#i certainly am learning about all the machines this way

[lazeecomet]

I think i've figured out what my job is now.

i've been at this place for a little over a month and i've got a OK grasp for whats going on. All the other engineers have got one or two big projects that they have been working on for several weeks: large redesigns for existing machines and such.

that is not what im working on. As i am so new, im doing small projects. database is missing pictures. a weld print is bad/ambiguous. a dimension is not called out. A SOP is needed. my 1 bigger project is trying to find a way to fit an airline though a very narrow space, which has been "where in the fuck can i drill a hole and not fuck it up"

what made me see my roll was when someone came up from the floor with a set of prints with red pen on it complaining that they have to modify every part to fit. my boss took it, thanked them, and before they had even made it out the door shouted over to me "hey Lazyeecomet. New project for you. its on the board"

Im the guy they put onto the small low risk projects that need a competent engineer to do them, but they dont want to take away the time from the REAL talent

Example: the plexiglass window kept cracking during install. my job: figure out why the OTHER, smaller plexiglass window does not break and do that for the big one

the small one has rubber washers on it. we cant use them because the screw is smaller. i found the bigger washer on McMaster. i updated the CAD model to include the washer. i made the screw longer so it would work. i ran the prints off for the new part. i told the installers to USE the washer

the installer broke the window anyways. i checked the machine and the metal frame was warped so it was never the bolt head cracking it. it was the bending the entire time. i tell my boss that the frame is so far out of alignment we could fit a washer on the back and be flush and that we should probably have some kind of gasket on the back to fill in the space

he says to put the washers on both sides. i grab longer screws, plonk them down with the installers and tell them the washers go on both sides now, tomorrow i update the CAD and prints again.

but you know what? the day passes really quickly and im learning a lot. with time i may get some bigger projects.

[gofishygo]

nikto + reader blurb

notes: mostly fluff, sex mentioned but no explicit scenes, slight body horror (nikto's scars), canon typical violence [mentions], god i love it when characters manage to heal and come to terms with their past and fall in love

honestly hoping n praying that nikto learns to live the softest n slowest life ever after meeting reader.

he's never gotten a day of comfort in his life, not after those interrogations. scared away both women and men in and outside of the military ever since then- face and body already nothing short of brutish and jagged angles, a bulk of muscle and fat that shadowed over every figure, weathered down to a near-macabre sight at the result of warfare. now the right half of his gum is exposed, torn apart by shrapnel and knife carvings that dragged across his face. sliced-off nostrils, yellow teeth poised at the world that had wronged him like a vulture preparing to feast- it was his unfortunate charm, the one that left him so often kicked out of brothels and whispered about in bars and revered in the barracks, smoking freely without disturbance in places where such had been outlawed years ago. of course he sees you- all keen and watching innocently, so starry eyed that it seems to blind you from his nature.

nikto would look down at his hands and see them as none further than machines. structured with bone and flesh to take down targets, but a puppet to the whims of the other voices that thrived only in his head. he was no more than the manifestation of his disorders, only set to take down the corpses that kortac had pointed at, the ones that kortac claimed to have wronged him.

and then you truly slip into his life, all doe-eyed and star-crossed. he thinks its none other than blasphemy, some sort of sick joke when you practically glue to him at the coffee shop, fixed on the crossword puzzles between his calloused hands. prodding around and occasionally chirping answers, some curious, but unfortunate, little thing that ended up right between his jaws. and he tries to spit you out, brush you off- your greetings at bars, parks, streetsides, alleyways none other than ignored with cold eyes and a masked face. but your laugh, sweet words- it trickles between cracks, melts the solute of stone, and soon enough, you're in his bed at seven am, tucked under his arm. he'd given you what you've wanted; held your body as gently as he had the ability to, growled some praise in your ear, let you sob into the pillows.

so he doesn't expect it when you show up at his door once again, oh-so-lovely smile on your face. certainly even more surprised when you keep coming, and cant deny the way his head goes a little fuzzy when he sees the notes you leave while he's in deployments, how you fold his sheets and put some flowers in a vase you'd bought that rested on his kitchen countertop. he leaves the door unlocked now, gives you the keys, and lets you in when the nights are cold.

you teach him things- how to tell if he's dreaming. learns to see his hands as more than accessories to murder, uses them as indicators to split his reality from the ones owned by his voices. you're teaching him how to make coffee and trim flowers and all he is learns is how to look at the world without staining it with blood. but it's okay- you help steady his shaking hands, hold the kettle of boiling water with him, and the weeks eventually unfurl into years.

and now, he wakes up next to you every morning, stays in bed cuddling with you until you reluctantly have to shove him away because although he's retired you still have a job, and he waters the plants and feeds the dogs outside, waiting only until you and the furry critters are well away to smoke. but it is not out of stress, no longer to rid himself of his heads, and more of a bad habit now. and the hole that the lack of conflict has left in him is so filled with you and your smile and your patience, with taking care of the garden, making coffee, helping with your paperwork. the never ending spurr of his voices still keeps him up at night sometimes, leaves him twitching. but it allows him to watch you fall asleep, feel your pulse under his cupped hand, even through the throbbing pain.

this is what life is meant to be like, maybe. taking off his mask and unbuckling the straps so he can feel your lips against what was left of his.

[jadeleechsupportgroup]

Laundry Day

floyd and jade learn how not to do laundry.

cw: none

also on ao3

note: this is a vignette from a collection for a full-length fic, but there are no spoilers in it and I like it as its own thing.

Floyd tapped the window of the washing machine with a suspicious expression. “Are you sure we’re doing this right?”

Jade was reading the instructions on the bottle of detergent. “I am mostly sure,” he replied. “I measured everything carefully.”

“Hmmm.” Floyd looked and sounded skeptical. “Are you sure we put enough bleach?”

“Again, mostly sure,” Jade replied. He hummed and set the detergent down. “I suppose we shall find out in due time.”

“Ehh, I don’t know about this thing.” Floyd was treating the washer as if it had challenged him to a staring contest.

Jade understood his skepticism to a point. Much to his personal embarrassment, they had never actually done laundry since moving ashore. At school the staff had handled it. But it could not be terribly difficult if most humans managed it on a regular basis.

What he found particularly fascinating was the way stains worked. A stain was all but impossible underwater, but they interacted with different fabrics in unpredictable ways. Blood, for example, needed to be rinsed in cold water immediately if there were any hope of eliminating it. Dirt and mud were more easily dislodged, while any sort of oil-based substance was much more difficult. He was already devising all kinds of experiments that would answer his questions.

“It will never dry anything if you continue opening the door,” Jade said when Floyd checked the contents of the dryer for the tenth time in almost as many minutes.

“It’s taking so looooong.” Floyd threw himself down on the floor with his limbs splayed out like a starfish. “I demand entertainment.”

“I have not connected the TV and such yet,” Jade answered, which elicited another groan of potentially fatal boredom from his twin. “Check the games cupboard.”

That certainly perked him up. Floyd got to his feet and went to rummage through their collection. He returned with Battleship and a glowing grin.

Jade cleared a space on the floor. Moving was an exhausting process, and he was beginning to think furniture was more trouble than it was worth. They set up the game, each of them trying - and failing - to fold their excessively long legs into a comfortable seating position. Floyd gave up and stretched out on his stomach, propped up on his elbows. Jade felt awkward doing the same and settled for keeping his legs off to the side and leaning on one hip.

“E5.”

“Miss.”

Jade placed a white peg on his side.

“Hmm…C4.”

Jade blinked. “Hit,” he replied and added the red peg to the bow of his destroyer. His gaze flicked upward to meet his brother’s with a slight edge.

Floyd giggled. “It’s your favorite stable plastic explosive.”

Jade sighed. “Am I so transparent?”

“Yes. C5.”

Another hit. Jade decided he really must learn to be more surreptitious about his preferences.

Floyd had decimated Jade’s fleet and was about to deal the final blow when there was a knock at the door. Jade went to answer it, grateful for the opportunity to stretch his legs.

“Hello, Azul.”

Azul strode in. “Greetings.” He scanned the mess of the apartment with barely-concealed dismay. “How are things going?”

“We’re playing Battleship!” Floyd cried from his place on the floor. Then the dryer alarm sounded to announce that it was finished, so he rolled to his feet and went to open it. He removed an armload of clothes and carried them into the bedroom. There was a soft whoosh as he tossed everything on the mattress. Then he returned to move the next load from the washer to the dryer. “Play with us!”

Azul shut his eyes for an extra-long blink and willed himself not to react. “You should fold or hang up clothing immediately after removing it from the dryer,” he said flatly. “Otherwise it will be wrinkled.”

“Laterrrr,” Floyd whined.

“And Battleship is only a two-player game,” Azul continued as he removed his shoes to leave them by the door.

“Uhh, yeah, maybe if you don’t have six copies of it.” Floyd rolled his eyes and went to collect the other five.

Azul frowned at Jade. “Why?”

Jade shrugged. “Object permanence.”

Floyd cleared out their current game and swiftly assembled the playing field so that each of them had two boards. He took his spot on the floor again and gazed up at the others eagerly. “Come onnn.”

Jade gave a tiny, helpless shake of his head and went to join him. Azul followed with tangible reluctance.

“I offered to help you organize things,” he said tartly. “I have a schedule, you know.”

“Should’ve written a contract,” Floyd giggled. “Now you have no choice but to have fun.”

Azul resigned himself to it. He had an easier time sitting with his legs crossed on the floor than Jade, who kept changing his position every few minutes in a futile attempt at comfort.

Jade looked around at the state of their new apartment while Floyd explained his ludicrously complicated house rules for Mega Battleship. It seemed impossible for them to own so many things. When he last spoke to their mother, she assured him that once they had everything put away, it would ease his anxieties. He did not like for things to be out of place. It would be too easy for someone to cover their tracks if they had broken in, if they were lying in wait for him-

Jade shook the thought out of his head with a twitch and reached his arm across to rub his other shoulder. It did not truly hurt anymore, but the thought continued to pester him.

“H10,” said Azul.

“Miss,” said Jade, glad that he had managed to get his thoughts back on track before either of them noticed. “D9.”

“Miss!” Floyd grinned. “J8.”

Jade sighed. “Hit. You have eliminated my submarine.”

“Knew it!”

“I mean this in the most polite way possible,” said Azul, “but how the hell are you so good at this game?”

Floyd shrugged. “I’m not. You two are just so obvious.”

They played through two rounds of it, then took a break to do some actual work. Azul and Jade set to patiently organizing things, putting things away, and hanging up the clothes Floyd had so eloquently discarded on the mattress. It was sitting directly on the floor, and Jade was seriously considering leaving it there, even though Floyd had threatened to build a tent over it and pretend they were camping every night.

“When will your furniture arrive?” Azul asked after a while.

Jade was spending a little too much time flattening the collars and lapels of every shirt and coat in the closet. “We have not purchased any yet,” he said. “I have not found anything to my liking.”

“Hmm,” Azul said. “And Floyd?”

