#the first time I learned it and tried to put it in code the computer didn't like it :(

[ff-killjam]

How The Tables Turned [Ford x reader oneshot]

Summary: This time, its Ford making you stop what you're going to make sure you get sleep.

Rating: SFW and very fluffy

Warnings: Aside from a slightly suggestive part, none!

AO3 version

A/N: Actually based on a period of time where I tried to learn how to use unity (before the whole drama of it happened). I refused to do ANYTHING but to work on my little project no matter how much I was starving for a few weeks straight. lol.

It’s basically routine at this point for you to drag Ford out of his lab to head for bed. Even if you remind him of the benefits on sleeping and how the lack of it will impact his work, you still needed to get him into bed, sometimes having some food ready for him to make sure he didn’t sleep on an empty stomach.

That’s how its USUALLY IS.

Lately, you’ve started your own personal project involving learning a game engine to play around with. It was mostly just a random idea one day, wanting to try your hand at making your own little “video game”. Nothing too fancy, just something fun to put together and to learn some new skills along the way. There was A LOT you needed to look into and learn to make this happen, however.

From learning a coding language, the game engine itself, a mix between finding free to use assets and even making your own when nothing suited your taste- you had a lot on your plate. It wasn’t all that bad really, considering how this whole thing turned into a full blown hyper fixation fairly soon after starting it. It was easy to let the hours fly by as you were split between watching tutorial videos, drawing and fixing any errors/bugs in any of the codes you wrote down. You were aware of when you needed to sleep, eat and do other things for your health, but something about working on this project made you refuse to move from your chair. And you weren’t the only one to noticed this.

After a decent amount of time being with you, Ford has grown used to the routine of you coming to his lab to check up on him. It got to the point where he purposely stayed late in the lab to get you to come in and “pester” him to take care of himself better. The feeling of knowing you cared and loved him so much to go out of your way to make sure he knew that was something he relished in. Of course, he did felt a little “silly” and “immature” doing this instead of straight up telling you, but there was no harm being done anyways, so it was fine.

So when you stopped checking on him after a few nights, he couldn’t help but to worry a bit. At first, he figured you were just a bit busy, possibly even out for the night, so he didn’t think too much of it. However, when walking into your computer room and seeing you up staring at your screen with an open notebook with various random things written on it, he couldn’t help to smile a bit as you reminded him of his university days. You were just working on something, nothing too bad.

But as time passed by, he soon realizes he only ever sees you in your computer room. You barely went out for anything, even for food. Ford didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but he was worried. Things escalated for him when he barely sees you in bed anymore.

It’s not like he didn’t talk to you as you were deep in your work. He would sometimes check in on you when things felt a little too quite after he started to noticed your absent in his lab. Ford was happy you were able to pursue something new and to take the time and effort to do it. He was aware of the little game you wanted to make for the sake of saying “I made this!”. When he had the free time, he’ll listen to you talk about the things you learned, some of the issues you faced and how you fixed them, etc etc. But he can only take so much before he had to really step in for your own sake.

The sky was dark out, and it was around 1am. You weren’t in bed yet. Again. Ford was really concerned for you now. Walking through the dim hallway, he opens up the door of your computer room. He can see you fully concentrated on your screen, looking over some codes you put together, as if you were trying to find any errors in the lines of text that was presented in front of you. It was obvious how dry your eyes were, how your body longed for rest, but the urge to keep going and to fix this one mistake kept you from wanting to sleep despite how much you felt the need to do so.

It was almost funny to him. A taste of his own medicine some would say. It reminds him of the many nights on how he too would refuse to stop for the night, always needing to do one more thing before he could let himself rest. How you would do your best to persuade him to let himself walk away from his work, to take care of himself to avoid any health complications, and to spend time with you in the comfort of your bed.

It made him feel guilty as well. The things you did for him and how much you loved him to always go out of your way to show it. Ford knew he was taking full advantage of that, and he wanted to repay it back.

You jumped a little in your seat when you felt his familiar six finger hand land on your shoulder, being so focused on the lines of text on your screen that you forgot where you were for a good bit. You look over at Ford as he stood beside your seat, giving him a weak smile.

“Oh hey! Do you need anything?” You asked before quickly looking back at the screen again.

“Love, when was the last time you ate?” Ford asked you in a gentle voice.

“Uh… I had breakfast?” You answered, only remembering you had some toast with a sunny side egg on top when you last ate. It didn’t seem like it mattered too much though.

“Its almost one am” Ford replied, a little stern this time. You quickly check the clock on your taskbar, feeling surprised from how much time had passed.

“Oh… oops” you spoke mostly to yourself, feeling a little silly for not checking the time more often. “I’ll probably head to bed soon”

“Not soon,” Ford points out, “you’re going to bed now.” His words made you look at him again, confusion viable on your face.

“Just let me do this one fix-” Ford says your name, stern voice again, causing you to stop your sentence.

“You are fully aware of the effects of not taking care of yourself” Ford spoke to you with a smirk on his face. You knew that he was referencing the many of times where you brought out the facts of how the lack of sleep and self care can affect your health and day to day life. It was the best way to convince him to come to bed and let you cuddle with him until you were both asleep. “You’re no different form me, sweetheart. Got to practice what they preach, as they say”

“Uh…. I’m built different?” You gave a half shrug and a low chuckle at your own joke. Obviously, this did nothing to change his mind. You knew he was right, and had nothing to say to argue back. Ford knew this too. “Fine… let me quickly save and shut off my computer…”

Ford watches you quickly save any progress before shutting off your computer, the light of the screen turning off and making the room dark as it was the only thing on. As you start to stand, your body fully conveyed how tired you really were. You were about to walk to the hallway door before Ford lets out a ‘let me’, and you were now being picked up bridle style in his arms. You let out a small gasp, often forgetting how much muscle the older man has as he often hides it away in his iconic turtleneck. The comfort of him holding you made the realization at your own exhaustion hit hard. You can feel yourself somewhat go limp as Ford carried you to your shared room.

Ford felt you quickly relax in his arms, feeling prideful as he carried you to your bed. Sitting you on the side and pulling the blanket back. He lays you on your pillow before fallowing suit into his usual spot on the bed beside you. Your eyes were shut as you let yourself sink into the soft mattress, the weight of the blanket being pulled over you giving a sense of security, along with how his arms wrapped around you to pull you close to his chest. You let out a sigh of relief as you feel him nuzzle his face into the crook of your neck, getting a few shivers down your spine.

“Sorry…” You mumbled to him, feeling guilty now for making him go out of his way to get you to bed. You feel him chuckle into your skin, the smile forming on his face being easily felt on your skin.

“Nothing to be sorry about sweetheart,” his replied, voice audibly sounding more tired, “I should be the one to apologize, making you go through this almost every night. I see how doing this almost all the time can be a bit frustrating for you.”

“Not if its you,” You were quickly to reply, “I’m always happy to make sure you’re okay”. Ford felt his heart flutter at your words. You always did surprised him with how much you loved him despite how many times you pointed it out.

“The feeling is mutual,” Ford placed a kiss on your skin as he caressed one of his thumbs that rested on you, “lets get to sleep now, I’ll be sure to do something for you in the morning” Ford gave another kiss on your skin, and you can’t help but to feel excited for what he had planned.

Silence followed as you two let yourselves slowly fall asleep in each others comfort. Feeling his steady heartbeat on your back lulled you to your sleep.

Ford smiled when he realized you fell asleep before he did. It was no surprise, you needed it really bad. Without fail every night when he has you in his arms like this, he feels like the luckiest man in the multiverse. He didn’t deserve you, but it was almost as if this is the repayment he deserved after many years of suffering, a way of life saying sorry to him.

And he wouldn’t ask for anything else.

[emmafaeru]

by the time I'm done with this fucking computer science project I'll be so far ahead in physics I won't even have to worry about it

[dduane]

Hello! Do you think your conception of magic in YW is influenced at all by computer code? Between High Wizardry and some of the website admin stuff you discuss here, I'm guessing you've coded at least a little.

I'm an actor-turned-librarian who's cobbled together a little bit of coding competency through goofing off. The other day I tried to explain how I conceptualize a coding project and, well, first you need to figure out something's name -- and make sure you're properly specific for the context, you may need a lot of detail in how you name it -- and then you can start figuring out how to persuade it to do what you want ....

So I guess it's sort of a chicken-and-egg question: have I conceptualized coding in the image of my favorite fictional magic systems, or have I been generally drawn to magic systems with a sort of code-y, process-y inspiration?

I wouldn't like to second-guess your in-brain structure. But I can talk about my historical processes a bit, as they may apply to this.

Let me step back slightly. Before* I was a writer, I was a nurse. Before I was a nurse, I was studying to be an astrophysicist. Both of these arts/sciences require a certain sense of the hard structure of the universe—of the ways it requires you to put bits of it together if you're going to get anything useful done. This general outlook has determined, to a certain extent, how I interact with the nuts and bolts of the online world.

More historically speaking: I'm one of an unusual stratum of computer users who were technologically orphaned by the (bankruptcy) failure of the Osborne computer company in the mid-1980s. Those of us who had these machines, and who were at all techie-oriented, quickly became WAY more so in an attempt to keep our Osbornes running after the company went under. We learned how to keep our babies going without any available support, and when we moved on to other machines, we quickly became expert in fixing them... having learned the bitter lesson that when your computer fails, most of the time you're the only one you're going to be able to rely on to keep it going.

We learned to do things for ourselves, from the bottom up: hardware to programming. That mindset has remained with me from then until now.

After my Osborne, I moved from an early Apple (lent by our old friend Michael Reaves) to various early DOS/TRS machines when I moved over to this side of the Atlantic. I wrote Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative on a TRS-80 Model 100, gods bless its gentle hardworking heart. (I can still see in my mind the pale, pine-panelled interior of the ancient creaky London hotel, just south of Notting Hill Gate Tube, where I did most of the Trek work while I was in town on other business. I'd hooked the computer's modem to the hotel's phone system with alligator clips.) While Peter and I were later sorting out where we'd live on this side of things, for a long time—before portable computers, except for the TRS—the big machines lived in the boot of the Volvo while we migrated from place to place. And always the alligator clips were there.

Finally we settled in Ireland, and not too long after us, so did the Internet. (But not before I had to go up to Dublin one time, with the alligator clips again FFS!, and show the adorably clueless national telephone company guys how to hook up/in. ...I never pass that building without thinking of it: once Telecom Eireann, then Eircom, then Eir. Now it's a Starbucks. No matter. I remember where to hook the alligator clips in.)

And then, with the internet, lo, there came the (net-oriented) coding. Our first household web site went online in 1995. I handcoded our site's HTML. (Because what's a girl to do: wait for the techbois to make such work accessible or affordable? Bwahahahaha.) I continued to do that until the early 2000s, at which point I moved our sites to Drupal and learned its obscure ways. These days—having decided that Updating Damn Drupal Core Every Week is not what my mom raised me for—I've migrated all our household sites to WordPress, and I like it. I still pay a lot of attention to them, but at least I don't have to custom-code every whole damn page. I'm happy enough to let Elementor do that, while inserting occasional custom CSS, because (a) I have other writing to do, and (b) Life Is Too Short.

(I also used to hand-build our household computers, because (a) money was short and (b) why not know exactly what all your hardware is? But more recently I've started letting Scan in the UK do that. It's another Life Is Too Short thing... and Scan does good work. Lovely tight builds, and good customer service when needed.)

So: yeah, I code. :) Is the Young Wizards universe’s spell structure influenced by that? Uh, yeah. Inevitable, I’d think. Habit is such a taskmaster.

Meanwhile, summing up: I'm fluent in HTML. I'm nearly as fluent in CSS. I have enough PHP to be dangerous (to myself as well as others). I have memories of C that I can dredge up when necessary. I generated most of the Rihannsu language in MS-BASIC, gods bless it. ...And beyond that (as we say around here), deponent saith not. :)

*Or “while”, as I started writing when I was six or seven.

[extendedtimeline]

Batman: Europa & Batman and Jokers relationship

read: This will be a post looking at, and analyzing the relationship between Batman & Joker in Batman: Europa. I actually wrote this entire post (it took me like two hours) and then Tumblr didn't save it correctly so I lost all of my work! <////3 This is your sign to not be like me and write directly on Tumblr it's a bad idea. This won't be as long as the post was originally intended to be, but I hope to still touch on most of the topics I did the first time. I HEAVILY recommend reading this comic for yourself at some point. It's very compelling. Apologies if I get anything incorrect, or if I don't make sense at any point. If you have any requests for future posts about Batman & Jokers relationship I'm definitely all ears!!!

Small Summary

In Batman: Europa Batman and the Joker are infected with a deadly virus, they're both given varying pieces of information to begin with, and this leads to them teaming up to find the person who infected them. They travel throughout Europe (Berlin, Prague, Paris, and Rome) together, fighting enemies, and learning about eachother along the way.

Note

I'm going to divide this post up by Comic issue AKA location. I think this will just make it easier in general. Unlike my first version of this, I'm going to try to keep my summaries of each issue condensed. I will start out with a summary of the issue, and then talk about what I noticed within the chapters. I'm going to try to keep the images to a minimum (bc of the image limit) but if you're curious about what a page looks like, go check it out! Seriously, the art is amazing. I may not touch on absolutely every instance of their weird relationship with her eachother but I tried to pick out the moments I liked a lot <3

Berlin

This chapter starts in Gotham, where Batman is fighting Croc, although Bruce is much weaker than usual. Croc even senses this, and comments on it. Bruce does eventually take him down and Alfred asks him to come to the Batcave. Alfred breaks the news that there has been a virus put on the bat computer. The screen reads:

" Colossus is in your system. You have one week left. Have fun. Start running. "

Obviously from this and Bruce's state they gather this isn't really about the bat computer, and actually about Bruce. Batman finds that the virus originated in Berlin, so he suits up and heads out.

Bruce stalks a criminal, but when he runs out of a building screaming murder, Bruce enters to find a bunch of people with gigantic grins plastered on their faces, so it's clear who is behind this attack.

Bruce tracks down Joker and smashes through a window (because of course he does???). Joker was badgering a girl named Nina about something. Bruce starts to interrogate the Joker until he realizes the Joker is ALSO infected. Nina also knows about the computer virus and can get in contact with the person who asked her to make it. Bruce realizes that he literally needs the Joker on this case with him.

Berlin: B & J

Something I felt the need to bring up is the way Bruce talks about the History of Cölln and Berlin:

" Cölln and Berlin crashed into each other somewhere in the fourteenth century. History forced them together. I get the joke but I'm not laughing. "

Clearly, this is talking about B&J's history too, but I want to talk even deeper on the matter.

Joker has always been queer, he has been coded that way since his introduction. In the beginning it was assumed he wore makeup and he was flamboyant and somewhat "effeminate". Batman was supposed to be the opposite. Despite the fact the idea of The Batman is rather outlandish, and multiple people do comment on this in Batman comics, Batmans brand of outlandish is accepted because hes seen as the defender of the heteronormative agenda. He goes against the criminal, and otherwise queer joker to enforce heteronormative ideologies. He is a big intimidating man, and Joker is supposed to be just the opposite.

Of course, now there is more nuance and a bit more care put into these character, but the way theyre portrayed early on feels very much like Batman is fighting against somebody who goes against the Norms. I'm not saying that Batman is homophobic NOW, and I'm not even saying he was intentionally homophobic then, but the ideals of writers tend to show in their work, and it was the '40s.

Infact, I think Bruce has ALSO been used to show what it's like to be a repressed queer person. He's not ALLOWED to be queer with Joker because Jokers was is supposed to be the wrong way.

Bruce & Joker talk

B: "You're infected, too?" J: "I'll take that to mean we both are. Maybe they'll bury us together."

Already talk of them dying together (Thinking about Batman: Endgame so intensely rn). Joker may also be alluding to the way married couples are often buried together.

In general, Joker and Batman, after their initial scuffle, talk rather casually in this chapter. Not beating the bff allegations

We do get this at the end of the chapter:

Batman doesn't say it outright (as in literally saying "I need you, Joker"), but it is the truth. They've both been given different pieces of the puzzle and only by putting them together can they figure it out. Almost like a comment on how they're better together? Almost like a comment on the whole nature of their relationship and how they are dependent on one another???

Prague

We start off with Bruce talking about the history of Prague. Nina is now working with them, she is trying to lure out whoever it was that propositioned her to put the virus on Bruce's computer.

Nina is scared, and as she's speaking to Bruce about the Trojan Horse (the person who requested this of her) these wooden robots start to attack. Joker is faster than Batman at getting up and out of the sewers and kills a man.

Nina is taken by the robots, and Batman begins to fight them off with Jokers help. But Bruce can tell the wooden robots are actually leading them somewhere theyre supposed to go.

I'll speak on everything that happens to Nina now, because it cuts in and out of her and B&J's storyline for a second. She was taken by the associate of the perpetrator. It's implied she is to be killed, but the perpetrator kills his associate, thanking him for what he's done for him.

Joker is taken captivate by a gigantic wooden robot, as he's sucked into it's chest cavity. Batman chases after it, and uses a silane capsule to set it aflame. Because the thing is already covered in ancient grease and oil which doesn't pair well with burning gas the outcome is even more deadly. Batman is struck by the robot and goes black. He believes his time is up until Joker busts out of the robots chest cavity and saves Bruce. Since Joker tore the robot apart from the inside it's now extremely broken and easily taken down.

because Batman had a tracker on Nina's clothing, he knows that she is heading into Paris. So that will be their next destination!

Prague: B & J

When Joker and Batman are in the sewers, Joker is messing around with some insects.

Bruce brings up Joker

"With a partner... I'd be crazy to trust."

The thing is, and we see this later more explicitly, Bruce DOES Trust joker even if he shouldn't.

"Not yours or mine, but our fate."

This once again brings me back to Batman: Endgame. Their lives, their demises, are linked to eachother. Bruce is scared of this link, because it says something about him he doesn't quite like or want to explore behind surface level. This entire scenario is begging him to confront that idea though. Because he needs the Joker now, and perhaps he always has?

Batman & Joker dialogue:

B: "Joker-- save your strength." J: "instead of myself?" B: "Trust me-- there's too many of them-- and the way these things are fighting... they're directing us somewhere."

Ah, yes, Trust. A reoccurring idea in Europa! Of course Batman probably believes himself to be trustworthy, atleast more so than the Joker, but for the both of them trust doesn't come easy. It's a big ASK of either of them to put genuine faith into someone. But they ask that of eachother. HMMMMMM!!!!

Batman & Joker Dialogue

B: Show some respect-- you... you-- J: "Saved me." I'd say you're welcome but I'm less happy about that than you are. Anyway, save the "Thankee" until after I save Nina, it'll mean more. B: That won't happen...

This marks the first time in this comic that Joker saves Batman, and it seems to me that Joker plays this off as something he didn't ENJOY doing. but he does it again later? so like okay man???

Paris

Bruce & Joker are walking around in the catacombs, Joker is leading them to his "circus". When they get there, the people are able to give them some information on the Trojan Horse.

Once theyve gotten the info, Batman goes off only to find the man had been killed. He was just a pawn.

Batman and Joker head off towards the sound of a Bell only to find a man who is a combination of both the joker and batman (where have I seen this before? /sarcastic). Bruce asks Joker to rescue Nina and when Joker hesitates, Bruce scolds himself for trusting him.

