#has anyone figured out a way to automate blocking them?

[quiveringblobofflesh]

Ah yes thé bot column is back

[stevensaus]

It Took Me Less Than 90 Minutes To Make An AI-Powered Spam News Website From Scratch

We are at the front of an AI-powered storm of website spam, monetized by advertisements and the darkest of SEO optimization. While I focus on those scraping news websites for this proof-of-concept, this problem will affect every sector of industry. I've written up several examples previously -- both on the blog and on Mastodon. Despite the growing number (and relative sophistication) of such sites, it's been relatively difficult to convince others that this is something to take seriously. So to prove the concept, I made one myself. It took less than 90 minutes and cost me a dime.

What To Trust On The Internet

Concerns about the validity of information on the internet have existed... well, before the internet, at least as we know it today. Back in the days of Usenet and dial-up BBSes users (including myself!) would distribute text files of all sorts of information that was otherwise difficult to find. At first, it was often easy to determine what websites were reputable or not. Sometimes simply the domain (Geocities, anyone?) would cause you to examine what the website said more closely. As the the web has matured, more and more tools have been created to be able to create a professional-looking website fairly quickly. Wordpress, Squarespace, and many, many more solutions are out there to be able to create something that is of professional quality in hours. With the rise of containerization and automation tools like Ansible, once originally configured, deploying a new website can literally be a matter of a few minutes -- including plug-ins for showing ads and cross-site linking to increase listings in search rankings. But even with all that help, you still had to make something to put in that website. That's a trickier proposition; as millions of abandoned blogs and websites attest, consistently creating content is hard. But now even that is trivial. Starting from scratch -- no research ahead of time! -- I figured out how to automate scraping the content off of websites, feed it into ChatGPT, and then post it to a (reasonably) professional looking website that I set up from scratch in less than 90 minutes. It took longer to write this post than it did to set everything up. And -- with the exception of the program used to query ChatGPT -- every program I used is over two decades old, and every last one of them can be automated on the command line. {1}

The Steps I Took

The most complicated part was writing a bash script to iterate over everything. Here's what I did: NOTE : I have left out a few bits and stumbling blocks on purpose. The point is to show how easy this was, not to write a complete "how to." Also, I'm sure there are ways to do this more efficiently. This was intended solely as a proof of concept. - Install elinks, grep, curl, wget, and sed. This is trivial on linux-like systems, and not too difficult on OSX or Windows. - Get a ChatGPT API key. I spent a grand total of $0.07 doing all the testing for this article. - Install the cross-platform program mods (which is actually quite cleverly and well done, kudos to the authors). - Find the site that you want to scrape. Download their front page with elinks URL --dump > outfile.txt - Examine the end of that file, which has a list of URLs. Practically every site with regularly posted content (like news) will have a pretty simple structure to their URLs due to the CMS (software to manage the site) often being the same. For example, over 200 news sites use WordPress' "Newspack" product. One of those is the Better Government Association of Chicago. Every URL on that website which leads to an article has the form https://www.bettergov.org/YEAR/MONTH/DAY/TITLE_OF_ARTICLE/.

- Use something like this to get the links you want: grep -e ". https://bettergov.org/2023" outfile.txt | awk -F " " '{print $2}' | sort | uniq > list_of_urls.txt. Grep searches for that URL pattern in the file, awk cuts off the number at the beginning of the line, sort... well, sorts them, and uniq ensures there are no duplicates. - Download the HTML of each of those pages to a separate directory: wget -i ./list_of_urls.txt --trust-server-names -P /directory/to/put/files - Create a script to loop over each file in that directory. - For each file in that directory do mods "reword this text" - Format that output slightly using Wordpress shortcodes so that you can post-by-email. - Use CURL to send the new post to the Wordpress website. All of this is "do once" work. It will continue to run automatically with no further human input. You can see the output (using one of my own posts) at https://toppolitics9.wordpress.com/2023/07/22/chatgpt-reworked-this/. If I was going to actually do something like this, I'd setup Wordpress with another hosting company so that I could use add-ons to incorporate featured images and -- most importantly -- host ads.

Simply Blocking Domains Will Not Work

A key element here is that once you're at the "sending the email" step, you can just send that post to as many WordPress sites as you can set up. Spam -- because that's what this is -- is about volume, not quality. It does not matter that the reworded news articles now have factual errors. It does not matter that a large percentage of people wouldn't look at a website titled "Top Politics News" -- as long as some did. The ten cents I spent testing -- now that I've figured out how to chain things together -- could have been used to reproduce most of the articles featured on CNN's front page and pushed out to innumerable websites, though who knows how many errors would have been created in the process. Just as simply blocking e-mail addresses is only a partial solution to e-mail spam, domain blocking will only have limited effectiveness against this tactic. Because of the rewording, it is difficult to prove a copyright claim, or to take the website owners to court (assuming they can even be found). Because the goal is not to provide accurate information, taking a site down and setting it up again under a different domain is no big deal.

This Is About Every Industry

I've focused here on spam websites that scrape news websites because of my "day job", but this will impact every industry in some form. Because the goal is to gain pageviews and ad impressions (instead of deliberate misinformation), no sector of the market will be unaffected. Anything you search for online will be affected. Finding medical advice. How to do various home repairs. Information about nutrition and allergies about food in grocery stores and restaurants. Shopping sites offering (non-working) copies of the current "cool" thing to buy. Birding news. Recipes. All easily scraped, altered, and posted online. {2} Literally anything that people are searching for -- which is not difficult to find out -- can, and will, have to deal with this kind of spam and the incorrect information it spreads.

A Problem AI Made And Cannot Fix

And we cannot expect the technology that created the problem to fix it, either. I took the article of mine that ChatGPT reworded, and fed it back to the AI. I asked ChatGPT, "Was this article written by an AI?" ChatGPT provided a quick reply about the article it had reworded only minutes before. "As an AI language model, I can confirm that this article was not written by an AI. It was likely written by a human author, sharing their personal experience and opinions on the topic of misleading statistics." {1} For the fellow nerds: Elinks was created in 2001, curl and wget in 1996, bash in 1988, sed in 1974, uniq and grep in 1973, and sort in 1971. {2} There is often some kind of disclaimer on the examples I've personally seen, hidden somewhere on the website, saying they make no guarantees about the truth of the information on thier site. As if people actually look at those pages. Featured Image (because I have a sense of irony) based off an AI creation from NightCafe. Read the full article

[kookieskiwi]

𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐈: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠

Pairing: Shuntaro Chishiya x Fem!Reader x Suguru Niragi

Summary: The borderlands were already dark, they made you numb to death so long as you survived. When you become the object of desire for two psychopathic and sociopathic men, one of which is your ex lover, you find it harder to drown out the emotions you’re feeling and demons you're facing. Do you give into the dark desires and madness? But...aren’t we all already mad here?

Warnings: Explicit language, sexual situations, murder, death, manipulation, psychoanalyses, drugs, alcohol, suicidal thoughts and tendencies, more to be added as I write.

Genre: Alice in Borderland, very dark romance, angst, smut, a little fluff if you squint

Rating: Whoever is mature enough to handle the warnings above but recommended to ages 15 and older. DO NOT read if you are triggered by any of the things listed above.

Word Count: 5k

[Taglist] @bonnyskies @mylifeisafxingmess @kasaikawa @mercipourleslivres @dragoneye01 @bubb1ee-gum@nocturne181 @somegirl29 @pajerita19 @ddaenysus @imagine-t-h-a-ttt @queentorresstuff @rebirth-of-destruction @celestiacq @ryreads @beeissleepy

A note from your author — I’m so sorry this took so long, I just got out for summer vacation after an extremely stressful year so I’ll be way more active now. I have decided (with much hype from @imagine-t-h-a-ttt ) to post this in parts so I could give y’all something in appreciation for dealing with me. Expect more soon!! (It might not be AiB exclusively but I will be writing more)

The borderlands was a place where anyone and everyone was alone for themselves when it came to survival. “It’s every man for themselves,” you’d often tell yourself after a game since you walked away, sometimes alone, and others didn’t. After participating in your first heart’s game you learned that, and it was forever engraved into your mind. When you were cruelly taken from the real world you were alone in your room after your nightly shift as an SDF officer. All of a sudden the lights went out whilst you were changing out of your uniform before a shower which you never got to take. Deciding to investigate the outage, you threw your uniform back on and unbuttoned the jacket revealing your black sleeveless undershirt while keeping your green cargo style uniform pants and combat boots on. After grabbing your knife and placing it into your thigh holster, you explored your neighborhood to find that everyone was gone, cars were randomly in the street as if they had been stopped out of nowhere, and you were in fact alone.

“What the fuck is this?” You whispered to yourself as you were pulling out your phone to contact your friends only to see that it was dead. “Fantastic,” you grumbled, rolling your neck to the side to crack it and relieve the tension. Venturing back to your home you thought over what this could possibly be; an evacuation drill? Maybe a nightmare? Were you daydreaming again? No, this was too real and too strange to be any of those things. You needed to get out of this area, inspect and observe other parts of Tokyo to see what was going on. You thought you could find answers before it turned dark since it was only morning so you rushed home to pack a few things before heading out.

While at home, you grabbed your backpack and in it you put; a change of clothes, three water bottles, pain pills and a few snacks as well as your phone and charger in case you could figure out a way for it to work. In a haste you also threw on your side holster which held your nine millimeter handgun and two packs of ammo for extra precautions. After that, you set out on your search of the city. The first thing you thought of was to get in one of those abandoned vehicles however even though they were full of fuel, they wouldn’t start. “So phones and vehicles don’t work, neither does anything powered by electricity. Great.”

With that newly found information, you stepped out of the vehicle and began the long walk across Tokyo. Along the way you inspected stores, homes and even government buildings but found no trace of anyone but yourself. Where did everyone go? It looked so desolate without the constant buzz of people around walking, the tourists, the neon billboards. Everything was...dead. You spent the entire day walking further into the abandoned city which was once lively yet found nothing other than a restaurant with food which you took the liberty to eat at.

Upon nightfall, you were looking for a place to stay when a billboard lit up drawing your attention to it immediately. “This way to the game arena,” it read with an arrow pointing to the left. Turning your head in that direction you saw an area in the distance brightened by lights while everything else was still surrounded in darkness. “Game arena?” You whispered in confusion. Looking around at your surroundings you didn’t see any other lights other than that building which looked to be about three blocks away. You followed the arrows leading you to the designated arena which looked to be a botanical tea garden from a distance. You slowly approached the building while keeping your hand close to the blade strapped on your thigh in case someone or something appeared. As soon as you stepped across the final set of stairs leading up to the entrance, a line of red lasers appeared and quickly turned blue when a sound similar to that of a confirmation resonated in the area. “What is this?”

“It’s the threshold of the arena.” Turning in the direction of the voice, you saw a familiar face step next to you with the same sound chiming at her entry. “Holyn? How did you get here? Are you okay?” You asked quickly before hugging her out of relife, you were more than happy to see a familiar face in this apocalyptic place. She was your childhood best friend, the only reason you hadn’t seen or heard from her in a while was because of both of your working lives.She hugged you back even tighter as she was feeling the same way you were, scared, alone and confused. When the two of you released each other she began explaining everything she knew to you as the both of you started walking into the garden.

“I got here a few days ago and since then, I’ve asked around to see what others know about whatever the hell is going on. No one knows how we got here or what exactly this place is but everyone is made to participate in games of survival. You must participate or you’ll die. After winning a game, you keep the phone you had and you’ll be supplied with a visa. The visa tells you how long you have until you’re out of time here which is why you have to participate in games to renew it before it runs out. You must win each game, there is no other way to survive if you don’t. Do everything it takes so you live and move on. Anything with an electric circuit board or IC chip does not work whereas analog equipment like radios work and so do older vehicles.” She explained quickly as more people came into view. Your mind fogged with all of the new information, it was so much to take in. Then you realized you were just thrown into a game of survival and like she said; you HAD to win to survive. “But-” you had just begun when she silenced you, “pretend you’ve been here and done this. I know you’re confused and probably scared shitless but just pretend.” She instructed as you both entered the arena and quickly added one thing, “I don’t want to continue playing after this, I killed someone Y/n.” But before you could respond she shook her head and you did as she said, silencing yourself and putting on the facade you had mastered over the years.

Upon entry, you almost immediately noticed the two groups of people to the right each containing about six people and consisting of both males and females and the other group of six men. Gauging their distance to and from each other you could conclude the individuals in each group had played together previously and probably had strategies to compete with. As you and Holyn approached the area the others stood around, you glanced down to the table in front of all of you. ‘One per person’ the sign read with approximately twenty phones laid out beside it. Each of you grabbed a random phone and stepped away from the table into your own spaces, you and Holyn sticking closely together. If everything with a circuit board was destroyed, then why did these phones work? In the middle of your questioning the phone screen lit up with the text ‘facial recognition in progress’ before switching to another screen as you looked at the others subtly to see they were looking around as well.

“Registration has closed,” the phone chimed causing each of you to glance down at the small screen. “There are twenty participants. Game: Queen of cards.”

“Rules,” the automated voice said, “After putting on the designated collars you will be divided into two teams, one team will be the Jacks while the other is the Queen of Hearts. Find the Queen of Hearts, take her phone and find the safe zone. If the Queen is not found, it is game over for the Jacks. If the Queen is found, it is game over for her.”

“Does this mean it’s one girl against the rest of us?” Holyn asked with a small crack in her voice, making hit her as a sign to be quiet and do exactly what she told you to do. The two of you grabbed the collars they had laid out on the table, placing them on your neck after close inspection. You needed to seem like you had done this before, the last thing you needed was to be seen as the weaklings or newbies. “It’s a Hearts game, of course that’s what it means. We are supposed to turn on each other and play with others minds. It makes sense.” A male with his arms crossed over his chest said. He had played before, you could tell. The group of men he came with looked like they had been here for a while based on their appearance and calmness towards the situation.

“What do you mean ‘It’s a heart's game’?” A girl who looked to be about seventeen asked. It was obvious she was new to this like you, however, you weren’t letting anyone know that. “When you see the game card, you know the type of game and the difficulty of it. Heart games are those of psychological torture and betrayal where you mess with your opponents or friends minds and emotions. Diamond games are ones of minds and intelligence, often including solving riddles or puzzles. Clubs are by far the safest there is given they are teamwork and unity games. Spade games are physical, they test your stamina and endurance. The number of the cards tell you the difficulty levels; one being the easiest and ten being the hardest.” Another man explained to the girls. You listened attentively while looking down at your phone noticing this was a six of hearts game. Hearts. There had to be a way to do this without betrayal. But before you could think of anything further you were interrupted by the phone which spoke once more.

“The Queen will have one minute to hide before Jack's time starts, but she wont know she is the Queen until Jack's time begins.” The feminine AI voice instructed once more. The girls were to be hunted by the boys and even if they weren’t the Queen the males wouldn’t know. Even if it was a best friend. You noticed when the others came to the same realization as you as one guy started profusely apologizing to a girl who was shaking. This is a game of survival. “So that means-”

“You girls better run.” It came from one of the men and said with a sinister smirk. All the guys had to do to ensure survival was take our phones and get to the undisclosed safezone. However this was more than that. You saw the weapons on a board in the distance and you knew you weren’t the only one who did. Without a second thought, you grabbed Holyn’s hand and ran as fast as you could to get the farthest from any other person, vividly aware of the knife you still had on your thigh. She quickly followed behind although she didn’t have much of a choice with your iron-like grip on her wrist. After running a sufficient distance from the others you ducked into the shrubbery and crawled towards a dark corner to hide from anyone’s sight. She sat across from you as you both tried to calm your breathing while keeping yourselves hidden from anyone who might pass by. The phone chimed again, “Hiding time is up,” the voice said while a new timer appeared on your phone. “Ten minutes,” it read. An alarm sounded throughout the arena echoing off the walls of the indoor tea garden. “The game will now commence,” you heard just before seeing your screen turn balck temporarily with your role on it.

“Thank goodness, I’m a Jack. You are too right?” Holyn asked as you turned off your phone and looked at her with a smile as her voice echoed in your mind, “you must win each game, there’s no other way to survive,” so you pushed away the dread in your chest and replied “me too.”

No. You were the Queen.

The two of you sat still for about five minutes listening to the shouts and screams of the others until you heard sets of footsteps coming in your direction causing the two of you to duck down onto your stomachs out of fear. In the distance you heard a feminine scream echo off the glass walls followed by shattering sounds and more screams of “I’m not her” or “It’s not me” followed by the sounds of struggles. “Come out come out wherever you are,” one of the men closer to you called. You could tell he was near and if you two didn’t move, he'd find you.”We found the safe zone but none of the girls were queens,” you heard one say, “damnit, if they were still alive they could help us,’ the other commented making your stomach drop. “We need to run,” who whispered to Holyn knowing those men would have no issue killing you to survive. “Three minutes remaining,” the time was announced but you could hardly hear it due to your pulse thudding in your ears.

“Now,” you called quietly queuing the both of you to jump up and run, but it didn’t go unnoticed by the men. “There they are!” One shouted followed by the heavy stomps of footsteps behind you as they set in on the chase. “It’s only the two of you, just give us the phone and you’ll live.” You ignored him and kept sprinting towards the place you knew there were weapons. Without another thought you grabbed two weapons and handed one to Holyn to defend yourselves with until she came to the realization you loathed. “You’ve been the queen this entire time!?” She shouted at you as the stomping sound got closer and closer. “I’m sorry! You said to do anything it takes to survive.” You responded with tears clouding your vision. Never in your life would you have thought you’d be choosing your life over your best friend’s, not when the two of you had gone through everything together. “Two minutes remaining,” the voice announced reminding you of your impending fate. Holyn looked at you with emotions you couldn’t decipher, but you saw the way she relaxed even if it was slight. Why was she glad you chose yourself over her?

“Come on, let’s hide.” She said grabbing your hand and this time, she was the one dragging you along. She veered off to the right pulling you behind a fountain and kept running until the two of you collapsed onto the ground. “Remember when you turned fifteen and we decided to sneak out?” she reminisced laying between your legs against your chest. “Yeah, our parents almost killed us, we were grounded for months.” you giggled despite the tears falling from your eyes. As memories of you both flooded your mind you acted without control and shouted, “Over he--” to let the men know your location but you were interrupted by her hand clasping over your mouth tightly to silence you as she yanked you backwards into the shadows. “Shh,” she whispered, calming you while you sobbed into her hand, “I want you to live on for me, okay? Beat this game, we both know you are the only one who can. I know you can. I’ll be helping you from above if I can.” She soothed laying her head on top of yours.

“One minute remaining”

The tears wouldn’t stop as you moved to hug her tightly, never wanting to let go. “I’m so sorry.” you choked out in between gasps for air. Everything was too much, too loud, time was moving too quickly, you heard the men rapidly shouting and searching for you two as you clung to your best friend. Everything seemed to be happening so quickly, the seconds flew by while you were holding the only person you had left before she was to die. “I’m not. Thank you Y/n, I wouldn’t have made it any further anyways, I’m glad I can help you move forward. Don’t let me die in vain.” She told you kissing the top of your head before roughly pushing you off to get you away from her. “Holyn!” You shouted trying to latch back onto her when suddenly the collar around her neck exploded and her blood splattered everywhere. Your eyes and mouth opened wide in shock at what you had just seen. You could feel the specks of blood all over your face and body while you stared at her now decapitated one lying in front of you. She had just died, and it was because of you, because you were selfish and confused all while being scared.

You didn’t know how long you stayed there in total silence until you just collapsed onto the cold, hard floor beneath your feet. The silence was interrupted by your blood curdling scream of pure agony that echoed throughout the enclosed building. Your head came into contact with the ground when you curled over your knees and screamed once again while grabbing at your hair and banging your forehead against the cement. Tears flowed out of both your eyes as you cried out in horror, unable to rid your mind of the events that just occurred. You screamed until your throat was raw and your voice hoarse, you could feel the clumps of hair you pulled out of your scalp as your fingers dug deeper into your skull and worst of all, you knew you were alone now.

For days, you were numb. Five days to be exact. You didn’t do much but sleep, cry, eat, walk aimlessly to a new location and then repeat it all again the next day. You couldn’t shake the immense feeling of guilt you felt when you woke each morning knowing Holyn wouldn’t because of you. It wasn’t until you played your next game, an eight of spades, that you snapped out of the haze your emotions put you in. During the game, you had to climb a tree fast enough to avoid the arrows being shot at you from below as the height the arrows were shot increased each minute as you ascended the tree. You were ahead of the others until one man decided to start pulling at your ankles to hold you back which eventually turned into him trying to make you lose your grip and fall. In the moment he yanked your body down, you almost completely lost your grip on the branch keeping you from falling. It was then that you realized you weren’t going to let Holyn die in vain, you’d survive and push through everything to honor her memory.

After that, the “acquaintances” you made between or during games never meant much to you because in the end, you could only count on and rely on yourself to ensure your survival. You stopped moping around and became the version of yourself you had always wanted to become, the one that allowed you to turn off your emotions and step away from your chaotic thoughts. You now lived for yourself and yourself only, but even then, you never killed anyone intentionally.

A few days passed by but you couldn’t tell exactly how long you had been in this hell hole. You only played games when it was necessary which was only about two days before your visa expired. After overhearing someone in a two of Spades game talk about a place called “the Beach” and the people there “knowing how to get out here,” you started observing those who played games when you didn’t. It only took a few nights to see the connection between the group of people who entered games with tag numbers on their wrists being the ones who walked out. After you played a couple games with people with the tags on their wrists, you were convinced they knew something about the strategy of the games. Lingering in the shadows, you watched the participants of the game walk out of the arena and head down the street while you quietly followed behind. You must’ve walked for five minutes before you noticed where exactly the group was headed; a vehicle. “But I thought..” you whispered to yourself in confusion seeing them jump into the four seater 1970 cadillac while you stood still in your hidden position wondering what they were doing. Upon hearing the ignition of the engine you remembered Holyn telling you only older modeled vehicles were able to work here, but where did they find fuel? Not once had you seen an operable fuel station. “There must be fuel at the beach, there has to be,” you thought to yourself, watching as they drove off which only made you more determined to find this place and get the answers to your questions. And with that thought in mind, you set out on a journey to find this so-called “beach.”

As the vehicle drove further from your sight, you started jogging in order to tail them to their location while still keeping yourself out of sight. You ran for around fifteen minutes before you saw a building in the distance, a building which had power unlike everything else in the city. Seeing the destination, you stopped running and took a while to slow your breathing and regain your energy. “So this is the Beach,” you sighed observing the structure and its surroundings. The building itself seemed to be four stories tall and included a large pool in front where people partied as if they weren’t fighting for their lives everyday. You approached a fence which seemed to outline the perimeter of the area and carefully leaned over it as if you were watching a child’s game. You saw the vast amounts of people give into the pleasures of ignorance while deafening music thrummed in the background, even from the great distance you were, you could slightly feel the vibrations of the bass in your chest.

“Ah who's this?” you heard a cynical voice ask rhetorically from behind you. At the sudden and unexpected presence you jumped, turning around and swinging your fist to punch whoever it was out of instinct. When your right hand came in contact with a face your left twisted to grab the knife you still carried on your thigh in a holster. Just as you grasped ahold of the handle one of the two people delivered a knockout-blow to the side of your head just behind your temple which caused you to instantly lose consciousness.

When you awoke you were sitting in a chair with your hands tied loosely behind your back onto the chair with what felt like a burlap bag over your head. You let out a small groan of discomfort feeling your head pulse due to your new injury, one you would have to repay later on. Upon hearing your groan, the bag was swiftly removed from your head allowing the bright lights of the room to flood your vision which hadn’t adjusted making you shut your eyes with a silent wince. After blinking a few times you get adjusted, you were finally able to scan your surroundings. In front of you stood a man with shoulder-length hair, blsck sunglasses, an open kimono and red swim trunks, to his left stood a man with buzzed hair, a black muscle shirt and green military pants who you instantly recognized.

