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uptoolateart · 1 year ago

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Adrien Agreste…and Data from Star Trek. The parallels kept leaping out at me. Then I started talking about it with my husband and a friend and it spiralled. Bear in mind, this whole post is full of Star Trek spoilers, including the films, especially Nemesis.

Unnatural Creations

Adrien’s a sentibeing and Data’s an android. They’re both created by ‘unnatural’ means – created by a human rather than God/nature/whatever you believe. Consequently, they both begin their lives as blank slates, with no childhood memories, and they long to fulfil their programming. With Data, this is more literal, while in Wishmaker Adrien tells us all he ever wanted was to be what his parents wanted him to be.

This lends them a similar sense of naivety, leaving them open to being fooled or even used. In a way, they are both Pinocchio, wishing to be ‘real boys’. Pinocchio even wears a feather in his cap, which is what led me to do this drawing a few years ago.

Data and Adrien’s ‘fathers’ (creators) have made other children, too – other androids and sentibeings – not necessarily to public knowledge.

Dreams

Over time, both Adrien and Data come to desire individuality. An integral part of this is having dreams. Adrien’s dreams come in the form of personal ambitions, beginning with his love for Ladybug. Data has ambitions, too, but his dreams also come in a more literal form, i.e. as he evolves, he starts dreaming like a real human.

'Evil' Twins

Another crucial part of being human is self-reflection, highlighted by Data and Adrien’s ‘evil twins’. For Data, this is Lore, made according to the same design but with his own personality. He obtains the emotion chip intended for Data. Where Data is all logic, Lore is all feeling without boundaries. He’s the emotional potential exploding unchecked.

Adrien has a few ‘shadow’ sides, which I’ve explored before. An obvious one is Felix, wielder of the peacock miraculous, i.e. the power of emotion. Then there’s Cat Blanc, who is all of Adrien’s darker thoughts and feelings bursting forth uncontrolled.

What Lore, Felix and Cat Blanc have in common is that they are abused sons, bitter and resentful that their fathers never gave them the love they longed for. They lash out from grief and trauma. Also, Lore killed his/Data’s father, while Cat Blanc killed Gabriel in an alternate timestream.

Data needs to face and deal with this ‘shadow’ side before he’s ready to receive the emotion chip intended for him and find the happy medium between the two extremes of the emotional spectrum. We see this when he is forced to deactivate Lore, thus inheriting the emotion chip, learning from the mistakes his brother made and trying to do better.

Likewise, Adrien needs to come to terms with his ‘shadow’ before he’s ready to face the final battle with Monarch. In Conformation, this played out as Adrien having the emotional maturity to recognised when he was out of control and make the decision to remove his miraculous, stepping away from the battle before he could do damage.

This is without even getting into the mirror universes in both shows, where Data has a much more direct ‘evil’ alter, and Cat Noir comes head-to-head with Claw Noir. (Sadly, we never saw Data hug Evil Data the way we saw our two Noirs accept each other.) There was also the very brief Copycat moment. Adrien’s had a lot of doubles.

It’s interesting to note that Lore believed he was superior to humans and had a genocidal plan, much like Felix snaps all the non-sentibeings out of existence in Emotion. Lore also dresses like Data and poses like him to fool their father and others on the ship, like Felix does with Adrien, attempting to fool Gabriel and others in Adrien’s life. A key difference is that Lore never really gets the chance for redemption, whereas Felix is only 14 and has his whole life ahead of him, with the opportunity for positive evolution. He discovers the love he’s lacked as a child and chooses to change.

At one point, Lore also implants the emotion chip in Data and uses it to control him remotely, inspiring anger and hate in him, thus weaponising him. Felix makes it very clear that he would never try to control Adrien. Instead, it’s Gabriel who controls Adrien via the twin rings, the Alliance, and magical dust causing him to live out his worst nightmare. In Cat Blanc and Ephemeral, we also see Gabriel akumatise Adrien, using his darkest feelings to transform him into a weapon.

Perfection

When Data first meets his brother, Lore convinces Data that he was created as a 'less perfect' version of him. When they are later summoned back to their father's secret home, Data learns this is untrue and is fascinated to realise that he is 'not less perfect than Lore'. Adrien, too, is repeatedly described as 'perfect'.

Cats

Data has a beloved pet cat. Adrien, of course, spends all his private time with Plagg. I also can't help but notice that Data and Cat Noir's eyes are similar in colour.

Artistry / Education

Data is a keen painter and violinist, and well-versed in just about everything, bearing in mind he was programmed with encyclopaedic knowledge. Adrien is a pianist and, thanks to his father’s programming, is also highly skilled in multiple disciplines and languages…and seems to know a lot of very random information, e.g. Morse code.

Undead Mothers and the Demented Fathers Who Can’t Let Them Go

Adrien’s father can’t get over the death of his wife and keeps her cryogenically sustained in the basement. Similarly, Data’s ‘father’ was married to a woman Data deems his ‘mother’. She, too, died long ago, but his father transferred her personality and memories into an android body. She’s the only android in the galaxy who can pass as completely human, even in medical scans.

Self-Sacrifice

Cat Noir is always sacrificing himself for Ladybug. We don’t know if he remembers those moments of death or not. He seems to throw himself in front of her on instinct, as if it were the natural order of things. He believes he’s not as valuable as she is.

