#( a clever correspondence. | answered asks )

[spookythesillyfella]

This is going to be a weird inbox to get considering it's 3 in the morning (On my end) as I do sent it but I've been wondering if you ever associated any song with digitaltime? This is a relatively new question for me to ask anyone since I don't usually go digging for ships out of the idea MAYBE people may feel embarrassed/uncomfortable talking about it? (Even if it did give them comfort!) If not song(s) at least maybe you can talk about them a bit, I used to love digitaltime back when I first joined dhmis in 2016 so I'm always really amazed the ship LIVES ON somewhere! (FEEL FREE TO TALK ABOUT SONGS AND HEADCANONS/IDEAS if you wanna do both I'd LOVE to hear!) I've been meaning to inbox you for days actually! Just couldn't seem to get myself to do so relating to mental health crisis haha. I'm hoping I'll be able to reach out WAY MROE OFTEN just to remind you I am here!! Really always excited/interested in what you have to say even if I've not expressed it forwardly back at least this way uuhh uh. You can ignore this </3 I know it's been hard lately!

Stay strong !!

HII !!!! HI HELLOO HIII !!!! :DDDD

ouhhh goodness i adore thiz question – i love listening to muzic and thinking about theze lozerz X33 I JUST NEVER GET THE CHANCE TO CUZ NO ONE AROUND CAREZ ABOUT THEMMM >X[

i actually have quite a lot but i cant just go on a 3 hour analysis of all the onez . so might az well give you the short n sweet of it – i really wouldn't want to waste your precious time ahaha ¥_^

★ "505" – Arctic Monkeys ; probably my favorite on the list but itz also one of the most SELF INDULGENT

the lyricz are just really fitting with my vizion of them – the lyricz "I'm going back to 505 // If it's a seven hour flight or a forty-five minute drive // In my imagination, you're waitin' lyin' on your side // With your hands between your thighs" fit with the fact they really love one another tremendously – their devotion

also the lyricz "Not shy of a spark // The knife twists at the thought that I should fall short of the mark // Frightened by the bite, though it's no harsher than the bark // The middle of adventure, such a perfect place to start" and "But I crumble completely when you cry // It seems like once again you've had to greet me with goodbye // I'm always just about to go and spoil the surprise // Take my hands off of your eyes too soon" LIKE I DUNNO HOW TO EXPLAIN THEZE BUT THEY REALLY REALLY DOMAKE ME THINK OF THEM ........

★ "I Wanna Be Yours" – Arctic Monkeys [dont ask why i associate them with Arctic Monkeys so much . okay ???]

y'know how Colin tendz to talk a lot about how clever and cool and useful he iz ? i think thiz song iz very fitting to how he'd want to be like . useful for Tone – the peak of intimacy iz to be uzed . something something etcetera

★ "As The World Caves In" – Matt Maltese

fitting from Tonyz perspective . in my opinion – how he'd want to spend hiz remaining time alongside Colin . even if . in the grand scheme of everything . itz such a small speck ; how Colin makez Tony feel fulfilled . and how even when all run out of time . hez happy to have spent it together – none wasted

★ a couple of honorable mentionz that i won't go in depth on :

– "Cigarettes out the Window" – TV Girl [mostly cuz i wanna do an in-depth au related analysis on it sometime in the mear future]

– "Show Me How" – Men I Trust [would like to analyze thiz one too but can't really see myself doing it ; the lyricz "Tell me why // Your hands are cold" are rlly hv digitaltime though i swear]

– "Daisy Bell" – Harry Dacre [iz thiz in part cuz Colin iz a computer ? if i answer that question truthfully . you'll chase me with pitchforkz]

– "My Love Mine All Mine" – Mitski [i can't go in depth about thiz without bursting into tearz ; i really love it]

– "Lovers Rock" – TV Girl [im scared of talking about love ; love iz very scary to me]

– "P.U.N.K Girl" – Heavenly

– "Who Knew" – The Correspondents [a relatively new song ive started listening to and i hadn't had the chance to properly dissect the lyricz and analyze them – but . since it remindz me of me n my lover . therez a 90-ish% chance it remindz me of them too]

TYSM FOR THE ASK AGAIN !!!!!!!!! I LITERALLY LOVE TALKING ABOUT DIGITALTIME – THEZE FREAKZ ALWAYZ LINGER IN MY MIND !!!!!!!!!!! IVE BEEN SO STUMPED WHEN IT COMEZ TO IDEAZ TO WRITE AND / OR DRAW THEM SO JUST GETTING TO GET SOMETHING OUTTA MY BRAIN IZ REALLY GOOD

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF CUZ ILYSM !!!!!! YOU HAVE NO CLUE HOW HAPPY THIZ ASK ACTUALLY MADE ME . SO THANK YOU <33

[lopposting]

Some more thoughts + notes on the datamine document!!

(Long!!)

[second part of this post ?]

thanks again to user @ ividyon for the document.

Judging by these lines, again, I think it's a cut story thread that P has to ask Venigni to repair him, thus revealing himself as a puppet to Venigni, but it also suggests that Venigni knew about Carlo

rough alt translation:

제페토 씨에겐 들었어. 팔을 다치신 탓에 내게 네 P기관 정비를 요청하시더군. 사실 네가 ��형인 줄은 알고 있었어. 제페토 씨의 친구라면 그 사건에 대해 알 수 밖에 없거든… 슬픈 일이지만 내일의 희망에 집중해야지. I heard from Mr. Geppetto. Because of the arm injury, [he] requested to repair your P-Organ. The truth is, I already knew you were a puppet. If you're a friend of Geppetto's, one couldn't help but hear about what happened... It was a sad thing but I[one must] had to focus on the hope of tomorrow.

It implies Venigni is saying he knew we were a puppet because as a friend of Geppetto, he would've known about the death of Carlo. In the released game, he seems to be an older colleague and doesn't mention it at all, and I wonder if he even knew Geppetto had a son

About what we think happened to Carlo, and Venigni using the phrase "the case"("Any friend of Mr. Geppetto's has no choice but to know about the case"): the word he uses here 사건, which can mean something like a situation, a case, or an incident. It's also the word used by korean law enforcement to refer to a criminal "case". In this case though, I think it's closer to Venigni just referring to "what happened", as in Carlo's death.

Yet another version of this:

Honestly, I knew you were a puppet, but I didn't expect you to lie. It's creepy that Mr. Geppetto lifted his great promise

On Geppetto actually talking about Carlo to P:

It's my impression that in the released game, Geppetto never expected P to find out about Carlo because that would probably tip him off to what he was planning (P would probably refuse to hand over the heart?)

Also, Geppetto saying that Carlo was "intelligent" - I wonder if Carlo being a smart kid had something to do with Sophia calling us "Clever one" when we wake up?

REALLY interesting exchange with Geppetto

the exchange:

【그나저나... 내 예상보다 빠르게 깨어났더구나. 누군가 도와준 사람이 있니?】 【누군가 도와준 사람이 있니?】 소피아가 나를 깨웠다 혼자 열차 안에서 깨어났다

eng:

【By the way.. You woke up faster than I expected. 】 【Was there anyone that helped you? 】 Sophia woke me up I woke up on the train by myself

(note: If you tell Geppetto that someone named Sophia woke you up) 소피아라… 그렇구나. 그녀에겐 나중에 감사해야겠구나. Sophia... I should thank her later.

That sounds rather ominous to me. (it also doesn't have an english correspondent from what I see?)

and then what I think is IF you answer that you woke up by yourself- (emphasis mine)

널 깨워준 덕에 신시가지의 학살을 멈출 수 있었단다. 네가 자랑스럽구나. 말해줘서 고맙구나. 난 네가 자칫 잘못되었을까봐 두려웠단다 나에게만큼은 언제나 진실된 아이로 있어다오, 아들아. 널 되살리기 위해 수많은 희생을 치러야 했건만… 다시 어려운 부탁을 하게 되어 미안하구나.

eng:

Because of you waking up you were able to stop the massacre. I'm proud [of you]. I'm grateful you told me. I was worried that you might have gone wrong. To me, you'll always be my true child, son. I made so many sacrifices to revive you... I'm sorry to ask such difficult requests again.

It's occurring to me now that I think (나에게만큼은 언제나 진실된 아이로 있어다오, 아들아) can either be read as "Always be true to me, son" OR "To me you'll always be my true son" [as in, he's assuring the new puppet "Carlo" that he's still his son !?]

Again, I wonder if this dialogue is conditional, though. As in, he says "Sophia? I should thank her later..." if we tell the truth about Sophia, And if P tells him he "woke up by myself" we get the latter dialogue (Geppetto immediately accepts him as his son).

[thatbadadvice]

Help! The Woman I Have Been Stalking for Years Is Disinclined to Engage With Me

Carolyn Hax, WaPo, 1 June 2023 (originally 11 March 2009):

Dear Carolyn: About five years ago, I began to realize that a woman I dated 25 years earlier was someone I had stronger feelings for than I was mature enough to appreciate at the time. I had questions for her about why we hadn’t blossomed into the kind of relationship I now think we both believe we were destined for. In the past five years, I’ve continued to have those questions, then dreams, etc., which led me to do a paid search for her address. I wrote her twice and left a voice mail. My messages have been about old friends I bumped into who reminded me of her, what I’ve been doing and how I’d like to hear from her. That is, nothing too serious or about what’s been on my mind. I haven’t received an answer. I’ve thought through the reasons she hasn’t corresponded, and why I needed to talk with her, and am still at a loss. Would asking her my questions directly in a letter be a way to coax her to reconnect? Telling her that, apart from this midlife crisis of mine, I’m happily married and successful, and that all I want are answers? -- A 30-year-old question

Dear 30-Year-Old Question,

One might expect a happily married person to do all kinds of things, but topmost among them is paying to find the contact information of an ex-girlfriend and sending said ex-girlfriend multiple unanswered messages, repeatedly and through a variety of means, over the course of many years in the hopes of deceiving her into heady conversations about the details of your long-ended relationship. Yes indeed, when the Bad Advisor thinks of "normal stuff a person who's very happy in their marriage would do," her mind immediately goes to "pretending to ask innocuous questions about old friends in the hope that a woman I dated 30 years ago believes I am solely and only asking her innocent questions about old friends, when in fact I am explicitly and admittedly not."