“He finds everything to his liking.” Jade imagined that a room designed by Floyd with an unlimited budget would look patently ridiculous. In the same trip to a furniture store, Floyd had decided he wanted a bean bag chair, an inflatable couch, and a hot tub that would have cost several thousand dollars. (“In the bedroom?” “Uh, duh? Where else?”)

Jade was surprised to sense Azul coming suddenly toward him, leaving enough space for his comfort, save a hand reaching out to rest on his shoulder. He turned away from his anxious fingers, making no effort to hide his distress. There was no point in trying to conceal anything around Azul; his senses were as finely tuned as the eels’, and that aside, Jade trusted him.

“It’s alright,” Azul said simply. “I ensured those responsible were dealt with.” His eyes gleamed, and his jaw was firmly set. “Comprehensively.”

“Of course.” Jade let his gaze drop to the floor of the closet, where Floyd’s shoe collection was spilling over onto his side. “I know that, logically, the odds are quite low that it would happen again.”

Azul took hold of the hand that was once again rubbing his shoulder. Jade had not even realized he was doing it again. “It is also logical to feel lingering effects, Jade.”

Jade closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath that turned into a sigh.

“Food’s here,” Floyd yelled from the living room.

Jade hung up one more shirt before following Azul to the kitchen. They had little choice but to eat at the counter, but Floyd merrily unpacked the boxes of sushi and seafood and spread them out buffet-style. He pushed the box of sashimi in Jade’s direction and hoarded the spicy tuna rolls for himself. Azul and Jade picked at various items with their chopsticks since apparently they had not purchased any plates yet, either.

Floyd opened the next box and froze. “Uhh, who ordered this?”

Azul and Jade peeked at the contents. “Ah, that’s mine,” said Azul.

Floyd and Jade just stared at him as he separated a piece of grilled and glazed eel meat from the others and lifted it to his mouth. He seemed to enjoy it a little too much.

“What?” he asked with feigned innocence. “It’s good.”

Floyd made sure to stare at Azul with his most unhinged expression as he sucked down an entire octopus arm between the points of his teeth like a second tongue. “Serves you right,” Floyd said when Azul’s mouth twitched. “That could’ve been my grandmother. At least your fricken arms grow back.” Floyd paused, as if silently wondering whether this would still work in Azul’s human form.

“Don’t get any bright ideas,” Azul said, pointing the chopsticks at him.

The dryer alarm went off again. Floyd all but leapt up to go open it. When Jade looked at him curiously, Floyd just grinned. “It’s warm and soft,” he explained. When he opened the door, several strips of what looked like paper fluttered out of it with a puff of dryer lint. “Whoops.”

Azul thought nothing of it at first, but his attention snagged on something. They couldn’t have been receipts. Receipts that went through a wash-and-dry cycle turned into little annoying balls of wadded-up paper that shredded all over the place. “Floyd,” he said with intensifying alarm, “what is that?”

“Uh, my favorite blankie and pillowcases. Also the money.”

Azul all but choked. “Excuse me?”

Floyd shrugged. “I washed it. No big deal. You’re welcome.”

Azul tripped over his own feet as he staggered to the dryer. He snatched up the pieces of material and examined them with growing horror. “Floyd,” he said again, “what did you do?”

Now it was Floyd’s turn to look at him like he was crazy. “Did you forget already? Just did what you asked.”

The bleached, worthless bills slipped from Azul’s quavering hands.

“Are you alright, Azul?” Jade asked from a safe distance.

Floyd, ignoring the unraveling of Azul’s temperament, removed the rest of the bundle from the dryer and walked it to the bedroom, leaving a trail of shattered dreams fluttering to the floor behind him. “I don’t know what you’re upset about,” he said indignantly. “You’re the one who said to launder the money.”

Jade was certain Azul was about to faint, if he did not explode first. His eyes bulged behind his glasses, and his voice came out in a soft, raspy, desperate scrape against his throat. “That is not what I meant.”

[makuta-tobi]

Nat stared at her computer screen, cursor blinking in tandem with her heartbeat, so loud in her ears she may as well have been at a metal concert. Months she had worked on her project, skipping meals, staying awake until sunrise, and then a few hours more after that. Now she was a few keystrokes away from finally testing it. Cables ran from her ramshackle computer, meeting and mingling with others attached to a bank of hard drives, all spinning with uploads and downloads. On the inflatable mattress behind her, the fruits of her labour lay eerily still. With a deep, shaky exhale, she typed in the last few lines of code into her launcher, and pressed the enter key.

The whirring of the fans pointed towards the makeshift server seemed to drown out all other noise as the program executed. Then a series of smaller fans, a sharper sound than the box fan nearby, as they all sprang to life at once. Nat pressed her palms together as her creation came online. As servos activated and limbs went from rigid to an almost relaxed state, she couldn't help but whisper “it lives” to herself. The machine in front of her made a sudden jolt, and a light on the side of its head illuminated a pale white. Online and active. She twisted from her position on the floor to check her monitors and saw that all systems were operating nominally. Neural pathways were registering stimuli, artificial synapses were firing as thoughts began to form. It worked!

Nat placed her hand on the machine's upper back and guided it to a sitting position. She had been sure to feed the computer a good handful of data about herself, and the basics of knowledge in order to train the AI and make sure it didn't immediately shut down from overstimulation.

God knows I certainly would have, she thought to herself with an eyeroll.

“Are you awake?” her first question was more of a way to test the robot's speech recognition, its self evaluation, word association, and also to ensure that the vocal modulation was up to satisfactory conditions.

“I am awake,” it responded. The robot drew its arms closer to its torso and seemed to look around the room briefly, before turning its head to face Nat.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked, once again checking its recognition and perception.

“Natalie, you created and programmed me, I believe,” it tilted its head almost as though trying to determine if this was the correct answer. The data she had fed it before it woke up had included details about herself, photos and videos of her, vocal samples, and the AI was interpreting this information and comparing it to the details in front of it. The face, the voice, it all matched. But the robot seemed almost unsure, as if contemplating whether the information it had was incomplete. Perhaps it had been told that this person, whose face and voice it knew, was the one who built it, but that did not necessarily mean the information it had was true. Nonetheless, Nat smiled and nodded, and the robot's shoulders almost imperceptibly relaxed.

“That's right. I did create you, and I programmed you to be something new, but familiar. You have a lot of potential, and I'm glad to meet you.” The robot tilted its head at the framing of the statement.

“What potential do I have?” it asked. A curious mind, or simply a rudimentary AI probing for information to expand its knowledge set?

“You have multiple functions as yet unseen. All of you, from the smallest details of your body, to your quizzical mind, all are new ways to expand the experience of everyone.” When the robot did not respond right away, and simply looked down at its form, still sitting upright on the air mattress, she continued her explanation. “Your frame is designed with limb augments and prosthesis in mind,” she gestured to the carbon fiber metal that made up its hands and arms. “Your sensor suite is expected to replace the damaged vision or hearing of someone who has lost theirs. Your AI can expand and contain the breadth of knowledge and actually learn, instead of just regurgitate answers it had received beforehand.”

“What of this?” the robot touched the gray fleshy material covering its lower abdomen, stretching down to its thighs.

“That is actually two things. The first is a synthetic skin that can be created to replace basic skin grafts and other replacement techniques we currently have. The second is that the skin is used as a mount for artificial nerves that can replace damaged ones.”

The robot ran its hands over its body as she explained it. Fine black digits ran over smooth arms and shoulders, stroking across the lighter fake flesh that extended over parts of itself. It then raised its head and looked at her again, cocking its head to the side. In the black glass dome of its face, Nat could only see her own reflection, distorted like staring into dark water. She had always taken issue with the way her nose sat, or criticized that one eyebrow was higher than the other. The self deprecation had always come easy, but looking back at herself from this angle, it was like seeing herself anew, as she really was. When she had begun construction on the robot's exoskeleton so long ago, she had wondered if this would feel like interacting with her child for the first time, but now, she realized, it was more like talking to herself. She felt love for the machine in a way that was hard to quantify, and thus, she knew, she loved herself, in some weird, roundabout way.

“My design, my purpose, is for medical research, is that correct?” the robot asked. She saw, in her reflection, the corners of her mouth turn up in a smile that she liked seeing.

“Your design, yes. You were made with the intention of looking into a variety of medical advancements all at once, to see how they might interact with each other, as well as individually. But your purpose is for you to decide, once you find it. That might take some time, but I think all living things will eventually find it.”

“Am I alive?” the robot's question wasn't exactly unexpected, but it was quick to ask so bluntly.

“Scientifically, maybe not. Ethically, I'm sure some people would take issue with me trying to say otherwise, but realistically? In my mind? You move, you think, you have the potential to imagine, and dream, and exist here. I don't see why you couldn't consider that being alive.”

The robot nodded, its hidden visual sensors scanning Nat up and down, taking in the sight of what it could consider life, based solely on firsthand experience and not a dataset provided before it had even been conscious. Her dyed blonde hair had faded quite a bit since its last treatment, with longer dark roots peaking out. Her eye mascara was smudged, but the dark rings around her eyes framed her gray-blue irises almost ethereally. Her loose tank top draped across her body and hid her shape, and her shorts were stained with pen ink. In spite of her unkempt appearance, or perhaps because of it, the robot perceived, that this was life.

They both shook off the initial studiousness of their first interaction, and Nat turned to her computer, minimizing the command prompt window and revealing a program with a split screen. On one side, an image that appeared to resemble an approximation of a human brain structure. On the other, lines of data were being written and recorded, a text log of the robots experiences made legible.

“Before we get too existential,” Nat said almost wistfully, “we need to make sure your various systems are functioning the way they are intended to.” She turned back to the robot and handed it a ball. It appeared like a gel filled stress ball, and the robot took it, turning it over in its hand. “I just need you to give that a squeeze. Use your instincts and apply enough pressure to squish it, but not break it.”

The robot looked at the ball for a moment and squished it twice in its hand. The portions of the ball not covered by the robot's palm and fingers would expand briefly with the pressure, but would relax as soon as the pressure was let off. The robot then closed its fist around the ball, with the gel-filled portions blowing up to larger size, and it held that position. Nat jotted a note down on a piece of paper with her pencil and then nodded.

“Okay, you can go ahead and release it.” The robot relaxed its fingers and the ball returned to its normal shape. Nat took it and then turned to fully face the robot again. “Now I'm going to test the artificial nerves in the skin.” She pressed the eraser of her pencil against the gray flesh on the robot's hip and turned to look at her monitor. A portion of the brain image lit up. “Do you feel that?”

“Yes,” the robot answered curtly. Nat scribbled something else down on her note paper.

“Okay, now look over there,” she gestured with her pencil. She had to be sure that the sensation registration was due to the actual physical stimuli, and not the recognition that touching the spot should produce a registration. The robot turned its head to look in the direction she had indicated, and then she pushed down on the middle of its thigh. Again, she turned her head to look at the screen, and saw the same area of the brain image glowing. “Do you feel that?”

“Yes,” the robot answered again.

