#thread: like two artificial gods

[niki-phoria]

THERE'LL BE NO MORE SORROW / I'LL SEE YOU THERE TOMORROW

pairing: fushiguro megumi x gn!reader (no pronouns used) genre: hurt comfort word count: 781

notes: very (possibly ooc) megumi heavy, not proofread, mentions of blood/injuries, set immediately after shibuya arc, spoilers for jjk s2 lol, title from txt - i’ll see you there tomorrow

the makeshift hospital in jujutsu high smells like artificial lemons and bleach. the lights above are blindingly bright as FUSHIGURO MEGUMI squints up at the ceiling, patiently awaiting shoko’s return. there’s a dull ache somewhere in his shoulder and his vision is still a little hazy, but his injuries are otherwise superficial. 

unfortunately, the same cannot be said for yours.

megumi bites his tongue. crying will do nothing to help you, but it’s so hard not to. he curls his trembling hands into fists, tightly holding the blue blanket covering most of his body in his grip. his sadness and worry has slowly begun turning to anger. anger towards the higher-ups who sent two teenagers into shibuya with no preparation. anger towards the curse who hurt you so carelessly - leaving your body bloody and broken and bruised. anger towards himself for not being there. not being fast enough. not being strong enough. 

swallowing the lump forming in his throat, megumi stares up at the chipped paint coating the ceiling. it’s a light beige - a colour that reminds him of nanami’s signature suit. nanami. the tears in his eyes slip down his cheeks.

megumi pulls his knees up to his chest, curling his body in on itself. he lets his eyes flutter closed once again, focusing on the slow and steady inhale and exhale of his breathing. 

time passes. hours, maybe? megumi jumps when the door swings open; the once silent room now filled with the familiar clacking of shoko’s heels against the floor. “fushiguro,” shoko’s voice is cold as she enters the room. her piercing glare meets megumi’s gaze, making the boy lower his shoulders slightly in defeat. “i thought i told you to be more careful.”

“i’m sorry.” her concern isn’t unfounded, but it does little to soothe megumi’s worries. 

shoko notices, and sighs. she steps forward to rest a hand against the wooden bed frame. “your injuries weren’t that severe. i’m giving you a few days to rest, and then you’ll be ready to return to your missions.” she pauses. megumi looks up at her expectantly. “y/n is in the room next to yours. they haven’t woken up yet, but their condition is stable. you can go see them whenever you’d like.”

he swallows the lump in his throat. the tension in his shoulders falters, but only slightly. her sharp gaze lingers on the bandage wrapped tightly around megumi’s head longer than necessary. he shifts uncomfortably under her gaze; his hands play with a loose thread on the blanket. shoko’s fingertips nonchalantly flip through the papers with surgical precision. it’s not like there’s any need to keep a record of his injuries, anyway.

“thank you, ieiri-san,“ megumi murmurs. shoko purses her lips. whatever words she wants to say thankfully remain left in her throat. her heels clink against the cold, tile floor as she turns to exit the room, finally leaving megumi alone in the silence once again.

megumi stares at the wall for too long. time passes without him noticing. he waits until his legs ache from the stillness and his eyes burn. the world around him has fallen into silence once again. finally, he stands up on shaky knees, carefully making his way towards your hospital room. 

you’re exactly where shoko said you would be - in the state she said you would be in. megumi notices the bandages wrapped around your arms and the bruises littering your skin in patches. his breath hitches in his throat. 

your room is colder than his was. or, maybe it’s his imagination? megumi isn’t sure. he moves in a daze as he sits down beside your bedside, watching the steady rise and fall of your chest. 

megumi leans his head against his hands, sending prayers to gods he isn’t sure he even believes in. he waits for what feels like hours, until-

“megumi?” your voice is quiet and cracks, but it’s yours. you blink a few times, squinting up at him. he stares at you in shock; wide eyes bore into your own before he’s scrambling, throwing his arms around your body and pulling you against his chest. you wince slightly but return the hug nonetheless, wrapping your own arms around his shoulders. 

“megumi,” you repeat, breathless.

“i’m here,” he whispers. his voice is muffled against the fabric of your shirt. tears sting against your skin as they roll down his cheeks in waves, but neither of you can find it in yourselves to care. 

megumi pulls away just enough to look at your face; his teary eyes and flushed cheeks match your own. despite himself, he smiles, leaning in to press a chaste kiss against your cheek. “i’m here.”

taglist (open! send an ask/dm to be added): @sunoooism @vamxpi @sad-darksoul @kamote-kuneho

if you liked this fic, please consider leaving a like, comment, feedback, or rebloging !! and if you want to support me, check out my jjk masterlist <33

[reixtsu]

*ೃ༄ Whispers In The Twilight ༉‧₊˚.

༊*·˚ Aventurine x reader

༊*·˚ Genre: angst with sweet comfort

༊*·˚ Synopsis: While enjoying the night on Aventurine’s patio, your intrusive thought start to invade. Luckily your wonderful partner is here to comfort you. (´ε｀ )♡

༊*·˚ A/N: I was feeling very down the day I wrote this, I so I thought about sharing this comfort story in hopes to help those who feel similarly. Enjoy!

༊*·˚ Word count: 1k

To Aventurine, you were the best thing he has won is his god-forsaken life. You were the light of his world, a candle in a dark tunnel, his reason to continue living. He was willing to do anything for you, even sacrifice himself for you. In his eyes, you were worth the whole world. So why couldn't you see that yourself? Why couldn't you understand your own value? Why do you belittle yourself so much? That was something that Aventurine could never grasp.

You sat with Aventurine on the patio of his penthouse, gazing up at the artificial stars that dotted the night sky. The soft flicker of candlelight bathed the patio in a warm, golden glow, creating an intimate ambiance. You sighed contentedly as you rested your head on Aventurine's lap, feeling the tranquility of the moment settle around you.

Placing a gentle hand in his, you gracefully slipped off his rings one by one, followed by his silk glove, revealing the warmth of his skin beneath. You took his hand in yours, bringing it tenderly to your lips. "You are so beautiful," you whispered, your voice soft and breathy, as your half-lidded eyes gazed up into Aventurine’s with a deep, lingering affection.

Aventurine smiled warmly, leaning down to place a gentle kiss on your forehead. "I should be the one saying that to you, sweetie," he murmured, his voice tender and full of affection.

You smiled, though it looked a bit forced, the corners of your lips not quite reaching your eyes, before you closed them again, letting the moment pass in silence.

He observed you closely, his gaze softening as he kept his hand over yours, savoring the warmth between you. "Is something wrong?" he asked gently, concern threading through his voice.

You hummed, shifting your head on his lap. "No. Why would there be?" You asked softly.

Aventurine could spot an actor from a mile away—after all, he was one too—but unlike him, you lacked the years of experience in concealing your emotions. There was a subtle sadness in your voice, a note of vulnerability that didn’t go unnoticed. Your body was tense, and your hand only tightened around his, a silent plea for comfort. "You can be honest," he said softly. "We're alone.”

Silence, silence, and more silence. All the two of you could hear was the cracking of the candles. Aventurine sighed, bringing his other hand to start combing your hair. You sighed, leaning into his touch. "What? Don't you trust me?" He teased.

You scoffed, opening your eyes again to look at his frame. "I trust you, 'turine," You said softly. "I'm just... thinking."

"About what?"

You averted your gaze, your eyes darkening as a shadow of emotion crossed your face. "I hate pain," you said simply, the words carrying a weight that lingered in the air between you.

Aventurine blinked, pausing his strokes on your hair.

"We experience it every day. Stress, pain-just existing is painful," you said, exhaling shakily as you tried to rein in your rising emotions. "I'm so tired. Day by day, I lose the will to keep going. I have no purpose, no reason to keep living. And what makes it worse is knowing that there are people out there, really struggling, fighting to survive. And here I am, wishing for death.”

Aventurine hummed, staying silent. He didn't know the best way to comfort you when you were like this.

"People tell me I should be grateful for my life, and I am. I have you, after all," you said, forcing a smile as tears welled up in your eyes. "But I hate dealing with all the negatives. I wish I could stay with you forever in a utopia, but this world is anything but that. I hate it. I'm so tired, I want to disappear-"

"My love," Aventurine interrupted gently, placing a finger over your lips to quiet your words. "I know this world can be a terrible place to exist. But when you're by my side, you make everything bearable. With you, I can see color, endure pain, laugh, and love.”

You stayed silent, sniffing as your tears threatened to fall. "But—" you began, your voice trembling as you struggled to find the words to express the conflict within you.

"You are the one that keeps me alive. I want to be your reason to live."

"...Huh?"

Aventurine placed his hands gently on your hips, lifting you to sit on his lap, facing him. "Make me the reason you live," he said firmly, his grip on your waist tight yet comforting. "Do I not make you happy? Don’t I lighten your burdens?”

You couldn’t meet his intense gaze, too ashamed and afraid to look him in the eye. "You do..." you murmured, your voice barely above a whisper.

"Then what can I do? What can I do to stop these intrusive thoughts of yours? It might be impossible, but I am willing to take a gamble."

You stared at the ground, your eyes and emotions becoming numb, something they always did when your emotions started to become too strong for you to handle. "I could be laying in a grave today, all of my efforts are going to waste. Everything stays the same while we play and waste away. Some things are impossible but my death is fated to arrive. Why can't I decide when it will happen?"

Aventurine paused, his eyes glistening with a mix of fear and desperation. Despite being blessed by a god, he didn't believe in any divine power. No deity had saved his sister when she died, nor his mother. No god had intervened when he was enslaved by the IPC. Uncertain of how to answer your question, he decided on the one thing he felt he could do: he wrapped you in a tight, reassuring embrace.

Cold arms wrapped around your warm body, enveloping you in a comforting embrace. Your breath hitched, and a single tear traced down your cheek as you began to tremble.

"I don't want you to die," Aventurine said, stuffing his face into your neck, his hands massaging little circles along your back. "You're my lucky charm, I need you, a lot more than what you think."

You started crying, no longer able to uphold the barrier. You clung into him, sobbing into his pricy leather coat. Feelings attack you like an avalanche, waves of negativity and guilt dancing in the hole of your heart, kicking and tearing at it, only making it hurt more.

"Live. Leave the dying to the dead, alright?"

You sniffed, digging your face into his shoulder. "That doesn't even make sense, 'turine."

He chuckled, the sound a soothing melody that fought against the demons within you. "Of course it makes sense," Aventurine said simply, his voice steady and reassuring.

