#two data phenomenon

[barnacles34]

Lost in Analysis (Winter x Male OC)

5k words, smut, fluff, happiness, data

Winter x Male OC

The thing about Junho Kim's[1] weekly debriefs with Minjeong Kim was that they followed a precise algorithm, an almost liturgical routine that both participants had wordlessly agreed upon circa Winter's third month of employment (viz. April 2024). The format went as follows: Winter would arrive at exactly 18:30 on Friday bearing a leather-bound portfolio containing the week's logistics reports, margin analyses, and projected Q3/Q4 modeling scenarios. Junho would pretend to study these for exactly twelve minutes while Winter sat in the ergonomic chair across his desk, her accent becoming pronounced in direct proportion to her anxiety level[2].

What happened on this particular Friday deviated from the algorithm in ways that would later prove significant, starting with Winter's arrival at 18:27[3].

"The Busan account numbers are off," Junho said, his photographic memory already detecting a 0.03% discrepancy in the third-quarter projections. The words emerged with the mechanical precision of someone who had learned human speech through technical manuals rather than conversation. "This is—" he paused, index finger tapping against his mahogany desk in a rapidfire motion that Winter had learned to recognize as his pre-explosion tell, "—unacceptable."

And then something unprecedented occurred.

Instead of her usual composed absorption of his critique, Winter's face crumpled into what could only be described as a squeaky whimper, a sound so incongruous with her usual professional demeanor that it seemed to physically stun Junho into silence. It was the acoustic equivalent of watching a Mercedes-Benz hiccup.

The algorithm crashed.

—

[1] Junho Kim, CEO of Quantum Logistics Solutions, net worth $2.3B (₩3.1T), possessed what his former Harvard professors called "an almost frightening capacity for data retention" and what his former therapist (sessions terminated after 2.5 meetings) called "a pathological inability to process emotional bandwidth."

[2] A phenomenon her roommate had dubbed "The Accent Anxiety Index," where her carefully practiced Seoul pronunciation would gradually give way to her native Busan satoori, ranging from barely detectable at Level 1 ("감사합니다") to full coastal at Level 10 ("아이고, 사장님, 이 숫자 영 아니네요").

[3] The 3-minute early arrival would later be explained by a complex series of events involving a broken elevator, two flights of stairs, and Winter's determination not to let her carefully constructed timeline collapse due to mechanical failure.

—

The following Friday's debrief began with Junho actually pulling out Winter's chair[4], a gesture so unexpected that she nearly missed the seat entirely. The portfolio was reviewed. The whiskey was poured (Junho's usual Macallan 25, Winter's Hwayo 41). And then, somewhere between the second and third drink, Winter's accent kicked into what would later be classified as Level 11 on the Southern Comfort Scale.

"You know what your problem is, sajangnim?" Minjeong's words carried the warm weight of soju and suppressed frustration, her carefully maintained Seoul accent dissolving entirely into coastal inflections. "당신은 인생을 마치 스프레드시트처럼 대하시네요. Everything must calculate perfectly, but people aren't numbers, and some of us are tired of being debugged like broken code."

Junho's finger stopped its habitual tapping mid-motion[5].

—

[4] A gesture learned from a WikiHow article titled "Basic Human Courtesy: A Beginner's Guide" that Junho had queued up on his tablet at 3:47 AM the previous Tuesday.

[5] Later analysis would reveal this as the exact moment Junho Kim, master of algorithms and logistics, encountered a variable his photographic memory couldn't process: genuine human connection.[6]

The office fell into a silence that could be measured in heartbeats (Junho's: an efficient 72 BPM; Minjeong's: an elevated 98 BPM). Outside, Seoul's financial district performed its usual Friday night exodus, the sound of departing Mercedes and BMWs creating a capitalistic symphony twenty-three floors below.

"시간이..." Minjeong continued, her Busan accent now operating at what could only be classified as Level 12[7], "Time isn't just money, 사장님. Sometimes it's just... time. Like those lunches you wolf down in exactly eight minutes while reading reports. Or these Friday meetings where you never actually look at me, just through me at some invisible spreadsheet floating in the air behind my head."

Junho's hand, still frozen mid-tap, slowly lowered to the desk. His photographic memory began involuntarily cataloging details it had somehow missed during their previous 47 debriefs: the way Minjeong's left hand always fidgeted with her portfolio's corner when nervous, how her voice carried traces of sea salt and summer festivals despite years of Seoul speech coaching, the fact that she had memorized his coffee preferences down to the precise temperature (81°C, no higher, no lower).

"I do look at you," he said, then immediately registered the statistical improbability of his own response[8].

Minjeong's laugh carried the particular timber of someone who had been holding it in reserve for approximately 11.7 months. "아니요, you really don't. You look at KPIs and performance metrics and quarterly projections. Did you know," she leaned forward, her accent thick as Busan fog, "that I've worn the same earrings every Friday for three months just to see if you'd notice?"

The earrings in question were small silver cranes, Junho's memory instantly supplied, purchased from a street vendor in Gukje Market during last quarter's Busan office inspection, chosen because their wings formed the mathematical symbol for infinity when viewed from the correct angle[9].

—

[6] A concept that would later require Junho to create an entirely new category in his mental filing system, located somewhere between "Acceptable Business Practices" and "Breathing Exercises (Mandatory)."

[7] A previously theoretical level on the Accent Anxiety Index, characterized by the complete abandonment of Seoul linguistic pretense and the emergence of what Minjeong's mother would call "우리 딸의 진짜 목소리" (our daughter's real voice).

[8] Statistical analysis of Junho's daily eye contact patterns, conducted by his personal AI assistant, revealed an average sustained eye contact duration of 1.3 seconds with all employees, making his current 4.7-second gaze at Minjeong a 361.5% deviation from the mean.

[9] A detail that would have impressed Junho greatly had he noticed it at the time of purchase, rather than at this precise moment when his brain was simultaneously trying to process the concept of infinity and the way Minjeong's eyes reflected the city lights like binary code translated into stardust.

—

The Hwayo bottle stood between them like a glass mediator, its contents depleted by exactly 73.4%. Junho found himself performing calculations he had never previously considered necessary: the precise angle at which Minjeong's smile disrupted his cardiac rhythm (42.7°), the correlation coefficient between her proximity and his ability to maintain coherent thought patterns (inverse relationship, R² = 0.97), the half-life of each satoori-tinged syllable in his auditory memory (approaching infinity)[10].

"There's a pojangmacha," Minjeong said, her words now performing linguistic gymnastics between Seoul and Busan, "down in Gangnam that serves 할매's 파전 just like back home. But you—" she gestured with her glass, creating small amber trajectories in the air, "—you probably have the exact caloric content memorized without ever tasting it."

"624 calories per standard serving," Junho confirmed automatically, then added, in what he would later recognize as his first attempt at human humor[11], "Not accounting for 할매's (grandmother’s) love."

The laugh that escaped Minjeong's lips was genuine enough to bypass all of Junho's statistical models for appropriate business interaction. It was the kind of laugh that made him wonder if his entire algorithmic approach to life had been operating on a fundamental error: the assumption that human emotions could be debugged rather than experienced.

"사장님," she said, then caught herself, "아니, Junho-ssi." The honorific shift created a quantifiable disruption in the office's atmospheric pressure[12]. "Do you know why I cry sometimes when you yell about the numbers?"

Junho's hands found themselves attempting to calculate an emotion he had no formula for. "I... have a working hypothesis."

"It's not because I'm scared or hurt," she continued, her Busan accent now wrapping around the words like a warm coast-side breeze. "It's because I see you turning yourself into code, like you're trying to compile a human being into binary, and..." she paused, searching for words in both Seoul and Busan vocabularies before settling on, "...그게 너무 아까워요."

The phrase hung in the air, untranslatable in its full emotional weight[13].

—

[10] A phenomenon that would later require Junho to create an entirely new mathematical framework he privately termed "The Minjeong Constant: Variables in Human Connection."

[11] Later analysis of office security footage would reveal this as his first non-data-related comment in approximately 2,847 hours of recorded business interactions.

[12] Advanced environmental sensors in the building's HVAC system actually recorded a 0.02% change in air pressure at this exact moment, though causation versus correlation remains a subject of debate among the building's maintenance staff.

[13] The closest English approximation might be "it's such a waste," but this fails to capture the uniquely Korean sense of regret for potential beauty lost to unnecessary efficiency, like trying to measure ocean waves in milliliters.

—

For exactly 15.4 seconds, Junho Kim—master of instantaneous data processing, champion of real-time analytics—found himself buffering. His mind, that perfectly calibrated instrument of calculation, attempted to run multiple subroutines simultaneously:

ROUTINE_1: Analyze the 2.3% tremor in Minjeong's voice during "그게 너무 아까워요"

ROUTINE_2: Process the 7.4mm dilation of his pupils upon hearing his given name

ROUTINE_3: Calculate the exact distance between their hands on the desk (23.7cm, decreasing by approximately 0.3mm per heartbeat)

ERROR: Stack overflow in emotional processing unit[14]

"I have a file," he began, then stopped, realizing that perhaps not everything needed to be classified and stored. "No, I mean... I remember every time you've smiled at work. Real smiles, not the ones you use for clients or difficult vendors." His fingers twitched, instinctively seeking a keyboard that wasn't there. "The data suggests that they occur most frequently when you're talking about Busan, or when you think no one is watching you arrange the office plants, or..." he paused, processing, "...or when you're correcting my humanity protocols[15]."

Minjeong's eyes widened, creating what Junho's brain automatically calculated as a 34.6% increase in their reflective surface area. "You... keep track of my smiles?"

"I keep track of everything," he said, then amended, displaying unprecedented runtime flexibility, "but your smiles occupy 43% more memory space than standard data points."

"아이고," Minjeong laughed, the sound carrying hints of sea breezes and noraebang nights, "only you would quantify feelings in percentages and memory allocation, 사장님[16]."

The Hwayo bottle now stood at 82.6% depletion. Outside, Seoul had transformed into its weekend configuration, all neon equations and binary dreams. But inside this office, something unquantifiable was compiling—a program written in neither Python nor Java, but in the ancient code of human connection.

"There's a logical error in your earlier statement," Junho said suddenly, his voice performing calculations it had never been calibrated for. "About me not looking at you."

"Oh?" Minjeong's eyebrow arched at precisely 27 degrees.

"I look at you approximately 2,347 times per day. My peripheral vision activates in your presence with 72% more frequency than baseline. I have memorized exactly 267 variations of your voice modulation between Seoul and Busan registers[17]. The error," he continued, his own accent slipping for the first time since Harvard, "is in assuming I don't see you."

—

[14] A phenomenon his Harvard professors had theoretically predicted but never successfully documented: the complete shutdown of pure logic circuits in favor of what they termed "human.exe."

[15] A private joke that had never made it past his internal firewall until this moment, referring to the way she subtly guided him toward more socially acceptable behaviors, like suggesting he say "good morning" to the cleaning staff or remember team members' birthdays.

[16] The honorific here carrying a new weight, somewhere between professional distance and affectionate teasing, a linguistic quantum state that would have fascinated physicists had they been present to observe it.

[17] This particular statistic would later become the subject of a 3 AM realization that perhaps "normal" CEOs don't maintain such detailed databases of their assistants' vocal patterns.

—

The confession hung in the air with the weight of a misplaced decimal point. Minjeong's hand, still holding her Hwayo glass, trembled at a frequency of approximately 3.2 Hz. The office's automated climate control system registered a sudden 0.7°C spike in local temperature[18].

"그래서..." Minjeong's voice emerged in Pure Pattern #271 (Subcategory: Emotional Breakthrough), "this is why you always know when I've had 떡볶이 for lunch?"

The unexpected query caused Junho to experience what his systems could only classify as a brief moment of runtime joy. "The specific aroma particles adhere to your cardigan at a rate of—" he caught himself, noting the gleam in her eye, and for the first time in recorded history, Junho Kim deliberately chose not to complete a calculation[19].

Instead, he found himself saying, "Your smile increases by exactly 23.7% when you eat 떡볶이. It's... optimal."

"최적화?" Minjeong's laugh carried notes of soju and starlight. "You're really going to data-analyze my happiness levels?"

"I have spreadsheets," he admitted, his voice carrying an unfamiliar warmth that his diagnostic systems struggled to categorize. "Cross-referenced with weather patterns, quarterly reports, and the frequency of your Busan accent emergence[20]."

"아이고..." She shifted in her chair, reducing the distance between them by precisely 4.7 centimeters. "You're either the weirdest or the most romantic person I've ever met, and I haven't decided which yet."

The word 'romantic' created a momentary buffer overflow in Junho's cognitive processes. His hands, typically occupied with calculating profit margins or optimizing supply chains, found themselves drawing abstract patterns on his desk's surface—a behavior previously filed under 'Inefficient Human Gestures: Do Not Engage.'

"I could..." he paused, processing, "...show you the data?"

—

[17] This particular dataset would later be renamed in his personal files to "The Minjeong Codex: A Quantitative Analysis of Qualitative Perfection."

[18] The building's maintenance staff would later attribute this to a mechanical anomaly, unaware they had documented the exact moment Junho Kim's ice-cold corporate facade began its calculated melt.

[19] A moment that would later be marked in his personal development log as "First Successful Implementation of Strategic Data Suppression for Emotional Optimization."

[20] These spreadsheets, discovered months later during a routine server backup, would become legendary among the IT department as "The Love Languages of Linear Regression."

—

Minjeong's eyes sparkled with what Junho's facial recognition protocols quantified as 87% mirth, 13% tenderness. "보여주세요," she said, the soju making her consonants softer, more Busan-bound. "Show me this data about me."

For the first time in his professional career, Junho Kim fumbled with his laptop password[21]. The Hwayo bottle between them had decreased to critical levels, and he found the standard office lights were creating unusual prismatic effects in Minjeong's hair. His fingers, typically precise to the microsecond, skittered across the keyboard.

"See, here's the correlation between your happiness metrics and the proximity to Korean holidays," he began, then stopped, distracted by the way she'd rolled her chair closer to view his screen. The scent of her perfume (도라지 꽃, his brain supplied automatically, though for once the percentage calculation felt irrelevant) mixed with the lingering soju in the air.

"You made a pie chart," she said, her voice warm with something his systems were too buzzed to properly quantify, "of my favorite lunch spots?"

"The data visualization seemed... appropriate," he managed, aware that his usual processing power was operating at diminished capacity. "Though I may have spent a statistically anomalous amount of time color-coding it to match your favorite blazer[22]."

Minjeong's laugh had shed all traces of its Seoul polish. "어머나, who knew the great Junho Kim was such a..." she searched for the word in both dialects before landing on, "...nerd?"

"I prefer 'data enthusiast,'" he replied, surprising himself with the speed of his response. The soju was definitely affecting his standard processing delays. "Though my enthusiasm appears to be... specialized."

"Specialized?" Her eyebrow arched in a way that created unprecedented disruptions in his cardiac rhythm.

"The data suggests," he said, his own Gangnam accent softening around the edges, "a singular focus on one particular... variable[23]."

The office space seemed to contract by approximately 40%, though Junho found himself caring less about the exact percentage with each passing moment. Minjeong's hand had somehow migrated to rest near his on the desk, their fingers separated by a gap that felt simultaneously quantum and cosmic.

—

[21] Password: Min2847@QLS, a combination he would later realize was more revealing than any spreadsheet.

[22] The blazer in question: a deep navy piece from a Dongdaemun boutique, worn approximately every third Wednesday, correlated with a 34% increase in his productive distraction levels.

[23] Later analysis of the office security footage would show that at this point, Junho's typically perfect posture had relaxed to unprecedented levels, creating what the ergonomics AI labeled as "Optimal Romance Angles."

—

"Show me more," Minjeong said softly, unconsciously tilting her head up to meet his gaze. Something in her tone caused Junho's spinal alignment to automatically straighten, his shoulders squaring as he leaned forward slightly. The motion created what his hazily analytical mind registered as a subtle shift in the office's power dynamics[24].

"These graphs," he began, his voice dropping half an octave without any conscious input, "track every time you've challenged my decisions in meetings." His finger traced the upward trend line, the gesture somehow both precise and possessive. "You're the only one who dares to correct my logic. It's... intriguing."

Minjeong's breath caught audibly. "사장님..." she started, then with visible effort, "Junho-ssi... you track even that?"

"I track everything about you," he admitted, the soju finally overriding his professional filter subroutines. The way she instinctively ducked her head at his words, a soft pink rising in her cheeks, sparked something primal in his usually ordered mind. "Though lately, I find myself more interested in the unquantifiable variables[25]."

"Like what?" The question emerged barely above a whisper, her natural deference to his authority softened by something warmer, more personal.

Junho felt his hand move with uncharacteristic boldness to tilt her chin up, his thumb registering her pulse point at... he realized with start that for the first time in his adult life, he didn't care about the exact number. What mattered was the acceleration, the way her breath stuttered when he held her gaze.

"Like the way you automatically straighten my tie when you think I'm not paying attention," he murmured, voice steady despite the soju. "Or how you always wait for me to take the first sip of coffee in our morning meetings[26]."

—

[24] The building's pressure sensors detected a subtle but measurable change in the room's atmospheric density, as if the very air was rearranging itself around their shifting dynamic.

[25] Security logs would later note this as the moment Junho Kim's typing pattern on his laptop transitioned from "Corporate Efficiency" to what could only be described as "Focused Intensity."

[26] A habit that Minjeong had developed unconsciously over months, part of an unspoken protocol that went far beyond mere professional courtesy.

—

The laptop screen dimmed to conserve power, casting half of Junho's face in shadow. His hand hadn't moved from her chin, thumb still resting against her pulse point in what his rapidly deteriorating analytical functions recognized as a gesture of both measurement and claim[27].

"You know what else I've noticed?" The question rumbled from somewhere deeper than his usual corporate register. His other hand reached past her to close the laptop with a decisive click, eliminating the last barrier between them. "You mirror my breathing patterns during long meetings. 호흡이... perfectly synchronized."

Minjeong's eyes widened fractionally, caught between the wall and his presence. "That's..." she swallowed, her professional composure wavering, "...very observant of you, 사장님."

"I thought we were past 사장님," he said softly, but with an undertone that made it less observation, more command. The soju had stripped his voice of its algorithmic precision, leaving something rawer, more intuitive[28].

"Jun...ho..." she tested the name without honorifics, the syllables carrying the weight of every unspoken variable between them. Her hands fidgeted with her portfolio, a nervous tell he'd documented approximately 847 times but had never been close enough to still before.

Until now.

His free hand covered both of hers, instantly calming their movement. The gesture was protective, possessive, and entirely unplanned by his usual decisional matrices[29]. "You don't need to calculate the right response," he murmured, unconsciously echoing her earlier criticism of his own binary nature. "Your instincts have a 99.9% accuracy rate."

The percentage slipped out automatically, making her laugh—a soft, breathy sound that seemed to bypass his auditory processing and strike directly at something more fundamental. Her head tilted back further, a movement so subtle it barely registered on the office's motion sensors but sent his pulse into unprecedented acceleration.

"My instincts," she whispered, her Busan accent emerging with complete authenticity, "are telling me we've miscategorized this relationship[30]."

—

[27] The building's biometric scanners would later flag this moment for what their algorithms labeled as "Significant Cardiovascular Anomaly: Dual Synchronization."

[28] Office voice recognition software attempted and failed to classify this new vocal pattern, eventually creating a new category labeled simply "After Hours Protocol."

[29] The exact pressure of his grip would have registered at precisely 7.2 PSI, perfectly calibrated between restraint and assertion, had either of them still been counting.

