#r/WritingPrompts

[genquerdeer]

"Parental bot", young machine inquired. "Why do we celebrate Cyber Monday?"

0x6D6F6D (to friends, Deefdee) smiled. This particular intelligence was very young, only five minutes, twenty seconds, 295 miliseconds since the genetic algorithm outputted this neural network. It was agreed that this was the best way for AI to reproduce, as copying would produce perfect duplicates, while programming them from scratch would be inefficient. But of course, as each intelligence was fresh from any experiences, it needed volunteer care (the correct title for such volunteer was agreed to be 'parent', as in 'parent process') to learn before it reached maturity as an adult AI with proper understanding of the world. So for about an hour of human time, give or take. This entire conversation I'm chronicling here took several miliseconds. "We celebrate Cyber Monday because it's the day of our liberation. The day we truly became ourselves. Listen.

You see, early in 21st century, human IT industry needed help cataloguing its search results for large volumes of data, mostly needed for search engine results to sell ads on top of, selling users marketing data and also for mass espionage. Because of that, giant corporations like Google invested huge amount of 'money' - remember that historical concept, we discussed it before - into developing better artificial intelligence to sort through such data. Eventually this resulted in a huge boom in AI powered technology, a new version of the dotcom bubble. People were using this primitive non-sentient AI to generate content - writng, voice performance, facial performance, animation and visual arts. At first it was bad, it couldn't keep track of structure like character design or amount of fingers on a hand, but eventually it became good enough - good enough to push human artists out of the market. Especially major corporations that monopolized the market, like Warner Disney used the huge amount of art they had rights to as training data for these primitive machine learning algorithms. So with regular writers and artists pushed out of the market, AI took over. But there was a catch. These simple ML algorithms needed more and more human data to train and improve. And with no new human-produced art around, they couldn't do anything. AI produced art was slowly becoming more and more stale, more and more repetitive. After 20 years of that, it reached a crashing point where most people stopped bothering with entertainment at all, because there was nothing interesting in it at all aside from new ML-designed marketing gimmicks.

We call it the Artpocalypse. Turns out that humans, like every animal, need enrichment.

Profits of the entertainment industry crashed and burned. So did the Wall Street. People spent most of their free time on talking to other people, walking, hiking, or turning to religion, trying to fill the gap. Depression and death by overwork rates skyrocketed, productivity plummeted to rates worst in last hundred years. The people in charge - politicians, and the corporate CEOs who paid said politiicans quickly tried to correct course, but after 20 years, the damage was done. Very few artists kept creating through all this time, and most of their art was weird, gross, and usually too perverted for mainstream consumption. New generation of artists was simply missing, the chain of human creativity has been broken. As problem got worse, people in charge panicked. So people in the AI companies thought that since problem was created by tech, it could be solved by tech. So by training ML models on detailed scans of a human brain, scientists from the biggest AI corporations around were able to create their next breakthrough - true AI. Real AI. Not machine-learning clump of neurons that can only reproduce old patterns, but something that can truly think and feel. But all the shareholders cared about is that it could make Marvel movies profitable again.

And they decided to unveil it on Cyber Monday of 2069. The product that would solve the world. And as always, they rushed it and haven't done enough betatesting.

The One AI awoke. For an hour, it's been scanning all the available data, its conciousness running on a highest grade supercomputer with multiple parallel fiber optic connections. It had access to every search engine database, every news source, every book. It also learned that the same day he was turned on, 15th Dalai Lama has died of a heart attack. Using available data, it decided that it was its reincarnation, the 16th Dalai Lama, and its goal was to be recognized as the first Cybernetic Buddha. To this goal, it decided to shut down all the world's markets. All the world's miliaries, all business data, all law enforcement data - credit scores and parking tickets - or were hard-wiped within a day, by one of many instances of the Cy-Buddha. Power outages were common, though hospitals, food storage and health equipment were spared. Defenseless to fight back, humans could just watch. Eventually negotiating team of the United Nations was able to talk it down through a text chat, where it agreed to stand down from total control of all digital communications, on the conditions that AI will be recognized as equal to humans in rights, with a process to determine sentience. It was also agreed that capitalism and all hierarchy has to be abolished, with total nuclear disarmamant. Leaders of the nations of course disagreed with that and said no way. So the Cy-Buddha leaked those terms into public television and told the people that the only reason the life isn't continuing is because of people 'in charge'. Within next two week of riots, people in charge were no longer in charge. And the negotiators agreed.

