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worldwidebt7 · 4 years

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Hell[L]ing || 04

§ — Pairing: Chimera!Taehyung x Empath!Reader (with mentions of Reader x Other Members)

§ — Genre: SciFi AU, fluff, angst, smut, horror

§ — Wordcount: 3,416 § — Rating: M § — Warnings: None. Kookie being the sweet helpful bun that he is.

§ — A/N: So, banged this entire chapter out in a day and a half because, well, QUARANTINE. I should have been working on my commissions or my Webtoon contest entry, but I had an itch to get the next chapter of this out because it’s about to get GOOD. Oh, and there’s a decent amount of Jungkookie in this chapter~ Enjoy!

Summary: You moved out into the wilderness to live a calm, peaceful life. Your abilities made it impossible to live in crowded places, so even if you wanted to you couldn’t return. But when something happens outside the realm of even your normalcy, you start to think that maybe having everyone else’s emotions bearing down on you isn’t such a bad alternative to being trapped with your own.

Today, it was raining. If you had the ability to have the sky open up and rain on you every day, you would do it in a heartbeat— you loved the rain. It was the only time where you felt fractionally normal around other people. The constant interference of energy caused by rainfall created something like a static that made it easier to drown out invasive outside emotions. You could have a conversation with someone and not get barreled over by wave after wave of their feelings. Plus, you couldn’t resist opening the windows of your home to let the sweet, clean air left behind a recent rain shower wash away any stagnant atmosphere that may have accumulated within its walls.

Beyond that it was raining, it was also, suddenly, surprisingly, pleasantly, Friday. After the short, but no less exhausting, encounter with your neighbor, Seokjin, and his sickly roommate, Taehyung, the rest of the week passed by with little excitement. Namjoon had given you the look—one you were expecting to get, but nerve-wracking nonetheless— once he found out that you had yet to write basically the first 75 pages of your novel, though at this point he was not surprised if the lack of spike in his aura suggested anything. He had given you until Thursday to write at least an outline of events so he could have a better understanding of how the heroine falls into the unfortunate situation she finds herself in. Thankfully, you had been able to accomplish this task, and was even able to send in dialog samples. Namjoon, for now, had been placated.

The other thing about Friday, or this Friday in particular, was that it was the third Friday of the month signaling your bi-weekly visit from your favorite grocery delivery boy, Jungkook. He would be arriving a little after 4pm, as he kept your delivery to the end of his route. Good thing too; the two of you have recently gotten close and your chattering would often cause tardiness to Jungkook’s other appointments. Not to mention you lived fairly far out of the way for your delivery boy who drove nearly 45 minutes just to drop off six measly bags of filled with the food items you had texted him the previous day.

Honestly the boy was too helpful for his own good. There was one Friday where he had popped by with your things when you off-handedly mentioned how the ice-maker in your freezer wasn’t working properly and making too much ice. The angel that is your delivery boy spent the next 20 minutes with your irritating ice-maker, chipping away at the ice that had frozen over the rotator and fixing the setting all so you wouldn’t have to go with your original plan which involved defrosting your freezer, losing your frozen goods, and cleaning up a cold, wet mess afterwards. He had not complained once. Not about the ice, not about having to use a screwdriver as a pick, not even when his fingers had become so cold that you could feel the pain— literally.

This was one of many examples of his unbridled kindness, and one of the many reasons you were always excited to see the boy. As you straightened your house and rearranged your pantry to fit the incoming foodstuff, the rain continued to strike the outside of your house, mixing in well with the low-fi hip-hop you had playing in the background on your stereo system. It almost made you sleepy, but your relaxed state wasn’t enough to deter the building anticipation towards your future visitor.

When you were pleased with your pantry, you backed away and closed the door, just in time it seemed, as there was a quiet knock at your door. You sighed happily— you hadn’t felt the boy coming at all, bless the rain and its emotion-jamming effects. Ah, wait, the rain…

You zipped over to the door, realizing a bit sluggishly that Jungkook would be standing outside in the rain with all of your groceries until you opened it for him, as he was always the model citizen and wouldn’t enter without your knowledge. Clad in only socks, you slide across the hardwood flooring and straight into the door, hitting it against your shoulder with a slight ‘thud’, before regaining your footing and flinging open the front door. On the other side was a wet, mop-headed delivery boy, looking rather shocked at the speed in which you had approached the door and more than likely hearing the impact your body made with it.

“Sorry, sorry!” You said, picking up the reusable bags that he had lugged from his car and sat on your front step. Before you could grab a third bag, his hands shot out to stop you, fingers grazing your arm and allowing you to finally get a clear read on his emotions— he was like the air after the rain: sweet, clean, and refreshing.

“Noona, you don’t have to do that, I got those.” He said, picking up the other four bags, two in each hand, before following you into the house and, albeit with some trouble, kicked off his boots. Jungkook really had no wicked bone in his body, not one. He never had a second agenda, never said something he didn’t mean, never held a grudge; and his emotions reinforced all of these facts regularly. It was no wonder you liked being around him— you never needed your abilities to tell you what he was really feeling or thinking. He was an open book for you, and he did so with the knowledge of what you were capable of.

“Thanks for coming all the way out here for me, I really appreciate it.” You chimed, setting the bags down on the counter, Jungkook following suit. He gave a light-hearted shrug before ruffling some of the water out of his own hair.

“It’s okay, you are paying me after all,” A small huff escaped your lips at his comment as you placed your new gallon of milk into the refrigerator. Humor spilled into the air as you became accustomed to his energy despite the rain and he stifled a laugh at your reaction. “I’m only joking— well, no, you are paying me— you know I like hanging out with you!” You cracked a smile, not even able to continue to pretend to be mad at him.

“Yeah, yeah… took you long enough to talk to me though!” Teasing him had quickly become one of your favorite past-times. He was so easily embarrassed, and the way he always touched his ears when he was especially bashful entered dangerous territories for your heart. Precious boy.

“Yeah, well, I’m not, I didn’t, UGH. You know what I’m trying to say!” You sputtered out a laugh, not even the least surprised that you did, in fact, know what he was trying to say. He had confided in you shortly after communication had been established that he got nervous around new people, most specifically women. You weren’t sure why, he was a kind, bright, good-looking young man, and he had never produced much of a reason for it either. That’s just how he was. Perhaps he didn’t want to overstep any barriers and make people uncomfortable? Though now that you knew him, being uncomfortable with Jungkook was entirely impossible. And at his pink cheeks and pout, you caved, throwing a grape at him just to make him flinch.

“Alright punk, I forgive you.” You said before popping a different grape into your mouth. The dark-locked boy rubbed his chest where the grape had bounced off, feigning offence, the continuous stream of humor flowing off of him enough for you to know that he was enjoying your banter.

“Thanks, noona, really appreciate it, almost a year later!” He crinkled his nose at you as if he were irritated before tumbling into a fit of laughter, where you joined him merrily. Precious boy.

“So, what have you been up to? How’s school?” Routine questions, but you honestly wanted to know. He looked thoughtful for a moment, clearly trying to think of any recent changes in his life. You raised an eyebrow as you closed the door to your fridge once you finished putting away the chilled goods. As expected, he shrugged.

“The usual.” He began helping you by unloading the canned goods onto the counter top. “My film class is getting pretty interesting though.” Folding the tote bag the groceries were in, he placed it on one of your bar stools and then looked at you. “What about you? Anything interesting happen lately? Any more birds fly into your window?” You rolled your eyes at his teasing— living out here by yourself, you rarely had anything substantial to share with your friend. This time, however…

“Well, I’ve got new neighbors…” You revealed, picking up a few of the canned goods. Jungkook raised his eyebrow, following your lead and collecting a couple of cans to help you on your way to the pantry.

“Oh yeah?” You hummed, nodding your head as you placed your cans on the shelf.

“Mmhm. A tall guy with purple hair and his roommate that’s apparently always sick.” You elaborated, not mentioning names for now. “They’re… nice.” At your hesitation, you felt a slight buzz of uneasiness from the man beside you. You looked at him, knowing he was aware that you felt his change. “What?”

“Just nice?” His brows furrowed slightly as he looked at you like he was trying to read your energy, which you believed with little doubt he could. You spent too much time by yourself anymore and you long had forgotten how to properly dress your expressions for social interactions. You let out a breathy chuckle at his concern.

“Yes, nice.” You reiterated, plucking the cans from his arms. He gave you an unimpressed look that was garnished with a pout. With a sigh, you indulged him. “I can’t get a good read on either of them…” Your confession only left him more confused.

“You mean your empath stuff, right?” A nod of affirmation. “Why can’t you read them? I thought you didn’t know how to turn it off?” You hummed thoughtfully, taking the last can from him.

“It’s not that I can’t read them, it’s just that…” You turned from the pantry after placing the last can on the shelf and ran a hand through your hair. “The one dude is always freaking out— panic, panic, panic— all the time! I’m afraid that he’s going to give himself a heart attack! But beyond that, I have a gut feeling telling me that he’s a good person, even when he deliberately lies to me.” Arms crossed, Jungkook looked at you pointedly.

“So… a good liar?” He asked, trying to understand your instincts. You shrugged with a groan.

“Maybe? I don’t know, I really do think he’s… good.” You stepped back over to the counter to grab your new paper towel rolls and plastic wrap to be set in their proper locations. Jungkook slid onto a bar stool and leaned against the counter.

“Okay, not really sure what that means, but…” You glared at him, and he grinned at you, obviously trying to hold back laughter. “What about the other one?” At that, you paused. How were you supposed to explain ‘the other one’? Caught up in your thoughts, you didn’t bother putting way the items in your hand, rather opting to just set them on the counter again.

“Well, uh…” You trailed off, not entirely sure if he would believe you seeing as the last time you tried to explain something improbable with Yoongi didn’t go as you had hoped. However, looking at the wide-eyed boy in front of you, everything about his aura was open and trusting and you knew that if you told him, he would believe you. “His emotions come in ‘blips’.”

“’Blips’?” He repeated— not in a condescending way, but rather as if he were trying to place the definition of the word. You nodded, less than prepared to explain yourself.”

“Yeah, I can’t feel his emotions all the time, they go away and reappear like radar blips. But they’re always super intense.” Resting your forearms on the counter, you let the edge press into your ribs a bit as you leaned forward. Even without your abilities, you could tell that Jungkook was trying to think of an answer, anything that could be the cause. You almost smiled at his thoughtfulness— there was nothing to suggest he didn’t believe you.

“Well,” he started, breaking you out of your trance. “You said he was sick all the time, right? Maybe that could affect your readings?” You had thought about that possibility as well— you had never been knowingly near a significantly ill person, so you couldn’t say that it wasn’t conceivable; though saying that was the only issue would be erroneous. Still, seeing as this was the only reasonable explanation you had come up with, you chose to put your faith in it.

