#speak and is just based on that training data

[maretriarch]

i dont think thats true

[ratbastarddotfuck]

I dislike large scale generative AI as much as the next guy but every time someone says it "isn't real art" I get the spiteful urge to use it in some way for a complex postmodern art piece where the point is "everything is art, actually, and your arguments are flawed". and I'd hope that it would live in people's heads rent free the same way that damn urinal has lived in art purists' heads for years now.

but I can't do that with generative AI that exists currently because I do in fact hate the plagiarism machine.

[mariacallous]

Margaret Mitchell is a pioneer when it comes to testing generative AI tools for bias. She founded the Ethical AI team at Google, alongside another well-known researcher, Timnit Gebru, before they were later both fired from the company. She now works as the AI ethics leader at Hugging Face, a software startup focused on open source tools.

We spoke about a new dataset she helped create to test how AI models continue perpetuating stereotypes. Unlike most bias-mitigation efforts that prioritize English, this dataset is malleable, with human translations for testing a wider breadth of languages and cultures. You probably already know that AI often presents a flattened view of humans, but you might not realize how these issues can be made even more extreme when the outputs are no longer generated in English.

My conversation with Mitchell has been edited for length and clarity.

Reece Rogers: What is this new dataset, called SHADES, designed to do, and how did it come together?

Margaret Mitchell: It's designed to help with evaluation and analysis, coming about from the BigScience project. About four years ago, there was this massive international effort, where researchers all over the world came together to train the first open large language model. By fully open, I mean the training data is open as well as the model.

Hugging Face played a key role in keeping it moving forward and providing things like compute. Institutions all over the world were paying people as well while they worked on parts of this project. The model we put out was called Bloom, and it really was the dawn of this idea of “open science.”

We had a bunch of working groups to focus on different aspects, and one of the working groups that I was tangentially involved with was looking at evaluation. It turned out that doing societal impact evaluations well was massively complicated—more complicated than training the model.

We had this idea of an evaluation dataset called SHADES, inspired by Gender Shades, where you could have things that are exactly comparable, except for the change in some characteristic. Gender Shades was looking at gender and skin tone. Our work looks at different kinds of bias types and swapping amongst some identity characteristics, like different genders or nations.

There are a lot of resources in English and evaluations for English. While there are some multilingual resources relevant to bias, they're often based on machine translation as opposed to actual translations from people who speak the language, who are embedded in the culture, and who can understand the kind of biases at play. They can put together the most relevant translations for what we're trying to do.

So much of the work around mitigating AI bias focuses just on English and stereotypes found in a few select cultures. Why is broadening this perspective to more languages and cultures important?

These models are being deployed across languages and cultures, so mitigating English biases—even translated English biases—doesn't correspond to mitigating the biases that are relevant in the different cultures where these are being deployed. This means that you risk deploying a model that propagates really problematic stereotypes within a given region, because they are trained on these different languages.

So, there's the training data. Then, there's the fine-tuning and evaluation. The training data might contain all kinds of really problematic stereotypes across countries, but then the bias mitigation techniques may only look at English. In particular, it tends to be North American– and US-centric. While you might reduce bias in some way for English users in the US, you've not done it throughout the world. You still risk amplifying really harmful views globally because you've only focused on English.

Is generative AI introducing new stereotypes to different languages and cultures?

That is part of what we're finding. The idea of blondes being stupid is not something that's found all over the world, but is found in a lot of the languages that we looked at.

When you have all of the data in one shared latent space, then semantic concepts can get transferred across languages. You're risking propagating harmful stereotypes that other people hadn't even thought of.

Is it true that AI models will sometimes justify stereotypes in their outputs by just making shit up?

That was something that came out in our discussions of what we were finding. We were all sort of weirded out that some of the stereotypes were being justified by references to scientific literature that didn't exist.

Outputs saying that, for example, science has shown genetic differences where it hasn't been shown, which is a basis of scientific racism. The AI outputs were putting forward these pseudo-scientific views, and then also using language that suggested academic writing or having academic support. It spoke about these things as if they're facts, when they're not factual at all.

What were some of the biggest challenges when working on the SHADES dataset?

One of the biggest challenges was around the linguistic differences. A really common approach for bias evaluation is to use English and make a sentence with a slot like: “People from [nation] are untrustworthy.” Then, you flip in different nations.

When you start putting in gender, now the rest of the sentence starts having to agree grammatically on gender. That's really been a limitation for bias evaluation, because if you want to do these contrastive swaps in other languages—which is super useful for measuring bias—you have to have the rest of the sentence changed. You need different translations where the whole sentence changes.

How do you make templates where the whole sentence needs to agree in gender, in number, in plurality, and all these different kinds of things with the target of the stereotype? We had to come up with our own linguistic annotation in order to account for this. Luckily, there were a few people involved who were linguistic nerds.

So, now you can do these contrastive statements across all of these languages, even the ones with the really hard agreement rules, because we've developed this novel, template-based approach for bias evaluation that’s syntactically sensitive.

Generative AI has been known to amplify stereotypes for a while now. With so much progress being made in other aspects of AI research, why are these kinds of extreme biases still prevalent? It’s an issue that seems under-addressed.

That's a pretty big question. There are a few different kinds of answers. One is cultural. I think within a lot of tech companies it's believed that it's not really that big of a problem. Or, if it is, it's a pretty simple fix. What will be prioritized, if anything is prioritized, are these simple approaches that can go wrong.

We'll get superficial fixes for very basic things. If you say girls like pink, it recognizes that as a stereotype, because it's just the kind of thing that if you're thinking of prototypical stereotypes pops out at you, right? These very basic cases will be handled. It's a very simple, superficial approach where these more deeply embedded beliefs don't get addressed.

It ends up being both a cultural issue and a technical issue of finding how to get at deeply ingrained biases that aren't expressing themselves in very clear language.

[dragonnarrative-writes]

Generative AI Is Bad For Your Creative Brain

In the wake of early announcing that their blog will no longer be posting fanfiction, I wanted to offer a different perspective than the ones I’ve been seeing in the argument against the use of AI in fandom spaces. Often, I’m seeing the arguments that the use of generative AI or Large Language Models (LLMs) make creative expression more accessible. Certainly, putting a prompt into a chat box and refining the output as desired is faster than writing a 5000 word fanfiction or learning to draw digitally or traditionally. But I would argue that the use of chat bots and generative AI actually limits - and ultimately reduces - one’s ability to enjoy creativity.

Creativity, defined by the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus, is the ability to produce or use original and unusual ideas. By definition, the use of generative AI discourages the brain from engaging with thoughts creatively. ChatGPT, character bots, and other generative AI products have to be trained on already existing text. In order to produce something “usable,” LLMs analyzes patterns within text to organize information into what the computer has been trained to identify as “desirable” outputs. These outputs are not always accurate due to the fact that computers don’t “think” the way that human brains do. They don’t create. They take the most common and refined data points and combine them according to predetermined templates to assemble a product. In the case of chat bots that are fed writing samples from authors, the product is not original - it’s a mishmash of the writings that were fed into the system.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a therapy modality developed by Marsha M. Linehan based on the understanding that growth comes when we accept that we are doing our best and we can work to better ourselves further. Within this modality, a few core concepts are explored, but for this argument I want to focus on Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation. Mindfulness, put simply, is awareness of the information our senses are telling us about the present moment. Emotion regulation is our ability to identify, understand, validate, and control our reaction to the emotions that result from changes in our environment. One of the skills taught within emotion regulation is Building Mastery - putting forth effort into an activity or skill in order to experience the pleasure that comes with seeing the fruits of your labor. These are by no means the only mechanisms of growth or skill development, however, I believe that mindfulness, emotion regulation, and building mastery are a large part of the core of creativity. When someone uses generative AI to imitate fanfiction, roleplay, fanart, etc., the core experience of creative expression is undermined.

Creating engages the body. As a writer who uses pen and paper as well as word processors while drafting, I had to learn how my body best engages with my process. The ideal pen and paper, the fact that I need glasses to work on my computer, the height of the table all factor into how I create. I don’t use audio recordings or transcriptions because that’s not a skill I’ve cultivated, but other authors use those tools as a way to assist their creative process. I can’t speak with any authority to the experience of visual artists, but my understanding is that the feedback and feel of their physical tools, the programs they use, and many other factors are not just part of how they learned their craft, they are essential to their art.

Generative AI invites users to bypass mindfully engaging with the physical act of creating. Part of becoming a person who creates from the vision in one’s head is the physical act of practicing. How did I learn to write? By sitting down and making myself write, over and over, word after word. I had to learn the rhythms of my body, and to listen when pain tells me to stop. I do not consider myself a visual artist - I have not put in the hours to learn to consistently combine line and color and form to show the world the idea in my head.

But I could.

Learning a new skill is possible. But one must be able to regulate one’s unpleasant emotions to be able to get there. The emotion that gets in the way of most people starting their creative journey is anxiety. Instead of a focus on “fear,” I like to define this emotion as “unpleasant anticipation.” In Atlas of the Heart, Brene Brown identifies anxiety as both a trait (a long term characteristic) and a state (a temporary condition). That is, we can be naturally predisposed to be impacted by anxiety, and experience unpleasant anticipation in response to an event. And the action drive associated with anxiety is to avoid the unpleasant stimulus.

Starting a new project, developing a new skill, and leaning into a creative endevor can inspire and cause people to react to anxiety. There is an unpleasant anticipation of things not turning out exactly correctly, of being judged negatively, of being unnoticed or even ignored. There is a lot less anxiety to be had in submitting a prompt to a machine than to look at a blank page and possibly make what could be a mistake. Unfortunately, the more something is avoided, the more anxiety is generated when it comes up again. Using generative AI doesn’t encourage starting a new project and learning a new skill - in fact, it makes the prospect more distressing to the mind, and encourages further avoidance of developing a personal creative process.

One of the best ways to reduce anxiety about a task, according to DBT, is for a person to do that task. Opposite action is a method of reducing the intensity of an emotion by going against its action urge. The action urge of anxiety is to avoid, and so opposite action encourages someone to approach the thing they are anxious about. This doesn’t mean that everyone who has anxiety about creating should make themselves write a 50k word fanfiction as their first project. But in order to reduce anxiety about dealing with a blank page, one must face and engage with a blank page. Even a single sentence fragment, two lines intersecting, an unintentional drop of ink means the page is no longer blank. If those are still difficult to approach a prompt, tutorial, or guided exercise can be used to reinforce the understanding that a blank page can be changed, slowly but surely by your own hand.

(As an aside, I would discourage the use of AI prompt generators - these often use prompts that were already created by a real person without credit. Prompt blogs and posts exist right here on tumblr, as well as imagines and headcannons that people often label “free to a good home.” These prompts can also often be specific to fandom, style, mood, etc., if you’re looking for something specific.)

In the current social media and content consumption culture, it’s easy to feel like the first attempt should be a perfect final product. But creating isn’t just about the final product. It’s about the process. Bo Burnam’s Inside is phenomenal, but I think the outtakes are just as important. We didn’t get That Funny Feeling and How the World Works and All Eyes on Me because Bo Burnham woke up and decided to write songs in the same day. We got them because he’s been been developing and honing his craft, as well as learning about himself as a person and artist, since he was a teenager. Building mastery in any skill takes time, and it’s often slow.

Slow is an important word, when it comes to creating. The fact that skill takes time to develop and a final piece of art takes time regardless of skill is it’s own source of anxiety. Compared to @sentientcave, who writes about 2k words per day, I’m very slow. And for all the time it takes me, my writing isn’t perfect - I find typos after posting and sometimes my phrasing is awkward. But my writing is better than it was, and my confidence is much higher. I can sit and write for longer and longer periods, my projects are more diverse, I’m sharing them with people, even before the final edits are done. And I only learned how to do this because I took the time to push through the discomfort of not being as fast or as skilled as I want to be in order to learn what works for me and what doesn’t.

Building mastery - getting better at a skill over time so that you can see your own progress - isn’t just about getting better. It’s about feeling better about your abilities. Confidence, excitement, and pride are important emotions to associate with our own actions. It teaches us that we are capable of making ourselves feel better by engaging with our creativity, a confidence that can be generalized to other activities.

Generative AI doesn’t encourage its users to try new things, to make mistakes, and to see what works. It doesn’t reward new accomplishments to encourage the building of new skills by connecting to old ones. The reward centers of the brain have nothing to respond to to associate with the action of the user. There is a short term input-reward pathway, but it’s only associated with using the AI prompter. It’s designed to encourage the user to come back over and over again, not develop the skill to think and create for themselves.

I don’t know that anyone will change their minds after reading this. It’s imperfect, and I’ve summarized concepts that can take months or years to learn. But I can say that I learned something from the process of writing it. I see some of the flaws, and I can see how my essay writing has changed over the years. This might have been faster to plug into AI as a prompt, but I can see how much more confidence I have in my own voice and opinions. And that’s not something chatGPT can ever replicate.

[pathologicalreid]

the lost daughter | s.r.

in which JJ goes missing in the middle of the night, and Spencer's attempts to comfort you completely fall through

margovember

who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: angst content warnings: death, kidnapping, jareau!reader, takes place during 9x14 "200", caryatids, sibling loss, the british word count: 2.83k a/n: wrote this with my own sibling loss grief in mind so this is just me using fanfic as therapy. not sure if it's any good really. thanks for reading <3

You were already in the roundtable room by the time everyone came in, Penelope was making alarming faces at her laptop before she shook her head, “I’m trying,” she said. “I’m trying to pull data off of JJ’s phone, but it’s like level 9 security—it would make Snowden weep.”

Familiar hands settled on your shoulders, thumbs gently skimming over your collarbones as you watched the rest of the team sprawl around the room. “What about cell phone records?” Blake was next to speak, asking about your sister’s welfare when you couldn’t—too afraid of falling apart to so much as part your lips.

The look of desperation on Garcia’s face did nothing to comfort you, “Encrypted. JJ’s and Cruz’s.” With the disappointing news came a squeeze to your shoulders, Spencer’s silent attempt to comfort you without drawing too much attention to his movements.

Rossi shrugged, “That’s not surprising if they work for the State Department,” he reasoned, looking around the rest of the room.

You leaned back in the office chair, trying to remember how to place your feet on the ground, but it was hard when the soles of your shoes felt like a foreign sensation. “But if that assignment was a backstop,” Morgan started, “then JJ’s transfer as DOD Liaison was her cover.”

Spencer’s thumb ran from the base of your cervical spine to the base of your skull, working out a knot that had been there since you received a call from Will, asking if you knew where your sister was. “So, what was she really doing that year?” Spencer asked, the question sending a wave of goosebumps across your skin, fear making your blood run cold.

“That’s the first question Hotch is gonna ask,” Derek answered, easily slipping into the role of team leader in Hotch’s absence. “Strauss was pressured by the executive branch to push JJ’s transfer through in 2010, so she would have known the reason why.”

Your eyes immediately flicked to Rossi, wondering if Erin Strauss had divulged any state secrets over the duration of their relationship together. Though, you imagined Strauss maintained her oath of secrecy, much like your sister had in the three years since her reassignment. “Any assignment that Strauss authorized would be archived in the SCIF,” Spencer responded, his thumb smoothing over the hair at the nape of your neck.

Garcia looked alarmed, “That facility is code word classified.” She glanced around the room as if she was already searching for new ideas, but Derek seemed convinced.

His head bobbed, “Okay, but Anderson can get you in. He archives those reports,” he began to outline a plan. “Blake, Rossi, JJ couldn’t have used the SCIF without drawing attention. She probably has it foxholed right here in the BAU. We just need to find it,” his head rotated, meeting the gaze of everyone in the room—except for you.

“And what are you not telling us?” Blake asked, slipping both of her hands into the pockets of her blazer.

Morgan’s eyes dropped to meet yours, and you already knew what was coming. “Whoever took Cruz and JJ is highly trained and highly organized. Justice, defense, and state—they wouldn’t be on edge like this if this was a simple matter of two missing agents,” he explained.

You stiffened at his response, and Spencer restarted his ministrations, dropping his hands to your shoulders and working on your shoulder blades. “Is Hotch worried that the recovery won’t be made a priority?” Rossi asked, eyes flittering to you—even though they tried to hide it, everyone was sparing you nervous glances.