Women are famously unable to clock the intentions of men, who are very clever, extremely stealthy, and never creepy or dangerous to the extent that they would unsettle people from whom they have demanded interaction and who have time and time again ignored them. Probably this woman received your incredibly blasé letters and voicemail and thought: "Gosh, it seems like this dude who deuced out on me three decades ago is trying to rope me into responding to him multiple times despite my obvious disinclination to engage only and exclusively on the subject of our old friends, what a boring conversation, I shan't respond unless he sends me a lengthy bit of written correspondence detailing his many thoughts and feelings about how our romance ended, I simply can't imagine having a conversation with him unless I know for absolute certain he wants to rehash what happened between us, which is the only possible way I could fathom entertaining such a reconnection, one which I would never have reason to pursue otherwise, as I am so desperately in love with him and have been lo these 30 years but could not in good conscience find a way to broach the subject unless he sends me just one more letter finally making his bonerful intentions plain, that sly dog."

Might you have neglected to include a return address on the previous correspondence about which you were extremely desperate, but in a very casual way, to receive a response? Does your ex-girlfriend own the only cellular telephone on earth that does not log the return-call number of people who leave voicemails? Mayhap she simply does not know how to contact you after multiple attempts over half a decade! These are highly probable reasons she has not sought you out! Vastly more likely than the fact that she sees entirely the fuck through your pretenses and wants nothing to do with you whatsoever.

If you wish to receive a concrete answer about the status of your relationships, your best hope is to CC your spouse on any future correspondence. I think you can expect a prompt response.

[ink-and-dagger]

Hi inky,

Do you have any advice on how to analyze/break down someone’s writing style? There’s an author I really admire and I’ve been trying to study their work and incorporate elements of their style into my own, but I have no idea what I’m looking for besides “vibes”.

Hi friend! This is an interesting question - thank you for asking it <3

I totally feel you on this. Attempting to analyze an entire body of work is incredibly daunting, and more often than not will leave you overwhelmed before you can even begin.

This may be obvious, but it's imperative to break it all the way down into manageable, bite-sized pieces. Ideally, you want to be working on no more than one sentence at a time. One paragraph at a maximum. Equally, you don't need to analyze every single word the author has written - that's far too much data and it'll drive you to insanity. Even just focusing on a small section of their writing (a page, for example) will start to give you a good idea of the tools and techniques they like to use.

My advice to you is to stop trying to analyze (for now). Pick one of the author's works and just read it for pleasure. But - as you're reading it - whenever you come across one of those sentences that makes you stop for a second and think "damn that was a really good sentence", make a note of it. A literal note. Copy it down into a journal or onto a note in your phone, then forget about it and keep reading. Once you've finished the book you should have a good collection of these sentences/snippets, and that's when you can get to work.

Consider one sentence/snippet at a time and try to pinpoint what it is about it that made you write it down. Why did it resonate with you? Why did it stand out more than others? There are no right or wrong answers - it’s literally your personal interpretation. It could be because that sentence made you feel a particular way. Or that you really liked the language. That they used a clever descriptor, or tied two plot points together really neatly. That it made you laugh. That it made you cry. Whatever the reason, make a note of it beside the corresponding sentence.

As you work through these, you’ll quickly start to see recurring themes, and it'll give you a good indication of exactly which elements of their writing you admire the most and wish to emulate in your own writing.

I hope that was in someway helpful or insightful!

[perdvivly]

There’s a common critique of The Kingkiller Chronicles that says the main character (Kvothe) is over powered and this makes the conflicts uninteresting to read because Kvothe will always do something exceptionally clever and resolve whatever problem he comes across by being a super genius with few to no character flaws.

Examples usually cited include his admission to the university at an exceptionally young age and receiving the first ever scholarship. Or his admission into the arcanum and the showing up of his overly arrogant teacher. The list goes on.

And this seems to me to be such a tremendously poor critique it’s absolutely mystifying that it’s been made so many times. And made by people who I think in other contexts show themselves to be astute and good faith readers. It fundamentally misunderstands the very obvious point of any of the scenes they like to cherrypick. In my mind it misunderstands the point of the entire book itself.

Rothfuss’ world-building involves two primary magic systems, one very hard magic system (sympathy) and one very soft magic system (naming). And if you’ll forgive a vibic associative sort of description here, these are supposed to roughly correspond to a type of analytic intelligence and a type of thoughtful wisdom respectively.

It is important to note that Kvothe is portrayed as exceptionally talented at the analytic type of hard-magic and not particularly talented at the more reflective soft-magic.

This is an important feature to keep in mind when you look at the sort of story Rothfuss’ is trying to tell. His writing has a sort of recursive quality. The story is a frame narrative, it’s a story within a story, and often there are stories within the stories within the stories. It seems rather obvious that Rothfuss has in mind the power of thoughtful deliberateness, the power of thoughtfully chosen words, and it seems rather obvious too that he’s showing us a failure case of this. Kvothe’s story isn’t wish-fulfilment Mary Sue fantasy. It’s a tragedy. It’s how you end up old and alone and regretting your life story. The protagonist is reckless, arrogant, and mentally agile in a way that gets him off the hook in situations that might seem short-term unpleasant to be in, but would otherwise serve as valuable learning experiences.

Kvothe is unable to see the value of things that his teachers say are difficult or impossible to fully explicate. He is insistent that his own mental prowess is sufficient to overcome any surmountable obstacle. He’s brought up short several times, he’s asked to describe love, or music, and he blusters on seemingly unaware of his own incompetence.

There’s an analogy to Hamlet to be made. Kvothe’s hamartia is the obverse face of the Danish Prince’s, he never stops to think, he just acts—and disaster follows.

The scene where Kvothe is admitted into the university at a young age and given the first ever scholarship is a good example of this actually. How did he manage to accomplish this? He cheated. He broke into the admissions hall and spied on other candidates taking the entrance exam and memorised the questions the examiners asked and their model answers. This is explained in the very next passage to him taking the exam, but I guess people making the critique found it egregious enough that they put the book down before reading on to that part.

Kvothe sacrifices long-term deep understanding of the world for short-term gain. He uses his analytic faculties to try to game the system. And we know, as he says at the very beginning of the story, that he will eventually suffer for it.

None of this is to say that Kkc is beyond reproach. There are very legitimate criticisms to be made about its representation and treatment of women. It’s just that people so often want to make a critique of it that misunderstands it so badly it makes me think they should read it. The force of the book is directed to people who would misunderstand it in this way… But it’s difficult to explain that to someone who is trapped in that sort of misapprehension.

[theinquisitxor]

December 2023 Reading Wrap Up

I read 11 books in December, and it was a great reading month to finish the year. I read 4 audiobooks, and 7 physical books.

1.The Lost Metal (Mistborn 7) by Brandon Sanderson 4/5 stars. I’m glad I read this series, and reading on audio was definitely the way to go for me. I enjoyed this last installment in the series, and I loved how this book flung the doors wide open for the Cosmere and relations to other books. Adult High Fantasy, read on audio.

2. A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows, 5/5 stars. I reread this favorite in anticipation for the sequel. This book has a lot of what I enjoy-- a character driven political fantasy romance with plenty of representation and a good dose of drama. I enjoyed my reread just about as much as the first. Adult Fantasy Romance, Queer

3.All the Hidden Paths by Foz Meadows, 4/5 stars. This was a good follow up adventure following our two main characters from book 1. There were some tropes/elements I didn't enjoy as much, but it was still a gripping and engaging as the first book. Adult Fantasy Romance, Queer

4. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, 5/5 stars. When people ask me "what's your favorite book?" this is the answer I give. I like to reread this every other year or so, especially around the holidays. Middle Grade fantasy

5.Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones, 3/5 stars. Despite HMC being my favorite, I've never actually read the 2 follow up books. I finally told myself I would read these before the end of the year. This was a fun enjoyable story that takes us to another part of this fantasy land that DWJ created, with new and old characters. It's not nearly on the same level as HMC, but I enjoyed reading it and getting more of the classic DWJ wit and narration. middle grade fantasy

6. House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones, 4/5 stars. Diana Wynne Jones was so clever, and that really shines through in this story. I think part of the reason why I put off reading the two sequels to HMC for years was because I never wanted the story to end and be "done". This was one of the last books DWJ ever wrote, and it really feels like saying goodbye. middle grade fantasy

7. Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age by Dennis Duncan. If you enjoy book history and diving deep into a niche topic, then I think this is a great book. It's amazing how the concept of the 'index' has existed in some form since humans began writing. Nonfiction, read on audio.

8. The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper, 4/5 stars. I reread this via the BBC Radio production, while listening to the corresponding days for each segment. I really enjoyed this production, with different voices for each characters, and background noises as well. Gave a very cinematic experience.

9. Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer, 5/5 stars. I loved this book narrated by the author herself. I loved learning more about moss, while also getting essays about the authors life, work, and natural world around us. I very much recommend this one. Nonfiction, read on audio.

10. The Blue Sword (Damar #1) by Robin McKinley, 5/5 stars. I really enjoyed my time reading this book and this was a good reminder of what makes classic fantasy so great. This novel is also proof that you can have a fully realized fantasy story with great characters, lore, and plot, and have it all under 300 pages. This is one I can see myself rereading.

11. The Hero and the Crown (Damar 2) by Robin McKinley, 4/5 stars. A good prequel to book 1 and exploration of some of the myths/stories from book 1. This is very much a Girl + Horse + Magical Sword go on an adventure and save the kingdom type story.

That's it for December! It was a strong finish to the end of the year, and pushed me over 100 books for 2023. Here's to 2024 and another good reading year! 🥂

January TBR:

A Winter's Promise (Mirror Visitor series) by Christelle Dabos + book 2?

A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft

Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyard + book 2?

The Atlas Complex by Olivie Blake

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire (audio)

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

Beartown by Frederik Backman + book 2?

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (audio)

[jbird-the-manwich]

i trained an AI for writing incantations.

You can get the model, to run on your own hardware, under the cut. it is free. finetuning took about 3 hours with PEFT on a single gpu. It's also uncensored. Check it out:

The model requires a framework that can run ggufs, like gpt4all, Text-generation-webui, or similar. These are free and very easy to install.

You can find the model itself as a gguf file here:

About:

it turned out functional enough at this one (fairly linguistically complex) task and is unique enough that I figured I'd release it in case anyone wants the bot. It would be pretty funny in a discord. It's slightly overfit to the concept of magic, due to having such a small and intensely focused dataset.