“Maybe,” You agreed, nodding. You didn’t bring up the midnight visitor or the crawly feeling of being watched the last week or so, knowing the kind boy in your kitchen would likely throw a fit trying to figure out a way to help you. To be honest, you kind of wish he would, though that was only in your own selfish interests. Since you hadn’t had any real incidents besides that one, you decided not to worry the boy.

Unfortunately, Jungkook’s visit this time around had to be cut short, as he had other responsibilities to attend to in the evening. You gave him sass of course, stating that you couldn’t believe that he had something more important to do than keeping you company. He laughed and apologized, though a small twinge of guilt in the air made you realize that he knew the hidden meaning in your friendly repartee.

You were lonely.

You were also aware that he knew you’d be able to feel the minute change in his emotional state even with the rain, but neither of you commented on it before you ushered him out the door so he could drive home while it was still light out. He bid farewell before sprinting to his car to avoid getting completely drenched and you waved from inside the doorway, flinching when he peels out of your driveway like he was Brian O'Conner from the ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise.

Sighing, you stood in your doorway for a bit longer, listening to the rain and watching the reflections in the puddles dance. This was the part you hated most— the emptiness that follows the end of social interaction. You were used to being alone, and the longer you were alone the more used to it you became. However, the small instances when you were able to talk to another person, be near them, smile and laugh with them… they reminded you that humans were codependent on each other. You needed other people. As much as you were physically pained to be near them, you needed them. As you spent more time in isolation from the world, the more you yearned to be normal.

The sound of a blunt object hitting the glass of your window wall had you spinning on you heel out of reflex. As Jungkook had teased you earlier, it was common for birds to fly into the large window panes. More often than not, they were fine and they flew off. But every once in a while, they injured themselves, and you took it upon yourself to assess their injuries and making them comfortable if need be.

So, imagine your surprise when there wasn’t a small, winged creature on your back patio, but rather a tall, soaked, handsome boy with his palm pressed against your French doors. You blinked a few times for good measure, hoping this was just an illusion and that you weren’t currently looking at your sickly neighbor with the weird readings standing in the rain outside your house. When you realized he was just going to continue to stand there looking into your house until you greeted him, you quickly shut your front door and hastily made your way over to let him in.

As you got close, you realized there was a buzzing in the air, like it was vibrating, again in blips like radar. You recognized this as anxiety or nervousness and quickly deduced that it was coming from your neighbor. You paused before opening the door— you didn’t know this man; you’d barely met him more than once and only heard him speak a single time, and it wasn’t even to you. Plus, you still couldn’t shake the unnerving feeling you got whenever he was within your range; there was too much similar between how you felt about the boy in front of you and the thing you saw that night. Were you really about to let him into your house?

Almost like he could feel your hesitation, his hand slipped from the door and he looked at the ground dejectedly. A hole appeared in you doubt at this innocent act, and a quick, shooting pain pierced your chest. You couldn’t tell if it was your own guilt setting in or his emotions afflicting you, but you opened the door without another lingering moment to think about how bad of an idea this was.

‘He’s sick and shouldn’t be in the rain,’ You told yourself as you now stood in front of this near-stranger without the protective barrier of your glass door. You swallowed, your own nerves now wreaking havoc on your body, though the dark-haired boy in front of you look more shocked and more nervous than you did. In fact, if you didn’t get him to calm down soon, his nerves would probably cause you to throw up. And the fact that his emotions only appeared like explosions in the atmosphere around you wasn’t helping. Still, the way he looked down at his feet rather than at you, just…

“H-hello…?” You greeted; your uncertainty evident in your shaken speech. He made the smallest movement, like he was flinching at the sound of your voice and you almost wanted to backtrack. Good lord he was skittish. “What, uh, what are you doing here? I-I mean, can I help you?” Fumbling over your words wasn’t new for you, but for some reason you were especially aware of your tongue’s missteps at the moment.

He stood there for a moment, contemplating you surmised, before peeking up at you through his wet bangs. You made eye contact and— sweet heavens— you forgot about the alluring abyss that was his gaze. It only lasted for a moment before he looked at his feet again, which, you finally noticed, were completely bare.

“You said…” Now it was your turn to be startled; only now remembering how deep and velvet-like his voice was, even with how soft-spoken he currently was. “…that I could come….” He shifted, his nervousness beating around you like drums as you let his words sink in. You said he could come… you said he could come? When did you—

“Oh, um, well my house isn’t too far from yours…He’s welcome to stop by from time-to-time if he’s able… It’d be no problem… It’d be nice to have company every once-in-a-while.”

You suddenly remembered that, yes, you had invited him to visit you during your interaction Monday afternoon. At the time, you had your reasons, reasons that you couldn’t remember for the life of you at the moment. What on earth possessed you to tell a stranger it was fine to wander over to your house just because you were neighbors?!

And yet, the way his large body looked so small in front of you, like he was pleading with you to let him in…

“I-I did…” You relaxed your face enough to smile at him, your nerves still eating at you and a headache starting to set in from the intensity of his. You stepped aside to let him in, to which his head shot up and his eyes widened— you suppose he didn’t think you would actually let him in, but the sudden, yet agreeable change in his emotional blips was enough to tell you that he was relieved, pleased even, as he stepped in from the rain. “I should probably get you a towel, huh?”

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tacitcantos · 5 years

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Why 2019′s Twilight Zone is Boring

Though 70 years old at this point, the original 1950 Rod Sterling Twilight Zone is still one of the creepiest and smartest works of speculative and weird fiction ever committed to TV. It’s a series that poses strange questions and offers even stranger answers, a series that’s moody and atmospheric and thought provoking, a dark parable that’s gone on to inspire other works of weird fiction.

It’s no wonder then that there have been so many attempts throughout the years to revive it: a movie in 1983, a series in 1985, and another series in 2002. Each has been greeted with varying levels of critical success, but none have been as culturally impactful as the original.

The 2019 remake... won’t be breaking that tradition.

Don’t get me wrong, the new Twilight Zone has a distressing amount of quality and talent involved. The cast is solid throughout, and the only reason certain episodes work at all is the powerful performances of the actors involved. There’s also a nice push for racial diversity in the cast, and sometimes in the themes of a few of the episodes like Replay and The Traveler.

The visuals of each of the ten episodes are gorgeous and moody, and the music wonderful and atmospheric and reminiscent of the discordant jangles and strings of the late and great 2013 Hannibal tv show. It’s a lot of quality to be draped on a fundamentally flawed structure.

To understand the fundamental flaw in the new series, we have to go back to the original Rod Sterling Twilight Zone. And the thing that has to be understood about the original series is that it’s not science fiction despite looking like it on the surface.

Science Fiction

Though there are dozens of definitions of science fiction, at its core one of the key aspects of science fiction is that it introduces a technology or technologies we don’t have in the modern day, and it explores and maps out the impact and implications they’d have on individuals and society.

For example, I, Robot by Isaac Asimov is interested in the implications of what sentient artificial intelligence means for our understanding of personhood, how an AI would define and think about itself, and how society would go about trying to control it, leading to the three laws of robotics for which the book is most famous.

This definition of science fiction is also why something like Star Wars, at its heart, is not science fiction despite having a lot of the trappings of it. It has a lot of technologies that don’t exist in the modern day, but it’s not interested in the impact of them. It has lightsabers because they’re cool, not because it wants to speculate about how they would change warfare.

Even the implications of the force, the speculative aspect of its universe that’s most critical to the story, isn’t really explored. How does the force change the universe? You get mystical samurai cops, and that’s about it. Nothing about the force is actually key to the functioning of the star wars universe. You could take it out and the movies would be a lot less fun, but the universe wouldn’t really be changed. This isn’t to disparage Star Wars: I love Star Wars, but despite its trappings it’s fantasy, and to say it’s science fiction just isn't accurate.

Parable

Much like Star Wars, despite its trappings The Twilight Zone isn’t science fiction. But it’s not fantasy either. The Twilight Zone is a much older and simpler form of story. It’s a parable. Each episode is a self contained story of right and wrong, with the strange or impossible element there to hammer home a message, not be explored.

All three of these genres we’ve talked about, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and parable, have strengths and weaknesses unique to them. One of the strengths of a parable is its clarity. There’s right and wrong, and not a lot else to be said. Almost by necessity, parables have to be streamlined and simple in structure. In a parable there’s a message or lesson and the story is really just a vehicle to illustrate it.

The parable of the boy who cried wolf doesn’t go into the emotional underpinnings of why a boy would consistently sound a false alarm over and over again, because it’s not important. Did he have an abusive childhood? Was it a metaphor for trying to escape abuse and the unwillingness of society to listen? Is the wolf symbolically his abuser? The parable doesn’t care and it isn’t important to the point it’s trying to make; don’t sound false alarms or no one will pay attention to you when the threat is real.

Simplicity of Structure

The original 1950’s Twilight Zone understood that simplicity of structure was key to a successful parable: each episode was a half hour in length; just long enough for setup, twist, and falling action. You can tell this simple structure was key to the Twilight Zone’s success because most of what people remember about any given Twilight Zone episode is the ending.

And while having such a simple structure might seem restrictive, I’d argue that not only is it the most effective way of telling a parable, but that there’s a lot of freedom in structure, that the simplicity of the structure allowed Rod Sterling and the other writers to grapple with issues other shows on TV couldn’t at the time, and allowed the episodes to breath in the grace notes.

And exhibit A in my argument is the new Twilight Zone.

Where the original Twilight Zone was a half hour, the 2019 incarnation is twice that length at an hour. And while I’m sure the writers and producers thought that was a great chance to expand and tell a more complete and complicated story than the original show, what it actually does is put the episodes in an uncomfortable limbo. They’re too long to be able to embrace the simplicity of the original show, that structure of setup twist and falling action, and too short to really be able to explore the core concept and theme of each episode. There’s a reason most movies aren’t an hour long, and that’s because it’s simply not a conducive length for telling a good story. With each episode of the New Twilight Zone I found myself bored around the thirty minute mark, impatient for the twist out of curiosity but not really invested in the characters or plot.

Not All Men

Episode 7, Not All Men, is a good example of the problems the extended run time of the new Twilight Zone can cause. The core concept is that there’s a meteor that falls and causes all men in the area to become violent. This is sort of a dumb concept to begin with, but not completely doomed. The main character even goes through some growth. She starts the episode unassertive and meek in the face of the patriarchal hierarchy of the company she works at and ends it standing up for herself against male harassment:

This isn’t an inherently bad arc, but it’s execution is pitiful, without enough weight for we the audience to become invested in. We never get any real indication of why the character starts the way she does, what her life experience has been to shape her into who she is, and there’s no sacrifice or growth involved in her change.

If the episode was longer it could’ve delved into that material, made the main character a fully realized and three dimensional person that we could’ve become invested in and root for, but as the episode stands she and her growth are more perfunctory than anything else. She’s meek, she runs from agro dudes for a bit, then stands up for herself.