There was a moment when you and Aventurine were wrapped in a tight embrace, his arms holding you as you sobbed uncontrollably. After a while, your tears subsided, and you lifted your head from his shoulder, noticing the damp spots on his clothes. "Ah, your clothes..." you said softly, a hint of embarrassment in your voice.

Aventurine shook his head, his charming smile lighting up his face as it always did for you. "No need to worry," he said gently. "It’s replaceable. You, my dear, are not.”

You wrapped your arms around him, a small, grateful smile touching your lips. "Thanks. I'm sorry for crying," you murmured softly.

He clicked his tongue, his smile gentle. "You don’t have to apologize, sweetie. I’m glad I could help you." With that, he leaned forward and placed a tender kiss on your lips.

A/N: I was listening to that one Hu Tao fan song… so if someone is able to guess which one it is I’ll grant you my upmost respect. Hint: It’s sung by Will Stetson. Oh shoot! Is that hint too easy?

[salparadiselost]

Just something I wrote up. I had this scene in my head and I couldn’t not write it. It’s based on a New Gods AU which I’m not sure I’ve talked about but it exists in the group chat.

*****

“Fetch your brothers. Return to the Manor immediately.”

---

Dick hummed all of the top 40 tracks under his breath as he walked along the edge of a highway. He believed he was somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, given the trees, the mountains, and the slight tinge of magic that wasn’t his. There were old beings sleeping under him, older than humans and the concepts that they had used to create godlings like him.

They weren’t the reason he came here, though.

He was here for a much newer god.

He sniffed the air like a hunting hound and stopped abruptly.

A truck clattered past him, not stopping, not seeing.

Dick searched along the grass and found his telltale, a small roadside memorial in the form of a white wooden cross was tipped over to the side. Its paint was peeling off, sloughing off in fat chunks. The wood underneath it was molding into black. The forgotten husk of a teddy bear decomposed into the ground beside it. Artificially coloured flowers that would never get the blessing of decomposure lay partially buried in the dirt. A faded picture of a girl, brown-haired and big-smiling, was nailed to the cross, and it fluttered slightly when another car passed. Written on the photo, in faded pen and running ink, the second half of a sentence could just barely be read: “-was last seen here”.

Dick snorted.

Tim was nothing if not predictable.

He turned off of the road and went into the forest beyond it.

He doesn’t know what happened here; it wasn’t his jurisdiction. Tim could probably tell you. Talk to you about how that girl’s car had been broken down, or maybe she had stopped to help an ‘innocent’ bystander, or maybe she had met a secret boyfriend for a drive. He could tell you about the days before, how she was in life before it was cut short, what innocuous things were the dominoes stacking up before the whole thing tipped over.

It was a conversation that Dick had had with Tim before, but not one that interested him much, given that she hadn’t become the center of America’s media circus. Instead, her story ended here. In a forest, with a wooden cross and a cold case sitting in some podunk town somewhere.

Dick’s gaze flicked through the foliage, across a tattered piece of fabric caught in a bush’s branches, across the loose threads from torn clothes that would have been too small for the human eye.

Around him, the forest chattered and whispered, quietly saying what had happened in a way that he couldn’t quite hear. It told the entire story if you knew how to listen. Tim did. Bruce did. But Dick didn’t. He only knew the clues enough to follow them to the edge of a lake.

The bright blue lake was like a hole in the forest’s coat. Trees parted to make room for it, and it reflected the sky back on itself. It was a pristine blue, except for a blotch out in its middle.

There, amongst the endless sky water and the sparkling ripple of waves, was a body.

It floated in the suspended reality of the water, bobbing with restless motion despite the stillness in its limp form. It was completely naked, revealing pale and pasty skin to the world. The colour was greyer than any living human should be and unnaturally mottled with green and blue. All the warmth of life had been leached out by its watery grave, leaving only a grisly shadow of what it had been. The knobby ridges of its spine jutted into the air. Its neck stuck at an unnatural angle, and there was an occasional peek at a slash of raw, exposed flesh. Little chunks of meat, bitten and pulled off by fish and birds, floated next to the corpse.

Dick waited, his foot tapping against the shore of the beach.

The body kept floating there, buoyant from the bloat of gasses captured in its stomach. Long hair rippled with the waves.

He sighed, put two fingers up to his mouth, and whistled. The sound pierced across the lake and hung in the air for a few seconds.

Then, the body twitched, limbs locking back into physical control. It shook and then moved its arms to sit itself up, raising up on the water like someone awakening from a nap. It sat up, and Dick could see the remnants of her face. It was torn, like someone had dragged it, and let pieces of it come off like ribbons to then be eaten by the water. Skin hung. The eyes were gone. Her jawbone was visible through a large gaping hole in her cheek. Flesh had been picked apart by fishes and other creatures. It was a portrait of a death. Her death, he supposes.

The face of her stared at him until suddenly it wasn’t her’s anymore.

In between two of his breaths, the figure on the lake had changed into something Dick recognised much more.

“What?” Tim snapped from his seat on the water, legs tucked close and looking very much like a teenage that had been interrupted from his twin bed. Waves lapped at the edges of him, but they might have well been blankets and sheets. Dick is pretty sure he’s seen Tim in this exact position at the Manor, comforter knotted up all around his legs with his laptop balanced on his lap.

He gave Dick the same annoyed, haughty, ‘you’re bothering me’, look that every younger sibling seemed to have mastered.

“I’m here to pick you up,’ said Dick, his tone bouncing. “Dad wants us. It’s time to come back.”

Tim’s eyes narrowed, and the temperature of the air turned down a few degrees. “I’m not a kid that needs to get fetched from his room.”

Dick snorted and shrugged. “Trust me. I’ve been trying to use that argument for centuries. A millennium before you were even thought up. It doesn’t work.”

Tim stayed staring for a few moments before he groaned and collapsed back into the water. The movement exposed a weeping gash on the body’s side, the flash of her ribs was poking out from the meat. There were bruises on her belly and up her chest. Tim laid on his back, staring up at the sky and rocking with the slight ripple of the lake.

“I guess telling him I’m busy won’t dissuade him?”

“Nope.”

Tim sighed and rolled to hop off of his makeshift bed. His legs splashed into the water, but only raised halfway up his thighs. He trudged his way towards Dick, and as he did, the memory of the dead girl shed off of him. His body healed over the gashes. His neck clicked into the right place. A baggy hoody and jeans manifested onto himself. His hair dried, shortened, and any caught leaves or twigs fell out of it. By the time he reached the shore, the only remnant left of the girl was the slight corpse tinge on Tim’s skin. It was a little too pale to be alive, a little too blue and green not to suggest decomposition, but even that was being erased away.

“You figure out your little mystery?” Dick asked, watched Tim shake the last of the lake and the girl off of him. ‘You’ve been out here for a few weeks.”

“Not really,” said Tim, as he grabbed an Airpod out of his hoodie pocket and shoved it into one of his ears. “Finding the body is easy. Filling in the holes in the middle is always harder.”

He also drew a maroon beanie from his hoodie pocket and stuck it on his head.

“And floating out there in the middle of the lake is essential?” Dick teased and Tim gave him a venomous frown. It wasn’t the first time Dick had found him in a rather deathly position despite Bruce trying to ban it multiple centuries ago.

Tim drew a beat-up white sneaker from the hoodie pocket and then another. “Living through the last moments is very informative.”

Dick grinned and Tim’s glare dropped. “Wait, you’re not telling Dad are you?”

Dick hummed with a smirk, and Tim looked like he wanted to throw something at Dick’s head. “I hate you, you know.”

“Alright, alright, maybe I won’t tell him.” He raised his hands in surrender and gave Tim a smile that usually made people fall in love with him. Usually. But Tim wasn’t people, and he sure as hell knew that behind all the pretty grins, Dick’s teeth were sharpened and his tongue could give the most beautiful lie.

His gaze remained suspicious, but eventually he shook his head and changed the subject, apparently done with Dick’s game.

“What the hell are you wearing anyways?”

Dick blinked, taking a second to remember exactly how he was appearing at the moment. It was his normal body in its normal shape. He double checked to confirm he was male, and yep, in the male configuration. All of this was stuff Tim had seen a million times before, so it wasn’t something with the body.

It must be the outfit.

It took a second but he remembered he was wearing a glittery, blue sequined leotard that cut high up on his hips and had large hearts emblazoned on it. Matching the leotard, he wore a glittery cowboy hat and a pair of heart-shaped glasses that did little to hide the bright blue shadow on his lids. He also had on gold cowboy boots that went to his thigh and gloves that stretched toward his elbows. A row of beaded tassels hung from the leotard and this shimmered when he breathed.

He had been at a concert when he saw the text from Bruce to retrieve Tim.

Concerts were more his speed than all of Tim’s moody floating in the woods. Modern concerts were a spectacle and he lived for spectacle. He didn’t really care about the music or the artistry; he always found those to be the most boring parts, but he loved the sheer grandeur of their shows. He adored the way the pulse of the crowd rocked into his bones and filled his lungs. He reveled in how the thrum consumed you into a part of itself. He drank the fizzy pop of power that came from a thousand people all chanting the same sounds. It was intoxicating. It was thrilling. It was a vestige of him.

How he was.

Back when humans filled coliseums and circuses were the center of the world.

It came close to satisfying the vicious yearning he still had for blood sprayed across Roman sands and the clatter of chariot wheels.

No more though. He had to get his fill from a different type of spectacle now.

“I was at a music thing,” Dick said with a waved hand. “Some little Missouri girl is calling herself a princess and people are eating it up.”

Tim raised a curious eyebrow, eyes going over Dick’s outfit. He knew the rules of Dick’s god hood, generally the bigger, the flashier, and the more flash in the pan, the better. “That seems like a boon for you.”

“It’s fast,” said Dick with a shrug. “It’s fun. But it's music, which always means it's only half a meal for me.”

After all, he wasn’t a god of music. He didn’t care about the melody or the words, if anything it was competition for what he truly wanted. He wanted something much more primal. Much more ancient.

Ironic that most of it lived in the moments and flashes of social media. The newest technologies to satisfy the most basic of needs.

He had to adapt if he wanted to live, and this is where that got him. He knew Tim understood because he wanted something similar. Something that was ugly to most of the modern world, and yet survived with each new revolution.

Sure enough, Tim nodded and walked towards Dick’s side.

“Are we going straight to the Manor?” He asked, eyes looking forward and momentarily tabling the mystery in the lake. His mind was already turning on something new, trying to figure out why Bruce had called them all back.

It wasn’t… unusual for Bruce to call them all together back to the Manor but the timing was odd.