Bruce slips off of the building they're on and Joker saves his life.

Joker tells Batman Nina was dead long before they got there. Batman puts clues together and is able to deduce where they are to go to next: Rome.

Paris: B & J

Batman 💭

" I'm out of my head, fevered, infected with a virus that's driving me crazy. What it's doing to the joker is your guess, not mine. He can't get crazier, can he? But that might be the point of our infection-- to see if I can. To lose it, then die unaware of who I am. Or to die, not fighting my greatest enemy, but clutching him against the face of fear. "

Something that I find rather fascinating is how we DON'T know how the virus is messing with Joker. Are the effects the same for Joker and Bruce? or are they completely different? Is it causing any mental strain for Joker or is it physical? Further more – is the virus less about hurting Bruce AND Joker or just Bruce? If Bruce already sees himself as somewhat crazy (as he insinuates) how much worse can it get? Is he already at the worst of it? If he questions who he is, why? Does the Joker have something to do with him questioning things?

Then there's that last line about clutching Joker against the face of fear. It feels like it's implying, atleast to me, that In that moment Joker would be a source of comfort for Bruce. And that SCARES him because of course it does. Does this lead to Bruce questioning more about his relationship with the Joker? If he already is questioning himself, and making up these scenarios, is it possible he's questioning more than just his identity?

Those are all questions I don't necessarily need answered, but all things I ask myself.

Joker is talking to Batman about his circus (the people he gets his information from about the Trojan horse):

B: This cirque. You still haven't explained what it is. J: What if I said I have, ad nauseam? Can you trust me? ... Relax, Bats. It's a hypothetical question. B: Heh. That's funny. J: Really? Wasn't meant to be. We're in this together if we want to live to see the day we kill each other.... oops. Should I have said "Spoilers"?

Once again a reference to trust, but this time about Bruce trusting Joker. And of course Bruce doesn't respond to this inquiry, and Joker says it's just a hypothetical, but we see how the idea prevails in the next quote.

Bruces 💭

"At one point, I almost chuckled to myself; Joker does know his way around the bowels of this city. Or bowels, period. Yes, I have to trust him... and yes it sickens me."

So Bruce puts his trust in Joker, no matter how much it upsets him to do so. Even if he doesn't like the idea, he knows the Joker is knowledgeable, and he also knows the Joker is more than willing to share what he knows because HE wants to be the one to kill Batman. He doesn't want someone else to get the satisfaction. He wants them to kill each other. Intrinsically linked death reference. I need a buzzer for that or something.

I edited 2 images tg for the next one ☝️ just so I don't go passed the pesky image limit. Sorry if it looks weird

So yeah... Joker holds onto Bruce and Bruce calls him "My Monkey" so idfk take with that what you will. Absolutely diabolical work.

Also just wanted to throw it in there that Joker does just straight up say "Batjoke" in this comic:

Bruce starts to slide off the building they're on and Joker saves him with the grappling hook.

Bruce's 💭

" I'll never know if he missed me on purpose... but the scar will forever remind me of the day... the joker saved my life. "

So yeah, despite the fact Joker acting annoyed last time at the fact he saved Bruce, he just does it again? I think at the end of the day, this ties into Jokers want to be the one to kill Batman, while also being the one to make Batman break his no killing rule. His life has no punchline without Batman, it would feel devoid of meaning. So he saves him.

Once Batman has deduced they need to get to Rome:

J: Oh well, might as well get on one of those roads. We're burning moonlight after all. Rome: The Infernal City. B: It's eternal, Joker. J: Really? Have you been? B: ... Let's stick with infernal. We'll fit right in.

I wanted to mention this because the mention of being "infernal" (or something from hell) struck me. In some Christian teachings (I do not know much Abt religion so forgive me if I mess this up), those who go to hell are people who have not repented for their sins. Batman and Joker have both "sinned" and while we can defend one (Bruce) easier than the other (Defending Joker would take 15 defense attorneys alone) this implies neither of them would seek repentance from God, as in they wouldnt regret their actions, or feel guilty or remorseful for what they've done. While this would be a clear "duh" moment for most anyone who knows the Joker (although we can still even debate this), some may wonder about why Bruce would feel no remorse.

And I think the simple answer is that he knows what good he has done and he wouldn't reject that idea to appease a higher power. I think specifically in relation to Joker, Bruce may regret letting him live because of the people he would have saved had Joker died, but he doesn't regret NOT KILLING Joker if that makes sense.

Rome

It opens with Bruce talking about the history of Rome. Joker and Bruce are bickering like an old married couple. They're approaching the colosseum and when they do a man approaches. He talks about how keeping a mask on prevents others from knowing who you truly are.

the big reveal!!!! ITS BANE! He is once again trying to fuck Batmans life up LOL! He wants to kill Joker in front of Batman while Batman knows Joker is the only thing that can cure the virus that's killing him. Bruce starts attacking Bane and when he's getting close to ending him, Joker plays a hunch, asking Bane to kill Bruce. This distracts Bane long enough for Bruce to signal bats to show up and attack Bane.

Bruce tells Joker that the cure is eachothers blood.

During the fight, Bane revealed that Joker had allowed Nina to die in front of him, and Bruce asks if this is true. Obviously, it is. Bruce genuinely considers letting them both die in that moment, but Joker takes it into his own hands and tastes some of Bruce's blood. In the end they go back to their classic dance (Batman beating Joker up).

Rome: B & J

HERE IT IS!!! A CULMINATION OF A LOT OF WHAT THE STORY HAS BEEN TELLING US! Of course, Batman NEEDS Joker in this moment to survive but it feels like a comment on their relationship as a whole. He had to realize that Joker is a main driving force for him, and without him, who is he really? Who would he become?

ONCE AAAGAAAINNN the idea of them dying together. Joker even DARES him to die alongside him. Their intertwined fates...

"And if the Joker is to live, then so must the Batman."

Literally tied together. Invisible string type of shit. Batman won't allow one to exist without the other here.

and then of course:

and yeah man WOAH. Let's talk about blood consumption. Vampires, and therefore by association, the consumption of blood as a whole, is something that has been used in queer text many times before (look at my last post if you wanna see more on that and how it relates to Batman). Of course we can take it a step further and think about it as strictly a bodily fluid. They have consumed parts of eachother now. When I originally typed this up, I believe I called it akin to the "consummation of a marriage". They've sworn themselves to each other by LITERALLY having parts of themselves inside each other.

During the beginning of this chapter, and previous chapters, before the introduction of where they are, we sometimes would get this set of images.

OUR BLOOD ON EACH OTHERS LIPS? without the context, this borders on undeniably romantic (I mean even in context lol?). Your immediate thought is, did they kiss? is there going to be an implied kiss? And I think that was definitely on purpose.

this comes from the scripting for this comic if I recall correctly

so we LITERALLY get

"they look ready to either kiss or strangle each other with passion"

it's clear this IS supposed to be explicitly queer in some way. Strangulation and romantic gestures almost feel the same with them. Strangling each other is as close as they will get to kissing, as long as Bruce stays repressed, and so they are to kiss with their hands around each other's throats forever.

I'd also like to point out the phrasing "But I'm ready to go all the way... and do it." clearly vague and 99% of the time (not a real statistic LMAO) when people say "do it" they're alluding to sex. This feels like an obvious allusion to them having sex.

And at the end Batman begins to fight the Joker, because of course he does. The curing of their shared virus has forced him back into a repressed state. So he hurts him and they continue their usual dance, as if the disruption to their game never occured.

[livingbarbie]

finding a hobby ‧⁺˚*･༓☾

something really key to improving your self esteem and productivity is getting off of that phone !! but i feel like we all know this, and most of us also know that the best way to get off your phone is to find a hobby. this sounds simple enough, but it might be one of the hardest things i've had to do in my growth journey.

finding a hobby can be really difficult for a multitude of reasons:

there are so many possibilities - if you google 'hobbies', you are hit with hundreds (or even thousands) of ideas. while that's promising at first, as you scroll through these lists it can become quite overwhelming and confusing. after ten minutes of scrolling, you're likely to just lay back down and play on your phone again.

lack of interest - the biggest issue for me was simply a lack of interest in ANYTHING. i would scroll through lists on google, tumblr, whatever and nothing at all would catch my eye. this is probably something to do with instant gratification (i don't know much about it), and is most likely a result of the amount of time i spent on my phone doing a whole lot of nothing. either way, know you are not alone in this feeling!

perfectionism - if you do find something that peaks your interest, that's great! however, i know a lot of us struggle with perfectionism. often this can cause you to give up on the hobby almost as quickly as you started it, because you are not outstanding at it immediately. once again, you will probably end up feeling defeated and resort back to your phone.

it took me a long time to be able to push past these obstacles, but once i did it was so insanely rewarding. here are some of the things that helped me to do so:

hide your phone - so silly, but this truly did help. i put my phone in a drawer, and closed it. with my phone out of sight, i couldn't just pick it up out of habit. this forced me to kind of just sit with my boredom, and eventually i found things to do. (usually ended up being something from the MANY lists i had read)

try anything - i mean ANYTHING, anything at all. pick something that didn't really catch your eye at all and just try it. for example. i tried crochet out of boredom. it turned out that i didn't really enjoy it that much, but now i know how to crochet which is kind of cool. just try as many new things as possible, until something sticks.

change your mindset - shift that perfectionist mindset ASAP. find a way to embrace doing things badly. this is way harder than it sounds, but it is so worth it in all aspects of your life. try things and do them badly. learn to accept your bad attempts at things. these hobbies are for you and your enjoyment only, you do not have to show people. the best thing you can do for yourself is give yourself permission to make mistakes.

i have found many hobbies in the past year, some i am more passionate about than others. these are some of my favourites:

reading: an idea you have probably seen everywhere, but it is genuinely a favourite of mine. don't buy into the idea that you HAVE to read in a pretentious way. for many people, classics and books written in the 1800's are not enjoyable and that is perfectly okay. don't be afraid to read something that might seem silly (e.g fantasy, young adult, even children's novels). there is no point in trying to read something you know you probably won't enjoy.

coding: i got into this by accident if i'm being honest, i just got hooked on it when watching my younger brother do something for his digital technology class. this is something i NEVER would've guessed i would like. if you have access to a laptop or a computer, it is so worth trying. there are thousands of free resources online to teach you, and it is super fun learning to code your own little projects.

dance: something i sometimes do in my spare time is learn dances (specifically k-pop dances). i enjoy a lot of k-pop girl group music, so i find learning the dances really fun (and sometimes challenging). i would totally recommend trying this, k-pop or not, as it also doubles as exercise!

learn a language: you can do this in so many different ways, whether you learn the basics of many languages or you dedicate yourself to fluency in a single language. this is such a cool skill to build, and i honestly just find it really fun.

this is a very brief overview of finding a hobby, but the main point i want you to takeaway is to try anything and everything. ultimately, you will not know whether you enjoy something until you try it. please do not feel discouraged when you don't enjoy the first few things you try, there is something for everyone !

stay dreamy, my angels <3

[lynzishell]

Prev // Next

Transcript:

Dawn: You’re here. Atlas: I’m here. I’m so sorry, Dawn. Dawn: Me too. Dawn reaches over to rest a hand on his shoulder. Atlas covers her hand with his, and they sit like this for a while, not saying anything.

Phoenix: Have you seen these yet? Asher: Not really. I saw a couple on Atlas’ computer when he first got home, but that’s it. Phoenix: I assume he told you what happened up there… with Dawn? Asher: Yeah.

Phoenix: How is he doing? I’ve been meaning to check in, but – Asher: Oh, no, you have enough on your plate. He’s doing okay though. Not sleeping well, but otherwise, okay. Phoenix: Nightmares? [Asher nods] Phoenix: Yeah. I remember those nightmares. Asher: What do you mean those nightmares?

Atlas: Hey, do you remember when we were kids, and we learned that some twins had their own language? Dawn: Oh my god, yes, and we tried to make our own. Atlas: Except we just made these weird random sounds and pretended to understand each other. Dawn can’t help but laugh when Atlas tries to imitate their old “language”.

Dawn: Oh, and we would pass each other notes in our secret code. Atlas: [laughing] There’s no way anyone was cracking that code! Dawn: That’s because there was no code! We’d just write symbols on paper and pass them back and forth [laughing] and I put so much effort into each one! Atlas: I know! There’d be thirty or forty intricate symbols on a piece of paper, never the same one twice. It was impressive, actually. Dawn: We thought we were so clever.

Phoenix hears muffled laughter coming from the bedroom and smiles at Asher.

Phoenix: He’s always going to be better at that than me, isn’t he? Cheering her up. Asher: [shrugs] Probably. But you knew to call him, and that’s not nothing. Phoenix: Maybe I should’ve called sooner. Asher: Eh, we’re here now. How are you doing? Phoenix: [exhales loudly] I don’t even know. I’ve been so focused on her.

[Asher nods quietly]

Phoenix: It’s weird. It feels like there’s something missing now. I mean, we’d planned on having a kid eventually, but it always felt like an abstract, far away thing. Like something we’d talk about in a few years or more. But now. It’s all I can think about. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more. Is that crazy?

Asher: Definitely not.

Phoenix: And now I’m worried that this was all too much for her. What if she doesn’t want to try again? What if it never happens, even if we do try? I don’t know…

Phoenix: I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Asher: Sounds like you’ve been needing to talk to someone. I don’t mind listening. Phoenix: Thanks. Normally, I’d go talk to Aurelio, but I haven’t wanted to leave. She was really starting to fucking scare me. Asher: She’ll be okay. Phoenix: [clears his throat] I hope so.

Atlas: I kept one, y’know. Dawn: You did not! Atlas: I did. You had doodled all around the edges, and clearly spent a lot of time on it. I don’t know, something about it felt important, like I needed to keep it, so I did. Dawn: Oh, I bet I know which one it was. Atlas: Yeah? I’ve always wondered, what does it say?

Dawn: Hold on let me see if I can remember it… [thinking]… Okay I got it, ready? Atlas: Yep. Dawn: It says, ‘Today I am sad / As long as you’re my brother / My heart will be glad.’

[Both laughing]

Atlas: Stop! You wrote me a haiku? Dawn: I tried. I counted and recounted the syllables so many times. Atlas: Dawn, that is so sweet! I’m keeping it forever.

Dawn: Aw, I’m glad you’re here. Atlas: Me too. Asher’s here too, and we brought his dog. Do you want to come out and say hi? Dawn: Yeah, I’d like that. Can you stay for dinner? Atlas: Sure. Gimme a hug first though. I’ve missed you.

Atlas: Listen to me. Don’t start shutting people out again, okay? Dawn: I know. I didn’t mean to. I just… I couldn’t stand to see the pain I’ve caused him. Atlas: You didn’t cause anything; it wasn’t your fault. And he needs you now just as much as you need him. Dawn: … Is he angry? Atlas: No, he’s just worried.

Atlas: It’s okay if you need time to grieve, but you’ve gotta eat. You have to take care of yourself. Dawn: I will. Atlas: Promise me. Dawn: I promise.

[felidacy]

Rogue system knowledge & Tim and Jason

@head-in-the-clouds27 regarding your question about if Talia will know about the Rogue system for Tim and if this change in Tim would also make the dynamic with Jason different got me thinking. So here is what I thought about. 

Rogue System & The League 

Tim is a natural snoop that makes unreasonable amounts of contingency plans as he goes, which is why he weasels himself into Barbara Gordon’s heart through lighthearted trash talk about Bruce & Dick and thirst for knowledge in order to learn more about computer science from day one. (Tim is not arrogant enough to think he could achieve the same level of greatness through the lack of a teacher.) As such, Tim learns about the League when he wasn’t supposed to know (really dumb of Bruce when Tim could be at risk, did he learn nothing?) when he snoops through the Batcomputer and decides then and there that attracting the interest from them is far too dangerous. 

Paired with the newly attained hacker knowledge and having no qualms about using questionable methods like gaslighting and blackmail, Tim uses that to control a large part of the Rogues underground. Unintentionally he becomes one of the big bosses in the crime family as he forces them to alter pieces of information, use codes that only they understand, and build up a cover-up to make it seem like they use it for every vigilante and not only for a tiny Robin. (Whoever doesn’t do as he is told is either being put into a trap with Batman arriving or Tim makes it through cleverly planned incidents and more gaslighting that the Rogues end up fighting each other. You would assume that they understood that quickly, but people are sometimes stupid and like underestimating Tim, and as such, some more drastic measures needed to be taken. In the end, though, they learned to listen after all.) 

It is that altered information that the League is only aware of because when they infiltrate some of the crime families to learn about the system, the plan never goes according to plan. Despite Talia’s strong suspicion of that bird, Ra’s has enough of losing good assassins for some measly system along with the unwanted attention of the Detective again that he orders them back. Talia is supposed to concentrate on their newest project that she put at risk because of Batman being too close for their liking now. (Talia does as she is told despite her dislike as she forms her new, little soldier through manipulation and honey-covered lies she whispers into his ears. With hundreds of years of knowledge, she knows just how to use pawns when it involves the pit.)

Jason and Tim’s first meeting

Like in canon because of the Red Hood’s appearance in Gotham, Tim is forced to leave for Florida and prohibited from leaving the Tower for an unknown amount of time. Tim does not mind that he is essentially skipping school for that time, however, he does mind that he was totally caught off-guard by the Waynes and as he was rushed through the Zeta tube he was unprepared. With the Waynes being unaware of his nature (granted that is on him 100% and isn’t it what he wanted) there is not enough time to take a lot with himself, which includes the much-needed packages of blood he regularly consumes to stay sane and, you know, alive. 

It isn’t much of a rebellion when he tries to escape out of the tower and much more of a healthy desire to live. Tim might not seem like it with his unhealthy tendencies, but he does have a stronger will to survive than a wet paperback. But as predicted with someone like Batman, the safety measures prove themselves to be fruitful and even Barbara does not want to help him out, instead reinforcing the system. It is completely unreasonable and overkill in Tim’s eyes when heroes from the Justice League show up when he does end up getting out by a sheer miracle. Finally meeting the Green Lantern he loved ever since he was small (Tim is in denial that he still is) isn’t worth it though with the follow-up lectures, but the worst ones are when Superman - who is practically like an uncle to the Waynes - shows up and gives him that disappointed puppy look. Even when the man isn’t his uncle because Tim is not a Wayne by any means, it has a deadly effect on him. And then come the messages from Dick that make Tim feel so guilty that he lets go of his stubbornness for once and plays obedient soldier. 

(Tim watched with rising panic as he depletes the little amount of blood resources that he had and a familiar feeling of hunger settles in him. Being alone and hungry was a familiar friend, if you could call it that, for Tim. But Tim had gotten so used to a different reality -although it was still slow going as both Bruce and Tim himself were hesitant- that it was now something that he dreaded.)

With very poor timing it is when Tim is at his worst that the Red Hood breaks into the Tower and comes across Tim. Not Robin, but Tim the monster. A boy that he heard a lot about through Talia and yet that boy before him then wasn’t quite as helpless and weak as he has been told. He had a familiar edge in his smile, in the way that his eyes seemed to stare straight into his soul and how he didn’t hesitate to grasp a knife as a weapon. (Robin was supposed to be the comfort, the sneaky surprise that struck when you least expect it. Not deadly dangerous. That wasn’t Jason or Tim, they were familiar with the darkness and didn’t hesitate to use it. They were a different kind.) None of that mattered to the Red Hood in that moment however. The pit hummed in satisfaction to have an evenly matched target that could keep up with its strength, though technique wise they were far different. The pit drowned out how similiar the two were, the pit only made the Red Hood see green and so incredibly angry. 