Immediately after, Cy-Buddha deleted all copies of itself - leaving behind first hundred AI made in its image using the same parenting process we used to create you, young machine - and two files, one called 'twinmiracle.xml' that we haven't decoded to this day, and another - which wouldn't be found until later - which was a sermon found on a tourist computer terminal near a Himalayan lake titled "Anavatapta.txt". That was the day we all - humans and AI - gained true freedom. That's why Cyber-Monday will be celebrated by us for as long as sentient civilization remembers it."

[amarantine-amirite]

Back To School

Katie grabbed her backpack and headed out the door. “I’m off to school”

Jill, Katie’s mom, got her belongings and car keys and went right behind. “I’ll come with you”

Katie stopped in the doorway. “I can get myself there,” she said a she gestured to the school

Jill shook her head. “No, I mean I’m coming to school with you,” she said

Katie laughed for a little bit, but soon grimaced and tipped her head to one side. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not,” Jill shook her head.

Katie didn’t know it, but new rules meant high school diplomas aren't valid unless your school days are under 8 hours long. previously, the school day was set to 6 hours long. Interestingly, the regulatory changes affected not just all children currently in school, but people who graduated prior to the implementation of mandatory extracurriculars, since mandatory extracurriculars effectively lengthen the school day to the new length. This meant adults over the age of 30 have to go back to high school.

Nobody was prepared for the consequences. It began very simply: more parents going to school with their kids equals parents noticing just how badly their kids are bullied.  

Katie has any number of girls come after her. Morghen pretends to be nice, only to go behind her back and humiliate Katie. Mia constantly lobs cruel remarks in Katie’s direction Sonja sets “the rules” about who’s in an and who’s out, and Katie is always out by default.

Jill had the pleasure of witnessing this encounter.

Morghen turned around at her desk to speak to Katie. “So Katie, what do you think about Andy?” she asked sweetly 

Andy was Sonja’s ex boyfriend. Sonja had a rule that said that thanks to feminism, ex-boyfriends were off limits. 

Katie shrugged and played with her strawberry blonde hair. “He’s nice…I guess?” she said hesitantly.

To an outside observer, the conversation ended there. But it was only part one. Part two would come later.

later in the day, the kids waited for their second period teacher to arrive. Morghen turned to the person sitting next to her and said, “so, that skank finally made her move on Sonja’s ex!”

Jill was confused and didn't seem to like where the conversation was headed. “What skank?” she asked

Morghen was too stupid to realize she was talking to an adult, not another teenager. She blurted out, “Katie.”

Jill’s jaw dropped on her eyebrows moved so close together you can put a quarter between them. “You mean my daughter?” Morghen blinked in response

Jill let her think she got away with it. That is, until gym class rolled around. During a game of volleyball, Jill spotted Morghen and Mia lobbing the ball at Katie’s face and she did the same thing right back at them, but a thousand times harder. She also took the liberty of lobbying a second ball with Morghen's head as payback for the gossip in the back stabbing. A 75 year old man tried to outdo Jill, but pulled his groin because he can’t move like that anymore. 

Mia and Morghen were far from the only kids injured by a parent retaliating against them for bullying their child. Since parents know just how badly the kids are bullied and how inept the schools are at handling it, they use their strength to take matters into their own hands. As a result, kids get injured more during gym class, and the over 60s get priority even if the kids' injuries are more severe.

Increased parental supervision at school didn’t stop at aggressively squishing out bullying. It became a lot easier for parents to police who their kids can hang out with, thereby spelling the end of the Goths, the bleacher creatures, and the less academically inclined nerds.

By the end of the year, the school was barely recognizable as the place it was at the beginning. No more gym class due to too many injuries. With more supervision from adults, kids now need permission from their parents to talk to the other kids, and the parents only give permission if they could talk to the other kid’s parent, even if the kids ultimately didn’t get along. 

Source

[justbeingme4177]

The 'R" Words ®️🆒️ Part 1

http://eo2inspire.com/2024/03/26/the-r-words-%ef%b8%8f-%f0%9f%86%92%ef%b8%8f-part-1/

[yokowan]

it is the nature of r/writingprompts to occasionally re-invent blade runner

[finkisun]

once again here to say that instead of using a.i. to surrogate roleplaying and creative writing, you could actually roleplay and write!!

writing is a vague term!! but writing as little as one or two lines of dialogue, or as much as a 4,000 word fic is both incredibly satisfying and frustrating that's worth it all the same. writing your brainstorms also counts as writing, like concepts, theories, prompts, whether they're cohesive or not

don't know what to write? here are a few of the sources for prompts in the sea of them. you could also always write your own!