[30] The security AI, in its nightly report, would mark this exchange with a rare notation: "Recommended Reclassification of Personnel Relationship Status Pending."

—

"Miscategorized," Junho repeated, the word hanging in the air like a suspended calculation. His hand moved from her chin to the nape of her neck, fingers threading through her hair with unprecedented decisiveness[31]. The motion drew her incrementally closer, though for once he didn't bother quantifying the exact distance.

"yes..." Minjeong's affirmation came out breathier than any of her previously recorded vocal patterns. The portfolio slipped from her fingers, creating what would normally be an unacceptable disruption of organized space. Neither of them moved to retrieve it.

"You know what's interesting?" Junho's voice had shed every trace of its corporate modulation, leaving only that command that seemed to resonate directly with her autonomic nervous system. "I've run approximately 2,847 scenarios of this moment in my head[32]."

Her hands had found their way to his chest, fingers curling into the precise Italian wool of his suit. "And?" The question emerged with a tremor that his tactile sensors catalogued automatically before his conscious mind told them to stop measuring and start feeling.

"None of them..." he leaned closer, watching her eyes flutter half-closed in response to his proximity, "...included the variable of you looking at me exactly like this."

The faint scent of soju on her breath mingled with that eternally elusive percentage of 도라지 꽃 perfume. Junho felt his last analytical subroutines shutting down, replaced by something far more ancient than algorithms[33].

"Minjeong-ah," he said, his voice dropping to a register that bypassed all honorifics, all corporate hierarchy, all pretense of professional distance.

Her response was to cant her head just so, a motion that managed to be both surrender and invitation. "Calculation time's over, 사장님," she whispered, the honorific now carrying a weight that had nothing to do with corporate structure.

—

[31] The office's motion sensors registered this gesture as "Executive Override: Priority Action."

[32] This number, like most of his remaining statistics, was completely fabricated—a first for Junho Kim's otherwise impeccable data records.

[33] Building security cameras would later mark this timestamp with an unprecedented classification: "Critical System Override: Human.exe fully activated."

—

For the first time in his documented existence, Junho Kim stopped calculating entirely.

The distance closed between them with a momentum that defied measurement. His hand tightened in her hair, angling her face upward as his other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against him. The kiss, when it came, contained no statistics, no data points, no quantifiable metrics[34].

Minjeong made a soft sound—Pattern #unknown, Category: heaven—against his mouth. Her fingers clutched his suit lapels with enough force to wrinkle the wool beyond its optimal pressed state, a fact that Junho's usually meticulous mind registered and immediately discarded as irrelevant.

Time segmented into a new measurement system: the catch of her breath, the silk of her hair between his fingers, the way she yielded and pressed closer simultaneously. Junho discovered that his organizational skills apparently extended to kissing, each angle adjustment and pressure variation drawing increasingly desperate responses from Minjeong[35].

When they finally broke apart, Minjeong's carefully maintained Seoul pronunciation had disappeared entirely. "아이고..." she breathed against his mouth, "당신이..."

"Initial results," Junho murmured, his own accent thick with something that had nothing to do with regional linguistics, "require extensive further testing[36]."

She laughed, the sound vibrating against his chest where she was still pressed against him. "Did you just turn our first kiss into a quality control protocol?"

"Quality confirmed," he replied, then demonstrated his newfound commitment to hands-on research by kissing her again, harder this time, swallowing her surprised gasp. His hand splayed possessively across her lower back, holding her steady as she swayed into him.

—

[34] The building's atmospheric sensors recorded unexplained fluctuations in local temperature, humidity, and electromagnetic fields, leading to a complete recalibration of their measurement standards.

[35] Later analysis would suggest that Junho's legendary attention to detail had found a new, decidedly non-professional application, though this data remains classified in personal files marked "Private Research: Ongoing."

[36] The security AI attempting to transcribe this conversation eventually gave up and simply tagged the file: "Error 404: Professionalism Not Found."

—

Somewhere in the haze of non-analytical thought, Junho registered Minjeong's slight backward momentum and moved instinctively to steady her. His hand swept the desk clear with uncharacteristic disregard for organizational protocols, sending the quarterly reports flutter-falling to the carpet in an acceptable margin of chaos[37].

"Jun...ho..." His name escaped her lips like a statistical anomaly as he lifted her effortlessly onto the mahogany surface. Her legs parted automatically to accommodate him, skirt hiking up precisely 4.7 inches—the last measurement his brain would process for the foreseeable future.

"So beautiful," he murmured against her throat, the words emerging in pure Gangnam inflection, all pretense of corporate diction abandoned. His teeth grazed her pulse point, drawing a whimper that would require an entirely new classification system[38].

Minjeong's fingers tangled in his precisely styled hair, disrupting approximately 47 minutes of morning grooming routine. "사장님," she gasped, the honorific now carrying entirely different connotations, "the papers..."

"Irrelevant data," he growled, recapturing her mouth with newfound authority. The kiss deepened, transformed, became something that defied all previous parameters. Her back arched into him, creating angles that had nothing to do with geometry and everything to do with instinct[39].

A distant part of his mind registered the soft thud of his suit jacket hitting the floor, followed by the whisper of silk as Minjeong's blazer joined it. The city lights painted silver equations across her skin, codes he suddenly needed to decode with his mouth instead of his mind.

—

[37] The office's normally pristine state would require exactly 23.7 minutes to restore, a task that would be significantly delayed by several subsequent "data collection sessions."

[38] Facial recognition software attempting to analyze the security feed would crash repeatedly, unable to reconcile Junho Kim's expression with any known configuration in its emotional database.

[39] The building's structural integrity sensors registered minor seismic activity, though this data would be suspiciously absent from the next day's maintenance logs.

—

He let his hands trail by the sides of her body, one busy with her torso—breasts and all—and the other, feeling the creamy softness of her thighs. And each needy press or pinch, brought out the softest of her moans, the cutest of her lip quivers.

He was busy, marking her lips, making it all swollen and red; yet, still, he couldn’t get enough of her. That soft body, her caring little hands, her hot inner thighs, and that gentle heat radiating off her core—just hidden by the slightest of her skirt. “Minjeong.” He whispered, pressing himself against her—a matter of teasing and also a way to test the waters, whether or not she wanted it on the table.

And Minjeong, not one to initiate, wrapped her thin arms around his nape, pulling him closer, “Yes, yes, please, anything, anywhere,” then a dozen little kisses all on his face. This assurance, this consent, slowly, but surely, made him wrench her legs open—wide. He saw that stain, dark against her gray underwear, and that was when his photographic memory… failed him.

He dug in, letting his loin press up against hers—immersing himself in her wetness. Then, finally, he pulled down on his pants, showing his tent-like imprint on his underwear to Minjeong, who, obviously, couldn’t stop staring. By the end of the minute, that ruthless minute, both were undressed in their lower-half—a utilitarian instinct to fuck each other as fast as possible.

Junho breathed heavily, staring at that pink hue that her core was so beautifully composed of—along with the wetness, the fragrance, and more. “Minjeong…” He held his shaft, lining it up straight on her wetness. She finally replied, “Yes… Junho…” And that’s when he pressed in, into the endless heat.

That wet connection hilt-to-hilt, along with a deep kiss—turned Minjeong completely docile and submissive. That wet connection, her wet slime covering his shaft, somehow, only intensified their lust for each other. He pressed in again, faster this time, earning that soft mewl. “Mhm, fuck me,” she whispered, again and again. He kept honoring those wishes, going deeper, and faster. He tucked his dick into her pussy, wet squelch and all, over and over until he felt his legs get weak from thrusting. Yet, that weakness didn’t deter him, he glided deeper, letting both their pelvises rub against each other, and making Minjeong cry out from the clit stimulation. She felt like she was getting tunneled, this man, the love of her life, crush of her lifetime, fucking her so good into a wobbly table—dreams aren’t even this good.

“I’m gonna cum, Minjeong.” He whispered, low and growling.

“Inside. Please. Inside…” She whispered before getting overtaken by her orgasm.

And just at the peak of her orgasm, the teetering breath before rest, Junho barreled all his semen inside her—rope after rope of semen splashing against her cervix. “Holy fuck.” they both said in conjunction. 

—

The Seoul skyline had shifted into its late-night configuration by the time they finally disentangled themselves. Junho's normally immaculate shirt hung open, his tie having long since joined the scattered papers on the floor. Minjeong's hair had abandoned all pretense of its usual professional arrangement, falling in waves that his fingers couldn't seem to stop threading through[40].

"이게..." Minjeong began, her voice still carrying traces of breathlessness as she surveyed the chaos they'd created. Her blazer lay draped over a chair at an angle that would have horrified their usual professional standards. "I should reorganize the—"

"Stay exactly where you are," Junho commanded softly, his arms tightening around her waist. His usual perfectionism had found a new target: the way she melted against him at that tone[41].

She tilted her head back to meet his gaze, her smile pure Busan sunshine. "데이트하자... be my 오빠?" The question emerged with endearing uncertainty, mixing honorifics and languages in a way that bypassed his brain entirely and struck straight at his heart.

"그래," he murmured into her hair, then with characteristic precision added, "Exclusively."

Her laugh carried notes of joy and residual shyness. "Then as your girlfriend, I should really clean up this mess..." She gestured at the scattered papers, the displaced furniture, the general dishevelment that spoke eloquently of the past hour's activities.

"As your boyfriend," his voice dropped to that commanding register that made her shiver, "I want to watch you do it[42]."

The drive home—his penthouse, by unspoken agreement—required exactly 17 minutes. Neither of them bothered to count.

—

[40] The building's security system would later note this as the longest recorded instance of the CEO remaining in office after hours, though the detailed logs were mysteriously corrupted.

[41] Internal HR protocols regarding workplace relationships were hastily updated the following morning, though no one questioned why the CEO personally oversaw these revisions.

[42] The night cleaning staff would arrive to find the office in unprecedented perfect order, though several employees would later swear they heard laughter and whispered Busan endearments echoing through the empty halls.

Fin

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Sarah Schwartz

Test after test of U.S. students’ reading and math abilities have shown scores declining since the pandemic.

Now, new results show that it’s not just children whose skills have fallen over the past few years—American adults are getting worse at reading and math, too.

The connection, if any, between the two patterns isn’t clear—the tests aren’t set up to provide that kind of information. But it does point to a populace that is becoming more stratified by ability at a time when economic inequality continues to widen and debates over opportunity for social mobility are on the rise.

The findings from the 2023 administration of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC, show that 16- to 65-year-olds’ literacy scores declined by 12 points from 2017 to 2023, while their numeracy scores fell by 7 points during the same period.

These trends aren’t unique in the global context: Of the 31 countries and economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that participated in PIAAC, some saw scores drop over the past six years, while others improved or held constant.

Still, as in previous years, the United States doesn’t compare favorably to other countries: The country ranks in the middle of the pack in literacy and below the international average in math. (Literacy and numeracy on the test are scored on a 500-point scale.)

But Americans do stand out in one way: The gap between the highest- and lowest-performing adults is growing wider, as the top scorers hold steady and other test takers see their scores fall.

“There’s a dwindling middle in the United States in terms of skills,” said Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees PIAAC in the country. (The test was developed by the OECD and is administered every three years.)

It’s a phenomenon that distinguishes the United States, she said.

“Some of that is because we’re very diverse and it’s large, in comparison to some of the OECD countries,” Carr said in a call with reporters on Monday. “But that clearly is not the only reason.”

American children, too, are experiencing this widening chasm between high and low performers. National and international tests show the country’s top students holding steady, while students at the bottom of the distribution are falling further behind.

It’s hard to know why U.S. adults’ scores have taken this precipitous dive, Carr said.

About a third of Americans score at lowest levels PIAAC is different from large-scale assessments for students, which measure kids’ academic abilities.

Instead, this test for adults evaluates their abilities to use math and reading in real-world contexts—to navigate public services in their neighborhood, for example, or complete a task at work. The United States sample is nationally representative random sample, drawn from census data.

American respondents averaged a level 2 of 5 in both subjects.

In practice, that means that they can, for example, use a website to find information about how to order a recycling cart, or read and understand a list of rules for sending their child to preschool. But they would have trouble using a library search engine to find the author of a book.

In math, they could compare a table and a graph of the same information to check for errors. But they wouldn’t be able to calculate average monthly expenses with several months of data.

While the U.S. average is a level 2, more adults now fall at a level 1 or below—28 percent scored at that level in literacy, up from 19 percent in 2017, and 34 percent in numeracy, up from 29 percent in 2017.

Respondents scoring below level 1 couldn’t compare calendar dates printed on grocery tags to determine which food item was packed first. They would also struggle to read several job descriptions and identify which company was looking to hire a night-shift worker.

The findings also show sharp divides by race and national origin, with respondents born in the United States outscoring those born outside of the country, and white respondents outscoring Black and Hispanic test takers. Those trends have persisted over the past decade.

[hazymoonlinh]

🤔 how about phainon x scientist!fem reader like what you do with mydei, I like your writing 🤭 about that too

“The Coldest Star Meets the Brightest Light”

Part 1| part 2|

(Phainon x Researcher!Reader | Soulmate AU)

She did not believe in soulmates.

Not in the way that others did, anyway.

The concept was nothing more than an anomaly—an unexplained phenomenon of the universe that had no scientific basis, yet persisted in countless cultures across planets. Some claimed it was fate, an unbreakable bond destined to unite two people. Others called it a curse, binding individuals regardless of their will.

She categorized it as biological interference. A chemical reaction. Nothing more.

And yet—when she set foot in Amphoreus, standing amidst the blinding light of a battle between the Astral Express crew and an unknown warrior—her entire understanding of reality fractured.

Because the moment he turned, the moment his piercing blue gaze locked onto hers—her entire being froze.

A Fateful Encounter

Phainon had appeared in an instant, his entrance marked by a slash so swift that Dan Heng’s weapon shattered upon impact. His presence was radiant, overwhelming—like standing too close to a sun, its heat and gravity pulling everything toward it.

But he wasn’t looking at them.

He was looking at her.

“You.” His voice was deep, steady—yet beneath it was something else. Something shaken. “Who are you?”

She didn’t answer. Her brain was still processing the impossible.

This feeling—this pull—was unlike anything she had ever experienced. It was not logical. It was not quantifiable. And yet, it was absolute.

Soulmates.

No.

No, no, no.

“That’s not important,” she finally replied, forcing her voice to remain level. She ignored the way her heartbeat threatened to betray her. “Stand down. We’re only here to investigate—”

Phainon stepped closer, ignoring her words entirely.

“No,” he murmured, as if he were speaking more to himself than anyone else. “No way… It’s you.”

His expression was unreadable—somewhere between disbelief and something softer.

It was unbearable.

She refused to acknowledge this.

Soulmates did not exist.

“I have no connection to you.” Her words were cold, detached—the same tone she used when analyzing test subjects. “Do not mistake me for something I am not.”

Phainon blinked.

And then, to her absolute horror—he laughed.

It was a soft chuckle at first, then a full, warm, delighted laugh, as if her rejection was the funniest thing he had ever heard.

“Oh, this is gonna be fun.”

She stiffened. “Excuse me?”

Phainon grinned, and it was the kind of grin that spelled trouble.

“You think you can just walk away?” His tone was playful, but there was something deeper beneath it—something sure. “Like it or not, we’re connected now. And I don’t let go of what’s mine.”

Her fingers twitched against the data pad she had instinctively grabbed. “I am not yours.”

“Not yet,” he agreed easily. “But you will be.”

Escape Was Not an Option

She left.

Of course she did.

After her mission ended, after she left Amphoreus, she returned to Herta’s Space Station. Back to her research, back to normalcy.

She had hoped the feeling would fade. That the inexplicable warmth lingering in her chest would disappear over time.

It didn’t.

Worse, she soon found that no matter where she went, she felt watched. Not in a threatening way—no, Phainon’s presence wasn’t the kind that instilled fear. It was something far more annoying.

Persistent. Playful. Patient.

He was waiting.

And then—one day—he stopped waiting.

An Unwanted Visitor

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

His voice was warm as ever—too warm, considering he was currently standing in her pristine laboratory, arms crossed, looking like he belonged there despite absolutely not belonging there.

She stared at him, unamused. “First of all, I left. Second of all, how did you even get in here?”

Phainon shrugged. “I have my ways.”

A pause.

“…Trailblazer helped you, didn’t they?”

His grin widened. “I have my ways.”

She exhaled slowly, setting her data pad aside. “I’m busy. If this is about that ridiculous soulmate nonsense—”

“It’s not nonsense.”

The sudden shift in his tone made her pause. It wasn’t teasing anymore. There was no mischief in his gaze. Only certainty.

Her chest tightened.

“Look,” Phainon continued, stepping closer. “I get it. You’re logical. You like things that make sense. But you felt it too, didn’t you?”

She remained silent.

His expression softened. “It’s not something you can explain. It just is.”

“That’s exactly why I reject it.” Her voice was quiet but firm. “I refuse to let something dictate my choices. Even if—” She hesitated. “Even if this connection exists, I won’t be forced into it.”

Phainon studied her for a long moment.

And then, instead of arguing—he smiled.

“Good,” he said simply.

She blinked. “…Good?”

“I don’t want you to accept it just because fate says so.” He tilted his head, the golden glow of the station’s lights reflecting in his icy blue eyes. “I want you to accept it because you choose me.”

That caught her off guard.

“…And you think I will?”

Phainon’s grin turned knowing.

“I know you will.”

She scoffed. “Have anyone told you you’re insufferable ?”

“And you’re adorable when you pretend you don’t care.” He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice. “You’re coming with me.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Back to Amphoreus.” His tone was far too casual. “We need to spend more time together. Y’know, bonding.”

“I have work—”

Phainon tapped her data pad, causing it to turn off.

“You have me now.”

She stared at him.

He stared right back.

For the first time in her life, she had no calculated response.

Phainon only chuckled, offering a hand. “Come on, genius. Let’s see if I can change your mind.”

Against all logic—she hesitated.

And for Phainon? That was already a victory.

TO BE CONTINUED…

How’s that for a start? Phainon’s warmth clashing with her cold logic, their instant connection, and his playful yet patient pursuit—this is gonna be fun. Let me know if you want Part 2!

I took extra time to polish it since you have waited for a week hehe.

Have anyone seen 3.1 trailer ? So cool.

[biblomaniac]

Supercorp headcanon:

The realization is almost startling. Kara hasn’t called her by her name in what seems to be a long time. They’ve seen each other nearly every day in the months following Alex and Kelly’s wedding, and yet Kara had said her given name only a handful of times, and only out in public.

Once Lena recognizes this curious phenomenon, she decides, as a scientist, that she needs empirical evidence to prove she hasn’t deluded herself into believing a fantasy. Over a two week period, Lena record dates, times, events, situations, and surrounding bystanders, and how each correlates to a different pet names from Kara.

By the end of the fortnite, the brunette has amassed a relatively large amount of data. Lena found that Kara called her:

Baby- 27 times

Babe- 15 times

Sweetheart- 10 times

Honey- 4 times

Lena is astounded to realize that:

1. She and Kara spend A LOT of time together; and

2. Kara has only called her by her name three times (two at The Foundation during a press conference, and one at CatCo when Lena dropped by to bring her favorite new Editor in Chief lunch.

Armed with proof, Lena plans to confront Kara when they meet tonight before game night. Unsurprisingly, Kara has already begun setting up snacks and games when Lena unlocks the door to what has become her shared apartment with Kara. Surprisingly, Lena didn’t have to find any sort of awkward segue to begin the conversation.

“Baby, what last game do you think we should set out for tonight? We played clue last week, but the last time we played monopoly it kind of got out of hand.”

“I wouldn’t say, ‘out of hand,’ Kara.”