They had mostly recently been called back a few months ago and Bruce usually let them have a couple years in the field before he was itching to have them back again. It was a deviation of their pattern and given that Bruce was an ancient god with ancient habits, it took a lot to break their patterns.

Something was up.

Something that required all of them to be home.

“We have to go get Jason,” said Dick, the world already changing around them. “Then we will go home.”

[melanieph321]

Ruben Dias x Reader - Summer Fling Part 10/10 Epilogue

A damn shame. But summer must come to an end. ☀️

Thank you to everyone who read this story. I'm very grateful for all of you! ❤️

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

Summary - Reader has landed a research job at a marine biology lab in Portugal. She is, therefore, staying with her sister and her sister's Portuguese boyfriend for the summer holidays. There she meets Ruben Dias who is on vacation with his friends after the 2024 Euros. However, the two meet under the circumstances in which Ruben believes that Reader is a prostitute.

Enjoy ☀️

It was odd. In Australia, August meant the beginning of spring, there after summer. But here in Portugal, the summer was coming to an end. Yes, you were still Portugal bound. Now more in a city called Amadora, where the evening sunsets cast a beautiful silhouette over the wholesome city.

"What are you thinking about?"

Ruben's chest vibrated against your back. The two of you were seated on the balcony of his parents' house, watching another day come to an end.

"I should probably call my sister." You sighed.

"Right now?"

"Yeah, she should be on her way from the hospital by now."

It was remarkable how the summer had unfolded. You came to Portugal with the hopes of boosting your academic portfolio, only to end up in a trafficking scheme in honor of the world's population of pufferfish. Thank god Gavin's bullet had spared Diogo's arteries, giving him another chance in life. Too bad a part of that life would be spent behind bars after his accomplices to Gavin's crimes. Nevertheless, your sister didn't care. She was in love and swore to stick by her man's side, even if it meant raising that man's child alone. Another thing that wasn't on your summer bingo card: becoming an aunt. However, it was another excuse for you to return to Portugal next summer and the summers after that.

"I think my mom would also want to talk to her. You know, to see if she needs anything."

"Thank you, Ruben, really. But your family has already done so much by letting us stay here for the remainder of the summer. I think it's time that my sister and I figure things out on our own."

His chest rose against your back as he exhaled. "So this is the end, then?"

"Of summer? I'm afraid so."

"What if I don't want the summer to end?"

You smiled, hearing the stubbornness in Ruben's voice. You turned to look at him, his features soft in the velvet sun.

"What if I don't want us to end." He said.

You perked up and kissed him, the kiss soft but hard at the same time. 

Ruben captured your face in his hands, attempting to draw you further into him. However, if you let him, you would never be able to recover from the heartbreak.

"Ruben." His name escaped your lips. A whisper. One that drew him out of his momentarily daze.

"Yes?" Ruben's eyes batted slowly, his eyelashes enviously long.

"Could you love someone you've just met?"

The question startled him. "I...I don't know."

You nodded, the answer expected. You couldn't love someone you've just met, especially not a summer fling. At least not without it being artificial, not to mention cynically cliché.

"But I want to...try."

You perked up, his voice fueling your hopes.

"I really like you, Y/N. It's just that....I've got to go back to England. and asking you to come with me—"

"Would be too fast." You smiled through the welling tears. Ruben was quick with his thumb, catching the thread of water before it escaped your eyes. He pressed a soft kiss to your temple. A promise that what you've experienced this summer wasn't all bound to become a traumatic therapy session later in life. His soft lips grazing your ear was a confirmation that summer flings were real. Summer flings were something precious, worth remembering. But like every August, a summer fling must come to an end.

THE END

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

[ladyofthebookcase]

some thoughts i have about the boss themes in nine sols, not including eigong since i haven't beaten her yet. i dont know jack shit about instruments so im sorry if i got any of them wrong but im not a musician i just listen to a lot of music.

lots of little chiming sounds in the melody of goumang's theme (like bells, although maybe i'm reaching), and ominous and discordant sounds making up the background; obviously symbolizing her control over the shi brothers and her use of necromancy as a highly unnatural force. the key sounds minor, which ties into that as well. it's a very fast, intense, and ominous song. also it has no vocals! just various electronic-esque beats and melodies! and it's over quite quickly it's one of the shortest boss themes. despite goumang's presentation of survival of the fittest ideals, when it comes down to it, she's not the fittest and ends up coming across as kind of defanged if that makes sense.

the start of yanlao's theme sounds like a machine booting up. then there's the deep chanting/throat singing? which i think could represent the repository and the artefacts and all the stuff he's been pressured by others to store there if that makes sense. then there's a more traditionally vocalized interlude, which could represent yanlao himself amid the chanting voices of the repository. the theme is highly electronic in nature and, and this is just because i have some form of synesthesia, but it sounds the way the visuals of the boss fight look, all hot pinks and bright greens and blues.

the start of jiequan's theme sounds very very much like the start of another song on the soundtrack but i can't remember which one it is-- maybe one that plays in the apeman facility??? idk. but then that's interrupted by the very intense and in-your-face music, with the actual taipei men's choir doing the chanting (which is very funny to me idk why). i think that's the jie clan and its legacy that jiequan is carrying on and attempting to revive. elements of rock/electric guitar in here, forming a melody thread that kind of overlaps with the choir-- that could be jiequan himself. it kind of gives the vibe of like modernizing something ancient (the rock music mixed with the chanting? am i reaching here?? idk)

lady e's theme has a gentle piano as the "core" melody. the main singer sounds almost like she's screaming in places, but not quite-- lady e trying to hide her anguish and torment from everyone for the longest time. god shes so me. im not sure if my spotify player is just bad but it almost sounds like it glitches out at certain points too? and then there's the screaming in the background before the chorus, representing her coworkers of course. also, the sort of techno beat layered over the piano is really cool; it's like the piano is the peaceful serene part of the soulscape, and the techno part is the technological nature of it, an artificial perfect world. i love this theme so fucking much.

fuxi and nuwa's theme has only two voices the whole time, presumably "their" voices based on the other opera that we see nuwa singing (the female voice in their theme is the same as that one afaik); and how nuwa tuned out all the problems facing the empyrean district and new kunlun at large in order to indulge in her hobbies and hang out with fuxi, and how the two of them had the luxury of being able to do that, is clearly reflected in this, with their theme incorporating no other voices unlike many of the others. initially, fuxi's voice carries most of the song, with nuwa's doing backup vocals, like the first phase of the fight; but the song has almost a second phase as well, where nuwa's voice becomes the main one for a while before fuxi rejoins her. i'm sure the symbolism there is obvious. it's a very rich and layered song, there's a lot going on, lots of instruments and different cool sounds. GOD this fucking soundtrack is so well designed they put so much thought into how to make all the boss themes fit the different sols AUGH. AND AND!! when the song ends the last voice you hear is nuwa's, fuxi's ends dramatically but nuwa's carries on for a little longer. holy fuck.

ji's theme starts slow, and then a choruslike sound bursts in, sounding like a bunch of different voices overlapping each other to the point where they become the same-- the people in ji's past, probably, all the history they've lived to see, it probably blurs together after living for as long as he has. then there's a "chorus" section (though fully instrumental), with a gentle like hopeful rise and a lot of uhhhh metal percussion in the bg? idk instruments. but there's like a jangling beat and this dramatic choir-like rise and im not sure what it means honestly but it's very ji. actually the choir could be like, the core of themself and their personality, and the other beats the background noise/other people he's been? open to input on this one (and all tbh).

all i can say about eigong's theme is that it's the same as the opening and possibly somewhere in the apeman facility which is really its own symbolism

[imkillerbae]

Heya! Thank you for adding some fanfictions to the thread, it's so empty recently.

How about something with Sova? Could be anything of your choice.

Heyooo!!!! THanks for requesting and sorry if this took so long to make.

And you're welcome! I'm glad I could contribute to the simping.

I LOVED writing this and had so many ideas. But I settled for something fluffy ehehe self indulgent stuff. anyway, here's Sova being a simp, cool reader, God mi heart. This is my most favorite one that i've wrote probably. Enjooy!!!

Say So (Valorant Sova x Fem!Reader)

Summary:

Sova’s artificial eye is acting up, and he needs help with it. Sage knows nothing about biocomponents, and the two young engineers were too experimental, so he approaches Y/N, also someone with artificial parts, for help.

Words: 2k

CW: Slow burn, FLUFF, lots of blushing, Sova the Shy bear, lots of inner monologue from him. just lots of fluffiness.

(Please listen to Avenue Beat's cover of Say So, originally by Doja Cat, while reading this.)

----------------------------------

🎶 Why don’t you say so? 🎶

Sova held this eye pain in for a while now. He didn’t like the idea of anyone tinkering with his artificial eye, but this was getting too painful.

He was reading ‘We’ by Zamyatin when it just busted on him, giving him a small jolt of electricity in the head. He felt that the thing was in some sort of disrepair, but he didn’t like asking for help with something so sensitive. Clearly, he made a mistake. Since this thing is so close to the brain, he might just deal with a lot more than a nonfunctioning eye. He sighs. He should’ve just asked for help.

Another hindrance was who to ask for help.

His choices were Sage, Raze and KJ, or Y/N.

He respected Sage for her skills in the healing arts but he couldn’t expect too much from her when it comes to eyes made of metal and wires. Plus his history with her? A can of worms he’d never want to open again. As for the two—Raze and KJ—he tried asking for their opinions and he was met with crazy ideas for modification and improvements, things he didn’t necessarily need. Plus, he’s not too fond of the idea of them fiddling with his eye for their own scientific curiosity.

That leaves Y/N.

Y/N was the obvious choice. She really was. She was skilled with biocomponents, she was easy to talk to, kind, generous, perfect. But there was a huge problem.

Sova has a crush on her. Was it called a crush? Do crushes even apply at their age? Point was, he liked her. And he was shy about it.

Y/N was an agent in the protocol who was similar to him, in a sense that she also had some robotic parts to her, namely her arm. The robotic components started from her shoulder, all the way to her fingertips. She was skilled with repairs of that nature. Along with Sage, she was also a medic for the team, both human and non-human. She was the obvious choice.

🎶 It’s been a long time since you, fell in love~ You ain’t coming out your shell, you ain’t really been yourself~ 🎶

Sova was just very shy, it was pathetic. Normally, he never really had any problem telling people what he felt. He openly says I love you all for god’s sakes. But whenever he was with her, he can pretend to play it cool but sometimes he’d zone out staring at her or just stutter on his words. His brain would just be filled with her, in scenarios he’d made in his head. Like how he would take care of her, marry her, take her to his Babushka, all that cheesy stuff. He wasn’t like this normally but his heart just beats faster than a machine gun could fire. He blushed at the thought every time he imagined spending the rest of his life with her. It didn’t help that he looked extremely serious whenever he was thinking.

