboard.

Gamer!Caitlyn loves video games because of you. Not only playing with you, but how your whole body lights up when you explain a game to her, or how big you smile when your favorite game hosts a special event. Mostly, though, she loves the bond it creates. She adores you, always has. She’d fall asleep next to you every night if she could. She just loves the layer it adds to your relationship: a shared passion that allows for even more time spent together.

Gamer!Caitlyn adores video games, but it all stems from her adoration for you.

Inspired bc I love video games (and playing them with people I like teehee)

Anyways! I hope everyone is doing well! Thank you for all your patience while I work through my mental health struggles and for all the birthday wishes this past week. My readers are so lovely, ily guys <3

~Cherry 🍒

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humiliatemeplesse · 8 months ago

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He got tired of his faggot boss getting on him all the time telling him that his performance wasn't acceptable and threatening him with being fired. So he asked him to please come over to his place after work and talk to him and teach him how to be a better worker. His boss got a self-righteous look and said sure kid, it's about time you got serious about your work before I have to let you go. When his boss got to his apartment he had dressed down to a wife beater and workout shorts and socks. He said let's go into my bedroom that's where my desk and computer are so we can work there. Instead, he laid on the bed and said "Get on your fucking knees you stupid faggot and kiss my sweaty fucking workout socks and beg me to forgive you for treating me like shit at work. Then beg me to accept a 10% salary increase for being such an asshole to me and expect that I'm going to do even less work than I have been. In fact, you're gonna do my work and I'm gonna take long lunches and long breaks and walk around and talk to my work buds all day and you're not going to say a fucking thing. In fact you're gonna come over here once a week after work and do this again and again, sniff my stinking workout socks and thank me for not beating your fucking ass and you'll give 'em a good massage to show your appreciation of me. I might even visit you in your office for a good sweaty socks foot massage and worship now and then you useless asswipe. Now start massaging and sniffing my stinking socks and beg, bitch."

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sims3fiend · 9 months ago

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Some dumb sims 3 updates/stuf

Or, how to develop severe brain damage in 10 easy steps.

Sooo… This is going to be more of a blog post than anything of any real substance, more of a whinge with maybe a few teasers for some stuff I may or may not release (probably not). Feel free to skip if you're after hot tips or coherent writing.

Stutter "fixer"

Sooooo…. The sims 3 has some stutter issueeesss… Incredible discovery, I know! I started looking at remedying them with settings, found some hidden settings that help reduce some of the issues but that can only do so much when the game was made in 2009 for 2009 computers.

So I had a looky at some things I thought could be causing it, mainly WinAPI functions because that's the easier route (h-haha…), and started to try to "optimize" some of the more common ones:

ReadFile: Was the first, and looking at the sheer volume of like 12783972198 calls a milisecond every time you move the camera, I thought surely I can speed it up a little r-right. Not really. I tried all sorts of… interesting things, file caching in memory, implementing the overlapped flag (took ages), etc. Oh and the performance increase? Literally nothing. It's called weirdly from wherever it's called and so we must suffer.

Threads: So, I had a look at other areas that were potential targets for speedup, ran an actual profile and it showed a problem areas namely threads and some other stuff I don't remember. ZwWaitForMultipleObjects and WaitForSingleObject take up a lot of time, so I very poorly attempted to optimize them, adding some timeout optimizations (and a bunch of other failed attempts). Despite being the most insane, this actually worked, and I got like a 40% speed increase in a very very niche metric that did not noticeably effect the game one single bit. I plan to combine all my failures into a single script eventually, maybe once combined they'll do something…

Actual insanity - Memory IPC: Then I had an idea, everyone hates e12, why don't we shove the games memory into another process and that'll fix it. No brain moment. No clue what past me was thinking, for some reason I thought you could like, access another processes memory if it was spawned from it, but uhh.. no, that's not how things work… I tried a few other things in a similar vein but it just crashed and crashed, so for now I'm just gunna work on:

Alloc/free mee - Current insanity: Currently, I'm still working on VirtualAlloc and VirtualFree (which is what I was redirecting to another process), but more from an optimizing memory usage standpoint than a… whatever the IPC thing was. There's a lot of things to try, and I've had some luck in some areas and some abysmal failures in others. There's a few promising functions calling VirtualAlloc/Free that seem to be potentially pointing towards memory leaks (004e54d0), but I'm too dumb to investigate that. At the moment, I'm going mostly just gathering more logs which takes forever and hurts my brain real bad.. On testing there's like 180 allocs that we could probably yeet no problem, which is like 750mb saved… Maybe idk.

I have plenty of ideas for deduplication, memory pool implementations to reduce churn/fragmentation, shoving things aggressively into pagefiles if they're not being used, etc. etc. Basically, there's a lot of avenues to explore, and I feel like there's potential… though I've definitely said that before and been dead wrong so…

Anyway, rambling over. I plan to release a dumb little renderer settings mod maybe-soon-ish that'll let you do dumb stuff that might be useful for reshade like turn shadows/drop shadows off and post processing off and on. I guess I could add max lots and other settings eventually too since they're static values.... Might also do a mythbusting post for some performance "tweak" stuff I see thrown around that isn't super accurate but I also don't want people to be angry at me so maybe not.

Sorry to whoever read all this, but also thanks :)

#sims 3 #sims 3 mods #ts3 #sims3 #rant #idk idk

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catalyswitch · 5 months ago

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Was talking with wife recently about AI and the ways it's incredibly stupid and I am reminded of the time a few years ago the Execs at the place I worked previously wanted to incorporate AI into our workflow in order to help materials development. They wanted to make sure that the company was "utilizing the latest technology to make us more productive" so they partnered with a company that uses AI/ML to predict chemical structures in order to enhance performance based on our desired properties. My boss and I kinda thought this was stupid when it was first announced, but we were still unprepared for how bad it was really going to be.

The problem of course here is that what a computer thinks is good and will perform well does not often make sense according to the laws of physics. So more often than not the computer would spit out extremely specific and nonsensical structures that it believed would increase performance. These structures could range from completely impractical to sometimes downright impossible to actually make, so for every set of predictions we got back we had to first filter all the nonsense and then select a set from the ones that could be made and tested in a reasonable amount of time. In addition, they emphasized that the more data that they have the better the predictions would be, so the pressure was on to synthesize and validate as many molecules as possible as quickly as possible. This was a huge drain on time and energy because again some of these structures were nontrivial to make. Not that the computer people would be able to tell the difference. But still the executives were excited about it so we gave it a try anyway. The idea was that we would start by making a bunch of different materials and test the results and then feed those results back into the machine to predict better structures based on the ever growing data pool.

The funny part of the story, of course, is that with every iteration, the performance got worse. This was not surprising to me. The mechanisms that dictate performance in this field are not fully understood even now, and there are still many papers coming out every year adding more knowledge to the field. Additionally, the predictions weren't being made using some fundamental understanding of the mechanisms at play, but by training an algorithm using a pool of existing literature. You're just not going to get good results by "midjourneying" chemistry. We did around 3-4 iteration cycles with them over that year contract and every time the performance of the structures that it had predicted were worse than the last set, sometimes dramatically so. And they would tell us "no no, the data set isn't really big enough to give good results yet" and "once the model has tested enough structures it'll get better" but it didn't in that period. And it's possible that on a long enough timescale it might be possible? But, the reality was that we had a whole year of time and resources essentially wasted because our CEO thought that some tech guys in SV could use AI to do chemistry and didn't believe us when we said it was stupid.

And you know what? We figured out something that worked really well less than six months after dumping them and getting to do it our way again.

#personal

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covid-safer-hotties · 9 months ago

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Also preserved on our archive

By Pandora Dewan

COVID-19 may leave some people with lasting memory problems long after their infection has cleared, new research has found, with the findings particularly pronounced among those who suffered from the earliest variants of the virus.

