#also the book cover is ai which makes this worst

[sarafangirlart]

Omg there’s a Danaë retelling let me check out the synopsis- oh…

[3liza]

thank you for speaking rational thought AS AN ARTIST into the ai debate. i get so tired of people over simplifying, generalizing, and parroting how they’ve been told ai works lmao. you’re an icon

some of the worst AI art alarmists are professional artists as well but theyre in very specific fields with very specific work cultures and it would take a long and boring post to explain all the nuance there but i went to the same extremely tiny, hypefocused classic atelier school in San Francisco as Karla Ortiz and am actually acquainted with her irl so i have a different perspective on this particular issue and the people involved than the average fan artist on tumblr. the latter person is also perfectly valid and so is their work, all im saying is that we have different life experiences and my particular one has accidentally placed me in a weird and relevant position to observe what the AI art panic is actually about.

first thing i did when the pearl-clutching about AI art started is go on the Midjourney discord, which is completely public and free, and spent a few burner accounts using free credits to play with the toolset. everyone who has any kind of opinion about AI art should do the same because otherwise you just wont know what youre talking about. my BIGGEST takeaway is that it is currently and likely always will be (because of factors that are sort of hard to explain) extremely difficult to make an AI like Midjourney spit out precisely wht you want UNLESS what you want is the exact kind of hyperreal, hyperpretty Artstation Front Page 4k HDR etc etc style pictures that, coincidentally, artists like Karla Ortiz have devoted their careers to. Midjourney could not, when asked, make a decent Problem Glyph. or even anything approaching one. and probably never will, because there isn't any profit incentive for it to do so and probably not enough images to train a dataset anyway.

the labor issues with AI are real, but they are the result of the managerial class using AI's existence as an excuse to reduce compensation for labor. this happens at every single technological sea change and is unstoppable, and the technology itself is always blamed because that is beneficial to the capitalists who are actually causing the labor crisis each time. if you talk to the artists who are ACTUALLY already being affected, they will tell you what's happening is managers are telling them to insert AI into workflows in ways that make no sense, and that management have fully started an industry-wide to "pivot" to AI production in ways that aren't going to work but WILL result in mass loss of jobs and productivty and introduce a lot of problems which people will then be hired to try to fix, but at greatly-reduced salaries. every script written and every picture generated by an AI, without human intervention/editing/cleanup, is mostly unusable for anything except a few very specific use cases that are very tolerant of generality. i'm seeing it being used for shovelware banner ads, for example, as well as for game assets like "i need some spooky paintings for the wall of a house environment" or "i need some nonspecific movie posters for a character's room" that indie game devs are making really good use of, people who can neither afford to hire an artist to make those assets and cant do them themselves, and if the ai art assets weren't available then that person would just not have those assets in the game at all. i've seen AI art in that context that works great for that purpose and isn't committing any labor crimes.

it is also being used for book covers by large publishing houses already, and it looks bad and resulted directly in the loss of a human job. it is both things. you can also pay your contractor for half as many man hours because he has a nailgun instead of just hammers. you can pay a huge pile of money to someone for an oil portrait or you can take a selfie with your phone. there arent that many oil painters around anymore.

but this is being ignored by people like the guy who just replied and yelled at me for the post they imagined that i wrote defending the impending robot war, who is just feeling very hysterical about existential threat and isn't going to read any posts or actually do any research about it. which is understandable but supremely unhelpful, primarily to themselves but also to me and every other fellow artist who has to pay rent.

one aspect of this that is both unequivocally True AND very mean to point out is that the madder an artist is about AI art, the more their work will resemble the pretty, heavily commercialized stuff the AIs are focused on imitating. the aforementioned Artstation frontpage. this is self-feeding loop of popular work is replicated by human artists because it sells and gets clicks, audience is sensitized to those precise aesthetics by constant exposure and demands more, AI trains on those pictures more than any others because there are more of those pictures and more URLs pointing back to those pictures and the AI learns to expect those shapes and colors and forms more often, mathematically, in its prediction models. i feel bad for these people having their style ganked by robots and they will not be the only victims but it is also true, and has always been true, that the ONLY way to avoid increasing competition in a creative field is to make yourself so difficult to imitate that no one can actually do it. you make a deal with the devil when you focus exclusively on market pleasing skills instead of taking the massive pay cut that comes with being more of a weirdo. theres no right answer to this, nor is either kind of artist better, more ideologically pure, or more talented. my parents wanted me to make safe, marketable, hotel lobby art and never go hungry, but im an idiot. no one could have predicted that my distaste for "hyperreal 4k f cup orc warrior waifu concept art depth of field bokeh national geographic award winning hd beautiful colorful" pictures would suddenly put me in a less precarious position than people who actually work for AAA studios filling beautiful concept art books with the same. i just went to a concept art school full of those people and interned at a AAA studio and spent years in AAA game journalism and decided i would rather rip ass so hard i exploded than try to compete in such an industry.

which brings me to what art AIs are actually "doing"--i'm going to be simple in a way that makes computer experts annoyed here, but to be descriptive about it, they are not "remixing" existing art or "copying" it or carrying around databases of your work and collaging it--they are using mathematical formulae to determine what is most likely to show up in pictures described by certain prompts and then manifesting that visually, based on what they have already seen. they work with the exact same very basic actions as a human observing a bunch of drawings and then trying out their own. this is why they have so much trouble with fingers, it's for the same reason children's drawings also often have more than 5 fingers: because once you start drawing fingers its hard to stop. this is because all fingers are mathematically likely to have another finger next to them. in fact most fingers have another finger on each side. Pinkies Georg, who lives on the end of your limb and only has one neighbor, is an outlier and Midjourney thinks he should not have been counted.

in fact a lot of the current failings by AI models in both visual art and writing are comparable to the behavior of human children in ways i find amusing. human children will also make up stories when asked questions, just to please the adult who asked. a robot is not a child and it does not have actual intentions, feelings or "thoughts" and im not saying they do. its just funny that an AI will make up a story to "Get out of trouble" the same way a 4 year old tends to. its funny that their anatomical errors are the same as the ones in a kindergarten classroom gallery wall. they are not people and should not be personified or thought of as sapient or having agency or intent, they do not.

anyway. TLDR when photography was invented it became MUCH cheaper and MUCH faster to get someone to take your portrait, and this resulted in various things happening that would appear foolish to be mad about in this year of our lord 2023 AD. and yet here we are. if it were me and it was about 1830 and i had spent 30 years learning to paint, i would probably start figuring out how to make wet plate process daguerreotypes too. because i live on earth in a technological capitalist society and there's nothing i can do about it and i like eating food indoors and if i im smart enough to learn how to oil paint i can certainly point a camera at someone for 5 minutes and then bathe the resulting exposure in mercury vapor. i know how to do multiple things at once. but thats me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[yuurei20]

Idia Facts Part 3: Family (pt3)

Idia says that the rule on the island is to return the living back to where they came from, alive, but this might only apply to those they kidnap rather than those who attack them: When Rook, Epel and the prefect appear, he tells them that, if anyone but himself had been in charge at the time, they’d be gone.

In addition to Tartarus and Cerberus, STYX also has the River Lethe: a system that can erase STYX from anyone’s memories, and from any data.

“There’s no point even thinking about making friends with people on the outside. After all…sooner or later, they wouldn’t remember it happened.”

At the end of Book 6 Ortho deletes the River Lethe’s configuration program, which Idia decides to leave to his parents to sort out, while he gets left with a group of classmates that remember everything that happened to them.

“And that’s…normal.”

In Book 7 Idia explains that due to a “tiny fraction” of what STYX does leaking to the public, the press has gone into a feeding frenzy to try and unearth their secrets.

We meet his parents in Book 7, with Idia’s father worrying that the worst may have happened to everyone on the island (“—including our boys…?”), but Idia’s mother says that she guarantees they are alive, based on “a mother’s hunch.”

His mother deduces that Idia has been using STYX communication satellites via access logs (“I’m sure he thought he covered his tracks, but he can’t fool his mom!”), saying, that she knows Idia would absolutely think he needed the internet to survive no matter what.

There is a vague reference to trouble that Aidne Shroud, Idia’s grandmother, had in the past with Briar Valley.

Idia’s mother seems to have great faith in Idia’s abilities: when debating how they will approach the Malleus-controlled Sage’s island with the insufficient AI in STYX power armor she says, “if only (Idia) were here!” (Idia’s mother refers to him as Onii-chan/Ide-kun on JP and “Idy” on EN.” Shroud Family dynamics explained here.)

Ortho asks their mother to craft him a set of gear that can survive Malleus’ spell, which she does by using a copy of Ortho’s schematics on one of Idia’s computers.

Ortho exclaims, “You actually got through Idia’s super-ultra-ironclad security program!?” and she assures him that she didn’t look into any of his password-protected folders.

[soulsxng]

Rules, tag 10 followers  you want to get to know better!

Tagged by: @sansloii​​ Tagging: steal it from me!

Name: Aya, Riah, Rai-rai. I noticed there's a lot of people that pronounce Aya like...(the letter) A-yah, but it's actually Ai-yah. Riah is Rai-ah.

Star Sign: Sagittarius sun, Libra moon, Cancer rising!

Height: 5'9" (I shrank a little, weh.)

Middle name: It's a secret c: I'll just say that it's a super common one.

Put your itunes/spotify/youtube on shuffle. What are the first 6 songs that popped up? (*puts the bigass master youtube playlist on shuffle and shrugs tbh*)

Mon.ster H.unter: World - V.aal Ha.zak theme (FalKKonE metal arrange)

La La Latch (Pentatonix)

The Reverberation Ensemble (StudioEIM)

Requiem (Chogakusei cover)

Kisaragi Station (nqrse)

Put Your Records On (Corinne Bailey Rae)

Ever had a poem or song written about you: I have, a few times! When we were still in elementary school, my little bro wrote a poem about me for class. And then I had a group of friends write a song about me when I was in high school (I had been dealing with The Big C at the time and was in the hospital, and they wrote it to cheer me up. It made me cry orz)

When was the last time you played air guitar: I'm more of a random dancing/wiggling randomly when music is playing type. Oh! Actually, it was a few weeks ago, because I was messing with my little sister while I was visiting her at work. That was an air banjo though, from an inside joke I have with my siblings.

Who is your celebrity crush?: I don't think I have one? That feels like a cop out though, so I'll say that I'm a big fan of Ol.an Ro.gers? He's hilarious. Me, my wife, and a few of our friends got to meet him last year actually, and it was a lot of fun!

What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?: FUCKIN-- okay so there's a lot of bad sounds out there, but one that has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time? People chewing with their mouth open, or sucking on their teeth a lot. OH, ALSO SUPER HIGH PITCHED NOISES. Like when movies and stuff play that like...tinnitus noise sometimes?

As for a sound I like, uh...it's sort of hard to explain, but sometimes when you hear people singing a harmony, if the voices line up perfectly, you can naturally hear what's called an overtone. I might have to look for a video or something, but essentially, you can hear a pitch the next octave up from one of the harmonized notes even though nobody is singing it. It's super cool, and gives me goosebumps every time. It occurs in instrumental harmonies too, iirc?

Do you believe in ghosts?: Kinda? I guess it depends on the circumstance.

How about aliens: I mean, yeah. I think it's scarier to believe that we're the only planet out there with intelligent life and whatnot on it, than to believe that there's others out there that we just haven't encountered, yet. Also, the odds of that are just astronomically low anyway.

Do you drive?: I do! Where I live, it'd be kind of impossible to not have either me or Kei able to do so. Plus I just enjoy it overall, most of the time.

if so have you ever crashed: Nope! I've been driving for like 13 years now (started a little before I turned 15, shhh), and haven't had any accidents.

What was the last book you read?: Uhhh I think it was MDZS book...5? Whichever one just released earlier this month. Otherwise, it was The Starless Crown.

Do you like the smell of gasoline: Diesal, nah. It makes me gag. Regular gas...eh. I'm indifferent to it. Unless it's rancid gasoline, in which case, it also makes me gag.

What was the last movie you saw?: ...I think it was the D&D movie? I'm gonna be honest, I watch very little tv, and very few movies.

What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?: I guess it would be from when I was in like 9th grade? I was sledding with some friends, and we were at this massive hill, having fun and being stupid. It was fine, but there was part of the hill that the snow plows liked to push snow from the parking lot into. So there was a big snow pile off to the side, and because I'm in a state known for the bitter cold, these piles might as well have been-- as I referred to them when I was a teenager-- small glaciers lmao.

Anyway, random fun fact, but the average sled speed on a decently sized hill is like 20mph. (can't remember where I learned that though so don't quote me on it) This hill was especially steep, so I want to say that I was going even faster than that, I got bumped into by one of my friends about 3/4ths of the way down, and slammed into the of one of these frozen slowplow piles full force before I could stop myself or roll off the sled. I hit the entire right side of my body, but mostly my thigh.

The resulting bruise was so severe (It was a bone-deep bruise over most of it. The doctor that saw me afterwards thought I had been in a car crash!), that if you were to touch my right thigh even now, you can still feel the muscular scarring it left. Yeah though, it's from like...just a little above my knee, to just below my hip.

Do you have any obsessions right now?: Probably Eld.en R.ing. I've been on and off of obsession with that since it came out, and obviously rn is one of those "on" periods! Singing is always an obsession of mine, same with dog stuff (specifically training/behavior/health related stuff), aaaand...worldbuilding stuff. Like the deep, almost scientific worldbuilding stuff that I probably won't have any reason to share with anyone else, but will randomly babble at Kei about while she's captive in my car and my mind has clung to one idea in particular.

[dowdonacloud]

The Depression Manual

I am guessing I’m like many of you in that I have too much faith in the internet. Faith and lack of motivation that is. I google something, scan the AI explanation and browse the first 5 articles that the search engines deems worthy.  

I google depression a lot. I do this to verify that yes, the last 30 years are correct and my symptoms match. I also look to see if my diagnosis might be more severe and have been afraid that I have any number of personality disorders which I guess makes me neurotic since hypochondria is a type of neuroticism. I am not interested in this new coded way of calling women crazy- ahem neurotic. But here, I digress.

I rest assured that I am like many others and seek more information and in my case always looking for more accurate language to wrap around my experience as someone with recurrent depressive episodes. What I’ve determined is that the info on depression- the detailed info, from the point of view of people who have lived it- is hard to come by.  Instead, we get the health briefs from mayo clinic and NIH about the symptoms of depression and of course the hotline. The symptoms including feelings of sadness and hopelessness, loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed, fatigue/ low energy, sleep disturbances, difficulty concentrating, remembering details and making decisions, physical symptoms like headaches and chronic pain and thoughts of suicide.  A list. Not an article on anything beyond the list besides the mention at the end of the gold star standard treatment of SSRIs and cognitive behavior therapy. On my most recent search I saw an article that contained the regurgitated list and then emphasized self-care for the support person. We beg of you, take cover- I mean, take care of yourself when you are around the depressed person. Let them rot. They are rotting anyway.  These articles aren’t helpful to people who are experiencing the difficulty of not knowing what to do when their person is depressed.

My mom was very good about knowing how to interact with me, handle me during my depressive episodes. She wasn’t always good at it. When the episdoes first showed up in my mid-teens I didn’t know what to do about my personality slipping through my fingers, which is what it always feels like. She didn’t know what to do either and there was a lot of conflict. I wanted out from under the microscope and she wanted me to be OK. Worst. Episode. Ever.

I lost my mom two years ago to uterine cancer treatment complications. She was 73 and had lived a very healthy life. Never smoked cigarettes, drank only the occasional wine or beer, ate food prepared at home. She not only took good care of her body, she also took good care of her mind. She was extremely well read and had a wide array of references across subject matters. Sometimes I would find books in her nightstand stack about mental health. This was a semi-snoop on my part, trying to find out what she was finding out about me. Some of the books were hidden under clothes in her closet. This was a full-on total snoop. These books should be differentiated  from the books she would strategically place in my environment, knowing that I would be more likely to listen to the wisdom of a stranger than my mother. My favorite strategically placed book was titled “Caffeine: the Gateway Drug”.  That was strategically placed around the house after I got in trouble for taking a bunch of Nodoz at an overnight retreat freshman year. In my defense, these retreats were in the context of catholic school so they were dripping with prayer and reflections involving God’s plan.  I think I would have been manic at these retreats anyway.

I only started appreciating her approach when I was older and noticed changes in how she would communicate with me. 

I always feel the void of her absence. I especially feel it when I am struggling and wading through a depressive episode. I get lightning storms in my head when my partner or friends don’t demonstrate the same understanding of how to deal with a depressed person- which I know, is completely unfair. I have been wondering if it’d be worth it to write some sort of depression manual.

I am scared of being overly self-indulgent but in the interest of getting more articles out there from the point of view of someone who lives through depressive episodes, I’d like to contribute. I personally would like to read more articles from people who live with this pesky, devastating, debilitating disorder. 