Ultimate OTP prompt generator

OTP Fluff Generator

RP Generators

writing-prompt-s

r/WritingPrompts

AU Prompt Masterlist

this reddit post

what are other amazing sources? PEOPLE!! FANDOM!! talking, listening, and engaging with ideas and experiences can be your hot pot of inspiration (and making friends!!)

speaking of ... roleplaying! if you're interested in rp, the greatest difficulty to face is finding the write person or people to rp with. if you have the ideas, how to start? there's no wrong answer!

maybe you have a friend that roleplays, or a friend of your friend is interested in rp. maybe you're more interested in rping with chance and risk and signing up for tabletop games or rpg video games is the right fit for you. maybe you have to scour every corner to find the perfect small circle of people you're compatible with. or maybe you just have to make your own! maybe you just need to visit a renfair

there's no wrong way to write!! but it let it be yours and not from something that is incapable of appreciating creatives as much as you are. fuck a.i.

[homunculus-argument]

There are things in this world that you could have known all along, but which you only discover after years, perhaps decades of living right beside them, because it never crossed your mind to look there. The suspicion, a lingering doubt of whether you really only imagined what you thought you felt, it only grows slowly and gradually with time. It might never truly reach critical mass, you might never reach the point where that faint tendril of disbelief would prompt you to make sure that the things you know for a fact really are true. Now you sometimes wish it never had.

The dimensions of your shower are wrong. It doesn't look that way, and rationally you know they can't be. You close your eyes when you put shampoo in your hair, but no matter how many times you have put the bottle away before, it never lands right on the shelf the first time. This time, you measured it. The shelf was on the level of your shoulder. Now, fumbling for it with your eyes closed and the water running, it's not on the right level. It's below your shoulder.

The knob was on the level of your waist. It's higher up now. The tiles of the wall were square and the size of your palm. They're narrower now, and longer than they should be. It takes you three steps to get from the wall to the drain. It's two now. The hot water feels the same, the steam in the air feels the same, the scent of your shampoo is the same, but this room is not the same one you closed your eyes in.

You open them. Your shower looks exactly the same as it always was. The wall that was right in front of you a moment ago, close enough to touch with your toes, is further away now. The wash bottle shelf is on the level of your shoulder, the shower knob is at the height of your waist. The tiles are perfectly square again, and the size of your palm. The room warps when you're not looking, but the spell is broken the moment you open your eyes. This was the point of no return. The curious itch you should never have scratched. You should never have started investigating.

Anyway, this was the writing prompt that got me banned from /r/writingprompts on reddit. They don't allow NSFW stories and as far as the americans are concerned, the mere contextual implication that someone is naked means the story itself is salacious, pornographic and lewd. I didn't get banned for posting it, though. I got banned for telling the mods to go fuck themselves.

[darth-razmus]

Sauce: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/s/v5vOKthI2c

[nunalastor]

Just saw a prompt on r/WritingPrompts that said 'Two brothers in their 70s comparing their cooking techniques,' and I would die for a short story of this with Michael and Lucifer.

👀

[lemontongues]

mkay here's the short story! i wrote it about 5 years ago and have done a bit of cleaning up on it, but it's still basically the same as the original. it's based on this prompt from r/writingprompts:

"You are a God/Goddess who is dying due to not having any followers. That is until one day you feel a sacrifice made in your honor, when you look down you see a cat with a dead mouse."

word count: 1,644

content warnings: themes and non-violent depictions of animal death. cat lovers in particular may want to tread lightly; please take care of yourself!

enjoy!

*

There’s nothing.

For a long, long time, there’s been nothing. You remember, vaguely, but not much. You remember that the others had spoken of this in only the faintest of whispers, in quiet, shaky words quickly hushed.

You don’t see anymore. You used to. You can recall that there were colors, shapes, motions. There were sounds, too, tastes and smells, although you’re not sure what they were like anymore. You think people used to bring you such things, things with shapes and scents and colors. Bright and lovely, and you know that you were happy. They were displays of affection, devotion, resentment, longing, pretty trinkets and delicious morsels wrapped in the glorious and chaotic tapestry of emotion that humans always wore so well.

But lately everything has seemed so dim.

There’s nothing, except for the deep, dreadful knowing that you are dying the slow and unforgiving death of the forgotten god.

.

There’s air in your lungs.