“Don't look, but show me where,” she said. Making sure that it could identify the location of the sensation was also important, so its spatial awareness was also under observation. The robot slid its hand over the skin and touched a single finger directly next to her pencil. A simple example of manual dexterity, which would certainly be tested later, but good to know. “Okay, now one more,” she said. Flipping her pencil around, she pressed the sharpened graphite into a spot near its groin, where the thigh and hip met. Even without seeing the pencil, the robot reacted stronger than she had anticipated. It jolted at the sudden sharp stimuli, and the hand that was still resting on its thigh clenched into a fist. She quickly withdrew the pencil from the skin.

“I'm so sorry!” her voice seemed almost panicked as she checked the monitor. Not only had it registered the sensation, but the synaptic response on the monitor showed a lingering feeling as it slowly dissipated. “How do you feel?” she turned her head back to look at the robot, which had returned its gaze to her.

“Warm,” it answered. She looked down to see that her hand was placed over the spot her pencil had poked, stabbed really, and that feeling was helping to calm the feeling in the robot. She exhaled, and pushed her bangs back. At least that much worked.

“I'm going to log your reactions so far, just a second.” Nat spun around on the floor, selecting a portion of the text that still scrolled across her screen and saving it in a separate folder. The robot tilted its head and examined the tattoo on her shoulder while she worked. A diamond butterfly unfurling its wings and escaping a cocoon made of coal on the back of her right arm. A little on the nose, to be sure, but her friends had assured her the imagery was lovely. Something beautiful and real coming out of a period of harsh change under tremendous pressure. It defined Nat's life, growing up in a family that was always standoffish, not fitting in for so long and not knowing why. Diagnosis after diagnosis making matters worse, while she struggled to find herself, becoming sloth, and finally discovering her own truth and breaking free of the old things. She still carried parts of her from before, but she was unrecognizable and planned to live her life the way that was best for her. None of this was necessarily spoken by the art itself, but the idea was still conveyed well enough.

“What is all this,” the robot said in a softer tone than it had been using, running its hand over the inked skin. None of the photos she had trained its recognition algorithm on had included the tattoo, apparently, and the robot only had a vague grasp of what it was. Instinctively, Nat's hand went up and she placed it over the robot's.

“It's a story, etched into my skin forever. It's art, something that makes me happy.”

“Can you do that? Make changes to yourself?” Nat laughed at the sudden question. The ink was the least of the changes she had ever made to herself.

“Yes, we all have these bodies, but the beautiful thing is that they're ours. We can generally do whatever we want with them.”

“Would I be able to do that?” the robot asked. It was a valid question, and had she been talking to a person, the answer would have been obvious. But the robot had been designed in a way that was different than a human. It had a similar shape, similar features, but it was made to do something entirely different, and because of that, the question was a bit more complex.

“Would that make you happy?” she decided to answer. The robot traced the wings of the butterfly gently with one finger.

“I don't know. Maybe,” it replied. Nat nodded.

“That's part of what I meant earlier, when I said you can find your purpose. If you want to make modifications, when you are ready, then perhaps you can.” There was a longer pause between the two as Nat saved the final file. She sat facing the screen for a moment, chewing the end of her pencil in thought. Once she had made up her mind, Nat pulled her mouse cursor up to a toggle that showed OFF and clicked it.

Honestly, fuck it, she thought, once again hearings her heart race in her ears, louder than before. If every other test is going off without a hitch, might as well try the last bit. Turning around again, she faced the robot once more. The two of them sat with their legs crossed in front of them, the robot obviously at some point copying Nat's posture, though whether the choice was subconscious or not wasn't immediately clear.

“There's one more feature you were designed with that I want to check out,” she said. The robot tilted its head, studying her slightly flushed face. “For a variety of reasons, sometimes specific body parts are needed to be replaced, or built from scratch, and our current technological advancement is not where it could be. So you were also designed with this feature in mind, to see if it was possible to make one that accurately mimics the natural human body response.” Nat swore she heard a drum solo as she placed her hands on the robot's knees. From its position on the air mattress, it had a slightly higher position than her, which was more than reasonable.

“What do you need to do to test this response?” the robot asked innocently. Nat kind of wished there was a little bit more deviousness to the inquiry, but that was fine. Maybe it would learn that behaviour later.

“Just relax,” she said, pressing one hand on its lower abdomen and pushing it back slightly, which it obliged and propped itself back on its hands. “I need to see how it all works.”

Nat ran her hands from the robot's knees down its inner thighs, which seemed to tense and then relax with her touch. Though it hadn't questioned it before, the robot was suddenly aware of an extra appendage on its body, smaller and slender. But as her fingertips traced small circles across its inner thighs, the additional part began, quickly, to swell. The robot initially believed it to be some sort of error, but the slight twinkle in Nat's eyes belayed this concern, and it watched as she began to press her lips to the inner, upper thigh portions of its skin. Each kiss sent a shock of reaction up the leg, to the groin where the part had become nearly fully erect, and then up to the robot's brain. Without knowing why, the robot clenched one of its hands against the mattress.

“It does react realistically,” Nat said. The robot seemed to shiver as she stopped. “That's good news, but there's a few other things I want to make sure work.”

“Like wh-!” the robot was cut off as Nat smirked and engulfed its cock in her mouth. The skin had the same feeling as human, and the heat it produced was comparable to any person, but the rush to Nat's head was far more exhilarating than any other time in her life. Her tongue ran over the tip and the robot's leg shook. She sucked it further into her mouth and she swore she heard the robot's internal fans kick up to compensate for the increased heat. She tried to steady herself, breathing through her nose as she bobbed her head up and down slowly on the robot's cock, feeling like it was melting on her tongue. She chanced a glance up at its black domed face, which was tilting from side to side, thrashing around in ecstasy. Certainly the plan was working well. But she needed to check how well.

Grabbing the robot's hips, scooting closer, she began moving her head faster, running her tongue across the tip of its cock every time she got near the top. The robot's legs were now quaking quite a bit, and it suddenly leaned forward, placing its hands on the back of her head and bucking its hips, the loud whirring of its fans matching her heartbeat. It held her in that position for just a moment before releasing her. Nat pulled her head up off its member, relieved to be able to take a few full gulps of air.

“What was that?” the robot asked, its voice peaking.

“That was a test to see if you can orgasm,” Nat panted, “and while normally you might produce a sort of liquid material, I wasn't really able to... get anything like that for you.” Nat's face was bright red as she said the last few words. “There's a small reservoir system in your lower abdomen and a pump that would probably recreate it, but I didn't have anything to use this time around so it's empty. That said, it's good to know everything is working as planned."

The robot was still shaking minutely, and Nat watched it, pushing her bangs back and rubbing her thighs together. She had a desperate need of release, herself. It wasn't exactly part of the plan, but she felt needy, and even though she had never quite gone that far with any person before... The thought crept back into her mind, seeing her own reflection in its faceplate, loving herself. And she wanted to feel loved. Glancing down, she noticed that the robot's cock was, in fact, still fully erect. She had felt it unnecessary to reproduce a refractory period, and thus the robot simply could wait it out or, had it been aware, simply shut off the system. But she didn't want it to be aware. Not yet.

“Hey, come here,” she said, getting up and holding the robot close. Even the carbon fiber felt warm and lifelike to the touch. Not as soft as skin, but comforting. The robot reciprocated, wrapping its arms around her waist and pulled her close. She held that position for a second, then pulled back from it. “Now to check endurance, is that okay?” Nat almost feared a response that was unsure she would even get.

“Of course, if that's what's needed.” The robot's blunt answer betrayed its appearance as it looked her up and down. She stripped off her shirt, and touched the robot's stomach. It mirrored her behaviour, splaying its fingers over her skin and dragging them across her body. As it felt her, she knew it wasn't able to truly experience the sensation, but hoped that perhaps it was perceiving it. She undid her shorts and dropped them as it explored her chest, her head tilting back. She slid her underwear down as well, and knelt in front of the robot completely naked. She couldn't hide her face, she knew it, and the robot would likely not understand the concept of shame, but she still felt compelled.

Its hands trailed down her hips and thighs, and one cupped her own cock. Nat felt like dying as it ran the soft fingertips over her, but she couldn't ask it to stop. She wanted more, her body felt like an inferno. It stroked her cock, and ran its thumb over the tip, mimicking the way she had licked it, and she let out a squeak. It pumped her a bit more, before she felt like collapsing backwards.

“Wait, wait, hold on,” she panted. The robot immediately released her, and she slid up onto the air mattress. Laying on her side, she brushed away a few cans and bottles strewn on the floor, and tossed a pair of older underwear to the side, finding a small bottle. The contents were crystal clear, and glinted under the light of the nearby lamp. She popped the bottle open and poured some of it on her fingers. Leaning forward and pressing her head against the robot's chest, she let the slick digits coat her ass in the liquid, probing her own hole, which gave way easily to one of her fingers. She then poured some more of the lube onto the robot's cock, and it shook slightly as she stroked it up and down, coating it in the shimmering liquid. Nat then laid herself on her back, legs spread, and gestured vaguely from its member to her ass.

“Use your instincts and apply pressure,” she said, trying to go off her own script, “and be careful.”

The robot slid up between her legs, pressing down on her ass. Nat bit her lip as it pressed against her, but when it placed its hand on her cheek, Nat suddenly felt completely at ease. Almost effortlessly, the robot slid into her asshole. Nat arched her back up, suddenly feeling very full. The robot hadn't been designed to be abnormally large in any aspect of its anatomy, but right now, it felt like she was stuffed to the brim. Her legs settled on either side of the robot's hips, and it took over. Slowly it moved back and forth into her, small unintended gasps escaping her mouth every time it did. Her body was melting, and the robot seemed to sense it. As she loosened, it took some bolder moves, increasing its speed ever so slightly, or giving a few stronger thrusts, which caused Nat to toss her head back. The robot pulled her up, one hand on her lower back, the other behind her head, and it began to move harder and faster. Nat's mouth fell open, a string of expletives tumbling out in high pitched squeals and moans.

Any time she had ever played with herself like this, Nat had only gotten a little bit of pleasure. Enough to enjoy, surely, but she could never reach higher levels of ecstasy without touching her cock. Now, it felt unneeded. Her whole body was hot and tense, her brain felt on fire. It stroked against her prostate with every thrust now, sending fireworks blooming behind her eyes. Her moans drowned out the sounds of the box fan, and the hard drives, and the robot's internal fans, racing to keep up with the increased activity.

“Fuck, fuck, oh fuck,” Nat could barely squeeze out, “oh fuck I'm almost there, please don't stop,” the robot's legs were trembling as well, the same as before, but it obliged, going from a slow to a faster pump, moving its hips in tandem with her own partially involuntary movements as she tried to fill herself up with the robot's cock more and more. “Oh, ffffuck-!” Nat's legs pulled up as the buildup intensified, like a coiled spring pressed down to its limit, before finally releasing. The sound from her mouth was less like a moan, or a cry, and more like an old computer screeching as it processed its next action. Her hips thrust up and down as she came, only pressing her down further on the robot's cock, filling her stomach while she rode the wave of her ecstasy. As she finally came down, legs trembling, the robot placed her back down fully on the mattress, and she pushed softly on its abdomen, indicating for it to pull back and out.