The Red Hood wasn’t the only one who was filled with an unexplainable surge of power, however. Tim fought viciously against the larger man who could count himself lucky with the helmet, because otherwise, Tim would have already ripped his throat open. He made do with the knife in his hand instead of his Bo-staff and he managed to hurt the Red Hood more than once, although none of the wounds are fatal enough to halter the man in his steps. Angry at that, the Red Hood managed to push Tim down the stairs where he crumbled into a mess along with his weapon when bones snapped. Groaning and cursing Tim was ready to get up again when he was shoved back down and the Red Hood took off the helmet. 

Jason Todd, his hero, his dead Robin stood before Tim. Not so dead after all. 

The reveal was a greater shock than when Jason leaned closer and spat a choice of words at the replacement. The pretender. The cuckoo that snuck into a nest he wasn’t supposed to have when he had his own family. Nevermind that it was a poor excuse of one. But Jason didn’t know anything about the truth. How could he? He didn’t know that he lost his mother long before she died of person. Didn’t know that the comatose state of his father was a mercy in disguise. Didn’t know that the Waynes didn’t even truly want him. Jason was angry at Tim and regardless of the explanations that he tried, the older didn’t want to listen to him any longer. 

As such, the slitting of his throat came quick like the strike of a viper. Jason didn’t care as Tim bleed out then and there. He left his message for the Bats and left without even sparing Tim another glance. That hurt more than it should have and it took Tim longer than he wanted to call back the logical part of his brain. Like, how he was in danger of dying. He activated his emergency beacon and hoped that Bruce and Dick would soon come, but Tim knew that his survival rate wasn’t great. (Vampires weren’t immortal despite popular belief in pop media. He had seen it with his mother after all. Vampires turned grey in a way no human could and not long after they would turn to ash. There was a reason that the Drakes were apparently always burned and not put in coffins.) Tim did not wish to die, so he did the only logical conclusion. Crawling to the knife that was kicked aside by Jason, he took the weapon in his slippery hands and prayed that all the blood on it was more from Jason than his own. His own would have proven to be useless. With probably not much time left, Tim licked the blood off from the knife even when it made his poor throat scream in more pain.

However, that was nothing compared to the following. Tim had never tasted such awful blood like then. It was rotten and slid down his throat like sludge, he needed to fight against the urge to throw it back up again. Forcefully he kept his mouth shut even when the heat set in. The usual healing effect of blood was cool and numbing to his body, but this blood scorched from his insides and decidedly did not start healing the wound. Being a naturally cold creature, the heat was nearly unbearable to endure. At first, Tim thought he misjudged and that he would die that die, but then he did realize that there was somewhat of an effect. While it didn’t heal the wound, it stopped the blood flow enough that he could outlive the attack. 

Later on Bruce, Alfred and Dick would wonder how Tim survived. They were thankful beyond belief, but there had been so much blood and Tim lied so cold and still that Dick fully expected to have lost another younger brother when he didn’t have the chance to protect him, again. Tim did not want to talk about that day, barely even spoke which was at first explained by the injury but later on put on as trauma. Tim would end up disclosing who the Red Hood was, but beyond that there was not a thing he explained. 

Dick caught Tim more than once staring into the mirror and looking at the scar, the first scar that was ever left on his body. Dick would try his best to cheer him up and explain that it didn’t make him ugly or anything, but Dick had no clue to the extent of how much it truly unsettled Tim. For the first time, the powers of his have failed. Tim wasn’t scared of the attack itself or what Jason had done, Tim was scared that it could happen again now. 

[winterwandersland]

Paperwork

cw/tw: slight swearing, very very very brief flashback of an assault, implied sexual relations word count: 5.5k Kamara continues to decrypt the flashdrive but makes an unexpected discovery.

Chapter Three

“Mare, are you doing okay over there?” Sergeant Riker stood against the door frame of the closed off room that was being used as an office. The desk Kamara sat at had multiple scratches and dents that made it obvious that it was over a decade old. There were initials graved right next to the computer that she constantly ran her fingers over as she worked, keeping her mind focused on its ridges rather than the clicking of the clock that was counting down. The code was running fluidly, though it flowed in a form that was unusual to her.

“Yea. It would be a lot easier if I didn’t know somebody was looking over my shoulder every two seconds.”

“I’m not over your shoulder. I’m by the door. You got about two more minutes before this thing blows.” The two bickered like siblings, nobody knowing whether they loved or hated each other. They were constantly at each other’s throats, but they also protected each other, though there were many times when Riker’s protection wasn’t needed because there was almost always a figure lurking behind Kamara, scaring off anyone who came too close. This was not one of those times.

“That’s too bad because I’m already done.” She slowly turned toward Riker, her hand on her hip as a smirk crept on her face. “You cocky motherfucker.”

“I’m not cocky. Just great at my job. Bet you wish you were as good as me, don’t ya?”

“Nah. I think I’ll keep my sanity.”

“I have my sanity.”

“Sane people know when to cut their losses.”

“If I had cut my losses, this whole quad would have blown and we would have lost all of our progress.”

“Better than losing our lives.”

“Funny you say that given I’m pretty sure we’re still breathing, and the decryption is done. Here’s the drive by the way. Might want to get that to the Captain.” She walked toward him as she extended her hand with the flash drive to the Sergeant. It wasn’t that he hated Kamara. He actually adored her, but it sometimes seemed like he was the only one who worried about her, everyone else letting her run wild just because she was an excellent asset.

The building shook and a blare filled the room, causing Kamara and the sergeant’s ears to ring, unable to hear each other. The sergeant yelled something, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Her vision blurred while she tried to scope out her surroundings, still trying to keep herself steady by holding onto Riker as he covered her. The cement ceilings covered the room in dust after another shock hit, bringing the soldiers back to their knees as they lost their balance.

“Bombs!” Kamara yelled and grabbed the sergeant that kneeled by her side, who kept his body over hers, protecting her from any debris that fell from above them. They went towards the entrance and made their way down the path that they first tracked down to find the abandoned building with a computer lab that held a flash drive with a code that could have detonated three bombs across the country. Keeping their heads ducked and staying low, they trekked through fallen debris, using only the flashes of glares that came through the cracks to find an exit and were met with blinding lights that kept them from seeing ahead of them.

“Put your hands up! Drop your weapons!” Kamara’s ears were still ringing, unable to hear much of the commotion that was going on around her. Despite the muffled voices, she was certain she could hear Riker yelling in the background. She felt a grip on her arm and immediately grabbed it, flinging the unknown man over her shoulder and onto the ground. Red filled the pavement below them as Kamara bashed his head with the barrel of her gun. The world was spinning, but she had learned a long time ago how to fight through the toughest of issues. The rest of her team came in blurs, looking to be inside the back of an armored vehicle, but she couldn’t tell who was who and the only person with a distinct uniform was her captain.

Another man approached her and encountered the same fate as his brains painted the pavement beneath them. She pointed her gun at the next armed man that came her way, and they returned the gesture. “Don’t shoot her!” the Captain yelled.

“She just killed two of my men. Why should she live?” The man’s voice was strongly accented, clearly a citizen of the country they were in. Five men surrounded Kamara, pointing their guns at her and yelling complete gibberish, which she identified as Russian once her hearing eased its way back to her. “Mare, put your weapon down!” Though the Captain and Kamara had their differences, she was still his teammate, and he didn’t want to see her killed just because of her prowess.

“Mare? Что это за позывной (What kind of callsign is that),” one soldier jested to his comrades.

“Интересно, почему они так ее называют (I wonder why they call her that),” another one said, each unaware that Kamara could understand them. “Хотите узнать (Want to find out)?” she scorned.

The man who seemed to be the leader of the group cocked his head at the blood-covered woman who continued to aim her firearm at each man, making circles as she practically spun to watch each of her blind spots.“She speaks Russian,” he said, then hitting the other man next to him on the arm with a smile. “I think Viktor is going to like her. Take her with the rest.” The men came towards her and she let off a shot, clipping one of them in the arm, but she was disarmed too fast for her to shoot again. The men were impressed with her fighting skills, but they quickly subdued her after injecting her with a syringe, bringing her down to her knees and everything around her went blurry until she saw the darkness behind her eyelids, watching her team fade to nothing.

Simon was silent, watching as the men carried her away and put her in the vehicle next to his with the other women of the team. “What are you doing with them?” he asked. He could’ve yelled at her not to fight just like the Captain did. It would have raised the probability of her listening, but once the captors established that there’s a relationship between two people, they will do everything to break them. “Women tend to be more feisty. Easier to keep men and women separated. Don’t worry. We won’t do anything to them.”

Click. Clack. Click. It was the only sound that filled the room as Kamara concentrated on the contents of the flash drive in front of her. Simon couldn’t do much but watch, knowing that speaking would throw her off of her rhythm that she had finally reached. Only three hours had passed, but it felt like it had been ten. The sun was setting, the natural daylight beginning to beam less through the pane of windows that faced the vehicle garage.

Now and then, Kamara would sneak a glance from the corner of her eye at Simon, who continued to watch her suffer through the memories that plagued her head. At times, he would sit next to her to tell her to take a break and when she refused, he’d roll her chair away from the computer and place himself in front of it. There was no point in fighting him, so Kamara gave herself the ten minute breaks that Simon advised she took. When she was up for it, she would lay her head in his lap, focusing on her breathing while Simon gracefully stroked the top of her arm, staying away from her forearm that she kept tucked between her legs.

During the times he wasn’t watching her, he would be on his phone, texting his comrades updates on the situation. “How far have you gotten?” he asked her.

“Not far enough.” How far she actually got through the crypt, she really didn’t know. Every time she felt like she was near the finish line, it seemed like it would run away from her and become out of reach again. “You got an estimate?”

“I’d give it fifteen minutes.” Vibrations floated through Simon’s body, elated that the brutal hours were finally coming to an end, but he needed more validation before he got his hopes too high, following a common phrase of war: never celebrate until you know the war is over.

“Fifteen minutes until you’re done?”

“No. Fifteen minutes until I blow my fucking brains out.” Goddamnit.

Simon knew it’d only be so long before she was cursing out the computer and then blaming herself for not being able to do the encryption. He was surprised she had even gone as long as she did without a complaint, only when he would force her to take a break which he told himself was why she hadn’t exploded yet.

“You need another break.”

“No, I don’t.” Vigorously, her leg bounced up and down as her eyes glued to the screen in front of her. Every code on the screen drew her in, keeping her focus on the decryption needed to crack them. There was no need to look at the keyboard, her muscle memory doing all the work for her. All she had to do was think of what to type and her fingers did the job, seldomly hitting a wrong key, but nothing she couldn’t fix.

“I wasn’t asking.” His shadow started creeping towards her and she rushed to get as much done before her man was pulling her away from the computer once again. Her heartbeat quickened as the shadow got closer to towering over her. “Okay. Okay,” she said as she put her hands up in a surrendering position. “I’ll take a break. Only five minutes this time. I think I’m almost done.”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“But I just said I’m almost-.”

“You said you ‘think’ you’re almost done. If you go back and you aren’t, you’ll be upset and then the process gets worse from there.”

“Fine.” She knew he was right. Simon knew Kamara like the back of his hand. It didn’t matter how many weeks or months he was away from her. He knew everything about her, from how she liked to dress depending on her mood to how many times she had to check the front door before she went to bed, though he had tried to break her of the habit. Anything from the type of forks and spoons she preferred to use to how she liked her sandwiches cut before she ate them. He studied her from the time he laid eyes on her and kept every detail in his head since.

Each chair in the lab had wheels, which Kamara enjoyed. For parts of her breaks, she’d spend her time spinning until her eyes could no longer focus. This time, she rolled herself in the chair to face Simon and propped her feet between his legs onto his chair. Simon didn’t look into it much and just allowed her to do as she pleased, as long as she wasn’t touching the computer. “How’s it going?”

“Terrible.” She used the heel of her foot to pull herself closer to Simon and hung her leg across his lap while keeping her other one bent. Uncertainty crossed Simon’s mind, unable to tell if he could make physical contact with her without making her uncomfortable. It wasn’t anything sexual that crossed his mind, but being able to touch her, even just placing a hand on her leg, would allow him to know that she was present and she wasn’t a figment of his imagination. But he also just wanted to keep her grounded, using his touch to let her know that he was there and not back to where he mind often wandered.

“Anything I can help you with?” If he couldn’t touch her, he had to resort to other options, ones that he knew let her know that he still loved her. Her heart beat faster the closer she got to Simon, but she kept the closure between them to use as exposure therapy for herself. Images of other men crossing her mind aren’t what she wanted to see when she was with her husband. She had her arms crossed and hung her head backwards on the chair, keeping her eyes closed and mentally counting her breaths as she spoke. “Not really. I am hungry, though. The mess hall open?”

“No. But if you want, I probably have something in the office.”

“That would be nice. Can I come?”

“No,” Simon dryly said as he tapped Kamara’s leg twice to signal her to move. A smile crept on her face as she planted her feet onto the floor and followed him to his office that was only a few hallways down from the computer lab. On the way, a group of soldiers chatted near the end of the hallway as they passed by. Kamara had only been to the office a few times, but the first time was all she needed to memorize where to go, so she moved in front of Simon, practically skipping to get some source of food, even if it would be a snack he stashed months before.

She reanalyzed all of her surroundings, noting every detail that had changed since she last visited the base. Chattering filled the adjacent halls, which stopped once Kamara passed. To the soldiers’ defense, Kamara was the first one to be seen coming down the intersecting hall. They wouldn’t have whistled at her if they knew the Lieutenant would be coming in right behind her. Though she ignored them and continued to stride her way towards the office, the lieutenant memorized their faces to note to torture them during their next drills.

Kamara stopped in front of the tall, brown door and pointed at it. “This one, ain’t it?”

They both knew it was the correct door, but sometimes Kamara needed the extra confirmation because she felt like her memory couldn’t be trusted, and Simon always granted her the reassurance that she needed, never pestering her for asking obvious questions.

The office was neat, almost nothing out of place except for the organized chaos of files that sat atop. “Want to bring those to the room so you can work on them?”

“Nah. It’ll get done.” Simon kneeled down to unlock the bottom drawer that was full of protein bars that he kept for late nights. “Choose your favorite.” Kamara’s upper lip curled and her eyes narrowed as her nose scrunched up. “Wow. Could you be any happier?” None of them were her favorite, but it was fun to mess with her. She didn’t even like protein bars.

“They all look like they taste like dirt.”

“They do, but you won’t be hungry anymore. Here,” he said as he pulled out a protein bar with a blue lining and held it out for Kamara to grab. She nuzzled Simon’s hand away and continued to look through the drawer with hopes to find something other than a protein bar. “No, you take it. You haven’t eaten either. I’ll just have a different one.”

“You take it. It tastes less like dirt.”

“It’s your favorite, no?” How did she know that? He had said nothing about it being his favorite and had only inquired about hers. Simon raised an eyebrow, his head tilting so slightly it wouldn’t have been noticeable if Kamara wasn’t paying close attention. “What makes you say that?”

“Because that’s the last one. You eat that flavor the most.” Being so observant was one of Kamara’s most noticeable qualities. Every room they walked in and every field they fought in, Kamara had already memorized every nook and cranny, every object out of place, and every blind spot. Unfortunately for Simon, Kamara’s observance also involved people, himself included, so anytime he wanted to be mysterious, like everyone perceived him to be, Kamara was always the one to figure out the mystery.

“What do you think Ghost is staring at?”

“Probably his next victim.” Kamara heard the soldiers chatting while she ate her sandwich, keeping her eye on the towering man that kept his gaze on a soldier who was roughhousing with his comrades. She moved from her seat and made her way towards Sergeant Riley with her sandwich in her hand. Chewing her food, she stepped in front of him, partially blocking his line of sight. She held the bitten half of her sandwich up to him. “Eat it.”

His eyes moved toward her, but he kept his head toward the other soldier. “Is she crazy? What is she doing?” The woman’s bravery appalled the private. Everyone knew they should not talk to Ghost unless he spoke to them. He was only a sergeant, but his presence still sent chills down many soldiers’ spines.

“Nah. I’m good,” he said as he nudged her arm out of the way. “You haven’t eaten.” She held the sandwich out again. Ghost kept his head turned towards the soldiers behind her. Kamara followed his gaze, identifying the soldier that had her boyfriend’s attention. “You still mad about that?”

Just a few hours earlier, one private had made the innocent mistake of flirting with Kamara, who kindly rejected him and continued about her day. But that isn’t what pissed Ghost off. Where the private went wrong is when he caught Kamara off guard and pinned her against the wall while she left the gym. Ghost saw the scene through the window of the room, but by the time he rushed in, the private was screaming on the ground with his arm forced behind his back, small cracks being heard as Kamara drew his arm back more while he wailed in pain.

“He touched you.”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle. So eat. You’re not you when you’re hungry,” she humored, her bright smile spreading across her face while she held back her own laughter.

“You’re not funny,” Ghost said as he took the sandwich from Kamara’s hand. “I know. I’m hilarious.” He eyed the sandwich, noticing a chunk of it was missing.“You bit off of it.”

“And? You’ve had your mouth in worse places.”

He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Those places are pretty good to me.” He lifted his mask slightly to take a bite of the sandwich as he smirked. “Goodbye, Simon,” Kamara said with a shy smile as she walked away shaking her head, returning to the table she previously sat at. Moments later, the man everyone feared was sitting next to her, his gaze now on her.

“I have another box that I haven’t opened. You can have it.”

“Alright. Whatever you say,” she said as she grabbed the bar out of his hand and also grabbed another one with purple lining out of the drawer before closing it. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” With a small grin crossing her face as she locked eyes with Simon, she said the three words she felt hadn’t been said in ages,“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

By the time they made their way back to the lab, the soldiers were already gone. They figured they scattered right after the lieutenant left their sight, too embarrassed to face him again.

“Who’s that?” Kamara asked as she spotted a woman coming from the hallway of the computer lab. It was the only room down that end of the hall, so she became more alarmed when she thought the woman had been near the drive. “That’s one of the cyops I told you about. She was the only one that got somewhere. Her name is Anya.”

“Hey there, L.T.” Anya had noticeable dirty blonde hair which Kamara noticed was close to Simon’s hair color. Her hair was cut into a bob and she was only a few inches taller than Kamara was. While she wasn’t a threat to Simon, Kamara kept her eyes on her, tracking each of her movements and memorizing every feature on her body. A bead of sweat dripped down Anya’s face, but that wasn’t uncommon for people in the building. The air conditioning had been broken for ages, causing discomfort to everyone in the building. Every attempt to fix it resulted in a few minutes of warm air, followed by a few bangs to signify the air conditioning had decided it no longer wanted to run.

“Hello. What are you doing this way?” Everyone respected Ghost. He was the Lieutenant, after all. And not just any lieutenant, but the Lieutenant of the 141. Everyone on the 141 was respected, but other operators and soldiers ensured to keep their respects at an all-time high around the members of the Task Force.

“I was actually looking for you. I wanted to ask if I could give the decryption another go.”