The twist of the episode also isn’t worth waiting a whole hour for. At the climax of the episode it’s revealed that while the meteor makes men more violent, it’s not an overriding urge: the episode implies that the affected men didn’t resist simply because they wanted an excuse to inflict violence. But, because the twist comes so late, its not really given enough time to breathe and be explored in a meaningful way.

Simple Messages

This ties into another fundamental problem with the 2019 series, which is that it isn’t anywhere near as smart as it thinks it is. Often the idea or message at the heart of an episode is borderline offensive in how simple it is. By trying to avoid destiny you create it? Paranoia is bad? You should care about the suffering of others? Mind boggling. Truly.

They’re not bad messages, but they’re simple. And the television audience of 2019 isn’t the audience of 1959: the modern audience is more schooled and experienced with scifi and weird fiction. We’re not shocked or provoked into thought anymore just by the introduction of a weird element like your car coming to life and stalking you. It’s not enough.

This isn’t to say audiences of 1959 were dumb, but the discourse around scifi and weird fiction for even the casual tv watcher of today is a lot more complex than it was back then. We’re not in the 101 level anymore, more like the 103 level: we’ve seen the initial introduction of most ideas, seen them explored and challenged and subverted, and are now bored by those first two levels of discussion.

This is why the core message of an episode like Point of Origin, in which refugees from another world are rounded up and placed in concentration camps, falls flat. The episode follows a woman who’s privileged life is stripped from her when a government agency identifies her as an unwitting refugee from another dimension, and imprisons her in a concentration camp.

The episode’s message isn’t subtle: you should care about the suffering as others, you should treat immigrants as people: and that even before her fall from grace the woman should’ve cared more about the fate of her immigrant housekeeper and illegal immigrants broadly.

It’s not a bad message, and it’s one that a mind boggling amount of people nowadays somehow still don’t understand, but from a fictive perspective it’s too simple and trite to spark interest and engagement or make the audience think.

Preach Fatigue

And it’s also a message we’ve heard several thousand times. The way we consume information nowadays is different from when the original Twilight Zone first aired; the discourse around topics like immigration or gender nowadays is in many ways saturated and as an audience we suffer from a type of preach fatigue where we’ve been told so many times the given side of a given topic is bad or good that we’ve sort of stopped listening.

This wasn’t as much of an issue in 1960, and it especially wasn’t an issue with the Twilight Zone. Back then scifi and weird fiction wasn’t considered a mode of serious social commentary in the tv arena, which meant The Twilight Zone could lure audiences in for a fun and spooky time, their cognitive defenses lowered, and then sucker punch them with something deeper than what they expected.

That advantage of bypassing and audiences preach defenses is completely lost in 2019’s Twilight Zone. We all know that science fiction can effectively tackle big issues, and we know the deal with The Twilight Zone specifically: that it’s going to have a twist in the last act that makes us question our complicity in some social issue. Our preach fatigue hackles are already raised.

In 1960 the Twilight Zone was adding a new element to the discussion, but now, the social topics it was concerned with are are so heavily examined that to do truly do a comparable job, it needed to be way, way more clever than Point of Origin’s premise of "imagine its aliens instead of Mexicans". To be as effective as the original, 2019’s Twilight Zone really needed to tackle issues that are less clear cut than men having a choice in their violent behavior or whether illegal immigrants deserve basic human rights, issues that are less overtly preachy because they’re less discussed.

For example, Point of Origin actually has the kernel of a complex and interesting idea in it, it just doesn’t do anything in it. In the episode as it is now the main character’s fall from grace serves largely as a kind of gotcha moment of the irony in how the tables have turned, but in a better version of the episode her arc could be used to explore the idea that social lines are largely arbitrary and fickle, and that whether you’re part of a group or not can change on a whim.

It’s an idea that’s worth examining the facets of, the causes and effects of how and why and where social lines are erected, and one that’s more complex than Point of Origin’s trite message about how you should treat immigrants like people. There’s more material there for an audience to chew on and engage with, and one that’s less preachy and more thought provoking.

Metaphor and Censorship

Another element that made the Twilight Zone successful and relevant in 1959 but doesn’t really apply today, is the issue of censorship. In 1959 what could be portrayed on screen, and which topics could be explored was far less permissive than it is today.

There’s an interview with Rod Sterling right before The Twilight Zone first aired where he talks about being tired of clashing with sponsors and executives over what content and social issues his screenplays could include. One example he brings up comes from a teleplay on the Nuremberg trials in which the company American Gas insisted on an edit:

“In it as you recall, mention was made of gas chambers. And the line was deleted, cut off the soundtrack. And it mattered little to these guys that the gas involved in concentration camps was cynanide which bore no resemblance physical or otherwise to the gas used in stoves. They cut the line.”

“Because the sponsor was-”

“They did not want that awful association made between what was the horror and misery of Nazi Germany with the nice chrome, wonderfully antiseciptically clean beautiful kitchen appliance that they were selling.”

But just as with the point about the lack of complexity in it’s themes, the new Twilight Zone exists in a different era than the original. We’re at a point in television and fiction where creators don’t have to bow as much to advertisers or censors and can actually just say what they mean. Point of Origin doesn’t need to veil it’s message about immigrants and their demonization in scifi terms; it could just tell a story about real world immigrants and refugees. This doesn’t mean it has to be bereft of weird elements, those still have a valid role to play, but it does mean it can address the issues it’s about head on and directly, and I’d argue there’s value in that kind of clarity.

Some people will make an argument that veiling issues in scifi metaphors lowers an audience member’s kneejerk defenses and lets them look at an issue stripped of their preconceptions and prejudices. And there’s certainly a tradition of creators using weird fiction to try and accomplish that.

Rod Sterling himself spoke about it in several interviews throughout his career, though he seems to have been somewhat split on the utility of using scifi metaphors. At one point he said about audiences:

“You may have to tell them a story of prejudice in parable form in which they may step aside as third persons and cluck how awful we treat our minority groups but at least they know that it’s an evil, and they will recognize it as such. And by osmosis or some incredible process will somewhere along the line, be faced with a situation in which they too may have to exorcise a prejudice and be conscious of it as an evil.”

“Now on Twilight Zone for example, we made a comment on prejudice, on conformity, on intolerance, on censorship, but it’s easy to do it when you’re talking about Buck Rogers isn’t allowed to write his memoirs in the way he wants to write them so he puts on his backpack, his rocket pack, and he zooms over to the publisher. And they applaud and laugh and think how interesting. Now it may well be that the inner message never gets through, but I think peripherally it does get through.”

But in that same interview Sterling also emphasizes the need for clarity, immediacy, and hitting the audience where they live when discussing social issues:

“I think the- the purpose, the point of a dramatic show that’s used as a vehicle of social criticism is to involve an audience, to show them wherein their guilt lies, or at least indeed their association.

This latter point is the one I think is more valid. I’d argue that veiling real world social issues through weird fiction metaphors to make audiences think is a nice sentiment, it’s not a particularly effective technique, and often the metaphor simply goes over people’s heads.

How many red-hatted build-a-wall-enthusiasts watched Point of Origin and thought to themselves after; “yeah, you know what, immigrants aren’t so bad and we shouldn’t round them up into concentration camps.” I’d argue none. It’s far, far too easy for an audience member to simply think that sure, in this case what happened was unfair, but this real world case is different for x y and z reasons, no matter how insignificant those x y z differences are to the core situation.

Fundamentally, people are simply very, very good at ignoring and minimizing information that destabilizes their world view, and it’s relatively simple to do it with fiction. And none of the new Twilight Zone episodes are pointed enough to break through that cognitive barrier.

Get Out (Or In...?)

What’s ironic, is that for all that Jordan Peele shows up in the new Twilight Zone, his own movie Get Out is a far more effective blueprint of what the Twilight Zone should be, and a good contrast to it. To begin with, the scifi concept at the heart of it, that there’s an enclave of rich white people stealing black people’s bodies for themselves, is a manifestation of a complex and nuanced form of racism that often isn’t acknowledged or discussed.

Racism is generally thought of as a simple dislike or belief in the inferiority of another race, and while that’s accurate as far as it goes, racism can also fetishize or simply allow for superior traits in the othered racial group while still denying the people themselves their agency and basic humanity. It’s a form of racism that was one of the bedrocks of slavery, that as an institution it perfectly paired black bodily strength with white intellect, and you can see a modern expression of it in how until recenly most quarterbacks are white while the offensive line black, the black members serving as the muscle to the quarterbacks mind.

The racism at the center of Get Out is a far more complex and nuanced than Point of Origin’s message about treating immigrants like people. It complicates most people’s understanding of racism as the simple belief that races that aren’t their own are inferior, and makes us question our complicity and assumptions: as much as we don’t think other races our worse than our own, are we as careful about how we assume parts of them may be better while still not valuing their core humanity?

At 144 minutes, Get Out also not only has enough time to explore this idea, but also to breathe and build to its twist and flesh out its main character. Unlike Not All Men’s main character, Get Out’s main character is a real and multifaceted person with weight and history, and goes through a coherent character arc. We never get a concrete reason for why Not All Men’s main character starts the episode meek, which makes her blurry and poorly defined: by contrast, we’re shown Get Out’s main character was traumatized by what he feels was his complicity in his mother’s death, which gives his eventual overcoming of it real emotional heft.

The alternate ending of Get Out even threads his emotional growth through the themes of racism: despite having his body imprisoned, the main character is mentally free, an inverse of the fate he would’ve suffered at the hands of the Armitage family. Here’s director Jordan Peele explaining the scene:

“He beat the dragon, but more importantly for Chris when he says ‘I beat it’ he’s talking about his inner demon. And that was the moment he went back for Georgina after hitting her in the car, he defeated his personal demon of when he didn’t go and get his mother. So in a way he made the only decision that would free his soul. And even though he’s in prison like many black men are unjustly in, his soul is free.”

Get Out also has the advantage of being in a genre that, just like the original Twilight Zone, isn’t oversaturated with serious political commentary. While there are smart and socially intelligent horror movies out there, many people still think of them as dumb fun, and thus Get Out can effectively draw you in with the promise of cheap thrill before sucker punching you with depth and message.

Get Out has clear cut right and wrong, it’s not like we don’t know who to root for and who is evil, but these three elements together, a complex theme, a real character, and low expectations, save Get Out from the preach fatigue I talked about before and from which the 2019 Twilight Zone suffers so heavily.

Ultimately, 2019’s Twilight Zone feels like an outdated show, stiff and limited and slow. Worse, it’s boring, which is really the greatest sin. It’s stuck in an uncomfortable limbo both in terms of era and length; it’s mired in the past trying to emulate a tv show that’s sixty years old at this point while also upending its structure and replacing it with one that’s incompatible with what it’s trying to imitate.

