#jesus. the fascination with the last two seconds of your life is so infuriating

[sylveriasarcana]

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[vitiatedvampire]

desperate times | solo

mentions: leo sheppard, catherine pryor, martin the drug dealer tw: violence, death, and drug mentions

Desperation is a fascinating state when studied without any attached emotions. It can make the softest people hard as stone, turn the kindest people cruel, and warp even the most harmless creatures into monsters. Desperate people can be the most dangerous kind of people there are, no matter who they were beforehand.

And Spencer? She was more desperate than she’d ever been. Worse than the drinking, the cocaine, the speedballs – worse than all of them combined. She had been telling herself that this was different – this wasn’t addiction, this was her righting a wrong. This was all to keep the one person in her life that she couldn’t handle living without. This was for Catherine.

But a part of her, one that had originated as something small in the corner of her mind but that had grown over the past couple of weeks, had begun to realize that she was lying to herself. What if she was wrong? What if this wasn’t Catherine she was seeing, what if it was just another one of her hallucinations? Not a miracle, like she’d been hoping, but a travesty?

Spencer had been pushing the thought away, mostly because she wasn’t sure she could handle it if it was correct. So she kept taking the demon blood, splitting her world between Catherine and everyone else, slowly beginning to care less and less how sane she appeared to the latter group. She’d never needed anyone other than her sister, when it really came down to it, Catherine had pointed out, so what did it matter?

If she had been nearer to her right mind, she might have realized that was a red flag. But that wasn’t the final nail in the coffin – it came a few weeks later, after Leo had finally stood his ground and refused to give her more of the blood, leaving Spencer in the desperate state that had finally pushed her over the edge.

The vampire had called her old dealer the second Leo had left, and for a week or two he had supplied enough to tide her over, but apparently that was to come to an end. “What do you mean he’s gone, Martin?” Spencer’s voice echoed through the alley behind the Hellmouth, but she didn’t care who overheard. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her clothes didn’t look much better; she’d only come outside at Martin’s request.

“I mean, my source is gone.” Martin retorts. “So get another one,” Spencer says, not really noticing how authoritative and deadly her voice sounds until she sees Martin flinch. “No. Those demon fuckers mean business, and I’m not goin’ near any more of them. This is the last of it, Spencer. You want more, you find one yourself.”

She snatches the bag out of his hands, eyes flashing with rage, before they begin darting around to find Catherine. Her sister will have some snarky remark, or surprisingly good advice on how to handle the situation, Spencer’s sure of it. But there’s no sign of her, the vampire realizes as her chest clenches in fear. Is this it? Is her time up? She tears into the blood bag with her teeth, draining the thing dry before her eyes search the area again.

“Spencer!” Catherine’s shouting, tears streaking her cheeks. “There you are,” the brunette whispers, a sigh of relief leaving her lips. “I thought I was gone again. Make him get you more, Spencer. We have to get more.”

More words that would never come from the sister Spencer had once known, but she obeyed them anyway. Gripping Martin around the neck, she turned the full force of her infuriated gaze on him. “What the hell, Spencer?” The man manages to croak, his eyes full of fear. Spencer doesn’t care that he’s afraid. She doesn’t care that she looks crazy, or monstrous. All she cares about it getting more demon blood. “Find another demon, Martin. I’m not gonna ask again.”

“No.” He chokes out, in a rare moment of bravery. A furious, guttural growl leaves Spencer as she tightens her hand around his throat. She has to make him listen, to understand that she needs this, but she forgets her own strength. Where she might have left some bruises when she was a human, her one-handed grip is enough to snap Martin’s head clean off his shoulders, and her expression blanks out as she watches his head roll a few feet away.

She killed Martin. He wasn’t exactly a stand-up member of the community, sure, but he was still a person, one she had killed because he wouldn’t fuel her addiction. “Jesus, Spencer! Now we have to find a new dealer.” Catherine’s voice, filled with irritation, is the only thing that starts Spencer out of her dazed stupor. Brown eyes tear away from the bloody scene she’d created, only to fill with dread as she faces what she thought was her sister.

“You’re not her,” Spencer says, her voice almost a whisper. “Leo was right. You’re not Catherine, you’re just a h- a hallucination. From the demon blood.” Catherine’s expression goes slack for a moment, turning reproachful as she finally shakes her head. “Don’t say that, Spence. It’s me. It’s Catherine, I’m your sister.”

“No.” Spencer says, louder this time. “Catherine would never be so… callous, so one-track-minded. She wouldn’t only care about getting more demon blood. But an addict would,” she admits, tears filling her eyes. “I would. That’s how I know it’s all in my head. I have to detox. I have to get help. I… I can’t see you anymore even if it kills me.”

“It just might,” Catherine retorts. “You barely survived losing me the first time, and that was with human emotions, human substances. You really think you’ll be able to go through it as a vampire, with all that heightened grief, heightened need?”

“I’ve made your life so much better, but I can make it a whole lot worse if you go through with this. You need me.” Catherine – no, not Catherine, just another hallucination – practically spits. “No. You’re not my sister; I don’t need you.”