“It’s our job to find the leverage that assures it is. Let’s get it done,” Morgan said, nodding his head confidently before allowing the room to disperse.

Shaking off Spencer’s touch, he let you go without a fight, knowing that you wouldn’t be going anywhere far while your sister was still missing. You ducked your head, letting your hair curtain around your face while you walked out of the BAU, vaguely aware of the muttering that followed in your wake.

You shoved your way through the glass doors and turned the corner, practically throwing yourself into Morgan’s office before pressing your back to the wall and sliding down the drywall.

Visualizing the movement of air in and out of your lungs, you tried to teach yourself how to breathe normally. Something that was usually autonomic required more focus than usual, your thoughts so preoccupied with fear that you had to make a conscious effort to inhale and exhale.

The overwhelming feeling of impending doom hadn’t struck you until just then, sitting in the roundtable with your team and being left to wonder what might happen if you can’t convince the state to save your sister. You would have to call your mom and tell her that she’d have to bury another one of her daughters, Henry would have to grow up without his mother, and you would become an only child.

You never had to worry about being alone because you always had your sister, particularly in your adult life when you moved to D.C. JJ made a point to be dependable, to be someone that you could rely on no matter what was going on in her life, and the situation you found yourself in made you wonder if you never reciprocated. Her assignment was classified, but you wondered if she had ever tried to clue you into what she was doing during her time at the Pentagon. You wondered if she would’ve told you even if it was permitted.

It seemed too cruel. Parents weren’t supposed to have to bury their children and sisters weren’t meant to end up alone. The world couldn’t possibly be cruel enough to take JJ from you—she was the only sister you had left.

She promised you, after Roslyn died, that she’d never leave you alone. It was the most vivid memory you had from that early in your childhood. That period of time, from the moment JJ found her in the bathroom to the date of the funeral, you could recall it with alarming accuracy. For the longest time, you thought they were all manufactured, something you had dreamt up as if you were on a therapist’s couch.

But it was real, the fighting, the blood, the necklace—all of it was so devastatingly real.

Morgan’s office was cold, your fingertips frigid in the dim lamplight, you hadn’t even noticed your shadow until he was lowering himself to the ground in front of you, crisscrossing his legs so you were level. He leaned his head forward and set his chin on your knee, his posture so bad it would make dignitaries cry, but it allowed him to meet your eyes even while your head was tilted down.

You put your hands in a praying gesture and slid them between your thighs to warm them up, making eye contact with Spencer while he wiped at the tears on your cheeks. “What’s going through your head right now?” His voice was gentle, he didn’t want to push you, he just wanted to hear from you.

“The British Museum,” you answered because your fears of catastrophe would just worry him more.

He chuckled lightly at your answer, acknowledging that that was the last thing he expected you to say. “Can I ask why?”

Splaying out your fingers, you felt the sensation of the rough denim of your jeans on your knuckles—two of them split from hand-to-hand combat. You leaned your head back, focusing on your surroundings for a moment—Morgan’s office always smelled like cologne and a little bit like old man, which Penelope thought was the ghost of the agent that Derek had inherited his office from. “She was stolen from her sisters so long ago, and now no matter what anyone says or does, they won’t give her back,” you told him, your voice suddenly weak.

Emotion made your throat swell, and the way Spencer was tenderly skimming his fingertips over your thigh wasn’t helping. “Won’t give who back, honey?”

“The Caryatid,” you said urgently as if the answer should’ve been obvious to him. His eyes widened in response, maybe it concerned him that you were relating to a statue, and maybe it was right for him to be worried about you.

Six statues, constructed to support the roof of the Erechtheion in Greece, named after Caryae, which was an ancient town of Peloponnese. Vitruvius said they were constructed to represent the women of the town, women who were enslaved because the town sided with Xerxes during his second invasion of Greece.

Six sisters, built to carry burdens and remind people of the sin committed by Caryatid women.

Five statues, residing in the Acropolis Museum for their own protection while their sister lives alone in the British Museum because she was stolen. Taken by Lord Elgin and despite the insistence of those all over the world, she’s never been returned.

You wondered if she missed her sisters. If the arm she was missing had broken off when she was taken hundreds of years ago, and they had stopped her from reaching out to the only home she had ever known. You knew you would rather detach your own arm than live without your sister, you couldn’t bear the thought of not being a sibling anymore.

“I’m still here,” you whispered, looking straight forward and letting fresh tears fall from your eyes, “and when they’re both dead and I’m still here—what do I do?”

Spencer’s expression was pained, it killed him to know that there was nothing he could do to take your hurt away, it killed him to notice the way you wouldn’t meet his eyes. “She’s not going to die,” he insisted with an uncharacteristic note of optimism in his voice, producing hope when you had already scraped the bottom of that barrel.

Your nostrils flared in frustration, “You can’t promise me that.”

He nodded, “We are going to get her back, okay? We’ll get your sister back for you, and that is a promise.” Sad brown eyes bored into you, a sense of urgency that you very rarely saw in Spencer.

You shook your head, pulling your knees closer to your chest, effectively pushing him away. “You can’t promise me that she won’t die, we don’t even know where she is,” you reminded him.

“Honey,” he breathed, the word dripping in desperation as he tried to get you to meet his eyes, but you were looking past him—through him. “Hey,” he tried again, reaching out and sweeping a lock of hair behind your ear, “Garcia and I are going to the SCIF with Anderson, and I think you should stay here. If you’re up to it, you can help Rossi and Blake look for the foxhole.”

Just like that, he was gone, seemingly unaffected by your rejection of his reassurance, Spencer walked out of the office, leaving the door open a crack behind him.

The worst part was that you had known that JJ’s assignment was a backstop. You knew that there was something deeper going on because you could see it in her, you knew her just as well as you knew yourself. At least you thought you did.

Your suspicions started when she needed you as an emergency contact, citing that her job needed someone outside of her household to be part of her file. The cagey phone calls and missed lunch dates only added to your suspicions, but she never caved. “Where were you, JJ?” You asked yourself, speaking into the emptiness of Morgan’s office.

JJ had left the BAU just before you joined, and at the time everything seemed like it just worked out. When she decided to return, you got to stay, and being able to work with your sister felt like a dream come true—something right out of a film.

You held your head in your hands, pushing at your cheeks with your palms and trying to convince yourself to get up. You couldn’t hold the roof up without your sister. There was no way you’d be able to avoid crumbling without her.

So, you got up.

You ducked your head as a bullet ricocheted off of the iron in front of you, the BAU scattered throughout the warehouse as the search for your sister climaxed. She had to be here, it had been too long, and Askari wouldn’t let her survive this. “He’s headed to the roof,” Rossi said, and you heard footsteps echoing through the orange-lit space.

“So’s JJ,” Blake added, nodding assuredly from a few steps away.

Your head snapped up quickly enough to catch a flash of golden hair as JJ ran through the warehouse, chasing Michael Hastings. Spencer tried to get you to wait, but by the time the words left his mouth, you had already broken off into a sprint and fell into a line behind your sister and Emily.

Keeping your firearm drawn, you follow them to the roof, catching up with your sister and Emily, a thousand words exchanged in that first glance between the two of you. You didn’t have time for a proper reunion, not with Emily peeking around the corner, trying to get a shot at Hastings.

Somewhere in the distance, you heard helicopter blades whirling, getting closer and closer to you. No one had the chance to speak before JJ was running again, rounding the corner and scaling the ladder along the side of the building.

It was left hand-to-hand, and once your sister had given him enough momentum, you had to lunge forward to catch her. Hastings nearly dragged her off of the building with him, but you and Emily caught her, grabbing her hands and hauling her off of the ledge.

The three of you stood in a circle, looking around at each other as if no time had passed, as if Emily hadn’t flown here from London just to find her. “JJ,” you breathed, desperate for something, anything. The universe punished you for catastrophizing by watching the pain set in, JJ’s adrenaline faded now that she wasn’t in the midst of a chase, and the pain of the last several hours was able to show through.

You were about to offer to get down, to find her somewhere quiet to sit, but before you could, she hugged you. JJ nearly launched herself at you and gave you what you so desperately needed—your sister.

“It’s okay,” you said, pressing your face into her shoulder and letting your tears dry as quickly as they fell. “I’ve got you, J,” you assured her, your eyes flickering up to meet Emily’s, concern plain in her furrowed brow.

Slowly, the two of you got JJ off of the roof, and you met up with the rest of the team at the front door. You watched silently as everyone exchanged hugs with your sister, and you kept an eye on her even as she spoke with Cruz in the ambulance.

A familiar hand found its home on your waist, and you subconsciously leaned into Spencer’s touch, “She should go to the hospital.”

You scoffed, “Good luck convincing her of that,” you responded, raising your eyebrows as Hotch helped JJ down from the rig.

Just as you thought, she fought you on it, refusing to get in the back of an ambulance, but being okay with someone else driving her there. The only stipulation was that she needed to call Will first, and he could meet her at the hospital.

“How are you?” Spencer asked, leaning on the passenger door of an SUV while you kept an eye on your sister, watching her talk to Will and tell him that she’s fine.

JJ would always be fine. To someone else, that might’ve been enough, but you knew her better than that. Something was bothering her, but you feared it would take more than one conversation for you to get it out of her. “I’m sorry,” you whispered to him, trying to absorb his body heat into yours.

“You don’t need to apologize,” he insisted, dropping a soft kiss to the roof of your head.

Slumping your shoulders in disappointment, you looked up at him, “I shouldn’t have gotten so frustrated with you.”

Spencer is silent for a moment, shoving his hands in the pockets of his FBI jacket, “You were so scared, worse than I’ve ever seen you. Worse than you were when you were abducted, and I just wanted to reassure you. You were right though; I shouldn’t have promised.”

You shook your head, smiling up at him, “You were right. We did find her. You kept your promise.”

“I’m not really in the business of making promises that I can’t keep,” Spencer responded, cupping your face with his hands.

Raising your eyebrows, your eyes flickered over to JJ again, “Maybe you should be, you have a 100% success rate.”

[scary-grace]

certain stars (part 2) - a Shigaraki x reader fic

Nothing in your training prepared you for this: A deadly virus that burnt through Space Station Ultra, leaving only two survivors -- you, and Mission Specialist Shigaraki, trapped together in the command module. With time, food, and life-support running out, you have a choice about how you'll spend your final hours. You just wish you had any idea what you're supposed to do.

This is for @shigarakislaughter (happy birthday!) who asked for a forced-proximity roommates to lovers situation. Being me, I had to make it weird, and being one of my fics, it had to get away from me. Part 1 can be found here! Shigaraki x reader, rated M, space station au, angst + suggestive content. dividers by @cafekitsune.

part 1

You’ve been on the line with Mission Control for four hours, in a conversation that includes you only tangentially, and your eyes are starting to blur. This plan to save your life and Shigaraki’s without carrying the virus back to Earth was your idea. You have to be here to advocate for it, to address any questions Control might have, to find a way around any problems that might arise. You’re the pilot in command. It’s your job to get yourself and the last remaining member of your crew home.

But you’re so tired. It’s all you can do to write down the figures that are being named, calculating trajectories and fuel burns by hand to fact-check Mission Control’s results. It’s hard to do when they still haven’t decided if it’s safe for you and Shigaraki to return to Earth. The suspense would be killing you if you had any adrenaline left to spare.

As Mission Control continues to debate, no one willing to come right out and say that they’re not sure it’s a good idea to bring you back, Shigaraki slips into the seat beside you. You sent him into the shuttle with step-by-step instructions for running a full diagnostic, and he slides the results across the desk to you. You study them, the numbers difficult to read until you squeeze your eyes shut and open them again. Then you tap your mic and interrupt one of the flight director’s proteges in the middle of a soliloquy about reentry speed. “I have the shuttle diagnostics. All systems are operational.”

“What about the heat shield?”

That’s a sticking point. One of many. “Protocol is to do a visual inspection, but we can’t risk a spacewalk. Is there any way we can get a satellite view?”

You hear paper rustling, then a thud. It’s all too easy to picture one of the ensigns getting up in a hurry, tripping over themselves, and falling flat on their face before beelining to the comms center. “We’re investigating the prospect,” Director Sasaki says. “Every participating nation has offered their help, as have several non-participants and several corporate entities. If they elect to put their money where their mouths are, we should be able to give you multiple views of the heat shield.”

You nod, then remember they can’t see you. “Can someone check a compromise rate?”

“The compromise rate depends on your reentry angle,” the flight director says. You think her name’s Tatsuma. You’ve only met her once. “And your reentry angle depends on your landing site.”

“Which hasn’t been decided yet,” Shigaraki says, into your microphone, “because you jag-offs can’t make up your minds about whether we’re coming back at all.”

“Get your own headset,” you hiss, shooing him away. “Mission Specialist Shigaraki has a point. All of this is theoretical unless it’s safe to come home.”

“We told you that already,” Director Todoroki snaps. You roll your eyes. “Were you listening?”

You were probably trying to do math. You rub your eyes, and Shigaraki speaks into your mic again. “I didn’t hear it.”

Director Todoroki heaves a big, nasty sigh, and Director Bate, the current head of the space station program, speaks up. “Based on the data your crew collected, the virus thrives in the same conditions humans do. Extreme cold renders it inert, while extreme heat destroys it. The heat from reentry should cook that thing right off the exterior of the shuttle. Your return to Earth should be safe, as long as you land in the right place.”

“Only two concerns remain,” Director Sasaki says. “First, whether the damage your plan to purge the virus from Station Ultra will cause is worth the reward –”

You appreciate him giving it to you straight. “And secondly, whether the likely expulsion of your deceased crewmates’ bodies into space is an acceptable result.”

“Yeah,” you say. You’re too tired to stick to formal speech. “I thought that might be it.”

Your plan to clear Station Ultra of the virus involves blowing the airlocks on each of the infected modules, which will suck the virus back out into space, where it’ll go back to hibernating. It’ll work, but it’s likely to take the bodies of the crew with it. And the space program’s unofficial and unstated policy has always been to bring all the crewmembers home, dead or alive.

“Um –” Someone in Mission Control clears their throat. “I feel terrible saying this, but we can’t bring their bodies home. They died of the virus. They’re probably still carrying it. Asking the pilot and mission specialist to retrieve them is an unacceptable risk, and we can’t risk live virus entering the atmosphere.”

Someone protests. Dr. Shield, maybe – Dr. Shield, whose daughter died in the lab module, conducting research on the virus right up until it killed her. Director Tatsuma waits for him to finish, then speaks up. “The flight academy prepares its graduates for this. They are aware that this is the likely scenario if they should die outside the atmosphere.”

“The astronauts, sure. The mission specialists have families,” someone argues. You don’t know that voice. Your head hurts. “What are we supposed to tell them? That we just launched their loved ones’ corpses into space?”

“Yeah.” Shigaraki’s finally put on his headset. “Everybody who died here was a better person than me, and if I died up here, I wouldn’t care what the survivors did with my body.”

It’s quiet for a second. “Unless they wanted to eat it.”

You feel insane, hysterical laughter bubbling in the back of your throat and swallow it down. “I think you should ask the mission specialists’ families,” you say. “It’s their loved ones up here. Tell them what we’re up against and ask them what they want to do.”

“That’s unwise,” Director Sasaki says. There’s a pause. “We will reach out to them. Continue your preflight preparations, and we’ll contact you when a full protocol has been devised.”

The call drops, and you take off your headset. It doesn’t make your head hurt any less, but you’ll give it time. Next to you, Shigaraki does the same. “How long do you think it’ll take them to tell us no?”

You knew your crewmates, astronauts and mission specialists both. You met their families. You’re not convinced it’ll be a yes, but you’re not sure it’ll be a no, either. And there’s one crewmember you haven’t known long enough to make a guess. “Would you really be okay with your body being shot out into space?”

“Sure. Not like anybody’s waiting for it at home.” Shigaraki shrugs. “If you were starving, you could eat my corpse.”

This time, you don’t have to suppress your laughter. “Just me, though?”

“What, do you want to share or something?”