My Depression Manual

1-AVOID THE MICROSCOPE

 Try not to throw a celebration when I say something little I did in a day that demonstrates “opposite action”, like running on the treadmill or leaving the house. It seems like this would be a nice thing to do but it actually feels condescending and reinforces the invalid state I’ve descended into. I would rather you wait a week or two and then you could say something like “I think it’s really impressive how much you’ve been running on the treadmill.” That would make me feel less like I’m under a microscope or like my loved ones are trying hard to find something positive to say. When I’m doing something that a normal, healthy person would do, like if I fell asleep easily or slept 8 hours, I’d like to have others react as if I’m a normal, healthy person, instead of drawing attention to the fact that the normal, healthy thing is abnormal for me. The pointing out reminds me that I’m different/struggling/ etc

2- THE VULNERABILITY LADDER.

I will share.  I share things.  I am vomiting my feelings and disorganized thoughts all the time.  I get embarrassed at the level of sharing especially when I feel like it’s one sided. So, you need to share too. If you share, then you don’t need to ask as many questions (ugh, too many questions are so irritating) because your sharing invites me to share.  Creating space for me involves a mutual level of vulnerability and trust. Often I share more when the other person puts some vulnerability on the table or if you want to keep it about how my reactions/ emotional states are affecting you, say something about how you have tried X but it doesn’t seem to be working. I often feel stagnant emotional states stir when I feel like someone else needs help or needs me to show up for them.

3- STOP EXPECTING MY BRAIN TO WORK IN THE SAME WAY

Depression interferes with my processing time, verbal speed and executive function. I get exhausted by socializing more easily, this includes phone time. I am working on using phrases that are kind and reflective instead of reactionary to end conversations. For now it might sound something like, “I need to get off the phone” or “I have to go”.  It’s hard not to take it personally but it’s not personal, it’s my capacity reaching overwhelm.  Often I try to hang in there and harangue myself when I don’t feel like I can hang in for long.  When I press myself to stay longer than I’m able it results in clipped, terse responses and acting in a way I don’t want to be, followed by guilt after the interaction due to the way I came across.

4- STOP EXPECTING ME TO BE BRIGHT AND SHINY

I’m sure you’ve heard of masking. We all mask to some extent and mask more during certain periods than others. And yes, of course I’m a little over the trendy mental health term of the past few years: authenticity, but it’s true. Having the ability to show up more authentically allows me to show up at all. If I can be lackluster, smile less, be less talkative, that’s the depression. I feel enormous pressure to somehow put it away and be the person that people know and like- and this leads me to not want to show up at all which leads me to my next point.

5-ISOLATION IS CAUSED BY OVERWHELM

One of my friends ( who has experienced major depression too) said to me that he is happy to come over and not talk, to sit and watch TV or just be in proximity, with no expectations from me. That was some magic my mom would provide- companionship that was gentle and different from the companionship that is possible when I’m not stuck. The isolation thing is something I see listed frequently- posed as advice to the depressed person as something not to do. Don’t isolate, get out, be around people. That is fine advice but it doesn’t deconstruct the why of isolation. Depressed people isolate because socializing is overwhelming, environments outside the home can be overstimulating, overstimulating environments combined with the pressure of socializing is too much. Despite that technically I may not be doing much, I still desire the slowness of being in my home environment.  When I take the instagram psychobabble advice of not isolating and just getting out there I am incredibly self conscious about point #3- that my brain, my words just don’t work in the same way.

6-CONVERSATIONS CAN BE DIFFICULT, SMALL TALK IS TORTURE- I know what you are thinking, small talk is always torture. But I mean really, beyond my brain processing slower with jumbled, disorganized, dark thoughts it’s so hard to work around the typical small talk questions. If we were to play this out with our favorite word to love and hate, authenticity this is what the small talk conversation might look like

Scene featuring: Non-depressed person aka the lucky bastard (LB)

Depressed person (DP)

LB calls DP on the phone because they are kind and supportive and this is a nice thing to do. 

DP stares at phone, feels panic, wants to ignore the call because they are not sure if they have enough energy in their body to speak but doesn’t want to be avoidant, doesn’t want to harm the relationship more than they fear they already have. DP picks up phone

LB: hi! What’s up?

DP: Not much, how are you? 

LB: Oh I’m just heading home from work, it was a really busy day but Carol brought in Schlotsky’s for lunch so that was nice I overslept because I was having the best dream so I think I got over 9 hours of sleep.  How are you?

DP: totally empty inside

LB: aw man, I’m sorry. That sucks. What did you do today?

DP: I woke up after a total of 4 hours of interrupted sleep throughout the night. I laid in bed for an hour contemplating the reason for my existence. My dog needed to be fed so I got up to feed him. I chain smoked 4 cigarettes and had coffee hoping that dosing myself with anxiety would be a sort of energy I could work with. I cried for 30 minutes. I stared at a picture of my mom for a while. I went to the bathroom and tried to convince myself to get in the shower but getting wet has been hurting my skin and making me panic lately so I didn’t. I went to do my TMS treatment and worried that I smelled bad. I came home and sat on the couch and literally stared at the wall for 40 minutes. I tried not to get back in bed but I was so tired that I got back in bed. I rewatched a show that I’ve seen a million times. I looked on instagram and thought about how different I was from people who actually do things. I cried again for a while. I remembered that I had clothes in the washing machine from yesterday morning that smelled musty so I rewashed them. 

LB:Well….that’s a lot of stuff at least. Are you feeling any better than yesterday?

DP: No. I feel the same as I’ve felt for a week which is worse than how bad I was feeling last week which is worse than how I was feeling the week prior to that. 

LB: Can I help in some way?

DP: I don’t really have the neural resources to figure out ways to help you feel like you are helping me. You could come over and sit with me and not touch me and just be in my environment.

LB: Oh I wish I could but I have to pick up the kids and head to their softball game. Another time though. I love you.

DP: Ok. Thank you. I need to get off the phone now. I feel exhausted from this conversation. I hope you don’t hate me because I am a terrible downer. 

LB: I don’t hate you. You’ll feel better soon. Hang in there.

DP: Ok. I will hang in there. Hopefully not literally. I’m sorry. That was a terrible thing to say.

I don’t have anything to share about my day- on the bad days.  I can listen to your day but I’d appreciate acceptance when I say I don’t have much to share. Also would appreciate being able to answer the phone and not feel pressured to “turn it on” and make animated small talk. I’m not going to be as talkative, it’s not personal, it’s just part of it.  I don’t want it called out or told that I’m “not being nice” because I’m not being talkative. Being nice and being talkative are not mutually exclusive, like, at all. Think about that for a second. 

7-RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO GET CLINICAL- I have a team of mental health professionals. I don’t need another one. I don’t need you to suggest various diagnoses, medications, therapy methods or adding magnesium supplements to treat my depression. I have dealt with this for decades, have explored so many paths, there isn’t much you can suggest to me that I haven’t tried. I get offended when people start suggesting things to add into my treatment plan. I need loved ones, not more doctors and therapists.

8- UNDERSTAND THAT EVERYTHING IS EFFORTFUL

And this is just the way it is. Until the clouds start to part and I can have my personality back.

9- I KNOW I WAS A SNOT EARLIER ABOUT SELF-CARE BUT IT IS IMPORTANT, YOU SHOULD DO IT

Take breaks. Do what you need to do to refuel. I feel a ton of guilt about subjecting people to me when I am under water.

[carica-ficus]

I've watched the infamous hbomberguy video about plagiarism the other day and cannot stop thinking about "content mills" (and consumerism) and its integration in the book community.

I have a bookstagram account because the community there is much more active (and most of my reading/writing friends use it as their primary social site), but it is filled to the brim with so much stupid and uninteresting content. Moreover, I'd say that the Croatian bookstagram community is even worse than the bookstagram community as a whole.

I'm lucky to have really cool mutuals on there that don't follow trends or don't feel the need to play influencers, but so many people do. I unfollowed at least 15 profiles yesterday because I couldn't take it anymore. None of their posts showed any love for reading and so much of their content is sponsored.

Worst of all is they're not even advertising for the author or their work, it's just for the publisher, which makes no fucking sense, in my humble opinion. Since when are books about congratulating a specific publisher on deciding to publish a book, and not for the author or their painstaking and beautiful work?

Not to mention, I rarely see Croatian publishers actually publishing Croatian authors! The biggest publishers only ever translate internationally popular works. And yes, I do realize why that's the case (there's barely any money in this industry and most of our publishers would perish if it weren't for the profit coming from translations), but for fucks sake, if you're advertising for yourself, at least throw in a few of our own authors. At least make our bookstagramers support their own community, the community without which they wouldn't even exist!

And you know what's the worst of the worst? The constant fake amazement in all those countless sponsored reviews, for books barely any of them even read! They call themselves creative, but most of their content wouldn't even exist without the creative work of others. All those giveaways, AI generated pictures, thousands upon thousands of advertisements for publishers only looking for profit, posting content just to post something, promotions for books which barely even hit the shelves, and the never-ending drama of who copies whom in a community where no one is original.

Yes, I know ads also provide a profit for editors, translators, authors, illustrators and everyone else involved in the publishing industry, but I ask you another thing: Why are these people never mentioned in the posts then? Why are they not given any credit? Because it's hard or because, to them - the publishers and to influencers - it doesn't matter? Why do our publishers print translated works with AI covers? Why do we translate and print new editions of old, popular, international works, instead of giving our own writers a chance? Why do some publishers chose to use an AI generated cover instead of hiring a local artist? How much profit do writers, artists, editors and translators really achieve compared to the publishers?

"Oh, but you don't understand. The industry would collapse if we did it differently."

Yeah, because money is the most important thing when it comes to publishing books. It isn't about the author. It isn't about supporting creative endeavors. It isn't about supporting the local community. It isn't about the story and its idea. Yeah, you're right. None of that matters. Because reading is about consumption and about making money.

Spare me.

Let it collapse then. Maybe we don't deserve all the people brave enough to share their work with millions of people who don't even care about them.

In hindsight, maybe I'm bitter because I spend a lot of time surrounded by the truly creative community - writers, illustrators, photographers and all other forms of artists, so I'm angry they're looked over in the community that should praise them. Or maybe I'm just fed up with all the dishonesty and advertisement these co-called influencers push for a few free books. You decide. I'm just saying that I'm tired of it.

[josiebelladonna]

i’m reading “are you with me now?” and i’m laughing at the thought of nick’s number being “666″ on her phone’s caller id.

it’s the most unintentionally funny thing i have ever seen, because you know what she’s trying to do, right?

it’s like...

you take

(ahem)

six, six, six on the head and the wrist, the bloodied, battered crucifix. two coins to cross the river styx on bended knees and satan's fist. 

yes. nikki had a hard life with heroin and abuse and homelessness, and he was technically dead for two minutes at one point. his comeback story is absolutely incredible.

but no amount of edginess from the green druidess can convince me that she’s evil when jeff becerra exists.

i really wish i could tell her, “girl, just relax and be yourself! no need to be overly edgy” but then again, i don’t think there’s anything i can say to her without fear of discord/back-and-forth dm reprisal. and aside from that, this one’s not even funny. it’s just nothing. it’s like she saw my whole “i poke fun at you if i like you” and went “absolutely not”, even though i have had all manner of stuff thrown at me and called every name in the book by kids in the schoolyard and had it dismissed with “oh, they just like you!”

apparently, her excuse is that she bailed on me to mirror lizzy’s antics in state of euphoria (or something like that, i wasn’t properly paying attention and i immediately knew it was nonsense as well) like an “art imitates life” sort of thing-

yeah, don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.

you did it because you can’t handle someone who’s different than you. you want someone who’s your equal so you can leech off them until there’s nothing left. you did it with me and then you moved over to temple when you found that i wasn’t cutting it for you anymore because i wrote a little something called “the mirror never lies” after you wrote stay, and then “amped and wired” the same time you wrote crawl (a kind of pointless retelling of state of euphoria where amped and wired did in fact have a point).

“sketchiness of wattpad” i never yelled BITCH PLEASE so loud, especially when you’ve got reads in the literal tens of thousands and an actual cult following over there. at worst, that is the most ungrateful attitude i’ve ever seen in my life (coming from someone who struggles with that mindset, that is saying so much). 

moreover, she tries to play dumb with people, saying that i don’t know what i’m talking about and i’m being a bully to her, probably so people can come over to her and pet her head. let me get this perfectly straight, because i’m still trying to comprehend this. i’m being a bully to someone who cut me off for no reason other than to be petty...? how in the world does that work? you’re in the arts of self-defense, i would hope that you know you do not fight unless the aggressor comes first.

she also has the balls - THE BALLS - to justify her plagiarism, too, which... on its own, just amazes me, especially in an era where you have literal hordes of people justifying stealing art from hardworking artists (such as myself) to pump through algorithms and make shitty, soulless ai pieces out of them. steal from us and also have the audacity to pick a fight with us just to be a horse’s ass, and we’ll fight you right back (weird how the whole incident foreshadowed the whole thing with ai art in my eyes).

she cut me off and then covered her ass because she’s territorial, among other things. and she’s lying to her followers constantly which is just... i have no words for that. what do i even say to that? that probably infuriates me more than the plagiarism.

really, never mind me: this piece of work. this scumbag. this lowlife. is flat-out lying to her followers right to their faces for absolutely no reason than to appear as though she’s right. day in. day out.

cowardice. that is utter cowardice.

given the choice, i would much rather speak opinions about fic just to spit in the face of “don’t like, don’t read” than lie to my own goddamn followers.

it makes me wonder if her whole thing is merely an act or if she really is that cunning and believes her own bullshit that much.

[capesandshapes]

I'm literally so pissed about this because I have to write an apology letter to my newsletter subscribers and readers for encouraging them to engage with an author who ended up running a publishing pyramid scheme, and pushing her books along to them despite the fact that I disliked them to the point I refused to review them (because it was going to be two to three stars) and kept tossing them in with other far more readable books

Solely because she was nice and I assumed she was dumb

Like surprise she's not dumb she's running a literal pyramid scheme and having people pay her for ads only to pocket like 95% of the money to shill for her own books

AND THEYRE SO BAD?????

HER BOOKS ARE LIKE THE WORST BOOKS OH MY GOD

Not even like content wise just like

SO POORLY WRITTEN

(also her company's editing service is her going through with prowritingaid and when she feels too lazy to go through your book with prowritingaid, which is supposedly a service worth so much (paired with ai covers generated from a 100 dollar a month subscription that lets her make unlimited covers) that her company pockets 70% of the 70% royalties that Amazon gives you, she hires people off of fiver at rock bottom rates to comb through with prowritingaid for her instead ☠️)

Actually full on can someone sedate me because I really want to give tea on the publishing scene, the new digital led 'traditional' publisher trend and the amount of people on Twitter claiming to be literary agents who string along authors for the attention and furthering of the agent's own potential publishing career while having no idea of how an agent works.

And of course fucking author coaches like Elise Kova who has always approached publishing with a business mindset and is widely believed to have, like Frost Kay, commissioned ghost written and generative work to pad her catalogue.

Like if I have a nickel for every time a romantasy author publishing openly marketed avatar the last Airbender fanfiction engaged in bad faith business practices and banked on the trust and goodwill on others, I'd have two nickles

[sugar-petals]

can you give us more thoughts about domestic yoongles? the taemin's one (wich I love) just made me miss the cat boy so much ;o;

i have a phd in househusband yoongi so let me fire out some ideas for ya.

myg at home headcanon

🐱 word count. 1.9k | fluff, slice of life, slight nsfw mentions, x reader, bullet points

The doorbell sound is a recording of Yoongi imitating a doorbell. He’s such a meme. Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

Seemingly, he teaches himself a new recipe every week. To perfection. Yoongi is very particular about sticking to the recipe and wielding his kitchen tools in the right way. He collects knives, olive oil, and still hates cutting onions.

He separates sleep time, work time, and couple time as the holy trinity. For each, he switches his mood.

Blushes easily no matter for how long you’ve been together.

Establishes his own radio show where he DJs at one point.

Yoongi keeps an extreme track on the garbage schedule. He knows exactly what is due when. Separating the trash is a must. That includes sorting out fake friends trying to get between your relationship. Your social circle as a couple is extremely deliberate.

Yoongi deems himself a terrible host for guests. Unless Hoseok is there to drag him out, it's true he rather stays in the kitchen or at the barbecue preparing the menu courses rather than making small talk. He leaves the hospitality bits to you, however you want to go about it.

What he lacks in conversing with guests, he makes up in bed, God is absolutely fair.

He sings and hums pretty often and has his own vernacular of extraterrestrial uwu noises. It's an alphabet that you have to yet decipher but it's incredibly cute.

Self-made paintings everywhere around his house. 

Yoongi hasn't gone clubbing since grammar school. The most he does is going to a restaurant at lunch with very close friends. And always in a work context. His private life is so secluded from everything else and paparazzi just don't spot him anywhere, Dispatch thinks he must live abroad.