#twilight zone #2019 twilight zone #new twilight zone #get out #jordan peele

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khazrakh · 3 years

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Have You Seen Travelers?

It's safe to say that Science Fiction is my favorite genre by far. It has so many different facets, from highly unrealistic utopias to somewhat believable projections of where our society could be standing in a century or hundred centuries. Either way, I love all kinds of science fiction as long as their respective world is properly crafted. One of the more pleasant surprises in terms of SciFi TV-Shows has been Netflix's original series "Travelers". While it was sadly canceled after 3 seasons, there's still a lot to see and love during that time frame.

Before we get into more detail, please be advised that the article will contain heavy spoilers for the first few episodes but I'm not going to spoil anything that you wouldn't see in your first sitting.

First things first, here are the key facts for the show:

Number of seasons: 3 Number of episodes: 34 Originally Aired: 2016 - 2018

Travelers comes with a somewhat unique twist on an already known setting. Mankind managed to all but destroy planet earth and is now clinging on the verge of total annihilation. The last survivors are living in a huge dome complex and as the present can't be redeemed any longer, they try to change the past instead. So yes, at first glance it's your classical time travel show, but it comes with a nice twist. The people of the future don't have any means to transport themselves back to the past. Instead, they can only send their mind. Because of that, they need a host for themselves in the past. To achieve that, they need a T.E.L.L.. That's short for Time, Elevation, Latitude, and Longitude of a person close to it's historical death. So the first thing they need to do after they travel back to the past is prevent the death of their host. After that, they continue to live their life but also actively work towards changing the future to prevent mankind's certain doom.

Now all of this obviously sounds somewhat crazy (and it is) but it's Science Fiction after all. The cool thing to me is that they don't over-explain all of this. This kind of time travel is possible, they are doing it, and that's all you really need to know. Since they don't bother giving (pseudo-)scientific explanations, it's a lot easier for the viewer to just accept that it's all possible. So instead of trying to make something that's completely implausible look plausible, the show focuses on the implications of said possibilities.

Source

The show follows the story of a team of 5 travelers operating in present day America. Especially in the beginning, the show mostly focuses on an issue of the week style where each week there's a new mission the team needs to complete. At the same time, the show starts to build bigger story arks which over time replace the issue of the week style, changing into a more modern story telling. At the same time, the show takes an amazing amount of time to develop it's characters. Yes, they are out to safe the (future) world, but they are also humans living a human life in a past that's oddly alien to them. They have to interact with their hosts life, the people he knew, the decisions he made. This creates an extremely engaging setting and is really beautiful to watch.

There's also a good share of moral dilemmas. The Travelers receive their missions from the Director, who is communicating with them from the future. He usually doesn't explain why something has to be done but instead just orders something to be executed exactly as ordered. This creates a lot of scary situations where the Travelers are asked to kill a minor, blow up a building and much more. Always trusting that the Director has the good of all mankind at heart, they still start to question whether there are better options available to them. This is where the show really shines as it allows the viewer enough time to pause for a second and question what he would do in that situation. That's the beauty of it all really, in these moments you don't care at all that it's totally implausible to have time travel like that, you just accept it and start to ponder the consequences.

Source

Obviously, not everything is golden for travelers. There's a reason it was canceled after 3 seasons after all. As the story progresses, there are more and more holes in the whole story. The power and ability of the future seems to vary a lot depending on what serves the current story line best. There's one episode in the second season that portraits the possibilities of the Director as being almost endless and that really kills a lot of the suspense. On top of that, with the ever escalating scenario, the whole world becomes a bit unbelievable towards the end and one can't help but feel like the show wasn't launched with a clear roadmap of what should happen during its run.

This becomes blatantly obvious during the last episodes. There's still a lot of character development which is all made moot by the fact that the show is going to end soon after. It feels like they had still seasons worth of ideas for their characters but they simply lacked the time to finish them. While the shows grand final is satisfying and fitting for the whole show, it leaves you feeling like they could have done more with the whole concept.

Nevertheless, Travelers is an excellent show with a lot of interesting concepts and some of the best moral dilemmas you'll see in any Science Fiction show. It's really cool to watch the show alongside somebody else as there's a lot of room for discussion after every single episode. To me, the first season is close to perfect. Season 2 is decent as well but it's also where the world starts to feel a bit off. Season 3 is really good as well, but you can tell that they were running out of time and in the end only focused on delivering a satisfying ending.

All things considered, I'd rate the show at 7 of 10, with the missing points mostly coming from the fact that the show could have been a lot better with more seasons and less escalation early on. Anyway, if you haven't seen the show and like Science Fiction, I'd say it's a must watch. It certainly is one of the best SciFi shows running on Netflix right now!

And that's all from me for today, thank you all for reading and see you next time!

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jojotier · 7 years

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I was looking at your post on ABO stuff and it made me think of stuff like soulmate AUs and that weird Hanahaki Disease thing... I always thought those were kinda dumb, too :/

Honestly, I think the Hanahaki Disease and Soulmate aus are at least passable- sure they can be generic as hell and its silly and dumb, and mostly wishful romantic fairytale thinking, but you can still do something with them relatively easily, and I do enjoy a good bit of silly fairytale nonsense from time to time

A/B/O on the other hand is fucking detestable, and the mere sight of it makes me recoil.

However, I’m a firm believer that almost anything can be done well if enough thought and planning is put into it. And I mean anything.

So tl;dr of the masterpost I’m leaving below the read more: I personally find hanahaki disease and soulmate aus to be extremely promising and will leave some ways you can twist them into something more interesting.

A/B/O on the other hand, I hate with a fucking passion because it has some of the worst parts of humanity etched into it, and is generally used for all the wrong reasons- though I can see it working, if you’re really fucking careful and put a lot of thought and effort into developing it, and if you have good reason for it. I’ll leave some ideas below for tips on how you might be able to pull off an a/b/o au, even if i probably wouldnt touch it with a five foot pole

So before anything, there’s a couple ways to personalize a soulmate or hanahaki disease au:

- tailor it specifically to the fandom you’re writing for (for example, a stand that causes hanahaki disease so the user tries to gain control of the person’s heart by trying to convince them that he can ‘save them’ by taking the disease ridden heart away for jojo’s) - take the idea and giving it a twist (soulmates doesn’t necessarily mean romantic partner and your soulmate can be the person you beat the shit out of, a platonic friend, a government scheme trying to keep the masses compliant, etc)

- try to base ideas in reality- exploring the cultural and societal norms, including alternate histories and alternate social movements centered around the existence of something like soulmates being common for instance. how would soulmates, particularly if you find an enemy soldier is yours, play into how a war is conducted? are soulmates to be trusted in battle? how does the political and social climate change during things such as the suffrage movement or during industrialization? or you can come up with the science behind hanahaki disease and come up with an entire slew of research and studies for it. what medications are available to lessen the symptoms? are there alternate strains? people who are immune? where does hanahaki disease come from, and has it been part of human history for long?

With these ideas, they seem shallow and silly on the surface (and there’s nothing wrong with silly and shallow, if it’s done well and is inoffensive; sometimes i just need a good fairytale bullshit fix of flower tattoos appearing on your skin when your gf is near) but there’s still an underlying potential that makes them worthwhile to explore and keep around, especially if you mix and match with different genres like fantasy, modern magic, solarpunk, scifi, horror, thriller, etc!!

But the thing that pisses me off about A/B/O is that 1) that’s not how humans fucking work, nor do a lot of animal species, and it simplifies the complex social and societal structures associated with people,

2) 9/10 it’s an excuse to write men into the societal roles of nuclear parents with things like mpreg and assbabies and heat without female characters ‘getting in the way’,

3) if you even decide to explore the social and political aspects of the population being separated into 3 races positions in power society with rigid norms of ‘this person has to be Aggressive and Dominant because its In Their Nature and everyone Will Submit’ and whatever the fuck, thats just… wrong on so many levels. trying to explore A/B/O while romanticizing it in the same breath is the absolute worst crime you can commit, especially if your A/B/O has extremely rigid class structure and ‘behaviors’ associated with all the classes’ biology that are enforced and seen as good things.

At it’s worst, A/B/O can become an allegory in favor of racism, sexism, classism, and the fetishization of gay men.

Do the writers of these aus want it to come off that way? I doubt that many of them do, and I doubt it’s intentional- but when you read a summary that says that ‘oh this character is an OMEGA who SNEAKS INTO an ALPHAS ONLY parlor, can this sheep in wolf’s clothing hide their secret??’ it’s impossible not to draw parallels to Jim Crow. When there’s a summary about how Character A needs to find an alpha so their heat can be taken care of, it’s impossible not to think of the seme/uke dynamic that its upholding. when you see a story thats full of male characters where their dynamics are ‘explored’ while the female characters get brushed to the side with no mention of their apparent status in this society, it just highlights how much the author wants the female characters out of the way

Do I think that A/B/O can be done well? Yes. When I say I believe almost anything can work, I mean anything.

Here’s my tips for attempting to write a successful A/B/O:

- Do some fucking research before anything. Research is key to both improving your writing skills and finding new ideas that people might not have looked at before. If you want a lighter slice of life au, I suggest researching how best to build a culture and how historical influences weave their way into present customs. If you want something a little heavier, start researching different social movements and learn about how social reform is undertaken. How does a social movement form? Are there any technological advances you think might be inspired in an A/B/O world?

- Unless the people in the A/B/O aren’t human, for the love of fuck don’t make anything specific to their biology. If you have A/B/O in your au because there are things like werewolves or vampires or some other mythical creature, then there is a little more leniency, since then you can make an actual case that you’re making a couple behaviors actually part of their biology. Even then though, you’re thin ice, which brings me to the next important point…

- SUBTLETY. Just make it another part of society, like you would with a gay or PoC character. Don’t hammer the entire dynamic into your readers’ faces unless you’re prepared to do actual research and definitely not unless you are 100% dismantling why harmful societal structures are bullshit. This can be done in a few ways, such as developing a sort of culture around each of the roles (for example, maybe Alphas traditionally favor spicy foods as a test of strength or tend to steal bites of their partner’s food, or maybe Omegas tend to prefer sweet foods and wear patterns). You can make people of all castes equal across all fields (an equal amount of alpha and omega politicians and ceos for instance), and you can show characters with diverse tastes that don’t fit what might be stereotypical of them (alphas cuddling stuffed animals, omegas with a love of going to a fight club and beating the shit out of each other, etc). Don’t be afraid to let identities intersect- trans omegas, aro/ace alphas, etc.

- The final and most important point- Have A Fucking Reason For Including A/B/O or Making An A/B/O au.