In Star Trek: Nemesis Data sacrificed himself for Picard – although he did see himself as of equal value. In fact, he argued strenuously throughout the series for equal status with humans. And to all of us watching Nemesis…I can’t begin to tell you how hard his ‘death’ hit me.

On paper, it makes sense for an android – a robot – to sacrifice himself so a human may live. But we spent seven seasons plus several films getting to know Data. Android or not, he was a beloved character, he was a friend, he formed relationships. That’s why the crew gave him a full funeral and eulogies.

Likewise, Cat’s sacrifices hit Ladybug hard, something many of us fanfiction writers have explored in depth.

Programming

Perhaps the biggest difference is that Data knew he was programmed. He knew he was at the mercy of his microchip. He knew when his emotion chip was installed. He was wholly conscious of his developmental journey.

Yet, even after five seasons, Adrien has no idea. He doesn’t know he’s been programmed because he doesn’t know he’s a sentibeing. Like something out of Blade Runner – and like Data’s mother – Adrien would pass the Empathy Test and be deemed human yet still have no idea of his origins.

The fact is, you can’t break your programming until you know you’ve been programmed.

Data was given all the chances he needed to live a full life and make a fully informed decision about what he wanted to do with it at the end when he made that final sacrifice. Adrien has none of that. He was edging towards revelation, realising his father was controlling him somehow, but all of that was taken from him at the end of S5. It’s like if Data were given a hard reset.

Marinette’s choice to keep the truth from Adrien mirrors Data’s choice to keep the truth from his android mother. She believes she’s a human, the original woman she was made to replicate, and he chooses to let her carry out her life under that pretence.

'I want to be a real boy!'

As I said, Data and Adrien are both like Pinocchio, trying to be ‘real boys’.

At the end of Data’s life, it didn’t matter whether he was made by a scientist or by organic means. He touched people’s lives, and that made him real in all the ways that matter.

Similarly, if Adrien got snapped away, people would remember him. They would mourn him. It doesn’t matter if there’s a body left behind or not. He too has touched so many lives, and that makes him just as real and important as any organic human.

In these ways, I believe they both succeed at being 'real' regardless of how they came into being.

I bet I could think of more parallels if I tried, but this has already got long enough :)

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dittobtch · 11 months ago

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the wilds ao3 and tumblr stats - April 2024

last two graphs is the first graph separated

i ran out of things to do for these so here's the updated info for March and April 2024

notable observations regarding April 2024:

the wilds tag on tumblr had over 100 posts in April 2024 - something that hasn't occurred in literally a year

leatin had more fics posted than shoni in April 2024. this has only happened like twice before [x, Findings/ Observations - Ships].

The post count is only for new content. That is, new fics on ao3 and new posts on tumblr. The numbers do not account for reblogs, chapters updated, etc.

Data for March and April 2024 collected on May 16, 2024 - 10pm EDT.

See this post (tumblr) and this post (ao3) for relevant notes and other observations for previous months.

Other Fandom Stats

The Wilds AO3 March 2024

My Fandom Stats List

#my stats #leatin #shoni #the wilds #btch talk #fandom stats #shout out to fandom stats #for helping me during my data analysis test on tuesday

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melodioustear · 2 years ago

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Data from my fanfiction and mental illness survey is now publicly available!

It is stored safely and eternally on the Harvard Dataverse. In accordance with the request of my ethics board (University of Kent CREAG), the demographic data has been disaggregated (separated) from the long-form responses on fanfiction practices in the public files. However, anyone can request the disaggregated version through the link above.

The data has been randomised on all three files for safety, and redacted of the thankfully small amount of identifying information that was given by participants, thus rendering it as anonymous as possible.

It is under a creative commons license that allows anyone to use it for their research, but please do cite the original dataset if you do.

Thank you to everyone who took part - I know already that there are some incredible insights here and really thoughtful reflections on how we approach mental illness in fanfiction.

#fan studies #fandom studies #fanfic #mad studies #fandom research #fanfiction #phdresearch #fandom #fandom stats #mental illness #data #data analysis #academic #research #phd

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5ummit · 8 months ago

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Centreoftheselights just shared the new 2024 AO3 stats.

In less than two days their post has already received 16 MILLION views and 80 THOUSAND retweets/quote tweets, with every comment I've seen taking the data at face value and using it to draw conclusions, much to my horror.

While OP did change the title of the "new works" column to "works gained" so that they're at least not blatantly lying now (the bare minimum), the wording is still very misleading. More importantly though they continue to use the same extremely flawed methodology and continue to bury and obfuscate those flaws and what the data actually represents. Nowhere on the chart or the details provided on the main page does it even say that only publicly available works are counted... and that's not even the biggest problem!

This data is, yet again, garbage and absolutely should not be used to determine the current size and popularity of a fandom (inarguably the main reason for it existing).

AO3 Ship Stats: Year In Bad Data

You may have seen this AO3 Year In Review.

It hasn’t crossed my tumblr dash but it sure is circulating on twitter with 3.5M views, 10K likes, 17K retweets and counting. Normally this would be great! I love data and charts and comparisons!

Except this data is GARBAGE and belongs in the TRASH.

I first noticed something fishy when I realized that Steve/Bucky – the 5th largest ship on AO3 by total fic count – wasn’t on this Top 100 list anywhere. I know Marvel’s popularity has fallen in recent years, but not that much. Especially considering some of the other ships that made it on the list. You mean to tell me a femslash HP ship (Mary MacDonald/Lily Potter) in which one half of the pairing was so minor I had to look up her name because she was only mentioned once in a single flashback scene beat fandom juggernaut Stucky? I call bullshit.