“Then you’d better hold on tight,” she warns, eyes blazing. “This is gonna hurt like hell.”

[melindaofshield]

i saved your best agent || kilgrave, melinda, and phil

summary: kilgrave’s first day training at SHIELD takes a turn for the worst. immediately following this thread.

trigger warnings:  injury, violence, murder/murder implications, self-harm, trauma, mind control, kilgrave stuff

featuring: @coulsonsshield @kevinthompsons

MELINDA: Melinda paused for a beat after her fist had made contact with Kilgrave, watching as he staggered backward from the blow. Normally she would have stopped herself or at least held back, but each phrase out of his mouth was another command and he wasn’t focused on his training. He was focused on control. And Kilgrave needed to understand how to react when things were out of his control. But she could see it in his face, the rage behind his dark eyes as he stared at her like she had wronged him. He straightened up finally. But that look was still on his face. He didn’t know how to react -- he had never been taught how to handle situations without simply barking orders.

Kilgrave was looking at her, but then his eyes moved away. Looking just over her shoulder. At the mirror?

And there it was.

An order was thrown out without a second thought -- or maybe he had thought about it. It was specific and crass. Break that mirror. And cut your heart out with a shard. Now. Melinda looked him in the eyes, tried to pause, but the urgency in the word now forced her to turn around. She took a few steps towards the mirror and stared at her reflection briefly, her eyes moving towards the image of Kilgrave standing behind her in the distance. But he wasn’t stopping her. And why would he? This was what he wanted right? Control. His pride had been wounded and he was reacting like a child. But Melinda was paying the price.

She lifted her hand and balled her fist before hitting the mirror as hard as she could and the glass fragmented onto both sides of the wall. A two-way mirror. Melinda’s attention was on the glass that sprayed out in her direction -- but she glanced on the other side, to see who it was that had been tasked with monitoring the situation.

Phil.

Melinda tore her eyes away from him, blood already trickling down her arm from the shards of glass -- but that’s not what Kilgrave wanted. She bent over and turned away from Phil so that he couldn’t see what she was about to do. Melinda gritted her teeth as she looked at Kilgrave. Eye contact as she put the broken piece of glass in towards the center of her chest and made the first jagged cut across the center of her chest. Tearing her shirt and cutting into her chest. But she didn’t scream. The pain was ripping through her but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction if hearing her pain. She pulled the glass away from her body, the blood already staining her clothes and dripping from the shard -- and she put it back to her chest, in the same spot she had started. Ready to make the second cut.

PHIL: When training Kilgrave had been suggested while writing up his contract, Coulson had vehemently disagreed at first. The man was already dangerous enough – teaching him to fight would only make it worse, even though he suspected that Kilgrave wouldn’t use those fighting skills even if he was taught them. He would always be lazy, and learning how to punch would make no difference.

However – after much consideration, he’d agreed to the idea of Kilgrave learning how to fight. Then came the time to determine who would train him, and the first suggestion of Melinda May already had Phil on edge. First Jessica, then Daisy – there had to be one person in Coulson’s life who wasn’t terrorized by this monster. He didn’t want May to become Kilgrave’s latest fascination, or for her to have to deal with him. She’d only just returned, and things were good – or as good as they could be – but he knew that May might be the right person for the job as much as he hated it. Begrudgingly, he’d supported the idea and agreed to it, but on the caveat that he be there to monitor the situation.

And it was good he did, given what transpired when the two met.

Coulson had feared Kilgrave taking a liking to May, seeing so much of Daisy and Jessica in her, but it was far worse than he could have imagined. Kilgrave immediately ordered May to be happy there, a thought that made his jaw clench at the idea of forcing her pleasure, and telling her to be friendlier. May used to be friendlier, used to be warmer, and Kilgrave had no right to expect that from her. He had no right to demand anything from her – but when had that stopped him?

Bitch. He wanted to go in there, punch Kilgrave right then, but knew it would only make the situation worse. So far, everything was fine, and Melinda was safe – if he went in and antagonized Kilgrave, it would only escalade.

Apparently he wasn’t needed to make the situation worse.

The desire to cheer on Melinda for twisting Kilgrave’s arm, for punching him, warred with Coulson’s fear for her life. He saw it in Kilgrave’s face as his decision set in, and Coulson stared to rise from his seat, recognizing the look on Kilgrave’s face and the way he nearly seemed to be looking at him as he stared at the mirror.

It was as if he heard the command Kilgrave gave to May just moments before he spoke it. And then, suddenly, the two way mirror was destroyed by Melinda’s fist punching through it, cuts and slashes scattering over her skin as he saw her, the pure fear etched into her features.

He ran into the other room, just in time to watch, horrified, as Melinda plunged the shard of mirror into her chest, creating a deep gash as blood bloomed against her chest. “Kilgrave, what the hell are you doing?!” He shouted in anger as he wrenched May’s hand away from her chest, pinning the hand that held the mirror shard to the wall and looking back at the other man. “You want to convince everyone you can handle this? You can’t just kill everyone who gets in your way! Remove the command, now!”