Nat laid on the mattress, stomach splattered with cum, legs too weak to even stay with knees bent up. She panted, trying to catch her breath that had escaped her long ago. The robot sat at her feet, head tilted, hand raised towards her as if contemplating how to help her, if she was in need, did she need medical assistance or anything? But Nat just laughed, and pushed herself up.

“That... I needed that more than you know. I think more than I knew, thank you.”

“Was the testing successful?” the robot asked.

“It was, you should be able to access a um...” she wondered exactly what she wanted to say, “a flaccid function, if you can find it. To keep it down,” Nat glanced down at the gray cock, still slick with lube. The robot nodded and sat back, accessing its own functions, and she watched as the member began to shrink down to a standard size.

“I'm glad you were able to find what you needed,” the robot said.

Nat shook her head, “I knew you had it all. I'm just happy you could experience everything the way I can.” Forcing herself up, Nat sat upright and pulled the robot closer, kissing the faceplate.

“I do have one more question, if that's okay,” the robot said.

“Of course,” Nat pushed her disheveled bangs up, “anything.”

“Earlier, when you first woke me up, you asked me if I knew you, and I identified you as Natalie. But you failed to identify me in the same instance.”

“That's because you never had a name,” Nat smiled, “not everyone has one they like right away. Is there something you would like to be called?”

“I think... I would like to find that out,” the robot said, placing its hand over hers.

“Well,” she turned her palm up and held its hand in her grip, “you have time to find that, too.”

[bedoballoons]

Please!! I wanted to do more so badly because not having the full spectrum of fairies was killing me!! So thank you for this request and I hope you enjoy!!

─⊰⁠⊹ฺ❄️𝔾𝕖𝕟𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕟 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕠𝕟𝕤⊰⁠⊹ฺ❄️

{༻~Wink Part 2~༺}

CW: Fluffy except for the tiniest bit of angst in Dilucs! I used the rest of the fairy types I knew for this part!! Also I know the light fairy technically counts as sun and moon, but I wanted one more character so moons a separate fairy type in this 😭

First part

(Includes: Diluc, Kaveh, Heizou,and Wriothesley!)

𑁍༄Diluc: <Fire fairy>

You stared into the fireplace, your wings almost glowing in the flickering light...the flames had always captured your attention, made you feel warm and safe...but even they couldn't calm your racing heart. Your bravery had finally showed it's full force...your once hidden identity now in plain sight for the man you loved. Wether he accepted this version of you or not was purely up to fate...

"Diluc..." You felt your voice crack in fear, you were so vulnerable right now, something you weren't very often and he usually wasn't either, one of the reasons you got along so well..or used to if this ended the way you wished it never would.

"I'm not upset, or mad. I'm not even that surprised...I've seen lots of unexplainable things and I've always figured there were creatures no one new about, but I am worried. I care about you alot, I care about your safety and I don't want to see others coming after you for being something they want to learn more about...so regrettably, I'm going to ask you to keep this secret from everyone else."

He took your hand in his as you nodded, what he said was reasonable and you weren't really worried about keeping the secret from everyone else, as long as he knew the real you...that's all that mattered.

𑁍༄Kaveh: <Animal fairy>

"I'm speechless.." Kaveh sat in front of you, his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide with shock...you were surrounded by over a hundred animals, but that wasn't even the craziest part. You'd sprouted wings, full blown, glittery, shiny wings...and honestly they were so beautiful he was getting inspired to sketch a new window design from the sparkle alone. How could he even accept this reality though...that you were a fairy...with actual powers and everything??

"It's really not that bad is it..." You moved so you were sitting next to him...birds leaping from your shoulder to his and furry creatures like red pandas and baby boars taking place in your laps. You were scared of what he might think but you couldn't keep the secret any longer. How could you...he was the man you loved.

"It's not bad at all...it's actually really beautiful, you're beautiful and though this is alot for me to handle, I love you the same as I did when I didn't know....does this mean we can have extra pets around the house?" He tapped the boars snout, earning a little squeak that made him chuckle,...of all the ways you'd expected him to react...this was better.

"Yes! We can even have crystal flies take shelter in our house when it rains and the Aranaras-"

"Wait- Those are real too??"

𑁍༄Heizou: <Technology fairy>

Heizou had a smirk on his face and honestly it was leaving you more than confused..why was he so smug? You'd only shown him your wings and told him what you were... certainly he hadn't...figured it out.. "You're not surprised at all?"

"I apologize if you wanted me to be, but being in a relationship with a detective comes with it's price. I knew something was different about you the second we met...your ability to build certain machines...how ones would suddenly work or not work whenever you were around. You had a special connection to them...and pair that with the few times I've mentioned fairies. You'd always comment about how I was wrong, they didn't act the same way fairytales portrayed them. How could you know unless..."

"Unless I was one.." You looked away, feeling slightly silly for making such a big deal of it..., "You never treated me any differently...even after you'd figured it out."

"I never would. I love you. Wings won't change that."

𑁍༄Wriothesley: <Moon fairy>

You sat in front of the large thick glass window...the moon a blur shining on your wings, making the rest of the room appear dull as your legs dangled from the viewing railing. It wasn't often you saw this place empty...it was almost eery, showing your secret after being in hiding for so long..., "You too me your secret....and now I've told you mine...so what do you think Wrio.."

He was leaning against the wall, the darkness of the room almost leaving him completely out of view, you couldn't even read his expression if you tried. "I think...my secret wasn't nearly as good as yours." He pushed off the wall and walked slowly towards you...his hand reaching out to touch your face, "I think,..you thinking I wouldn't like this version of you was the worst guess of the century. Seeing what I do everyday, I didn't think magic existed anymore...you've proved me wrong."

"Wrio..." You smiled softly and leaned down to kiss him, feeling like you could float away. Nothing was hidden between the two of you anymore...his past was his past and you were you and the two of you...were happy and free.

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚~Have a nice day!~*⁠.⁠✧

[poppy-in-the-woods]

My Ride or Die - Part 2

Plot: Noah is your husband. Five years ago, he killed a man that was attacking you. The judge ruled that, since he shot him several times after he already had been stabbed by you, it was no longer self-defense. He got twenty years, and that was two and a half years ago. After the conjugal visit for his birthday, you visit him, bringing food and other presents to help him keep warm on cold nights.

Pairing: Noah x Female Reader

Word Count: 2601

Rating: Mature/Explicit

Tags: fluff, bit of angst, convict!Noah, masturbation, mentions of suggestive pictures.

Author’s note: betaed by the amazing @rottingfern. Sorry for the long wait, but you know, life gets in the way of writing sometimes, and I wanted to polish this one as much as I could. Let me know how I did, and hope you enjoy.

It had been exactly a week since you last saw Noah. You definitely needed a bit more recovery before thinking about having wild sex again, the ache between your legs still dully moaning, but you two were happy to see each other nonetheless.

The room was busy with spouses and kids that came to visit other inmates. Noah sat alone as he waited for you, but he quickly rose up when he saw you approaching. You greeted him with a quick hug and a peck on the lips and sat in front of him, putting the bag you were carrying on the bench beside you.

“How are you, my love?” you asked.

“Not bad. Better than most days now that you are here,” he said.

“I brought you some presents,” you said, taking the items out of the bag. “Here’s your sandwich,” you began, pushing it to him. He unwrapped it with an excited smile and began scarfing it down. “Slow down, honey, or it’s gonna hurt your stomach,” you told him.

“Sorry,” he said, chewing slower.

“I also brought you some extra underwear and socks,” you continued, putting the paper bag on the table.

“Nice!”

“The shampoo and deodorant you like…” you listed, taking them out of the bag too and placing them beside the underwear, “and a belated birthday present!” you announced, handing him the wrapped package.

“They let you bring that without opening it first?” he asked, skeptical.

“I told them it was a present, so they did me a favor” you told him, shrugging it off like it was nothing. You knew the schedule of the guard who had a soft spot for you and you fully took advantage of that, though you’d never tell that to Noah. “They ran it through the X-ray machine, with the rest of the stuff,” you assured him.

“No metal file or spoon hidden, then,” he joked.

“No, sorry,” you replied, chuckling as he finished unwrapping the book: it was a hardback copy of High Magick (A Guide to The Spiritual Practices That Saved My Life on Death Row), by Damien Echols. “Don’t take off the plastic just yet,” you whispered. He nodded. “I am sure you will find it a very interesting reading,” you added, in a normal tone.

“Thank you, baby,” he said, taking your hands and quickly kissing your knuckles.

You smiled at him and he smiled back at you, letting go of your hands before the guard could decide that it was too much physical contact and end the visit early.

“How’s it going with that newbie? Did he bother you again?” you asked, trying to make some small talk.

“Nah. It’s all good now, he learned his place,” he replied, finishing the sandwich. He let you clean his mouth with the paper napkin.

“Good.”

“I received your letter yesterday, by the way” he told you.

“They took their sweet time reading it, didn’t they?” you fumed.

“I’m sure the warden loves your prose, and the poems. I certainly do,” he said. “I especially loved the lines that said ‘My heart is a bird/ that every night takes flight/ to you and guards your sleep’, and ‘I dream of your hands around my waist, / your breath on my neck, / your heat inside mine, / and our hearts beating in sync’”.

“I wasn’t too inspired with the rhymes in that last one,” you said, grimacing.

As much as you didn’t feel any embarrassment for the words you wrote to Noah, you didn’t want them repeated to you. Creative writing was an outlet your therapist recommended, as were the dabbles in poetry, but you didn’t fancy yourself a poet. Noah was the poet and the musician, not you.

“By the way, do you need another notebook?” you asked.

You had given him a pretty notebook when he entered prison so he could annotate whatever he wanted, and you knew he had been using it as a sort of journal and to write his lyrics and compose his music. A month before the anniversary of his first year locked up, he had requested a new one. You had bought one with more pages that time. He was on notebook number three now.

“No, I still haven’t filled the last one. I will tell you when I need a new one, but thanks for asking,” he said, smiling. “How are you, baby? How are things at work?”

“I’m fine. Before I forget, I have a new manager now, a lady in her fifties - the old one was fired because Shelly reported him to HR for attempted grooming,” you explained. Shelly was your only underage coworker, a sixteen-year-old girl who was still in high-school. “Anyway, the new one is very nice, and upon learning about you, she told me she has a son in prison.”

“In here?” he asked.

“No, he’s in another facility. He committed tax evasion and had a money laundering scheme going on. He got mixed with the wrong crowd, apparently,” you informed him. “They don’t see each other that much, but she writes him letters every week. She told the whole team that my visitation days are sacred and that if anyone needs a change of schedule, to try anyone else, because I am not available,” you finished smiling.

“I already like her,” he said, containing a laugh.

“She also said you were very handsome ‘despite all that ink’”, you told him, marking the quotations in the air. “She’s kind of old-fashioned regarding tattoos.”

“Tell her I said thank you for the compliment,” he replied. “And that I don’t take offense to her not liking my tattoos.”

“Will do!”