COVID-19 is known for its respiratory symptoms. But we are increasingly learning that SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes the infection—can affect our brains too. Brain fog, cognitive deficits, and loss of smell and taste are commonly reported symptoms of the virus and some report these neurological symptoms long after the initial infection has subsided.

Scientists aren't entirely sure why the virus causes these symptoms, although lab-based studies have shown that the virus can disrupt the protective barrier that surrounds our brains and prevents foreign substances, like viruses, from entering. Research has also shown that the virus appears to affect the ability of our brain cells to communicate with each other, producing either too much or too little of key signaling molecules in the brain.

In a new study, published in the journal eClinicalMedicine, researchers from Imperial College London, King's College London and University College London Hospital in the United Kingdom set out to investigate the persistence of these cognitive symptoms even after milder COVID-19 infections.

In the study, 18 consenting unvaccinated volunteers with no prior exposure to SARS-CoV-2 were intentionally infected with the virus and monitored regularly over a 360-day period. Their cognitive function was measured at different points throughout the study and compared to what it had been before they were infected. They were also compared against 16 volunteers who were not infected with the virus.

This type of study is called a human challenge study and offer valuable insights into the onset of diseases and how they develop in a controlled medical environment.

"This is the first and probably will be the only Human Challenge Study to be conducted with Wildtype SarS-CoV-2 in people who were unvaccinated and who had not previously had the virus," the study's lead author Adam Hampshire, a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at King's College London and visiting professor at Imperial College London's Department of Brain Sciences, told Newsweek.

He added: "It also is the first study to apply detailed and sensitive assessments of cognitive performance from pre to post infection under controlled conditions. In this respect, the study provides unique insights into the changes that occurred in cognitive and memory function amongst those who had mild COVID-19 illness early in the pandemic."

During the study, the volunteers who were infected showed statistically significant reductions in cognitive and memory functions compared to those who did not receive the virus. These symptoms did not emerge right away but lasted for at least a year after the initial infection. This aligns with previous research from Hampshire's lab that sampled data from over 100,000 adults.

"Our previous research has shown that cognitive effects were the most pronounced for people who were ill with early virus variants, those who had persistent symptoms and those who were hospitalized," Hampshire said.

However, in the recent study, these long-lasting cognitive impacts were even seen in those who experienced milder symptoms (although it is worth noting that this may not be the case with newer variants of the virus).

So, how does the virus cause these cognitive impairments? Well, we still don't know for sure, but Hampshire said that those who had been infected with the virus showed an increase in a protein in the brain that is often associated with a brain injury.

"Future research should examine the biological mechanisms that mediate this relationship, determine how they differ to those observed for other respiratory infections, and explore whether targeted interventions can normalize these memory and executive processes," the researchers write in their study.

References Proust, A., Queval, C. J., Harvey, R., Adams, L., Bennett, M., & Wilkinson, R. J. (2023). Differential effects of SARS-CoV-2 variants on central nervous system cells and blood-brain barrier functions. Journal of neuroinflammation, doi.org/10.1186/s12974-023-02861-3

Trender, W. et al. (2024) Changes in memory and cognition during the SARS-CoV-2 human challenge study. eClinicalMedicine, doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2024.102842

Hampshire, A., Azor, A., Atchison, C., Trender, W., Hellyer, P. J., Giunchiglia, V., Husain, M., Cooke, G. S., Cooper, E., Lound, A., Donnelly, C. A., Chadeau-Hyam, M., Ward, H., & Elliott, P. (2024). Cognition and Memory after Covid-19 in a Large Community Sample. The New England journal of medicine. doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2311330

#mask up #covid #pandemic #covid 19 #wear a mask #public health #coronavirus #sars cov 2 #still coviding #wear a respirator

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seat-safety-switch · 2 years ago

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"Hold on there, pardner. This here's a cognition hazard." said the holographic cowboy in the corner of my vision. He then took a series of poses that the designer must have thought looked heroic and protective, before flickering back to his original position and repeating the process. My artificial ranch-hand was not incorrect: the thing I was attempting to do would cause me unpredictable amounts of psychic damage, likely impacting my relationships with those around me and even my mental state at rest. Even so, I pushed the button and waited.

Software development used to be a sort of reckless task, undergone without care. Decades ago, hundreds of folks would cram themselves into a single building and then work hard on their computers to develop computer programs. Originally, these programs performed useful but difficult tasks, speeding them up dramatically for the varied needs of government and industry. At first, life improved. And then, as with every prior machine in human history, we looked for harder jobs for it to do.

A funny thing happens when a computer program gets longer than about a page of typewritten code. You have to hold a lot of it in your head. The best programmers could commit an entire system to memory, gliding through it like barracuda through a disreputable motel's swimming pool. We didn't know then how much trauma it caused. The doctors had no idea what was happening with all those isolated burnouts freaking out, moving into the woods, and hunting men for sport.

Watching the old newsreels now, seeing the 20th-century equivalent of coal miners delving willingly into fold-out charts of MFC inheritance diagrams, it's a little hard to stomach. It only took about twenty years of continued exposure to this kind of thing before the human mind rebelled, the manmade logical constructs providing a kind of sharp edge that ripped through sanity like a hot wire. Thing is, it still had to be done, and the folks who did it seemed to enjoy it up until The Void caught up to them too. So the government did what the government does best, and compromise. We'd all have warnings that what we were doing was insanely dangerous and life-shortening, and our employers would keep demanding that we heap more complexity atop ever-increasing mountains of irreducible cruft.

A good deal for all involved, especially the folks who got the contract to make the warning holograms about fifteen years ago. They must have loved their jobs, putting the little cowboy hats on them. You can tell in all the little complex details of his haunted face, begging me to turn back from my route to oblivion. One day I'd like to make something cool like that.

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episims · 11 months ago

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Foxfire ROS

After playing Foxfire for 9 rounds I've started to feel like I could use something to nudge me out of my routines a bit! For the next round, I'm going to try how adding random scenarios to the mix feels like 😁

I didn't find any existing scenario lists to be exactly what I wanted: more gameplay prompts that leave room for interpretation, and not so many strict rules or tasks or forced drama (my sims create enough of that as it is lol).

So I cherry-picked some scenarios that I liked, edited others, and created many new ones. A shout-out to @kayleigh-83 for this list that was a great starting point!

Night out: Visit a community lot after dark.

Bring your own basket: Visit a park with family or friends.

Movie marathon: Invite friends over for movies and snacks, or go on a movie binge by yourself.

Family matters: Invite over a relative or someone you share a similar bond with.

Fits like a glove: Wear a new accessory.

Games night: Set up a board game or fire up a console for an evening. PC owners can throw a lan party.

Burn off steam: Devote a day to exercising in any form.

Playing hooky: A child or teen skips one school day.

Online friends: Spend an evening chatting over the internet.

Fence-mending: Talk to a walkby you don't know or have a low relationship with.

Fertile ground: Get a new plant to your garden or other outdoor area.

Pulling strings: Use influence to your advantage.

Tired of cooking: Order delivery for a meal.

Peculiar flavor: The sim with the least cooking points takes the cooking turn.

Sprucing up: Choose a room or space and give it a facelift.

Touch base: Call the friend you currently have the lowest relationship score with.

Dine out: Eat at a restaurant.

New hobby: Try out a hobby you haven't explored before.

Broken record: Talk about your favorite hobby to every sim you encounter during one day.

Slumber party: Invite friends for a sleepover.

Power outage: Turn off all the lights except for candles and only make uncooked meals for a day.

Cloud over a head: Argue with every sim you encounter during one day.

Old gang: Meet up with the friends you have known for the longest.

Turn up the heat: Woohoo in public.

New ink: Get a tattoo.

Fresh air: Spend a day outdoors.

Homebody: Spend a day indoors.

Got the moves: Visit a community lot to hit the dance floor or turn on a stereo at home and dance until you run out of energy.

Make the bed: Change sheets for all beds on the lot.