KILGRAVE: He didn't usually watch them do it. He had no desire to see the blood, the gore, but since Jessica had pinned the desk against him? Since Daisy had fucked off and abandoned him? He didn't care anymore. He stared at her as the familiar blank look fell across her face, shutting off that infuriating superior expression. There it was. The way they should all look. Her eyes, which had been cold before, were empty now. She didn't look pissed, or afraid. She just obeyed. Just like she should have right from the moment he'd walked into the room.

Agent May turned towards the glass and punched it with as much force as she'd hit him, which seemed fitting. Even at the first sign of blood on her knuckles didn't make him turn away. It was sickening, it was fucking disgusting, but he kept watching her as she picked up the piece of mirror. Cut your heart out. It was brutal. He usually didn't give a shit how they did it, just as long as they were gone. But this bitch? She deserved to suffer. He wanted her to feel every second of it. She'd hit him. Jessica Jones only got away with that kind of insubordination because he couldn't make her pay for it. But that didn't mean every bitch with a smug attitude got to punch him in the face. Jessica and Daisy and even Patsy. At last, someone was paying their dues.

She plunged the glass into her chest, and he made himself stay still and watch, even as she dragged it through her flesh. They never screamed. They never bloody screamed. People had cut off limbs and stabbed themselves and shot their spouses, and they didn't scream while it was happening. He'd heard their screams later, after the command had been carried out, usually as he was walking away. But never during. And Agent May was no different. She stabbed the glass into her chest, right through her shirt, and started to cut. Blood gushed out of the wound, so dark it was almost black, and it made him feel nauseous just looking at it. But she was staring at him -- this fucking arrogant bitch -- and he wouldn't look away now. He kept looking at her hand, so steady, even as she slid it through her skin.

Suddenly, Coulson ran in, and Kilgrave was completely thrown. What the hell was Phil doing here? He tore his gaze away from May and stared at Coulson in shock. Before he could tell Phil to stay there, to not interfere, the other man had crossed the room and wrestled May's hand away from her chest, physically fighting her not to do what she'd been told. Typical. What a Jessica Jones thing to do. Jesus, he was surrounded by all these sodding do-gooders who didn't ever see what he saw. Why had he ever though this would work out? This being a hero lark. What the hell did it get him, anyway? Jessica had stabbed him in the back and Daisy had left him and Phil was a bloody pen-pushing idiot.

Remove the command, now. Kilgrave stared at him. He was so unused to hearing that sort of emotion in anyone's voice, except Jessica. They all sounded slightly off, like actors. The whole world was a goddamn stage, wasn't that how the phrase went? That's all it had ever been. Everything happened around him. It never touched him. But as he stared at Coulson, literally fighting this bitch for her life, he wondered what it would be like to be like them, to be like Jessie. To actually give a shit. To be like Daisy, and cry when a woman didn't commit suicide, because she cared that much about a bloody stranger.

And he was so fucking tired. Of being looked at the way Coulson was looking at him. The way his parents had looked at him. That mixture of horror and anger and sadness and something else, something too confusing for him to name. Jessica looked at him that way, and Daisy looked at him that way, and sometimes the ones who took a moment to obey, they looked at him like that too. He was exhausted with all of it. With trying to be like them, trying to be friendly. He'd tried, with this one, to be polite and smile and act like he was pleased to be wasting his time. Just like he'd tried with Daisy. But, just like every other bitch, this May woman had screwed him over.

"Why?" he asked Coulson. He hadn't asked that in a long time. The last time he actually remembered asking that of another man was when he'd asked his father, when Albert had punished him for some tiny bad thing he'd done. Decades ago, before his powers. Before. And his father had said because I said so. He looked at Phil, and felt uncharacteristically lost in the face of all that emotion. "Why should I remove it, huh? What does she --" he pointed at her carelessly, "-- Mean to you? Oh, and you can stop it, with the glass, Agent May. Stand still. Coulson wants to explain himself properly." The order for Agent May was a necessity, because Phil wouldn't be able to answer if he was fighting her.

MELINDA: The door swung open and Melinda’s jaw tensed because she knew who had walked through that door -- but she had silently begged to not have him see this. Kilgrave looked away from her and slowly, Melinda’s dark eyes found their way towards Phil and managed to catch that look of horror in his eyes when she made that first cut. There was a wave of nausea that hit her and forced her to look away from him, her eyes back on the shard of glass in her hands, watching the blood drip from the tip while she tried to ignore the excruciating pain in the center of her chest. Because focusing on that, on the blood dripping down the center of her body, dividing her in half, was better than the look of horror on Phil’s face.

Phil grabbed her wrist and Melinda fought against him -- she couldn’t stop herself. His words bouncing around in her mind, telling her to cut her heart out, she couldn’t stop. She wanted to drop the glass -- let it clatter to the floor and be done with this, but instead, as Phil pinned her hand to the wall behind her, she struggled in his grip. Twisting her wrist toward his thumb. He shouted at Kilgrave and she stared at the side of his face with a fearful expression. Not for her own safety -- but for his. Even if Kilgrave didn’t hurt Phil directly, he could force Phil to watch her kill herself -- force him to enjoy it if he wanted.