Very well, he does consider his big ole house a separate country. It's a living organism with a studio, gym, trophy room, small-size basketball court, and vastly equipped kitchen. A home theater as well, he likes American movies (like Inception) and Korean action genres, and you can stream whatever you fancy in there whenever you like. 

Yes, he has underwear with cute little bears on.

There's even a little pond in the backyard. Yoongi, Pisces he is, likes fishes after all. Sometimes he sits at the edge of the 'Little Ole Min Lake (LOML)' and stares into the water for literal hours with his chin parked on his palm.

His fridge is so high-tech and futuristic, even Yoongi is rendered clueless by its AI sometimes. The washing machine, too.

Yoongi watches RuPaul’s drag race. What did you expect? He finds it so humorous.

Owns lord knows how many comic collections.

Favorite holiday destination: New York.

Christmas is basically 50% you unveiling new music equipment to him in the garage and Yoongi almost fainting at the sexiness of it. The other 50% is spent holding hands and orgasm after orgasm until the new year since you loose track of time.

Goes on long rants why he’d marry you again every weekend.

Making you presents is his specialty. Always accompanied with a hand-written note. He writes a lot of things by hand for you in general. Texting, basically never. Always on paper.

No sex without a blanket and socks on. Yoongi gets cold very very easily and just doesn’t like showing skin. You buy him a heated blanket for his birthday, he even uses it in his studio chair.

Chronically addicted to making out.

Matching black outfits and glasses.

Laughs at even your worst jokes or phrases you didn’t expect you even uttered.

Yoongi owns the phoniest, most secretive-looking black car ever and nobody knows about it. Even he forgets he owns it, in fact he genuinely acts like it just doesn’t exist. Hilarious. And that guy has a level 1 Korean driver's license. Which allows him to drive trailers and busses and fucking trucks, and construction machines, let that sink in.

It's really a genius curse. Yoongi being put to the test will always deliver but he won't choose to execute his full skillset if he doesn't have to. Well, pragmatic. He's not as phony as he thinks he is, which is even more hilarious.

He uses that behemoth of a car so scarcely because he'd rather have things delivered to his doorstep and he's stingy with gas. Also, he doesn't like traffic and driving because of the traumatic shoulder accident and his tendency to space out. Translation: You drive that thing... that monster... it really is an impressive, fast, and scary machine. 

If someone devious ever even remotely manages to invade his privacy and get past the doubly-installed security system, he has enough money to deal with it no matter what.

If it concerns your privacy, he's a red belt. And owns Jin's number if a taekwondo master is required. Jimin's if it needs someone with kendo skills.

If Yoongi needs someone to go on a complete rampage, Jungkook lives just down the block. He can sprint to Yoongi's bunker I mean mansion within 45 seconds. 30 if it's very urgent. 20 if the reward is an instant ramen splurge with Yoongi's black card.

He has a sexy, glamorous sword collection hanging on the living room wall anyways, so. Who the hell is dumb enough to mess with him and his expensive lawyer in the first place.

But just in case, who knows... Yoongi settles matters shruggingly, anonymously, and with cash and he's too exhausted for violence, but don't underestimate his deter-min-ation and network for emergencies. Also, he is Agust D after all.

He will bonk a naughty burglar or kidnapper across the head with a wooden cooking spoon or take him down by throwing a basketball if the situation requires it. Damn, his reflexes are so fast, a feral cat in motion. So, lean back and sip on your drink of choice. Things are cared for.

If Yoongi is the one being kidnapped or a highly skilled stalker invades the property at night when he's fast asleep (nothing can wake this man during certain hours, strong REM right here): Don't forget that honeyboy is a Dodgers fan. There are signed baseball bats everywhere in this damn house.

In that sense, your parents visiting you here for the first time thought you were an undercover thug couple. Not to worry mom and dad, you both just like sports very much okay.

Yoongi walks around in all black clothes and the rooms are all seemingly dark. Even if you live together, you don't know his skin care routine. It's clear to you he's some sort of vampire.

Since Yoongi always forgets to remove his makeup, you made it a habit to wipe it down when he's about to pass out. He won't lie, he enjoys that kind of affection.

Holly is your resident child. You're essentially a family.

He insists to tackle this by himself, Yoongi sees his therapist monthly. Not shifting responsibility is something he's stubborn about and he pours his emotions into writing. You will do conversation about deeper stuff, but he says it's mostly up to him and his own mind. He dislikes burdening you or opening up too much and it's something to respect rather than force him about. If he wants to share a thought, he will. It doesn’t mean he can’t trust you or sucks at communicating (we know that he’s direct). Yoongi simply can’t put that much pain in such few words nor should you alleviate it for him.

Calls from the manager faze Yoongi as much as Jimin is bothered by gravity. If he’s busy kissing your body slow mo, who the hell dares to disturb his worship. 

This man had so many let-downs and interpersonal catastrophes in his life, he's super discerning with people. Because he rolls that way, during their first meeting Yoongi uses his psychology certificate on your friends. You see him squint at them, he listens very closely. After they pass the vibe check aka meow radar, he befriends them, too.

Yoongi doodles Grammy trophies everywhere to manifest them.

Yoongi shaves his legs.

All the sex toys he’s ever bought are black. Gotta vibe in style.

He spends ridiculous amounts of time in the studio but he's yours for the remainder of the night, breakfast, and he makes a lavish lunch and dinner.

Um, consider his head parked between your legs. The Hongkong line was not a joke.

Doesn’t mind you squishing his cheeks whenever and for how long you like. 

Every other weekend he gets flowers, vouchers, and gifts — not because of fans, they don’t know where his house is, but because he donates so much.

Namjoon often drops by and cleanses the area with his crystals.

Yoongi is a photography major so you can ask him to take professional, ceiling-high black and white shots of you.

Feeding each other food lovingly. Man, this guy got lips.

He set up a library just for you, in the exact historical aesthetic you like the most. Send him the link to any book you want, it's basically in the online shopping cart already. As I said, he wants to make you presents like every week.

Sometimes he sits on the other end studying English videos and vocab while you read. And yes, he's already 95% fluent but pretends being merely intermediate. He knows technical terms even native speakers have never heard of.

He collects pajamas and earrings.

Swears on the phone.

Namjoon being the horniest member is a cover-up story. Yoongi masturbates almost unreasonable amounts of times, by himself and in your arms when going to bed. Not gonna lie, it’s a sight to see his hands at work. He’s almost equally obsessed with fingering you once you ask him.

Yoongi was the one asking you to move in and almost had a nervous meltdown before meeting up with you to tell you just that. 

He’s the little spoon and of course a sleeping burrito to hold tight.

Finds you equally attractive in any state or styling. Yoongi practices what he preaches, he always reacts the same and says the same. 

Jams out to outrageous beats Namjoon sends him by dancing in the studio. You walk in on him every time. Was embarrassed at first, now you dance along.

Has bought you a life-sized Yoongi pillow and customized you a giant Shooky to hug when he’s not at home over night.

Owned a wine cellar until he quit drinking. Turned it into a piano room instead.

Only you know Yoongi has a serpent and dagger tattoo.

Scrubs the bathroom religiously.

The house smells like restaurant food and his extravagant perfumes half of the time.

Sometimes he has to remind himself he’s married to you and not his coffee machine. He shall be forgiven. You can’t complain that he doesn’t love you enough, nor is he ever not adorable when drinking his latte.

Never wears short sleeves. It can be scorching and he’ll wear a jacket. 

Tell him and the cap stays on during sex.

He grows his hair out and puts it in a low bun. The bangs remain.

Yoongi has installed the most fire-proof building in the entire city it seems. That he wanted to be a firefighter when he was young definitely shows. Figures the house has to be protected from heat: His blasting studio music and Yoongi himself are just way too sizzling.

Still melts into a puddle when you kiss his nose.

Couple sunrise watching. 

© submissive-bangtan 2017-2021. all rights reserved. do not repost or translate. all depictions fictional.

[boldlyvoid]

Freezer Burns | Chapter 7

Chapter Seven | Masterlist 18+ Chapter

Summary: Mean girl Steve makes a comeback

Warnings: implied/referenced rape (past), Angst with a happy ending, Eddie moves in with Grandma Beth, Steve has a panic attack, First Fights, Toxic reactions, suicidal ideation,

Word Count: 3.8k

He tells Grandma Beth everything through heaving breaths and teary eyes, still hardly able to believe it all himself. She rubs his back and wipes his tears, whispering that she’s sorry and she’s there for him as long as he needs her because she loves him. 

“But what do I do?” He whispers. “I can’t tell Steve but I also can’t keep it a secret, and I sure as hell can’t tell Dustin 'cause the little twerp will try and talk to Dick who doesn’t want anything to do with him and that’ll fuck him up even more,” he panics as he thinks about all the possible outcomes.

And none of them seemed good. 

“They should know. They both have the right to know and they’ll probably figure it out at some point and if you don’t tell them it’s going to eat you alive,” she reads him like a book. “If I suggest that you have them come here for dinner and tell them together at the same time, are you going to be able to talk to Steve until then?” 

“No,” he sighs. “I don’t even know how I’m going to be able to look at him tonight after work… god, of all the days for this to happen it really had to be right after we f— I’m sorry.” 

“No, no,” she bites back a smile, “it’s fine, you’re adults. But that’s life isn’t it… the worst things always happen when you’re least expecting it.” 

“We were so happy this morning,” he tears up again, leaning back in his chair and covering his face in his hands. “I can’t believe he ruined this for me.” 

“Nothing is ruined, love,” she assures him. “We just need a plan… I can move some things around downstairs and you can have Gareth’s dad’s old room and I’ll take you to get the rest of your things after Wayne leaves for work. You can tell Steve when you’re ready, I’ll call Claudia and see if we can talk and get a bigger picture because at the end of the day, this was a secret for Dustin's sake and we need to consider what unravelling this can do to him.” 

“God, you’re right,” he groans. “Their dad is so terrible.”

“But Steve ended up wonderful and Dustin is a sweetheart, they will have each other still, which I think they’ll value more than having a dad,” she explains. “Look at Robin and Gareth, I raised their parents and they’re the meanest, cruellest, coldhearted bastards there are. They don’t need a good mom and dad, they have each other, and they have me, Dustin and Steve will be the same.” 

He fully believes her, she’s never wrong, her optimism is so powerful it swings the balance of things and works in her favour. 

“And me,” he whispers, “you’ve got me too… right?” 

“Always,” she wraps him up in another hug, kissing his head gently. 

—

Steve and Robin come home to an empty kitchen, grandma beth was busy all day so there are leftovers in the fridge. Eddie isn’t in the garage, the guys haven’t seen him all day, he never came into Scoops for a treat or a kiss or anything, he’s just disappeared since Steve saw him this morning. The weirdest part, however, his van is parked outside. 

Steve asks Gareth if he’s seen him, but he hasn’t. Robins had been with him all day so she wouldn’t know where Eddie is. Grandma Beth is in bed after her long day, so he can’t go bother her and see if she knows. 

He uses the kitchen phone to call Eddie’s trailer, but there’s no answer. He calls mike, Mr. Wheeler says she hasn’t seen Eddie at all either. It bothers him deeply that he doesn’t know where Eddie is, to the point where he gets his shoes on and heads outside to peek into the windows of his van for clues. 

He’s not in there either. 

He doesn’t even say goodbye to Robin, he just gets in his car and drives to the trailer to see if maybe he got a flat at Gareth’s and walked home for the night… which would be even fucking weirder than him just disappearing into thin air like this. 

All the lights at his trailer are off, so he could be asleep? Steve knocks on the door, “Eddie? Eddie are you in there?” 

There isn’t a single answer. The trailer park is quiet, the sky’s a bright purple from the sun had barely set, the crickets are loud in the bush, and it’s silent in the worst way possible. 

He walks back to his car and opens the glove box to retrieve a flashlight, returning to the side of the trailer where Eddie’s room is. He stands on his tip-toes, shining the light into the room to see it’s completely different from what it was like yesterday morning. The walls are bare, his things are gone, the bed is made… it’s not his anymore. 

He backs away in fear, staring at the trailer like he pulled up to the wrong one but he didn’t. He knew this was Eddie’s trailer the last time he was here so why is it suddenly empty now? Did he dream up the last few weeks? Was this all happening in his mind cause he’s been in a coma this whole time? He spins in circles, unable to catch his breath, panicking about where the love of his life is. 

He gets back in his car quickly and drives back to his own house, the front door was locked, the back gate is still latched, and no one was there… He really hoped Eddie was just waiting at his parent's house for him so they could pick up where they left off but he isn’t. 

He drives downtown, and none of the people walking the streets are Eddie. He parks out front of the police station and it takes him a good 10 minutes to have the nerve to even just go in and look around just for the slight chance that he was arrested or something… but they haven’t seen him. They call the hospital too, he hasn’t been admitted and there are no John Doe’s matching his description either. And no one died today, no bodies were found. It was a quiet night in Hawkins...

He grips the steering wheel like his life depends on it the whole way home, breathing deep in and out of his nose to stay calm or else he’d start screaming. This wasn’t like him, he was always around and now he was fo where to be found. 

He bangs on the garage door until Gareth opens up in just his boxers, scars on display and hair messy, “what the fuck, man?” 

“Eddie’s room is empty,” the words rush out. “I’ve been looking everywhere for him, but I can’t find him.” 

“What?” He rubs his eyes and shakes his head, “what do you mean his room is empty?” 

“It’s completely clean and not a single poster is on the walls anymore, it’s like he moved out?” Steve explains further. “But his van is here,” he points out at the driveway. “Are you sure you haven’t seen him?” 

He shakes his head, “not since the party… me and Jeff were at work from 10 til 6, the van was here when we got home but my grandma never said he was over?” 

“I’m going to have a heart attack,” he grips his chest dramatically, finding his balance as he leans against the wall. “Oh my god?” 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Gareth reaches out for him, rubbing his arms to soothe him and pull him inside. “We’ll go ask my grandma, she said we can wake her up for any issue. This is an issue.” 

“Okay,” Steve agrees, following him inside the garage to see Jeff sitting up in bed, one eye open as Gareth flicks the lights on. 

“What’s going on?” 

“Eddie’s missing,” Steve announces waking him right up. 

“Seriously?” He gets out of bed and quickly throws his clothes on, Gareth does the same. “Are you sure he’s not just here somewhere?” 

“Where? There are 2 bedrooms and they’re taken and the kitchen and living room are empty, and he’s not in here?” Steve points around. 

“Well, my dad used to have a room in the basement,” Gareth remembers, “it’s full of Christmas decorations though…” 

“Where is it?” 

“It’s the door opposite that one,” he points at the garage door that leads to the house, not the one that leads outside. 

Steve rushes through the door and then rips open the other one, he flicks on the light and runs down the old wooden steps, “Eddie?!” 

“Huh?” He sits up on the bed, hair a mess, face pussy and swollen, “Steve?” 

“What the fuck?” Steve loses it then.

“Hm?” He’s still out of it, the room smells like weed and his eyes are still bloodshot, he hasn’t been asleep for long. 

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you? What the fuck is going on?” He talks with his hands, big and expressive and emotional. “I thought maybe you ran away or hurt yourself or got arrested? I was checking everywhere, the police station, the hospital, the morgue, what the fuck?” 

“I’m sorry,” he cowers at the sound of Steve’s voice. He’s so mad, even if it’s coming from a place of concern, he doesn’t like it. 

Steve notices that and drops his tone back down. “Did sleeping together freak you out or something?” Steve tries not to yell but he’s been building this up for hours. 

Eddie just shakes his head, unable to speak. 

“You said you wouldn’t do this to me? What did I—”

“It’s not you,” Eddie tries to keep his own voice down too as he cuts him off. “I got in a big fight with Wayne about you today and he kicked me out, I didn’t want to go to the kitchen, I don’t want this to be real, I just wanted to sleep,” he cries. “I’m so tired… I’m sorry, Steve.” 

“Oh, baby,” Steve gets into the bed with him and holds him tight. 

Just then, Jeff and Gareth run down the stairs and look around at all eddies things set up. “What the fuck? Did you move in?” 

He nods against Steve, unable to pull his head away from the crook of his neck. “Yeah,” he cries harder. 

Steve turns to them, all 3 with the same matching sympathetic look. They’ve never seen him break down like this before and it’s weird. He was always the strong one for them, they didn’t know he could even break down like this, his voice almost gone from how hard he cried. 

“I’ve got it,” Steve tells them carefully, letting them know it’s okay to head back up the stairs and to bed. So they leave quietly while Eddie keeps crying against him. 

“You can tell me what happened when you want to?” Steve whispers into his hair before kissing the top of his head. 

“No… I don’t know how.” 

“But it was about me?” He worries, thinking their relationship made him homeless. “He hates me doesn’t he?” 

He nods, “your dad fucked his girlfriend… he can’t handle the thought of you actually being a good person.” 

“I fucking hate him,” Steve announces, “my dad that is. I’ve always hated him but this is the icing on the cake. I’ll change my last fucking name if I have to, seriously, I am not like him at all and if I have to go yell at Wayne myself to prove it I fucking will.” 

