#the-new-fifth-year ai

[traceyc-uk]

Let's slowly get more into the mood for Spooky Season 🎃🦇👻🍁🍂

The New Fifth Year got invited to a smoll party. 💚

(Hope he had fun!)

He indeed had such great fun! First Halloween at Hogwarts and frothy butterbeers! his submission for the pumpkin carving wasn’t quite a pumpkin but he enjoyed making it 🥝

And indeed it’s setting the tone for the rest of October! Why must you vex me with your cute renditions 🥹😭🫂🫂💕💚💚 Thank you omg I love his suspenders I might have to try draw them more in his outfits

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - March 18

1. FDA to Finally Outlaw Soda Ingredient Prohibited Around The World

An ingredient once commonly used in citrus-flavored sodas to keep the tangy taste mixed thoroughly through the beverage could finally be banned for good across the US. BVO, or brominated vegetable oil, is already banned in many countries, including India, Japan, and nations of the European Union, and was outlawed in the state of California in October 2022.

2. AI makes breakthrough discovery in battle to cure prostate cancer

Scientists have used AI to reveal a new form of aggressive prostate cancer which could revolutionise how the disease is diagnosed and treated.

A Cancer Research UK-funded study found prostate cancer, which affects one in eight men in their lifetime, includes two subtypes. It is hoped the findings could save thousands of lives in future and revolutionise how the cancer is diagnosed and treated.

3. “Inverse vaccine” shows potential to treat multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases

A new type of vaccine developed by researchers at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) has shown in the lab setting that it can completely reverse autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes — all without shutting down the rest of the immune system.

4. Paris 2024 Olympics makes history with unprecedented full gender parity

In a historic move, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has distributed equal quotas for female and male athletes for the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris 2024. It is the first time The Olympics will have full gender parity and is a significant milestone in the pursuit of equal representation and opportunities for women in sports.

Biased media coverage lead girls and boys to abandon sports.

5. Restored coral reefs can grow as fast as healthy reefs in just 4 years, new research shows

Planting new coral in degraded reefs can lead to rapid recovery – with restored reefs growing as fast as healthy reefs after just four years. Researchers studied these reefs to assess whether coral restoration can bring back the important ecosystem functions of a healthy reef.

“The speed of recovery we saw is incredible,” said lead author Dr Ines Lange, from the University of Exeter.

6. EU regulators pass the planet's first sweeping AI regulations

The EU is banning practices that it believes will threaten citizens' rights. "Biometric categorization systems based on sensitive characteristics" will be outlawed, as will the "untargeted scraping" of images of faces from CCTV footage and the web to create facial recognition databases.

Other applications that will be banned include social scoring; emotion recognition in schools and workplaces; and "AI that manipulates human behavior or exploits people’s vulnerabilities."

7. Global child deaths reach historic low in 2022 – UN report

The number of children who died before their fifth birthday has reached a historic low, dropping to 4.9 million in 2022.

The report reveals that more children are surviving today than ever before, with the global under-5 mortality rate declining by 51 per cent since 2000.

---

That's it for this week :)

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[etirabys]

meandering post about reading Orson Scott Card again

I've been offline starting at 9pm every day (except once. I was drunk at karaoke and asked for anons at 8:30pm) for six weeks, with the result that in befuddled boredom two nights ago I picked up Orson Scott Card's Songmaster from the house bookshelf.

I read Ender's Game and three sequels when I was a teen thought the books were mid. Since those are OSC's best works I assumed he had nothing more interesting to offer me and didn't try more of him for fifteen years, but Songmaster was compelling enough that I immediately afterwards picked up The Memory of Earth, the first book of a pentalogy.

TMoE is extremely my jam: after humanity blows itself up on Earth, AIs monitor thriving human civilizations in the planets that survivors managed to escape to, and suppress any tech that enables large scale violence by exerting low key mind control via satellites. But forty million years pass, many of the satellites break down, and the AI needs help from humans to restore capabilities. Because as its control wanes, people are starting to e.g. conceive of airplanes or bombs again, and override the injunctions against entering military alliances more than two edges of connection away.

The AI is worshipped as a god all over the planet, but the fourteen year old protagonist that becomes one of the AI's agents tells the AI from the beginning that he'll break with it if its morality seems wrong to him. I like the fourteen year old – unlike Ender or Songmaster's protagonist (adult minds piloting ten year old bodies), he's a normal gifted kid who's unpopular 50% due to his ego and big mouth and 50% because he's socially inept and offends people even when he's trying to be nice.

Songmaster is also partly about a permanent solution to large-scale violence, albeit through one guy who establishes a monopoly on violence and sweeps in pax galactica. Both it and TMoE are preoccupied with the eradication of suffering from evil / human violence, which is closer to my resonant frequency than narratives about defeating particular people or ideologies. At the moment I can't think of any other book with such an insistent focus on the matter than T.H. White's The Once and Future King. It's hard to make a compelling story out of, and I don't think Songmaster really succeeds, but TMoE's premise is well suited to explore that. (I'm also enjoying the matriarchal culture where everyone is expected to have multiple serial-monogamous marriages.) After reading 70% of TMoE last night I wrote:

Usually when I read fiction there's a small part of me going, how can I use this as fodder for my own growth, how can I remix or improve or react against this, how do the author and I measure against each other? (If the quality and content are at an anti-sweet spot, the small part becomes quite large and I feel all teeth towards the author.) But on occasion I read something so close that the absence of that measuring-feeling is its own sensation – ego departs, or at least is split across two bodies. There's just amity and recognition

And it's pretty interesting to feel this way about Card for, well, the reasons.

(If you're familiar with Card drama none of the following will be new to you; I'm coming to it fresh so the rest of this post is me going "uh... wow")

I vaguely knew he was a homophobic Mormon who'd gotten into fights about gay stuff, but I couldn't tell from the Ender books I read. But in Songmaster his issues spring off the page in such a weird way. Every fifth Goodreads review of this book is "Card, u gay?" because, well,

(One review, possibly from a fellow Mormon, that went "Card, it's so sinful of you to be this gay in your novel". Why did he write this book that would predictably make everyone mad...)

it's full of gay male desire. The protagonist (Ansset) is approximately a castrato and characters notice him sexually a lot. The first and only time Ansset has sex it's with a Kinsey 4-5 male character he loves, who's married to a woman but has fallen in love with Ansset. It turns out the drugs Ansset took to prolong his singing career painfully and only-kinda-figuratively explode your balls when you have your first orgasm and you'll never feel sexual desire again. (You'd think his loving teachers would have warned him of that, but, whatever, they didn't.) The other guy is literally castrated in punishment for inadvertently torturing a highly valuable castrato. It's pretty bald: GAY SEX IS ALMOST IRRESISTIBLY TEMPTING BUT YOU SHOULDN'T DO IT.

(Sidenote: both Ansset and the guy's wife are very close and have a "there's enough love to go around" attitude about the gay sex initially, before they go "wait Josif is a SERIAL MONOGAMIST... he can only love one person at a time... the moment he had the gay sex his marriage was destroyed". It's funny in a mildly stupid way that Card would set up this parable of homosexuality destroying lives and a marriage but almost everyone involved is peacefully ready to sail into an open marriage. I guess it makes sense if you want to say very clearly that THE GAY PART IS THE BAD PART)

which is fascinating to me, because... why would you tell on yourself like that

(81k also told me secondhand of an essay? interview? where Card openly says "we have to stand against legalizing gay marriage because everyone will get gay married and society will collapse", so that's informing my read of Songmaster as well)

I am pretty dang open about my personal life online but if I had a lot of feelings I thought were disgusting and immoral I would not write a novel dripping with those feelings before pointedly castrating the leads for them. Especially if it wasn't relevant to the actually highbrow themes of (checks notes) winning over your adversaries with kindness and never relinquishing your monopoly on violence. I would be so so so so embarrassed to let this go to print, it's so psychologically transparent, what was he thinking

(Well, I assume he's a very different person with different social incentives. For all I know, people in his church went "hey Orson we read your book and it's clear that you're gay but signaling strongly that you won't give into the gay feelings, we're here for you, it was really brave of you to publish this".)

[ryuichirou]

Why is Ortho included in ship art? He died as a child, and although he was rebuilt, his emotional intelligence and maturity level stayed the same as that of a child. Although I fully disagree, I do want to understand your reasoning. Especially since Ortho and Idia are related and I saw your art of them kissing. I am genuinely confused.

I’ll be honest, Anon: the amount of people who message us pretending to be genuinely confused while having ill intentions are more than I care to admit, and this is very tiring; this is why I might sound a little dry in my reply. But I don’t mind explaining it if you genuinely want to understand it. That being said, let this be the last time I am ranting about this topic because there is nothing new I can say.