“I have something for you,” he said, taking a square envelope from under his ass. “I recorded it with the boys. I want you to be the first to listen to it,” he said, as you took the CD out of the envelope. You smiled, looking at the title and all the signatures.

“I feel honored, honestly,” you said, immediately putting it in your purse. “I’ll listen to it tonight, though it might take me a while to write an in-depth review.”

“Don’t worry about that, we can wait. The boys send their regards, by the way,” he said.

“Tell them I said hi back. I’m so happy you made friends here! And Nick… well, I am not happy that he is in prison too, but… at least you already had a friend the day you arrived, you know?” you said.

“I was relieved to see a familiar face the first day, I’m not gonna lie,” Noah admitted.

“By the way, I spoke with the lawyer…” you began.

“No,” he snapped, cutting you off.

“But I would just spend two years, and your sentence would be reduced -” you began.

He grabbed your wrists.

“Look at me: we already talked about this, and I won’t let you spend a single day behind bars. I fired the gun, I take the blame,” he said, holding your gaze intently.

“But…” you tried to argue. While you recognized and were grateful for his sacrifice, you didn’t want him to spend so much time behind bars. You thought you were strong enough to endure two years if that meant he got to be free earlier. Why wouldn’t he let you do that for him? You loved him just as he loved you; why shouldn’t you sacrifice in return?

“No buts,” he said, putting a finger over your lips. “I heard what the guards do to the female inmates in prison and I won’t let you go through that to shave five years off my sentence,” he said, finally releasing your hands. “End of discussion.”

 “Okay. I love you so much, Noah!” you said after a pause, on the verge of tears.

 “I love you too, baby. Now, don’t cry! You know I hate to see that here,” he said, and you knew he was right: the crying was best reserved for when no one could see, because any sign of weakness on your part could reflect badly on him. You took a deep breath and smiled at him. “That’s better. Do you have an appointment with your therapist this week?”

“Yeah, this afternoon,” you nodded. You had taken notes to talk to your therapist about his response to your proposal, whatever his response would be, though you didn’t expect him to agree, honestly.

“Good. Tell her I enjoyed the books she recommended.”

“That one is also a recommendation from her,” you said, lightly tapping the Damien Echols book. “The extra material is all my idea, though,” you whispered. He arched an eyebrow, questioningly. “You’ll see.”

Not long after, you had to end the visit. With another quick hug and light peck on the lips, you said goodbye to him. On the way back home, you put the CD in the player of your car and listened to it. The lyrics were so beautiful and his voice sounded so clear, like he was beside you, that you had to pull over to the side of the road for a couple of minutes while you let the tears finally flow.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” a voice asked. You lifted your gaze to find a police officer standing by the side of your car. You rolled down the window and stopped the music. “Are you injured?”

“No, sir, I am fine. I just got emotional and… I needed a moment.”

“I see. What was that band, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh! That was Bad Omens; it’s my husband’s band. They’re on Spotify, I think.”

“They sound good, I’ll give them a listen. If you are better now, I suggest you go on your way,” he said.

“Yes, sir. Thank you for your concern.”

Every lawyer you ever spoke to always told you the same thing: if you’re ever stopped by a police officer, be polite and don’t let them know you have a spouse in prison, because they will look at you differently and there’s a chance they won’t be nice to you upon learning that fact.

You continued your way and arrived home in time to prepare a meal for yourself, feed the cat and go to your therapist appointment.

Meanwhile, Noah was in his cell, unwrapping the book from its plastic. He noticed an envelope taped to the back cover. He opened it to find several pictures. Eight of them were of you, recreating some pin-up posters; hot, but nothing that could be considered pornographic. The ninth, tenth and eleventh were more risqué, something that could be classified as artistic nudes, but the twelfth…

He took the picture number 12 in his hands, looking at it closely. It was a close up of your nude chest, focusing on the tattoo over your sternum. Your nipples were not in frame, but he knew your breasts far too well, so he was able to complete that image mentally.

He carefully picked up the other photographs and put them back in the envelope. He then taped this one to the metal frame of the bunk bed above him and slid a hand in his pants. His mind was already racing, conjuring the image of you naked beside him, kissing him and touching him with light fingers.

“This one’s for you, baby” he muttered, stroking his cock.

Not shortly after he was finished, Nick leaned into the cell.

“Dude, what are you doing? We’re waiting for you in the music room!” he said.

“What?”

“Did you forget we scheduled a rehearsal for today?” Nick asked, entering the cell.

“Yeah, sorry…”

“Were you reading?” Nick asked, seeing the book next to Noah. “Is it any good?” he wanted to know, picking it up.

“Give it back!”

But it was too late: Nick had already seen the envelope and was inspecting its content.

“Oh, I see! You weren’t reading, you were jerking off in her honor” he laughed. “To be fair, I also do it in her honor sometimes,” he joked.

“Not funny, bro! Not funny.” Noah replied, snatching the book from him. “It’s my wife you’re talking about.”

“Sorry. Is something wrong between you two?” Nick asked, suddenly serious.

“No. She tried to bring up the appeal, thinks she should take part of the blame,” he said. “I told her she can forget about it, and I hope this time she listens. I understand where she comes from, but I love her far too much to let her do it.”

“And she loves you far too much not to try to convince you,” Nick pointed out.

“I guess so…”

“She does. I mean, she risked flirting with the guy at the entrance to bring you this, didn’t she?” Nick said, pointing at the book.

“What do you mean?”

“Rumor says that if you don’t want something to be too closely inspected, you compliment the guard at the entrance. Works like a charm if you’re a pretty woman, or at least that’s what my cousin said,” Nick told him. “Those pictures? They would probably be considered porn and confiscated. She’s a criminal mastermind, dude.”

“Yeah, sure,” Noah said, amused, but his laughter quickly died on his lips, as the implications of what Nick just told him sank in: you had taken too many risks for him and his pleasure, more than he was comfortable with. He sighed; his beautiful, smart and reckless wife! What was he going to do with you? “You will get out before me. Would you keep an eye on her for me?”

“Sure, dude. She’s my friend too, you know?”

Noah knew you also corresponded with Nick and talked to him on the phone. Past benders aside, you two were close enough for Nick to call you a friend. Knowing his friend, Nick was likely the one to suggest the fiery red lingerie to her as a birthday surprise, and if his suspicion was correct, Noah was very grateful to him.

“Thank you.”

“No need to thank me yet. We’re still both in this shithole, so maybe we could go to the music room now and rehearse?”

“Sure.”

That Saturday, while you were watching a movie, your phone rang. It was a collect call from jail, which you quickly accepted.

“Hey, baby!” Noah’s voice greeted you through the line.

“Hi! How are you? Is everything okay?” you asked, straightening yourself up on the couch. He didn’t seem distraught, but he was in jail after all, you could never be sure.

“Everything is as okay as it can be. I just wanted to hear your voice,” he said. “Oh, I have begun with your present. You were right, it’s a very interesting reading.”

“Did you enjoy the extras?” you asked.

“Oh, yeah! Thank you, baby.”

“By the way, I almost finished analyzing the record,” you told him. “I have the last two songs left and the conclusions, and I will have a full review, song by song.”

“You know you don’t have to do that, right?” he said.

“I know, but I like doing it, and I like to think that my reviews are useful for you guys, you know? To have a listener’s perspective,” you replied.

“Of course they are useful!” he assured you. “I just say it’s not an obligation,” he clarified.

“I know, and it doesn’t feel like it,” you swore.

“Okay. I need to go now, but I love you. Sweet dreams, baby,” he said.

“Sweet dreams, my love! I love you too,” you replied, and he hung up.

The next conjugal visit couldn’t come fast enough.

[bobomcfoe]

My first quilt is done :) I've never sewn anything before (besides some VERY basic hand-stitching when i was a little kid) so this was a major learning experience lol

I used 5x9" rectangles and made a little checkered pattern. I wasn't following any specific pattern or tutorial, and was more just winging every part of it (and it shows). BUT!! I still think it's cute and cozy and I'm excited about it :)

Progress pics and mistakes under the cut !

This quilt was certainly a process, and being, as i am, extremely lazy, every step I took lacked the precision required to make the quilt all nice. And in all honesty i am 100% okay with that, I don't need it to be anywhere near perfect!

Here are all of my pieces laid out on the floor after i cut them out! I didnt take any pics between that and the top-stitching (no clue if that's what it's called, but where it's all basted and then you sew the patterns that go along the quilt) so we'll skip to then

I managed to sew over my excess fabric AND create insane bunching, both because i wasn't paying any attention to the back of my quilt and was really really lazy with my basting (and this is where i made the seam ripper gif lmao)

I also learned why people buy long-arm machines and shit because oh my godddd this was a pain

Anyway next i cut out my binding strips and checked to see that i had enough, which thankfully i did lmao

My binding is pretty awful, i did it the wrong way and elected not to redo it, and my corners are quite messy, but i really truly just don't care. It's still a very cozy quilt

And then it was done! That's all!!

The process from start to finish took me about two days (started cutting pieces Wednesday night, began sewing Thursday morning, continued sewing until it was all done on Friday evening!)

I got the fabric largely from my friend, who has oh so much of it. I think my choices are pretty dang cute :)

Okay. I think that's all I have to say! Bye now!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Strand to find later: 🏃‍♀️ 🚓 🔥 🏦🔥

AITA for helping my mother ostracize my father from the family?

My mother has been a stay-at-home parent my entire life. She’s also been entirely responsible for me since day one, while my father would attend his job, come home, eat dinner with us and then retreat to watch videos on his phone and then go to bed at like 8:30. She has been responsible for 99% of the cooking, cleaning, and housekeeping in additional to being my emotional/physical support while sacrificing her own emotional well-being. She has no real friends in this country, all her acquaintances are known through my father (I. E. Wives of my fathers friends and colleagues etc), and can’t really leave since she’s financially dependent and America is EXPENSIVE to live in. And she wholly resents this situation. (he also not-so-subtly operates under the assumption that he’s the only one who works in the house, and my mother has it easy. I would like to point out that the man has never lived independently once in his life. He went ~10 years into the marriage before learning how to use a washing machine)

recently they’ve hit a rough(er) patch in their marriage. He’s gotten a promotion, and she feels bitter about the fact that he is getting more money while she still wouldn’t be able to independently if she wanted to. she has resorted to taking it out on him (and me) more often in the form of verbal assaults. The slightest thing can set her off and make her start screaming. Or, Whenever he’s around (talking to me OR her) she gives him the silent treatment and starts to slam things down (I. E. Throwing plates into the Dishwasher, slamming doors, muttering angrily). So my father had started to avoid any interaction with us entirely and spend his days in his room, only leaving it when it’s lunch or dinner. This makes her angrier since the whole reason she’s pissed is because he’s not pulling his weight as a father and basically ignoring me, so it just perpetuates the cycle. (I would like to point out that I am also not making things easier for him. Although I had never really noticed his absence until it started being brought up verbally— my mother was always there so it was less noticeable— I still react bitterly and try to avoid any interaction with him).

the way she treats him (and me, whenver he’s not available) could be described as verbally abusive but I struggle to feel any sympathy for him. Abuse implies control, and she is certainly not the one in control here. He can leave whenever he feels too oppressed (and he has— he has gone to live in another house/state for several months, more than once), and the rest of us are very much stuck there.

we’ve (mostly her, and me by extension) started to hide things from him (snacks, movies we’re watching, any interaction) to avoid having him join in on any family activities. We sometimes go weeks without saying a single word to him (and him to us). I am aware that this is only perpetuating the cycle (again), and is probably psychologically damaging.

so am I (and mother) the assholes? (For the isolation bit— I am aware that she is definitely TA for the abuse (?), since it’s not a valid move esp. when communication is RIGHT. THERE. But alas she’d rather die before calming down when it come to him. I’m not that much better)

What are these acronyms?