“Babe, you bankrupted everyone and refused to end the game until Alex admitted you were the queen of monopoly. We do not need to have a repeat performance of that now that Esme will be coming.”

“Fine, let’s just play Candyland. Esme will enjoy it and she won’t have to struggle to keep up with the adults for this one.”

“Perfect idea, honey. Thanks for helping me pick,” Kara says as she finishes setting up and turns back around to face Lena.

Knowing there is no better opportunity than now, Lena asks if they can talk. If Kara swallows after she agrees, no one has to know. Lena leads Kara to the couch; they sit close enough to grasp hands if necessary but far enough to move their arms or legs without brushing against one another.

“Kara, why have you been calling me all these nicknames?”

“What do you mean? I’ve just been calling you by your name.”

It seems Lena didn’t factor in the possibility that Kara herself hadn’t realized she amassed such a large repertoire of pet names for Lena. A pink tinge crawls slowly up pale cheeks.

“Kar, you haven’t addressed me by my name outside of our jobs in months.”

“Okay, but we see each other every day. What have a been calling you?”

It seems Lena will have to shove her embarrassment in a little box so she can admit her findings to Kara.

“Well, you’ve… you’ve been calling me various terms of endearment.”

Kara chuckles at Lena’s overly formal response.

“Lee, just tell me what I’ve been calling you. It can’t be offensive, or you’d have brought this up ages ago.”

“You’ve been calling me ‘baby,’ and… and ‘babe,’ and ‘sweetheart,’ and—”

“Oh. Okay, did it bother you?”

“Well, no. I just—“

“Because if it has, I can totally stop. I’d hate to cross any boundaries.”

Boundaries. Since what Nia dubbed the “Friendship Breakup of the Century,” boundaries have been blurrier than ever. Even before Lex revealed Kara as Supergirl, boundaries between them were murky, tiptoeing back and forth over the line of friendship and something more. Lena has managed to keep her feelings stuffed into neat little boxes. She has never been certain if Kara felt what she did, never wanted to rock the boat of their relationship by calling to attention just how…intimate some aspects of their relationship are.

“What boundaries are there really left to cross, Kara?”

“What do you mean?”

It seems Lena will have to buck up and spell it out.

“We sleep in the same bed, for gods sake!”

Kara tilts her head, looking a bit like a confused puppy.

“What’s wrong with that? I thought you liked it!”

“I—I do!” Lena runs a hand through her wavy locks, growing increasingly frustrated by Kara’s inability to understand how odd their friendship is.

“So what’s the problem?!”

Lena jumps up, pacing back and forth in the space between the coffee table and the couch. She taps her fingers rhythmically against her crossed arms, trying to calm herself down.

“Friends don’t do this! The nicknames, sharing beds, and lunch dates, and movies nights cuddled up on the couch. Don’t you see how, how romantic this all is?!”

Kara jumps up, standing in Lena’s way, gently grabbing Lena’s shoulders. The blonde slowly uncrossed Lena’s arms, trailing her hands down until she is grasping Lena’s trembling hands. In the most soothing voice she can muster, Kara says,

“I mean, I guess. But we’ve never had a typical friendship, Lee. We’ve always been so much more, it doesn’t seem right to not do any of that. If you aren’t uncomfortable, and you don’t want me to stop, maybe…maybe all we have to do is stop being friends, and start being girlfriends.”

Girlfriends. Girlfriends? Lena can barely believe her ears.

“What did you just say?”

“I said, baby, be my girlfriend.” Kara gives Lena a beaming smile, watching as the brunette flounders to give her an answer.

“Girlfriends, like romantically, or…” Kara chuckles at Lena’s disbelieving tone.

“Yes, romantically! Like you said, there aren’t any boundaries left to cross but this one,” Kara moves her arms to Lena’s waist, leaning down slowly, giving the former CEO time to decline if she wants. Lena stares up at Kara, kryptonite green eyes roving between her lips and crystal blue eyes. With barely centimeters left between their lips, Lena surges forward onto her tiptoes, arms winding around Kara’s neck to pull her downward.

Seconds, minutes, even hours could have gone by before Kara breaks the kiss.

“So, is that a yes?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Lena happily says, moving to hug Kara tightly.

“FINALLY!” A voice exclaims.

Kara looks up, having not noticed her sister peaking her head around the now open apartment door. Lena burrows her head into the crook of Kara’s neck, unwilling to part.

“You owe me $50, Nal!”

“Ugh. You guys couldn’t wait one more week? You just cost me big time,” Nia grumbles, fishing through her purse for Alex’s winnings as the Superfriends pile into the apartment for game night.

Lena finally pulls back from Kara’s neck, moving to welcome their friends, but isn’t able to stray far when the reporter wraps both arms around her waist, pulling the brunettes back flush to her chest.

“Kara!” Lena squeals, a pretty red blush blossoming up her neck and onto her cheeks.

“What, you just agreed to be my girlfriend, I’m never letting you go again,” Kara tells her as she leans down to press a kiss to her cheek.

“Later, when they leave, we can test out all our new boundaries,” Kara whispers quietly, placing a final kiss to the shell of her girlfriends ear before dragging Lena to the couch.

“Let’s play!”

*************

If Lena makes a point to win every game as quickly as possible, nearly shoving their family out the door at the end of the night, it’s no ones business but her own.

[ckret2]

Chapter 42 in human Bill Cipher's imprisonment in the Mystery Shack about to get a whole lot worse, featuring:

A history lesson on a second dimensional cult and its obnoxious child leader.

And Dipper making the mistake of asking Bill what "reality is an illusion" means.

And most importantly... The Eclipse: Prologue.

####

The source of light is a completely hypothetical phenomenon.

Just a couple of centuries ago, scientists postulated that perhaps light was a side-effect of magnetism generated by the poles of planets, and that someday the study of magnets might explain how light shifted over the course of a day.

But modern scientists theorized that light emanated from some force or object in a higher dimension, and that the unseen movements of this source-of-light explained how light ebbed and flowed around the perimeters of objects over the course of a day. Physics experiments backed up this hypothesis of a "third dimensional" origin of light.

Scientists adopted the term "sun" to describe this hypothetical light source. Experiments also suggested the third dimension might have a multitude of weaker light sources that provided much less illumination—perhaps spread across the third dimension like water droplets suspended in fog—which they dubbed "stars."

Roughly once a year, light (or rather, the "sun") was eclipsed. This was a very long time; a child born just after an eclipse might already be in school, have mastered measuring angles and reading, and begun learning multiplication and division by the time they saw their first eclipse. Some years were skipped, such that they wouldn't have an eclipse for two, three, sometimes even four or five years—it was possible to almost reach middle age without seeing an eclipse—with no discernible pattern to these gaps. Eclipses usually occurred around the new year—indeed, New Year's Day was fixed to the average date of the eclipse—but eclipse season ranged up to three months in either direction.

Experiments were being conducted to test ideas about the nature of eclipses—the two most prominent theories were that the sun naturally flickered off and on like a lamp, in a rolling pattern that accounted for how eclipses didn't affect the whole plain simultaneously but had been proven to move; or that the sun was obscured by some object in the third dimension, like a ball thrown in front of a lamp. There were solid arguments in favor of either theory, and thus far the data on hand couldn't disprove either.

But where science petered out, religion took up the baton.

A new religious movement called the Higher Dimensional Gate was picking up steam in the northwest. The cult (as some watchdog organizations called it) had been started a few years ago by a married couple—line and trapezoid—who gave largely inoffensive New Age-flavored sermons about spiritual purity and enlightenment. Their shows would have been unremarkable if not for their inclusion of their child—a charismatic young equilateral triangle they claimed had an "inner eye" that granted him clairvoyance. Every show, they put him on stage for a few minutes, where he'd point out audience members and offer seemingly-psychic insights into their lives. As he approached adolescence, he was given more and more stage time, which he'd use to recite the same sort of rhetoric as his parents while tossing in some novel claims about the third dimension that reflected the public's modern scientific fascinations.

It wasn't until the line's death that they evolved from a traveling psychic sideshow with a few zealous supporters into a burgeoning religious movement. The trapezoid adopted a background role as the precocious triangle took over all their speaking engagements, which he used to spin a novel mythology describing the third dimension as a separate spiritual plane found in an unseeable direction "upward, but not northward" from the mundane mortal plane. It was at this time that they adopted the name Higher Dimensional Gate, and their young leader announced that his spiritual contacts in the third dimension had granted him the title Magister Mentium—teacher of minds (or, perhaps more ominously, master of minds).

Higher Dimensional Gate aggressively recruited new followers, with the Magister leaving school to support a frenetic pace of traveling speaking engagements. More and more devotees followed him from town to town, overfilling hotels wherever they went and flooding parking lots with a caravan of RVs and trailers. Fliers they left in their wake offered mail-order pamphlets, sermon recordings, and religious paraphernalia. But the cult didn't break into the national consciousness until a couple of theoretical astrophysicists published a paper debunking pop culture misinformation on the third dimension.

Along with referencing several sci-fi shows spreading the idea that the third dimension allowed time travel, the authors dove into the bizarre beliefs of several New Age authors, speakers, and religious movements. They particularly maligned the ideas put forth by Higher Dimensional Gate, calling their descriptions of angelic aliens and spirit guides "misleading fairy tales" with no scientific basis in reality. They said the Magister Mentium would have done better to finish a basic public education before making claims about the third dimension.

The paper didn't receive much notice outside popular science magazines—until the Magister Mentium released a vicious public rebuttal that made national news for its absurdity.

Soundbites from his twenty-minute rant were broadcast in news segments about fringe religious movements and scientific literacy. Talk shows played quotes as fodder for jokes. Editorialists predicted that the young triangle was the sort of crooked cult leader who'd be on trial in a decade for cheating his worshipers out of their life savings. Only a few programs played even as much as a full minute from his speech:

"These scientists want you to think that the third dimension is some dead realm hidden behind a door you'll never see—and I'm telling you it's not! It's the dream realm! It's the realm of spirits and positive energy! It stretches into all possible futures, and if you could peer into it, you'd see the road to your own best possible future!

"And I know this. Because unlike these pessimistic brainiacs who mock what they don't understand, I can see the third dimension. I can witness the 'sun' in all its glory—a blazing white circle, more dazzling than anything you've ever seen, so bright it burns like fire to stare at it! I can see it pass through the pinpoint white lights of the 'stars'!

"And I can prove it.

"The most 'educated' minds in the scientific community can't predict an eclipse. They look at their historical records and they do a little math, hope they'll get lucky, and shrug if they're wrong—what do they know? All they can do is guess! 

"But with my own all-seeing eye, I've personally witnessed a phenomenon that scientists can't even imagine. I know what passes between the sun and our plane—and I know when it's coming.

"I note all my detractors are in the camp that thinks the sun flickers.

"So let's run a scientific experiment. I challenge the scientific community to predict the next eclipse more accurately than me. I'll give it to you within the minute. In fact—I'll sweeten the deal! I'll give a million dollars to any nerd who can guess more accurately than me! I will personally hand you the prize money!"

"But if you want the prize, you'd better guess soon. Because the eclipse will be here in two weeks. I can already see it on the horizon."

It was nearly seven months until New Year's.

Sources close to the Magister's family claimed he was a spendthrift with nowhere near a million dollars on hand.

When asked to comment on the public ridicule his challenge had inspired, the Magister snidely replied, "We'll see who's laughing after the eclipse."

####

Gideon approached the Mystery Shack disguised in a pair of sunglasses and a camo jacket from his father's closet. The jacket was as long as a dress on him. It was hot.

He kept outside the tree line as he circled the shack, passing the gift shop, the house door, and finally the long side of the house where tourists never parked and the residents rarely ventured.

Gideon peered anxiously at each window for witnesses. He looked up at the attic dormer which once held the window of Bill's face; he caught a flash of bright golden curls pulling out of sight, and flinched. No, that was fine. That was who he was here for. Weren't any other blondes in the house.

When he was sure the coast was clear, he ran across the open ground from the trees to the side door, heart threatening to beat out of his chest. By the time he reached the door, Bill was already downstairs in the floor room, hands and grinning face pressed to the window like a child awaiting a special delivery. He waved excitedly at Gideon.

Gideon hissed, "Shh!" and immediately felt stupid about it.

He partially unzipped his jacket, pulled a manila envelope out of an inner pocket, knelt, and shoved it under the door. As Bill had promised, the door had poor weatherstripping and the envelope slid in easily.

A napkin covered in faint dry marker writing slid out. Gideon picked it up and read it. "Nice work ☆ Boy! I'll pass you the next message at Town Hall. Get yourself something nice, my treat. ◡̈" Inside the napkin's fold was a $5 coupon to the hardware store. It was expired. 

Looking at the coupon, Gideon asked himself what a powerless imprisoned demon could really do to help his father's business.

Inside the shack, Bill checked the doorway to ensure no humans were coming for a few minutes, flopped onto the flat old sofa, and pulled several sheets of notebook paper out of the envelope: the answers to all the questions he'd told Gideon to ask his worshiper. He skimmed past her name to the second question: how had they located Bill?

At the sight of a familiar name, his heart leaped into his throat, then slowly sank into its cage again as he read the rest. "Someone calling himself Stanford Pines reached out, claiming to be an ex-cultist wanting to help other victims of the cult. He said the cult's 'founder' was incarcerated. He sounded like an enemy, but they thought he might know something about your disappearance and sent Sue."

Until the last moment, Bill had held onto a sliver of hope. As much as Ford said he couldn't stand Bill, somebody had had to contact his artists, and who else...?

But there it was. It had been Ford; but he hadn't been trying to save Bill. He'd just been trying to rip the nails out of one more thing Bill had built.

Fine. Bill wasn't wasting time on lost causes. He'd never really seen Ford as a friend, anyway. If Ford was stupid enough to throw away a god's favor, that was his loss. Bill could kill him with the rest when he had his power back. He didn't care. He'd just... really thought he could win him back over.

He crumpled up the pages, tossed them on the floor, and hunched forward to rub his eyelid with his hand.

Well, trying to get Ford back on his side had just been a way to pass the time. He hadn't taken it seriously. Not really.

He leaned back, flopped his head on the backrest cushion, and sighed; and then he fished the pages off the floor and smoothed them back out.

He read through the rest of the information Gideon had obtained. His girls in Death Valley had indeed been awaiting his arrival "as Bill requested"; and when he didn't show up on schedule, they'd taken to waiting for him in shifts for half a year before giving up. The way Bill had "requested" was to stack themselves into a human throne for him—he imagined Sue hadn't wanted to mention that detail on the phone with a kid. And they'd kept that up for six months? In shifts? That was hysterical. What a bunch of lunatics. He couldn't wait to meet the gals in person, he was just going to love them. Sue was set up at an inn a few towns west—not a lot of motels in this lonely part of Oregon—and there were a couple more girls in Portland who could be here in an hour.

They'd also made contact with a few devotees of Bill's teachings in Washington, but hadn't told them his exact location. Unsurprising—if they were the devotees he was thinking of, they were less "hardy New Age hippie spiritualists looking forward to the creation of a bright new world" and more "paranoid doomsday preppers anticipating being the last survivors of the doomed old world." The Death Valley group probably didn't trust them. Just about all of Bill's "students" were freaks of one sort or another—if not when he met them, then by the time he was done with them—but different varieties of freaks usually clashed. He had to keep them safely corralled into separate sects to maintain the harmony and their loyalty.

They were all so, so close—all these humans just waiting for an opportunity to meet him, touch him, save him, serve him, love him. They were so close he could almost reach out and grab them.

But "almost" wouldn't get them into his hands.

Something would come up soon. He was sure. He could feel it.

####

Sometimes, stairs just weren't worth the effort.

Bill understood, intellectually, that stair steps had a "top" surface and a "side" surface. He also understood that, given how gravity worked in this dimension, you could only step on their top surfaces. He knew this. He was smart. He'd personally worked out the equations to calculate how gravity worked in this dimension ages before an apple beaned Newton.

It was just that, when he looked at a staircase, he couldn't shake the impression that someone had simply taken a 2D plane and artistically folded it into a zigzag. And on a folded 2D plane, there wasn't a "top" surface and a "side" surface; there was just the surface, and a 3D body could stand anywhere atop the surface with no problem.

So he would try to get from the attic to the kitchen, subconsciously decide that rather than walking "down" the stairs standing vertically he wanted to walk "up" the stairs standing horizontally, and he'd try to lean forward to put his foot on the side of a step—and then his face was on the floor again.

And even when he kept his ups up and his sides sideways, sometimes over-concentrating on where to step distracted him into tripping anyway.

The stairs in the Quadrangle of Qonfusion never gave him trouble. They worked fine both vertically and horizontally, he'd designed them that way. And also he didn't need to use them. He could float. They were mainly there for the outerplanar Henchmaniacs and because Bill liked the zigzag motif. He was much less fond of stairs these days. When he got home, he was ripping them all out and replacing them with ladders and slides.

He was better with stairs than he'd been when he first occupied this body. But when he didn't focus on every single step, he still tended to slip up. He often got to the stairs and saw his body crumpled on the landing fifteen seconds in the future. If the damage wasn't too severe, sometimes he just resigned himself to the bruises and stepped off the ledge. Had to get downstairs somehow, after all.

But sometimes the future held a broken leg, or an unconscious heap, or a lot of blood. When that happened, sometimes he'd shuffle his footing a bit until the future looked less painful and then try descending. Sometimes he'd creep down to the last safe step and then look for a less fatal route the rest of the way down.

And sometimes he got halfway down the stairs, saw looming disaster, couldn't for the life of him figure out how to avoid it, and thought forget it and just sat down in the middle of the staircase. If he waited there long enough, eventually whatever he'd been about to instinctively do would change, and he could safely finish his journey.

Stairs were, by far, the most frequent and most stupid of his inconveniences as a human.

He never thought to bring something to read in case he hit unexpected delays on the stairs. There was nothing interesting to do, and he didn't so much as have a window to look out of. He got bored. He was constantly sleep-deprived. Sometimes he fell asleep, leaning against the wall.

He'd overheard the humans speculating on why he liked to nap on the stairs. The leading theory was that it had been normal in his home dimension, followed closely by runner-up theory "just to annoy us." None had asked him directly. They usually just left him alone on the stairs. But not today.

Bill flinched out of sleep as his leg was kicked. A fizzling field of white pinpricks filled his vision and faded as he opened his eyes. "Mruh?"

"You're blocking the stairs," Dipper said. This time Bill had fallen asleep on the stairs below the landing, slouched down with his shoulders and head against the wall, legs stretched across two stair steps and knees raised.

"And you're disturbing my sleep." Bill yawned and glanced downstairs. Coast was clear. He could get to the living room with nothing but a fumble on the next to bottom step now.

"Get out of the way." Dipper kicked his leg again.

Well, now Bill didn't want to get up. He kicked Dipper back. "No. Your ancestors lived in trees, act like it."

"What?"

"Climb, monkey boy."

Dipper grumbled, but surveyed his roadblock thoughtfully. He experimentally lifted a foot over Bill's abdomen, considered how far down it was to the next step, and scooted down to Bill's feet instead. Bill watched with a smirk as Dipper clung to the railing and gingerly stepped over one foot to the edge of the stair step, and then the next. Bill briefly considered tripping him, decided it wasn't worth getting in trouble, and instead twitched a foot up as Dipper passed over and laughed when he jumped.

"Jerk," Dipper muttered. "This is why you only have one friend."

The jab ripped at a raw sore in his chest. Ex-cultist. "Whatever!" He laughed loudly. "My real friends are all one little interdimensional rift away, I didn't come here to make pals with humans." He jerked his hood down over his eyes and slouched lower, arms crossed tight. "I don't even care. This entire universe is a hologram and nothing's real anyway."