“Aguni?” You asked with confusion seeing the man you used to work with. He was here too? You weren’t surprised he was still alive, the man was invincible when you worked with him. And just like back then, he was silent, he only gave a small nod of his head to you as a response before reassuming his statue-like stance. To his right was a man with silver hair, a white Nike hoodie and blue swim shorts who looked at you in an inquisitive manner with tired yet sharp eyes. Two women who had black hair were standing to his right and a man covered in tattoos stood further off to the side holding a sword long in length, possibly a katana. A few other people were staggered around the room but none of them seemed to be as ‘important’ as the few that you noticed immediately.

“Aguni-san? You know her?” The man in the kimono asked the latter with creased brows showing obvious confusion. “We worked at the SDF together. She was my partner before we were assigned to different segments, she’d be a good addition to the executives or militants.” He responded while putting in a good word for you. “Someone like her? An SDF officer? If you hadn’t told me, Aguni-san, I would have never known.” The man remarked crossing his arms over his chest while walking over to a desk which he leaned on. “What’s that supposed to mean?” You questioned with a scowl in his direction as your fingers fiddled with the ropes binding your wrists. You would be able to get out of them in a matter of minutes if no one noticed what you were trying to do, but it seemed the man in the white hoodie already noticed as he raised his brow in your direction with an impressed smirk on his stoic face. “A pretty, small woman like yourself...I would’ve thought you’d be tagging along with someone and not alone. Actually I would’ve thought you’d be dead by now, much less an SDF officer.” He commented with a wry smile fanning out all your cards which contradicted his statement.

“If my cards tell you anything, you should know you’re wrong,” you hummed, resuming your attempt to loosen the ropes. “Ah yes your cards,” he began while pushing himself off the desk and slowly pacing around the room, “we want you to become a resident at the Beach after seeing the cards you’ve gathered. And after learning of your pastime, you would be a great addition to the team either way.” Of course he would want you once he saw the games you had played, you were good at surviving meaning you’d also be efficient in getting him the rest of the cards. “And if I don’t want to become a resident?” You questioned poking the inside of your cheek with your tongue out of habit. You were doing just fine on your own and definitely did not need this place, however, it seemed like they needed you. Or they needed your cards more so than yourself.

“Well if you choose to stay, you’ll be able to get out of this game quicker. We have a theory that once we collect all the playing cards, one person will be able to go back to the normal world. And if you choose not to stay, well, you can walk away from here but we will keep your cards. We have gathered all the weapons in the city, we regularly gather rain water and food which the game makers seem to replenish once a week, you’ll be taken care of here.” He explained pausing directly in front of you waiting for a response. Did no one else see the problem with him? How he was manipulating everyone to get the cards under the false security that they’d get to leave too? Or was everyone here really THAT ignorant? “It seems like you take my cards either way hm?” You suggested in a hum cocking your head to the right slightly in question. “You’re correct. However, now you would be higher in the rankings and an executive after making such a great contribution and having the skill set you supposedly possess.” He told you in an attempt to persuade you into staying while adding a bit of sweetness to the word ‘contribution’. When you simply looked at him with a bored gaze, he sighed and continued speaking.

“If you decide to stay there are only three rules. 1) "always wear a bathing suit". This is to be sure no one is hiding any weapons which is why our militants don’t have to wear them if chosen to do so. Rule 2) "be free to live your life exactly as you wish including alcohol, drugs and sex" and the third and last rule: "death to traitors".” He enlightened you on the standards they lived by to help you make your decision. It didn’t seem like it would be a bad choice if you chose to stay here, you’d have food, shelter, and people you didn’t know in case you had to play another game of hearts.

“I’ll stay but I want my knife back, if I have to wear a bathing suit you’ll be able to see it anytime since I wear it on my thigh.” You compromised whilst completely freeing your hands from their bound position but still holding the rope to hide suspicions. You hated the fact you’d have to wear a swimsuit because your scars would be visible but if it meant you could have your knife, you’d be more than willing. Hearing a few chuckles resonate around the room at your demand you brought your attention to one of the men in the back of the room who had a bandage on his cheek and a black eye. It was easy to come to the conclusion that he was the one you punched earlier, and the thought of that made you smile with pride while looking at him.

“You are in no position to make demands, sweetheart,” he practically snarled at you. You hated being called sweetheart, it not only made you cringe but it infuriated you beyond measure. With a deadly glare, you let go of the rope and stood from the chair in a swift motion and threw the ropes at him without a word which said everything you needed to. However, just as he caught the ropes you could hear the door being slammed open followed by a voice which was all too familiar.

“The traitors are dead,” the unknown man announced in a tone of pride, kicking the door closed behind him. His voice instantly brought back memory after memory causing you to turn your head in shock in order to make sure you were hearing things correctly. The man you were looking at looked nothing like the one you once knew. This one had piercings on his nose and eyebrow while he sported an automatic rifle on his shoulder and a psychotic smile on his face. “Niragi?” You whispered in shock, still unable to believe your eyes. Was this the same boy you stood up for in high school? He looked so....different. What exactly happened to the sweet, shy boy you once fell in love with? “Y/N?” He questioned letting his mouth fall open the slightest but before he regained his composure. It was him, Suguru Niragi, the first and only man you’ve ever truly fallen in love with, but also the man who disappeared without a trace three years ago. You knew he had left you, it wasn’t hard to figure that much out, but you never knew why and quite frankly, you didn’t care anymore. You had moved on.

“Fantastic! Another one of our own knows this charming young woman, this will make things a lot easier. Niragi, you may take her to the locker rooms so she can change into some fitting attire then you can get her an ID bracelet and take her to her room.” The man who you noticed had a bracelet tagged 001, exclaimed with a clap of his hands as he was instructing Niragi to get you settled in. “She can do it on her own,” Niragi scoffed with a roll of his eyes which had you throwing your head back in a sarcastic chuckle. “I’ll take her,” someone insisted from the side. Glancing in the direction the voice resounded you noticed the short pale man with the silver hair stepping out towards you. He seemed oddly familiar as well but you couldn’t quite place it.

“That’s settled then. Now, my knife?” You quipped raising a brow at the ‘leader’ in the kimono just before someone came from behind you pressing a cold piece of metal to your throat while their other arm was holding your arms in place by your waist. The room went silent as everyone watched what was about to unfold in front of them, Aguni simply rolled his eyes with a sigh knowing what was about to happen. “You mean this knife?” The man teased, his voice was one you recognized from one of the two men that brought you to this place and all you wanted in that moment was to stab him for that. So, naturally, you settled for the next best thing. Pushing your head forward a little while trying not to move your neck, you watched Niragi’s expression as you threw your head backwards with all your force resulting in hitting the unknown man’s nose.

When the back of your skull came into contact with his face he immediately lessened his grip on you which allowed you to slip out of his grasp and take your knife from his hand. With your knife in hand, you grabbed his wrist, twisting it and bending his arm behind his back while your other arm placed him in a chokehold. You leaned in close to his ear as he was fighting your hold before pulling him back harshly, putting pressure on his windpipe, “Never, and I mean NEVER, touch my knife again. Got it?” You growled and if you were being honest, you would’ve intimidated yourself. You didn’t wait for a response as you pushed him forward only to watch him fall onto the ground with a soft thud. “Now,” you sighed looking up with a smile which could’ve been seen as both innocent or sinister, “let’s go,” you said slipping your knife into the holster on your thigh. The man with the white hair stepped forward with his hands in his pockets and came to your side, briefly looking at Niragi before turning his attention to you. “Let’s go, shall we?”

[tomatograter]

Could I ask for your thoughts on Rose and her connections to the other kids? I think that Rose is one character that many people just boil down to "goth alcoholic lesbian" and it bugs me a lot, so I would like to see a different and nuanced analysis on her.

I've gone back and forth in answering this (or rather HOW to answer this) for a long while. I think Rose is one of the most crucial characters for Homestuck as a narrative, and she's incidentally always been one of my favorites. What i mean by this is that explaining rose is hard, in the way that 'summarizing every other HS subplot' is hard. Objectively, I can’t tell you why rose is good, much in the same way i can’t force you to like pineapple on pizza, but i can try to explain why *i* like rose.

So I'll try to start with a statement: Rose is a difficult little girl. She’s not sweet or compliant or naturally inclined to be motherly or comforting or even KIND, broadly speaking. She’s a cynic, a hater, and a proto-intellectual who wants to feel like she has already figured out everything that has to be ‘figured’ about the world. (Spoiler alert, the conclusion is “it sucks. Blow it to bits.”)

The things that upset her the most are the things she doesn’t know or cannot make sense of. Why does her mother act in such erratic ways? Why does she constantly debase herself in shameful displays of negligent rationality and responsibility? Is it all a game to her? Is this how all adults are, messy and unkempt and deranged? (According to Freud, whose’s name is certainly mentioned enough by Fellow Online TruthSeekers Of The Human Psyche to be considered the utmost authority in just about everything there is to know, no questions asked, the response is “i guess?”) What the fuck even happened to her cat, anyway? Anybody got a baseline 101 on mortality? Does anyone know what the fuck is going on, ever? Is humanity fated to an automated cycle of dull incompetence??????

Rose hoards and utilizes even the most esoteric forms of knowledge as her shield, sword, and building blocks against the fog of uncertainty most people describe as ‘reality’. To truly know something is to rob it of its power and make it your own, ensuring you are not only safe, but impervious to any harm it could possibly cause. Her ambition and defiance set her apart even from the other betas, who wanted to follow the rules and invest in teamwork. Where jade is whimsical and vaguely helpful in a informative tutorial pixie-like way, rose’s advice is delivered via sarcastic remarks and looking for cheats by conversing with the devil. She antagonizes the patronizing questline she's been given in favor of ripping SBURB a new one. Rose is firstly concerned with improving herself, and then maybe sort of (kind of, nothing is settled on stone, what happens, happens) pass it onto her own if they REALLY cant figure it out. There’s a sense that she would sacrifice just about anything to granted the ultimate form of knowledge, the appropriate response and middle-finger to anything, and she hungers for it, which proves to be a little self-destructive. 

Except as much as she wants to put up a veneer of detached, individualistic intellectualism, she still cares far too much for the simplest human accomplishments. She cares for her friends. She envies the lives they've led, and they sound so intriguing when compared to her sterile routine. Her pet cat was once her biggest companion and source of comfort, and finding him dead crushes her. She legitimately would've liked to have a good relationship with her mom, which as we all know ends up more or less the same way. (I tend to disagree with most people who treat rose's living situation as 'pretty good/dramaticized', having a guardian who's almost never sober isn't a comedic or easy experience.) Her quest is borne out of insecurity, uncertainty, and stubbornly trying to prove herself right. Because somebody has to be.

Her faults are just as interesting to me as her qualities, for all the 'mean goth lesbian' talk the way she misses her mother and tries to reverse-engineer a connection with her beyond the grave by dabbling with the same poisons is incredibly compelling, and speaks to a side of rose's many people take for granted: she doesn't have all the answers. She's improvising. She's, like, 15 years old and trying so hard to come off as a badass but she can barely contain her wondering babble long enough to show up for an important date in time. Even in her self-sabotage rose is earnest.

This isn't the sort of narrative you usually see applied to women in fiction, or even when it IS applied, it is only to admonish their efforts and promptly slot them into a love-interest shaped hole. (Because yeah, rose being a lesbian and not falling for any of the assumed important guys does matter very much actually.) Even her turn to grimdarkness pulls from tropes reserved to epic gritty brooding male heroes- avenging her family, wrecking anything and everything in her path, Frank Castle Punisher style. I like rose because she's like matilda, if matilda went wretched sick at age 11 and took the first chance she saw to pierce an ogre through the eyes and ride its corpulent cadaver down a waterfall. She's an unrepentant monstress, cloaking herself in mythos that justify the existence of the unknowable and unjustifiable when rationality predictably falls short of truth, and a snooty little know-it-all who wants to create something so raw and important people will have no choice but know her name, and most importantly, she gets away with it. 

[philip-ks-dick]

Philip K. Dick, For Dummies.

I’ve been researching PK.D for a few years now, as he’s my father’s favourite author and I’ve been watching movie and show adaptations of his work for the longest time. I have personally only read the books listed, here’s the order (I think) you should read them in, based on difficulty level and the knowledge you need of the PKD canon to understand the books that follow. This is purely my opinion based on knowledge of the author. by philip-k’s-dick (lol)

Beginner. (These books and stories allow readers to explore Dick’s pet themes and stylistic quirks without falling too far down the rabbit hole)

The Short Stories: Over the course of his life, PKD wrote somewhere in the range of 150 short stories. Naturally, it would be silly of me to dump all of them on you at once, but undeniably, the shorter format allows the big ideas of Dick’s work to come through more clearly, and even the screwier stories conform to relatively coherent shape, making them an excellent jumping off point, especially for an author who wrote almost nonstop throughout his life.

My Favourites:

In The Days of Perky Pat - In this novel, survivors of a global thermonuclear war live in isolated enclaves in California, surviving off what they can scrounge from the wastes and supplies delivered from Mars. The older generation spend their leisure time playing with the eponymous doll in an escapist role-playing game that recalls life before the apocalypse — a way of life that is being quickly forgotten. At the story's climax, a couple from one isolated outpost of humanity plays a game against the dwellers of another outpost (who play the game with a doll similar to Perky Pat dubbed "Connie Companion") in deadly earnest. The survivors' shared enthusiasm for the Perky Pat doll and the creation of her accessories from vital supplies is a sort of mass delusion that prevents meaningful re-building of the shattered society. In stark contrast, the children of the survivors show absolutely no interest in the delusion and have begun adapting to their new life.

(Elements of the story were later incorporated into Dick's novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, written in 1964 and published in 1965, in which a Perky Pat simulation game is induced by drugs and miniature models instead. Palmer Eldritch is not a continuation or sequel however.)

What the Dead Men Say - Death is followed by a period of 'half-life', a short amount of time which can be rationed out over long periods in which the dead can be revived—so that, potentially, they can 'live' on for a long time. When attempts to bring back important businessman Louis Sarapis fail, it's clearly more than mere negligence. Sure enough, Sarapis starts speaking from beyond the grave. From outer space, in fact. Yet no-one seems terribly bothered, other than those directly concerned in the plot mechanics. Eventually entire communications networks (phones, TV, radio) are blocked by Sarapis' broadcasts

(Philip's later novel Ubik is a continuation of What the Dead Men Say)

Autofac - Three men wait outside their settlement for an automated delivery truck. Five years earlier, during the Total Global Conflict, a network of hardened automatic factories ("autofacs") had been set up with cybernetic controls that determine what food and consumer goods to manufacture and deliver. Human input had been lost, and the men planned disruption to try to establish communication and take over control. They destroy the delivery, but the truck radios the autofac and unloads an identical replacement, then prevents them from reloading items. They act out being disgusted with the milk delivery and are given a complaints checklist. In a blank space, they write improvised semantic garble—"the product is thoroughly pizzled". The autofac sends a humanoid data collector that communicates on an oral basis, but is not capable of conceptual thought, and they are unable to persuade the network to shut down before it consumes all resources. Their next strategy sets neighbouring autofacs in competition with each other for rare resources and seemingly succeeds, but there is a hidden level

Beyond Lies The Wub - Peterson, a crew member of a spaceship loading up with food animals on Mars, buys an enormous pig-like creature known as a "wub" from a native just before departure. Franco, his captain, is worried about the extra weight but seems more concerned about its taste, as his ship is short of food. However, after takeoff, the crew realizes that the wub is a very intelligent creature, capable of telepathy and maybe even mind control.

Peterson and the wub spend time discussing mythological figures and the travels of Odysseus. Captain Franco, paranoid after an earlier confrontation with the Wub which left him temporarily paralyzed, bursts in and insists on killing and eating the wub. The crew becomes very much opposed to killing the sensitive creature after it makes a plea for understanding, but Franco still makes a meal out of him. At the dinner table, Captain Franco apologises for the "interruption" and resumes the earlier conversation between Peterson and the Wub - which now has apparently taken over the Captain's body

Human Is - Jill Herrick and her husband Lester are in the middle of an argument. Lester deflects his wife’s claim that he is “hideous” with cold indifference. He tells her that he will not allow their child in the house and will have him removed to government custody because he is interfering with his research. Before the distraught Jill can pass this onto their son Gus, Lester gets news that he will be taking a trip to Rexor IV. Despite Jill’s desire to go there and see the planet, Lester insists that he will go alone.

Later Jill tells her brother Frank and she is going to leave Lester. She explains how happy she has been with Lester gone and how he seems to be getting worse every year of their marriage. More cold and more “ruthless,” not to mention the incessant working.

Lester comes home a very different man. He praises Jill’s cooking and expresses disgust with his work on Rexor IV studying toxins. He says he prefers Terra and being home with his wife.

Jill reports these changes to Frank, while Lester is playing in the room with Gus. Frank has Lester brought to a lab for more studies under the guidance of the Federal Clearance agency. Before long they realize that Lester has had his body taken over by a Rexorian.

The Hanging Stranger - The protagonist, Ed Loyce, is a store owner who is disturbed when he sees a stranger hanging from a lamppost, but finds that other people consider the apparent lynching unremarkable.

He finds evidence that alien insects have taken over, manages to get out of town, talks to the police commissioner, who believes him, and after getting all the information about what Ed knows, explains that the body was hung to see if anyone reacted to it, anyone they didn't have control over. He then takes Ed outside and hangs him from a lamppost.

The Commuter - Ed Jacobson is a railway worker at Woking station. His life takes a turn for the worse when his son, Sam, begins experiencing psychotic episodes. When he is selling rail tickets at work, a young woman named Linda asks for a ticket to a destination called Macon Heights that is not listed on any map.

The Minority Report - In a future society, three mutants foresee all crime before it occurs. Plugged into a great machine, these "precogs" allow a division of the police called Precrime to arrest suspects before they can commit any actual crimes. When the head of Precrime, John Anderton, is himself predicted to murder a man whom he has never met, Anderton is convinced a great conspiracy is afoot

Full Books:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter for the San Francisco Police Department, is assigned to "retire" (kill) six androids of the new and highly intelligent Nexus-6 model which have recently escaped from Mars and traveled to Earth. These androids are made of organic matter so similar to a human's that only a posthumous "bone marrow analysis" can independently prove the difference, making them almost impossible to distinguish from real people. Deckard hopes this mission will earn him enough bounty money to buy a live animal to replace his lone electric sheep to comfort his depressed wife Iran. Deckard visits the Rosen Association's headquarters in Seattle to confirm the accuracy of the latest empathy test meant to identify incognito androids. Deckard suspects the test may not be capable of distinguishing the latest Nexus-6 models from genuine human beings, and it appears to give a false positive on his host in Seattle, Rachael Rosen, meaning the police have potentially been executing human beings. The Rosen Association attempts to blackmail Deckard to get him to drop the case, but Deckard retests Rachael and determines that Rachael is, indeed, an android, which she ultimately admits.

Clans of the Alphane Moon - War between Earth and insectoid-dominated Alpha III ended over a decade ago. (According to the novel, "Alphane" refers to the nearest star to our own system, Alpha Centauri). Some years after the end of hostilities, Earth intends to secure its now independent colony in the Alphane system, Alpha III M2. As a former satellite-based global psychiatric institution for colonists on other Alphane system worlds unable to cope with the stresses of colonisation, the inhabitants of Alpha III M2 have lived peacefully for years. But, under the pretence of a medical mission, Earth intends to take their colony back.

Against this background, Chuck Rittersdorf and his wife Mary are separating. Although they think they are going their separate ways, they soon find themselves together again on Alpha III M2. Mary travels there through government work, Chuck sees it as a chance to kill Mary using his remote control simulacrum. Along the way he is guided by his Ganymedean slime mould neighbour Lord Running Clam and Mary finds herself manipulated by the Alphane sympathiser, comedian Bunny Hentman.

The Man in the High Castle - In 1962, 15 years after Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany have won World War II, Robert "Bob" Childan owns an Americana antique shop in San Francisco, California (located in the Japanese-occupied Pacific States of America), which is most commonly frequented by the Japanese, who make a fetish of romanticized American cultural artifacts. Childan is contacted by Nobusuke Tagomi, a high-ranking Japanese trade official, who is seeking a gift to impress a visiting Swedish industrialist named Baynes. Childan's store is stocked in part with counterfeit antiques from the Wyndam-Matson Corporation, a metalworking company. Frank Frink (formerly Fink), a secretly Jewish-American veteran of World War II, has just been fired from the Wyndam-Matson factory, when he agrees to join a former co-worker to begin a handcrafted jewellery business. Meanwhile, Frink's ex-wife, Juliana, works as a judo instructor in Canon City, Colorado (in the neutral buffer zone of Mountain States), where she begins a sexual relationship with an Italian truck driver and ex-soldier, Joe Cinnadella. Throughout the book, many of these characters frequently make important decisions using prophetic messages they interpret from the I Ching, a Chinese cultural import. Many characters are also reading a widely banned yet extremely popular new novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which depicts an alternate history in which the Allies won World War II in 1945, a concept that amazes and intrigues its readers.

Frink reveals that the Wyndam-Matson Corporation has been supplying Childan with counterfeit antiques, which works to blackmail Wyndam-Matson for money to finance Frink's new jewelry venture. Tagomi and Baynes meet, but Baynes repeatedly delays any real business as they await an expected third party from Japan. Suddenly, the public receives news of the death of the Chancellor of Germany, Martin Bormann, after a short illness. Childan tentatively, on consignment, takes some of Frink's "authentic" new metalwork and attempts to curry favour with a Japanese client, who surprisingly considers Frink's jewelry immensely spiritually alive. Juliana and Joe take a road trip to Denver, Colorado and Joe impulsively decides they should go on a side-trip to meet the mysterious Hawthorne Abendsen, author of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, who supposedly lives in a guarded fortress-like estate called the "High Castle" in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Soon, Joseph Goebbels is announced as the new German Chancellor.

Intermediate. (These are the books to pick up once you have the basics of what makes a PKD novel down. They’re obtuse enough to hit a little heavier, but don’t provide the full dose of surrealism Dick was capable of serving up. This is also good spot to jump in if you’ve experienced weird fiction before.)

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - The novel is set in a dystopian version of 1988, following a Second Civil War which led to the collapse of the United States' democratic institutions. The National Guard ("nats") and US police force ("pols") reestablished social order through instituting a dictatorship, with a "Director" at the apex, and police marshals and generals as operational commanders in the field. Resistance to the regime is largely confined to university campuses, where radicalized former university students eke out a desperate existence in subterranean kibbutzim. Recreational drug use is widespread, and the age of consent has been lowered to twelve. The black population has almost been rendered extinct. Most commuting is undertaken by personal aircraft, allowing great distances to be covered in little time.

The novel begins with the protagonist, Jason Taverner, a singer, hosting his weekly TV show which has an audience of 30 million viewers. His special guest is his girlfriend Heather Hart, also a singer. Both Hart and Taverner are "Sixes", members of an elite class of genetically engineered humans. While leaving the studio, Taverner is telephoned by a former lover, who asks him to pay her a visit. When Taverner arrives at her apartment, the former lover attacks him by throwing a parasitic life-form at him. Although he manages to remove most of the life-form, parts of it are left inside him. After being rescued by Hart, he is taken to a medical facility.

Waking up the following day in a seedy hotel with no identification, Taverner becomes worried, as failure to produce identification at one of the numerous police checkpoints would lead to imprisonment in a forced labor camp. Through a succession of phone calls made from the hotel to colleagues and friends who now claim not to know him, Taverner establishes that he is no longer recognized by the outside world. He soon manages to bribe the hotel's clerk into taking him to Kathy Nelson, a forger of government documents. However, Kathy reveals that both she and the clerk are police informants, and that the lobby clerk has placed a microscopic tracking device on him. She promises not to turn Taverner over to the police on the condition that he spend the night with her. Although he attempts to escape, Kathy confronts him again after he has successfully passed a police checkpoint using the forged identity cards. Feeling in her debt, he accompanies Kathy to her apartment block, where Inspector McNulty, Kathy's police handler, is waiting. McNulty has located Taverner via the tracking device the hotel lobby clerk placed on him, and instructs Taverner to come with him to the 469th Precinct police station so that further biometric identity checks can be performed.