He shouted a command at Kilgrave, demanded that he take the order off of her and Melinda felt her heart pounding against her wounded chest. Each beat hurting more than the last. As Kilgrave started speaking to Phil and her stomach turned again. He wanted Phil to tell him what she meant to him and unfamiliar anxiety filled her chest. She pulled her eyes away from Phil, not wanting to look at him when he finally confessed whatever it was he was feeling about her. Trying not to fall back into that thought -- that she had confessed she loved him and he had said nothing. The lack of anything was more painful than an outright rejection, and she had always wanted to know what he felt, wanted to have this conversation but not like this. Never like this.

Kilgrave ordered her to stop and there was a moment of relaxation that came with it, the mirror shard dropped from her hand and Melinda looked at her palm. There was a deep cut there from how tightly she had gripped the shard. But she could breathe. Melinda had been about to reach up with her hand -- to grab the torn fabric of her shirt and pull it closed to hide the wound she had created on herself, but the muscles in her body tensed. Stand still followed by the narrative that Phil wanted to explain himself. Melinda’s jaw tightened, her back teeth clenched. She wanted to tell Kilgrave that no, Phil didn’t want to explain and that this conversation about their relationship was one they should be having without him -- without any audience. But she swallowed her words and remained still as commanded.

PHIL: Melinda’s blood coated his palm, slick and warm. For just a brief moment, Phil understood Kilgrave’s displeasure, but for a very different reason. For Kevin Thompson, bodily fluids and blood and everything reminded him of humanity, who he felt was beneath him. The thought of blood coating his hands sickened him because it was ‘gross’. Coulson had been in battlefields, had held dying friends in his arms. Held dying loves in his arms. Rosalind. The thought of her came to his mind unbidden, and he didn’t want to think of it, not when he imagined another person he felt so strongly about dying. “Please, I can’t lose you too.” He said softly, nearly inaudibly, staring at Melinda with wide and fearful eyes.

Kilgrave’s anger at Coulson trying to stop him was evident, but Phil didn’t care as he stared right back. But he felt relief as the commandment was removed from Melinda and she dropped the glass. It clattered to the floor, and he kicked it away. Surely, it would have been easy for Kilgrave to just give her another command - there was more glass on the floor, more cuts criss-crossing her arms, and more ways she could hurt herself - or him - all over the room. But it was one inch of freedom they had against him.

“What does it matter to you?” He asked, anger biting his voice for the first time since Kilgrave had rescued Daisy. He had almost believed he saw sympathy in the other man’s eyes, almost believed Kilgrave, with enough effort, could become something resembling a human being. He knew he had to avoid making him angry, because with a quick move Kilgrave could slaughter every agent in the building, or make them kill each other. “This, of all things, was enough to set you off? You’re supposed to not do this. She’s supposed to be training you and you’re trying to hurt her.” He said, but his voice betrayed far more emotion than an agent who should be removed from the situation would have.

Pulling in a deep breath, Phil spoke. “She’s probably the best agent on Earth and someone you would be incarcerated for hurting. She taught countless people far more dangerous than yourself, and I allowed this assignment hoping you wouldn’t do exactly what you’ve just done. If I wasn’t watching on the other side of that mirror, she’d be dead and you would have lost any hope of proving to people that what they think about you is wrong. You’d be doing exactly what you’ve always done.” He said coldly.

Glancing back at Melinda, Phil clenched and unclenched his hand. “She is my best friend, and my partner. Haven’t we already done this before, where you try to hurt my loved ones and I get angry with you? Don’t you ever get tired of ruining their lives?"

KILGRAVE: What did it matter to him? It mattered because Kilgrave had spent his entire life watching people, objects in his life, with these... reactions. Crying and screaming and falling to their knees when their husbands or children harmed themselves. He knew what it was. Empathy. He'd felt it, for Daisy, on that jet. How did these people live like that? He stared at Coulson, and wanted to just let Agent May kill herself so they could talk about this without the distraction. He'd actually come to enjoy the other man's company. They were partners. But here he was, giving him a lecture? Like his dad would have? No, worse than his dad, because at least he'd always known his dad was a twat.

"She wasn't training me," he snapped. Of course Phil would be on her side. "She punched me in the face! You can't honestly believe that's training." Coulson had to see that. This so-called 'training' was pointless anyway. He'd never be a match for Jessica, physically, so why the hell were they wasting his time? He shouldn't have bothered. God, to think he actually put in an effort with this cold-hearted bitch. He glanced at May for a second, and saw the blood pouring down her chest. Good. He'd thought Jessica was the only person he would enjoy watching suffer, but it turned out, there were two. It only lasted a moment, but he looked into May's blank eyes, and didn't bother to try to see what they saw. What, apparently, they all bloody saw. All he could see was a nuisance, something to be removed.

And then, Coulson started talking again, and Kilgrave turned to look at him. He should've expected this bullshit. The best agent, blah blah blah. He rolled his eyes. Jessica had threatened him with prison as well, as if any judge would even want to convict him. They'd see it his way, that this bitch had it coming. Everyone always agreed with him. Just like they never screamed when they harmed themselves and they never begged not to do it. They all just did it. It was always as simple as that.