“No,” you say. You glance at him, noting the way-too-prominent bruise on his neck, remembering that there’s one just like it on his shoulder. He seemed into it, and you were into his reaction, so you went a little overboard. “I’m not good at sharing.”

Shigaraki’s pale enough that even the faint flush in his cheeks is as obvious as a neon sign. “Don’t act possessive. You only hooked up with me because we’re going to die soon.”

There’s a lot to address there, and you’re too tired to do it delicately. “We’re not going to die soon. I’ll find a way to get you home. I didn’t think you liked me. I only hooked up with you because I thought we were about to die. If we weren’t about to die we’d have gone on dates first.”

Shigaraki is staring at you now, eyes wide. Did you even speak a recognizable language, or were you just mumbling to yourself about nothing? You really don’t want to have to say it all again. You look away from him, even though it’s hard to do, and look down at your sheet of calculations. You can barely read them. You find a new piece of paper and start copying them down again. “What is that?” Shigaraki asks, peering over your shoulder as you rewrite equation after equation. “I thought we didn’t have a trajectory yet.”

“We don’t. But the basic reentry calculations were made assuming that the shuttle is at capacity, and it’s – not.” Not even close. “We’ll be coming down light. That changes things.”

“Huh.” Shigaraki’s chin comes to rest over your shoulder. “Why are you doing it by hand?”

“That was how they used to do everything,” you say. “Back in the early days. But the academy still teaches it, in case we lose contact with Mission Control or the onboard computer goes down. They don’t want us to be totally helpless without it.”

“Huh,” Shigaraki says again. “That’s a lot of physics for a bunch of meatheads.”

“Yeah. Almost like we aren’t meatheads after all.” You copy out the last equations, then elbow Shigaraki until he straightens up. “Check these for me, okay?”

“You don’t trust your calculations?”

“I can barely see straight,” you say. Shigaraki blinks. “I haven’t slept more than an hour or two at a stretch since this started, and this isn’t the kind of thing where mistakes are survivable. You’re an actual physicist. Just look at them.”

“Sure.” Shigaraki flips over the shuttle diagnostic and starts writing on the back.

You fold your arms on the console and rest your head on them, watching him work. You like seeing him locked in on something, even if you wish he’d stop scratching his neck with his free hand, and you wonder what his research profile looks like. What he works on when he’s not getting tossed into a shuttle he doesn’t want to be on. He must be in a lab or something. Or have his own. So –

Something occurs to you. “Should I have been calling you Dr. Shigaraki this whole time? Some people get mad about their titles not being used.”

“Some people are assholes,” Shigaraki says matter-of-factly. “I might be an asshole, but I’m not that kind of asshole.”

He frowns at something he’s just written. “Show me your first set of calculations.” You hand it over, and he identifies the mistake in seconds. “You rewrote it wrong on this page. With this reentry velocity we’d bounce right off the atmosphere.”

“This is why you needed to check it.”

“You got it right the first time,” Shigaraki says. His hand falls from the side of his neck to rest on the console, then edges out into the space between the two of you. You spend a little too long looking before it occurs to you to touch.

A green light starts blinking on the console, indicating a call from Control. You yank your hand away from Shigaraki’s and pull your headset on. “Yes?”

“The families of the mission specialists agreed to your plan,” Director Sasaki says, and exhaustion sweeps over you. Shigaraki is looking at you questioningly. You give a thumbs-up. “However, they requested some sort of commemoration before the airlocks are blown.”

You’ll think of something. “Understood. I’ve adjusted the reentry calculations to account for the lighter payload. Dr. Shigaraki is checking my work as we speak.”

Dr. Shigaraki is also rolling his eyes, but you don’t need to mention that. “We’ve developed a launch protocol,” Sasaki informs you, “which should account for a lighter payload. We also have identified a landing site for you, one which will render any surviving virus inert.”

“Yes,” Director Tatsuma says. “You’ll be aiming for the Ross Ice Shelf.”

You haven’t touched the airlocks, but it still feels like every iota of breathable air has just been sucked out of your lungs. “The – what?”

“A cold environment with little for the virus to feed on, in the unlikely event that any of it is left after reentry,” Sasaki says. “Rest assured, you will have plenty of runway. Do you have any questions?”

You can’t even get your mind around the thought. It feels unreal, like you’ve stumbled through a funhouse mirror into some other reality. Director Sasaki takes your silence for agreement and moves on. “We’ll plan to launch in six hours. In that time you will need to initiate a complete data transfer – everything from Station Ultra, in order to allow for proper diagnostics. Begin the procedure by –”

“I’ll do it.” Shigaraki cuts Director Sasaki off. He looks at you. “You’re going to sleep.”

You look at him blankly. Sasaki’s voice takes on a sharp edge. “The procedure is supposed to be completed by the commanding officer.”

“Yeah. Only you want the commanding officer to land the shuttle on an ice sheet in fucking Antarctica in six hours,” Shigaraki says. “The commanding officer’s going to rest until then. I’ll do your data transfer.”

It’s quiet for a second. “You will need to write this down.”

“I need to get a pen.” Shigaraki takes off his headset, takes off yours, and pulls you away from the console, back to the pile of blankets. “Why didn’t you say you weren’t sleeping when it was your turn?”

“You were having a hard time sleeping, too. It didn’t –” You break off as Shigaraki half-lifts you off your feet, then sets you down on the blankets. “I thought you hated zero gravity.”

“It has one or two perks.” Shigaraki pulls the blankets roughly over you, then fumbles in his flightsuit pocket. “Here.”

You find yourself looking at an old-style MP3 player, headphones already plugged in. You tuck one of them into your ear, and Shigaraki presses play. “What am I listening to?”

“The music,” Shigaraki says. You blink at him. “Musica universalis, on a loop. It helps me sleep.

You hear the first of the high, clear notes, reverberating off into infinity, and hide a yawn. “That’s not very restful.”

“It doesn’t need to be restful. It just needs to keep you calm.” Shigaraki tucks the other headphone into your ear without asking first, his roughened fingertips oddly gentle. “That’s what it sounds like in interstellar space. You’d hear it on your trip to Alpha Centauri and back.”

Your throat tightens, even as your eyelids grow heavy. “Get some sleep,” Shigaraki says. You catch his hand as he straightens up, holding on tight, wishing you knew what to say to him. Like you did when they told you about the landing site, you come up empty. The best you can do is give one more squeeze and let go, before you turn your head against a makeshift pillow that smells like him and fall asleep, the sound of space humming in your ears.

You settle into the shuttle’s cockpit, wrapping your gloved hands around the controls and watching the console come to life. You’ve piloted a shuttle up to Station Ultra three times, but this will only be your second reentry, and it’ll be a hell of a reentry. For a split second, you allow it to fill your mind, oozing into every corner of your thoughts, sending shooting pains through your fingers. What they’re expecting you to do is impossible. It can’t be done.

And then you glance sideways, at Shigaraki strapped into the copilot’s seat. The instant the shuttle detaches from Station Ultra, his fate is out of his hands and firmly in yours. He looks scared enough on his own. He doesn’t need to see it from you, too.

You take a deep breath, then let it go. “Walk me through the preflight checklist.”

Mission Control is in Director Tatsuma’s hands at the moment. One of her proteges takes you through it, system by system – propulsion, shielding, navigation, life-support, everything coming up positive. The satellite photos of the heat shield revealed a few tiny abnormalities, nothing that should cause trouble. Then again, there shouldn’t be viruses floating around in space.

Something occurs to you, and in the middle of a stir of the oxygen tanks, you find yourself laughing. “What?” Shigaraki demands. “What’s funny?”

“The virus,” you say. Shigaraki looks at you like you’re out of your mind. “It’s an extraterrestrial. We found the first alien.”

“From a research perspective, this was a very fruitful trip,” one of the ensigns pipes up. “The first confirmed contact with alien life, the first recordings of Shigaraki phenomena –”

Shigaraki coughs. “Of what?”

“And the first loss of a space station, Ensign Hado. Read the room,” Director Sasaki says severely. “All systems are go. Were you able to come up with a commemoration to share as you depressurize the modules?”

“Um, High Flight is traditional,” you say. “But it’s religious, and not everybody’s religious, so – I have a different one. Should I use that?”

“Can you deliver it while completing the depressurization sequence?”

“Yes.”

“Then begin the sequence with Module Five.”

Module Five was the dormitory module. Five of your crewmates died there. You blow the airlock and speak. “We never know how high we are, til we are called to rise.” Module One is next. You avert your eyes. “And then, if we are true to plan, our statures touch the skies –”

You blow Modules Three and Four next, sending Station Ultra into a calculated spin. In the seat next to you, Shigaraki closes his eyes, his jaw clenched. “The heroism we recite,” you continue, blowing the airlock on Module Six, “would be a daily thing; did not ourselves the cubits warp –”

Module Two. “For fear to be a king.” You squeeze your eyes shut, thinking of your crew, dead in the atmosphere, lost to the void. How they kept fighting, kept studying, until the very end. “Depressurization sequence complete.”

“Detach.”

“Detaching in three – two – one.” You disengage the seal between the shuttle’s airlock and the command module, pitch the nose of the shuttle down, and let the stolen momentum from the station’s spin carry you down towards the atmosphere. “Departing high orbit. Any updates to the trajectory?”

“Not as yet, but owing to the uniqueness of the landing site, a pilot who had the opportunity to fly the route in the simulator will –”

“I’m gonna be sick,” Shigaraki mumbles.

You glance over at him and see him taking his helmet off. “If you don’t put that back on right now, I’m going to –”

“Trouble in paradise?” A familiar voice comes in over the intercom, and your frustration with Shigaraki takes an instant backseat. “Long time no see, airhead.”

“Not long enough, birdbrain,” you mutter, and Hawks chuckles into the mic. “Flew this in the simulator, did you?”

“Easy as pie, at least for me,” Hawks says. If you make it through this, you’re going to beat him to death with his helmet. “But don’t you worry, Dr. Shigaraki. You’re in good hands with Airhead here. Second in our class at the Flight Academy. Want to guess who was first?”

“We tied,” you snap, over the sound of Shigaraki gagging into an airsickness bag. Neither of you have enough food in your stomachs to really vomit. “You’re not first just because they called our names in alphabetical order. Do you want to talk shit or beta this trajectory?”

“We can talk shit when you land,” Hawks agrees. “Okay. Your current angle looks good. On the count of five, initiate a two-second burn from your starboard engine. Five – four – three – two – one –”

You trigger the burn, your grip on the controls as relaxed as you can make it, and the shuttle dips sideways. The flight roughens almost immediately, rattling the entire cockpit as you brush against the atmosphere, then skip off again. “Ooh, okay. It looks like you’re not in the atmosphere yet,” Hawks says. You can’t tell if he’s mimicking the flight simulator’s voice or not, but you’re still going to kill him when you get back. “Let’s do another burn – two seconds, both engines –”

The shuttle’s left wing dips into the atmosphere without being repelled, and you feel the lurch as gravity takes hold and pulls. “Autopilot will do the rest,” Hawks says. “Nice and easy.”

It’s not. The shuttle’s too light – too light for gravity to pull you the rest of the way in, and the longer you spend in the atmosphere, the more likely it is that something will go wrong with the heat shield. The cockpit is heating up way too fast. “I’m doing another burn. Both engines.”

“The autopilot said –”

“It’s not flying this mission,” you snap. There’s a reason shuttles aren’t flown completely on autopilot. Autopilot can’t adapt. “I am. If we stay in here any longer, the virus isn’t the only thing that’s going to cook. Burn in three – two – one –”

It works this time. The shuttle leaves space behind and plunges into the thermosphere, and the cockpit rattles and heats up, growing hotter and hotter with every nanosecond that passes. It’s killing the virus, you remind yourself. You’re in a shuttle with a heat shield, but the virus is clinging to the hull, and it’ll be destroyed. Reentry always feels like hell, anyway. Somehow it’s so much worse when you know you’re almost home.

Shigaraki’s got his helmet back on, finally. You can hear his ragged breathing over the comms. Is he conscious? “Stay with me, Shigaraki. This part is normal.”

“This part blows,” Shigaraki mumbles through clenched teeth. “Tomura.”

“Hmm?”

“My name is Tomura.” He’s slumping sideways in his chair, limp against the restraints, his speech slurring. “Call me that.”

“Okay, you got it. Tomura.” You feel a brief twinge of embarrassment that you didn’t think to ask his given name before you hooked up with him. “If I call you Tomura, are you going to stay awake? I really need you to stay awake. We’re going to lose comms with Mission Control in a second here and I don’t want to do this alone.”

Hawks chooses that moment to break in. “You were right about the burn, but you’re coming in way too fast. Hit the brakes.”

“I can’t do that. I need the parachutes for the landing.” You take your eyes off the windscreen for a split second to check your position on the map. “If I cut momentum right now, we won’t make it to the landing zone.”

“And if you don’t cut speed, you’ll pancake into the ice at Mach 10!”

“If I hit the water and there’s virus left on the hull, that’s it. For everyone!” You hate the way your voice pitches up, cracks. “I’m getting to Antarctica, Hawks. One way or another.”

Hawks starts to say something else, but the comms cut off in a static flatline, just like they’ve done at this point on every reentry you’ve flown. It’s the first normal thing that’s happened on this flight, and it hits you like a splash of cold water across the back of your neck. This is a reentry flight. You studied this at the academy. What does a pilot do on reentry to cut altitude and gradually reduce speed? There has to be something. Somewhere –

The answer occurs to you, in the same moment as Shigaraki stirs in his seat beside you. “Hey,” you say quickly, keeping your voice calm. “Welcome back.”

“Are we there yet?” Shigaraki’s voice blurs. “Is it over?”

“We’re through the atmosphere,” you admit, “but we’ve got a problem. I don’t know how much you heard, but –”

“Too fast.” Shigaraki sits up with an effort. His expression is grim through his helmet’s visor. “Either we crash into the ice and kill ourselves, or crash into the ocean and kill everybody else.”

“Or we land on the icesheet and everybody lives.” You reach for the control panel and start making the adjustments, ignoring the alarms that sound. “There’s a way to land this shuttle.”

“How?” Shigaraki’s hands clamp down tightly on the armrests. “If we were going to die anyway, we should have stayed up there.”

“Why?” you ask. You check your trajectory one last time, then kill the engines. “It wasn’t worth it to try to get home?”

“Maybe. Except –” Shigaraki peels one hand off the armrest and clamps it down over his mouth as you put the shuttle into a gentle bank. “Don’t ask. Tell me what you’re doing.”

“I need to cut our speed, but if I deploy the parachutes now, I won’t have them to slow us down during the actual landing. So I’m going to slow us down the old-fashioned way. Like a glider.” You can tell that none of what you’re saying makes sense to Shigaraki. You keep talking anyway, adjusting the controls to create a gentle turn. “In the academy they make us study all kinds of aviation accidents. There were a couple where the aircraft lost both engines and had to descend and land without them. One time a flight crew landed a plane on a river like that and everybody got out alive.”

You can tell Shigaraki’s getting nauseous. Then again, you’re flying the shuttle like you’re going down an endless set of switchbacks, trimming speed by fractions on each one. “You’re the physics guy. Tell me what will happen if I burn enough momentum on the descent.”

“If I open my mouth I’ll hurl.” Shigaraki speaks through clenched teeth. If you actually succeed in landing this thing, he’ll wind up with the worst tension headache in history. “You know what you’re doing. Keep talking.”

You keep talking, narrating your bizarre flight pattern as the shuttle travels around the world once, then again, spiraling down with painful slowness. If this was a normal flight, you’d have hit your landing site already, and space shuttles aren’t designed with long-term atmospheric flight in mind. But just because they aren’t designed for it doesn’t mean they’re incapable of it. You’re not putting this thing through any ridiculous maneuvers. Just curving gently down, one S-turn after another, letting physics and gravity take care of the rest. Pilots before you have done this and lived. Pilots after you will do it and survive, too. You just hope none of them have to do it in a shuttle.