“No, it’s okay,” Eddie shakes it off. 

“Is it?” Steve doesn’t believe him, “cause the way you were just crying has me fucking terrified, Eds.”

“I want to tell you everything,” he whispers, pulling away slowly and wiping his eyes. “But I don’t want to ruin your life either.”

“You won’t,” he places his hand under eddies chin and directs his eyes up at him. “You can’t ruin my life. As long as you’re in it, it’s perfect.” 

Eddie looks so panicked, truly scared by what he knows. “It’s going to ruin your life, Steve. But knowing the truth is killing me.” 

“So tell me.” Steve doesn’t blink, he moves in closer, staring Eddie down. “Do it. Tell me.” 

“You have a half-brother,” he whispers. 

“I know—

“But I know who he is,” Eddie cuts him off, wagging his finger back and forth between them. “We know who he is.”  

“What?” Steve backs up a little then, brain running a mile a minute to try and comprehend everything. 

“Your dad fucked Wayne's girlfriend and got her knocked up and that’s why he hates him. He paid her off, he didn’t want anything to do with the kid and Wayne’s been jealous ever since,” he explains. “I think 'cause he wanted to have kids with Claudia…”

Steve can’t place the name but he’s heard it before, he knows someone named Claudia, he’s sure of it. 

“He moved here in grade 4,” Eddie continues to drop hints. “He’s in mikes grade now…”

Steve laughs as it all hits him like a freight train, “no. you’re kidding. Your uncle is yanking my chain, he’s just trying to start shit between us because of my dad. He’s doing this on purpose, we don’t know who it is. He’s lying.” 

“No,” Eddie shakes his head, completely sincere. “I’m completely serious… Wayne wanted to be a dad and your dad stole that from him.” 

“With who?” 

“Claudia Henderson.” 

He laughs again, truly shocked and scared at the same time, “no… no you’re literally joking. This is a prank. You’re high or something,” he gets up off the bed, standing at the foot and shaking his head and both hands, “no. I don’t fucking believe you.” 

“Dustin doesn’t know his dad,” Eddie reminds him. “Claudia has a lot of money and doesn’t work anymore and your dad started hating you more when you brought Dustin home the first time, didn’t he?” 

Eddie knew more than anyone about just how fucking evil Steve’s dad was to him growing up, even more so in the last 2 years. 

“You're an asshole, you can’t use that against me in this. That’s not why he hates me, you’re so fucking gullible if you think that Wayne was being honest,” Steve shakes his head with regret and confusion, getting meaner as he gets more upset. “Don’t ever fucking talk to me again. It’s over.” 

“Steve,” Eddie reaches out for him but he’s gone too soon. Turning away and running up the stairs, he slams the basement door before Eddie even starts to get off the bed. 

Eddie runs upstairs, catching the door before Steve can slam it too and chases him into the yard, barefoot. “Steve! Are you being fucking serious right now? Do you really think I’d lie about this?” 

“I don’t know what you’d do, I barely know you!” He fights back. 

“No! I got kicked out of my fucking house for you, you can’t do this to me! You literally asked to know!” He yells back, crying. 

Steve grabs his keys from his pocket and starts to unlock his door, he reefs the door open only for Eddie to slam it shut and hold it closed. “Look at me, Steve. Fuckin' look at me!” 

He turns to him with his jaw clenched and his nostrils flaring. 

“Steve, don’t do this to me. I can’t lose you too, I can’t do this anymore,” he keeps crying. “I can’t keep losing everyone I love, I will kill myself.” 

“No you won’t,” Steve snaps out of it then. “Don’t you fucking dare!”

“Dramatic isn’t it?” He snaps back. “Now you know how I feel. You can’t just break up with me instead of talking to me.” 

He lets out a huff of air, “fine. Yeah, it was dramatic. But how the fuck else am I supposed to react to that?” 

“I got kicked out, how do you think I reacted?” He raises his brows, knowing he’s right. “He told me to never let you near Dustin and I told him that controlling me made him just as bad as Dick fucking Harrington.” 

“Ouch,” Steve agrees. “That’s my worst fear.” 

“Which I tried to tell him,” Eddie adds. “Believe me, I tried, I really wanted him to like you but this whole thing has him all fucked up… I just can’t believe he did that.” 

Steve carefully reaches out for him and Eddie see’s it on his face, he wants a hug. They lunge for each other, hugging so tight they can barely breathe, “I’m sorry,” they whisper at the same time and then laugh at how stupid they feel for blowing up like that. 

“I didn’t mean it,” Eddie adds, “the killing myself part, I just wanted to be as dramatic, I really wouldn’t leave you like that or blame it on you if I did…” 

“I don’t want to break up,” Steve accepts it by apologizing himself. “I love you too much.” 

“I love you, too,” Eddie whispers. 

He settles then, still overwhelmed and emotional. He was so scared for him and then he was horrified and hurt and anxious all at the same time. It was more than he felt fighting literal monsters last year.

“Come back inside?” Eddie asks, pulling away slightly. 

Thats when Steve sees that he’s barefoot. 

“Oh my god, yes, you’re going to freeze out here,” he worries, rushing them inside and all but pushing Eddie through the front door. 

They settle back down in the basement, he looks around Eddie’s new room with a smile, “this is nice, how come I didn’t know there was a basement?” 

He shrugs, “it was a mess before me and Beth tackled it today… she drove with me to the trailer after Wayne left for work and she helped me pack my things and set it all up.” 

“She’s the best,” Steve smiles. “Does she know?” 

He nods, “she’s going to see Claudia tomorrow and ask her for the full picture… we all need to think about Dustin and how it was a secret to protect him.” 

He nods with a deep sigh, “if we do tell him, I need to warn him that our dad isn’t a good guy… he’s been dreaming about having a dad and siblings and a real family his whole life, my dad isn’t that. He’s a monster.” 

“He already sees you like a father,” Eddie says it likes it nothing, folding the sheets on his bed back and getting back under the covers. He leaves space for Steve, patting the bed for him to come over. 

“You think?” He asks, toeing off his shoes and removing his pants next. He gets in with just his boxers and t-shirt on, cuddling into Eddie right away.

“I know,” he smiles, holding him close. “When he finds out it’s going to be the coolest thing in the world for him.” 

“It’s weird that I can actually picture Wayne and Claudia together,” Steve explains. “She’s so much like Dustin and Wayne’s so much like you, they’d get along so well…” 

“He didn’t go into details but I don’t think she was fully there when she got pregnant,” he admits. “It was a work trip, she was his secretary and Wayne said she was drunk…” 

“God,” he presses his head against Eddie’s chest. “Fuck, he would, too. Of fucking course he’s worse than I imagined.” 

Eddie rubs his back gently, “you’re nothing like him. You could never even dream of being like him… you were just placed here by something more powerful who knew you’d be able to change the world.” 

“Funny,” he shrugs it off, still not able to take compliments. “I don’t feel like a hero.” 

“From what I’ve heard, you kept all those little brats alive during the end of the world, that makes you a hero,” Eddie brags. “And you’re my hero…”

“I would’ve killed someone trying to find you,” he admits. “I’m so sorry I almost ruined this… I’m just so used to yelling and running away.” 

“I get it,” he keeps rubbing Steve’s back. “I uh… I’m sorry for saying what I did, too, I mean, really… I’ve had such a hard fucking day and all I can think is it would hurt less if I died too…”

“Eddie, baby,” he sounds so broken when he says it. Sitting up and pulling him up too, he cups eddies face and looks at him. “It hurts right now, I’ll hurt a little next week, and then it won’t hurt… and we’ll get back to good days like we had yesterday and we’ll live out the lives we deserve together. Live for the hope of it all, for me?” 

“My mom would’ve loved you,” he breaks down again, eyes welling with tears as his lips wobbled. He clenches his jaw, breathing out of his nose so he stays calm. “She said something like that before she died.” 

“She was a smart lady,” Steve smiles, tearing up just as much. “and she made a wonderful, beautiful man because of it. She’d be really proud of you.” 

“And you,” he can’t help but think about how perfect life would be if she was around. “She knew all about my crush on you in middle school, she’s the first person I came out to…”

“Wait, what?” He can't believe it. “Middle school? You’ve liked me that long and never talked to me?” 

“Yep,” he manages to smile. “Do you even remember me in middle school?” 

He nods, thinking back as hard as he can, “you had a buzzcut and you and Jeff played your guitars in the talent show.” 

He can’t believe he remembers that “yeah, that was a year before Gareth moved here.” 

“I need to apologize to him in the morning too,” Steve reflects. “I woke him up and scared the shit out of him too.” 

“I thought if I wasn’t in the kitchen you’d just go back to bed with Robin,” he admits that he wasn’t in there on purpose. 

“I needed you so I went to the trailer,” he admits. “You said I knew where to find you when I needed you and then none of your things were there. I think I genuinely had a mental breakdown at that moment cause I started to believe I made you up and you never lived there and thats why your things were gone.” 

“I’m very real,” he places his hand over Steve’s and guides it down to his heart. “And all yours.” 

“Forever,” Steve whispers, damn sure of himself. “I love you.” 

“I love you,” he whispers back. 

Leaning in for a kiss, the love radiates from their chests in this beautiful ultraviolet light, reminding them how their love was worth the fight. Basking in the afterglow, everything was fine, and it always would be.

General Taglist 

@ncsls0515 @stevesmunsons @reidsbookclub @wroteclassicaly @sweetyyhippyy @manuosorioh @mrs-dr-reid @k-k0129 

Steddie

@nosaladallowed-ao3 @maya-custodios-dionach @wifeyreid @girl-with-an-orange-cat

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Machine learning sucks at covid

The worst part of machine learning snake-oil isn’t that it’s useless or harmful — it’s that ML-based statistical conclusions have the veneer of mathematics, the empirical facewash that makes otherwise suspect conclusions seem neutral, factual and scientific.

Think of “predictive policing,” in which police arrest data is fed to a statistical model that tells the police where crime is to be found. Put in those terms, it’s obvious that predictive policing doesn’t predict what criminals will do; it predicts what police will do.

Cops only find crime where they look for it. If the local law only performs stop-and-frisks and pretextual traffic stops on Black drivers, they will only find drugs, weapons and outstanding warrants among Black people, in Black neighborhoods.

That’s not because Black people have more contraband or outstanding warrants, but because the cops are only checking for their presence among Black people. Again, put that way, it’s obvious that policing has a systemic racial bias.

But when that policing data is fed to an algorithm, the algorithm dutifully treats it as the ground truth, and predicts accordingly. And then a mix of naive people and bad-faith “experts” declare the predictions to be mathematical and hence empirical and hence neutral.

Which is why AOC got her face gnawed off by rabid dingbats when she stated, correctly, that algorithms can be racist. The dingbat rebuttal goes, “Racism is an opinion. Math can’t have opinions. Therefore math can’t be racist.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/yes-algorithms-can-be-biased-heres-why/

You don’t have to be an ML specialist to understand why bad data makes bad predictions. “Garbage In, Garbage Out” (GIGO) may have been coined in 1957, but it’s been a conceptual iron law of computing since “computers” were human beings who tabulated data by hand.

But good data is hard to find, and “when all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” is an iron law of human scientific malpractice that’s even older than GIGO. When “data scientists” can’t find data, they sometimes just wing it.

This can be lethal. I published a Snowden leak that detailed the statistical modeling the NSA used to figure out whom to kill with drones. In subsequent analysis, Patrick Ball demonstrated that NSA statisticians’ methods were “completely bullshit.”

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2702948/Problem-Book-Redacted.pdf

Their gravest statistical sin was recycling their training data to validate their model. Whenever you create a statistical model, you hold back some of the “training data” (data the algorithm analyzes to find commonalities) for later testing.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-nsas-skynet-program-may-be-killing-thousands-of-innocent-people/

So you might show an algorithm 10,000 faces, but hold back another 1,000, and then ask the algorithm to express its confidence that items in this withheld data-set were also faces.

However, if you are short on data (or just sloppy, or both), you might try a shortcut: training and testing on the same data.

There is a fundamental difference from evaluating a classifier by showing it new data and by showing it data it’s already ingested and modeled.

It’s the difference between asking “Is this like something you’ve already seen?” and “Is this something you’ve already seen?” The former tests whether the system can recall its training data; the latter tests whether the system can generalize based on that data.

ML models are pretty good recall engines! The NSA was training it terrorism detector with data from the tiny number of known terrorists it held. That data was so sparse that it was then evaluating the model’s accuracy by feeding it back some of its training data.

When the model recognized its own training data (“I have 100% confidence this data is from a terrorist”) they concluded that it was accurate. But the NSA was only demonstrating the model’s ability to recognize known terrorists — not accurately identify unknown terrorists.

And then they killed people with drones based on the algorithm’s conclusions.

Bad data kills.

Which brings me to the covid models raced into production during the height of the pandemic, hundreds of which have since been analyzed.

There’s a pair of new, damning reports on these ML covid models. The first, “Data science and AI in the age of COVID-19” comes from the UK’s Alan Turing Institute:

https://www.turing.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2021-06/data-science-and-ai-in-the-age-of-covid_full-report_2.pdf

The second, “Common pitfalls and recommendations for using machine learning to detect and prognosticate for COVID-19 using chest radiographs and CT scans,” comes from a team at Cambridge.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-021-00307-0

Both are summarized in an excellent MIT Tech Review article by Will Douglas Heaven, who discusses the role GIGO played in the universal failure of any of these models to produce useful results.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/30/1030329/machine-learning-ai-failed-covid-hospital-diagnosis-pandemic/

Fundamentally, the early days of covid were chaotic and produced bad and fragmentary data. The ML teams “solved” that problem by committing a series of grave statistical sins so they could produce models, and the models, trained on garbage, produced garbage. GIGO.

The datasets used for the models were “Frankenstein data,” stitched together from multiple sources. The specifics of how that went wrong are a kind of grim tour through ML’s greatest methodological misses.

Some Frankenstein sets had duplicate data, leading to models being tested on the same data they were trained on

A data-set of health children’s chest X-rays was used to train a model to spot healthy chests — instead it learned to spot children’s chests

One set mixed X-rays of supine and erect patients, without noting that only the sickest patients were X-rayed while lying down. The model learned to predict that people were sick if they were on their backs

A hospital in a hot-spot used a different font from other hospitals to label X-rays. The model learned to predict that people whose X-rays used that font were sick

Hospitals that didn’t have access to PCR tests or couldn’t integrate them with radiology data labeled X-rays based on a radiologist’s conclusions, not test data, incorporating radiologist’s idiosyncratic judgements into a “ground truth” about what covid looked like

All of this was compounded by secrecy: the data and methods were often covered by nondisclosure agreements with medical “AI” companies. This foreclosed on the kind of independent scrutiny that might have caught these errors.

It also pitted research teams against one another, rather than setting them up for collaboration, a phenomenon exacerbated by scientific career advancement, which structurally preferences independent work.

Making mistakes is human. The scientific method doesn’t deny this — it compensates for it, with disclosure, peer-review and replication as a check against the fallibility of all of us.

The combination of bad incentives, bad practices, and bad data made bad models.

The researchers involved likely had the purest intentions, but without the discipline of good science, they produced flawed outcomes — outcomes that were pressed into service in the field, to no benefit, and possibly to patients’ detriment.

There are statistical techniques for compensating for fragmentary and heterogeneous data — they are difficult and labor-intensive, and work best through collaboration and disclosure, not secrecy and competition.

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[glassesfreekjr]

Now, something like a swap-places mechanic would take a *lot* of careful wording with Heaven's Door (it's like manipulating an AI generation prompt; one small change can alter the entire endstate). And either Rohan isn't quite as fond of Koichi early in the story to go out of his way to make things as airtight as they can, or he takes his time being thorough (re: perfectionist). Matters of the soul necessitate caution, after all, so I could imagine swapping being a somewhat late-game development. (we can't make this too easy now can we lol)

As the two Koichi's go through different life experiences, their personalities gradually diverge from each other. Echoes grows quite foul-mouthed by the time he reaches ACT 3, since for a good while "Echoes can communicate effectively with famed comic artist Kishibe Rohan" meant only Kishibe Rohan until an apologetic rules patch. But the two get by, with Echoes in his ACT 1 form writing kanji on Koichi's skin to "speak" (Hirose gains a reputation of always muttering to himself, but it's not like other students see him as especially weird or anything).

The person who can really relate to Koichis' situation the closest is, of all people, Toshikazu Hazamada. When Surface copies someone, it is able to express itself through that someone's personality. Hazamada thinks it's absolutely bitchin' that Hirose has a "dark evil twin" and kinda... hangs out, waiting for the day where they enter an epic battle for dominance. Koichi and Echoes do not think it's bitchin' and would rather Hazamada be less of a schmooze about it.

When it becomes noticable that the two's have developed as people in different ways, Echoes suggests that they use Surface to check which personality is the one copied from Koichi. Hazamada complies, only for Surface to immediately explode like popcorn on activation. On the one hand, Hazamada's reaction is priceless. On the other hand, no one is sure what the hell happened.

