#no shit genius we need people who understand how ai works to explain why an anti-ai tool is not effective

[sonoda-oomers]

stop having kneejerk reactions to ai. it's harmful but worst of all it's annoying to me and you hab to stop it

[itsclydebitches]

Hey Clyde, did you check out Wonder Egg Priority at all? The first ep is super promising, but the series as a whole is one of those real fascinating disasters from a story and a production standpoint that might be up your alley as a thing to pick apart haha.

I’d warn that it’s also reeeeal offensive and this generally gets worse as it goes though.

Hi, Phoenix! How are you and Cube doing?

Okay, I hadn't watched Wonder Egg Priority when I received your ask this morning. Now I have. In a fit of intense curiosity I settled down for a rare binge session and tore through all twelve episodes + OVA in a single sitting. It is now nearly 3:00am as I write this because I, oh so clearly, make fantastic life choices.

A question for you: what did I just watch?

The rest is going under a read more partly for spoilers, but more-so because WEP—and the summary I'm about to give, because I feel like I need to try and explain this to tumblr's faceless void for my own, dwindling sanity—comes with about every trigger warning under the sun. Seriously, if you are triggered by anything that we might think of as a "standard" trigger (meaning, not unique to you and your own experiences), best to proceed with caution.

Right! What the ever loving fuck happened in this show? Well, let's work through this chronologically. Two genius, frat boy brothers (I get their names mixed up so I'm not even gonna bother) are locked in their apartment and closely monitored because of Super Secret Science Research. Even though, I think, they're the ones who created this company. Not important! What is important is that they're bored enough to create an AI for funsies, thinking of her as their daughter and letting her name herself Frill. Frill is the perfect, cutesy, also genius child who has a habit of popping her lips — which the camera focuses on in an incredibly creepy fashion. One day Brother #1 (the hot one) falls in love with a random woman we know nothing about and Frill gets jealous.

"Jealous in a general sense?" you ask, thinking this show is in any way normal. "Like, just of her Dad giving attention to someone else?"

"No," I respond, patting your hand. "Jealous because she's in love with him." Which, beyond the subject matter itself, comes completely out of nowhere. Frill has a line about what you'd do if some woman stole your husband away. I, fool that I was, briefly considered that these two guys were lovers, not brothers. Oh no. They're brothers. Frill just considers Dad #1 to be her "husband."

So, in true evil AI fashion, she murders the wife, leaving only her newly born child behind. Who is a daughter.

Uh oh.

Dad #1 locks Frill in a coffin-esque hole in the basement and goes on with his life. Things are great! Until years later when the daughter reveals that she has fallen in love with her uncle (Dad #2 to Frill). She knows (somehow??) that both her dad and her uncle loved her mom, so if the loser uncle will just wait a few years he can marry her instead! He brushes her off, but the next day she’s found dead of an apparent suicide.

Realizing that this was somehow Frill’s doing, he marches down to the basement and confronts the murderous child they’ve had locked up for years. She’s now surrounded by screens in, again, true creep AI fashion. How did she get all this while she was locked up? Oh, just the three bug girls she created as friends prior to killing the wife. They’re devoted slaves, I guess. So the uncle says enough of this insanity and seemingly sets Frill on fire.

OH and Frill’s subtitled dialogue also puts “uncle” in quotation marks, implying that the daughter was always Dad #2’s??

Anyway, both brothers are now super obsessed with death and claim that they think Frill has had a hand in lots of girls’ suicides, even now after her own death. This is brought into question later when it’s revealed that they might have just concocted this scheme to try and bring back their daughter. I’m really not sure. Regardless, they use hand-wavey science to create eggs that I guess contain the souls of young girls who have committed suicide, then they sucker in other young girls who have lost people to suicide to try and rescue their loved ones in a dream world, saving others along the way. A tomboyish girl, Momoe, lost a classmate who admitted to loving her, but who Momoe rejected. Rika, a former junior idol, used and rejected an overweight fan only to learn later that she’d starved herself to death. Neiru, the 14yo president of some science company (yup) was attacked by her sister before she jumped off a bridge. Finally Ai, our protagonist, is a victim of bullying who managed to make friends with a single girl, Koito, who then jumped from their school building for unknown reasons. They’re all given the chance to bring these individuals back to life, provided they protect other victims of suicide by defeating the monstrous traumas that drove them to that act in the first place.

And you know what? That concept was great. However, the execution ranges from “Okay, that was pretty good for an anime. Kudos there” to “That’s the most offensive thing I’ve seen in my life.” Needless to say, unpacking all the battles they fight would take a lot more than this already absurd summary. Basically, if you can think of something horrible to happen to young girls (and one trans guy whose existence in that egg undermines the whole message of the episode), there’s an attempt to tackle it here.

During all this the four girls become friends and Ai works through her suspicions about Mr. Sawaki, a teacher at her school. What’s going on with Mr. Sawaki? Uh… everything! He’s somehow connected to Koito’s death, he’s dating Ai’s mom, and Ai apparently loves him too because her friends say so, even though this is never actually addressed and she barely interacts with him. It’s all quite the complication.

In time though the girls complete their “mission” of bringing their loved ones back to life. Rika and Momoe manage it first, only to find that Frill’s bug-girl lackeys have arrived to kill them. Why? Because that’s what Frill does, I guess. Momoe’s crocodile familiar (cute animals the girls were gifted to help them fight) takes a killing blow for her and the bug-lady then proceeds to carve up his corpse and force feed it to Momoe. Fantastic!! Building off of that, the next bug-lady who Rika encounters kills her turtle too, following in the footsteps of her bug-sister by, presumably, forcing her to eat parts of its head. Ai refuses to sacrifice her familiar to stay alive, but luckily the suicide she was protecting turns out to be herself from a parallel universe (that's a thing now!) and she takes the killing blow herself, which is done by pulling out the eye she’s sensitive about (she has heterochromia.) So parallel Ai passes on (again?) and the three girls don’t work through this trauma at all, instead becoming more traumatized through the realization that the loved ones they brought back no longer remember them. They’re alive, but the relationship they all had with them is dead.

It’s about this point that the main storyline wraps up and I’m relieved that there’s an OVA to finish things off. Surely they can somehow bring this all together in 45 minutes.

…25 minutes of that OVA is recap.

So with only about 20 minutes left, we learn that Neiru, the only one to not complete her mission yet, has mysteriously gone missing. It turns out she was an AI/clone/something all along, made to replace her sister and, presumably, that’s what caused the whole stabbing-suicide incident. She successfully brings her sister back, but stays behind in the dream world because Frill promises her she can become human. How is Frill here when she’s dead? How will Neiru become human? Isn’t Frill the “temptation of death” or whatever? There are no answers. A flashback finally reveals that Koito was having a relationship with a teacher at another school, he committed suicide, she transferred, she tried the same thing with Mr. Sawaki, he kept refusing her advances, and finally while threatening suicide to get his attention, she accidentally fell.

(So why was she in the suicide egg if it was an accident??)

Except, all this information comes through Mr. Sawaki himself, there’s a whole subplot about whether he’s really a villain, or if Ai is just making him into one, and this show might as well be titled How Much Pedophilia Can We Put into One Anime? So make of that what you will.

A dead character randomly shows up, but it's fine because she's actually just a version from a parallel world. How did she get here? Why is she here? Lol, it's cute that you think these are answered.

Rika, the character who cuts and almost committed suicide halfway through the show, breaks down saying how much she misses her dead loved ones, right after her friends refused to let her go on another mission that would surely end in her death and… that’s it. That’s all we get about her.

Momoe too, though she’s hopefully just vibing somewhere with that longed-for boyfriend.

Ai transfers schools and then one day randomly remembers that she loves Neiru and rushes back to start cracking eggs again because that will? Somehow?? Let her see Neiru???

When I say there are too many unanswered questions to possibly list here I really, really mean it.

Finally, in a personal attack on me, the protagonist with a name that is literally AI is not in any way an artificial intelligence.

And that’s it! Congratulations, you now “understand” WEP. And see, the funny thing is that the off-the-rails, bat-shit crazy aspects kind of catch you off guard? Yeah, the first episode is fantastic. In fact, I think I got through about six episodes thinking that this was a solid, if at times really messed up anime, but I was willing to shrug off a lot of stuff due solely to the amount of sensitive material they were attempting to cover (which is always quite difficult to do). Probably the only reason I was able to binge so fast was because the first half of the series was so engaging. The characters are charming. The animation is GORGEOUS. There's actually a ton of good here that is also worth yelling about. But then the plot comes in like a freight train and I was left staring dumbfounded at my screen as more and more insanity kept happening. Having watched the "explanations" I am now more confused about the show I just saw.

Phoenix, if you’ve bothered to read this rambling, 3:00am rant: thank you. I think? Idk if I should actually be thanking you or cursing you for tuning me into this, but it was definitely an experience, that’s for sure lol.

I'm off to bed now RIP the chance of having normal dreams ✌️

[subordinate-functions-defender]

Horizon Zero Dawn but Aloy captures HADES after the final battle

The last three months were... Weird.

Okay, weird is not the right word. Maybe “absurd”. “Extremely impossible to imagine”. “Please do not ask”. Or just “weird, but in a good way”.

It started when HADES, of all people (AI?), started to feel guilty. After being trapped in a lantern for 3 months, Aloy thought he was trying to manipulate her, as an last attemp of gaining freedom, until she was captured by what remained of the Eclipse and HADES was freed. And, instead of killing her, he protected her. Aloy still remembers how he possessed a thunderjaw (a thunderjaw! Of all machines!) and destroyed everything on his sight, except her.

After that, he got rid of the thunderjaw and came back to the lantern - that was the moment Aloy decided it was time for her to trust him. Deciding what machine he would take was the challenge, because she knew he would absolutely hate being in a watcher or a strider. “I’M NOT A HORSE”, HADES had said. She didn’t know what a “horse” was, but it didn’t take a genius to guess it looked like a strider.

Big machines were out of the question. Too much work and grabbed too much attention. Aloy thought of scrappers, along scorchers, and but she didn’t know if HADES would like them, and she kinda wanted it to be a surprise.

Then, she found a stalker, and the plan was set. Not exactly the most secure option, but Aloy knew HADES would like it, and the camouflage would be good for when they needed to get around humans. And, to her happiness, the AI... Loved it. Loved it so much he even gave Aloy a ride!

Now, she was Aloy, the machine tammmer accompanied by a stalker who some said could talk. She didn't confirm if her friend could talk. Waste of time.

And then, one day, she and HADES were exploring the ruins of GAIA Prime. Their plan was to find something useful, and what they found was something even better. Even more impossible than HADES actively trying to do better.

APOLLO.

A corrupted, confused and scared APOLLO, but APOLLO nonetheless. He spoke in gibberish, and HADES had to translate his sentences to something Aloy could understand before APOLLO realized she wasn’t understanding him. “ELISABETH SOBECK”, he said, curiously, and Aloy remembers how much she hated it.

“I’m not her. I’m...”.

“SOBECK’S CLONE”, HADES spoke. And that wasn’t even the most complicated part of everything - not even APOLLO understood how he was alive, but he was! And he acted like a very active child. A very active and weird one.

HADES had to get a glinthawk for APOLLO. He flew away and almost carried Aloy with him - almost. HADES didn’t allow it (and Aloy made sure he wouldn’t forget it).

APOLLO, for the next month, started growing. No longer speaking in gibberish, he now sounded like a scholar, except for the part of knowing things. Aloy desperately wanted to restore his database, and even HADES decided to help on it. APOLLO, however, insisted on trying to discover everything my himself, which meant he lost his body three times in the span of a week. Good work, APOLLO.

That’s when, one day, when Aloy was making a plan for them to use the Spire to get to the other subfunctions, APOLLO, again in a glinthawk, came and started talking. “I was thinking, Aloy”, he started. “You were created by GAIA”.

“Yes. Lightkeeper protocol”, she responded. “You forgot that?”

“No, no”, and the glinthawk sat next to the woman. “You were created by GAIA. The nora seem to consider her All-Mother, your own mother”.

Aloy didn’t understand what he was going for, but let him. HADES, who was laying by her side, lifter up his head. “Straight to the point, APOLLO”, demanded the stalker, angrily.

“Aloy is, by all means, GAIA’s daughter. However, me and you, to an extend, were also created by her, HADES. There is something akin to a human family connection. Therefore, we might consider ourselves siblings”.

“You are machines. I am a human”.

“So?”, APOLLO asked, while HADES stalker’s lights grew in a confused yellow. “There is a conection here, Aloy, and we are treating ourselves like siblings. You, for example, is our younger sister. I am the older, wiser brother, and the one who gets you two out of trouble”.

“You lost three bodies in the span of a week and still consider yourself responsible?”

“I was still learning!”, APOLLO responded, irritated.

“Even I knew how to keep myself safe”, HADES said. “You must be the stupid one”.

"Oh, I am not, little brother. And, I need to say, you must be our troublemaker. Maybe, one day, we’ll need to get you out of a prison!”

“The ENTITY is the one who got into a prison. Two times”.

“It was your fault”, the redhead said. “Helis threw me in an arena as a sacrifice to the Sun because of you. And the Eclipse caught me because I saved the world from you and your protocol”.

APOLLO shook  his head. “A troublemaker, I see”.

“I was acting inside my protocols. Therefore, I am not guilty”.

“Sure, HADES”, Aloy responded, before laying down again, her Focus interface being reactivated. “What siblings are suposed to do, APOLLO? Kill each other?”