Time out of Joint - Ragle Gumm lives in the year 1959 in a quiet American suburb. His unusual profession consists of repeatedly winning the cash prize in a local newspaper contest called "Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?". Gumm's 1959 has some differences from ours: the Tucker car is in production, AM/FM radios are scarce to non-existent, and Marilyn Monroe is a complete unknown. As the novel opens, strange things begin to happen to Gumm. A soft-drink stand disappears, replaced by a small slip of paper with the words "SOFT-DRINK STAND" printed on it in block letters. Intriguing little pieces of the real 1959 turn up: a magazine article on Marilyn Monroe, a telephone book with non-operational exchanges listed and radios hidden away in someone else's house. People with no apparent connection to Gumm, including military pilots using aircraft transceivers, refer to him by name. Few other characters notice these or experience similar anomalies; the sole exception is Gumm's supposed brother-in-law, Victor "Vic" Nielson, in whom he confides. A neighborhood woman, Mrs. Keitelbein, invites him to a civil defense class where he sees a model of a futuristic underground military factory. He has the unshakeable feeling he's been inside that building many times before.

Confusion gradually mounts for Gumm. His neighbor Bill Black knows far more about these events than he admits, and, observing this, begins worrying: "Suppose Ragle [Gumm] is becoming sane again?" In fact, Gumm does become sane, and the deception surrounding him (erected to protect and exploit him) begins to unravel

Ubik - By the year 1992, humanity has colonized the Moon and psychic powers are common. The protagonist, Joe Chip, is a debt-ridden technician working for Runciter Associates, a "prudence organization" employing "inertials"—people with the ability to negate the powers of telepaths and "precogs"—to enforce the privacy of clients. The company is run by Glen Runciter, assisted by his deceased wife Ella who is kept in a state of "half-life", a form of cryonic suspension that allows the deceased limited consciousness and ability to communicate. While consulting with Ella, Runciter discovers that her consciousness is being invaded by another half-lifer named Jory Miller

Difficult. (This section comes with a caveat: within these novels you will encounter numerous hallucinations, drug trips, an entire trilogy about gnostic spirituality and mental illness, and more than a little unabashed nightmare fuel. It’s normal to get tangled up in what goes on in these books. It’s also normal to be weirded out. But with proper grounding, you’ll make it though with your faculties intact. Probably.)

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - The story begins in a future world where global temperatures have risen so high that in most of the world it is unsafe to be outside without special cooling gear during daylight hours. In a desperate bid to preserve humanity and ease population burdens on Earth, the UN has initiated a "draft" for colonizing the nearby planets, where conditions are so horrific and primitive that the unwilling colonists have fallen prey to a form of escapism involving the use of an illegal drug (Can-D) in concert with "layouts." Layouts are physical props intended to simulate a sort of alternative reality where life is easier than either the grim existence of the colonists in their marginal off-world colonies, or even Earth, where global warming has progressed to the point that Antarctica is prime vacation resort territory. The illegal drug Can-D allows people to "share" their experience of the "Perky Pat" (the name of the main female character in the simulated world) layouts. This "sharing" has caused a pseudo-religious cult or series of cults to grow up around the layouts and the use of the drug.

Up to the point where the novel begins, New York City-based Perky Pat (or P.P.) Layouts, Inc., has held a monopoly on this product, as well as on the illegal trade in the drug Can-D which makes the shared hallucinations possible.

The novel opens shortly after Barney Mayerson, P.P. Layouts' top precog, has received a "draft notice" from the UN for involuntary resettlement as a colonist on Mars. Mayerson is sleeping with his assistant, Roni Fugate, but remains conflicted about the divorce, which he himself initiated, from his first wife Emily, a ceramic pot artist. Meanwhile, Emily's second husband tries to sell her pot designs to P.P. Layouts as possible accessories for the Perky Pat virtual worlds—but Barney, recognizing them as Emily's, rejects them out of spite.

A Scanner Darkly - When performing his work as an undercover agent, Arctor goes by the name "Fred" and wears a "scramble suit" that conceals his identity from other officers. Then he is able to sit in a police facility and observe his housemates through "holo-scanners", audio-visual surveillance devices that are placed throughout the house. Arctor's use of the drug causes the two hemispheres of his brain to function independently or "compete". When Arctor sees himself in the videos saved by the scanners, he does not realize that it is him. Through a series of drug and psychological tests, Arctor's superiors at work discover that his addiction has made him incapable of performing his job as a narcotics agent. They do not know his identity because he wears the scramble suit, but when his police supervisor suggests to him that he might be Bob Arctor, he is confused and thinks it cannot be possible.

Donna takes Arctor to "New-Path", a rehabilitation clinic, just as Arctor begins to experience the symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It is revealed that Donna has been a narcotics agent all along, working as part of a police operation to infiltrate New-Path and determine its funding source. Without his knowledge, Arctor has been selected to penetrate the organization. As part of the rehab program, Arctor is renamed "Bruce" and forced to participate in cruel group-dynamic games, intended to break the will of the patients

(If this one seems difficult to wrap your mind around, that's because its a fictionalized account of real events, and you may need to read about Philip's life at the time to understand the autobiographical nature of the book.)

The VALIS Trilogy

(Fictionalized account of religious experiences in PKD’s life.)

VALIS - In March, 1974, Horselover Fat (the alter-personality of Philip K. Dick) experiences visions of a pink beam of light that he calls Zebra and interprets as a theophany exposing hidden facts about the reality of our universe, and a group of others join him in researching these matters. One of their theories is that there is some kind of alien space probe in orbit around Earth, and that it is aiding them in their quest; it also aided the United States in disclosing the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon in August, 1974. Kevin turns his friends onto a film called Valis that contains obvious references to revelations identical to those that Horselover Fat has experienced, including what appears to be time dysfunction. The film is itself a fictional account of an alternative-universe version of Nixon ("Ferris F. Fremount") and his fall, engineered by a satellite called valis. (The plot of the fictitious film Valis was that of Dick's then-unpublished novel Radio Free Albemuth.) In seeking the film's makers, Kevin, Phil, Fat, and David—now calling themselves the Rhipidon Society—head to an estate owned by popular musician Eric Lampton and his wife Linda. They decide the goal that they have been led toward is Sophia Lampton, who is two-years old and the Messiah or incarnation of Holy Wisdom (Pistis Sophia) anticipated by some variants of Gnostic Christianity. In addition to healing Phil's schizophrenic personality split, she tells them that their conclusions about valis (which Fat had previously termed "Zebra") and reality are correct, and more importantly, that we should worship, not gods, but humanity. She dies two days later due to a laser accident caused by Brent Mini. Undeterred, Fat (who has now resurged) goes on a global search for the next incarnation of Sophia.

Dick also offers a rationalist explanation of his apparent theophany, acknowledging that it might have been visual and auditory hallucinations from either schizophrenia or drug addiction sequelae.

Characters:

Phil (Philip K. Dick): Narrator (first person), science fiction writer, author of Man in the High Castle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and Three Stigmata.

Horselover Fat: Narrator (third person), a schizophrenic modality of Phil himself. (Philip in Greek means "fond of horses"; dick is German for "fat".)

Gloria Knudson: Suicidal friend of Fat's who Fat is unable to save.

Kevin: Cynical friend of Fat's whose cat died running across the street, based on K. W. Jeter.

Sherri Solvig: Church-going friend of Fat's, eventually dies from lymphatic cancer.

David: Catholic friend of Fat's, based on Tim Powers.

Eric Lampton: Rock star, screenwriter, actor, a. k. a. "Mother Goose"; a fictionalised version of David Bowie.

Linda Lampton: Actress, wife of Eric Lampton.

Brent Mini: Electronic composer, a fictionalised version of Brian Eno.

Sophia Lampton: Two-year-old child (personalised incarnation of Holy Wisdom within some variants of Gnosticism), said to be the daughter of Linda Lampton and valis and the "Fifth Savior".

The Divine Invasion - After a fatal car accident on Earth, Herb Asher is placed into cryonic suspension as he waits for a spleen replacement. Clinically dead, Herb experiences lucid dreams while in suspended animation and relives the last six years of his life.

In the past, Herb lived as a recluse in an isolated dome on a remote planet in the binary star system, CY30-CY30B. Yah, a local divinity of the planet in exile from Earth, appears to Herb in a vision as a burning flame, and forces him to contact his sick female neighbor, Rybys Rommey, who happens to be terminally ill with multiple sclerosis and pregnant with Yah's child.

With the help of the immortal soul of Elijah, who takes the form of a wild beggar named Elias Tate, Herb agrees to become Rybys's legal husband and father of the unborn "savior". Together they plan to smuggle the six-month pregnant Rybys back to Earth, under the pretext of seeking help for Rybys' medical condition at a medical research facility. After being born in human form, Yah plans to confront the fallen angel Belial, who has ruled the Earth for 2000 years since the fall of Masada in the first century CE. Yah's powers, however, are limited by Belial's dominion on Earth, and the four of them must take extra precautions to avoid being detected by the forces of darkness.

Things do not go as planned. "Big Noodle", Earth's A.I. system, warns the ecclesiastical authorities in the Christian-Islamic church and Scientific Legate about the divine "invasion" and countermeasures are prepared. A number of failed attempts are made to destroy the unborn child, all of them thwarted by Elijah and Yah. After successfully making the interstellar journey back to Earth and narrowly avoiding a forced abortion, Rybys and Herb escape in the nick of time, only to be involved in a fatal taxi crash, probably due to the machinations of Belial. Rybys dies from her injuries sustained in the crash, and her unborn son Emmanuel (Yah in human form) suffers brain damage from the trauma but survives. Herb is critically injured and put into cryonic suspension until a spleen replacement can be found. Baby Emmanuel is placed into a synthetic womb, but Elias Tate manages to sneak Emmanuel out of the hospital before the church is able to kill him.

Six years pass. In a school for special children, Emmanuel meets Zina, a girl who also seems to have similar skills and talents, but acts as a surrogate teacher to Emmanuel. For four years, Zina helps Emmanuel regain his memory (the brain damage caused amnesia) and discover his true identity as Yah, creator of the universe.

When he's ready, Zina shows Emmanuel her own parallel universe. In this peaceful world, organized religion has little influence, Rybys Rommey is still alive and married to Herb Asher, and Belial is only a goat kid living in a petting zoo.

In an act of kindness, Zina and Emmanuel liberate the goat-creature from his cage, momentarily forgetting that the animal is Belial. The goat-creature finds Herb Asher and attempts to retain control of the world by possessing him and convincing him that Yahweh's creation is an ugly thing that should be shown for what it really is. Eventually Herb is saved by Linda Fox, a young singer whom he loves and who is his own personal Savior; she and the goat-creature meet and she kills it, defeating Belial. He finally discovers that this meeting happens over again for everyone in the world, and whether they choose Belial or their Savior decides if they find salvation.

Characters:

Herb Asher: audio engineer

Rybys Rommey: mother of Emmanuel, sick with MS

Yah: Yahweh

Elias Tate: Incarnation of Elijah

Emmanuel (Manny): Yah incarnated in human form

Zina Pallas: Shekhinah

Linda Fox: singer, songwriter, Yetzer Hatov

Belial: Yetzer Hara

Fulton Statler Harms: Chief prelate of the Christian-Islamic Church (C.I.C), Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church

Nicholas Bulkowsky: Communist Party Chairman, Procurator maximus of the Scientific Legate

VALIS: agent of Yahweh, disinhibiting stimulus

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer - Set in the late 1960s and 1970s, the story describes the efforts of Episcopal Bishop Timothy Archer, who must cope with the theological and philosophical implications of the newly discovered Gnostic Zadokite scroll fragments. The character of Bishop Archer is loosely based on the controversial, iconoclastic Episcopal Bishop James Pike, who in 1969 died of exposure while exploring the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea in the West Bank.

As the novel opens, it is 1980. On the day that John Lennon is shot and killed, Angel Archer visits the houseboat of Edgar Barefoot, (a guru based on Alan Watts), and reflects on the lives of her deceased relatives. During the sixties, she was married to Jeff Archer, son of the Episcopal Bishop of California Timothy Archer. She introduced Kirsten Lundborg, a friend, to her father-in law, and the two began an affair. Kirsten has a son, Bill, from a previous relationship, who has schizophrenia, although he is knowledgeable as an automobile mechanic. Tim is already being investigated for his allegedly heretical views about the Holy Ghost.

Jeff commits suicide due to his romantic obsession with Kirsten. However, after poltergeist activity, he manifests to Tim and Kirsten at a seance, also attended by Angel. Angel is skeptical about the efficacy of astrology, and believes that the unfolding existential situation of Tim and Kirsten is akin to Friedrich Schiller's German Romanticism era masterpiece, the Wallenstein trilogy (insofar as their credulity reflects the loss of rational belief in contemporary consensual reality).

The three are told that Kirsten and Tim will die. As predicted, Kirsten loses her remission from cancer, and also commits suicide after a barbiturate overdose. Tim travels to Israel to investigate whether or not a psychotropic mushroom was associated with the resurrection, but his car stalls, he becomes disoriented, falls from a cliff, and dies in the desert.

On the houseboat, Angel is reunited with Bill, Kirsten's son who has schizophrenia. He claims to have Tim's reincarnated spirit within him, but is soon institutionalized. Angel agrees to care for Bill, in return for a rare record (Koto Music by Kimio Eto) that Edgar offers her.

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer is one of Dick's most overtly philosophical and intellectual works. While Dick's novels usually employ multiple narrators or an omniscient perspective, this story is told in the first person by a single narrator: Angel Archer, Bishop Archer's daughter-in-law.

Characters:

Angel Archer: Narrator, manager of a Berkeley record store, widow of Jeff Archer.

Timothy Archer: Bishop of California; father of the late Jeff Archer and father-in-law of Angel. Dies in Israel, searching for psychotropic mushroom connected with Zadokite sect. Based on James Albert Pike, Dick's personal friend, who was an American Episcopalian bishop.

Kirsten Lundborg: Timothy Archer's secretary and lover. Dies from barbiturate overdose after loss of remission from cancer.

Bill Lundborg: Kirsten's son who has schizophrenia, and who is obsessed with cars.

Edgar Barefoot: Houseboat guru, radio personality, lecturer. Based on Alan Watts.

Jeff Archer: Son of Timothy Archer, and deceased husband of Angel. A professional student who was romantically obsessed with Kirsten.

Thank you, if you read all of this. it took me six hours today to write this all 

[ispyspookymansion]

Can you explain what an NFT is in simple terms? It’s so confusing to me but I see them everywhere and know they’re bad :(

oh boy i don’t know that i’m the best person for this, but i’ll try to give you what i understand as well as some links at the end to articles i think are helpful! an nft is a non-fungible token; which means essentially that they’re unique and non replaceable - imagine each nft is, at its core, valuable because it’s a verified product. the worth and the idea of non-fungibility comes not from whatever the nft is, but from its authentication. that “proof” of authenticity is stored in the blockchain, which is a string record of digital exchanges (i dont fully understand this part, but thats whats important to know).

the reason that nfts are bad (aside from the fact that they largely exist as capitalist circle jerks for the wealthy*, like the new huge gilded statue or rate artifact collection but even more assholish since theres not even anything real about them) is that block chain technology is very new and not very understood. to add on to these chains in the way that nfts require, you need to mathematically figure out what should come next. this mathematic system is too complex at this point, so instead of actually solving it in order to add their block, the majority of nfts solve the next step through automated systems. this is what crypto mining is, essentially - using a tremendous amount of energy and computer power to run algorithms testing and guessing until you successfully add a link to the block chain. it might sound like its not a big deal, but estimates are placing the ecological impact/CO2 emission level of some crypto mining (bitcoin in particular) on par with that of major cities like london.

not all nfts are cryptoart (for example, some nfts are more like codes, or web domains), but cryptoart is the most common kind of purchase outside of just coin, and thats what we’re seeing a surge of from big artists, corporations, and random non artists selling whatever horseshit they want for huge fees. thats what, for example, the saw movies seem to be doing - likely the images under this tweet are looks at what the nfts will be

so how can i summarize this? an nft is basically you buying something digital that is definitively one of a kind and definitively yours, and that proof is stored in a digital chain of complex coding with no real world backing. so imagine you wanted to buy a piece of art - lets say starry night. you pay, i don’t know, $100k for it. great! but what you’re getting, when it’s an nft, is essentially a glorified and coded receipt - it’s also virtual, and it basically has an authenticated signature, record of your transaction, and a link to the digital work you bought in it. that’s all you get. and to create this receipt, in order to figure out how to print it, computers had run long enough and using enough power to produce significant carbon emissions and eat up an insane amount of energy. for your digital receipt of your digital starry night, that anyone can save and copy if they want - they just wont have the receipt for it.

maybe. hopefully? that was helpful? i’m by no means an expert, but these articles seem like pretty digestible sources if you want to read more. the third one in particular goes more into why theyre bad and the ecological impacts of cryptomining. X X X

*nfts are becoming more accessible and more small artists are using them, but this doesnt negate the fact that they are at their core capitalist bullshit and on the whole the ecological and economic impacts are being brought about by the wealthy

[cancerbiophd]

PhD Dissertation Masterpost of Advice and Resources*

*or at least what helped me when I was writing mine for a PhD in Cancer Biology in the US--so they may not apply to other fields and/or countries.

Firstly, what a PhD Dissertation and Defense process is like (for my program)

Always check your university’s graduate college’s dissertation formatting and guidelines. That should be your #1 rulebook to work off of. Download their formatting guide and read it thoroughly. Before turning in your dissertation, make sure you’ve addressed all the requirements. 

Get a sample from a previous student as reference, preferably one from your program, or even better, your lab. All dissertations are publicly available online at your university’s library (with the exception of those with embargoes). Always have an example on hand--you never know when it’ll come in handy for minor formatting details, or even references (if it’s a dissertation from your own lab). 

Familiarize yourself with whatever writing program you’re going to use, and if it can do any of the formatting automatically for you. For example, Microsoft Word can make a Table of Contents for you if you use their Automated Styles, and you can use the Navigation Pane to view all your sections at a glance (and jump instantly to that section). I highly recommend figuring out all the formatting before you start writing, as it may be really frustrating to go back and fix things (especially if you’re doing this on the due date). Scroll down to the end of this post for formatting resources. 

I think the ideal timeline is one month per chapter, give or take a few weeks depending on how much you have done beforehand and how much time you have per day to allocate to writing. There will be a lot of back-and-forth edits with your advisor, you may find out there are missing data that need analyzing/finalizing, etc. Your last month or so of writing may have to be dedicated 100% to your dissertation, so plan accordingly. I have heard many PhD’s tell me to even start a year out, because you may be busy your last couple of months with job interviews, or even starting your new job, etc. 

Export your images as .png if possible or your document will become too large. 

Use a citation manager, if you don’t have one already, such as Mendeley. 

Also have a way to keep track what each reference is about, especially for the Introduction as that may require some new additions (ie. things you learned in class or lab meeting but never actually had to chase down a primary reference for). You can use Excel, Word, or good ol’ fashioned printouts in subject binders--anything that helps you remember what the paper is about what. I ended up citing over 400 references in my dissertation--that was a lot of papers to keep track of!

As with any large writing project, make an outline first. This way you can better structure everything from a bird’s eye view, and make sure you’re not missing anything. Just like building a house, you need to set up the frames first before the drywall. The outline to my Introduction was 5 pages long before I even wrote the first complete sentence, and the outline also helped me not feel too overwhelmed with the task before me (likewise, I also started off each paragraph with a brief outline of the points I wanted to cover. It worked really well in getting rid of writer’s block)

Have a separate folder for each chapter, to keep things better organized and easier to manage. I didn’t put everything together in a single file until the very end. 

And always back up your files, or work entirely off a Cloud-based system, like Dropbox or Box (which your university may provide for free). There’s absolutely nothing worse than losing allll your hard work, especially your Dissertation! 

Set aside at least 1 hour before your Dissertation is due to your committee for last minute issues, like formatting, uploading, etc. 

If you’re in the Bio field, I highly recommend making your figures using Biorender.com. It honestly saved me so much time, and it took my dissertation and defense to a whole new level of professionalism. It’s free to use for students, though the paid student version ($35/mo) has more features. 

Links to other resources:

University of Michigan guide for using Microsoft Word for Dissertations

Dissertation templates (with build-in-instructions) from Duke University (scroll down to end of page) (thanks @conquerorwurm for this one)

Making an outline from Sacred Heart University

More about making an outline for Dissertations

Other tips on surviving this challenging time:

Write smart, not hard. Use your energy and creativity levels wisely. For example, I found out I was really great at synthesizing thoughts (and thus words on the document) in the morning, but not so much at night. So I did most of my writing in the morning, and then reserved evenings for making figures and adding references (aka things that required less brain-energy).

Take breaks! This is definitely a marathon, so please try not to push yourself too hard to prevent burning out. Here’s what my writing schedule looked like 1 week before my dissertation was due to my committee--you can see I worked hard, but I also had lots of breaks throughout the day to eat and/or recharge, and I tried to sleep 7-8 hrs/night. 

The moment you think you can’t do something alone, seek out a resource that will help you. There’s no time or energy to waste. Resources include: your advisor, another lab member, a university writing center, online tutorials, even other grad students on tumblr. No one else has written a dissertation on their own, so you shouldn’t have to either. 

Have a support system, like another fellow student going through something similar who you can talk to. It helps so much to not be lonely during this. 

Have something fun planned after you turn in your dissertation and after you defend to look forward to. Sometimes all that was left to get me through the tough and frustrating moments was the thought of all my plans post-defense: going to my favorite used bookstore, reading for fun again, relaxing and watching movies, and more. Small things, but oh so powerful to keep me going sometimes. 

You will get through this. I know it’s hard. I know how close to tears you are. But I also know you will survive. Remember all those tough times in the past? Like when you were studying for your qualifying exams? Or writing and re-writing that grant application for what seemed like the 500th time? Those were some tough times, but you got through them all. And so you will also get through this.

And lastly, but probably most importantly:

Do what works for you. You haven’t made it this far in your academic career without a solid understanding of your own working style, so stick to that. My advice is just what happened to work for me, personally, and thus may not apply to anyone else. 

Good luck, and congratulations, soon-to-be Dr!

[prayerith]

a flaw in the code

Kaiba runs his Twitter more or less automatically, including a function to mass-block people who interact with Tweets he has blocked. Unfortunately, this sometimes means that he blocks people he doesn’t mean to block. When he gets confronted over this, how will he respond?

my introduction to canon x oc (the oc being kazuko kubota, the child of me and @duelistkingdom ) and it’s from kaiba’s pov (feat unrequited rivalship), because of course it is. enjoy! read on ao3 here

“Kaiba.”

Kaiba’s spine stiffened at the familiar voice. He clutched his books to his chest, their reassuring weight giving him the courage to spin on his heel. As he expected, Yugi Mutou was behind him. Or, not Yugi, but the other Yugi. He was wearing the uniform jacket properly, unlike his tendency during Battle City, but he was no less imposing.

Kaiba swallowed, hoping his voice came out naturally. “Yugi. What’s this about?”

“My partner was discouraged this morning. When I asked him why, he pulled up his phone instead of actually talking to me. So, I will do the same to you: care to explain this?” With all the flair he usually saved for revealing a Spell card, the other Yugi flipped his phone towards Kaiba. Kaiba had to squint—he wouldn’t be caught dead in his reading glasses at school—but when he finally made out the text, he frowned.

“So you’re blocked by somebody on Twitter? Please, Yugi, this isn’t something to get worked up about. It’s not like it’s a personal attack.” He ignored the voice in his head reminding him that he had written a program for his own Twitter that would block anyone who associated with certain tweets. Tweets that featured Yugi boasting about his beautiful, talented, clever girlfriend in particular.

“Just somebody, huh?” The other Yugi fixed Kaiba with a stern look. It should have seemed out of place on Yugi’s round, friendly face, but Kaiba couldn’t help but feel suddenly small. “Try again.”

Kaiba sighed, but took Yugi’s phone in his own hand, finding the appropriate position where he could read the text with the least amount of eye strain. And— “What is this?”

The other Yugi was right; he wasn’t blocked by just any random loser on Twitter. The screen was on Kaiba’s own Twitter page. Instead of the Kaiba Land promos and Duel Disk news he had most recently retweeted, however, the screen was gray, apart from a block of tiny letters. “You are blocked by this user,” the website proclaimed, though as Kaiba met the other Yugi’s piercing eyes again, it felt more like an accusation than a simple statement of fact.