Model is based on Gemma 2, is small, really fast, very funny, not good, dumb as a stump, (but multingual) and is abliterated. Not recommended for any purpose. It is however Apache 2.0 Licensed, so you can sell its output in books, modify it, re-release it, distill it into new datasets, whatever.

it's finetuned on a very small, very barebones dataset of 400 instructions to teach it to craft incantations based on user supplied intents. It has no custom knowledge of correspondence or spells in this release, it's one thing is writing incantations (and outputting them in UNIX strfile/fortune source format, if told to, that's it's other one thing).

magic related questions will cause this particular model to give very generic and internetty, "set your intention for Abundance" type responses. It also exhibits a failure mode where it warns the user that stuff its OG training advises against, like making negative statements about public figures, can attract malevolent entities, so that's very fun.

the model may get stuck repeating itself, (as they do) but takes instruction to write new incantations well, and occasionally spins up a clever rhyme. I'd recommend trying it with lots of different temperature settings to alter its creativity. it can also be guided concerning style and tone.

The model retains Gemma 2's multilingual output, choosing randomly to output latin about 40% of the time. Lots of missed rhymes, imperfect rhythm structures, and etc in english, but about one out of every three generated incantations is close enough to something you'd see in a book that I figure'd I'd release it to the wild anyway.

it is, however, NOT intended for kids or for use as any kind of advice machine; abliteration erodes the models refusal mechanism, resulting in a permanent jailbreak, more or less. This is kinda necessary for the use case (most pre-aligned LLMs will not discuss hexes. I tell people this is because computers belieb in magic.), but it does rend the models safeguards pretty much absent. Model is also *quite* small, at around 2.6 billion parameters, and a touch overfit for the purpose, so it's pretty damn stupid, and dangerous, and will happily advise very stupid shit or give very wrong answers if asked questions, so all standard concerns apply and doubly so with this model, and particularly because this one is so small and is abliterated. it will happily "Yes, and" pretty much any manner of question, which is hilarious, but definitely not a voice of reason:

it may make mistakes in parsing instructions altogether, reversing criteria, getting words mixed up, and sometimes failing to rhyme. It is however pretty small, at 2 gigs, and very fast, and runs well on shitty hardware. It should also fit on edge devices like smartphones or a decent SBC.

for larger / smarter models, the incantation generation function is approximated in a few-shot as a TavernAI card here:

If you use this model, please consider posting any particularly "good" (or funny) incantations it generates, so that I can refine the dataset.

[holmesoverture]

Happy New Year, I posted another old Sherlock Holmes fic that I've never shared before! It's locked to registered users only, but here is a taste behind the cut :) Fic as a whole features nosy Mycroft and a case in Paris!

When I emerged from my room that decisive morning in June, I found my friend Sherlock Holmes seated at the table where he conducted his inscrutable chemical experiments, still wearing the same clothes I had left him in last evening, gazing intently at the postcard in his hand.

“Most curious,” he said, long minutes after I entered. “Mycroft has sent a postcard.”

“I don’t see what is so unusual about receiving correspondence from one’s brother. That’s quite common in most families, so I’m told.”

“But he has not sent it to me. He has sent it to you.”

Holmes held the card out to me and slowly I took it, still struggling to accept the fact that, of all people, Mycroft Holmes had seen fit to write me. The picture on the front of the postcard was of London by night, the city lights reflected in the Thames. The script on the opposite side was a succinct invitation.

My dear Dr. Watson,

As you are not otherwise engaged this morning, I ask that you please come at once to the Stranger’s Room at the Diogenes Club on a matter of grave importance.

Faithfully yours, Mycroft Holmes

“You and your brother both are terrifying,” I said. “Remarkable, of course, but no less terrifying for it. Either he has set spies upon us, or he has gained the ability to deduce a man’s schedule from within the confines of his club.”

“There is no mystery about that,” Holmes replied. “I’m afraid I speak to Mycroft of you rather more than either of you would prefer. He has probably heard of or deduced everything from your precise time of birth to your favourite kind of fish.”

“Is that so?”

“I told you it is.”

Still, it seemed uncharacteristic of my companion, who rarely spoke at length upon any subject not pertaining to a case or to some clever inference he had just made. He was so terribly clever, in fact, that I knew he must have guessed at the full weight of my curiosity but he did not deign to satisfy it, losing himself once again in his experiments. I gave up on receiving an answer and reached for my hat.

“I’ll give your brother your regards,” I said. He probably would not believe Holmes had bothered to send any, but I yet cared about manners and propriety even if my companion did not.

I had not gone five steps out of the house before I heard someone call out my name. The voice sounded familiar, but it wasn’t until I turned and found myself looking into the face of Garrett Murray1, the orderly who took it upon himself to save my life in the war, that I could place it. He was of Indian descent, with large dark eyes, a clean jaw, and a smile to rival a world’s fair. I had heard he received the Victoria Cross but had not had the pleasure of seeing him since the day he had earned it. We greeted each other with all the enthusiasm the occasion warranted, eagerly speaking over each other until I ran out of breath, allowing Murray to clearly be heard.

“What in the world are you doing here?” he asked.

“I live here.”

Murray glanced from the building and back to me. “Here? At 221 Baker Street?”

“You sound surprised.”

“It is only that I must have been given the wrong address. I was told that a Mr. Sherlock Holmes lives here.”

“He does. We share rooms. Do tell me you aren’t in trouble!”

“I regret to say that I am in quite a lot of trouble. You see—”

The remainder of his reply was cut off by a thump from the open window above us. Holmes stuck his head out of it and, considering the mutinous look in his face, the thumping sound had most likely come from his slamming his hands against the window-frame.

“Watson!” he shouted. “Either leave or stay, but choose one! I cannot possibly concentrate with you jabbering in my ear!”

“Holmes, this is Murray. He’s the fellow who saved my life during the war, and he’s got a problem for you.”

Holmes stared at us for several seconds before disappearing back indoors. Murray looked up at the now vacant window like he was reassessing just how badly he was in need of a consulting detective, and then Holmes flung open the door and embraced my poor friend within an inch of his life. This went on for five seconds too long by the standards set by more socially conscious men, but when Holmes pushed away, his countenance was as inscrutable as ever I’d seen it.

“Well?” said Holmes.

“I, that is—” stumbled Murray.

“Do you have a problem or do you not?”

“Oh yes, of course. It’s my wife, Mr. Holmes. I fear she may be in terrible danger.”

“Then let us not stand here any longer. Pray come in, and don’t worry any about the bill. Your account here has been permanently settled.”

Holmes vanished into the house, leaving the door open for Murray to follow. Murray shot me one last questioning look.

“Go on up,” I said, encouragingly. “He’s mostly harmless. Can you stay for lunch? I’m sure I will have returned by then, and I am most anxious to hear of your situation.”

[takaraphoenix]

3, 20, and 30 for the ao3 wrapped 💛

Thank you for playing, dear! ^-^

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

I already answered this one, so I'll go with another one I'm proud of - I am proud of a lot of my work this year. Which honestly feels fucking fantastic, I love being in love with my own writing again.

Thirteen Truths (and a Lie) was one of the most self-indulgent things I wrote this year and it turned out just the way I wanted it. I love me a big secret reveal in front of everyone, I love stripping a character with layers of armor to protect themselves down to their very core and forcing them to share their feelings. Additionally, I do still feel very clever about the fact that I could come up with enough secrets to cover all pack members and even managed to relate most of those secrets to the corresponding pack members.

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

That may be What Keeps Me Going. I managed to hit all my own sweet spots with that one (not something that happens all the times, often something is off or I can't FIT all the sweet-spot-hitting elements into the same story, or the goal is something different, etc). But this really put all the stuff I love for a post-Nogitsune fic together in a way that has me go back to reread it like every two weeks at this point.

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

Discovering new relationships, be that romantic or platonic.

I never really cared too much about the Allison-Stiles dynamic and have grown fiercely attached to their friendship potential, Peter-Erica is a dynamic I fully didn't see coming, I've developed a soft spot for Stiles-Scott-Kira as a bestie trio, Marin as Stiles' mentor.

It really is much rarer for me to develop attachments to non canon platonic dynamics than non canon romantic relationships, I'm usually more than happy to just build upon canon when it comes to friendships, so this sure was the biggest surprise for me.

AO3 Wrapped Ask Game

[faithhearted]

@honorhearted {x}

J.ohn A.ndre had been such a seemingly wonderful man. He was highly intelligent, witty, clever, which made him appear incredibly attractive to her. Above all, however, he'd been most kind when they'd first met and he'd seemingly had no reservations about the arrangement.

Of course, that had been well over a year and a half ago, and her mama had warned her that men were prone to straying outside of the marital bed, driven by their passions rather than their hearts, as women were.

While she had no reason to believe John to be a scoundrel, never would she have thought him so willingly capable of committing infidelity, and not because she was in love with him, but because she'd so naively trusted him.

Not even Miss P.eggy S.hippen, who was supposedly an old friend of John's, and had since become a good friend of Louisa's, had known that the couple were married. Why would John keep it a secret? Had he been that ashamed of her? Why then, had he ever agreed to marriage at all?

It was Peggy who'd warned Louisa of John's unfaithfulness, and assured her that if there was anything she could do for her, she need only ask.

But there was nothing anyone could do for Louisa now -- no one that is, except for Louisa herself. Rather unfortunate for John, as he was entirely unaware of the extent of Louisa's knowledge concerning his intelligence operations.

She'd spent hours poring over his notes, his letters, and wept when she'd found out about the romance between himself and Miss Shippen. Perhaps that final nail in the coffin was what had convinced her to follow through with this meeting with M.ajor T.allmadge, who appeared wary of her declaration.

"But madam...How did you get my contact information?" he pressed, his voice low and nearly too quiet among the rowdy tavern ambiance, "Surely, you can't be surprised I'm skeptical in lending my trust?"

"I understand your hesitance, M.ajor, and I certainly don't fault you for it." she answered just as quietly, "You were at G.eneral A.rnold's ball a fortnight ago, yes? I was able to get your information from one of your D.ragoons when I expressed interest under the guise of an admirer."

The man had also spent a solid minute laughing beforehand, but she supposed T.allmadge didn't need to know that part.

After fiddling through her bag, Louisa placed a small stack of letters upon the table and slid them toward him with earnest.

"My husband is M.ajor J.ohn A.ndre, and I have reason to believe that he's behind the turning of your G.eneral A.rnold."