He sighed. He needed to gain some confidence with her if he ever wanted a chance. Or at the very least, get this eye of his in proper order.

Getting to her door was easy peasy. Knocking was another deal. He stood there quietly with his fist raised, ready to knock, but no sound was emitted. Usually he rehearsed what he needed to say beforehand, but it seems like he couldn’t get his head straight this time.

It’s not that complicated to ask for repairs Sasha. Stop hesitating, he scolded himself. You’re not asking her to a date, you’re asking her to fix your eye. Stop overthinking, it’s not going to happen.

As he was about to knock, his thoughts were interrupted by Breach who was on the other side of the door as it opened. “Oh! Sova! Aye, great to see ya! But I gotta bolt! Thanks Y/N for the advice, haha!” He said immediately, waving at Y/N then at a confused Sova, although you would never be able to tell from his face. As he moved past Sova, Breach muttered “g’luck pal”, but neither Y/N or Sova heard it.

Sova stood outside the door, unblinking at Y/N who had her protection glasses on. “Hello,” she greets, gracefully placing the screwdriver on her desk. She smiles gently, her heels tapping lightly on the floor as she walked closer. The entire room was humming with electricity and the steady air from the vents, but he could hear his heartbeat clearly.

🎶 If you want it, scream it, shout it babe~ 🎶

He clears his throat, dusting his shoulders off. “It seems that I would’ve interrupted something had I knocked a little too early,” he starts, looking at the door, and then at her. He looked at her as discreetly as he could. She was in a white coat, casual clothes underneath. She adjusted the coat to her shoulders before speaking. “Not necessarily, Breach and I were just talking about his arms. He thought I’d be the best at tinkering with that.”

Concentrate Sova. Speak. Speak.

“I concur.” He replies, looking around the room, just anywhere other than her. He was sweating under his shirt, thank God he was wearing white. “So, what brings the big Russian teddy bear into my humble cave?” She teases with a laugh, pulling on his sleeve, beckoning him to walk closer to her walk table. She was professional most of the time, which he appreciated greatly, but it seems that she enjoys making him blush.

He blushes at the nickname, but he holds his breath to deafen the beating of his heart. “I-I’d like to ask for help with my eye. I can’t see anything from it right now, and it hurts.” He explains, leaning on her work table. She pauses for a moment, staring at him, then her expression changes to that of annoyance. “It’s not supposed to hurt. Since when has this been going on?”

“More or less a week. I thought of fixing it myself, which was a mistake.” He admits, ashamed, and she sighs. A hand lands on her hips and she leans on one side giving him an unsatisfied look. “Sova you don’t fiddle with your own eye, artificial or not. You know this. And for a week? This could be serious.” Her shoes tap impatiently against the floor.

Sova scratches the back of his head sheepishly then gives a meek smile. “It was foolish of me to think that it would pass. I’m sorry.” And with that, her expression softens to that of concern. She then reaches for latex gloves on the table pulling it over each hand. “Sit on the table so you’re on my eye level. I need to take a look at that before I pull it out of your eye socket.”

He looked at himself from the distant mirror. He was wearing a white shirt that fit snug enough to show his bulky shape, and dark green combat pants with lots of pockets on them. He fixed his blonde hair, combing it back. Y/N was watching as he did this, and she giggles to herself. She didn’t take him for someone who’s very concerned with his appearance.

“Alright big man. Lean in and let’s see what’s happening here,” she advices to him as she placed herself between his legs, holding a small flashlight with one hand. Sova furrows his brows but hesitantly complies. “Closer,” she says sharply, and he could feel her minty breath on his lips right now. He was looking to the side as she spread his eyelid open, his eye shaking.

“Look at me,” she whispers, too focused to care about him turning into a tomato, at the mercy of her hands. He then looks into her eyes, saying nothing but feeling everything in his chest.

When they first met, they easily got along. He was generally supportive of everyone, but he always found himself speaking positively about her more than anyone else. She was a team player like him, making use of his intel to clear areas as he watches her back. She’d saved him in the battlefield countless times, he knows he can depend on her with no fail. And his most favorite thing about her is her kindness and positivity. It was something he and the rest of the team needed.

As he thought about all of these things, Y/N repeated her question. He didn’t hear it the second time. “Huh?” He asked again, and Y/N’s eyebrows furrow, chuckling. “I asked if it hurt when I touch this,” she pressed on the side of his sclera, and he finally winces. “Slightly,” he whispered, looking away again and blinking.

🎶 Boy stop playin’ 🎶

“Why are you acting like you’re shy?” She smiles at him, tilting her head to one side, biting her lip. His breath became shallow as they stared at each other’s eyes, in comfortable silence. It felt like a moment was forever before she cleared her throat. “I’ll take that eye from you now, Sova.” She chuckles again.

Getting the eye off of him was not as painful as he would’ve thought, the numbing cream helped. Apparently static electricity damaged it. It was designed to be impervious to static electricity but alas, accidents happen. The inside of his eye looked fine minus the minor bruising, and she reassured him that seeing his eye like this didn’t bother her at all. “Sova I’ve dug out bullets from your shoulders with my fingers, don’t act like seeing your healed eye is something I’m not used to.”

As she worked, they talked about anything and everything that came to mind. How their day had been going, how was work, how was home. The conversation never seemed to end with the both of them.

“So, here’s what I’m advising. Take these anti-biotics every 6 hours, make sure you’ve eaten before though. I’m out of stock on the eyedrops but I’ll let you know when I have them again. In the meantime, stop touching it and make sure your hands are clean,” she slaps on his hand playfully, and he just huffs, the corner of his lips tugging slightly upward. “Thank you, Y/N. You are… wonderful.” He breathes out the compliment, smiling to himself.

🎶 Why you beatin’ round the bushn’~ 🎶

She returned his smile and crossed her arms. “You always say that. But thanks,” she shrugged, leaning on the wall, standing across him as he remained sitting on the table. He grits his teeth.

“I mean it. You are.”

“Yes. I know you mean it.”

“Y-you’re very wonderful. Kind, and beautiful. You smell great.”

“Uhuh? Thanks… haha.”

God what was this sudden urge to… to speak up? He didn’t know why but he needed to close this distance. It was gnawing at him. He couldn’t let this moment, this chance slip by him. He had to seize it. He internally fought the urge to chicken out and took a deep breath.

🎶 Knowin’ you want all this woman, never knock it till you try~ 🎶

He suddenly stood up and walked towards her, and she jolted upward out of instinct, one hand on her chest. He was a hunter after all, he could be intimidating. But everyone who knew him would say otherwise.

“I was wondering if you’d want to… come with me sometimes. I know a good place for coffee, we could come by after you take inventory of supplies. I think I could be of use in that department.” He asked spontaneously, his mouth stuck in a half smile as he realized what he’d said.

Y/N’s mouth was open, her eyebrow raised in shock. She was fighting the urge to laugh at his proposal. That was sudden, she thought. “W-wait, wait, are you asking me out? For coffee?” She asked, eyebrows furrowed and smile suppressed. He cleared his throat and looked around.

“Yes, I thought it would be a great idea to repay you for all of the help you’ve given me, digging out bullets from my flesh and all.” And with that, her room was filed with laughter, her laughter, a sound he’d come to love. “Yes, of course, I’ll take that offer. And maybe you’d like to show me some of the photographs you’ve taken of Russia? I’d love to see them.” She giggled, holding on his arm and squeezing gently.

His eyes widened. He was elated that she said yes that he almost didn’t hear her request. “When we both have free time, I’d like to take you there myself. My babushka makes great pastries.” He chuckles, his cheeks dusted with pink. Her hand trailed upwards from his elbow to his shoulder, then it settles on his cheek. Caressing it slightly, she then pinches it between her fingers, tugging. He winces.

“Let’s do the coffee thing first. Then we’ll talk about the second date.” She rolls her eyes teasingly. God he was on cloud 9 right now. He was confident that she’d say yes, but he was overthinking things. He should’ve just done this way earlier. “I’ve been meaning to ask you out for a long time now…” he admits, scratching his cheek with his finger. She then chuckles back.

“I’d let you had I known it. Why don’t you say so?”

[the-damnable-fool]

I wasn't really a fan of book 4: The Dead Town. I like the concept and some of the themes, like how its implied that the town has been doomed since before D walked onto it, but the execution just isn't there for me.

It feels like a lot of stuff just comes out of nowhere for no real reason, and a lot of loose plot threads get hastily tied up at the last second. The Sheriff randomly getting offed instead of having some final confrontation with D. Bluto randomly getting offed instead of having a final confrontation with D. The way the leading lady for the book just sorta hangs out and then gets dropped in a box off screen at the end with no measurable character development or contributions. It also doesn't help that we did the whole "somebody is trying to make artificial vampires" thing two books ago.

It really just feels like a whole book of D and company pissing around doing nothing of consequence as the world falls apart around them, and there's certainly some merit in a story with that sort of concept. The problem is that that sort of narrative doesn't really gel with a series whose entire premise is "Vampire Hunter D is the most overpowered motherfucker alive and it takes an act of God just to ruffle his hat," so you end up with a book in which the main character watches a town full of people die horribly while in next to zero danger.

Also like. I just kinda hate Lori. She's that very patronizing sort of disabled character who goes through some horrible injury and comes out of it with the most demure, aesthetically inconsequential disability possible because we can't risk doing anything that would make her less attractive. She literally just can't talk anymore. That's it. She has the worlds most specific type of anime brain damage that only affects her ability to speak and hear without giving her any of the un-sexy side effects of actual brain damage.

[pretzel-box]

[1 of 5 of Sasha's Background Files. Including some heavy topics like human experiments. This series is a work of fiction. Cordelia belongs to @splatting-stampede ]

Sasha Mariya Lazarski was often referred to as an artificial god, someone who had climbed so high that her fingers seemed capable of scratching stars from the sky with pure force. Countless hours of research had fueled her ascent. Miss Lazarski had the audacity to challenge the work of gods by raising the scalpel, taking human beings and transforming them into living dolls. She would disassemble their limbs, twist their joints, and rearrange what should have remained in place. She stripped the human out of humanity, from her subjects, and reshaped them into grotesque forms—masses of flesh, kept alive only by the tubes her workers had threaded through their bodies.

Yet, there were two sides to her.