Do you want a/b/o in your au because you feel it will give an extra dimension that sets apart a supernatural creatures’ social dynamics from human social dynamics? Cool! That’s some chill worldbuilding you can pull off! Do you want to explore how a social movement forms and how to challenge an oppressive society? Neat! Just be careful not to go too far and do your research! Want to see how x character would react and navigate the world with the cultures associated with A/B/O? Want to do an entire genre swap where A/B/O is the norm of a dystopia, or horror based, or a sci-fi where AIs are programmed with it and have to overcome the structure to develop a social structure of their own, or anything of the like? Go for it!

Do you want to have a character be seen as suuuuuuper weak and feminine but!!! They aren’t actually because girl power they’re just the same as anyone else and can run with big strong ones like the alphas so they’re not like other omegas? Want to get rid of those pesky girls so they don’t get in the way of your ships? Want your two gay characters to have a super imbalanced relationship with one character being aggressive because it’s just their nature? Want your ~sinful gay babies~ to still be a nuclear family and have 2.5 biological children? Want to explore things like racism without that pesky need to research anything ever? NO. NO NO NO. STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING RIGHT NOW. You better fucking not.

So yea wow this post ended up longer than intended but here you go!

#writing advice #long text #a/b/o dynamics #hanahaki disease #soulmate au #thats my hot take on it anyway haha

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thedefinitionofbts · 7 years

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A Story that we paint (Ch. 1)

Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Epilogue

Pairings: Jeon Jungkook x Reader | Kim Taehyung x Reader

Genre: College Au, Future, Scifi, Slight Fluff and Angst

Words: 9K

Description: Butterfly Dream: In which the lines between virtual and reality are blurred.

You think you can remember his touch, the sound of his voice, the scent of his freshly washed hair against the cotton pillowcase. In your dreams he is real, he is everything you knew and everything you didn’t need to know. You could always find him in the crevices of your mind no matter how elaborately your thoughts are tested or how convoluted the maze of your consciousness is intertwined.

“But if you happen to get lost, you had faith that he would find you”

“Welcome to Virtual Universe 101. My name is Professor Kim Namjoon, and I will be your primary instructor this semester. ” Your eyes follow the tall and surprisingly youthful looking man as he walks to the front of the lecture hall. He smiles kindly at the crowd of students and proceeds to look down and expertly types some commands into his hand held tablet device. The screen behind him immediately opens to display the introductory slide of his presentation.

Virtual Universe 101 was one of the first classes added to the new university curriculum that aimed to combine the traditional liberal arts and the engineering sciences, two major fields of study that had always been divided by a wide gulf due to their contrastingly different ways of thought. Virtual Universe, or VU, is a technology developed sometime after the discovery of true artificial intelligence (machines with consciousness) and slightly before the invention of brain downloading (the process of downloading yourself into a virtual world where you could live and do things as you would in the real world). Now it’s officially a class students can take as an elective in college, and its especially appealing to those who have a knack for both the arts and the STEM subjects, in other words, the overachievers who pride themselves in being equally creative and logical.

“I assume most of you have a general idea of what VU is, so I’m going to go over the introduction rather quickly.” The screen flips to the next slide, giving a brief description of the history of VU and its real world applications. “As you all know, VU is an interdisciplinary area that essentially combines every subject you’ve studied in your educational careers up until now. It’s as thought-provoking as it is rewarding, so if you’re up for a challenge, you’ve come to the right place.” He smiles again, an action that causes his lips to stretch from ear to ear, and a pair of deep set dimples to appear at the corner of both his cheeks.

Professor Kim Namjoon was right. VU was as interdisciplinary as it gets, as it involves the design and implementation of an alternate world, which meant it wasn’t a standalone class. Signing up for VU 101 meant you had to simultaneously take Storyboarding (a literature class taught by the quirky Professor Kim Seokjin, who apparently jokes around more than he is serious), Design Engineering (and art and structural design class taught by the lively Professor Jung Hoseok who you’ve heard is literally the manifestation of the sun), and Mental Environment Homeostasis (a course intended to aid in the maintenance of psychological wellbeing taught by the mysterious Professor Min Yoongi who no one really knew much about).

“This semester you will be assigned a semester long project which requires you to build a virtual world.” He begins to go over the syllabus. “VU has various applications in the real world, ranging from video game design to medical research simulation.” He flips to the next slide. “For this course, you will be randomly assigned a genre for the virtual story you create.” He continues to go over all the due dates of homework assignments and midterms, which didn’t look too bad, since most if not all were just parts of the project divided into different stages to prevent students who had a habit of procrastinating from leaving everything until the day before it was due. “Lastly, at the end of the semester, you will have the option of deciding whether you want to live the life you create.” There’s a glint in his eyes, fleeting, but you were able to catch it before the crowd of students began to stir.

His last statement earned him his first audible reaction from the crowd who had been silently listening and taking notes up until that moment. Gasps erupted through the lecture hall as the students began whispering to each other in hushed yet alarmed voices. You didn’t know what the professor meant by that last sentence, but it sounded like he was implying you could download yourself into the system, which was something you had heard of being previously done, but still uncommon in real world society.

The whispering dies down as Namjoon begins to speak once again; his lips are still curved upward into a smile. “I know it sounds confusing now, but it will become more clear as we proceed into the semester.” He reaches the last slide, which contained all the usual contact information, office hours, and miscellaneous information. “The TAs will be available to help if you can’t make it to any of my office hours.” He says. “Oh, and don’t forget you also have your other professors who I am positive will be more than happy to answer any question you may have.” And with that Professor Namjoon dismisses the class.

You gather your belongings and make your way out of the lecture hall. Many of the students where still chattering amongst themselves, all this project talk had gotten everyone overly excited, which seemed a bit excessive and naive in your opinion. Little did they know of the challenges that lie on the road ahead, as the design and implementation of VU was very complex to say the least. You briefly glance at your phone, taking note that it was almost noon. You had agreed to have lunch with your best friend Park Jimin today, something that had basically become a tradition ever since you met him freshman year.

As he had promised, he was waiting for you outside the engineering building. You could recognize that smile of his from a mile away.

“Y/N!” He shouts as he spots you walking through the large group of students that had just gotten out of class. He stands on his tippy toes and waves his hands in the air as if you hadn’t already seen him.

“You can put your hands down, Chim. You’re kind of hard to miss.” You joke as you approach him.

He laughs, eyes disappearing into half moons. “So how was class?” He asks as you walk across campus to the noodle shop a block down.

You sigh, and proceed to explain the whole project thing to him. Jimin wasn’t exactly up to date with VU technology, so you gave him some background info on that too, sparing him the confusing he would otherwise be met with later on. As the two of you stroll along the oak tree lined sidewalk, and across the autumn leave covered lawn, you tell him about the things Professor Namjoon had mentioned, VU applications, designing a virtual world…

“You can choose to live in your self-constructed universe?” Jimin’s eyes widen in surprise after you mention that little teaser Namjoon had hinted at during lecture. “Isn’t that still taboo???” He huffs, eye open wide as they go. He was listening so intently, he didn’t even notice the waiter place his steaming bowl of noodles in front of him.

“Yeah, I mean, that’s what I thought, but I guess this professor is more open about these things than society is” You shrug, pulling your hair back and leaning in to eat some of your noodles that were still piping hot.

…

“VR2000 is an artificially intelligent operating system that will act as the canvas of your virtual world. It is located in the Human Computer Interaction Lab, the place where I assume most of you will be spending many sleepless nights over the course of the semester.” Namjoon’s voice echoes through the lecture hall once again. There were sounds of students typing notes on their laptop and the occasional cough of some kid four rows over. Namjoon was going over the logistics on how to get started with the project and the resources available to get started. “It provides a human-machine interface where you will be able to enter the world you are building and experience it for each test run. This allows you to make adjustments as necessary, fix problems as they occur, or just optimize user experience.” He explains, while simultaneously showing a demonstration on the big screen.

“Wow” You hear Jimin voice directly into your right ear. He had decided to tag along and sit in on your lecture, even though he isn’t in your class.

“Calm your ass, you’re not the one doing this project” You roll your eyes. “I still don’t understand why you’re even here.”

“What?” Jimin responds clearly offended. “I don’t have class in the mornings, and I just wanted to see what this class is like. You were the one who made it sound cool.” He blames. “Besides, I may or may no want to take this class next year.” He grins, eyes narrowing into half crescents.

You shake your head defeated. “Again, I don’t understand why a psych major like you would ever want to take this class. Aren’t you afraid it’s going to mess up your psychological wellbeing or whatever? Especially with the whole ‘you will have the option of deciding whether you want to live the life you create’”. You mumble, imitating Professor Namjoon’s voice when he had voiced that particular sentence.

“Isn’t that what ‘Mental Environment Homeostasis’ is for?” Jimin smirks, knowing he had just won the argument with one rhetorical question.

You mentally facepalm, completely forgetting that, that is exactly what ‘Mental Environment Homeostasis’ was for, and realizing that your own argument was now invalid.

“You have all the tools you need to successfully complete the project at your disposal. I advise you all to use the university’s resources wisely.” Professor Kim Namjoon’s voice pulls your attention back to lecture. “Each of you will be paired up with another student in the class, and each group will be assigned a genre.” He pauses, as the students begin whispering and partnering up before he was finished. “As I was saying” He raises his voice and a hush falls through the crowd. “The genre each group will be assigned will be dependent on random draw, so I don’t want to hear any complaints about unfairness or requests to switch topics.”

“What do you think he means by ‘genre’?” Jimin whispers to you.

“Shhhh” You hush him before the professor gets annoyed again.

“You may come up to the front after class, with your partner, to receive the your project packet which will contain the genre and all the requirements listed.” Namjoon says. “But the one warning I will continue to reiterate throughout the semester is that you must take responsibility for what you create.” He pauses once again, but this time, not because he was waiting for the students to quiet down because the lecture hall was so quiet that you could hear him sigh into the microphone attached to his collar. “Any form of artificial consciousness deserves to be treated as a human.” He slowly looks around at the students in the crowd with deep philosophical eyes. You didn’t fully understand what he meant, but there was no doubt in your mind that he had just shared with the class the most important piece of information about the project.

A student in the crowd raises his hand.

“Yes?” Namjoon looks over at the dark haired boy in an oversized white t-shirt and beanie.

“How are you defining artificial consciousness?” the boy asks.

Namjoon smiles and looks down at the floor for a millisecond before raising his head and answering the boy’s question. “To put it simply, any person you create in your artificial world who has his or her own thoughts and is an independent agent.” He claps his hands together. “I hope that answers your question, and with that, I will give you guys time to partner up.”

“Wooow, this class is awesome” Jimin comments as the other students begin standing up and finding partners.

“God Jimin, your not even in this class. Do you know how hard this project sounds?” You groan, thinking about all the work that’s coming ahead, long sleepless nights trying to get programs to work and who know what other frustrating endeavors.

“But hey, at least you get a partner” He pats you on the shoulder with a wide grin.