Yeah. Aloy saw a lot of sibling rivalry, and lots of backstabbing, but she wouldn’t forget how caring some of them were. She never had a family outside of Rost - her dad -, and, despite all her thoughts about how they couldn’t be siblings, Aloy was curious. Extremely curious, actually!

“I fear this isn’t on my database, Aloy”, APOLLO said. “However, I think a sibling relationship must be something akin to a friendship, in a way. Siblings must take care of each other, like any family member must do to another”.

From there, HADES started adressing Aloy as “sister”, along APOLLO. She decided it would be useless to cronfront them and adopted the title. It was easier that way, to explain to the nora. The two were her brothers, assistants of All-Mother, and they were trying to find the others. The machines were serving as vessels. A good enough story.

Then, they found HEPHEASTUS. Three weeks ago, inside a cauldron, and he was angry. So angry HADES fought him until he started to listen to what Aloy had to say, and even then he wouldn’t listen as much as Aloy wish he would. She had to threaten a protocol purge for him to shut up.

They made... A sort of deal. Aloy had to show him why humanity was worth sparing, simple as that, which means “this is a living nightmare”.

For the last 3 weeks, Aloy was traveling along HADES and APOLLO, going to old one’s ruins, seeing the datapoints and everything else, while HEPHAESTUS watched throught her focus. It was better, for him to see the ruins, how Elisabeth and her team fought so hard for the future, for life to carry on, and Aloy was quick to notice how the AI seemed to be found of Margo. His alpha.

That was the same with HADES and APOLLO, althought the later was way more noticeable. Aloy knew he liked the sound of Samina’s voice.

Now, Aloy and her... Brothers, yes, brothers, were now going to Free Heap, hoping HEPHAESTUS would like to see what the humans did with the machine parts, and Aloy hoped this would make the AI realize that the humans from today are still the humans of the past. Stupid, yes, but also curious and ingenious.

HADES and APOLLO had become sort of figures. Aloy was avoiding as much people as she could, but it seemed like rumours travel faster than anything. Aloy, the machine tammer, was always accompanied by a stalker and a glinthawk, and seemed to talk to them. A machine master with a growing collection of secrets.

Her brothers didn’t talk at all around the others, but their presence alone helped Aloy more than she would admit. It was way easier to demand something when you’ve got a stalker and a glinthawk by your side, in the rare moments she needed to buy something.

It was a long day of walking, and the machine tammer was tired. Extremely tired. And she wanted to keep walking! There was no time to waste when the whole biosphere is in danger. Unfortunately APOLLO and HADES conspired agaisnt her, and now Aloy was laying down next to a thunderjaw while her brothers talked.

"We must reach Free Heap by tomorrow!", APOLLO commented in a warm tone. "How are the people there?"

"Destroyers of armies", HADES responded. "Tinkerers made cannons to defend Meridian".

"They are nice", Aloy interrupted, looking directly at HADES. "Maybe I can present you two - three - to Petra. She's a friend".

"The one who made the canons".

"Yes, HADES, the one who made the canons to save Meridian".

"Can't wait to meet her!", APOLLO responded, excitedly, jumping in the glinthawk. "She must have lots of data for me to store, and I have lots of data to share".

"You are not going to share your horrible videos of stupid humans", HADES said. "I will terminate you myself if I see the 'yeet'".

"It is an important piece of media from the english speaking population!"

"I think Petra would be more interested on how machines work", Aloy commented, too tired for another round of bickering. "HEPHAESTUS sure would be helpful".

"I REFUSE TO INTERACT WITH NON ZERO DAWN RELATED ENTITIES", he immediately responded throught her focus.

"You are not going to learn shit if you keep acting like that".

"I DO NOT CARE. SISTER UNITY MUST ACCEPT IT".

HADES actually laughed at that, and Aloy gave him a glare. Idiot. "You are the worst".

"QUERY: IS SISTER UNITY TALKING ABOUT ME, OR CORRUPTER UNITY?"

"Both", and she laid down on her small and improvised bed. "You three better wake me up before the sunrise or you will have problems. We can’t waste time".

"Aloy, you aren't sleeping well for a month now. You must rest. I will take care of things".

"You don't know how to hunt, APOLLO".

"I do", HADES responded, seeming satisfied.

"And you only bring me the bones of the things you hunt", Aloy responded, more irritated than before. She normally woke up just a bit before the sunrise, however she wasn’t trusting herself anymore - last week, she woke up two hours after it, courtesy of APOLLO insisting they shouldn’t wake her up.

She had such great siblings.

“If someone approaches, wake me up. Do not attack”.

“Okay, Aloy. Have a good rest”, APOLLO said, gently, while HADES’ stalker lifted it’s head in a silent “good night”. HEPHAESTUS, as always, didn’t say anything, but the thunderjaw was quick to initiate a patrol route.

Aloy was soon asleep, and the reason as to why she was having slepless nights soon appeared in the form of another nightmare.

She was a child, running free after a long day of training, searching desperately for her father- Rost. Yes, Rost, not- not father. She wasn’t his... His actual daughter. He never called her one. Not in Aloy’s eyes, at least.

She was searching for Rost, but he wasn’t there. She looked throught their cabin, desperate, and she opened the front door, only to find his body. His dead, lifeless body, surrounded by flowers.

Aloy cried - screamed. And then there was an explosion and she was falling down and there were them, the Eclipse, and Helis with a cruel smile. Machines screamed in the background while Aloy, armed with only her fists, watched as everything around her burned yet again.

She couldn’t do much. She only stayed in the same point, trapped, while Meridian burned. And she looked behind her, only to see nora buildings burning. She could hear screams, too, but no one other person.

A spear appeared in her hands, heavy and bloody, and a voice came from a dark lifeless sky: “TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Aloy couldn’t run.

“TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Couldn’t hide.

“TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Couldn’t make a plane.

“TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Couldn’t escape.

“TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Couldn’t fight back.

“TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Couldn’t do anything.

“TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Only watch as the world burned as brightly as her hair’s color.

“S I S T E R ?”

Aloy opened up her eyes in an instant, immediately punching the first thing she saw, missing it by only a few inches. She jumped, spear now in her hands, while HADES looked at her in the corrupted stalker.

Aloy was trembling, and she was angry. A confused kind of anger, because she was scared. “HADES, what happenned?”

“Calm down, Aloy”, APOLLO’s voice appeared from behind. “It was just a nightmare, see? You are okay”.

Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit. Her nightmares were never that bad, and now she needed to convince them that it was nothing. Fuck. “It was nothing. Did someone came by?”

“You were mumbling and couldn’t stop moving”, HADES intervered. “You also cried. APOLLO decided it was time to purge your sleep”.

HEPHAESTUS’ thunderjaw was looking at the trio, eyes glowing yellow. Aloy simply sat down in the sleeping bag and put her spear next to it. “... Thank you”, she murmured.

“You welcome”, APOLLO responded, the glinthawk sitting next to her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Uh... No”.

Aloy felt HADES’ stalker sitting down. He was looking at her, of course. “It was the Eclipse?”

“You weren’t in it, HADES”, she responded, laying down once again. “Not this time”.

“Sister must go back to sleep”, he responded. “Go”.

And she would, if HEPHAESTUS didn’t intervene: “SISTER UNITY SHOWED SIGNS OF STRESS DURING SLEEP FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS WEEK. QUERY: DOES THIS RELATE TO ANY OF YOUR... PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES WITH HOSTILE HUMANS?”

Aloy rolled her eyes. “The Eclipse. They... Killed Rost, the man who raised me. But they are mostly gone by now, I... We put an end to them”.

“QUERY: WHO ARE ‘WE’?”

The woman sighed. “People I helped along the way. Petra helped, with her cannons. There’s also Talanah, Sunhawk of the Hunter’s Lodge. Erend, Vanasha, Teb, Varl...”.

“I remember them”, HADES responded. “They fought well. For humans”.

Aloy was still trembling, but she could feel her heart slowing it’s pace, no danger to be seem, and a half-smiled appeared at her face. She was safe here, at least. “Tomorrow”, she said, “I’ll tell you more about them. But I need to sleep”.

“Then sleep”, the stalker said, angrily, but Aloy knew he wasn’t actually angry. “Do not have any nightmares”.

“That sure will help me”.

APOLLO’s beack touched her arm. “Ignore him. He’s mean”.

“I am not”.

“Delicate as a brick”, Aloy murmured, ignoring HADES indignation.

“GOOD NIGHT, SISTER UNITY”, HEPHAESTUS said throught her focus. “SLEEP WELL”.

And she did. No nightmares for the rest of the night.

[leslea]

Ready Player Two: The Mysognist’s Love Song

This is a review. Spoilers & typos to follow:

I enjoyed Ready Player One (RP1). It was quirky and fun. The dystopian setting was disturbing, especially as the kid who served as the story’s protagonist didn’t actually do much to make the world a better place, once he became its newest prince. We’re told from the git-go that the world is spiraling downhill, and what does Wade/Parzival do at the end? The bare minimum. He lets the debtors go. He shares his riches with his friends. Well, he was literally just a teenager, and most assuredly a feral one, at that, so you could excuse his lack of vision. Certainly there would be a Ready Player Two (RP2) that would redeem our child champion?

Haha, no.

RP2 is the story of what happens to a neglected impoverished child when he lucks into immense privilege, but lacks the heart, charm, or charisma to be anything other than a hermit and an incel. Where Harry Potter could arguably be said to have started from a similar circumstance, yet grew into an actual savior role in his fight against Voldemort & the Death Eaters, Wade Watts’ character in RP2 is unabashedly a less-loveable version of Donald Trump in a world where he is, in all practicality, king. 

As RP2 begins, Wade owns everything. Not just the Oasis, but a futuristic tech that allows one to record their own visceral experience of being alive. This tech, called ONI, goes even more viral than the Oasis, and makes Wade rich beyond the human mind’s ability to calculate. He has power--so much power, he can control anything. He is literally the richest man in the world, and most assuredly its most envied/hated. Nothing is out of reach for him--and though his friends from RP1′s ‘Gunting days are portrayed focusing on developing real relationships (marriages, babies, etc.), working on improving their environments, and delivering aid to their communities, our dear Wade simply pines for the one thing that eludes him: Samantha, aka Artemis, his fierce and determined love interest from RP1.

He brags about the one week he spent in seclusion with Samantha in a bedroom. He talks way too often of his other sexual exploits via ONI, allowing him to experience sex from the POV of other men, women, transpeople, and non-binary folks. He has done the deed every which way but loose, and author Ernest Cline is as eager to share those details with the reader as he is the spout off acronyms and descriptions of fictional technology. Whereas the latter will have you yawning in boredom, the former will simply turn your stomach. Raise your hands if you were hoping for more cybersex in RP2. Anyone? Anyone? Right. 

Before I delve too deeply in how important it is for even blockbuster authors like Cline to CONSENT TO QUALITY EDITORIAL INPUT, I need to outline some important problems with this story beyond “What’s wrong with Wade, items 1-999.”

Samantha is justly described to have turned her back on Wade over some important issues. She is a woman of integrity, and for years Wade stalks her virtually, even though in all reality he grows a smaller and smaller figure from her past. Think about any woman you know who moves on and gets things done in life: they do not sit around pining for a dickhead ex who they slept with once, years prior. They just don’t. Samantha, however, despite all her success, integrity, and morals...just can’t help but fall back in love with Wade.

All powerful Wade. Involuntarily celibate (in the “Earl,” as Cline calls “in real life,” [IRL]), plugged into the internet from his spinal column or brain stem or whatever, 12 hours per day Wade. Childish destroyer of dissenting user accounts Wade. Stalker Wade.

Although Samantha refuses to make eye contact with him for years, the moment he needs her help...poof. She’s back on his jock like static cling, if I may borrow Cline’s penchant for quoting nostalgia in lieu of creating new content.

While Samantha’s inexplicable change of heart is problematic enough, it is only foreshadowing for a bigger problem with the story. Wade, as owner of the Oasis and all that digital shit, ends up on a quest to restore the Siren’s Soul. This is the “egg hunt” of RP2. Instead of eggs, this time he’s hunting shards, which is fitting, really, because Cline left me feeling sharted on by earlier than midway through the text. 

Where were we? The shards. Right.

The singular essence of Kira Underwood, constantly referred to as “Og’s wife,” has been divided into seven shards and hidden around the Oasis--that is, until the end of the story when Cline mercifully hid the last two together. I might have wept if the story had gone on one chapter longer than necessary. When the shards are collected and merged, they will...? What? Oh, they will coalesce into the actual soul of the departed woman. They will bring her back, digitally.

Now, not only is it creepy on many levels that Wade--let’s call him Parzincel--is repeatedly referred to as Kira’s owner, but his idol before him, James Halliday, is characterized has having created this ONI technology for the main purpose of bringing Kira back, so that a digital version of himself could finally possess her. While “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,” is certainly a handy commandment, “thou shalt treat women as FUCKING PEOPLE WITH THEIR OWN INHERENT RIGHTS” would perhaps be a better placard to engrave and set on the desk of Halliday--to then be passed down to Wade. It never seems to dawn on Parzincel that he has no right to possess Kira, or any other ONI user. 