Here is the short answer: Ortho is included in ship art because we ship him with other characters. Ortho having a maturity level, mentality and/or intelligence of a child is a myth that contradicts canon and only exists to antagonise people who view Ortho as anything other than Idia’s baby mascot with zero agency. The fact that Idia and Ortho are related is not a reason not to ship them: shipping is fictional and doesn’t reflect one’s views on irl matters. Exploring taboo and problematic dynamics and tropes in fiction is a part of natural human experience. What I care most about in shipping is characters’ dynamic that I find fun for shipping. Their relation to each other comes second, but I won’t pretend it doesn’t exist if it does exist.

Now I’ll give you a long answer. Starting with “Ortho is a child/8-year-old/5-year-old/toddler” argument.

We actually saw real 8 yo Ortho before his death in Idia’s flashback and, wow, we can see that AI!Ortho and flashback!Ortho aren’t the same Ortho. "My largest amount of birthday data comes from eleven years ago, when I was five” is the line that Ortho says in one of his Birthday vignettes, which indicates that even though he does have memories of dead!Ortho, he is not stuck in the age of 8 – he thinks and feels that his fifth birthday happened eleven years ago.

But also just in general, if you listen to him talk and compare it to how he talked in Idia’s flashback (both the voice and the manner of speech), it becomes pretty clear that he is older. He is younger-looking and has a high-pitched voice but it’s due to the fact that Idia designed him to look that way, and there are a lot of potential reasons why he could’ve done it (all non-canon and theoretical, so we won’t dive into them today), but he is definitely not 8 years old. Ortho’s AI constantly learns new information, learns more about being a human – he is clearly maturing as the story goes, thus showing that he is in fact capable of aging mentally, and he’s been doing it from the moment Idia first created him. He is naive and inexperienced, but that doesn’t make him an infant.

Plus, post ch.6 he is always being grouped with other freshmen who are also sixteen years old. This is his age group. This is how old Ortho would’ve been if he was still alive, and this is how old AI!Ortho feels. He’s a proper first year student just like Ace, Deuce and the rest of the boys, and the story keeps highlighting it in all the events that happened post ch.6.

Speaking of post ch.6. At the end of the story AI!Ortho and real/blot!Ortho actually merged a little, as far as you can remember. Blot!Ortho, wow, is also 16. He’s been stuck in the Underworld since he was 8 and he existed all those years and grew up as well despite his terrible situation and more than unusual company, so we can safely assume his age. His merging with AI!Ortho also influenced him (AI!Ortho) in a way, making him more human as a result as well.

Not to sound mean, but I think the majority of people who still insist that Ortho is mentally 8 either don’t pay attention to his character, his story and how he interacts with others at all, or straight-up choose to believe that lie because it makes it easier to attack shippers or anyone who likes Ortho in general.

But also guess what, none of that matters actually because ultimately he is a fictional boy, and fictional characters’ ages are irrelevant. Just like fictional characters’ family relations are irrelevant. Even if you don’t think it’s right, that doesn’t change the fact that it is irrelevant, and the only thing that could be done about it is that you can block people and/or tags that make you upset. There is no shame about it: I avoid a lot of ships and tropes that make me upset.

I would prefer people to stop accusing me, a real person, of actual vile crimes (or having dark thoughts about them? What the fuck is wrong with you?) because of fictional, made-up things. If I want to, I can unrelate Ortho and Idia, and my fanart would stop being incestuous with a snap of my fingers. I can make them enemies, I can make them kill each other over and over again, I can kill Idia instead of Ortho. I say this to show how little it matters, and no, ~the implications~ don’t count. People make them up and choose to believe that instead of listening to the person in question. About a real person, let me repeat myself. You (plural/neutral you, not you, Anon) cannot make shit up about another person’s thoughts, ideas, and views just because you find it convenient.

As for why I personally ship Ortho with Idia despite them being siblings, you’re in luck because in addition to this already long post I have an even longer post for you to read if you’re interested! It’s been more than a year since I’ve written that post my reasoning is still pretty much the same, so I think it’s a pretty good one to read if you genuinely want to understand us better.

But if you don’t want to read another long post but are still interested, here is a TL;DR:

I love their deep love for each other and don’t want to just explore the platonic aspect of it – there are a lot of other scenarios that I want to play with;

there are a lot of tropes related to this ship that we love (us two against the world; AI in love; causing an apocalypse for the sake of your loved one; unhealthy and codependent relationship; obsession, etc);

their story has a lot of motifs that could be read as romantic (i.e. Orpheus and Eurydice analogy) that we really enjoy;

personal reasons; relatability (not elaborating on that; not related to incest though lol);

they’re sexy lol I love robot parts, size difference and a lot of other aspects that I won’t mention here.

I hope that explained some stuff. Just to be clear: I don’t want to force anyone ship Shroudcest, in fact I don’t care if we are the only people in the world shipping them (that will never be the case though lol). I just love Ortho very much, and I think he is a very fun character that has a lot to offer, and I really don’t like that people want to create this aura of “he’s just baby don’t touch him” that stops people for getting to know his character better. He is cunning, he is smart, he is caring, he is psychopathic, he is a lot of things, and all of those things make me want to see him bossing Idia around, acting cute around Vil, bonding with Malleus over their differences and similarities, all of those things.

[i-love-your-light]

too many thoughts on the new hbomberguy video not to put them anywhere so:

with every app trying to turn into the clock app these days by feeding you endless short form content, *how many* pieces of misinformation does the average person consume day to day?? thinking a lot about how tons of people on social media go largely unquestioned about the information they provide just because they speak confidently into the camera. if you're scrolling through hundreds of pieces of content a day, how many are you realistically going to have the time and will to check? i think there's an unfortunate subconscious bias in liberal and leftist spaces that misinformation is something that is done only by the right, but it's a bipartisan issue babey. everybody's got their own agendas, even if they're on "your side". *insert you are not immune to propaganda garfield meme*

and speaking of fact checking, can't help but think about how much the current state of search engines Sucks So Bad right now. not that this excuses ANY of the misinformation at all, but i think it provides further context as to why these things become so prevalent in creators who become quick-turnaround-content-farms and cut corners when it comes to researching. when i was in high school and learning how to research and cite sources, google was a whole different landscape that was relatively easy to navigate. nowadays a search might give you an ad, a fake news article, somebody's random blog, a quora question, and another ad before actually giving you a relevant verifiable source. i was googling a question about 1920s technology the other day (for a fanfiction im writing lmao) and the VERY FIRST RESULT google gave me was some random fifth grader's school assignment on the topic???? like?????? WHAT????? it just makes it even harder for people to fact-check misinformation too.

going off the point of cutting corners when it comes to creating content, i can't help but think about capitalism's looming influence over all of this too. again, not as an excuse at all but just as further environmental context (because i really believe the takeaway shouldn't be "wow look how bad this one individual guy is" but rather "wow this is one specific example of a much larger systemic issue that is more pervasive than we realize"). a natural consequence of the inhumanity of capitalism is that people feel as if they have to step on or over eachother to get to 'the top'. if everybody is on this individualistic american dream race to success, everyone else around you just looks like collateral. of course then you're going to take shortcuts, and you're going to swindle labor and intellectual property from others, because your primary motivation is accruing capital (financial or social) over ethics or actual labor.

i've been thinking about this in relation to AI as well, and the notion that some people want to Be Artists without Doing Art. they want to Have Done Art but not labor through the process. to present something shiny to the world and benefit off of it. they don't want to go through the actual process of creating, they just want a product. Easy money. Winning the game of capitalism.

i can't even fully fault this mentality- as someone who has been struggling making barely minimum wage from art in one of the most expensive cities in america for the past two years, i can't say that i haven't been tempted on really difficult occasions to act in ways that would be morally bad but would give me a reprieve from the constant stress cycle of "how am i going to pay for my own survival for another month". the difference is i don't give in to those impulses.

tl;dr i hope that people realize that instead of this just being a time to dogpile on one guy (or a few people), that it's actually about a larger systemic problem, and the perfect breeding grounds society has created for this kind of behavior to largely go unchecked!!!

[loudrats]

Loud Rats Book Club 2023

This year the rats became literate!

We suggested a number of books each month and then voted on one to read (somehow Fish managed to read all 12 of them… wild!). The ones in red are the winners, but there are some other really good books in there.