All it would take would be one sentence. You don't care about her. And then, Phil wouldn't. All that judgement and anger and whatever the hell else he was feeling would vanish. Things could go back to the way they were before this. May could kill herself, and Coulson wouldn't give a shit. But all that emotion, that genuinely confusing, overwhelming, emotion, would be gone. And he'd be looking at the same bloody blank stare, the same hollow eyes, that he always looked at. You don't care about Agent May. And Coulson would say Yes, I don't care about Agent May. Because that's what they always fucking said. And he was so, so, tired of it. It would be like Phil said. He'd be doing exactly what he'd always done.

When faced with Jessica Jones, all he wanted was submission. He wanted that hollow look, the knowledge that she was a puppet and she was finally doing what she was told and bending. But Jessica was the exception. Did he really want that from Coulson? Christ, he was so bored of it. Of them all just being empty.

Phil said they'd done this before, and Kilgrave looked at him in disbelief. "This isn't about you," he said. "I'm not trying to hurt your loved ones. I don't even know who this is." Again, he shot May a disgusted look. "You know this isn't about you, Phil. Blimey, I thought you were clever." He looked at May for a long time. She was important to Phil. But she did deserve to die. He remembered that woman, genuinely thanking him for rescuing her. And what Daisy had said. Just this once save someone’s life. Didn't he ever get tired of ruining their lives? What sort of question was that?

"You want to know if I get tired?" he repeated, throwing the question back at Phil. "Why should I?" He didn't want an answer to that -- Coulson would be able to say anything satisfactory. After a moment, he turned back to May, who was still standing there, blood dripping down her front, her shirt sliced open. She'd hit him. But maybe she'd done penance for that. And he was fucking exhausted with this. So he said, "Fine. Fine. You don't want to cut your heart out. There." He glanced at Phil. "Happy now? I saved your best agent."

MELINDA: She wasn’t looking Phil in the eyes, not at first. But then he spoke, said that he couldn’t lose her too, and her dark eyes finally came up to see that fear in his face. Melinda was quiet for a beat, looking him in the eyes before finally whispering, “And I don’t want to lose you, again.” She had lost him twice before already, once when Loki’s staff tore through the center of his chest and again when his heart had stopped -- it had only been for a moment, but how many chances was Phil going to have at life? How many brushes with death would be too much?

It was like Kilgrave had opened a flood gate. Anger was dripping from Phil’s voice and Melinda wanted to warn him -- beg him to stop. Not to show that much emotion for what was happening to her because Kilgrave could manipulate that. Not that he had to, all it would take was for a single command, a careless thought spoken aloud and he could change Phil and Melinda’s relationship. Could make them not care about each other, or hurt each other, or make them care more deeply for each other. And then inflict pain on them. It just depended on how sadistic Kilgrave was feeling. How much he wanted to punish them for not falling in line perfectly with what he imagined. How far would he go to make them what he wanted?

Kilgrave was living in a bubble. Expecting the people around him to play the roles that he expected and growing more and more furious each time someone didn’t line up perfectly with what he wanted. They were supposed to be his dolls but neither of them were playing his game. Or at least, they were trying to resist it. Fighting against the impossible -- fighting against mind control. Acting like they could reason with him when his emotions changed at the drop of a hat. Melinda wondered why Kilgrave even wanted to be an agent. Was this just to paint himself in a better light? Did he believe that being an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. would change all the wrongs he had done? Did he think people would suddenly respect him? He didn’t understand pain or loss, not in the way any other agent did. He didn’t have the empathy or humanity to understand the consequences of his actions. If he ever did field work, nothing good would come of it. He’d do what he had just done, offer a careless command and jeopardize any real mission. Kilgrave was a liability. But why didn’t the higher-ups at S.H.I.E.L.D. see that?

When Phil started singing her praises, Melinda felt her stomach twist. She wanted to tell Phil to stop -- to keep all that information from Kilgrave. But she knew she couldn’t -- she knew he couldn’t stop because Kilgrave had asked. Demanded it of him. Pulling out the information like a leech. But then Phil glanced at her, Melinda caught his eyes and listened to his words. She is my best friend, and my partner. It was the expected response and Melinda gave the smallest smile. It wasn't a happy smile, there was a small trickle of sadness on her features because again, she didn’t know how he felt. Or maybe this was it? They were colleagues and that was all. She pushed the expression away as Kilgrave finally removed the command. That impulse to hurt herself was gone finally. But the pain she felt wasn’t. Her chest heaved as the pain became the only thing she could feel, but she kept quiet. Her left-hand clenching when Kilgrave claimed to have saved her. He had forced her to hurt herself, and now that he removed the command he was, what? Her savior? Did he really believe he that? He inflicted the harm, he didn’t get to pretend to be a hero when he finally stopped.

PHIL: Happy. That was what Kilgrave wanted to know. If he was happy that he’d spared Melinda’s life. Phil stared at her, heart pounding in his chest as relief flooded through him. Of course he was happy she was alive - he’d nearly lost her too many times and it felt like any time they thought they might be happy, something worse happened and suddenly someone was kidnapped by a mad scientist, or made a deal to die, or another obstacle fell into their path and it became impossible.