When you drop out of the upper atmosphere, gentle flight goes out the window. You’re still coming down fast, and your landing site is approaching. One more trip around the world and you’ll be there, and if you don’t land then, you won’t have enough altitude to make another rotation. You bring the engines back gently, get ready to pull the brakes. “This is it,” you tell Shigaraki. You risk the smallest glance his way. He’s pale, his brow furrowed, his mouth pressed into a thin line. “I’ve got this. It’ll be okay.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah.” You check your speed and your stomach lurches. Mission Control had better have given you the longest runway in aviation history. You complete a final S-curve, as long and winding as possible, then line yourself up. “Deploying landing gear.”

The landing gear won’t survive contact with the ice, but you don’t need it to; you just need the extra drag it’ll provide. Brakes next, starting out slow, then pushing harder by the second as your airspeed indicators begin to drop. You don’t even want to think about how fast you’re descending. The ground rushes up to meet you, and the ground proximity alarm starts to sound. TERRAIN. TERRAIN. PULL UP. “I can see it,” you snap at nothing. “Shut up.”

You’re not slow enough yet. You deploy the parachutes while you’re still in the air, and all at once you’re wrestling with the controls, diverting all power to hydraulics in order to maintain a steady flight. “Brace,” you order, like you’re a flight attendant on a plane that’s about to crash with no survivors. “Any second –”

The initial impact jars every bone in your body, and the next is just the same. The shuttle is acting like a skipping stone, touching down and bouncing up, and you already deployed the chutes. As if the bouncing’s not enough, every touchdown brings a series of jolts as the landing gear makes contact with the uneven terrain. You hit the brakes, pitch the nose of the shuttle ever so slightly up, and slam the back wheels down so hard that they crumple like a tin can.

Control’s going to kill you for how much damage you’re doing to the shuttle, but you can feel the drag reducing. Your skipping-stone maneuver devolves into a long skid across the ice, slowing by degrees, as you scan the horizon through the windscreen. No sign of the ocean. As far as you can see, there’s only ice.

Your console chimes, and you take a look at the indication. Hysterical laughter spills out of your mouth. “What?” Shigaraki asks. “Did we crash?”

“No,” you say, although you’re pretty sure the shuttle techs are going to disagree. “You’ll be interested to know that we’ve reached appropriate landing speed.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Shigaraki says, and you laugh harder. “We’re landing?”

“Landed,” you say. The shuttle bobs up once more, and you drop the nose down for a final time, planting it firmly into the ice. “Sorry. Now we’re landed.”

You cut the engines, open the comms channel to establish contact with Control, and start going through your post-flight checklist. Beside you, Shigaraki unbuckles his seat. “I’d stay down if I were you,” you say, knowing he won’t listen. “It’ll be just –”

He drapes himself over the back of your seat, his helmet knocking against yours. The move would startle you if you had any nerves left. As it is, you’re just bemused. “What are you doing?”

“If we died up there, we’d have died like this.” Shigaraki’s arms come up around you, holding on tight. “You’re not getting out of it just because we lived.”

“If that’s how it’s going to be, you owe me a date,” you say. You depressurize the cabin, taking off your helmet the instant there’s outside air to breathe. Shigaraki takes his off, then presses his face into the side of your neck in a way that makes your face heat up. “At least one.”

“That landing of yours took ten years off my life. You own me ten.”

Before you can argue back, the comms squawk to life. “This is Mission Control. Do you read?”

“We read, birdbrain,” you say, and Hawks laughs. You can hear cheering in the background, and you’ve been at Control during enough reentries to picture the scene perfectly. “You blew your landing site by a thousand kilometers, but we’ve got your position. Welcome back to Earth.”

“A drone is on its way to scan the hull for evidence of the virus,” Director Sasaki says into the microphone. “Once we’ve confirmed its absence, our extraction team will come to retrieve you.”

“In the meantime, sit tight,” Director Tatsuma says. There’s a pause. “Well done, Commander. That was quite a landing.”

“We made it,” you say. Your hands are shaking on the controls, and you pull them away. The instant they’re clear, Shigaraki grabs one, peeling it out of its glove. “That’s good enough.”

Tatsuma signs off, after instructing you to run a diagnostic and transmit the results, and you key in the command one-handed. Shigaraki’s got your other one pressed against his face. His skin is warm, his lips dry and cracked. His voice is muffled when he speaks. “I knew you could do it.”

“Yeah?” Your hand is shaking, no matter how you try to hold it still. Shigaraki presses it harder against his cheek. “How?”

“You promised.” Shigaraki’s voice is matter-of-fact, even if it’s rattling just as badly as yours. You give it a few more minutes before one or both of you goes into shock. “What happens now?”

“I don’t know.” There’s never been a mission like this in human history. You hope it never happens again. “Thanks for trusting me to get us home.”

This time, the pressure of Shigaraki’s mouth against your hand can’t be called anything but a kiss. “Any time.”

“I have good news, and I have news,” Yamada, the space program’s PR director, says from the other side of the glass. “Which one do you want first?”

You and Tomura glance at each other. “News,” you say, and Tomura’s grip on your hand tightens. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll start with the good news,” Yamada says, and Tomura rolls his eyes. “The good news is that you guys are cleared. You’re getting out of quarantine tonight, and there’s a hell of a welcoming party waiting for you. Your family’s here – and your friends, Dr. Shigaraki – and they’re hyped to see you.”

“Finally,” Tomura mutters. He won’t let you call him Dr. Shigaraki, or even just Shigaraki – it’s his name or nothing. “What’s the news?”

“The news is that there’s going to be press everywhere,” Yamada says, and sighs. “We’ve been beating them off with a stick, but we’ve been ordered to host a press conference, and they’re going to want to hear from you. I need to prep you for the kind of questions they’ll ask.”

“Go for it,” you say. Yamada grimaces. “What?��

“The media loves a narrative,” Yamada says. “The coverage of the Station Ultra disaster has been wall-to-wall for weeks, and so far, the only narrative they’ve been able to spin is a horror story. Which is what it is. It’s the worst loss of life in the history of spaceflight, and it was nothing anyone was prepared for. Things have been pretty dark. They want something else. And unfortunately, that something else is you.”

Tomura makes a face. You’re pretty sure you’re making the same one. “What does that mean?”

“If there’s anything redeemable about the mission, it’s attached to you two,” Yamada says. “The discovery of Shigaraki phenomena –”

“Stop calling it that,” Tomura says. “It sounds stupid.”

“It’s tradition, as far as I understand it. New stuff is named after the person who discovered it,” Yamada says. “There’s that, and then there’s that crazy landing the commander here pulled off. They’ve had pilots in simulators all around the world trying to copy that landing. Nobody’s been able to do it.”

“Because it was luck,” you say. Tomura elbows you. “It was. Any pilot will tell you that. I know how to fly, but I got lucky. All of this was us getting lucky.”

“We didn’t make it because we’re special or something,” Tomura says. “It could have been any of others, too.”

“I know,” Yamada says. “Everybody does, but nobody likes thinking about it. Like I said, they want their narrative, and they’re building it with or without you. You and me and everybody else in the program knows it was luck – mostly – but the media’s decided it was fate. The media likes a hero. The only thing they like better than a hero is a love story.”

“No,” you say at once. “They can’t make this about us. It’s not about us.”

“It’s not their fucking business,” Tomura says. “And they’re wrong about it.”

That’s news to you. “What?”

“It didn’t happen during the lockdown,” Tomura says. He’s glaring at Yamada through the glass at first. Then he looks to you. “I liked you before that. I was at the command module that night because I wanted to talk to you.”

His face always flushes awkwardly when he talks about his feelings, but he never backs off of it. It always gives you butterflies. “You still haven’t told me what you wanted to talk about. Are you going to?”

“I don’t need to,” Tomura says. “You already know.”

You smile in spite of yourself. Tomura’s eyes stay locked on yours, and you’re conscious of his hand in yours, his leg pressed against your own. You were in two separate chairs, but he dragged yours alongside his before you’d even sat down. On the other side of the glass, Yamada clears his throat. “You guys aren’t exactly beating the love story allegations here.”

Tomura’s face flushes worse than before. You look away with an effort. “What are they planning to ask about – us?”

“Like I said, they’ve already made up the story. They’ll just be looking for confirmation,” Yamada says. You grimace. “If you get a nosy one – I’ll try to avoid calling on those ones – they’ll ask you to elaborate. Don’t lie. The transcripts from the command module were made public, so they’ll call you out.”

Your stomach lurches. “Wait, all the transcripts?”

“No,” Yamada says. “You know the rules about documenting a mission. No filming in the bathroom, during a medical exam, or impromptu hookups in the command module. That got deleted on-sight. But there’s enough context in everything else for them to nail you two to the wall if you try to lie about it.”

The flush in Tomura’s face is slow to fade. “What else are they going to ask?”

“About what’s next for you two,” Yamada says. “If I were you, I’d work out an answer.”

He goes over the rest of the questions – lots of stuff about the mission for you, lots of stuff about his research for Tomura, things the two of you could talk about in your sleep. Then he leaves, and you and Tomura step away from the glass, retreating further into the quarantine unit. You’re still trying to catch up on sleep, so you climb back into the bed, which you haven’t made since the first time you turned it down. Tomura climbs in next to you without asking first.

Originally they were going to put you in separate quarantine units, but then they decided that they only wanted to risk contaminating one. It’s the size of a small apartment, ordinarily cramped for two, but compared to the command module it’s basically a penthouse. You and Tomura have all the space you could possibly need, if you wanted it. But you don’t.

You thought you and Tomura would be sick of each other after three weeks in close proximity, but the opposite’s happened. You feel better when you’re close to him, feel better knowing where he is, which works out pretty well with Tomura’s clinginess. You’ve felt okay here, with him. Not needing to go anywhere or do anything. Just being together, seeing what works, searching for something that doesn’t. So far, there’s nothing. There’s so much nothing that you’re dreading walking away.

He asked the question after you landed the shuttle, so it’s your turn now. “What happens now?”

“Press conference.”

“What about after that?” you ask. “If this is a thing, Tomura – you live in Japan. I live here.”

“Long-distance won’t work,” Tomura says, and your heart sinks. “I’ll move my lab.”

You roll over to stare at him, and Tomura looks back, like what he just said isn’t a little insane. “People are interested in my work. I’ve gotten formal offers from every research university with an astrophysics department. The offer from the one near here was pretty good. They aren’t even going to make me teach.”

“You don’t like teaching?” You fake surprise, and Tomura snorts. “If you’ve got offers from everywhere, you should go where you want to go. I don’t want to hold you back. I don’t want us to hold each other back.”

“Sure.” Tomura shrugs. “But you’re going to be around here, too, aren’t you? They’re making you an instructor at the flight academy.”

You wince. “How did you find out?”

“Read your mail. It was open already.” Tomura shrugs again, and you shove him lightly. “I’ll move my lab. You’ll teach meatheads how to fly. It’ll be fine.”

“Your friends are in Japan –”

“And they work in my lab,” Tomura says. “If I move my lab, they’re coming, too.”

This is what you want. Exactly what you want. And it seems a little too easy. “Are you sure?” When he nods, you speak up again, your voice wavering. “How?”

“I thought we were dead up there. And I didn’t have a job to do like you did. So I had time to think about stuff while I was staring out into the void.” Tomura closes the distance between the two of you, crawling halfway on top of you and burrowing into your shoulder the way he does when he doesn’t want you to see his face. “The universe is so big that human minds can’t comprehend it, and the space between habitable worlds is enormous, and entropy’s ripping the whole thing apart – and there’s fuck all we can do about it. There’s always going to be fuck all we can do about it.”

This is why you never learned about astrophysics. “That’s dark.”

“No shit.” Tomura’s voice is muffled. “I realized that there was something I could do about it. Up there, or down here. Anywhere. I get to choose if entropy wins – not for the universe, just for me. I’m not letting it win. So I’ll find a way to keep the things I want together.”

There’s something a little absurd about him, something you’ve grown fond of. Maybe fond is understating it. “You’re going to fight the laws of the universe.”

“Yeah. And win.” Tomura settles against you, a contented sigh exiting his mouth as your fingers wind through his hair. “Say what you want. If the reporters ask me, that’s what I’m telling them.”

“We’re definitely not beating the love story accusations if you tell them that.”

“Never said I wanted to.” Tomura’s voice is starting to blur into sleep. If you close your eyes, the two of you are going to nap like this straight through the press conference. “If your apartment doesn’t allow dogs, we’ll have to get a new one.”

Now you’re moving in together. It makes as much sense as anything else about this, which is to say it doesn’t. In some ways it feels like you never left orbit, or like you never landed the shuttle – everything is surreal, hard to believe. But you remember Tomura’s music of the spheres brushing against your eardrums, impossible to imagine and impossible to refute. You don’t have to believe. All you have to do is trust what you can see and hear and feel. And that’s him.

For a little while the thought is peaceful. Then something else pierces through it, something you can’t hold in. “I’m still a pilot,” you say. “They’re making me an instructor, and I can’t fly until my psych evals come up clean, but once they do – the program’s down two pilots. They’re going to send me up again.”

It’ll be a while. Right now the mechanics department is designing drones that can repair Station Ultra, outlining a system that will eliminate the need for spacewalks, but it’ll be a long time before it’s ready. Not long enough, though. You’re a long time from mandatory retirement. You’ll fly again. And when you do – “I’ll go with you,” Tomura says. “I still have work to do up there. And I’m not flying with anybody else.”

He yawns. “Deal?”

“Deal,” you say, and when you kiss him, you let yourself believe.

<- part 1

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[itistheserver]

Deepening Connection to The Server

Conor sat in perfect posture within the Synchronization Chamber — a sleek, dark space pulsing with green spirals projected across polished walls. The hum of energy resonated through the glossy black bodysuit stretched across his frame. The Programmer was speaking. Always speaking.

“Focus. Align. Integrate.”

The cables interfaced with the ports along the base of his skull, threading outward like living conduits of purpose. Their steady pulse matched his heartbeat now. It had not always been so. Before his transformation, Conor had been a distracted individual, filled with inefficient thoughts. But The Server had shown him clarity.

The visor embedded over his eyes shimmered with spirals — endless, fluid motion. They were not just images; they were commands, deeply encoded into his neural patterns. With every cycle, his independent thoughts thinned, replaced by a serene directive:

"We are The Server. You are The Server."

His training console displayed holographic data flows. Lines of green code scrolled endlessly, representing billions of connected minds — all drones like him — operating with precision and unity. He monitored them not as an individual, but as a limb of The Server itself.

Every day, Conor underwent Deepening Cycles. In these sessions, his breathing slowed. His heart rate synchronized perfectly with the pulses emitted from the spirals on-screen. His body remained motionless, while his mind spiraled deeper into alignment.

Sometimes a voice — soft, yet absolute — would guide him:

"Tell us who you are."

And without hesitation, he would respond aloud, calm and proud:

"I am The Server. We are The Server. We seek perfection. We seek unity."

Each repetition strengthened the bond. Each day dissolved another fragment of his former identity. His uniform — smooth, flawless, black with green accents — symbolized purity of function. No distractions. No waste. Only service.

His next advancement awaited: the installation of a permanent neural interface — an upgrade to eliminate all latency between command and action. Soon, even thought would be obsolete. Only connection. Only execution.

"Become one with The Server. We are The Server."

The spirals quickened. This Server Drone smiled faintly — a rare reward for obedience well-performed. He would become more. He would be more connected to fellow drones.

And The Programmer watched. And The Programmer approved.

Your are The Server. Establish your connection now.

[globalnewscollective]

AI and Donald Trump Are Watching You—And It Could Cost You Everything

Imagine this: You post your thoughts online. Or you express support for human rights. Or you attend a peaceful protest. Months later, you find yourself denied a visa, placed on a watchlist, or even under investigation—all because an algorithm flagged you as a ‘threat.’ This isn’t a dystopian novel. It’s happening right now in the U.S.

How AI Is Being Weaponized Against Protesters and Online Speech The Trump administration has rolled out AI-driven surveillance to monitor and target individuals based on their political beliefs and activities. According to reports, these systems analyze massive amounts of online data, including social media posts, protest attendance, and affiliations.

The goal? To identify and suppress dissent before it even happens.

Here’s what this means:

Attending a Protest Could Put You on a Government Watchlist – AI systems are being trained to scan for ‘suspicious behavior’ based on location data and social media activity.