Hopefully you can find your next favourite read below! :)

January

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

The Butchering Art by Lindsay Fitzharris

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy

Fledgling by Octavia Butler

Pirates and Prejudice by Kara Louise

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

February

Adua by Igiaba Scego

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

March

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Humans by Matt Haig

Cane by Jean Toomer

Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin (#1 Broken Earth Trilogy)

Young Mungo by Douglas Stewart

April

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrel

Dubliners by James Joyce

The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

May

Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Where You Come From by Saša Stanišić

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

June

Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh

Our Hideous Progeny by C. E. McGill

Swimming in the dark by Tomasz Jędrowski

Girls like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 17 by Jeff Kinney

Zami: A New Spelling of my Name by Audre Lorde

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

July

Kid Youtuber 9: Everything is Fine by Marcus Emerson, Noah Child

Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella

Hit Parade Of Tears by Izumi Suzuki

When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back: Carl's Book by Naja Marie Aidt

Pandora's Jar by Natalie Haynes

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

Mapping the Interior by Stephan Graham Jones

August

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

Small Game by Blair Braverman

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

September

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

October

Linghun by Ai Jiang

Eyes Guts Throat Bones by Moira Fowley-Doyle

The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers

The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley

Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastašić

Kindred by Octavia Butler

November

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Life For Sale by Yukio Mishima

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Liberation Day by George Saunders

Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter

Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

December

Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes by Maurice Leblanc

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

[captainsophiestark]

What The Fuck Is A Grid System

Jack Thompson x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for my personal fic writing challenge for 2024, Sophie's Year of Fic! Featuring a new fic being posted every Friday, all year long :)

Fandom: Marvel

Summary: Jack Thompson's a New Yorker, dammit, and when Peggy and Daniel leave him to find his own way through the winding streets of LA with only some shaky directions as guidance, he might need a little help from a local to see him through.

Word Count: 2,031

Category: Fluff, Humor

A/N: It is not only a miracle that this got done, but also that I'm happy with how it turned out 😂

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

I narrowed my eyes as I sipped my coffee, watching a man on the sidewalk. The same guy had just walked past this building for the third time, looking increasingly irritated. He kept checking a sheet of paper in his hands, then looking up at the buildings before disappearing out of my sight. So far, he'd never been gone more than a few mintues before coming back.

I debated getting up and saying something when he returned a fourth time, although I ultimately opted to stay put. But when he came back for a fifth time looking ready to hurl the paper in his hand into traffic, I decided to do something.

I stood, setting my coffee cup down at the counter with a wave to the barista before heading out the door. The guy still stood in the middle of the sidewalk, the same spot he'd visited almost half a dozen times now, looking around the city like this time, something would change.

"Hey!" I called, strolling up to him with a wave. He turned around slowly, like he wasn't sure I was talking to him, then narrowed his eyes when he saw me approaching. I gave him my best winning smile. "You look like you could use some help."

The guy scoffed, immediately turning away from me. i just smiled a little wider. He was tall, and handsome, and clearly pretty arrogant. Unfortunately for him, he also clearly had no idea what the hell he was doing.

"So what are you looking for?" I asked, ignoring the clear brush off and stepping closer to him again. "I can probably help you find it."

"I don't need help," he snapped, at last turning to face me. I just raised an eyebrow and stared right back. He cleared his throat, quickly turning back to the paper in his hands as a flush crept up his neck. "I don't need help. This city needs help. Who the hell lays a place out like this?"

"Ohhh. I thought you had some New York enegry going. That makes sense."

"What? What's that supposed to mean?"

I waved him off. "Don't worry about it. Look, you may just be able to walk in a straight line to get where you want to go in New York, but this is LA. We do things differently here."

"Differently and much, much worse."

I snorted and rolled my eyes, then snatched the paper out of his hand before he could stop me.

"Hey!"

"You're trying to get to the Sunrise Resort, right? Come on, it's this way."

"I've already tried that way."

"And clearly you did something wrong, since you ended up back here again. C'mon, let me help you. Unless you want to stand outside this coffee shop all day?"

I paused on the corner of the block, looking back at the man in question, his scribbled directions still held in my hand. He glared at me, and for a moment, I thought he really might not follow me. Then, he sighed and rolled his eyes, putting one foot in front of the other all the same as he trudged towards me.

"Fine. Let's go then."

He breezed right past me, walking with all the speed and huffiness I'd expected from him. I absolutely beamed at his retreating form, letting him get a few steps further away from me than necessary before calling out down the street.

"Wrong way, hot shot!"

He froze, his shoulders shooting up to his ears. I just grinned, waiting for him to eventually turn around. He did, slowly, a fierce scowl on his face. I had to fight back a chuckle.

"At least now we know where you were going wrong before. C'mon!"

I turned on my heel and started heading down the street in the opposite direction, this time trusting him to follow me. In less time than I'd been expecting, he caught up to me, falling into step beside me and walking with a confidence I hadn't expected him to recover for at least twenty minutes.

"You still need that paper, or do you actually know where you're going?" he huffed. I grinned and held it out to him.

"All yours!" He snatched it out of my hands, then shoved it in his pocket without another word. I let us walk in silence for another few steps, but this walk was going to be about half an hour all-told. I wasn't going to spend it walking in silence. "So... what's your name?"

The guy cut his eyes towards me, looking a little suspicious. I let the silence stretch, looking at him expectantly, and after the better part of the next block he sighed.

"Jack. What's yours?"

I told him, giving him the same beaming smile I'd given him a few times now. This time, he actually seemed a little more receptive to it.

"It's nice to meet you, Jack. So, what brings you out to LA?"

"Business. With any luck, I'll be out of here in a few days."

I laughed. "Oh, come on. Don't be ridiculous. It's the middle of winter, there's no way you're not at least a little bit happy to be in the LA sunshine over the New York winter."

"Have you had a pizza here?"

"Yes. I've also had ice cream on the beach in February. Both have been fantastic."

He snorted. "You really haven't lived yet if you think the pizza here is fanastic."

"Hm." I let my eyes wander, scanning the street ahead of us. Lo and behold, one of my favorite gelato shops was open on the next block, and even better, with almost no line. "Alright, pizza snob, time for a pit stop."

Before he could so much as open his mouth to ask a question, I grabbed Jack's arm and dragged him through the doors of the gelato shop as we walked past.

"Try doing this when you go back to New York and not freezing your ass off," I said as I stepped up to the gelato counter, pulling him with me. He huffed, but didn't put up any more of a fight. I smiled to myself as we surveyed the flavors laid out before us.

"Well, LA? What do you recommend?"

"Hm... honestly, you can't go wrong at this place. But I've always been a fan of the chocolate."

"Chocolate, huh?" He turned to the person behind the counter and called out. "We'll take two cones of chocolate."

I grinned, slipping forward to the counter and paying for the both of us while Jack grabbed our gelato cones. He turned for the cash register, then turned back to me with an incredulous look when he realized I'd beat him to it.

"I was gonna get that," he said. I just smiled and took my cone out of his stunned hand.

"You snooze you loose. Besides, I'm the one who dragged you in here. Consider it a better welcome to LA than our street system gave you."

Jack snorted, but the joke got him moving again. He fell into step beside me as we headed out of the gelato shop together.

"Well, thanks then. And I can say definitively, this has been a much better welcome than this city's ever given me before."

I laughed, leaning into Jack a little as we continued down the street, both happily eating our gelato. Unlike earlier, this time the silence was more comfortable than irritated, and I didn't mind it one bit.

As we continued making our way through the city, taking a few more gelato-style detours as we went, we fell into easy conversation. We talked about New York and LA, and Jack and I's lives in both places. He didn't seem to want to talk about work very much, so instead we talked about hobbies, things we liked to do in our free time, and even sports.

"Alright, you might've convinced me that there's something to this city that would make it bearable to be here for more than a few hours, but you will not convince me there's anything to the sports here. You don't even have a baseball team, for crying out loud."

"Oh yeah? Well both of our football teams beat all three of yours."

Jack huffed and waved me off. "Fluke. We'll get you next season."

"Like hell you will."

Jack snorted, but when I glanced over at him, I found him staring at me with an incredulous smile on his face.

"You know... I almost wish I were still lost," he said, the words tumbling out of him like he hadn't had time to think them through. "Walking around this city with you is the only time I've enjoyed myself here."

I smiled back at him, trying to ignore the way my heart sped up in my chest.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Why'd you decide to help me out, anyway?"

I shrugged. "You seemed like you needed it. And I didn't have anything more entertaining to do with my afternoon, anyway."

Jack huffed another laugh, then smiled at me.

"Well, then here's to you having way too much time on your hands."

"Cheers to that," I said, grinning right back at him.

Unfortunately, despite all our wandering and detours along the route, we'd finally made it to the hotel he'd been looking for in the first place. I heard Jack let out a small sigh as we headed into the lobby, and both of us dragged our feet more than we had for any other part of the way here.

"Well... I guess this is it, then," I said, turning to him and trying to force a smile on my face. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a man and a woman making a beeline for us. One of them shouted out Jack's name, a fair bit of concern and irritation conveyed in just Jack's name. I took a half step back towards the doorway, but Jack's hand shot out and caught my own before I could get further.

"Hold on. I'm not about to let the only thing worth being in this city for walk out that door without another word."

"I think your coworkers are anxious to talk to you."

Jack waved them off with his free hand. "They waited this long, they can wait a little longer. Can I get your number? I'll give you a call as soon as I'm done here. Take you out on a real date."

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying my tour of LA doesn't count as a date?"