[takerfoxx]

I'm not traditionally a poly shipper (though I've been delving more into it as time goes by), but if there's one that I'm absolutely gaga about, as if in makes my personal top five ships and might even slot in right beneath KyoSaya and SuleMio, it's the one that almost certainly could not and should not happen in canon, but the thought of it still kinda makes me rabid with what could have been.

I am of course talking about AsuReiShin, AKA the Israfel Special.

Evangelion shipping is often a bizarre experience, especially amongst the core trio of pilots. There is just so much material among these incredibly fucked up characters, so many things that ought to be drawing them together, and yet they are all damaged in such specific ways that drive them to behave increasingly toxic, avoidant, or even abusive toward one another. They're all such hot messes of trauma and hangups that, hate to say it, the Rebuild ending of everyone essentially just making peace with one another and fucking off with Shinji hooking up with the controversial new girl that he at least doesn't have any baggage with was probably the healthiest choice, if not the most satisfying.

But even so, the reason I dig this triad specifically is because if you change even just a little bit about each character, you find the same traits that drove them apart suddenly drawing them together, and each individual pairing makes so much sense. Asuka and Shinji is the most obvious, with Asuka's aggressive bullying suddenly becoming proactive encouragement, and Shinji's meek avoidance now becoming the calm, stabilizing force that she needs. With Asuka and Rei it's similar, with Asuka's hatred of Rei's passivity now being being a drive to push Rei to experience and enjoy life and establish an identity, while Rei's gentle observation and lack of a filter would be give Asuka a much-needed source of self-reflection. And with Shinji and Rei, we've already seen how Shinji's kindness has encouraged Rei to step outside of her sheltered world and seek human connection, while also providing Shinji someone he felt was worth stepping up and fighting for.

Now, take all three of those dynamics and combine them together. You've basically got the perfect Id, Ego, and Superego situation. It's practically the adolescent Kirk, Spock, and McCoy dynamic!

Plus, there's also the other factors that would bring them together, even beyond the whole being hormonal teenagers in a stressful situation. Despite having wildly different personalities, they all had their lives destroyed by NERV, from Shinji losing his mother and being neglected by his father, to Asuka's mother losing her mind and taking her life thanks to the Evangelions, to Rei literally being created by Gendo to serve a terrible purpose and thus being robbed of ever having a life. That sort of "in the trenches" experience is exactly the sort of thing that would cause them to form bonds and seek comfort with one another, especially if they were all to learn of each other's past histories, and motivate them to stand up for one another against NERV's machinations, but ah, I'm delving into AU fanfic territory.

Point is, no, I don't think it would be wise for these three to seek out romance with one another, either as couples or all three of them together. But man, if they each just had just a little bit changed about them, can you imagine the pure emotional catharsis?

Note: I didn't really say anything about Kaworu because while I feel that he's probably the healthiest singular choice for Shinji, it's basically only with Shinji, making him his own separate deal entirely.

[itsnothingofinterest]

So it’s looking like we might be getting the ‘AFO gave Tenko his quirk’ theory confirmed and I gotta be honest; I am not in favor. I’m hardly the first to take this position, both before and after this chapter dropped, but if I may attempt to put into words why; it’s that I don't think it can really add anything except reveal postmortem some new way AFO is bad in the best case & handing Deku a potential deus ex machina in the worst case.

Like, the best case result of such a revelation at this point in the plot is that it's just to make AFO seem more evil by making him the root cause of the Shimura tragedy, except…only in a way that doesn’t even matter. Like, this reveal shouldn’t change any of Tomura’s motivations or talking points; he already knows AFO manipulated him & hates him for that, but he also hates Kotaro, Nana, All Might, and the greater hero society for the role they played in his tragedy, and AFO giving him Decay wouldn’t change how much everyone else I listed deserves that ire. It just means that some of the tragic happenstance of the Shimuras that seemingly could've happened to anyone was instead purposefully cause by that jerk we know.

It’s like if we learned AFO killed Endeavor’s father, leading him down the path to become the domestic abuser we know him as. Thus the tragedy of the Todorokis would also come back to AFO...but y’know…not in anyway that matters. Endeavor, Touya, and everyone else involved still made their choices; AFO’s just the root cause of it all by sheer technicality. How diabolical, I might care if he were still relevant.

The worst case result of such a revaluation of course is that it gives Deku an unearned & largely uninteresting easy out to solving the problem that is Tomura's rage. Because if AFO gave him Decay, then he's actually the one ultimately responsible for near everything, if not just everything wrong in Tomura's life (even if, again, just by technicality in some areas). Never mind the rolls Kotaro, Nana, All Might, and greater hero society played in it; AFO's the real root cause of it all whose been manipulating Tomura for longer than he even knows, so he should just stop caring about that other stuff.

Plus it'd also mean Tomura doesn't exist to destroy because Decay isn't his true quirk (never mind how that's not why he thinks that & he never even put much stock into that quirk-identity stuff anyway) so he can just stop being a villain now please.

Yeah this all just doesn't seem like the most interesting way for Deku to tackle Tomura's trauma, talking points, or motivations.

Plus, like a live action Disney movie, the idea's kind of felt like it’s tying up a ‘plot hole’ that didn’t need tying up; that might even work better as a coincidental tragedy. Like; people act like this can’t be just a tragedy, it's too convenient, it has to be some master machination of the grand demon lord who…is already beaten, dead, and doesn’t factor into anyone’s plot lines or themes anymore. At best, to make him seem more evil long after the point we have any reason to care; at worst, to give Deku an easy out (with the side effect of making him seem like a worse hero who can’t save villains in Tomura's position without unique circumstances to make it easy).

Also like a live action Disney movie, this almost feels like it opens up a plot hole in trying to tie one up. Because as we know; Tenko’s circumstances are identical to Eri’s, down to the signs of their quirks being random mutations. When I said the tragic happenstance of the Shimuras we're blaming AFO for could've happened to anyone; I know this because it happened verbatim to her. So if those circumstances (just so happening to get a deadly quirk that kills their families, which just so happen to be connected to the villain who'll use & abuse them, etc.) are seen as suspicious, early signs that AFO gave Tenko Decay…did he or another villain give Eri Rewind? Almost certainly not; but if not then why does she get a random mutation-caused tragedy, while Tenko must have been the victim of some villain’s plot that's already been foiled?

So my point is: I really hope this is just a red herring. Revealing that AFO gave Tenko Decay kind of feels like it undercuts the Shimura tragedy as something that could've happened to any kid in Tenko or Eri's shoes; and I don't think any payoff you'd get for that undercutting is worth it.

We should instead get the much funnier revaluation that the man who brought Tenko home that day was, rather than AFO, a completely different man who Deku would coincidentally recognize: Hisashi Midoriya.

[jacebeleren]

It bothers me so much that the only transfem rep in mtg cards is this like. Soldier military woman, like 'ooh look at this guy's we made a trans woman who's a part of a war machine' fantastic thank you magic very original

=========

Okay.

First of all, there is no "our" interpretation of the text. My thoughts are my own, and your thoughts are your own. Some of our thoughts might align, but I will not allow you to speak for me.

Second, I am sorry you feel so disappointed in the current state of transgender representation in Magic. I understand your concerns and I think they're valid concerns.

Third, your concerns being valid does not mean I agree with what you have to say, though. Don't come into my inbox complaining unless you're ready for me to honestly respond. Respectfully, your approach to these concerns makes it clear to me that you don't actually understand what you're talking about.

It's apparent that you follow me or have at least seen many of my posts. You appear to respect my opinions / analysis (at least regarding Jace and Tezzeret). So listen to me when I say this:

What constitutes 'good' representation is context-dependent, and it's not something you alone get to decide.

Yes, Alesha is a "soldier military woman", as you said. I understand that you have this complaint because you believe this makes Alesha an example of the stereotype that trans women are violent. But context matters. What you're failing to consider is the fact that she comes from the Mardu Horde, a faction on Tarkir inspired by the Mongol hordes of real-world history. In this context, Alesha isn't presented as violent because she's a trans woman. She's violent because she literally comes from a warrior clan based on one of the greatest military forces in human history. And honestly, with Magic being a combat-centric game, she's not any more violent than any non-Mardu Legends, either.

Do you seriously think a story about a trans woman fighting to proudly declare her trans identity in her culture and later becoming the accomplished and well-respected leader of her clan is bad representation? Does the fact that she's a warrior really outweigh the rest of the lovingly crafted trans narrative they created for her, to you?

It's fine if you feel that way. You don't have to like Alesha or her story. But just because something wasn't made for your taste doesn't mean it's bad writing / bad representation.

Anyway, I highly recommend you read Alesha's story, "The Truth of Names", since it seems like you haven't read it yet. It's a fantastic story-- the most beloved short story in all of Magic, actually. It was the most-read article on the entire Magic website for like 5 years, according to WOTC.

And if you're interested in learning more about transfem characters in Magic who aren't Alesha, I recommend you read about Xantcha, who first appears in the novel "Planeswalker".

Next, I need to make things clear about Ashiok.

Ashiok was never intended to be nonbinary representation. Ashiok was created to be a mysterious, unknowable villain. What makes Ashiok special is that we are not mean to know anything about Ashiok. We do not know Ashiok's species or plane of origin, for example. Another part of that element of mystery is not knowing Ashiok's gender, or how Ashiok identifies. Ashiok's original style guide from Theros explicitly instructs people to not use any pronouns for Ashiok at all (which I still follow because old habits are hard to break.) Official Magic sources did not begin to use they/them pronouns for Ashiok until 2022, in the story "A Garden of Flesh" (another excellent story, BTW.) And they only started using they/them for Ashiok because it is really hard to write a story where the character is mentioned that many times without pronouns.

All this to say: Ashiok as intentional nonbinary representation is certainly not the narrative WOTC is pushing.

Yes, there are many fans of Ashiok who interpret Ashiok as nonbinary, but those are their thoughts and you need not concern yourself with that, if it bothers you so.

As for Niko, it's weird that you say they're "non-existent" in Magic story when 2 of the 5 side stories ("Know Which Way the Wind is Blowing" and "Aim Through the Target") in their debut set Kaldheim were entirely focused on Niko. They're also a starring main character in 15 of the 25 issues of the BOOM! Studios Magic comics.