Now obviously jumping to conclusions based on gut instinct alone is horrible practice... but it is a good place to start. So let’s look at the actual numbers and discover why this entire dataset sits on a throne of lies.

Here are the results of filtering the Steve/Bucky tag for all works created between Jan 1, 2023 and Dec 31, 2023:

Not only would that place Steve/Bucky at #23 on this list, if the other counts are correct (hint: they're not), it’s also well above the 1520-new-work cutoff of the #100 spot. So how the fuck is it not on the list? Let’s check out the author’s FAQ to see if there’s some important factor we’re missing.

The first thing you’ll probably notice in the FAQ is that the data is being scraped from publicly available works. That means anything privated and only accessible to logged-in users isn’t counted. This is Sin #1. Already the data is inaccurate because we’re not actually counting all of the published fics, but the bots needed to do data collection on this scale can't easily scrape privated fics so I kinda get it. We’ll roll with this for now and see if it at least makes the numbers make more sense:

Nope. Logging out only reduced the total by a couple hundred. Even if one were to choose the most restrictive possible definition of "new works" and filter out all crossovers and incomplete fics, Steve/Bucky would still have a yearly total of 2,305. Yet the list claims their total is somewhere below 1,500? What the fuck is going on here?

Let’s look at another ship for comparison. This time one that’s very recent and popular enough to make it on the list so we have an actual reference value for comparison: Nick/Charlie (Heartstopper). According to the list, this ship sits at #34 this year with a total of 2630 new works. But what’s AO3 say?

Off by a hundred or so but the values are much closer at least!

If we dig further into the FAQ though we discover Sin #2 (and the most egregious): the counting method. The yearly fic counts are NOT determined by filtering for a certain time period, they’re determined by simply taking a snapshot of the total number of fics in a ship tag at the end of the year and subtracting the previous end-of-year total. For example, if you check a ship tag on Jan 1, 2023 and it has 10,000 fics and check it again on Jan 1, 2024 and it now has 12,000 fics, the difference (2,000) would be the number of "new works" on this chart.

At first glance this subtraction method might seem like a perfectly valid way to count fics, and it’s certainly the easiest way, but it can and did have major consequences to the point of making the entire dataset functionally meaningless. Why? If any older works are deleted or privated, every single one of those will be subtracted from the current year fic count. And to make the problem even worse, beginning at the end of last year there was a big scare about AI scraping fics from AO3, which caused hundreds, if not thousands, of users to lock down their fics or delete them.

The magnitude of this fuck up may not be immediately obvious so let’s look at an example to see how this works in practice.

Say we have two ships. Ship A is more than a decade old with a large fanbase. Ship B is only a couple years old but gaining traction. On Jan 1, 2023, Ship A had a catalog of 50,000 fics and ship B had 5,000. Both ships have 3,000 new works published in 2023. However, 4% of the older works in each fandom were either privated or deleted during that same time (this percentage is was just chosen to make the math easy but it’s close to reality).

Ship A: 50,000 x 4% = 2,000 removed works Ship B: 5,000 x 4% = 200 removed works

Ship A: 3,000 - 2,000 = 1,000 "new" works Ship B: 3,000 - 200 = 2,800 "new" works

This gives Ship A a net gain of 1,000 and Ship B a net gain of 2,800 despite both fandoms producing the exact same number of new works that year. And neither one of these reported counts are the actual new works count (3,000). THIS explains the drastic difference in ranking between a ship like Steve/Bucky and Nick/Charlie.

How is this a useful measure of anything? You can't draw any conclusions about the current size and popularity of a fandom based on this data.

With this system, not only is the reported "new works" count incorrect, the older, larger fandom will always be punished and it’s count disproportionately reduced simply for the sin of being an older, larger fandom. This example doesn’t even take into account that people are going to be way more likely to delete an old fic they're no longer proud of in a fandom they no longer care about than a fic that was just written, so the deletion percentage for the older fandom should theoretically be even larger in comparison.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the author of this "study" KNEW the data was tainted and chose to present it as meaningful anyway. You will only find this if you click through to the FAQ and read about the author’s methodology, something 99.99% of people will NOT do (and even those who do may not understand the true significance of this problem):

The author may try to argue their post states that the tags "which had the greatest gain in total public fanworks” are shown on the chart, which makes it not a lie, but a error on the viewer’s part in not interpreting their data correctly. This is bullshit. Their chart CLEARLY titles the fic count column “New Works” which it explicitly is NOT, by their own admission! It should be titled “Net Gain in Works” or something similar.

Even if it were correctly titled though, the general public would not understand the difference, would interpret the numbers as new works anyway (because net gain is functionally meaningless as we've just discovered), and would base conclusions on their incorrect assumptions. There’s no getting around that… other than doing the counts correctly in the first place. This would be a much larger task but I strongly believe you shouldn’t take on a project like this if you can’t do it right.

To sum up, just because someone put a lot of work into gathering data and making a nice color-coded chart, doesn’t mean the data is GOOD or VALUABLE.