(Hazamada could also be the one to come up with new nicknames for Koichi that mean mirror, reflection, etc., but the way he presents them almost turns Koichi off on the idea entirely. He gets a second opinion.)

I'd imagine a lot of stuff is carried over from Hidden in Plain Sight since Echoes is out the majority of the time. While Koichi is dozing late at night, Echoes can be found skimming through one library book or another. Spirit though he may be, it certainly feels physical from his perspective. He's some sort of... creature, and the dysphoria is almost overwelming at times. He never tells Koichi this fact because he knows the guilt is eating Koichi alive as-is.

(The Egg was the worst thing Koichi Hirose had ever experienced in its life, because in the few moments summoned, it could still think. The eggshell was utterly dark, and it could feel intimately the slick, underdeveloped form it wore. A thing that could never have been known as human, a thing whose foetal shape was so alien a travesty that humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance. Inwardly: alone. There. It had no mouth but it had to scream.

And, as Echoes stares at the other Koichi curled under the covers, and feels himself drifting off as well, he vows that the other Koichi will never, ever have to learn about any of that.

(No matter what form the boy takes, he will always be kind to a fault.)

AU Idea:

Koichi Hirose's Stand is a human soul reborn, just like in Joestar Platinum, only this time it's... Koichi Hirose. As in, a copy of Koichi from when he was shot with the Stand Arrow hatches from the egg as Echoes ACT 1 and proceeds to flip the fuck out.

It's only when Rohan writes "Echoes can communicate effectively with famed comic artist Kishibe Rohan" with Heaven's Door during their first encounter that Echoes!Koichi is able to finally articulate his situation to someone. Echoes temporarily betrays his user out of desperation and becomes Rohan's willing accomplice in picking apart Koichi's life to find a way to extract this "imposter."

Of course, both Echoes and Koichi are equally real, but neither of them recognize that yet.

(So, a bizarro Hirose Twins crossed with Echoes Act 4 & JonaPlat with a dash of Hidden in Plain Sight.)

OOOOOOOOOOOO YESSSSSSSSS

hey....... would you mind if I just. Made this the Hirose Twins AU instead. Because that AU was really going nowhere and the name works so much better for this one so-

And oh my god I’m loving this so much tho

Just. Echoes hatches and has a moment of What The Actual F U C K because that is very clearly his body and he’s not inside of it. The fight with Kobayashi has mostly the same end result because Echoes is still very protective of his family, but that’s when things start to get interesting

For one, Echoes is going to be in a weird spot of not wanting to listen to Koichi but also not wanting “his” body and friends to get hurt. He’s also going to want to be out constantly, and he’s probably going to be hanging around Josuke and Okuyasu as much as he can but would openly scorn Koichi. He’s not overtly cruel, but Koichi gets the message that Echoes doesn't like him loud and clear and would probably give his Stand as much space and freedom as he can

And honestly? This might make Echoes even more angry. That this imposter isn’t mean or cruel or even unpleasant. That he isn’t trying to destroy his life but instead perfectly replacing him so no one will notice he’s even gone, doing everything the exact way he would and saying everything he would say. It’s confusing and he hates it, but there’s nothing he can do. As for Koichi......it’s a little disheartening, to be honest. That what is essentially his own soul is rejecting him like this

The thing with Rohan is going to be inane, I can already tell. Rohan is going to be even more interested than canon, because not only do others exist with abilities like his but this one is sentient. It has thoughts and emotions and desires, and what could be better inspiration than the experiences of an entirely different species

And Echoes, while hesitant to resort to drastic measures, is getting desperate. It’s been months and he has exactly zero leads on how to take his body back, or even why this happened to begin with. He’s at the end of his rope, and Rohan is his best shot

And their findings are...... not what they expected

The realization that Koichi and Echoes are the same person hits the both of them hard. Koichi because he hadn’t realized his Stand was dealing with these emotions, and Echoes because this meant...... he was wrong. This entire time he was wrong and he put Koichi in danger like this. Koichi wasn’t an imposter, wasn’t a copy, it was just..... another him. It was a relief knowing he wasn’t a copy either, but it still left him scrambling on what to do next. I’d imagine the two would have a long talk after this. They would basically have to, after everything that was just revealed.

And what if with the help of Heaven’s Door, the two are able to swap back and forth. Maybe Rohan writes in something along the lines of “Koichi and Echoes will be able to swap places at will” or something. That way Echoes won’t be trapped as a Stand for the rest of their shared life. Maybe they swap every other day or something, and have a special subtle way for the two of them to distinguish themselves, like a bracelet or ring

I can also see them finally telling their mom and sister about everything, from Stands to their current predicament. After all, it would feel wrong to hide the fact that they had a second son and brother now, and the two of them trusted them. And it would definitely be a shock and difficult to believe, but to give these two at least a bit more happiness let’s make it so they accept it.

.....do you think that Koichi would be uncomfortable being called ‘Koichi’ when Echoes is called Echoes? After all, they know neither of them are copies, and the fact he gets to keep their “original” name while calling the other an echo feels wrong. Maybe around friends and other Stand Users in the know he could be called a name meaning something like mirror or reflection, just to make things “even” so to speak

[127-mile]

Bots and books.

Pairing: Artificial intelligence Ten x female reader.

Genre: AI, bookstore | Fluff, angst.

Warnings: Ten thinks robots are superior to humans.

Plot: When your boss asked you to train the new employee, you didn’t think you would end up with a robot freshly out of the factory.

Word count: +5.3k.

A/N: This is part of the AI project #14320 collab hosted by @pastelsicheng​​​.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?"

When you hear Taeil's voice behind you, you drop the book you were holding, and when it crashes on your foot, you pursed your lips so as not to be vulgar when so many customers are in the store. "Oh boy, I'm sorry, I should have warned you that I was here." Taeil whispers, and when you look over your shoulder, you notice that he doesn't look embarrassed by the situation, or ashamed, on the contrary, he looks amused.

"I feel like you are trying to hurt me, am I wrong?" you ask, squinting, and he shrugs. At least he bends down to pick up the book and put it where it was supposed to go. "Maybe I'm just trying to get you to go home because you're spending too much time here, maybe I didn't do it on purpose, who knows." If he wasn't your boss, you would have insulted him, but you care about your job, and you like being able to pay your rent every month without having to ask your parents for help.

“I don't spend too much time here, I even think that I don't spend enough time here. But getting back to what caused you to come bother me, yes we can talk. What do you want?" you turn completely towards him, and you tilt your head to the side. "We're going to have a new employee tomorrow, and I was wondering if you could take care of him, show him how the bookstore works, show him how to use the cash register, you know, everything that I taught you when I hired you."

"Aren't you supposed to take care of it, as the boss?" you ask, and he takes his hands out of the pockets of his pants when a client approaches, he smiles at her, and when she disappears, he regains his slumped position. "Are you listening when I'm talking to you?" you know it's a rhetorical question and yet you shake your head, you're not going to lie, you tend to stop listening when he talks for too long. Can he blame you? He has a soft voice that lulls you to sleep.

"I vividly remember telling you last week that I had to go away for a few days. I have an appointment in another city for my next book." oh yes, you remember hearing him mention a new book, an appointment with his publisher, and other people who might help him, but you don't remember hearing him mention the date, or how long he would be gone. "Am I going to have to spend weeks putting books away with your head on the cover? I better get a raise for that!"

"Why would you get a raise, you should be happy to see my face on books!" you could tell him that yes, it's an honor to work with a famous writer, but you don't want to give him that pleasure. "So if I have to take care of the new employee, does that mean that I will also be the boss until you come back from your vacation?"

"It's not a vacation," he mumbles, and you smirk, it's so easy to annoy Taeil, and that's why you like him so much. "but yes, you will be in charge of the store until I return. So are you okay with that?" you know you don't have a choice, that you are the only person working here that he trusts enough to entrust his shop, his baby. "Of course I agree! I won't miss an opportunity to turn a new employee against you."

"Maybe I'll take this opportunity away from the store to find a new employee, to replace you. I've had enough of you!" you're very happy that customers are around, otherwise he certainly would have shouted to sound more dramatic. "You can't fire me, because I'll ruin your business, and you love me way too much, you'll be bored without me. Do I also need to remind you that you wouldn't have a manuscript for your editor to read if I hadn't been there to force you to write?"

Rather than respond, Taeil walks away muttering something between clenched teeth, and if a client wasn't calling for your help to find a book, you most likely would have laughed at his behavior.

Night has fallen for an hour or so when you finally lock the bookstore door behind you, and when the cold wind caresses your cheeks, you sigh deeply. You like this place, it's a bit of a second home for you, but good god, you want to be at home, even if you have to deal with your roommates' antics until you fall asleep.

"Excuse me?"

Your blood freeze in your body, you should have checked that no one was around the store when you went out, because Taeil is already gone, and he won't be there to help you if a drunken idiot, or a little too pushy keeps you from coming home. You take a deep breath, but it hitches in your throat when you turn on your heels. "Can I help you?" you ask in a voice that you hope is not too shaky.

The young man stays silent for a while, and you frown when he tilts his head a little too slowly not to look like a killer straight out of the horror movies you love so much. You clear your throat, and he seems to take notice of the question put to him, so he nods, extending a hand to you. "You dropped that." in his hand, you see the notebook that you always keep in your bag, bag that you have thrown over your shoulder without even taking the time to close it.

The lump that had formed in your throat is disappearing as quickly as it came, and you refrain from sighing in relief. "Oh, thank you very much!" you take the notebook that you put in your bag before closing the zip. "Thank you?" the young man answers, but before you can open your mouth he walks away from the shop.

You happen to meet strange people, but this is the first time you've met someone like him, someone who seems surprised to have been thanked for something as mundane as returning a notebook. Taeil would say that this is a person's first life on earth. Him and his writer mind.

Even though the stranger didn't look dangerous, you make sure he got far enough away to walk in the direction of the stairs leading to the underground metro. If you're not a fan of this place, you like being there at this late hour, because it's not so crowded, and it's easy for you to find a seat in the metro. You push your headphones into your ears, and you look up at the screen near the sliding door.

You roll your eyes when you see the ads for LSM going on. If you were to earn $10 every time you saw it on TV, or heard it on the radio, you would have enough to pay your rent for at least six months without needing to work. This really isn't an exaggeration, the company really wants everyone to know about what they are offering, new updates on their bots, and how excited they are to have sent the most of their new robots in the world for work, for study, or for entertainment.

You have nothing against robots, you just think it's a shame to take jobs from people who genuinely need to work, but apparently: "robots aren't here to replace you, they're here to make it easier for you. Do not be scared, technology is good, we need it." You're not sure if you're okay with that, and you'll let it know when the robots take over the world.

Lost in your thoughts, you almost forget to get up to get out of the metro, these damn robots will end up making you miss your stop. Yes, sometimes it's much easier to blame the robots than it is to accept your responsibilities.

"Johnny, if you don't get out of the bathroom in a minute, I swear to god I'll make you swallow your camera!"

you growl, and you open your eyes. Why do you always have to wake up regretting all the decisions that brought you here, living with two roommates who are ready to tear their heads off at the first opportunity offered to them. "And I'll make you eat your books back if you do that!" you hear Johnny respond, and you wonder why the neighbors haven't filed a noise complaint yet. You would have done it since day one.

"Doyoung, you don't work Saturdays, why are you already up?" you ask in a voice loud enough to be heard, and what you didn't want to happen happens. The door opens, and your gaze meets Doyoung's, he has furrowed brows and dark circles, since when has he not slept? "For your information, young lady, I would be sleeping if Johnny hadn't knocked on my door at six in the morning to ask me for the time!"

"Not that I want to stand up for him, but you looked for it by setting his alarm clock to go off at five the other day." you answer, and he rolls his eyes as he walks into your room to drop into the bed, and you groan when his back blocks your legs. "Doyoung, I have to go to work, so if you could move that would be very nice." he doesn't move, and you wiggle your legs until you can free one. "As soon as I convince Taeil to give me a raise, I'll find myself another apartment and I won't have to deal with you anymore." you mumble, and Doyoung chuckles.

"Even if he agreed to give you a raise, which he won't do until he has published two more books, you won't leave. You don't like silence, and you will miss us too much after the first day." he's not wrong, but you could always find a new roommate. "It's okay, I'll find someone else. Someone who doesn't make me want to throw myself out the window every morning."

"If you need help finding a new roommate, ask us, we'll be happy to help." you sigh when you hear Johnny, and when you turn your head, you roll your eyes. Johnny is in the doorframe, a towel hanging low around his hips, and drops of water falling from his hair. "We'll find you someone good. Or someone worse than us, Doyoung and I will have to talk about it before we decide."

Before Doyoung can react, you free your second leg, grab your clothes for the day, and head to the bathroom, not without pushing Johnny out of the way. "Y/n, I'll make you eat your fucking books!" Doyoung growls as he straightens up, and you laugh. You know he can do it, but before that, he'll take the time to find the worst book in your book shelves to do it, so you'll have plenty of time to run away, change your identity and be forgotten.

You need less time than Johnny to shower, and to be ready to go. When you come out of the bathroom, you notice that the two boys are still in your room, and they are chatting as if they hadn't threatened each other less than twenty minutes ago. "Are you going to stay in my bed? Don't you have bedrooms, or a couch where you can talk?" Doyoung looks up, and he smirks. "Your bed is much more comfortable. We're talking about what to do with this room when you're gone." little shit.

"Well, since I'm apparently the only one working here, I'm going to go. See you tonight, or never." you get your bag that you throw on your shoulder and you stick your tongue out at Johnny who waves to you without moving from your bed, the sheets are going to be damp because of him, and you want to hit him for that, but that might make you late for work.

You leave the apartment, and like the day before, you quickly find the stairs leading to the underground metro, and unlike yesterday, it's more difficult to find your way through the students, workers and partygoers who have just returned from a party the night before. You concentrate on your breathing to avoid letting yourself be overwhelmed by the different smells of perfume, sweat, and alcohol.

When the doors slide open, you quickly get out of the train, and you find the outside. You never thought you would miss the clean air as much as since you started taking the subway to work. Since Taeil is away, the shop is still closed, and it takes you at least five minutes to find the keys in your bag, and for a second, you wonder if you haven't left them at home, but you sigh with relief when your fingers come in contact with the cold surface of a key.

You unlock the door, and walk into the store smiling at the familiar scent of old books piling up in part of the store. When you started working here, you asked Taeil what the old books were for, that they would never be sold, but now you see the charm of the old book with the damaged binding, the sound of the pages, and you wouldn't do without them. You put your bag on the counter, and you turn on the lights.

Taeil must have gone to the store before leaving, because you can find the boxes already behind the counter. You could have taken care of the delivery, but Taeil likes to check that everything is there, even if he might be late for an appointment that could really change his writing life, even if in your opinion, he is already quite popular and doesn't need more help.

You sit up when you hear the door open, and you open your mouth. "We're not open yet, sorry." you say, and if you expected the door to close, it stays open, and when you look at the person, your eyes open wide. This is the man who gave you your notebook back last night, and once again, he tilts his head far too slowly not to be awkward to watch.

“I'm LC27296,” he begins, but he shakes his head with a certain vigor that you would never have at this time of the morning. "I'm Ten, I'm going to work here." your mouth opens, but no sound comes out. For a minute, you forgot that you were supposed to take care of the new employee. "Taeil told me to come before the opening to make it easier." oh he did that?

"Before I introduce myself, I have a question for you. What were you doing here last night?" you ask and he suddenly seems nervous. "I- I didn't mean to scare you, I just wanted to make sure of how long it would take me to get here, so that I wouldn't be late for my first day." you hum, not sure you believe it, but it's not like you can accuse him of something without having any proof whatsoever. "Alright. I'm Y/n, I'll take care of teaching you how the store works until Taeil comes back in a few days. You can shut the door."

Ten does, and he approaches the counter, he doesn't seem in his element, but if Taeil hired him it's because he saw something in him. "Why did you give me numbers when I asked you for your name?" you suddenly ask, curious.

"Oh! It's my serial number, but I was told I had to introduce myself with my name, it makes it easier to fit in." a serial number, what the hell? You frown as you take your phone from the pocket of your jacket, and you open up the conversation with Taeil.

To Taeil: A serial number, what's wrong with the guy you hired?

Taeil must still be in the car, or on the train, since the answer is not long in coming. You shouldn't ignore Ten, but you need an answer before you decide whether you want to be locked up with a stranger all day, or not.

From Taeil: Ten is a robot. LSM sent me a letter a few weeks ago asking if I wanted to take any of them, and I said yes.

To Taeil: And you didn't find it useful to tell me that I was going to have to train a robot? And besides, aren't they already programmed to know how to do everything, why should I waste my time training him? Is this your way of telling me that I'm fired and that you will only hire bots from now on?

You don't get a response, which shouldn't surprise you, so you put your phone on the counter, and you meet Ten's gaze, who hasn't moved an inch. Did he himself on pause while you were busy? "So you are a robot?" you ask in a small voice, and he nods. "Yeah, you didn't know?" honestly no, even though LSM has some amazing quality robots you would expect to see them with bolts and metal.