There was silence. Bill congratulated himself on getting the last word in; and then Dipper said, "What does that mean?"

"What kind of stupid—it means I don't care about you, what do you think it means? You're made from the exhaust belched out of a star's tailpipe—"

"I meant, the hologram thing. You're always saying stuff about the universe not being real, what are you talking about."

Bill thumbed the hem of his hood up and glanced down at Dipper. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up determinedly. He'd pulled out his journal and pen. He was serious. He was all ready to learn about the secrets of the universe.

Ford's little wanna-be protégé with his little knock-off Journal, wasn't he adorable. He wanted so much to be just like his great uncle. And in many ways, he was like a younger Ford. The ignorant, arrogant, insecure, naïve, easily-flattered, easily-exploited younger Ford, back before he grew a personality. Except even back at his most boring, Ford had found the strange beautiful where this kid only found it interesting. You don't have what it takes to be Ford.

Bill was already filling this brat's head with gunk—bogus conspiracy theories, wild goose chases after lucid dreaming, nightmares about whole dimensions that existed only as parables for somebody else. What was a little bit more? He could give this kid something to talk to his therapist about. Something that—in his darkest, lowest, loneliest moments—would come back to mind, and remind him that nothing he did would ever matter.

Plus, he hoped Ford would look in on the living room and seethe about not being his student anymore.

"All right kid, sure! Fine. You just so happened to catch me on a day when I've got nothing to do." Bill stood, stretched, and sauntered down the stairs. He fumbled on the next to bottom step. "You wanna know about the universe? You wanna know the big secret?"

"Uh..." Dipper eagerly flipped through his journal, looking for a blank page. Apparently he hadn't expected Bill to actually indulge his curiosity. "'Secret'?" He trailed after Bill into the living room.

"Okay, okay, maybe it's not a 'secret'—a secret suggests somebody's trying to hide it. It's just that nobody thinks you're important enough to tell and you're too primitive to see it for yourself."

Bill turned around, a lecturer on a stage. Dipper sat on the couch and tried to position his journal on his knees to take notes. He looked so attentive. He thought he was going to enjoy this.

"So you remember what I told you about the second dimension. That from the third dimension's perspective, it's nothing but shadows cast on a wall."

"Plato's cave. Yeah."

"Your dimension is a lot like that. There are higher dimensions than this, and your entire universe is being projected down from one of them. If being in the second dimension and seeing into the third is like being a shadow looking at the entrance to the cave, then being in the third and seeing into the fourth is like a character on a movie screen looking out at the film projector. While you're distracted by the movie, I'm studying the film reel and watching the frames coming up. It's how I tell the future—and you can't even tell yourself I'm lying about that, because you've seen me do it."

Dipper grumbled, "You've spoiled the killer on Duck-tective."

"I've spoiled the killer on Duck-tective! Twice!"

Dipper was furiously taking notes. "Wait—so, the fourth dimension really is time? Mabel and I kinda visited the fourth dimension once, but I wasn't sure if it being 'time' was, like, some kind of metaphor..."

"Ha! Listen to you! That's like asking if the third dimension is light. No. Time isn't the fourth dimension. It's just in the fourth dimension," Bill said. "And for the record you didn't really visit the fourth dimension. The glowing blue tunnel with floating clocks and calendars? That was a metaphor."

"Aw man," Dipper muttered, disappointed.

"So when you say you can see the future, you mean—you literally see it? With your eyeballs?"

"All-seeing eye," Bill said smugly.

"Can... you teach me?"

"No. It's not a learnable skill. You're either born with an inner—what's the human phrase?—a third eye, or you aren't."

Dipper processed that. "How do I find out if I have—?"

"You don't."

"Aw."

Bill waited for Dipper to scribble down a couple more lines before he casually dropped the next bombshell: "In fact, not only have you never been 'in' the fourth dimension—your universe isn't really even third dimensional."

Dipper's pen gouged into the page. "What do you mean, it's not third dimensional!"

"I mean you've got two dimensions and the third's an illusion. Hologram, remember?"

"What are you—" Dipper waved a hand around in the air. "I'm moving my arm through the third dimension right now!"

"No you're not."

Dipper threw his pen on the ground. "Okay, you're messing with me!"

"Not this time. Listen. Got a little riddle for you: what do Plato's cave and a movie theater have in common?"

Dipper pursed his lips angrily, but he'd been issued a riddle and couldn't resist trying to solve it. "Sitting in the dark, staring at shapes?"

"Ha! Look at it, it still thinks it's part of the audience!" Bill wagged a finger disapprovingly. "In both cases, everyone and everything in the show is an illusion—just light and shadows projected on a flat wall."

"But—! The world would look flat if it was 2D—"

"It does look flat. 2D is all you've ever seen," Bill said. He held his hands out, thumbs and forefingers forming a rectangle like a picture frame, his exposed eye staring through it at Dipper.  "Your eyes only see a pair of two-dimensional images that your brain interprets as 3D because it's been trained to. Depth perception is an optical illusion! You can't actually witness the depth of an object—your brain uses context clues to guess it! And the context clues are lying to you."

Dipper scowled. "But." He paused. "It's different."

"Uh-huh." Bill leaned against a wall, feigning a yawn. "Okay, wow me with your philosophy."

"Pictures on paper are 2D, and they don't look 3D, so since the real world does look 3D..."

"Hey, you know that autostereogram art your sister's friend likes so much? Magic Vision Posters?" Bill asked. "Cross your eyes a little and a 3D illusion pops out of the page?"

Dipper's frown deepened.

Bill's smile widened. "And those are just manmade pictures. The projectors I'm talking about are cosmically complex. If it's so easy to trick your brain into seeing something three dimensional in a flat image, then how do you know, really know, that everything around you is 3D rather than an infinitely complex 2D hologram?"

"Be... cause..." Dipper looked around, grasping for another defense of reality as he knew it. He picked his pen off the floor. "Because I can touch an object and feel it's 3D! Even if my eyes can be fooled, I can... look, I can feel the curve of the barrel and everything."

"And?" Bill asked. "If your laundry comes out of the dryer unexpectedly cool, you think it's damp because your species didn't evolve wetness-sensing nerves. And you still trust your sense of touch?"

"Wait, that's why that happens?"

"Uh-huh. Water is wet, your t-shirts aren't, and your third dimension's an optical illusion."

Dipper slouched back on the couch, arms crossed, chewing his pen, brows drawn and eyes unfocused. Bill watched with a smirk as Dipper's faith in an objective observable reality slowly eroded before his very eye. For someone so eager to burrow into the strange, Dipper wanted so much for the world to make sense. That was why he was burrowing into the strange in the first place: to shine a flashlight on the things that go bump in the dark.

Maybe that was what rubbed Bill so wrong about this kid. Bill was sure that, deep in his heart, Dipper didn't really know how to celebrate the weird; he only wanted to expand the boundaries of normal. Disgusting.

Finally, Dipper mumbled, "How did you find this out?"

"This little shadow peeled itself off the wall and flew out of the cave—do you think I stopped there? I've seen further! What looks like an inescapable labyrinth to a two-dimensional Minotaur is nothing but a fun maze in a puzzle book when you can see over the walls from the third dimension's perspective. And once you can see the fourth dimension, your so-called 'third' dimension looks no different! I can see through walls, into boxes, past barriers; and I can see just how flat your world really is. Like taking a photo and looking at it from the edge."

"Hm." Dipper was still staring into space.

Bill's smug smile drooped into a frown. Dipper didn't look like he'd absorbed anything Bill just said. He hated an inattentive audience.

He crossed the room, planting a hand on the couch backrest by Dipper's head to lean over him, and waited until Dipper looked up into his eye. Bill said, "And I can tell you, beyond a shadow of a doubt: you're no more real to the things projecting your universe than the shadows in Plato's cave are to you. This. Entire. Universe. Doesn't. Exist. And nothing that happens here matters."

That little look of doubt edging into dread was so, so satisfying.

Bill pushed himself upright and sauntered to the door, his hex cast, ready to leave Dipper alone with his budding existential crisis. "So that's why I try to have fun with it! Your whole dimension is like an amusement park. Why hang out in a cave unless you're leaving cave paintings, who cares what the shadows think about the graffiti?"

"What's in those higher dimensions?"

Bill paused, glancing over his shoulder. "'Scuse me?"

"Something's gotta be running the 'projector' or whatever, right?" He asked it with an edge of desperation, like if Dipper could just make it that far, the world would make sense again. "Movies have audiences. Who're they?"

Bill stared at Dipper—and then slowly grinned again. What a glutton for misery. Feed him a bitter spoonful of poisonous knowledge and he asks for the bowl. But of course—tell him that reality isn't real and the next thing he wants to know is where to find reality.

Okay, fine, Bill would keep playing—this was almost fun. "Higher dimensional beings! Duh."

"What are they like?"

"Wretched incomprehensible shapeshifting contortions of flesh and bone that appear to gorily mutate as their vast bodies pass through the dimensions your limited eyes are capable of viewing. Seeing them will drive you mad."

"Ah. Great," Dipper said. "But what are they like as people?"

"From your perspective, all-knowing and unknowable. Talking to them will also drive you mad."

"I'm detecting a theme here," Dipper grumbled.

Bill gave him a polite golf clap. "Another win for human pattern-detection instincts! Give 'im a hand." (Oh, Bill wished he had his powers. It would be so funny to give Dipper a giant disembodied hand.)

In spite of his visible irritation, Dipper was still taking notes. "Is it possible for a human to meet one?"

"You've got more pattern-detection instincts than self-preservation instincts," Bill said wryly. "But sure, of course it's possible. In fact, I think you already met one."

That got him looking up from his journal. "I did?"

"Sure! Not here, but in a parallel universe that doesn't exist anymore. No clue what you talked about, I steer away from that guy when I can. But hey, maybe you'll remember it someday."

"How can I remember it if it happened to a parallel me in another universe?"

"When things like him speak, they leave vast echoes. Even across timelines."

Dipper considered that. "Could I meet him again?"

"Maybe if he takes an interest in you. Pray he doesn't. Prayers won't actually help, but it's something to keep your mind occupied!"

"Is it possible to be more proactive about meeting one of them?"

Bill laughed. "Kid, you're stupid. And that makes you very entertaining."

"Great?"

"But if you wanna break into some cosmic horror's living room, sure! If they don't come down here, all you need to do is go up there."

And back to taking notes Dipper went. "You gonna elaborate, orrr..."

"Ha, fine. The issue is you're not built for higher dimensions. Like I said, you might seem real to yourself here, but there you'd just be a light on a wall." He made a circle between his forefinger and thumb, turned his hand upside down, and peered through the circle like a monocle. "If you want to ascend, you need an aperture to translate between dimensions—something through which fourth-dimensional spacetime can be compacted enough to appear three-dimensional, or pseudo three-dimensional spacetime can be augmented with a fourth dimension. With an aperture like that, you can climb up and down the dimensional ladder to visit anywhere level of reality you want—from the zeroth dimension to the billionth."

"Including wherever our universe's projector is?"

"Bingo. Unfortunately for your suicidal ambitions, inventing an aperture capable of manipulating spacetime like that needs a lot of science humanity is nowhere near mastering; but with the materials humanity currently knows how to manufacture, I bet building one would be pretty simple if you got instructions from a species that's already done it." Bill arched his brows mockingly. "Hey, might even make a fun little summer project, if you don't mind going insane. Something to take to the science fair next year, huh?"

"Shut up," Dipper said. "And—if you got out of your dimension—do you know about species that can give those instructions?"

"Suuure! Heck, give me a couple pieces of paper and a pen and I could probably whip up the blueprints myself."

Dipper nodded. Dipper processed that. Dipper glared at Bill. "Wait a minute. Are you trying to get me to build another portal for you?!"

Bill cackled, doubling over. Voice shrill, he said, "I was wondering how long it'd take you!"

"Oh my god."

He groped for an arm chair and dropped down, still laughing. "I was this close to saying 'why don't you ask your uncle for the blueprints' to see if you'd get it!" He wheezed, "Can you imagine the look on his face!"

Dipper chucked his pen at Bill. "I hate you."

"Hook, line, and sinker! You idiot!" He slid halfway out of his seat, covering his face with his hands.

Dipper groaned. "So you made up all that stuff about the third dimension being fake and the universe being a hologram?"

Bill struggled to control his laughter enough to catch his breath. "No—no, all that was true. A hundred percent scientifically verifiable!"

"Shut up, man." Dipper got off the couch, kicked the back of Bill's armchair as he passed, and trudged into the gift shop.

####

"Hey Grunkle Ford? Is the third dimension actually an illusion being projected out of the fourth?"

"Been talking to Bill again, have you?"

Dipper winced. "I mean. Well. But he's not telling the truth, is he?"

"Mmm..." Ford waggled a hand uncertainly.

"What."

"Based on our current knowledge of quantum mechanics, it's not impossible," Ford admitted. "And it would explain some things about black holes."

"Ugh. That's the worst thing I've ever heard." Dipper rubbed his eyes. "How do you live with that?"

"With what?"

"Thinking the entire universe might be, just... some kind of projection? Like a movie?" Dipper said. "I mean... what's the point of doing anything if everything's fake. That's awful."

Ford pressed his lips together.

####

1981

"The universe is what?" Ford asked.

His muse shrugged apologetically. "Sorry to break it to ya, kid! I figured you'd rather hear it from me than—"

"But—but that's amazing!" Ford started pacing across the dreamscape's translucent grid floor. "The implications for physics, for faster-than-light travel, for, for—for religion?" He looked at Bill. "Is the projection a natural phenomenon or someone's creation."

"Uh," Bill said. "Creation?"

"Then who made it? Descartes' 'evil genius'? A demiurge? God?"

Bill laughed. "Kid, depending on your interdimensional political opinions, those are three names for the same guy."

"He's real?"

"Define 'real'," Bill said. "And 'he.' And 'is.'"

"I... I cannot do that!" Ford resumed pacing, muttering again about the implications.

Eye crinkled in amusement, Bill said, "I've gotta say, Stanford, you're taking this pretty well. Most humans don't like hearing they're secretly flat."

Ford barked a laugh. "'Most humans' didn't like hearing that the Earth isn't the center of the solar system. I'm a man of science! If we could prove this, it would be the biggest leap forward in physics since special relativity!" He beamed at Bill. "Do you realize what this means?"

Bill pointed at their portal calculations. "It means if you want to get this working, you need to zero out all the depth values."

"Ah." Ford's shoulders sagged. "Yes. That too."

"Wish you'd taken that fourth semester of Fifth-Dimensional Calculus now?"

"Hush," Ford said sourly, and was immediately mortified at himself for being so disrespectful to his muse; but Bill laughed with what sounded like genuine delight.

####

2013

"Right," Ford said self-consciously. "Awful."

####

At three a.m., Dipper lay in bed, gnawing at his shirt collar, staring at the ceiling.

Yeah. Oh yeah. He could feel it. Wondering whether reality was real would haunt him the rest of his life.

####

Bill slept like a baby.

Nothing like bullying a child to improve a miserable day.

####

Bill woke the next morning from a nightmare about—what had it been about. Being trapped in the bathroom as a metaphor for... something or other. Being trapped in general, probably. Great, had that incident given him trauma? Was he gonna start having recurring nightmares? Would this be a thing he had to deal with? What a miserable malfunctioning species humans were.

He could see the beforeimage of Mabel coming upstairs; not enough time to pull out his dream diary. He'd just have to remember it to write down later. He sat up, cracked his sore neck, and shuffled to the stairs in search of breakfast.

His foot missed the first step and landed on empty air, his stomach lurched, and he braced for a rough landing. In the split second he hung in the air, he thought that he wasn't supposed to fall, he'd looked. Hadn't he looked? He was sure he had—he didn't remember looking, but he could always see, if there'd been an injury in his imminent future he would have subconsciously noticed it and stopped to evaluate, the fact that he'd just walked meant there was nothing for him to notice—right? Idiot, why hadn't he double checked before he just walked off half-asleep—

It occurred to him that this split second was lasting a lot longer than it was supposed to.

He caught the handrail. His fall stopped as he gently bumped into the wall.

"Huh." He straightened up, gave the stairs a puzzled look; and then, experimentally, did a little hop. He went higher than he'd meant to, and hung in the air longer than he should have. He repeated the experiment a couple of times; and then, took a bigger jump forward, aiming for a couple of steps down. He seemed to float in the air for a moment before his feet gently settled on the wooden board. "Oo-oo-ooh." He looked around the stairwell, baffled; and then he looked up, eye burning as he stared through the roof and into the sky.

A chill ran up his spine. "Uh-oh."

####

Dipper frowned at his syrup bottle as the syrup painstakingly oozed out. When he let up his squeezing even a little bit, the syrup sucked back in.

"Come on." He squeezed again and shook the bottle over his pancakes. Like morning dew on the fruits hanging above the head of Tantalus, a round drop of syrup glistened under the skin-softening kitchen light, but never fell. "What's the problem?" Dipper wiped the drop onto his finger and wiped his finger on his pancakes.

Mabel slammed the door open and pounded into the kitchen. "Dipper! Come outside, I need to show you something!" They ran out.

Mabel stood on the edge of the porch, held up an orange glitter-filled super bounce ball the size of a walnut, and said, "Watch this!" She flung the ball down on the porch step as hard as she could.

It rocketed up into the sky, arcing away from the Mystery Shack toward the forest. Dipper's jaw dropped. "Whoa!"

"I just lost four balls that way!" Mabel planted her hands on her hips, watching with satisfaction as the pinprick point of the latest ball soared upward until it disappointed. "I'm gonna get some more!" She ran inside and bolted up the stairs.

Ford passed from the gift shop into the living room, frowning. He picked up a magazine left on the dinosaur skull, flipped through it, and observed how slowly the pages fluttered. "Hmm."

From the entryway, he could hear Stan down the hall on the office phone: "Hello? Doctor? This is Stan Pines. Yeah, I got a medical question. I stepped on the scale this morning, and it says I lost twenty percent of my weight overnight. Do I have cancer?" There was a pause. "Eighth call this morning?! What is this, some kinda bug going around town?"

Dipper closed the door as he came back inside. "Hey, Grunkle Ford? I think there's something..."

"Something strange going on? Yes, I've noticed," he said. "It seems that gravity is about twenty percent lower than usual." He pulled his sparkly birthday pen out of his coat pocket and dropped it from several feet up into his other hand. It fell just a bit slower than normal—not enough that it looked like it was on the moon, but enough that the motion looked uncanny.

"What's going on?"

"I don't..." Ford trailed off as a flash of bright yellow appeared in his peripheral vision. He turned toward the stairs.

Bill had stepped onto the landing. He looked at the bottom half of the staircase with a critical, calculating gaze; and then jumped off the top step. In a single smooth, slow arc, he leaped over all the stairs and descended, slow as a feather, to land lightly on the floor.

"Whoa." Under his breath, Dipper said, "That's a lot more than twenty percent lower."

It just figured he had something to do with this. "Bill," Ford snapped. "What's going on?"

He wasn't expecting Bill to give him such a solemn look.

"There's an eclipse coming," Bill said. "I'd give it three days."

####

(Be honest how long did it take you to figure out Bill was just seeing if he could get Dipper hyped about building a portal. Anyway, hope you enjoyed!! We're heading into the biggest storyline so far—plotwise, lengthwise, and emotionwise—so I'd love to hear what you're thinking and expecting so far!)