#please keep spreading this post #and for the love of god please do not spread these 'studies'#every time someone trusts their data and uses it in any kind of fandom analysis I die a little bit inside #16 MILLION VIEWS!#it should be illegal to spread misinformation to that many people #I will not rest until OP learns how to collect and present data correctly #ao3 #ao3 stats #fandom

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silvermoon424 · 3 months ago

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This is your daily reminder to archive your favorite fandom stuff!!!

I've been a voracious archivist/data hoarder ever since I first got access to a computer, and it's paid off more times than I can count. Just the other day I came across a PDF copy of an analysis post for one of my fandoms. The post was made on an old forum and is the most detailed and interesting analysis of a particular story element I've ever seen. Back in like 2012 I saved the post as a PDF, because even then I saved everything I liked.

Anyway, flash forward to 2025 and I decided to see if the URL included in the document was still live. I wasn't very surprised to see that the forum is long dead. However, even the Wayback Machine had no record of this thread. If I hadn't saved a copy of it way back when, I would have never, ever been able to read this analysis again!

The Internet Archive is sadly not infallible, especially when it comes to things like forum threads. You can do your part by manually saving things to the Wayback Machine, but I also recommend keeping your own archives. Aside from just saving pages as PDFs, I highly recommend a browser extension called SingleFile that lets you archive pages as HTML files.

#I will never shut up about archival btw #I will be on my death bed and my last words will be telling my grieving family to invest in an external hard drive #archival #data hoarding #fandom archival #archiving #internet history #internet archive #1k

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chariflare · 2 years ago

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there’s a fandom thing i’m interested in broader attitudes to and it’d be cool to do a survey for it but. idk how to hold a good survey

#chari.txt #i'm not in that fandom and i failed first year data analysis

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leonardalphachurch · 10 months ago

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honestly not surprising to me, as someone who’s been here for over a decade. a LOT of the older fans just. left. there is of course a normal amount of people coming and going from a fandom, however… i tracked where rvb sat on tumblrs “year in review” thing once, and every year it got lower and lower on the list until it wasn’t there at all.

a lot of people really didn’t like 14-18 very much, and it really killed momentum in the fandom. i think, while there’s new content coming out, if you don’t like that new content, it can be really hard to maintain enjoyment of the show as a whole. but after all the content is already out, if you don’t like something it’s much easier to just ignore it. binging a season you don’t like in a couple of hours is a very different experience than getting it drip fed week by week for months. you have so much time to sit with it and think about it and hope for it to get better and be disappointed when it isn’t.

not to mention the number of scandals that rt had ruining people’s perception of their content. back in the day the red vs blue fandom was always much more heavily tied into the rooster teeth fandom than a lot of other rt shows, so i think the scandals hit us a lot harder than they did for, say, rwby. nowadays, though, the rvb fandom really isn’t tied up with the rt fandom at all. and even then, the last big scandal was in 2022. i know a LOT of people left when kdin put out her statement. if you joined in 2023 there wasn’t really a point to be disappointed by the company. especially now that it’s dead.

i also wouldn’t be surprised if rt’s shutdown and final season put rvb back into the cultural zeitgeist and got people interested/aware of it again.

tl;dr IMO it’s less “a disproportionately high number of people have joined the fandom in the past two years” and more “a disproportionately high number of people who joined the fandom before the past two years have left” with a sprinkling of “rt/rvb being in the news recently got more ppl interested in the show”

it's actually insane to me how many rvb fans have only gotten into the show in the past like 2 years. looking at the survey results so far is breaking my brain i think because 2022-2024 is in the top three for that question currently. like between zero/family shatters and restoration there was practically NOTHING happening with the series what do you mean this many people STARTED watching it then?? also i see so many people on my dash who are like "watching for the first time i'm on season 6 teehee" HELLO?? should-should i tag for spoilers on my rvb posts??

#this is just my thoughts though!#purely anecdotal and not based on data #to get actual data on this you’d have to survey people who’ve LEFT the fandom and that’s significantly harder #lemme try to find my analysis of the year in review thing and reblog that #that’s the closest we have to actual numbers on fans leaving #nvm tumblr search sucksssss and siikr is down :( well just have to imagine

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bizarrelittlemew · 3 months ago

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PROUDLY PRESENTING:

The Unofficial OFMD AO3 Wrapped 2024

sponsored by my love of fandom community, a passion for data presentation, more hours in photoshop than I am willing to admit, and inspired by the Good Omens AO3 wrapped

images used are either official stills or screencaps from episodes and the Vanity Fair lie detector video. everything edited by me :)

a few additional stats:

79 works had more than 100k words, with an accumulated 16 million words, meaning 1% of works accounted for 21% of words

At a reading speed of 300 words per minute, it would take 174 days and nights to read all of the OFMD fic from 2024 - or, if you read for 11.5 hours every day for a year, you'd be able to get through it all!

The most tagged sex acts for explicit fics were (in order): Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Oral Sex, Anal Fingering, and Hand Jobs

271 works were tagged "Art"

details about data collection and analysis ⤵️

All data was collected on January 1st, 2025. I limited search results within the fandom tag to works updated between 2024-01-01 and 2024-12-31. Works started earlier but updated in 2024 are therefore included. Works added and deleted again during the year are not accounted for.

I manually typed data from the AO3 search into Excel, so there may be errors and inaccuracies due to the limits of the AO3 search function, authors' tagging choices, and typos (sorry lmao). There is probably an easier way to do this but idk I was bored and didn't mind. Graphs were made in Excel.