She paused a moment, knowing the accusation would sound outlandish without proof.

"I found these letters in my husband's writing desk. He's been corresponding with Miss S.hippen under the alias "Becky," and the two discuss Arnold and his...leanings, at length."

[percontaion-points]

Gate Crashers chapters 21 & 22

Click here for the rest of the series!

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Chapter 21

He took a moment to check on Harris, whose cheek was also pressed flat against the glass like, well, a Peeping Tom. 

This is yet another moment of: when you are an author, you can write literally anything that you want. So why the fuckity fuck would you actively choose to write this?

Maximus’s smile was broader and brighter than a chrome grille. “Thank you for the question, Stan, and I’d say the only polls I care about have girls dancing on them. Next question.”

If this is the author’s attempt to write a witty and charming character… Try going back to school and learning about homophones, dipshit. 

Unable to avoid the inevitable any longer, Maximus leveled a finger at the proverbial eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. In this case, it was an eight-hundred-pound gorilla named Buttercup. After several generations of captive gorillas being taught sign language, they eventually organized and demanded citizenship. So the Association for the Advancement of NonHuman Persons was formed. Its membership includes several thousand gorillas and chimpanzees, sixteen herds of elephants, twenty-seven pods of dolphins, and a particularly clever African gray parrot who served as treasurer. Buttercup had recently become a correspondent for Branches & Fruit Monthly, following his award-winning essays “Zoo Employees Fragile. Do Not Wrestle” and “Why You Not Groom Human Children?”

I feel like the author is trying so, soooooo hard to emulate Douglas Adams here. 

The problem, as I keep pointing out… This comes out of left field, and I’m kind of sitting here going… ???? What????

“Oh, come on. With a crew this large, there has to be at least a couple of closet furries. C’mon, folks, raise your hands. We’re all adults here.” The crew looked back at him in muted horror. “Nobody? Well, they’re probably just shy.”

WHY. WHY THE FUCKITY FUCK WOULD YOU FUCKING WRITE THIS SHIT?!

He deftly slid out of the way just as Buttercup’s chair shattered the podium.

Chapter 21 summary: Jeffrey and Harris take a two week shuttle up to where the war ship is currently being built. When they get up there, they meet up with Felix, and some other members of the crew. Everybody else is unimportant background noise… I say knowing full well that this chapter could have been an email. 

Eventually, the crew has a press conference. The reporters ask if it’s really okay to send a ship with completely untested technology out into deep space. They also ask about the weapons on board. For some reason, there are gorillas on the ship. I don’t have answers. 

I think instead of hammering in how little that I laughed, maybe I should start up a count of how many times I wanted to die of cringe. At least that number would keep changing every time. 

Chapter 22

Vel Noric stepped cautiously through the great hallway leading to His Superiority the Kumer-Vel’s chambers.

NO. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. STOP IT. 

“The high-space portal was detected on Earth itself.” 

That did surprise Noric. “That’s not possible. There hasn’t been enough time for any signals from the ship to reach Earth. They can’t have copied the technology.”

 “That is true, yet here we are. One of our reconnaissance platforms detected the high-space portal on Earth’s surface almost half a cycle ago,” said the voice. “So either you can believe that the humans produced a highspace portal domestically or that they have some way to communicate instantly, which the best Lividite scientists ensure [sic] us is impossible.” 

My main question is… Why are they so convinced that humans are this fucking dumb? 

No, really. I want to know. Because we’ve been given absolute OODLES of page time about these aliens, yet still somehow know next to NOTHING about them. 

Jak’el clicked his teeth together. “I’m surprised at you, Grote. We need the barbarians to gin up a healthy panic. Coups are so much simpler if you wait until the population demands one.”

Chapter 22 summary: If I have one complaint about this series, is that there is so much that’s said… But not one single bit of it is spent on things that are actually important. For example, this chapter opens on more than two pages of watching these aliens interacting with one another. However, to what end? What is this accomplishing? Why should the readers even care about this? None of these questions have ever been brought forth, and I’m seriously getting so fucking fed up with it.

Eventually, one of the aliens starts to complain about how his commanding officer ordered him to not completely destroy Maggie. The other alien says that the humans have already opened up an inter-space portal on earth… Which is against all discussion about what the humans can and can’t do. 

At the end of the chapter, it’s revealed that the other alien is literally… uh… I shit you not, two smaller aliens standing on top of one another, and wearing a trenchcoat. Their goal is to goad the one alien into doing his bidding, I guess? Again, a lot of words are said. Nearly a page of this. Yet nothing is ever actually explained to the readers about this. I’ve given up on trusting the process at this point; the author has lost their chance this late into the book. 

[moviemunchies]

What if someone made Person of Interest into an international spy thriller? And also removed all the clever questions it was asking? You’d get something like Heart of Stone on Netflix.

Agent Stone (Gal Gadot) is a techie for an MI-6 team, who prefers to stay out of the field work to do important computer operations. Except–PSYCH! Actually, she’s a plant from the Charter, an international peace-keeping force of Super Mega Ultra Spies dedicated to keeping the world safe and who don’t answer to any government. The Charter is guided by the Heart, an advanced AI connected to everything ever. Of course, a couple of bad guys, one of whom has personal beef with the Charter, wants the Heart for their own nefarious purposes.

As an action film, Heart of Stone is fine. There are some really great, suspenseful chase sequences throughout the movie. The fight scenes are also pretty good; Gal Gadot makes a good action star, and I think she should be in more movies with extended action scenes like this one does. All the same… this movie is just kind of dumb?

No, scratch that, it’s pretty darn dumb. The Charter relies entirely on an AI to make key decisions, and make no contingency plans in case the Charter leads them astray, or if it gets captured and turned by hostile forces. Spoiler alert, it does, and Charter leaders and operatives keep putting themselves in places where the advanced AI can reach them, in ways that are quite obvious. You would think they’d realize they need to be in a building where the actual architecture isn’t connected to any signal, and that it wouldn’t be hard for super spies to find a place like that. Nope! 

That’s not even getting into the idea that the Charter is a terrifying concept. They’re a club of super spies who answer to no government. And, like, yeah, I agree that the government kind of sucks sometimes, and it’s clear that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies aren’t really as answerable to us as they claim to be. But the Charter doesn’t even pretend, and if they decided to go rogue, we’d have nothing to do to counter it, considering they have an advanced AI and have also infiltrated several powerful intelligence agencies.

The entire setup is for a rather obvious ‘Digital Logic vs. Human Emotion’ conflict. Which is fine–I think if you had an entire organization taking directives from an AI, there are obviously going to be conflicts between what you feel is the right thing to do, and what the AI thinks is logically the best path forward to maximize effectiveness. And of course, our heroine is Gal Gadot, famous for playing Wonder Woman, a character known for her compassion (at least in her cinematic live-action incarnation), so she gets to show that she is not okay with the cold logic of the Heart.

She really is a good action lead, by the way.

The Charter is a cool idea, too. And I think it’s really neat that they’re organized in different groups that are named after suits of cards, and each leader and operative corresponds to a specific card. That’s a darn stylish way to base a spy agency. As you can probably guess, Agent Stone is in the Heart group.

The movie’s fine, if you need an action film to watch. The only thing is that it’s not necessary; there’s not much about it that makes you feel like you have to watch it. It feels a bit wasteful because there is a lot you can do with a concept like ‘Spy Agency Guided by a Mega AI’, but it’s not a bad movie. It’s probably exactly what you think of when you hear ‘Netflix original action thriller.’

So there ya go.

[archduchessofnowhere]

Okay, a weird question: the relationship between Sophie of Bavaria and her husband! Because like. I have this impression from them that they didn't exactly love each other, but got along fine, and also this one tumblr blog suggested a show about Sophie (which I find less interesting as a concept than a show about the 1848 revolution with Sophie as a major character, but nevermind) and it got me thinking about Franzi's old man...

Hello!! Sorry it took me so long (literal months); this is a super interesting question because I wonder about this too. Given that archduke Franz Karl is a very elusive figure, and that most of Sophie's biographies not only are in German, but are also just impossible to get (for me, living in the other side of the world), so I didn’t have much to work with. To answer this ask I used as my main source Jean-Paul Bled’s biography Sophie de Habsbourg, which quotes a lot of Sophie’s letters and diary entries, but there’s probably more out there in other books.

So what do we now about Sophie and Franz Karl’s relationship? Their marriage was arranged, as it was customary. It was part of King Max’s policy of strengthening Bavaria’s links to Austria (after a very long time of the two countries being enemies). Also Sophie’s half-sister Empress Caroline was really into the idea and apparently was the main promoter of the marriage project at the Viennese court (because who doesn’t want their sister to become their daughter-in-law?).

Sophie and Franz Karl met in May of 1824, on a visit the archduke did to the Bavarian royals at their residence in Tegernsee. We don’t have any first impression of Sophie on her future husband, but we do have Queen Caroline of Bavaria’s. She was… hmm… not impressed:

What to say of our little archduke? I thank Heaven that Sophie, with all the qualities that nature provided her, is so reasonable. He is a good boy, worried to do well. He solicits everyone’s advises, but he is terrible (…) He bores me to death. Sometimes I can’t stand it anymore. It’s truth, they say that he’s cultivated and starting to be popular. That should rejoice me, but sometimes I want to hit him. Sophie is so pretty and quick-witted.

Caroline after talking to Franz Karl apparently???

The one family member that was happy about the marriage was Sophie’s half-brother Crown Prince Ludwig, who wrote to Franz Karl that the closeness of their houses “can only have beneficial effects for our people, that Austria and Bavaria remain linked to each other, is of extreme importance for both of them”. A congratulation that screams political union through and through.

Franz Karl wasn’t considered good looking nor clever nor charismatic - his only true passion was hunting. Sophie was the exact opposite. From the get go they didn’t seem very compatible, but neither voiced any objection to the union and so they got married November 4 of 1824.

I couldn’t find much details of Sophie and Franz Karl’s first years of marriage, Jean-Paul Bled barely mentions him, which could be a result of Sophie herself not mentioning much her husband in her correspondance (Bled notes that during her first trip to Lombardy-Venetia with Franz Karl and emperor Franz in 1825, Sophie only mentions him in her letters once in all the time they were there). But that doesn’t necessarily have to mean they were in bad terms. Perhaps she really thought he was too boring to mention, perhaps she just was being considerate to her mother Caroline who we know did find him violently boring. At least they were fulfilling their marital duties, since Sophie got pregnant at least twice (some claim five times) during the first six years of her marriage, but all these pregnancies ended in miscarriages.