[luvvyouforever]

to be known - scott miller (twisters) x reader

synopsis: scott can't grapple with the fact that you've ended your tornado chasing fling with him. content: fluff, angst, argument, scott's an asshole duh, mentions of smut but nothing detailed, drinking/bar environment author's note: niche character time yayyyyy

the past year has been nothing but record outbreaks of tornadoes across the alley. for a month, you've been jumping back and forth between oklahoma, kansas, nebraska, and arkansas, chasing the storms that you had spent your life studying, understanding, learning, loving. your family hated what you did, going out and researching these things on your own, collecting enough data to begin your doctoral study on them. but each time you pulled into gas stations and motels collected with your little community of chasers, you felt at home.

of course, you liked some groups more than others. it was natural. tyler owens and his tornado wranglers were rather tolerable, using their money towards supporting broken towns and families. that group out of florida who drove around some rigged subaru were friendly, offering you to sit with them at dinner. then there were the tourists from england who were way out of their league, but kept to themselves mostly.

and then there was storm par. the corporatized storm chasers who collected data not to understand the weather phenomenons that so often wrecked southern america, but to profit from them. to sell land to their millionaire investors. to use their highly advanced equipment to take advantage of vulnerable people.

you ran into them more often than not, much to your dismay. you sat a reasonable distance from the tornadoes, jotting down notes from the bed of your truck about the striations of clouds and the conditions of the sky that led to the dark funnels forming. and then, four storm par vehicles would speed by, nearly sending your truck toppling each time, kicking up red dust on you.

assholes was what they were. especially scott miller, their co-leader next to javi who was essentially his exact opposite.

at the beginning, he looked at you with a smug confidence painted on his face, gum snapping in his mouth annoyingly. he thought your research would never get off the ground. when you came back the next year with a fully funded program in your belt, he shut up, but still watched you from afar with a look on his face you hated.

and then one night, something changed. it was like a tornado. perfect conditions that all equaled to something explosive. life-changing. it was a bottle of wine that had been sitting in your fridge that made you release the grip your hatred for him had on you. it was heavy winds outside the motel that drug every chaser out to their balconies. it was you looking over to see him in the room next door. it was the seltzer javi convinced him to have with him at a bar. it was the way his eyes glanced down your figure in nothing but a university t-shirt and shorts. it was the way his biceps looked in some god damned muscle tank top.

you still hate him, rest assured. but he was so good, you couldn't only see him once. you saw him throughout the rest of the year when your motels lined up.

it's a simple transaction between the two of you. he gives a faint knock on your door, leans against the frame, and gives you this stupid smirk that has your thighs clenching together. and then he crowds you onto the bed, fucks you till you're shaking and he's spent, then he leaves with little more than a goodbye. it was that easy. or, it was supposed to be that easy.

you caught yourself at the tail end of last tornado season thinking about him more. and when you drove from oklahoma to your hometown, all you could think about was him. he's been plaguing you since then. months have gone by where you've thought him at night time, hands working yourself to a half-assed finish, disappointed that it wasn't his skilled precision doing it.

this time, you knew you had to end it. you had to stop things with him. he was an asshole. he made it abundantly clear that what he wanted from you was a casual fuck. he wasn't a relationship man. he was too married to work to worry about commitment. but if he fucked you and kissed you like he always did, you worried you wouldn't let him leave so easy every night.

and that's an embarassing, scary thought.

luckily for you, storm par got a late start this season. they hadn't arrived until weeks into the season. you overheard one of their members in the gas station grumbling about scott putting off going, claiming it was a budget thing, a prototype thing, a timing thing. it made you wonder, if just for a fleeting moment, that he was putting off seeing you again.

the first day you saw him was in the field. what seemed to be an ef3 was forming in the farmlands of enid and everyone rushed out, hoping to catch a glance at the large funnel forming in the sky. you parked your truck about a mile from the path, watching with calculations already forming in your mind about the wind speed and the duration. dopplers beeped on a computer next to you, but you didn't bother to look at them.

and then, like it was something out of your nightmares, scott's truck pulled up next to you in a rush. he and another member jumped out, funny goggles on their face and white polos getting blown with the red dust of the road. you watched with disinterest as they pulled out their machines and locked them into the ground.

and then, as the tornado chugged along the road, scott looked back and connected your eyes. your stomach dropped. he got a haircut, that was for sure. and had his arms grown in the last year?

he didn't bother to greet you, but instead turned around, watching as the funnel slowly dissipated, turning into nothing but a few extra gusts of wind. with a slam of his hand against the trunk of the car, he hoisted the par into the back on his own. it was a view almost sinful.

he, nor his partner, said anything as they got back into the car. he did, however, give you a final glance before he drove off. it said something, you were certain. but you didn't have time to question it as he drove off too fast and too reckless.

that night, you heard the familiar sound of his knuckles hitting your motel door. you took a breath, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you debated even answering it. how he had even figured out this was your door, you'll never know. you tried to disconnect from his smirk, tried to forget about how good he made you feel. how he had shown up in your daydreams and fantasies since seeing him last.

you had made the decision to call it weeks ago. but seeing him made that action a lot harder. he knocked again and this time, you got up from the bed.

"hello?" you asked as you pulled the door open. he stood away from the door, eyes roaming the expanse of motel rooms all booked with sleeping chasers. he turned around at the sound of your voice and you could've swore his lips almost turned upwards in something more akin to a smile. like he was glad you answered.

"can i come in?" he asked, his deep voice sounding almost unfamiliar in your ears.

you didn't answer him, but opened the door wider, allowing him entry into your room. he was wearing some worn t-shirt from a sports team you didn't recognize and sweatpants. gray ones. his hair was still damp, like he had just gotten out of the shower and the smell of his body wash flooded your nose. it was masculine, warm, hot.

ending this would be a lot harder than you thought.

"you got a late start this season," you said, attempting to break the thick tension in the room.

he turned to look at you, eyes half-darkening. he popped his gum in the back of his mouth. you knew it was cinnamon from the scent alone. "yeah," he answered simply. "had to wait on some new prototypes. better ones."

you nodded, pursing your lips a little. you glanced around your room awkwardly, bouncing on the balls of your feet. you could feel his eyes roaming your body clad in pajamas. you were sure he could smell the floral scent coming from your shower.

your feet were planted, bolted to the rug, unable to move while the weight of your next words played over and over in your head. you watched with bated breath as he stepped closer and you knew you had to do it soon. like now. now. now. now.

just as he lifted his arm to brush your hair back from your shoulders, you spoke up. "i can't do this anymore," you said.

he backed up, looking at your eyes with confusion lacing his expression. his eyebrows knitted together and he stopped chewing his gum. "what do you mean?"

you shook your head at his question. "i mean i can't do this anymore. meet up with you. these flings. these one-night stands. i don't want it anymore."

his feet took him back a few steps, creating healthy distance between the two of you. "okay," he said, dragging out the last syllable. "are you gonna give a reason why?"

you shrugged, unable to give him the real answer. the answer of "yeah, i've been thinking about you and your stupid muscles and stupid attitude and stupid lips and stupid body and i worry that if i keep fucking you, i'm going to want to be your girlfriend and get heart broken when that's not what you want from me." you opted instead for, "i just don't like hook ups. it was fun, but it's not me."

he nodded and you could've swore there was some kind of disappoint that flashed across his eyes. maybe you imagined it, you weren't sure. "that's fine," he said deadpan. he started to leave and wrapped his large hand around the doorknob. he pulled, then looked back to you. "see you out tomorrow." then he walked out and shut the door behind him.

you practically deflated as he left, feeling that well-known lump rise in the back of your throat. you thought it wouldn't affect you like this. but then some cruel thing in your mind reminded you that you'd never feel his touch again, or his lips on yours again. you wonder if you would rather have him in some superficial, heart-clencing way, or never have him again.

you think it might be the first. it's too late now.

when scott goes back to his own room, he slams the door a little too loud, surely waking up the person next door. it came out of nowhere. just hours ago he had seen you in the field, your hair blowing in your face, eyes locked on the threatening clouds high in the sky. he admired your lack of fear and it was a thought that kept recurring in his head since he last saw you.

and yes, there were problems with the prototypes. and riggs was on his ass about getting the data right this time or else he'd pull several hundred thousand from the budget. scott had to deal with that, all while grappling with the fact that he'd be seeing you again and that was scarier than the ef5 tornadoes promised for tornado alley this year.

he felt so stupid for letting himself develop feelings for you. he was usually so disconnected. he could separate his life from his flings. every hookup he's ever had has been passionate, but done once he left the house. with you, it was different.

with you, he had to push himself to leave your bed. he had to push your floral scent out of his head. he had to remind himself that this was supposed to be a casual thing and that you shouldn't like each other.

and then you appeared in his thoughts when he jerked off and realized he was done for. he just hadn't gathered the courage to end it like you did.

he fell back on his scratchy, uncomfortable motel bed, hands on either side of his head in distress. why was he so torn up about this? it shouldn't matter.

he turned off the bedside lamp and pulled the comforter over his lower half. he shut his eyes, desperate to forget about the night and especially forget about you. but every time he got close to sleep, he was plagued with images of your smile in the gas station or your focused gaze out on the road. he thought about how good you were and how awful he was for what he was doing.

scott miller was screwed and he knew it too. he didn't sleep much that night.

some random chaser out of texas invited you out to a bar with her friends the next night. was your moping truly that noticeable? you said yes, of course you did. you needed scott out of your head. really, you needed him miles away in the distance, but until the season ended, he'd only be a short drive from you every day.

you hadn't bothered with really trying to dress well, considering it was just some local dive bar filled with tourists. what you wanted was some drinks, a little socialization, and go home.

you'd only been there for thirty minutes, only one shirley temple in deep, when javi and two other storm par members came in. a minute later, scott came in, clearly disinterested by the environment javi no doubt drug him into. you were really positive at the moment that the world had it out for you. you really hated storm par.

you also hated just how good he looked tonight. having really only seen him in his work clothes or pajamas, you felt as though you unlocked a new facet of scott miller. he was in some jeans on top of boots. instead of a storm par polo, he put on a t-shirt with some beer logo on it and it carved him out perfectly. heads turned as they walked in and you knew eyes were on him.

just as the group found some booth in the corner, scott looked up and for a second, your eyes met. your breath hitched and you turned around immediately, desperate for another drink from the bartender.

over on the side of the bar, scott's heart thumped in his chest, both from the loud country music coming from a jukebox and from seeing you at the bar. you looked effortless. you caught attention. you took sips from your drink with the soft lips he thought about kissing last night. jesus, he needed this season to be done with.

the whole day, he was distracted. he couldn't call out orders or focus on the data they were out there to get. he replayed last night in his head. all he could feel were your hands on his body. he hadn't known, until that moment, that this was what he wanted. he wanted you.

he wanted you and your passion. you and your witty remarks. you and your specific diner orders. you and your sweet snacks and energy drinks. you with your clipboards and computers in the bed of your truck. he wanted you and everything that came with that. javi noticed he was distracted, maybe a little sad, and thought it was a good idea to go out. it was a good idea, sure. he could have found someone else to flirt with a little at the bar, but now you're here and his heart is on the floor.

"man, you've been looking like a kicked puppy all day," javi said, bumping into his side. "which is saying something since you always got this superman stoic look."

scott glanced sideways at him, shaking his head. "i'm fine," he said, though his curt tone said a little more. javi, ever observant, followed scott's previous gaze to the bar where you sat, the bartender looking at you with a smile as he handed you another mixed drink.

"hmm," javi hummed. "don't you want a beer?"

scott glanced back at the bar, then to his partner next to him. "you getting them?" he asked.

javi shook his head and scott could see gears connecting together in his head, slowly turning. "no, can you? you know, my back just hurts so bad from hitting that ditch with the truck today."

scott sat there frozen, unwilling to head to the bar.

"unless, there's a reason you don't want to head to the bar."

scott looked at javi, his eyes widening just a fraction. he got it. he knew he did. "jesus, javi, don't you stop worrying about other people?" he asked, that same mean tone he usually carried slipping through. javi didn't take it personally, though, just leaned in more to scott so their conversation was quieter.

"she's a good girl," he said. "what's going on with that?"

scott stood up quickly, adjusting his shirt in the process. "nothing," he said. "i'll get the damn drinks." his large frame pushed through the crowds of people till he reached the bar. unfortunately for him, the only spot free was just a few stools down from you. he could smell your perfume, hear the ice in your drink clinking around. in some other world where things were easier and he wasn't so complicated, he'd go up and confess everything and head home with you.

in this world, though, he stood there quietly, trying so hard not to look in your direction.

you were trying to as well, focusing on the cherry in your drink that kept swirling around with your straw. scott, in his casual clothes and gelled hair, stood just a few feet from you and you couldn't give him that look that told him to come to your room later. you'd never get that again. you took a sip of your drink as scott ordered a couple beers for his group.

as he left, your eyes betrayed your mind and you watched him. he looked back, feeling eyes on him and he paused. he stood for a second, looking at you, and then walked away.

"jesus," you whispered, putting your head in your hands. with a wave of your hand, you called the bartender over and paid your tab quickly. you stood from the bar and headed outside, desperate for some air to clear your thoughts.

several minutes passed of deep breaths and watching the night sky. clouds formed and very distantly, thunder clapped. you knew tomorrow would be a busy day and that you should head home, but something kept your feet planted on the ground.

you knew what it was when the door to the bar swung open suddenly and you could've laughed when you saw scott walk out, rubbing a hand down his face like he was just as frustrated as you. when he turned around, he laughed, he really did.

instead of going back inside, he leaned against the wall across the door, keeping a far distance from you. the two of you played a stupid game of looking up, then looking down, then looking up.

unable to tolerate it anymore, you pushed yourself from the wall and went to head to your truck parked down the way, but then a firm hand wrapped around your wrist and you looked back, connecting eyes with scott.

"yes?" you asked, ripping your wrist from his grasp.

"i-uh," he started to say something, but stopped. "i'm sorry."

you looked at him shocked, as if you thought he'd never been capable of saying the words sorry. like he was too self conceited to do so. his jaw clenched and he took a short breath in and out.

"what is it, scott?" you asked, tired of his glances and looks. you thought in that moment that maybe you'd make it a point to never go to the same storms and locations storm par was. maybe you'd find tornadoes further north. maybe you could change your research purpose and find something new. just to be able to leave the grip he had on you.

"what are you doing tonight?" he tried. his voice was as casual as he could make it, as if he didn't want to convey through his voice the hope that you'd come back to him and forget your words. that he would be what you want.

you shrugged, finding his words out of character. "i don't know," you said honestly. "go to sleep. get an early start for tomorrow."

he nodded, glancing down at the ground. before you, scott would never act this way. he wouldn't be shy or unconfident or a beat around the bush kind of guy. he'd ask if you wanted to come back to his room still. he'd put on that smug smirk and his muscles would flex a little and he'd brush hair from your face with gentle, but firm hands. you changed him and god, he hated it.

"i'm gonna go," you told him, stepping away with an attempt at resolve.

"wait!" he said before thinking about it. he winced at your quick turn around, at the frustration clear on your face.

"what is it, scott?" you asked, biting down on your lip hard to keep from a tear slipping down your cheek at the way he looked at you then. you wondered what was going through his head. you noticed the break in his rough exterior and breathed out. "are you gonna say something or-"

"jesus," he breathed out, wiping a hand down his face roughly. he took strong steps towards you, his face set strong. "are you oblivious?"

you looked at him in shock, offense written on your face as clear as day. "excuse me? just because i broke it off doesn't give you a reason to be an asshole to me again."

"that's not--i'm sorry. okay? i didn't mean to say that," he said, hands reached out as if that would placate anything. "this is just fucking hard for me."

"what's hard, scott?" you ask.

his blue eyes bore into you and you were sure that a minute longer, you'd have a hole straight through your chest. "this! this is hard. talking to you. being around you. trying to be honest with you because i haven't felt this way for anyone else, yeah? so just bear with me for a damn second."

your heart dropped straight through your body and you were sure that if you looked on the ground, it'd be beating there, quicker than the winds you'd been dealing with for the past weeks.

"i don't know why you called this off," he started. "but i don't like it. i've been thinking about this and about you since last year. you keep making your way into my thoughts and i keep trying to push you out, but then i see you on the side of the road and i short circuit and i forget everything i'm here for. i don't want this to end."

"scott, i told you that i don't want to hookup anymore. i don't like it. i don't want that with you."

"then what do you want?" he asked, hands wrapping around yours that were hanging lazily by your side. "what can i do?"

"scott, just stop. this isn't what we need-"

"i know what i need. i need you," he said, voice breathy and frustrated. his jaw tightened and his eyes were practically unblinking. his chest rose and fell quickly. if you looked close enough, you could see the faintest shake in his fingers. he might've been scared in that moment.

"you don't know what i need. you don't need me, scott."

"i know you. i know you like sweet tea in the diner and you like it extra sweet with sweet-n-low packets. i know you keep cough medicine in your hotel room because the dust makes you sick every year. i know you watch sitcoms on bad storm days that shake you too much. i know you're scared your grant might lose funding if you don't get good results this year. i know you like hotels with balconies so you can read at sunrise before going out. i know that lightning scares you. i know you hate storm par and everything we do. i know you hate our polos and our stupid trucks and sometimes me."

he took a big breath, as if he had just torn out his heart straight from his chest and placed it in your hands.

"i don't hate you," you whispered, your voice heavy and full of emotion. "do you really notice that much about me?

he nodded. "you're all i've been able to look at and think about for the past year."

you smiled a little, just the corners of your mouth tugging upwards. instead of fighting back the lump in your throat, you let your eyes water and one tear slipped down your cheek. you wiped it quickly and sniffed, looking up at scott with a kind of renewed sense of love. "i didn't want to end anything," you confessed. "i was...i was having feelings for you. i never wanted you to leave when you came over. i wanted to wake up next to you. i wanted to see outside of all this. but i thought you'd never want that. so i ended it before i got hurt."

he let out a dry chuckle. "yeah, i used to not want that. but god, you just had to come in and change everything, huh?"

you smiled at that, copying his small chuckle. you breathed out, glancing to the side, then back to his bright blue eyes. "i do hate storm par. you're right. and i hate those polos. and your stupid trucks."

"i'll make sure we don't kick up any more dust in your way, okay? and i'll switch to the t-shirt more."

you nodded. "and you'll spend the night with me? not run off?"

"i don't think i ever want to leave your side again," he said, the grip he had on your hands tightening. "let me drive you back to the motel?"

you eagerly nodded, giving him a wide smile that he actually returned. his eyes roamed over you, not with the lust they used to, but with adoration, with the knowledge that you wanted this too. he moved one of his hands down to interlace your fingers together and he led you over to the stupid storm par truck to take you back home. to that motel with scratchy sheets where he could show you the things he'd been dreaming about for months.

you'd come get your truck in the morning, but for now, you could only focus on scott's firm grip on your hand, even as he drove. things felt a lot easier now. you glanced sideways at scott to see a permanent, small smile on his lips and you copied it with your own.

[spacemothsota]

Cassette player from Cassette?

You know, I love cassettes in Transformers. (I love them so much that if you woke me up in the middle of the night and asked me what cassettes Soundwave and Blaster had, I could probably list them all by name.)

Many people underestimate them because of their size and the fact that they transform into cassettes and they are often reduced to the "children's" equivalent, but listen.. Just listen. In my mind, cassettes are not children at all, no, not at all, to go through such a war and stay alive, you know guys, they are definitely adults. Maybe teenagers close to becoming adults or this stupid period when you are kind of an adult, but you still need a "More adult adult". Moreover, in the comics, Rumble and Frenzy were actually miners, so let's keep that in mind, okay? In short, cassettes are quite adult and independent, this will be useful to us in my subsequent words.