For the total word count estimate, I collected the exact word counts of all works above 100k, then gathered data on the number of works within pre-selected word count intervals and multiplied the number of works with the average of the interval (for each interval). The total sum and cumulative graphs for both number of works and word counts are presented above.

I made posts on tumblr and bluesky asking people to nominate their favorite tags from 2024, and included as many as I could.

This is just how I chose to present the data - I hope it makes sense and I'm open to questions!

#ofmd #our flag means death #ao3 #fanfic #ao3 wrapped #ofmd fic #ofmd ao3 wrapped #this took... way longer than i anticipated skdfjhjks what day is it #thank you babygirl nation for bearing with me and giving feedback and catching typos i love you all <3

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eempyreall · 29 days ago

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♪ 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 ♪

༺ Beneath The Waters ༻

Oneshot ~ Blue Lock x Female Reader

Summary ~ As a marine biologist, you rescue an injured siren. Now, five of them are obsessed with you—and they’ll never let you go.

Featuring ~ Bachira Meguru, Chigiri Hyoma, Nagi Seishiro, Itoshi Rin, and Itoshi Sae

Extra Notes ~ Tokyo Revengers’ Version - Jujutsu Kaisen‘s Version - Oc’s Version

*I am not a marine biologist, I searched up everything that pertains to the career.

This story should only be posted under eempyreall on my tumblr, ao3, wattpad, subscribestar, and patreon. Report if you see it posted under anyone else but me.

l apologize if I get any Japanese etiquette or culture wrong, I literally have to research the culture for some of my fandom stories so if anything is wrong, please excuse my ignorance.

|| Warning ||

You and the characters are 21+. Although I picture the reader as a black cis-gendered female, physical appearance will not be described at all.

Content within this story may not be realistic or factual.

I do not condone any of the behavior displayed within the story.

There may be dark content such as: gore, violence, triggering topics, graphic scenes, vulgar language, explicit content, sexual content, etc.

That being said, this story is for 18+ only.

The ocean always harbored a serene atmosphere at night.

Although you spent most of your days amidst the sea, working alongside your team as the waves rocked against the trawler, you couldn’t deny the tranquil ambience of sitting on shore while the stars glowed amongst the nightly blue firmament.

To clarify, you enjoy your career. Although there are different categories of work, such as laboratory and data analysis, you spend your day diving into the deep seas, collecting sea specimens, studying all the beauty the earth provides underwater, and giving your fellow biologists something to write about.

It contrasted with your lingering fear of the deeper abyss that the ocean conceals. There was always an underlying edge of caution when dealing with the intrusive thoughts that plagued your mind. You spent most of your time in reefs—the brighter, most pleasing section of the sea.

“You ready to get going?”

You shift your head towards the voice that came from your right.

Your eyes meet the dark irises of one of your teammates, a close friend of yours who studied alongside you during your growth in the marine industry. You lift yourself from the sand, pants slightly stained from the debris, as you brush your palm along your bottom.

“Nah. I’m gonna stay a little longer,” you reply, sighing as you eye the gentle waves of the sea. “You can go without me. I know that we got an early shift tomorrow.”

Riku raises a brow at you while crossing his arms. “You know that even if they’re real, you’re not gonna find anything, right?”

Ah, I’m about to get the same lecture, aren’t I?

You roll your eyes as you place your hands against your hips. “Mind your business, Riku,” you sing playfully, but with an edge of solemnity in your tone.

He hums. “I’m just saying, Y/n. You’ve looked quite exhausted the last few shifts. Your hyperfixation on mermaids is becoming a problem,” he says, his voice laced with concern and slight annoyance.

You scoff, crossing your arms as you face ahead. “First of all, the term is siren. Second of all, you don’t need to worry about me. I still get my work done.”

You miss the solemn expression that appears on his face—the familiar guise of pity that always makes you shift with discomfort.

“Look, I know more than anyone that it’s hard to heal from a family member’s death, but Y/n, you’ve got to let it go.”

The statement sent a shift through your entire body, tension stiffening you in place as the memory swirling in your brain flickered before you.

“Shit! Everyone, grab the earplugs!” the leader of your team shouts.

You immediately turn to your bag, rummaging through the contents before you snatch the cord. You shove the plugs into your ears just as the song begins. Although you can feel the vibration of the melody against your chest, the blockage of your ears keeps you safe from the siren’s frequency.

When you turn around, the relief that had rushed through you drops vehemently as your eyes flick over the five members of your team—including your brother.

Your breath hitches as you watch the color drain from his eyes, his body stiff in a trance as he faces toward the siren who peers from the waves of the sea. You can only see her multicolored eyes and the pale blue hair that’s flat against her head, the rest of her strands floating around her as she stares at the men.

You feel breathless, panting as you watch them take a step forward, in unison. A spike of fear surges through your spine as the pit in your stomach deepens. You dash toward your brother, nails digging into his shoulders as you stand in front of him, using all of your weight to keep him from jumping off of the trawler.

The splashes of the others are loud, despite the plugs blocking your ears. It only makes the lump in your throat burn as you make eye contact with your brother. As a result of the dullness filling his orbs, you know that it’s too late. He’s already gone.

But you don’t stop. You continue to press against him as the sobs escape your lips.

“Please, B/n! Please, wake up,” you weep.