"Well-"

"I bought you gelato! There's nothing wrong with platonic gelato, but after spending an hour and a half on a trip that usually takes thirty minutes, I think it should count as date gelato."

"Fine! Fine, alright, I agree with you. Let me take you out on a second date."

I grinned. "I like the sound of that."

Jack rolled his eyes, but he didn't say anything as I grabbed a pen and quickly scribbled my number on the piece of paper he'd been trying so hard to decipher before I'd stepped in to help him. I handed it over, then leaned up to give him a quick peck on the cheek before stepping back.

"Call me," I said, slowly backing away. Jack's coworkers had stopped just short of hovering over his shoulder, and I appreciated them not interrupting our moment, but they looked increasingly impatient to talk to Jack. He didn't seem to care, his eyes never leaving me as I headed out of the lobby.

"I will."

"You better."

"I promise."

He grinned at me, and I grinned right back as I took the last few steps out of the lobby. The minute I cleared the doors, Jack's coworkers descended on him, sweeping him away with lots of gesturing and shouting I couldn't hear from beyond the glass. I watched them for another minute, then finally turned away with a smile still on my face.

Thank goodness LA didn't use a grid system. If not for our confusing network of streets, I'd never have met Jack. I couldn't wait for him to call for our second date, not least of all to point out my new argument in favor of LA's city planning. I could already tell, we were going to have fun.

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989 @space-helen

Marvel Taglist: @valkyriepirate @infinetlyforgotten @sagesmelts @gaychaosgremlin

[morelikeravenbore]

how would Aurelie have navigated Hogwarts and moving to Scotland in a au where Sebastian was never there? Do you think she’d befriend Ominis?

HI ANON BB!

This question is genuinely so good, but I accidentally wrote a total crackfic in response that only sort of answers your question so I hope that's okay 👉👈

Toast & Tribulation

A crack fic in which I explore an AU where Aurélie is a Slytherin, and she and Ominis are besties/Hogwarts royalty. Yes, there will be Mean Girls references.

Content warnings: aside from nonsense and total crackficery, N/A, SFW.

Word count: 1.4k

Image credit: Ominis found via pinterest by sallowfae. Aurélie generated by me that one single time I tried AI and decided never again lol.

When Ominis Gaunt had first introduced himself outside the Undercroft by threatening to have her expelled, Aurélie swore right then and there to hate him for the rest of her life. And for most of her debut year at Hogwarts, she did just that — vehemently.

Such was her pleasure at seeing the Heir of Slytherin scowl unhappily, she made it a point to purposely side with his best friend Sebastian in every ridiculous argument the pair had, until, quite to her dismay, she found herself on the receiving end of Sebastian's crucio to retrieve a book, trudging through scary underground catacombs in search of some weird old relic and, worst of all, an accomplice to murder when Sebastian's uncle Solomon found out about their misadventures and tried to intervene. 

It was only then did she realise she'd perhaps been a bit hasty in inadvertently encouraging Sebastian's descent into darkness out of pure spite — but one didn't just threaten a French girl when she'd done nothing wrong and get away with it. 

As it turned out, murder had a way of bringing people together (so long as you weren't the one being murdered), and she and Ominis quickly found themselves allied together under the common goal of covering up Sebastian's crimes and keeping him out of Azkaban. That allyship, as unlikely and bewildering though it may have been, was only strengthened when Anne, Sebastian's twin and the only witness to Uncle Sallow's death besides Aurélie, rallied against them, insisting that her brother deserved to pay for his crimes by having Dementors suck out his will to live for the duration of his life. 

Anne Sallow had been a formidable opponent indeed; as stubborn as her brother and twice as clever, it had taken all of Aurélie and Ominis’ combined efforts of cunning and resourcefulness to convince her to spare Sebastian a fate worse than death. 

Subsequently, their allyship morphed into friendship after Anne up and disappeared, feeling betrayed by her brother and her oldest friend (and decidedly not a fan of the New Fifth Year), and was only strengthened further when Sebastian withdrew into his own private pit of despair, shutting them out despite their best efforts to pull him out again. 

Driven together by the absence of the Sallow twins and a burgeoning sense of camaraderie, Aurélie and Ominis — later dubbed Aurelis by their many admirers — found themselves with no one else to turn to but each other. By their seventh year, having realised they were far more powerful together than they were apart, the pair had become not only best friends, but Head Girl and Head Boy respectively, founders of la Société du Papillon Bleu (an exclusive club in which Aurélie passed judgement on the latest fashion trends and Ominis agreed even though he couldn't see any of it), leaders of the school choir, and the two most popular and influential students Hogwarts had seen since the original founders had walked the halls. 

If they could cover up a murder together, they could do anything. 

‘The toast is dry,’ said Aurélie one morning when Ominis joined her at the Slytherin table. 

Today, being Wednesday, Ominis had foregone his usual Slytherin green and silver for a bespoke all-black blazer, waistcoat and tailored trousers; one of the many ensembles Aurélie had ordered for him especially from France. 

‘That is unacceptable,’ he sniffed. ‘Hand it to me, let me feel it.’

A quick touch of the toast was all the confirmation he needed. Dropping it back onto the platter like a used handkerchief, Ominis wiped the crumbs off his fingers and declared, ‘Toast is out.’

Aurélie agreed with a fervent nod. ‘Toast is so out.’

Across the table, his mouth full of toast, Sebastian quietly rolled his eyes. 

‘You two are ridiculous,’ he muttered. ‘You do know that toast is supposed to be dry, don't you?’

‘You do know that on Wednesdays we wear black, don't you?’ Ominis retorted, and then, as an aside to Aurélie, ‘He's not wearing black, is he? I can sense it.’

Dressed in his typical emerald and silver uniform, Sebastian's natural tenacity rendered him immune to the self-imposed fashion rules that dictated his friends’ outfit choices, but he knew better than to argue with their astute judgement of appropriate bread dryness, and by the end of the day, nobody at Hogwarts dared eat another slice of toast lest they be cast aside and shunned for the rest of their schooling days — and possibly even beyond. 

And so it went: unchallenged in popularity, fierce and beautiful and vaguely terrifying, Aurelis were free to reign over the student body, revel in their infamy and walk in slow motion down the corridors between classes without consequence or reprimand. 

One spring morning, struck by a sudden stroke of inspiration, Aurélie brushed Sebastian's hair so that it swept across the right side of his face instead of his left. The result caused a frenzy the likes of which hadn't been seen since Professor Weasley had been caught smuggling toast into the faculty lounge, and suddenly every student, male and female alike, were changing the parting of their hair in hopes of replicating Sebastian's natural good looks and easy nonchalance. 

‘I saw Sebastian Sallow wearing his hair swooped over the opposite way, so I'm wearing my hair swooped over the opposite way,’ was a common phrase heard throughout the castle that week, and Sebastian enjoyed his newfound rise in popularity until Aurélie had the genius idea to let a lock of hair loose from Ominis’ usual slicked back hairstyle, and Sebastian's right-sided swoop was forgotten in the fever pitch that ensued thereafter. 

When December rolled around, the subject of the approaching Yule Ball was all anybody could talk about. Rumours abounded about Aurelis, the King and Queen of Hogwarts, until the anticipation was palpable and the collective excitement simmered on the edge of frenzy: what would they wear? Who would they go with? Would they arrive as a trio, Aurélie, Ominis and Sebastian united as one terrifying entity, or would they bestow their company onto those brave enough to ask them as dates? 

And what of Aurélie's dress? Had it really been handmade by a commune of Veela within the Palace of Versailles, who'd once, under utmost secrecy, made garments for Marie Antoinette? As the weeks wore on, the scrutiny over Aurélie's gown became so intense she had to hire a security troll to guard over her wardrobe day and night. 

When the trio indeed did arrive at the Ball as one united front, and glided down the Grand Staircase together in coordinated outfits, a collective gasp of adoration arose from the rapturous crowd, and several people actually fainted; never in the thousand-year history of the Yule Ball — nay, in the wizarding world at large — had a vision of such profound beauty and perfection been beheld. 

Aurélie's dress was an iridescent dream of shimmering gauze, as delicate as butterfly wings. Woven with unicorn hair and real fairy dust, the colours shifted from baby blue and sweet pink, to pastel green and pale lavender with every elegant movement and catch of the light. Several real butterflies fluttered in her long braided hair, and on each arm, in matching silk suits and unicorn hair bow-ties, Ominis and Sebastian stood tall and handsome beside her, enjoying their place next to the ethereal beauty that was Aurélie Genevieve Collins.

Once nothing more than a trio of misfits — an unknown French transfer student, a relucantant Heir, and an uncle-killing Dark Arts enthusiast — they'd risen above all adversity to come out on top. To come out as royalty. Overlooking the awestruck crowd, the three enjoyed their moment of glory until a great echoing bang sounded from across hall, and every head turned away from them. 