“I’d think you would know,” the other Yugi replied, voice startlingly cool.

To his horror, Kaiba found himself at a loss for words. “I don’t—I mean—” He cut himself off, squeezing his eyes shut and taking a couple deep breaths. As he did so, he searched his memory, but he couldn’t recall hitting the block button on Yugi. At least, not of his own volition.

“Use your words, Kaiba.”

Kaiba growled, but forced his eyes back open. “I didn’t block you.” At the other Yugi’s raised eyebrow, he rushed on, words running into one another in his haste to get them out. “At least, not on purpose. In fact, my account is more or less completely run automatically, using programs that I wrote specifically for that purpose. Some of these scripts do involve blocking users, so it’s possible that your account got caught in some filter accidentally.”

The other Yugi frowned, crossing his arms and tapping his fingers against his elbows. “So what you’re saying is, your computer programs blocked my partner by mistake?”

“Exactly.” Kaiba couldn’t help but feel a jolt of envy at how quickly the other Yugi picked things up. “It was a quirk of the system, nothing more. Tell Yugi that he can stop moping about it.” He felt ridiculous asking someone who, for all intents and purposes, was Yugi to pass along a message to Yugi. Ever since Battle City, though, he’d found himself a bit more amenable to the ridiculous, implausible things that happened around Yugi Mutou.

The other Yugi, for his part, perked up substantially at the mention of his own name. “I can do better than that!” A genuine grin spread over his features, drawing Kaiba’s attention to his plush lips, the dimple on his left cheek. “I can bring him out so you can tell him yourself!”

He continued speaking, but aside from a few mentions of the word “partner,” Kaiba was no longer listening. Ice had shot down his spine, while paradoxically, heat bloomed in his cheeks and sweat formed on his hands. “That won’t be necessary,” he snapped, interrupting the other Yugi’s joyful monologue. “Just tell him what I said. Goodbye.”

With that, he turned on his heel and fled the hallway, books still clutched close to his chest. He could feel his heart hammering in his ears, even as he turned into the men’s room and locked the door behind him. The wooden door was cool against his back as he sunk to a sitting position against it, letting his school supplies fall from his arms.

God damn it. Kaiba exhaled sharply, dragging his hands down his face, before pulling out his phone and opening Twitter. A rare occurrence, as of late; there wasn’t much that he needed to keep up with online, and he rarely wanted to check the inane tweets his contemporaries made. When his profile opened, he navigated to the “Blocked Users” page. There was quite a bit to scroll through, but eventually, he was face-to-face with Yugi’s smiling profile picture.

Almost immediately, he turned his phone off, pulling his knees to his chest and burying his face in his crossed arms. He really did block Yugi. Prevented from interaction with one of the only people he actually wanted to interact with by his own programs.

He allowed himself a moment of despair, before pulling himself back together, unlocking his phone once more. Even so, he still flinched at the reappearance of Yugi’s picture. Keep it together, Seto. You’re just seeing what triggered the block. Think about it like a programming error.

One of the benefits of Kaiba’s auto-block program (nicknamed “Crush Tweet Virus” by Mokuba) was that if Kaiba blocked a tweet, not only did it block the person who made it, it also hid the profiles of anyone who interacted with it. What’s more, it allowed him to see the blocked tweet a given user had liked or retweeted. This was a nominally useful feature. In Yugi’s case, however, the reason for the block made Kaiba’s blood run cold. God. Anything but that tweet.

Unfortunately, no matter how much he tried to blink it out of existence, the proof was there. Kaiba opened the blocked tweet in question, and his stomach immediately turned over. He didn’t have a name for the emotions burning in his gut. All he knew was that the image of Yugi pressing a kiss to Kazuko Kubota’s outstretched hand, the caption declaring “These two are couple goals,” threatened to overwhelm him with discomfort. He had blocked it for a reason.

In fact, there was a theme to the posts he had blocked. They all contained some reference to Yugi Mutou, Kazuko Kubota, and/or the fact that they were currently in a relationship. As much as he wanted to lie to himself, he knew what irked him so much about the reminder that Yugi was dating somebody. It was the fact that he wanted to be the person whose hand Yugi was kissing—the reminder that Yugi clearly didn’t have the same feelings toward Kaiba.

His face was burning. If only he could take his uniform jacket off, splash water on his face, anything to calm him down without ruining his composed appearance. Instead, he navigated back to his “Blocked Users” page, once again making eye contact with Yugi’s smiling headshot. If his fingers trembled at all as he hit the “unblock” button, Kaiba certainly wouldn’t admit to it. He would have to reprogram “Crush Tweet Virus” to exempt Yugi entirely, as he would almost certainly interact with other tweets about his girlfriend. Girlfriend—the word made Kaiba’s stomach do another unpleasant flip.

He thought he was done with the whole endeavor. In fact, he was almost at peace, comfortably eating his lunch on the roof a few days later. Part of that had to do with the fact that he hadn’t interacted with Yugi in all that time, but nobody needed to know that. Unfortunately, things couldn’t be so easy for him.

“Hey, Kaiba! They told me I could find you up here.”

Kaiba nearly spit out his mouthful of rice. Surely, his ears were playing tricks on him. Kubota went to Rintama, she wouldn’t have time to make it onto the roof of Domino High during her lunch break. Yet, as he craned his neck up from his lunch, his stomach dropped. Those baby-pink hair buns could belong to nobody else.

He jumped to his feet, uncomfortable with looking up at the much-shorter duelist, then cleared his throat. “Kubota. What are you doing here?”

Kubota just grinned at him, though it looked more like a hostile baring of teeth to Kaiba. “I was in the neighborhood. Figured I’d drop by and thank you for unblocking Yugi.”

“You knew about that?” Kaiba said, keeping his gaze fiercely locked with her lavender eyes.

“Of course! Yugi and I don’t keep things from each other,” she responded, sounding hurt. “He was really upset when he realized you blocked him, so finding out that it was a mistake made him feel way better. So, uh, thanks.”

Why was she thanking him? He and Kubota didn’t speak much, but when they did, she was usually admonishing him. The lashing she gave him at Duelist Kingdom flashed through his mind; he suppressed a shudder. Yet, analyzing her body language, he didn’t think she was being sarcastic.

She cleared her throat, then, and gestured towards him. Right, she had said, “Thank you.” What was the right response to give? He settled on a curt, “You’re welcome,” and a brief jerk of his head, an abridged bow. Yet, she didn’t turn to leave. Instead, she glanced up and down his form, hands on her hips. One side of her face twitched—a suppressed smile?

“So, the stowaway tells me your Twitter account is basically automated,” she said casually, slipping one of the straps of her bright red bag off so that it hung from one shoulder instead of both.

“Stowaway?”

“Right, you don’t hang out with us much. That’s what I call the other Yugi.”

Kaiba flushed with embarrassment at the memory of the prior conversation. “I see. Yes, he’s right. That is how Yugi got blocked.”

Kubota leaned in, one eyebrow raised. “So, what program blocked Yugi? ‘Cause Stowaway tells me that he didn’t think you were lying about it being an accident, but I haven’t heard of anything that blocks people so liberally.”

“What do you mean?” Kaiba asked, frowning. “One person getting blocked by my program doesn’t mean that I’ve blocked everybody.”

“Are you sure about that?” Kubota wasn’t looking at him anymore, instead focused on her own phone. She scrolled for a moment, fingers moving in time with the rhythm she chewed her gum, before turning her screen towards him with a cry of triumph. “This thread says otherwise.”

Again, Kaiba was forced to squint at someone else’s phone screen, and almost immediately, he regretted ever signing up for Twitter in the first place. The first tweet was from Mai Kujaku, reading, “Lmao, guess I pissed him off somehow!” It was accompanied by a familiar screenshot: Kaiba’s own profile, with the text “You have been blocked by this user.”

The next tweet was from Kubota herself, remarking, “Lol, I’ve been blocked since Duelist Kingdom.” After that, the replies were full of Yugi’s friends, all posting similar screenshots and complaining about (Mazaki) or rejoicing (Jonouchi) being blocked by Seto Kaiba.

Damn him for forgetting that Kubota was an excellent strategist in her own right; he shouldn’t have let his guard down around her. He would never admit he had been thrown off, though. Instead, he straightened his posture, using the extra inch of height to sneer down at Kubota. “So my program kept the dweeb patrol from interacting with me. Seems like it’s working as intended.”

“But you didn’t want it to keep Yugi out, right?” Kubota said, a confident gleam in her eye that he recognized from when she dueled. She was right, of course, but he kept his mouth shut rather than admit it. “Whatever your program does, it obviously has a chain effect, since I haven’t interacted with any of your tweets. Maybe it doesn’t involve your tweets at all? I can puzzle this out all day, Kaiba.”

“Fine! If I tell you, will you stop talking?” Kaiba growled, frowning all the harder when Kubota grinned in response.

“Sure.” Her voice was as bouncy as the curls escaping her buns. Kaiba hated it.

Kaiba paused, trying to collect his thoughts. All the while, Kubota rocked on her heels, humming a melody he didn’t recognize. Finally, he happened on a good starting point.

“I thought I was aromantic.”

To his dismay, Kubota appeared to choke on air, coughing hard before breaking into disbelieving laughter. He crossed his arms, glaring at her, until she finally collected herself enough to say, “I’m sorry, I just— That is not what I expected you to say.” At Kaiba’s silence, she sighed, putting her hands up in a placating gesture. “Fine, I’ll be quiet. I guess you’re not aromantic?”

Kaiba thought about saying something in response to her air-quotes, but thought better of it. “I thought that I was above all of that. I didn’t have time for romance anyway—I still don’t. But then, you and Yugi got together, and it made me feel...ill.” Kubota’s face twisted, but he didn’t address it. “At first, I thought I was having romantic feelings towards you—”

“What?” Kubota’s horrified cry was a bit much, in Kaiba’s opinion, but he felt the same way.

“Calm down, that wasn’t the case.” He narrowed his eyes at Kubota’s exaggerated exhale, but continued. “After some thought, it became clear that… I was experiencing romantic attraction, but not towards you.” The other words on his tongue died once that horrifying revelation was out, and he snapped his mouth shut, letting his confession linger in the air.

Kubota’s brow was furrowed, however. Why was she confused? Kaiba had told her everything she needed to know! He was about to accuse her of taunting him when she gasped, eyes widening. “Are you… Coming out to me?”

Kaiba’s already-pale face became even whiter. “No?”

“Yes, you are! You’re coming out to me! And you started your coming out speech by telling me my boyfriend was your gay realization?” With every step, she advanced on him, until she was close enough that when she pointed her finger for emphasis, it brushed his chest.

“That’s—a blunt description, Kubota.”

She just shook her head. “I mean, it’s fine, I’m bi, but it’s a weird way to tell somebody you’re gay. And this relates to Twitter...how?”

Kaiba scoffed. “I could be bisexual.” When Kubota’s brow raised, a familiar irritation began coursing through him. Better than embarrassment. “I could! You don’t know that I’m—that I don’t like girls.”

Kubota scoffed right back, undaunted by his bristling. “Whatever you want to tell yourself. I just want to know what this has to do with blocking Yugi on Twitter.”

“It has everything to do with that,” Kaiba said, but his mouth dried up as he realized exactly why Yugi and the rest of his friends were blocked. He cleared his throat, then balled his fists and looked away from Kubota. The words felt like venom in his throat; the only way to alleviate the burning they caused was to spit them out. “I set up a program to block anybody who liked certain posts. Posts that talked about yours and Yugi’s relationship.”

A raised eyebrow. “Just talked about? That’s kind of a broad net, even for you, Kaiba.”

“Fine. They were posts which included photographic or video evidence of you being a couple. Usually with highly supportive comments. Those were the kinds of things I blocked, and the virus associated with it blocked anyone who interacted with a post I blocked using this system.”

Kubota shook her head. “Even your weird Twitter bots are like Duel Monsters cards. I’d say to get a hobby, but it seems like you’ve got your hands full already.”

“Are you challenging me? Because I’ll wipe the floor with you in a Duel, we both know that,” Kaiba growled.

“No,” Kubota said lightly, “but not because I think I’ll lose. You’re so predictable, Kaiba. I should have seen this coming, though I didn’t think you would be this weird about me and Yugi. Guess I was wrong!”

Arms folded, Kaiba surveyed his adversary. Five-foot-nothing, blowing a bubble of gum at him while she rocked back and forth on her booted heels, skateboard underneath one arm. Her Buster Blader cards came to mind, and he cringed internally. He made a mental note: find a copy of her Battle City deck and run simulations against it, to discern ideal counter-strategies.

But, he needed to respond to her before that could happen. “Hmph. As long as Yugi doesn’t forget who his true rival is, I suppose I don’t need to make a fuss about his romantic decisions.”

Kubota’s shoulders shook, but she looked him in the eyes and nodded. “Thank you, Kaiba. Are you...sure you’re okay?”

“Of course I am,” Kaiba said, more off-kilter than he’d ever been. “Now, the bell’s about to ring, and I haven’t finished my lunch.”

Checking her watch, her glossy lips parted in surprise. “Shit, you’re right. I gotta get back to Rintama. Don’t be a stranger, Kaiba!” With that, she ran toward the stairs, waving at him over her shoulder before the door slammed behind her. Kaiba exhaled slowly, and looked at the remains of his bento. He wasn’t very hungry, all of a sudden.

What had he done?

[wowweeharrystyles]

Part 12 | Sunsets & A New Normal | 6.7k words

‘Sequins & Zippers’ Summary: An internship with Harry Lambert transformed into a job of a lifetime - Aurora Del Gatto finds herself touring the world with the one & only Harry Styles as his ‘Head of Wardrobe.’ Aurora is nothing but nerves & excitement as she packs her bags & almost 100 custom designer suits that belong to an unbelievably kind rockstar. She never thought she’d fall in love on top of it all.

A/N: &&&&& we’re back !!! I’ve set a new posting schedule for the rest of this story & will be posting every other week until the end of July. cannot believe there will only be 3 more parts after this one 😩 

Sequins & Zippers Masterlist

General Masterlist

Here’s Part 12 ! 

She’s gotta stop comparing things, Aurora thinks. Her “normal” doesn’t exist anymore. This is her normal now. 

A sweaty, t-shirt wearing, tattooed rockstar is her new normal. Who would’ve thought? Definitely not Aurora. 

The familiarity of the dark, low lit SoulCycle studio feels like her old normal though. At one point, this was a home away from home in NYC, even in London. It’s comforting to clip the clunky cycle shoes into the pedals after adjusting the seat exactly how she needs it. The feeling of the rubbery handlebars on her dry palms causes her to release a breath. Aurora almost forgets that Harry is sitting at the bike next to her. They’re towards the back, Aurora prefers it here and Harry seems to as well. She can feel him look at her. A smile flashes across his face when she meets his eyes.

The room gets a touch darker and the music gets louder and then there’s a voice over the speakers. If Aurora thought the Dallas heat was high but this studio feels like it’s surrounded by fire compared to it. She doesn’t mind it though. After 3 months in new countries and unfamiliar hotels, the heat is the least of her worries. Aurora’s been craving some sort of familiarity. This studio is the closest she’ll get for a few more weeks. 

Aurora lets herself forget about everything around her; about the stress, about Harry next to her, about the jetlag, about everything. She focuses on the beat of the music that she can feel rattle the room, the voice of the instructor and how her legs pedal to the rhythm of the song. It doesn’t take long til she forgets it all. 

Class ends sooner than Aurora would’ve liked. How is it that 45 minutes can seem so long on a plane but so short when you’re enjoying something? 

Aurora's unlocking one of the white lockers in the lobby when Harry groans. She hands him his shoes, phone and wallet then grabs her own bag. She gives him a questioning look, but he doesn’t see it. 

“Ror, I’m sorry,” he says looking towards the windows that line the front of the lobby. She follows his sightline. “We’ll have to go quick,” his eyes dart across what is visible on the street outside. “I think there’s only one.”

Aurora can’t see what he sees but she can feel his change in demeanor. Harry tucks his laces into the inside of his shoes and slips them on, not bothering to tie them.

“One what?” she asks as she puts her own shoes on. Harry moves himself to stand closer to her, almost blocking her into the small space by the lockers. 

“Pap.” Aurora looks up to him, shoe laces in her hands, foot propped onto the open locker. He drops a hand to the small of her back. “It’s not ideal, but it’ll be fine.” 

Aurora ties her shoes and tosses her bag over her shoulder. “Alright, lets go.” 

Harry’s hand moves from her back to grab her hand. As they walk towards the door Harry switches hands and moves to her other side, seamlessly. “The car is parked on the street towards the right. Pap is towards the left. I’ll give 'em one shot and they should leave us alone, but let's not hang around.” Harry squeezes Aurora’s hand. She squeezes back. 

“Okay.” 

Harry opens the door and moves his torso abnormally to block Aurora as much as he can. He can’t stop the paps from being here but he can limit what they see. He’s sure to keep his hand tight around Aurora’s. She can feel him pull, only slightly, away from her to show his face in the opposite direction. She keeps her head down and within seconds Harry is by her side again. Aurora can feel the slickness of sweat on Harry’s arm as he gets closer. The heat didn’t bother either of them, the sweat either. The sleeves of Harry’s tshirt are still rolled up and it only allows for more of his skin to press against hers. Aurora focuses on that rather than the possibility of a stranger in a bush taking her photo. 

When they get to the big black rental suv Aurora can feel Harry relax his grip. He doesn’t let go of her hand until he opens the passenger door, helping Aurora in. He closes the door once she’s settled in the seat. Once Harry is in the driver’s seat he starts the car and blasts the AC. 

Now the Dallas heat is top of mind. Harry takes a large gulp of his water and then offers it to Aurora. She takes it gratefully. Neither of them say anything until they stop at a red light a few blocks away. “Think you could hold off on a shower for a bit?” 

“What?” Aurora asks with a surprised laugh. 

“The sun is starting to set and heard about this garden to watch it from.” 

Aurora leans over the consol and presses a kiss to his cheek. “Okay.” She kisses his cheek again before settling back down in her seat. 

“I have it bookmarked, will you pull up the directions?” Harry asks as he hands Aurora his phone. 

The automated voice of the GPS guides them as they drive down unfamiliar streets. There’s a small smile on Harry’s face when Aurora turns to look at him as they drive into an almost empty parking lot. Before Harry turns off the car, he turns around and peers out all the windows. Aurora doesn’t comment on it and Harry doesn’t say anything but Aurora knows he’s looking to see if anyone has followed them. No cars and no new people stroll into the lot or walk down the path near the water in front of them. 

Harry gets out of the car wordlessly and Aurora gets her jacket out of her bag at her feet. She’s met with Harry opening the door for her and helping her out of the car after she slides her arms into her jacket. 

Harry is quiet and Aurora can feel that he’s still tense, the opposite of what he should be after working out. They walk in silence, both clearly seeking out the open bit of grass near the water where the sun is starting to fall at the horizon. 

“Everything alright?” Aurora asks, voice soft. She reaches out to him and pulls him to a stop by his elbow. Harry turns around and smiles at her after shaking his head and running a hand through his hair,

“Yeah, alright, just thinking.” 

“Harry.” 

“Just feel bad that there were paps there.”

“You can only do so much.” 

“I still feel bad.” 

“Please don’t. If it helps at all, I felt completely safe. It’s awful that you’re good at it, but it is what it is. You took care of me. It’s fine.” Aurora smiles at him. “Honestly, I’m surprised we got through an entire SoulCycle class without anyone saying a thing to you.” 

“Yeah, sometimes it’s surprisingly easy,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders. 

Aurora sits down on a soft piece of grass and Harry sits next to her. “Come here,” Aurora says to him, hand rubbing on his shoulder. He shuffles himself in close to her, his back falling against her chest and shoulder. Harry immediately grabs Aurora’s hand that is resting at his shoulder. Leaning partly against her bent knees, she supports his weight fully. Her free hand moves to push his hair back, uncaring to the sweat that still lingers at his roots. 

The sun in front of them is starting to disappear behind the horizon and the orange and pink haze that covers the water and grass and all the trees makes Harry’s skin appear much tanner than it is. He looks up to Aurora for a moment, his eyes more golden than green in this light. She smiles at him and can’t believe the sight in front of her. Her lips find his in a drawn out kiss and when they open their eyes the orangeness of the sky makes everything into black silhouettes. Aurora can no longer see the golden and green flecks in Harry’s eyes. He turns his head back to the view in front of them and sighs. 

“Thanks for this,” Aurora says softly.

“Thought we’d enjoy a calm night before getting back to work,” Harry explains. 

“Harry?” Aurora questions after a few minutes. “Have you thought about what’ll happen at the end of all this?” 

A scoff comes from Harry’s chest, “End of all this? What d’ya mean by that, Ror? Got plans to dissapear once your jobs done or something?” 

“No! End of all this as in end of tour, like come July, last show is done…” Aurora trails off. “How’re we gonna do us?” She asks the last question quietly. 

“We’ll figure it out.” Harry’s answer seems so sure, like he knows there’s no way they won’t make it work. “Are you worried that the last show will end and you’ll go back home to New York and I’ll fuck off to LA or London and that’ll be it?” 

“Don’t think it’s that.” 

“Cause you should know that I would never do that to you. If anything, I’d follow you back to New York.” 

“Would you really?” Aurora aks, surprise evident in her voice. 

Harry turns his head so he can look at her, even though the almost set sun has casted a shadow across her face. “If you’d let me, think I’d might.” 

“I don’t even have an apartment in NYC anymore, I technically live at home right now. Would you still follow me knowing it’s my childhood bedroom at the end of the trip?” 

“As long as those old 1D posters are put away.” 

Aurora laughs and gently pushes Harry’s shoulders. He barely moves, only jostles a bit, still all of his weight relaxed on her. 

“We’ve got time to figure this out, yeah? Don’t worry about it too much.” Harry sits up then and twists around to face Aurora on his knees. Both of his hands land on the grass on either side of Aurora. “Anyways, you might be sick of me by the end of tour,” he says with barely a centimeter between their noses. 

There’s only a split second before Aurora decides to close the gap between them. And there’s only another split second before she feels blades of grass poke through the fabric of her jacket as she falls the short distance to the ground. 

On the drive back to the hotel, Aurora enjoyed the calm silence between her and Harry, his calloused hand in hers and both of their lips a bit more red than normal. Aurora thinks she can get used to this new normal. Evening workouts. Drives to go watch the sunset. Whatever comes in between. Maybe even making a routine out of it when tour is over, in whatever city they find themselves in. Even the hiding from paps part she doesn’t mind having to add in her new normal if it means feeling like this; loved, safe, content, happy… she could go on and on.

| | | | | 

Aurora applies a face mask to her skin using precise motions, evenly coating the pale green clay like substance all over her face. She isn’t applying this face mask as her normal skin care routine. It isn’t a sunday morning or evening like it when she normally applies a messy face mask to rid her skin of any residue left from the week. She’s applying this face mask to feign a feeling of being put together, to feign feeling normal. 

Her breathing is surprisingly calm considering the way her phone was blowing up only 15 minutes ago and the erratic heartbeat that was escalating with each notification. Said phone is face down on the chair across the hotel room and on silent now. Aurora washes her hands and towels them dry before leaving the bathroom, the facemask barely starting to set. She turns on the small coffee maker that sits on top of a small table across from the bed, next to the annoyingly large hotel tv that she never turns on. When it beeps and the light turns on, instead of brewing a cup of coffee she runs the machine just with water, a random hotel tea bag in the chunky class mug. 

An unnecessary face mask and a random cup of tea. Aurora knows what’s happening. She wishes it wasn’t, though. She sits down on the chair that’s sitting in the corner by the window. The hot cup of tea in her hands keeps her present in some way even though she won’t ever be taking a sip of it. 

She starts making a list in her head, a way to organize the chaotic thoughts that are clouding any sense of judgement she has, a tool from her college provided therapist. 

She’s in Houston, Texas, in a hotel room, on her own. 

She’s exhausted, maybe a bit hungover after too many drinks at dinner with Sarah and Helene after the Dallas show last night. 

There are photos of her and Harry leaving SoulCycle in Dallas. 