Health concerns: Visit or call over a doctor.

All things are transient: Sell three objects.

Odd bottle: Consume a potion from your inventory.

Dig it: Spend a day treasure hunting.

Capture it: Take a picture and hang it on the wall.

Running on fumes: Have a cup of coffee once every few hours.

Reaching enlightenment: Meditate for a day.

Sugar rush: Prepare only desserts for a day.

Clocking extra time: Spend an evening on a computer either blogging, writing, or giving financial advice.

Dressed to the nines: Go on a date in formalwear.

Pretty lights: The outdoor areas of the lot are filled with fireflies for the round.

School assignment: A child or teen collects bugs for the round.

Stealing the show: Perform with an instrument or a microphone, freestyle for tips, or breakdance in public.

Devil on a shoulder: Prank every sim you encounter during one day.

Turning the page: Negative relationship effects are reduced for 48 hours and any existing fury states are cleared (get the 'forgiving' vacation benefit).

Meeting deadlines: Job performance is increased for 48 hours (get the 'industrious' vacation benefit).

Hot stuff: The attractiveness is increased for 48 hours (get the 'je ne sais quoi' vacation benefit).

On the ball: Skill, talent badge, and homework rates are increased for 48 hours (get the 'refreshed' vacation benefit).

Scatterbrained: Skill, talent badge, and homework rates are decreased for 48 hours (get the 'jetlagged' vacation penalty).

Bonfire night: Light up a bonfire with family or with friends.

Explosive entertainment: Throw a party with fireworks.

By example: Share hobby tips or instruct someone in a hobby, or find a sim who can share tips or instruct you in one.

Score points: Visit a community lot to play arcade games, poker, don't wake the llama, mahjong, or myshuno.

Self-care: Skilling is forbidden for a day. Instead, practice recovering activities like taking bubble baths, enjoying hot tubs or hot springs, getting massages, relaxing in saunas, or sunbathing.

Feeling chipper: Compliment every sim you encounter during one day.

I'll probably add these whenever I come up with new ones. Scenario ideas are welcome!

#text post #foxfire forest #ts2 #the sims 2 #sims 2 #*appears out of nowhere to post this*#i hope these will be fun!#i left out some obvious ones like changing clothes or hairstyle #as i tend to plan those in body shop

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inspofromancientworld · 13 days ago

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The Science of Discovering the Past: Geophysical Archaeology

By Glab310 - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=113524155

While much of archaeology involves unearthing artifacts, knowing where to find those sites requires research at the surface, as does mapping the site. Geophysical surveys help archaeologists know where to focus their efforts and help them avoid fruitless digs where no artifacts or remaining structures lie below the surface as well as avoiding the destruction of sites that are culturally sensitive, such as cemeteries.

By see above - http://www.archaeophysics.com/3030/index.htmlTransferred from en.wikipedia by SreeBot, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17210746

There are many methods used to map below the surface, some of which can be done with little training while others meld multiple methods for a more complete map of what's under the surface. Those techniques that are more specialized were adapted from those used to explore for minerals. Mineral surveys seek to know what is deep beneath the surface and archaeological sites are relatively near the surface. These surveys also are focused on larger structures that would take a long time to unearth.

Source: https://sha.org/the-montpelier-minelab-experiment/2012/03/

Various methods of performing geophysical surveys and reveal different information. Metal detectors can be used to find caches of metal, but they don't give detailed information of what is below the surface. They can be used to discover new places to focus studies on. They work by inducing eddy currents, or a looping current between the detector and the metal in the ground, which causes a change in how the current flows in the machine, resulting in a signal being reported to the user, either through sound or visual output. Many locations have regulations or laws that dictate how metal detectors can be used and the ownership of those items found.

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109641426

A more precise form of the this falls into two types: Electrical resistance meters and electromagnetic conductivity. Electrical resistance meters work by inserting probes into the soil through which electrical currents are passed and the resistance of the ground around them is detected, revealing the structures beneath as things like stone have different resistance than the soil around them. Electromagnetic conductivity is similar to metal detection in that a magnetic field is created by an electric field of a known frequency while detectors pick up the change. These detectors and currents are stronger than those of metal detectors with a related increase in size of the detector.

By Archaeo-Physics LLC - http://www.archaeophysics.com, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36404337

Ground-penetrating radar uses electromagnetic pulses to detect what is under the surface in a way similar to how radar works in other applications. The pulses are reflected off items under the surface and recorded by the detector. It's possible to discover how things are layered beneath the surface because of the differences in reflections.

By Cargyrak - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48685015

Lidar is an optical technique that uses light, usually lasers, to map the land. It has the ability to penetrate foliage, such as forest canopies, and allows features beneath the surface to be distinguished. This also allows features that are too large to be distinguished from the ground to be mapped. Lidar has the additional benefit of being easily integrated into Geographical Information Systems, integrated computer hardware and software systems that are used to analyze and visualize geographic data.

#geophysical survey #archaeology #metal detecting #ground penetrating radar #lidar #science of the past

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studyblr-perhaps · 8 months ago

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Misa Explains 1: Spintronics in a nutshell

A series of posts where I will explain bits and pieces of physics I have gathered throughout the my foray into this wonderful science. Warning, these will be long.

Highly inspired by @chemblrish and @minmin-vs-physics 's posts on their fields, check out their posts (linked on this post in various places!)

Wait what even is going on?

Okay, first of all, why are we even talking about spintronics, whatever that means? Now, we live in an age where we need devices, right? Phones, TVs, laptops, name it. All digital devices come under electronics, which is a cluster of what we call "logic devices" (verrry loosely speaking) with various functions, made with expert circuitry to create our sophisticated "smart" devices. Whew. That's a lot of words. But what does it mean? It means that the very device you're using to view this post is made up of very tiny mini devices, which are made to utilize electrical signals (current, flow of electrons) to make it store information, read information, or perform logic tasks ("AND", "OR" "NOT" and the rest. Let me know if you want me to explain those, but this is not the point of the post so I'm letting them hang in the air for now).

We store digital information in the form of 'bits' (I swear all of this is relevant, please be patient) which is a computer's language of storing and using information. If you've watched any show involving hacking, you'll see stacks after stacks of "1"s and "0"s on their high contrast screens in that radioactive green font (general older sister advice: don't use high contrast it hurts your eyes), these are bits and the basis on which logic devices work. Each combination of 1s and 0s makes a different information, which is the backbone of computing. Now, how these devices make 1s and 0s is again a whole course on electronics, so I will skip over it to just preface that they exist and that's how we make digital devices.

All these years, we have used semiconductors, which allow moderate amount of current flow from them (in contrast to conductors, which allow free flow of electrons, and insulators, which do not allow flow of electrons) to make transistors, which are currently the building blocks of circuit-making devices.

[here's a picture containing ICs (the bug-like looking thing covered in wires) which have tiny transistors inside them, and the LEDs, on which the lit ones are "1"s and unlit ones are "0"s. This was my project for one of my courses!]

In electronics, a very famous law called Moore's Law, states that for increase in tech and development, the amount of transistors in integrated circuits (IC) doubles every two years. This moves proportionally with the increase in use of semiconductors, because transistors are made using them.

Every device maker's main goal is to make a device faster, smoother, and more functional. Which means, more transistors, better semiconductors. Moreover, the smaller space occupied by the ICs, the better. But obviously there's a limit to how much we can decrease the size of the transistors. One is the technical issue of creating such a small object, which will require highly precise instruments which we are not in possession of/ not feasible in the long run. The second issue is the working. "Will a semiconductor keep it's properties when they layer is so small?" is a valid question to ask when we go further down in scale. In simple words: in the long run, improving semiconductors for transistors will be difficult. Moore's law plateaus, and the number of transistors doesn't double with two years. What now? We can't just stop developing better computing devices, not just smart devices, astronomy, medicine and other scientific areas also require reliable, stable and fast computing devices.