"It's my first day away from the factory, and I'm very happy to be here!" he adds, and you roll your eyes, if he's happy that's the main thing, but you're not sure you are. "You can think of me as a human being like any other, no need to make a difference because I am superior to you." you gasp at him, but  you can't help but smile, stunned. "Just because you're made of metal doesn't mean you're superior to us. I'm sure if I throw water at you you'll rust and stop working, so in a way, I'm superior."

"You can try, but it won't work! That would be stupid to think we fear water, or fire, or anything for that matter, right?" oh, it might get hectic if he continues. "How about I show you how the store works? Because if we talk any longer, I might look for other ways to turn you off, and you wouldn't want that to happen, would you?" he shakes his head, a worried look on his face. Perfect.

You're going to have a serious conversation with Taeil, you think, showing him where the books go, how the cash register works, and where the storeroom is, storeroom that is also used as a rest room.

"For starters, you're going to go to the storeroom, and you're going to sort all the books alphabetically while sorting them by genre, can you do that, oh you superior robot?" you ask, tilting your head, and he shrugs his shoulders. "Of course I can do it!" Taeil never asked that the books in the storeroom to be sorted, since most are unsold books that will be donated to associations or the city library, but you don't want to have him in your legs when the first customers arrive.

You take your phone, and you send one last message to Taeil before turning on the light in the storefront indicating that the store is open.

To Taeil: This robot is an idiot, and if he pisses me off too much, I'm going to fire him whether you like it or not.

To make sure you don't receive an answer, you turn off your phone before throwing it in your bag before starting to put away the new books. And surprisingly, the morning goes off without a hitch. Ten comes out once or twice to ask you for advice on an unfamiliar book, the few customers who come in don't need your help, so that's nice.

When the time comes to close the shop for the next two hours, you enter the storeroom. Ten is sitting on the ground, and he's surrounded by books that should have been put away for a long time now, but the robot seems way too deep in reading to do the job you asked him to do. You frown. "Do you know that reading is not part of your contract?"

Ten doesn't react, he just turns the page and laughs at something he just read. "Taeil buys LSM magazines, I'll go check if I can't find an article on how to deactivate a robot if it becomes threatening." you say, and immediately Ten lifts his head to look at you. "But I'm not threatening!" he exclaims, like a petulant child would.

He may be a robot, but he has typically human reactions, which is strange in itself. At least for you. "They won't have to know when I throw your body in front of the factory you came from." you answer in a slow voice, and Ten finds himself on his feet, not without slipping a bookmark in his book so as not to lose his progress. "Sorry, I found this book, and it's so interesting I couldn't help myself."

You look at the title, and you smirk. You hide in the storeroom when you don't feel like coming home, and it's one of the books you've read. "If you don't want me to tell you who the killer is, you're going to finish putting those books away, and then I'll give you time to read until the store closes tonight, do we have a deal?"

He mumbles something between his teeth, but ends up nodding. You walk away from the room before remembering that you had a question for him, so you go back. "Do robots eat?" you wouldn't want to deprive him of his lunch break and end up with some sort of robots protection squad on your back for mistreatment. "Yes, we eat. I told you, we are like you."

"It's break time so you'll finish tidying up later." Ten passes over a pyramid of books, and he leaves the room, not without taking his book with him. "So, what are we going to eat?" he suddenly asks, and you want to take his book and hit yourself with it. "What do you mean, we?"

"Taeil told me you would take me out to eat with you so I wouldn't be alone in the store." Taeil should remember to tell you when he decides something, because you can't continue to be surprised every time he opens his mouth. "Did he say that?" a nod. "Great. I'm going home to eat, so I think you're going to meet the two most annoying people on this planet after you."

He squeals with delight and you roll your eyes as you pick up your bag. You exit the store by locking the door behind Ten, and you head for the subway train. "I love meeting new humans, you are all so fascinating!" you wonder what can be fascinating about humans, but for a robot, everything has to be. "What fascinates you so much about us?" you ask going down the stairs, being careful that Ten keeps following you, you don't feel like looking for a lost robot in the streets.

"We can feel emotions, but they're programmed for us, so it's not as real as when you feel them." human emotions are difficult to understand, humans are confusing. "I think it's pretty nice to be programmed to feel certain things, it's probably easier, less confusing."

"You're wrong," Ten starts to say, following you in the subway, he sits next to you not without looking at a little dog with stars in his eyes, as if he had never seen a dog in real life, so much so that you wonder if there are robot dogs, you'll have to ask him one of these days. "We're forced to feel the emotions, so we don't understand them. Being programmed doesn't mean we understand what's going on."

It's pretty sad, you think.

"Do you have a program that allows you to kill us if we becomes threatening for you?" you ask in a low voice so as not to attract the attention of the students around you. Ten's eyes widen and he chuckles. "No, we can't do that. We're not here to hurt you, just to help you." it's a shame, you would have needed it with Johnny and Doyoung.

"This is where we come down." Ten follows you to the door of your apartment. You can smell Doyoung's food already. He might be annoying, but when he's not working he always makes a snack for you for when you come home from work during the break, and that's very nice. "I live with two people, Johnny and Doyoung, they can be weird, and they might ask you tons of questions, so be prepared."

When you put your hand on the doorknob, Ten puts his hand on your wrist to stop you. "Wait, wait. Are they going to hurt me? Some humans can be mean when in the company of a robot." oh, he didn't sound so nervous earlier, but in a way you can understand that. "They're not mean, and they're quite fascinated by LSM's robots, so you have nothing to worry about, they won't do anything to you."

You open the door when he seems to be relaxing, and you sigh when you hear the loud voices that most likely come from the kitchen. "Johnny, how many times have I told you not to set foot in my kitchen? You're a walking hazard, you'll manage to set some water on fire if you wanted to! Get out!"

"Guys, I'm here. And I'm not alone, so if you could behave like normal people that would be really nice." you say and immediately Johnny's head pops out of the kitchen door jamb and you roll your eyes. "Oh hello mister stranger, who are you, are you our beloved Y/n's secret boyfriend?"

"I-" Ten seems unable to speak, and Johnny throws his head back when he notices the blush on Ten's cheeks as he lowers his head. "Oh, he's blushing! Adorable! He's in love but he hasn't had the courage to tell her yet. Doyoung, come see!" you should have known that they were going to mess with him. You should have warned them before you got home, threatened them, or promised to pay for the next pizza night.

"Shut up, big idiot! He's the new bookstore employee, we met this morning." you respond by swinging your bag in a corner of the apartment after removing your shoes. Ten does the same, and he follows you into the living room. You're pointing your index finger at the boys. "Johnny, Doyoung, this is Ten. He works with me."

"Oh, I didn't know Taeil was okay with hiring bots." Doyoung says, stunned. "How do you know it's a robot?" were you the only one who didn't have a clue? The only one that can't tell the difference between a robot and a human?

"It shows! And he's got LSM's name tattooed behind his ear." You'll have to go see the ophthalmologist to get glasses, because you didn't notice the black ink behind his ear. "Taeil didn't really hire me, it's just a contract for a couple of months to see how quickly I adapt to a new environment. Next time I'll be in a new place." oh, that's a detail you didn't know either, you thought Ten was here for good, at least until you got fired, or left.

"And can't you ask to stay at the bookstore for good?" you ask, sitting down in a chair, and Ten shrugs. "Why, have you already become attached to me? You refuse to see me go?" you could get up and hit him, but you don't want to break your fist if he is made of metal inside. "I said that because I wouldn't say no to less hours of work, dont think I appreciate you."

"She never introduced anyone to us, even casual employees, so you must be special." Johnny says winking at Ten, and you refrain from leaning over the table to hit him. "Taeil asked me to take care of him, what was I supposed to do, lock him in the storeroom with a piece of bread and a glass of water?"

"That's what you would have done with us, so yeah." he's not wrong, that's what you would have done if you had had Johnny and/or Doyoung as a colleague. "Anyway, we don't have all day, so if you could just leave Ten alone so we can eat." you mumble, but Ten shakes his head, apparently he doesn't mind being the center of attention. At least he knows that emotion, and he understands it, that's a good thing.

When it's time to go back to work, you almost have to pull Ten out of the apartment. "But why? I was having fun with your roommates!" of course he was having fun. "You can come back and see them if you want." you answer by going down the stairs. You have a little over thirty minutes left before you have to open the store, so rather than locking yourself in a subway train, you decide to walk.

"Really, you would let me come back?" you shrug your shoulders. "Why wouldn't I want to?" Ten plays with the hem of his hoodie, and you frown, he doesn't look like the type to be surprised or even slightly nervous over something as futil. "Because I wasn't very nice to you when I arrived this morning. But like I told you, some humans don't want us to fit in and want to harm us, and I heard so many stories that I defended myself if you ever decided to be like them."

"I don't understand robots, I don't understand LSM's motivation, but that doesn't mean I would hurt any of you. You should have waited, and you would have known it."

"I'm sorry Y/n, and I promise I'll do my job well until the end of my contract!" he exclaims, his smile back on his face. His beautiful face, moreover, you did not miss this detail. "I hope so, otherwise I won't give you time to read before closing." he gasps, but he laughs, and you have no choice but to laugh with him.

[angelinasway]

Regaining Hope

Chapter Eight

Pairing: Clark Kent/Buffy Summers Warnings/Triggers:Torture, Violence, Mention's of Major Character Death, Bad Language, Sexual Tension, Eventual Smut, Mentions of Sexual Assault Summary: Takes place during Man of Steel. When Buffy discovers the U.S Military trying to keep quiet about an object buried in a twenty thousand year old glacier, she immediately thinks the worst. However, when a surprise visit to the Canadian Arctic puts her in the path of a mysterious stranger her whole world is changed forever. Authors Notes: Thank you all so much for being so very supportive. You guys have been absolutely wonderful. Seriously I couldn't ask for a better group of readers. I need to warn you all that this chapter has quite the graphic and gruesome scene in it, so if that's not your thing I highly recommend skipping the part where Clark starts to watch the video. Some major questions answered here. Hope you all enjoy, and keep the reviews coming. Special thanks to my ever amazing beta Hipkarma. She always helps and inspires me. Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Previous Chapters: [Chapter One] [Chapter Two] [Chapter Three] [Chapter Four] [Chapter Five] [Chapter Six] [Chapter Seven]

[TTH] [AO3] [FFN]

Chapter Eight

 Dawn smirked as she saw the caller ID flash. So, Buffy had talked to Wes. That was good. She really didn’t want to have to break into the Watchers Council just because she was nosy and worried for her sister. Buffy hadn’t told her much when they talked yesterday, just that there was some sort of prophecy about her and this Clark guy, which just raised all sorts of red flags for her. Dawn had insisted on seeing a copy of the prophecy and her hackles raised even more when she found out how quiet Wes and Willow were trying to keep this. Looks like big sis came through however, and now it was time to give the man on the other line hell for keeping something this important from her.

 “Xand, honey, can you take Abby? Wes is on the phone and it’s time for her nap anyway.” Dawn said, reaching for the phone.

 “No!” Her one and a half your old screeched at the top of her lungs, making Dawn cringe. When they coined the phrase, ‘children are your parents secret revenge,’ they weren’t lying. Abigail was just like her too, even in looks.

 Xander came out of their shared office, a crooked and amused smile on his lips. “You should know by now not to say that word in front of her,” He said, kissing Dawn on the forehead before reaching out and swooping up their toddler. “Come on Abby,” he said as Dawn answered her call. “Daddy will read you your favorite story.”

 “Try to get Joyce down too,” She added, before saying into the phone, “Hello Wes, so good of you to finally call me.”

 She heard the groan on the other end of the line and smiled. “How much do you know?”

 “That there’s a prophecy about my sister and some uber-powerful guy she’s been spending time with, on your instruction I might add.” Dawn said in a mockingly sweet voice.

 She heard him sigh. “Yes, that is all true. Look Dawn, I’m going to send you a copy of the prophecy through your secure fax now. We’ve been able to translate some of it, but there are certain areas where…I don’t think the language is of this world. It’s nothing like we’ve ever seen in any human or demon writings before.”

 Dawn got up and walked into the office, a frown on her face. “You mean like interdimensional, there’s gotta be a reference somewhere Wes.”

 There was silence over the line and for a second and she thought Wes had hung up. She’d just opened her mouth to see if he was still there, when he finally said, “No Dawn, that’s not what I meant at all.”

 Her frown deepened as the first page spat out of the machine. She slid it off the rack and looked at the prophecy. There were several different languages written on the copy, Etruscan, Ancient Sumerian, Ancient Greek, and Latin. At the top were strange symbols unlike anything she’d ever seen before, almost flowing together like cursive. The next page that came out was Wesley and Willow’s translation of that page. She bit her lip, walking over to her desk and went to work making sure what they had translated so far was correct.

 “So,” she began casually, “what I’m getting from the first page is that this guy is much farther from home than just another dimension.” She paused, huffing in annoyance as she snootily added,” It was Sun God by the way, not Star God.” She sighed. “Who are you using anyway, Basile?”

 “Vonten,” He answered and Dawn rolled her eyes. Of course, he was using that moron’s guide.

 “Vonten is an arrogant prick Wes, that book confuses people more than it helps. Burn it, it’s better as kindling. Bachman is the best at Etruscan and Ancient Sumerian, and you already know Ancient Greek and Latin enough not to need a reference.” She said, before frowning as she came to the part about the soulbond. “Wes, what the hell is a soulbond, and why is this referencing my sister and Mr. E.T. having one?”

 As Wesley began to explain what they knew so far, Dawn's face began to pale. Oh, this was not of the good. Buffy was gonna wig to the nth degree when she found out.

 "Does she know any of this?" Dawn asked, turning around and grabbing more of the pages that were still spitting out of her printer.

 "She knows about the bond. I told her this morning." He answered.

 "And what, you’re waiting until she gets pregnant before you tell her the rest?" Dawn asked angrily. "You know this is gonna freak her out..."

 "Which is why I decided not to tell her." Wes interrupted.

 "If you'd let me finish," Dawn snapped, slamming her hand on the desk. "I was going to say this is gonna freak her out, but it would be better if you tell her now." She huffed in frustration. "This just proves how little you guys know my sister. She absolutely will freak and she'll probably fight it at first. Just the idea of her own children having to live the life she has, is not gonna be a happy, joyous moment for her. She's already worried that Joyce or Abby, or maybe even both will be called one day.” Dawn said, before emphasizing her next words, "However, my sister is not stupid, and when push comes to shove, she'll make the right decision like she always does. I get that you’re worried about the Slayer line Wes, we all are, but keeping this from her is not the right way to go about it.”

 She heard Wes’s sigh, “I realize that Dawn, but with the bond itself needing to be fulfilled, I thought that was more than enough for both of them to handle at this time.”

 Dawn looked at the pages covered in the strange flowing script, similar to the symbols on the first page. Wes was right, it was a language. "We need to find a way to translate this. Do you think this is Clark's language from his home world?"

The line was silent for a moment, before he said in annoyance, “Yes, that’s what I meant when I said I don’t think the language is of this world.”

 “Do you think Clark knows how to read it?” Dawn asked.

 A sigh came over the line, “I honestly don’t know. I believe he just discovered where he came from, so I don’t see how he could.” He paused in thought and then murmured to himself, “But even if he can’t, perhaps the ship has a historical archive or maybe there is some form of AI technology that could translate it for us.”

 Dawn frowned, “What ship?”

 As Wesley explained how Buffy and Clark met and the danger Buffy had recklessly put herself in, Dawn found her ire sparking at Buffy’s stupidity. “I’m gonna kill her!” Dawn growled. “She hasn’t done something that reckless since Joyce was born. God fucking dammit, she promised me!”

 Wesley sighed. “In her defense, it could have very well been her fate that made her act so rashly.” He paused before saying, “In any case, Clark was there and according to Buffy, he saved her and watched over her after she went into a healing sleep.”

 Dawn was quiet as she processed that information. So, she didn’t die, which meant Buffy actively tried to stop it from happening. That was good, she was still getting smacked when Dawn saw her, but at least she hadn’t completely broken her promise from three and a half years ago. It was also good to see that this godlike Champion the prophecy spoke of wasn’t just a creature with a penchant for destruction playing at being a white hat because of a curse. That was a nice change.

 “What else do you know about him?” Dawn asked. “I’m assuming you started trying to find him as soon as you started translating this.”

 “Well,” Wesley began, “We first caught wind of a possible candidate about a year ago. We’d been monitoring airwave chatter for possible beings with superhuman strength when we caught a lead. A distress call came in about an oil rig off the coast of Canada in flames and about to explode. In that communication there was talk of a man rescuing the crew members aboard the rig and preventing the tower from collapsing on the rescue helicopter with his bare hands.” He paused for a moment, before saying. “We managed to find a few other incidents of him saving people, one that happened when he was thirteen. According to the incident report, his school bus went off a bridge and into the river. Three witnesses stated that a young Clark Kent managed to push the bus out of the water and rescue his classmate.”