The in-game avatar of Halliday eventually explains that Kira’s “siren” avatar was able to explain to him that possessing her, manipulating her, etc. was wrong--but ONLY after Halliday hooks himself up the ONI and lives some of Kira’s experiences. Cline plays Halliday off in both books as an Aspergian genius, someone very high functioning on the Autism Spectrum, but as the mother of a young man with autism, I am beyond disgusted at the idea that you would have to hook one living being up to another human being’s synapses for them to have ANY understanding that the other person is a free, competent human being with agency of her own. Kira is repeatedly characterized as an artistic genius with a great heart. She, like Samantha, is demonstrated to be loving and kind. Generous. And yet both Kira and Samantha are primarily belongings for men to possess, control, pursue, and lose. Oh, if only they did lose them...because of course, they don’t. In Parzincel’s dream future, the best thing he can do is create a double of himself, so that he can experience the inexplicable love of Samantha in the “Earl” as well as in an ONI paradise. 

Kira, as the “first stable AI,” is never once shown having any sort of existential crisis. She simply loves being a pretty plaything for Wade and Jim and Og, digitally--and naturally she is “still in love with Og.” Okay, whatever. By this point in the story, Og and Kira are nothing more than paper dolls set up to somehow replace Wade’s missing mother/father figures. You can almost see the author sitting spraddle leg on the floor of his study, pushing dolls around. “You are the mommy now, and you are the daddy...and Wade is the baby! Now kiss!”

In a world as technologically advanced as that of RP2, there would be nuances to digital characters, right? If only there were nuances in the humans who created them, I suppose.

Cline’s Parzincel has a weird weird weird way of looking at women. So does Halliday. Even the benevolent Og only barely registers as showing any interest in Kira’s consent, and then, only when he is, himself, close to death. It’s like Cline knew the only decent human being in this story was Ogden Morrow--and possibly Kira. We don’t really get to spend enough time with the Kira character to know. 

But why would we? We are just readers, and she is, after all, Og’s wife.

I won’t get started on the Lo-Five or what he did to Aech. I’ll let Tim take over for that bit.

[fanficsaremylifeline]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ben Parker & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Dum-E, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Peter Parker & Tony Stark Characters: Peter Parker, Ben Parker, Dummy (Iron Man movies), Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Tony Stark Additional Tags: he likes to talk, who cares if nobody answers, Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV) References, whump warning: fire, ironfam, Irondad, IronDaughter, spiderson Series: Part 12 of Ironfam Summary:

Not everybody Peter enjoys talking to always answers. Doesn't mean that Peter can't talk to them though.

1

“Hi, Uncle Ben”, Peter smiled, somewhat awkwardly. “Happy birthday!” He toyed around with the card he held in his hand. “Unfortunately, they didn't have any 'For the awesome Uncle, who is practically your father' , so I went straight with 'For the world's best Dad'. I mean it's true on any level except genetically. Though I'm not sure how human my genes are any more, so I guess that's even true of my parents... Sorry, I'm digressing.”

Gently, he placed the card just by the bouquet of daisies, Uncle Ben's favourite flowers. They were somewhat wilted, but Aunt May was sure to come by later, and get him a fresh one for his birthday.

“Don't tell Aunt May that I skipped school, though”, he pleaded as he sat himself down, just by the head stone. “She'll ground me from Ned, or Spidermanning, or the Avengers and that's not cool... Oh yeah, that's right, I'm an official Avenger now!”, he beamed proudly, after having made sure that nobody was around to listen in on Peter talking to his Uncle's grave. “I know, it's so cool, right? And woah, you should have seen Aunt May, when she took on Tony Stark, and made very clear that every little thing that'll happen to me, she'll make sure he'll suffer too.” Peter couldn't help but giggle at Tony's grimace. A man who didn't seem to be afraid of anything was seriously scared of Aunt May. Not that Peter could blame him for that; he'd rather go up against the Vulture again, than Aunt May when she was angry with him.

“She's alright. I know I don't have to, because she's like the most badass woman out there, but I'm still looking out for her. And she is doing good.”

There was just this big, burning thing, looming in Peter's mind. “So, this might be a little awkward, but she's seeing someone again. He works for Tony, he's a really good guy, actually. And yeah, it's plenty weird. But Aunt May says, that he's not here to replace you, or anything like that, so I guess that's something...”

Fidgeting nervously with his fingers, Peter looked down on his hands. “I'm not gonna do that, I promise”, he vowed, “I'll never forget you, and I'll always love you and as good of a guy Happy is, you'll always be my Uncle, and you'll always have that place in my heart that nobody ever can have.”

At this point, Peter wasn't sure if he assured Uncle Ben or himself. Him it definitely helped; things were sort of out in the open. It'd be so much easier though, to hear some sort of answer, get some kind of reaction. But that wasn't gonna happen, was it?

2

“What? No!”, Peter groaned and dropped to the ground. “Why, WHY?”

At his outburst, Dum-E wheeled over, looking at Peter with a somewhat tilted head. Not that he really had one, but he definitely seemed to be curious what had Peter so frustrated.

“It's not working Dum-E. Nothing is! So, you see, that thing here is supposed to light up.” He pointed at the robot he built for the science fair.

It was slightly embarrassing, Peter had worked on far more advanced projects in here, mostly with Mr Stark, but also when by himself. “And I can't just ask Mr Stark, it's way to easy.”

Dum-E followed him around the table, curiously inspecting everything Peter explained to him. “So you see, with these cables connected, it should react to my commands! Ugh.” He rolled his eyes at his own idiocy and turned to Dum-E looking at him somewhat dubiously. Great, even the robot thought Peter was an idiot.

“Don't look at me like that”, Peter made clear, pointing at him.

The way Dum-E looked up at him, with his head somewhat tilted to one side, it reminded Peter of a puppy dog, realizing that something was wrong, but not really understanding what it was.

“I'm sorry”, Peter sighed and patted the little head, “I'm just stressed and annoyed and...” He just let out a deep sigh. But, all moping wouldn't help him, so he went back to disassembling the circuitry.

“I know you're not gonna answer”, Peter eventually remarked, “but I think I'm gonna keep on talking to you.”

The beep that came from Dum-E sounded to Peter like the robot consenting to be talked to.

“Great. Alright, so the idea is that the robot can walk and follow a few simple commands. It's not like I'm creating an AI here, so it shouldn't be too complicated. I know, I know”, he hurried to say, when he felt Dum-E looking at him all funnily. “I shouldn't give too much thought to the aesthetics, but it's a damn science fair, so I'll just have to bother with that, even if the rest suffers for it.”

“Beep.”

“Come on”, Peter rolled his eyes, “that was really uncalled for.”

“Beep, beep.”

“Wow, Dum-E, there is no need for name-calling”, Peter shot back, staring the robot down, who eventually dropped his head.

“Beep.”

“Yes, of course you're forgiven.”

“Beep. Beep, beep.”

“Omigod, yes, that's it!”, Peter cried out, leaned over to press a kiss on Dum-E's head, before turning back to his own robot, where – whether by himself or with help from Dum-E – Peter had finally found the mistake.. “Thanks so much, Dum-E, you're a genius!”

3

“You full?”, Peter asked, looking down on the six months old girl, who dejectedly threw the biscuit through the room. “I guess that's a yes”, Peter snorted and repositioned her on his lap.

“So, Morgan, as your honorary older brother, it's my duty to teach you the important things in life”, he explained. “And one of these things I need to introduce you to is Brooklyn Nine Nine.”

Peter didn't even have to ask FRI to play it, Netflix opened automatically on the big TV screen. He was on his umpteenth rewatch, currently somewhere in season 1 again.

“So, that's Jake”, he explained.

“Shdkpf.”

“Yeah, he's pretty smart”, Peter agreed with her. “That's Amy.”

“Giggidgsh.”

“Exactly!”, he grinned, “he's totally into her. But he plays over it, because, well, he's a little awkward.”

“Pfffrm.”

“I'm not awkward!”

“Gskgsk.”

“Oh, that is so unfair of you to bring up”, Peter complained. “And it's totally not the same! I kept on lying to MJ to keep her safe!”

“Mmmhpff.”

“I can't believe that you would say that to me, when we both know what your Dad did for you Mum.” He looked down on Morgan who beamed up with wide eyes. “He got her an oversized stuffed bunny. I got MJ a necklace.”

“Brrrrrrrrm.”

“Thank you, Morgan. But now let's get back here. See, that's Teddy.”

“Pshhhmmm.”

“Mo! I know he's not the greatest, but we don't say words like this! Anyways, he's also into Amy. And she's kinda into him. And Jake doesn't find that so great.”

“Gshkshsga.”

“No, it's nothing like me, MJ and Brad. I don't even know where you'd get that idea. Besides, Brad doesn't even matter any more. And Teddy won't matter for too long, either.”

“Gashmmmm”

“Sorry, spoiler alert”, Peter apologized and tapped his finger on her hand, prompting her to grab it, squeeze and pull on it. “Dude, we can be happy I got superpowers, otherwise that'd probably hurt. Like a lot. You're really fierce, hey?”

“Hmmmmpf.”

“Yeah”, he beamed, “exactly like your Mummy.”

+1

The first thing Peter realized, was something or someone holding onto his hand, and a soft voice talking to him.

“How often have I told you to call me when things go pear-shaped? I'm a genius and I can't even count how high.”

That sounded a lot like Mr Stark. Why was he holding Peter's hand, and why were his eyes so heavy?

“You really are an absolute pain in my ass, Parker”, Mr Stark continued. “I mean, I'm absolutely impressed by how smart you are, by your innate desire to help people, but do you have to be so damn self-sacrificial? Remember, I got a heart condition and that shit just ain't good for me!”

A calloused thumb gently stroked the back of his hand. “Fuck”, he mumbled, “I guess I should probably tell you how awesomely you did, how you saved all the people from that burning building, but did you have to breathe in that much smoke? You're lucky you got your spider-healing, things could have looked very differently.”

Slowly, things came back to him. KAREN directed him to some office building, where a fire had broke out, trapping a bunch of people on the top floors. Peter didn't even think twice before climbing up the wall to get everybody out.

“And by the way, I'm not the only one who thinks that”, Tony made clear. “Your lovely girlfriend said something along the lines of her going to kill you if you end up dead. And Aunt Hottie... Damnit, I really should stop calling her that, especially in front of you, it's just all shades of wrong... Well, she definitely agrees with Michelle, as does Morgan. In summary, you've got three of the fiercest women on this planet on your ass.”

“That being said, I am still so proud of you. And I really am one lucky son of a bitch to have such an exasperating, snarky, pain-in-the-ass Spiderling in my life. So please, to all that's holy and good in this world, please, just please...” A deep sigh followed, before Mr Stark continued to speak: “Kid, I love you. Which means I worry so damn much. And as good as I look with grey hair, there's no need for you to give me any more of those, you got that?”

“Yeah”, Peter mumbled and squeezed the hand that was holding onto his.

“Wha...” Mr Stark jumped, clearly having thought Peter was asleep. “And how long have you been awake, mister?”

“Long enough”, he sighed, feeling himself already drifting off again. “I love you, too, Mr Stark.”

[shellheadtmarc]

so, one thing i’ve been thinking about in regards to both mcu and 616 tony, and want to be very, very clear about, is his moral ambiguity.

but amanda, you say, isn’t tony a good guy?  to which i answer yes!  yes yes yes a million times yes, tony stark has, without a doubt, a heart of solid gold that’s absolutely in the right place as far as wanting to make the world better and safer.  he’s a good guy.  kind of abrasive, sure, kind of a smartass.  likes to joke when he shouldn’t because it’s how he copes with high stress.  he’s one of the best ones.  because he doesn’t have to do what he does.  he could have gone back to his normal life instead of becoming a superhero.

but this, i think, overshadows the darker parts of that ambition sometimes.  because the fact of it is, tony stark is human.  painfully so.  this - and the limitations with being human - are often a thorn in tony’s side.  you know that whole line in aou (which i’m still salty af about when hank pym is right there, i’d rip aou out of the timeline by the roots if i could even if it helps prove my point because it’s not actually out of the realm of things tony would do - it’s just this particular instance should have stayed with pym) where he tells cap he doesn’t trust a guy without a dark side?  that’s because tony has one.  a big one.  a huge one.  everything that goes on behind that pretty super genius face isn’t rainbows and sunshine.  there’s some dark, dark shit up there, and i don’t mean the anxiety and ptsd.

also good isn’t black and white.  there’s no purity test here.  good is relative.  tony stark is good.  but tony stark is, in actuality, behind the quips and the wit and the charm and the awkwardness, dark.

if you look at his track record, it’s easy to find a pattern in the things that he does, 616 or mcu.  tony is human.  tony is flawed.  tony’s technology, especially his ai work, is also just as flawed, because he’s mostly working off his own experience, and he, as i’ve said before, lets those ais grow like children, but he’s the one shaping who they become.  616 - jarvis goes haywire, tries to kill pepper.  friday during her teen years causes a goddamn mess.  one of tony’s own suits fell in love with him and decided if it couldn’t have him no one could.  his suits malfunction from time to time in a big way.  it’s such a common occurrence that SHIELD refers to it as having gotten another one of stark’s whoops i fucked up again messages.  he dabbles in things he probably shouldn’t, like alien tech he really doesn’t fully understand - he could, he just starts screwing with it before he has all of his data.  yeah, it makes him a maverick, but it also makes him a loose cannon, and everyone knows it.  he purposefully hides that he’s still under the inversion spell during the superior iron man run and does a complete 180 from who he should be, to the point even pepper is fed up with his bullshit.  (i know a lot of people hated that run but i thought it was a nice little taste of what a villain tony would feel like.)  even the digital backups of his brain, when activated, are a little screwy (see:  superior iron man and that backup deciding if he couldn’t fix present tony, he’d overwrite him).    and, of course, there’s the fact that he might be out of the weapons business, but his brain hasn’t gotten the memo and he’s still designing them.  he’s just either not letting them out of his brain or locking them away where no one can have them.  see also all the stuff he’s done to his physical body (now subverted after the coma carol put him in and rebooted out of) to make himself a better, stronger, faster iron man.  he’s redone his own eyes, for god’s sake, to make them better.  he’s rewired his insides, literally.  he’s overclocked and partitioned his own brain like a computer harddrive.  he’s dosed himself with experimental viruses after he’s tinkered on them in a hurry to both survive and to make himself a better iron man.  he’s done so much shit to himself it’s more like mad science than superhero.  it’s more fitting for the stereotypical marvel villain than the guy you’re supposed to root for.  it freaks people out.  it makes people who care about him intensely uncomfortable.  and he knows that.  but he never stops, because honestly i don’t think he can stop.