There’s a video from the show in Melbourne when Harry turned to Aurora during Sweet Creature.

There’s a photo of her standing in the mix wearing Harry’s black and white Gucci jacket.

There are thousands of tweets with photos and videos of Aurora, now, some from older shows, a lot from the Dallas show. 

Many of those tweets are terrifying to her. 

She has people coming out of the woodworks trying to contact her. She wasn’t secretive about her job. She posted about it on instagram when the tour started. It’s not like her instagram had a huge following (though it grew day by day). But now it’s getting 100’s of followers, likes, and comments by the second. Aurora didn’t even think about this, didn’t even cross her mind. 

There are so many notifications coming through on her phone, she can’t even filter out the ones from her family, from Lelia, from Issac, from Harry. 

She’s not upset that people know about her and Harry. She’s upset about the things people are saying. Flashes of news article headlines appear when she squeezes her eyes shut.

“Harry Styles falls in love on the bike, a soulcycle date for the books”

“Rumored Girlfriend of Harry Styles also works for him!”

“Spotted: Harry Styles’ new GF wearing the jacket from his voted worst outfit, ever”

“Harry Styles fans upset over rumored new GF” 

“The top 15 tweets from last night after fans found out Harry Styles is dating his stylist” 

She doesn’t like that she’s reacting this way. She knew that this was bound to happen. 

She’s scared to move, scared to go anywhere, to do anything. 

There’s a knock on her door. Aurora doesn’t recognize it at first. The sound of her heartbeat is loud in her ears and sounds just the same. There’s another knock on her door. It shakes her out of her thoughts. She stands up, the list in her head on pause. She’s shaking like she’s cold. She’s not cold. Aurora looks through the peephole in the door. She recognizes Harry’s eyes in a millisecond. Reaching for the door handle, she takes a deep breath. She opens the door slowly and only enough for Harry to slide in quickly, the door falling shut behind him. 

“Ror,” he says with furrowed eyebrows and his head tilts slightly. “Why aren’t you answering your phone?” The sight in front of him is confusing. He expected Aurora to have shut down and panicked by now. Jeff called him and told him what he woke up to that morning-- emails from media sources, calls, texts all of it. The second Harry got off the phone he got Rory’s room number and here he is now. Surprised, concerned, broken hearted for her, and now confused. She seems calm, a face mask covering her face, her eyes aren’t red or puffy. Maybe she’s okay. Maybe Harry worried for nothing. 

“I-I I turned it on silent. Haven’t looked at it in a bit, now,” she answers quietly. She may appear to be fine, but she doesn’t sound it. Her shoulders start to hunch, her arms wrapping around her own torso. 

“Rory, are you alri-” Harry doesn’t even get the question out. She’s sobbing now, tears abruptly falling from her eyes. She looks surprised, like she’s confused by the way she’s reacting. Harry lunges forward to hug her but her hands land on his chest, keeping him at a distance. She motions to her face. 

“Don’t wanna-” she chokes out, “get this all over you.” He nods, a small smile on his face at her priorities in this quick second. Harry instead places a hand softly at her lower back and walks her into the bathroom. He pushes her lightly to sit on top of the toilet seat. 

Harry wets a washcloth in the sink once the water runs warm. Neither of them say anything. Harry lightly wipes at her face, trying his best to remove the cracking mask, but wanting to be gentle with her skin. He has to use his free hand to hold her head up by her chin. She doesn’t have the strength or want to hold her head up and she lets it drop, chin to chest everytime Harry steps back to the sink. Silent tears fall from her eyes now, her shoulders shaking every few seconds. Silence fills the bathroom and after Harry wipes away the last remnant of the clay off Aurora’s face he tosses the cloth to the counter not paying it much attention. He drops to his knees in front of her. 

“Hey,” he says, wiping a tear from her cheek, the pad of his thumb warm and comforting on her skin. “I don’t want to push you and we don’t have to talk about it right this second, but we do have to talk about it. We have to.” His voice is strong but still soft--caring but concerned. 

“Okay,” Aurora whispers as she locks eyes with him. She can tell Harry’s not okay, but he’s better at dealing with this stuff. He’s done it for years. 

“How about you get changed and do what you need? I’ll make some coffee and then we can talk about it. Getting ready and some sort of normalcy helps me when this stuff happens.” Aurora nods and tries to manage a smile but she’s sure it doesn’t translate. 

Harry kisses her forehead before walking out of the bathroom. Aurora does as Harry advises. She goes to her suitcase and pulls out a pair of clean leggings and a white t-shirt. She takes off her pajamas from the night before and gets dressed, combs her hair into a low ponytail and even puts her jewelry back on. When she looks in the mirror, the bright bathroom lights make her squint but she can still see the splotchy skin on her cheeks, the redness of her eyes and her chapped lips. She doesn’t bother to do anything about it now though.

“Ror, I didn’t know you ever drank tea?” Harry questions from the other room. She turns off the lights and goes to find him.

“I don’t.” 

He tilts his head again, “Love, you’ve got a full mug of tea here,” he says, motioning to the mug that has gone cold now. 

“Uh yeah…” she trails off, “it’s a weird habit I have.” She grabs the mug and pours it out in the small kitchenette sink. “When things get all,” she motions around her head with both hands, fingers separated, “jumbled, chaotic,” she drops her hands before continuing, “I tend to do things that make me feel like everything is okay. Like I’ve got my shit together.” She lets out a hefty sigh, feeling the exhaustion from the panic start to weigh on her. “Not a weird habit I guess, more a bad habit.” 

“Makes sense,” Harry validates as he messes with the coffee maker. “Do what you gotta do for it to feel okay. When I was little and got upset or something happened at school, I would watch Alice in Wonderland.” Aurora smiles a bit. “Nobody really caught onto it until everything with the band started happening. Something would happen, either I’d mess up or something online would mess with my head and I would go back to it. My mom called me on a bad day and I had just started watching Alice,” he shrugs. Aurora moves closer to him. “It was then she put it all together. She always kinda knew that I would watch it but thought I just loved it so much that it made me happier, but really I just needed to see the chaos that Alice went through. It helped me forget what was going on with me.” 

Aurora hugs Harry from behind, her hands resting across his stomach. Her forehead presses between his shoulder blades before she lands a kiss against his t-shirt. Harry turns around in her arms after a minute or so. When Aurora looks up to him, his green eyes are more muted than normal and it doesn’t quite sit well with her. She figures it’s the stress. Harry’s touch is featherlight when he tucks Aurora’s hair behind her ears. 

“Thank you.” 

Harry’s head tilts in question. 

“For telling me that,” she clarifies. “and for being here and just being you. For loving me, even through all this.” 

“Hey,” Harry says softly, brows knit together, “Ror,” he grazes his thumbs over her cheeks, “I love you no matter what.” His thumb pulls at her bottom lip that she’s worrying between her teeth. “We both knew that this could be hard sometimes, but, I don’t wish to be doing it with anyone else.” Harry presses his lips to Aurora’s forehead and he can feel Aurora let out a breath, her shoulders falling. Her warm breath hits his neck. “Go sit down, I’ll bring you your coffee and we can talk about this a bit more.” 

Aurora does as he says, sitting in the corner of the small couch. Harry comes over with 2 hot mugs and sits down next to Aurora, making a point to sit down facing her. Aurora lets out a deep sigh. 

“I’ve dealt with this a lot, I know how hard it is. It’s still hard for me,” Harry sighs and runs a hand over his face, across the stubble that is scattered across his cheeks, jaw, and chin. Aurora can tell he’s thinking about what he wants to say next. “I’m really sorry, Ror,” he settles on. 

“Harry, please, no reason for you to be sorry,” she tilts her head, eyebrows raising and heart sinking. Aurora hadn’t taken a moment to see how Harry had been dealing with all this. Now she can see it. She can see the effect on him, the stress he’s holding in his shoulders, the worry in his eyes. She knows he’s been here before, somewhere else in the world, with so many different people; friends, family, lovers, just about anyone he’s held close to him. But he’s here now with her, with his Rory, and she knows he hates this part. This is where it’s bound to change. “This was all gonna happen sometime.” 

“But not like this,” he stresses. He’s clearly thought about it, planned how he would have preferred the news getting out, how he’d be there with her when the articles came out, when the tweets would surface. 

“There’s no way we could’ve planned for this,” she shares and Harry seems almost surprised when she practically reads his mind. “I knew something like this would happen.” 

“I’m still sorry that it did and I want to help you get through it.” 

“There’s no getting through it though, is there? It’ll happen time and time again.” 

“Ror-”

“Harry, it’s not like I didn’t expect this. We’ll figure out how to deal with it together, yeah? That’s what we have each other for.” Aurora can’t help but find some clarity when she realises she isn’t in this alone, when she realises Harry needs her just as much as she needs him. 

“I’m supposed to be the one helping you through this,” Harry says with a light laugh and then a clearing of his throat. Aurora smiles at him. 

“You may have experience with all of this, but that doesn’t mean I’m the only one being affected by it.” Aurora reaches her hands out to him and he takes them gratefully. They’re clammy and she can feel a slight tremble in them. “We’re in this together. I’m not going anywhere and there’s no reason that you should have to take care of this on your own. If I don’t have to do this on my own, neither do you.” 

Harry squeezes Aurora’s hands. “Haven’t really dealt with this not on my own before.” Aurora’s brows furrow now. “I always have to pick up the pieces, try and make it right, try to make it okay, but it’s hard when it seems like it’s all on me in the end. I’ve lost so many people because of this. I just want you to be okay… and to stay.” There's a slight hitch in the tone of his voice and it makes Aurora lurch from her seated position. She climbs onto her knees and her arms loop around his neck and shoulders. Harry’s surprised by her sudden movements but his arms enclose around her waist just a second later. His shoulders start to fall and Aurora can feel his even breathing on her neck. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” she whispers just loud enough for him to hear it. Harry’s arms tighten as confirmation. “We’ll take care of each other.”

| | | | |

“Sweet Thang” begins to blare through the speakers and they know they’ve got to get going. Harry pulls away from Aurora, regrettably. The familiar twang of the song means 1 thing and 1 thing only, Harry’s got to be walking up the stairs onto his stage in 4 minutes. 4 minutes and 12 seconds. Harry turns to jog down the hall but turns back around quickly, to press a messily aimed kiss to Aurora’s lips. 

“You taste like strawberries,” he rushes out, “did ya know that?” and then he’s gone. Aurora can barely focus on the shiny red boots running down the hallway away from her. 

She runs a finger across her bottom lip. They feel numb, tingly, swollen as she stands in the middle of Harry’s dressing room. 

| | | | |

Harry arrives at the arena with a new melody stuck in his head, a bright, sunshiny, just-for-aurora smile, and an iced coffee (also just for Aurora) in his hand. 

“Have you seen Aurora?” Harry asks the first person he sees. 

“Uhm, I know a lot of the crew were hanging out in the parking lot today. They set up tables and tents out there because it’s so nice out, maybe there?” 

Harry hums and then yells a thank you as he picks up his pace, almost jogging away and down the hall. He follows the signs until he can hear a roar of a group, laughter, chatting, some music. 

He squints his eyes when he walks through the propped open doors, the Nashville sun shining bright, a light breeze blowing through his hair. It doesn’t take Harry long to spot Aurora and his mother sat in 2 chairs and another 2 chairs have their feet propped up. They’ve taken it upon themselves to pull the chairs out from under the large white tent to sit in the sun instead. 

It’s a sight in front of him--his mother and his Rory laughing together. Harry makes a beeline towards them, waving and smiling at those who say hi. Instead of grabbing a chair of his own, Harry picks up Aurora’s feet and sits down across from her. 

“‘Ello, ladies,” he greets them, dropping Aurora’s feet onto his lap. 

Aurora and Anne say hello in unison and turn to each other and giggle. 

“Have a nice time today?” Harry asks with a dimpled smile. 

“Such a lovely time,” Anne answers. “We went for lunch and got our nails done.” 

Harry hums and reaches out for Aurora’s hand. He examines her nails, “Black, not surprised,” he comments with a squeeze. “Mum?” he asks, now motioning towards Anne’s hands. “Red, also not surprised. Both of you are very predictable.” 

Aurora rolls her eyes before asking, “So how was the studio?”

“Really, really, good, managed to knock out almost an entire song.” 

“Oh? and will we get to hear it?” Aurora asks with a sweet smile. 

“Mhmm, not quite ready yet,” he shares and when Anne turns away from them for a quick second, Harry gives Aurora a wink. A blush rises to her cheeks and she presses her lips together in a line to hide a smile. 

A welcomed silence settles between the 3 of them. They all relax as much as they can into the folding chairs, heads tilted up towards the sun. Harry slides off the sandals on Aurora’s feet and drops them to the ground. He starts to dig the pads of his thumbs into her arches, his other fingers trailing along the top of her feet. Aurora lets out a content sigh, eyes closing,  as another gush of the wind passes. 

The sun is warm and so are Harry’s hands on Aurora’s feet and calves as they trail up her leg slightly. Her skin is heating up as the minutes pass, Harry’s hands leaving searing paths over and over again. He breaks the silence slowly as he subconsciously starts to hum. The melody causes Aurora’s ears to perk up and pay more attention. 

“Why’s your foot twitchin’ like that?” Harry asks around a laugh. 

Aurora opens her eyes and looks at her foot then up to Harry, “must’ve been tapping along to your humming,” she figures. Harry tilts his head and some curls fall out of place. A mischievous smirk slides across his face before he lets out a short, deep, “hm,” like his brain is piecing something together. Aurora’s brows furrow for a moment, “What?” 

“Nothing, nothing,” he brushes it off, face going neutral again. Aurora shakes her head and lets it go. Harry’s hands are back on her skin and massaging the muscles of her feet, her eyes closing once again as she turns up towards the sun. Aurora doesn’t see the smirk that sneaks back up on Harry’s face. 

Harry and Anne had gone back into the arena a little while ago--soundcheck, a few people to meet, some time with his mum after spending the afternoon in the city. Eventually the sun begins to set and Aurora can’t help but think about summer sunsets on Lake Erie at the family lakehouse back in New York. She’ll have to bring Harry there one day. It could be the perfect post-tour getaway, after everything settles down. Late august at the lake house is Aurora’s ideal end of summer farewell. She had missed it last year as she was still in London. Aurora sighs when the alarm on her phone interrupts her daydream. 

 Wiping at her eyes, tired from the sun, she finds her way back to the dressing rooms. Aurora goes through her routine; Adam and Mitch first, they’re never in their dressing room, then onto Sarah and Claire, who are always in theirs (most of the time, Mitch and Adam are there, too). Then she makes her way to Harry’s dressing room, Anne is sitting on the couch when she walks in. Aurora notices the absence of nerves that would fill her stomach when Anne was around. She happily greets her as she begins to get Harry’s suit ready. 

Meeting Anne for lunch whilst Harry went to the studio, Aurora was 90% nerves. They disappeared as the minutes passed. She got more and more comfortable around her. Anne asked Aurora about the whole ordeal that happened in Texas. “Want to check in with you, sweetheart, how are you doing from earlier?” Anne didn’t have to outright say what she was talking about, Aurora knew. Harry must’ve told her, she didn’t mind though. 

Aurora assured her she was okay, that she’ll learn to deal and knows it comes with the territory. Anne shared some sound advice and reminded her that it’s all what they make it. She told Aurora how the first time Harry got upset over an awful press post, how it was that moment, once he calmed down, that he vowed to keep his work and personal life separate. 

“Kinda hard to keep it separate if I work with him,” Aurora jokes sheepishly. 

“Oh sweetheart,” is what Anne kept saying to calm her. Anne is at a loss for words for a moment and Aurora is too. When they meet eyes they start to laugh. “New territory I suppose,” Anne decides to say. 

“Definitely is for me,” Aurora responds with a smile. “But I’m being honest when I say i’m okay. and I know what you mean with keeping work and personal stuff separate. We’ll figure it out.” 

“Harry told me you said that.” Aurora raises an eyebrow in question. “That you 2 will figure it out. That you were quick to be there for him just as much as he was there for you.” 

“We’re in it together. That’s what relationships are about, yeah? Taking care of each other.” 

“You know,” Anne’s smile begins to widen as she speaks, “I’ve never heard anyone say that outloud, especially when talking about my own kid. You always think that that type of thing is implied in a relationship but you end up finding out that not everyone sees it that way.” 

Aurora isn’t sure how to respond, so she shrugs. 

“It’s refreshing, especially as it’s my son that’s involved. So, thank you.” 

“Please, Anne, don’t thank me. There is absolutely no reason for that. I love Harry,” she shrugs again after finding it so easy to say that outloud in the moment. “He deserves the same amount of love and care he gives me. I just hope I can do that for him.” 

“The way he talks about you,” she shakes her head, “he’d be so cross with me if he knew I was telling you this but,” Anne shrugs, “he thinks you walk on water. He just adores you, really haven’t seen him this happy in a long time. Most of the time he gets to a point where he realises what this other person really wants and he  ignores it and is miserable and it’ll end in a horrible way. He’s tried so many times to try to see past it, the way people use him, the lack of compassion, he tries so hard to ignore it.” 

Hearing Anne talk about Harry like this makes something click in her head. 

“I think we’re very similar in those regards,” Aurora says before taking a sip of her water. “We’ve both gone through some hard relationships in the past. Think we’re done with playing around.” Aurora is almost shocked at how she voices the thoughts running through her head. Anne can tell that she’s surprised and she reaches out to Aurora’s hand and squeezes it lightly. 

“It’s good you’re on the same page there. I can definitely see the difference this time around. I think he’s happy with his work and being back on stage has been so good for him. There’s obviously no need to rush anything but I can see you both are pretty serious about it all.” Aurora smiles and at the mention of Harry’s work Aurora feels the need to be clear about her work as well. 

“Anne, I do want you to know that I didn’t intend for this to happen,” Aurora shares. Anne’s face scrunches up in confusion. “I came on tour to work, to move forward in my career. It was always about work and it still is. I don’t want you to think I took this job with the plan to go after Harry.”

“Sweetie, I don’t think that at all.” 

“I think you might have a little bit at first and that’s okay. I knew it was a cliche. ‘Stylist falls in love with rockstar’, the whole shebang.” Anne laughs with Aurora. “And I also want you to know that I did not get involved with Harry to get further in my career either. I had no malicious intent behind anything that has happened.” Anne nods with a smile. 

Their food comes to the table and they thank their waiter. After a few bites in, Aurora continues.

“I just want you to know that I know how it could look and it’s an unusual situation. I hope you can understand that, just like Harry, my career is incredibly important to me and that it was always the ONLY reason I had taken this job. And in the end, we got lucky, I guess.”

“Aurora, you don’t have to explain yourself. Like I said, the way Harry talks about you, and how I’ve seen you do your job at the shows, I don’t question anything at all. And maybe I did at first, but that’s a mum’s job right?” They both laugh again. 

“Mother’s know best,” Aurora compliments. “They always do and always will.” 

Now back in the dressing room, Aurora joins in with the conversation being had with Harry and Anne, and Ayae too. She’s comfortable, at ease and most importantly happy, she can’t deny that. The royal blue suit in front of her is bright even without the stage lights and the rhinestones that line the edges of the jacket as well as the cuffs and lapel are iridescent and remind Aurora of an old dance costume she had when she was little. Aurora swears she had jazz pants that looked just like the ones she’s steaming for Harry, rhinestones and all, but hers was most definitely made by her mother and didn’t have a Gucci label on them. She shares a photo she had from the dance recital that year. She was 8 and Anne did all but cry at the photo. Harry was convinced he had never seen anything cuter and it made Aurora’s cheeks go bright red, the heat radiating from the steamer didn't help either. Aurora directed Anne through the album of all her old dance photos and Anne promised to share some of Harry’s baby pictures later. To which Harry whined about but Aurora shushed him with a quick kiss to his jaw after she situated his button down shirt on his shoulders and before she began buttoning it (Harry ended up unbuttoning about 2 of the top ones only seconds later).

When Anne leaves the dressing room, Aurora finds her usual perch on the counter in the echoey bathroom, Harry’s royal blue rhinestone suit coat resting on her lap.

“There’s something different about you today,” Aurora says as Harry wipes his mouth after brushing his teeth. 

“How so?” 

“Not sure, exactly,” she says squinting her eyes at him. “Might be because your mom is here? But there’s something else too…” Harry shrugs his shoulders and begins humming the same melody from earlier. Aurora watches him finish his routine as he starts to fall into a few vocal warm ups.

He’s singing words and melodies she’s never heard. 

“Wonderful and warm…. Da da daaaa, da da daaaa,” he trails off. 

“Is that the song you were working on today?” He doesn’t respond but keeps singing, in his own world. “Could ever go without… tastes like strawberries on a summer evening…” He repeats a few phrases over and over again. 

It’s right before the 5 minute stage call that it clicks. 

“It’s the song,” Aurora states. “That’s what’s different. It’s the new song you’ve written, huh?” 

Harry pulls Aurora in, pulling her off the counter  with a strong hand on her waist. “I think it has more to do with the inspiration behind the song rather than the song itself.” 

Never did Aurora think Harry would write a song about her, but she guesses this is what her new normal looks like. 

comments & feedback ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS welcome & appreciated !!!

[mittensmorgul]

The Tumblr Beta Version: an objective analysis

I was tempted to just type “it sucks.” And while that is an objective analysis, it’s not exactly helpful. I’ve sent several requests to @staff and @support to restore my account to the old tumblr dashboard format, and received the same automated reply twice now. I’ll copy/paste it here so everyone is on the same page:

(lol, I had to go back and edit this, because apparently the beta version doesn’t display block quotes on the dash. So I’ve also put the block quotes in italics... hopefully it’ll display properly... note after editing: nope, it doesn’t display italics either... how the heck am I supposed to differentiate quoted text? I’ll start each quoted bit with an asterisk, I guess...)

*Thanks for reaching out about the beta dashboard.

*We're currently testing it out, and your account seems to have been selected to take part in the test. Thanks for your patience while we work on it! At this time there is not a way to opt out of testing. You may see your Tumblr experience return to normal as we continue testing.

WE CAN ONLY HOPE.

*In the meantime, check out some of the new features available only in the beta dashboard:

OKAY TUMBLR, IF YOU INSIST, though I would MUCH rather have back all the functionality I personally invested into this website through xkit... you know... making the site ACTUALLY FUNCTIONAL. Let’s see what this beta version has given me instead of functionality:

*Change Palettes: Go to the person icon, then click "Change Palette." You'll find the classic Tumblr blue, dark mode, and a few other color palettes for your dash.

So I tried out all the color palettes. In addition to the ones mentioned here, there’s one that’s trying to look like a green screen terminal that gives me flashbacks to the early 80′s. There’s a reason we stopped using green screen terminals... Another one is “canary yellow.” It’s very yellow. The “classic tumblr” isn’t actually classic tumblr... all the post boxes are dark blue with grey type, not white with black type. And all the other colors are the insanely bright fluorescent of the new Dark Blue standard tumblr scheme. Which means links are practically invisible unless I highlight them. It’s migraine inducing. The one theme with a light colored background is called “Concrete” or “Cement” or something like that and even that only works for about half an hour before the migraine aura really kicks in. I just want my Old Blue via xkit back. You know, what tumblr actually used to look like. I don’t want any of these horrible color palettes. None of them work for me.

*The new "meatballs" menu: This is where you can copy the post link, unfollow the Tumblr who made or reblogged the post, or report a violation to our Community Guidelines.

I could do all of this from the user menus with xkit, too. I don’t regularly report violations or have the urge to block people I have chosen to follow. Why on earth would I want to do any of this? And why would I want these features located directly beside the post link copy feature? 

You know what I do miss? I miss the xkit timestamps feature. I didn’t have to hover dangerously close to the KILL IT WITH FIRE meatballs menu in order to see when a post was made, and in this era of disinformation and misinformation spreading around this site faster than Covid-19, being able to see when a post was ORIGINALLY created is a far more useful feature than an easier way to block people. For reference: I currently have three blogs blocked. Two of them are pornbots. One is a nazi. If I don’t want someone’s content on my dash, I don’t follow them. This “feature” is entirely useless to me.

*A quick note: Pagination is not supported in this beta test, but we're collecting feedback to send to our engineers.

THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST. This beta test might actually be tolerable if I wasn’t trapped into endless scrolling. If I could page through my dash, refreshing it every ten posts or so. You know why? Because once I scroll about 30 posts down my dash, tumblr starts overheating my laptop under the load of ALL THOSE POSTS. Things start malfunctioning-- it takes longer and longer to load new posts the farther I scroll. And the keyboard navigation (both page down and hitting J to advance to the next post, and even just using the down arrow to scroll as I read a long post) freeze and stop functioning. One of my laptop fans has actually begun to malfunction.

You know why this wasn’t a problem on the old version? If the data load got to heavy, I could open a post in a new tab, click view on dash with xkit, and voila! Brand new tab! I could close the malfunctioning tab and everything would be refreshed to normal! But without pagination, THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

Also, after reblogging a few posts, the beta version of this site breaks, and doesn’t open a post tab to add commentary or even tags. It just... reblogs the untagged post with no warning whatsoever. You know... that’s really really not cool. I tag EVERYTHING. Well, almost everything. The tags are the only way to keep track of the 40k+ posts on my blog. And warn people that I am posting potential spoilers, or other specific content. It’s REALLY inconvenient to have to either immediately go to my blog to edit the post and add tags, or even comments. The alternative is to scroll up to open individual posts I want to reblog in a new tab, and then reblog directly there. Ironically enough, THOSE pages actually open with xkit installed, and everything (surprise!) functions perfectly there.

It’s perfectly reasonable to understand why this specific issue has limited the number of posts I reblog. Reblogging content should not be this much of a hassle. Creators have been complaining for a while that reblogs have drastically slowed down, and I think making it even more annoying and difficult to reblog posts will not help this problem.

Also, with xkit enabled, there’s a function that auto-loads images as you scroll, so the images are always visible BEFORE they appear on screen. I don’t have to look at the colored boxes and wonder if this is a post I’ve already seen or something I should sit and wait for. Don’t even think about watching tumblr videos. Loading priority is given to the ads that you cannot pause or dismiss, so that video loads and plays in choppy two second bursts instead of being given priority. Since that’s the content I am actually here to consume, it kinda makes me want to do the opposite of patronizing anyone who advertises here with graphically intense ads. And then when you scroll away, with xkit, gifs and videos you’ve scrolled past STOP loading and playing, which I think might be contributing to the intensity of the resource hogging that’s literally melting down my laptop.

And for reference, I have a pretty decent little gaming laptop. A blogging platform shouldn’t be driving it to the brink of frying itself. I didn’t realize just how much xkit worked to streamline this and provide basic functionality to this site.

*And lastly, if you're an XKit user, know that the XKit team is working hard to update things on their end to make it compatible with the beta dashboard.

And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what I’ve lost without xkit. And this is a really REALLY garbage response to user complaints. “Oh, yeah, sorry we made our site suck even worse, but those nice people who do our jobs for free will surely fix our garbage soon!”

Dear wonderful people at @new-xkit-extension, I love you, and I miss you, and while I wish xkit worked with this beta version I’ve been forced into living with, I truly feel for y’all who are trying to deal with this nonsense on behalf of all of us.

And to the folks at Tumblr... maybe try to just... make your site actually more like xkit. You know, actually functional. None of these special new features are useful or functional to me. I respectfully request for a fourth time to be removed from this inane beta test.

Give us OPTIONS. Let us display ALL THE TAGS without having to click a button. Let me have back my Activity+ that actually allowed me to interact with people from my dash! That showed me real-time inline notifications in a way that I could reply to with a single click! Bring me back to my column of open messaging conversation icons so I have easy access to the people I talk with throughout the day instead of closing them all every time I refresh the page. I already feel socially isolated in freaking quarantine, please stop shutting off all my avenues of communication!

Let us have pagination! I mean, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to force heavy users of this site into a beta version that doesn’t allow us to opt out until your engineers had actually figured out how to make it work in a very basic way.

*Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with!

YES. PLEASE REMOVE ME FROM THIS BETA TEST NOW. I have let you know exactly what I want from this site. I just want it to ACTUALLY WORK. For someone who spends 12+ hours a day on this site, this beta test version is NONFUNCTIONAL. PLEASE ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT. I AM LITERALLY BEGGING YOU. I WILL ACTUALLY PAY YOU CASH MONEY TO ALLOW ME TO OPT OUT OF THIS AND GO BACK TO HAVING A FUNCTIONAL BLOG AGAIN. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!

PLEASE! 

I AM OFFICIALLY AT THE END OF MY PATIENCE FOR ENDURING THIS NIGHTMARE.

(one final quick note... I’ve only been back on my dash long enough to make the parenthetical edits-- i.e. adding italics that don’t display and then adding the asterisks at the beginning of each section of quoted text, and already my laptop is overheating again. For reference, I originally typed this entire post from within my tumblr inbox page-- which still functions normally with xkit-- and spent over an hour on it. My laptop was fine the entire time. Clearly the issue is this beta version of the website. I will never forgive tumblr if y’all fry my literal only portal to the outside world at this time. PUT ME BACK TO NORMAL NOW. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING AND ENTIRELY UNACCEPTABLE. Thanks)

(oops apparently i lied... when the asterisks and the previous final note failed to display, I thought that seemed suspicious, and realized that I literally needed to refresh my entire dash in order to see edited changes. Funny how xkit enabled me to do that in real time, which is just another bit of functionality I’ve lost with this beta program. Please guys, this is really, really not working for me at all, just put it back.)

[prodigiousvisions]

Headcanon/Divergence? [1] (Yosano): Childhood, The Great War, and life after the war.

Initial disclaimer and semi-related note(s)–

So if part of this looks familiar to you, that’s probably because you read it before in its original, rudimentary state. I have quite a few regrets of impulsively deleting my Yosano blog (vivificamortem) tbh due to having an episode, and one of them was not saving the original post of this when I first wrote it. That being said I still think it’s important enough to warrant a rewrite even if I don’t exactly recall the specifics. As this eventually becomes very Fukuzawa and Ranpo orientated/centric, I just want to make it clear this will not apply to your respective muses of these two unless we discuss it. These are considered backstory supplements and characterizations of Yosano and Yosano’s main verse. She does not have mains for Ranpo or Fukuzawa at this time, and I usually... don’t do mains? But for specifics like this, this would probably apply to potential, future mains and warrant mains of these two. If that makes sense. Anyway. This will also include a bunch of new HC details I didn’t have before.

I was going to be mean and not put this under a cut lol but I’ll be merciful since it is extremely thorough and lengthy. 2,300+ words lengthy, and that’s not including this disclaimer. I know I asked people to read this once finished but realistically I cannot ask that in good conscious unless you are genuinely interested/care and actually are into BSD lol. Fleshed out details+conceptualized explanations/characterization below. Content/mention warnings for suicide ideation + attempts, and neglect.

CHILDHOOD

Yosano was an only child. She was not a beloved child, a planned child, nor a wanted child. Her parents would have been inclined to give her away instantly had they not compromised to raise her as a sort of... ‘help’ for the couple’s wagashi shop. It was a regret far before the first sleepless night when she was a baby, but they decided to grin and bear it. Raising Yosano was an arduous task and they made it very clear in how they behaved toward her as she was growing up. Saying that she was simply neglected wouldn’t even begin to describe it. In response to this, as a young girl Yosano developed a loud, brash personality that would more often than not get her in trouble both at school and with her parents. Being punished was never fun, but at least it garnered their attention for a little while before they went back to essentially ignoring her presence. Her adapted personality would not lead to any fruition for her lonely soul at school either, most kids finding her annoying, scary, or would simply view her in scorn for being so outspoken and strange. She began to believe the outlook of her parents: her only use was to be a shopkeep of the family business. The girl debated with herself often what was the worth of life, what was the point to live, if not to live and be frowned down upon at every other moment. Troubled and depressed, Yosano tries her hardest to cope, keeping her chin up but her eyes glued to the floor when in seclusion.

At some point or another Yosano and her parents find out about her ability and the extent of it all. It freaks Yosano out at the start, thinking about how ridiculous it is that someone who contemplated on a daily basis what they truly benefited out of being alive could potentially alter the fate of someone’s life and grant them a second chance. Then for once, she finds worth in herself. It wasn’t something she could actively go and show off of course, but it gave her a purpose. Her dramatized exterior of self-entitlement and loudmouthedness proceeds on of course, but her outlook begins to shift. She has hope. She can do something good for people. And have a (figurative) place doing so. 

This new purpose was an open door opportunity not only for Yosano, but her parents as well. At the first opportunity to do so as they are tired of taking care of this child, they’re quick to send her off, knowing how valuable that ability and its potential was. In this case, it was the military (either catching wind of her ability or deciding to now call on her due to the necessary role in their war strategy) demanding for Yosano to take part personally. It was a ridiculously easy feat to get their permission to send her away. She was technically no longer their responsibility while she was away. Hell, they hoped she would never come back.

She wouldn’t. And that was that. That was the last time she ever saw and would be in contact with her parents.

THE GREAT WAR

It’s worth reminding everyone that Yosano was a child, and the gravity of her new circumstances didn’t quite dawn on her before it was too late. At the start, she was excited to show that she could have worth and be surrounded by people that would appreciate her for what she did. It would be the first time in all of her life that would happen. And it is for these very reasons that she has such strong, genuine, sincere reactions during the chapters/times she is midst the war. While maintaining her semi huffy and self-imposed air, she was also able to allow it to falter a little because for once, she didn’t need to resort to that to be paid attention to. In their initial praise, it did freak her out at first, the foreignness being so strange to her. But she appreciated it, she truly did. (Note: this obviously doesn’t apply to Mori lol.) The unnamed soldier that Yosano interacts with at this time especially strikes a chord with her. His kindness makes her think that maybe if she was fortunate enough, she would have liked to have someone like that as a brother. Maybe someone like that could have stopped the pain she’d endured with her parents. But that was in the past! He was lending her more toward the perspective of hope just as he told her that she was doing for him and the other soldiers. The creation of the butterfly clip, again, freaks her out because she’s unsure how to react to kind gestures. It is the first of its kind– a present, meaningful in its weight and sentiment in a way that she would learn later would continue to influence her life in various, monumental ways. His present interest in poetry is also something that Yosano would find herself enjoying, too. At the time.

Honestly, I really don’t even think it’s worth elaborating on Mori cause. Well. That whole ordeal speaks for itself. His manipulation and obsession grosses her out at its minimum / start and would later be the colossal trigger and collapse of her mental stability and lead to lasting trauma even as an adult. But anyways, back to other details worth note in this timeframe.

The war efforts proceed and we reach the point where things are looking grim and soldiers are getting near fatally injured faster, and coming back in droves. She realizes rather quickly that she bit off more than she can chew; to have to bear witness to these men being on the brink of death and quickly ‘revive’ them like some sort of automated robot would, naturally, mess up anyone. Her haughty behavior drops quickly as she becomes more quiet, tired, horror creeping up her body gradually in the form of slowly raising goosebumps. She’s wondering when the war will be over, and starts to second guess her purpose. Is what she’s doing right? But she’s not hit rock bottom, not yet at least, as the unnamed soldier reassures her the second instance. He relays how her saving him would bring him back to his family. He tells her: “I’m glad that you’re here.” And it makes way for Yosano’s first instance of ever crying in front of someone, feeling an overwhelming amount of gratitude to being seen and the need to trudge forward to protect. Protect those who had a life to return to. He’d been living proof of the importance of life– that life wasn’t always so cruel to others, that she had a chance to be surrounded by those who cared about her too. She cries in her vulnerability.

Things turn for the worst. Every day is a living nightmare. She can wipe away blood from her body, others’ body, but she will never be clean of the endless pools of blood that stained her hands after her treatments. Even at the age of 11, she comes to the realization that she is the single force that shackles all these people to the torture of having to throw themselves into battle again and again for futile efforts. She’s on the brink of a nervous breakdown constantly, but consoles herself with the thought that the unnamed soldier will be able to tell her it’s alright, maybe even help her figure out a way to get them all out of there. Yosano doesn’t want her ability, hell, she’d opt to having no purpose over this. She would trade her life for all of these people. She just needed this to stop. It’s all her fault. 

The person who was the embodiment of her last shred of sanity and piece of hope commits suicide and dubs her the Angel of Death, and that was her final breaking point. The sliver of belief that providing good for people and having a purpose is ultimately gone. Her worldview that she started to have hope for shatters. It was a cumulative, gradual raise of hope for a better life to have it all smashed to the ground. This tied in with the actual events she lived through, clearly, do not help. Trauma blocks it out of her memory later on, but there are plentiful, deliberate suicide attempts from the young girl afterward, wanting out of this hell that her own hands allowed to bear fruit, but for various circumstances and reasons, her attempts would not work and/or she would simply not be allowed to die at Mori’s hands. She is a hysterical, screaming, crying mess until she is no longer able to cry anymore. If not suicide, then alternative methods. Yosano would attempt to blow the ship up with the explosives that were stored at the bottom – it would have been a far crueler end than prolonging everyone’s destined death, but ultimately fails at that as well. 

LIFE AFTER THE WAR

She is apprehended and taken away to an institution where she spends three years in a void of a space, living on earth as if her spirit has long been faded. She is a shell of a person, succumbed to her own despair and doing the absolute bare minimum. Humanity only ever makes itself present in jaded eyes that blink sometimes and the agonizingly slow rise and fall of her chest to indicate that somehow, she was breathing. Living, but not alive. Not really, anyway. She may as well be rotting away, unkempt, unpure, and wishing life would simply put her out of her misery. Devoid of any hope, feeling death would be a start of repenting for her crimes. But it was never that easy. Why would it be? 

Ranpo and Fukuzawa rescue her. We all know how that goes. Let’s touch on some details of after that. 

After rescuing her, the duo have Yosano reside with them in Fukuzawa’s apartment. While Ranpo and Fukuzawa managed to recover a glimmer of hope in Yosano by rescuing her alone, the hope is discarded as she feels she is unworthy of it and they essentially are put in a position where they have to rehabilitate her. These two people cared enough about her to try to help her– she can see it, despite going about like a walking corpse some days. But guilt is overbearing, suffocating, and it shakes her down with constant night terrors that she is too drained to scream at as well as frequent moments where she blacks out without prompting. At this time, the butterfly clip she dares not to remove from her person is a reminder, a grim heavy burden she forces herself to carry on her shoulders that she was not a good person and that this was her karma and hers alone. She should not forget that no matter how good intentioned Ranpo and Fukuzawa were to her. There was absolutely at least one more time she attempted to take her life. Needless to say, it’s a painstakingly slow process, taking about a full year before Yosano can even start to really improve outside of talking to them here and there. 

(I feel like this behavior / state is EXTREMELY similar to how Kyouka starts off as, too, so my Yosano would definitely take to Kyouka more strongly than some others. But that is an entirely different conversation for some other time.)

Once she gets to a point where she can process things again and forcing herself to come to terms with the fact that these two will simply not allow her to remain dormant, Ranpo takes to tutoring her to help get her back on track to where she left off in her schooling, as she was getting stable enough to where Fukuzawa had confidence she could get better. This process was also slow, but Ranpo is quite the good teacher when he wants to be! The endeavor is a success, and she is able to enroll again in public school, where she is still piecing together why she was granted this second chance at life. It feels pitifully ironic, all things considered. As time does, it also grants an opportunity for growth and change. Eventually, she gradually shakes her way out of her shell at snail’s pace. Some days were still harder than others, of course. Getting poetry assignments would make Yosano have full on anxiety attacks where the only solutions of getting her to calm down were to have Ranpo or Fukuzawa at her side, or if at school and neither were present, to be sent home. These instances lessened over time, thankfully, and the episodes would turn to bitter, depressing moments where Yosano would tense up and try to pass it off to Ranpo if she was able in a way that while seemed lukewarm in how she expressed it, certainly held its weight of obvious trauma. 

(She never liked to talk about her issues. Never. And instead almost always opted for distractions as her method of coping. It is a major flaw of hers that you can absolutely call her out for even in present time.)

Yosano will never truly return to being 100% normal, but that’s fine, as she really was never at 100% anyway. Schooling in its own right helped her cope with things and served as a distraction from negative thoughts, and she found herself enjoying it and studying harder than ever before. Assisting in the preliminaries of helping around the detective agency also allowed her to grow into the figurative seat that Ranpo saved just for her. No longer did she have to be abrasive to garner people’s attention, either, becoming more comfortable with an occasional snarky tongue when the situation allowed it, and slowly being allowed to live as herself for the first time. It was truly shocking to see that people liked her for her and not the potential of weaponizing the dangerous ability that she had. Once more was her ambition to help people reignited, but it would be done on her own terms. Compelled by her convictions as schooling was coming to a close, she decided that she would go to pursue higher education at a university while formally getting a degree to become a doctor. It is then when she got accepted that her new self would truly shine, becoming as close as she could to be at peace. This endeavor was sped up to lightning fast speeds because of her drilled in skill of being all the more studious and essentially holding the knowledge of what it entailed already.

Not necessarily integral details, but while in university, she did pick up the hobbies of taking up Kickboxing Classes as well as Dance Classes and are longstanding interests of hers that she maintains even after finishing her schooling. These, too, serve(d) as time slot distractions to keep her thoughts at bay when her mind decided to be a little cruel to her at some moments. Poetry no longer leaves a bitter taste in her mouth and is now a newfound interest of hers. She even writes poetry of her own at times. As of present time, her butterfly clip is still a symbol of burden she chooses to carry and a reminder, but it is also representative of metamorphosis, a chance at a new beginning– a new life. That there was value in life, and that you should live on for those who could not.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Super Villains

Humanity’s technological progress had increased steadily at the turn of the 21st century; some even arguing that more advancements were made in various fields within two decades than the last hundred years. That paled however to the first year after first contact with alien species.  Within roughly a year human technology was augmented by other species and skyrocketed to what was once thought of as science fiction. Power cores that could generate enough energy for a hundred story building the size of a lunchbox, cars that could fly with the push of a button, robotic prosthetics that could lift cargo containers, and the piece de resistance, a functional jetpack that didn’t singe your legs or mess up your hair.  The wonders now available and easily affordable allowed numerous human inventors exceed their wildest imaginations. For all the good that came with these new technological marvels, there were those that turned their eyes to darker prospects. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Far from the human core worlds lay the world of Vunus, a prosperous trading world that had become the center of intergalactic trade in the region as it rested on a nexus of three heavily populated systems.  Naturally many of the trading organizations, guilds, and corporations all wanted a stake on the planet to show their wealth and power to not only new clients but also their competitors. The most wealthy of these would base their headquarters on the planet and would house the vast wealth of their enterprise inside their vaults.  One such conglomerate was the Orion Foundation, arguably the most wealthy group on the planet. They had established certain monopoly's for ship building metals, through legal and questionable means. Now if anyone wanted to build a ship bigger than a fishing boat they had to make a deal with Orion, and the deals were always in their favor.  Their headquarters was in the capital city of Vunus, a monolith of polished steel so large that it took up roughly nine city blocks and reached all the way to the stratosphere with antigravity generators held at every other floor to keep the structure from tipping over.  The lobby alone was so richly decorated it was worth the sum of a mining colonies yearly revenue. Adorned with gem encrusted statues from all over the known galaxy, furniture made from the rarest of animals with the softest furs, with tiled floors made from solid ruby.  To a tourist or new client it must have looked like the pinnacle of society, but to Shlivek the front desk concierge it looked like gaudy taste. It may have been because he spent his entire work day looking at it, but to him it appeared as if it was rich people thought wealth looked like, regardless of actual taste.  Day in day out he would watch the same routine of clients walking in to be greeted by specialized handlers and be taken on a tour of the structure before being whisked away to one of the higher floors with a dynamic view of the surrounding area to sign the deal.  As he looked up from his terminal he saw yet another group approaching. Today the lobby was only populated by a few dozen individuals, mostly tourists, and some security personnel standing around the edges of the room. The approaching group navigated between the passing crowds as a representative exited a nearby elevator and went to meet with them.  As they got closer Shilvek began noticing some oddities about this new group. They were all wearing black robes that obscured their appearance. The one in the front was the smallest of the group, but from the manner of their stride and how none of the others outpaced them they were clearly the leader.  As the group approached the representative some of them broke away and began walking in different directions. The representative had reached the group and held out a hand for the leader to shake. The robed figure looked down at the hand then back up at the representative, an awkward silence descending before the representative withdrew their hand.  Shilvek couldn’t hear what they were saying but looking at the face of the company rep he could tell that they were uncomfortable for reasons he did not know. The reps were trained to handle different culture clients, but something in their demeanor made it obvious something was wrong.  As they ushered the group forward to the elevator, Shilvek noticed some of the guards begin moving towards the group. The moment the rep had turned their back to the group things flew into action. The leader shouted something and all of them aside from their leader dropped to the ground. The Short leader grabbed hold of their robe and flung it off their body revealing a strange sight to Shilvek.  The leader was wearing a body glove of intricate triangles with two massive gauntlets on their hands. His head was covered with a strange eyeless helmet with a black screen where the mouth would have been. As the guards began dashing forward to grab them the leader raised a gauntlet and pointed at them.  With a thunderous clap something invisible shot out from the gauntlet, pushing aside furniture and tourists like rag dolls, before hitting the guards. The guards were flung backwards violently and smashed into the gold walls, their bodies slumping to the ground leaving a crimson stain of blood on the wall.  One of the tourists screamed and things moved rapidly from there. The other robed figures threw off their robes revealing similar pattern body gloves with the addition of projectile weaponry. The remaining guards were cut down before they could react as the leader slowly began walking to Shilvek.  Shilvek reached under the counter and hit the panic button. Sirens began blaring and metal grates fell down over all the exits to the lobby sealing the room while a protective shell of reinforced glass fell around Shilvek’s counter.  He saw some of the tourists desperately grabbing the grate now blocking the front door before being dragged away by the armed thugs. All the guards were now dead, but the intruders were trapped in the room and a warning had been automatically sent to the police. Shilvek knew they’d be here in minutes as a private agreement had been set up ensuring their protection first and foremost.  A tap on the protective glass brought Shilvek back to the moment and he looked down to see the strange helmet leader tapping on the glass with their gauntlet. There black screen had a red line that was rising and falling like a wave and Shilvek assumed that this criminal was speaking, but there was no opening for him to hear what he was saying.  The criminal must’ve realized this as they began using hand movements gesturing that they wanted the glass shell to go back into the ceiling. Shilvek shook his head and the criminal once again motioned for it to be retracted. When he shook his head once again the criminal placed the gauntlet flat against the glass and gestured their men to stand back.  Shortly after placing their gauntlet on the glass Shilvek could hear a faint vibration sound growing in intensity. In his horror he saw the glass beginning to crack and break in an ever growing web from the point of contact and with a loud shattering roar the shell quickly crumbled and fell to the floor forcing Shilvek to duck under his desk.  “Much better. It’s hard to have a conversation when neither can hear the other.” Shilvek was cowering under his desk but could hear the voice clearly. It had a strange synthetic tone to it.  “It’s also hard when one party is hiding under a desk. Why don’t you stand up?”  Shilvek didn’t move.  “I just shattered reinforced glass meant to stop plasma rounds with the palm of my hand. You really think a wooden desk would protect you any better?”  At that Shilvek didn’t need anymore prompting and slowly rose.  “Now, why don’t you lift the security lockdown.”  Shilvek looked down at the leader then around at the rest of the lobby. The remaining tourists that had been unable to escape were now all huddled together in a corner and surrounded by armed thugs. The bodies of the guards had been dragged and placed in an opposite corner.  The leader tapped the desk and drew Shilvek’s attention. “It’s rude to look away when someones talking to you. Now, remove the lockdown. I won’t ask again.”  “I-I-I-I can’t do that.” Shilvek stuttered. “Once it’s engaged only the police can remove it.”  The leader craddled their chin with one of their hands and paced back and forth for a bit. They stopped and looked at Shilvek before outstretching a hand.  “It just occured to me that I haven’t introduced myself. You can call be Sound Byte, and you are?” Shilvek unsteadily reached out with his own hand and shooked Sound Byte’s. “Shilvek.” “Shilvek, what an interesting name; rolls off the tongue like a lyric.” Sound Byte remarked as he kept shaking his hand. Shilvek tried to let go but Sound Byte’s hand would not budge.  “Well Shilvek, I must say it’s rather disappointing that you can’t remove the lockdown for me.” “I told you,  I can’-” Sound Byte shook his head. “Oh no, I understand that you can’t do anything for an automated system. It’s just that I’m disappointed that a man such as you with your rhythmic name now no longer has a reason for me to keep you alive.”  Shilvek felt the gauntlet’s  grip dig deeper into his hand. “Tell me, did you know there’s a sound frequency that makes your species blood vessels violently explore like a popped balloon?”  Before Shilvek could utter a word he felt a tremor run through his clenched hand and radiate throughout his entire body. He tried to scream but his throat was now choking on his own blood. He vision became dark but he could see blood dripping from every pore in his body as if he was overflowing with it before he collapsed to the ground.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sound Byte dialed down the frequency generator and let go of the dead man’s hand. He glanced down at his bloody hand and motioned for one of his henchmen to come forward. The thug quickly trotted over and stood at attention as Sound Byte used their uniform to wipe the blood off his hand.  He was in a bad mood now. He was telling the truth that he had hated killing someone with such a musical name, but the man had brought it upon himself by activating the security lockdown and impeding his robbery.  “Get the data spike setup. You’ve got two minutes.”  The same thug from before hopped over the counter and nudged the dying mans body aside as he inserted a strange device into the terminal as Sound Byte went over to the sealed elevator doors and placed a palm on them.  Golden doors, Sound Byte thought to himself and chuckled. Perfect example for the rich and powerful. Impressive to look at, but shatters if you know where to push. Altering his gauntlet’s frequency he began vibrating the doors until the gold began to fall away in chunks exposing an empty elevator shaft. Rather than attempting to climb up to the security vaults near the mid section of the building, something impossible for the time constraints, he sound blasted the opposite wall in the shaft creating a crater and revealing another elevator shaft.  Unlike the first one which was for clients and office workers, the second shaft was for freight to be carried between floors and was the key to the robbery. The main elevator would lockup during a lockdown, but Sound Byte had learned that the freight elevator, which was far less technical in design, had not such lockup features and was still operable.  Taking half his crew sound Byte jumped into the second shaft and continued with what was to be the greatest crime of the century.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “We are deeply saddened by the loss of our employees. Here at Orion, our employees are our family and today our family has grown smaller and we will never get over this tragic loss.”  “That was Orion CEO Lusdiv giving a press statement shortly after the unknown criminals fled the Orion headquarters. Authorities are still searching for the wanted criminals as a planet wide alert has gone ou-” Lusdiv turned off the news monitor and took another swig of his drink.    “We will never get over this tragic loss.” He chuckled at his remarks. We’ll have those positions filled by the end of the week. His office sat at the very peak of the Orion headquarters building and as he turned around from behind his desk he saw the sun slowly fading over the horizon setting an end to this day.  While the criminals had been able to reach the vaults, they had only been able to grab hold of a small amount of the vast fortunes stored there before being forced to escape by approaching police forces. In truth the damage done today had already been recouped exactly half a minute after the criminals fled. Such was the income and power of Orion.  Lusdiv shook as his phone rang and startled him. He pushed down on the intercom and contacted his secretary.  “I thought I made it clear I was not to be disturbed.”  The intercom was silent save for the faint hissing of static.  “Volca, I said I made it clear I was not to be disturbed. I’m not taking any calls.” The silence continued.  “Volca, are you there? Volca”  No response. He sighed and finished his drink before picking up the phone.  “This is Lusdiv, CEO of Orion. Who am I speaking with?”  “The man that robbed you.”  Lusdiv pulled the phone away from his head at the sound of the synthetic voice.  Slowly, he pressed the phone back to his ear.  “If this is meant to be some sort of pranks I assure you you will be brought to the authorities and punished.”  “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Don’t believe me, eh? Would you like me to list the contents of your vault boxes we took? I’m sure you already have their records on your desk by now.”  Lusdiv looked down at his desk. There, strewn across it were the files detailing everything that had been taken. Calmly, he activated the security panels of his windows which instantly shut behind him.  “It’s adorable you think your security can still stop me.”  “I have no desire to be spied upon by criminal scum like you is all.” Lusdiv remarked as the shutters clanked shut behind him.  “No need to fret, I’m not watching you.” Sound Byte remarked, “I could hear them closing behind you through the phone. As for the documents, well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.” “One which you clearly are not.” Lusdiv retorted, “Otherwise you would have brought the proper gear to break into our more valuable vaults.” He leaned forward over his desk, his hand tightening around the phone. “So listen punk, because I’ll make what happens next very easy for you. I’m going to have you tracked down like a wild animal and brought back to me in chains so I can strangle the very life out of you with my bare han-” Lusdiv’s stopped talking mid conversation. His jaw was twitching up and down but the words would not leave his mouth.  Not just my mouth, Lusdiv thought, I can’t move my entire body!  “I hope I have your attention now,” Sound Byte’s voice came in through the phone still held to Lusdiv’s ear, “because now I will tell you how things will pan out.”  “Your mistake was that you thought we were after your material valuables when really we wanted your more.....questionable, documents.”  “When I arrived I had a data spike planted into your system which has been transmitting your dirty secrets to me this entire time. You were so busy going over the gold, jewels, and other contents of your vaults that none of you thought to check your firewalls.”  Lusdiv’s eyes went wide in horror.  “Imagine if the Vunus government found out how you really obtained Harlod & Co’s mining rights, or what really happened with the Jovian Merger deal. I’m sure the public would find your cave in resolution for miners owed several years worth of back pay after they threatened to unionize most interesting as well.”  Every dirty and illegal deed that had been done to get Orion where it is today ran through Lusdiv’s head and he began to sweat buckets.  “So here’s the deal. I have big plans, plans that will need a considerable investment of funds and materials which you will provide. In exchange these damaging files will stay safe in my pocket, far from prying eyes. I will send you a shopping list for your first set of generous donations to me in the coming days.”  Lusdiv shuddered realizing his blackmailer had left him no way out. He slowly felt the feeling returning to his limbs and he was able to move again.  “Oh, one more thing.” Sound Byte cut in before ending the call.  “If you ever speak to me in that tone again I will vibrate your brain until it drips through your eyes in a grey mush. I can paralyze you with sound even through a phone call, it’s not even a half step up to murder you.”  The line went dead and Lusdiv was finally able to move his limbs freely again. He sat gasping for air as he contemplated what nightmare he had just been dragged into. 