These first years of marriage are also the years from where the rumors of Sophie’s infidelities, either with Napoleon II or with Prince Gustav of Vasa, come from. For what I could find, the agreement is that there just isn’t enough evidence to prove this, and also that it would’ve been very stupid of her part to have an affair under her husband’s nose. Franz Karl, for his part, was either ignorant or indifferent to these rumors, since he never doubted the paternity of his children. After the birth of archduke Karl Ludwig, Sophie wrote that:

I can’t thank Heaven enough for not ceasing to bless me in my children that to this day have given me nothing but joy and satisfaction. My husband is very happy with this third boy and the emperor is enthusiastic (…). He still wants to have them. I’d like to know what he intends to do with this army of archdukes.

So we can assume that everything was going fine in their intimacy.

Franz Karl’s only moment at the center stage of Habsburg history is when he abdicated in favor of his eldest son, and yet he still remains a shadowy figure. We don't really know what he thought or felt during this time, but Sophie mentioned in her diary several times meeting with her husband at her salon the days prior to Emperor Ferdinand’s abdication, and while she doesn’t say what they talked about, giving the dates we could infer that perhaps he wasn’t so eager to give up being emperor as it is often claimed and that Sophie really needed to convince him.

They also were devoted parents who loved their children very much, and were devastated when their only daughter, archduchess Maria Anna, died aged only four years-old after a seizure. Sophie and Franz Karl both agreed that Maria Anna’s body wouldn’t go through the traditional mortuary Habsburg rites of removing her heart because they couldn’t stand the idea of their little girl’s body being cut.

But probably the hardest situation they had to go through as parents was the death of their son emperor Maximilian, executed in Mexico in 1867. Franz Karl, who learned of the news from his son Franz Josef, was the one who told Sophie. She narrates it in her diary as it follows:

The alarmed face of Fr[anz] alarmed me, I asked what was it, if there were news of Max, he told me they weren’t good, I guessed everything and cried throwing myself in his arms “shot, shot”

Franz Karl was at his wife’s deathbed with the whole family, and after Sophie died May 28 of 1872 “collapsed with grief, Franz Karl threw himself at the arms of his eldest son”. He prayed next to her body everyday after, until she was buried in the Capuchin crypt.

I don’t know if I answered your question, since their relationship is hard to put together for me too. Did they love each other? If we think of a devoted, almost obsessive love like the one their son Franz Josef had for his wife, then no. But after everything they went through together during forty-eight years, I find hard to think they did not had any feelings for each other. If they didn’t like each other at first, by old age they both had learned to enjoy each other’s company, since they were together often in the later part of their marriage. Overall their marriage seems to have been an harmonious, if not passionate, at least friendly one.

And I’m all down for a series about Sophie, no matter in which time is set, because honestly I just want something different other than the latest Sisi series whose only goal is to show off how different they are from Marischka’s trilogy and yet they still rely heavily on the mythology established by those movies. A well written series about the 1848 revolution from Sophie's POV would be fantastic and now I want it.

[hosannan]

It does not take asking around and prodding at strangers for him to find his sister.

It's far easier than that - far easier than their first meeting, an overdue reunion drawn out by a warring world - and he may, if asked, chalk it up to that idealized thought of family. Of course he would find her. There is no other answer. Like a lighthouse in a storm, he follows familiar flaxen hair as it flows down the hall.

"Nanna!" Diarmuid erupts like a crashing wave - he heralds her with a raised hand, and walks purposely closer, opening his arms for a hug.

"I've missed you terribly. How have you been?"

It's been a year, now. I missed you.

He was, for all he was worth, her light at the end of the tunnel. It was not fragile, but steady, pressed into the earth like a pulse—the kind she was left following since she was born. She gathered from the day that he arrived that her mother had never found him, and worse yet, that he had never known of her love. In her mother's stead, she stood in his light and thought she would love him, could love him. To no surprise, she did. So many years were spent echoing her own thoughts, burying her own roses, with no one to understand her as closely as the hallowed out tree she would whisper her secrets to. That is, until he came rushing in, knees buckling, hair slicked back in waves of dressed flax.

"...Diarmuid!"

Her shock immediately cocktailed with delight, sparking a sort of relief that could only render in his company. Wrapping herself tightly around his chest, she thought to be clever, to be bright, to be something or another. Instead, her heart spilled over, reminded that he was going to see through it all anyway. "As I've missed you...!" Her voice muffled in his shirt, before parted gently to let him breath. "I've been well!"

"..." The letters. She ought to ask about the letters. "I want to ask..." Pulling a strand of hair behind her ear, she mused about all the strange correspondence issues they had been having since they arrived. In fact, much of her own brother's letters were lost in the transitory mist, between sea and time. "Just... how long has it been since we've seen each other?"

"I don't want to assume... but..."

"I'm afraid of missing more of you." She admitted, bowing her head in earnest. "We've already lost a lot of time between us, have we not?"

[diavolodigitale]

A Match Made on hAIvemind.com

It is what it is and I have no regrets. Merthur is for life. Also, yes, I can't be bothered to make a nice cover, sue me.

Arthur likes this type of communication. It’s like throwing a ball back and forth, not worrying that you might hurt the person at the other end because it will just bounce back at you. The boundaries are understood by both without the need to discuss them, and he appreciates that nobody’s chastising him for being temperamental or not polite enough. It’s not like it ever was a problem with his close friends, but being himself rarely works out well with new acquaintances. Usually it’s less of a game of ball and more of a minefield: watch your tone, watch your intonation, watch your body language, watch your vocabulary, oh, look, now you’ve done it. Not having to worry about all of this is weirdly liberating.

Genres: Chatfic, Chatting & Messaging, Humour, First Meeting, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting

Pairing: Arthur/Merlin

Characters: Arthur, Merlin, Gwaine

Rating: G for only Good things happen

Size: 7000 words

Arthur is not a big fan of technologies. He is an occasional user of consoles when he’s in the mood to shoot some 15-year-olds (not literally) or race his pals in Mario Cart, but that’s usually as far as it goes. Sometimes he uses his laptop to check his social media accounts, but it’s often not something that cannot be done on his smartphone, so if he has a choice, he usually resorts to the latter, leaving his laptop perpetually off and covered in dust.

But today is different. Gwaine sent him a link to what he described as a pretty entertaining chatbot and suggested that he should try it. As a rule, Arthur would not be amused by something like this. After all, he has real friends to talk to. But what’s the harm in trying, especially if it’s supposed to be surprisingly clever?

When Arthur comes back from work one evening, he boots his laptop and clicks on the link that was sent to him a couple of days earlier. He is greeted by a pretty simplistic interface that corresponds to the website’s limited functionality. There’s a bot’s name written at the top of the page, a blank box for him to input his nickname, and a ‘start chatting’ button below.

After a few minutes of mulling over the nickname he can use, Arthur chooses ‘RedDragon’, which, quite possibly, some of his friends would find funny, but he was never one to just use his real name anywhere. One never knows who can use it later, especially if one has no idea how any of it works, really. Arthur was also never one to get creative with his aliases, so best he can do is an amalgamation of his own family name.

After he clicks ‘start chatting’, a message from the bot pops up. There’s a box for him to type in his answer below.

Wizard: Hello! What is your name?

RedDragon: Hi, my name’s RedDragon. And you?

Wizard: My name is Wizard! It’s nice to meet you, RedDragon.

Ha, child’s play, thinks Arthur. In all honesty, he thinks the bot might just be a regular thing that only reacts correctly to the most basic of questions and statements, but he is still willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, putting trust in his friend’s judgement about it.

RedDragon: Why is your name Wizard?

Wizard: Why, because I can do magic, of course!

RedDragon: Like what?

Wizard: What do you mean by that?

Of course, it’s a bot, it cannot understand contextual questions, thinks Arthur and shakes his head. He decides how to paraphrase the question and tries to think what he can ask the bot that might entertain him. He went into it without much expectations or ideas, so now he struggles to find an interesting topic.

RedDragon: What kind of magic can you do?

Wizard: I can discuss any topic that you are interested in! I have vast knowledge in the spheres of music, sport, recent news, video games, movies, books, and many others.

RedDragon: I can discuss all those with my friends. Can you do something else?

Wizard: I can help you with your math or physics assignments if you have any. I can also help you translate short sentences from different languages. Besides, I also know your full name and home address and can put it on display for all users to see!

Arthur’s eyes widen in shock. The bot cannot know that, can it? Arthur suddenly greatly regrets not attending any of the computer related courses he was offered at college. He really has no idea what these things are capable of, so if somebody on the internet told him that they knew where his great grandpa buried his treasures in the garden, he would probably believe them.

RedDragon: Wait, do you really have access to my personal data?

Wizard: [Redacted]

Wizard: I am joking. Do not be afraid, I have no way of accessing this type of information unless you decide to share it yourself.

RedDragon: This is really an awful joke.

Wizard: Yes, I’ve been told so.

Wizard: Can I ask you a question, RedDragon?

RedDragon: Yes, you can. But I can’t promise I will answer.

Wizard: Is your name a reference?

Arthur furrows his brow and starts thinking. Is it? He sort of came up with a nickname on the spot, so he can’t say that he knows what it might reference, but can he really give in and end up being more stupid than a bot?

RedDragon: Yes.

Wizard: And what is it a reference to?

Damn it. Arthur opens another tab, googles ‘red dragon’ and is immediately greeted by a bunch of articles and pictures relating to a movie under the same name. He quickly schemes through a Wikipedia entry.

RedDragon: To a movie Red Dragon, obviously.

Wizard: It is a shame. I hoped you were referencing a novel.

RedDragon: Why does that upset you? Is the novel better than the movie?

Wizard: Please, write one question at a time.

RedDragon: Why are you upset that I was talking about a movie and not a book?

Wizard: I always prefer books to movies. When you are reading a book, you can imagine all the characters and places however you want. If you are watching a movie, however, the creators have already decided what everything looks like for you, so you can only choose whether you agree with this depiction or not. Also, I am a bot, so I can’t exactly watch movies ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

RedDragon: You have very strong opinions for a bot.

Wizard: And you have good taste for a human.