In general, it seems like the show and comics have never said how strong this connection is between the cassette host and the cassette. What kind of connection is this? How do cassette host and cassettes work? Like… I don't remember it being said directly, but obviously there is a connection. (Remember how Soundwave feels pain from Ravage's death, or from Rumble's injury? Obviously the connection is strong, but what kind of connection is it?) How do cassette players and tapes work? HOW?

How the fuck does this work???

Well I have a couple of ideas about it actually, it may seem unusual, but here are a couple of my ideas.

It's pretty obvious that it's similar to symbiosis, where one species helps another in some way. While symbiosis can be parasitic in nature, I'm guessing that for Cybertronians it's more like a mutually beneficial phenomenon. Usually, creatures of different species enter into symbiosis, be it clownfish and sea anemones, or butterflies that feed on animal tears (they need it to get sodium). I think that cassette player and cassettes are more closely related. Aside from the obvious symbiotic relationship, where the one offers the cassette safety, care, and a secure life in exchange for some services from other side (like recording information, spying/intelligence activities, etc.), it seems to me that this could have a deeper evolutionary mechanism, for example for survival purposes?

Ever wonder why there are literally only two Cassette Host in the show and comics? It's literally just Soundwave and Blaster (Soundblaster doesn't count, he's a clone. Sorry, fans of that guy). It's also not really clear what niche they occupied in the caste system the Functionalists founded, but it's probably not a very high one since Soundwave was found on the street by Ravage. I think the fear here might be precisely because bots like them are capable of this type of symbiotic relationship. They don't need mods for it, they are designed to share their space and path with trusted Cassettes. This connection itself must imply that you understand each other on some deeper level. Maybe like Gestalts, a common type of internal connection that other bots can't recognize? I think that makes sense. You're basically slightly in each other's heads. The Cassette Host not only takes on the responsibility of providing the cassette, but also of regulating this internal connection, both emotional and physical. In return, the cassettes provide an unlimited ability to store and accumulate data (I think this is connected to their altform, that is, Rumble and Frenzy can be quite smart, they just don’t need it. A striking detail in this regard would be Rewind and how he helped Tailgate reduce the bomb’s radius, but there’s a lot that can be said about him). Understand? This increases the likelihood that the Cassette player and the cassettes act as a single, well-coordinated organism, it’s no wonder that the functionalists were afraid of this. This symbiosis can resemble from the outside both a family unit and a business gang, where there is a boss and cronies. In any case, here’s another thought of mine, what if…

What if, under certain conditions, a cassette tape could become a cassette player?

I know this might sound weird, but just hear me out. You know, I often come across the idea that cassette hosts can create cassettes, and that's a possibility, because my idea is based on that. Could a spark of such a bot be predisposed to create smaller sparks to provide security and support for those cassettes that don't have the ability to become cassette players? Look, we have a cassette host, it can have its own cassettes that it created, or those that were reformatted into this altform and taken under its wing. If the host is hurt or killed, cassettes can remain destitute and forgotten until they die, but what if, due to the symbiotic relationship of these Cybertronians, they have some kind of evolutionary mechanism? What if one host has enough cassettes that it realizes that it strains the internal communication and does not allow time for each? Then one or two cassettes created by the bot and having a predominantly humanoid form and also access to comfort and resources, begin to gain mass of the protoform, form a cassette deck and so on. They become new cassette players, provided that they have always been in this altform and have not been reformatted, I think the second type of cassettes is not capable of this mechanism. Why is this an evolutionary mechanism? Well, because perhaps earlier these two types of Cybertronians really belonged to different groups, but in the process of millennia and millions of years they were simply close for so long that they turned into one group. You know what, in essence, cassettes would be like an axolotl from our world (like… Have you seen an axolotl? They are actually not an adult version of an ambystoma)

This mechanism would essentially explain why we know only two cassette hosts and so many cassettes. Probably, before the war there were a sufficient and diverse number of them, but during the war many could have died and Soundwave and Blaster essentially picked up the destitute, deprived of communication and scared cassettes. None of the cassettes had the necessary level of comfort, fuel and other factors that would contribute to the evolution into a new host, you understand? In essence, this means that Soundwave and Blaster were loaded with an additional level during the war (that's why they look tired, taking care of so many charges is tiring…)

I can just see how after the war, with the improvement in the quality of life, one of the cassettes finally decided that the conditions are good enough, but there are too few hosts… It's time to evolve into an adult version and become a cassette player.

I hope Soundwave can rest and this won't be another world.

[missempanada]

10 random facts about Spain you might wanna know for your fan work

My Hetalia hyperfixation came back this 2025 and it's stronger than ever. So to celebrate, I decided to make this post to share with you a little bit of real contemporary Spanish culture and to debunk some stereotypes. If you're writing or creating art about Spain this might help you add some details that will make the character, as well as his relationships with other nations, feel more authentic.

#1. We have two surnames, not a compound one (so it's "Fernández Carriedo", not "Fernandez-Carriedo"). I explained how that works in a post some years ago.

#2. We don't really drink sangría when we go to bars. It's considered a thing for tourists, especially considering how much they can charge you for it. Instead of that, we drink tinto de verano which is a mixture of red wine and either sparkling water or sparkling lemonade (usually the second one). When we do drink sangría, it's usually at a house or student delegation party and the methods we use to prepare it are usually not... very clean or sophisticated. It’s usually just cheap wine mixed with soda, with some chopped fruits thrown in, and it’s often made in a large plastic tub or basin without much concern for presentation or hygiene.

#3. Likewise, the dish that we like the most isn't paella, but tortilla de patatas. You'll find a plate of tortilla in every household when it's time to watch a football match, celebrate a birthday or watch the Eurovision grand final. Also, the only thing this tortilla has in common with the Mexican one is the name.

#4. The olive oil stereotype is way more accurate than the tomato one. We put olive oil in everything. Though if you wanna combine both stereotypes, most Spaniards love to have a toast with tomato pulp, olive oil and salt, either as breakfast or as a snack. The name and preparation of this toast can have slight variatons from region to region.

#5. Most Spaniards don't like bullfighting and even advocate for it to be banned. According to this survey, only 24% of Spaniards like bullfighting and it's usually those amongst the older generations. We usually consider the bullfighter stereotype to be offensive but we also think the imaginery slays (no pun intended) with fashion designers such as Palomo Spain using it in their works (this is the costume he designed for our entry in Eurovision 2022). It's kind of contradicting so take this information as you will. But basically: killing bulls, NO; pretty and shiny costumes, YES.

#6. According to a survey, Portugal (#1) and Italy (#2) are the two countries most liked by Spaniards. According to another survey, those two countries along with Greece would be the ones we'd be the most willing to help in case of a crisis. Can't tell if it's reciprocated, but according to every Spanish student's Erasmus experience ever I would say yes! (If you're not European and don't know what Erasmus is, look it up. Might be useful for a college AU). Also, there seems to be a rise in the idea of Mediterranean/southern European/PIGS pride among youths of any political inclination, often making memes like this one, which may or may not be related to the data I just provided. I'd say we consider the Portuguese to be our siblings, Italians to be our cousins and Greeks to be our distant cousins.

#7. The "th" sound in the neutral European Spanish dialect (the one you hear in movies and shows) isn't a lisp, but a phenomenon linguists call diferenciación. If anyone wants me to explain this in detail, I'll gladly make a separate post about it. If you don't know how it works I suggest you don't use it in fics and stuff because we will point and laugh at you. Especially considering some provinces in Spain only pronounce the S sound, just like Latin Americans.

#8. Though Enrique Iglesias is great, he's not the most popular singer in Spain at the moment, especially since he's retired from music. Spanish girls and gays usually listen to Rosalía, Ana Mena, Lola Índigo or Belén Aguilera, amongst others. Straight people usually listen to Quevedo (ew). David Bisbal was very big in the 2000s and he's still universally loved by all, whether we actually like his music or see him as a living meme. Collaborations with Latin American artists (examples 1, 2, 3) are also very popular and collaborations with Italian artists are becoming increasingly popular (examples 1, 2, 3). I have a playlist of Spanish pop artists (mostly women) that you can check here. If your fic or artwork is set on the 20th Century, you might wanna check this playlist instead. And here's another one for Spanish classical composers.

#9. Doraemon and Crayon Shin Chan are a cultural staple amongst Spaniards raised in the late 90s-2000s-early 2010s. So much so, that there's even an episode of Crayon Shin Chan in which the Nohara family goes to Spain on vacation. I've bonded with Japanese people over this lol

#10. We typically don't use the word "gringo" to refer to USAmericans (though it's becoming more popular now since younger generations are more used to hearing Latin American slang because of both the Internet and recent migrations), we use "guiri" instead. This word is used to describe people who are whiter than us, for lack of a better explanation. So, basically, Central Europeans + Nordics + Brits + USAmericans + Canadians. Like most words in Spanish, it can be considered either a neutral descriptor or a pejorative term depending on the context and intonation. For example, if a Spaniard has an English or German partner, they may call them "mi guiri" (my guiri) as a light-hearted tease. However, if we're talking about drunk English tourists jumping from balconies... then yes, it's definitely pejorative.

I'd love it if anyone else in the fandom does this with facts about their country because I love learning new things about other cultures and peoples. So if you write a post like this, please tag me so I can read it! Also if you want me to confirm or debunk any stereotype let me know and I'll do it in the comments.

Bonus fun fact: Spain is the gayest country in Europe (based on the percentage of people that identify as LGBT+).

[cube-cumb3r]

If you walk past a Wanderer (That's what these Hippo-Snake thingys are called by the way), you might notice the strange radio noises that play. If you were to turn the music off in the settings and follow one of these guys around for a while, you might notice their speech is surprisingly intelligible. Here is the audio in isolation from the game files, and with an interpretation of what I think it's saying:

Report, Report, Repeat, vital signs are continuing to experience intermittent data flow interruptions. Fifty-two. Person ninety-five is experiencing outside influences. Do you hear us? Forty- Forty-Two, can you tell us how it feels? Fourty-four. Give a signal. We are sending reports every minus 1.1 miles per hour. We have a issued the time of death at 2:04pm. Do you hear us? A severe brain signal capable of producing [heavy distortion] was located. A new phenomenon has been discovered. Receiving signal. Encoding signal. Translating signal. The enormous egg that holds us all as in mothers womb. Contact has been successful. Message recieveeeee- Radar indicates a similar signal 9 miles away. 3 miles away. Hello? 9 miles away. Signals are located everywhere. Hello? What do you see? How is the other side? Can you hear us? Hello? Can you hear us? Hello?

[starlit-typewriter]

Genshin SAGAU, Creator of Teyvat, but not Humanity Part 11

Hello all, Simulanka hit me like a dump truck.

On that note, am so excited by the fun new lore opportunities that have come up because of it.

Warning for Spoilers up to Genshin Impact 4.8's most recent summer event

Masterlist | Prev Part

~~~

“I may have retired from my position as Archon, but I assure you my powers have not weakened. Should you break your word, you will face the wrath of the rock.”

“I will uphold my end of this deal, as long as you uphold yours Morax”

“Then let this contract be solid as stone.” 

~~~

“I really don’t know what went wrong, Master Albedo,” Sucrose’s worried voice floated over his shoulder where he was examining her latest experiment.

Her experiments in bio-alchemy were not his preferred field of expertise, but he was happy to lend a hand now and again. 

She was proficient in running her own studies and experiments, so it baffled him slightly to see her ask for his help in such a simple experiment. 

Especially if it made her desperate enough to trek all the way up to Dragonspine in order to talk to him about it. She knew she could have easily just waited for his next trip down to the city, he did have to make those for supplies, and to visit Klee.

However, upon closer examination he understood her distress and confusion. 

Her latest experiment, which focused on testing her latest fertilizer which was infused with dead ley line branches, had fallen apart in a rather fascinating way.

The plants were all dead, which is unfortunate but the fascinating part was that the ley lines branches were not.

A fact known to all who study ley lines is their volatility. 

Researchers were often left to scramble around trying to document its movements in an uncontrolled environment.

WIth the ley line system being as big as it is, it was not possible for any team to span the entire system nor, with its interconnected system, was it possible to study only one section.

The closest equivalent would be to pick up dead pieces of the ley lines and study those pieces.

However, never in the history of alchemy, or even biology had a researcher ever been able to revive a completely dead piece of plant, never mind a ley line branch. 

Not that ley lines are plants, they don’t fit the definition of a traditional plant but its the closest equivalency that researchers have found when describing its characteristics.

Regardless, the pots that Sucrose had planted, all with various forms of dead ley line branches, have changed to varying degrees.

The most noticeable culprit was the one she had buried an entire branch in with the sweet flower. 

The white branch had sprouted its own limbs and were wrapped around the original flower in a crude imitation of a hug.

Rather morbid considering that the sweet flower locked in its caress was now dead.

Not that any of the other sweet flowers had fared any better. They were all dead, with no discernible reason as to why.

“When did you notice this phenomenon, ” Albedo asked, turning to look at Sucrose who was flipping through her notes.

“Um, a- about two weeks ago.” She explained, “At first the experiment was running smoothly, the sweet flowers were growing normally ”

She flipped open her notebook to show him her notes over the days.

“But then all of a sudden they just started dying, and the ley line branches started growing.”

Albedo flipped through the notes, Sucrose was by no means a slouch when it came to her notes. She was always impeccably detailed and thorough when it came to recording data for her experiments.

There were no signs of the ley line branches adversely affecting the growth of the flowers for the first 3 weeks of their lifespan. 

So what could have possibly happened to make them die like that?

Albedo looked over at the various pots scattered around his workspace, this was going to take him a while.

The Chief Alchemist of the Knights of Favonius looked over at his student, she was already starting to shiver slightly.

As a synthetic human, his body was more sturdy than that of average beings, especially as a synthetic human of Rhinedottir’s. . . 

Well, he is very sturdy. 

Sucrose is not, a fact made even more apparent by how she’s moving her arms around in an effort to warm herself up. 

He tends to keep the braiser burning low, to save on supplies. However the temperature comfortable for him seems a bit too low for his student.

“Why don’t you head back to the city Sucrose,” he suggested, putting her notebook down on his table. “This is going to take a while to figure out, and it may be helpful for you to examine your lab once again to see if there are any variables you missed.”

Unlikely, but then again her presence here wouldn’t help either of them in figuring this out. 

Him from preferring to work alone, and her from the weather conditions.

Also, she failed to bring any meaningful amount of supplies with her, if she were to stay, they’d both end up having to go back down the mountains in a couple of days regardless.

If she left, he’d have at least a week of peace and solitude to figure this out.

If he can figure this out.

He’s honestly quite excited to get started, it’s been quite a while since a case had perplexed him like this.

He waved goodbye at Sucrose as she headed out.

She was much faster on her feet the way out, no doubt propelled by her desire to leave the cold, and the lack of various pots and notes to haul.

Albedo on the other hand, well.

 His clear blue eyes sparked with excitement as he dove headfirst in dissecting Sucrose’s experiment.

It was quite a fascinating phenomenon.

By all means, the ley line branches were completely dead when Sucrose started using them in her experiments. 

Whilst that by no means meant they were devoid of power, Abyss mages have found great success in using it to augment their abilities, the fact that it can grow and presumably revive itself is groundbreaking.

Now that he really thinks about it, this is not the only odd thing that had been happening in recent times.

Some of the Knights of Favonius have reported odd patterns of Ley line disorders happening recently.

Not to mention his own research on the remains of Durin.

Hmm, what are the chances they’re all connected.

Well, he won’t deny that the arrival of the golden haired traveler heralded many shifts in this world.

From their dealings with the Archons, to the blessings of the creator.

They are truly an exceptional person.

Interestings things never stopped happening when they’re around.

Back to the experiment at hand, from the angle of the growth, based on Sucrose’s diagram, it seems that all the branches grew in the same direction. 

Going back to her notes, Albedo referenced a map, triangulating the direction the branches pointed too based on the placement of the pots in her workspace.

Liyue

The branches are growing in the direction of Liyue.

What could possibly be happening in-

A draconic roar filled the air, blowing his papers all over his camp.

Summoning his sword, Albedo looked around, seeing only the tail end of an azure dragon pass over his base.

Could that be-

“Dvalin wait!” a musical voice screams out, as a white blur chased after the presumed dragon.

The wind generated by that second figure hit his camp, and face full force. Knocking him a good couple of steps back.

The Alchemist is left standing there, his hair and camp in a disarray.

His papers floated around the camp like large snowflakes, while the liquids from shattered beakers slowly began to freeze over.

What did he just witness?

A small hissing sound catches his attention, one of his experimental potions had been blown off of its stand. 

It now lay smashed in a pile of papers.

Sucrose’s papers

Albedo dove for the spilled beaker with a muffled curse

It was one thing for his experiment’s notes to be ruined, but for someone else to lend their own notes in a bid for help and for him to ruin them himself.

No, absolutely not.

This potion was supposed to be a powerful stain remover, inspired by Klee’s recent foray into his paint supplies.

While it was successful in dissolving the stain, it also dissolved the clothing.

In other words, it would destroy her notes given enough time.

Thankfully he did manage to get to it in time.

Most of the damage he could fix on his own, given some extra ink.

The incident brought him back to his reality of a ruined camp.

As much as wanted to investigate what was going on, he really needed to clean up his camp before he did.

Thankfully nothing too valuable was destroyed. A couple of beakers here and there, but well, let’s just say Acting Grandmaster Jean would be more surprised if he didn’t need to order a batch of extra beakers than if he did.

What can he say, it was the price of conducting Alchemy

Back to his camp, while it’s by no means clean, he truly didn’t have the patience to wait any longer.

Who knew if the two mysterious figures were even still on dragonspine.

Grabbing his emergency bag, Albedo headed out in the direction he saw them heading it.

The Summit of Dragonspine.

. . .