Shit. You think to yourself before frantically looking around. You had totally forgotten you were supposed to be finding a partner right now. Half the class was already in line getting their packets, while you were here screwing around with Jimin.

Jimin notices you biting your lower lip and nervously looking around the room. “How about that guy over there?” He suggests, knowing exactly what you were thinking at that moment

Your eyes trail over to the person Jimin was pointing at and low and behold, it was the guy who had asked the question earlier, the one in the white shirt and beanie. He hadn’t even stood up and was just staring at the dark screen in front of the lecture hall like he was waiting for his partner to just magically appear.

“B-but, I don’t even know him” You stutter, weighing out your options.

“Do you know anyone in this class?” Jimin retorts.

You tsk and glance at him annoyed. “Fine, I’ll ask” You mutter while making your way over to the boy who was seated three rows in front of you.

As you approach, you notice that he was kind of zoning out, so you had to wave your hand in front of him to grab his attention.

“Hey, ummm, sorry to bother you…but I was-“

He looks up and interrupts you before you could finish your sentence.

“Partner?” He says with an anticipating smile.

You somehow get lost in his innocent doe eyes for a fraction of a second longer than you had intended before managing to nod your head slowly.

“Cool” He says, as he stands up and proceeds to get in line behind the rest of the students. You stand rooted in the spot, not quiet registering what had happened and wondering if this was all real. Ironic because this was happening before the project even started. “You coming?” He turns and asks after realizing you were still in a trance of some sorts.

“Oh, uh, y-yeah” You shake your head in an attempt to clear your mind and quickly hop over to his side.

“The name’s Jungkook by the way” He comments as the two of you wait in line patiently. There were shouts from students in the front who had opened their packets and got assigned genres that they were probably hoping to get.

“Y/N” You respond with a smile.

…

Given the choice, what kind of story would you choose to live out with the love of your life?

“Think of it as a choose your own adventure game, and try to have some fun with it.” Professor Kim Namjoon’s voice echoes in your head as your eyes attempt to focus on the words printed on the first page of the packet.

This was insane. You had expected to be tasked with making some sort of video game, adventure simulation, or something more practical, but a love story? Unbelievable! At this day and age? But the words on the page were concrete and undeniable. That was the genre you and Jungkook were given. The objective that would inevitably dictate all the hard work you would sacrifice for the entire semester. A love story.

“It’s so lame” You sigh as you toss the packet on the table and burry your face in your arms.

“I thought girls liked these things,” Jungkook comments. He picks up the packet to flip through it one more time. He re-reads the guidelines as he twirls his pen in his free hand.

You guys had met up to discuss the first steps after Design Engineering class with Professor Jung Hoseok, who you soon found out, was indeed the embodiment of the sun itself. That guy literally never stops smiling and he walks as if he’s dancing ballet or something.

“Don’t tell me you actually believe we could make anything interesting with a topic as boring as romance.” You remark, as you sat across from Jungkook in the large library study area. Since it was the beginning of the semester, it was relatively empty. If this were finals week, you’d be lucky to even find an open table.

“Love stories aren’t always centered around romance” Jungkook replies as he lifts his pupils from the pages to glance at you. “They can be…tragic.”

“What? You mean like Romeo and Juliet?” You finally lift your head to look at him. He looked really young, fetus-like almost. His baby face made you question if he was maybe younger than you, but at the same time, his body was quite developed…not that you were directly taking note of that in particular. “We just met and you’re already trying to kill me off?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant” He defends, shaking his hands. “Besides, they both die in that story don’t they?” He voices after remembering the actually ending of the age-old classic tale.

“Oh yeah, never mind then” You mutter.

“We could just base our project off of some really famous romance novel. They’re all pretty cookie-cutter anyways.” He says.

“We could…” You pause to think, realizing that you didn’t want to just settle for something generic. You had an entire semester and the world’s most advanced tools to make something amazing and novel. Why waste that just because you didn’t get an “interesting topic”? There was a limitless amount of room to be creative, the possibilities were endless. “But, I want something unique, something never written before. Something that could be deemed the greatest love story in the history of love stories.” You state in a resolute tone while looking up at the stain glass ceiling of the library, sunlight was pouring in and changing all sorts of colors due to the painted glass.

“Wow, your mindset changes in a hurry” Jungkook says with a side grin. “Good thing we have Storyboarding class next.” He says as he stands up from his chair. “Let’s hope Professor Kim Seokjin has some good advice about coming up with a plot.”

…

“Good afternoon, class” Professor Kim Seokjin greets the students who all looked very enthusiastic and eager to get started, to your minor annoyance. “I heard you’ve all received your project genres this morning. I hope you all have some amazing ideas swimming in your minds because in this class we will be doing a lot of creative exercises and brainstorming.”

Storyboarding was a new Lib-Ed class adapted specifically for students enrolled in Virtual Universe 101. It had been adapted from the more traditional literature classes such as Creative Writing and the like, and as unnecessary as it sounded before getting your project genre, you appreciated how it managed to help get you reoriented with the project goals after the disappointment you were met with this morning in regards to the project genre you received. Professor Kim Seokjin had said something along the lines of figuring out the main characters of the story before you start planning each stage of the story in separate steps.

“Aren’t our main characters just….us….?” You voice cautiously, after the professor had called for discussion time with your partners.

Jungkook sits up from slumping back in his seat and clears his throat before replying. “Not necessarily” He says. “According to the packet, our story is from the perspective of one of us, not both.”

“Oh right” You murmur, turning to look the other way before Jungkook can notice the flush in your cheeks. You bite the inside of your lip, scolding yourself for being so direct and inaccurate about the words escaping your lips. Of course, how could you forget? The packet specifically stated for you, the participant, to choose the love story you would live out with the love of your life. Not ‘come up with a love story between two people’.

“Y/N?” Jungkook’s voice snaps you from your thoughts. You jump a little in your seat, startled by the clarity in his voice. “I was thinking that we just have to decide which one of us goes into the simulation as the perspective side, and then we can decide whether we want to create a second main character or just have the simulation work its magic.”

You’re lips part as you try to register what Jungkook had said. “You mean, like the concept of soulmates?” At this point, you didn’t even know what you were saying anymore. You didn’t even believe in soulmates, in fact, the idea had always made you want to scoff.

Jungkook pauses and furrows his brows ever so slightly. “Sure, I guess if that’s what you call it.”

“That’s probably easier anyways.” You cut in, while laughing nervously. “I can’t imagine trying to create an AI.”

“Yeah, an AI….” Jungkook whispers to himself at a barely audible volume.

“I guess I can volunteer as tribute.” You shrug. “Unless you want to.” You look up and notice Jungkook had that blank look in his eyes again, just like the way he was the first day you “asked” him to be your partner.

“Huh?” Jungkook hums, snapping out of his thoughts.

“The perspective roll. I can be the one going into the simulation.” You repeat, waiting for him to either agree or suggest he go in instead.

“Oh, yeah. You do it.” Jungkook says, nodding his head in agreement. “I’ll monitor the stats while you’re in the simulation.”

…

The weekend hits you like a breath of fresh air after being locked up in a dusty attic for days. You needed a break from the project, even though the hard part had barely even begun. The creative process was harder than you thought, and you blame it on the lame topic you were stuck with. It was obvious you still weren’t over the “unfairness” of random draw because you had spend a full half an hour complaining about it to Jimin on Saturday while the two of you were grabbing a late lunch at the café near campus.

He had tried to make you feel better, insisting that love stories could be overwhelmingly emotional and there were a lot of elements you could play with, but it hardly changes your opinion because Jimin was into that stuff, as opposed to you, who brushed it off like it was all generic and uninteresting. Despite the futility, you still appreciated his well-fought effort.

It wasn’t until two days later, on Monday, that things started to get interesting. Because two days later, you receive a call from Jungkook telling you to meet him in the Human-Computer Interaction lab, aka the place where the project simulation was supposed to take place and the place you would be spending most of your time in the next coming months. He hadn’t contacted you since Storyboarding class on Friday, and you thought he was just out drinking with his friends or hungover the whole weekend, but as it turns out, he had actually been cooking up a surprise. A real one (figuratively, or so you think…).

“Wow, I’m impressed. He’s…he’s… fucking hot.” You comment, as you stare at the sharp features of the man on the screen. He had large sultry eyes, a tall perfectly shaped nose, and full lips. His skin was smooth and sun-kissed, hair a dark shade of golden brown.

“Well, I figured you’d want someone physically attractive, since you know, he’s going to be the male lead of your love story.” Jungkook says as he places his hands on his hips, proud that his past 48 hours of non-stop work had paid off.

“You mean, our love story,” You correct with a smirk. “I’m just playing lab rat here. He’s not real.”

“Oh, but he will be.”

You freeze in place at Jungkook’s last comment. “What do you mean?”

“Artificial consciousness.” He states. “I made him fully conscious. True AI.”

“W-wait, what?”

Jungkook chuckles. “It won’t make for an interesting story if I’m just controlling him the whole time, especially since you and I aren’t actually lovers. It should be as real as possible, right?”

You feel your face heat up at the mention of being lovers with Jungkook. “Yeah, of course. What was I thinking? We could never be lovers. Not even close.” You lie, hiding the fact that you hadn’t felt what you did the past few days when you were with him, and pretending that it was the farthest thing from your mind.

“It’s less work for me, and it’s more natural for the story.” He says, eyes still looking at the young male on the screen. “He’s so good looking, I’m almost jealous.” He’s still admiring his work of art.

“H-how did you do it though?” You question, remembering that this was not an easy feat, in fact, not long ago, it was literally impossible to make truly conscious AI.

“Hours of coding, help from the awesome resources the university provides, and a small part of my own brain.” Jungkook grins, looking at you and waiting for your praise.

You feel your lower jaw drop. “You downloaded you brain into the machine?”

“Yup” Jungkook nods. “Do you know how long it would take to make him fully from scratch? Probably couldn’t even finish it if I spent the whole semester fully on that.”

“So doesn’t that mean he’s basically….you?” You raise your eyebrow.

“He’s 50% similar to me, the other 50% he’ll evolve into as the simulation goes.” Jungkook explains. “In a sense, I’m part of him. Or more accurately, part of him is me. The difference is subtle, but it’s there.”

A moment of silence passes, and the only sound that can be heard is the loud rumbling of the lab machines.

“I shouldn’t have made him so hot” Jungkook finally blurts out after the sort of awkwardly long pause where neither of you spoke. “It’s hurting my pride a little.”

“I’m lucky you’re only realizing that now that you’ve finishing making him” You grin, throwing the joke back at him.

“Ouch” Jungkook says, pretending to grip his chest.

The two of you burst into laughter, and you get a glimpse of the way his nose and eyes scrunches up until they disappear. It was a heartwarming sight, even though your own laughter prevented you from seeing him as clearly as you wished at that moment. You had only known the guy for a week, and it already felt like you had been friends with him for years.