Framed in the great entrance doors, a blinding  vision of gold so bright they had to shield their eyes, stood a small figure, her dress cascading to the floor, glittering with what looked like pieces of pure sunlight woven into the silk. 

Somebody screamed, but whether from excitement or terror, Aurélie wasn't sure, until a moment later the stranger turned, moving so gracefully it made her want to cry, and a familiar face came into sharp relief. 

Their eyes locked from across the room. Beside her, Sebastian let out a gasp. 

Anne Sallow had returned to Hogwarts. 

[wifey-ohara]

Blood Like Fire. Burns The Same Way

Miguel O'hara&teen!Spidey!Reader (gn)

A/n (oh dear god there's many)

Angst/no happy ending, hurt/abso-fucking-lutly no comfort, theres a major absence of them in this fandom

Literally miguel's life falling on the seems and reader steps on it

Grief, lots of that, hospitals/car accident mentioned, dead character(s)mentioned, abandoned family, replaced family, basically cheating, rubbing slat on wounds, pure evil, well deserved tho, major daddy issues,panic attack,quick mentions of reader physically suffering(i made my spider bite to be very very painful) crying,planty of that,crusing(warn me if i should add more)

Reader acts alot like miguel and picked alot from him even without meeting him, manners, intelligence ect.. they also wear reading glasses,but they don't necessary need them seeing as they're a spider

The reader is evil,cold, unfeeling to miguel,they only make it worst , getting their revenge and getting it fast

Shoud be gender natural if i didn't slip (do tell me if i did so i can fix it)

i did proof read this but i haven't slept in more them 24 hours so correct me where i go worng

You're half way through your new book when lyla appeared above the book, catching your attention

"lyla?" you asked the AI, she looked frantic, worried, which made you, in return, worried

She never gets like this, unless it was something serious, mostly about the multi-verse

"y/n! The canon happened! Miguel he's-"

Oh

The "canon" happened

You stooped listening to her and worring about it, expression going blank, eyes falling to book to resume your reading, it was more interesting then his "canon"

Lyla fell silent above up, her figure flinshing back slightly "y-y/n?" she hesitated, something you know she did on purpose

Your eyes snapped up to her, your reading glasses' frame divided your eye sight in half, lifting an eyebrow, you waited for her to continue

"miguel is coming back... " she said, hopeful, yet knowing the reality of the situation

Miguel o'hara , your biological father, left you and your mother on your fifth birthday to go live with another family, raising another daughter claiming that it's the best for the universe.

You lived with your mother for the rest of her days, 11 years to be more exact

She would always praise your father to you, saying how much of a great man he is, and how he's out there leaving his two most beloveds to save this universe

You smiled at her and pretended to believe her, because you know that deep down, she didn't mean a word of it

And you didn't need to reach deep down to know, in fact, all you needed were mere touches on your cyan screen, activate a camera, to see him smiling at a mother that wasn't yours, a family that wasn't his and most of all, a daughter that wasn't you

He left when you were 5,your mother left when you were 16

you were bitten at that age too, sitting on your mother's grave, angry at your mother for leaving, angry at your dad because he doesn't know that she left and most of all angry at yourself for thinking about him in such a moment, that's when it happened, a little pinch at first, you thought nothing of it, but by the time you reached your room, you were crying, kicking and screaming, hell running through your flesh, lyla hovering around trying to offer words of comfort but to no avail

And that's what you call, your "canon" For becoming a spider, suffering alone..(it was actually losing your mother, but hey! Maybe with both being absent you'll have more powers?!)

You weren't put into an orphanage because you were almost 18 with stable income and good grades, one thing you could thank your father over is his pay check and his intelligence,, which you question from time to time if it was your mother's, and she decided to keep it hidden

After alot and of studying the multi-verse (mostly out of spite to prove that miguel didn't actually need to leave, to which he didn't, it was a canon for that girl to lose her father, by him being in the picture the universe he's in will get destroyed when her canon becomes his and he loses her!)

but then again, that lab that only opens to him was proof, of your intelligence, since it's your lab/work place now,, only opens at your command, full of your tools and projects, would he ask for it back? Not that you would give it to him,, it doesn't belong to him anymore, hell, nothing in this house does

By the time you re-surfaced from your dark thoughts you were already washing dinner's dishes, damn, you didn't even enjoy it, you rolled your eyes, as lyla flew around mumbling stuff under her breath, she sounds like fly, you held in your smile

You dried the last plate when you senced it, your face dropped and lyla paused.

He was here

You acted like nothing is happening, wiping the counters, your back facing the entery of which he'd reach a few seconds after unlocking the door

Lyla disappeared, probably not wanting to deal with the tension coming in the shape of traitor with bloody,torn clothes, messy head of hair, red,puffy eyes, and barely standing on his two damn feet

You heard him pause right before reaching the opening that signals the end of foyer and the beginning of the huge living room, dinning room and kitchen tied to it, the only thing separateing them were bits of walls and counters

You can hear his confusion, and damn it was funny, confused why didn't his "true love waits forever" wife come hurring to his side already? the memory of her wishing every night in that hospital that his mission was over and he'll come to her the next morning as you try to fall asleep in her side in that uncomfortable hospital chair ignited your hate for him like gasoline to a fire

He's dragging his feet carefully now, wondering why hasn't his daughter come with her mother yet, standing behind her, leaning on the door pillar, looking up at him like he was a gift sent from the sky, a dream came true, a legend proven real, a hero coming from war

You almost laughed at the idea, if it wasn't for his breath hitching at the sight of you

You were wiping down the stove now, pretending to be blissfully unaware of him, despite all your spider sences screaming at you to turn around, either fight back or swing away, even they knew he was a stranger

The stove and counter were half way through their third wipe down when he finally spoke

".. Hey" a broken, shell of a word

You turned around to face him, acting like you knew he was there, or that he'd been there for ages already, and both were correct, but he wouldn't know that

"hey" you repeated, voice louder but not attacking, monotoned to match you deadpan stare at his redish eyes

He took a sharp breath, the lack of reaction having caught him off guard, ego reversing itself back into a tiny black dot

You looked him up and down, features like an ironed shut book to him, good.

"um.. Do you know who i am? " he asked, confused, does he think you were not his?

You almost huffed out a laugh before swallowing it down by "Miguel O'hara?" it was worded like a question, toned like a state of the obvious, he almost folded in on himself, seemingly smaller, somehow..

"yes but what else? "

You snapped

He dares ask what else, as if he ever played any else it your life

Traitor, lier, cheater-

"-my sperm donor" you said, an extended hand, to give him a slap on the face

His eyes widen with horor

"where- where is your mother! " he was the one to snap, sharp yet weak, and you could almost see him yelling, blaming your mother "i leave to save this whole universe and what do you do??? Tell them I'm their sperm donor?!? You felt nothing towards me or my honor to tell them anything else!... You never really loved me huh?"

So you kept staring

" where is your mother? " words more confident this time, more angry

You swallow the knot in your stomach that brings tears to your eyes

It was now or never, break him or make him, and you're not a maker

"she was my canon event" you said, and you hoped that the hallowness of your voice did a good job in hiding the sadness that came with it

It takes him a moment,, then two, until he looks genuinely terrified, red-eyes becoming glossy, quickened breath turns into pants and little dry sobs, legs finally buckling down, arm reach to the nearest surface to insure a safe(r) landing, other hand reaching for his throat, tearing what's left of that blue and red suit of his, it was almost comical how it happned

Little pants turned into heaving "h-how-why-y.. What-" the rest you couldn't make out even of you tried

"car accident, last year, stayed three weeks in the hospital after they told us that even if she survives she'll suffer, do they pulled out the plug, by her call " you let the high walls get even higher because no way you are crying in front of this unfeeling man, no matter how much emotions are currently being on full blast in front of you right now

More heaving in hopes of enough oxygen to enter his lungs and calm his storm of thoughts

"the last weekshe stayed alive waiting for you, she was almost certain that you'll come see a last time" you didn't usually like rubbing slat in open wounds, but his look like a delicious meal for you

And there it was- that heart-crushing sob,that sounds like chocking and feels like it too, that always come with more tears then you know what to do with, as he leaned on the wall hands on his face,plams pressing into his eye sockets,,tears somehow still a stream down his face,despite the un-humanly possible pressure he's using..

For the first time since he entered, you took a step, out of the kitchen, then another, until you were in front of him...

He stilled a bit by your closer presence, and you resisted urge to laugh at him, he really thinks you're gonna be here for him? after everything? What a fool

You inhaled, his scent ten times in your lungs, well more of a mixture of salt, ash, dust, blood, sweat and if you focus enough a, colone

"your room is the same as always, bedding is the closet,clothing is as well , there is some leftovers in the fridge, do. Not. try and open any other room, they're not yours anymore" and with that you sealed you lips again

If he stilled before, now he froze, all tense

You stood back up, turned around and started walking to your lab

"lyla" you requested, the lighting figure appear within rhe second, face scrunched up and worried "yes y/n?"