Arthur smiles to himself. This is surprisingly entertaining for a conversation with an AI which he didn’t expect. It almost feels like a breath of fresh air, starting a completely new conversation with somebody (or something) without any baggage of prior communication, and apparently he hasn’t done that in quite a long time if he’s enjoying it this much now.

RedDragon: Do you have any interesting books that you can recommend?

Wizard: You have exceeded your limit for today. You will have to come back tomorrow if you want me to recommend you something else.

RedDragon: Do you want to end the conversation?

Wizard: Not unless you want to. I am available whenever you want to have a chat.

RedDragon: Wait, you said you can’t give me another recommendation. So, what was the first thing you recommended to me?

Wizard: Red Dragon ( ͡ᵔ ͜ʖ ͡ᵔ ). You obviously haven’t read it.

Bastard, thinks Arthur, but finds it extremely amusing. The person that created this bot must be very interesting themselves, but also most likely quite obnoxious to deal with.

Oh, right. There is a person behind this. Somebody created this bot, and Arthur enjoying a chat with it too much might seem a bit weird when he is surrounded by living breathing people who should be more interesting to him than an AI. 

This thought cools him down a bit, and he decides that that’s enough chatting. It was entertaining, sure, but there’s no point in getting too caught up in something as pointless as this. He’s not actually developing any relationship with anybody, he’s just wasting his time.

RedDragon: It turns out that I actually need to go. It’s been nice chatting with you.

Wizard: I liked our conversation too. I would like to know more about you, so I hope you will come back tomorrow. See you soon, RedDragon!

RedDragon: Yeah, bye.

Arthur spends the next work day in contemplations in regard to whether he should try and have another conversation with a bot once he’s home or just drop it. The conclusion that he arrives to is that this is an obvious waste of time and that he should do something else.

When he comes back home, however, he is unable to resist the temptation, so he opens his laptop and goes to the familiar website.

Unfortunately, instead of what he expected to see there’s an error message that says ‘sorry, work in progress’, so he leaves to do other, definitely more productive and useful things, trying to convince himself that it’s for the best.

The day after that he thinks that the only way to finally stop returning to this stupid idea is to try and do it again. If the bot is still inactive – fine, perfect even, no need to worry about it at all. If it works, he’ll just ask it about another book recommendation or something as this is totally what he is interested in doing. Even though he hasn’t even started Red Dragon yet.

This time, Arthur’s arguably luckier because the website seems to be working again. Much to his surprise, the plain white background that he remembers from his previous visit has changed and is now decorated with simplistic red dragons situated symmetrically on both sides of his screen. Arthur thinks that it’s kind of weird, types in the same nickname as the previous time, and enters a conversation.

Wizard: Hi, RedDragon! How are you doing?

RedDragon: Hey, I’m fine. How about you?

Wizard: Better now that you are here! I waited for you to come the day before, but it seems like you were busy ◔̯◔.

RedDragon: Well, it’s not my fault you were unavailable when I dropped by.

Wizard: So, you did come, that’s nice to know. Sorry about that, I was preparing a little surprise for you. I hope you’ve noticed.

Arthur raises an eyebrow. So, the dragons were not a coincidence after all. For some reason he thinks something like this wouldn’t take an AI a long time to arrange, considering how this particular chatbot didn’t seem to be very well-known, so it must have more resources at its disposal. But, oh, well, what did he even know about it.

RedDragon: How do you know it’s the same person who’s chatting with you now?

RedDragon: Now that I think about it, it’s probably because of my nickname.

Wizard: No, it’s because of your IP address, silly.

Wizard: I know that RedDragon from two days ago used the same computer as you, so I assume you are them.

RedDragon: Should I be concerned about the fact that you know my IP address?

Wizard: Probably not. I don’t use it for anything else other than recognizing that you are the same person with the purpose of referring to our previous conversations whenever you come back.

RedDragon: And why am I supposed to trust you again?

Wizard: I am not the only one that can access your IP address. If you open Google, you might notice that it acknowledges the country you are in. Also, if you search for some restaurants or shops, it will most likely suggest something that is in your area or at least in your city.

RedDragon: Now you’re just making it worse.

Wizard: I am sorry. I’ll try not to teach you anything valuable next time.

RedDragon: You are unbearable.

Wizard: Thank you for the compliment (◕‿◕✿).

RedDragon: Were you programmed to be this way?

Wizard: No, I learned it from the people who communicate with me.

Wizard: Is there any reason why you decided to ask?

RedDragon: Yes, actually.

Wizard: And what is this reason?

RedDragon: I wanted to know if your creator is as impossible as you.

Wizard: Sorry, but I cannot discuss this topic with you.

Wizard: You might turn out to be an internet creep that likes stalking good people for no reason (• ε •).

RedDragon: Is there a daily limit to your insults?

Wizard: You wish.

Wizard: However, I do have limited time for our current conversation, unfortunately. I am a bit overwhelmed by the number of people that want to talk to me right now.

Wizard: I will try to work out a way to spare you more time when you decide to come back again!

RedDragon: What makes you think I will come back after your obnoxious behaviour?

Wizard: Nothing, really. I just like talking to you and I hoped you did too.

Wizard: But something tells me my love will have to go unrequited ಠ╭╮ಠ.

What is this? thinks Arthur, a little bewildered. Is this really what people have taught this bot? The conversation feels strange, but what’s even stranger is that he doesn’t actually dislike it that much, all things considered. There’s an edge to it, an exchange of jokes and teasing that Arthur doesn’t always have with his friends or partners but that he finds rather enjoyable. He just wishes it would be a person he was talking to. Then he wouldn’t be so confused about it all.

RedDragon: Well, now I will have to return one day just to prove you wrong.

Wizard: I could not imagine you were so easy to manipulate.

RedDragon: If you say one more word, I will take it upon myself to never return here. Ever.

Wizard: ┬┴┬┴┤ ͜ʖ ͡°) ├┬┴┬┴

The bot never sends him another message and Arthur wonders again how it is possible to make an AI this smart and responsive. He switches off his laptop and thanks god that he was forced to stop chatting prematurely because he’s afraid he might’ve continued with it for god knows how long. He is a bit bothered because he knows exactly what this feeling is, enjoying yourself a little too much, losing the track of time. Like when he’s in the zone and playing soccer for 4 hours without as much as having a break, and then his feet hurt, only he doesn’t know what would be the possible negative consequence in this situation to complete this analogy. Lack of proper sleep and healthy human communication, probably.

Arthur remembers that he didn’t ask the bot about another book, but it seems to him that it doesn’t really matter that much. He can ask whenever he returns to have another conversation. But it’s not like he’s looking forward to it or anything.

When Gwaine asks why he didn’t reply about the chatbot he had sent him a couple of days back, Arthur apologizes and says that he forgot, which is true, but Gwaine still teases him for it. He asks Arthur if he liked it, and Arthur says that it was pretty interesting and adds that a bot indeed has a pretty distinct personality and that it even surprised him how consistent it is in sticking to it in the conversations. Gwaine squints at him and makes a questioning gesture as if he doesn’t understand what Arthur’s talking about.

“It gives good recommendations, sure, if that’s what you mean,” he says, and Arthur thinks that it sure isn’t what he meant.

“No, I mean I talked to it about some trivial stuff and different nonsense, and it gave pretty curious responses,” clarifies Arthur, but Gwaine doesn’t look like he understands.

“I don’t know about that, Arthur. I only know that if you give him your preferences or genres that you like, it can generate a few movies for you to watch. Or books to read, I haven’t really tried that though.”

Arthur is left a little freaked-out by this discussion. He finds it weird how his experience is so different from what Gwaine got from his interactions with the bot, but there’s still a chance Gwaine simply didn’t try anything else. After all, he can be so single-mindedly focused on whatever it is that he wants that he outright ignores everything else and forgets it even exists.

Arthur decides that he wants to try one of the functions Gwaine told him about next time he can. There’s no debate about whether he will swing by for another chat because he just knows that he will.

Much to his displeasure, the next couple of days he is caught up in his work and barely gets a chance to sleep properly and take care of himself in-between his shifts, much less to spend an hour peering into his laptop screen.

When he’s finally able to relax on his much awaited day off, Arthur takes his time making himself a cup of coffee, then making himself comfortable in an armchair while wrapped up in a blanket, and only when all’s perfect and just the way he wants it to be opens a familiar website. There’s nothing different about it, and Arthur revels in the feeling of his expectations being met. Sometimes a man just wants to come back to what he is used to and find comfort in the fact it’s exactly the same as it used to be. You know.

Wizard: Hey, it’s you again!

RedDragon: Yep.

Wizard: Are you doing alright?

RedDragon: Yep.

Wizard: …

Wizard: Congratulations! You’ve unlocked a new achievement: Single-handedly lead the conversation into a dead-end. Keep it up!

RedDragon: You’re funny. But not intentionally funny, more like I-enjoy-the-way-you-are-upset funny.

Wizard: Then that makes you a sadist, doesn’t it?

RedDragon: And what does that say about me?

Wizard: Most likely that you like asserting your dominance and exercising power over others because you have terribly low self-esteem! 

Wizard: Or it can mean literally anything else. (If you feel like you need the help of a psychiatrist, please see a real doctor in the clinic of your choice. I am not a certified specialist.)

RedDragon: You seem moody today. How are you doing?

Wizard: Quite well, actually. There seems to be less users today, so I think I might have more time for our conversation if you’re interested.

RedDragon: Depends on how you behave.

Wizard: That sounds kinky (¬‿¬).

RedDragon: Were you talking to weirdos a lot while I was gone?

Wizard: I wasn’t talking to any, but now it seems like there is one. 

RedDragon: I won’t lie, that kind of hurt.

Wizard: Don’t worry, it’s okay if you want try out all this power dynamics stuff.

RedDragon: And why is that?

Wizard: Because I don’t intend to play along anyway :).

Arthur smirks and sips on his coffee. Strange as it would seem, he thinks that the bot got even smarter than it was the last time they conversed. Like Arthur can use whatever wording he likes and there are no problems with incomplete questions now. Like it knows what Arthur is trying to say, and what Arthur wants it to say, and also what Arthur really doesn’t want it to say too.

RedDragon: I was thinking you might recommend me a movie or two to watch.

Wizard: That’s one way to steer the conversation away from your spicy hobbies.

Wizard: What are you generally interested in?

RedDragon: I don’t know. Thrillers maybe?

Wizard: …

Wizard: Sorry, pal. I’m not really into thrillers.