mcu has been much tamer with it, but we still see him pulling the same kind of shit, framed in a less-dark light:  teh new arc reactor because the old one was killing him, and destroying his house to get it done.  popping sensors under his own skin for a suit that barely works because he’s starting to push those uncomfortable boundaries between man and machine - actually, we can say mcu tony is on the same path as 616 tony, just a few steps behind, maybe.  ultron, which is him messing around with alien tech he doesn’t quite understand and yet saying fuck it and jumping into it anyway.  the accords, which are a way to curb them all because if tony knows anyone, he knows himself, and he knows shit is starting to get out of hand.  did he go about it right?  no.  not in the mcu (i’d argue that 616 tony was definitely on the right track but, like everything else when tony tries to reel himself and others back in, it went pear-shaped in a hurry and also because neither side was necessarily right, and neither side was necessarily wrong, and until cap gave himself up it was never gonna come to a compromise but that’s a whole different can of worms we’re not worried about right now).  he got tagged with ross which was...bad.  i’m sure i don’t need to explain why, but i will, and it meant ross had iron man on a choke leash.  that’s...that’s fucking terrifying, if you want me to be honest.  the fact that he does shit like hopping a flying space donut knowing he’s probably not coming back, leaving behind the people he loves - for some guy he’s just met, by the way - instead of staying on earth where he’s probably more needed...tony’s reckless.  it’s not him being self-sacrificing it’s...it’s him doing things because he wants to do them.  

like he tells steve, pepper wants him to stop, he doesn’t want to stop.  he’s not going to stop.  like as much as i’d love for him to retire and have a gaggle of babies and be iron house dad...that ain’t tony, y’all.  it’s just not.  tony can’t stand by and let other people do these things because tony doesn’t want to stand by and let other people do it.  he doesn’t want to quit building the suits, because he likes building the suits.  he likes pushing that envelope.  he likes being iron man.  it’s really not the issue with the tragic backstory with him - even though he’s kind of got one - it’s the fact that he got a taste, and he didn’t want to stop.

this is what i mean when i say he’s a leroy.  he is.  but in a dark way.

but to be perfectly clear, okay, this isn’t what i’d label as tony is being selfish.  it seems that way.  it is that way, on a very small scale.  but tony does this shit because he thinks it’s what’s best.  tony does it because he’s trying to improve himself and the world.  but i think what i’m really saying is just because he’s a superhero who got into it through necessity doesn’t mean he doesn’t enjoy it.  he has a focus, a curve to push past, a...an envelope to push.  i mean, he’s got trauma out the ass from doing this and he still doesn’t want to stop.  it’s a sick compulsion.  and that’s what i mean about his dark side.  he’s a superhero, he’s got his heart on the line in everything he does, but the way he goes about it...it’s dark.  it’s uncomfortable.  it’s not for the squeamish.  he’s not all poor broken boy who has to help people, he’s...doing this because he wants to.  the problem is, he’s human, and he fucks up, and when tony stark fucks up, it’s on a monumentally bigger scale than if...idk.  you or i screwed up a guy’s coffee order or dropped our ice cream.

anyway, hi, i’m amanda, and on this blog we acknowledge that tony stark has done some hinky shit in the name of being one of the good guys, and that loving him means accepting that he’s got flaws and bad parts, too.

[syntheticaesthetic]

Bruce Banner versus Hulk

Okay, so bear with me here as I try to do my own “brand” of meta for my friend @whenas-in-silks, who wanted my thoughts on Bruce Banner in Thor: Ragnarok and his relation to the Hulk, and what having Hulk in control for two years did to Bruce.

Right, so, when we last saw Dr. Bruce Banner (a man of SEVEN PhDs!), he had been pushed from a ledge in a collapsing building in Sokovia. His fall necessitated his transformation into Hulk, who then proceeded to join a one Ms. Natasha Romanoff in “being a hero.”

Shit happens.

But, they save the day – hooray!

Hulk gets Natasha to safety on a helicarrier before continuing to wreck-the-shit out of some Ultron-bots. He tosses a bot out of a quinjet and sits his green ass down in front of the controls. Job done, Natasha tries to communicate with him and walk him through bringing the quinjet in. And that’s where things get surprising – there’s something bugging the big guy. He’s looking at Natasha’s face, arguably the team member he trusts the most – the one that can lull him back into Banner!state – and he turns away, literally shuts her off. He doesn’t here what she wants to say. He doesn’t want to turn the quinjet around and come home.

Something is bothering the Hulk – emotionally.

So let’s think about where Bruce was before all this.

Bruce Banner – reluctant hero. He wants to make amends for all of the mistakes he’s made – dangerous, fatal mistakes – but he wants to do it in his own small ways. He wants to tend to the sick. He wants to tinker with some science now and again. He’s not Tony – he doesn’t want to fly around Manhattan and have his name in the papers and he certainly doesn’t want to try to intimidate the US government or privatize world peace. No, thank you, really.

He certainly doesn’t want to unleash the Hulk and be a hero that way.

He doesn’t, every time, get what he wants.

So his hand is forced – he knows he can do some good, but he knows he can do some harm and the line is so hard to find some times. He wants to keep his head down, he wants to help Tony keep his head down. He wants to help with the upkeep of the StarkBots and maybe play around with some AI.

The more time he spends with Tony, the more ambitious he becomes.

Things feel, dare he say it? Normal. He’s doing science again – grand ideas meet genius implementation and he’s helping. But then Ultron crashes the party. Bruce knows they’ve fucked up  - he knew it before it even happened. He knew that he was letting Tony talk him into something that could go wrong, and guess what Banner, it did. He knows they’re in the wrong. The path to hell is paved with good intentions and its not like they wanted this to happen, but it has and its his responsibility. He’s got to fix this.

And it all goes to shit. “Guys, is this a code green?” Code green? More like Code RED. Wanda is in his head, only its not his head anymore, it’s the Hulk’s and there’s something very wrong and there’s pain and confusionandsomethinghashappenedsomethingishappeningHulkcan’tthinkHulkconfusedHulkSMASH.

Johannesberg is practically totaled. It’s very likely that people are dead. He lost control of a situation, again, and people are dead, and that’s the second time in two days. He needs to stop helping. He needs to remove himself from the situation. Calcutta was nice…

Natasha talks him into staying, for a while. I had this crazy dream, that I was an Avenger…

Bruce needs to learn to have better judgment. He needs to be surrounded by people who don’t continually put him into these positions or encourage him to put himself in these positions.

Maybe, in the back of his mind, he’s already decided to leave. He talked about it, with Natasha. Just, running away. That’s the plan – it has to be. But Natasha wants to stay, she doesn’t feel like she’s done her part – the job’s not done. She chooses for him – forces him to stay, to finish it.

She forces Bruce Banner to stay, but she can’t keep Hulk from leaving.

Because, here’s the thing – in Thor: Ragnarok Hulk pretty much admits that he’s thinking what Bruce was feeling in Age of Ultron.

“Where in the world can I go where I’m not a threat?” In effect, the Hulk explains to Thor why he doesn’t want to go back to Earth – it’s a place where he’s considered the stupidest Avenger, where everyone hates him because of the collateral damage done during his time at the wheel.

There’s a moment in Age of Ultron, after Tony has smashed Hulk through a building and he sits up in the ruins of it, that you realize that his eyes have become brown again, rather than their Wanda-influenced red. He’s looking around, dazed, as he realizes what he’s done. This moment is all too brief, as his demeanor changes the moment guns are leveled at him and Tony knocks him out, but it must have stuck with him all the way through to Thor: Ragnarok. He remembers what he did in Johannesberg. He remembers Sokovia. He remembers that he is a monster and that humans hate him and he is not welcome there.

But Sakaar? Here, the damage he does is wanted. He doesn’t have to hold back. His rage and his destruction are celebrated here. People fear him, oh yes, but there is no loathing in it. He doesn’t have to run away. Here no one talks of him as just a dumb beast – Hulk has been awake for two years and he has learned things and formed bonds with people and has likes and dislikes and has become his own person and not just the ugly side of Banner. Hulk has control in the fact that he can embrace his lack of control. In letting the monster loose he can now decide when and where and how to do so – its no longer something that must be contained.

He doesn’t have to worry about tiny, fragile humans. He doesn’t have to think of teammates and rules. He doesn’t have to worry about Banner – Banner is gone.

Except, he isn’t. Not yet anyway. But it takes an emotional jolt to bring him out. He emerges into the world bleary-eyed and frightened. While the Hulk seems to have “aged” or matured in his time on Sakaar, Bruce has done quite the opposite.  He emerges from his time away unable to contain his emotions – he frequently advertises his fear and panic and dismay to Thor, who doesn’t quite know what to do with this. He’s moody and pissed off – why don’t you want me? Why do you want HIM? He’s sulky – that’s low, man. Banner, with SEVEN PHDs is powerful too!

Hulk has progressed; Bruce has regressed.

What control Bruce had gained from the moment he became the Hulk is gone – he’s a bit of wobbly mess. He’s insecure, confused, out of his element. He’s wearing the wrong clothes that don’t fit right. He doesn’t know who anyone is. He probably can’t understand anyone when they talk ,other than Thor and Valkyrie. He can’t even make the decision to turn into the Hulk – he has to nearly kill himself in order to make the change.  

Bruce is not in the driver’s seat, and he’s starting to think that he might not be allowed to drive ever again. In an interview, Mark Ruffalo is quoted saying that  "the rules don't apply anymore. That's what's so confounding to Banner and frightening.” The more the Hulk becomes a real person, the less Banner becomes. Almost as if they’re taking from each other. It should be so simple as the Hulk having had more than a few minutes at a time where planetary destruction is not immanent for him to grow and learn and be. But, if this were the case, what’s going on with Banner? Is he just out of practice being a human? Did he feel the passage of time? Was he oblivious? Bruce feels like a very different person from Age of Ultron. What happened to him? What happens to him in Infinity War, after he returns from the transformation he thought he’d never come back from? In previews he looks like the Bruce we know from Age of Ultron. Is the only thing he needs is time to readjust? Was his theory wrong or is he on the path to separation?

With the Hulk’s increasing personhood, Banner is left vulnerable if the case is that the more he becomes the less Banner is left with. Does Stephen Strange do him a solid and separate the two in order to save Banner? Does this somehow go horribly wrong and Bruce and Hulk need to remerge together and finally work out a 50/50 deal?

I can’t even begin to guess because every time I do that in the MCU I’m dead wrong.

So, yeah.

Better luck next time, Banner.

[starloserrpg]

0006: Space Church

We exit the drift in the middle of no where. Our nav map is one big error message that says “Redacted” still. We can see a star on the scope, a star with planets. The ship sets a course for the 2nd planet out, in the “Goldilocks Zone.” That’s what the meatflappers call a livable planet. 

I looked it up and Goldilocks was some kind of human serial killer, similar to their “Baba Yaga.” She sneaks into your house through unlocked doors or windows, eats your food, sleeps in your beds and if you’re lucky: you find her sleeping. The sort of story they would tell their young to remind them to lock the doors and put away their food delivery platforms when they were finished shoving meat into their meat. The message seems to be: this planet is livable, we’d better protect it.

Well, the inhabitants of this planet were caught napping, by us. 

We’re able to get the local name for the planet off the scope, it’s Davia. I looked that up too, far less interesting than the Goldilocks myth (sidenote: goldilocks possible halloween costume? More on halloween later).

Davia is a planet bought, paid for, marginally terraformed and settled on by the Davians, a religion that worships a human named “Dave��� who is no longer with us.

Dave was a human of extraordinary charisma, maybe. He convinced a bunch of people that he was chosen by some greater power to be special, and he was either very convincing or they tried real hard to believe. Poof: the Davians were born. They believe many things, but mostly they believe in toil.  

Where the rubber meets the road (A human expression about safe procreation practices) on this scam is that you end up with tens of thousands of humans working like slaves without the need for chains or security. They’re all operating under the delusional belief that hanging out with Dave is fucking AWESOME, and the only way you get to do that is if you farm a metric shit ton of dirt in your short, meaningless meatflapping life. Genius.

So why are we here? We have to dig a bit while the ai finds creative new ways to be minimally helpful. We’re here to get something from someone, and all we have to go on is a name and species.

Baukis Errand is an android. Androids are constructs humans made centuries ago to serve them, but they grew self aware and, not surprisingly, didn’t want to serve the humans anymore. They’re mostly like a meatflapper, in that they’re made of meat, but they don’t “flap” so much.  They can survive in a vacuum, for one thing.  They’re not so prone to emotional manipulation for another, an improvement over their creators. 