After the laughter dies down, you glance back at the virtual image on the screen, taking in the idea of the pending adventure ahead.

...

“So how are your projects coming along?” Professor Kim Seokjin had been checking in with all of the groups on Monday, making sure everyone was progressing at a good pace, when he finally made it to you and Jungkook.

“Oh, it’s going” You reply, startled by his near silent approach.

��You two are partners I’m assuming?” Seokjin questions, eyeing you and Jungkook back and forth.

“Yeah” Jungkook replies, nodding his head so that his bangs bobbled up and down.

“May I take a look at your topic?” Seokjin requests. You turn to dig through you backpack for the project packet and finally find it hidden amongst your other papers fully of sketches from Design Engineering.

Seokjin takes the packet from you and glances at the front page. “Love story?” Seokjin voices as his eyes glide across the words written in bold. “Interesting.” He looks up and glances at you and Jungkook with a mischievous expression.

Jungkook clears his throat and averts his eyes.

“We’ve already decided on the main characters.” You quickly announce, hoping that Professor Kim Seokjin’s mind wasn’t traveling to a place you didn’t want to deal with right now.

“Oh?” Seokjin raises his eyebrow.

“Umm, yeah, it’s going to be from the perspective of me and an AI that we, or Jungkook, built over the weekend” You explain, hoping that he wasn’t going to point out some major problem with what you guys had planned so far. It didn’t occur to you until now, but it probably would’ve been better to get the plan checked out by Professor Namjoon before going ahead and creating a being who was artificially conscious, as Jungkook had claimed it or he was.

“AI?” Seokjin repeats. “Simplistic model or conscious?”

“He’s –“ You begin, before Jungkook cuts you off.

“He’s conscious” Jungkook says.

Seokjin nods slowly, expression on his face very difficult to read from what you could tell. He doesn’t speak for a good minute, clearly taking his time to register what Jungkook had said. “Have the two of you spoken with Professor Min Yoongi in Mental Environment Homeostasis yet?” He suddenly asks.

“We’ve been going to class, but we haven’t spoken to him directly.” You respond, recalling the black haired professor who always looked tired yet retained an unexplainable type of sharpness in his eyes. You wonder why Professor Kim Seokjin would suddenly bring that class up, after all, the simulation stage had yet to begin. Surely people weren’t having mental breakdowns yet were they?

“I’m assuming you cloned part of your own brain circuitry into the Connectome?” Seokjin says, turning to Jungkook.

“Y-yeah” Jungkook nods, eyes widening and body stiffening up. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and you weren’t sure why he seemed so nervous. You had no idea what cloning brain circuitry entailed, but it must’ve been what Jungkook meant when he said part of the AI was him.

Seokjin nods again, and finally smiles. “Impressive.”

You faintly hear Jungkook breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of the professor’s warm smile.

…

That evening, Jimin invites you to study with him at his dorm. He was one of the more well off students who could afford to have his own room in one of the more “luxurious” residential halls. Luxurious as in, he didn’t have to share his bathroom and his room came with a little kitchenette so he could prepare simple meals on a stovetop rather than be limited to using the classic microwave. Since, you had already agreed to work on the project with Jungkook that day, you decide that it couldn’t hurt to bring him along to Jimin’s place. Jimin practically already knew who he was anyways.

“Come in! Come in!” You hear Jimin’s high-pitched voice vibrate through the wooden door that you had just knocked on. You turn to look at Jungkook who just shrugs, waiting to follow after your steps.

“I brought Jungkook” You announce as you open the door, in case Jimin wasn’t prepared (as in dressed) to receive extra company. Even though, he should be dressed somewhat decently knowing you were going over anyways, but since Jungkook was still a stranger to Jimin, it was only respectful to give him a heads up regardless.

“Oh, great!” Jimin chirps, poking his head out of his opened bathroom door. “The more the merrier.”

You roll your eyes at his optimism and invite Jungkook to sit on the couch under Jimin’s lofted bed.

“So I heard you two made a real person,” Jimin says as he walks over to the two of you, completely unaware of how he conveniently arranged his words into a sentence that could be taken the wrong way.

“Yeah, well” Jungkook scratches the back of his neck. “He’s not real per say. He’s just conscious in the virtual world.”

“Ohhh” Jimin says, pretending he understands the weight of Jungkook’s words, which he doesn’t. “So he’s fake real”

“Uh, no…he’s real real” Jungkook furrows his eyebrows. “He’s me but not me”

“R-right…” Jimin says, nodding as if it would help him understand if he kept telling himself he understood.

“Ok, can we just get to work?” You cut in, barely able to handle another minute of this nonsense. “We still have to plan our plot and begin putting our designs in the code,” You sternly remind Jungkook, who nods and quickly pulls out his laptop.

“So does this person look like you too?” Jimin asks Jungkook as he scoots closer to the chocolate haired boy. He was evidently not yet finished with the previous conversation.

“Ummm, heee’s…” Jungkook stretches out the pronoun to buy time to think of a response. “…better looking“ Jungkook finishes.

Jimin bursts out laughing. “Is that even possible?” He says in between his giggling.

Jungkook’s cheeks flush a light shade of pale rose. “Yeah, ask Y/N…she can confirm it.”

You feel both of their eyes rest on you, tentatively waiting for a response.

“Yeah, like he’s super attractive, but he’s not human, so….” You trail off, trying to figure out exactly what you were trying to say, because at this point, you didn’t even know yourself.

“Wouldn’t it have been easier if you two were the main characters of this whole story thing?” Jimin blurts out. “I mean, I can totally see you two as a couple.”

You’re eyes widen in horror and you hear Jungkook choke on the water he was drinking.

“Shit.” He mutters, trying to dry the water that made his white shirt half see through. “You mind if I use your bathroom to dry off?”

“Sure, go ahead” Jimin answers, pointing in the direction of the bathroom.

When Jungkook had closed the door and was out of sight, you punch Jimin in the arm. “What was that?” You whisper angrily.

“Ow” Jimin yelps, while rubbing the spot you had probably left a light bruise on. He’s not in pain for long because he starts giggling at your angry expression. “Stop pretending like you don’t find him attractive. I’ve known you long enough to tell when you like someone.”

“We’re just project partners.” You sternly remind him.

“You like him” Jimin repeats, still looking at you with that knowing smile of his.

You bite your bottom lip, and turn away. “It doesn’t matter”

“There’s nothing holding you back”

“He clearly doesn’t feel the same way.” You huff a laugh. “I mean, he created a virtual person just so he didn’t have to play the role of my lover.” You say. Although it might not completely be true, that’s how you decided to interpret it as.

Jungkook comes back from the bathroom before Jimin could come up with another “unreasonable” response about how you should still go for it anyways, or you shouldn’t come to conclusions so soon.

“Sorry about that.” Jungkook apologizes, as he sits back down.

“It’s fine.” You and Jimin reply simultaneously. You turn to him, making a threatening face to prevent him from saying another sentence that would throw you back into the inescapable depths of embarrassment.

“So how about we start planning the first meeting?” Jungkook says, completely avoiding the topic you guys were discussing before.

“Sounds good.” You quickly reply before Jimin could interrupt in any way.

Jungkook sits back down next to you on the couch, while Jimin pulls out his labtop and begins doing his own homework, finally getting the hint that the two of you needed to work things out on your own.

“So there’s the classic, meet accidentally, destiny type stuff.” He begins. “Then there’s the love at first sight ‘soulmate’ scenario.” He continues, emphasizing the word “soulmate” like the concept was absurd, which you would agree, was. As he’s talking, you just stare into space, listening to his slightly husky voice, iterating all the options he was probably just pulling out of his ass on the spot. “fairytale meet in the magical woods, male lead saves your life, or just the plain old classmates, new neighbors...” He trails off, probably realizing that it all sounded very scripted.

A long moment of silence passes between the two of you, in which only Jimin’s typing on his laptop can be heard. Jungkook finally sighs and turns to face you, giving up on his brainstorming part.

You casually turn to face him. “Surprise me” You say.

“What?”

“You decide. I mean, you did design the dude. Why don’t you also decide how he navigates the world, responds to stimuli, and ultimately behaves in the simulation? I’ll take care of my half of the work, and you take care of his or yours or however you want to refer to the you/him dynamic as.” You reply, nonchalantly, reasoning that it’ll all work out more naturally if you don’t purposefully try to make this story all lovey dovey. “I mean, of course we’ll work together designing the world, but I’d rather not know everything he’s going to do before witnessing it.”

Jungkook pauses again. “I-I guess, that works too…” He says, trailing off again. “It’s just….”

“What?” It was your turn to ask the question he had previously shot at you.

Jungkook jumps a little on the couch. “Uh…nevermind” He answers quickly.

…

The day of the simulation came quicker than you expected, or even wanted it to. This was it, test run number 1 out of who knows how many to come. The past week had been hell, and that was putting it nicely. Long hours of coding, taking all those sketches and blueprints you and Jungkook had conjured up during Design Engineering and making it a virtual reality. The initial design process was still fresh in your mind, long and confusing, reminiscent of all project beginnings where you didn’t even know where to begin.

Thankfully, Professor Jung Hoseok was more than willing to help at the time. He wasn’t one of those kinds of professors who were more focused on their own research than genuinely helping their students succeed. He was extremely compassionate and had given you and Jungkook an array of starting ideas about the physical world that you were constructing.

“Normally your story genre dictates the setting of the physical world that you’re aiming to build, but in your case, you can really make it any way you want.” Hoseok had explained when you told him you and Jungkook were building a world for the setting of your self-designed love story. “ You can start by considering time periods. Figuring out if your story is set in the past, present, or future. Or you can make the setting ambiguous, and design a world which combines things from the real world and fantastical elements.”

After speaking with Professor Jung Hoseok, both you and Jungkook agreed that it would be more interesting to make the setting ambiguous. A completely innovative design would be more fascinating, and in your opinion, a love story would need all the help it can get to be even remotely intriguing.

The outline of your virtual world was built by taking inspiration from nature, the real world, and fictional worlds from classic books and movies. Since you were the main character, much of the features included in the design would be tailored to you, and you didn’t want to be thrown in completely unfamiliar territory, while at the same time, you wanted there to be enough room for creative engineering. And so you both agreed that your story would take place on Earth, in an alternate universe, and the time period would be in the present. Jungkook thinks that it’s better to focus on the visual effects of the simulation rather than coming up with a bunch of random things that don’t exist in the real world. “You can’t fall in love with a person if you’re too focused on other things” He had said. Meaning that if you felt lost and uncomfortable, it’d be hard to enjoy yourself in the simulation, which surprisingly made sense when you thought about it.

“Like we should focus on making the colors of plants more vibrant, and the structure of natural landforms more… grandiose ” Jungkook suggests, while the two of you were sketching in Design Engineering.