I'm glad you like my analysis of Jace and Tezzeret as transgender characters. Thank you for that, genuinely. But I want you to understand that the reason I have these interpretations is because I love Magic Story. And more importantly, I actually read it. I love Magic Story, and I have so much respect for the Magic Narrative team and the work they do.

What most people don't understand is that the Magic Narrative Team is in fact very careful and very loving in their approach to queer representation. You may not know this about me, but I'm friends with A LOT of people who formerly or currently work on Magic / Magic Story. Knowing these people personally, I know for a fact that the Magic creative Team does not create queer characters for "diversity points". They're not just checking boxes. The Magic creative team creates queer characters because the Magic creative team is full of queer people and allies who want to tell stories that reflect their own + fans' experiences. And they have to constantly fight to include more / better queer representation in Magic. They want good queer representation in Magic just as much as we do.

Am I going to defend everything they do? No! Are they perfect? No! They are just people. They make mistakes and they have blind spots. For example, in my essay about my analysis of Jace as a trans man, I explain that the reason my interpretation means so much to me is because there is currently zero meaningful representation for trans men in Magic canon. There are zero transgender male characters in Magic canon who have names. That's a HUGE blind spot considering the number of canon trans characters! That's something that disappoints and upsets me.

I'm not afraid to criticize Magic Story, and I do so very often. But I am critical of Magic story because I love it. My criticism does not equal hatred or unhappiness.

Sorry to hear that their efforts at including better trans representation in Magic would piss you off. I'm sorry that you've given up.

Lastly, I think Liliana is cis, but that's just my headcanon.

[elexuscal]

An Educational Experience

A ficlet prompt by Gamebird [for some reason tumblr will not let me @ you directly, sorry]: Three is very intimidated by ART, but it somehow gets to the point where it can ask it about educational modules. How did that conversation play out?

======

"Perihelion?"

Yes?

I had prepared what I was going say. Preparation was wise in unfamiliar situations. Yet despite my preparation, I did not speak. Somehow could not. Wished that my buffer could offer an appropriate response.

0.5 seconds passed. 1 seconds. 2 seconds. 3 seconds.

If my governor module were still active, it would have demanded a response.

The Perihelion is not a governor module. It is nearly as unforgiving as one. (Nearly.) I brace for the demand to continue speaking, but it does not come.

After 9.8 seconds, I say, "I am not prepared to operate as a free agent."

No, it agrees.

Muscles in my back move reflexively. I unclench them. Perhaps communicating via the feed will be easier. My modules lack protocols for existing outside the context of Barish-Estranza. It would be helpful if there were alternative protocols I could utilize instead.

I can provide you with my own crew's standard operating procedures.

That would be helpful, thank you. I had found that statements of gratitude were still advisable, even without governor module compulsion to be respectful to (most) clients. It seemed even more prudent considering what I was going to ask next. If there were any other documents similar to HelpMe.file, that would also be useful.

I am afraid that we are rather lacking in other personnel memoirs from rogue SecUnits.

Sarcasm is a common communication device, which I have seen hundreds if not thousands of humans use. In Perihelion's case, it seems to compose of approximately 70% of its communication strategy.

I am aware of that. (I attempt to keep any frustration or other negative emotions I may be feeling out of the feed; I almost certainly fail.) I seek other informational texts and documents to supplement my educational modules.

Perihelion's feed shifts with a new emotion; excitement, perhaps, or interest. Something like this?

Suddenly I am staring at The Perihelion's full media library. No, not full, I realise after a moment of reflection; this is a curated selection. Documentary films and serials, audio-explainers, academic texts, and other books, all labelled #Educational.

They hold potential answers to all my questions.

If I could find them. With over 17,000 items, I do not know where to begin. I do not know how to even begin constructing a query.

"Thank you, Perihelion," I say. "On further consideration, I will begin by reading your crew's operational procedures."

Wait, Perihelion says, and then 0.07 seconds later, please. Apparently it is capable of using courtesy terms, if it wants to. That was too much selection. Try this. The media library refreshes. Now there are only three options; all mid-length educational serials. Do any of these interest you?

The three titles listed, including their summaries, are:

Building Ourselves Up From dams to space-stations, farms to terraforming facilities, how do engineers build the machines that keep society ticking?

Seeking The Final Horizon For millennia before we ever left our birth planet, humanity marvelled up at space. Take a tour of the cosmos, exploring moons, stars, black holes, nebulae, and more.

Suds! The Dirt On Soap Water, fat, and ash. That sounds gross, but we rub it over our bodies every day. Learn about the many ways soap is made and used across the universe.

I consider. They are all so different. How could I choose?

But I must. There are only three of them. It is a reasonable request.

The first documentary, on infrastructure, is clearly the one most related to our current situation. We-- by which I meant, the crews of The Perihelion and the Preservation ship Safe Harbour-- are assisting the humans in rebuilding their infrastructure. But judging from the demo footage next to the documentary's description, this serial was composed to many shots of coordinators, tunnels, and walls.

I had seen a great deal of corridors, tunnels, and walls since initial deployment.

In comparison, the soap documentary intrigued me a great deal. I like soap. Or I like The Perihelion's soap. It did not sting on the skin, but felt gentle and soothing. It came in a variety of shapes and colors and textures. Every time I showered, there was a new option to try. But this was such an unimportant thing to learn about.

Finally, there was the space documentary. I had some basic knowledge regarding space science, but nothing more. I could see how this knowledge could be relevant. And The Perihelion was a deep-space research vessel. It would most likely be pleased if I selected that option. In fact, perhaps, as I thought of it, the choice may have been a test to see if I would make the correct selection.

"Seeking the Final Horizon, please."

Did you only pick that one because that was the one you thought I'd like?

I do not answer. I had not wanted to lie outright. I realise belatedly that my silence may as well be as good as a confession.

You can select something else if you prefer.

I do not know if I would like to. I already decided. Surely that is sufficient?

Never mind, the transport says, indulgently. You can watch the others afterwards, if you are still interested.

The documentary begins playing. I sit down on the soft bunk. Because there is nothing gained from standing up now, and because I can. I watch the first two episodes. They total to 85 minutes.

I had known before that space was vast. I had known that large objects exerted a gravitational pull. I had know that same gravitation pull created worm holes. I knew that wormholes were necessary for faster-than-light travel between systems. I had known all of that, yet this documentary weaves it all together, so that it is no longer disparate facts, but a single cohesive explanation.

I had not known that space could be so beautiful.

[airrec]

will you ever make janitor ai or character ai bots out of any of the characters from your fanfics? if not.. can people make them? (please i’m dying to make a Dream Blob au bot i’m on my hands and knees begging here)

In short: no. Please, please, please do not.

In long: please do not feed my fics or posts to A.I. To do so would be actively against my wishes, and even the thought of it is upsetting and angering to me.

A.I. has a lot of potential to do good – in the medical field, in the sciences, etc. There is nuance to the subject of A.I. in general. Regarding specifically A.I. art, the technology is not yet advanced enough to be used as a tool in the way that a tool is meant to be used – it is not a brush you can download, or a digital model you can pose. It is “trained” through being fed lots and lots of real, human-created pieces of art, and copying that art.

It does not learn how to use specific brush strokes, or specific colours, or how or why certain details are included or left out. It is wholesale lifting from what it is fed and mashing it together into new configurations, Frankenstein style – there is nothing creative about it. Similarly, when fed fictional writing, it does the same: it copies and pastes common tropes, common story beats, common plots, common phrasings – there is nothing of creativity in there at all.

There are currently no legal protections for artists of any kind against A.I. algorithms; the technology is still too new, and already it is causing harm. Even just on the practical side, the environmental impacts of the excessive electricity usage needed to run the A.I. is immense.

A.I. generated art is theft, pure and simple. It cannot be currently described as anything other than that. And creative writing is a form of art. A book that you pick up in an airport, or a fanfic you open in a tab on your phone, or a well-thumbed novel you found on a shelf in a café – these are pieces of art. Perhaps you do not think of them that way, in the same way you might look at a painting and say, “Yes, that is a piece of art,” but they are.

I was talking to a friend of mine some time ago, and they said (and I agreed) that writing is often devalued as a form of art, because the idea that “anyone can write a book” is so pervasive. And, yes, anyone can write a book – or anyone can write letters onto a page in a specific order. In much the same way, anyone can draw a picture, or paint a mural. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t a creative process involved, and it doesn’t mean that there isn’t the development of skills and immense amounts of knowledge and experience going into story-crafting as much as there is visual arts. Quite frankly, anyone who says, “Oh, anyone can write a book,” has almost certainly never actually tried to write a book themselves.

My friend went on to say that very often books are considered objects, just things, not pieces of art that have been handcrafted just for you, just for someone to pick up and immerse themselves in and enjoy. In much the same way, fanfic has also become a commodity – perhaps even more so, because its content is based on a pre-existing canon that does not belong to the writer. But fanfiction is still art, in much the same way that fanart is still art, and the devaluation of it and its creators is upsetting and frustrating.

I am not a machine. I do not press some buttons, pull some levers, and start outputting fanfic. This is something I do for fun, because I enjoy it. It is something I post online because I want other people to come enjoy it, too, and for it to be an expression of art meant as a part of a fan community’s expression of love for a canon. That is what being a fan is all about.

I am a real human being, and I don’t deserve to have my art stolen from me, fed to a shambling corpse spouting out things it has “learnt” from both my art and from every other piece of art that has been stolen to feed it. Anything it would say – that would not be my story, because it doesn’t come from me. It would just be an amalgamation of thousands of people’s stories, cut down into something mainstream and palatable because the point of so-called A.I. art is not to create unique and interesting stories – it is to create generic ones that will sell easily under the model of late stage capitalism.

You know, I got the email notification for this ask last night. I have my email notifs on because I spent so long being shadow-banned on this blog, and I fear missing things in my inbox. I checked my phone in the middle of the night because I couldn’t sleep, and while I was reading the ask I could hear my mother breathing in her sleep just nearby – we’re in a caravan together, because it’s been a while since I went away with my parents. I am typing this answer up from that same caravan, and I’m squinting a little because the sun is reflecting off my screen. We’re going to have a barbecue later for dinner – we just bought the food for it not three hours ago. Did you think of that? Did you think about the way that I am a person, living my own life, and now I am being forced to beg for you to respect me as one?

Because that’s what you would be doing, if you did this: you would commodify me, and you would commodify my art. It would be just another machine-made thing, not something that’s handmade for others’ enjoyment; not something that work – my time, my energy – has gone into, that my passion and love has gone into. But I am not a thing, and I resent being implicitly treated like one.

If you really want to know more about people’s fanfics – talk to them! Leave a comment, send in an ask, engage with them in some way. Fanfic is created by fans for the enjoyment of other fans, and fan communities are still communities, which means there is a social element to them. Stealing from others, as one might expect, is frowned upon greatly – they gave that to you, for free. You pay nothing for it – and shouldn’t – and now you want to plagiarise and thieve what was shown in good faith?