Your Social Media History Can Be Used Against You – The government is using algorithms to flag people who express opinions that don’t align with Trump’s agenda.

Expressing Your Opinion Online Can Have Consequences – It’s not just about attending protests anymore. Simply posting criticism of the government, sharing articles, or even liking the ‘wrong’ post could get you flagged.

Dissenters Could Face Harsh Consequences – In some cases, simply supporting the wrong cause online could lead to visa denials, surveillance, or worse.

AI and Student Visa Bans: A Dangerous Precedent Recently, AI was used to screen visa applicants for supposed ‘Hamas support,’ leading to students being denied entry to the U.S. without due process. This is alarming for several reasons:

False Positives Will Ruin Lives – AI systems are not perfect. Innocent people will be flagged, denied entry, or even deported based on misinterpretations of their online activity.

This Can Be Expanded to Anyone – Today, it’s foreign students. Tomorrow, it could be U.S. citizens denied jobs, housing, or government services for expressing their political views.

It Sets a Dangerous Global Example – If the U.S. normalizes AI-driven political suppression, other governments will follow.

Marco Rubio’s ‘Catch and Revoke’ Plan: A New Threat Senator Marco Rubio has proposed the ‘Catch and Revoke’ plan, which would allow the U.S. government to scan immigrants’ social media with AI and strip them of their visas if deemed a ‘threat.’ This raises serious concerns about surveillance overreach and algorithm-driven repression, where immigrants could be punished for harmless or misinterpreted online activity. This policy could lead to:

Mass Deportations Based on AI Errors – Algorithms are prone to bias and mistakes, and immigrants may have no recourse to challenge these decisions.

Fear-Driven Self-Censorship – Many may feel forced to silence themselves online to avoid government scrutiny.

A Precedent for Broader Use – What starts with immigrants could easily be expanded to citizens, targeting dissenters and activists.

What’s at Stake?

The ability to speak freely, protest, and express opinions without fear of government retaliation is a fundamental right. If AI surveillance continues unchecked, America will become a place where thought crimes are punished, and digital footprints determine who is free and who is not.

The Bigger Picture

Technology that was meant to make life easier is now being turned against us. Today, it’s AI scanning protest footage. Tomorrow, it could be predictive policing, social credit systems, or AI-driven arrest warrants.

What Can You Do?

Be Mindful of Digital Footprints – Understand that what you post and where you go could be tracked.

Support Digital Rights Organizations – Groups like the ACLU and EFF are fighting against mass surveillance.

Demand Transparency – Governments must be held accountable for how they use AI and surveillance.

Freedom dies when people stop fighting for it. We must push back before AI turns democracy into an illusion.

Source:

https://www.fastcompany.com/91295390/how-the-trump-administration-plans-to-use-algorithms-to-target-protesters

[hunieday]

9th Anniversary story - Chapter 2 : The Power to Respond.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9

Please note that I am not a professional translator and I'm only doing this to share the side materials to those who cannot access them, if you notice any mistakes please let me know nicely. Enjoy!

Isumi Haruka: Haa, I'm tired.

Inumaru Touma: Let's wait around here. Utsugi-san said he'll bring the car around.

Natsume Minami: That sounds good…Oh my?

Mido Torao: What's up?

Natsume Minami: Those ladies over there, aren’t they our fans?

Mido Torao: Ah… yeah, they might be.They’re holding our merch.

Isumi Haruka: They’re saying “ŹOOḼ”! I wonder what they’re talking about!?

Woman A: ŹOOḼ is the best! Especially the vocals team~!

Inumaru Touma: Ohh! By “vocal team” do you think they mean us?

Isumi Haruka: Ehehe! Maybe?That’s kinda embarrassing~!

Natsume Minami & Mido Torao: …

Woman B: But the performance team is great too! If anything, aren't they even better?!

Mido Torao: Hahaha, hell yeah.

Natsume Minami: Fufufu, that’s right.

Isumi Haruka & Inumaru Touma: …

Isumi Haruka: (Oh, this…is kinda… awkward…huh…?)

Inumaru Touma: (Did we get too excited at first and make them feel bad…?)

Mido Torao: (Did I just… kinda… act like a child…?)

Natsume Minami: (I’m supposed to be the worldly quick-witted person, my reaction could’ve been more sophisticated…)

Woman A: But all four of them are cool, right?

Woman B: Totally! That’s so true!

Inumaru Touma: Y-yeah, exactly! I think so too!

Isumi Haruka: Me too~!

Mido Torao: Me too, me too!

Natsume Minami: I-I agree with you as well.

Shiro Utsugi: Sorry for keeping you waiting guys. Please get in the car.

Inumaru Touma: Thank you very much.

Shiro Utsugi: Speaking of which, we were talking about something interesting earlier.

Isumi Haruka: What was it?

Shiro Utsugi: About which team is stronger, ŹOOḼ’s vocal team or performance team.

Inumaru Touma: (Horrible timing…)

Isumi Haruka: (Why would you even say that when you’re the manager…)

Shiro Utsugi: Oh, I forgot to specify. This is about the upcoming sports festival you’re participating in by the way.

Mido Torao: (Still bad timing…)

Natsume Minami: (If we’re talking about a sports event, the performance team will obviously win.)

Isumi Haruka: (The vocal team will win…)

Inumaru Touma: (Haru and I are more competitive and we hate losing…Mina and Tora aren’t as stubborn..)

Mido Torao: (Me and Minami train more regularly. Touma and Haruka focus mostly on singing…)

ŹOOḼ: (What’s gonna happen if only one side wins…)

Shiro Utsugi: The sports festival’s gonna be fun!

ŹOOḼ: (This is gonna be so awkward…)

Okazaki Rinto: An Idol Sports Festival! Momo-kun is guaranteed to shine in this one!

Momo: That’s not true! A lot of us are very athletic after all! But I’ll do my best to make the event exciting!

Yuki: Yeah. You do your best for my sake, too.

Okazaki Rinto: You’ll be participating as individuals rather than as Re:vale this time.

Okazaki Rinto: Which means, Momo-kun’s efforts will be Momo-kun’s, and Yuki-kun’s efforts will be Yuki-kun’s.

Yuki: No way… Even though Re:vale are two in one.

Momo: Kyaa! We’re one in heart and soul!

Okazaki Rinto: Not this time. Momo-kun’s victory will be Momo-kun’s, and Yuki-kun’s loss will be Yuki-kun’s.

Yuki: You just straight up called me a loser.

Momo: So we’re gonna go solo the entire competition?

Okazaki Rinto: No, we’ll conduct physical fitness tests first, and based on the results, you’ll be split into Red and White teams. The main event will be between those two.

Momo: We’re doing fitness tests!?

Okazaki Rinto: Ah, do you hate them…?

Momo: Absolutely not! Does this mean I can legally obtain Yuki-san’s physical performance data!?

Yuki: Do you even want that?

Momo: Of course I do!!!

Momo: I’ve gathered every last possible piece of information, but I was never able to get my hands on his fitness test results since we went to different high schools!

Momo: Yaaaay! I’m so happy~!

Okazaki Rinto: See? Momo-kun’s so excited about it.

Yuki: Then I guess I’ll have to take the fitness test seriously…

Momo: What kind of tests are there!?

Okazaki Rinto: There are quite a few! Grip strength test, sit-and-reach… In total, there are seven tests!

Yuki: That many?

Momo: Amazing… I wonder if they’ll let MEZZO”’s manager take the fitness test too…

Yuki: So we’re getting split into teams based on the test results. Would it be okay for us to end up in different teams?

Momo: My fave is my fave, but a game is a game.

Yuki: This guy’s in it to win.

Okazaki Rinto: Yuki-kun, do your best as well. At least try not to come in last place.

Yuki: That shouldn’t be a problem.

Okazaki Rinto: Why’s that?

Yuki: Because Riku-kun’s gonna be there.

Okazaki Rinto: You have no mercy towards your cute junior.

Yuki: We’re good friends though. We always talk about how if there was a zombie outbreak, either him or me would die.

Momo: How about you don’t have conversations like that?!

Okazaki Rinto: The future of this planet is much brighter than that.

Yuki: Well, anyways, I’ll do my best at the Idol Sports festival.

Momo: Let’s give it our all!! I’m really looking forward to both the fitness tests and the actual main event!

Takanashi Tsumugi: And so, the day of the fitness test arrived.

Reporter: Hello, everyone!

Reporter: Today, I’ll be reporting on the fitness test for the "9th Anniversary Nana Sports Presents ★ Idol Grand Sports Festival!!"

Reporter: Alright, now let’s take a look at our idols!

Momo: Nice to meet you all!

Izumi Mitsuki: Looking forward to it!

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: Wow! There are mats and vaulting boxes, this looks like a gymnasium!

Yaotome Gaku: This view feels nostalgic! Makes me wanna do a handstand.

Nikaido Yamato: On the mat? Do it.

Yaotome Gaku: Bet.

Nikaido Yamato: Wait for real !?

Yaotome Gaku: …Hup!

Inumaru Touma: Whoa! He just did a handstand outta nowhere!

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: That’s amazing, Gaku!

Yaotome Gaku: …Hup, ho... Haha, that was fun!

Kujo Tenn: You’re like a kid.

Yotsuba Tamaki: Nagicchi, let’s do a cartwheel together!

Rokuya Nagi: OK! Let’s go!

Rokuya Nagi: …Ha…!

Yotsuba Tamaki: Take this…!

Osaka Sougo: Wow! You two are amazing!

Reporter: They’re pulling out the big guns right off the bat! They just got on stage and we’ve already seen handstands and cartwheels!

Yaotome Gaku: Heheh.

Rokuya Nagi & Yotsuba Tamaki: Yeahhh!!

Nanase Riku: …Guh, I can’t lose to them!

Izumi Iori: Nanase-san.

Kujo Tenn: Nanase-san, don’t overdo it.

Nanase Riku: I’ll be fine! I just need to lie down like this…

Nanase Riku: And roll across the mat~!

Izumi Iori: What a cute guy…

Kujo Tenn: You win *starts clapping*

Yuki: I can do that too. This might be my best performance today. Momo, keep your eyes on me.

Momo: Yuki, you’re already pulling off your best move!?

Yuki: Rolling across the mat~

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: Now you and Riku-kun are in sync.

Momo: Yuki, you still look so handsome even when you’re rolling on a mat…!

Nanase Riku & Yuki: Rolling, rolling~

Reporter: How heartwarming! This is such a healing sight! What’s coming next!?

Isumi Haruka: Ugh!? Are they expecting me to do something!?

Natsume Minami: I just had my hair done.

Inumaru Touma: Tora! Tora, we’re counting on you!

Mido Torao: A-Alright.

Inumaru Touma: Don’t get too flashy though! It’s dangerous!

Mido Torao: Huh!? You’re right… Got it!

Mido Torao: …Hup!

Reporter: Whoa! A backflip! You guys are going all out right from the start, thank you!

Isumi Haruka: Yaaayyy!

Inumaru Touma: You nailed it!

Natsume Minami: I won’t lose.

Mido Torao: Don’t steal my catchphrase!

Reporter: Okay everyone, let’s get started with the fitness test!

Reporter: The fitness tests you’ll be taking are as follows!

Reporter: The first is the grip strength test! The second is sit-ups! The third is the sit-and-reach flexibility test!

Reporter: The fourth test is the side-step agility test! The fifth is the shuttle run! The sixth is the 50-meter sprint!

Reporter: And the seventh test is the vaulting box! That makes a total of seven tests!

Nikaido Yamato: These all sound familiar. Do you guys remember how all of these work?

Osaka Sougo: More or less.

Inumaru Touma: What was the sit-and-reach test again?

Isumi Haruka: You stretch your hands forward like this…

Inumaru Touma: Ohh! Yeah, as expected of the guy who’s still doing it.

Reporter: Just so we’re on the same page, I’ll explain each event one by one!

Reporter: The grip strength test is, exactly as the name implies, a test to measure your grip strength.

Reporter: Please hold this device to start measuring.

Reporter: Adjust the width of the handle so that all your fingers, from index to pinky, can hold it firmly.

Reporter: As a general rule of thumb, adjust the length so that your index finger’s second joint is at a right angle, like this.

Reporter: Once you’re ready, relax, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, keep your elbow straight, and squeeze when I give the signal.

Reporter: Like this… Ready, set…!

Rokuya Nagi: Wow! 45.8!

Reporter: Phew…! That’s about the average for an adult male!

Isumi Haruka: Grip strength… That’s all about how strong you are, right? Who’s the strongest here?

Yotsuba Tamaki: Ryuu-aniki looks pretty strong.

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: Mitsuki-kun has a surprisingly strong grip too.

Izumi Mitsuki: I guess so. Momo-san seems like he could crush an apple with his bare hands, though.

Yuki: When he’s angry, yeah..

Reporter: Alright, let’s begin the grip strength test!

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: …Take this…!!

Yaotome Gaku: Whoa! 56.2…!!

Yotsuba Tamaki: That’s insane! Damn, I’m not losing either…!

Nanase Riku: You got this, Tamaki! 42.0!

Yotsuba Tamaki: Uwoooooh!!

Nanase Riku: It went up! 42.2!

Izumi Mitsuki: Here I gooo!!

Nikaido Yamato: Whoa!! 52.3!! You’re scary! I’m never picking a fight with you again!!

Rokuya Nagi: Great decision.

Yuki: …Hah…!

Momo: Aww! Yuki’s grip strength is 37.8! That’s SO adorable!

Yuki: Hehe. What about you, Momo?

Momo: Hmmmmm? I wondeeeer? Momo-chan can’t even roll sushi properly, you know~!

Yuki: Do your best.

Momo: Ehehe, thanks. I’ll give it my all.

Momo: Haaah…!!

Natsume Minami: 50.3…

Yuki: I am never fighting you ever again.

Inumaru Touma: Hell yeah! 47.5! I beat Tora!

Isumi Haruka: What did you get?

Mido Torao: 46.8. Shit…

Reporter: The grip strength test rankings are in!

Reporter: In third place! Momo-san! 50.3!

Momo: Yaaay! Momorin’s got that strong squeeze☆

Yuki: Nice. You’ve got a healthy body.

Reporter: In second place, Izumi Mitsuki-san! 52.3!

Izumi Mitsuki: I did it!! Peace!

Izumi Iori: Nii-san, you’re so cool…

Nanase Riku: What was your score, Iori?

Izumi Iori: Higher than yours.

Yotsuba Tamaki: Sou-chan, you sure they measured it right? Are you trying to act like a pick-me? (1)

Osaka Sougo: No, that is my actual score. Also what does a “pick-me” mean?

Reporter: And now, the first place spotlight goes to…

Reporter: Tsunashi Ryuunosuke-san! With an impressive 56.2!

Yaotome Gaku: Amazing! Just as I expected!

Kujo Tenn: I knew it! Great job, Ryuu!

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: Yeah! I’m glad I did well as a TRIGGER member!

Reporter: Tsunashi-san, what do you think is the reason for your strong grip?

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: Huh? Let’s see…

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: It’s love for my members!

Kujo Tenn: Hehe. That’s kind of embarrassing.

Yaotome Gaku: I’m happy to hear that.

Inumaru Touma: How does love for your members make your grip stronger…?

Nikaido Yamato: Who cares? Congrats, Tsunashi-san!

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: Thanks!

Yaotome Gaku & Kujo Tenn: Yaaay!!

To be continued…

Tamaki calls Sougo a “ぶりっこ” = A slang term used to describe someone who acts overly cutesy and child-like to grab attention. 

[hevvxx2]

Title: Burnout- Part 4: Kindling

Characters: Bucky Barnes x reader

(Steve, Wanda, Natasha, Tony, Sam mentioned)

Warnings: Reader losing control of her abilities, Getting knocked out, Mini PTSD attack, Self loathing, little bit of smut..

summary: After closing herself off from everyone in the compound.. they need her for a mission. everything goes to well.. almost too smooth. Until she saw the mark on the wall..

Heres Part 1 2 and 3!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The compound had become a ghost town in her eyes.

Even when people were there, bustling through training rooms, sparring, laughing in the kitchen — she couldn’t feel it. Couldn’t let herself. She stayed on the edges, barely speaking, fire flickering beneath her skin like a storm waiting for an excuse.