[kaffeinic]

Caffeinic | Bang Chan

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | Epilogue

Pairing: Reader x Barista!Bang Chan

Genre: Fluff // Romance

Warnings: Fem!Reader

Preamble: You’ve been going to the same coffee shop for the past four years. You’ve ordered the same thing almost every single day, and you never, ever skip on that part of your morning. So, when Mrs. Park hired a new barista and the once serene café was suddenly flooded with people every second of the day, you were less than thrilled.

It was now the morning after the party, and you had officially concluded you wouldn’t attend another one for a very long time. You’ve spent the last three hours or so searching for your phone, which you did not find. You did, however, pick up your house phone and call a friend.

“Dongil! It’s Y/n.” You said.

“Hey! It’s been a while. How’ve you been?” He asked. You and Dongil had been friends for a solid six years, and you loved him so much - platonically, that is.

“I’m pretty good. What about you?” You asked.

“I’m great~! Hannah and I finally got pregnant!” Hannah was Dongil’s wife of two years. The couple had been together since their Freshman year and you had shipped it so hard. With the news, you suddenly squealed with happiness, completely forgetting why you had been so wound up before.

“Really?! That’s amazing! I am so, so happy for you!” You were dancing in place, a huge smile painted on your lips.

“Thanks! I hope you’ll be able to visit for the shower.” He said. You smiled at his words.

“Of course, just let me know when you set a date.” You replied. He hummed in understanding.

“So, was there a reason why you called, or did you just want to catch up?” He asked.

“Both? You know how I’m always losing my stuff?” You asked him. “I’ve lost my phone. Any idea where my dumb butt would have put it?” You asked. The line went silent for a moment.

“Have you checked in that crack between your bed and the wall?” He asked. You hummed in response. “What about that table by the door?” He asked.

“I’ve checked all of the usual places.”

“I don’t have a clue. I would help if I was there, but I can’t. I’m sorry.” He explained.

“No, no. It’s okay. I’m just used to you always thinking of the right place.” You laughed it off, but now your stress was worsening. Your phone had a lot of important things, and you did not have a lock on it. Why? The world may never know. I needed a plot point.

The two of you chatted for a bit longer before hanging up. Once the tone ended, you let out a sigh. It was then that you thought of calling your phone again. Maybe it was in the house, but you just hadn’t seen it. You prayed that the vibrate function was loud enough for you to hear.

You entered your phone number and called. You heard ringing from your end, but couldn’t hear anything else indicating where your phone was. After a few calls and a lot of roaming around the apartment, you received an automated message saying that your phone was turned off. Maybe it died?

It was half an hour before your usual time at the café, and you gathered your things for the subway ride to get there. Throwing on a coat and scarf, you headed out the door, locking it behind you.

The ride was completely uneventful. You mostly just stared out of the window. Part of you was mostly disappointed about your phone because a certain someone was going to ask for your number. You left the station and walked for about ten minutes before coming face-to-face with the front door of the Park’s coffee house.

Pushing it open, you heard the familiar ring of the overhead bell, the aroma of coffee and sweets flooding your senses. You closed your eyes for a moment, enjoying the weight it seemed to lift off of your shoulders. The feeling was almost immediately replaced when you noticed how crowded the shop was again.

You made your way to the counter, waiting a few minutes until you had gotten through the line.

“You have no idea how glad I am to see you.” Chan said from behind the counter. You smiled, but the expression left your face quickly when you saw the look on Chan’s face.

“What’s wrong?” You asked.

“I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, but Seoyeon got a hold of my phone number. I haven’t slept all night. She’s relentless.” He explained, rubbing the back of his neck as his head hung low.

“Why didn’t you just block the number?” You asked. He laughed sarcastically.

“I did. Unfortunately, she used it to find my Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Tumblr. She found my Tumblr. My phone number isn’t even linked to my Tumblr.” You could see just how done the man was. He ran his hand through his hair, which you could clearly tell he had been doing all day. All you wanted to do was give him a hug, right there. If you did, it would have been around everyone else in the overpopulated establishment, which you weren’t yet comfortable with.

“I-” You searched for the words. “That’s insane.” You said.

“Enough of my whining. Any luck finding your phone?” He asked.

“First off, you can whine to me any time. Secondly, no. No luck whatsoever.” You said. He smiled at your first statement, then looked around.

“Did you check your entire house?” He asked. You could tell he was skeptical, but knew how to deter that.

“I did, thank you very much, but if you remember correctly, I had my phone when you saw me at the party. It was missing by the time I had gotten in your car.” You said. “It wouldn’t have been there anyway.” Chan smiled at your sassy attitude.

“Alright, I surrender.” He said, holding up his hands. “I was hoping you’d be on time today. I made something I want you to try.” He said, turning around. He grabbed a steaming mug of coffee from the back of the station, facing you. When you grabbed it, you giggled on closer inspection.

“A heart? Really?” You asked. It was a latte with a white heart in the middle, with a little bit of design around it.

“Yes, really. It took me two hours to figure that out. A lot of people here got some gnarly-looking lattes.” He said. You laughed, nearly spilling the drink.

“Y/n, be careful!” He said, placing his hands around yours and the mug. You realized at that moment just how much larger his hands were compared to yours. “I just told you how hard I worked on this, and now you’re trying to throw it at me?” He feigned offense. “How rude.”

“Hey, you know that was an accident.” You paused as you looked at the drink. “Thank you, Channie. It’s really pretty.” You said. He smiled brightly - the brightest smile you’d seen from him all day.

“Your spot’s not open, but I don’t think Mrs. Park will mind if you use one of the seats back here. Chan pointed to one of three chairs placed behind the counter.

“I don’t think I should. She’s not here for me to ask.” You explained. He frowned, but nodded.

“There might be a seat somewhere over there.” He gestured to a booth near the back. “If a seat opens up here-” He began to speak, but you cut him off.

“I’ll run as fast as I can. Don’t worry.” You reassured him, smiling happily. You heaved your bag and your coffee to the back of the dining area, searching for a table that wasn’t yet occupied, finding none. There were a few booths with one or two people at them, but no one you recognized. Huffing, you stood like an idiot in the middle of the room.

“Y/n! Hello, dear. Why don’t you sit over here?” Mrs. Park scared you shitless as she pointed to the chairs that Chan had suggested before. After composing yourself, you smiled and nodded.

“Thanks so much~!” You said. You made your way to the back of the service counter, lightly pushing the door open. Chan looked up and grinned cheekily.

“Told you so.” He pulled out one of the chairs and ushered you towards it, placing his hand on your back. To be perfectly honest, if it had been anyone but him, you would have asked them not to touch you unnecessarily, but after having all but cuddled him in the entrance of your apartment, you figured it was excusable. Plus... it was Chan. He could touch you any time. Hell, you kind of wanted him to. Yes, I’m aware of how bad that sounds, but you know what I meant.

You placed your things on the ground, sipping on your coffee. There wasn’t any room for you to study, but at least it was a seat. You’d prefer this over looking like a fumbling idiot in the middle of the dining area any time of the day.

“You look beautiful today, Y/n.” Chan said, drying a mug. He glanced at you and smiled. You looked at yourself, scoffing.

“I’m in the laziest outfit I’ve been in for weeks, no makeup, and my hair barely passable as brushed. Are you insane?” You asked. He laughed.

“I don’t care. You look beautiful.” He said. He hung the mug he was drying on a hook in the back, grabbing another to repeat the process. You felt bad. He was the only employee back here, and the café was busier than you’d seen it in weeks.

“Do you want some help with that?” You asked. Chan looked at the mug, then at you.

“No. This is my job.” He said. “Plus, as you so eloquently said, the café has been flooded since I came here. I must be partially to blame.” He said. You rolled your eyes.

“Mhmm. Alright.” You replied. The next few minutes were mostly filled with Chan taking new orders and making coffee whilst you observed, noting small nuances in the way he moved and spoke. The more you heard his accent, the more normal it became, and you swore you could copy it if need be. Many customers flirted with him, which he only returned with polite smiles. Part of you wondered if he wanted you to act that way.

Chan had this habit of fiddling with his rings when he didn’t have anything to occupy his hands with, which made you smile. He also seemed to have a solemn, almost sad look to his face when he wasn’t in conversation. You couldn’t decide if it was just how he naturally relaxed his facial expression, or if he truly was sad. In the ten minutes you had been watching him, you decided to make it your mission to find out.

The only thing that snapped you out of your daze was the voice of an all too familiar girl. Seoyeon beamed at Chan, twirling her hair around her fingers. She was so unapologetic with her flirting that it was just getting annoying.

“Hi, Channie~!” She said, waving seductively. Chan looked over at her and seemed to struggle to contain the growing frown on his face.

“It’s Chan. Hi.” He seemed as polite as he could be, considering the night he had apparently gone through.

“I saw that you worked here and wanted to try some coffee.” She said.

“What would you like?” He asked.

“Could you make me something special?” She asked. Chan looked down. You couldn’t see his reaction, but you assumed it was unpleasant.

“Could you please just order from the menu?” He asked. She seemed completely unfazed by his very clearly annoyed tone, scanning the menu behind him. Her eyes widened when she noticed you. “What are you doing here?”

“She’s a regular.” Chan said. He turned to you and flashed a weak smile. “She needed a seat.”

“Does that mean I can go behind the counter, too?” Seoyeon asked. Chan immediately turned back to her.

“No.” He said. “What are you ordering?” He asked. She hummed a tune and looked around. “Caramel macchiato.” Chan nodded his head and got to work.

His greeting for her was a stark contrast to his greeting with you. It became more apparent every time you spoke with him just how much he actually enjoyed your presence. You smiled softly to yourself at the thought. It was then that Junseok came bursting through the café doors.

“Y/n!” He exclaimed.

~

I hope you all enjoyed! I hope this isn’t too much to ask, but I’d really appreciate it if those of you who enjoy this fanfic could reblog the chapters. I’m trying to get some more exposure for the story! If not, it’s okay~ Thanks for reading! I’ll come out with another chapter as soon as I can.

* DISCLAIMER: I do not own any gifs/photos used in this post. I do own the written content. Do NOT repost/edit. *

🏷 @a-toxic-galaxy • @hoshithehamster • @woo-for-woojin

[phcking-detective]

9. Positive Reinforcement

Fic Title: First Blood

Rating: E

Length: 9/33 chapters, ~128k

Tags: Slow Burn, Idiots to Lovers, Trans Character (gavin), Autistic / Asexual / Non-binary Character (nines), BDSM, learning to use good etiquette and safe words, Dom Nines / Sub Gavin, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort

Chapter Tags: hospitals, hurt/comfort, domestic, Nines takes care of Gavin, caring Dom Nines, Gavin has a mood swing / shouting episode but there’s no partner abuse, using BDSM instead of therapy (not recommended btw)

Link on AO3

***

Hospitals suck ass.

Gavin repeats this mantra to himself like one of those meditation techniques. It's not enough to block out how his hip keeps slipping between the three chairs he's trying to lay on horizontally or how fucking cold it is in nothing but jeans and Nines' stupid fucking Cyberlife jacket or the bright fucking florescent—

"Detective."

Gavin squints up at Nines' sudden appearance like he's looking at a miracle—inherently suspicious and wondering what the fucking catch is. He's woozy and tired and somehow also hungry, the nurse took four tries to find his vein, and Tina didn't answer any of his calls from the courtesy phone because who the hell answers phone calls?

"What are you doing?" Nines asks in the sort of tone normally reserved for walking in on someone trying to suck their own dick.

Not that Gavin's ever tried.

"I'm sleeping, fuck off."

"On three separate chairs?"

"You know what?" Gavin sits up and stabs a finger against the android's steel fucking stomach. "I'm tired, I don't have a phone or my wallet, I can't pay for a cab, Tina isn't answering, and I don't—"  

The finger-stabs turn into punches.

"Have. Any. Other. Friends!"

Nines stands there, letting Gavin punch him until the bruised knuckles aren't worth it anymore. The waiting room starts to sway. Fuck, he really needs a snack or something right now. One free cookie and a juice box just isn't going to cut it.

"Here."

The inside of the jacket suddenly begins to warm up. Nice to know it could have done that the entire FUCKING time. Nines also produces Gavin's cellphone from his pants' pocket and offers it to him. Gavin snatches it back and stares at the screen.

"Can't phcking read this," he mutters.

Nines produces his headphones too. When all Gavin does is take them back and hold them stupidly in his other hand, Nines crouches down in front of him. His fucking head hurts so bad, Gavin actually sits quietly and doesn't complain while Nines plugs in the headphones and then puts the earbuds inside his ears.

Your jacket is at the dry cleaners. Nines' voice sounds in his head at a mercifully low volume. I have brought your truck and ordered you a large number five meal with a strawberry milkshake.

Gavin slumps forward and lets his head rest on Nines' shoulder so he doesn't cry. He punches the android's arm and chest a few more times for good measure. It doesn't even crinkle his fancy black dress shirt. Nines stays perfectly still and allows this too.

Your food is becoming cold, detective.

Gavin grunts. He'll get up in a second.

Nines decides he'll get up right now. Those ridiculous fucking yaoi hands grabbing his thighs is the only warning he gets before he's hoisted in the air and held against Nines' chest. Which—fuck, that's hot, but not here!

"Fuck off tin can, leggo!"

Gavin puts up a fight against his partner's gay shit because there are people watching. He can see them right over Nines' shoulder, the nurse at the front desk and the six other people in the waiting room. Yeah, shit's a lot better for gay people now, but that doesn't mean he wants the entire hospital to know what a bottom bitch he is.

"Don't fucking hold me like a fucking child," he complains as they reach the automatic doors.

A second later, Nines shifts him into his arms bridal style, like that's any better.

"Hold me like a man, god damn it!"

Then he's slung over Nines' shoulder in a fireman's hold. Between the giving blood wooziness and suddenly being upside down, he has to stop yelling and just focus on breathing for a second. The rush of cold air when they get out to the parking lot helps.

Even better, when he opens his eyes again, he's greeted by an up-close view of Nines' ass in tight dress pants. Best of all are the thick, powerful thighs right beneath it, marching away. A little bit lower, and he could just bury his face between those thighs and suffocate the way God intended.

Car tires crunch against the asphalt in front of them and Gavin's pretty sure he recognizes the blurry, upside-down image of his truck between Nines' legs. Has the automated driving feature always been capable of being remote controlled, or is that just some freaky shit that Nines did to it?

He doesn't get a chance to think any more about it before he's flipped upright, set inside his truck, and buckled into the passenger's seat like a toddler. It's a miracle he hasn't dropped his phone or had his headphones ripped out of his ears yet.

"I hate you," he tells Nines, just to make sure the android knows.

Nines takes the bag of fast food off the dash and sets it in his lap.

Occupy your mouth.

Gavin makes a face at him. Why's everything he say have to sound so ominously dominating? The passenger door shuts in his face before he can think of something smarter than I'll occupy your mouth though, so he settles for grabbing his milkshake and making loud slurping noises. Nines gets in on the driver's side and immediately takes the milkshake from him, so he counts it as a success. He's too hungry and tired of hurting his hands to try hitting him for it, so he digs into the food bag.

A large number five, fried chicken club sandwich, none of that stupid special sauce, extra ketchup.

Gavin really can't help the moan he makes when he bites into it. But there's only so much toxic masculinity even he can handle, and he'll moan like a bitch if he wants to moan like a bitch. As long as it's just the two of them.

"Mmphfgh. So."

Swallow.

Shit. Fuck, his headphones are still in. Gavin rolls his eyes to try to shake off how he jumped, but he does still swallow his bite before talking again.

"How'd you know to come get me? Tina never answered."

I know the location of the Henry Ford Medical Center, detective.

"Yeah, but who told you to come get me?"

It was an independent decision.

Gavin takes another huge bite of his sandwich to think that over. Some ketchup squirts out the other side onto his fingers, and he sucks it off as obnoxiously loud as possible. Nines flashes red in his peripheral vision. Well, he can't actually see the LED because it's on the wrong side, but he can see his partner's reflection in the driver's side window.

"You find the perp loitering nearby?" he finally asks.

No.

Gavin tries to think of any other reason Nines would come get him but comes up empty.

"So, why did you …?"

He takes another long drink of his milkshake to avoid putting whatever this is into words. Take care of me makes him sound like a child and do the nicest shit anyone's done for me in years (or maybe ever) just sounds pathetic.

We need to get back to work. Humans need food after donating blood. Your jacket needed to be cleaned.

All right, those are simple explanations. Yeah. Maybe that's just how Nines sees it. He doesn't have a social module, so he was probably just solving a series of problems, completing his task list or whatever. Not like. Actually caring.

Except then Nines turns and says out loud with soul-searing intensity, "You are my partner."

Gavin does the only reasonable thing and stuffs an entire handful of fries in his mouth so he doesn't have to look at those pretty blue eyes staring at him like he's important. Or do some gay shit, like cry.

He's not going to cry. It's just been a long day, that's all. He makes the mistake of looking at the dashboard clock.

11:36 am

Fuck.

***

(9 hours later …)

Mmm warm good smell. Food smell. Gavin takes another greedy inhale and feels the warm thing touch his lips. He instinctively takes a bite before he even finishes waking up. It tastes good and kind of chewy, if a little bland. He snuffles and licks the fingers that fed it to h—

Wait, fucking whom'st fingers is he licking right now?

"Fascinating."

Gavin swats the hand away and glares up at Nines hovering over him. "What the fuck did you just make me eat?"

Nines cocks his head to the side. He looks more like a creepy animatronic owl than the cute puppy eyes Connor gives when he does it.

"Can you not tell?" the android asks.

"Can you blow me?"

"I tried that on a banana," Nines says casually, as if that mental image makes any kind of sense.

"Whuh—wh—"

Gavin smacks his lips together and tries to figure out what his mouth tastes like right now. Kind of … cheesy? Like pasta maybe, but without any flavor. Whatever he swallowed was dry at least, so no sauce or anything.