But that wasn’t what Kilgrave wanted to hear. Out of all things, Kilgrave wanted approval and love and someone to care about him - and, in a twisted way, Coulson could understand that. “Thank you.” He said hoarsely, his tight hold on Melinda slipping enough to release the tension in him. I’m not trying to hurt your loved ones. It felt somehow worse, to hear that, and remember how his first introduction to Kilgrave had been the man hurting Jessica in a way clearly meant to hurt Daisy. Had he said it? No. But why would he chose someone so clearly linked to Daisy as well? Why wouldn’t Kilgrave have attacked Trish, or Sofia? There were so many people who Jessica cared about - for all that she pretended otherwise. Why else would Kilgrave have chosen him?

“I don’t care that it wasn’t about me, I care that it was about her.” Coulson said, gritting his teeth. At his worst moments, he compared himself to the people he fought against. Kilgrave, Hive, Ward. But he recalled Kilgrave’s agony at Daisy in pain, and how he didn’t understand or empathize. Seeing her in pain brought him pain - it was that simple. For Phil, though, he didn’t want to see Melinda in pain but that didn’t make her pain any less important. And he knew that she could survive it, and didn’t want her to ignore it like Kilgrave had ordered Daisy to. He took a deep breath, trying to remain calm even as Melinda was still stiff against his side. He shook his head - Kilgrave had never done anything in his miserable life enough to become tired, had he? It was just mindless repetition though - the same thing, over and over again. Nothing ever changed when it came to Kilgrave, and nothing ever would.

“You ordered her to stay still. You need to remove that command as well.” He said harshly. But his words turned to ash on his tongue as he said the next part. “You are dismissed for the day. Report to my office for work tomorrow morning."

KILGRAVE: Coulson thanked him, and Kilgrave chose to ignore how flat his voice was, how disingenuous he sounded. It didn't matter how he said it, only that it was said. Phil didn't need to fight May anymore -- she relaxed as soon as the command was removed -- and Kilgrave looked at them both. Phil had called her his loved one, putting this random woman in the same category as Daisy and Jessica. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised -- the man clearly had a penchant for bitches. Jessica, Daisy, now this Agent May. They were all the same. It was typical, really.

She was still standing there, the bitch who'd hit him, with blood pouring down her front from where she'd tried to cut out her heart. She hadn't moved, or said anything -- good girl -- but he could see the loathing and anger in her eyes. He shouldn't have saved her. He should have let her finish the job. What was one less arrogant, hate-filled, woman? Sod what she meant to Phil. He didn't care. And he could still tell Coulson not to care. But he couldn't be bothered with any of them. He was bored with their pair, with Phil's anger, with the whole bloody thing. Though, he supposed, at least they wouldn't try to 'train' him, again. May had proven how pointless it was.

And then, Coulson gave him another order. His tone was sharp, angry. Kilgrave rolled his eyes. Blimey, Phil really was just like his dad. Don't do that, Kevin; you need to rearrange the coloured blocks, Kevin; do what your mother says, Kevin. His old dad, who had ended up being dismembered alive. Kilgrave looked at him for a long time.

He'd been dismissed, like a goddamn child. He couldn't remember ever being dismissed in his life, by anyone, and here was his so-called boss, telling him he was dismissed. It was unbelievable. He seriously considered telling Phil to shut up (actually, he considered telling Phil to put his sodding head through a wall) but again, he just wanted to leave. Coulson was right about one thing. He was done for the day. He was so tired of them both. So, after a moment of weighted silence, he exhaled slowly. "You can move, Agent May," he said, pronouncing her stupid title scornfully. "Do whatever you want. I don't care." And he didn't. He meant that. He rubbed is eyes with his index finger and thumb. "I hope you know, Phil, I won't be training again. Tell your higher-ups that." It was an unnecessary order, really, but he gave it anyway.

And, with that, because he couldn't stand to be around them for another second, he turned way from them and walked towards the door. He didn't say another thing to them, or tell Coulson he would make their meeting. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't. Either way, there wasn't a thing Phil could do about it, and they all knew it.

MELINDA: Melinda was quiet during the entire exchange. Each impulse she felt to move was squashed by the command that Kilgrave had placed on her. She couldn’t grip Phil’s hand or close the opening she had cut in her own clothes. It didn’t matter what she wanted or needed because Kilgrave had commanded something else. Phil demanded that the command be removed from her and in the same breath dismissed Kilgrave like he was a child pretending to be an adult. Her muscles would have tensed if she wasn’t already stiff.

But Kilgrave removed the order, but he couldn’t help himself and slipped in another without a second thought. He likely didn’t even realize what he had said -- he didn’t care enough to pay attention to his own words. But Melinda heard him. Do whatever you want. She didn’t hear the rest of what he was saying, her mind was still trying to process that command. The entire time she had been standing there she had wanted many things. Her left hand came up and she pulled together the fabric of her shirt and hid the gash on her chest from sight again. It didn’t hide the stains on her clothes or the evidence that was dripping onto the ground, but she didn’t feel as vulnerable. At least for a moment.