Mariya, the woman who wore her long hair in a ponytail interwoven with carefully braided strands. Each day, she put effort into creating a new hairstyle, hoping to impress her fiancé, who always insisted that no matter how she styled it, she was as beautiful as the first day he saw her. Mariya preferred her coffee with two sugars, a shot of milk, and hazelnut syrup—a concoction more akin to liquid diabetes than coffee, but like many things, it was just another matter of personal taste. In her free time, she knitted scarves, dyed her hair every two weeks, and harbored a strong addiction to sudoku.

Sasha, on the other hand, wore her hair in a messy bun, with pencils and pens tucked into it when there was no room left behind her ears. She had an awful habit of biting her nails when under pressure, leaving them bleeding or infected. But pain was something that receded to the back of her mind when she was working. Gods don’t feel pain; they feel power. Sasha was one of Urbanshade’s top researchers, leading her own team and forcing countless humans through the trial stages she’d designed—all with the help of a mysterious drug gifted to her by a stranger.

Both were one and the same person.

One Monday afternoon, the coffee machine on the fourth floor broke again, in desperate need of a deep cleaning after someone spilled half a box of coffee creamer over it. Whether it was a wild animal that broke in or a lazy coworker with shaky hands, no one could say. Miss Lazarski glanced at her empty mug, her face twisting in disappointment, and picked up the remaining coffee creamer. She drank it straight from the box, grimacing at the taste but at least temporarily quenching her thirst. She then tossed the box in the trash, followed shortly by her mug—there was no time or energy to return it to the shelf when far more important matters demanded her attention.

One such matter was Cordelia. A simple name in a file filled with far more complex issues than a police report. Miss Lazarski had spent the previous night poring over Cordelia’s data. She knew everything—her family history, where she worked, what her favorite food was, whether she had ever stolen anything. Miss Lazarski even knew all the embarrassing high school stories Cordelia had lived through. And if you asked the blue-haired woman what she thought of her subject, the answer would be clear: Cordelia was, is, and always will be utterly boring. Ordinary at best. Miss Lazarski had wasted hours of her night studying someone who was replaceable and insignificant. She even used Cordelia’s photographs from the file as a coaster, now stained with coffee rings, marking the same forgettable face on every page.

The same forgettable face sat before Miss Lazarski, dressed in the drab, degrading prison uniform that was an affront to human dignity—and to her personal aesthetic. Telling Cordelia to strip out of that pathetic cloth wasn’t exactly an option at the moment, especially with the soldiers standing guard at the entrance, watching the prisoner closely. Not that Miss Lazarski particularly respected human rights, not with her work so deeply entrenched in the shadows of ethics. But she could afford to respect a person’s privacy—sometimes. A single glance was all it took. Cordelia hadn’t been able to shower in a while; her hair was a greasy, tangled mess that hung in front of her face. Bruises mottled her skin in shades of purple and green, some fresh, some fading. The sight made Miss Lazarski smile faintly. Cordelia was clever. She’d clearly been through some altercations but hadn’t fought back. She’d taken the hits. Prison was a psychological battleground, and this woman had chosen survival over pride. Not that it mattered anymore—Miss Lazarski was here for a very specific purpose.

"Welcome." Miss Lazarski began, her tone clipped and professional. "Let’s get a few things straight. I’m Professor Doctor Lazarski. I wasn’t originally scheduled to meet with you today, but my colleague from the legal department is… unavailable, so I’ve been sent in their place to collect your data. I’m a researcher at Urbanshade, a rather prestigious company. Perhaps you’ve heard of us, perhaps not."

Cordelia’s eyes, wide and cautious, tracked Miss Lazarski’s movements, her silence an indication of either confusion or wariness. It was clear she was trying to keep up with the rapid pace of the blue-haired woman’s words.

"Dizziness?" Miss Lazarski’s voice sharpened, her gaze analyzing Cordelia with the precision of a scalpel. "Your movements are sluggish, the way you're sitting suggests something more than just those bruises. No… you’ve suffered trauma. Recent trauma, in fact. It hasn’t had time to heal. If it had been there longer, the doctors would’ve patched you up. Or perhaps they’ve decided that a walking corpse isn’t worth treating."

Cordelia met her gaze, struggling to process the flood of clinical observations.

"Dizziness, a ringing in your ears, loss of hearing, and the pain… someone hit you hard, didn’t they? Did it bleed?" Miss Lazarski’s questions were cold, almost indifferent, as if she were dissecting a subject under a microscope rather than speaking to a human being.

„I will take care of that, when you accept our offer. We invite you to a special program. It is simple enough. We will free you and you assist us with a small task.“

Miss Cordelia was gone—vanished, erased from existence in less than 48 hours after signing her name on Miss Lazarski’s documents. Case closed.

“I don’t notice a difference.” Charles chuckled, seated at the dinner table, turning two plain bottles slowly in his hands, studying their labels. Mariya watched him from the stove, where she was lazily waiting for the leftovers from the fridge to heat up—just a quick dinner after a long day. Both had just returned home.

“I think the difference is that the original actually has sugar, and the new edition uses artificial sweeteners instead." she mumbled, trying to peer over his shoulder to see the labels herself. "Neither is good, but I guess the new one could be labeled as 'better.'"

Charles noticed her curiosity and chuckled, lifting the bottle higher for her to see. "You didn’t tell me how work was.” he added, leaning back and meeting her gaze.

“I made a new friend a while ago.” Mariya replied, her voice casual. “Her name is Cordelia.”

Charles raised an eyebrow, a teasing smile forming on his lips. “Oh? And how’s she doing?”

Mariya smiled faintly, turning her attention back to the stove. "Well," she said, her tone light, almost playful. "Let’s just say… she's a little hard to reach these days."

The quiet hum of the kitchen filled the air as Mariya stood by the stove, watching the leftovers warm up. The soft glow of the evening light filtered through the window, casting long, golden shadows across the room. The day had been long, draining in ways she couldn’t put into words, but standing here, she felt a stillness she rarely allowed herself. The soft clink of Charles’ glass on the table broke the silence, but it was gentle, like everything else he did.

Without a word, Charles walked over to her, his presence a comforting warmth at her back. He didn’t say anything, didn’t need to. Instead, he slid his arms around her waist, pulling her gently against him. The solid weight of his body was grounding, and for a moment, Mariya closed her eyes, letting herself fall into the moment. She felt his chest rise and fall with each breath, his heartbeat a steady rhythm against her back.

His hand found hers near the stove, his fingers intertwining with hers in a familiar, wordless gesture. She didn’t pull away. Instead, she leaned into him, her head resting lightly against his shoulder. The quiet stretched on, not awkward but full—full of the things neither of them had to say.

Charles’ fingers traced slow, absent patterns across the back of her hand, his touch feather-light, as if he were reminding her of something she hadn’t forgotten but needed to feel again. A gentle reminder that in this space, in this moment, she was allowed to just *be*.

Mariya exhaled softly, the weight of the day beginning to lift. He didn’t know everything—didn’t know about the shadows she walked through at work, the things that sat heavy on her chest when the nights stretched long. But here, in their small kitchen, with his arms around her, none of that mattered. His love wasn’t about understanding every corner of her life; it was about being there in the spaces where words fell short.

The soft click of the stove turning off broke the stillness, and Mariya moved slowly, turning around in his arms, her eyes meeting his. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. The way he looked at her—gentle, patient, as if he had all the time in the world to wait for whatever she wasn’t ready to say—was enough. His hand came up to brush a stray strand of hair from her face, his fingers lingering at her temple for just a second longer than necessary, as if tracing the path of an unspoken thought.

She reached up, her fingertips grazing the edge of his jaw, her thumb brushing across his skin in a slow, deliberate motion. His eyes softened, and in that silence, they understood each other. Not the details, not the complexities of their separate worlds, but the depth of what it meant to be together.

Charles leaned down, pressing his forehead gently to hers, his breath warm against her skin. His hand found its way to the small of her back, pulling her closer in a quiet, unspoken reassurance. They stood like that for a while, the sound of their breathing the only thing that filled the room.

Eventually, Mariya tilted her head just enough to press her lips softly to his. It wasn’t hurried or intense—just a slow, deliberate kiss that held the weight of everything she couldn’t say. He kissed her back, just as slowly, his hand gently cradling the back of her neck as if he were holding something fragile and precious.

When they pulled apart, Charles’ eyes held hers for a moment longer, his thumb brushing lightly against her cheek. Then, without a word, he turned toward the stove, plating the food. The mundane act of preparing dinner felt almost sacred in the quiet, as if the space they shared in that moment had stripped away the noise of the world outside.

Mariya sat at the table, watching him move with the ease of someone who had been a part of her life for so long, his every movement familiar, but never taken for granted. He placed the plate in front of her and sat down across from her, their knees brushing under the table.

In the silence that followed, Mariya reached across the table, her fingers finding his once more. Charles squeezed her hand gently, his eyes never leaving hers.

Time had slipped by, a whole week vanishing into routine, like sand slipping through fingers. Miss Lazarski glanced at the screen in front of her, her eyes briefly lingering on the grainy image of Cordelia. The woman who had once sat across from her, bruised and fragile, was now nothing more than a lump of flesh in a cage, reduced to an experiment among so many others. Humanity twisted by human hands. She should’ve felt something—satisfaction, maybe. But all she felt was the pull of the clock.

It was almost lunchtime.

With a sharp exhale, she turned away from the monitor and began typing hurried notes into the system, her fingers moving with a precision that didn’t reflect the impatience simmering beneath her calm exterior. There was still work to be done, data to gather, but that could wait. Lunch time wasn’t just about food; it was the promise of seeing Charles again. In a world where everything felt measured, controlled, and manipulated, those stolen moments were the closest thing to freedom. It was about the moments they carved out for themselves in a world that was always demanding more.

They both worked at Urbanshade, passing each other like shadows in a world that seldom allowed them the luxury of crossing paths. The cafeteria, though—no matter how sterile, no matter how full of faceless colleagues—it was their sanctuary, the one place where their lives intersected, even if just for a short while.

Miss Lazarski pushed her chair back, the scrape of the legs against the floor a jarring sound in the otherwise quiet lab. She glanced once more at the monitor, at the lifeless scene that had become Cordelia's reality, and then turned away, heading for the door. The hallway outside felt cold and impersonal, the fluorescent lights casting sharp angles on the tiled floor. But as she walked, the thought of seeing Charles, of feeling his quiet warmth in a world that otherwise felt hollow, kept her moving forward.