Which means we desperately need new materials (and techniques) for logic and memory devices.

Hold on, when's spintronics going to start?

Okay background information done. Now we move onto spins and why we use it. We know that atoms are made of protons, electrons and neutrons. Out of these, electrons "revolve" in "orbits" around the nucleus, which holds the protons and neutrons. I put "revolve" and "orbits" in quotes because essentially it's a cloud of probabilities and we have no clue what path it truly takes. Electrons reside in what are called 'orbitals', which are balloon-like spaces which have a high probability of the electrons being present in (@/chemblrish explains orbitals better here).

Now along with the "revolution", electrons also considered to have a "spin". We don't really know if it "spins" the way Bayblades do, but regardless, they have an angular momentum, which is classically something rotating objects possess (@/mimin-vs-physics goes more in depth on quantum mechanical fun stuff) Either way, we don't know why it has angular momentum, but we know it does (at least I have no idea if we've figured it out??). And in true human fashion, we see anything new and think "now how can I utilize this for my benefit?"

Years and years of research later, we figured out something interesting. The angular momentum which the electron spins contain, and the angular momentum of electrons in "orbits" can interact! This interaction is called Spin-Orbit Coupling (SOC) and it causes a bunch of other fascinating phenomena in quantum mechanics. One of which, is that it if we supply electricity into a metal plane, we can align the electrons and their spins in such a way that it causes a stream of current (remember: current is essentially a flow of electrons in one direction) with aligned spins to move into a different layer perpendicularly.

Okay but what does all of this have to do anything with Spintronics?

We're finally at the part where we can discuss what Spintronics is! We can use our now generated spin current to make electronic devices (hence, spintronics!). So, how do we make these tiny devices?

What we first take is a heavy metal (these are metallic elements/alloys with high atomic numbers, which have a lot of free electrons to use) and make a very thin film of it. (The procedure of making thin films is very interesting, and I will make the next post on it!) We can now pass a stream of current/electricity* parallel to the surface of the thin film, which will give us a stream of spin-aligned electrons bouncing to move into an upper layer.

For the upper layer, we add a thin layer of a ferromagnet. A ferromagnet is a type of material which readily aligns its spin on one direction when under a magnetic field (contrary to this are paramagnets which weakly align their spins, and diamagnets which weakly align their spins opposite to the applied field).

Now remember the electrons with their spin aligned which wanted to move into the upper layer? Yeah once they are given an upper layer to move into, they flow into the layer, bringing their aligned spins with them. This spin can now affect the ferromagnet's spin, and align it in either the direction of the applied electric field ( the one applied on the heavy metal layer. I'm marking it as * for you to check which electric field I mean) or directly opposite to the direction of the electric field. This alignment can be measured. The value doesn't matter, only the direction. Is it parallel to the electric field or anti-parallel? "Up" or "down"? "Left" or "right"? Or, in terms of electronics, "1" or "0".

And look! We now have a way to make a tiny device which can display values of "1" or "0"! We used an analog signal (electricity) to create a digital output (1s and 0s)! That is electronics! But because it uses spins, it is called Spintronics.

Because we use Spin-Orbit Coupling, these devices are extremely precise and fast. And the layers of heavy metal/ferromagnet will be in the ranges of nanometers (10^-9 m), so they are also extremely small. We can also choose materials with properties we like (high melting/boiling point, low reactivity) to create devices which can work in extreme conditions (high heat, pressure, reactive areas).

And here we have it! We've made spintronic devices!

End of post disclaimer: I am a Bachelors student and I will have mistakes. I also tend to exaggerate. So if I have made a mistake in this post, please inform me nicely in the comments or tags!

#this took longer than I expected but I was also thown from one deadline to another so-#studyblr #studyinspo #studyspo #physics #aesthetic #academia #studying #study aesthetic #misa's undergrad journey #misa tries #misa explains physics #stem #stemblr #women in stem #spintronics #electronics #I'll keep editing if I find mistakes #but for now this is going out into the wild (internet)

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mongrel-mage · 8 months ago

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A Spoiler-free review of Edge of Sleep

Fucking incredible. Like...9/10 and the only reason I say so is because there were only 6 20-ish minute episodes and I wanted the show to be longer and give us more backstory on the characters and such. It'll be a bit longer of a post, but rest assured that there are no spoilers under the link.

Main differences from the podcast, but still minor: the character of The Trespasser does not feature in the show, nor do Dave's story about the Moobles and the ensuing hallucinations he describes. However, I was satisfied with how they used the information from The Trespasser's subplot in the actual TV show, and there was a little reference to him at the beginning of Episode 5 that made me smile, so I'm really not that fussed about those things being missing.

I'm going to take a minute to rave about Eve Harlow, who plays Linda. What a goddamn POWERHOUSE of an actress, honestly. Perfect casting. She nailed a character who is tough as iron, focused, determined, and intelligent without making Linda come across as unnecessarily cold or unlikeable--I'll go so far to say that Linda was my favorite character (by a slim margin, but still there). Eve Harlow has an incredibly expressive face and eyes that convey complex emotions without relying on the same few expressions or overacting what she's feeling. I really want to see her get some sort of awards or accolades for her performance because she carried damn near all of her scenes.

Let's talk about Mark. I already knew that he could act well because I'd watched his other projects, but most/if not all of them have at least some level of comedy, humor, or character who lightens the mental load at least a little bit. We all know that he's a giggly bitch and likes to have fun, and there's nothing wrong with that. That said, I'm comfortable saying that Edge of Sleep is easily his most ambitiously dramatic project--there was a lot of raw stress, grief, anger, and pain that Dave Torres went through, and I was impressed at how well Mark portrayed it. It's obvious how much he tries and how hard he cares; it's so clear that this wasn't some celebrity vanity project. You can really feel the love and the energy and the care that he put into this, and I was, like I said, impressed at his range as a drama/horror actor. There were some moments and expressions he had in the show (namely in the first episode, when the people at the party are giving Dave a hard time about his sleep disorder and past episodes) that hit me unexpectedly hard. Amazing performance, Mark. I'm proud of you.

I also want to take another moment to rave about the makeup and hair department. Standing ovation. The gradual increase of the characters' exhaustion and general levels of dishevelment (the thing that stuck with me the most was Linda's makeup and hair, SO good) looked very real and read well on camera. Anyone who knows me irl knows what a freak I am for good practical effects/makeup, and I want to make sure that those artists are acknowledged and appreciated. I'm also going to throw in some kudos for whoever was behind the Elephant Monster--that thing was FUCKED UP (/pos). I love a Creature and it was sufficiently more disturbing than I had expected it to be, since The Elephant isn't given much of a description in the podcast. I'm not sure if it was practical effects or something computer generated, but whatever it was it was amazing. Hats off to the Creature Crew!

Lastly: I WANT SEASON TWO. GIVE IT TO ME. I WANT TO RIP IT APART WITH MY TEETH. I HAVE BEEN GOOD AND COHERENT FOR THIS LONG NOW GIVE ME MORE.

Also. I promised no spoilers and there shall be none. But that last shot of the last episode? fucking HAUNTING. Here's hoping that us catapulting Edge of Sleep to the TOP FIVE, BEFORE THE OFFICIAL LAUNCH, will seriously throw some weight to whoever can decide to give us a second season.

#the edge of sleep #teos no spoilers #no spoilers teos #review #markiplier #mark fischbach #dave torres #eve harlow #linda teos #teos #the edge of sleep amazon prime #edge of sleep #I'm FERAL FOR IT DON'T LOOK AT ME

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astroboots · 2 years ago

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Every You Every Me #8

COLLABORATED WITH @THIRSTWORLDPROBLEMSS

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x female reader

Summary: You embark upon 'a Cosmic Masterplan to survive' - Phase one

Word count: 6,600

Series Masterlist | Spiderverse Masterlist | Astroboot’s Masterlist | thirstworldproblemss’ Masterlist

[Previous] [Next]

Ten days have passed since your home was blown to a million pieces.