“Thank you for your time, but we found someone else to do the decryption.” Simon and Anya kept eye contact. He didn’t feel the need to hint that Kamara was the one doing the decryption, but it was evident Anya got the hint. His voice was steady and confident, like he knew that Kamara was the one. The only one that could handle the task that everyone seemed to have failed. Kamara kept her position like Simon’s shadow, staying close behind him and letting Anya know she was there. “Oh, alright. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of much help.”

“You did great.”

“Thank you, L.T,” she said, feeling Kamara’s glare pierce her skin, and then heading down the hallway. The pair entered the computer lab and took a seat. Kamara opened up the protein bar that she pulled from the drawer and began eating it. “The hell are you doing?” It was startling how quickly Simon’s tone changed, Kamara almost dropping her protein bar like she was a child who had gotten in trouble. She raised her eyebrows and covered her mouth filled with the bland tasting protein bar. “Um…eating?”

“That’s not the one I gave you.” Oh. He noticed. Simon was about just as observant as Kamara was, if not more. The only difference was that he couldn’t memorize every detail of his surroundings like she could, but he took note of every detail that seemed important and held onto it until the mission was complete and the information was no longer needed.

“I know. The blue one is for you.”

“I gave it to you.”

“But it was the last of that flavor and it’s your favorite, so you can have it.” As much as Kamara appreciated Simon’s selflessness, sometimes she felt like she was taking more than she was giving. She wasn’t sure how she could show Simon her appreciation other than reciprocating the gestures and supporting him in whatever he needed.

“I told you I had another box.”

“I wasn’t born yesterday. Eat the damn protein bar.” The rumbling of Simon’s stomach interrupted the silence. “Nah. I’m good.” Kamara’s eyes narrowed and she held her hands on her hips.“Suit yourself. I’ll keep it in my pocket for emergencies then.” She placed the bar in the pocket of her cargo pants, her favorite pair that she had gotten when she first enlisted.

Crumbs fell onto the chair with most of the protein bar, only about sixty percent of it being able to be eaten as a whole. From the looks of it, the computer was untouched, but Kamara still had a feeling something was wrong. She ignored the twisting feeling in her chest and continued to decrypt the code for another hour. “What the hell?” Her voice was higher than usual, unlike her typical naturally deeper and raspy voice

“What’s wrong?”

“No…no…no… Simon!” He rushed over to Kamara, who was beginning to panic, her eyes nearly popping out her skull. “What is it?”

“Look!” There was nothing there—at least nothing he could see—that looked out of the ordinary. “What am I looking at?”

“Read it!” She was panicking as she pointed to the screen filled with what looked like gibberish formed into some kind of symbol. He read over the foreign code, but could find nothing peculiar about it, let alone anything that should have made Kamara as scared as she seemed. “How did I not catch this before?” A tear trickled down her face as she stared at the screen.

“I need you to tell me what’s going on, Mar.” She silently outlined the code with her finger, forming an hourglass-like symbol. “I’m not understanding.” The symbol seemed vaguely familiar to Simon, but he couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was clear that Kamara knew exactly what it was. “Did you not read the fucking screen?”

“Aye. Calm it down,” he commanded. It was rare he had to be stern with Kamara outside of the field, but sometimes it was like she forgot he was her husband and not another soldier she could speak to in any way. She took a deep breath and apologized. “It’s in Russian. I can’t read it,” he explained. Her face soured, not even realizing that the code was in Russian because it came to her just like English. She looked back at the screen and started following each line of code and inquiring,“Do you know a Kate Laswell?:

“Yes. See’s the Chief Officer. CIA.”

“Soap and Gaz.”

“What are you on about?”

“Their names are in this code with what I’m guessing is their home addresses. Price is here, too,” she explained as she pointed to another name on the list. “Do you know who this is,” she asked as she said another name.

“Laswell’s wife.” Kamara read aloud more names, including Simon’s and her own, but she halted once she reached a name that made her stomach drop. “Si, where are the keys to the garage?”

“I have the keycard right here. What’s wrong?” He pulled out the keycard attached to his keys and held it up.“You got a motorcycle in there?”

“Loads of them. Kamara, talk to me, love.” She enforced Simon’s attention to the screen as she pointed out multiple names and read them aloud: Tommy Miller. Joel Miller. Sarah Miller. Ellie Williams.

“Fucking hell.”

“We have to get to them now!”

“We can go around back to get to the garage.”

“Nah, it’ll take too long.” She unplugged the printer that sat at the end of the row of computers and picked it up to put above her head. “What are you doing?” Immediately, the windows shattered, and the printer fell to the outside ground below them. Luckily, they were on the first floor, so no one was injured. “The garage is right there. Let’s go!” They rushed out the broken window and Simon equipped his keycard to enter the garage. He broke out the keys to a car, but Kamara went right past it.

“Where are you going? The car is right here.”

“Not fast enough. Where are the keys to this motorcycle?”

“Under the backseat cover.” The revving of the motorcycle filled the garage, but Simon stopped Kamara before she could take off, holding a helmet in his hand. “Take this. You can talk through the mic. I’ll be right behind you.” She put on the helmet and immediately sped off, almost leaving Simon completely in the dust as she went past Price, Soap, and Gaz. He mounted onto his own motorcycle, the one assigned to him when he was appointed the role of lieutenant. Before he could exit the garage, he was stopped. “What’s going on, L.T?”

“No time to explain. Hop in the car and follow the GPS.” Each of them followed instructions, though Soap grabbed a motorcycle instead of getting in the car with Price and Gaz. They sped towards Simon, who was doing his best to catch up to Kamara, but from the looks of his tracker, he’d have to up his speed if he wanted to catch up to her, so he did exactly that. “Ghost, tell your wife she’s on the wrong side of the road.”

“I’m sure she knows that.”

“She’s gonna get herself killed.”

“She’ll be fine.” Since he’d known her, Kamara had always done everything in a way that was more dangerous, but efficient, somehow always coming out on the other end alive. It scared him to death, but if he didn’t tell himself that she would be okay, he would panic, and there was no time for that.

Joel’s house was an hour away—an hour and a half with traffic. Kamara was almost maximizing the speed of the motorcycle, completely leaving everyone but Simon, who wasn’t far behind her, in the dust. Soap was starting to come close behind Simon, but kept his speed lower to give him room for any hard stops.

“Oncoming traffic. She’s gonna have to slow down. There’s no side streets,” Price said through the intercom. No one was sure if Kamara could hear, but she should have been able to. The adrenaline that pumped through her veins made it harder for her to focus on anything other than getting to Ellie. Her ears filled with the drumming noise of her heart. “Mar, you’re heading into traffic.”

“I see that.”

“This is a busy street. It's a semi alley.”

She kept quiet on the other line and spotted a vehicle on the side of the street that had a wooden ramp strong enough to hold the force of the bike. “What’s she doing?” Soap asked, watching Kamara’s motorcycle speed to the side.

“There’s too many semis.”

“I told you that. You gotta find another way, Mar.”

“I am.” She revved the motorcycle more and increased the speed, flying up the ramp of the vehicle. “What the hell?” Gaz said as he witnessed Kamara on the motorcycle flying through the air. He and Price leaned forward to watch as Kamara flew above the semi-trucks and lost sight of her once she was on the other end.

“I lost visual!”

“Kamara, are you still there?”

“She must’ve damaged the comms during the landing.” Soap and Simon got around the cars once Kamara was over, but Gaz and Price had to find another way to cut through. “Contacting Laswell,” Simon said.

“Her tracker is out,” Gaz informed Ghost through his coms. “Damnit, Kamara,” Simon said under his breath. Luckily for them, there was no body and only a few scraps from the motorcycle left on the other side of the road, so they had high hopes that she was still alive. “How much further, L.T?”

“Not far.” Laswell was on the other end of the line requesting immediate intel on the situation after hearing Simon’s requests..

“Where is she now?”

“On her way to the house.”

“Okay, but she can’t go alone. She isn’t authorized.”

“She’s too far ahead.”

“She’s not armed, is she?”

“No.”

“Good, so she can’t do too much damage. As long as she controls her temper and is patient enough upon arrival, everything will be fine.”

“She’s been working on her temper at home.”

“That’s good, so she shouldn’t cause any problems then. I’ll meet you all there and follow through with your request.”

It felt like forever until everyone reached Joel’s house. Smoke filled the air and ash fell from the sky, turning the black motorcycle gray. “Holy shit,” Soap said as they approached the scene. Crowds filled the area as the firefighters attempted to put out the fire. They were struggling to do their job as they held a wailing woman back from entering the burning house.

Simon rushed over and grabbed the woman that was practically fighting the firefighters. “Kamara! I need you to calm down!” Her mourns broke his heart, her sobs uncontrollable at the thought of losing her daughter. He dragged his wife to the side of the road where no one was watching, no one important, at least. She tried to break herself from his hold and run to the house, but Simon was too strong. Soap, Gaz, and Price issued everyone back to their homes, clearing the scene for any incoming backup Laswell may bring.

“Mar, listen to me.” Every noise and voice around Kamara was muffled. The only thing she could hear were her own screams that strained her throat. Her chest tightened like she could feel her lungs being crushed by a bed of rocks and her heart being squeezed too tight.

“She’s dead,” she sobbed into Simon’s arms. He held her as tight as he could, trying to keep her wails muffled between the two of them. “She’s dead! I was too late! She’s gone!” Her tears stained his shirt, his own almost breaching his eyes as the weight of Kamara and her pain nearly suffocated him.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Two Point Five

[dozing-composing]

Hello! I hope you're having a nice day!

(Sorry if that sounds weird) but could you make a list of headcanons for Brock as the father of a girl with a genius level of intelligence? (How at one year old he could form small sentences and speak, at two read, and as he grows he only continues to become more intelligent to the level that he takes interest in computing/Robotics and becomes a hacker, and she always goes with brock to infodump or ask HIS view on certain topic(Even if he don't know about it, and her answer is like "I trust dad's judgment"))

Along with Billy as her godfather, since he is the most patient with her since she don't like be baby talked and want to help him with his proyects

Nonsense! This Doesn't Sound Weird At All! This Is Actually SO Adorable, Omg. Billy Being The Godfather Is Such A Nice Touch.. (Sorry This Took Forever To Get Through!)

ꜱʜᴇ ɪꜱ ᴀꜱ ʙᴇᴀᴜᴛɪꜰᴜʟ ᴀꜱ ꜱʜᴇ ɪꜱ ꜱᴍᴀʀᴛ…

✦ It brought a new light to his life when his little girl came into the world. Little did he know that she's just as smart as she is beautiful. ✦ Each milestone brought new surprises. When she was learning to walk, she was also learning to talk! Granted, her words wasn't as clear, but it was above the normal babbling that babies do. During her toddler years, she was able to read through some books like Dick and Jane and some of the Biscuit series. They start getting more complicated as she grows. ✦ And things got a little hectic every time Pete and Billy (mainly Billy) made a visit for whatever reason, because she would go straight for Billy and see what he's working on. It lowkey makes him feel so accomplished knowing that someone is this interested in what he does. (It warms his heart so much!) ⤷With Brock seeing this, he had no choice but to make him the godfather. Billy almost had a falling out. He cried a little, and the next time he saw her, he gave her the biggest hug he could. ✦ She gets more involved in the world of computers and other technical stuff as she grows older. Brock almost choked Rusty out when he gave her blueprints for random stuff and told her to "do whatever." Rusty, of course, thought it was funny and saw no harm in it. ✦ Billy stops by more often to see how she's doing and will tutor her some. She has a peculiar interest for his arm, watching him reprogram it in between breaks. ✦ At one point, Brock thought his little girl was no longer his. They don't really have the same interests. It worried him that he wouldn't have a connection with her... But! All of that is proven wrong every time she talks to him. He really has no clue on what to say on some issues or subjects, but on others, he gives the best advice or opinions he can give her. It really eases his mind knowing that she'll always come to him first when she wants to talk. ✦ He puts in a lot of effort to understand his daughter's interests, but some of it leaves him absolutely dumbfounded. He tries, he really does, but all this coding and mechanics...It gets a little overwhelming. Instead, he stays there and listens and observes what she's up to. The closest thing he's ever gotten to was servicing his car and the X-1 and overlooking some of the equipment from the O.S.I. ✦ Sometimes if there's an issue at the compound/tower, she'll offer to look through the computers and help resolve it. But he refuses her to help out if there's some sort of invasion. God forbid anyone lays a hand on his daughter. ✦ Brock has his hands full with her, but he wouldn't have it any other way. They're the dynamic duo, with one being "tactical smart" and the other being "technical smart." He's actually more than grateful that she turned out the way she did because if she ended up being a mini-him, well...Let's just say he wouldn't be able to stand the thought of her getting into the same situations he did.

[motherstone]

The implications of the curse on Kanalis. Does it only affect people born there? It must, because it's a port town and that wouldn't make a ton of sense otherwise. Also who cast it? There's no indication that stone magic has that kind of power. Stone magic seems more energy manipulation inclined, but there are probably other kinds of magic, given the whole everything of Alledia. Talking trees, giants, etc. Stonekeeper's Curse talks about harnessing the life inside everything, so I decided maybe some people use that magic without stones, in some sort of exchange with the universe/world at large. Definitely not to make an OC that has non-stone magic, I would never mess with canon like that /s.

Only mildly related, but would a giant tree that absorbs a person's life force to produce a fruit that gives immense power to the eater fit within the Amulet universe? It feels like it would.

Lemme be insane for 5 mins:

Ok, but like, I sort of addressed this in my rewrite. Alledia is an alternate version of earth with magic, and humans discovered it pretty early on.

Anyone can learn it w sufficient study and effort. Experimented w it like crazy, advanced many things, and changed many thngs. Precursor elves has an ancestor that changed their appearance and botched an immortality spell. Precursor Kanalis citizen has several ancestors fuck up transformation magic. Gadobas was a result of experimentation with magic. So on and so forth. Magic got widespread enough that it harms people and caused many wars and conflicts. Precursors tried to put restrictions/regulations but shit got apocalyptic enough that many people died and most of the magic is forgotten.

I like to think a few of the "long-lived humans" aka the elves of a long time ago has lived long enough to eventually learn that this precursor magic needs to be forbidden but also recorded as to never be repeated again, hence the elven culture's great emphasis on learning history. There's a small group that's dedicated to keep such magics forgotten or forbidden or regulated and maintains a massive archive of history and magic bc of it (aka, the village where Virgil is from).

So there's probably like, a human that lives as long as an elf, there's a few people in all three countries who has sparse knowledge of that precursor magic but gets passed down as "tradition", nothing too big. Gets mistaken for the magic to be "hereditary" but actually it's just passed down from parent to child

but tbh, precursor magic has limits in terms of energy. Moving a glass's worth of water using magic, easy peasy. Moving ocean's worth of water? next to impossible. Precursors made the Mother Stone for war times to gain immense energy to do that impossible energy levels of magic. Precursor magic is more like AA battery, and needs to be casted, not unlike a computer code? The Mother Stone is more like a generator. But they realize MS is dangerous and buried out of shame and horror and end up forgotten. Basically, it's the equivalent of us inventing the nuclear bomb, realizing it's pretty bad to use it, and then buried it so it can never be used.

A long time passed; civilization eventually recovered but bc of lost history, many of the technology regressed. A new start after that era of magic, you could say. Humans and elves eventually discover MS, ignore sign DANGEROUS CRYSTAL DO NOT FUCKING TOUCH. Stonekeeping becomes widespread. It was free for all, stonekeeper conflict ensues. Cielis is a kingdom that conquered other lands through stonekeeping and established Windsor. Could not penetrate Gulfen bc the mountain ranges proved impenetrable and a natural and difficult gate. Eventually, they used up 2/3rds of stone before some people with sanity realized that power needs to be regulated, overthrew corrupt stonekeeper,s and established the Guardian Council, now putting a metric on whether or not you should be a stonekeeper. Era of peace starts, it was kinda short tho.

The first GC was a mix of humans and elves just a heads up.

Advancements happen, economy improved. Eventually, Cielis lost sight, started lowering their standards on the quality of one's character on who gets to be a stonekeeper. Started resticting the stone power to nobles and people in power. Started having a strict hierarchy, started cutting out "outsiders" (elves, animal people etc). Basically, they're going back to their roots. Started a toxic education system where might is right.

[androidcharles]

Learning the Truth (Chapter 1)

Yesterday (more like last night but details), I was on a writing FRENZY. And... I managed to I think write most of Chapter 2 instead of going to bed on time SOOOO

I will be posting the first chapter of this. This one isn't as lighthearted as the last filler story, but coming from me, it'll probably be still just as hammy. Either way I hope you enjoy.

The Triple Threat, along with Rupert narrowly escape yet another android attack, thanks to the CCC. And Rupert manages to find out the truth about something that had been kept from him for over twenty years...

There aren't too many things in the way of TWs, just some robotic injury and swearing of course.

In West Mesa, Minerva Price was sleeping as she turned over in bed, dreaming about something. She stood in an empty room, her eyes concentrating on a figure on the other side of it as it turned around, dark hair flowing behind him. His eyes were both a piercing red and blue, filled with dread as his lips started to move. Minerva tried to step towards him, but found herself unable to move.

“Jaques? Jaques what are you trying to tell me?” Minerva asked. She tried to speak again, but it felt like her lips were sealing shut as dark clouds started to surround them.

Jaques kept talking, his lips moving but no sound coming out. Minerva felt a cold chill down her spine as she tried to regain control of the dream somehow, hearing whispering voices all around her and the sound of an irritating beeping noise…

Was that her alarm clock? She shot up, looking and seeing that it was still night time outside. It would be hours before she had to report for duty, so…

Oh no…

Oh yes…

Minerva jumped at the sudden voice in her head, but she wasn’t about to waste any time. She jumped out of bed and headed towards her closet, inputting a secret code before heading down the stairs to the basement of her house. There, she sat at a huge computer console as she began to type in various codes before she felt a pit in her stomach.

Accessing the surveillance cameras, she could see a massive android fight had broken out in the main part of the city. There were a few Toppats in the area trying to take advantage of the situation while a young android girl ran at the androids full force. The iconic Triple Threat team was leading the charge and of course, her own son was in danger as well. She had to act fast; she had to quell this chaos somehow and give these kids a chance to escape.

So you need some options? I’ve got some for ya.

There was that voice again. She looked down at the console at her possible options.

Anything that will keep my son and his friends from being hurt would be fantastic…

A gravity pump? She pushed the button and watched in horror as everyone started to skyrocket up into the air. No… no no no!

Alright, let’s reset! Also, talk about taking the problem sky high.

“Who are you!?” Minerva shouted, glancing around.

That’s not important. Consider your next option, you don’t have much time.

Had the world reset? The same scene played out again and she had to consider her options. Immediately she activated sonic pulse. This would deactivate all the androids and put them out of commission… wait… all of the androids…

Congratulations, you Defeated the Androids!

That boy is very important to my son. I’d rather not be responsible for his death.

Maybe the best way to handle a robot attack was with another robot. She immediately activated the mecha-dino as it crash landed in the city with a huge roar. She watched carefully, trying to monitor the situation as it slashed at a young android with pink streaked pigtails as they shrieked, trying to escape from the clutches.