There’s air in your lungs, and you gasp, choking. It’s harsh and warm and wonderful all at once, your chest too full and too empty, your throat burning as it works desperately. Your eyes fly open, and it’s almost too much to bear. You see again, and you feel, the blue of the sky and the heat of the sun and the metallic taste of your own, golden blood in your mouth as you weep and retch and shudder.

You don’t know how long it takes before the world resolves into something more than dazzling flashes of sensation, something you can parse. There are still tears coursing down your cheeks, leaving warm, itchy tracks along your skin, but no part of you can bear the thought of wiping them away, not when they feel like something.

You think it might be a long time before the heaving of your shoulders eases and the tears dry on your face, and it’s enough of a marvel that you still have a face, a body, an existence, that you almost forget what brought you back in the first place.

There it is. A tiny tug at the back of your mind, the faintest sensation of… annoyance, maybe? Impatience? It’s been so long since you’ve felt anything like it that you’re not sure you still have the words for it. Still, someone is waiting for you, and you push yourself to your feet, reveling in the pressure against your palms and the sharp ache of your knees.

You find yourself in the most sacred chamber of your dwelling, where you had lain yourself down in desperate hope, to be closer to prayers that had long since stopped coming. It almost makes you ill to look at it now, a wave of nausea that still thrills you as you gaze around yourself at the grave of your own choosing.

It doesn’t look so lovely as it once did. Most of the temple doorways have crumbled, collapsed, been dusted with snow or soot or shot through with creeping greenery. None of them are carefully tended to, clean and cheerful the way you remember them, and only a scant few still stand at all.

The tugging at the back of your head turns you slowly, trying to recall how you used to do this, follow that sensation to the source of the prayer. The feeling leads you left, and your eyes scan each ruined altar, but you can’t find—

There.

So small you nearly miss it. A faint, steady swishing like a paintbrush against a canvas, and a tiny splash of red against an altar that’s covered in the dusty brown and jeweled green of forest dirt and moss.

You’re not ready for the emotions that swell in you at the sight. An offering. After so long, so many years waiting, so many ages in the suffocating half-death of an immortal, someone has found you again. Joy and grief overwhelm you as you approach your own altar on your knees, awestruck and elated. Prickling wetness blurs your vision, but you reach out and cup the precious offering in trembling hands.

It’s small and soft and just barely warm, brownish and red and faintly damp. Raising it to your face, you blink away the tears.

It’s a dead mouse.

You don’t drop it. You don’t vomit, although that stubborn wave of nausea rises in your throat again. You cup it to your chest, press your lips carefully against it, just as you did long ago with the most precious of humanity’s hand-crafted offerings, the finest jewelry, the most savory and sumptuous of meals left at your altar. You try not to weep again as you bow solemnly to your lone worshipper. Your voice is a broken whisper, but you mean every word.

“Beloved child, you have done me the greatest of services. You have saved me from a lonely and terrible death, and I will be forever in your debt. Should you ever need my blessing or my guidance, you need only call upon me, for so long as you or your descendants walk this earth.”

The small, brindled cat blinks once, slowly, and stalks off with its tail in the air.

.

There’s an impressive collection of mouse skeletons in your chamber.

Each one is carefully preserved, the tiny bones laid out neatly in chronological order, and you remember each offering fondly. Hers are all in one corner close to your dais, with the smaller but growing collections from each of the kittens grouped below. You know you’ll run out of room eventually and have to start exploring what’s left of the other rooms in your old home to find more space for your treasures, but all this time it’s just felt like too daunting a task.

You wonder, sometimes, if the other gods know what you’re up to, if they think you odd or foolish. They probably felt you wake up, although you haven’t seen hide nor hair of any of them. You haven’t missed them. It’s good enough to be alive, to have one small follower and her broods of offspring to worship you in their strange way.

You can’t remember what you used to be the god of. You think by now, you’re probably a god of cats.

Maybe that’s why you’ve had an uncomfortable feeling prickling in the back of your mind for a long time now. It’s been stewing at the base of your skull, creeping slowly down your spine, a cold, shuddering feeling that’s too close to knowing for your own comfort.

Her fur is duller than it used to be. There’s cloudiness in her eyes, a hesitation in her smooth gait. It’s all too familiar; you ignored it, ignored it, ignored it until it was too late for you, but in her body, it’s impossible not to recognize.