"Why?"

"To know if I could," Nines replies. "My combat protocols automatically activated and my jaw locked shut."

"OK, so you can't eat bananas, but what the fuck did I eat?" Gavin demands.

"Technically, I did eat the banana," Nines says. "Partially. My jaw snapped shut after taking a bite of it inside my oral cavity."

Gavin's dick starts listening to the conversation. It's because of karma and maybe some sort of android fucking witchcraft that now his dick gets hard listening to the bitchiest most stuck up Alexa ever say the words "oral cavity."

Of course Nines notices the reaction right away. Because fuck his whole entire life, that's why. Nines stares down at his crotch and Gavin can practically hear a zzzzzz as his eyes zoom in on his traitor dick.

"Fascinating."

"Tell me what you fucking fed me or I swear to God, I'll—"

"One cheese ravioli."

Gavin stares at him. "A cheese … did it even have sauce?"

"No, I washed that off."

Gavin opens his mouth, stares harder at that completely serious face, and shuts it again. He pinches the bridge of his nose instead, rubbing over the thick gnarl of scar tissue there.  

"Why …"

But that's all he can bring himself to say. For once, Nines is the one who has no trouble with speaking.

"So it wouldn't drip on the carpet," he says, like that's obvious.

"You really think a bit of Prego is gonna be the worst this carpet's ever seen?" Gavin asks.

Nines' face darkens into a scowl that would be terrifying if Gavin didn't know this was his version of pouting. "Do not remind me. I have deleted fifty-seven analysis reports this last hour alone."

Gavin rolls his eyes. "Well, why'd you feed me a cheese ravioli?"

"To save the beef ravioli as a higher value treat."

Gavin looks him over. His left arm hangs down casually by his side, but his hand presses slightly behind his crouched thigh. It looks like he's holding something in one of those magician's grip that makes his hand appear loose and open while something is secretly tucked into his palm.

"You may have the beef ravioli if you sit at the table," Nines tells him.

He stands up and takes a few steps backwards toward the kitchen, raising up his hand to reveal the ravioli. Gavin gets off the couch and marches toward him to kick his ass, but the android matches his pace exactly to step backwards until they're right next to the table. He opens his mouth to start yelling, which immediately proves to be a mistake.

Nines shoves the ravioli directly into his open mouth. Gavin automatically bites down, but the android's reflexes are too quick for him, and he gets his fingers clear before being bitten. Instead, Gavin only bites into delicious beefy filling.

And he would spit it out. He really would, right onto Nines' perfectly shined shoes.

Except it's been a long ass day filled with paperwork about what happened with the reporter and no other goddamn leads and he has no idea how late it is since he fell asleep on the couch, but it's definitely past suppertime and he's hungry as fuck.

(Also, maybe he remembers the consequences of the last time he tried to spit at Nines, and his traitor-dick needs to Shut Up about that.)

Gavin chews the beef ravioli with the angriest face he can muster. It doesn't help that it's really fucking good, way better than the takeout and ramen he usually lives on. Nines opens the lid of the to go box sitting on the kitchen table, and the best smell his trash apartment has ever encountered steams out.

Gavin sits his angry ass down and starts to eat. Fuck him if he's going to waste good food. Most of the ravioli is beef, but there's some cheese-filled ones too, mixed in with the rest in a thick meaty sauce. Nines sits in the seat across the table to stare at him while he eats. Fucking creeper. Always one step behind him, staring at him, following him back home like they're friends or something.

"Why the fuck are you still here?" he deliberately asks with his mouth full.

"Juarez is currently our best lead to identifying the shooter," Nines answers. "As she may wake from her coma at any time, it is most efficient for me to stay with you in the event we are called during off duty hours."

Gavin chews his food. His partner is real fucking good at coming up with totally logical answers that he can't argue against without looking stupid even though he just knows that's bullshit.

"Whatever," he says. "I'm not paying you back for this. Or the chicken sandwich."

Nines keeps staring at him with those blank, lizard eyes. "I did not ask you to."

Gavin pushes back his chair and slams his hands on the table, yelling "Fuck you!" before he even knows what hits him. His moods are like that sometimes.

Nines doesn't even blink.

Usually, that sort of shit would just set him off even more. The lack of response sure as hell drove him to push harder and harder when they first got assigned as partners. Now Gavin just feels stupid, shouting at someone just sitting there.

Stupid. Fuck, he always does this shit. He knows this. He <i>knows</i> this.

"I don't …" Gavin forces himself to exhale slowly out through his teeth, gripping the edge of the table so he doesn't throw something. "Need. Your charity."

Stupid stupid stupid.

"You are my partner," Nines says.

Monotone. Four words and not a single inflection. When Gavin finally makes himself look up from panting at the grain of the fake-wooden table, Nines' face is just as blank. It should probably trigger some sort of uncanny valley lurch in his stomach, but without any micro-expressions for his brain goblins to pick up on and start screeching about, Gavin's anger starts slipping away like resin on tarp.

He looks back down at the table so he doesn't have to see his partner's face.

"If you cannot accept your own rule that partners look out for each other, consider this an investment to ensure you are recovered for our next shift tomorrow."

Gavin exhales again. Then inhales. Stupid. Exhale. At least he didn't throw anything. Inhale. This time.

"Also, I am applying Pavlovian training to encourage behaviors convenient to me."

Gavin sits back down and rubs both hands through his hair. "You're dog training me?"

"Positive reinforce—"

"You can't fix this," Gavin growls out, then gestures to himself and the kitchen at large. "This! Me. Anyone can read a fucking psychology book, dipshit—I already know what's wrong with me. If I could just good behavior myself into getting better, I would have done it already."

Nines' composure finally breaks as he blinks. "I am not a KL-nine-hundred unit, detective. I have absolutely no intention of—"

Gavin groans because he knows the air quotes are coming. Nines looks him dead in the eyes and does them anyway.

"—'fixing' you."

"I hate you."

"I only want to encourage relevant behaviors," Nines continues without acknowledging the outburst. "Such as doing your own paperwork rather than playing games on your phone."

Gavin grunts and manages to take another bite now that he's settled down some. Sure, maybe he'd been dumping all his paperwork on Nines now that the android has proven he knows how to do it properly. But he gets it done way faster and trying to make letters hold still on a bright ass computer screen gives him the worst headaches. God, he probably needs reading glasses at this point but he'd rather his entire head split open than wear that kind of shit at the station.

"Listening to my input at crime scenes."

"Hhegh," Gavin says around a mouth full of beef.

"Basic table manners."

Gavin swallows. "Hey. Fuck off, I do listen to you. I have been, so don't fucking sit there and try to tell me—"

"You have been," Nines says.

Gavin stops with his mouth hanging open. Dammit, he was just getting good and pissed off again, and then the bastard goes and agrees with him. What the hell is he supposed to say to that? It's definitely a trap. Like sarcasm, or some sort of passive aggressive ...

Something.

"Throughout our current case, you have taken note of my input," Nines says. "I was not implying otherwise, simply that I would start rewarding you for doing so."

Gavin narrows his eyes at him. "Yeah? Why?"

"I was forced to work with other humans at the Juarez residence." Nines finally finds some inflection to say other humans like he means radioactive screaming toddlers. "It was not ideal. And while I certainly will not beg for your continued cooperation, I am not above bribery as a means to ensure I can do my work in peace rather than relying on … the kindness of your heart."

Gavin grunts again and goes back to his food. Eating slightly cold ravioli is easier than making eye contact with his partner right now. He might have been a teensy bit better lately, but obviously he's not some kind of android rights activist. If Nines is worried he's going to flip back to being an asshole on a whim or a bad day or because other people were watching, well.

That's pretty fucking fair, to be honest.

"Dog training though?" he mutters after a minute. "Really?"

"I have read many human psychology books." Nines pauses, then adds, "Dipshit."

Gavin snorts and lets the insult pass.

"I can recite them. I understand the words. But they are merely words to me," Nines admits slowly. "Dog training books are much more simple."

"Is this a kink thing?"

Nines rolls his eyes. "Gavin, would you care to explain to me in honest and personal detail why offering food triggered such an immediate and violent reaction? Please include at least three references to your childhood."

Gavin shoves more ravioli in his mouth and smacks as loudly as possible as he chews.

"Then perhaps you would prefer a simpler way of relating to one another," Nines speaks over the noise. "No emotional sharing, no childhood details, no sad sob stories about what made you like this. You behave, you get food. That is all."

"What if I don't behave?" Gavin immediately challenges.

"Then you do not receive any food or treats."

"You gonna punish me, sir?"

Nines glares down his perfectly sculpted nose at him. "If you had listened to my explanation on the benefits of positive reinforcement, you would already know why it is the more effective training method."

Gavin resists the urge to repeat thE MorE eFFeCtIve TrAInInG MeTHoD back at him.

"Also," Nines continues. "You are far too much of a needy little painslut to be truly punished by corporeal means."

Gavin focuses very hard on mopping up the rest of the meat sauce with his side of garlic bread instead of answering that. Even when they know better, he's never met a Dom he couldn't piss off into beating the shit out of him just like he wanted. Technically, if they're counting their little "scene" in the DPD's men's bathroom, Nines hasn't proven himself to be an exception, either.

"Well." He stands up and leaves the mess on the table. "Good luck with your totally not a kink pet play. I'm gonna go watch funny youtube videos until my brain dies."

"Cat videos?" Nines asks as he passes him, raising one perfect eyebrow. "Am I to assume those are not also a pet play ki—"

Gavin flips him off and slams his bedroom door shut.

***

***

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20 / 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 / 25 / 26 / 27 / 28 / 29 / 30 / 31 / 32 / 33

I also have a Patreon for this fic, if you want to support me! $1 gets you access to chapters a week early, $2 gets bonus content and deleted scenes, and $3 gets short chapters from two AUs I’m writing: an A/B/O heatfic and reverse!AU

by the way, Nines totally posted a video of himself feeding asleep-Gavin the ravioli to his blog and it has a weird overly formal title like Human (36M) Instinctively Eats Ravioli During the Course of REM Sleep. all of his posts are like that because they’re meant to be “educational” “”experiments”” and the text posts are just black text on a white background

meanwhile, Connor’s blog consists exclusively of super cute pictures featuring either him and Hank on dates or cuddling on the couch, and Sumo of course. Nines thinks it’s disgusting and dumb and is lowkey (actually highkey) upset that Connor’s blog gets way more views than his

It isn’t even educational!! >:(

[sadienita]

Take Care - Part 4

Minghao x Reader

Word Count: 1.9k

Warning: Mentions of alcohol and partying

It’s been a month since you’ve seen Minghao and the more time you think the more you realize that maybe you should have given him more of a chance. He deserved to fall in love, and maybe you did too.

You heard about the party from Ayoung. She said that Taemi heard about it while hanging out with some of the undergrad students, friends of Minghao’s you supposed. One of his friends was throwing a frat party. It was a good time to do so. You were only one week into second semester so there wasn’t a huge amount of school work to do yet. Everyone was still on top of themselves and after coming back from break it was good to see your friends again.

You weren’t going to go. You told Ayoung that when she mentioned what Taemi had said. She agreed, why would you go? All it would do was hurt both of you, right?

But, strangely, you found yourself thinking all day about what you wanted to wear to the party. It’s not like a frat party has a theme or anything. It’s not a costume party. You just pick something comfortable, something you fell good in, and go. That’s all that matters with a house party. Something you can be comfy in sober and drunk.

And yet you were trying on outfit after outfit. You were rotating through thing after thing, looking for the right one to wear.

“This shouldn’t matter,” you muttered to yourself. You weren’t going there to impress him. You weren’t going at all. You were just thinking about what you would wear if you did go. The smile Minghao would give you when he saw you, the smile you knew would make your heart melt. Wonhyun used to give you the same sort of smile.

This didn’t feel fair. That Minghao would get a soulmate so broken to pieces that she was afraid to care too much. That he would be stuck with someone like you. It seemed unfair to Wonhyun too, that he lost the chance. You lost your chance at a life together. He lost the chance at all the things you were supposed to have. And you wanted to honor him and his memory and you figured you would do that for the rest of your life.

Except now you were standing in front of a mirror and wondering what to wear to see Minghao. You were wondering what he would like. You couldn’t get him out of your head and your heart ached for him. Not in the way it did for Wonhyun, it wasn’t that kind of pain. It was a longing to be next to him, to feel his arms around you, to know he was there, to be in love again.

Your therapist said that it was okay to move on. That being given a second shot was a good thing. And you knew deep down that Wonhyun, not being able to be there, would want you to be happy. He wouldn’t want you to be sad and alone for your whole life. And maybe he sent Minghao, you weren’t sure if you believed that things worked that way but if they did…

If they did, then that was just like Wonhyun.

You had cycled through most of your closet but in the last few minutes you kept coming back to the same thing. A comfy pair of jeans, a tank top, and your favourite flannel. It was old. It had been Wonhyun's once upon a time. His mom thought you should keep it. At first you wore it all the time but over the years it started to sit in the back of your closet. You only pulled it out when you needed a bit of extra courage.

Tonight was one of those nights.

You checked the time. The party was just starting and by the time you bused there you could just slip in quietly. You were dressed. There was no reason now for you not to go. You made your way to the front of the house slowly. Ayoung and Taemi were sitting in the living room.

"You're going?" Taemi asked. She seemed confused but Ayoung looked understanding.

"I think I need to," you replied quietly. "I think I need to talk to Minghao and figure this out."

"Do you want company?" Ayoung asked, already knowing the answer.

"No…" you said slowly. "No, I need to do this alone." 

Ayoung stood up and hugged you. "You deserve the second chance, you know."

"You sound like Wonhyun when you talk like that." You mumbled.

"He would say the same thing," she smiled. Taemi have you a hug as well before the two of them retreated to their bedrooms. You took a deep breath before heading out the door.

The wait at the bus stop was cold and your nerves started to grow as you got on the bus and knew that the minutes were ticking down until you saw Minghao. You were restless the whole bus trip. You looked out the window and kept fiddling with the lining of your pockets. You hadn't said a word to Minghao since he drove you home around a month ago. He'd sent you a message that night to let you know he got home safe and since then it had been radio silence. You wanted desperately to reach out to him and say something but you were also hesitant. A part of you wished you could stop worrying about him and caring about him, but you knew that would never happen. And you knew he would be hurting being away from you too.

The automated voice over the bus sound system calling out your stop coming up caught your attention. You pulled the cord and shifted your bag, getting up as it slowed to a stop. The one block walk to the house felt long as your stomach did flip flops. You hadn't really considered him turning you down until right now. 

The muffled music could clearly be heard down the street as you approached the house. You took a deep breath as you walked up the laneway and made your way into the house. The party was clearly in full swing. Music was blaring the house was full of people. You had to wonder which of them had decided to throw the party in the first place. You wandered in and pulled your flannel closer around your body. You searched the room for a familiar face and you spotted Chan, Jia, and Mochou. Mochou caught your eye and waded through the crowd of people towards you.

"You're here, I heard you didn't want to see Minghao anymore."

"It’s… complicated. But I do." You said, tugging your sleeves over you hands. "What exactly did you hear?"

"That something happened. Minghao said he thought you might need time. That you probably wouldn't be around for a while. Jeonghan said you broke up with him."

"I mean we weren't really dating yet… But that's not the point. I need to talk to him."

She seemed to think it over for a second. "Alright, last I saw he's in the living room."

You thanked Mochou and made your way into the living room. You spotted Minghao but before you made it to him someone caught you around the middle and pulled you to the side. You looked up to find Jeonghan and Jun giving you very disapproving looks.

“You’re not about to make it worse,” Jeonghan stated.

“You basically broke his heart,” Jun added. “We’re not letting you go over there.”

“I… look my life is complicated. You two don’t have the whole story.”

Jeonghan crossed his arms. “We have enough. He’s been trying to tell us that he’s okay but we know he’s not.”

“He’s barely eating and he’s not sleeping most nights. I’m surprised he even came down from his room tonight.” Jun said. “I don’t know what you said to him, but he seems to be hanging onto some blind hope that you’re not going to leave him completely, that you needed time for something. So if all you came to do was smash his heart to bits, then-”

“You’re here.”

The three of you turned to look at Minghao. He had caught sight of you and pushed through the crowd in the living room to get to you. He indeed looked terrible, no doubt the things Jun said were true, and it made your heart ache. You couldn’t bare the thought of hurting him anymore. Even if it meant you might get hurt again one day.

“Yeah, Ayoung said that Taemi told her there was a party.” You said quietly. “Minghao, can we talk somewhere… quieter?”

Jun put his hand on Minghao’s arm but Minghao shook him off. Jun said something in Chinese and Minghao replied quickly, reassuring his friend before taking your hand and leading you up the stairs to his room. You could feel his hand shaking in yours and you squeezed his reassuringly. He closed the door when you got to the room to block out some of the music before sitting on the bed. You sat next to him.

It was quiet for a moment while you thought about what to say.

“I started going back to therapy,” you said. “I went before, back when Wonhyun… anyway I’ve been going for the past month and she says I deserve a second chance.”

Minghao turned towards you and looked up from his hands. “You thought you didn’t deserve a second chance?”

“That’s part of it.” you mumbled. “I felt guilty. I spent so much time getting used to the idea that my chance was gone and then there was you. And it didn’t feel fair to anyone. It didn’t feel fair to Wonhyun that his life was ripped away. It didn’t feel fair to you that you had someone with such a damaged heart.”

“Your heart isn’t damaged.”

“Minghao!” you exclaimed. “I freak out when you cross the street! I feel sick to my stomach when I know you’re in a car! I can barely ride in a car without fearing for my life and I could have gotten us killed! I’m just trying not to feel guilty about the fact that I can feel myself falling in love with you. I’m trying not to feel guilty that I thought Wonhyun was the only person I would ever love like that. I feel terrible because I know I put you through pain this last month. I didn’t say a word to you and I know how painful it is to lose your soulmate so I know not knowing if I would ever talk to you again…”

You trailed off as Minghao wiped your cheeks with his thumbs. You hadn’t ever realized you were crying.

“I don’t think you’re damaged,” Minghao said quietly. “And I don’t think you’re broken. You went through something unthinkable. Of course you freaked out when the weather was bad and you thought we might get hit.”

“I still shouldn’t have just… stopped talking to you.”

“No, that was really hard. But I also know it’s complicated, and I know you coming tonight says a lot.”

You sniffed. “Yeah well, I don’t want to be away from you any longer. But I’m terrified. I’m so scared that something is going to happen to you. I don’t know if-”

“No one knows,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t let ourselves fall in love.”

You hugged Minghao close and buried your face in his neck. “Thank you. But don’t be surprised if I never let you out of my sight.”

He squeezed you and let out a little chuckle. “I think I’d be okay with that.”

[gcnnerpaxton]

“So what’s Lockwood like? Is New York fun?”

Gunner’s been attempting to focus for a majority of the night; mingle, make friends, generally stuff he wasn’t the best at, but one of the best parts of Amsterdam was the fact that everyone got to start over. For the most part.

Finally tearing his gaze away from his phone for the hundredth time, Gunner realizes far too late that there’s a group of students glancing in his direction. All looking weary, and he can’t blame them. They’d given him far too many chances to talk about himself, talk about New York, talk about anything, but instead, he’d been waiting for another text back, something else to make his blood boil. Which feels useless at this point - until it’s not, until there’s another notification. A location he doesn’t particularly plan on heading towards, but there’s the temptation nonetheless.

“Sorry. Fuckin’… migraine,” he lies, excuse obvious and lame as he starts to back away, “But it was… super dope meeting you guys.”

Already glancing at the ground as he all but tiptoes away, Gunner finds it a bit hard to make eye contact again. He’s more than familiar with the look of confusion or disappointment people flash in his direction, mostly due to his awkward nature. As much as Amsterdam was supposed to be a new beginning, there was only so much Gunner could do.

The only reason he’d come to the block party in the first place was to hopefully run into Elias. He hadn’t seen his brother since Laramie and hadn’t talked to him since their last awkward text conversation, but there were so many students in such a confined space, all Gunner really wanted was some fresh air at this point. Even then, away from the crowd, roaming the back streets of Amsterdam, Gunner feels constricted. Like he can’t properly breathe, checking his phone time and time again. For another text maybe, someone saying gigs up! Still, he heads towards the direction of the location he’d received, incapable of helping himself. Curiosity killed the cat and all of that.

“Fucking Christ,” he scoffs, giving in and opening up his contacts, hardly hesitating before pressing call on Eli’s number. Gunner hasn’t really thought of what he’d say - probably something simple, considering that the Paxton’s avoided talking about proper feelings almost as much as one would avoid the plague. To his relief, he receives Elias’ automated answering machine, letting out a genuine huff before blurting, “Eli.”

Gunner pauses then, still unsure of what to say. He’d never been good with words, especially in the face of his brother, but he’s a little drunk and more than  a little lonely, so the words come flowing before he can properly think them through, “I was trying to look for you at the block party but I didn’t see, like… anyone I recognized. So now I’m walking around the sketchy parts of Amsterdam on my own, and I think that’s… even sadder than awkwardly standing alone in the middle of a fuck ton of people. Did all of Lockwood secretly get… kidnapped by aliens or something?” Gunner stops walking then, free hand shoved into his pocket as an audible sigh can be heard, “Okay, fuckin’… I was kinda cunty to you last time we talked. Sorry, but… not cause I was, like, mad at you, y’know? I was just kinda freaked. I hate being back in Laramie without you. It just makes me think of my senior years of high school. Gross. So… yeah, sorry. About that.”

There’s something that tastes like emotion, sitting raw and heavy on Gunner’s tongue as he talks. It’s become hard to swallow suddenly, and he can’t tell if it’s from the alcohol making him somewhat emotional or the topic he has on mind as he continues to talk, “Some fucking asshole was… texting me earlier. I don’t know, with the funeral just days ago. Kinda sucked. I, um. I said something. Like, on your behalf, cause… I think you were gonna say something. And dad told me to keep it reserved, whatever the fuck that means, but. I mean, the last thing I said was that people can’t keep blaming us for doing what kids do, and… I don’t know. I do know, but I don’t. … Eli, we were - we were just kids,” A hand’s moved to mostly cover up Gunner’s face, like he’s embarrassed to show any emotion to a crowd that doesn’t exist.

“I don’t really want to blame myself for what happened anymore, Eli,” he whispers, voice still shaky despite how quiet he was in that moment, “And I don’t think you should either. I never… ever blamed you. Which is like. Weird, I guess, ‘cause… I mean, I bet you never blamed me, but you blamed yourself a lot. But I don’t want to blame myself anymore, and I don’t want you to either. We were just fucking kids. We were just -,”

There’s a thwack then - or at least the sound of it, of something smacking another thing to produce a wet sort of gut-wrenching sound. Gunner doesn’t actually feel any sort of pain, doesn’t even realize the noise was something large and hefty hitting off his own head, before he’s crumpling to his knees with a grunt, phone clattering to the ground. Automatically, still before the pain sets in, he’s reaching to clutch at the back of his head in confusion. It’s wet, with what he can only assume is blood - and then it feels like the world is beginning to spin again. In a sudden, suffocating jolt of adrenaline, Gunner realizes exactly what’s happening. He’d researched it enough after Wyatt - all the ways someone could get attacked before they’re kidnapped, how to survive a kidnapping, etc. With all the research he’d done, he figured he’d be better at getting away, but nothing really prepared him for the body grabbing lethargic feeling that came with being hit in the head that hard.

“Eli -,” he starts, like his brother’s right there in front of him, able to reach out and help him. But it’s just him there. For the most part - he’s soon reminded of his company when there’s a second, shocking blow to the head that immediately has his vision blackening around the edges before the dark swarms in and clouds over what he can see entirely.

There’s not much fear, surprisingly. Maybe one too many hits to the head did that to you, left you incapable of expressing proper emotion. But the moment’s mildly ironic. He doesn’t feel much, but Gunner can’t help but think about his mother; throughout the many years of blaming himself for Wyatt’s disappearance, he figured it was mostly because his mother would rather the youngest Paxton stay by her side than himself or Elias. Partially, it felt like her wish was coming true, and despite it all, as his mind finally gave up on the battle of staying conscious, the thought gave him nothing but peace.