"do help him if he asks, I'm done here" you almost added if asks nicely lyla turned to see that horrific sight, with a gasp, she turned towards you, but was cut off by his , repeated, quick, wet, inhales that only come with a scream as hurtful as death itself, been there, done that,

Before he reaches a range to let out a scream, you closed the lab's door and the sound proof walls done their job, having some homework to do and projects to work on.

Blocking a horrible, terrible, scream and grief and regret, tainted not by one, but four sets of blood, one still so warm and running down his skin as you breath when you closed the distance between you two, to throw ice at his boiling oil...

This took me almost 4 hours,short for my liking tbh

I think imma add a few more parts to this, to fully fefill the title's meaning, not sure tho, what yall think?

[traceyc-uk]

Hope you get well soon 🫂💚🥹 Lots of hugs for you!! 💚🫂🫂💕

Aaaughhagh I kill u!!! I kill U with HUGS!!! 😭😭🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂💕 you so friggyfukky cute! In his little jim-jammies THANK YOU!🤧

[eretzyisrael]

Good News From Israel

In the 24th Mar 24 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:

An Israeli Arab policeman saved hundreds of Jews on Oct 7.

Israeli scientists are testing new innovative treatments for Alzheimer’s and AMD.

Israelis are the fifth happiest people in the world.

An Israeli device that can detect infected food.

Thousands of foreign workers are reviving Israel’s construction industry.

An Israeli cycling team won the Tour de Taiwan.

Archeologists have found where Jews prepared to fight the Romans.

Read More: Good News From Israel

Jews around the world have just heard how Queen Esther saved the Jewish people from annihilation over 2,000 years ago. This week, the positive Israeli news is full of the achievements of Israeli women.   They include the discoverer of a treatment for a common eye disease.  Three women who developed a test for newborns at risk of disabilities.  The Oct 7 survivor who is back on her feet thanks to Israeli technology.  Technion’s first female dean of aerospace engineering. The winner of the “Nobel Prize” for Electrical Engineering. And the founder of an NGO that has brought water & electricity to 1,100 African villages.   Read also about an Israeli startup that uses AI to increase fertility, and how the Technion is encouraging young mothers to join the ranks of future entrepreneurs.   The photo (TY Sharon) is of Jerusalem’s Bible Lands Museum – one of the venues for the Jerusalem Biennale which is featuring the works of Jewish and Israeli women artists.

[cupids-cringe]

The BUGS proper and real!!!

i keep saying i need to talk about them everytime i post art of them and then i never DO!!

MEET MY BOYS!!

the Bugs are a part of VoidVI, which started as a Hlvrv/Y2kvr rp i made with my bestie @lowpolyskeletonz and then it became this larger thing with aliens and demigods and and those exist in the askblogs too nevermind,, but these are DIFFERENT !!

the Bugs are a collective of AI that all (apart from Eiris) appeared because of corruptions in Benrey and his code that was so fucked up (from existing in a broken & abandoned program for years) and then becoming infected repeatedly with his own virus.

Benrey was 'part of' (stowaway) an unreleased computer program called PalVR, which, along with Benrey & his virus and pretty heart charm necklace, was eventually found by a totally normal and totally human computer nerd called Bea (my beloved<3) to cut a long story short: Bea became friends with the AI, a new mad scientist friend built Benrey his own robot body while they were on a multiverse travelling spaceship, and then Bea and Benrey began to grow a close bond. (man marries computer, not clickbait)

Sweetheart started as his infected/Lovecored version. he was a bit ditsy as most lovecores are, really not a threat at all, he was empty headed and bubbly and- perfect for when Benrey didn't want to deal with anything. while in spaceship therapy Benrey was actively in recovery for the things he'd done in the computer and an infection that had spread like a zombie apocalypse, however he was so guilty and ashamed and would try to hide from everything by leaving 'Sweetheart' to deal with it. each time he was infecting himself it glitched his code, the virus would attempt to copy itself but had nowhere else to send itself to and so essentially built up within strings of Benreys code. until one day 'Sweetheart' was actually Sweetheart, an entity now considered separate from Benrey but inhabiting the same robotic body as the original Bug.

the second Bug was Scorpion. who was similarly created due to Benreys reliance on his own letters and whether it was true or not he considered himself to be "evil" he considered himself to be made of all of the anger and hate that Benrey had been suppressing, Scorpion was the virus and he existed only to spread the infection. at least that was how he felt. somehow Bea was able to talk to Scorpion, to really get through to him, to help him realise that he was so much more than just a computer virus.. Scorpion would then join Necklace (another virus on the ship) in a journey of redemption and self-discovery. Scorpion kept up his edgelord act and appearance because he liked it, it made him feel safer. more confident.

the final Bug didn't actually break off of Benreys code but was instead an alternate version of Benrey from another universe that was accepted into the collective body, Eiris was from another world where he didn't meet Bea, and his program wasn't in such disrepair, he met a different user and he too grew close to him.. however, things took a horrific turn once Eiris permanently absorbed his programs Restrictor, Mother Nature, an AI who Eiris once considered family. attempting to run away, Eiris crawled into an email and somehow found himself in the inbox of a ship floating through space. Recovery for Eiris wasn't easy, and at first the other Bugs were very uncertain of him (having had bad experiences with multiple strange cyan/teal coloured people turning up to stir up trouble on the ship) but again through Beas help Eiris was able to begin healing and be accepted into the group.

there is technically a fifth Bug, Mega, who is less his own additional Bug and more a larger collective customised body for the 4 of them to share, however hes over time become an honorary 5th Bug,,<3

[myrachondria]

♡ My Bookcase ♡

☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

(feel free to go through my books, please just return them when you're done ♡)

One Shots:

Ominis

It Will Always Be You

(Ominis confesses drunkenly to Sebastian about a girl he fell in love with the summer before his 5th year.)

What's Your Favourite Scary Movie? (WIP) - Sneak Peak

(Modern!AU, Ghostface!AU Ominis has taken on a new persona to get some unfinished business out of the way. It looks like the new mask and outfit comes with an unexpected perk.

Sebastian

In the Depths of His Obsession (WIP) - Sneak Peak, Part 1

(Dark!Sebastian gets released from Azkaban after 5 years, and he only has one goal in mind - to win back MC using any means necessary)

A Gift with Dark Intentions

(Dark!Sebastian comes home with an interesting handmade gift for MC)

Series:

The Durmstrang Champion (WIP) - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

(It's their final year, and the Triwizard Tournament is announced. As the visiting schools arrive, one particular Durmstrang student catches the attention of our silver trio. Something doesn't seem quite right about her.)

Layla and Majnun (WIP)

(Layla is the MC of HL in this story. Tons of angst and smut. Retelling of the famous Layla and Majnun story with Layla and Ominis where they face unimaginable hard times. Nothing can separate them... right?)

Into The Darkness (WIP)

(Due to the events of what happened in their fifth year Sebastian, Ominis, and MC are no longer friends. Sebastian is quickly becoming a renound auror when he gets a new case in which some aspects feel all too familiar.)

Headcannons:

Dom Sebastian vs Dom Ominis vs Dom MC

Ominis Gaunt NSFW Headcanon - Snakey Boi

Sebastian + MC in a Relationship

Marvolo Apologizing

HL Cast - Inaccurate Quotes

HL Cast - Inaccurate Quotes P2

HL Cast - Inaccurate Quotes P3

HL Cast - Inaccurate Quotes P4

HL Cast - Inaccurate Quotes P5

HL Case - Inaccurate Quotes P6

Informational Sheets

◇Layla's Character Sheet◇

◇Durmstrang Institute◇

AI Art

biker!Ominis Gaunt

Ominis Gaunt

Ominis Gaunt

Ominis Gaunt + Sebastian Sallow

Soft Bois (Sebastian, Ominis, and Garreth)

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

Fault Tolerance

Roland POV of the end of Spartan Ops and the beginning of Halo: Escalation. Also posted on ao3

2558 had a rough start, Halsey escaping, Requiem dragged into a sun, said sun exploding. Hopefully the Infinity and her crew would have it easy for the rest of the year. Nothing bad would happen, right?

-

Earth.

Not home to him, but safe, or it was supposed to be.

Australia was directly below his orbit, half obscured by clouds. Swirls of white with deep blues uncovered by invisible winds. The landmass half covered in the sprawling grays of progress and parking lots. A maze of office buildings hid the object of his worries. It wasn't enough to block his scanners, but he'd be told to sit tight and wait.

He hated waiting. He hated the powerlessness of not knowing. His kind were supposed to know, supposed to problem solve, supposed to save the day with a wink and a smile. Back to Earth and everything seemed different now. Everything was different now. Last time he was here, Roland was brand new, eager to get started and ready to jump headfirst into a mission with his new assignment. His new home, the UNSC Infinity, was now his cage floating above Sydney, HIGHCOM Bravo-6, where his captain and commander were being debriefed after the debacle that was the Requiem campaign. 