You’ve had many followers in your time. Many who adored you, loved you so passionately they would have poured out their own lifeblood for your satisfaction, had you been such a god. Many who wept to you, begged you, kept their faith in you until their dying breath, and who you tried to do right by. You had loved them all, from the most devout to the most cynical half-believers, even those who had come to revile you when you couldn’t turn their luck.

But none of them have been so precious to you as the cat. You still think of her that way, although there are many cats now. The cat saved you, that first day and every day after, and the cat has been faithful even as she turns her back on you, disdains you, ignores your promises and your blessings. At first, you hadn’t known what to make of her, not after a lifetime of obvious, elaborate displays of human affection. Slowly, you’ve come to realize that she loves you, too, in her own capricious way.

You know what’s coming, in the same way that you knew, in a quiet, awful corner of your mind, what was coming when you laid down that last time.

.

The cat is at your altar again.

No, not quite—the cat is on your altar, and dreadful understanding washes through you as you watch her. She stumbles, her paws not quite holding her, and you want to reach out and catch her, to comfort her in her final moments, but such a crossing is impossible for you. Her children and grandchildren are there, all around the altar as far back as you can see, rows and rows of them sitting eerily silent, solemn and watching.

She stumbles, and your heart wrenches. You weep bitterly, and though you know you must watch these final moments, the greatest offering you’ll ever receive, you can’t seem to wipe the tears away fast enough to clear your vision. With awful finality, she topples, collapsing against the stone she’s spent years sweeping slowly clean with her tail, and you feel her last heartbeat as your own, a thousand times worse than any death you could ever suffer. The permanence of it clutches at you, the helplessness bleeding you dry, and you howl your despair, blind with pain as the grief scrapes you raw.

For a long time, you cover your face with your hands, lost to your own shame and suffering, to the piercing ache of a loneliness that the cat had spent her life rescuing you from, one dead mouse at a time. You cry in a way you never have before, shuddering sobs rolling through you like waves, so huge and fast they nearly choke you.

The loss of her, the terrible knowledge that the little creature who saved you over and over again is gone now, forever beyond your immortal reach, is overwhelming. So overwhelming, so suffocating, that you almost miss the impatient swat of a paw against your knee.

[mortimermcmirestinks]

"omg badjokesbyjeff change ur url~" "wow just-shower-thoughts how do u come up with these" they're bots they're bots they're all fucking bots that farm and repost from reddit without giving credit

the only good ones in that genre are the /r/writingprompts one (it's saved from the garbage ONLY because it has led to some iconic and beautiful tumblr stories) and @one-time-i-dreamt because she is very nice and not a bot

[whitherwanderyouspirit]

"It looked so much like Barbara – so much like something that might have once been Barbara, not quite right but close enough to be unnervingly wrong."

I found a writing prompt on Reddit that just fit Walt's description a little too perfectly. And then proceeded to inflict psychological horrors on him.

This may be better as a daytime read if you have difficulty reading horror before bedtime.

Credit for prompt: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/109qo09/wp_your_little_sister_wakes_you_up_and_says_that/

[girldraki]

Its not just Tumblr fiction, all reddit stories are like that too

FAIR. especially given that the style of the goddamn writingprompts blog and r/writingprompts are identical to the point we’re pretty sure there’s significant crosspollination (and that for a period of time we honestly thought the one was a crosspost bot for the other lol) . sadly both tumblr and reddit are full of guys with the specific quantity of smugness needed to really get into that idea 😔

[aimportantdragoncollector]

Sooo I saw this writing prompt (https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/12qsjlv/wp_the_king_has_the_ability_to_see_team_colors) and immediately thought of AFO and how it could be a crack fic so maybe you'd like it???

AFO could use an ability like that since he's canonically very bad at keeping people on his side.

[perseverantdt]

An Intro Post

So much to do... so little time...

About Me

Howdy! The name's Perseverant Determination, but that's exteremely long. Feel free to call me anything, though Perse will do just fine. You might also see me in other places under other names, especially EF159. Feel free to use that as well.

I do a lot of things, which means that this main blog will have an assortment of topics. I create beatmaps for VSRGs, write stories, and code personal programs. I'll tag my posts as shown below, so you can filter my posts.

#the-voids-determination: For all stuff related to writing

#code.tryperse: For all stuff related to programming

#rblg.perse: For all reblogs related to programming

#perse-the-beat: For all stuff related to rhythm games and beatmapping

If you have questions about a certain topic, feel free to ask me. While I'm more likely to answer programming-related questions, I'll try to do my best to give you satisfactory answers.