The siren reaches for the first man, her claws splitting the flesh of his skin as she begins her feast, ropes of red already staining the waters as the rest of the humans swim toward her. Your head shifts to the side to see that a few more sirens have appeared, the women beginning their attacks on the men. One peers from the side, awaiting the release of your brother.

Despite his dream-like state, he is strong. He pushes against you like a stone wall. His expression is bare of any emotion as he continues to stare at the ocean, shoving against you like a non-playable character in a game.

Eventually, you can’t hold on any longer.

For a while, you couldn’t forgive yourself. Despite your first shift ending in a massacre, you couldn’t accept how weak you were against the creature’s voice.

It ached.

You sat on the trawler, weeping, until the S-O-S boat arrived. You tried to warn them, but nobody believed you. It was an unexplainable event. They kicked it under the rug, rolled it up, and burned it—as if nothing happened.

It was only you and your brother, so there was no memorial. No familial speeches from family or friends, as neither of you had any, aside from Riku, who stood by your side through it all. Still, his mind couldn’t be changed along with the rest. He only accepted your obsession through pity and nothing else.

“You can go home, Riku,” you say, a tone laced with firmness and an impending rage that you keep within wraps.

His eyes flicked over you for a moment before he exhaled sharply, guilt reaching his core. “Y/n, I’m sorry—.”

“Can you just shut the fuck up and leave?” Your eyes narrowed in his direction, fingers curling around your thumbs as you squeezed before releasing the tension.

His lips pressed into a thin line before he nodded, grabbing the keys from his pocket and turning away. “See ya tomorrow,” he says before walking off.

Another hour passes as you sit on the beach, well into midnight, watching the breeze gently push against the waves. You finally stand once more, brushing yourself off as you turn towards the pathway leading to the parking lot.

An unfamiliar sound catches your attention, along with a splash of waves that echo near you. You pause, listening for a moment as your ears search for the unknown frequency once more. Your head shifts to the right as you hear another high-pitched wail coming from the distance. It was slightly guttural, a broken hum of distress.

Before you could register your own movements, you find yourself walking towards the frantic melody. Your heartbeat thuds against your chest as you follow the noise. Your pulse throbs as you feel the hairs on your skin stand tall.

That sound… it’s not quite the same, but…

Once you reach the spot, your muscles stiffen in place, brows raising in shock.

Lying in front of you is a distressed male who holds the upper body of another. His wet black strands frame the sharp features of his facial structure as he looks down at the unmoving male. His dark eyelashes conceal his irises as a frown laces his expression.

His skin is a silk cream, and the translucent top of his ears forms into elongated tips, almost resembling skin-colored, iridescent fins. The same texture protrudes from the sides of his arms, though with a black-turquoise-hued tinge. His claws are long, gently grazing against the cheeks of the male below as he holds him against the lap of his long black tail that was laced with turquoise undertones.

The male below him matches the fish-like features, though the pigment laces a deep purple against his fins and long tail. His plum-colored hair is disheveled and wet, though flaring under his head as the siren holds him. His eyes are shut, irises concealed by his lids as he seems to be trapped within a deep slumber.

Crimson covers the side of his torso, staining the sand beneath. From the distance you stand, you fail to see the exact wound. Your brows furrow as determination sets into your core, and you turn your back to the sirens as you jog to your car.

Why do I feel the urge to help? I should just let him die.

But you know that it isn’t fair to blame them for a tragedy that occurred years ago. It isn’t fair to blame the entire species for something that’s a part of their nature.

Your search for their existence is only to prove to yourself and the others that the incident wasn’t imagined. That sirens are real and should be studied. This only motivates you for your shift tomorrow.

After you return with the first aid, you steadily make your way towards the two men, earplugs stuck in your ears as you walk closer. You can’t deny the pressure in your chest, anxiety striking you the closer you get.

Once the conscious siren noticed another presence, he shifted his gaze towards you, piercing teal irises peering through the lashes that lined his lids. You pause when you recognize the tension of his muscles, a scowl reaching his expression as a distorted melody rang from his lips.

You held your hands up in surrender, ensuring that your movements remained slow and gentle so as to not alarm the creature. A memory of the section of a passage you read during your studies of this mythological species reminded you of their ability to understand various languages, humans included. It was adapted for survival as their variety grew.

“It’s alright. I’m not here as an enemy, but as an aid,” you say, voice proper as you point towards the first aid kit in your hand. “I see that your friend is hurt. I’ve only come to help, if you’ll let me.”

He didn’t move. His gaze remained locked on you with a menacing guise. Despite the danger that radiated off of the creature, you recognized his urge to protect his loved one. It was expected.

You twist the box to face his view, unclipping the clasp as you open the lid, allowing him to observe the contents clearly. “As you can see, I mean no harm. With that amount of blood loss, your friend doesn’t have much time. Just let me help, please,” you say with a calm tone.

Why do I want to help them so bad?

Maybe his protectiveness of the unconscious being reminded you of the feelings you had during your brother’s trance. You understand what it feels like to have someone ripped away from you under circumstances you can’t control. Both sirens are vulnerable in this state. It’s clear that the teal-eyed male cares deeply for the man below him.

You watch as his eyes narrow, his expression revealing his contemplation as he stares at you with wonder. Eventually, he bowed his head to the side, nodding over to the other siren in defeat. You exhale in relief, heading over to the injured man before you kneeled beside him.

You rummaged through the box as you grabbed the necessities to dab, clean, and wrap the wound. The black-haired male watched you with caution, eyes roaming over your movements as you tended to the wound.