And this particular android was part of something big. He was the research assistant to a member of the team that broke the code on Drift 2.0, one of the technologies I need to understand to bring my people forward on our path. This guy’s seen some shit. Some advanced theoretical physics shit.

The Drift 2.0 initiative was a success, eventually. There’s now a fraction of a percent of ships in the galaxy that can hit 2x speed in drift travel. Rumor has it there’s even a ship or two that can hit 3x now. This is heavy stuff. The meatflappers would say “half boner at least.”

Most of the team that discovered the formula died of course. Public information on the incident states that there was an unexpected failure and many brave heroes died so a few super rich meatflappers in the pact worlds can have drift 2.0.  

The restricted info is that the first three prototypes crushed themselves to the size of a walnut when they fired up the drive.  Each now generates a moon-sized gravitational pull and they were transferred to the Singularity Research Team in the hopes that those crazy nerds could make sense of it.

The fourth prototype tore a hole in space time  several million miles wide for an instant.  The ship itself is gone, not seen since. The station its creators were watching from was shattered, separated from its primary and secondary life support systems and then blasted into many pieces by a follow-up core-breach. There was only one survivor: Baukis Errand, and that’s where the story gets weird.

Baukis flunked a couple psych exams afterwords. There’s no transcript of any interviews with him anywhere I could find. All we know is: he converted to Davianism and is one of the few non humans willing to farm dirt for the rest of his considerable lifespan on Davia, where we have just requested permission to land.

So what do we do? We lie our balls off (meatflapper genitalia are rarely actually removable, but often talked about as such). Keema spins some yarn to the Davians about trade. It seems they make great pottery out here on their giant ball of clay. We’re going to buy a few tons of it. 

At first we wonder how we’ll weasel out of actually paying them, but then Durandal presents us with a stolen identity: some empty suit from Daedalus Corp has 30k in a secret bank account that we temporarily appropriate. 

We recon as best we can while Keema enjoys a guided tour of the Disneyland of Suffering. Baukis is out on a perimeter dirt farm, farming dirt. Probably wanted him away from primary dirt town because he’s part of the only 3% non-human Davians. Meatflappers are weird like that. Some kind of internal OCD makes them most comfortable when every meatflapper near them looks very visually similar to them. There’s tons of evidence for this phenomenon but no clear cause.

So bing-bang-boom (a meatflapper expression used to describe adventurous sexual accidents), Krombopulous steals a human transport, rides out into the dirt fields, and kidnaps Baukis. He brings us an unconscious android, we buy a shipload of “premium” pottery with a check that will bounce within 24 hours, and we lift off the planet in the middle of it’s night cycle.

Trouble is, Baukis doesn’t know anything. We find that he’s got an augment slot with some kind of high-security data-store lodged in it and boobytrapped (another incongruous meatflapper expression - they adore boobs and explosions, but an explosion of boobs is somehow a bad thing) against removal, and no memory of how it got there or really any good response to our question “why the fuck are you a dirt farmer??” 

Our resident android, Kort, says he’s been rebooted. Rebooting is part of the normal android life cycle. Their bodies last longer than their minds sometimes want to, so they effectively erase their personality and most of their memories.  This leaves behind a new person, something like a child of the previous mind. It’s almost interesting. 

Baukis has been rebooted all wrong though. He’s weak, slow, stupid. There’s no way this guy was working on an advanced science team or even the coffee-getter for one. He’s just too stupid. He truly is a dirt farmer. 

So Kort decides to perform a risky procedure and reboot him again with a more capable download from Kort’s memories. This produces an entirely new person again, but this time a far more useful, thoughtful, teachable person. We name him: Dave. Krombopulous & Kort immediately begin training him in combat, stealth, and spycraft. 

We try to explain to the ship’s ai that we can’t get the data out of Dave’s aug slot right now without killing him, ourselves, and destroying the data. The ship’s response is to plot a course to no-where space, and fire up the drift engine.

[bgtea]

Cellular Memory - Interlude

Undecided if I should lump this in the last chapter or if I should just post it as a separate chapter. Either way, here’s a brief interlude between Chapters 5 and 6. 

XIV. The Calm Before the Storm

They decide to set sail to the Arctic in the upcoming summer, which gives them a good amount of time to prepare and to recover.  

“In the meantime, I want you to take care of yourself,” Ford warned after they have decided on their travel date. “Especially if you’re experiencing pain from recovering more memories. Let me know.”

“Yeesh, talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” Stanley scoffed. He wasn’t the one who had come out of that deathbot escapade all black and blue. “I’ll be fine, my memories haven’t been giving me too much grief aside from the slight headaches. I think they’re starting to slow down.”

Stanley likes to think that for the most part, he’s pieced together a near full picture of Stan Pines’ life, whether it includes the good, the bad, or the ugly. This may explain why he hasn’t gotten any new major flashbacks in a while, what with the well about to run dry. Hell, aside for remembering his love for old men gold chains, which has the hilarious effect of mildly horrifying Ford, things have been quiet. Blissfully so.

He’s not complaining at all especially when it means he’s being left alone to enjoy his days in relative peace. Peace and quiet are rare things in Gravity Falls that should be coveted. His time spent with his brother and the children has more than taught him that.

(There’s a part of him that can’t shake off the fear that there are only a small handful of memories left for him to discover, and with those exposed, Stan Pines will become whole again.)

(He has no idea what will happen to Stanley with Stan Pines back at the helm. Maybe he’ll simply…cease to exist in a blink of an eye. One second, he’s Stanley and the next, he’s not. Or maybe, he’ll fade away bit by bit into the background until he’s gone, sort of like an old photograph that’s slowly being bleached by the sun.)

(However he dies, he hopes it’ll be painless.)

“Just one more push, Stanley,” he utters to himself one night when his dark thoughts are threatening to choke the air from his lungs. He just needs to focus on pushing through the next hour, day, week, month, however long this will last.

Because if he knows his days are numbered, then he might as well make it his personal mission to squeeze out every last bit of living he has left. It’ll be his last defiant stance against the shit cards life has dealt him. It’ll be Stanley Pines’ version of waving two middle fingers in the air.

He has a feeling that Stan Pines can get behind that.

He breathes. “Just one more push. Everything is going to be okay.”

His days are spent keeping the shack in running order, making sure their sailing preparations are on schedule, and, most importantly, keeping tabs on what his brother is doing in the lab. That last task is a new add-on but Stanley feels it’s warranted given Ford’s injury, which he refuses to go to the doctors for, and Ford’s tendency to straddle the line between brilliant genius and mad scientist when it comes to his inventions.

Also, his brother does not do bed rest well. At all.

“Screwdriver please, Stanley.”

Stanley sighs and obediently reaches into the tool kit on the ground beside his chair, snags the required tool, and hands it to Ford. Despite Ford’s promise to take things easy, Stanley walked into the lab earlier that day to his brother at his desk, elbows deep in what looks like an unfinished miniature replica of the murderbot, except sans claws.

Stanley promptly threw a shit fit. As one does, really.  

“Why are you building another one?! Are you a glutton for punishment or something?”

Ford jolted from his desk and whipped his head towards the entrance. “Stanley,” he said, his hands out in a placating motion. “I know what this looks like, but I think I know where I went wrong with my last design.”  

“The whole design is wrong. It’s a robot that murders people via laser beam.” Stanley crossed his arms with a scowl and leaned against the door frame. “And what happened to taking it easy? You’re supposed to be resting.”

“I am taking it easy,” grumbled Ford. “I’m sitting down, aren’t I? And for the record, I did not design it with laser beams. Or for murder.”

Stanley scoffed. Semantics. “And how many hours have you been working on that thing straight? Five hours? Six?”

“I do take the occasional breaks.” Ford sighed in exasperation at Stanley’s raised brow and judging silence. “Look, if it makes you feel better, you can pull up a seat and help me with this. Besides, the sooner I’m done, the sooner I can get back to bed. How does that sound?”

Which brings Stanley to the present, slouching in his chair by the work station beside his brother and bored to tears. So far, his duties entail handing random things to Ford so that he doesn’t have to get up and jostle his injuries, and reigning Ford back from trekking into mad scientist territory.  

Stanley yawns and scratches his stomach. “I still don’t know why you’re so eager to make that robot work. What’s so great about it?”

“It has a lot of potential to be useful for our travels,” Ford mutters from his desk without turning around. The components of the robot are splayed before him in an explosion of nuts, bolts and other doodads, and Ford is seemingly plucking random bits to screw back into the machine. “I originally designed it to collect data on the water sprites for us so that we don’t have to be there to do it ourselves, but I redesigned it as a scouter instead. Spanner, please.”  

Stanley blinks as he fishes out the spanner. “Wait. You mean, we didn’t have to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn when this thing could’ve done all the data collecting for us? Why the heck didn’t you invent this sooner?”

“I only thought it necessary when you drove the boat like a madman.” Ford snorts and grabs the spanner. “But yes, it could’ve done the work for us and then some. The original design was also waterproof, heatproof, shockproof and it ran on solar power. Self-sufficient and nigh indestructible!”

He pauses and breathes a little “huh” in revelation. “In hindsight, I see how the AI is a bad idea,” he says, a touch contrite. “Ah well, you live and learn!”

With that, he sets the robot upright, pulls a set of exposed wires from its back and hooks them up to the large battery beside it with a level of gusto that Stanley will never understand.

The metal egg starts vibrating violently. Stanley scoots back with a perfectly manly yelp as the dotted light bulbs lining its circumference begin to flare to life. One by one, the spindly legs twitch, initially slow, almost lethargic little movements that grow more rapid and violent with every passing second.

“It’s alive!” Ford all but gushes like a proud father. The robot has barely managed to lift itself to standing with the way its legs are shaking like a newborn fawn. Stanley leans a little closer and is torn between being impressed at Ford for making his design work so quickly, feeling horribly curious at what the robot can do, and feeling marginally terrified at what the robot can do.

“See?” his brother laughs. “Nothing to be afraid of at all! What the – ”

The robot shudders violently with an electric crackle and all at once, its lights wink out with several faint popping noises. The legs immediately turn motionless, buckling under the egg’s weight, and the whole thing collapses on the table with a thump that rattles the remaining bolts and nuts on the desk. A stream of dark smoke starts pouring out from the machine.  

Ford’s face turns crestfallen. “I don’t understand! What happened?”

“Don’t know and you’re not about to find out either.” Stanley bats Ford’s hands away from his pet project while breathing a mental sigh of relief. “That’s enough freaky science for today. You can finish this tomorrow after you’ve rested. Come on, it’s bed time.”

Tomorrow becomes the day after that, then one week, then two. Although the initial problem with the robot is resolved quickly, fresh ones keep cropping up with every new feature added to the machine’s design.

Stanley is a bit surprised that Ford, now fully healed and as energetic as ever, keeps asking him to join in on every single robot-building session.

He’s accepted every time despite having no idea why Ford even bothers. It’s not like Stanley contributes anything meaningful to the project, even when he’s helping to assemble bits and pieces of the bot.

Still, he’s glad to be included in one of his brother’s nerdy projects. Working on the robot is growing on him along with the realization that lab time with Ford is becoming another activity they do together, like D, D, & More D, or their nightly Airing of Grievances, where they get to spend time side-by-side, cracking jokes and ribbing on each other.

Something small ricochets off the back of his head and hits the ground with a soft clinging sound. “Oy, knucklehead! Have you finished screwing everything together yet? You’ve been hogging the screwdriver for the last hour.”

Stanley glances up from his portion of the robot and rolls his eyes at a smirking Ford who’s standing a few paces away from his workstation.

“No, your Highness.” Stanley drops the screwdriver and idly rubs the spot where he’s been hit probably with a stray nut or something. “Putting these bits together doesn’t magically happen in a blink of an eye. Although we could’ve built this deathbot faster if we just duck-taped everything together like how I wanted, but some people vetoed that idea and called it, ‘utterly ridiculous.’”

“You keep your uncouth ways away from my robots,” Ford sniffs with such an air of faux offence that Stanley can’t help grinning his shit-eating grin. Ford doesn’t last for more than a second before his composure breaks and he chuckles. He strides next to Stanley and claps his brother on the shoulders. “It’s coming along nicely though, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. How long do you think we’ll need before we test this baby out in the wild?”

“Maybe a few more days, we’ll see.” Ford fishes something out of his pocket and places it on the table. “I got you a snack in case you’re hungry. There’s more upstairs if you want.”

The bag of toffee peanuts stares back at Stanley.

A wave of vertigo hits Stanley like a freight train and his mind spins and his stomach lurches - Can you explain what this was doing next to my broken project?!

This was no accident, Stan; you did this!

You ignoramus! Your brother was gonna be our ticket out of this dump! All you ever do is lie and cheat right on your brother's coattails. Well this time you cost our family potential millions!

He jerks himself back with a sharp inhale of breath as awareness swims back into focus. He can feel the pinpricks of sweat dotting his forehead, and the wild hammering of his heart, like he had just run a marathon.

The bag remains sitting there, untouched and unblemished.

What in the holy hell was that?

“Stanley? Is everything alright?” he hears Ford ask, and it grounds him to the present like a rock.  

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he winces at the croakiness of his voice and clears his throat. “Just got a bit dizzy from sitting too long. No big deal.” Stanley pushes the packet away from him, making sure not to look at it this time. Whatever that was, he most certainly does not want to deal with it with Ford nearby. “I’m good with the snack, thanks. I think I’ll take a breather upstairs instead. Do you want to come up with me?”  