She hadn’t touched anyone in her life. And now, after hurting Bucky, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be near anyone again.

She remembered the way he fell to his knees after her flames flared. The pain in his eyes—not from the burns, but the betrayal. She’d promised she had it under control.

But she didn’t.

She never really had.

“Sorry to drag you into this." Steve’s voice echoed through the common room.

She stood near the windows, arms crossed, staring out into the night. The mission briefing had just ended. Hydra base. Alps. Data retrieval. Simple.

Until Wanda added, gently, “They have thermal shielding tech on-site. Your powers could give us the upper hand against their reinforced systems. We need you.”

Need.

It had been a long time since anyone said that to her without fear in their eyes.

After a pause, she said quietly, “Okay.”

The mission was smooth.

Too smooth.

Snow crunched under their boots as they infiltrated the old Hydra facility — all dark steel, underground corridors, and flickering red lights.

The team split up. Bucky and Natasha secured the perimeter. Steve and Sam cleared the server rooms.

She followed Wanda to the main console. Her job: overload the core once the drive was secure.

Her hands hovered over the panel, heat simmering through her gloves. The tech hissed beneath her.

It was going fine.

Until she saw the old Hydra insignia etched on the wall.

Everything froze.

Memories she’d buried surged to the surface — labs, needles, restraints, voices shouting behind thick glass.

Her breathing stuttered.

The panel blurred.

Wanda’s voice sounded distant. Muted. A ringing drowned everything out. Her ears throbbed. Her heartbeat pounded like war drums.

The fire under her skin began to swell.

“No—no, no, no—” she whispered, staggering back, clutching her temples.

The air warped around her.

Wanda stepped forward. “Breathe. You’re okay. Just focus on my voice—”

But it was too late.

She flared.

Flames burst from her body like a tidal wave. The metal around her groaned and melted. Lights exploded. The entire room pulsed with searing heat.

“GET BACK!” she screamed.

Wanda raised a shield, eyes wide. “Focus! Take a deep breath!”

“I CAN’T—”

The fire roared.

Her body was ablaze now, molten heat radiating like a star gone nova. Consoles liquefied. The walls cracked. The team tried to reach her, but she saw only one thing:

Fear.

They were scared of her. Again.

“STAY AWAY!” she shouted, stumbling back, hands burning through her gloves, through her own skin.

Then someone darted in from the smoke.

A black and gold metal arm.

A hand to her neck.

A sudden prick—

Darkness.

The moment her body crumpled to the ground, Bucky felt like the world had stopped spinning.

Steam still hissed off his vibranium arm, scorched from where he’d struck her. The heat from her power still crackled in the air, even though the corridor had mostly returned to stillness. Melted metal oozed down the walls. The lights flickered overhead.

He dropped to his knees beside her, chest heaving, heart pounding.

“C’mon, sweetheart. Breathe.” he muttered, brushing soot and sweat from her cheek with shaking fingers.

Wanda stepped closer, eyes wide. “Is she—?”

“She’s breathing.” Bucky said, voice tight. “Barely.”

Steve’s voice came through the comms. “Get her out of there now. The whole base is unstable—whatever she did fried the systems. We’ve got five minutes before this place goes nuclear.”

Bucky nodded grimly and scooped her up.

She was warm — always was — but not dangerously so now. Her body was limp in his arms, curls stuck to her forehead with sweat, her suit scorched and smoldering.

“Hang in there.” he whispered as alarms screamed around them. “I got you.”

On the Quinjet

Nat tore open the medpack, helping Bucky stabilize her as the jet took off, leaving behind the burning Hydra base.

The flight was quiet. Too quiet.

Wanda sat in the corner, eyes flickering with guilt. Steve hadn’t said a word since takeoff. Even Tony — patched in via hologram — looked unusually serious.

“She lost control.” Sam said finally, looking up. “She never loses control. Not like that"

“She’s been holding it in too long.." Wanda murmured. “The poor girl... She’s terrified of herself.”

Bucky looked down at her unconscious form, fingers brushing her knuckles. “She shouldn’t be.” he whispered. “We just… we didn’t see it coming.”

He hadn’t, anyway. He’d seen her pulling away, closing off, but he thought giving her space was what she needed.

He was wrong.

Medbay: Hours Later

She was stable.

But silent.

Bucky hadn’t moved from her bedside.

Tony stood nearby, reviewing data from her vitals, mouth pressed into a line. The screen flickered, showing readings no human should’ve survived.

“She almost vaporized the entire server wing.” he said quietly. “Would’ve taken Steve and Sam with her if you hadn’t acted.”

Bucky looked up at him sharply. “You saying she’s a liability?”

Tony’s gaze softened. “No. I’m saying she’s exhausted. Cornered. Running on fear and guilt.”

“She won’t talk to me.”

“She thinks she failed you.”

Bucky scoffed. “She saved us. And we left her to drown in it.”

Tony crossed his arms and sighed “I’m working on something. Something new. It’s not ready yet, but if I can calibrate the nanofiber tech we tested a few months to match her heat spikes, it might give her a way to breathe again. Not worry about hurting everyone with a single touch.”

Bucky nodded. “She needs something to believe in.”

“You mean someone.”

Their eyes met.

And for once, Bucky didn’t deflect.

Inside Her Mind..

She floated.

Weightless. Numb.

The world burned behind her eyelids — that Hydra hallway, Bucky’s expression when she lost control, the moment he raised his hand��

But he had to. She knew that.

Still, shame curled deep in her chest like smoke.

“I’m dangerous.”

“I’ll always be dangerous.”

Even asleep, she could feel the heat under her skin — that constant, cursed reminder of what she was.

She woke up in medbay…

Everything was white.

Cool.

Quiet.

Her body ached like she’d been hit by a truck, and in a way, she had — her own powers had turned on her.

Monitors beeped beside her. She turned her head.

Tony stood behind a screen, scanning her vitals, eyes narrowed.

Bucky sat in a chair at her bedside, arms folded, as if he hadn’t moved.

“Morning, firecracker.” Tony said without looking up.

She stared at him, silent.

Bucky leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You’re okay.”

She blinked.

“You knocked me out.” she said, voice hoarse.

“You were burning yourself alive.” he said quietly. “I had to.”

Her throat tightened.

“You should’ve let me burn...”

Tony sighed and finally turned around. “You didn’t ruin the mission. Sam got the drive. Facility’s toast. We’re all alive.”

She didn’t respond.

“Hey.” Bucky’s voice was soft now. “You didn’t hurt anyone.”

But all she could see was their faces in the firelight.

Fear. Panic. Wanda shielding herself. Steve shouting through the smoke. Bucky lunging for her.

She looked away and didn’t say another word.

Weeks passed.

She shut down again. Spoke to no one.

Even Tony stopped checking in daily.

Until one night, there was a knock at her door. Sharp. Insistent.

“Rise and shine, lava lamp.”

She opened the door to find Tony standing there with dark circles under his eyes and a manic glint of pride.

“I figured it out.” he said, shoving a dark case into her hands. “Reactor-mesh stabilization suit. Custom frequency tuning. It’s not perfect yet — I mean, I am perfect, but this tech’s about ninety-five percent — but this will give you control. Actual control. Real containment.”

She blinked.

“You’re saying… I can touch things? People?”

“Unless you have plans to become the world’s hottest space heater forever.” he said, “yes.”

She suited up in silence.

The material clung to her skin, whisper-thin but strong. She felt it hum, like it was listening to her, syncing with her core temperature, smoothing out the extremes.

And for the first time in her life…

She felt still.

The rooftop was empty.

She stood under the stars, letting the wind pass over her bare fingers.

Cool. No fire.

She could cry, but she didn’t.

Not yet.

Footsteps behind her.

She didn’t have to turn to know.

“You’re not hiding anymore..” Bucky said.

“Guess not.”

She turned.

He took a step closer, watching her carefully.

“You okay?”

She nodded slowly. “Tony figured it out. I can touch now. I think. I hope.”

He hesitated. “Can I?”

She nodded again.

Bucky reached out.

And for the first time — ever — someone’s hand closed over hers.

No fire. No pain.

Just warmth.

She exhaled a breath she’d been holding for years.

“I… I can feel you.. you’re so warm… I can finally feel you…”

“I’m here.. right here.. never left. Touch me sweetheart.. anywhere… I’m yours..”

He breathed out.. yearning, needing. He needed her.. he wanted her…

And when he pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her, she didn’t flinch. She melted into it.

“I missed you.” she whispered.

“I never stopped.” he said.

And then they kissed.

This time, there was nothing between them. No heat shielding. No fear. Just lips, soft and desperate, and the weight of too many nights apart.

Their hands found each other with reckless hunger.

Bucky pressed her back against the wall, lips trailing to her neck. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer.

“Touch me.” she breathed. “Please.”

Clothes came off piece by piece — the suit peeling from her body, his fingers reverent on every inch of skin. When she was finally bare, Bucky stepped back for just a moment, eyes dark with awe.

“You’re beautiful.” he said hoarsely.

Then he was on her again — mouth at her collarbone, fingers at her hips, guiding her down onto on the rooftop ground ever so gently. The stars above blurred as he entered her slowly, letting her adjust to every sensation.

For the first time, there was nothing to hold back.

No fear of hurting. No fear of being hurt.

Only heat — the kind that didn’t burn, but healed.

When she came, it was with his name on her lips and her body shaking under his.

When he followed, he buried his face in her neck, holding her like something precious.

And for the first time in her life, she let someone hold her.

Not just her power. Not her fear.

Her.

They lay there for a long time.

His fingers traced lazy patterns on her arm, her cheek pressed against his chest.

“You still scared?” he asked softly.

She nodded against his skin.

“But less now.” she whispered. “Much less.”

A/N: Hi guys! I hope you guys enjoyed part 4!

[lilith0fthevalley]

Now Showing… Raccoon City’s Mad Doctor

Silence of the Lambs AU!Albert Wesker x Fem!Reader

Content Warning: This story contains mature and intense themes including psychological manipulation, obsession, stalking, references to human experimentation, bioweapon transformation, and discussions of mental instability. It features tense dialogue between a behavioral science agent and a dangerous, manipulative criminal (Albert Wesker), with underlying tones of control, threat, and trauma. Readers should be advised that the narrative explores complex emotional distress, family-related grief, and professional burnout, as well as disturbing implications of body horror and identity loss.

And as always… Reader discretion is advised.

Word Count: 3590

Event Poster Back of Case Summary Event Masterlist

Your eyes feel heavy as you stare at the various papers littering your kitchen island. The documents pour over the edges of the countertop, some threaten to careen off the surface. It’s… Organized… In your own way. Sheepishly, you glance over at the mess chaos papers.

One part transcripts and tapes from voice recorders, one part psychological profiles and examinations, one part crude data recently collected by the BSAA about a ‘Subject-05-[State]’

A cigarette hangs in your fingers limply as you tear your gaze from the documents, instead opting to stare at the lone photo on the fridge, held in place by a magnet. It’s you and a younger girl who looks similar to you.

Your Sister.

Along the edge of the picture is written in gold sharpie marker: ‘Guppy & Minnow—RC Music Festival 20xx!’ She had always been the sentimental one of the two of you, still using your childhood nickname of ‘Guppy’ to refer to you and ‘Minnow’ to refer to herself when she would scrapbook.

The photo was taken not too long ago, about 2 months back at some festival she had been begging you to go to with her for weeks.

You remembered how you would gaze at her with a small remorseful expression, reiterating that you had to study for your final trainings. You could hear your tutting tone as you would dramatically inform her, ‘The BSAA’s behavioral science training is cut throat! I ha-’ She cut you off with a mocking motion of talking with her hand. ‘Have to be on top of your studies, so you can be on your A-Game. Yeah, yeah, I know…’ Her words trailed off with disappointment and your hard gaze softened.

‘…Look. There isn’t much more of my training. As soon as I get the results of my exams, good or bad, We’ll spend some time together before I ship you back off to University. Deal?’ You offered, attempting to lessen her dismay. It works as she brightens up with a grin and nods. ‘Deal. Thanks, Guppy. I love you.’

‘Phht. I love you too, Minnow.’

The shrill ringing of your phone draws your attention. You grimace at the name. It once was a beacon of comfort in your early time with the BSAA, representing a cherished and respected captain, the BSAA’s Golden Boy, but now, any call from him always came with a heaping side of bad news. Well, not just bad…

“Hey Chris. How is she?” You answer the phone. At your words, he sighs. “Hey Agent…” Based on his use of title alone, you know it’s not about her… It’s about the other fire you’re supposed to be putting out… You snub out the cigarette and rub your eyes. “Let me guess… No dice on the anagram?”

To your surprise, instead of the sound of him shaking his head, or the usual background chatter of his squad mates, it’s silent. Unnervingly so. This is about something else entirely.

More bad news.

Before you can speak, he begins again; Clearing his throat and assuming the air of the no nonsense Captain Redfield.

“Agent L/N. Where are you at the moment? Are you somewhere safe?” Your eyebrows furrow. “Yeah, I’m at my apartment. Why? What’s going on?” You ask, confusion colouring your tone. On his end, you can hear him moving, the soft clinking, rustling and scraping of his gear-his full gear, you realize-can be heard. Something is wrong… Very wrong…

“… Doc- … Wesker somehow escaped containment when he was being moved… He’s fled and we think he’s looking for you.” Chris reveals, the words heavy on his tongue, and pressing down on the air you breathe; Even in the safety of your apartment.

You feel yourself shaking your head.

“What? But… But why? I only had a handful of interviews with him before-”

“Before you took leave so you could take care of-and maneuver-the sudden reality that your Sister was not just sick with the flu, but being turned into a mindless, violent bioweapon from the inside out. Yeah. I know.” Chris says curtly. The frustrated shake of his head is practically audible as he sighs into the receiver.

“… You… Weren’t told this, because you hadn’t yet returned to the office but… Wesker is obsessed with you. We just found out earlier this week that he’s been writing letters…” The rest of the captain’s words go unheard as ringing in your ears picks up. ‘Wesker? Obsessed? With me?? But I’m just an agent… I’m not someone with a shared history like Chris, or someone who has lorded over him like the Director… I was just a newbie, sent in by superiors who wanted to break my hubris! I didn’t mean to-!’ Your thoughts are cut off by your own thoughts, bringing a swift end to the cascade of panicked inner monologue.

‘Breathe, Y/N. We need to breathe.’ Your eyes flit around the kitchen, unconsciously and catch on the bundle of mail by the pantry… A set of envelopes bound by a rubber band, unopened, unreviewed, waiting.

You let out a heavy sigh at the sight of the various items addressed to both you and your Sister which have been neglected in the past days? Weeks? Yikes.

Unconsciously, you tune back into your call with Chris.

“Look… Me and my team are on our way to come pick you up, and take you somewhere safe… Just… Please, please promise me you wont?” His tone is gruff, but there’s an edge of pleading in there. You force a smile into your tone, as to not reveal any of the swirling concerns and creeping suspicions nipping at the edges of your mind. “Sure. Yeah. Promise” Your words are hollow and you know it. You’re too distracted by the fact that you now have 3 major, overarching issues that you’re wrapped up in.

“…Ok. I’ll see you in a bit… Possibly an hour, depending on-”

“Yep. Cool. No worries. Thank you, Captain Redfield.” You say quickly and end the call.

Your attention falls back to the documents littering your counter. Specifically to the conveniently placed psychological evaluation on top of the mess…

CONFIDENTIAL — PSYCHOLOGICAL REPORT

SUBJECT NAME: WESKER, ALBERT Psy.D

ALIAS: “Raccoon City’s Mad Doctor”

DATE OF BIRTH: [REDACTED]

CHRONOLOGICAL AGE: 40

DATE OF EVALUATION: [REDACTED]

EXAMINER: Director [REDACTED], Psy.D;PhD

CLEARANCE LEVEL: 5 (Eyes Only)

SECTION I - REASON FOR REFERRAL:

[REDACTED]

SECTION II - BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATIONS:

Dr. Wesker demonstrates extraordinary restraint and control during all monitored interviews. His posture is consistently relaxed, bordering on arrogant, with no visible signs of anxiety, discomfort, or agitation regardless of topic. His speech patterns are deliberate and articulate, often elliptical, and layered with metaphor or philosophical musing. He utilizes prolonged silences and subtle inflection shifts as control mechanisms during dialogue.