I never thought I’d ever be in this predicament.

But you didn’t hate it. To be able to help another aid a loved one, despite the resentment you held for the species, caused warmth to spread throughout your stomach.

The patch-up didn’t take long.

You exhaled a breath you hadn’t known you were holding in as you clipped the box shut. The torso of the siren was successfully wrapped.

“I’d advise you to stay out of the water for a little longer, just to give the bleeding time to stop,” you suggest. You already knew that sirens could stay above water for long periods of time. They could live on land if they had legs, though some studies show that very few can transform their tails.

The siren only stared at you with the same cautious look as before, though it had slightly softened. Suddenly, movement catches both of your attention as both of your eyes shift toward the man below you. The man’s eyelids flutter open as he reveals bright, teal irises that flick over to you.

You couldn’t shake the strike of anxiety that surged through your spine, heart beating against your chest as he studied you with an intense gaze. His eyes shifted downward to his wound as you began to grab the box.

I think it’s time for me to leave.

Before you can lift yourself from the ground, a clawed hand shoots to your jaw as you’re held in place. You feel shock contort amongst your expression as your body stiffened to the tight grip.

What the fuck?

The creature leaned forward, slightly flicking his wrist to observe your features with his eyes slightly squinted, as if he was analyzing data and saving it to a file in his brain.

Your hand reached for his wrist, gently lowering it as you picked yourself up from the sand.

“Um… get better,” you quickly say, turning away as you walk toward the parking lot. You cursed yourself for the lack of knowledge on what else you could’ve said, slightly embarrassed.

You could feel their gazes locked on your back as you made your way off the beach.

The next morning was uneventful, your daily routine of deep-diving into the sea stretched throughout the day. It was finally the afternoon, your team filing the samples you and Riku had just collected from the reef you are currently studying.

You couldn’t stop thinking about the sirens you had met the night before. On one hand, you wanted to inform Riku of what you had experienced, wishing you had taken a picture from your phone as proof, but on the other hand, you knew that it wouldn’t have been an appropriate time for that. You also understood that Riku would remain stubborn with his disbelief until you provide physical evidence.

It was a lost cause.

“Break’s over. Let’s get going!” your team leader yelled across the small ship.

You eye the surface of the waves, heavily pushing along the foundation of the ship while the anchor holds you all in place. The sky is a bright blue, clouds streaking across the firmament as the sun shines a bright yellow. It’s a beautiful day, and yet, you couldn’t rid yourself of the pit that formed in your chest.

“Hey, Y/n. I still want to let you know that I’m sorry for what I said yesterday. You were right that it’s none of my business,” Riku said as he prepared the scuba gear on his form.

You followed along, chuckling in response as you placed the mask over your face. “I know. It’s whatever,” you say before patting him on the back. “We’re good.”

He nodded as he placed the snorkel in his mouth, slightly smiling in return before he hopped into the water. Shortly after, you followed his form as you dived into the ocean.

Your arms swayed against the pressure of the water as you peered through the goggles. You swam towards the opposite direction of Riku, aiming for the area that you were assigned to.

Moments later, you reached the colorful section of the reef, passing by various types of fish and sea creatures, some of which you found fascinating to observe. Once you reached the species of fish you were focused on for the shift, you connected a biologging sensor to the animal so that the laboratory could collect data on the behavior and whereabouts of the creature without hurting it.

During your session of tracking the correct species, a familiar sound echoed throughout the vicinity as your body floats. When your head turns in the direction of the noise, a swift force circled around your figure, startling you in the process as the bubbles of the water lined your vision.

Once it all settles, your eyes widen behind the goggles as you stare at the male siren in front of you.

His features aren’t far from the fins you had seen attached to the sirens during the previous evening. The translucent hue is tinged with a bright yellow, along with the elongated tail that curled around your form as he observed you. His dark locks flared above his neck, yellow undertones prominent as his bangs framed his sharp features.

As he studied you with golden orbs shifting over your form, his head tilted in recognition before a smile curled on his expression, revealing his sharp teeth. If you hadn’t studied the body language of sirens for so long, you would’ve thought you were going to be his next meal. He merely looked curious until he gave you a knowing glance.

Suddenly, you jolted as he released a loud frequency through his lips.

You listened as the rush of water appeared from your sides, head shifting left and right as you searched for the source.

Suddenly, you feel a hand grip your arm as you’re tugged to the side, your eyes shifting over to the new male who appeared.

Another male with similar fish-like features as the former siren came into view. His color scheme is a silky white, iridescent fins tinged with the hue as his claws wrapped around your arm. His platinum strands flowed around his head, his bangs framing his face. His white tail curled against the pressure of the water.

His lids are a natural slant, gray irises shifting over you with a lazy look plastered on his expression. Your brows raise in confusion at the ambush. Before you can yank your arm out of his grip, you felt a constriction against your opposite arm as another male appeared on the other side of your form.

You face the third siren, a man with long, red strands that flare amongst the water. The edge of his fins are laced with a bright green hue, the scales of his elongated tail matching the color scheme.

His eyes flicked over you with a studious expression, lips falling apart as an unsettling, melodic frequency echoed from his mouth, revealing his razor sharp teeth.

Your breath hitches as you’re pulled forward, the force abrupt as the water rushes past you. The two men gripping your arms follow behind the yellow-tailed siren as they make their way through the depths of the ocean, leading you deeper.