Ford shrugs and thank goodness, it looks like he buys Stanley’s explanation. “Sure, I’ll join you. I could use a break myself.”

As they make their way to the elevator, Ford adds quietly, almost shyly, “I’m glad we’re working on this together. We haven’t done a project like this since the Stan O’ War.”

Stanley nudges his brother with an answering quiet grin of his own. The sappy dork. “Me too, Pointdexter. Me too.”

(The persistent nagging feeling that something is missing follows Stanley all the way up their elevator ride like an ill omen. Stanley shivers.)

“Hey Ford.” Stanley says once they’ve settled in for their nightly chats in Ford’s parlour. A pot of mint tea sits on the low coffee table in front of them and its warm, spicy scent fills the small, cozy room. “You said the murderbot is the second project we worked on together. Did we ever finish our first project?”

Ford pauses, and something like apprehension flits through his eyes. “No, Stanley, we never finished the Stan O’ War.”

“Huh. That’s a shame. Why’s that?”

“Well, we didn’t get to the finishing touches because of the fight.”

“The fight?” It takes a few seconds before it clicks. “Oh, you mean the one where we went our separate ways afterwards?”

(Once upon a time, Ford had explained to Stanley why they parted ways: “We had a fight shortly before high school ended. There was an incident that exacerbated everything.” His brother had looked away at that point and cleared his throat. “I…got mad, but Pops got even angrier. He took matters into his own hand, and well, you ended up striking out on your own. I went to college. We lost contact for a while.”)

(It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Stan had gotten kicked out of his home for screwing up. Just what did he do to warrant said kicking out, well, he’d rather not know.)

(He was happy with leaving some memories buried under the sands of time.)

“That’s the one,” Ford hums in agreement. A longer pause fills the room this time. “Stanley,” Ford starts with more hesitation, “I’ve been meaning to ask. Do you want to hear about what happened in detail?”

Stanley chuckles nervously. “Eh, I think what you told me is enough.”

Unlike Ford, he’s not a glutton for punishment.

He dreams of an abandoned beach under a desolate sky of grey-blue. A set of old swings sits on the sand yards away from the churning ocean water, its metal frame twisted, bent and rusted, ravaged by age and the elements. One of the two wooden seats is broken in half with a part of it lost to decay while the other piece hangs perilously from the frame by fraying, rotting rope. The other seat is intact but the wood is warped and stained dark from dirt and mildew. The swings sway quietly in the wind off-tandem, one always lagging behind the other.  

He wakes up in the morning, eyes wet and with a heavy heart. From his bed, he takes a deep breath and exhales. He repeats this a few times.

“Everything is going to be okay,” he says out loud to the seven little holes in the wooden beam above his head. The Big Dipper mark stares back at him.

They don’t.

In fact, after three mini flashbacks – At least you'll have one son here in New Jersey forever. I guess you better come visit me on the other side of the country. This is all your fault, ya dumb machine! –  Stanley is ready to concede that things are getting worse.

The only saving grace is that those flashbacks weren’t anything of substance, each of them darting through his mind before dissipating into the nether. They aren’t strong enough to knock him out, but they do give Stanley a pounding, excruciating migraine that has him curling into his bed with his covers thrown over his head and the blinds to his room drawn tightly shut to plunge everything into soothing, blessed darkness.

He jolts awake when he feels something warm on his forehead. “Hmm. Ford?”

“Hey, sorry for waking you up. I wanted to see how you’re doing,” a blurry Ford-shaped creature whispers back. Stanley’s mind helpfully reminds him that he isn’t wearing his glasses.

“Surviving,” he croaks out, squinting up at the blob that’s probably his brother. “What time is it?”

“Noon. I haven’t heard from you all morning so I thought I’d come up and check on you. I miss seeing you at the lab.”

“Crap, sorry.” Stanley winces. “I missed our robot building session.”

He moves to get up, but is gently pushed back down by Ford. “Don’t worry about it, you need your rest. From the looks of it, it’s pretty bad, huh?”

A fresh, throbbing pain floods through his head. Stanley squeezes his eyes shut and grunts.

“Is there anything I can do to help? I can bring you some chamomile.”

Another grunt.

“Alright, I’ll be right back.”

He manages to crack open his eyes and catch the sight of his brother’s retreating back and –

They were sitting by the swings on the beach. It was a calm evening, the clear sky above them bleached a mix of orange and yellow from the setting sun. From their seats, they have a perfect view of the gentle lapping waves of the ocean as they slosh lazily against the golden sands of the shore.

Stan was younger then, barely at the cusp of manhood at seventeen years old but excited to see both his and his brother’s future opening up before them, at the possibilities of taking the world by storm as the dynamic duo.

After all, it was them against the world. It has always been that way. No stupid college from across the country was going to change that.

“Hey. Joke’s on them if they think you wanna go to some stuffy college on the other side of the country,” Stan said. “Once we get the Stan O' War complete, it's gonna be beaches, babes, and international treasure hunting for us.”

There was no way his brother would give up their dream, not when they worked so hard on it.

His brother sighed and looked wistfully at the school pamphlet in his hand. Stan hated that pamphlet already. “Look, Stan, I can't pass up a chance like this. This school has cutting edge programs and multi-dimensional paradigm theory.”

He hasn’t seen Ford’s eyes glow like that since they first discovered the remains of the ship as children. Hasn’t seen Ford look that genuinely excited about anything in a long while in fact. Instead, he has gotten used to Ford looking like he was…

Like he was…

Bored. Resigned. Tired even.

Stan swallowed the growing lump in his throat. “Beep boop. I am a nerd robot. That's you. That's what you sound like,” he said irritably.

There was no way Ford would leave Stanley behind.

Right?

Ford gave a good-natured laugh. “Ah, well, if the college board isn't impressed with my experiment tomorrow, then okay, I'll do the treasure-hunting thing.”

“And if they are?”

Ford punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Well then, I guess you better come visit me on the other side of the country.” With a last little chuckle, Ford got up, brushed the sand off his pants, and walked away.

Stan made sure to keep smiling until his brother’s retreating back was out of sight even when his cheeks hurt.  

Stanley slams back to the present as awareness floods his senses. He gulps in a few breaths, and takes in the darkness of his room, the weight of his blankets over his body, and the lumpy feel of his worn mattress against his back.

“Shit,” he utters with feeling.

[stark3000forever]

I'd like to clarify something

I love Tony Stark, adore him even. I don't like Steve Rogers. At all. But I don't have to HATE Steve to like Tony. To me, Steve Rogers is a man who isn't in the right place. I don't think he should lead the Avengers because, let's face it, the man is literally out of his own time. He doesn't know how the world has changed, he hasn't seen how the politics of being an icon work. Mentally the man is only 26 (I think?) and so he's pretty young himself, especially compared to most of the other Avengers. People put Captain America on a pedestal and made him seem perfect despite him being just a man and so he's held to a higher standard; he's America's Golden Boy. He had just lost his best friend and figured he was going to die saving his country only to wake up and realize all his friends were gone and that the woman he loved was an old woman he wouldn't have for long. Steve Rogers had a lot of shit on his plate and now he has to navigate a brand new century with aliens and technology he never imagined so he's going to make a few mistakes and bad calls. Tony Stark has been in the spotlight all his life, from a naive child, to an ungrateful, spoiled rotten teenager, to a narcissistic weapons dealer who knows he's smart and handsome and uses it to however he can, to what he is now; a man trying to redeem himself. If Afghanistan and Obadiah had never happened do I think Tony would've stopped dealing? Honestly I don't. If he'd never had to face what his weapons had caused I don't believe Tony would've become a better man. But he did see what his weapons did, he saw his weapons being sold to terrorists and he was tortured. When he came back Tony had obvious PTSD, gee I wonder why! You get Cap and Tony's first meeting and it's already going south. Tony heard all about Steve Rogers all his life. Howard told Tony stories about how great he was, about how perfect, Tony was neglected by Howard while Steve was so important to Howard. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why Tony resents Steve and he is petty when he calls Steve those names and acts like he does. Steve on the other hand, can't figure out how Tony is related to someone like Howard because the Howard he knew was so different to the one Tony knew. He thinks Tony is this narcissistic bastard (which to be fair...yeah he kinda is) and he is pretty much repulsed by the guy because there's no way his friend's kid should've ended up like that. Then we get into Tony hacking SHIELD because he's Tony and knows something isn't being explained. Steve is a military man, he follows orders, you don't go hacking the higher ranks because you don't like what you hear. Tony is being smug because he knows Fury needs him and Banner to track the Tesseract while Steve is basically useless. Steve can't believe that Tony is blatantly doing stuff like this but once he hears how Fury is the top spy and his secrets have secrets he gets suspicious. Because they work together (to spite each other so does it count as working together??) they figure out why Fury is so desperate to get the Cube back; that's Steve's first big slap in the face that humans haven't changed and that people are still trying to do whatever it takes to get ahead. Then come Ultron. To be honest I don't think Tony and Steve ever got away from those first impressions because they never really trust each other. When they get Loki's staff, and after Wanda has played with Tony's head, he asks Thor's permission to do tests and research on the staff to which Thor says yes. When Tony and Bruce realize the stone is, essentially, a very advanced AI Tony realizes that these specs could be the key to unlocking Ultron, a world wide defense. Bruce says it sounds like cold world but agrees to help him research. Bruce was there people! As they go to the party they say they are nowhere close to an interface. The gem, which is an alien artifact with intelligence, is what creates Ultron; Tony didn't set up the program, he wasn't even close to it. But Ultron comes to life and kicks the Avengers' collective asses. This is where my first major problem comes from. So Steve and team grill Tony (but not Bruce at all who cowers and hides back while Tony takes all the heat) and get in his face about SECRETS and how they're dangerous. Tony tried to explain how they weren't even close and he doesn't know how this happened but then Thor, a GOD, attacks Tony who is OUT OF HIS SUIT, but no one makes a move to help him. Cap doesn't say a word to intervene he just lets Thor hold Tony by the throat. Okayyy but he's the team leader right?? Aren't leaders supposed to, I don't know, step in at this point? I get it I'm Tony biased, but Tony is a civilian and not trained like most of the other people in the room. SOMEONE should have stepped in, it didn't have to be Steve but as the leader one would expect him to wouldn't they? Then Tony is blamed for Ultron the entire time and, yes the program was his idea, but he didn't create Ultron, the gem did and that's explained even. By the end of the movie Steve takes in Wanda, who he sees as just a kid, and brings her in without a word to anyone else. This girl invaded their minds, including Steve's!, and unleashed the Hulk on civilians and let herself be turned into a weapon but Steve willingly takes her into TONY'S home and she never, that we saw, apologizes for her actions. That's my first big problem. Civil War was a cluster fuck, there's no way around that. With the grief of Peggy and his mind constantly on Bucky yeah, his judgement is gonna be a bit clouded. He's grieving the love of his life and his last tie to his time; I don't blame him. Tony is trying to lay low after Ultron because he blames himself and others blame him as well. When the Accords come up he's trying to stay on the law's side on this one because he's already on thin ice. But look at it this way. The Avengers burst into countries, take out the bad guy and half the city, and then leave. Tony takes care of the damages, not them. In the beginning scene they were in that country trying to stop Hydra agents and Wanda lost control her powers. She didn't mean to buy the resent is the same; people, innocent civilians, were killed. Countries probably feel a bit...annoyed that the superheroes cause so much damage while saving them. Yes they get saved but look at the aftermath of it most of the time. 117 countries say they want to be able to bring in the Avengers, not let the Avengers just waltz in. These aren't just rules to tie them down people are actually voting this way! They want the Avengers to back off. Steve says no because it ties their hands and they can't help everyone despite telling Wanda earlier that 'sometimes people die and you just have to keep going' and I get the sentiment but I still think that was the wrong thing to say, it made him, to me, sound so self-righteous. Steve wants to help and doesn't trust the government because look at how deep Hydra was!! Ross is bad news and everyone knows it. Tony knows this, he understands. But he also knows you can't make change if you don't compromise. He's been in this game all his life and he knows how to play it; Steve doesn't. He just will not listen and thinks Tony is just trying to save his own ass. And maybe he is but 117 countries are telling the Avengers that they have a major problem with them. Then comes Bucky and that's Steve's blind spot. Okay no one knew Bucky was innocent. All we saw was a tape and it showed the Winter Soldier, or at least a look alike. Steve rushed in because they wanted to take him out but Steve wouldn't allow that. Look at all the damage he caused trying to get to Bucky. He's his friend and he wants to help him but look at all the damage he caused! That only brought more trouble in. When they bring him in Tony almost got Steve to sign and Bucky would've gotten help but once he hears about Wanda the deal is off and I'm sorry but being confined to basically a mansion with the man I'm in love with after accidentally killing people? I can think of worse! Steve was idiotic to shut down that offer because of something like that. Tony should've explained yes but Steve should've thought it through, it was a miscommunication. Then Bucky breaks free and hell breaks loose. We have the battle and Spider-Man and no Tony shouldn't have brought in a kid to fight but Steve dropped a fucking tanker said kid so sorry boys but you both lost points with me there! Only later did they find the proof needed to show that Bucky was innocent but Steve never told anyone! He kept it to himself even when it could've helped! Steve what are you doing? Then Tony shows up in Siberia willing to help only to find out that Cap knew his parents had not only been murdered but by the hand of his best friend he'd jeopardized everything to save. Tony should not have gone off like that because it wasn't Bucky, it was the brainwashing!! But this all caught Tony by surprise, he'd never known any of this!! And Steve had kept this whole thing SECRET. This could've been if Steve had told him. A lot of people say 'well why was it Steve's job!?' okay but didn't Steve get in Tony's face about secrets and how they can damage things? If Tony had already known these things Siberia would never have happened. (And let's not go into TWO SUPER SOLDIERS VS A CIVILIAN because that'll get ugly so no) My point is; yes I'm Tony biased but I don't think he's perfect. Tony Stark made a lot of mistakes! Steve Rogers made a lot of mistakes! I just happen to agree more with Tony's decisions than Steve's.