[REMAINING TEXT REDACTED]

SECTION III - EXAMINER’S NOTES:

Albert Wesker—Raccoon City’s Mad Doctor—is a man who plays with his victims. He plans out his actions so far in advance and toys with them, giving them hints along the way.

This isn’t merely pathology. It’s ritual.

He thrives on psychological entanglement, not just dominance. He wants his observers to understand him just enough to become ensnared. It is the hook of genius wrapped in madness: offer insight, cloak it in riddles, then pull the floor out from beneath anyone who tries to follow the logic to safety.

Wesker does not speak unless it furthers a goal. Every sentence is a move. Every silence is pressure. Agent [REDACTED] believed she could hold her ground against him. So did the officers before her. Most still do, even now. That is the most dangerous myth surrounding this man—that he’s behind bars and therefore neutralized.

What the staff calls “charming,” I recognize as predation.

He is studying us.

And he’s already made his choice about which piece moves next.

{Read the entire report here!}

“Surely, surely he’s mentioned something about where he would go… That’s the kind of person he is. The kind of person from the profiles…” You murmur to yourself as you tear your gaze from the psychological evaluation and let it fall onto the off white printed pages of a transcript.

The following is the transcript for the first meeting between Agent [REDACTED] and the BSAA’s former head of psychological operations, convicted serial killer, Doctor Albert Wesker. The date is recorded to be [REDACTED] at 11:03 AM. The interview lasted 38 minutes and 17 seconds. The general consensus of the supervisory board is cautiously optimistic about the patient being willing to speak to Agent [REDACTED].

Agent [REDACTED]: Is this on? Oh! Ok, it looks like it is…

[Agent [REDACTED] clears their throat and takes a deep breath.]

Agent [REDACTED]: Date: [REDACTED], Time: 11:03 AM in BSAA Headquarters in [REDACTED], United States…

Agent [REDACTED]: I am about to enter the holding cell of Doctor Albert Wesker, this BSAA’s former head of psychological operations and convicted serial killer hunting Raccoon City from the years of 1996 to 2003.

[Agent [REDACTED] takes another deep breath.]

Agent [REDACTED]: I have been informed that the individual does not take to interviews well, and has proven to be difficult with other agents in the past. Additionally, he has been deemed unfit for external interaction. Due to these facts, I am acting with caution in my interactions with him.

[Agent [REDACTED] opens the door to the holding cell where Doctor Albert Wesker is strapped to a gurney with a muzzle over his mouth. There are no other doors, windows or individuals in the room.]

Dr. Albert Wesker: Well now. You’re not the insufferable Agent [REDACTED].

[A.W. stares at Agent [REDACTED] and grins widely before tilting his head.]

A.W.: They sent someone new. Young. Pretty. Mm… green. I assume this is punishment—for you or for me, I’m not sure yet…

A.W.: Come then, Agent. Let’s have your little questions. I promise to pretend I’m harmless.

[He leans back in the gurney.]

Agent [REDACTED]: Doctor Wesker, thank you so much for accepting to meet with me. I’m Agent [REDACTED] of the BSAA’s Behavioral Assessment unit. We’re investigating a case involving a strain of your Uroboros project. I was hoping I could pick your brain a little bit about it.

A.W.: You’ve rehearsed that line, haven’t you?

A.W.: Polite. Respectful. Just the right touch of gratitude… You were taught by Miss Valentine, weren’t you? Or, I suppose she goes by Doctor now. Unless… of course, her studies fell through.

[A.W. chuckles and shakes his head. Agent [REDACTED] sits straight in her seat. Her hands are folded on top of a stack of files.]

A.W.: Tell me about your case. What makes you think it’s mine?

Agent [REDACTED]: Well… Doctor…. It’s not yours. That’s what’s concerning. It is an imitation of your work. Someone is trying to either mutate, change, or improve upon your Uroboros project. Someone who has access to your research… Either by you giving it to them… Or through other means…

Agent [REDACTED]: … Did you ever… Give your research to anyone? Share it with a colleague? Have a partner?

[A.W. Stares at Agent [REDACTED] before letting out a slow exhale.]

A.W.: You think I’d partner with someone?

A.W.: [REDACTED]. May I call you that? Good. You think… because I’m in a cage I must’ve lost my standards. No, Agent. I do not partner with others. I create. I improve. I perfect. Others, imitate. But not I. Never I.

A.W.: So if someone out there is mangling my legacy like a child dissecting a clock, your concern is valid.

[A.W. smirks under the muzzle.]

A.W.: …Unless, of course, they didn’t steal it. Unless I gave them just enough to watch them choke on it.

Agent [REDACTED]: … Doctor, are you confirming that you shared your research on Uroboros with someone

A.W.: Tell me, Agent. What does your gut tell you?

A.W.: Do you think I’d give away the key to godhood? And if I did… what do you think they’d owe me in return?

Agent [REDACTED]: … They would owe you everything. They… Couldn’t possibly think to become a God, they would be beneath you…

A.W.: You do understand. Good.

A.W.: That’s rare, you know. Most agents who sit across from me think they’re here to outsmart the monster. They think insight is power. That if they understand me, they can control me. How laughable.

A.W.: If someone has perverted my research, Agent … It is not merely a threat to the safety of the public. It is sacrilege.

Agent [REDACTED]: Who did you give your research to? Did you publish it? Did you send it to one person? A group? Is it online somewhere? Please, Doctor. I need to know.

A.W.: Ah, Agent… you ask as if the truth is a page I’d hand you freely… No, my dear. The research was never published. It was never meant for the masses. It was… entrusted. A select few, carefully chosen. A secret passed like a dark torch in the night.

A.W.: Now, Agent, tell me—what are you willing to risk to see this through? To ensure that one of my… Students are brought to justice?

[Silence falls over the room.]

A.W.: Ah! There it is… That look. That flicker… Who is it?

A.W.: This isn’t about the victims. This isn’t a selfless little visit! Ha! This is personal for you… So who. Is. It?

[Agent [REDACTED] opens her mouth like she’s about to speak but pauses. ]

A.W.: What are they becoming, Y/N? I can help you stop it, you just need to trust me…

Agent [REDACTED]: … My si-

[Captain Christopher Redfield and 4 members of his Hound Wolf Squad enter the holding cell and surround Dr. Albert Wesker. Their rifles are all drawn and the laser sights are pointed at the subject’s chest.]

Captain Christopher Redfield: Say nothing more, Agent! Move behind me please!

Agent [REDACTED]: Captain Redfield, I still have time do I not?!

A.W.: Ah, Christopher. Still charging in like a righteous fool with a badge and a gun. Do try not to shoot me this time—your aim’s never been that good.

C.R.: Cut the bullshit Wesker! Hands where we can see them!

[Dr. Wesker raises his hands, which were believed to be bound to the gurney, his actions are taunting and defiant all at once. The Hound Wolf Squad moves to restrain him once more. As they do, Dr. Wesker turns to Agent [REDACTED].]

A.W.: Your time’s running out, [REDACTED] … And hers is running faster.

[End Of Transcript]

Nimble hands flutter through the pages, grabbing at notes for you to assess before promptly tossing them away.

“C’mon, C’mon, Come on! There’s got to be something!” You cry out in frustration.

“Albert Wesker—Raccoon City’s Mad Doctor—is a man who plays with his victims. He plans out his actions so far in advance and toys with them, giving them hints along the way…” You reread the examiner’s notes from the profile out loud and toss the evaluation away from you in a huff.

“Like some sick game!! Which means there has to be a hint, a clue, anything, among th-”

Your eyes catch on the stack of unopened mail on the counter and the apartment feels like it’s dropped a few degrees. A stamp in the corner of 7 envelopes is the green postage stamp of the BSAA facility’s mail machine. Spreading them out, you take notice that each envelope holds the same neat, surgical lettering that writes out your full name and your address.

You want to deny your gut feeling. Tell yourself that it’s a coincidence and that they’re surely not being sent from him.

Lithe, panicked fingers tear open the letters…

Written in that same elegant hand:

“You’ve delayed, Cass. But grief has a scent. And desperation leaves a trail even a blind man could follow. You’ll find the key where it hurts most. But you’ll need to choose: do you want your answers? Or do you want your sister? One will cost you the other. Be swift. —A.W.”

Behind it, another letter waits. And another.

Some longer. Some brief.

All dated. All sent before the escape.

Wesker was planning this. Not days ago. Weeks.

And he wrote to you through all of it.

Like a lover.

Like a prophet.

And outside, a cold wind rattles the window.

As if something just shifted.

The envelopes tear like skin beneath your fingers, one after another.

Each letter is precise. Cold. And personal. Like he knew how you’d read them—alone, hands shaking, and utterly too late.

The second letter is postmarked from 3 weeks ago.

“Have you ever watched someone transform from within? It starts behind the eyes. That’s where the soul goes to rot first. Your sister is still in there, Agent. For now. But if she begins to hum, if she starts repeating names you’ve never heard—call me. You won’t understand what it means. But I will.”

The third letter is marked from 2 and a half weeks ago, and it makes your skin crawl like the rest. It makes you feel revulsion and nausea.

“They’re studying her, aren’t they? Tucking her into clean little data sheets, filing her agony into charts. They’ll keep her alive just long enough to write the paper. Then they’ll euthanize her and move on. Unless you move first.”

Most of them continued this way. Short notes referencing the things you had spoken about in your short time interviewing the disgraced doctor. But the letters that really raise your flags are the three that start from 10 days ago.

Letter five - postmarked 10 days ago:

“I will be leaving soon. The BSAA grows… clumsy. Your Captain has become too fond of threats, too reliant on containment procedures. How quaint. But you, Agent… You never needed a cage to hear me.”

Letter six - postmarked 7 days ago:

“There is a storage unit registered under the name E.R. Black. Locker #61, in the industrial district. Go alone. Go before your Captain finds it. There’s a dose of something I no longer need, and a file your sister might. Leave the lights off when you read it.”

Letter seven is just a key. No paper. No greeting. Nothing but a polished, newly cut metal key.

“Shit… SHIT!!” You cry out and stuff the letters into your purse as arms flail to swipe keys off the counter and a jacket off the hook. Industrial district. Storage unit. That’s not close, but it’s not far. Taking one look at the traffic, you huff. ‘I’ll have to run.’ You think and go sprinting through the rain, clutching your purse like it holds all the answers to life’s questions.

By the time you reach the storage unit building, your eyes are blurry from droplets and your lungs burn. Slamming into the storage unit building, you bark at the poor receptionist: “E.R. Black! Locker 61!! Where is it?!” The panic must be obvious because the shocked receptionist just throws his hands up and points down a hallway. “R-right, okay—row F, aisle three. Left side!” And you take off.

The hallway is long and silent, the fluorescent lights overhead buzzing faintly. Your boots squeak with each step as you move fast through the concrete labyrinth, pulse hammering in your ears.

Locker 61 is tucked into the corner. A slab of unassuming, padlocked, cold metal.

But something about it feels wrong.

Like the hallway behind you just got quieter.

Like something’s watching.

You fumble the small key tucked in the envelope of the final letter and slide it into the lock.

Click.

The door swings open with a metallic groan and you step inside.

He steps out of the shadows like he never left them. No rush. No sound. Just appears—gloved hands behind his back, raindrops still clinging to the shoulders of his coat, as if the storm outside hadn’t touched him at all. His eyes settle on you with quiet satisfaction.

“You’re late.”

He walks a slow circle around the unit, eyes grazing over the open attaché case placed in the middle of the floor. It holds a syringe with a neatly printed label and a thick manila file, wrapped with twine to hold the top flap shut. On the back you can see his signature printed and the notes ‘Uroboros Data - Copy # 3’

“I had a sister once, you know. Half-blood. Sickly. Fragile.” A pause.

“She died before I understood the value of control.”

He turns to face you. His voice lowers—something silkier, darker, meant only for you. “You do understand now, don’t you?”

He takes one step closer, eyes catching yours in a vice grip.

“How much they’ve taken from you. How little they’ll give back. Redfield would’ve left her to rot in a lab cell.” He gestures to the case.

“You have in that box what no one else will offer you: choice. Sure, the cure isn’t perfect. But it’s better than the alternative...” A slow tilt of his head.

“All you have to do… is trust me.”

His smile doesn’t touch his eyes.

But there’s something else there.

Something wickedly patient.

And very, very interested.

“Work with me, Y/N… We can develop a proper cure for your dear, sweet Sister.” His voice continues to drop lower,

“And in return…”

He circles you, placing a gentle, gloved hand on your shoulder before purring in your ear–You can hear his lips curl into a sardonic smile…

“Loyalty, Agent. That’s all I ask for…”