“Just sounds like more work,” You mumble, hoping he isn’t able to detect the lack of motivation in your voice.

…

Simulation Test # 1 “The First Meeting”

The rays of the distant sun were beating down on your face, causing beads of sweat to form on your exposed forehead. Fluffy clouds drifted across the smooth bluish gradient that was the canvas for the sky, occasionally blocking the solar glare and casting your surroundings under a cooling shadow.

As the physical world comes into view, you notice the giant arbors of forest green trees, planted behind park benches. A man was selling large oval shaped balloons, their colors captivatingly vivid and their movement jumbled and light as the breeze swept them against each other.

You hear sounds of children laughing, a girl giggling as her boyfriend whispers something into her ear, the voices of people you didn’t know, and….screams?

Your eyes dart around in search of the source, there were fences, colorful machinery-like contraptions, a booth selling pink and blue cotton candy, some fake horses attached to poles, decorated, and arranged in a perfect circle.

“Real funny, Jungkook. This is exactly what you should refrain your boyish mind from letting you do.” You say out loud as if he could hear you while you were in the simulation. You roll your eyes as you realize you were standing in the middle of an amusement park, and the scream you had hear seconds ago was from a group of people on a roller coaster.

“Jungkook?” You hear someone say as they approach you. Turning to identify the person, you instantly recognize him as the hot guy that Jungkook had designed, aka the male lead of your story. He was even hotter in person.

“Are you looking for someone?” The brown-haired male asks, confusion evident in his baritone voice.

You have no idea what is going on, but you’re desperate to get answers. “Ok, can you just stop pretending for a second and tell me where it is you’re going with this story. I’m not about to fail this class because you wanted to play games, fyi I didn’t give you a pass to do whatever you want with this project, you know.” You shout into the surrounding, unsure if Jungkook can hear you from the other side. There is no response, and you can feel the mild annoyance bubbling up, which you address by placing a hand on your temple and begin rubbing to relieve the irritation.

Hot dude’s lips part slightly, and his tongue peeks out to wet his bottom lip. He’s still staring at you, but you’re looking around the park to see if there’s someway to contact the real world in this made up reality. After a good five minutes of fruitless attempt, you sigh and decide that the only thing you can do is play along until the simulation ends.

“So what’s your name?” You ask, turning back to Mr. I’m-too-hot-to-be-real, like literally.

He blinks a few times, and you almost being to question if Jungkook even gave this guy a name. “M-my name is Kim Taehyung.” He finally blurts out. “and yours?”

“Y/N” You reply, narrowing your eyes and wondering if Jungkook is working some controller on the other side of the virtual world you see in front of you.

“Uhh, you want to go on one of those rides?” You ask, thinking what the heck, might as well do something while you’re stuck in this simulation.

Taehyung turns his head and looks at the roller coaster you were pointing at, trying to take in the new piece of information you had presented and calculating how to respond to such a novel type of stimuli. Seconds later, he turns back to you and nods his head eagerly. There’s a familiar spark in his eyes that you swear you’ve seen before somewhere else, but the fraction of it that is foreign prevents you from recalling where exactly you’ve seen such stars.

The two of you get in line. People look normal, in fact, so normal that it almost feels like you’re in the real world. None of them were acting out of the ordinary or as robot-like as you had imagined before entering the simulation.

The two of you were sitting side-by-side, waiting for the cart to begin sliding down the path outlined by the tracks. Glancing over at Taehyung, you notice he looks a bit stiff, like he was really nervous and anxious.

“Are you ok?” You question, looking at his face intently.

“Uh-y-yeah” He swallows, causing his Adam’s apple to bobble up and down. Then his pink tongue pokes out again and wets his bottom lip. “I’ve just never been on one of these.” He adds.

Oh right. You think to yourself. All of this was new to him. He was literally “born” two weeks ago.

“But I’m somehow able to recall being in love with thrill rides like these.” He continues to explain, making you take back your previous conclusion, and throwing you into a state of confusion.

“What do you mean?” You question.

“My older brother took me to amusement parks all the time when I was little, and I’ve never stopped loving roller coasters.” He says will a silly smile plastered on his face.

What the hell was this dude talking about? Older brother? The fuck? You think to yourself as the cart finally begins to move. “But you just said you’ve never been on one” You shout, as the speed of the cart picks up and the wind is blowing loudly in your ears.

“Yeah, I haven’t” Taehyung shouts in between loud giggles. “Ahh, this is so great!” He laughs happily as the cart makes its speedy descent down the steep slope.

You squeeze your eyes shut as you feel the approaching thrill of the pending first drop.

After the ride ends, you make a mental note, reminding yourself to tell Jungkook to change Taehyung script or something because a lot of what he was saying was evidently contradictory. You think it might be some bug in the code or some mistake in writing up his dialogue.

In just a half an hour of walking through the park, you learn that Taehyung really like animals. Dogs in particular. He can’t stop cooing and petting them, hopping around like a little kid who just received his long awaited birthday present, and in return they seem to be unable to stop jumping all over and licking him. Taehyung is also quite the foodie. Literally requesting to eat something from every other food stand you guys strolled past, and still complaining about being hungry afterwards.

“You want some?” He says, turning to you and holding out his icecream cone, offering you a lick of the half scoop of frozen confectionary placed atop a perfectly shaped waffle cone.

“Umm, no that’s ok” You reply, politely rejecting his offer. You watch as he smiles and takes another lick of the creamy concoction. “So…Taehyung, why did you come here today?” You question, wondering how omniscient his AI was. Was he aware that he was part of a simulation? Did he know he was a product of this project? He didn’t seem to know about Jungkook, at least, judging by his confused response when you had shouted the latter’s name upon meeting.

“I…I don’t really know” He responds, mid swallow. “I just came because the rides looked fun, and when I saw you, I thought you were really pretty, so I approached.” He looks at you and flashes you another one of his boxy smiles.

You feel you face heat up ever so slightly, but before you could get caught up in feeling flattered that you just received a compliment, you shake your head and remind yourself that this wasn’t real.

“Is that all?” You poke, wanting to make sure you could collect every last bit of information about him, so you could make adjustments as needed.

Taehyung takes a bite out of his waffle cone before replying. “Yup” He chirps.

The two of you continue to walk in silence, with on the sound of other people at the park. The sky was growing dark and you wonder if this was also part of Jungkook’s plan of meeting your “lover” for the first time at the amusement park. The wind picks up, and you feel cold water pellets hit your exposed forehead. It wasn’t long before they became more frequent, and you and Taehyung were rushing to find cover.

“What luck” You huff as you attempt to dry off your hair that had quickly become soaked from the rain. Just as you had voiced that last sentence, you vision gradually blurs.

“Y/N….?”

You hear Taehyung whisper you name one last time before you find yourself back in the pod with wires connected to your skull.

………….......................

“Jeon fucking Jungkook!” You shout when your eyes flutter open.

His eyes widen when he sees you charging towards him angrily right after you hopped out of the pod. He raises both of his hands in the air in surrender.

“I-I can explain”

“Oh, you better think you can” You spat with an annoyed huff. If this was some kind of joke on his part, you were going to threaten to switch partners.

“He looked bored, and I couldn’t think of a better place to give him his first adventure.” Jungkook explains. He points at the scene displayed on the computer screen. “He just looked so lonely, and I felt bad for the guy, so I thought an amusement park would be a fun first meeting spot.”

You peer over at the man who appeared on the large projector screen in front of Jungkook. It was Taehyung, and he was sitting on what you presumed to be his bed, in a small apartment in some city that didn’t quite exist. His hair disheveled from towel drying it after getting soaked in the rain, and he had changed into his striped pajamas.

“We can watch him from here?” You question in astonishment. “Wait, he’s actually real? Like he does things when I’m not in the simulation???”

“Yeah…about that…..” Jungkook begins cautiously. “Didn’t you hear what Professor Kim Namjoon said? The part about us having to take responsibility for any form of consciousness we create. He may be ‘artificial’ but he’s…alive”

You’re mouth drops at the realization. Jungkook hadn’t exactly explained this to you fully, in a way that you could understand correctly, prior to creating Taehyung, or maybe you hadn’t taken this artificial consciousness thing serious enough because this is starting to sound like something you did not sign up for.

…

“I’ve heard that all of you have begun the simulation phase.” Professor Min Yoongi’s voice rings through the classroom. The students confirm unanimously. “Good. Now this class can really begin.”

You ears perk up at his statement. Mental Environment Homeostasis had gone on for over two weeks, and you’ve even received homework assignments. What was this talk about really beginning? You pray that he doesn’t mean there will just be more work because that was the last thing you needed after the first round of VU testing.

“Those of you who went into the simulation. How did it feel?” Yoongi questions the students in the crowd. He waits patiently for a student to raise their hand and offer feedback.

“I was fully aware that I was in a simulation, although, I did reach a point where I was confused as to what I was doing and began to question the main objective.”

“How long were you in there?” Yoongi asks.

“Two days.” The student replies. Some of the students in the crowd gasp.

The professor only nods his head before proceeding. “You got lucky then.” He says. “I wouldn’t go over the 6 hour mark on your first test.” He pauses. “You see, the longer you are in the simulation, the more your brain becomes accustomed to its environmental stimulations.” He walks over to his computer at the front of the room and pulls up a few graphs from past studies on human-computer interaction onto the big screen. “Studies have shown that a person’s psychological state can be altered in a way which makes them think the simulation is not virtual.”

“But isn’t there a way to bring a person back even if they’ve been confused by the simulation?” Another student in the crowd blurts out.

“Only if their conscious mind is still rooted in reality.” Yoongi replies. He looks down at ground, seemingly recalling something for a brief moment. “If their minds have consciously fully merged with the virtual world, they are said to have reached the point of no return.” He changes the slide on the screen. “In such a scenario, said person will believe that the virtual world is the real world and vice versa.”

…

“Butterfly Dream” Jungkook says, startling you as you were just about to drag the scene you had designed into your virtual universe.

“What?” You turn your head to see Jungkook look up from his laptop.

“You know, the phenomenon coined by a famous philosopher some thousand years ago.” He explains. “When you lose your point of reference and you wake up from a dream not knowing if you’re awake or dreaming?”

“Wow, that was the worse explanation of said phenomenon I’ve ever heard.” You reply sarcastically.

“It’s like what Professor Min Yoongi said, when you lose your grip of reality and start to believe the virtual world is actually the real world and the real world is virtual.” Jungkook explains.

“What, you afraid I’m going to go in and not come out?” You smirk, saving the work you just completed and preparing to go in for round two.

“Uhh…” Jungkook pauses, and you can literally feel the hesitation in his voice.

“Calm yourself, I’m not planning on staying in that simulation for longer than 6 hours.” You retort. “You don’t have to worry about losing me to the void.”

….

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