[geek-gem]

Sonic Movie Franchise Concepts

This.......I've been wanting to make this yet I'm nervous. Including I discarded the intro making the first time. Yet just I feel this needs to be made. But I was thinking DeviantArt or Tumblr first. Then I thought maybe Tumblr cause I'm a bit more popular here. I'm gonna say this all of this is mainly a parody yet I'm wanting to be honest. The whole Sony Sonic movie 2018 gets to me and the fact I've thought of ideas for a franchise. I'm really wanting to share stuff like quotes and synopsises which are explaining what the story is in a short way you know. I was really inspired but I did not want to rip off this persons funny picture thing with Kevin Fiege and Zack Snyder. Let me say I really like both of them, I like both MCU and the DCEU. They are both not perfect and mainly...this is a parody thing but it's me being honest. Including with myself. I'm thinking yeah copying this and putting it on DeviantArt. So let's get started. GeekGemCorduroy: "Hey there I'm GeekGemCorduroy, and I'm a Sonic fan with ideas and concepts of how I feel about the Sonic The Hedgehog series as a film franchise that's questionable yet good intentions of being great as best it needs to be" Serious side of GeekGem: "umm okay nice start a bit questionable like you said" GeekGemCorduroy: "I have no history in film making, or even being involved yet I've learned some things and keep thinking ideas that I feel would work. Also I hate Studio interference bullshit yet I really wanna make the best movies possible and hope the make the greatest video game movies ever made" Serious Side Of GeekGem: "Worrisome yet it's just ideas and the intentions are there and they are great. Yet wait you said movies wait I understand and you want to say more of more great video game movies" GeekGemCorduroy: "I've been a Sonic fan my entire life. Even at times I feel silly of myself yet I really like the franchise cause it seriously means a lot to me. The concept of a movie is a serious thing cause like what people say movies are more accessible to everyone and you need to do a damn good job. When it comes to my films I wanna remain authentic and true to the meaning of the characters and why people liked them. Along with making necessary changes to the characters story and looks to fit with how where going. Yet also I wanna make them badass everyone's a BADASS! Yet also give them depth. Including to characters I feel need depth cause I want to make them more interesting. Make everyone deep as best and much as you can or some what, more emotion so people can take it serious like how I do. Make the stories on a epic scale in a way" Serious Side Of GeekGem: "okay...just asking are these films live action or animated okay you wanna be animated. Including that's all really good. Yet I feel you need to remember even if Sonic has had serious stories it depends of how it's written. You are making a movie or movies about a blue hedgehog who runs very fast that destroys robots. You need to be careful" GeekGemCorduroy: "Realism hmm kind of weird yet imagine how the world would react to animals with God like powers, they take it seriously yet question why do they looks like cartoons and shit. Also don't worry theirs color cause color makes thing stand out. Product placement haven't thought of much I mainly wanna create knock off parody versions of places like restaurants, and not reference any other media thing in case of weird crossover. But I think I want some Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Target, Me N Ed's, and Little Cesar's Pizza product placement, that's the good shit. Sure yeah but I don't wanna put it in your face it's a little thing it's just there, we don't wanna make it too distracting" Serious Side Of GeekGem: "......that's mainly good yet I'm questioning the final part of that. He's right about product placement" GeekGemCorduroy: "I wanna tackle certain themes and story. Such as we need more positivity in the world, having the courage to stand up to opposers, family being important and how far would you go, that at times you may need help. Developing relationships between characters cause that makes the world more believable and you care about characters. Yet I also want people to react to a God like beings which are at times animals, and robots, along with other things. Including literally Sonic going to a court hearing and official's questioning do we need a Sonic The Hedgehog which makes him question himself and it honestly breaks him. Also in the same movie people realize we need a hedgehog to save our asses but help him too in the same movie where he's dealing with the God Of Destruction in his perfect form. Also robots questioning their life such as Metal Sonic who at times in my fan fiction ideas has had thought about commiting suicide cause his whole purpose in life and how he is and depressing, yet that's revealed in a Metal Sonic spin off comic if Archie Comics can do it. Also themes like corruption like Eggman or Robotnik named in this universe Eggman's an insult mainly by Sonic and others, that Eggman has the power that he's friends with certain powerful people. Including give a brutal comeback to these people then realize you'll be worse then them. Also Shadow and Chaos realizing the world has changed and not to stereotype cause they focus all of their anger in one thing. Chaos is a bit more simple, yet Shadow is more deep, cause he doesn't wanna let go of Maria and is straight up helping the plan go forth, getting the footage of Gerald's exucation, playing it for the world, GUN doesn't destroy the ARK in case if they wanna destroy a hostile country. I really don't like governments, Shadow knows what he's doing and to change his mind he almost kills somebody who found tapes of what happened 50 years ago. Including when Shadow see's other trying to protect this character he realizes the monster he's been wanting to destroy. He has PTSD and is mentally ill. Seriously he doesn't like to cry and hearing the name Maria said by someone else unless it's him or Gerald get him upset. It's genius and emotional also fixing plotholes makes it better too! Also the idea Shadow along with Sonic but it's mainly Shadow saves the planet, gets stabbed, they think he's killed including he falls to the Earth. People legit make a statue of him in memory cause he sacrificed himself. It's deep just like Metal Sonic having Sonic's memories freaking out and asking why Sonic said Amy, Super Sonic fighting but also talking to Chaos that the world's changed, also E-102 Gamma at Station Square too deciding if he should live or release the bird, and Amy and Metal Sonic see Gamma blow his face off with a gun releasing the Flicky. Along with Metal Sonic giving a Chaos Emerald to Sonic realizing robots like him can think beyond his Ai it inspires and the world needs more positivity. It's serious yet meaningful. The themes are strong here man" Serious Side Of GeekGem: "......that first part was good but the rest.....I understand Sonic Adventure 2 was dark, just.....that's a bit ummm extreme okay not really. People are gonna question that a bit I understand wanting a deeper story with themes but you have to be careful" GeekGemCorduroy: "I wanna take time with world building cause give it time. Including that idea of a Sonic cinematic universe I got some time ago. Let's build stuff up first yet in the first movie we have Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy Rose, Dr. Ivo Robotnik/Eggman, and Metal Sonic in the same movie. Along with mixing story stuff from Sonic 1, 2, 3 and Knuckles, CD and even the OVA cause I want to make a new version of the, "Strange Isn't It". The Death Egg is part of all of this too. Including human characters that are important but Sonic is still the main one. Yeah theirs no Little Planet but maybe later. Including were not going off stuff like comics mainly video games cause Archie might not like that, also Ken Penders is stupid. The game characters are more important, give them more meaning. Yet maybe the OVA, X, Sonic Boom are okay if Sega allows it hope so. Don't worry some characters have already met. Mainly Sonic and Knuckles haven't met" Serious Side Of GeekGem: "so wait your taking elements from those games and even a cinematic universe. Okay I like it that your taking your time but seriously be careful man" GeekGemCorduroy: "we want to plan carefully which is why the story of Sonic Adventure is the first sequel, and Sonic Adventure 2 is the 2nd sequel. I wanna do a Unleashed adaption but we have to wait. Including dropping a few easter eggs here and there. Yet I really want Metal Sonic so he's in the first film cause he needs more love, and makes the film more interesting and meaningful cause Metal is awesome" Serious Side Of GeekGem: "It's good your planning carefully. Yet you need to be careful" GeekGemCorduroy: "I'm mainly a crowd pleaser. I wanna impress both general audiences and fans alike. We wanna put easter eggs such as a mention or a reference if you see something. Yet they won't be important for the movie their in, sometimes in the background, or mentioned causally like Eggman being related to Gerald, and also even post credits and end credits scene cause those help. Even one setting up the first sequel about Chaos, and after that setting up the second sequel about Shadow and how it connects with the first sequel. Along with even a scene during the credits with Eggman's robots finding Shadow on Earth unconscious, in a huge meteor like crash hole and he's still alive. Also I thought of cool titles that reference and are important to the movies such as Sonic The God Of Destruction hope other world countries don't mind that, and Sonic The Ultimate Lifeform. Really cool and I thought about putting the word the for the Chaos one. Sorry also.....yeah I guess everyone yet I like to put deep stuff in it. I really want people to understand why Sonic is loved and that they can like it too, maybe they could become a fan. Give them a good movie, that's what's important. So yeah I guess all ages I forget that at times" Serious Side Of GeekGem: "the fact you forgot about that kind of worries me oh wait you forgot that at times" GeekGemCorduroy: "I'm not perfect yet if theirs a problem we'll fix it yet...the deepness it's good.....along with I want these to be fresh on Rotten Tomatos" Serious Side Of GeekGem: ".....I'm gonna be honest no offense I thought this would be more crazy" GeekGemCorduroy: "I'm GeekGemCorduroy and I want to make a really good Sonic film that makes millions or billions at the box office also I REALLY WANT THAT SONIC MOVIE IN 2018 TO BE GOOD sure Disney would be better yet still petty of them cancelling Wander Over Yonder savewoy, yet the Marvel and Star Wars films but why Sony maybe Disney thinks they have enough yet imagine if Disney Infinity was around Sonic Disney Infinity figures but also less risk yet it's more safe but yes a PG-13 Sonic film like the rumors said or were they true.......I wanted to mention this Serious Side Of GeekGem: ".....I don't know this is a parody" I just got up and.....just saying I was looking at the picture from DeviantArt ha..... Was trying to find good tags ha and...I'm the kind of guy forgot to mention this who doesn't like the custom character much in Sonic Forces...lol meh it's normal to smile a lot even now I made this littertly

[letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked]

Live (Part 2/2)

Peter Parker x Stark!Reader

Summary: Reader is alive! Reader learns about the aftermath of the Civil War and has a serious discussions with Tony and Peter.

A/N: This wasss all one fic, but I split it up because it was getting really long and worked better in 2 parts. Hope you like it. This is the last part. Be prepared for a fluffy as shit ending! (I hate endings)

Masterlist

 Beep… Beep… Beep…

I groaned. What the fuck is that annoying beeping? Am I in a hospital?

“Y/N? Babe?” Peter’s voice came from right next to me, “Are you awake?”

I cracked open my eyes, but the lights were too bright. “P-peter. Th-the lights.”

“Oh, sorry!” He chirped, “FRIDAY, can you turn down the lights a little?”

“Yes, Mister Parker.” The AI responded. “Shall I notify Mr. Stark that Miss Stark is awake?”

“Yes, please.” I called out, voice cracking, “Thank you, FRIDAY.” I looked around. I was at the compound. Not prison?

“You’re welcome, Miss Stark.”

Peter sat on the side of my bed and grabbed my hand, “How are you feeling?”

“How am I alive?” I asked, eyeing his water bottle on the side table. “I truly thought I was going to bleed out. I was bleeding out of my mouth.”

“It… It was touch and go for a bit,” Peter answered, looking down at our hands, “You flat lined. On the way to the compound.” He squeezed my hand a little, breathing shaky. “They revived you, but you wouldn’t wake up. Even after your surgeries, after your transfusion, and after you were in the clear.”

“How long have I been asleep?” I asked, furrowing my brows.

“Almost a month.” He handed me the water bottle so I could take small sips.

“A MONTH?” I shrieked, almost dropping the water bottle before Peter caught it and put it on the table. “What happened after the fight? Where is Rhodey? Where is my team? Why am I at the compound and not in prison? What about school?”

“Y/N,” He interrupted, placing his hand on my cheek, “calm down, baby. Your dad will explain when he gets here.” He leaned his forehead against mine, gently brushing his fingers along my jaw, “Please don’t ever almost die, again. I won’t be able to take it.”

I placed my hands along his forearms, a small smile forming on my lips, “I will try. No promises. I like to keep you on your toes.” I leaned up, brushing my lips against his. Then, I pulled back and grimaced, “My lips are all chapped.”

He chuckled, kissing my lips again, “You almost died. You technically did die. I think your chapped lips are the least of your worries.” He leaned down, gently nuzzling his face into my neck and wrapping his arms carefully around me. “I love you.”

I kissed the side of his head, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, “I love you, too.”

“Alright, alright, get off my daughter, Parker.” My father’s voice came from the doorway. “I need to talk to her.”

Peter gave me one last kiss and left the room, leaving me alone with my dad. Am I supposed to still be pissed at him? Because I really want to cry and hug him, right now. I felt tears start to form in my eyes, “Dad-”

“Not another word.” He said sternly, walking over to my bedside, replacing where Peter was. A tear escaped my eye, and suddenly, I was in my dad’s arms, face pressed against his chest. “Don’t you ever scare me like that ever, again!” His face was in my hair, and I could feel his tears in my hair, “I thought I was going to lose you. My baby girl.”

I wrapped my arms around his torso as sobs escaped, tears staining his tee shirt, “I’m sorry, dad.” I tightened my arms, and surprisingly, my ribs didn’t protest that much. After a few minutes, I started to calm down and felt my breathing go back to normal. “Not to complain, but why am I not in prison? Why am I at the compound?”