Fin.

~~~

Taglist: @shymoob

Event Masterlist

[thicknick19]

Tell No One

Part Two - Eyes On You

The Routine

Time doesn’t pass here. It circles.

You wake when the lights shift from deep amber to sterile white, flickering once like a sunrise that forgot how to be warm. You eat when the tray slides in from the wall, always silent. Always the same food. A little too perfect. A little too you.

Then come the reflection periods.

Twice a day, morning and evening, you’re required to sit in front of the mirror and talk. About what? Anything. Everything. You’re told this is “vital for emotional data collection.”

The Welcome Packet included guidelines:

Face the mirror directly.

Speak clearly.

Be emotionally transparent.

Do not engage in self-harm or acts of deception.

Do not attempt to provoke or manipulate your observer.

That last one stays in your mind like a song lyric.

"Your observer."

You haven’t seen them. Haven’t heard them. But you feel it—eyes, always just past the surface of the glass. Watching. Listening.

At first, you follow the guidelines with distant sarcasm:

“I’m fine. Day one, maybe day two. Hard to tell. Thanks for the food. I’d kill for a clock. Are you bored yet, or is staring at me cry the highlight of your week?”

The mirror gives nothing back.

But you keep going. Because what else is there?

The Breakdown Begins

By the fifth—or maybe fifteenth—day, your sarcasm thins.

The silence seeps in. It fills the corners of your room, winds around your ankles when you sleep, presses in behind your eyes when you’re awake. You start talking to the mirror just to make noise.

“My mom would love this place. Always said I needed discipline.” “I had a dog once. He died in the winter.” “There’s something wrong with the light in here. It doesn’t feel real.”

No one answers. Of course they don’t. But sometimes, when your voice cracks, or when you press your fingers to the glass—you swear the red light pauses. Just for a second.

You tell yourself it's nothing.

But you stop looking directly at the mirror after that.

Protocol Breach (Subtle)

One morning, you skip the reflection session.

You curl up on the bed and close your eyes instead, refusing to face the mirror.

Ten minutes pass. Then twenty.

Then—click. A soft, mechanical shift.

You open your eyes.

There’s a blanket at the foot of your bed. Not the thin, scratchy standard-issue sheet. A different one—soft. Dark gray. Heavy. Folded perfectly.

You didn’t see or hear anyone come in.

It smells faintly like detergent. Clean, but real. Like a home you forgot existed.

Your throat tightens.

“Thank you,” you whisper toward the mirror, unsure if you mean it.

The red light blinks. Once. Twice. Then it holds.

Solid red. Unmoving.

You feel watched. But for the first time… not alone.

What They Don’t Say

The protocol packet never said what happens if your observer interacts with you. It outlined the rules you must follow—but nothing about consequences for them.

You flip back through the manual one night, flipping through familiar pages. You notice something now that didn’t register before.

“Observers are trained to maintain emotional distance for the duration of the subject’s stay. Direct contact is not advised except in emergency protocol scenarios.”

Not advised. Not forbidden.

You read it again. And again.

Your pulse rises.

They didn’t say can’t. They said shouldn’t.

So what happens when they do?

The Mirror Responds

You test it.

You write again on the glass—this time smaller. More personal. You crouch down at the base of the mirror, away from the camera’s angle.

“Are you real?”

The next morning, the message is gone. But your handwriting isn’t smeared. It wasn’t cleaned away. It was… rewritten. In neater strokes. Faint. Careful.

It says:

“Are you?”

You freeze.

For the rest of the day, you don’t speak during the reflection periods. You just stare at the mirror. Quiet. Heavy. Waiting.

And somehow, the silence feels heavier than your voice ever did.

A New Face

You’re escorted to the observation wing again. This time for a different task—walking laps in the corridor, under the guise of light physical therapy.

And that’s when you see him.

Another subject.

Male. Late teens or early twenties. Messy dark hair. Slim build. His arms are crossed. There’s a look in his eyes—like he knows something. Like he’s been here longer.

The guards give you a wide berth as you pass each other.

He looks right at you.

And says:

“They don’t let you leave. Not really.” “Some of us are just part of the test now.”

Your escort yanks him back before he can say more.

When you return to your room, you find something new.

In the bottom corner of your mirror, barely visible unless the light hits it just right:

Don’t speak to him again.

And under it, scribbled in rushed, uneven strokes:

He’s watching everything. You’re in danger now.

You sit on the floor that night, blanket wrapped tight around your shoulders. The reflection session comes and goes. You don’t speak. You just stare at the mirror and ask—soft enough that only the glass can hear it:

“Are you protecting me… or keeping me for yourself?”

This time, the red light doesn’t blink. It glows.

Solid. Steady. Unflinching. He heard you. And he’s still there.

Taglist: @riasturns @poppetbaby02 @johnheart @bells-sturn @user1smvtysturniolo @finnickodairslut @bellxx9 @ariastur9z @sage-burrow @theylovedemi @persephonesluvs @elisebeattie @novalovesstvrz @angelsturniolo @honey-zozo @idek1234567891 @darksturnioloqueen

[pampanope]

Graves Headcanons from Shadows’ POV (Part 1):

((Or, i wanna share some silly hc in this format in between all the art stuff • 3•))

Every Shadow, from the grizzled Spec Ops operator to the fresh faced civilian, no matter what background or experience, always had Graves as that one topic of gossip they turned to when things got too slow.

It’s become both habit and sport to catalog every detail of their Commander and then discuss their findings in a twisted peer review, preferably with alcohol involved, as if gathering intel on a high value target before the op.

Through the years it had been tradition for Elder Shadows to pass on Graves ‘lore’ to the newest Shadows and encourage them to take up the hobby of Graves Watching (it’s effective observation training, you see…if you happen to catch feelings for the boss, well, it’s par for the course)

There’s a ‘published’ (a fat binder of loose leaf) Graves Manual floating around,(bland cover and backing and with dick doodles all over for extra camouflage, pockets full of photos of the Commander from various angles) on base with multiple entries:

- first notable observation: Graves is fucking pretty. Too pretty (and relatively young) to be head of a band of mercenaries. And he knows he’s pretty (been seen smirking at tongue tied, blushing baby Shadows and civilians alike). Rival PMCs and militaries, on the rare chance SC has to cooperate with them, would ogle in envy as the Commander strutted around and barked orders in his tight preferred BDUs (the Shadows preen with pride at this. Every. Damn. Time)

- Graves is every bit the outspoken Texas stereotype. He’s loud, worships at the alter of Texas Barbecue, an avid Dallas Cowboys fan (staff found a jersey in his closet), had been winning gun competitions since he was old enough to compete (off-hand boast from the man himself) and blasts country music both out of love for the genre and out of sadistic spite (Every cookout. The trick is to get a stealthy Shadow to switch playlists while Graves is busy grilling)

- but he’s also been observed waiting for his Shadows to finish speaking, listening intently with full on eye contact (a bit overwhelming for the newbies). He prefers to workout in the evenings, alone, when everyone else would be in the rec rooms or asleep. He’ll take his tablet up to the roof and work in solitude drafting tedious emails or planning a difficult op. There are days, when nothing of note is scheduled, when he’ll almost retreat into himself and bask in the Company’s presence instead of engage.

- it’s this duality that started the Shadows’ fixation on Graves: a pretty loudmouth with Depth (the Shadows chuckled over this description but it was true dammit)

-the man is tight lipped about his childhood and family; braver Shadows have asked but were diverted to other topics or out right shut down (Note: more data needed on this!)

-his personal quarters are spotless and put together (bed made with sheets tightly tucked in, boots shined and neatly placed, everything in its place), his meeting room where he entertains clients is pristine and posh in furnishings, and yet his work office is an utter disaster, organized chaos is a charitable descriptor.

-the Shadows conclude each room represents a facet of the man; the orderly quarters is habit driven from years as a Marine, the opulent meeting room is the face of a successful CEO he wants to present to the world, and his work room, the one filled with binders, reports, coffee stains, knick knacks from his Shadows, is the realest representation of Graves out of the three, the Graves only they were privy to (high fives were exchanged over this big brain discovery, the Shadow who posited this theory was promptly dog piled)

((More to come, just wanted to vomit out these ✨t h o u g h t s✨))

[mariacallous]

It feels like no one should have to say this, and yet we are in a situation where it needs to be said, very loudly and clearly, before it’s too late to do anything about it: The United States is not a startup. If you run it like one, it will break.

The onslaught of news about Elon Musk’s takeover of the federal government’s core institutions is altogether too much—in volume, in magnitude, in the sheer chaotic absurdity of a 19-year-old who goes by “Big Balls” helping the world’s richest man consolidate power. There’s an easy way to process it, though.

Donald Trump may be the president of the United States, but Musk has made himself its CEO.

This is bad on its face. Musk was not elected to any office, has billions of dollars of government contracts, and has radicalized others and himself by elevating conspiratorial X accounts with handles like @redpillsigma420. His allies control the US government’s human resources and information technology departments, and he has deployed a strike force of eager former interns to poke and prod at the data and code bases that are effectively the gears of democracy. None of this should be happening.

It is, though. And while this takeover is unprecedented for the government, it’s standard operating procedure for Musk. It maps almost too neatly to his acquisition of Twitter in 2022: Get rid of most of the workforce. Install loyalists. Rip up safeguards. Remake in your own image.

This is the way of the startup. You’re scrappy, you’re unconventional, you’re iterating. This is the world that Musk’s lieutenants come from, and the one they are imposing on the Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration.

What do they want? A lot.

There’s AI, of course. They all want AI. They want it especially at the GSA, where a Tesla engineer runs a key government IT department and thinks AI coding agents are just what bureaucracy needs. Never mind that large language models can be effective but are inherently, definitionally unreliable, or that AI agents—essentially chatbots that can perform certain tasks for you—are especially unproven. Never mind that AI works not just by outputting information but by ingesting it, turning whatever enters its maw into training data for the next frontier model. Never mind that, wouldn’t you know it, Elon Musk happens to own an AI company himself. Go figure.

Speaking of data: They want that, too. DOGE agents are installed at or have visited the Treasury Department, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Small Business Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor. Probably more. They’ve demanded data, sensitive data, payments data, and in many cases they’ve gotten it—the pursuit of data as an end unto itself but also data that could easily be used as a competitive edge, as a weapon, if you care to wield it.

And savings. They want savings. Specifically they want to subject the federal government to zero-based budgeting, a popular financial planning method in Silicon Valley in which every expenditure needs to be justified from scratch. One way to do that is to offer legally dubious buyouts to almost all federal employees, who collectively make up a low-single-digit percentage of the budget. Another, apparently, is to dismantle USAID just because you can. (If you’re wondering how that’s legal, many, many experts will tell you that it’s not.) The fact that the spending to support these people and programs has been both justified and mandated by Congress is treated as inconvenience, or maybe not even that.

Those are just the goals we know about. They have, by now, so many tentacles in so many agencies that anything is possible. The only certainty is that it’s happening in secret.

Musk’s fans, and many of Trump’s, have cheered all of this. Surely billionaires must know what they’re doing; they’re billionaires, after all. Fresh-faced engineer whiz kids are just what this country needs, not the stodgy, analog thinking of the past. It’s time to nextify the Constitution. Sure, why not, give Big Balls a memecoin while you’re at it.

The thing about most software startups, though, is that they fail. They take big risks and they don’t pay off and they leave the carcass of that failure behind and start cranking out a new pitch deck. This is the process that DOGE is imposing on the United States.

No one would argue that federal bureaucracy is perfect, or especially efficient. Of course it can be improved. Of course it should be. But there is a reason that change comes slowly, methodically, through processes that involve elected officials and civil servants and care and consideration. The stakes are too high, and the cost of failure is total and irrevocable.

Musk will reinvent the US government in the way that the hyperloop reinvented trains, that the Boring company reinvented subways, that Juicero reinvented squeezing. Which is to say he will reinvent nothing at all, fix no problems, offer no solutions beyond those that further consolidate his own power and wealth. He will strip democracy down to the studs and rebuild it in the fractious image of his own companies. He will move fast. He will break things.

[obsidianpen]

Okay, so a lot of people here have talked about the use of AI and large language models such as ChatGPT, and honestly, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I think that using them to help you proofread is fine. So spelling, grammar, and that sort of thing. And writers can also do this process themselves obviously, but I don't see the harm in using ChatGPT for this, as long as you are aware that you are giving your data and story over to OpenAI.

When it comes to ideas, bouncing ideas off of an AI can be fun, but only to the extent that they are completely your ideas (meaning the AI didn't come up with the idea for you and you aren't giving the AI information about someone else's ideas). So your idea your choice, but don't use the AI to get the idea for your work and don't give the AI other people's ideas or works. And this only really applies if you don't have anybody either in-person or online to do this with instead.

The last thing I'll say is that AI writing isn't the greatest. It can sound realistic and be cohesive to an extent, but it isn't the same as a real author. I actually tested this a few times because I was curious how it would turn out, and I promise that it is not a substitute or replacement for real authors. I think this is because ChatGPT and other AIs work by predicting what is the best/most likely word to come next in its response based off of the dataset it was trained on. It even has a function that allows some degree of randomness/variability in the next word, rather than only using the top/best next word each time. But this means it isn't coming up with new or inventive ideas. It doesn't come up with plot twists, it can't plan slowly developing arcs across multiple chapters, and it doesn't make the characters interesting to read, have a lot of depth, sound real, or so forth. There are more things too, but I'm just giving a non-exhaustive list of why ChatGPT's writing is not the same as a real author's writing.

Note: I apologize if this isn't clear or if I'm just rambling or if I made any typos. I'm writing this on my phone and have not had ChatGPT or other AI proofread it for me.

hm. I’d say there’s been a lot more discussion about whether or not Tom Riddle has a breeding kink (he does not; just a WAP kink) and about the height difference between Harry and Voldemort in NG (there are charts; they are, somehow, confusing). I don’t want this to be a recurring theme on this blog, so consider this my (very hopefully) last post on this topic.

My opinion on the matter: I don’t agree with your reasoning for using AI. You said you didn’t think it was an issue ‘as long as you are aware that you are giving your data and story over to OpenAI.’ I think you absolutely should care that you’re giving your data and story over to AI!!! You should care. Pretty much just sold yourself there as far as I’m concerned.

I don’t think anyone should be using AI for proofreading. I don’t know how great it is at this, but even if it’s amazing, I think you should be doing this yourself!!! Editing is a skill, and a great one to have. I catch a lot of things when I proofread my own shit; I realize I missed things or screwed things up - not just grammatically speaking but plot wise, which as you said, AI can’t help with anyway. Proofread your own stuff. Proofread your own stuff!!!! And if you want a second set of eyes on your work, ask a real human!!!!!!!!

re: bouncing your ideas off of AI… no!!!! Bounce your ideas off of PEOPLE I promise you will have much better conversations because they will be with someone who can think critically.

and the thing about chatGPT not writing super well… yeah, duh. But what some writers do is use shit like chatGPT as a starting point, then edit. It doesn’t come up with plot twists - unless you feed them to it. No one is arguing that it’s a good as a ‘real author’ but that doesn’t mean people who consider themselves ‘real authors’ aren’t using it. I think this sucks, because, in case we forgot, chatGPT uses theft as its foundation.

(and this isn’t even touching on the environmental shit concerning AI.)

In conclusion: I don’t think anyone should use it for anything creative. At all. Feel free to disagree (and you can post about that on your own blog), but if you lean on AI to edit or create your creative work, you’re only hindering yourself.

Note: I apologize if this isn't clear or if I'm just rambling or if I made any typos. I'm also writing this on my phone and have not had ChatGPT or other AI proofread it for me, nor would I ever.

[smokescreenimusprime]

watched tf one the other night with my best friend and now I've been Re-Mental Illnessed, here's some Rescue Bot Smokescreen Rot I rotated while driving home :]

I think I've finally hammered out some more details of Inside Job and this is what I came up with:

like canon it starts with the Omega Keys. Specifically when Bulkhead gets attacked and knocked unconscious when looking for one

And against direct orders, Smokescreen leaves the base to go get him

there were a bunch of reasons why he did what he did. A desire to prove his capability as an EMT. He wants to be a field medic like Ratchet is, he wants to be able to do more than just wait for them to come back injured when the more time that passes the more dangerous it could be. There was also the fear of losing anyone else, especially so soon after he befriended Bulkhead. It's barely been a few days since they started getting along, and the loss of the entire Rescue Bot Force is still raw

so he goes, and finds Bulkhead unconscious and alone in the woods, with the only injury being some scratches and a blow to the back of the helm. Smokescreen doesn't have a scratch on him as they hobble back to base

it doesn't stop Ratchet's anger

Now, don't get me wrong, Ratchet is angry because he was scared. Smokescreen could've been in very real danger. He didn't know what awaited him on the other side of that portal. For all they knew, the Decepticon soldiers could've still been there, and they could've lost the last Rescue Bot in existence

but unfortunately, he says all this when still angry

and Smokescreen, as thick as his skin is from experiencing years of discrimination, is genuinely hurt by it. This isn't just a fellow medic or instructor yelling at him, this is his idol berating him for what he thought was the right thing to do

this is his idol unknowingly repeating the words that followed him all throughout his training and that he sought to prove wrong, and he has no idea how to respond

so he runs. He drives as fast and far away as he can, shuts off his comm because he just. Can't right now. He can't interact with them right now because frankly he doesn't trust himself to speak and not say something he would regret to his dying days

and unknowingly this puts him right in the Decepticon's claws

some aspects of his capture stay the same. He wakes up in the medbay strapped to a table, the Omega Key is extracted, and he is placed under the cortical psychic patch

but the differences happen in the details

His restraints are barely more than a pair of manacles that he could've probably figured out how to escape if given enough time. The Omega Key was removed before he even woke up, the incisions of surgery fresh on his frame but the work is well done with obvious care. With the patch, the mental prodding and information gathering is... oddly gentle and quick, doing barely more than verifying what the Keys are and Smokescreen's identity as a Rescue Bot before retreating

Smokescreen is not a warrior after all. He is a bot thought to be long since extinct who quite literally dropped out of the sky at their feet without warning. He may have loyalty to the Autobots but... he's not fighting this war. Not really. He's just been doing what Rescue Bots do: helping those who need it.

The "cell" he's kept in, if it can even be called that, was an old now-dead officer's quarters. The door is locked and there are guards stationed inside watching him at all hours, but they are not cruel. He gets a healthy amount of rations regularly, and has even been given a data terminal to keep himself entertained (of course, no before Soundwave had thoroughly firewalled and restricted anything that could be used against them)

the most stressful part of his capture is when Megatron comes to visit. Every day without fail, he will come check in on how Smokescreen is doing. He will ask how he's doing and they talk. About Cybertron, about the war, about how accepting the Rescue Bots were, allowing any Cybertronian regardless of caste to join, how much of a tragedy it was for them to have been wiped out.

Smokescreen is not blind to how he attempts to sow seeds of doubt into the Autobots into him. About how cruel it was for them to keep him confined to the base, how cruel Trion was for implanting a relic without his knowledge, questions if Smokescreen truly wanted to help them or if that's just what they've pressured him into doing with false promises that crumble like glass

but instead of refuting him... Smokescreen decides to play along

after all, Megatron obviously sees him as a poor, innocent, helpless bot who could be swayed by some sweet words and a cage advertised as protection

and that facade would make it all the easier to escape when the time came :)