 Dawn whistled, “So this guy really is the real deal white knight, huh?”

 “It would appear so.” He sighed.

 “Wes we’re gonna need to access that ship.” Dawn said, looking over a small section of Sumerian that talked about a trial of choice. The rest of the page was in the alien script however, so any clue as to what that meant was beyond her.

 “I know,” Wesley agreed.

 “Which means, we’re gonna have to tell Buffy and Clark everything.” Dawn reiterated.

 She heard Wesley groan, but he conceded nonetheless. “Alright fine, Willow needs to bring them some pendants to stave off the worst of the compulsion the bond is creating. I’ll have her stop by and get you on her way, unless you want me to tell Buffy myself, that is.”

 Dawn shook her head, “No, no. I think it will be safer for everyone if I’m the one to do it.” Then she bit her lip in thought, “And don’t bother with Willow, just call me when she gets back. I think I need to do this one on my own.”

 “Very well,” Wes agreed. “Willow should be finished within the next few hours. I’ll call you as soon as I know she’s returned.”

 “Alright, in the meantime I’m gonna go over this and make sure all the parts I can read are translated correctly.” Dawn said, adding, "Talk in a few," before hanging up.

 She sighed, rubbing her fingers along her forehead. "Well fuck," she muttered to herself.

 "Everything alright?" Xander asked, coming into the office. 

 "No, not really," she answered handing him the translated first page of the prophecy.

 She watched his eye scan the words before he blew out a breath. "So, this guys an alien?"

 "Looks like." She answered.

 Xander snorted, "Man the Buffster really knows how to pick 'em, doesn't she?"

 Dawn mock glared, before she couldn't contain her amusement at the absurdity of the situation. "Well, you know Buffy. She doesn't do anything by halves."

 ****<S>**<S>****

 As Clark followed Buffy down the hallway, his thoughts were a jumbled mess. He knew she had been trying to reassure him, but her words only had the opposite effect. Were they only feeling any of what they were because of the prophecy and furthermore, given the choice, would she even choose him? She had basically confessed to falling in love with her best friend. The history they had both shared, as disturbing as it was, was an important one to her. She had cared very deeply for this man. How could he ever live up to the memory of a man who had essentially changed a piece of himself for her? Part of him wanted to erase Spike’s memory from her mind, to do whatever he could to drive this man, this demon from her past and another part of him just felt wholly lost. He didn’t want to be anyone’s second best and he certainly didn’t want her to want him only because some guy thousands of years ago decided they were destined. God, he wished his dad was still alive. This would definitely be the type of thing his dad could help him through.

 She stopped at a large set of double doors and turned, catching his expression before he had time to school it into a much more neutral one. She blinked in surprise, "Clark...what’s wrong?"

 He shook his head, “It’s nothing Buffy.”

 Her frown deepened, “Oh no, you definitely have something face. Talk to me. I promise whatever it is, I’ll try to understand.”

 Clark shifted uncomfortably, before finally admitting, “I’m just feeling a little unsure about all this.”

 Her eyes widened slightly, “Because of Spike?”

 Clark sighed, “Well I mean think about it Buffy. You basically told me that you fell in love with your best friend and were willing to marry him for eternity, but the only reason you didn’t is because you were too scared. Would you even look twice at me if he was here now? Are the feelings I’m having for you even real, or is this just destiny trying to force us together?”

 Realization flooded her expression, and she quickly shook her head. “I can’t speak for what-ifs, because I would be lying if I answered that either way…” She swallowed, “As for how you’re feeling, I’ve been under love spells before and granted you usually don’t know you’re under one when you are, but if the feeling’s part was being fabricated, we…we wouldn’t be able to fight this like we are. We would have probably already slept together.” She blushed, looking down. “Fabricated feelings they’re false obviously, but they’re very strong…strong enough to make people dangerous. If what we were feeling was a manifestation, you wouldn’t have these doubts Clark, you wouldn’t even realize there was doubts to be had.” She met his eyes then, her expression serious and stoic. “And as for the fear part, I didn’t want to get into it because…” She sighed again. “You remember how I told you that Angelus showed up right when I was starting to get my life back together?”

 Clark nodded, “I remember.”

 “Well, what I didn’t say is that I was planning on retiring.” She rolled her eyes, “I had this grand plan of going back to school and getting a degree in Art History and moving to Hawaii to open a gallery.” She shook her head, “It was stupid, I know.”

 He immediately shook his head, “That doesn’t sound stupid at all.”  

 Buffy blushed. “I just mean it was stupid that I ever thought it could happen.” She shook her head, “Anyway, I started training a girl named Rayanne when we were first getting the new Watchers Council on its feet. She was bright, witty, resourceful and she already had the makings of someone who could be an excellent leader.” She looked at her feet, her hands clenching. “Me and Giles had agreed, in three-years-time, when Ray was eighteen, she would step in and fill my shoes. Faith didn’t want the position and the only other possible candidate that actually did, I flat out refused due to her inability to get along with just about anyone but Willow. I mentored Ray for over a year and she became…well, like a little sister to me. After the whole General Voll fiasco, I was ready to promote her to Senior Slayer status. She had been on it more than any other girl at the compound, helpful and demanding when need be. She’d fought through a horde of zombies and we came out of it with zero losses. The attack was completely unexpected and if she hadn’t been there, I don’t know what I would have done.” She met his eyes, “I was so proud of her.” Buffy sighed, “A few months later is when the first girl, Alicia went missing, and by the time Ray disappeared, there were already six that seemed to have just dropped off the planet.” She swallowed, “Angelus revealed himself and killed Giles a few weeks later, and almost three weeks after is when we found Alicia. She was the first and youngest to go missing and she was the first he dropped on our doorstep.” Buffy shook her head squeezing her eyes shut, “I knew what he was doing to Rayanne then, and that she would probably get the worst of it because of her association with me. Alicia was just a taste of what Angelus was capable of.” She opened her eyes, meeting his. “I wanted to have Spike claim me so we would be strong enough to save her and the rest of them, and I was scared because I knew I’d be asking for the wrong reasons. I was afraid Spike would know it too and I would only hurt him by asking. Does that make sense?”

 It was Clark’s turn to avert his eyes. “Yes,” he said quietly.

 She pulled out her phone and began to scroll through it, “Well just in case you have any doubts…” She swallowed, “I don’t even know why I kept this. Angelus loved tormenting me and we didn’t know it at the time but there were several Watchers from the old regime who were very unhappy with the way we were running things. Some of them made deals with Angelus, gave out my email and phone number and my location.” She looked at him, her lips pursed in anger. “One of them would even take video or pictures, documenting my pain for him when he couldn’t be there hiding in the shadows to see it.” She handed him her phone, “I’ve never watched this one, it’s the morning I found Rayanne, he saved her for last. I don’t need to see it, I lived it.” She nodded at her phone, “When he sent it, I didn’t even open it. I just dropped it in an archive and it’s been there ever since.” She shook her head, “I highly recommend only opening the third video file, the one that says, ‘Are you broken yet?’ She met his eyes then, “The first two will be what he did to her. So, unless you feel like throwing up, I would skip those.” She gestured with her chin at the double doors. “I’ll be in there beating on a bag, meet me when you’re done.”

 She turned without another word and went through the double doors not looking back. Clark looked down at the phone swallowing heavily, before opening the file. The video began with the image of the front of a house, not unlike the one they were in now, except there was a large tree in front and something very obviously dangling from it. It looked to be sometime in the middle of the night or perhaps early morning, but he couldn't tell either way due to the lights on the house illuminating everything.

 The person carrying the camera ran towards the house and a refined British voice in distress yelled, "Ms. Summers, come quickly. I think it may be Miss Stevenson."

 The front door flew open and there she was, except she looked nothing like she did now, her eyes were wild, feral even, and she was so pale and sucked up. She looked hollow, worn-down, nothing like the girl he’d spent the last couple of days getting to know. The scream that tore from her lips and the look on her face when she saw what was hanging from the tree, tore through him like a tidal wave of emotion. Clark felt himself growing angry at the Watcher, who was obviously playing both sides. Another man with bleached hair and nothing on but a pair of black jeans came flying through the door next, his eyes wild and worried. 

 The camera panned and followed Buffy as she ran out to the tree, falling to her knees and screaming again. Clark saw what was in the tree then and his stomach almost rebelled right then and there. It was a young girl, no older than sixteen and the only skin left on her body was on her beautiful face and near her pelvic region. The girl’s expression was frozen in a horrified scream that no one who cared ever had the chance to hear. A large white sheet wrapped itself tightly around the girl’s wrists and tied over the lowest branch, the excess linen draping behind the dead girl as some sort of sick backdrop silhouette for the body hanging lifelessly from the tree. There was hardly any blood to speak of, just a pinkish residue from where the body had touched the clean white linen, which told Clark she had been dead for more than a few hours. It wouldn’t be visible to a human through the recording, but because of his enhanced vision Clark could even see puncture wounds in places and deep gashes from where the girl had been restrained.

 The blond man came into the picture then and the Watcher came towards them, circling around so he could see Buffy’s expression, or at least that’s what he assumed the person with the camera was doing. Buffy's mouth was open in silent gulping sobs, giant tears dripping down her cheeks.

 “Love,” The blond man whispered in an apparent British accent not nearly as refined as the Watchers Clark had heard so far. The man fell to his knees behind her looking up at the tree. He shuddered as tears sprang to his electric blue eyes. “Don’t look Buffy…please kitten, please go back in the house.”

 The man placed his hand on her shoulder, and Buffy turned at the gesture and Clark could no longer see her face as she flung herself into the man’s arms and began to sob harder. “It’s Ray,” she howled. “Oh god, it’s Ray.”

 “Shh,” The blond man hushed, rubbing hands along her back in a comforting gesture. “I know,” He choked. “I know, love.”

 “We…we can’t leave her like that.” She sobbed. “I-I have to get her down.”

 Clark watched the blond man close his eyes and shake his head, “I’ll do it. Go back in the house, please Slayer.”

 “No,” Buffy shook her head as Clark caught the silhouette of another man flying from the house and over to them. The sound of retching could be heard, and it took Clark a second to realize the sound came from whomever had just come from the house and seen the body. “It has to be me. Don’t you see, don’t you get it? I knew,” she sobbed. “I knew what he was doing to her and I didn’t do anything.”

 “Oh, sweet girl, you’ve been trying to find her. We all have. This isn’t your fault.” The man choked.

 “It’s not good enough,” She screamed, shoving away from him and falling on her rear, “And it is my fault, all of it! They were called because of me, because I was too chicken shit to just except the power that was offered to me!”

 A sob broke from her lips, and she turned looking directly at the cameraman a sudden realization dawning in her hollow eyes. “You!” She snarled, her eyes flashing. “It’s you, isn’t it?” She started marching towards the cameraman.

 “Ms.…Ms. Summers,” Whomever was holding the camera stuttered and then she was there, a well-aimed kick flying towards the camera before Clark saw sky for a few seconds.

 “I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch!” She screamed suddenly hovering over the man, the wild fury in her eyes telling Clark that she had every intention of killing this man, and part of Clark couldn’t agree more. “No one else but an Angelus minion would have called me out here for Rayanne! Everyone else would know better!”

 Clark watched as she threw a punch, the sickening sound of cartilage breaking ringing through the speaker as the guy howled in pain. The way her arms were angled next and the gurgling sound through the phone told him she was choking the man before three sets of arms suddenly grabbed her, pulling her off. Clark could hear the man wheeze as he tried to catch his breath while Buffy screamed and fought the three people who had pulled her away. Faith was one of them, and then the blond man, which Clark was pretty sure by now was Spike, and another man, tall, brunet, with an eyepatch. He saw Willow in the distance coming towards them and when she reached them, she touched Buffy’s shoulder before she could react and muttered a few words that sounded like Latin. Buffy suddenly collapsed and Clark realized Willow had put her to sleep. All eyes then turned towards the cameraman.

 “Get her in the house, Xander.” Spike growled.

 “Uh, Spike–” Xander started to say when Spike turned on him.

 “Get her in the bloody fucking house, now!” He snarled, a sound like grinding bone emanating from the man as his voice altered to something more sinister. “I’m not going to kill him.” He said turning back towards the camera as two glowing amber eyes stared at Clark.

 “Speak for yourself,” Faith said marching towards the man. “I’ve been getting those fucking emails too.”

 “So have I,” Willow said, her eyes black as she stared the camera down.

 “We won’t have to kill him,” Spike clarified as he fell in step with Faith. “Angelus will do that for us.”

 “How you figure?” Faith asked, her eyes just as enraged as Buffy’s had been.

 Spike suddenly sprung forward, his arm reaching out and a ripping sound emanated as the man screamed. His hand came back with what looked like a wad of hair. “This enough Red?”

 “Plenty,” Willow said, sudden realization dawning in her black eyes.

 “Now,” Spike said, a sinister grin stretching his fanged mouth, to the whimpering man. “The way I figure it, you got three options. The first being, you can go back to Angelus and give him this tape, at which point he finds out we now have a way to track you, and oh trust me Marcus, he will most definitely kill you for that.” Clark heard the man begin to sob, and part of him wanted to turn off the video at that point but couldn’t look away at the furious amber eyes that stared back at the camera. “Option number two, you can destroy the tape and run, which if we’re being honest would be the preferable of the three, but I’m sure you are well aware of the kind of wrath he would bring down on you if he didn’t get to see his almost masterpiece complete, so I’m sure you won’t.” Spike’s hand suddenly flew forward and the man screamed in pain, “Or option three,” He growled, “Where you run like a coward and keep the tape for leverage, hoping that your usefulness hasn’t run its course.”

 He suddenly had the camera in his hands, staring directly into the screen his eyes burning into the lens. “Looks like your mole got ousted. This is your last one, Angelus. We’re coming for you and when we’re done there won’t be anything left.” The screen suddenly went black as the video cut off.

 Clark let out a trembling breath looking around him and realizing he had slid to the floor at some point, his heart pounding in his chest. God, he didn’t know, he didn’t understand until that moment. That poor girl, no wonder Buffy was desperate. How many girls did she find like that before this one was left for her? How many videos did she force herself to endure before this one was sent, even Faith and Willow had said this wasn’t the first one? Clark squeezed his eyes shut, she had told him, so had Gunn but to see it. She was driven half-crazy by what that vampire had done and he could not blame her for that. What would he do if it was his mother in that position? God, he could only imagine.

 He shakily got to his feet, listening as he heard the sound of a fist hitting leather, he walked to the doors and threw them open, not stopping when she paused to look at him. He had to reassure himself that she was okay, that she wasn’t that angry creature that he saw in the video. He went straight to her, his arms coming around her in a crushing embrace before his lips met hers. God, she was so strong, he didn’t realize how much until that moment. Buffy immediately melted into him, her lips parting for him as he slid his tongue into her mouth. She was such a small woman, everything about her was deceptively tiny, except her strength and fortitude both physically and emotionally. To go through what she had and still be able to function on a normal level was just short of a miracle.

 He pulled away and looked down into her green eyes, haunted by her past but not dead and hateful like in the video. He bent down and laid his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. “I…” He started, “I didn’t…I’m so sorry Buffy.” He whispered, and he could still feel himself trembling. “I didn’t… You hear words like torture, rape, and murder but–”

 “They’re not real until you see it for yourself.” She finished in understanding.

 Clark sighed, hugging her closely, her head resting against his chest. “I get it now, not…but I understand how desperate you must have been to try and save the girls from that.”

 He heard her sniffle, “I didn’t know what else to do. I watched all the others you know, even…even what he did to them. It was my fault, you see; those girls lost their lives because they had a connection to me.” She shook her head, “If they hadn’t been called, they would still be alive today.”

 Clark pulled away and used his hand to raise her chin so he could see her eyes, “You blame yourself for every one of them that dies no matter how it happens, don’t you?”

 She closed her eyes a shuddering breath hissing through her lips, before she opened them, meeting his gaze head on. “How can I not?”

 He sighed, hugging her close again and shook his head. He had no response to that; he didn’t think she should. He didn’t think it was healthy, but he didn’t want to get in an argument about it with her right now either.

 They stayed like that for a little while before she whispered, “You’re shaking.”

 Clark nodded. “I know, the video…I’m still upset.”

 She pulled away, meeting his eyes again. “Do you want me to show you how to throw a punch properly? The heavy bags have been warded well, we can start there.” She looked down, “It will…it will help relieve some of what you’re feeling at least.”

 “Yeah,” He nodded in agreement. “Yeah, okay.”

 ****<S>**<S>****

 To say Clark was a fast learner when it came to training would have been the understatement of the year. He was an absolute natural. He moved with precision and grace, sometimes striking so fast she almost didn't see him move. 

 As of now she was simply holding the bag for him as he got comfortable with the rhythm of landing punches and even with the wards on the bag, she could feel the impact of his strikes. At this rate she would need her suit within a few days to let him get the feel of fighting a moving target. At some point she might even bring him back to Cleveland to put him up against multiple fighters and see how he did.