What the fuck? Where are they taking me?

You hoped that they wouldn’t travel deep enough for your lungs to compress. Despite your attempts to escape, their claws grazed your skin as their fingers curled tightly around you.

Suddenly, you noticed the lowered percentage of your oxygen tank, eyes widening as you realized you had strayed underwater for far too long. You begin to thrash in their hold, your movements more desperate than before.

Finally, the sirens stop in place, turning their attention to you with a mixture of confusion and annoyance on their expressions. You quickly gesture toward your tank and make a breathing motion before pointing upward.

They pause for a moment, giving each other a quick glance before releasing your arms. You hold your hands up in surrender before swimming upwards, rushing to the surface in a desperate attempt to make it before your oxygen runs out.

Once you made it back to the surface, water splashed around you as you broke through the waves, reaching for the strap that connected you to the ship and pulling yourself onto the platform. Your chest heaves as you fumble with the straps of the mask, yanking it off as you pant.

“Y/n? What the hell happened? You were under for so long I almost came to find you!” Riku exclaimed, rushing toward you as he grabbed the equipment from your hands to help you out of your gear.

You only continue to ease your breathing as the memories of what just occurred swirled through your mind. You couldn’t concentrate on Riku’s muffled words. Your vision is slightly distorted, a sudden dizziness causing your body to feel heavy as your head shifts toward the ocean.

Your thoughts morphed into jumbled words as darkness reached your vision, engulfing you into the void that tugs at your consciousness.

You felt the breeze kiss against your skin as your eyelashes fluttered open. The rays of the sun shine bright over you, the warmth engulfing your skin. As you slowly pull your upper body up from the ground, you could feel the sand sticking to your arms and legs. As you lean forward, your eyes perk, startled as you notice the men sitting around your figure.

What are they doing here? What am I even doing here? Wasn’t I on the ship?

You blinked as you noticed Sae sitting beside you, legs replacing the tail that once was there. His arm rested over a propped knee as his bare feet pressed against the sand, shorts concealing his lower region.

Wait… did I just identify his name? How do I even know it?

You look around, seeing the men sitting around you. Meguru sat on your right in the same position as Sae, though with shorts that matched the yellow tail he once had. You eyed the back of Rin’s head, black hair waving against the wind as he stared ahead, sitting in front of you, black shorts covering his bottom.

Your brows furrowed as you twisted yourself around, eyeing both Seishiro and Hyoma who sat behind you, though with their legs stretched out and ankles crossed, leaning on the back of their palms as they didn’t even spare a glance.

What the fuck is going on? Why do I know all of their names?

Your heart begins to race as you try to make sense of the situation. Something feels wrong.

This… this doesn’t feel real.

“Did you know that soulmates can feel a pull towards each other, even when they’re miles apart?” Sae’s calm voice cuts through the silence before you turn your attention to him.

You feel puzzled by his statement. “Soulmates?” you question, confusion lacing your tone.

You couldn’t see it, but as you walked away from the injured siren and his brother, a long, red thread protruded from your back as it connected you to the men’s chests, splitting at the end as the sirens eyed the fabric.

“It’s her. She’s the fated sixth.”

The male turned his head slightly, facing you with a stoic expression. “You can swim all you want, but the tide will always pull you along, no matter how hard you try to fight it.”

Suddenly, a rush of water fills your lungs as your eyes widen, your reality shifting underwater as the depths of the ocean carry you along. Your mask is vacant, along with the oxygen tank that was yanked off of you.

You couldn’t breathe. Your mouth was forced open by the pressure of the water as if it was filling your body. You gasped, suffocating as you thrashed against the surface.

Riku was in front of you, reaching for you with terror drawn over his expression. But then you notice the crimson tendrils that float around him, lowering your gaze amidst the chaos of your erratic motion as you yelp, his lower body completely detached from his torso. He was split from the middle, nothing but a gaping, fleshy hole, his insides floating.

As your vision begins to blur, you realize that you never escaped the ocean. You never even had a chance.

Glowing eyes settle around you as the sirens circle your form, the threads constricting any movement as you float in the middle of the formation. A light glows from the bottom of the sea, spreading throughout the vicinity as it engulfs your dying form.

Pressure forces your legs to press together, contorting your limbs into an unnatural formation as you twist and turn against the threads. Pain erupted throughout your body as you released a guttural scream from the agony shooting through your lower half.

Eventually, you couldn’t feel your legs as you normally would. They stretched until scales covered the skin, a multicolored hue forming as a long tail emerged from your body. You could feel your arms and ears shifting, fins protruding from your skin, matching the color of your tail.

You didn’t have time to feel the disbelief, shock, or devastation as the familiar void tugs at your essence.

—𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞’𝚍 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚞𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚒𝚜 𝚊𝚟𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎.

—𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐: 𝚜𝚖𝚞𝚝 𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚕𝚞𝚍𝚎𝚍 (𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚑𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚜)

wc: 1375

You sit up in bed, breathing ragged as you hold a hand to your chest. Your lips are apart as the sweat beads along the lining of your forehead. You quickly pat the palms of your hands against your neck and torso as you ensure that you’re alive and physically apparent.

The lowering sun gleams through the crack of the curtains as it shines over the bedroom. You snatch the covers from your lower half, examining your legs as you curl your toes for reassurance. You exhale a slow breath as you fall back onto your pillow in relief.

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