Ten days since you found out that there are multiple universes.

Ten days since you learned that your universe—the world as you know it—has less than three months left before it implodes unless you can somehow find a way to save it… and yourself.

Despite the fantastical nature of those events, you find yourself returning back to your everyday life, just as mundane and ordinary as ever, cosmic murder attempts notwithstanding.

The helicopter crash was featured across the front page of The Times by morning, and apparently no one was hurt. The pilot had somehow been flung from the helicopter into a nearby window and miraculously survived without even a scratch. The only real casualty was your every worldly possession.

After a personal calamity of that scale, you’d hoped you might be offered an extended leave from work. Unfortunately, corporate America stops for no tragedy.

The only thing you're offered is a very sympathetic email the day after with a gift voucher for Dominos attached. Then Sally from HR had let you know that, given the severity of your situation, the company was generously granting you three whole personal days to sort out your affairs. After that you were requested to return to the office—the second quarter of the financial year was beginning soon after all.

And so you find yourself back at work.

Back to 8+ hours a day spent sitting in your rickety office chair, killing your eyesight in front of your computer screen as you pore over excel sheets. Back to the same old boring one-on-one meetings with your boss, who keeps harping on about Key Performance Indicators, as if they mean anything. You don’t understand what the point is. No matter how key your performance is, it never seems to be enough to net you a raise.

“Our total revenue increased by 15% compared to last year, which is a significant achievement considering the challenges in the market, but I know we can do better if we just–”

You stifle a yawn, as you readjust yourself in your chair. It’s Monday morning, and you find yourself in one of the stale meeting rooms, with staler treats that you’re not even allowed to have because they are for external clients only. Your boss is right next to you, droning on and on about how she wants to see better results in the next fiscal quarter. All the while you’re trying to fight the losing odds of keeping your eyes open and the temptation of gravity that wants your head to lay down on the conference table for an impromptu nap.

“We managed to improve our profit margin by 3% by reducing overhead costs, but we need to focus on further optimizing our operations in order to–”

Out of nowhere, the sound of her shrill nasal voice stops, and for a second you think that perhaps, sweet mercies of mercies, the meeting is finally over. But instead she points out the window and says the last thing you expect.

“Hey, isn’t that Spiderman?”

Huh?

You whip your head around to stare out the window so fast you nearly give yourself whiplash, and the sight that greets you is nearly enough to give you a heart attack on the spot.

Oh, it’s Spiderman alright. Your Spiderman.

Your maybe-vampire-but-maybe-not (he hasn’t combusted in sunlight yet, but then again he wears a full-body spandex suit) Spiderman.

Your Spiderman is right there in front of you in plain sight on the outside of the building, plastered to the wide wall-to-wall meeting room window. That dark blue super suit with the angry red spider emblazoned on his chest like a neon sign screaming: ‘Here I am!’

Your boss skips closer to the window in giddy excitement, until the two of them are only about a feet away from each other separated by a half an inch of glass.

“Look, his suit is different! I wonder if it’s an upgrade?” she exclaims, tilting her head to study him from the window. “He sure is a lot bigger in person, isn’t he?”

You feel the blood drain from your face, and the whole of your back breaks out in cold clammy sweat against your blouse. Doing your best to act normal, you force yourself to stay seated in your chair despite the shrill scream ringing in your head and the way your heart is threatening to leap right out of your throat.

What the hell does he think he’s doing!?

Thank fuck your boss still has her back to you, too enthralled by the unexpected superhero sighting to pay attention to anything else. You take advantage of her distraction to gesture frantically at Miguel, waving him away with as covert of a shooing motion as you can manage and praying that he’ll take the hint.

You know he sees you because the triangular outlines of his eyes narrow into annoyed slits and then he turns his face away as if offended, refusing to look at you. But at least he finally moves, leaping into the air and disappearing out of the sight of the window.

“Oh, shoot! There he goes again,” your boss says, letting out a long, loud sigh as if even she doesn’t want to go back to listening to her own voice for the rest of this meeting. “Well, back to work. Guess that was the excitement for the day.”

Scratch what you were saying before. There are no more completely mundane days. Not now that Miguel O’Hara has entered your life.

Once upon a time, your biggest dilemma with him was that he was avoiding you, refusing all your attempts to force a face-to-face meeting. Now you find yourself in the strange position of having the opposite problem.

True to his promise, Miguel is always there to protect you.

In fact, he’s just plain always there.

Never more than 10 feet away, regardless of where you go. He’s the last thing you see… or rather, hear before you go to sleep, his incessant snoring reverberating off the walls of your shared hotel room. Then, when you wake, it’s to his big 6’9” frame draped across the tiny velvet sofa, his long legs sticking off the end and hanging out into the room.

Miguel hovers over you when you eat, in case you get another piece of toast stuck in your throat and he needs to do the Heimlich maneuver on you again. Or, like that one time last week, in case you developed another hitherto completely undiscovered food allergy and have to be rushed to the ER. He is constantly on alert, eyes glued to you at all times.

Miguel comes with you when you go grocery shopping at the corner bodega. Sticking close to your back in the cramped aisles, lest one of the shelves fall over and bury you under crates of Lucky Charms and Fruit Loops… again. He has a sneaky habit of covertly dropping the most nutritiously questionable grocery items in your basket: jellied donuts, sugar-frosted pop tarts, fun dip and jolly ranchers. He eats like a five year old who has too much pocket money and no understanding of the food pyramid. It’s worrying to watch and you definitely google diabetes risk for spiders at least once, but the internet has nothing helpful to offer on that front.

Even when you’re relaxing in the luxury hotel suite that’s become your home, flipping through Tik Tok-edits on your iPhone (the newest model, which Lyla snagged for you!) or catching up on Netflix, Miguel is always right there. Not two steps away from you, looking over your shoulder.

Being the constant center of Miguel's attention is… disconcerting. You know it’s because he’s watching for the next random disaster to strike, but having his eyes on you nonstop leaves you feeling uncomfortably aware of him all the time. Especially when you’re trying to watch Bridgerton on your new macbook pro (also courtesy Lyla) and an R-rated scene comes on. You’ve resorted to having Lyla order books and magazines for him in an attempt to keep him occupied, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference.

It’s so bad that you can barely go to the bathroom without Miguel guarding the door like a zealous German Shepherd, his back plastered to the nearest wall when you emerge. You try not to let the lack of privacy bother you… or to think about the fact that his spidey-supersenses probably let him hear everything.

The only place Miguel doesn’t come with you is when you go to work, because he doesn’t have the clearance needed to get into the building—tourists and non-personnel aren’t allowed any further than the lobby. It doesn’t stop him from climbing the walls of the building and hanging around outside the 44th floor though. You know he’s there because, you see his shadow blurring at the window whenever you get up to get more coffee or unstick the paper jammed in the printer.

It’s an adjustment, but for all the madness that comes with the package, having Miguel around does make you feel safe.

Time always seems to pass too quickly when there’s a deadline approaching.

The problem is that right now the due it’s not the date of a school assignment or some work project that you’re worrying about. And if you take too long, the consequences will be much worse than a lower grade or a slap on the wrist. If you fail to meet this deadline, it will be the end of the world—not just as you know it, but for everyone in your entire universe.

A week ago you had been dauntless, facing Miguel down across the table at Starbucks and announcing that you intended to fight cosmically impossible odds in order to live. Bold even, when you’d confidently declared that the only thing you needed was three months and his protection from the universe's murder attempts to make that happen.

In retrospect, you might have been less dauntless and more… delusional, because so far the only real progress you've made is drawing up a Master Plan, complete with a bullet point list and no idea if any of it is actually going to accomplish anything.