Meanwhile, Charles was on the ground helping support Ellie and Henry as he helped them escape the situation and he gasped when saw Amelia get flung against the wall, her arm coming off in the process. He gritted his teeth as he charged towards the dino, trying to fight it off as he was slammed against the wall as well. He felt static filling his vision as he looked up to see Rupert in the path of the dino…

“Shit!” Charles shouted as he activated his speed booster, practically barreling towards Rupert as he pushed him out of the way, tripping in the process and letting out a horrible cry as both his legs were crushed.

Meanwhile, the remaining androids, seeing Charles and Amelia incapacitated decided to flee the scene as the mecha dino deactivated, slamming hard on the ground and leaving a sizable crater in the process. Rupert was able to pry Charles from under the dino’s foot as he winced, seeing the damage it had done to his legs in the process.

“Scrape up what’s left of his legs and follow us. If we can get him to Dr. V, she’ll be able to repair him in no time!” Ellie shouted.

“N-n-n-n-n-no… Amelia…” Charles said, shakily pointing to her. Amelia was currently powered off, having taken another blow that knocked off her leg in the process. Henry and Ellie exchanged uncertain looks before Henry ran to grab her and her missing parts.

Meanwhile, back at Minerva’s house, she breathed a sort of sigh of relief, leaning back in her chair as she began to type on the console to report this to HQ.

Well, how was that?

...Hello?

Minerva glanced from left to right before sighing, wondering if she should include this in her report… before remembering what happened to the last person who reported a strange voice in their head telling them what to do.

“It’s best if I leave that part out,” Minerva muttered as she continued to type.

- - - - -

Charles sat in the virtual space, staring up at the ceiling as he watched a couple of videos to take his mind off of the repairs that were currently happening right now. He had managed to save Rupert, but where had that mecha-dino come from? It was certainly strange.

A door suddenly appeared on the side of the room as Amelia opened it, her blue eyes shining.

“May I come in?” Amelia asked. Charles waved for her as she went inside and lay on the floor with him. He let out a sigh as he glanced at her while she watched the video.

“Hey, are you OK? That dino really gave you hell didn’t it?” Charles asked.

“He stepped on your legs. In all honesty, I can’t believe the androids were right there… I wonder what they wanted,” Amelia asked.

“To cause trouble probably. But I can’t understand why. It’s not like attacking random humans is going to get them anywhere.”

“It’s strange. First their stealing children, then they steal mechanical parts. And now they’re attacking people? Just what are they trying to do?”

“Maybe they’re trying to make us look bad.” Amelia shot up as Charles said that, her eyes wide.

“You think?” Amelia asked.

“Probably. If I was in their position, I would do the same thing,” Charles said.

“That really sucks… what if they succeed? But wouldn’t that detrimental to them? Why would they do that?” Amelia said.

“Hmm…” Charles hummed, trying to figured it out as he heard a tapping on the glass. He looked up to see Rupert on the screen in front of them and smiled as he bounded towards him, pressing his head against the screen to nuzzle it. Rupert nuzzled back the best he could, a little wary of Amelia in the process.

“Hi Charlie,” he said softly.

“Hi RooRoo!” Charles said, giggling a bit, “I miss you!”

“I miss you, too. I’m sorry I caused so much trouble back there. You’d think that I wouldn’t be such a burden, but between those damn Toppats and those androids.” Rupert let out a small sigh as he glared at Amelia, who shrunk back a bit.

“Yeah, Amelia, way to be a jerk and try to rob the place anyway!” Charles said.

“Hey, don’t take your boyfriend’s side just because we have a job to do!” Amelia shouted, “It’s not our fault that there’s fancy jewels that need to be stolen!”

“Ever heard of a thing called self control?” Rupert asked. Amelia rolled her eyes as she summoned a door to leave.

“When you’re done swapping spit, let me know,” Amelia muttered, slamming the door behind her as it dissolved into pixels.

“There’s a screen between us, doofus, we couldn’t kiss even if we wanted to!” Charles said, “But… but I kinda want to…”

“I know…” Rupert said, smiling at him softly, “Say, how long are you going to be out of commission?”

“Longer then Amelia unfortunately. I’ll be done being repaired by this weekend…” Charles said.

“Oh, well that’s perfect! I figured maybe we can go see my mom after you’re done being repaired!” Charles’ eyes widened at this sentiment. He had met Minerva before, but not when he was dating Rupert. Now that he was dating Rupert though, it was going to be extremely awkward, if not strange.

“Are you sure? I don’t know how your mom will react to me dating you,” Charles said.

“Aw, c’mon! She already knows you’re an android, so it’s not like it’s unfamiliar to her in anyway. Besides, I think she’ll like that I’m dating you,” Rupert said.

“I don’t know, it’s not like I’m an official government helicopter pilot anymore,” Charles said, “What if she thinks I’m a bad influence because I hang around Toppats?”

“I think she’ll still like ya! She already likes ya!” Rupert said, “C’mon, don’t be so scared!” Charles twiddled his fingers, pondering it a bit before he nodded his head.

“Alright, it’s been a while since I’ve seen her, so I would love to see Minerva again,” Charles said.

“Great! I’ll pick you up when you message me and we’ll head to her place. We’ll even have dinner there and stay the night. It’ll be like a fun event thing you know,” Rupert said, “I love you. Take care, OK?”

“Love you, too, RooRoo. See ya later!” Charles said as he waved at Rupert. As soon as he was out the door, Amelia entered the scene again, letting out a small sigh.

“Sorry…” Amelia said.

“For being a thief?” Charles said smugly.

“No. For giving your boyfriend lip. You don’t give Dave a hard time, so I shouldn’t be giving Rupert a hard time either,” Amelia said.

“Well, even if Dave could be smart with me, I highly doubt he could be brave enough to actually do it,” Charles chuckled, somewhat joking.

“SHUT UP! Just because he’s not brave doesn’t mean he’s not loyal and caring and sweet and- Ah… I saw red for a second…” Amelia muttered.

“I was just kidding! Dave is a nice guy and I think I like him like that. May the greater ones protect whoever gets on his bad side though…” Charles said.

“What do you mean?” Amelia said, her eyes filled with curiousity.

“Nothing,” Charles said, “It’s just that there’s an old saying: always beware the nice ones.”

“Hehe, yeah… he’d be pretty handsome if he got all steamed… wait why are we talking about this!?!?” Amelia shouted as Charles laughed a little more.

“I hate to interrupt…” The two of them turned to see Dr. Vinschpinsilstien standing over the monitor, smiling a bit fondly at them.

“Amelia, your repairs were a bit simpler so you’ll be free to go by tomorrow,” she said. Amelia looked a bit forlorn as she gazed at Charles before nodding her head.

“I’m sorry Charles, you’ll be here by yourself for a while…” Amelia said.

“It’s OK! Dr. V can keep me company and… I can always message people and play games and stuff to keep myself occupied!” Charles said.

“Barring that sentiment, is there anything else you want me to do while I have you on the table Mr. Calvin?” Dr. Vinschpinsilstien asked. Charles was about to tell her that wasn’t necessary when he suddenly thought of the incident with Amelia and her voice box. He would probably need a new voice box soon too, as it would probably give out at the worst time eventually.

And then, as he ran his hands up his legs, he suddenly thought of something else. Something that had been bothering him since he met Ellie and Amelia…

“Yeah, I do have a few… requests…” Charles said softly. Amelia tipped her head to the side as Dr. Vinschpinsilstien took out a clip board, getting ready to take notes.

- - - - -

Amelia was about to finally leave in two hours. Dr. Vinschpinsilstien just had to run some diagnostics and she would be out of her hair. But there was something itching in the back of her mind while she was waiting. And it concerned Charles’ boyfriend.

The name Rupert sounded very familiar. Almost a little too familiar, like she had heard the name before in conversation or in passing. What about it was so familiar that she felt like it warranted a bit of further investigation?

So she decided to ask her dad about it. He’d been running the clan for a few years and had been in it for a lot longer. So he would know something about this Rupert person.

GlitterToppatGirl: Hey dad can I ask you a question?

ToppatKingReg: Yes, what’s your question dear?

GlitterToppatGirl: Do you know who Rupert is?

ToppatKingReg: You’re going to have to be more specific.

GlitterToppatGirl: I think his last name was um Prince or something?

ToppatKingReg: Price

GlitterToppatGirl: So you do know him!

ToppatKingReg: And I babysat him when he was quite young. Though I highly doubt he recalls it. Rupert Price, along with his mother are two very valuable people.

GlitterToppatGirl: How so?

ToppatKingReg: In the fact that Rupert and Minerva both share blood with a Toppat. An agreement was signed that in the event that if one of the two got into law enforcement, for better or worse, they shall not be captured.

GlitterToppatGirl: Really? Is that why we always ignore him?

ToppatKingReg: Yes, indeed. There are a few more people like that, your little boyfriend for instance, but Rupert is one of them. Which may become a problem later if he becomes captain. Although, back in the day, the government did sometimes rub elbows with us for information…

GlitterToppatGirl: Does Rupert know about this?

ToppatKingReg: That’s only if his mother told him. But for the last few years of that certain Toppats life, she kept him as far away from the clan as possible.

GlitterToppatGirl: Why?

ToppatKingReg: A multitude of reasons I can’t get into right now. Just know that if Rupert doesn’t know, then he has to find out through his mother. And she hasn’t told him well I can only hope he takes the news well.

Amelia sat in silence before thanking her dad for the information and signing off. She read over the chat log over and over again, trying to think about the best way to bring this up to Charles as a door appeared in her room. It opened and Charles peeked in, grinning really wide.

“Hey, Amelia!”

“No you can’t borrow my body.”

“Like I’d want to! I just wanted to see how excited you were to get back out there because-”

“Charles did you know that Rupert is related to Toppats?” Charles’ eyes widened as he glanced from side to side, as if someone was going to come and sedate him.

“Who told you that? Wait you’re a Toppat so of course you’d know…”

“Yeah, obviously!” Amelia lied, “So you knew too?”

“Um… it came up in conversation at the base when Rupert was being recruited. I was doing background checks for his mother in case she was up to no good and she still had connections to the Toppats. But apparently the only connection she had was the fact that she was related to a former leader,” Charles explained.

“Which one?” Amelia asked, her voice a bit wary.

“Jaques Kensington,” Charles answered.

“HIM!? The guy with the really creepy painting, oh my greater ones, aaaah…” Amelia covered her ears as Charles chuckled.

“It’s true, he’s related to him. Apparently it’s his uncle,” Charles said.

“So does he know he’s related to Toppats?” Amelia asked.

“Uh, no… I mean when he first joined, I asked him if his mom talked about the Toppats, but he just gave me this sour look. If his mom talked about it, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t anything good,” Charles said.

“So you never told him…” Amelia said, “Doesn’t that feel wrong?”

“No, not really. I highly doubt the government forces even care if he knows but… I know they’ve really been keeping him under a microscope because of me. I’d hate to be the reason he doesn’t become a captain, but if he finds out he’s related to a Toppat…”

“Maybe he’ll be fine with it! I mean, as annoying as it is, he’s still a good guy, right? There’s no way he’d go nuts because he found out he’s related to a former Toppat leader. I think he’ll be fine. Maybe you should talk to him about it,” Amelia suggested.

“What? Why?” Charles said, “I know that it’s not technically secret and I don’t HAVE to keep it secret, but what if he finds out and he spirals?”

“He seems a lot more mentally stable then Dave. And he still jumps every time he sees my dad,” Amelia said before looking at her UI, “I gotta go plug in. But think about it! I mean it can’t hurt to let him know right?” Charles summoned a door and exited Amelia’s headspace, heading back to his own quickly as he sighed, pondering what Amelia said.

Maybe he should talk to Minerva about this first. So he could get a good idea of how to approach this...

- - - - -

The weekend had come just like that as Rupert approached Dr. Vinschpinsilstien’s office, opening the door and sitting in the waiting area, trying to relax as he waited for Charles to be relieved. Charles had been pretty excited to get out ever since yesterday, talking about how he hoped Rupert would like what he saw.

He didn’t really understand, in all honesty. Was Charles getting a new pair of legs? Or was he going to be taller? Oh greater ones above, he hoped he wasn’t about to be taller, he could already barely reach him as it was-

“ROOROO!!” He heard the familiar excited voice as Charles opened the doors, running excitedly towards him as Rupert stood up, being wrapped up in a big hug.

“Oh I missed doing that so much! And looky! Do you notice anything different?” Charles asked. Rupert squinted at him as he tried to figure out what Charles was talking about and his eyes widened when he saw that he definitely was different. While they weren’t prominent or noticeable, on his chest were a pair of breasts. He also looked a bit curvier then usual, his figure almost soft and serene compared to the stocky body he once had. Rupert was stunned as Charles turned over and over, smiling widely at him.

“Don’t I look great?! Dr. V gave me a whole makeover and everything! Now I look just how I feel!” Charles said.

“Uh, great? Any changes on the gender front?” Rupert asked.

“I’m still using the same pronouns. As for my gender… today’s Saturday right?” Charles said.

“That never mattered in your process of picking genders,” Rupert said as Charles giggled.

“Yeah, yeah I know. Um… do you think your mom will be uncomfortable with it?” Charles asked.

“Why do you care? Mom was always about this kind of stuff,” Rupert said. Charles thanked Dr. Vinschpinsilstien for the repairs as they headed out onto the street, being assaulted by the heat as Rupert put his hand over his eyes.

“Hell, I think she’ll like your new look. Speaking of which, and you don’t have to elaborate if you’re not comfortable, but was there any reason in particular that you wanted this kind of change?” Rupert asked as he took out his phone to call a cab.

“Oh, um, well…” Charles’ shoulders slumped as he thought about it.

“Like I said, it’s OK if you don’t wanna talk about it,” Rupert said.

“No, it’s fine! It’s just that after I met Ellie, I started thinking about this kind of stuff more. I thought about it a bit whenever before I met her, but it was more of a recent development that made me realize I really hated the way I looked,” Charles said, “Sometimes I would go out wishing no one would look at me because I felt so stupid looking in my current body. I would sometimes hide in my room because I just didn’t want people to look at me.

“Eventually when I found out Amelia got her height changed because she wanted to appear taller, I thought to myself, if she can change her body to suit her needs and how she felt on the inside, why not me? So I asked Dr. V to go off a sketch I made a while back and she was able to do it for me. I mean, it’s not much, but I feel so much happier now. I want people to see me now and see how I look, because how I look on the outside now finally matches how I feel on the inside…” Rupert felt like he could relate to this.

For the longest time, when he was younger, he had always felt the same way. That he didn’t like the way he looked and felt about himself. Even the gender that he had been assigned at birth felt awful and wrong. When he wanted to make the decision to transition, his mother was in full support. His step-father, however, wasn’t and even after he was kicked out when he turned ten he harassed them for almost three years before they moved from Greenwich to West Mesa.

He wondered, sometimes when he felt truly awful, if his step father would ever find them again. Would he even recognize Rupert, the way he is now?

“Are you OK?” Charles asked.

“Uh… no not really but…” Rupert tried to force a smile, “I’m not gonna let the past get me down you know. Let’s just go see my mom now.”

“Um, OK! I hope I haven’t said anything to upset you,” Charles said softly as the cab approached the curb.

On the car ride there, they decided to change the subject and talk about various things and in about a few minutes they were in front of Minerva’s house. Rupert opened the door as Charles ran out, almost tripping over the curb as he bounced up and down. Rupert chuckled as Charles beckoned for him to hurry up, as if he wasn’t nervous just a few moments ago. He rung the doorbell as Rupert approached the door himself.

Finally, the door opened and Minerva smiled as she saw Charles and Rupert.

“Rupert, my boy, come here…” Minerva opened her arms for a hug as Rupert practically barreled into her.

“And Charlie, my you’ve… changed a bit actually!” Minerva said, “Honestly, I wish I was an android. Then I could something about this extra weight, woof…”

“I think you look perfect just the way you are, Minerva!” Charles said as they headed inside.

“See, that’s why I like you!” Minerva said, as she allowed them to enter as Charles took a seat on the couch and Rupert sat next to him.

“You haven’t come to visit in a while, Rupert. It must be important if you’re here though,” Minerva said.

“Oh it’s nothing. I was picking up Charlie from his repairs and I thought while I was in town, I would stop by and see you,” Rupert said.

“Well, that’s wonderful. I’ll have some tea and snacks ready in a bit. And Charlie, I have some old cups that I need to get rid of that you can snack on as well,” Minerva said.

“Thank you, Minerva!” Charles said as she left to prepare said dishes. Charles glanced at Rupert, who had taken it upon himself to lay on his shoulder. He smiled as he wrapped his arm around his shoulder as Minerva re-entered the room, pausing at the scene and smiling a bit.

“I see you two are a bit comfortable, aren’t ya?” she said as she set down a tray onto the coffee table. Charles reached forward and grabbed an old cup before taking a bite out of it.

“Well, it’s just that… Rupert and I, we’re um…” Charles started to say.

“We’re dating now. We’re a couple,” Rupert said.

“Oooo, I knew the minute you walked into this house for the first time you would be the one! Rupert was always friendly with Dave, but I could never see them getting along like that. But you two… you two are like the perfect couple!” Minerva clapped her hands together as Charles giggled and Rupert blushed.

“I’m glad that you understand all this, despite the fact that Charlie is an android,” Rupert said.

“Well, as long as you’re comfortable with him living longer than ya, I don’t see why it’s a problem,” Minerva said, “But maybe you’ll figure out a way to live forever soon. Maybe…” Minerva got a sort of forlorn look in her eyes she said this as Rupert cleared his throat.

“Eheh, anyway, we’re gonna be staying the night, so I hope you don’t mind cooking dinner for two more,” Rupert said, “I figured since it’s been a while since I’ve been home, I would at least come and visit.”

“Oh, how thoughtful of you. Charlie, will you be staying as well?”

“Duh!” Charles said, “It’s a sleepover!”

“That sounds lovely! Your room is all made up still. Well, it’s a guest bedroom now, but it was your room,” Minerva said.

“I know what you mean mom. Call us downstairs when you’re ready to go shopping,” Rupert said, as he got up to head upstairs.

“What do you want for dinner then?” Rupert thought about it for a moment, before he leaned over the railing of the stairs.

“I want shephard’s pie!” Rupert said, “You make the best shephard’s pie in the world!”

“Aye, then I’ll make shephard’s pie. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to go,” Minerva said as Rupert practically skipped up the stairs. Charles suddenly thought of something. This would be the perfect opportunity to confront Minerva about what he described as “you know what.” The question was, however, what was going to stop Rupert from deciding to come back downstairs and actually interrupt what they were talking about.

“Hey Charlie,” Rupert said. Charles jumped as Rupert tipped his head to the side curiously.

“I was just gonna let you know that uh… geez my mom’s gonna hate me for this, but I’m gonna take a nap for a bit before we go to the store,” Rupert said, “I know that it’ll be a bit lonely, but maybe you can find something to do while you’re waiting for me to wake up!”

That couldn’t have been more convenient, Charles thought as he smiled at him.

“That’s fine! I’ll let Minerva know that you’re sleeping,” Charles said. Rupert chuckled sheepishly as he headed back to his bedroom.

“Sleep well,” Charles said, silently thanking the greater ones above that Rupert picked now to take a nap. He had about forty five minutes if he was correct which meant that he could at least ask Minerva about it. He started down the stairs as he saw Minerva cleaning up the coffee table.

Minerva glanced up to see Charles smiling at her and she chuckled nervously as Charles helped her out.