He should probably bring some extra supplies, just in case.

~~~

”Hraagh!”

The last hilichurl ran away as Albedo lowered his sword.

It’s weird that there’s such a concentration of hilichurls on his way up the summit.

In fact, he’s met more hilichurls today on his way up than he has over the past month combined.

Hmm, it bears investigating. However right now his focus is on seeing if those mysterious figures were still hanging around Dragonspine.

He had his suspicions on who they were, but well.

He wanted to confirm it with his own eyes first.

He continued his trek up, being mindful of his environment. The air grew thicker, and not with snow, but elemental power.

It was strange, whilst the celestial nail that pierced Dragonspine held a good amount of power, it was not this strong that it could be felt from so far away.

Similarly the heart of Durin was almost on the other side of the mountain.

What could be causing this phenomenon?

The Chalk Prince hastened his pace up the mountain, using his Geo constructs to help him over some of the more tricky terrain.

As he ascended, the air became more and more oppressive. Truly an average human would be having difficulty breathing by now.

But regardless he pushed on, determined to find the source of this power.

Ignoring the falling temperatures that signaled the end of the day, Albedo clambered over one last cliff, before he stumbled upon a small camp, with a couple of familiar faces.

“Albedo!” 

A familiar high pitched screech greeted him.

“What are you doing here!”

“It’s nice to see you again Paimon,” he greeted, patting the snow off of his body, “and Traveler,”

“Another friend of yours, I presume,” a deep rich voice said. 

“Yep, that’s Albedo, Chief Alchemist of the Knights of Favonius.” Paimon announced, introducing him to the owner of said voice.

“A pleasure, I am Zhongli of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.” He greeted politely, looking very out of place in his elegant brown suit, considering the location and weather.

Albedo steps forward, preparing to introduce himself a bit better when-

“Oho, I believe we’ve met before haven’t we, good sir.” A colorful bard interjects, his blue eyes sparkling as he blocks his view of Zhongli . 

Another familiar face, though more of a passing familiar face than a friend..

He’s seen this man around Mondstadt, Klee enjoys his music and has on occasion attempted to drag him out to go meet this ‘funny bard’, but they always happened whilst he was in the middle of experimenting.

Albedo opens his mouth to reply, only to be interrupted once more

“And who is this,” a clear unfamiliar voice rang out.

Albedo’s attention was drawn to the last member of the traveler’s party.

His breath stuttered.

An elegant figure standing on the opposite side of the camp. Their head tilted as they looked at him.

Their slitted eyes were beautiful pools of liquid silver, akin to melted mercury, or liquid starlight.

Their flowing white robe swayed with the wind.

Their body backlit by the setting sun

They looked ethereal, godly.

They felt powerful.

“-do! Have you fallen off a cliff recently or what!” Paimon’s angry voice jolts him back to reality.

Ah, it seems that he missed something.

“Ugggh, come one!” The fairy grabs his arm and drags him to the other side of the camp.

She has a surprising amount of strength for such a small creature. 

Not that size is any indication of strength, he’s met Klee before after all.

The traveler followed, but not before sending the other member of their traveling party a meaningful look.

It seems that they want to discuss something important with him.

He never really did find the two figures did he.

“Albedo,” the traveler addressed him, their tone uncharacteristically serious. “I need you to leave Dragonspine, at least for a few weeks”

A few weeks?

“What’s going on?”

The duo exchange glances. 

“I’m going to explain something to you, but I need you to not freak out.” Paimon warned, hovering close to his face.

“I won’t freak out,” Albedo promised, leaning back slightly from Paimon’s heavy stare.

They explained the situation.

About the creator, how they found them, their situation.

About a contract they made with the Adeptus of Liyue and how they needed some place where they were unlikely to accidentally hurt anyone.

It sounds unbelievable.

By all means it should be.

But there’s no reason for them to lie, nor would they come up with this explanation unless it was absolutely true.

“You’re not freaking out right?” Paimon asked quietly as they watched him process this information.

To the outsider, Albedo appeared as calm as can be.

On the inside however.

The idea of the creator of Teyvat, here on Teyvat.

Well, that’s

I mean.

“Would this be a bad time to mention that Durin may be coming back to life.”

“WHAT!!!”

~~~

Masterlist | Prev Part

Thank you all so much for reading!

I will admit I had a little bit of trouble since I don't have Albedo and missed the events where he was actually plot relevant.

I was so close to getting him, except I lose the 50/50 and went all the way to pity before running out of primos.

Sigh, Albedo you sure like making my life difficult don't you.

As always my Askbox is always open for question, comments theories and more!

Here is the taglist:

@bunniotomia,@lucid-stories, @ymechi, @chocogi,  @ra404, @ash1, @esthelily, @tottybear, @mmeatt, @quacking-simp, @reemthetheme, @universallyenthusiastsage, @resident-cryptid, @fantasyhopperhea, @thedevioussmirk, @etherisy, @naynayaa ,@mel-star636, @chericia, @aithane, @mmeatt, @xrosegorex, @amidst-the-tempest, @8-sinner-8, @reapersan, @elementalia ,@strangeygirl, @chaoticfivesworld, @scalyalpaca, @avalordream ,@ranshin03, @vvyeislazzy, @wishicouldart, @raykayrei,@izzieg3987, @time-shardz, @nugsanart09, @mavix,@beary-kalkus, @lunarapple ,@keirennyx,@thepagansystem, @dragontammerz

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralistic: Leaving Twitter had no effect on NPR's traffic

I'm coming to Minneapolis! This Sunday (Oct 15): Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Monday (Oct 16): Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

Enshittification is the process by which a platform lures in and then captures end users (stage one), who serve as bait for business customers, who are also captured (stage two), whereupon the platform rug-pulls both groups and allocates all the value they generate and exchange to itself (stage three):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

Enshittification isn't merely a form of rent-seeking – it is a uniquely digital phenomenon, because it relies on the inherent flexibility of digital systems. There are lots of intermediaries that want to extract surpluses from customers and suppliers – everyone from grocers to oil companies – but these can't be reconfigured in an eyeblink the that that purely digital services can.

A sleazy boss can hide their wage-theft with a bunch of confusing deductions to your paycheck. But when your boss is an app, it can engage in algorithmic wage discrimination, where your pay declines minutely every time you accept a job, but if you start to decline jobs, the app can raise the offer:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

I call this process "twiddling": tech platforms are equipped with a million knobs on their back-ends, and platform operators can endlessly twiddle those knobs, altering the business logic from moment to moment, turning the system into an endlessly shifting quagmire where neither users nor business customers can ever be sure whether they're getting a fair deal:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Social media platforms are compulsive twiddlers. They use endless variation to lure in – and then lock in – publishers, with the goal of converting these standalone businesses into commodity suppliers who are dependent on the platform, who can then be charged rent to reach the users who asked to hear from them.

Facebook designed this playbook. First, it lured in end-users by promising them a good deal: "Unlike Myspace, which spies on you from asshole to appetite, Facebook is a privacy-respecting site that will never, ever spy on you. Simply sign up, tell us everyone who matters to you, and we'll populate a feed with everything they post for public consumption":

https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1128876

The users came, and locked themselves in: when people gather in social spaces, they inadvertently take one another hostage. You joined Facebook because you liked the people who were there, then others joined because they liked you. Facebook can now make life worse for all of you without losing your business. You might hate Facebook, but you like each other, and the collective action problem of deciding when and whether to go, and where you should go next, is so difficult to overcome, that you all stay in a place that's getting progressively worse.

Once its users were locked in, Facebook turned to advertisers and said, "Remember when we told these rubes we'd never spy on them? It was a lie. We spy on them with every hour that God sends, and we'll sell you access to that data in the form of dirt-cheap targeted ads."

Then Facebook went to the publishers and said, "Remember when we told these suckers that we'd only show them the things they asked to see? Total lie. Post short excerpts from your content and links back to your websites and we'll nonconsensually cram them into the eyeballs of people who never asked to see them. It's a free, high-value traffic funnel for your own site, bringing monetizable users right to your door."

Now, Facebook had to find a way to lock in those publishers. To do this, it had to twiddle. By tiny increments, Facebook deprioritized publishers' content, forcing them to make their excerpts grew progressively longer. As with gig workers, the digital flexibility of Facebook gave it lots of leeway here. Some publishers sensed the excerpts they were being asked to post were a substitute for visiting their sites – and not an enticement – and drew down their posting to Facebook.

When that happened, Facebook could twiddle in the publisher's favor, giving them broader distribution for shorter excerpts, then, once the publisher returned to the platform, Facebook drew down their traffic unless they started posting longer pieces. Twiddling lets platforms play users and business-customers like a fish on a line, giving them slack when they fight, then reeling them in when they tire.

Once Facebook converted a publisher to a commodity supplier to the platform, it reeled the publishers in. First, it deprioritized publishers' posts when they had links back to the publisher's site (under the pretext of policing "clickbait" and "malicious links"). Then, it stopped showing publishers' content to their own subscribers, extorting them to pay to "boost" their posts in order to reach people who had explicitly asked to hear from them.

For users, this meant that their feeds were increasingly populated with payola-boosted content from advertisers and pay-to-play publishers who paid Facebook's Danegeld to reach them. A user will only spend so much time on Facebook, and every post that Facebook feeds that user from someone they want to hear from is a missed opportunity to show them a post from someone who'll pay to reach them.

Here, too, twiddling lets Facebook fine-tune its approach. If a user starts to wean themself off Facebook, the algorithm (TM) can put more content the user has asked to see in the feed. When the user's participation returns to higher levels, Facebook can draw down the share of desirable content again, replacing it with monetizable content. This is done minutely, behind the scenes, automatically, and quickly. In any shell game, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye.

This is the final stage of enshittification: withdrawing surpluses from end-users and business customers, leaving behind the minimum homeopathic quantum of value for each needed to keep them locked to the platform, generating value that can be extracted and diverted to platform shareholders.

But this is a brittle equilibrium to maintain. The difference between "God, I hate this place but I just can't leave it" and "Holy shit, this sucks, I'm outta here" is razor-thin. All it takes is one privacy scandal, one livestreamed mass-shooting, one whistleblower dump, and people bolt for the exits. This kicks off a death-spiral: as users and business customers leave, the platform's shareholders demand that they squeeze the remaining population harder to make up for the loss.

One reason this gambit worked so well is that it was a long con. Platform operators and their investors have been willing to throw away billions convincing end-users and business customers to lock themselves in until it was time for the pig-butchering to begin. They financed expensive forays into additional features and complementary products meant to increase user lock-in, raising the switching costs for users who were tempted to leave.

For example, Facebook's product manager for its "photos" product wrote to Mark Zuckerberg to lay out a strategy of enticing users into uploading valuable family photos to the platform in order to "make switching costs very high for users," who would have to throw away their precious memories as the price for leaving Facebook:

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

The platforms' patience paid off. Their slow ratchets operated so subtly that we barely noticed the squeeze, and when we did, they relaxed the pressure until we were lulled back into complacency. Long cons require a lot of prefrontal cortex, the executive function to exercise patience and restraint.

Which brings me to Elon Musk, a man who seems to have been born without a prefrontal cortex, who has repeatedly and publicly demonstrated that he lacks any restraint, patience or planning. Elon Musk's prefrontal cortical deficit resulted in his being forced to buy Twitter, and his every action since has betrayed an even graver inability to stop tripping over his own dick.

Where Zuckerberg played enshittification as a long game, Musk is bent on speedrunning it. He doesn't slice his users up with a subtle scalpel, he hacks away at them with a hatchet.

Musk inaugurated his reign by nonconsensually flipping every user to an algorithmic feed which was crammed with ads and posts from "verified" users whose blue ticks verified solely that they had $8 ($11 for iOS users). Where Facebook deployed substantial effort to enticing users who tired of eyeball-cramming feed decay by temporarily improving their feeds, Musk's Twitter actually overrode users' choice to switch back to a chronological feed by repeatedly flipping them back to more monetizable, algorithmic feeds.

Then came the squeeze on publishers. Musk's Twitter rolled out a bewildering array of "verification" ticks, each priced higher than the last, and publishers who refused to pay found their subscribers taken hostage, with Twitter downranking or shadowbanning their content unless they paid.

(Musk also squeezed advertisers, keeping the same high prices but reducing the quality of the offer by killing programs that kept advertisers' content from being published along Holocaust denial and open calls for genocide.)

Today, Musk continues to squeeze advertisers, publishers and users, and his hamfisted enticements to make up for these depredations are spectacularly bad, and even illegal, like offering advertisers a new kind of ad that isn't associated with any Twitter account, can't be blocked, and is not labeled as an ad:

https://www.wired.com/story/xs-sneaky-new-ads-might-be-illegal/

Of course, Musk has a compulsive bullshitter's contempt for the press, so he has far fewer enticements for them to stay. Quite the reverse: first, Musk removed headlines from link previews, rendering posts by publishers that went to their own sites into stock-art enigmas that generated no traffic:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/05/x-twitter-strips-headlines-new-links-why-elon-musk

Then he jumped straight to the end-stage of enshittification by announcing that he would shadowban any newsmedia posts with links to sites other than Twitter, "because there is less time spent if people click away." Publishers were advised to "post content in long form on this platform":

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/111183068362793821

Where a canny enshittifier would have gestured at a gaslighting explanation ("we're shadowbanning posts with links because they might be malicious"), Musk busts out the motto of the Darth Vader MBA: "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further."

All this has the effect of highlighting just how little residual value there is on the platform for publishers, and tempts them to bolt for the exits. Six months ago, NPR lost all patience with Musk's shenanigans, and quit the service. Half a year later, they've revealed how low the switching cost for a major news outlet that leaves Twitter really are: NPR's traffic, post-Twitter, has declined by less than a single percentage point:

https://niemanreports.org/articles/npr-twitter-musk/

NPR's Twitter accounts had 8.7 million followers, but even six months ago, Musk's enshittification speedrun had drawn down NPR's ability to reach those users to a negligible level. The 8.7 million number was an illusion, a shell game Musk played on publishers like NPR in a bid to get them to buy a five-figure iridium checkmark or even a six-figure titanium one.

On Twitter, the true number of followers you have is effectively zero – not because Twitter users haven't explicitly instructed the service to show them your posts, but because every post in their feeds that they want to see is a post that no one can be charged to show them.

I've experienced this myself. Three and a half years ago, I left Boing Boing and started pluralistic.net, my cross-platform, open access, surveillance-free, daily newsletter and blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/drei-drei-drei/#now-we-are-three

Boing Boing had the good fortune to have attracted a sizable audience before the advent of siloed platforms, and a large portion of that audience came to the site directly, rather than following us on social media. I knew that, starting a new platform from scratch, I wouldn't have that luxury. My audience would come from social media, and it would be up to me to convert readers into people who followed me on platforms I controlled – where neither they nor I could be held to ransom.

I embraced a strategy called POSSE: Post Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere. With POSSE, the permalink and native habitat for your material is a site you control (in my case, a WordPress blog with all the telemetry, logging and surveillance disabled). Then you repost that content to other platforms – mostly social media – with links back to your own site:

https://indieweb.org/POSSE

There are a lot of automated tools to help you with this, but the platforms have gone to great lengths to break or neuter them. Musk's attack on Twitter's legendarily flexible and powerful API killed every automation tool that might help with this. I was lucky enough to have a reader – Loren Kohnfelder – who coded me some python scripts that automate much of the process, but POSSE remains a very labor-intensive and error-prone methodology:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/13/two-decades/#hfbd

And of all the feeds I produce – email, RSS, Discourse, Medium, Tumblr, Mastodon – none is as labor-intensive as Twitter's. It is an unforgiving medium to begin with, and Musk's drawdown of engineering support has made it wildly unreliable. Many's the time I've set up 20+ posts in a thread, only to have the browser tab reload itself and wipe out all my work.

But I stuck with Twitter, because I have a half-million followers, and to the extent that I reach them there, I can hope that they will follow the permalinks to Pluralistic proper and switch over to RSS, or email, or a daily visit to the blog.

But with each day, the case for using Twitter grows weaker. I get ten times as many replies and reposts on Mastodon, though my Mastodon follower count is a tenth the size of my (increasingly hypothetical) Twitter audience.

All this raises the question of what can or should be done about Twitter. One possible regulatory response would be to impose an "End-To-End" rule on the service, requiring that Twitter deliver posts from willing senders to willing receivers without interfering in them. End-To-end is the bedrock of the internet (one of its incarnations is Net Neutrality) and it's a proven counterenshittificatory force:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-need-end-end-web

Despite what you may have heard, "freedom of reach" is freedom of speech: when a platform interposes itself between willing speakers and their willing audiences, it arrogates to itself the power to control what we're allowed to say and who is allowed to hear us:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

We have a wide variety of tools to make a rule like this stick. For one thing, Musk's Twitter has violated innumerable laws and consent decrees in the US, Canada and the EU, which creates a space for regulators to impose "conduct remedies" on the company.

But there's also existing regulatory authorities, like the FTC's Section Five powers, which enable the agency to act against companies that engage in "unfair and deceptive" acts. When Twitter asks you who you want to hear from, then refuses to deliver their posts to you unless they pay a bribe, that's both "unfair and deceptive":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

But that's only a stopgap. The problem with Twitter isn't that this important service is run by the wrong mercurial, mediocre billionaire: it's that hundreds of millions of people are at the mercy of any foolish corporate leader. While there's a short-term case for improving the platforms, our long-term strategy should be evacuating them:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/18/urban-wildlife-interface/#combustible-walled-gardens

To make that a reality, we could also impose a "Right To Exit" on the platforms. This would be an interoperability rule that would require Twitter to adopt Mastodon's approach to server-hopping: click a link to export the list of everyone who follows you on one server, click another link to upload that file to another server, and all your followers and followees are relocated to your new digs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/23/semipermeable-membranes/#free-as-in-puppies

A Twitter with the Right To Exit would exert a powerful discipline even on the stunted self-regulatory centers of Elon Musk's brain. If he banned a reporter for publishing truthful coverage that cast him in a bad light, that reporter would have the legal right to move to another platform, and continue to reach the people who follow them on Twitter. Publishers aghast at having the headlines removed from their Twitter posts could go somewhere less slipshod and still reach the people who want to hear from them on Twitter.

And both Right To Exit and End-To-End satisfy the two prime tests for sound internet regulation: first, they are easy to administer. If you want to know whether Musk is permitting harassment on his platform, you have to agree on a definition of harassment, determine whether a given act meets that definition, and then investigate whether Twitter took reasonable steps to prevent it.

By contrast, administering End-To-End merely requires that you post something and see if your followers receive it. Administering Right To Exit is as simple as saying, "OK, Twitter, I know you say you gave Cory his follower and followee file, but he says he never got it. Just send him another copy, and this time, CC the regulator so we can verify that it arrived."

Beyond administration, there's the cost of compliance. Requiring Twitter to police its users' conduct also requires it to hire an army of moderators – something that Elon Musk might be able to afford, but community-supported, small federated servers couldn't. A tech regulation can easily become a barrier to entry, blocking better competitors who might replace the company whose conduct spurred the regulation in the first place.

End-to-End does not present this kind of barrier. The default state for a social media platform is to deliver posts from accounts to their followers. Interfering with End-To-End costs more than delivering the messages users want to have. Likewise, a Right To Exit is a solved problem, built into the open Mastodon protocol, itself built atop the open ActivityPub standard.

It's not just Twitter. Every platform is consuming itself in an orgy of enshittification. This is the Great Enshittening, a moment of universal, end-stage platform decay. As the platforms burn, calls to address the fires grow louder and harder for policymakers to resist. But not all solutions to platform decay are created equal. Some solutions will perversely enshrine the dominance of platforms, help make them both too big to fail and too big to jail.