'A Cosmic Masterplan to survive' - Phase one

Step 1: Personal history:

Identify past wrongdoings

Determine if they could explain cosmic retaliation

Step 2: Analyze incident patterns:

Study recurring near death incidents

Identify commonalities and patterns

Determine strategies to stop or prevent future occurrences

Step 3: Research genealogy:

Explore family history

Investigate any ancestors who may have incurred celestial grudges

Determine if these grudges extend to descendants

Step 4: Examine past life wrongdoings:

Establish if reincarnation is real

Investigate potential past life transgressions

Assess if they correlate with current cosmic retaliation

Step 5: Seek cosmic expert assistance:

Consider approaching Dr. Strange for guidance

Request expertise in understanding cosmic phenomena

Things had started out okay.

You completed Step 1 in less than a day, quickly compiling a list of all the people you’d wronged in your lifetime. Anything that might make the universe want to intervene on their behalf and dole out some karma against you.

So far, your life's most egregious crimes include:

That time when you wet the bed during a sleepover when you were six and blamed it on your friend Sally Jenkins.

The night you bailed out in the middle of a date with a dentist from Tinder who insisted on ordering for you and kept talking about Alpha and Betas. (It was only after a very confusing and awkward conversation that you realized he was not talking about the omegaverse). You’re pretty sure you did both of you a favor when you told him you were going to use the bathroom before dessert and took off without saying goodbye instead.

That summer you brought only chocolate with coconut back to share with your coworkers after your vacation in Canada so that Matt in accounting (who always steals your yogurt out of the office fridge) couldn’t have any because he's allergic to coconut.

Are those the actions of a good person? Probably not.

Are they petty? Oh yeah.

Are they bad enough to justify karmic retaliation from the universe in the form of death? You doubt it.

As for Step 2, despite all the near death experiences you've had recently, there doesn’t seem to be any discernible pattern that could help you predict or prevent future incidents. After all it’s a bit difficult to predict that an impromptu mounted police parade would take place near your office, only for there to be a wild stampede of panicky horses that tried to mow you over.

Step 3 of your plan? Another dud.

Your family line is made up of uncles working blue-collar jobs at warehouses, aunties who pester you about being single, one grandfather who likes to talk about how things were better in the old days and a grandmother who likes to complain that you never call every time you call her (and another grandma you actually like because she feeds you sweets and cakes when you go visit).

There are no skeletons hidden in your family closet. Nothing interesting at all except maybe that one cousin who claims to have hooked up with Leonardo Di Caprio at Coachella (unverifiable and unlikely).

Your mission to try to figure out if all of this is caused by any past life connections in Step 4?

It had seemed like a reasonable thing to look into, but how the heck do you go about doing that? You’ve put it on hold for now.

As for the final step? Your search to seek out cosmic expert assistance is still ongoing.

Contacting another Supe that has a magical expertise in the cosmic should be the most logical avenue. Doctor Strange is the superhero that famously deals with the magical cosmos stuff, so you figured maybe he could help in some way. That it wouldn't be hard for Miguel to reach out to him, one superhero to another.

It’s the one part of your plan you could actually take action on that seems like it might lead somewhere. Problem is, you've run into a big sassy roadblock named Miguel O'Hara.

Miguel flatly refuses to have anything to do with Dr. Strange.

His justification?

"Hate that guy."

Repeatedly pestering him has gotten you nowhere, and it’s not like you, a random normie, can just rock up outside of Dr. Strange’s residence and ask for help because the universe is out to get you. That’s a good way to get yourself hauled away, like that guy from Colorado who was in the news last year for faking a UFO invasion with cheap props on YouTube and then camping out outside of Bruce Banner’s lab. Idiots like that show up from time to time, Superhero fanatics seeking the attention of the Avengers for some fake emergency.

Worst comes to worst, you could probably just stand outside Doctor Strange’s house until something tries to kill you again and hope that he’ll notice, but you’re not sure the universe won’t thwart you on purpose. Probably not the best use of your limited time, especially since you’re out of PTO.

For now, you’re hoping to change Miguel’s mind through sheer persistence, but given how stubborn the man is, that might be more of a lost cause than trying to thwart the universe itself.

It’s payday today, and you’ve decided to take Miguel to dinner in Chinatown as thanks for the man’s continuous efforts in saving your life.

As touristy as that area can be, there are some good, cheap diners owned by grumpy Cantonese families that serve large enough portions to feed this horse of a man.

It’s not entirely selfless. You’re tired of being cooped up in the hotel room as soon as you get off work, and you want to stretch your legs. You’re also hoping that stuffing Miguel full of food will make him more receptive to the next round of your arguments in favor of Step 5 of your Cosmic Masterplan.

But you’ve been here for two hours now, and you’re not sure Miguel knows the meaning of the word full.

He’s ordered egg tarts by the dozen. Crispy fried seafood noodles drenched in sweet cornstarch slurry. Deep fried turnip cakes soaked in sweet soy sauce. Beef Ho Fun. Every other dish is deep fried and slathered in XO sauce, and you are starting to be genuinely concerned about his cardiovascular health as you watch him shovel it down his maw, barely pausing to chew as he goes.

At least he looks happy while eating? Endearingly so. It’s the only time you’ve seen him relaxed and finally drop his guard a little bit, though you’re sure he’s still aware of every minute detail in his surroundings. You decide it’s better not to say anything since scolding him about being a glutton would be like the pot name calling the kettle. Your wolfish food habits is a shared hobby you have with Miguel at this point.

“What’s wrong with the egg tarts?” you ask, eyeing the plate that lies still untouched on the table, the only food to have escaped Miguel’s massacre. Given how sweet they are, you would have expected him to inhale them within seconds.

“I ordered them for you,” he says, not slowing down as he spears more food onto his plate. “Your favorite, right?”

You nod slowly and reach for one, touched by the gesture but not sure what to say.

There’s a fleck of sauce smudged on his cheek, a stray rice grain on his nose. He looks like any other civilian as he scarfs down the food in quick succession.

Out of his super suit, he looks different. He’s partial to oversized clothes that makes him look oddly gangly even with his build. You’ve caught him with glasses on more than once, even though you’re pretty sure he’s mentioned that supersight is one of the things he’s gifted with. You can’t help but wonder if he wears them out of a sense of habit or if it’s a conscious fashion choice. Probably the former, given what you’ve seen him wear so far—fashion doesn’t seem to be one of his fortes. All in all, it makes him look like a much homelier person with a slightly nerdy vibe than the handsome superhero when he’s on the job.

He’s softer without the supersuit. Still scowling, but it’s less intimidating when he’s doing it wearing a big hoodie with dumb logos printed across his chest.

It’s still odd seeing Rude Spiderman in these domestic settings, but you think you prefer him like this.

“How’s your plan coming along?” he asks, mouth full of fried rice as he’s already reaching for a piece of char siu.

Of course, he has to ask you a question just as you bite into sweet and creamy egg custard.

“I’m kind of stuck,” you admit, the words muffled slightly by the pastry in your mouth. “I think we need to talk about reaching out to Dr. Strange.”

“No.” He doesn’t even bother to stop eating, still chewing with a gusto as the word emerges.

Nothing more than that. No reasons or explanation given, just ‘No.’

Irritation brews in your chest at his unhelpfulness. He’s throwing a monkey wrench into your cosmic survival masterplan, and he won’t even tell you why.

Too busy stuffing his face with crispy wontons.

“But why? He’s the only Avenger with an expertise in cosmic magic!”

“Expertise, my ass,” he retorts.

“Why do you hate him so much?” You slide the plate of roasted duck across the table, away from him, and that finally makes him pay proper attention.

Miguel is doing that scowling thing again, first at you and then dropping his gaze to glaring down at his rice and chopstick like he’s about to stab it.

“Because he’s an idiot. “Doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. Gives terrible advice.”

“He was one of the world’s leading brain surgeons,” you huff. “I don’t think he’s an idiot, Miguel.”

Miguel leans over the table, sliding the plate back closer to where he’s seated.

“Being handy with a scalpel isn’t a transferable skill to the supernatural. And he wears a cape. Only idiots wear capes.”