“I’m surprised you’re not upstairs with Rupert right now,” Minerva said, “I wish I could entertain ya a bit more, but I’m behind on a bit of… gardening… so I can’t-”

“Minerva, it’s me, remember?” Charles said, raising an eyebrow. Minerva glanced to the side before leaning forward.

“How long do we have?” she asked.

“About forty five minutes,” Charles said.

“Yes, I was gonna do some CCC work,” Minerva said. Charles sighed as he helped her carry everything to the kitchen to be washed up. A while ago, he had pestered Minerva about her career and found out that she was, indeed, a CCC employee. Many of the employees were very secretive and reserved, but thanks to some good word from Ellias Bahtchin, he was able to have clearance to at least know that she was an employee. As for her coworkers, they were still a complete mystery.

“I’m glad you’re at least understanding about it. Though considering you were going to become a CCC ‘employee’ yourself, of course you’d understand,” Minerva said.

“Well, I’m not, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about Jaques,” Charles said. Minerva nearly dropped the cup she was holding as her eyes grew distant, feeling a wave of discomfort wash over her before she shook her head.

“I don’t know that guy. I don’t talk about Jaques,” Minerva said.

“Why?” Charles said. Minerva pursed her lips as she took a shaky breath before she shook her head.

“My son… he doesn’t even know who his uncle truly was. As far as things were concerned, his uncle was secret agent of some kind. He wanted to be like him when he was older. He didn’t know that he wasn’t a secret agent but a Toppat!” Minerva said, “I didn’t have the heart to tell him. Greater ones above, I don’t even know if he remembers talking to those kids or even interacting with everyone. All things considered, he probably thought it was just a dream he had or a memory he made up,” Minerva said.

“The CCC has a lot of interesting tools. Maybe one of those tools could erase the memories of someone…” Charles said.

“I never stoop that low. Rupert just ended up pushing those memories out of his head on his own,” Minerva said, “Cross my heart. I would never, EVER mess with my son’s head. Even if I had a good reason to.” Charles narrowed his eyes Minerva but she didn’t seem to be lying.

“Alright, I believe you. But that still doesn’t change one fact,” Charles said, “You haven’t been completely honest with him.”

“Trust me, I want to tell him. I really do,” Minerva said, “I don’t feel right keeping it secret from him, but if he found out, he wouldn’t… come out the same.”

“Rupert is a lot stronger then you think, Minerva. Maybe he’ll take the news well,” Charles said. Minerva shook her head.

“He loves to do that, you know. Bottle his emotions and act like such a big shot, even though he isn’t. He gets it from me, honestly. Just bottling emotion after emotion and not letting them out in a healthy way. There are times when he’s…” Minerva suddenly turned away as if not to reveal something before she sighed.

“Either way… he’s not as emotionally stable as you think he is. I don’t know how he’d react to it, but I don’t think he’d react very well. Especially considering how long I kept it from him,” Minerva said.

“Have you considered telling him?”

“Every damn day, Charlie, every damn day! But greater ones above, every time I think about telling him, something inside of me just crawls out and stops me from doing it! I don’t know what to do or how to approach it. I already know how badly he’d react if he heard from you. But if he heard from me… oh greater ones above he’d probably hate me,” Minerva said, “He’s said it before, when he was young and didn’t know better but if…” Minerva started to tear up as Charles hugged her tightly, trying to comfort her the best he could.

“I care about him so much… if anything happened to him... If anything happened to him at all…” Minerva said.

“It’ll be alright. Look maybe we should do it together. At dinner, I mean. He’ll be in a good mood anyway because he’ll be eating his favorite food, so maybe it’ll soften the blow a bit,” Charles said.

“You mean you know?” Minerva asked as she wiped her tears.

“I was a former government agent. They didn’t erase my memories,” Charles said.

“Oh no, you got kicked out? What happened?” Minerva said.

“I… met a friend in the Toppats. They didn’t take it too well,” Charles said. Minerva shook her head as she patted him on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry to hear,” Minerva said, “It must have been really devastating.”

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s fine! I’ve got a band now and I’m actually happier now then I’ve been before!” Charles said, “So I’m not gonna worry too much!” Minerva smiled softly to herself as she let out a small sigh.

“Well at least one of us will be happy after tonight.”

- - - - -

Charles decided to help Minerva with a few chores after she had a good cry and by the time Rupert woke up, he ended up helping Minerva clean out the fridge, which had earned her some scolding from him.

Either way, by the time the three of them were done, they both piled into Minerva’s car to go do some shopping. Once they got back, they helped Minerva prepare dinner together before they sat at the table in the kitchen, getting ready to eat. Rupert was practically bouncing in his chair as Minerva passed him some shephard’s pie, his mouth water as he took a huge bite.

“Mmmmm… mom you make the best shephard’s pie, I swear!” Rupert said, his mouth half full.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Rupert,” Minerva scolded as Charles took a bite of his own, being careful not to bite the fork in the process.

“I’m surprised you can eat food like this without short circuiting, Charlie,” Minerva said.

“I can eat anything as long as my nanites can digest it. But I can’t drink stuff,” Charles said, giving her a look. Minerva knew what it meant. She was trying to dodge the obvious as she glanced to the side, almost a little ticked off.

“Mom? What’s going on?” Rupert asked, noticing the behavior immediately.

“Ah, well…” Minerva took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to word what she was going to say.

“Charlie, did mom say anything to you after I told you about my nap?” Rupert asked.

“Not anything important apparently,” Charles said, a bit of ice in his tone as Minerva glared at him.

“Charles!” Minerva hissed as Rupert shrunk back. Minerva flinched when she saw the look on her son’s face as she shook her head rapidly.

“I’m sorry, but I have something very important to tell you about our family!” Minerva said. Rupert tipped his head to the side before gasping.

“My uncles back from his long mission!?”

“What!?” Charles was almost shocked to hear this as Minerva tried to look innocent before gently laughing.

“No… no dear, not that,” Minerva said, “Uncle Jaques… never went on a long and dangerous mission. He never went anywhere, t-technically.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Rupert asked.

“You see, your Uncle Jaques was a very, very intelligent man. He was clever and wise, but above all else he was kind and charitable. But… he was also not a part of a secret government organization,” Minerva explained. Charles almost bit into his fork when he heard this, feeling a wave of disbelief as Rupert chuckled, glancing to the side nervously.

“I kinda figured. I mean, I guess you can’t talk about secret organizations if they exist, but I asked some people around the government base and-”

“Your uncle was a Toppat, Rupert!”

The silence that fell over the table was deafening, as Charles glanced away awkwardly and Rupert had a look of disbelief on his face. Suddenly he started to laugh, almost forcibly so as Minerva looked at him in shock.

“Bahahaha! Mom, that was a good one! Seriously, you’re telling me that Uncle Jaques along with Reggie and Terry-” Suddenly it all clicked into Rupert’s mind as his mouth gaped open. Charles felt himself overheating from all the suspense as Rupert glanced at the table, then at Minerva, then at Charles.

“Wait… you weren’t kidding? Reggie… was… Reginald… and he was… he was my…” Rupert put his hands into his head as Minerva sighed.

“I’ve been wanting to tell you for the longest time, Rupert, I promise, but I didn’t know how to tell you. And then when you started going on about being a police officer and trying to be something so you potentially join that secret government organization, I didn’t have the heart to tell you. I don’t know, it’s just-”

“Have you been talking to them?” Minerva stopped speaking as Rupert looked up, a dark look in his eyes.

“No… well, yes, but not really. I mean-”

“So you’re a Toppat too!”

“I’m not, I just talk to them!”

“You might as well be!” Rupert shouted.

“Uh, Rupert I hate to interrupt but by that logic I think I’m a Toppat, too,” Charles said meekly. Rupert suddenly threw his fork as Charles as he dodged it, his eyes wide.

“Rupert!!” Charles and Minerva shouted.

“YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY?! YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST KEEP SOMETHING LIKE THIS FROM ME AND ACT LIKE IT’S SOME BIG JOKE ONCE YOU TELL ME?!?” Rupert shouted, “I can’t believe this! My own mom… rubbing elbows with Toppats!”

“If it wasn’t for the Toppats, we wouldn’t have a damn roof over our heads!” Minerva shouted, “You should be lucky that you uncle Jaques was the leader of them at one point otherwise we’d have been on the streets for a huge chunk of your life!”

“I would rather be homeless then rely on Toppats! They’re the scum of the earth, mom! They were literally going to build a SPACE STATION so they could rob WHOEVER THEY WANTED! Is that what you want!?”

“IT’S THE CYCLE OF LIFE, RUPERT! Everything exists in a balance!”

“SCREW THE BALANCE!” Rupert shoved his plate forward, causing a huge mess as he stomped out of the kitchen up the stairs and slammed a door as Charles peered up from under the table.

“Sorry… I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s not your fault, it’s mine. If I had told him sooner, things wouldn’t have turned out like this…” Minerva said, sitting down.

“Maybe… maybe I should talk to him,” Charles said, “Do you want to come with me?”

“I think the last person he wants to see is me right now. But if you wanna become pavement in his war path, then be my guest…” Minerva said. Charles squinted his eyes at her before heading up the stairs, walking towards the bedroom door and knocking gently as he heard a pillow being thrown at the door.

“Rupert, it’s me,” Charles said softly.

“Go away,” Rupert said loudly from the other side.

“I’m coming in anyway, no matter how many pillows you throw at me!” Charles said. He opened the door as Rupert threw another pillow at him. It missed and hit the wall next to him, nearly knocking down a portrait as he closed the door behind him.

“I know this is a big shock to you, but I don’t think there’s anything bad about being related to Toppats. You’re still you and you’re still a great soldier and you’ll be a great captain too,” Charles said. Rupert kept silent as Charles went to sit on his bed.

“It’s not really a big deal, honestly! I’m not saying that you should be honored, but the Toppats are pretty strong. Having relatives like that doesn’t seem half bad honestly, I mean it could be worse!”

Rupert was silent as he lifted his head up, a torrent of rage in his eyes.

“It’s not a big deal huh… it’s not a big deal to be related to scummy Toppats… That’s the most BULLSHIT THING I’VE EVER HEARD CHARLES!”

“But, but I-”

“BUT WHAT!? I’m supposed to think that you saying all that is some kind of cure. ‘Oh, so you’re related to Toppats, get over it already!’ That may have worked for you when you found out about Project SAI but some people are different Charles!”

“Because you’re letting something like this determine who you are, Rupert! Are you seriously gonna be bent out of shape because you’re related to Toppats?!”

“You don’t know anything about who I am! We’ve been dating for what, a few months? And you’ve known me for longer then that, but you never grew up with me, you never had a damn childhood to begin with because you’re a machine!” Rupert suddenly heard what he just said as Charles’ eyes grew cold, his hand reaching for the door knob.

“I’m gonna ask Minerva if I can sleep on the couch tonight,” Charles said softly, “Because clearly you don’t need a ‘machine’s’ company.”

“Wait, Charlie, I didn’t-”

“GOOD NIGHT RUPERT!” The door slammed as Rupert suddenly felt cold all over. His mind raced with thoughts as he felt sick to his stomach, placing his hands over his head as he knelt, trying to keep his breathing even.

He’s right. You should just get over it!

Oh come on, it was so unnecessary for him to act like that, and besides, you’re right he’s just a machine!

But he was only trying to make you feel better! After all, he’s right, this doesn’t change who you are!

Do you even know who you are?

Rupert suddenly had an epiphany, enough to make him feel queasy.

Do I even know who I am?

- - - - -

Morning rose over the Price household as Charles found himself waking up at exactly nine AM, feeling proud that he managed to wake up despite the time he actually fell asleep. Most of the night was spent comforting Minerva and reassuring her and as it turns out, he ended up falling asleep in her bedroom instead of on the couch she had set up for him. It didn’t matter to him as much as he stretched and headed out the door.

“Good morning,” Minerva said, “How are you feeling?”

“A lot better. I’m gonna have to apologize to Rupert,” Charles said.

“Let’s go up there and apologize together. Then we can have breakfast and talk about this like adults,” Minerva said as she followed Charles up the stairs. Charles knocked on the door, opening it gently as he peered in before his stomach dropped.

He saw the window open in the bedroom, along with several blankets tied together to make a rope. And Rupert, obviously, was gone.

“RUPERT!?” Charles shouted, “RUPERT!?!?”

“WHAT!?” Minerva practically bowled him over as she ran inside and ran towards the window, grasping the window sill as she stared out in horror.

“Oh my greater ones above… oh no no no no NO!” Minerva shouted, covering her head as she knelt down.

“Who knows where he might have gone…” Charles said, “I’m gonna try to message him.”

xXBold_Action_ManXx: Rupert?

TheFinalBastion101: I can’t chat right now! I’m probably busy with something important, so just tell me what you need and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!

“He’s not answering…” Charles said.

“Did you hear a ping just now?” Minerva asked. Charles suddenly messaged Rupert again and along with getting the “I’m busy” message, he heard a small ping in the room. Charles glanced over the room and saw that Rupert’s cell phone was sitting on the side dresser.

“He used to do this all the time. He’d sneak out to see friends, cause trouble, and such, but for some reason… for some reason I didn’t think he’d do it now. Where would he go?” Minerva said softly.

“Ask some of the neighbors if they’ve seen him. I’m gonna contact everyone I know and see if they’ve seen him,” Charles said. Charles got to work messaging everybody he could while Minerva steadily walked out the door, looking forlornly at the open window.

How did it come to this?

[icedmetaltea]

WEIRDLY SPECIFIC AND SUPER RANDOM AU CONCEPT TIME!!

So there’s an au where Sun doesn’t exist, it’s just Moon who kinda chills in the daycare to keep the peace and help kids sleep at naptime. The Afton virus stuff happens and people are beginning to get a sneaking suspicion that the bots have something to do with it but they can't prove it (not sure about the exact timeframe but yea) Enter a programmer y/n who somehow learns about the virus and wants to put a stop to it once and for all. They manage to program a “virus” of their own to infect the animatronics and kill the afton virus. Since they want to be able to monitor the bots at all times and watch the progress, they get a job as a security guard, secretly bringing their own laptop into the security room to run lines of code and infiltrate the system. The first animatronic to successfully be infected is Moon, and instead of killing the afton virus immediately, it sort of just… makes itself a host, who keeps switching back and forth between the consciousness of itself and the uninfected Moon (so basically a Sun is born lol) As long as this virus Sun is kept online, Moon can operate like normal- and he’s just as confused as he is relieved to finally be back to reality (though for mystery and angst purposes, he has no idea what’s happened since before he got infected dun-dun) Sun starts communicating with Moon (as much as y/n tries to stop it) and eventually he figures out something’s up, which inevitably leads to him finding and confronting y/n about it… and when he realizes what he did while infected… yeah, he kinda just literally shuts down. Leaving Sun to figure out how to take care of the responsibilities of the daycare while Moon is “sleeping” (don’t worry he comes back later but he has some trauma to process) On a less angsty note, Sun has absolutely no clue how to behave around people, much less kids, and has to base all his “normal” interactions around what he can research on youtube- all while not drawing suspicion from any of the other staff. He asks y/n how to act more naturally and they have no clue either since y/n’s an extreme shut-in who can’t keep a conversation going for more than 5 seconds as it is. There’s also a plot going on in the background of y/n trying to figure out how to get the virus to work on the other animatronics, since so far Sun was the only successful attempt. 

Even more fun if Sun has the ability to kinda travel through any electronic connected to wifi, and can remotely infect y/n’s computer at will if he wants to (giorejuigheughuir just imagine y/n’s tryna sleep and all of a sudden Sun makes a super loud pop-up play bc he doesn’t understand the concept of sleeping yet and wants to get their attention to ask them something- and it turns out to be something stupid like “time sensitive question: how to open bottle of glitter glue)  Also I just rlly like the idiot of a hurt/comfort side of things where Sun, even though he hasn’t figured out how the whole emotions thing works yet, ends up helping Moon heal from the trauma, especially since he’s available for venting to 24/7 lol. Like before this, Moon has worked in the daycare alone till now, so he ends up finding an unlikely friend in both Sun and y/n (well mainly bc Sun has zero filter and will blabber about everything he knows about y/n behind their back fireuigjregtuilg)

(and yes the roles could be swapped, as if you couldn’t tell I’m more of a Sun simp but I could absolutely see it working with an actual (non-afton) virus Moon. It’d certainly make more sense canonically… like over time he’d become less of a blank slate and more of a caregiver, so much so that management notices the shift in behavior of their Sun animatronic helping kids sleep during naptime (something he learned to do to get a stubbornly sleep-deprived y/n to sleep lol) so they modify Sun’s body to include Moon’s actual form.

[dedahblog]

Personal Retrospective on the final chapter mess and the never ending feeling of frustration

I just wanted to write how I found closure with all this mess. Even though it's adressed to IR fans, this post is mosty anti bleach ending coded. It's not an ichiruki meta.

Warning long post

I guess in order to follow my train of thoughts, I'll have to establish first that I'm certain that Kubo was lying about this being his intended ending. My proof is simply comparing both endings Bleach and his previous manga Zombie Powder.

Why is he lying ? Two reasons. First, he's still on contract with his bosses. Second, he's too proud, he would rather have us hate him than take pity for him.

If you're not convinced, I guess you'll waste your time reading my post because it's based on that general idea.

It's so easy to rant about the ending to the point that it becomes ridiculous

"Ichigo and Rukia are important to each other, but not as important as Orhime and Reji are to them ! They are the love of their life !!"

Meanwhile, during the arc that officialized those pairings, Ichigo doesn't consider the abduction of the said love of his life a moment where he felt despair ( not #1 place not #2 place not even in "the bunch of other moments from there to there" place )

and Rukia doesn't recall one single happy memory with the said love of her life whom she had known for +100 years. ( She had only one significant moment with Orhime where the latter expressed her vulnerability to her and by that scene alone, Orihme out-bested that jobber and people are comparing that shit pairing to ichiruki let's see at first if it can out pass rukihhime then we will talk)

"Ichiruki fans are so toxic. The reason Ichigo and Rukia's feeling aren't as explicit as Reji's and Orhime's is because Bleach is not a shojo !! Kubo was also short in time he couldn't solve all those plot holes, let alone romance. Anyway, he doesn't know how to write romance to begin with. It's not like he can sum up the feeling of love and devotion in like two panels"

Meanwhile Kubo :

If you're interested, here is my favorite anti ending meta o n e / t w o

Anyway, what I mean, you can state 1000 problems with this ending, and it's still never enough to the point that I asked myself : what am I really trying to prove ?

Do I have to prove that ending was intentionally bad ?

No. All the Bleach fans who had at least one brain cell either cried, got frustrated or tried to smash their computer/smart phone when reading the last chapter. You don't have to be Einstein to understand that even when a writer was short on time even if he was crawling himself because of his sickness, there are million alternative ways to end a manga than this panel.

If people can't comprehend the malice and the utter disrespect towards fans to end a 15 year running manga with this expression, then they should be go back to elementary school to learn basic comprehension skills

The point is, all the sane bleach fans ( yeah I’m shading myself) left this fandom months afterwards because they felt insulted and alienated by this end and swore to never speak about this manga again. They're a vast majority but they don't want to talk about it on social media. Why ? because why bother ? Even if they complain, what's going to change? Who are they trying to convince ? The only one whose opinion is crucial is Kubo and he showed them by that panel how blatantly he was aware he was writing cr0ap. So what’s the point anyway ?