"Ah, Miss Lazarski, or should I say, soon-to-be wife of mine." Charles greeted her with that familiar, warm smile, his tray already filled with the typical mass-produced cafeteria food—a sad reward for the hours they poured into their work. Mariya's eyes flicked to his tray, catching sight of the small cup of pudding nestled among the bland offerings. A smile crept onto her lips as she stared at it, and for a brief moment, Cordelia’s face flashed in her mind. Something about that pudding, that mundane detail, sparked an unexpected connection—an idea, a new line of research that could push her further.

But now wasn’t the time for that.

"Let me grab some food too. You can save us a seat." The woman beamed at her fiancé, leaning in to press a quick kiss to his cheek before slipping past him. The kiss was light, like a breeze, but enough to feel the warmth between them—a touch that grounded her in a way she didn’t fully understand.

As she moved through the line, grabbing the same mass-produced lunch everyone else had, her mind was already racing, the gears turning. Her fingers tapped idly against the cold metal tray as she thought about Cordelia—her flesh, her transformation, the possibilities. Cordelia was about to reach the next step of evolution, thanks to Miss Lazarskis skilled fingers. Research was always evolving, and so was she. But even in the midst of those cold, clinical thoughts, there was an odd comfort in knowing Charles was there, just a few steps away, waiting with his warm smile and cheap cafeteria pudding.

She reached for a tray of her own, the process automatic, mechanical. But her mind, even with its hunger for answers and new discoveries, found a brief pause—a small, fleeting sense of normalcy in the idea that she’d be sitting across from him soon. It was enough to keep her tethered, just for a moment.

[tarnishedxknight]

Caelen / Munoh Merged Being Headcanons, Pt. II

{out of Dalmasca} Okay I know I said I was doing mostly thread replies today but I had a little more in me regarding my odd little merged friend here, heh, so I'm just gonna plop a few more added headcanons on the subject for your perusal, continued from here.

@celestialmantdonna

Naming

I... still have no idea what to call this being, tbh. "Caelenoh" is a funny little nickname that I've been calling him myself, but I think he should have a separate name. I'm always terrible with picking names, but... this time it's mostly because I can't choose what kind of name I want. Should I a) just give him an entirely separate fantasy generator name that will just be something he chose for himself without any deeper meaning, or should I b) give him kindof an existential name like "Light" (all Death Note fans just cringed, I know, I'm sorry, haha), or "Essence" or "Enigma" or something of that nature? Obviously "Essence" sounds more female- or feminine-gendered than male-gendered, but I'm just using it as an example. I'm kindof leaning toward option "b," but I don't want to choose anything that just sounds stupid, so I'm kindof hung up on this a bit, heh. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Mortality & Divinity Status

So... this being would be mortal, as opposed to divine or a construct, and he would be immortal, as opposed to mortal or invincible. I realize I said "mortal" twice, but it's on two different scales and I'm using it to mean two different things here, haha. Let me explain my madness.

He's mortal, not divine or a construct. This means that he's not a god, he's not omniscient or omnipotent or above the rules and constraints of nature. So he's subject to natural laws and bound by them, like all mortal, Earthbound, tangible beings are. He's also mortal rather than a construct, meaning that he's an actual living, breathing being and not a creature created artificially. For example, he's not a golem, a machine, or an inanimate vessel powered by magic. Maybe he began this stage of his life as a corpse being reanimated by magic, but as soon as that infusion of energy is complete, he's not undead, he's truly alive. A construct is animated by magic or electricity or something else that can be taken away again to render it an inanimate object once more. Like a power source that can be turned off or drained away. That's not what this being is. He's a living being, and his "power source" is his soul, and it cannot be removed without obliterating him.

He's also immortal vs. being strictly mortal or invincible. This means that he has the potential to live forever, but he can be killed. So... mortal beings have a finite lifespan. They will grow old and die. This being will not do that. He will grow older, but very gradually, almost imperceptibly so to humans, given their short lifespans. And he could potentially live forever, as the Occuria do. But despite this endless potential lifespan, he is not invincible, so he can be killed.

Everyday Life

As a living, mortal being on Earth, this being would need to do things to support his physical body. He would need to sleep, eat, drink, etc. to maintain himself and keep himself strong and healthy. I feel like he would be naturally immune to most poisons and illnesses, but that doesn't mean his health can't begin to fail if he doesn't take care of himself, or if he doesn't properly tend to wounds or anything like that. Infection from poor wound care is still a thing that can happen to him. He can bleed to death. So he has to still be mindful of that

Many of the things that could kill a human being could kill him too, it would just take a lot more effort to do so. The same wound would be a lot more dire for a human than for him, especially since I get the sense that he'd heal much faster than humans do, just from the excess of reparative energy that he'd constantly be bathed in. Haha it's like his soul or life energy is too big for its clothes, in a way. It can barely be contained by his body, and so it radiates out, much like the glow that Munoh had and that they could adjust and manipulate according to their activities and needs.

Sleeping would be an interesting thing for him, because it would leave him vulnerable, as it does with all of us. I feel like he would prefer to sleep alone in a closed space because of that, unless he is with someone he trusts absolutely.

Writing This Being

We all know that if I'm writing this much about him, he's going to become a thing on this blog haha. What's holding me back (besides the problem of not knowing wtf to call him) is that I'm just not sure how well I could pull off his merged personality. He should seem like Munoh, and Caelen, but also like neither. There should be elements of both, but he should not sound or act purely like one or the other. And because he is a fully merged and blended being, I can't write him as kindof switching back and forth between the two personalities because those individuals no longer exist as separate entities. I would have to write him as being a true melding of minds, abilities, goals, motivations, mannerisms, language... yeeeah, guys, I'm just not sure ya gurl has that kind of skill, haha.

I want to do it, though, so maybe it's just a matter of writing him up and living with him a bit, maybe rping with myself haha, to get a sense of him. It may be trial and error, and there may be a learning curve and acclimation period during which I'm trying to find my voice with him. Or rather, find his voice, heh. But I think I'd like to try, so if you have any ideas of interactions you'd like to see or things you'd like me to write with him to kindof get him going a bit, feel free. In the meantime, I'll work on writing him up, though I probably won't get it done this week at this point.

Okay that's all for now, but if I think of anything else, I'll add it! XD

[bridgyrose]

Penny defeats the Gods by confusing the crap out of them for being an entirely new form of creation.

(May or may not be what you were thinking for this)

Penny felt her soul start to pull as the God of Light seemed to look over her, almost as if he was trying to figure out what she was. Not like she knew anymore either. Portions of aura werent her own, pieces of Winter’s that stayed attached to hers even after being separated using the aura transfer machine. Even her father’s and Ruby’s auras seemed to be entangled with all of this. And then there was her body. No longer machine, but not exactly flesh and blood even if that was how she manifested herself. 

“You… arent one of mine,” the God of Light said as he pulled at Penny’s aura, twisting a piece of it like a loose thread. “And you arent one of my brother’s.” 

Penny took a nervous breath as her body started to tingle, almost as if she could feel her aura being unwound. “I was made by my father.” A shiver went down her spine as she felt an unfamiliar warmth in her chest, a warmth that shouldn’t have been there. “But I am a person now.” 

“No, you’re not.” 

“I am-” 

“You are something… different.” The God of Light let go of Penny’s aura, letting it tangle back to her. “Your aura isnt natural, not like theirs.” 

Penny looked over to her friends as the God of Light motioned to them, frozen in time just like everything else around her. “It… it was an artificial aura.” 

“And one that you seemed to turn into your own, even though elements of others are still present. Now, tell me, what exactly are you?” 

“I-I am a person,” Penny said, her voice wavering as if she didnt believe what she was saying anymore. Ever since Ambrosius pulled her aura out of her mechanical body, there wasnt any certainty of what she was even if she knew that she was a person. And yet, even as the God of Light stood in front of her, she started to waver on if she truly believed what she was saying. “I… I am a real person.” 

“Are you?” the God of Light asked as she looked over her. “You’re not like them, something different that seems to defy the balance of life and death that I’ve created-” 

“A balance that you seem to break,” the God of Darkness spat out as he appeared next to his brother. 

“This one isnt my doing.” 

“But that one is,” the God of Darkness hissed as he pointed at Oscar. “A death you wouldnt let me bring back.” 

Penny took a step back as she watched the two gods argue, what she felt of a heart beating hard in her chest as she started to feel panic run through her. Her eyes glanced at her friends, locked in battle with Salem, waiting for the judgment the gods would give them once they finished arguing. She turned to face the gods once more, her voice quiet as she started to speak. “You… you broke the balance too.” 

The God of Darkness transformed into his dragon form as he turned to look at Penny, almost glaring as purple fire started to leave his mouth. “You stay out of this!” 

“You both broke the balance when you cursed Salem.” Penny’s voice shook as she took a small step back, watching as the God of Light transformed as well. “But you can both fix it. You can take away her curse, put Ozma to rest-” 

“And we’ll have to take you away to fix it too,” the God of Light spoke. “Once the balance has been restored, then humanity will be judged.” 

“Take me… away?” Penny asked. “You… you cannot take me away from my friends.” 

“You defile the balance like my brother has.” The God of Light reared up on his hind legs, a bright silver light starting to appear in his mouth, licking around like flame. “No one is allowed to cheat death.” 

Penny took another step back as she looked back at her friends, her heart starting to pound as she tried to calm herself once more. The thought of leaving her friends again pained her. Just as she was ready to accept her fate, she paused for a moment. “I… I am… proof the balance is not broken.” 

“Be quiet and accept-” 

“I want to hear her out,” the God of Darkness said as he stood in front of his brother. “Dont you?” 

The God of light lowered himself as the silver flames died down, glaring at Penny. “Speak before I change my mind.” 

“I-I am not human. I was… mechanical,” Penny started as she put a hand to her chest. “I died, but my soul was bound to my core and so I was rebuilt.” With a heavy sigh, she lowered her hand as she looked over towards her friends. “But after that, my life was in danger again. My friends tried to save me by pulling my soul away from my body and turning me into… this.  But even still, I was killed, the remains of me brought back. I… I am the embodiment of creation and destruction, I am proof that your balance has not been broken.” 

“She has a point,” the God of Darkness said as he went back to his humanoid form. “We can fix what you broke and leave them.” 

The God of Light transformed back, almost annoyed. “Fix what I broke? I didnt break-” 

“You were the one who brought Ozma back after you told me that I wasnt allowed to for Salem.” 

“She had asked me first and I told her no.” 

“And then you did anyway after we left this world.” The God of Darkness sighed and looked at Penny. “This world isnt ours anymore. We fix our mistake with Salem, put Ozma to rest, and leave her as proof that your balance isnt broken.”