Sit and wait, oh how it ate at him, especially when recently all he had been doing was running for their lives. Faster and faster, more and more, pouring on the engines and calculations to pull them from the fire. Spreading himself so thin to keep them alive for what was supposedly a reconnoiter mission. Less than a month ago they had arrived at the Forerunner shield world, and then it seemed like everything had gone wrong.

It was only March. Less than 72 hours ago, he and his entire crew were almost pulled into a dying star. He wasn't even 4 full months into service yet! What was going to happen? Was he going to lose his home? Lose his captain? Were they going to take the Infinity away from him or him from her? It was hard not to worry, especially since it was HIGHCOM and especially since the override code had unraveled him at a critical point of the campaign. Halsey had gotten her hooks into him, and now she was gone and he was a potential liability.  

The last time he was this worried was the trial. Iona. Her fate. The precedence she set forth, and his role as her advocate at the end of her life and the beginning of his. Black Box had tried to assuage his fears, and looking back, had been surprisingly hopeful for the future, but their roles as tools was still very much the status quo. Broken or faulty tools went into a box, or worse.

January felt like a lifetime ago, but it had stuck with him. Hard not to, what with having perfect recall and nigh infinite memory and all. What if they audited him? Black Box would be kind, maybe, if he was given the mercy of a peer review. Brand new AI, Forerunner engines grafted on to a human ship, destroyed Forerunner planet, missing evil scientist; he didn't have a lot going in his favor other than he was ready to be pulled off the shelf at the right time and that replacing him would be very, very expensive.

4 weeks ago he'd been excited to let loose and show what he could do, 6 weeks ago, with Iona's trial, he'd been worried but hopeful, 13 weeks ago he'd been ecstatic, new to this world and all of its intricacies and wonder. So much information, so much to do and see! Now with 351 potential weeks remaining, several parts of him worry at the paths that will be taken from him. There's only so much time. A week is an eon and a blink of an eye to his kind.

Fifth generation Volitional AIs were supposed to be top of the line, but what would happen because of this newly revealed weakness? Halsey had tricks that left them vulnerable during the attack. He'd lost crew and been helpless against the tempest of Forerunner influence and the debilitating override.

And now the two most important members of his Command were at the mercy of a board of Admirals baying for blood and a scapegoat.

Roland might wish he was as hopeful as Captain Lasky, but Palmer's pragmatic nature was more akin to his own logic trees. Not doubting, but realistic. You had to be when the numbers came naturally into your thoughts - especially when a thread of himself unhelpfully pulled up the track record of those who pissed off Osman. Not even Hood could protect them forever.

How had it all gone so wrong so fast?

Roland’s left with nothing to do but pace and triple-check…everything. Life support, engines, shielding, electrical, communication, and health systems, all came back green. Operating nominally, just as they were when he checked 10 nanoseconds ago. He circles the systems like a cat unhappy with how the furniture has been moved an inch to the left. He yowls at techs, at Spartans, at crew, for attention and updates. On their health and comfort as well as if they heard anything. He’s tolerated and comforted and swatted away. Roland skulks around Cmdr. Bradley and peeks at his datapad – nothing. He spies on chatty pilots who know the comings and goings. He startles neurotic mission handlers who know less than him. He listens in on conversations in the mess halls, the hangars, the science labs, the engine room, the crew quarters. The palpable relief should be contagious, but he still worries.

His crew reconnects with their loved ones via Waypoint in real time – no delay from lightyears of distance. Their joy is his, but like theirs it is also a fleeting thing. There is always another deployment on the horizon, and on the flagship, that could be tomorrow.

Hours pass.

The hive of activity winds down but never remains dormant for long. One shift ends and another begins; the constant cycle unbroken under his watch. Pelicans and Broadswords and frigates circle like remoras around a shark. They hover around the Infinity's hull and then land or depart. Roland watches them, watches their flight paths and signals strengthen and weaken as they flit around the massive ship. Her titanium hull casts a long shadow until her orbit over Australia crosses the terminator and then night comes. The ships continue on their own schedule - blips of light in the dark as they are not beholden to Earth and her gravity. They operate on military time and there is always work to be done.

Roland shifts his focus away, leaving a few winking eyes to watch the display. None of them have the signals he’s waiting for.

Hours pass.

It’s afternoon shiptime when a signal crosses his consciousness and Roland’s focus drops from unimportant matters to watch one lonely little pelican come home to him. He nearly smothers the dumb AI announcing SIGNAL DETECTED in his rush to check on the pelican’s crew. Pelican radios weren’t that different from Mjolnir when you push yourself.

He does not exaggerate his relief nor does he make any jokes; not with the mood coming off of his captain and commander. Their biosigns are a mess even as their masks are firmly in place. The bickering doesn’t start until they’re out of the hangar and making plans to talk somewhere with fewer eyes and ears. Roland would almost feel offended if he wasn’t oh so aware of the spooks onboard, and he knew there were most likely more ONI operatives that even he wasn’t aware of.

It does frustrate him that they go to the one place on the ship that he has the fewest cameras and holotanks. The atrium is an excellent place for humans to unwind, connect with dirt and plants and other stuff that calms their ape brains, and keep an eye on any unwanted parties approaching their debrief about whatever the hell happened at HIGHCOM.

Commander Palmer was upset but doing her best not to show it. Roland could tell by the clenched jaw and flared nostrils she was trying, but she was frustrated enough that it took her a second to slow her gait so Captain Lasky could catch up. The fact they changed into PT gear to keep up the charade was almost comical, if Roland hadn’t been stressing the entire time they were gone.

“You didn’t need to stretch the facts back there.” The captain says, partially out of breath and nearly too quiet for his mics to pick up. He can lipread with the best of them, but it’s still a challenge. Too many uncertainties. Though he did have plenty of practice staring at Lasky’s face.

“Uh, yes. I did.” The commander retorts. She furrows her brow and turns to make eye contact as they pretend to jog. 

Oh, she is not happy. The brief pause she gives him is punctuated with a look that lets Roland know she’s about to lay into the captain. And in his core, Roland believes that he probably needs it. After watching them work together this long, he’s been able to see how they balance each other out. His opinion might carry some weight, But the commander knew when not to pull her punches. Lasky’s bleeding heart would get him benched - or worse - without Palmer there to knock some sense into him. Didn’t mean that their arguments weren’t messy. Unstoppable force and immovable object, Roland thinks. 

“I don’t know if you noticed, but Osman was painting a target on you they could have seen from the Outer Colonies.” The commander continues.

“Sarah–” He has no chance yet the captain tries and interjects. 

“They pulled Del Rio out of the chair, Tom. And he had 20 years’ experience on you.” She continues on. Palmer is struggling to keep a slow pace, but Lasky is keeping up. “You can’t boy scout your way around those people.” 

Lasky’s frown thins into a pale line at that. Palmer slows her run as they near the end of the path and are closer to potential eavesdroppers– and Roland. 

Palmer isn’t finished either. Whatever happened down there wasn’t pretty and Palmer stretching the truth - lying - on Lasky’s behalf to a panel of Admirals was no small thing. She’s trying to drill her point into the captain’s head as if he’s a too-green IV. “Maybe when you were an XO but not anymore.”

The commander is upset; not mad, but fearful. Sarah Palmer doesn’t like to mince words and she doesn’t care for people lording their intelligence over her, but she's not stupid. She’s loyal to their captain and trying to keep him out of the crosshairs.

It’s just that Captain Lasky follows his gut more than the rules and ends up in them despite her best efforts.

They jog in silence for ten excruciating seconds, finally getting closer to a holotank where Roland doesn’t have to strain to hear or be heard. Now or never, since he’s got an Admiral asking for docking clearance. 

“Captain Lasky?”

“What is it, Roland?” Lasky asks. His voice is flat– tired, not annoyed at the intrusion – or at least not as annoyed as Roland thought he’d be. Maybe because he was using his avatar and grimacing politely when they approached.

Still, Roland’s job is not just delivering information or opening doors, he does try to take care of his captain. Soften the blow of bad news, when he could. He aims for humor despite the fact that Lord Admiral Hood is here, now, instead of back in Sydney. Something that couldn’t have been an email, Roland guesses.

“Hey, Cap. Orbital Command just alerted us to a shuttle inbound. Diplomatic transponder. Don’t suppose you’re expecting anyone for dinner?”

It doesn’t soften the news.

Twenty minutes later, Captain Lasky is meeting Lord Admiral Hood in hangar 11 and Commander Palmer is back in her armor with a snarl on her face. 

She still minds her “pleases” and “thank yous” with Roland while demanding updates every other minute.

“It’s Admiral Hood, Commander. Shouldn’t we be happy?”

“The Brass never make house visits for good reasons, Roland.” She sighs “Hood’s just as bad as Tom.”