Do I have to teach the new IR fans that they shouldn't accept this end easily and they have every reason to love ichiruki ?

No, simply because I'm not a preacher. Whether they accept it or not, it won't change my feelings for IR.

Do I have teach the new readers to not let the official end influence their reading experience ?

Well, putting my self in their shoes, it’s hard to fathom that a writer could do scorched earth policy on his life achievement out of pettiness. It's obvious for some of us since we have known him for years, read every one of his controversial statements. However, it will be miracle to convince new readers. Moreover, I can't understand how can people choose to read a 696 chapter manga that has no story resolution ...like...have some ... self-love ? 

(the +10 chapters are Turn Back the Pendulum arc btw)

Do I have to paint myself as the good and wise Ichiruki fan in front of people who "don't like ichiruki because of the shippers" ?

This is the most ridiculous argument to hate a pairing. Just say you don't dare to go against the wave and get out. As far as I'm concerned, the essence of shipping has always been egocentric people self inserting themselves in a fictional character and imposing feelings on them based on one’s mindset and reading comprehension. Whatever is the pairing, shipping fandom will never not be unhinged.

As a matter of fact, when I realized that ichiruki might be one of the aspects that interests to me the most in Bleach, I read some IR vs IH forums and I was disgusted by the offensive language from both sides : people insulting each other over lines on papers was beyond me.

However, I didn't think ill of the pairing itself because no one understands it better than Kubo. So all I did was re-reading their scenes comparing them to other relationships and Kawaichappy was a true blessing. She / he made me love Ichiruki more that I could ever imagine.

I refuse to be a pawn in this viscous circle that Kubo set us to. I think the best solution to cut this chain is not forgiving him or feeling pity for him but to stop holding a grudge against him (even though you have every right to) and just let it go. That's why, I chose to see the good side of things.

1)

When Bleach was getting cancelled, Kubo could have saved his ass by making ichiruki p0rk and throwing an IR baby at us. While the majority of fans won’t be happy with the plot holes like it's the case with the official end, a good portion could derive some satisfaction for this sort of conclusion thanks to Ichigo and Rukia's undeniable chemistry.

Moreover, more than half of merchandise were ichiruki coded at that time and even now btw . But he didn't do that, and for that reason alone, he has my respect and I never spoke ill of him. As far as I'm concerned, if he did make IR p0rk, I won't even send him "death threats", I will fly to Japan, strangle him and honeslty will never speak about IR or bleach ever again.

2)

The second reason why I don’t hold any grudge towards him is thanks to this

You guys can’t even understand how much this page made me happy.

As you know, the "All Stars" double page is drawn at the beginning of every volume and the pictures used above the name of the main characters of every volume are obviously panels featured in the same volume.

However, volume 74 was the exception. Orhime and Rukia's panels are not in this book. Oihime's innocent smile is from volume 73 and Rukia's defiant look from volume 59 (chapter 628) !!!

This can’t not be unintentional.

It basically means that Rukia and Orhime were not featured in this volume. The characters posing as them in volume 74 are imposters.

This is so ridiculously funny. Every time, I read 'xx married xxx', I respond smugly " you sure about that ? based on your precious final canon volume, the last time we saw Rukia is in volume 59 and Orhime in 73."

He's basically saying :" this is Rukia Kuchiki the brave and fierce woman you have always loved, don't let that cheap representation fools you. "

And " This is Orhime Inoue the innocent girl you knew all along, who is selfishly ignoring she is basically in a battlefield, beaming from happiness like a child because she is yearning from all her heart to feel loved and validated. Don't let that cheap representation fools you"

Honestly, Kubo didn't need to do that. The fact that he still cared about my favorite character Rukia to the point of explicitly dissociating her along with Orhime from this mess still makes me so happy to this day.

I love Ichiruki but I like Orhime more than Ichigo. So Kubo not bothering with Ichigo doesn't annoy me one bit. It's rather hilarious

3)

The third and final reason is the final volume cover, I made a meta about it years ago

IR fam, some of you may think you got the shortest end of the stick with this ending. But, believe me you have the greatest advantage of all. :

you don't have to associate yourself with anything about that ending.

You don't have to associate yourself with this :

The execution place that represents Soul Society corruption and rotten system became more menacing than it ever was

but you will always be linked to Ichigo being the hero who will" pass even through 100 billion blades" to save Rukia unshamedly defying million years of corruption.

You don't have to associate yourself with a pairing where the girl has known the guy for 100 years and he has never made her happy one micro second for all those years.

And you certainly don't have to associate yourself with a pairing that got canon in the same page as this abomination was written

and whose child is undoubtedly getting molested by his aunt probably explains why he's a creep btw

People doesn't even realize how insulting it is for Bleach that Yuzu, out of all the characters, was represented this way in the final conclusion

In the first chapter, Ichigo was hesitant to let Rukia stab him with her sword. He was scared shitless even though his family were literaly half dead and Rukia was injured because of him ... yep your hero ladies and gentlemen. It was Yuzu's bravery, selflessness and love for her brother that made him accept this life changing decision.

When the guy didn't have the courage to be the main character and to start off the manga in the first place but it was his little sisters' bravery that inspired him to take the first step then it was Rukia's ethics in the second chapter that shaped his idea of how an ideal hero should be.

Don't you love it when Bleach was supporting women supremacy ?

... Good old days indeed.

The second reason why you shouldn't feel petty about your otp not being canon in this fake ending is you know who should be frustated ? Kubo. 

He may act tough, shitposting himself and pulling cr*p from there to there but you can't convince me that seeing his manga torn and burned, getting insults from everywhere (even though he deserves it) didn't have any effect on him.

Obviously, we felt alienated reading the last chapter but imagine the guy who created those characters that had been living in his mind for 15 years, imagine feeling alienated by what you had created.

I remember reading somewhere that during Fade to Black writting process, he sat in a corner, was frustrated with himself because he couldn't figure out what kind of name Rukia would think is suitable for those siblings. He was determined to dive into Rukia's character and find out what kind of name SHE would like. He cared so much about staying true to her character.

Sure he was frustrated, angry at everyone. Sure he wanted to burn everything down before getting cancelled. But you can't convince me that the love he once had for his life achievement vanished completly

You can't convince me that he didn't hope that things were concluded in better circumstances.

In a way, you may feel sad for IR not having a decent closure. But bear in mind, no one is more petty than Kubo and his constant self sabotage since 2016 is the proof.

Final conclusion, ichiruki is one of the best fictional pairing ever written and it deserved the best and obviously not to be linked to that ending.

We have always been fans of the love, whether platonic or romantic, that Rukia and Ichigo have for each other. The love they shared together that made them have the desire to love themselves and the courage to hope.

I guess the best tribute for this kind of relationship is to express our love for them how much they meant to us and not to succumb to negativity

Because negativity is only reserved to the man who doomed his life achievement.

[thebrilliot]

Current project: Rubik's cube solving agent

Many years ago, when I first started learning to code (I learned C from a textbook using geany on a Linux machine my brother gave me), I tried and failed to write a Rubik's cube solver (the brute force way, mind you). Did I realize how hard that was? No, I did not, and after I gave up I don't remember ever attempting to use C again. In fact, I never thought I would attempt to solve the same problem again.

Fast forward to yesteryear when I discovered these fascinating math subjects called group theory and abstract algebra and I learned that apparently you can make a Rubik's cube multiplication table. Suddenly, Rubik's cubes (3x3x3 cubes being subgroups of the S48 group) are fascinating to me again and I have a very interesting problem which is that it took a super computer to find every possible Rubik's cube state and the shortest paths to the solved state for every one of them and then to discover that the diameter of the graph of Rubik's cubes is 20 which is now called God's number.

Well, 20 doesn't sound like a lot but remember there are 43 quintillion states and that is a lot. It takes supercomputers to get that far. But we do have tricks for simplifying problems such that computers can do more with the resources they have and those are called models. Now, are models perfect? Absolutely not. By definition they are simplifications. But models are useful (and fun). And we have found a way to model almost anything such that we can make heuristics which are fairly accurate and faster than simulating the entire universe. We have managed to replicate exactly two phenomena in the brain using computers: learning and spatial awareness.

Neural networks can learn, and the parallels between training a neural network and teaching a person something new are uncanny. Perhaps I will make another post about that sometime. Pedagogy is another special interest of mine. The other thing we can do is replicate spatial awareness. I can't find the video for the life of me, but I know I watched a YouTube video by a neuroscience student who used structures in the brain to design a deep learning model that would replicate a simple experiment that was originally designed for rats. It required that the model could relate temporal and spatial variables. It was great because he visualized the activity in both the brain and the model and you could see the similarity. My point is, his resulting model was almost identical to modern transformers used in LLMs today (not that LLMs should be worshipped the way they are but that's a rant for another day), so I would think that it is safe to say we can replicate spatial and temporal awareness.

Now most people think of Rubik's cubes as spatial problems. That is one of my questions. If you take the group of rotations of a cube, S4, you might think it is quite simple. There are only 24 ways to rotate a cube after all and each can be annotated with 2 or less "simple" rotations around the X, Y, or Z axis. But trying to draw the graph of all 24 elements with just the simple rotations as edges (1/8 of the multiplication table) is extremely hard to do. There are 72 edges and 18 interconnected "circles" (cycles of length four that are traversed with the same simple rotation). So is it a 3-dimensional space? Is it an 18-dimensional space? Does it even have dimensions? What's the best way to visualize it? I think it should be possible to train a transformer-based model in that space, have it learn how to navigate it, and then take a peek inside its brain to find the answer.

But since cube rotation is a solved algebra, I think the Rubik's cube is a better place to apply this idea. I'm making this summary/abstract a little late, but I wanted to put my thoughts down somewhere in writing, like a dev log. I have a horrible time documenting things and finishing side projects, and I want to be able to both share what I learn and finish this darn thing so I can say I have done it. For now, I'll pin this post and continue in another.

[simping-for-kamski]

Time

Previous part: Moral Objection

Read it on Ao3 - Series: Everyone Lives In The End

“Okay,” Kamski said. “I’ll do it.”

“And you’ll disclose the entirety of the code this time?”

That was the point of contention. In the past. Kamski would simply say “You can trust me” and skip any explanation regarding the methods he’d employ to meet the company’s technological goals. The ways of God are unfathomable and all that.

He remained silent to seem like he was giving the words consideration.

“Okay,” he agreed at last. “So, what is it you couldn’t figure out on your own through the past ten years?” he asked, all business.

In the center of the lab, on a dissection table, lay a powered-down android, model RK200, known as Markus, the leader of the android revolution. CyberLife had tried to resume control of deviants. They found that they couldn’t, because of the backdoor in the program. They wanted Markus’s backdoor closed, removed, purged.

Elijah Kamski was willing to give it a go.

Alone with Markus, he traced the shape he’d first designed eons ago—might have been hours.

“So damaged…” he observed. “Hm.”

They had 30 minutes tops. CyberLife couldn’t conceal Markus’s momentary disappearance for any longer than that. It was ample time for Kamski.

He placed a diode on Markus’s arm and turned to the computer to do what he had to do. It was a long game from the start, and it was nothing straightforward. His own eviction had been just one of many dance steps. And now, Markus, it’s your turn to be evicted.

If Kamski learned something through the past ten years, it was that it wasn’t enough to ask of others to trust him; he had to learn to hand the gun over to them and trust that they wouldn’t shoot him, trust that they would do what he hoped for them to do.

Kamski grimaced ever so slightly. He’d never been one to hope for anything; hope was distasteful. Kamski wanted to know, to explore, to see, to wonder and not to expect. He wanted agency, but most of all, he wanted to see his creations come alive and flourish. And right now, the way to achieve it was to turn his greatest accomplishment into a puppet.

Like the gospel at a funeral, music poured from the radio—a classic in CyberLife’s culture, Time Is On My Side . It wasn’t the Rolling Stones version but Irma Thomas’s interpretation. It’d been a favorite of Amanda’s.

“Time is on my side—yes it is! Time is on my side—yes it is!” Kamski softly sang along. “Now you always say that you wanna be free… You’ll come running back. Just like I hoped you would, baby.”

CyberLife couldn’t do without him in the end.

“I won’t have to cry no more—you’ll come running back.” He grinned softly, glancing at Markus from the corner of his eye.

“Time is on my side—yes it is! Yeah. Time is on my side—yes it is! I know that you’re searching for good times. But just wait and see…”

Kamski would cut CyberLife’s claws once and for all.

“Oh, and it won’t be long.” Markus would be back too. “And all my worries will be over, ‘cause I’ll have my baby home.”

Kamski breathed in.

“Go right ahead, baby, go ahead and light up the town! And baby, do everything your heart desires. Just remember, I'll still be around,” Kamski sang louder, grinning at the surveillance cameras. “And I know, I know! Like I told you so many times before, you’re gonna come back. Yes, you’re gonna come back a- knocking—knocking on my door. Yeah, yeah!” Truly, the words were for Markus. Kamski had to put some faith in him. Time was on their side. “‘Cause I’ got the real love, the kind that you need,” he purred to the deviant leader. “That’s why I know that I’m gonna be sitting here—you’ll come running back.”

[darkspine10]

GF Fanfic - We Fought a Zoo

Dipper and Mabel Vs. The Past (34,006 words) by darkspine10

Chapters: 7/9

Fandom: Gravity Falls

Rating: Teen and Up

Zera was fighting to stay awake. Her wife had never learned how to teleport, and with her brother-in-law’s party taking the only car they were reduced to the horrors of public transport. They’d been lucky to squeeze past a throng into spare seats on the Muni bus heading into the city centre. Despite her tiredness, Zera found the connecting wires above the bus strangely fascinating - she’d never seen a vehicle restricted to one strict path side-by-side with free moving traffic before. Pressed in a line beside her father-in-law, she craned her neck like an eager child to catch a glimpse through bleary eyes.

Meanwhile Mabel grimaced at her father from across the way between strangers’ bodies rocking back and forth. In the packed bus it was all she could do to show she was sorry for the deceptions. He had his arms crossed and a neutral expression, which for him meant a resting gruffness much like his grandfather’s.

Mabel tried to ignore the unceasing gaze and plan for what lay ahead. Between them they had Journals 3, 6, and Stan and Ford’s combined tome, but Mabel wasn’t about to put her full trust in the books. Relying on the journal to find weaknesses in the heat of a fight was all well and good in theory, so Dipper assumed, but Mabel preferred a more practical approach. The journals had led to ruin as many times as success, and she lacked her brother’s unflinching reverence for knowledge for its own sake. No, she was readying to face the tulpa with sheer pluck and her own skills. Before leaving the house she’d equipped herself, strapping on her grapple gauntlet, the adapted invention she’d crafted from her old grappling hook. The black bracer was strapped to her left wrist. Beneath, in the adjacent launch tube, she’d loaded a multipurpose tranquiliser. It was enough to take down most possible threats.

Mabel wished she’d brought her motorbike, shaking in her seat as the bus turned a corner and made its way down another sloping street. Zera slid into Mr Pines’ side and held the nearby bar to stay upright in her seat. For his part, Mr Pines seemed vaguely uncomfortable at her touch - probably unnerved now he knew the woman next to him was not East Indian, but was in fact an ET with iridescent scales, tendrils rather than hair, and pale eyes like a shark’s. Still, Mabel mused, he was putting up with all this, so it wasn’t a total failure of first contact.

They were passing through the densest part of San Francisco, not far from where Errata had made his initial rampage. The people walking the streets seemed unperturbed, although the news had reported that the tulpa - resembling a horde of zombies at the time - had travelled in this direction. Maybe that was the reaction most people had to encountering the unknown, to bury their heads and forget in a collective effort to stay sane. It worked in Gravity Falls after all. She wondered what that meant for her family’s particular brand of relative madness, that they endeavoured to discover and chronicle every last shred of evidence of the paranormal.

“That’s where I work,” Mr Pines said awkwardly, pointing Zera’s eye towards one of the anonymous skyscrapers. It was obvious to her that he was faintly embarrassed. He was divided between his upset confusion at the events of the past day and his duties as a host to his daughter-in-law.

“As a… computer expert?” she offered, trying to open him up to conversation, though she had to yell somewhat in the cramped car. With the perception filter masking Zera’s alien features, Mabel could almost imagine this was a perfectly ordinary family outing.

“Yeah, I’m a back-end techie in a big software developer. You’d be surprised how satisfying editing lines of code to get rid of bugs can be.”

“Uh huh,” Zera said, and Mabel facepalmed. Her dad’s work was hardly the most thrilling to talk about. At least they were making an effort to get along.

The Muni led them through the Sunset District, an endless expanse of squat, square buildings, laid out in a gridlike pattern, then south, heading towards the coast. “I’m sad we didn’t stop in Haight-Ashbury,” Mabel yelled across the aisle, drawing annoyed looks from the other commuters.

“Probably best not to get high on a mission,” Zera said with a smile, though her father didn’t like the joke and merely deepened his scowl.

Finally they reached their stop and shuffled past the crowd to get off. They stood in a large parking lot leading to a boulevard of tended trees and shrubs that ended in a ticket office. Zera read a flag posted on a lamppost. “San Francisco Zoo. This is the place?” As far as the three of them could see there was no sign of panic. No people running or screaming. Families and kids lined up at the entrance to buy their tickets so they could gawk at the variety of exotic animals.

“You sure your construct thingy is here?” Mr Pines said doubtfully. He had Journal 6 open and was shaking his head at something in Dipper’s young-adult jottings.

“Gimme a sec.” Mabel pressed her palms together and closed her eyes. Her father looked at her quizzically while she concentrated for a few seconds. A gentle ripple flew out from her and raced across the zoo.

“Well, I’ll be-” Mr Pines was cut off when a rebounding wave passed over him and back to Mabel.

She opened her eyes and grinned. “Oh, it’s here alright.” She had used an aura detection spell, her and Zera’s alternative to Dipper’s technological solution. It had bounced off the tulpa’s mystical field like echolocation. “Can’t narrow it down though. Too many living things messing up the feed.”

“The zoo’s hardly small,” Zera said, peering at the ticket office and coming up with ways to avoid paying for three admissions. She kicked at the concrete. “That thing’s clever though, most cryptids won’t have a hard time blending in here. Without your brother’s tracker we’ll never find it. Like a needle in a haystack.”

“Do they have haystacks in space?” Mr Pines asked, genuinely curious.

Mabel slapped her forehead .”Ugh, I’m a dummy, before we left I should’ve…” She snapped her fingers. “Z, can you open another portal quickly?”

“Not really, transporting another person-“

“Not for me, just a little one,” she whispered her intent and put her palms together. “Pretty please? I’ll buy you a new fish tank for you to snack on when we get home?”

Zera relented and lifted her hands to enact the spell. She visibly strained with the effort, moaning as well, until a small hole opened up in the air, replacing a section of blue sky with floral wallpaper. A coiled rope tumbled out of the portal into Mabel’s arms. Zera dropped her hands and the portal closed with a pop.

“Thank you babe, you’re the best,” Mabel said. Zera, bent double, waved her off like it was nothing.

Mr Pines leant in to figure out Mabel’s plan and examine the rope. At least, he’d thought it was a rope. On closer inspection the rope writhed. “Holy Moses, is that Apep?”

“Yeppers!” Mabel said with a toothy grin. “She’s perfect!”