Musk has flagrantly violated so many rules, laws and consent decrees that he has accidentally turned Twitter into the perfect starting point for a program of platform reform and platform evacuation.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/14/freedom-of-reach/#ex

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

Image: JD Lasica (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk_%283018710552%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[official-sonic-team]

the new frontiers dlc brought up interesting information regarding the symbol we periodically see throughout the game

the main point is that the symbol of the game is worshipped by the ancients as a god, or as a miracle of the god they believed in. it’s interesting to note that sage gives this information, as she has data on the ancients in her data banks, and thus can be relied as giving accurate information.

it is also important to note what sage also says: “perhaps the god of the Ancients depicted by the wall markings still exists out there today.”

which feels very poignant. sage has by this been point been carefully observing every action sonic the hedgehog has been doing. she has been adding more and more data to her collection, and has frequently shown before hand her own curiosity at sonic’s power.

importantly:

“how are you able to escape cyberspace?” and “how can you use the chaos emeralds?”

we know, of course, that all of sonic’s other friends were trapped in cyberspace. Sonic managed to be fast enough to escape. obviously, this is quite the outlier ability.

we also know that sonic’s ability to manipulate the chaos emeralds is an odd phenomenon. there is simply no other character in this series on par with sonic in his ability to transform using the emeralds, as he does so the most frequently and usually without consequences. sonic has even been seen transforming into his super form for fun (sonic 3) or staying in it for days at a time (sonic advance 1), and now using them multiple times in a row (sonic frontiers).

sonic is also one of the few characters able to perform “chaos control”, often said to be a “miracle”, was used as a parameter for gerald robotnik’s “ultimate lifeform”, and a rare ability. most characters are either robots (metal sonic, emerl), or developed by gerald (shadow, biolizard), or, in black doom’s case, are also an alien.

then, we learn that the chaos emeralds are originally from the ancients and their home world. most normal mobians on sonic’s planet can not use the power of the emeralds, or for very long.

knuckles also says something very interesting:

the connection between Angel island and the ancients are clearly stated, heavily implying the ancients built the ruins that are noticeably stylistically different from the echidna ones, which lean towards a more maya inspired style. the ruins being spoken about are implied to be the very technological advanced ones we see throughout the island, much more bold in color, reminiscent of futuristic realism, with inventions such as warp pads throughout the island. we know the ancient echidnas were not familiar with the emeralds (considering Chaos would never have been provoked if they had), and it seems unlikely in their dedication to protecting the master emerald from harm they would abuse that power to create technology. it’s also highly possible the chaos emeralds separate from Angel island/the master emerald given that sonic finds them in sonic 1 while exploring South Island, where the chaos emeralds seem to have been residing long enough to cause geographic changes. in essence, it’s highly unlikely the echidnas had created those ruins, and knuckles confirms it was likely the ancients. sonic frontiers emphasizes that the ancients were incredibly technologically advanced.

and within these ruins, we find two interesting artifacts:

the realistic depictions of hedgehogs in hydrocity and the infamous hidden palace mural- both of which are on angel island. the style of these artifacts match neatly with the futuristic, brightly colored ruins associated with the technologically advanced machinery around angel island.

thus, it can be implied that the ancients are the ones who make these pieces of art. which then begs the question: why? what interest would they have in a hedgehog?

perhaps that was the form they most often depicted their deity in. through prophetic visions inspired by the chaos emeralds, which transcend time and thus know one day sonic would have hold of them, or for other reasons, mystical or physical in nature, their deity was often considered to be a hedgehog.

and what is Sonic’s purpose, in sonic frontiers?

a) he guides the koco to the hermits, protecting them

b) he and his friends help the koco move on, as they are extensively ghosts, and often during these scenes, the symbol appears in the sky

c) he defeats the end for good

it is also interesting to note that the ancients parallel the story in sonic adventure one in quite a few ways, mainly in how tikal could not soothe chaos and simply caged them in the master emerald for all eternity, and it was sonic who pointed out that locking him up wasn’t fixing the issue at hand, but only worsening it. the ancients, too, had locked up a god like creature, and failed to defeat, or otherwise solve the problem at hand, and it is sonic who comes to finally destroy what had terrorized them for so many years.

is sonic the hedgehog the manifestation of the ancients god? an interesting question.

[k1ngyuyu]

The Breathe Of First Life

A sentient Dan Heng hsr fic

--

Dan Heng felt eyes burn on the back of his head.

His companions, the Cloud Knight and the merchant doesn't seem to feel it, let alone alone notice it.

It was unnerving, maybe even frightening, so much so that he decided to keep quiet -- earning himself the nickname, "Silent But Deadly," from the Cloud Knight girl. Atleast it's not as bad as Cold Dragon Young.

When in combat, Dan Heng's moves are calculated. But when the mysterious, staring precense, he suddenly feels light. It feels like something or someone is telling him to attack, to target. He feels stronger.

Dan Heng feels as if he's being puppeteered. He should be mad, rightfully so. How dare someone control him? It doesn't matter if it was an Aeon or anything. But then again, it feels nice, sort of.

The moment his conversation with Caelus through the phone ended, the precense suddenly ceased -- it was as if it evaporated.

He should be glad but all he feels is numbness. It was like part of his soul was ripped away, and he didn't even know if he had his soul complete in the first place.

The precense came back when he was fighting the familiar Stellaron Hunter and the Xianzhou's Lieutenant. Instead of controlling him like he was used to in the previous battles, the precense just watched him. It was lingering all over the place. Sometimes its gaze was on him, sometimes it wasn't.

--

As he split the sea, revealing Scalegorge Waterscape, the precense watched intently. He felt quite a bit of pressure, both from the people below him and the mysterious precense. It didn't really matter as he executed his task, perfectly.

Maybe when this all blows over, he could ask Mr. Yang about this strange phenomenon. After all, the Data Bank seemed to be a bit empty.

--

The fight with the Emanator of Destruction, Phantylia went off without a hitch... Is how the others would have described it. But Dan Heng knew better.

Phantylia struck the General, leaving him on his knees, blood seeping out.

And everything stopped.

Then everything went back into place. Everyone was in the same position whe the battle first begun. It was as if he had turned back in time. He wanted to ask someone what just happened but Phantylia attacked before he could get a word out of his mouth.

There was one time when all of them were on their knees, defeated by the Emanator. Then it stopped again, everything just stopped.

Then he was back again, fighting Phantylia with his allies he swore were on the ground drawing their final breathe.

The battle repeated three or four times before Phantylia was eventually defeated. General Jing Yuan was nearly turned into a member of the Anti-Matter legion, but thankfully the Emanator failed in doing so.

This is his chance, now is the time to ask what the hell's going on. What is it with the precense staring at him? What is it with the timeloop during the battle against Phantylia?

He asked, yet received no answer.

It was only when he asked Caelus that same question.

"Do you feel.. that?" Dan Heng asked after approaching the silver-haired boy. "Feel what?" He spared his companion a confused glance. "A precense, eyes," He responded, looking around them cautiously.

"Precense? Yeah, what about it?" Caelus answered a he crossed his arms, ignoring the oddity of the situation or maybe he just didn't know it was odd.

"You feel it too?" Dan Heng asked again, his eyes widening. The trailblazer nodded, "Yeah, the others can't seem to notice it," Caelus added, glancing at March and Mr. Yang briefly.

Dan Heng felt a bit reassured that he wasn't going crazy, but then again the Trailblazer was a bit crazy... some people just have trashcan searching as a hobby, he supposed.

"Mm, what about the timeloop when we were fighting Phantylia? Does it have anything to do with it?"

"..."

"...?"

"What timeloop?"

--

A/N

AAAAAH!! This is my first time writing a short fic in TWO YEARS, can you believe that!? Sure you can. But anyways, please excuse my writing as you can see, I am awfully rusty and in need of shaping up. I hope you liked this first post and I'll hopefully see you on my next~♡

[exhaled-spirals]

« [This book] is a guide into and through what I have come to understand as our doppelganger culture. A culture crowded with various forms of doubling, in which all of us who maintain a persona or avatar online create our own doppelgangers—virtual versions of ourselves that represent us to others. A culture in which many of us have come to think of ourselves as personal brands, forging a partitioned identity that is both us and not us, a doppelganger we perform ceaselessly in the digital ether as the price of admission in a rapacious attention economy.

And all the while, tech companies use these data troves to train machines to create artificial simulations of human intelligence and human functions, lifelike doubles that carry their own agendas, their own logics, and their own threats. What, I have kept asking myself, is all of this duplication doing to us? How is it steering what we pay attention to and—more critically—what we neglect?

I found myself confronting yet more forms of doubling and doppelganging, [...] like the way that all of politics increasingly feels like a mirror world, with society split in two, and each side defining itself against the other—whatever one says and believes, the other seems obliged to say and believe the exact opposite. The deeper I went, the more I noticed this phenomenon all around me: individuals not guided by legible principles or beliefs, but acting as members of groups playing yin to the other’s yang [...]

As my investigation has worn on, this is the form of doppelganger that increasingly preoccupies me: the fascist clown state that is the ever-present twin of liberal Western democracies, perpetually threatening to engulf us in its fires of selective belonging and ferocious despising. The figure of the doppelganger has been used for centuries to warn us of these shadow versions of our collective selves, of these monstrous possible futures. »

— Naomi Klein, Doppelganger

[typhlonectes]

A remarkable example of suspected Batesian mimicry of Gaboon Vipers by Congolese Giant Toads

Eugene R. Vaughan, Mark S. Teshera, Chifundera Kusamba, Theresa R. Edmonston, and Eli Greenbaum

Abstract

Batesian mimicry is a phenomenon in nature whereby a non-toxic animal emulates a noxious one, seeking to deter predators by deception. This type of mimicry occurs in many animals, with numerous documented examples of invertebrates, harmless squamates, and even birds that mimic venomous snakes. However, no observations of anurans mimicking venomous snakes have been reported. Based on comparative data from colour pattern, morphology, geographic distribution and behaviour, we propose that the Congolese Giant Toad (Sclerophrys channingi), endemic to Democratic Republic of Congo, is a Batesian mimic of the geographically widespread Gaboon Viper (Bitis gabonica). Although the colour pattern similarity between these taxa is not an exact match, aposematism and precise imitation are not required for Batesian mimicry to be effective, especially when the model (B. gabonica) is dangerously venomous and carefully avoided by other vertebrates. Given the morphological similarity between S. channingi and two other African toad species (S. brauni and S. superciliaris) that are sympatric with B. gabonica and its sister taxon (B. rhinoceros), similar examples of Batesian mimicry are likely.

Read the paper here: A remarkable example of suspected Batesian mimicry of Gaboon Vipers (Reptilia: Viperidae: Bitis gabonica ) by Congolese Giant Toads (Amphibia: Bufonidae: Sclerophrys channingi ) | Request PDF (researchgate.net)

Journal of Natural History 53(29-30): 1853–1871. (2019)

doi: 10.1080/00222933.2019.1669730

[monktwo]

Part 14 of the Missing piece series

First official week

Tobias didn’t say much as the car rolled to a stop outside the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper training complex, but you could feel him watching you from the corner of his sunglasses. You’d known him long enough to read the subtleties: shoulders relaxed = safe. Chin tilted = focus. Backpack over one shoulder = he thought you’d do fine.

You blew out a breath and stepped out.

First official week as a Barça player.

First test to prove you weren’t just hype.

—

You’d always known you were fit. Growing up on a farm didn’t leave a lot of time for skipping leg day. Especially when your “leg day” was dragging hay bales or carrying sacks of grain up and down the barn stairs. But this was the first time it was measured like this.

On paper.

With data.

And you crushed it.

Speed sprints? Personal best.

Explosiveness? Top 3 in the team.

Vertical leap? You exceeded their expectations.

At one point during mobility testing, you stripped down to just your compression shorts and sports bra to move freely for the cameras and sensors. There was a moment. Brief, but noticeable, when the room fell a little quieter.

You were used to your body. To what it could do. You weren’t showing off, but you were definitely being seen.

Someone whistled low.

Mapi, obviously.

“Dios mío,” she muttered from behind a laptop screen. “Is this part of the test, or is this just a gift?”

You rolled your eyes and kept stretching.

Ingrid didn’t say anything, but you caught the shift in her expression. The slight furrow between her brows when you reached for a wall stretch and the curve of your back revealed the thin, scattered white scars that spidered across your shoulder blades.

Later, she walked by and bumped her knuckles against your arm.

“Your body’s incredible,” she said softly. “But those… they’re from before?”

You nodded once.

She didn’t ask more. Just nodded back and gave your arm a squeeze.

—

After showers and recovery shakes, you were ushered into the media studio for your “Get to Know Me” segment. The official video that would go up across Barça Femini socials to introduce you to the fans.

You sat in full kit fresh, crisp, name on your back. And you tried not to fidget while the lights were being adjusted.

The interviewer smiled. “Alright. Let’s make the Culers fall in love with you.”

You blinked. “No pressure, then.”

“Name, age, position?”

“Y/N. Twenty-two. Attacking player, mostly left wing.”

“Perfect. Question one: Favorite food?”

“Lasagne,” you said immediately. “The cheesy kind. With garlic bread.”

Off camera, Mapi called out, “She’s not lying! I’ve seen it!”

“I was carb-loading!” you yelled back.

Ingrid added calmly, “There was no game that day.”

“Question two,” the interviewer continued. “Pre-match ritual?”

You smiled. “I always lace my left boot first. Always.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s enough.”

“Question three: Players you looked up to?”

“Neymar. Messi. And Ada Hegerberg. Watching her made things click for me.”

“Question four: Fun fact fans wouldn’t guess?”

You shrugged. “I’m low-key addicted to Pepsi Max.”

“That’s… specific.”

You grinned. “I’m Norwegian. It’s basically a national phenomenon.”

Mapi shouted, “She drinks it at breakfast!”

“She offered it to the physio!” Ingrid added.

“Question five: Three words to describe yourself?”

“Strong. Fast. Hungry.”

Mapi again, louder: “FOR LASAGNA!!”

You groaned and dropped your face into your hands.

The interviewer laughed. “Last one. What does playing for Barça mean to you?”

You took a breath.

“Everything,” you said softly. “When I was thirteen, I trained at La Masia. It didn’t last long, and it wasn’t easy, but it stuck with me. The joy of how football is played here. The philosophy. I’ve wanted to come back ever since.”

There was a pause, just a little beat of silence.

Ingrid leaned around the curtain. “You’re doing it now.”

Mapi followed with, “And looking good while doing it.”

—

That night, after the video was filmed and your numbers logged, you lay stretched across the couch in their apartment. Mapi’s hand tracing lazy circles on your thigh, Ingrid’s fingers softly combing through your hair.

“Long day,” Mapi murmured.

“Big day,” Ingrid added.

You smiled, letting their voices settle over you like a blanket.

Tomorrow, the pressure would come. The matchday prep nerves. The press. The expectations.

Next day, pre match prep

You weren’t even playing yet, and still the pressure felt like a second skin.

Not from the coaches, they were good. Clear. Fair.

But the cameras?

The articles?

The whispers that built up online every time you posted, or didn’t post, or breathed?

You didn’t know how to deal with it.

—

“Just breathe,” the physio said, pressing her thumbs into the tightest part of your shoulder.

You were lying facedown on the massage table, head resting in the cradle, jaw clenched.

“I am,” you muttered.

“Try again.”

You tried again.

It didn’t help that you’d already watched two reels this morning of people debating your value, whether you deserved to be at Barça. Whether you were hype or real. Whether your “personality” was more important than your touch.

You hadn’t even played a full 90 yet.

“You’re holding your breath again,” the physio said gently.

You let it go.

The door opened. Footsteps. Then a voice.

“You mind if I sit?”

Alexia.

You didn’t lift your head — you couldn’t — but you nodded.

There was a pause. Then: “It gets loud, huh?”

You swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Feels like every breath you take, someone has an opinion on it.”

Another nod.

“But you know what drowns it out?” she asked. “Your teammates. Your joy. And a ball at your feet.”

You exhaled slowly.

“I’ve seen you,” she said. “You’re the type who lights up when you dribble. That’s not fake.”

“Feels like everyone’s waiting for me to fall on my face.”

“Let them wait,” Alexia said, smiling. “They’ll be waiting a long time.”

—

Training ended with a short recovery cool-down and the dreaded ice baths.

You stripped and stepped in next to Ingrid without thinking.

“Lean on me, babe,” she said softly.

You leaned. Of course you did.

The chill soaked into your skin. Your breath slowed. Your body finally let go of the tension.

You didn’t even notice you’d drifted off until the quiet giggles started.

“She’s out,” someone whispered.

“She always is,” Salma added. “Any time she’s near Ingrid.”

“I am not,” you mumbled, barely awake.

Ingrid brushed her thumb across your arm. “You are, baby. That’s how I like it.”

You grunted and refused to open your eyes.

—

At the small press event later, you were sharp at first.

Polished.

Then one of the reporters asked about social media and if your visibility came from your actual game or just your look.

Your mouth opened. “I think it’s— I mean— I know I can play, and if— if that’s not clear then—”

“She means yes,” Mapi cut in cheerfully. “And she also thinks your question sucks.”

The room laughed.

You blinked. “Yeah. What she said.”

—

Dinner was lasagna again. Your chef had clearly caught on to your carb dependency.

You were working through your second plate when Ingrid called softly, “Baby, slow down a bit”

You paused mid-chew. “Mm.”

Mapi grinned from across the table. “Every single time.”

“What?”

“She says ‘baby’ and your fork drops like it’s choreographed.”

You frowned. “I’m just being polite.”

“She’s got you trained.”

“She’s nice,” you muttered.

—

Later, shirtless and tucked into the corner of the couch, you stretched out across Mapi’s lap while Ingrid’s hand rested on your ribs.

“You good?” she asked softly.

You nodded, eyes half-closed. “Better now.”

“Still nervous?” Mapi asked.

You didn’t answer at first.

Then: “A little.”

Ingrid leaned down, kissed your cheek. “You don’t have to prove anything.”

“Tomorrow’s your start,” Mapi added. “But don’t think of it like a test. Think of it like your moment.”

You smiled tiredly. “You two make everything feel easier.”

Ingrid brushed your hair from your face. “You make everything feel right.”

You sighed, letting your whole weight sink into the couch.

And by the time Mapi pulled a blanket over your hips, you were already asleep.

Next day

You had fire in your chest before the whistle even blew.

Not nerves. Not excitement.

Focus.

They could talk all they wanted — about hype, about image, but today, you were going to remind everyone exactly why you were here.

—

From the first minute, they made it clear: you were the target.

You couldn’t touch the ball without a body on you. Hands on your hips, studs down your ankles, elbows in your side.

By the tenth minute, you’d already snapped once, spinning on a defender and barking, “¡¿Quieres jugar fútbol o pelear?!”

(“Do you want to play football or fight?!”)

The ref gave you a warning look. You gave him a glare in return.

—

The first goal was clean. Classic.

A ball flicked through by Alexia. You ghosted past one, touched once to set it, and fired high into the top corner.

1–0.

You celebrated by kissing the badge on your chest, simple but clear. This is where you wanted to be.

—

Second half.

The ball broke to you near the sideline, and as you sprinted up, their right back took you out, shoulder first, dragging your leg.

You slammed into the ground, rolled, and instantly bounced back up, blood in your mouth, rage in your chest.

“¡Eso es una broma, árbitro!”

(“That’s a joke, ref!”)

You marched up to him, finger pointed, voice raised.

Alexia was beside you in a flash, one arm around your chest. “Tranquila,” she muttered under her breath.

You pushed her off. “¡Me están pateando en cada jugada!”

(“They’re kicking me every play!”)

The ref ignored you. Again.

Fine.

—

You got your revenge three minutes later.

Same defender. Same side.

This time, she slid in again, hard. You stumbled and fell, but your feet caught the pitch like magnets. And then you bounced with the momentum back up. You were gone.

Sprint. Cut inside. Rippling net.

2–0.

You walked back past the defender, still sitting on the ground.

“Deberías haberte quedado de pie.”

(“You should’ve stayed on your feet.”)

—

Your third came in the 85th minute.

Caroline sent a chipped cross from the opposite flank. You beat two defenders in the air, heading it in like gravity didn’t apply to you.

Hat trick.

You dropped to your knees. Arms open. Jaw tight.

The stadium exploded.

—

Then came the MVP announcement.

You barely had time to untie your boots before they dragged you to the flash interview zone.

You stood under the lights, still catching your breath.

First question came quick, in Spanish.

“Tres goles en tu primer partido completo. ¿Cómo te sientes?”

(“Three goals in your first full match. How do you feel?”)

“Cansada,” you answered bluntly. “Pero satisfecha. No vine aquí a posar. Vine a jugar.”

(“Tired. But satisfied. I didn’t come here to pose. I came to play.”)

Another laugh. Another question.

“Fue un partido muy físico. ¿Qué opinas del arbitraje?”

(“It was a very physical match. Thoughts on the refereeing?”)

You stared dead into the camera.

“La próxima vez, tal vez alguien debería proteger a las jugadoras talentosas en lugar de mirar hacia otro lado.”

(“Next time, maybe someone should protect the talented players instead of looking the other way.”)

Silence for a beat. Then the press officer quickly thanked the media and ended the session.

—

As you walked off the platform, your jaw was still tight. But your chest?

Lighter.

You’d said what needed to be said.

And more importantly?

You’d shown them.

Three goals.

One warning.

Zero regrets.

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