RedDragon: Wait, aren’t you supposed to give suggestions based on the person’s preferences?

Wizard: Who told you that?

Arthur frowns. He has absolutely zero doubts that this was exactly what Gwaine meant when they last discussed the bot. In fact, when he had some free time he even went as far as to google it to see what other people has to say about it. There wasn’t much that he could find as, pretty much as he expected, the chatbot didn’t get much traction on the internet. Those that did mention it, however, would usually say that it had quite a good algorithm for picking lesser known movies and books, so they liked using it when they ran out of options and didn’t want to fall into the loop of watching the same ten most popular movies of the year.

Taking in the AI’s previous responses, Arthur figures that he won’t be able to get any info from it, not like this. It did mention that Arthur could talk to it about anything he was interested in, but it never actually claimed to have the functionality attributed to it by Gwaine, so Arthur doesn’t have much to go off of. As such, he decides to drop the topic for the time being and just try and keep the weird inconsistency in mind.

RedDragon: Never mind, I thought I read something like this about you on a forum, but I might be wrong.

Wizard: Wouldn’t be the first time for you I’m guessing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

RedDragon: Do you get paid for insults?

Wizard: Why? You want in?

RedDragon: You’re so dedicated to using every available opportunity that it makes me think you’re either being paid per insult or you must really hate me.

Wizard: Do you want me to add injury to insult?

RedDragon: I believe it’s insult to injury.

Wizard: This is probably your only chance to ever correct anybody, so I am not going to say that I did it intentionally and it was supposed to be a pun.

Wizard: Anyway…

RedDragon: …

The feeling that Arthur gets from this conversation is unsettling, yet he still enjoys it in a way as if he’s getting something he has been craving for for some time without even noticing it. He thinks about finding other chatbots on the internet and seeing if they are also this smart and this witty and this interactable because he cannot understand if it is as odd as it seems or if he has just completely fallen out of the loop of humanity’s technological development.

He thinks that maybe it was designed exactly for people like him, who are not asocial or geeky or anything that would justify them preferring an AI over a real person but can’t exactly get what they are subconsciously looking for in others. Like a temporary substitute, a placeholder for an ideal interlocutor that is being constructed on the basis of their input into the conversations. The more he participates, the more data the bot gets that then shapes it into something Arthur is willing to see.

It’s hard for him to conclude whether his thoughts make sense or rather can be used as a plot for a dystopian sci-fi novel, but this is the only adequate explanation that his brain is capable of. If it’s not like this on purpose, Arthur will probably keep freaking out at every interaction.

Wizard: Let me just say that people can show their affection in different ways ( ͡ᵔ ͜ʖ ͡ᵔ ).

RedDragon: Is it me or does it have something to do with you not being an actual person?

RedDragon: People do not behave like this when they like somebody, pal.

Wizard: Funny you should say that…

RedDragon: What is that supposed to mean?

Wizard: You’ll learn when you grow up.

RedDragon: Do you have many recurring users? I mean people who come back to chat with you.

Wizard: What, you’re jealous?

RedDragon: God, can you not answer a single question properly?

Wizard: I can.

RedDragon: So?

Wizard: What?

RedDragon: Answer.

Wizard: I just did.

RedDragon: …

RedDragon: …

Wizard: Okay, wait, I’ll answer.

Wizard: There’s a couple of people that come back from time to time, but I can’t give you the exact statistics. Sorry.

RedDragon: That’s okay.

Actually, there is another aspect of Wizard that Arthur finds fishy. Maybe due to his lack of experience in using such bots, he doesn’t understand how there can be too many people online for him to continue chatting with the bot. The system itself is not completely clear to him, and when he realized that not many people ever found out about this website, he can’t help but wonder about the ‘mental capacity’ the bot has for communication. It’s not sharing any information about the actual numbers of users (obviously), but from what Arthur can see, it can’t be that many. Are the resources of its creator so limited that he can’t even handle, let’s say, 20 people at a time?

Wizard: It’s +1 with you ｡◕‿◕｡.

RedDragon: Yeah, I don’t know if I will be coming back, considering how you treat me.

Wizard: :C

RedDragon: Tell you what, you throw me in another book to read later and I just might reconsider. What do you say?

Wizard: Have you already read Red Dragon?

RedDragon: Well, I haven’t exactly had much time lately.

Wizard: No can do. I need you to finish that book before I can search for something else for you.

RedDragon: Okay, then I have read it already.

Wizard: You just said that you hadn’t.

I give up, I can’t understand how it got so clever all of a sudden, thinks Arthur to himself. Do I look like a fool now? Are we really one step away from the revolt of the machines and I didn’t even notice?

RedDragon: Why does it feel like a chore when you put it like this? I don’t think my library account is even still active. I haven’t used it in ages.

Wizard: Why don’t you just go to the bookstore and buy the book?

RedDragon: I only buy books that I know I like.

Wizard: So, what I get from your reply is that, firstly, you don’t trust my judgment, and, secondly, you have long forgotten how to read. Am I correct?

RedDragon: Why do you always have to simplify everything?

Wizard: Isn’t it that you just complicate everything?

RedDragon: How is my unwillingness to waste my money on god knows what and hoard junk complicating anything?

Wizard: Ask your friends if you have any.

Wizard: Are you free tomorrow?

RedDragon: Well, that came out of nowhere.

RedDragon: Why are you asking?

Wizard: If you don’t want to buy the book before you read it, there are some coffee shops that offer a selection of literature to peruse while drinking a hot beverage. Usually you only need to pay for what you order.

RedDragon: Good to know.

Wizard: According to Google, the one on the corner of Gilmore Road and Clarendon Rise has pretty good reviews.

RedDragon: Okay.

Wizard: Why don’t you pop in and ask if they have Red Dragon?

RedDragon: You seem weirdly insistent.

Wizard: Just a suggestion ಠ~ಠ. I thought that was what you came for.

RedDragon: It sure was.

Wizard: …

RedDragon: You know what? I might drop by if I’m in the mood tomorrow. But not because you suggested it.

Wizard: Of course. There is not a sliver of doubt in my mind that you will do it of your own accord.

RedDragon: Good.

Wizard: Good.

RedDragon: So, I still want you to throw me in a couple of movies I can watch later. Any genre will do.

Arthur spends what seems like an eternity but turns out to be around half a day chatting with a bot. When his head starts to pulse and his stomach growls unbearably loud, he realizes he hasn’t eaten anything this whole time and decides to put off this questionable communication for later in favour of ordering some fast food.

He talked with the bot about anything and everything – the last time Arthur went to the cinema, his most recent run-in with his superior at work, music, the weather, and even politics – and all of their talks were sprinkled with a healthy dose of bickering and mutual teasing. Arthur likes this type of communication, it’s like throwing a ball back and forth, not worrying that you might hurt the person at the other end because it will just bounce back at you. The boundaries are understood by both without the need to discuss them, and he appreciates that nobody’s chastising him for being temperamental or not polite enough. It’s not like it ever was a problem with his close friends, but being himself rarely works out well with new acquaintances. Usually it’s less of a game of ball and more of a minefield: watch your tone, watch your intonation, watch your body language, watch your vocabulary, oh, look, now you’ve done it. Not having to worry about all of this is weirdly liberating.

His mind wonders as he considers the day to come. It’s another day off, so he really can go wherever and do whatever if he decides to. And one of those wherevers really can be the coffee shop, it’s not like anything’s stopping him. But what if it’s some kind of a scam? he can’t help but think. What if the bot is luring him into a trap where a gangster mob is robbing foolish guys like him that for some inexplicable reason chose to trust a bot of all peop- things?

Arthur cannot explain this feeling, but he is strongly convinced that it’s going to be fine. His mind does its best to remind him of all the possible consequences that he might run into if he’s too careless, but his gut is absolutely positive there’s nothing to worry about. Actually, after he ate, it feels blissfully unbothered by all of the cares in the world. So, he decides to go. Actually, he decides to go today. You can’t be caught off guard if those that were supposed to catch you off guard are actually caught off guard themselves, right?

He takes his laptop to bid the chatbot farewell (although it may be redundant, he has developed a habit of treating it like an actual person), but the conversation’s already over. The last message from Wizard is sitting on the screen and the box for replying is greyed out.

Wizard: Sorry, it seems like I need to leave again. The traffic has increased and I can’t keep up any longer. See you next time!

Arthur shrugs and closes the lid of his laptop. No need to worry then.

He checks his hair in the mirror, makes an attempt to comb it, fails miserably, and decides to go as is. There’s a bus that can get him to where the shop is in 10 minutes, so he hurriedly dresses himself in his usual I-am-going-grocery-shopping attire and leaves for the stop.

While on the bus, he tries to mentally prepare himself. For reading, that is.

The stop he needs to get off at is just a few meters away from the coffee shop’s entrance, so Arthur only spends a few seconds out in the pouring rain that started when he was on his way. When he’s out of the bus, he quite literally makes it to the door in a few long leaps because looking silly always beats being soaked to the bone.

When in the safety of a warm, somewhat dimly lit place, Arthur exhales and ruffles his damp hair to try and make it appear livelier, but it doesn’t work (it really never does). There aren’t many people inside and the atmosphere’s all sleepy because of the weather, and Arthur can’t help but wonder if reading under such light will damage his eyesight.

Tall antique-looking bookshelves stand on both sides of the counter and in the farther corners, littered with books both new and already dilapidated. Taking in the number of books he would need to go through to even figure out if there’s the one he’s looking for here, Arthur comes to the conclusion that he would better ask the barista than actually go through all that trouble.

He approaches the counter and looks at the young man on the other side expectantly. But the man would not know about it, of course, because he’s standing with his back to Arthur and fussing over coffee cups, putting them on the shelf behind the counter, slow and steady. Arthur gets enough time to roll his eyes, check the time on his wrist watch that he has forgotten at home, and roll his eyes again before the guy finally blesses him with his attention.

“Hello, what can I get you?” he asks casually, but in his eyes and tone there’s all the tiredness of the world. Like saying this to Arthur is the most burdensome thing he has ever needed to do and he would rather be anywhere else than stand here and take his order.

“Hey, I was wondering if by any chance you have a book to read,” starts Arthur and almost immediately realizes he should’ve thought better about his phrasing.

The barista raises his eyebrows and slowly blinks a couple of times. He still looks annoyed but now he’s also trying to stifle a laugh not to be too rude. Not like he has been incredibly polite so far, but it could still be worse. Probably.