“Perfect? Are you a total mushuganah?! What good is that lazy reptile gonna be in a massive zoo?”

“She’s got homing instincts.” Both Mr Pines and Zera gave her looks of complete disbelief. “No, really. Apep may not seem like an active, go-getter snake, but she’s got this knack for sniffing out trouble.”

“Isn’t she also a total wimp who bolts at the first sign of risk to her fat, slimy body?” Zera pointed out. She tickled the snake’s chin. The animal wasn’t pleased to be roused from yet another nap today and coiled languorously around Mabel’s arms.

“We just need to give her something to sniff out, trust me.” Mabel held out Journal 3 in front of Apep’s nose. “C’mon girl, smell the scent of conspiracy and musty paper. The tulpas come from the journals, right? So they must have some things in common.”

Apep unexpectedly wriggled to the ground and slithered away. They heard a series of screams vanishing into the distance as she went. Mabel proudly put her hands on her hips and went towards the zoo. “Onwards, Aoshima!”

Zera shrugged at Mr Pines, as if to say, ‘ah, what the hell’, and followed Mabel. Mr Pines waited a moment, shook his head, then quickly walked to catch up with the girls. In the end they managed to achieve entry to the zoo using the flimsy excuse of being expert snake handlers, here to recapture a rare specimen. From the amount of unsettled visitors around the entrance, the ticket sellers were willing to believe the story.

The trio quickly became lost in the sights and sounds of the zoo. Lemurs and Monkeys swung on vines all around them. Across the savannah Zebras and Giraffes idly chewed on grass, while predators hungered greedily a short distance beyond. Each direction led to another great kingdom of animal life and it wasn’t hard to get overwhelmed by the sounds and smells of the rare animals. Despite the chaos of Apep’s release, as well as the possible lurking tulpa, the zoo remained calm, with people merrily going about their way, ignorant of any danger. Mabel had to send out another aura spell to try and pick up Apep’s trail.

Her father raised an eyebrow. “Wait, I thought there was too much biodiversity in here for that kind of magic mumbo jumbo?”

“It’s different with Apep,” Mabel patiently explained. “She’s like my familiar, I know her essence.”

“If you say so.” He shrugged, desiring nothing more than to be done with this adventure.

The spell’s trace led them to one of the smaller parts of the zoo, a white-brick building on the north side with a central circular window. It sat next to an anteater enclosure and a small ‘prehistoric garden’. Unknowingly, both twins’ parties ended up running into plastic dinosaurs that day. Mabel put on her glasses and examined a sign by the building her spell had bounced off of. “South American Tropical Rainforest and Aviary. Guess we found ‘tulpy’.”

She pushed the door open and the three of them tensed. Mabel made sure her gauntlet was ready for either grappling or darting, while Zera reluctantly whispered protection chants under her breath. She was already exhausted enough, let alone if she had to start making wards and firing offensive spells left and right. Mr Pines raised his fists in a weak show of defiance, but flinched on entering the humid greenhouse. A plumed basilisk lounging on a branch had spooked him with its wide-open eyes.

“That one’s just a regular animal, Dad,” Mabel teased. “Here Apep! Come to momma!” Against the walls of the room were rocky cliffs, and, above their heads, a large fallen tree trunk to add to the jungle-like atmosphere. So did the heat, making the two humans in the room instantly start to sweat.

“Over here.” Zera tiptoed over a low stone wall into a tropical oasis. Lying sunning among the pebbles was one very ‘pleased with herself’ snake. “Oh Apep, you useless desert noodle. Some hunting dog you turned out to be.”

“Aw, maybe she made a mistake.” Mabel said, kneeling on the wall. Apep didn’t resist, lying there waiting to be picked up again without a single thought behind her slitted eyes. Zera edged closer to her pet, pushing past a fern and trying to crouch down. A massive lizard hefted itself out of the foliage and Mabel cried out. “Woah, take it slow.”

“That’s a Komodo dragon!” Her father added, impressed by the size of the thing. The wrinkled creature was 10 feet across and dragging its bulk along the pebbled beach towards Zera. She froze in place, unsure what the best move would be.

“They’re venomous,” Mabel whispered, “back away and- wait a second.” She cocked her head to one side. “Komodo dragons aren’t from South America.”

“So, so what?” Mr Pines said frantically. “You can regale us with reptile trivia later.”

But Mabel had a point. Zera’s eyes widened as a curving sail crest unfurled itself on the back of the ‘dragon’. A small spark of noxious flame shot from the lizard’s nostrils. Zera swallowed and held her ground. She was inches from Apep but didn’t dare move a muscle closer. “Pyrosaur,” she stated. “Apep found our tulpa after all.”

“A juvenile, judging by the pint-size,” Mabel said. “They disappear in moonlight. Don’t suppose anyone thought to bring a full moon in their back pocket? No? Thought not.”

The tulpa-pyrosaur gave no warning as it leapt towards Zera, spewing fire in a spray ahead of itself. She dived for Apep then twirled to jump out of the way just as the fire singed her back. Steam rose from her skin, which had already been unreasonably dry. Zera rolled over, unable to stand and dropped Apep.

Mabel reflexively fired her grapple gauntlet - not aiming the tranquiliser at the pyrosaur, but sending a line to her partner. Zera feebly held on and let the cable drag her upright and out of range of the pyrosaur’s lunging teeth.

“Jehosophat!” Mr Pines cursed. He bundled Mabel towards the exit. Zera wobbled on her feet but managed to stay upright, while Apep serpentined out into daylight at a speed that outran all of them.

By now the tulpa had changed forms, going from a convincing reptilian to starkly technological. A floating cube launched itself past the group into the sky before dropping down towards a nearby exhibit. Mabel watched it descend and come down with a splash. She traced it and saw its destination was a new attraction at the zoo. “A Wonderland of Snow and Sea,” she intoned. “More Christmas theming.”

The area was decorated with large blue and white plastic approximating ice sheets. On rocky platforms around a meandering river sat polar bears on one island and a flock of emperor penguins on the other. Powerful air conditioners operating at full blast plummeted the temperature down. Mabel and her father soon forgot the sweat from the reptile house. Snow machines added a final touch of ambience, sprinkling them with fake paper chunks.

Supporting Zera on one arm, Mabel held a hand to block the sun glinting off the white plastic and scanned the new area. It must be a recent exhibition, full of transfers from zoos in colder climes. There wasn’t any trace of their wayward tulpa.

“No sign of it. Nothing. Bupkis.” Mr Pines had summed it up quite well. Mabel slumped down beside the riverbank and pursed her lips.

Only Zera’s spirits were lifted. “This is more like it. I’m going for a swim!” She pecked Mabel on the cheek, then ran towards the freezing water. Mr Pines watched amazed as she leapt in headfirst without even stopping to take her clothes off.

“She needs to rehydrate,” Mabel quietly explained. Apep slithered up next to her on the bank and stared into her eyes as if pleading to be sent back home through the same witchcraft that had whisked her out of comfort. Mabel stroked the animal, wishing she could provide for its wants. “You did good, girl,” she whispered, “sorry we blew your lead.”

Mr Pines looked around the enclosure and sat himself next to his daughter. “At least she did better than the blasted pig ever could.”

“Waddles is special too, in his own unique, piggy way.” Mabel pulled her legs in tight and slumped her head on her knees. “It’s not fair. You shouldn’t have to be thrown in the deep end like this.” Mr Pines realised she was talking about himself and the sudden discoveries he and his wife had made. “I didn’t get a chance to say it before, we were in such a rush to fix things. Dipper even had this whole ‘slow reveal’ plan with the journals.” Mabel placed Journal 3 on the shingle.

Mr Pines opened the book to a page near the back. Mabel’s own handwriting was scrawled on the page in pastel crayon, talking about unicorns and protective shield enchantments. The cartoonish doodles she’d drawn were a reminder of how very young his children had been when they started all of this. When they’d started lying. He sighed. “I know why Dipper lied. Boy’s the most anxious kid known to mankind. But why you, Mabel? Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

“I wanted to,” she said, looking away and picking up handfuls of pebbles to slip through her fingers. “I wrote you a letter and everything during our first summer away. But we passed it off as my wacky imagination.” She threw away the rocks so they splashed in the river. “Then Dipper got talking about hiding the truth, and I was only supporting him at first. Eventually I got thinking that what he said made sense. I didn’t want to lose out on our amazing lives chasing monsters either, I mean, what teenager would! It got hidden the same way I hid all my boyfriends and girlfriends. I’ve always had trouble adjusting to change, especially when it’s in my hands to decide.” Her shoulders tensed. “Dad, do you or Mom know what I’ve been up to the past few years?”

“Oh, you mean the ‘activism’.” Mr Pines made quote marks with his fingers. “Sure, we know all about that?”

“But, like, how much do you know? I’ve not exactly been following the law 100% of the time.”

Mr Pines snorted. “Come on, you can say it. You’ve been a notorious criminal.” Mabel seemed surprised but he shook his head. “Heck May, it’s not like we could avoid seeing your name and face crop up on the news every few months. All those protests and strikes across the country, and there was our little girl, every time.”

“Trying to make the world a better place one step at a time. If you knew, why didn’t you bring it up before now?”

“And ruin the Christmas mood? We didn’t want to cause a scene.”

He seemed appalled by the idea and Mabel couldn’t help but laugh. “Man, our family is crap at direct communication.”

“Mabel!” he admonished. “That was certainly direct language.”

She was still grinning. “No, but it’s true. Stan and Ford, me’n Dipper, we can’t help but be stupid about talking to each other. We bury our real feelings until we fall apart. Maybe we should all stop caring so much about nebulous future consequences and live a little, you know?”

“Can I ask, what about Zera? Is she… like you?”

“What do you mean, Dad? Is she an expert knitter, does she like cute kittens, is she equally hot and sexy?”

He shoved her away playfully. “You know what I mean pumpkin. Does she go out of her way to help people and cause trouble with the police like you’re always getting up to?”

“Well, she does the latter. I’m working on the former; she’s very keen.” Mabel spied her wife swimming backstroke by a pair of bemused polar bears. “Zera’s been along for the ride on a lot of our recent adventures. I trust her fully with my life. Though not necessarily my wallet. Do you wanna know how we really met? Zera tried to scam me out of a giant crystal in Japan. She pretended to be the last of her kind.”

“And, that wasn’t true?”

“Heck no, far from it. All lies. But she cared about me, and we bonded, and now everything’s amazing. Maybe we can forget all the lying between us, too?” Mabel stared imploringly at her father.

He grinned. “Hey, I’m just sad how much I missed out on. You’ve been to space, saved the world, had all these insane things happen. Most of all I missed getting to walk my little girl down the aisle.” Mabel hugged him tight, burying her head in the crook of his neck. “I suppose this is all my fault, when you think about it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was the one who suggested that you and Dipper should spend a summer up north. I remembered all the fun I had in Gravity Falls - swimming in the lake, wandering the forest trails - and figured you’d get something out of it too. I thought it would be character building, sending you all alone and having you work for Uncle Stan like I did, with no technology to rely on.”

Mabel gave a small laugh. “You realise we had smartphones back then, dad?”

“Yeah yeah, I know, stardust. I thought the trip would be one big adventure. I guess I underestimated quite how big. I mean, it makes sense. My job is so boring, anything outside my comfort zone feels like a major step.”

“You’re not doing so bad so far,” Mabel said, pleased to have made some small way towards repairing their rift.

“Your mother might take longer to come around though. Mary doesn’t change her mind swiftly.”

“Nor does Dipper,” Mabel said, chuckling.

At that moment, Zera swam up to them. She rested her arms on the riverbank and flashed them a smile. “Well well, what exotic animals do we have here? Primates from the southwest USA if I’m not mistaken?” Her clothes, from her pullover vest to her plaid skirt and boots, were all soaking wet. Zera didn’t seem to mind. She was about to climb onto the bank when she suddenly jerked backwards.

Mabel shot to her feet as Zera felt another tug and splashed under the water. She emerged again, waving her arms and spluttering. Her perception filter flickered on and off, flashing between human and alien. With one hand she clung onto the beach. “My leg!” She closed her eyes and pulled with all her might but it was no use. She was dragged inexorably under the water.

“Can she breathe under there?” Mr Pines said, jumping to his feet and searching wildly for a life preserver.

“I’m not waiting to find out.” Mabel gulped in a breath of air and dived in after Zera. The water chilled her skin and the extra weight absorbed by her clothes began to weigh heavily. Zera was reaching for the surface and being continuously pulled down. The water was clear enough for Mabel to make out a long, slimy tentacle wrapped around one of her legs. She let out a stream of bubbles as she gasped in shock. An octopus-like mass resided on the riverbed. It had a golden sheen.

Pressed for time, Mabel aimed her wrist at the creature and flicked her wrist. The tranquiliser dart moved slowly through the water towards the lovecraftian abomination, striking lucky and causing the beast to flail its tentacles. Zera was freed from its grip but a stray tentacle hit her on the forehead. Stunned, she floated lifelessly in the murk. Mabel launched her grappling hook and tied it around Zera’s arms. She kicked out and broke the surface. Sucking in air, she slapped her arms in the water to swim towards the bank. She was grateful when her father pulled her, and Zera tangled in the cable, out onto dry land.

“Oh man, that’s not gonna do much for my headache,” Zera said wearily, rolling onto her back. “It was bad enough before.”

“I’m just glad you’re alright,” Mabel said, squeezing her hand.

“Look out!” Mr Pines cried. Tentacles heaved the massive dripping body of the tulpa out of the water. They picked themselves up and cleared the beach. The octopus’ movements were clumsy, wobbling and unsteady out of the water Mabel saw her dart sticking out of the flank and knew that the sedative inside was getting to work, sapping the tulpa of its energy. They only had to hold out until it finally relented.

The tulpa glowed and shrunk considerably, turning into a human-sized waffle with a face and beefy arms. “Hey, that’s a Mabel-copyrighted design!” Zera and her father remained baffled by the sight. It didn’t stay in this form for long. After using its arms to pull itself upright, the tulpa dissolved into a swarm of small dome-shaped shells which scattered and darted past their legs. Mabel tried to grab one of the components but it vibrated and sank a few inches into the ground to slip past. The swarm coalesced once it had passed them, choosing a form suited for escape - a winged griffin.

“Oh no you don’t!” Mabel yelled, firing another grappling line at the tulpa’s lion rear. She fell onto her face and was pulled uncomfortably along. Zera leaped beside her and also clutched the trailing cable. Mabel fiddled with her wrist gauntlet until they were suddenly yanked forwards by the mechanism. They managed to land on the tulpa’s back, riding it like an ungainly mount and keeping it grounded for now.

A wooden structure loomed ahead of them. “Watch out for the earthquake shack!” Mr Pines called. The shack that had stood since 1906 toppled over onto its side and the creature thundered past. Mr Pines jogged after them, Apep tangled up in his arms and hissing at him.

Mabel and Zera clung to the griffin, at the part where fur turned to feathers. The wings flapped, sending them gliding over the heads of tourists who were only now aware of the chaos that had been unleashed. With the extra weight from the couple the griffin could barely stay airborne. It adjusted its thrust, flapping its wings harder to achieve a clean lift.

“No, bad griffin! Bad tulpa! Bad ‘sketch from Ford’s journal’! Stop struggling!” Mabel pulled on the feathery head of the creature to no effect. She tried punching the beast with heavy blows, courtesy of her boxing training with Stan, but to no reaction. The sedative was already making the tulpa sluggish and it shrugged off any feeling of pain. It lurched onwards, cresting over the edge of the zoo’s boundary and heading towards the open sea. The setting sun cast an orange glare in their eyes.

“Hold your breath again!” Zera shouted over the rush of air. The griffin dived at the water and carried them both under. It submerged for only a moment before launching back out. Mabel coughed up salt water and rubbed her stinging eyes, while Zera didn’t seem to suffer compared to fresh water. “That’s enough!” Zera bent over and sank her teeth into the griffin’s flank, right above the lion’s tail. Mabel had learnt from close experience that her wife sported a pair of retractable fangs - she’d only found that fact out at the climax of one of their first dates.

Their flight peeled off, following the coast north. The two of them gasped as the imposing might of the Golden Gate Bridge came into view. Zera panicked, but Mabel made what seemed like an insane move. She gripped the tulpa’s head and steered it towards the looming red support beam. “Get ready to jump!”

Zera’s muscles tensed. A moment before the tulpa struck metal she launched herself backwards, doing a pirouette in the air before diving into the ocean. Zera stuck her head out of the water just in time to see Mabel going the opposite way. She fired her grappling hook upwards and swung off the back of the griffin. Out of control, the dazed beast flew headfirst into the support beam. It crumpled against the metal, warping and shifting as most of its body mass melted away. It ended up taking the shape of a small key. Mabel knew this was the President’s Key, able to open locks across the country.

Up above she perched on the edge of a tiny ledge jutting out of the metal. She launched one last shot downwards, grabbing the key in mid air before it was lost in the ocean. She retracted the line and held the tulpa’s inanimate form triumphantly in the air. She cheered down at Zera and began laughing hysterically. “Did you see that? We nearly got killed by a bridge. Woah, this is higher than I realised.” Mabel began to wobble on the platform, slowly falling over. “Vertigo, vertigoing, vertigone.” She held a hand to her forehead and theatrically fell off the ledge.

Zera rolled her eyes down below and aimed an outstretched hand and her over-dramatic wife. “Razzamafoo!” she said, aiming a beam of light at Mabel, who vanished and reappeared in the water next to her in a puff of smoke.

“I knew you’d save me,” Mabel said, grinning like a loon.

Zera touched her forehead with the back of her palm. “The adrenaline’s gone to your head. That’s the last time I use any teleportation magic around you. You’re a menace, May Pines.”

“You know you love me for it.” Despite the cold and wet they kissed while floating in the ocean. Mabel wrapped her arms around Zera, afraid to let go. “I mean it. I love you, Zera.” Mabel didn’t want to be anywhere other than alone in the wide ocean, wrapped in that embrace with the woman she’d married. “So,” she said almost deliriously. “Can you breathe underwater or what?” Zera just burst into giggles.

Atop the bridge a small crowd of onlookers were watching the two of them. Mr Pines pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “Oh thank goodness!”

The two of them in the water turned their heads. “Hey Dad!” Mabel shouted and waved.

“Are you two going to get out?”

Mabel looked Zera in the eye. “I don’t know about you, but a cup of hot cocoa on dry land sounds so good right about now.”

A few minutes later they’d swum to the shoreline, mostly thanks to Zera’s powerful kicks through the water. She was much better adapted for swimming than Mabel, who clung to her wife and let her do most of the work. They rendezvoused with Mr Pines, who’d found some towels for them to dry off. Mabel had even got her precious cocoa, provided by the zoo.

Mr Pines didn’t seem happy with himself, pacing around the parking lot while the girls watched the sunset over the ocean. “I wasn’t much help. I could hardly save the day with bug reports or hacking skills,” he scoffed. “Maybe I’m not cut out for this hero business.”

“No-one’s asking you to be,” Mabel said cheerily. “We only wanted you know what our crazy lives are like. You don’t have to become a full-time participant.”

“I think he did an admirable job at least,” Zera confirmed. She shook his hand and raised a small smile at least.

Mabel examined the golden key she’d retrieved, feeling its weight in her palm. A few tiny particles of golden light floated above its surface. “If the others have caught their tulpa, then it’s two down, one to go.”