 "Remember to move your feet,” She reminded. "A moving target is harder to hit."

 He nodded, bounced on the balls of his feet and struck, the impact of the punch making her bones rattle. "Whoa, nice one Clark." She laughed, "Felt that one in my toes."

 He grinned, striking the bag again harder. "You were right," he said casually in between punches. "This does help."

 She grinned, "Nothing like getting your aggression out with a bit of violence." And then she blushed, smirking, "Well almost nothing." 

 He chuckled as he threw a few more punches in quick succession, his own smirk forming on his lips. He had a mischievous look in his eyes and had just opened his mouth to comment when Buffy’s phone rang.

 Buffy sighed, releasing the bag. "That will either be Wes or Willow."

 It was now around three in the afternoon; Clark had told her he had to pick his mom up at six and it was an hour drive to Smallville from where they were. So, she was grateful that they were going to be able to get this taken care of before meeting his mom.

 Buffy walked over to her phone and answered. "Hey Wes," she said in greeting. "What's the haps?"

 He was silent for a moment and she could almost hear him roll his eyes at her butchering of the English language. "Willow," He began, "should be there shortly. Dawn would also like to see you. I told her I would call her once Willow was done securing the pendants."

 Buffy frowned, “What? Why?”

 “Dawn and I have come to the conclusion that one of the languages in the prophecy that I have been unable to identify, is most likely written in the script of Clark’s home world.” He paused, “We are going to need access to the ship, unless of course Clark can read it.”

 Buffy looked at Clark and raised an eyebrow, but he quickly shook his head. “Only a few words,” He confirmed. “I think the computer on the ship might be able to translate it though.”

 “That’s a negative, Wes,” Buffy answered, beginning to pace. “But he agrees that the computer on the ship should be able to do the job.”

 “Very well, I’ll inform Dawn to dress accordingly. The ship is still in the same location I presume?” He asked.

 “Whoa,” Buffy said halting her steps, realizing what he was suggesting. “You want us to go tonight? Clark has to pick up his mom from work, Wes.”

 “I think it would be for the best. The sooner we get this prophecy translated, the better.” He paused. “Lorne told me I needed to send out more Slayers to India, Kansas, and Metropolis within the next two weeks and I would very much like to know if I should be sending two or a few hundred. If this prophecy gives any indication of what’s to come, I would very much like to know what it is.”

 Buffy and Clark exchanged worried looks. “He only told me something was coming for Clark, and we’re gonna need all hands-on deck when it does.”

 Buffy watched Clark swallow nervously. “He told me my time for hiding was almost up, but he said it was in the coming month.” His eyes widened in realization. “We need to translate that prophecy.”

 Buffy nodded in agreement, “And I need to train you harder than just beating on a bag, which means it’s gonna be eight-hour days from here on out.” Clark opened his mouth to argue and she held up her hand, “We’ll get as much as we need to do in the mornings done, but if for whatever reason we can’t, I would loan you the money before I would let you lose your home.”

 Clark frowned, “Buffy–”

 “Take it from someone who knows what those kinda money troubles feel like,” She interrupted again. “I think in the scheme of things saving the world is a little more important than pride, don’t you?”

 His frown deepened. “You think it’s going to be that big?”

 “Lorne said all hands-on deck and it’s you. Someone coming after you has got to be as powerful, if not more.” She watched his face fall and reached out her hand out running it down his arm, “You’ll be ready, and now that we have a general idea of where this stuff might take place, we’ll all be even more prepared.”

 “Wes,” she said, addressing the Watcher once more. “Were gonna need Willow to keep close, and I would call Illyria back from Cairo.”

 “I agree,” Wesley said, just as a portal opened up and Willow walked through. Her smile melting away at the look on both Buffy and Clark’s faces.

 “Uh-oh,” Willow said nervously. “I know that face.”

 “Is that Willow?” Wesley asked over the line.

 “Yeah,” Buffy said.

 “Let me speak with her, please.”

 Buffy held out the phone to Willow, who frowned but took it anyway. “Hey Wes,” Willow said in greeting as Buffy walked over to where Clark was standing looking more than a little worried.

 “Hey,” she said quietly.

 He attempted to smile but he couldn’t pull it off. “Hey, yourself.”

 She bit her lip watching him, seeing the turmoil play across his face of having an unknown enemy out there that could be responsible for hurting others when they decided to rear their ugly heads. She didn’t blame him, if she needed to pull out her big guns as Lorne hinted then it could definitely get bad. She was optimistic however, because of what she’d had to face in her past. Clark didn’t have that same luxury.

 “I-I know you’re not exactly used to going up against big bads, or having to fight gods,” she started. “But I promise you Clark, no matter what it is we’ll deal with it together. Tonight, I’ll have my sister meet us at your place and we’ll go to the ship and find out what this prophecy says. Whatever’s coming, we’ll deal. I promise you; we won’t lose.”

 “How do you know?” He asked, a bit of hope showing in his eyes.

 She stared at him seriously, “Because I don’t lose when it’s the world.”

 His lips quirked slightly, and he opened his mouth to say something when Willow walked up to them. “Wes wants me to fit you for a suit,” She said to Clark, handing Buffy her phone before saying, “And, he wants to talk to you.”

 As Buffy reached for the phone Clark said, “I already have a suit and it’s Kryptonian.”

 Both Buffy and Willow blinked in surprise at his words, their voices ringing out in unison. “You do?”

 He nodded, “Yeah, it’s on the ship still, but I have one.”

 Willow smiled, “Well then, that’s gonna make this quicker. Can you bring it to me? I can enhance it with magic, add some safety features and protect you against the mystical.”

 “Will that still work, even if the material isn’t of Earth?” He asked.

 “Yeah Wes,” Buffy finally said into her phone, pulling herself away from the conversation. So, Clark already had a suit, she wondered what it looked like.

 “So, for the time being I’m going to send fifty Slayers to each location, but keep the others on standby incase things go pear-shaped.” He said, already planning ahead. “I’ll also be moving quite a few closer to all three locations, that way all the girls have backup nearby. I think Willow should stay there at the safehouse that way she’s not far from either of you.”

 “And Dawn, Xander, and the kids? They live in Metropolis after all.” Buffy asked.

 “Perhaps you should explain the situation to her when she gets there. Staying there at the safe house with Willow might also be a wise move for them.” Wes said, adding, “As well as a few Slayers. I know Faith’s been itching to get out of Cleveland for a mission, maybe she and a few of the other girls should accompany her.”

 “Just as long as it’s not Tanya, that girl’s a liability and she doesn’t listen to anyone.” Buffy said.

 “I concur,” Wesley agreed. “Only the girls who are focused and dedicated will be allowed to participate in this mission. I would like as little casualties as possible.”

 “I agree,” Buffy nodded, “What about the mystics, how many of those can we tap?”

 “I have sixty-eight on file, I’ll start making phone calls now.”  He sighed. “I’m just glad we have this much to go on.”

 “Me too,” Buffy agreed. “I’ll call Dawn when Willow gets done here and tell her where to meet us and to put on her suit and a warm hat.”

 “Very well,” he said. “Call me when you know more and I’ll begin the preparations.”

 Buffy hung up, walking back over to Willow and Clark as they spoke to each other a bit awkwardly. “So, let’s get this over with Wills.”

 Willow quickly nodded opening a small bag she brought with her. “So,” she said quickly. “These were a bit difficult to make since from what we’ve read the compulsion itself seems to be based purely on hormones as well as a need to unite your souls.” She looked at them both, “It took me a little while to find what I needed and even longer to put the spell together.” She sighed, “The pendants themselves will be made out of several crystals used to block compulsion, amethyst, ametrine, chrysocolla, and ruby.”

 Willow pulled out two small corked vials filled with multicolored stones and handed them to both Buffy and Clark. “Now, hold out your hands and link your free ones together.”

 Buffy and Clark did as she asked, holding their hands out palm up. Willow placed a vial in each of their hands and then covered them with her own hands, closing her eyes and beginning to chant. Buffy immediately began to feel her hand heat up and for a second it almost became unbearable and Buffy even watched Clark wince from the heat. It was gone just as quickly however and in its place were two hard looking marble like multicolored stones with a dark metallic chain that would hang from each of their necks. Buffy heard Willow mutter one more spell that she recognized to be a ward against breaking.

 “Well go on.” Willow said smiling happily at her work. “Try them on, see if it worked.”

 Buffy quickly slipped the necklace over her head and a sigh of relief left her lips. The sexual tension that had never fully abated her all day finally easing enough to where she wasn’t thinking about sex every few seconds.

 Clark had a similar reaction, his face seeming to ease slightly, but Buffy was surprised when he turned to Willow and asked, “You said the compulsion is only based on hormones, does that mean any feeling we have that aren’t sexual are real?”

 Willow nodded, “Of course, real love is something that can only be based off of free will. Its why love spells don’t ever work. You can’t force someone to love you.”

 Buffy watched amused as Clark seemed to sigh in relief, and then quickly blushed when he noticed her watching him. “Come on stud,” she said hooking her arm through his and dragging him towards the door of the training room. “Let me go grab my stuff before we go get your mom,” a grin creeping over her face as she turned and wished Willow a good night and a promise to catch up tomorrow. “And for the record”, she added quietly as they walked out of the training room. “I still want to jump you, that hasn’t changed even with the necklace on.”

 He quickly reached out to grab her arm, but she easily dodged him and took off down the hallway, a blush and a giggle leaving her lips.

 Clark was suddenly there in front of her, a crooked and devilish smile on his lips. “Is that so?” And then his lips were on hers, his tongue sliding into her mouth as she squealed in surprise.

[aiweirdness]

AI + Vintage American cooking: a combination that cannot be unseen

A week ago, in a sudden fit of terrible judgement, I decided to find out what would happen if I:

Asked people to help me collect examples of the worst, the weirdest, the most gelatinous recipes that vintage American cooking has to offer, then

Trained a neural net to imitate them

People submitted over 800 recipes in all, including such recipes as:

“Beef Fudge” (contains marshmallow, chocolate chips, and ground beef),

“Circus Peanut Jello Salad” (also contains crushed pineapple and kool-whip), and

“Tropical Fruit Soup” (contains banana, grapes, and a can of cream of chicken soup)

“Lemon Lime Salad” (also contains cottage cheese, mayonnaise, and horseradish)

As I watched this dataset coalesce, much as one might watch a speeding dumpster begin to spin out of control, I began to approach the state I dreaded: all the recipes began to seem normal.

Shrimp + grapefruit + lemon jello? Citrus seafood is a thing.

Chili sauce + lemon jello + cottage cheese + mayo? Well it's not SWEETENED jello, so

I began to wonder if I would actually be able to tell the difference between the neural net recipes and the real thing. Jello was supposed to be easy-to-prepare, after all - maybe through repetition an advanced neural net like GPT-2 would learn how to make basic jello, and then anything it would decide to chuck in there would be technically reasonable. Maybe it would even coalesce on an ideal form, one that distilled human invention down to its essentials.

No, as it turns out. Here’s a neural net recipe.

It does cocktails, too.

The training data contained a lot of things. It contained eel only once. For some reason the AI has decided to use eel a LOT.

It also invents ingredients.

Some of the neural net recipes bear at least some resemblance to the human versions, but manage to mess them up profoundly. Without a sense that the recipe directions are describing ingredients and things that happen to them, the neural net never gets the hang of jello - that you need hot water to make it gel, that it doesn’t go in the oven. It also forgets to add all of its ingredients, or introduces some that were never mentioned before. This is partly because its memory is terrible, and partly because it doesn’t know what’s important.

I couldn’t find a setting at which the neural net recipes could consistently pass for human. Set the chaos levels too low and the neural net would repeat the same few recipes, forgetting a different key step or ingredient each time. Set the chaos levels too high and the neural net would get ever more inventive, producing recipes that promised creamy lime and called for golf balls or elk hide, or directed the chef to remove the lamb’s giblets.

Some of its recipes were beyond bizarre.

Remember that today's AI is much closer in brainpower to an earthworm than to a human. It can pattern-match but doesn't understand what it's doing. Commercial AI is not significantly smarter than this recipe AI. Humans have just hopefully done a better job of preventing it from making oblivious mistakes.

It got to the point where I would see a recipe like this and be excited and proud of the neural net. Then I would realize just how very low my standards had fallen.

One thing the neural net has learned from humans is that it's good to include a story with your recipe.

It is bad at this.

The neural net puts lots of words in its recipes that were never in the jello-centric training data. It’s drawing from its initial general training on internet text. It read a LOT of fanfic on the internet during its initial general training, and still remembers it now. Except now all its stories center around food.

It’s trying. It’s startlingly bad. It wants us to remove the internal rinds twice. AI’s not ready to take over the world - it can’t even figure out the kitchen.

Subscribers get bonus content: More jello-centric neural net recipes, including some that were too long to post here. Be especially afraid of the ones that aren’t exactly “recipes”.

My book on AI is out, and, you can now get it any of these several ways! Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Indiebound - Tattered Cover - Powell’s

[irondadfics]

hi, I love this account :)))

have you got any good sleepy!peter fics?

thanks <3

Five Times Peter Parker Pretended to Be Asleep by @blondsak 

...and the one time he actually was.

Or: sometimes, faking sleep can work to your advantage. When it comes to trying to fool a certain genius, overprotective, superhero mentor, Peter finds this to be doubly true.

5 Times Peter Stayed Awake by LostSaturn

....and the 1 time he couldn't.

Peter Parker vs. Bert Achong, Anthony Epstein, and Yvonne Barr by @whimsicalethnographies

A teenage rite of passage and Spider-DNA

Mid-winter Siesta by @whimsicalethnographies

“‘M not tired,” Peter rubs his eyes when they reach the heavy oak door of his room, obviously very tired. He shivers. “‘M jus’ cold.”

“Probably because you’re tired,” Tony opens the door and walks Peter through, deliberately ignoring the mess of clothes and books on the floor.

“May always says that, too.”

“Probably because it’s right,” Tony has no idea if it’s right, but his mother always said it. Pepper says it. It sounds right. Maybe it’s a Parent Thing. “So get those covers I paid too much for off the floor and get in bed.”

Hush (For It Is Dark) by @losingmymindtonight

Tony Stark woke up, like clockwork, every morning at 2:00 am. -- (Or: Tony Stark, lullaby extraordinaire.)

Stay (I Could Be Your Hiding Place) by @losingmymindtonight

Peter isn't the only one who struggles with nightmares after the Avengers finally reverse the Snap. Every once in a while, Tony needs some reassurance too. Luckily for him, May and Peter don't mind that one bit.

losingmymindtonight actually has a bunch you can check out!

Of Fevers & Thankfulness by @awesomesockes & @whumphoarder

Peter comes down with mono just before Thanksgiving.

lay your weary head to rest by hopeless_hope

“Please.” He means to say it loudly, with confidence, but it comes out as nothing more than a raspy whisper. His ears are ringing painfully, and his head feels like it’s going to explode. It hurts and hurts and hurts.

“M-May,” Peter cries out to no one, feeling like a child. “Tony. Please, ‘m so tired.”

He inhales and chokes on his tears.

He can’t tell if it’s his imagination or not, but he’s pretty sure he hears a laugh.

-

In which Peter gets kidnapped, and that's not even the worst part. The worst part is he's not allowed to sleep.

you heal me like the light of day by @searchingforstarss

Peter tries to hide a stab wound and an infection-fuelled fever is never any fun. Also, it turns out that Beck is still lurking in Peter's mind much more than anyone realised.

Night(mare) Before Christmas by Desirexwolf

Christmas had always been a quiet affair for the Parkers and when Peter met Tony Stark, he didn't think anything would change about that. Tony proves him wrong.

i pour my heart into your hands by @parkrstark

Insomnia has a tight hold on Tony. But, it's not much of a match for Peter Parker.

As Real as Anything by sahiya

“If you’re calling to ramble tipsily at me about something you dreamed up with Ted, I’m going to hang up on you,” Tony mumbled into his pillow without bothering to do anything so pedestrian as pick up his phone. This was what he had an AI for.

The sound he got in response made him shoot up in his bed. It was a sob, but not only a sob. It was a gut-wrenching, bone-deep, sob of despair, and it was coming from his kid. “Tony,” was the only word he could make out. And then again, “Tony, Tony, Tony.”

Warmer in the Winter by @the-reverse-mermaid

Nobody's seen Peter for a couple days. ...this is how Tony finds out that spiders hibernate.

(Written for the 12 Days of Fluffy Christmas prompt: "cold sleepy cuddles")

You Have a Bed (Don't Sleep Here) by endlessnepenthe

“‘m tired,” Peter exhales, more breath than distinct syllables, and Tony’s heart aches.

“I’m too old to carry you,” Tony jokes (but not really).

Or, Peter falls asleep on the sofa, but Tony isn't having any of that.

Also check out the Sleepy Peter Parker tag on ao3 for more!