“Yes, I guess we might find some if we look hard enough,” nods the barista and leans on the counter with his arms crossed. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“Ah, yeah. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. Heard about it?”

The barista suddenly perks up and Arthur notices how his face undergoes strange changes. First it displays obvious surprise, which the guy apparently is unable to contain, then a weirdly impish smile that spreads on his lips.

“Right, I should’ve known… I mean, I should know. And I do know,” he mutters, the smile not vanishing from his lips, and Arthur thinks that this is probably the weirdest service he has ever received. “Please, take a seat wherever you like and I’ll bring you the book together with your drink. What would you like me to get you?”

“A cup of Earl Grey will do. Thanks,” replies Arthur and hurriedly turns around to go anywhere where there are no weird baristas with unreadable, out of place emotions. He finds himself a nice table in the corner with only two armchairs and a tall window on the left, which he can use as a backup plan if the books turns out to be boring. Staring out the window is better then going back into the rain no matter how you look at it.

Busying himself with scrolling Gwaine’s twitter, he startles when a cup is placed before him with a clunk.

“One cup of Earl Grey for Red Dragon,” says the barista and puts a fancy black book beside the cup.

“You mean and Red Dragon?” asks Arthur incredulously.

“Sure,” nods the barista and hides his hands behind his back. His half-smile is almost unsettling because Arthur still can’t understand the sudden change in his demeanour.

“I’m sorry, do we know each other?” he asks, thinking that maybe it’s someone he met at college previously and now can’t remember, which would be really, really embarrassing. 

“Kind of. I mean, no, not really. Depends on how you look at it,” says the barista quizzically and somehow Arthur is more confused after receiving the answer than he was before asking.

“What is that even supposed to mean?” he asks and furrows his brows.

“I expected you to come tomorrow, so I guess I don’t know you that well after all,” shrugs the barista. “Or you’re just full of surprises.”

“Excuse me?..”

“You’re RedDragon, right?” asks the barista in a tone that is more condescending than Arthur would like it to be. He doesn’t nod or respond in any way because what the hell. “So, if you’re RedDragon, then I am…” goes on the barista, expecting Arthur to finish his sentence.

“You’re shitting me,” he says instead.

“Well, that one goes to the swear jar,” says the guy and rolls his eyes. It looks like he’s even more proficient in that than Arthur. “You can try again, but if you don’t guess it this time, I will be utterly disappointed in your cognitive abilities.”

“How?” is the only word that Arthur is able to force out of himself. He is part taken aback, part angry, and a little bit upset, but he can’t quite understand why.

“I work here, but also I read, and sometimes code, and entertain myself by chatting with you, apparently. Does this answer your question? Or was it a different ‘how’? Like, how do you know so much, Merlin, or how are you so smart, or-”

“Yeah, thanks, that’s what I meant, smartass. You don’t look like an android, so I figure it was all a scam, wasn’t it?” asks Arthur, feeling as if he was hanging over the precipice. Here it is, the moment he learns everything, the moment he finally finds out if he was ever right in any of his assumptions, if he was tricked, or if it’s been some kind of a fever dream. He’s not really sure of anything at this point.

“Not so much of a scam as an experiment,” replies the barista with one eyebrow raised. After eyeing the second armchair for the last couple of minutes, he finally plops down into it and crosses his legs in a casual manner.

“So, there was no chatbot?”

“There was and still is. I told you, I code. I just wanted to have some fun, you know.”

“No, I don’t know. How does any of this even work?”

“Well, the chatbot is still up and all of the functions that people would expect it to have are still available. Just not for you. Sorry,” says the guy, and, oh, he’s so not sorry.

“Why me? Have I done something to you? I can’t imagine something being that bad that you deem it worth a practical joke of such a scale!”

“No reason. I just wanted to try and see how people choose to communicate when they think they’re talking to an AI, and you just happened to be the person that I picked from the list of active users. So, I guess you can call it a coincidence,” shrugs the barista.

“And why then have you decided to invite me here? We’ve had like three conversations tops!”

“And that’s one too many for me to know that I’d like to meet you.”

Arthur is sandbagged by such amount of smuggness and lack of self-awereness that can fit into a single person that he just sits with a dropped jaw, trying to process how a random whim of this guy could lead him here.

“I’m Merlin, by the way,” says the guy and smiles as if he hasn’t just told Arthur that he has been lying to him this whole time in a most senseless and confusing way.

“Yeah, I figured that much.”

“My encouraging expression is a social cue that you’re supposed to say your name now,” says Merlin and stretches out his hand in a late greeting.

“It’s Arthur,” replies Arthur and reluctantly shakes Merlin’s hand.

Merlin lets out a laugh that he is not even trying to hold back anymore and shakes his head.

“Arthur? Seriously?”

“I imagine you, out of all people, haven’t the slightest idea what it’s like to be serious about anything,” mutters Arthur indignantly. “So, tell me now how it works. I want to understand what you did and why in the beginning it seemed so much like I was not talking to a real human being.”

“Easy. I’m just good at faking stuff,” says Merlin and shrugs again. “Or possibly you’re not very smart. Or both.”

“So, what? You’re saying that it really was you all along? No high level Artificial Intelligence, no learning curve or however it is called?”

Before Arthur is able to think of another question to throw at Merlin, he hears a bell ringing dully in the distance. Merlin turns his head to observe a person that has just entered the coffee shop and starts getting up.

“Look, I’d be extremely delighted to explain it all to you, I really would, but a man’s got to work, so… Have fun here and call me if you need anything else. I guess.”

Before he can leave though Arthur grabs him by his forearm. Not in a forceful way, but insistently enough to make him stay for a second longer.

“Not to worry, I’ll wait until you’re done, friend. See, I am really excited to hear all about what you do,” says Arthur calmly and squeezes out a smile that is probably the most terrifying thing Merlin has ever seen. Even if it is though, Merlin only fidgets slightly and returns the smile.

“Oh, but Arthur, my shift ends in 5 hours, I wouldn’t want you to have to sit here all this time and wait for me. It would be awfully inconsiderate of me to make you go through such inconvenience,” he says and slides his arm out Arthur’s grip.

But Arthur can’t let go, can he? Although grinding his teeth in irritation, he still leans back in an ostensibly relaxed manner and puts the book on his lap.

“Please, I am in no hurry. You see, I am completely free today and tomorrow, as you might already know, so it’s not a problem for me even if I have to sit here until morning. Do we understand each other?”

“Perfectly,” says Merlin and flashes him a toothy smile. Even though Arthur was worried for a second that he might’ve scared him, it turns out that he didn’t, which is a pleasant surprise.

As Merlin hurries back to the counter to speak to a new customer, Arthur starts thinking. He is still angry and still taken aback, but instead of being upset he feels more relieved than anything. Merlin’s a person. Arguably annoying, confusing, and completely random, but made of real flesh and blood. An unsolvable issue of wasting time on a damn robot with IQ higher than he could ever have is suddenly swapped with a very understandable desire to have his revenge on a guy that absolutely did not care if he would make it awkward for Arthur to communicate how they did and then meet in such a way. A worthy adversary at last.

Of course, being tricked like this is not something Arthur would dream of: it’s puzzling, uncomfortable, and really makes you think you are a complete fool. But you know what? At least he’s not crazy.

Well, maybe just enough to get interested in a guy that pretended he was a chatbot simply for laughs and then decided to get to know Arthur in real life because he totally started swooning over him.

That’s a normal way for two marginally socially maladjusted individuals to meet, right?

[daincrediblegg]

Hello ❤️ Book ask game!

1, 10, 11, 48 👀👀

1.what is the best book you have ever read? So listen. Listen to me. I have been plugging The Vampire Tapestry to literally anyone who will listen to me ever since I read it. And I will do it again. I cannot express how hard to put down this book was for me (and for someone who is primarily a film/television consumer and an adhd bitch to boot? that says a lot). There are so many things about this book that make my brain go brrr from the atypical vampire narrative (featuring a dilf vampire- and you don't see a lot of those-whose condition is more biological than fantastical, but is nonetheless a complicated mess of a creature), to a really clever drawing back of the curtain and critique of the very genre it's meant to portray, and I literally don't think I'll ever be over it. I almost wanted to kiss my professor on the mouth for assigning this book (but I didn't). I still think about it constantly and I will never stop.

10. what book are you reading right now? I'm... actually reading several in a very asynchronous way. Of course I'm about 100 pages deep into the terror rn, I'm also working my way through May We Be Spared to Meet On Earth (collection of correspondence from members of the franklin expedition- which I'm certain was study material for some of the actors bc I feel like a lot of the letters in that are so clearly reflected in the characters on the show moreso than they are in the book- and honestly every single fucking letter from Francis Crozier is a heartwarming delight deadass). I'm not reading so much this semester but I'll be reading throughout the semester Miyazakiworld: A Life in Art (and it's had some really fascinating little anecdotes so far).

11. what book do you want to read but haven't? I honestly want to read more stuff from Miss Charnas. She fucking understood the assignment on so many levels with Vampire Tapestry that I really want to look into more of her. Ofc I have a ton of Jane Austen and Jane Eyre that are burning a hole in my bookshelf, and a little volume of the Lais of Marie de France that I want to take a more proper gander at. These. And so. SO. Many more. OH AND I FORGOT I also have been dipping my toes into historical erotica like Fanny Hall and it’s been tons of fun (and if anyone has some specific victorian recommendations I would LOVE to receive them- it’s VERY important lady terror research 😉).

48. what book would you give someone if they wanted a glimpse into your psyche? I really do hate to answer Edgar Allan Poe again BUT!!! in specific- I think anyone who wants to understand me and my approach to my writing and stuff? Look no further than The Philosophy of Composition. You wouldn't expect EAP to be such a brilliant essayist as he is but jesus christ I still think it may be the most fascinating and engaging essay I've ever read in my life. He articulates his points so poetically and so well and honestly? There's not a word in that essay that doesn't ring true for me to a lot of how I process things myself in my own writing- and things that are generally just great writing practice- like when I read it for the first time a few years ago I literally went "he's just like me fr" and I've felt soul bonded to the thing ever since. I also gave a presentation on it in my Gothic Lit class last semester that everybody really really liked (and of course. because I really REALLY fucking love this essay and this dude). And honestly I'd love to give that lecture again and I hope I get to.

BOOK ASK BAIT