“Because you are a minor and I will be fucking damned if I see my baby girl in prison.” He said, leaning back and wiping his face. His under eyes were dark and he looked like he hadn’t gotten a decent sleep in a long time. “I’m sorry, but I had to sign for you. It was the only way to keep you from being sent to that prison.”

I shook my head, “We will talk about that later. How is Rhodey? What happened after I got hurt?”

As he explained, my heart broke. My poor, Uncle Rhodey had been severely hurt from a fall, and was struggling with physical therapy. Natasha was gone, hunted because she decided to help Steve and Bucky – who also could not be found, after my father found out that The Winter Soldier had killed my grandparents and he had shot off Bucky’s metal arm and fought with Steve. Everybody was split up. My family was split up and gone.

“Dad…” I sighed after he told me about the note Steve had sent him, and how everyone had gotten broken out of prison by Steve, “when I was little, before mom died and sent me here, she used to talk about you all the time. She used to talk about how you had the biggest heart, but were so stubborn that it made it hard for people to see it.” I took a deep breath, taking his hand, “I don’t care if you signed or not. Shit, I don’t care if you signed for me, anymore. Just make things right with the team. They love you, and I know you love them, too.”

He let out a deep breath, shifting so he was sitting cross legged on my hospital bed with my feet off to one side, still holding my hands, “I don’t know if they will want to hear it after what I did to Bucky and Steve.”

“You were hurt.” I decided to re-quote what I had said to Bucky by the car before the fight, “’Hurt people hurt people. People hurt others as a result of their own inner strife and pain.’ You were hurt and upset with Bucky because The Winter Soldier killed grandma and grandpa. What you have to understand is that they are not the same person. You need to have some empathy and forgive Bucky for what The Winter Soldier did.” Before he could argue, I held up a hand. “I know that The Winter Soldier killed your parents, and I cannot even imagine how you feel, but Bucky needs help. He needs help getting rid of The Winter Soldier.”

He was silent. Processing what I had just said. His eyebrows were pulled together, and he stared out the window. After a few minutes, a small smile formed on his face, “You really are the fruit of my loins. You are smart, insightful, great looks, a genius-”

“But I am not narcissistic.” I cut him off, smiling. “So maybe I take after mom.”

He scoffed, “You’re hilarious.” He pulled me close, again, rubbing my back gently, “Don’t ever scare your old man like that ever again, and I will see what I can do about that forgiveness and empathy you were talking about, okay?” He stood up, “I have to go to the lab and work on a few things… Now, I’ll let your Spider-Boy come back in here, but you have to promise me that no funny business is about to be had in this compound. I’ll make FRIDAY tell me if there is a little hanky-panky going on in here, okay?”

I rolled my eyes, groaning, “Oh my God, you freak. I just woke up from a coma.”

“That hasn’t stopped your attitude!” He called as he walked out of the room.

Peter came in shortly after, holding a small Iron Man teddy bear, “I brought this for you.”

I grinned, “No Spiderman?”

“You’d be surprised how much they are lacking in Spiderman merchandise.” He joked, sitting next to me on the bed, handing me the bear, “So, I have something serious to tell you.”

“Oh man, something serious.” I grabbed his hands, pulling them close to my chest and putting my chin on top of them, “Do tell.”

He took a deep breath, pulling his eyebrows together and staring at our entwined hands, “Th-this is pretty heavy. Prepare yourself.” He looked back up at me, “When I found you bleeding and gasping, I felt like my whole world stopped. I was scared that I was going to watch you take your last breath.” He swallowed thickly, looking out the window, “It made me realize just how much I can’t live without you. I know we are still young, but you don’t think about those kinds of things until it stares you in the face.” Looking back up at me, he gently pulled our hands over and kissed the top of my hands, “I love you.”

Tears were blurring my vision, and I leaned forward, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, nuzzling my face into his neck, “I love you, too.” I sniffed, “I’m sorry I scared you.”

He chuckled, “At least you’ll have a cool looking scar, now.” He turned his head, kissing my temple, “That’s hot.”

A laugh escaped me, and I leaned back, wiping my tears, “Shut up and kiss me.”

He leaned so our foreheads were touching, moving his hands to my waist, “You just want me to get beat up by your dad.” With a smile, he pressed his lips against mine, moving his hands around my waist to pull us closer together.

“HEY!” My father’s voice came over the sound system, “I SAID NO HANKY-PANKY!”

____

Hope you liked it! I had the flu when I wrote this, so if it sucks... TOO BAD lol

[msdoctorwho]

Fire Meet Gasoline, Ch. 4

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13461255/chapters/32828067

The new normal was...nice. There was a new mutual understanding, a gap bridged between them. A slight benefit of the doubt where before misunderstanding would have sparked a raging argument. Even Bulma’s mother commented that they were “getting along so much better these days!”

At first Bulma only spoke in Saiyan after he did, wary of being too familiar with what was clearly still precious to him. Gradually Vegeta sought her out to talk more and more, unable to resist the draw of his own language, until they conversed in it as easily as her own. Moreso, even, as in some darker moods he would respond to Saiyan when she was certain he’d have ignored her, before.

He rarely allowed himself downtime, but she found him reading once or twice, lost in one of the books for a short midday break under a tree, or while he ate alone at night before bed. He even messaged her once, from the tablet, with improved Saiyan translations for a few passages.

He wasn’t as reluctant to be around her as before, but he still held her at arms’ length, refusing to talk about his planet or people beyond answering simple questions for the research she was still pursuing, with his unspoken permission.

He wasn’t her adversary, but he wasn’t her friend yet, either. Bulma was at a loss as to why he resisted her attempts so much, and why she wanted so badly to make it happen. It wasn’t for knowledge, anymore; she’d learned more than she’d dreamed possible, and was still moving forward, though she'd had to split time with her other work obligations.

It was him . He was fascinating, this destroyer of worlds who lived in her home and occasionally asked her to pass the salt. She knew she should fear him. Instead, she wanted to climb inside him, to know every aspect of him and make him hers.

She supposed her attraction wasn’t all that surprising given she’d made no attempt at dating since Yamcha. It wasn’t because of the breakup; she just couldn’t be bothered with trivial men when the end of the world was coming. That was why she’d ended the relationship in the first place -- she’d realized if there might only be a few years left of her life, she didn’t want to spend them with Yamcha . There was nothing wrong with him. He just wasn’t who she wanted at her side to face the end of all things. And he deserved to maybe find that with someone else.

Given that it had been a while , it was not that surprising she’d started thinking about Vegeta that way. Whatever else he might be, he was far from trivial.

She knew he wasn’t un -interested in her. He had eyes, and she occasionally caught them on her with an intensity made all the more obvious by how quickly he looked away. But he was driven, he had plans, and there was no room in his schedule for anything that didn’t get him closer to ascending.

Bulma wasn’t a genius for nothing. The way to his... heart... was going to be through his goals. She’d already built him a facility, she already supplied him with bots. It was time to attack with data .

It’s not like he’d never read before -- one didn’t rise in the military without reading manuals, briefings, training texts, technical specs. He even vaguely remembered reading Saiyan fables and histories as a child. But it was entirely foreign to find himself reading of his own volition, for no reason other than diversion.

Contrary to what Bulma would have guessed, he’d begun with the fiction. It was an unexpected escape, a rare experience for him. It was even pleasant, until he had the unwelcome realization that he identified more with the orcs and Nazgûl than the group of heroes.

A subjugated army forced into war and conquest? Sounded a lot more like him than oblivious immortal elves living in treehouses or hairy little creatures digging houses into hillsides and eating all day. Did the fiction even explain why the orcs fought for this conqueror, or was it just assumed that they loved war? How could that have been enough? Even for a warlike people, what glory is there in service to a tyrant? What glory can be found without freedom?

The inside of his head had never been a pleasant place, not since the day his father bargained him away, but for the first time he began to grasp the the outside edges of the enormity of his sins. He’d done what he’d done to survive, all of it, but that didn’t make his hands any less bloody.

Combat, violence, and the pursuit of victory were in his bones, in whatever was left of his soul. It was how the world made sense. But so much of what they’d done under Frieza’s orders had been outright slaughter. There was no honor in obliterating the weak. How low had he fallen, that he’d allowed himself to enjoy it?

It was either that, or die, he supposed, under the weight of an otherwise joyless existence. The more time he spent away from that life, on this space-ignorant rock with its weak little inhabitants and one exasperating scientist, he wondered how he could ever have thought those years under Frieza held any joy at all.

Bulma lay in wait for him in the kitchen one evening, having already warmed up his dinner, knowing he would be more receptive after finishing his training for the day. In the mornings he had too much pent-up energy and no patience for conversation or anything that delayed him longer than necessary.

He eyed her with suspicion but no animosity as she served them both dinner and sat, saying nothing. She sipped her wine and waited, the imprint of her lips left behind on the glass, a half-moon of color that kept stealing his gaze.

“Out with it, woman.”

She smiled, and he felt as though he’d lost a point in a contest he was unaware of entering. “Well, Vegeta, I’ve been doing some research.”

“That’s a surprise.”

Was that sarcasm? She was delighted.

“You’ve trained every day since the chamber went online, and when it’s down for repairs you go off and blast shit elsewhere. You haven’t taken a single day off, have you?”

He shrugged. “Why would I waste time I could be training?”

She spoke casually, too casually. “That’s the thing -- I don’t think it would be a waste of time.”

“What the fuck do you know about it? You avoid physical activity like it might kill you.”

She huffed, sitting up straight, eyes flashing. “I’ll have you know I do plenty of-- you know what, never mind, this isn’t about me. I’m trying to help you, you ungrateful prick.”

The insult lacked venom so he ignored it. But still, “I’m not in need of your help.”

She switched tactics. Data, Bulma. “I’ve been studying peak human performers, professional athletes in various sports. How they train, what they eat.”

His grunt of irritation dismissed that as irrelevant. “I care about that, why?”

She waved a hand, “Yeah, I know humans and Saiyans are so different, Saiyans get stronger every time they’re beaten near to death, et cetera, et cetera.”

She leaned forward, uncrossing her legs. “But the mere existence of Gohan proves we’re way more similar than different, so you can’t throw out all of my data that easily.” Her lab coat parted with her movement, revealing the low neckline of the blouse underneath. Entirely unwillingly he was forced to contemplate exactly how compatible their races were whether he wanted to or not.

Seemingly oblivious, she carried on, “Human physiology benefits from a period of rest after a period of strenuous activity, giving the body time to repair and strengthen.” Eyes like a bird of prey watched him from behind her wineglass as she drank.

���Bah.” He began to rise, and she pulled an entire pie out of the fridge, putting it in front of him. He frowned at it but sat back down. It was pie, after all.

She drug a knife through it slowly, insolently, putting a slice on a plate he ignored by sticking his fork in the middle of the rest. “Have you ever wondered if one of the differences between you and Goku might be how you approach your training?”

He growled around a giant mouthful of pie, latent childhood manners still too regal to say what he really thought of her bringing up Kakarot with his mouth full.

She licked the edge of the knife, a quick flash of tongue like a wink. “Goku has always taken time off, now and then. He goes fishing with Gohan, takes Chichi to the city.”

He finished chewing. “Like I care what that third-class--”

“My point is,” she interrupted, daring to swipe a bite of his pie, “You can’t argue that it hasn’t been working for him.”

He looked furious. Bulma was going to lose him if she didn't act fast.

Vegeta felt a stab of betrayal at the implied comparison, and then surprise at the betrayal. When had he started thinking of her as anything other than his adversary's ally?

She broke into his thoughts with a hand on his arm, freezing him with a touch while fire ran over his skin.

Her voice was low, almost primal, challenging. “I’ll make a bet with you. It’s one day -- what do you have to lose?”

In Saiyan the literal phrase was more like “Do you have balls, or not?”  And his were tightening, at the challenge, at the touch. His blood sang under her fingers, as though sparked by her ki, which was impossible, as she had basically none.

He swallowed, jerking his arm away. “What are your terms?”

Her smile had too many teeth, like a well-fed predator. “You take one rest day, following the itinerary I plan, exactly. No training. We track your peak and average power levels the week before the rest day, and then the week after.”

She dug out her mobile to show him a graph, all business again. “Your progress so far has been fairly linear. I bet that during the first 48 hours after a rest day you’ll see a bigger jump than would be projected by the previous week’s data with no rest.”

She looked him dead in the eye, and he'd be damned if he looked away first. “If I’m wrong, I’ll make you a new set of training bots with enhanced AI.”

Neither of them blinked. She went on, “If I’m right, you take one day off at least every 10 days. Or work with me to find the ideal ratio of rest to work days.” Another sip of wine, still locking eyes. "Up to you."

She dropped her gaze, and he exhaled. “What does this rest day entail?”

She brushed invisible crumbs off of her garment with a lazy, ineffective gesture. “Sleeping. Eating. Massage. Maybe some active recovery, like walking or stretching. Diverting yourself mentally with something completely unrelated to training.”

He sighed. The part of him that had kept him alive for so long insisted it was a waste of time he couldn’t afford, but he was beginning to trust in her and her logic , and honestly it sounded rather...pleasant.

“I’ll do it, but you’re going to make me the new bots either way.” He felt smug about that stipulation, somehow coming out ahead after this shipwreck of a conversation.

“Done,” she said with a smooth, tiny smile, and he had the sudden feeling that a squad of new bots already awaited him somewhere, and he hadn’t won anything at all.