“Wait, what? You don’t like him because he wears a cape!?” you spit out incredulously. You don’t understand this man’s logic sometimes.

“Capes are impractical. Get snagged everywhere. No superhero worth the name would wear one,” he explain as if this alone perfectly justifies hating someone. He stabs a piece of meat with his chopstick and brings it to his mouth. “I will never ask that man for help again.”

Then he inhales the rest of the plate of roasted duck.

You leave the restaurant frustrated.

Miguel’s stubbornness remains as immovable as stone, and this big red and blue boulder has left you stuck at a dead end roadblock in the middle of a street, one you don’t know how to get around. He won't agree to talk to Strange, and you don’t know what else to do.

You need divine inspiration, or failing that maybe just… a hint. Something to tell you what direction to go in. Some kind of a sign.

Deep in thought, you turn round a corner, barely noticing how the alley narrows as you keep walking forward. It’s not until a pile of crates in front blocks your path, forcing you to stop dead in your tracks that you lift your head to survey your surroundings.

You and Miguel are at a small alley that you don’t recognize, which is weird because you know this area like the back of your hand. Somewhere along the way you must’ve taken a wrong turn.

Just ahead of you, there's a red stall set up on the sidewalk surrounding a small rickety table with red cloth draped over it, a couple of folding chairs set up in front.

Above it is… a giant sign. Fortune Teller, it says.

Not quite the metaphorical sign you were asking for a few minutes ago, but maybe the universe has given up on subtlety for today. Hey, at least it’s not trying to kill you… unless fortune teller assassins are a thing. Shit, is the universe resorting to baiting traps now? You really hope it doesn’t start setting out poisoned cookies on window sills, because then it will be game over for you and Miguel both.

You look the stall over, noticing that there are no crystal balls. No tarot cards. No trinkets or ancient scrolls like the ones you see in the movies.

There’s just an old lady. Her head is cleanly shaven, shining slick under the sole street lamp in the alley. She’s wearing a thick robe with a blue shawl draped over her shoulders that seems much too warm for the current weather, and cheap oversized sunglasses perch on her small nose despite it being evening. That outfit is certainly a choice.

Maybe you should be more cautious, but what harm can it do at this point?

The fortune teller certainly looks harmless and frail with her big round cheeks, sitting on a small stool. Even though she looks nothing like her, she makes you think of your grandmother—the one you actually like to call. The grandma who always has cookies stashed away for you when you come to visit.

Maybe she can give you a reading of who you were in your past life.

Maybe she can give you a protection amulet to make the universe chill the fuck out for a while.

Maybe she can burn some incense that will make you relax and get rid of the migraine you've gotten since the universe decided to murder you.

"Miguel." You tug at the lapel of his jacket, and point in the direction of the sign.

He turns around, scanning the space and then his eyes narrow disapprovingly.

"Fortune… teller,” Miguel reads off the sign in a slow skeptic drawl. He doesn't need to say more to express his complete and utter disdain, but that doesn’t stop him.

"You know it's all a scam right? People like this can't actually tell the future. They have no supernatural powers. What they do is cold reading."

It’s entirely unsurprising Miguel doesn't like the idea. There are a lot of things Miguel doesn’t like.

"What else do you propose we do?"

"Ask someone with actual skills who can help us?"

"You were the one who shot down the idea of asking Doctor Strange for help," you remind him.

"I don’t want his help," Miguel shoots back, grimacing as though the mere mention of the name is enough to leave a bad taste in his mouth.

"Yeah, so you keep telling me." You continue on to the stall, despite your companion's strong protests.

The sweet old lady greets you as you sit down at the table. She looks even weirder from up close, her bald head abnormally large for her small body. You try not to stare, not wanting to make her self-conscious, but you can’t help but wonder how gravity keeps her head upright.

“Fifty dollars,” she announces the moment you take a seat.

Fifty bucks to get your fortune read!? Talk about highway robbery! You could get seven overpriced Spiderman cookies for that.

“That’s too much.” You shake your head, rising from your seat.

“Okay, okay. I can do cheaper,” the woman immediately concedes, looking nervous at your sudden outburst, and you have to bite back a smile.

That was easy.

“How much cheaper?” you ask. You know how this game is played.

“Twenty?”

If she’s willing to drop the price from fifty to twenty that easily, you can definitely get her to go lower.

“Ten.” You cross your arms where you stand, making no move to sit down.

“Are you really haggling over this? You were the one who wanted to do this, and now you’re going to cheap out over ten bucks!?” Miguel says from behind you, but you ignore him. It’s enough to have him there looming over the lady as you stare her down, taking a note out of his intimidation tactic book.

“Some of us aren’t made out of money, Miguel–”

“Fine! Ten, I’ll do it for ten,” the lady says over the top of your arguing.

She’s skittish in the sudden silence that follows, looking over her shoulder to her left and right, as if she’s checking if your loud outbursts have attracted any attention.

Seemingly reassured that there’s only the three of you here, she gestures for you to sit back down and then tilts her head towards you.

From behind her sunglasses, you can see that her eyes are clouded white from glaucoma, but when she raises her gaze to give Miguel an appraising look from head to toe, it’s obvious that she’s still able to see.

“Your husband is tall.”

You see Miguel go rigid out the corner of your eye and chance a quick glance up at him. His sour expression hasn’t changed but you can tell he’s uncomfortable from the way his fingers are gripping the fabric of his hoodie where the chain holding his ring is hiding underneath the layers of clothing.

"Can you do a past life reading?" you ask instead, trying to steer the conversation away from anything that might inflict further painful reminders upon him. "I want to know if I could have attracted bad karma in my past lives."

“No such thing,” she says bluntly, shaking her head, "You have no past life. Reincarnation is not real."

That’s step 4 taken care of, you think to yourself, and you think you hear Miguel choke back a laugh behind you. You’re not thrilled that he’s having fun at your expense, but at least he’s not sad anymore.

"Uh… okay…" You try to think of what else was on your list. "Then can I buy a protection amulet or something? I've had really bad luck lately."

The old granny looks you over appraisingly, eyes traveling from the top of your head as far down as she can see before the table top gets in the way, and her benign and friendly smile fades as she does.

"No," she says, eyes wrinkling with worry. "An amulet is of no use to you. Just a waste of money."

Oh wow, grandma is really dissing you right now.

She gestures her hand in a come hither motion to get you to lean down, and then pulls out a paper and pen and starts to draw an uneven circle with thick, crude lines.

"See here?" she says as she loops the circle closed, "This is all of us, our world"

Miguel is suddenly right next to you, hunching down and bent over the small table. You don’t know when he managed to sneak up on you, but he’s right there, so close his shoulder is brushing up against yours.

The fortune teller moves her pen inside the circle to draw a much smaller one, then a forked line sticking out of it, and another line across the center of that one. It’s so crudely drawn it takes you a second to realize it’s a stick figure.

"This is you," she points at it with a pen, seeming to admire her own creation.

Next to you, Miguel is staring down at the childish drawing with his hands crossed against his chest in irritation, his right eyelid is twitching. He looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm.

Even though he’s not saying a word, you swear you can almost hear his inner monologue, protesting the lady’s poor handmanship and drawing skills. He doesn’t need to say it but even $10 is too much of a price to pay, even for a man with infinity dollars.

Seemingly oblivious to Miguel’s irritation, the fortune teller proceeds to draw angry darts from inside the circle aimed at the poor you stick figure. Pressing so hard with her pen that the ink bleeds into the paper and the darts are starting to look like daggers. You almost wince when you see a couple of them pierce through your stick figure. “Outside interference has brought bad luck to you. It will never go away; it will follow you forever.”

You peer down at the paper with a sense of unease. Aren’t scam fortune tellers supposed to tell you what you want to hear? Where are the reassuring lies? Shouldn’t she be telling you that you’re going to meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger? Or that you were a princess in a past life? Since when do they tell you that you’re doomed to die over and over?