I suppose that, ultimately, if you were truly determined, there is nothing that I can do to stop you. You could copy/paste my works into your A.I. bot creator and go on your merry way, despite how I’ve told you that such would make me extremely upset, and that it isn’t something I want. I can say, “I forbid you to do this,” - and make no mistake I do forbid you – and ultimately I have no power to actually stop you, because there is no law in place to prevent you from doing exactly as you please.

I can do nothing to stop you except this: I am asking you not to. Please.

[dangermousie]

Finished my rewatch of ep 2 of City Hunter and it really still holds up.

I love that he sees her throw a man over her shoulder in the first two minutes of their acquaintance and he is definitely intrigued. Honestly, so much of this ep is him being so smitten and not even realizing he is.

I mean, the last shot is after she knocked him over for kissing her as a means to dump his source of information after the information dried up and giving her cash for the trouble of the kiss. (She stuck money back at him and said "for treatment." )

But then there was this earlier - him making out with his target while watching Nana the whole time. Badwronghot.

(And of course the very fact that he's sleeping with someone he doesn't want for info. He may not want to carry out undaddy's murder plan with murder but he's certainly been trained to do a lot of things that are objectively fucked up and to treat himself as an instrument.)

The thing that strikes me so much on rewatch is just how AWFUL undaddy is in his plan. It's one thing to take out people he thinks wronged him and his dead partner. It's another one to use a baby you stole and to fuck him up and train him into a killing machine who will then unknowingly kill his own father. I mean, this was genuinely chilling:

He is meeting the President who he does not know is his father but who he also does not know is his final target. Not to mention his half-sister is checking him out and it's just so wrong wrong wrooooong. It could have all gone way more horrifically wrong than it already did.

In retrospect, it's so clear how undaddy is manipulating the hell out of him, leading him on with the hope that after this is over they can live a normal life. Undaddy told him the name of only one target, and that's the slimiest, least sympathetic one and says he'll tell him the names of the others and why he wants him in the Blue House later - you know what that is? That's grooming. He's slowly and methodically grooming him into an assassination machine via baby steps and that is effing creepy as hell and my wish for undaddy to be eaten by snakes and I am only sad it took as long as it did for him to meet his demise.

Trust you? Great idea. NOT.

It kills me just how kind YS tries to be even with his insane upbringing - he paid for Nana's father surgery, he was kind to those kids, and he wants to take down the target without murder. Oh, young man, you are gonna go through hell and a half in this drama.

Also, I love how even this early on, he is so gone for her. He knows she's the girl whose picture he fixated on in hell jungle. And what better way to angst than in the shower? Man, I miss those glorious old school angsty kdrama shower scenes.

But I think my favorite sequence in this whole ep and the one that speaks volumes is what happens after he goes to her apartment (after carrying her four flights of stairs since she sprained her ankle.) It's an almost throwaway moment but it says so much. He sees all these markings on the wall and asks her what the weird numbers and notches are all for and she explains, as one would to a somewhat dim small child, that this is how her family would measure her height every month, throughout her childhood, until she was 17. I liked it so much because in those few seconds it established both the warm, loving, thoroughly normal childhood Nana had and what a lack of one he had - that he has to have something this basic explained to him. And then his little pleased grin when he figures out exactly how tall she is in her bare feet compared to him and where she'd come up to on his chest - he's pretty much unknowingly in love with her to bits and so learning little things like that about her make him happy.

The thing that I love so much is that Nana doesn't have a charmed life - her father is in a vegetative state, her mother died in the same accident that made her father that way, and bank was close to taking away everything for debt. But she's had love and warmth and a solid foundation and so she's sunshine - but it's a choice for her and an affirmation, it's not because she's only known sweetness and light.

The scene where she explains the stickers is a very quiet scene I adored - in a way she's an inverse mirror of him. She has a dead parent and one parent who's as good as dead, but she's a good sunny person and not a mess like he is because she was brought up properly. And eventually his being around her drags him into normalcy, which is helped by the fact that he doesn't feel any personal urgency in vengeance. Yeah, all these people killed his supposed father but it's abstract to him - he's never even met the man. He will get rid of them because undaddy basically brainwashed him into it, but he doesn't have an emotional stake in their deaths (even if he has one in the outcome - getting to find his mother and living a normal life, which undaddy dangles like a carrot). However, he has an emotional stake in people he knows - Nana being one of them but other people as well (you can see later, her character basically draws him into interacting with others on personal levels).

You watch him be empathetic and you watch him be teasing and dorky about the ramen and you realize that his demeanor is not just a disguise - it's someone he'd like to be and possibly would have been except for undaddy. And that around her he lets his guard down and allows himself to be childish.

[betweenlands]

[ID: Two asks from my inbox. The first is from @12u3ie and reads "Drop the essay, Solar /nf". The second is from @artisticgryfess and reads "wait no tell me about joe being technos hels". /End ID]

holy shit you guys i'm not even a hermitcraft or dsmp blog rn. fair enough this is a longstanding conspiracy theory of mine, though. ok, so. Joe Is Techno's Hels, the not-an-essay (mainly because i'm not going to cite SHIT, this is PURELY in the realm of headcanon/theory except if i explicitly indicate something is supported by canon)

so, the joke theory starts like this: back when hermitcraft/dsmp crossovers were first getting popular, there were a lot of crack theories about "hels!joe is technoblade" because... well, a lot of factors. they're both loosely english majors (i know joe is a history major just humor me), both slightly strange guys who operate by their own logic, both have somewhat similar (ish?) accents, both have a very deadpan sense of humor and incredible delivery on that deadpan, and most of all both of them Cannot Be Killed In A Way That Matters.

however, i am your local Hels Analyst, no like seriously there's so much weird shit about helsknight we haven't discussed yet, and one (implied? this is a theory but i feel it holds water) thing that's always been key to me about Hels versions is... they represent bad traits present in the original individual. whether or not those bad traits are the Objectively Bad ones or the traits the original self-identifies as bad is pretty up in the air right now (welsknight come off anon i just need you to tell me if helsknight likes pineapple on pizza it is absolutely fucking critical to our understanding of hels lore) but we'll be going with the latter, for reasons i'll explain later and by later i mean right now.

so! assuming there are hels versions of more players than just welsknight (i cannot stress enough how much we technically don't know this in canon -- it can reasonably be extrapolated but we really aren't sure!), that brings up an interesting issue with techno being joe's hels.

joe is not a particularly violent person.

"well solar," you say, "what does that have to do with techno being joe's hels?"

"well, strawman i have made up to make this long-ass post more visually broken-up and less formal-feeling," i reply, "hels versions of players only exhibit traits that are present in the original person." and this is confirmed canon, by the way -- wels himself has explicitly cited specific ways he can sometimes suck that are directly visible in the way helsknight acts!

so. joe is not a particularly violent person, and... okay yes listen i know there's a lot of very good writing on how technoblade isn't entirely 100% down for violence all the time and maybe wants to peacefully retire, okay. i get it. i am not calling techno a murder machine all i'm saying is that one of them enjoys pvp enough that he helped train other people and the other one is recording as he always does from nashville tennessee. i am a variety mcyt blogger and the only dsmp essay i have ever written before now is about how the tftsmp metaplot parallels redstoner. just bear with me.

imo joe also exhibits a lot of self-awareness about his own bad qualities as a character, and none of those traits are really... present in technoblade? but here's where it gets interesting.

i am no genius and certainly no master c!technoblade analyst, but if we assume technoblade trained to become a fighter and identified certain of his traits as being Not Ideal for someone who focuses on pvp and being a strong pigman, we can. kind of see those traits in joe, even if we can assume technoblade has learned enough to stop displaying those traits:

will commit to the bit even if it's inconvenient for him

obnoxious about whatever form of literature is closest to him

will start quoting from that work of literature to fit the situation even when it totally doesn't fit the situation

zero bloodlust and an active need to avoid direct conflict; a tendency towards pacifism even

malicious compliance

perfectly timed awful timing

overwhelming amounts of Just Some Guy and also English Major energy

exceedingly stubborn and would rather go through a problem than around it; will also see a tunnel through a mountain and climb over the hill instead

and. hm! yeah that feels like a joe hills description. you could make a joe hills out of this. add to that the fact that both of them refuse to die, but technoblade never dies whereas joe conquers death by dying over and over and coming back repeatedly out of sheer spite -- yeah i'd say joe could very easily be seen as the hels of the two.

and if Hels, the dimension, is the hostile and horrible place that helsknight claims it is -- where "everyone's unyielding and everyone there rebels" -- well, only one of them has a (mostly) canonical backstory that involves struggling through a hellish landscape designed by a hostile architect who wishes to cause pain and suffering. and it's not technoblade.

[thewertsearch]

Kanaya was the one to name Rose? Does this mean all the 'Homestuck Player' actions from Act 1 were trolls all along?

This was a mechanic I had long since dismissed as a quirk of early Homestuck, back before its rules had been solidified. I love that even old mysteries like this can come full-circle.

It also means this was definitely Karkat.

GA: I Am A Troll From Another Universe Using A Chat Client Utility Which Is Capable Of Contacting You And Your Friends At Any Point Of Your Lives Which I Choose Up To And Including The Moment Of Your Own Incompetence Fueled Self Destruction

Imagine if this was the first message we'd seen from a troll, back in Act 3. It would've taken me half a dozen posts just to digest the implications!

GT: you are a time traveling space alien from the future, sent here to study humans? GA: No GT: are you from mars? is it a mission of peace? GA: No John You Werent Listening GT: what does your time machine look like? a phone booth? phone booths are a popular thing for some reason. GA: Damn It

Well, you were looking for a way to make this interesting. Whatever else you can say about the John Egbert stream-of-consciousness, it's certainly never boring.

GT: were you lured to earth by a huge gyroscopey thing that jodie foster piloted in contact, while matthew mcconaughey sort of acted as her spiritual guide i guess… GA: What The Hell GT: and then he kind of preached to her about having faith instead of believing in the sciences so hard all the time, and i guess in the end she believed him, maybe? GT: actually, im not even sure what the point of mcconaughey was in that movie. but he was still awesome. GT: and then jodie found her dad on an alien planet... but i think he was a ghost or something? or maybe an alien in disguise.

I feel like I'm getting spoiled for Contact, which I've never seen - but I'm also learning that Contact is apparently buckwild enough that spoilers don't matter.

GA: Im A Girl Not A Boy GT: oh, sorry. GT: i don't know why i thought you were. GA: It Happens

Especially on a planet where dimorphism doesn't appear to matter. I feel like troll gender expression would be more about presentation than physical traits, in a manner similar to Discworld dwarfs.

GT: were you trolling rose too? [...] GA: I Just Spoke To Her In The Future GA: [...] She Said To Paste Something From Our Conversation

That was John, actually - and just before that, he told you to message him in a way that would make the ensuing conversations as convoluted as possible.

So far, you're succeeding with flying colors, and copypasting predestined messages is just the icing on the cake.

GA: Now Im Wondering If You Might Be Trolling Me As Well GT: ok well, just between you and me… GT: SOMEONE here is getting trolled. GT: and it just might be all three of us.

Again, you're using Trollian. Any conversation you have in this app is guaranteed to troll you, your partner, and probably a couple of bystanders for good measure. It's happened before.