The God of Light sighed and looked over at Salem, a bright light shining from his hand. “Then humanity has been judged as unworthy for us to live amongst.” 

Penny closed her eyes, raising her arm to protect herself as the silver light flooded around the castle, the unfamiliar warmth burning at her chest. Then, the warmth disappeared. She opened her eyes, arm shaking as she looked for the gods who were no longer in front of her. And as she saw her friends, still standing, time slowly unfreezing, her heart relaxed as she realized the gods were no longer a threat. 

[justatalkingface]

So this was something I asked my Discord Buddies a while back but I wanted to hear your opinions on. What rules from here do you think BNHA needed the most?

...Huh. Alright.

1. This is something that, if anything, MHA is committing to too hard, with how they're 'redeeming' flawed heroes and the villains; the fact they're trying is basiclly absolving them, or for just wanting things to be better so... not that one. Effort alone isn't everything.

2. Yes two. Definitely two. Like, Mirko's entire creepy thing falls under that, and I guess how Shigaraki went full Eldritch Hand later on (I think that's cool, personally, but I'd bet that'd be unpleasant for a lot of people). There's also the lack of focus on so many things, and Izuku's entire dismissal of his character in particular, under this rule.

3. ...This goes back to how unfocused Hori seems on whatever his end goal is, and how hard he seems to be trying to dodge various themes that are still present and relevent (corruption, villains with points, etc), so pass.

4. I'm not quite sure how that's a rule... I assume that means, have a simple story in mind or something like that? Stay on target? In that much, Hori is covered, it's just the gaps between 'Izuku becoming a hero' and 'saving the day', or 'becoming the Number One Hero' that need work, so not this either.

5. This. God this. MHA has so much bloat, so many one-off characters awkwardly being brought back for the final arc, or just made for this arc, or plot threads that seem to exist just to exist (that reporter? Really? Really?). Underline this one.

6. ...Actually, yes. Like, Izuku is never challenged beyond, 'Fight this', really, and he's still got shy bones to him, so forcing him to social situations, or into the more public end of heroism, could have a lot of plot to play with and general story development.

7. I'm assuming Hori has this covered, though I get the feeling that ending may have changed? It's hard to tell with how muddied things are. Still, he does seem to be going somewhere, even if it's badly, so I'll call it a pass.

8. ...I. Don't think Hori has much of a choice at this point, on this. Jump is going to make him finish this even if they have to bring him back from the dead.

9. This seems ultimately a writer only thing, so... call it irrelevant? Then again, I wonder at what his list of 'impossible' would be....

10. I get the feeling he does this; Mineta, probably, and I think he's got to see something of Endeavour in himself for him to go to bat for him so hard. Ultimately, though, don't know enough about him to call it, but I don't think that this is a major concern.

11. I like this. This is related to the whole theme thing I keep talking about; Hori doesn't know what he wants this story to tell, and so it kinda wobbles all over the place, message wise. Mark this one, for sure.

12. Yeah, he probably could have used this once he got going. A lot of the stuff after MHA took off has been way too predictable, though I wonder at how much time he had at that point.

13. This! The reason so many people like the earlier characters compared to later ones is they had opinions; it fleshed them out, made them feel human. As time passed, there was less focus on the characters beyond their narrative role, which makes them feel hollow.

14. And this, I think, is my theme diatrade, if put in different words. Hori has lost his plot so he can't tell his story right. The theme now isn't the theme it was at the beginning, which is very bad, but worse than that he never replaced that theme. I'm not sure there is one anymore. If I had to name the 'essence' of MHA at this point, it'd be, 'I don't agree with you, so let's fight'.

15. *taps it rapidly* Izuku says 'Hi', Hori. Also, the entire Todoroki family, and basiclly everyone Bakugou has ever talked to. This story needs a heavy dose of this so damn bad, because people don't act like people in the situations they're in would, which makes it all feel so artificial.

16. Stakes are covered. Stakes are almost nonsensically covered, really, so we are more than good here.

17. ...I. If Hori had committed to it, actually committed to it, dropped the themes that he started with, full out, and gone with something new, instead of half assing mentioning them every other minute, I think the story would be better off. I also feel like his approach to main character could have used this, though ironically, I'd like it he'd stop dropping every other character willy nilly.

18. Considering he's throwing the story out the window to be done with it, irrelevant. Quality has got to be one of his last concerns at this point, and things would have to be changed on such a systemic level to improve the situation to make this kind of thing pointless.

19. This is more of a late-game problem, but yeah, shit like SFO being shot just before killing someone, which is miraculously able to actually do enough damage to matter, with no story prep before hand hurts the suspension of disbelief.

20. Irrelevant for our purposes.

21. I've said this as well, but too much stuff is happening just so it can happen, just because it's cool, at the cost of plot and character, and he's never realized that that is a bad deal to make. Very much yes.

22. Toga alone proves MHA needs an infusion of this; he clearly has ideas on how certain characters are like, where they're going, and what people think of that. The reality of the matter, on the other hand, doesn't agree with that idea.

This was pretty interesting, actually. Some of these are bit too geared to the actual writing process to translate well, but still, definitely good stuff here.

[numberonehatershrimp]

good lord... this shrimp is gonna have his hands full trying to keep up with the tally hall anon and my Mili brainrotted music head. but now shall we Open the curtains

Lights on

Don't miss a moment

Of this experiment

Oh, the book is strange

Like clockwork orange

Keep your eyes buttered till the end

Which "You" are you going to be?

Hm-mm-mm

Inside the mirror do you see (Ha-ah)

Someone else in that body?

Dance for me

One and

Two and

Three and

Turn around

Sit like a doggy

Till I finish my read

Cut it off, cut down your loss

All that stubborn loyalty is gonna get you killed

In a world built on convenient theories

For all the puppets on TV

There is comfort in the strings

If you're gonna control me

At least make it interesting theatrically

How does it feel to be free?

Hm-mm-mm

Why don't you try it yourself? (Ha-ah-ah)

The gate opened on me

So I leaped

Down, down, and down I go

I tell myself I'm a tough girl

(Down, down, and down I go)

I could never, ever, ever touch the soil

My heart goes right

My head goes left

And end up on your bed

Huh-ah

Sure, I'll be your marionette

Here, tug on my thread

Spread me open for dolly pink, snow white artificial beauty

Maybe we're all cold machines

Stuffed in the human skin

With human sins

Sewed up by the gods of city

Cut it off, you've already lost

All that precious bravery is gonna get you hurt

In a world that feeds on the minority

May that self-centered belief lead you to peace

If you're gonna replace me

At least have the audacity to kill me thoroughly

When does it end for me?

Hm-mm-mm

I think I am done with everything (Ha-ah)

Now I'm ready to leave

Dragging out

One line

Two lines

Three lines

Connect our hands

When I no longer can live on knowledge alone

Hopeful curiosity

(Maybe there are still happy answers left for my discovery)

What's the colour of the electric sheep you see?

And if you love me

Can you love your everything too, for me?

CAN PEOPLE STOP SENDING ME LYRICS?????!?!?!?!?!?!? I KNOW NONE OF THESE SONGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[the-consortium]

Wayward Son - Chapter 13. In a strange land.

A new chapter! Fabius and Erebus are investigating a way too dead Space Hulk and Saqqara is trying to cope with Fulgrim's garden.

------------------

Saqqara gasps for air, shakes his head. Disorientated, he spreads his fingers, dark energy begins to manifest, ash crumbles black from his fingers. A visceral reaction. The sheer force of the Neverborn gathered around him presses against his brain. From all sides. It's singing in his ears, pressure behind his eyes and a thin thread of blood running from his nose. Right next to him, he feels the heat and heaviness of Arrian's body. The World Eater's fingers clench around Saqqara's upper arms. Arrian breathes in and out, hissing and dripping saliva, as he tries to avoid the instinctive reaction of the nails.

Saqqara calms his breathing and his heartbeat. Whispers the Primarch's words, which seem appropriate to him. "… wandering in the unknown, yet held by the truth, shaded by its wings, bathed in its balmy scent …" and slowly he comes to himself. Enough to look around.

Callax! The garden! An amphitheatre of gleaming marble and floating crystal. Swirls of glittering glass spinning lazily in the air, its sharp-edged shards repeatedly tearing the non-flesh of the youngest god's servants floating around them, their cries of ecstasy filling the perfumed air.

The non-blood of the Neverborn drips into the pond in the centre, rising up again in impossible forms and revealing Fabius and Erebus. Far away, right in front of everyone.

Saqqara shakes his head. Arrian next to him snorts like an angry attack dog, slowly getting a grip on himself. The diabolist touches his neck, where not even a pain reminds him that a scalpel recently tore his aorta apart. "What … what's that?"

Arrian points with a curt movement of his head to Fulgrim, who has glided once around the blood pond and has now turned his pensive gaze to the spectacle presented by the two Astartes on the surface.

"This is about much more than whether the Chief Apothecary can keep you as a tool for, against and with demons. This is big politics. And as always, when one of them is involved, they're spinning a much bigger wheel than we can imagine. But this time our employer has probably bitten off more than he can chew."

Saqqara is still feeling his way along his neck. But his gaze is glued to Fulgrim. How could he look away? A primarch. The Dark Prince's favourite. Everything about him commands attention.

And yet there is also the rest of the audience. Like a living, breathing organism on the tiers of the amphitheatre, all around. Mostly splinters of Slaanesh in all shapes and sizes. Daemonettes, Fiends, Steeds and a Keeper or two. The miasma rising from them makes Saqqara's eyes water and fills his head with cotton wool. He has to make an active effort to think clearly.

Soundlessly, he continues to mumble mantras from the Book of Lorgar. Clings to their familiarity. The heat of Arrian's controlled anger further anchors him in the here and now. If you can call any of this "here" or "now" - stolen moments in an artificial ecosystem.

He struggles to find his way into the blurred reality. Again and again his gaze wanders to Fulgrim. The Primarch is made to be the centre of attention. Narvo, Bellephus and even Savona have their eyes glued to him as if he were the fountain in the desert.

But for Saqqara, it's about something else. As if the Chief Apothecary and the Dark Apostle were fighting over his soul. That's not true, of course. He's just the little fish that got caught in the net. And he's not even big enough for bait. The powerful of this galaxy have decided to play games here and Saqqara is lucky not to get under the wheels.

He straightens up, feeling the power slowly flowing back into him. He briefly wonders what he will have to pay later for being brought back from the brink of death with a mere snap of a finger. Nothing comes for free.