And then every feeling she had buried in that interaction, every emotion she had bottled up came pouring out. She wanted to cry -- to let it all out. Melinda moved her right arm around Phil, her hip against the side of his body as she turned her head inwards towards him, hiding her face in the fabric of his suit jacket. Melinda May didn’t cry at work, she kept that part of herself hidden away because she was an agent and she needed to keep her emotions ten feet away. Even after Bahrain, Melinda had managed to keep her emotions far away until she was home, behind closed doors with Andrew. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t want to hold it in and keep pretending that she hadn’t been scared. She just wanted to hold onto Phil -- and a quiet moment to collect herself before they went to have her stitched up. So, she held onto him tightly and tried to mask the sounds of her sobs with his jacket.

PHIL: Phil let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding once Kilgrave left, though he felt the command to speak to his superiors. Kilgrave was right - training just made this worse. But he rationalized that the command didn't have to be immediate, and he had a meeting to discuss how the training session went this afternoon. He could tell them there.

It was when Melinda clung to him, holding onto him like he was a lifeline, that he recognized the last command to do whatever you want. Not intentional, surely, but he was almost glad for it.

Arms encircleing Melinda's waist even as her blood soaked his shirt, he raised his chin on top of her head and pressed a kiss to her hair, his hand moving up and down her back in low, soothing circles. "It's okay. You're okay." He promised softly, the thought of Bahrain and the girl coming to the forefront of his mind and cursing that Kilgrave had become a nightmare. Another monster under the bed. Another drop in the bucket on a long list of traumas and reasons to be cold and jaded towards the world. And yet, Melinda wasn't cold and jaded towards the world, even if she wanted to be. She was the kindest person he knew. "Let him go, Melinda." He said. "He's gone. Let him go. I'm right here."

[mirceakitsune]

Artificial Intelligence: The baddest hoax in modern history

Over the years I've dealt with a good amount of crazy. I've seen more shit in nearly 3 decades than I imagined I could in 10 lifetimes, as far as sheer human madness is concerned. In the last few years it has rapidly gotten worse, and recently it seems to have reached new unprecedented heights.

In this episode, it's my displeasure to present to you the sentient computer... A.K.A. machine learning, A.K.A. artificial intelligence. No folks we aren't talking about a physical electronic brain... which may actually be possible one day, once scientists figure out how to reconstruct all neurons in the human brain and map them to a circuit of quantum bits. We're talking classic binary code running on your average 64 bit processor (C++ / Java / Whatever) which is supposedly capable of sentient processes... most notably recognizing the meanings and circumstances of objects in photos, up to facial recognition within complex images. Said functionality is supposedly achieved, I fucking kid you not, by training your computer like an animal or a human baby. This delusion seems to be embraced not only by ordinary people, but even programmers who are expected to know the matter at hand, and horrifyingly by government officials who believe this bullshit will give them some magical powers like in the movies. A few cases of this fairytale include, but are tragically not limited to:

Facebook supposedly recognizes who you are and automatically tags you whenever you upload a photo. Obviously this isn't because FB has money to throw at an army of moderators who stalk people in realtime to tag their shit, and because that's controversial and stupid they're hiding it behind an AI story, that would be crazy... it's the midget trapped in the body of a computer doing it!

The human-computer chimera may soon be "hired" by the airport, where it would scan the faces of travelers as they walk through the gate. Dozens of them... in a few seconds... in the same image.

British police are teaching an AI what child porn looks like. You can be sure it's not because they're looking for an excuse to play around with that material, hehe... it's just so the little man in the Windows system tray can learn how to "detect abused kids". Unfortunately for them the program is doing a bad job at singling out them kiddo butts, because it's confusing them with photos of sand dunes in the desert. But not to worry: The police is sure that the dead God is on their side, and their program will one day spot those sexy children without error! Hmmm... I wonder if mister computer man can develop a pedophilia fetish...

An old news article suggested an AI which, hold on to your horses everyone, was capable of detecting gay faces. Yep: If it sees any picture of you, it's able to tell whether you are homosexual or not.

Another AI can supposedly analyze the way you walk, determining if you have criminal intent based on how a camera sees you moving down the street. You better not be dancing back there dawg, the computer people will think you're gettin' ready to mug some homeboy!

An elaborate hoax known as Facerig has done an impressive job at convincing people that a program is capable of understanding not just your face, but your facial expressions... without even needing some super high-resolution video, just a shitty blurry webcam. Their hoaxed demos even show animated 3D characters imitating the facial expressions of someone in a camera... which I assume is either edited manually into the video, or the character is controlled in realtime by someone watching your face on camera (horrifying to think it might be without some users even knowing it).

At least a few of those articles managed to convince me that I couldn't possibly be a member of the human race, even if I look human when I see myself in the mirror (otherkin aspects aside). Nope; There's just no way I'm part of the same species as those creatures: My brain wouldn't be capable of coming up with this bullshit even as I'm dreaming at night, I must have been designed by aliens using a properly debugged brain structure! Jesus fucking Christ on a flying carpet... what in the ever loving fuck?