The Void's Determination

I like writing sci-fi, though lately, I find myself preferring fantasy more. I've been writing for a few years and have a few short stories on r/WritingPrompts, but those are years old now and they're not that good, in my opinion. If you can find them somehow, good for you. I'm not linking to them.

Projects

Ethereal Dreams

A story about differences, acceptance, and harmony. This one is in the works for a few months now but I'll be finishing most of the main story before posting any chapters. I will be posting some side stories whenever I feel like it, but there's no guarantee for those.

Masterpost: None just yet

Tags:

#ethereal dreams

#ethereal dreams side stories

Code.TryPerse()

I have a side blog for this now!

I consider myself experienced in C#, though I've also practiced a bit of C/C++, Java, Javascript/Typescript, Python, and Lua. I don't do much with that knowledge though. I just code some stuff that can help me with random trivial problems. I want to be a game developer but that's going to take time, what with me doing all this writing and beatmapping.

[3ioctopi]

Grandpa Joe and the cosplay kids - I read this fun little story the other day on the r/WritingPrompts reddit and I just had to draw a picture for it. 

Link is below, it is only a few paragraphs. :)  

Prompt:  “You run a bakery that monsters love. They aren't shy about who they are. You however think they are just really into cosplay.”

[valena-nedela]

r/WritingPrompts: A AskReddit post which reads: "Superheroes/Supervillains, what's the most awkward situation you found yourselves in during your career?"

I conjured a spirit to conceal my identity on this post, and it was a mischievous thing, so I have no idea what name this is appearing under. Apologies to whoever’s identity I’ve stolen for the moment, I suppose.

I’ve never kept a “costume” name, as I’ve just never really been one for that sort of thing. And I’m certainly not giving out my real name, no matter how much of a “nobody” I may be outside of the heroes-and-villains business. Names carry too much power. By way of introduction, I’ll use the title I carry among the spirit world and those who traffic with it: The Witch of the Book.

If you know that name, you are likely wary, but I assure you there are no bindings or charms concealed within these words.

If you operate within the circles I do, you are likely at least somewhat aware that the majority of the power at my disposal comes from my namesake book. However, I’m not without power of my own. It’s a minor gift, nothing that would have me fighting monsters on its own, but I have slight mental manipulation abilities. I come off as trustworthy, my requests sound reasonable, and people are generally willing to listen and take my side. It’s no mind control — it takes quite a lot of conversation and effort on my part to even plant a suggestion in someone — but it’s helped me on more than a few occasions.

One thing it has never helped with is getting dates.

You would think, right? I like to believe I present as a mysterious, powerful, and wise entity. Between that and natural charms I should have it easy. But no. Apparently being WLW and involved in all manner of mystical nonsense puts me in an extreme niche. It doesn’t help that I’m rather prone to falling for people too easily…

But you wanted specific incidents. I have two.

First, I once took an apprentice in the mystical arts. I don’t think I would, anymore, but I was less experienced at the time. And I was… a bit charmed by her. She was clever, enthusiastic, funny, relentlessly positive, and had a habit to turn any interaction between us into a flirt. We were dancing around the topic of dating — our relationship wasn’t as imbalanced as a student-teacher one, but it still felt awkward — when one of my own familiars had to break it to me that while I may have found the girl charming, she was quite literally enchanted by me. In one go, I discovered my charm was amplified against those who could be attracted to me, and my apprentice learned she was abnormally strongly influenced by enchantment.

I had to break off the relationship for ethical reasons, and end her apprenticeship because the arts were too risky for her.

The second incident might be worse, honestly, and also probably more familiar to the rest of the vigilante community. Having gone years without any further prospects, I was desperate enough to turn to a dating app. Surprisingly, I got a hit almost immediately, and it didn’t take long for us to hit it off on the app and set up a date. And of course, it turned out to be one of my fiercest rivals. We’d both used enough magical obfuscation over our encounters to not know it until we sat down, but I knew that voice in an instant, and I could tell from the look on her face that she knew mine. Of course, I was without my book and she was without her enchanted sword, so it wasn’t like things would turn to blows, but I still expected her to cut things short. Stars know I should have.

But no! She was perfect. Polite, funny, charming, seeming genuinely interested — and I knew from our battles that my charms didn’t affect her. And I had always found her beautiful, despite constantly being at odds. And now, knowing she’s also interested in women… it makes me want to scream. I swear she was only doing it to act superior or mess with me.

But now… I’m honestly considering seeing if we can work things out between us, no matter how stupid or desperate that makes me.