Erebus or Fabius? The unstoppable force and the immovable object. It's unclear who is what.

The two are strangely colourless shadows on Fulgrim's stage.

Far away, or just a breath in the neck from here to there? Who can say?

Fabius keeps an eye on his bio values. The Chirurgeon makes worried noises, shows him orange columns of numbers and wants to send cold solutions into his veins. With an impatient blink, he denies the metal watchdog too much nanny-like behaviour. He needs all of his mental acuity.

And all of his self-control not to snap at Erebus - verbally or physically. But it would be far too cheap and childish to allow yourself to be ruled by offended feelings here. No, he has long left that kind of false pride behind him. "Sorry, not sorry, father," he mutters to himself with grim amusement.

He lets Erebus lead the way. If anyone can find their way around an old Word Bearers ship, it's him. Fabius himself concentrates on what he can perceive. Be it with his senses or with his technology.

No ship is ever completely silent. Not even one as thoroughly killed as this one. Somewhere, metal creaks, something squeaks and settles. The cold makes something crack. A resounding pop, a bronze bell-like sound, when the Space Hulk moves.

And yet it is strangely quiet here, on the "Fire of the Watch". How does he know the name? The moniker has crept into his brain unbidden. Perhaps he read it on a scraped panel. On an ornamental strut.

Erebus appears politician-like smooth and cool on the outside. But his body's readings are not hidden from an apothecary. Combat hormones, adrenaline. His blood is a complicated cocktail. Fabius snorts a soft laugh. The beastflesh is always honest.

And suddenly - a leap into the red. From tense to full combat readiness. Erebus wants to attack. Wants to kill. But what?

Fabius hears a surprised growl from the Word Bearer. But why? What has- ….

"…we're still half a system away, but we can expect to reach it before the fleet arrives at the rendezvous point…"

The voice is clear and distinct. Fabius manages to swerve before he knocks the human officer, walking the length of the pristine corridor over. There is light around him. Footsteps. The hum of the active drive deep in the body of the ship. And several people in the elegant grey uniforms of the Word Bearers serfs. Back then. Now? Erebus in front of him turns towards him, the whites of his eyes clearly visible. The people around them pause, unease spreading like waves. Two guards, nothing but guards, at the passageway further back, are aiming their weapons at them - faltering, for those are Astartes after all. Or are they not? Who are they?

And that's what they hear. The panic-stricken voice of an officer, somewhere at Fabius' left elbow, where just a moment ago there was only darkness and silence: "Who are you?"

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

As of this week, I have a new article in the July-August 2023 Special Issue of American Scientist Magazine. It’s called “Bias Optimizers,” and it’s all about the problems and potential remedies of and for GPT-type tools and other “A.I.”

This article picks up and expands on thoughts started in “The ‘P’ Stands for Pre-Trained” and in a few threads on the socials, as well as touching on some of my comments quoted here, about the use of chatbots and “A.I.” in medicine.

I’m particularly proud of the two intro grafs:

Recently, I learned that men can sometimes be nurses and secretaries, but women can never be doctors or presidents. I also learned that Black people are more likely to owe money than to have it owed to them. And I learned that if you need disability assistance, you’ll get more of it if you live in a facility than if you receive care at home. At least, that is what I would believe if I accepted the sexist, racist, and misleading ableist pronouncements from today’s new artificial intelligence systems. It has been less than a year since OpenAI released ChatGPT, and mere months since its GPT-4 update and Google’s release of a competing AI chatbot, Bard. The creators of these systems promise they will make our lives easier, removing drudge work such as writing emails, filling out forms, and even writing code. But the bias programmed into these systems threatens to spread more prejudice into the world. AI-facilitated biases can affect who gets hired for what jobs, who gets believed as an expert in their field, and who is more likely to be targeted and prosecuted by police.

As you probably well know, I’ve been thinking about the ethical, epistemological, and social implications of GPT-type tools and “A.I.” in general for quite a while now, and I’m so grateful to the team at American Scientist for the opportunity to discuss all of those things with such a broad and frankly crucial audience.

I hope you enjoy it.

+

The “P” Stands for Pre-trained

I know I’ve said this before, but since we’re going to be hearing increasingly more about Elon Musk and his “Anti-Woke” “A.I.” “Truth GPT” in the coming days and weeks, let’s go ahead and get some things out on the table:

All technology is political. All created artifacts are rife with values. There is no neutral tech. And there never, ever has been.

I keep trying to tell you that the political right understands this when it suits them— when they can weaponize it; and they’re very, very  good at weaponizing it— but people seem to keep not getting it. So let me say it again, in a somewhat different way:

There is no ground of pure objectivity. There is no god’s-eye view.

There is no purely objective thing. Pretending there is only serves to create the conditions in which the worst people can play “gotcha” anytime they can clearly point to their enemies doing what we are literally all doing ALL THE TIME: Creating meaning and knowledge out of what we value, together.

There is no God-Trick. There is enmeshed, entangled, messy, relational, intersubjective perspective, and what we can pool and make together from what we can perceive from where we are.

And there are the tools and systems that we can make from within those understandings.

[more]

[kyogre-blue]

Finished replay Albedo story quest on the alt account. 

It’s bad! 

I feel vindicated in hating it on the first playthrough. 

Compared to the stuff Genshin starts doing later on, Albedo’s quest is actually comparatively tame. It’s just boring and drags up a bunch of threads that it then drops without going anywhere. It’s also not really in line with where Albedo goes as a character over the next two years’ worth of events. 

The biggest, most noticeable issue is endemic to pretty much all of Albedo’s writing and is presumably just a problem with whoever is in charge of his appearances -- the pointless, bloated dialogue that tries to pretend to be academic smartness. A good chunk of this quest is Albedo putting you through “experiments” while constructing various “hypotheses” about your nature. Unfortunately, it’s all extremely stupid and shallow. I recall this exact kind of endless word salad technobabble in the second Dragonspine event and when Albedo talked to Tighnari in Windblume 2 too. It was also painful then. 

Notably, Sucrose’s dialogue in Windblume also aimed to highlight her scientifically focused way of thinking but did so in a much less blunt, stupid way, since it was about her general thinking process while discussing more mundane subjects that were also plot-relevant. So you didn’t have this “what an idiot thinks academics do” stuff like Albedo going “ok, so maybe you’re kind of like a slime, but maybe you’re not, how about you go fight some slimes and I’ll watch?” 

All of this is made much worse by the fact that so many human-shaped supernatural beings exist in this world. Albedo compares you to slimes instead of adepti or youkai or anything else, which makes him seem extremely out of the loop about Teyvat as a whole. I doubt this is the intent, since he’s supposed to be rather widely travelled and knowledgeable. Him being so focused on life from other worlds also comes across strangely when he knows Alice, who discusses the barrier between worlds and stuff from other worlds repeatedly. Bro, just ask her instead? 

This also also leads into the way none of this has any narrative coherence. Albedo subtly suggests he feels isolated because he’s unique... and then doesn’t address this at all and instead 4shadows how he might lose control and attack Mondstadt. This might tie into Rosaria’s stalking... except she’s framed as too sensitive and insecure, unable to trust (ie in the wrong about this). Albedo rhapsodizes about how even a short, fleeting life can have meaning... in a conversation between two actual immortals. He’s not like part 1 Mash or Mini Vinci, he’s not a short-lived artificial being. He doesn’t age and is older than he looks, and so is the Traveler. What’s the point of them talking about the value of fleeting life, when neither of them is that? If this is meant to refer to their time in Mondstadt, comparing to something that explicitly dies is not the way to do it. 

My favorite (/s) part was Rosaria berating the Traveler for following Albedo’s instructions and drinking weird potions. Don’t worry, ma’am, we’re gonna do far stupider things in the future, including activating two (and counting) giant, evil-powered robots for, uh, lulz or something, breaking several seals on supposed evil god-type beings, and messing around with civilization-destroying magic pillars. 

[vvatchword]

I have debated the wisdom of posting these first draft things but I have since decided this is okay. Most of them will be altered dramatically before they are posted For Reals; some may never be part of the main story at all. Furthermore, I am going to do everything I can to finish Only Man's draft completely before I let it rest.

What is very, very cool about this hyperfixation is that, because it is so big in scope, and because each part is so dramatically different from the others, every time my interest flags in one section, all I have to do is run to a different one. I'm starting to wonder if I have found an artificial way to extend hyperfixation. If A Summer for Saya had a sister story, do you think I could have extended it in the same way, perhaps saving it and myself...?

See, one of my major problems is forgetfulness. When I'm not thinking of a story, it is completely gone. It might as well not exist at all. On the other hand, when I am aware of something, I'm fully aware of it, and it feels completely alive in an enormously complex way. It's like I'm an animistic god: I'm in everything and everything is in me. I'm the kid with that rug printed with images of a town and streets--the kind you run little Hot Wheels on--and I can see the whole thing, beginning to end and back again. Although I can only ever view one place at one time, I'm aware of most of the moving parts and have memorized where and when Character A will end up at Point X.

I am also constantly trying to comprehend it in all its fullness and complexity--all the characters bouncing around, all the events, the environment they occupy, and so on. I'll play it out fully in my head while on the bus, then back up and play it again, this time with minor differences, or I'll run one scene over and over and over, altering it dramatically, until Instance 1 is completely alien to Instance 235. It's not like I don't drop plot threads along the way--this is why I write everything down--but having a constant view of the big picture also makes it simple to pick those dropped threads back up.

Unfortunately, this is to the detriment of literally everything else. What's for supper? I don't know, but Character 5 just got shot in the face. Here's the kind of gun they were shot with and how it looked to all of the people in the crowd. Here's what the street looked like and what methods and materials they used to build it. Here's how far this street is from their house (by foot, by tram, by bike...). Here's what businesses were lining the street and there's Character 5's old flame, white-faced as they watch helplessly from the alley.

Boy I sure am hungry. Why am I so hungry------

Another downside is that if I ever leave this world, it's like it dies completely. When I return, my vision of it is completely different from the one I had before. That's partially because I'm a different person with different concerns and mostly because two hyperfixations cannot exist in the same place at the same time--one inevitably scrubs the other. I also have to relearn my passion for it, which takes the longest time of all.

I have been trying a multitude of different new methods to make sure that I don't forget what I was working on or aiming toward, as well as prompts that will hopefully get future me salivating. I do feel tired right now, and I keep thinking this hyperfixation will die, but every time I relax, it just blows up again. I may be able to keep this thing on longer than I think.

As long as it allows me to finish this draft... I'm golden.