Now there are multiple reasons why this whole thing has become infuriating for me: One is the fact that whenever I try shedding a ray of reasoning on this trainwreck, I'm immediately attacked by virtually everyone who refuses to accept this is realm of fantasy. At the same time I worry about what is actually going on, seeing that a lot of effort and money were put into this hoax so it's obviously happening for a reason (likely a smoke screen for extreme mass surveillance plans). Further more it makes an unique mockery out of both biological life and programming alike, via the demented insinuation that a CPU is capable of emulating sentience which is a requirement for any content recognition of this degree. There was once a time when I was fascinated with the idea of AI and machine learning, and was planning to learn more about it and possibly play around with such code... today I'm disgusted to even hear about the subject, after those fuckers disfigured and diseased it too with their madness and refusal to understand basic logical limitations.

Because common sense doesn't seem to be obvious to everyone, I'm going to clarify why this is impossible, by explaining the impassible obstacles a computer would have to overcome in order to do something as unthinkably complex as facial recognition. For the proposed functionality, a mindless piece of code would have to do the following things, all on its own using only pixels of different colors from an image:

First of all it must determine what in the photo is a face, from numerous objects and complex structures that each represent all sorts of things. This is barely doable itself but okay.

Next it must work around the face being shot from any possible angle. The head may be rotated in any position relative to the camera, resulting in a radically different structure being visible in the image.

The person's face may be partly covered. Perhaps there's an obstacle between the face and the camera, like a structure or another person. Maybe they're wearing a scarf or glasses, which they weren't in other images. Maybe their hair is brushed differently and they have an emo haircut covering half of the face. Maybe they're wearing lipstick and the color of their lips is different.

People have different facial expressions in each photo. In one you may be smiling, in one you may be frowning... in one your mouth might be open, in the other it's closed. Faces are always shaped differently.

The lighting conditions are guaranteed to not be identical, both brightness and colors differ. Maybe it's day maybe it's night, maybe the environmental light is reddish maybe the atmosphere is blue, maybe different cameras that shot you used different color adjustment filters.

The average camera (even good ones) is still much more blurry than anything we see with the naked eye. Motion blur is also involved if either you or the camera are moving, if the environment is dark it gets worse. Noise is further introduced by a bit of jpeg compression, as no sane camera wrecks your drive space by saving in lossless png.

Many people still upload low resolution pictures of themselves on the internet. When your picture is 1024 x 768 and you're standing at a distance, there is nearly no usable detail to even attempt to work with on a PC.

Suppose it miraculously managed to single out a face throughout all those obstacles: It needs to measure something and use it as an identifying trait! What, how, why? The apparent distance between your eyes in pixels? How wide your mouth appears to be? How bulgy is your forehead? It doesn't even know what those things represent, not to mention anything can look like a head or eyes or a mouth!

Even if by total defiance of all logic, there was something that could be mathematically measured and the program did manage to calculate it on its own: The computer would also need to compare the data to what is probably trillions of photos in the database! Not only do people look similar so there would be millions of false positives, but doing so many pixel comparisons would require 100 times more memory and processing power than all computers on the planet combined today have!

Are you fucking kidding me? Someone is actually trying to tell me that in actual real life, a shitty piece of x64 code would be capable of doing ALL THAT? What the fuck are people smoking these days? No, really... just go take a walk in the park or meditate on the top off a cliff, then ask yourself the question: "How could I possibly be led to believe this crap"? It's 1000 times easier to board a space shuttle and go to Mars TOMORROW, compared to achieving something that gets even close to this. Even if Jesus himself was still alive and had his superpowers to heal the blind and spawn fish from a basket, even if Moses could make the waters split with his mighty staff... not even they could create something like this, even if they called God himself for reinforcements. If you open your bedroom window and leap right through it, you can be more confident that you'll fly like Peter Pan compared to this shit happening. THIS - IS - NOT - POSSIBLE!

And before people tell me "but the CIA has had facial recognition for decades": Yes they do and that's a totally different matter. Criminologists use one or two photos per suspect (frontal and side shot) which are taken in carefully controlled conditions: It's always from the same angle and distance, the suspect is told not to smile or open their mouth, the lighting is the same, etc. There are also only a few million photos of criminals in the database, rather than trillions of pictures from billions of people... if you have a 10 GHz processor you may be able to do a pixel-to-pixel comparison of one photo against all others in less than a day.

I'm sorry, but some harsh shit had needed to be said about this: Every time this pops up on EFF or other rights groups, I find myself compelled to speak out against a big fat lie seeing how everyone else refuses to. There is seriously no excuse for allowing fairytales and mass hysteria to spread all over the media, without one voice of reasoning exposing this obvious lunacy for many months! Also fuck humanity hard for ruining what could have been a beautiful domain of research if it was kept rational and serious and not turned into a distorted fantasy... especially since I'm a programmer, do not expect me to forgive this mockery, as they've put yet another cherry on the cake the way only this disgusting species is capable of doing.