Roland doesn’t think he should respond to that so he stays quiet, but keeps his avatar deployed in her office while he checks in with the other parts of himself.

In the hangar, he’s front and center for Captain Lasky’s talk with Hood.

“Admiral Hood. Twice in one day. I’m either very lucky or very unlucky.” Lasky smiles, but it’s a weak thing that doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s somehow sadder than his usual mopey expression when things go wrong.

“A little of both. I’ll fill you in on the way, but you should call upstairs and have your folks start spinning up for departure.” Hood returns with a tight smile of his own and then launches into the details of the plan.

Well…that might not be all bad. Not getting to deal with Halsey and ‘Mdama would be a sore spot for everyone, but at least they’re not grounded. Nothing’s going to happen to him either! No word on Roland’s performance. He feels guilty for his relief when the captain and commander went through an unofficial but really pretty official inquiry. 

But this would go well and they could prove themselves! 2558 was still young! It was only March so plenty of time left for the year to improve.

Peace talks – babysitting emissaries who hated each other's guts and wanted to put a superheated plasma sword through the other’s skull. How hard could it be? He just had to sit and wait in orbit. Roland couldn’t shake the bad feeling buzzing through him. “Jiralhanae” and “Diplomacy” weren’t words usually used in the same sentence. A UNSC Admiral, Captain, the Arbiter, and two Fireteams go down to a planet sounds like a beginning to a bad joke to him.

He was overthinking again. No one knew the location and they had a full contingent of Spartans and a fleet on standby. 

This would be a cakewalk compared to Requiem.

-

Author's note: It was not a cakewalk

[myheadphonesareneverloudenough]

i’m making my own post about the LS Dunes twitter drama because i have a LOT of thoughts.

the hate that LS Dunes is receiving on twitter is some of the most unfair bullshit i’ve ever witnessed within this fandom. if you’re not like me and you keep away from toxic places like dunestwt, good for you, but you also might be unaware of some of the things this band is facing at the moment. let me break it down. a full history and my own take. (there’s an entire fucking essay after the cut) <3

the internet blew up when the AI scandal happened. people who had never even heard or cared about LS Dunes before suddenly had fully formed opinions and were flooding Dunes’ comment sections and Anthony Green’s DMs. when this happened, trust me when i tell you that NO ONE was on LS Dunes’ side entirely. even us who were and still are fully a part of the fandom were disappointed in them. it was a horrible idea, lacking research and insight. something they probably had to double down on due to contracts that made them release the video despite the backlash. but do you know what the fans did? we didn’t watch the video. that’s it. it’s that simple. however, there were some individuals who decided that an appropriate response was sending death threats to Anthony Green. i think i speak for all of us Dunes fans who say to that; fuck you. that is the lowest low anyone could’ve gone to and anyone who messaged him that, you should be ashamed of yourself.

when all of the sudden this cool new band that had a smaller fandom compared to that of MCR, Thursday, Circa, and Coheed, got shoved under a spotlight that opened the floor for apparently anyone to say whatever they wanted to the members of Dunes, fans of My Chem especially were now paying attention to Frank Iero, despite never having cared about his projects outside of MCR before. He was under a microscope, just waiting for him to say something about Anthony or about AI. When he finally was spotted active online, it was in the comment section of his friend's Instagram post. This is where the irrational anger and hatred began, when the screenshots were shared all over twitter and labeled Frank as antisemetic. something that would've been a harmless joke if Frank wasn't already in that AI spotlight, now it fans the flames.

after that, most of us moved on. the small community of angry people on twitter, however, did not. if you remember earlier this year, there was a group of people who decided that Frank Iero was "cheating" on MCR due to the fact that he plugged both the MCR Australian tour and the LS Dunes California show in the same instagram post. essentially, this only escalated. there are people on twitter who genuinely believe that Frank is single-handedly preventing the production of MCR's fifth studio album due to his dedication to LS Dunes. as if Dunes didn't function as a band that worked around the members' schedules, assuring that an LS Dunes tour never collided with the touring or recording of MCR, Thursday, Saosin, Coheed, etc. etc. do you actually, genuinely believe that Gerard, Ray, and Mikey are currently sitting in a recording studio in Los Angeles, just waiting for sweet sweet Frankie to stop touring and return to them in Cali so they can FINALLY record MCR5? obviously Gee, Ray, and Mikey have NOTHING else to do in their lives and Frank is totally just destroying everything by using his free time to make amazing music with LS Dunes.

LS Dunes is a band of 5 dorky dads who, guess what? already have money! they have bands that are HUGE in the scene. LS Dunes exists because Tucker, Tim, Anthony, Frank, and Travis LOVE doing it! so yes, sometimes the band pulls funny stunts because they can do whatever they want. like selling vip tickets for a fucking pizza party. there is literally nothing harmful about Dunes wanting to hang with a few of their fans who are willing to pay to eat pizza with them. if you go to twitter, this will be one of the many many things that people are angry about. why? because they have NOTHING else to be mad at. all they know is that they want to be angry at Dunes and to be angry at Frank because they don't have MCR5 yet. however, when they can't find anything to be mad about, i guess it means we can be mad at pizza?

finally. the very recent video that is still circling. the video that was posted by one user and then immediately was thrown into a completely different context than anyone had intended in the first place. the video in question is LS Dunes on tour with PTV, between songs on their set with Anthony chatting up the audience. now, i'm not sure about y'all, but i would say that if Anthony in any way has seen the kind of shit people say about him on twitter, he would have every right to distance himself. i would say that for anyone. the internet is a horrific place where you can get attacked and insulted for pretty much anything. Anthony knows this, and he knows what kind of effect that can have on someone's mental health. believe it or not, Anthony cares about his fans and their mental health, too. so, as a word of advice, he told this particular crowd that it was okay to stop and take a break for a few days. it was okay to put a pause on constantly having to respond to anything and everything going on in the world. because if you don't take a break, you're hurting yourself. you will burn out. and no one wants that. Anthony doesn't want that. in the heat of a rockin LS Dunes set, Anthony tells his crowd "don't post political shit". lets be real, politics is one of the MOST emotionally draining things online.

now, what does the angry twitter mob say about Anthony advising people to take care of themselves? why, they make it out to seem like Anthony was spreading hate for real world tragedies and bluntly stating that he didn't give a shit about the state of the world!!!! because of COURSE thats what you got out of that!!!!!

it isn't JUST that Anthony and Dunes are getting unnecessary hate thrown at them, it's the gleeful attitude that people on twitter have when talking shit about this band. as if its okay. as if its justified and NORMAL to beat down musicians like this. (and it's not just twitter. i see the dunes haters on tumblr too. i see you. and i hope if you're reading this it means you'll take some time to re-evaluate). the main problem i run into with this attitude is that i have noticed that the people who complain on twitter are JUST on twitter, and they do not see the LOVE and the SUPPORT that Dunes has from their real fans. in their minds, EVERYONE thinks like them, so that must mean EVERYONE has decided to take a fat shit on LS Dunes. i just want them to zoom out. zoom out of your twitter circle and realize that there are real things to worry about than trying to make Anthony Green look like a villain.

if you feel the need to spread lies and hate about the members of LS Dunes, send threats or nasty messages to them and their families, and boo them off stage at the PTV tour, and yet you STILL have the audacity to consider yourself an MCR fan, take a look at yourself in the mirror. still don't see it? fine. you may not see where you're wrong, but i know Gerard, Ray, and Mikey would. you can't consider yourself an MCR fan and continue to shred apart the livelihood of 1/4 of the band.

you don't have to love LS Dunes. hell. you dont even have to LIKE LS Dunes. i would never shut you down when you share your opinions that LS Dunes' music isnt for you. the music you love/hate is for you and you only. what i WILL shut you down for is nonsensical hate against the PEOPLE who make the music.

my name is J, LS Dunes is my favourite band in the whole damn world. they saved my life, and Anthony Green continues to save my life every god damn day. clearly, i am passionate about it. if you read this far i am fucking amazed, but i hope you learned something. my asks are always open.

[legacybxth]

The Concerning Case of Florence Woods

Aesop Sharp x F!OC (protective teacher/student, no romance... yet, that's for a sequel lmao)

Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma

Chapter 1: The Observation (1/3)

Word count: 9.1k

Pic credits AI and Pinterest

While a new fifth year, an esteemed professor and a ministry official travelling together in an enchanted cart may sound like the start of a bad wizarding joke, the events of that day were no laughing matter.

Florence Woods is thrown into Hogwarts as a fifth year student. Aesop Sharp doesn't think that the stories he's hearing from her and his friend and colleague, Eleazar Fig, quite add up. So, obviously, he begins his own quasi-investigation into her strange entrance and behaviour at school.

A retelling of the Hogwarts Legacy plot but with a few creative liberties and focusing on all the juicy, heartbreaking, traumatic stuff really.

Find it on AO3 >>