“So what am I supposed to do?” you ask.

“Keep moving,” she says with an unfaltering smile as if she hasn’t given you the most grim fortune telling of all time.

You lean back in your seat deflated. Scam or not, the prognosis isn’t looking good for you right now.

The lady ducks under her desk, and is sorting through a pile of junk paper, before she pops back up again. She shoves something into your hands, and leans over to you with a piercing gaze in her milky-white eyes. “The man who will help you lives here.”

Hope sparks bright in your chest at her words. Finally, a lead! Someone who can help you! You can’t believe your random decision to stop has given you the first clue that might actually lead somewhere!

You look down at what she’s given you. It's a pamphlet map of New York. Yellow and bright, the title reads: ‘Star Maps of Celebrity Homes.’ One of those cheap plastic ones they hand out with the tour buses.

The hope that had been building in your chest deflates, popping like a cheap balloon.

You make yourself scan the tacky star map for any clues as to who she means, but you you don’t see anything to lift you out of your disappointment. As much as you love Robert De Niro and Whoopi Goldberg and would love to get their autographs, you don’t think any of the people on this map are in any position to help you.

You sigh.

Ok, maybe Miguel was right. The fortune teller was a bust. What a waste of money.

From behind you, you can already hear the rustle of movement from him, as he’s stepping away.

“Come on, Cielito,” he says as he nods his head in the direction towards the exit of the alley.

The fortune teller grabs your hands in hers, as she leans in closer to your ear and whispers, as if trying to be out of earshot of Miguel. “Be careful with that one. He’s not from around here.”

Back at the hotel, you plop down on the ridiculously wide and fluffy bed, but not even the luxury of your surroundings can lift your spirits. You’re still uncomfortably full from dinner. The overload of delicious egg tarts sit like lead in your stomach, weighing you down.

Wasn’t there a Swedish king at some point who ate too many sweet buns and died of a burst stomach? Wouldn’t it be ironic if, after all the calamity and disasters you’ve escaped, your gluttony was the thing that ended you? You don’t think anyone who knows you would be surprised to read ‘died from eating too many egg tarts’ in your obituary. It’s perfect. A stupid and meaningless death to match your stupid and meaningless life.

From the corner of your eye, you see Miguel drag off his hoodie over his head. You squint your eyes, pretending not to look as the tan skin of his firm muscled back is revealed to you before he pulls on a tight-fitting white t-shirt that pulls taut against his chest.

The free peep show usually makes excitement and heat thrill through your spine, but tonight it does nothing. You feel… oddly numb.

The lights go off with a gentle click, and then you are left by yourself in darkness with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company.

You don’t know what to do. The fortune teller had been as stupid and pointless as every other idea you’ve had.

You grit your teeth, sighing as you turn restlessly onto your side in the bed, stretching out your leg to make yourself more comfortable, hoping sleep will claim you so that you can stop these thoughts from running on a constant loop on your brain like the world’s shittiest radio channel.

God, you can’t believe you spent $10 dollars on that fortune teller, and got nothing to show for it except a crappy map meant for gullible tourists.

What are you going to do if you’re too stupid to think of any other ideas? Your skin crawls at the thought, a tangle of worry sitting in the pit of your stomach, climbing upwards and trying to burst out of your chest. You roll over, but it only seems to get worse.

Are you just going to wait out your time like a sitting duck?

You twist your body, squeezing your eyes shut. The thoughts won’t stop.

Are you just going to sit here doing nothing?

Are you going to di–

Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeech.

The loud noise startles you, and you freeze, suddenly aware of just how vulnerable you are with only the sheets and comforter for protection.

Oh god, what is trying to kill you this time?

Your eyes are wide open with a strain, staring off into the darkness like a deer in the headlights as you listen to the sound of something sharp scraping against the wooden floor.

It’s coming closer.

Fuck. Is it an assassin? Some kind of otherworldly monster that’s come to drag you to hell with it?

And where is Miguel? Why isn’t he stopping it!?

Maybe he’s gone, a cruel voice whispers in your head. Maybe he’s had enough. Maybe he sees what you don’t want to—the futility of what you’re trying to do. Running around like a headless chicken trying to find a way out of the grand cosmic slaughterhouse that is set on ending your life. Maybe he’s given up on you.

Maybe you need to give up too.

You’re too scared to risk making noise, but you can’t not do anything. You turn as soundlessly as you can in bed, rolling towards Miguel—hoping with all your might that he’ll still be there to save you—only to be greeted by the sight of his back closer than you expect, hunched over the lounge chair as he drags it towards the bed, the metal legs scraping against the floor, making the very sound that had just scared you half to death.

You dart upright in the bed, outraged.

“What are you doing!?”

Miguel looks back at you, then down at the chair he’s moving, and then back up at you with that blank expression on his face.

“Moving this?” He sits down on the lounge chair that’s now next to your bed, “I heard you tossing and turning. Thought you couldn’t sleep.”

There’s a pause as he peers at you in the darkness, then he rubs his hand at the back of his neck.

“Shit, did the noise scare you? Sorry, Cielito.”

There’s that nickname again. You don’t remember when it started or where it came from, but it’s something he’s been calling you more and more often. He’s wearing a wrinkly oversized t-shirt and a sheepish expression as he’s eyeing you, making sure you’re okay. It’s almost, nearly endearing.

“Why do you keep calling me Cielito?” you ask. “Is that what you used to call other me?”

“No, I didn’t call her that.” He shakes his head, the same aching longing in his eyes that’s always there at the mention of your other self. “I called her Nena.”

“Then why Cielito?”

He tilts his head down at you as if the answer is obvious, and then he breaks out into a small smile. “Because you keep falling through the sky.”

You stare at him in silence for a second, at the goofy looking grin he’s wearing. He looks so proud of himself and his silly dad joke that you can’t help but smile back, laughter bubbling up and out of your chest. His smile just gets bigger.

What a dork.

You lay back down in bed, still tittering with laughter, and there’s a comforting weight that rests on top of your head for a brief moment. It’s his hand. The touch is pleasant, his palm warm against your skin, and the comfort of it erases the last trace of residual alarm in your body.

“Just go to sleep already." The words are impatient, but his voice is gentle, and it makes your chest warm as he continues, “It’s okay. You don't have to worry. I won't let anything happen to you.”

He hasn’t given up on you.

His words drip through your insides and warms you from inside out. It’s comforting, the way a blanket feels wrapped around you in the winter when your heating is out. He sounds so confident when he says them. Like there’s no doubt in his mind that you’ll survive this, because he will personally see to it. The anxious chatter in your mind finally quiets, and you close your eyes, knowing he’s only an arm’s length away.

Somehow, with Miguel here, the impossible odds you’re up against don’t seem quite so impossible, and hope buzzes pleasantly in your chest as you drift off to sleep. It's the best sleep you've had in a long time.

~ Next Issue

Credits & Dedication: Love a thousand and million years for @thirstworldproblemss who had to finely comb over and beta-read and edit this chapter over and over and rubber duck i with me while I was fixing up the details. I hope that I get to write with her til I go old and grey and senile, because it is the most wonderful joy and experience and I love her so.

This chapter is also dedicated to the wonderful and talented @forwantofwill who was endlessly kind in doing this amazing, beautiful piece of art of Miguel eating cookies in the windowsill Thank you so so much for making this and gifting me not just with your immense talent but also your time!

For those of you who haven't yet please follow her! She's amazingly talented and have such a wonderful blog filled with gorgeous and amazing fanart!

a/n: to be notified of new writing updates follow astroboots-writes and turn on notifs.

#miguel o'hara x you #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara fic #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara fanfic #miguel o'hara fanfiction #spiderverse #oscar isaac #across the spiderverse #marvel #spiderverse fanfiction #miguel ohara x reader #miguel ohara #miguel ohara x you #marvel mcu

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