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baldursgate3tempobsessed · 1 year ago

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Astarion Jealousy Part 2

The graphic extension to this but a lil less serious and definitely not sfw.

CW: Jealous spawn astarion who is still a sweetheart, but the drow twins get under his skin. graphic sex scenes, oral, relatively tame honestly. The sex part will be under the cut btw which is m/f. Also vampire man drinks blood. mentionable incorrect language for sex workers

It was odd, being home in Baldur’s Gate without the threat of Cazador always looming. Odd, but equally as wonderful. It had been so thoughtful, if not a little idiotic for Cazador to end up being your first stop in the city. The fight itself had been a blur, a barrage of intense emotions and bloody violence. Astarion had come so close to losing himself back there, losing everything that made him better than the man who almost ruined him. But then… you stopped him. You saw something more in him, a chance for a better life. A more meaningful life, away from the shackles of vampiric power obsessions.

He was officially free. Now he could exist without any fear of his disgusting master’s retribution. He could just… be. Well… not including his darling’s own myriad of enemies that seemed to follow them about everywhere. And there was still the matter of defeating the elder brain, and lord knows if any of you made it through that alive. But at least his personal demons were slain and out of the picture.

Every little step counted after all. Perhaps some of your delusional hopefulness had finally started to rub off on him, but Astarion was actually starting to look forward to his future. Your future, together. All he had to do was get through a few more perilous adventures and then he’d really have you all to himself.

All that said, Astarion could really go without the frequent visits to the local brothel. Was it the best place in the city for gathering information? Yes. It seemed that every walk of life in Baldur’s Gate found their way into Shar’s Caress and if you were going to find alternative passage to the underworld, this would be the best place to find it. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. For one there were the unwelcome advances to his own person, the concept of grace and personal space apparently left at the door. He was so very close to breaking the hand of the next person who thought it was appropriate to grab his ass. And if they could afford to get kicked out he would have by now. Your verbal, angry tirades in his defense could only scare off so many.

But as terrible as his own discomfort was, it was nothing in the face of how often you were being fawned over. What was it about you that seemed to drive everyone mad? Yes you were objectively attractive, but this was frankly getting out of hand. First there was the green skinned druid doing something sensual to your mind, then there were the general stares and whispers as you walked by, and now a pair of gorgeous drow twins trying and failing to proposition you.

It was getting tiresome. There were only so many times a man could take his lover being offered “free” services before he snapped.

On one hand, he could respect the dedication they had to the craft. He could be considered something of a hired whore himself in his time, the old, “the first one’s free” was a tried and true trick. And he also knew, vaguely, that no one was actually trying to steal you from him. But on the other, he couldn’t help the fact that he wanted to claw their eyes out for looking at you so brazenly.

He hadn’t expected the eyes of the woman to wander over to him, like she was just noticing the possessive arm he had wrapped around your waist, “Is that your partner with you? How would you both feel about having a little fun?”

Absolutely fucking not. Maybe the old Astarion would have smiled and nodded, ready to do whatever was asked of him. But the man from that wretched era had died, or at the very least was dying. And he would be damned if he let you lay with another, never less participate in it.

Astarion interrupted your overly-polite attempts stuttering of a refusal. He glared at them both, a sneer painted on his face, “We’ll be passing on that. You’d think the first no would have sufficed, but I suppose it’s not fair to expect everyone to have basic language comprehension. Now as illuminating as this conversation has been, we have places to be. Excuse us.”

Then he was pulling you away, happy to ignore the offended huffs of indignation he had left in his wake.

“We’re supposed to be investigating, remember?” You said with a giggle, not even questioning him as he dragged you to the second floor, “Being rude is not the way we’ll find travel to the hells.”

“I highly doubt they would have been of use,” Astarion said as he pushed you into the first empty room he could find. He felt off, maybe even a little crazed as he turned to you, “Tell me darling, what is it about you that makes you so irresistible, hm?”

He crowded you against the closed door, ducking his head into the crook of your neck to breath you in. You smelled heavenly, you always did. He could trace the barest whiff of your blood from beneath your skin, always calling to him. You were the sweetest thing he ever tasted. Delicious even, for more reasons than one.

“T-They just wanted my coin,” You gasped when he started to suck bruises into your skin, “That’s all.”

“I think they wanted a bit more than that,” Astarion bit out as he shoved his thigh between your legs, “What will it take for others to realize you’re mine.”

His hands were wandering, resting low to grip your hips. He was using them to move you, forcing you to grind against his thigh. You grasped at his shoulders, trying to bite back a moan as you stared at him with wide eyes, “You want to do it here? Does that door even lock?”

It looked like it didn’t, not that Astarion cared. Maybe walking in on him ravishing you would finally start getting the point across of who you belonged to. Astarion shrugged, "There are less appropriate venues than literal whore houses."

“But-”

“But I can tell you want it,” Astarion interrupted with a smirk, his hands barely working to move your body anymore. But that wasn’t stopping you from rubbing yourself all over him, “Just look at you darling. Desperate little thing. But if you really don’t want to…”

Astarion made a lazy attempt to step back, laughing out loud when your desperately pulled him back, your desire finally winning out over your common sense. But you were glaring at him, obviously annoyed that he was so good at riling you up. He had seen that look before, the one that just screamed that you were scheming something.

He just hadn’t expected you to drop to your knees in front of him, huffing as you started to undo the fastenings to his pants, “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bit of a shit?”

“Maybe,” Astarion said with a strained laugh, his breath catching when you pulled his half-hard cock out, “But it seems to keep getting me the things I want.”

You rolled your eyes before licking a wide strip up his cock, like you weren’t directly proving his point. You looked amazing own there, you’re half-hearted glare morphing into a blissful haze.

Gods, how were you real? Astarion wasn’t quite sure why you were such a fan of getting him down your throat, but he knew that he was a lucky bastard for it.

“Sweet girl,” Astarion sighed, letting a hand drift down to tangle in your hair, “Sweet girl with a perfect mouth. And you’re all mine, aren’t you?”

You made a small, affirmative noise around his cock, taking him in deeper as you clutched at his thighs. You were so good at this, so well-trained after months of being together. He loved the soft, wet sounds that would escape your lips as you swallowed him down, the pretty way your eyes would water as you encouraged him to fuck your throat, how you would squirm in place on your knees, no doubt ruining your panties with how wet you were getting.

And no one else would ever know. No one would get to see you like this again, feel you like this. Needy, desperate, and his. Oddly enough, that thought was what sent him over the edge. He came down your throat, groaning as you eagerly swallowed around him.

You pulled off of him slowly, panting while you smiled up at him. There was the smallest string of spit mixed with his come, connecting from the head of his cock to your lips. You licked it up, still clinging to his thighs as you hazily stared up at him. Sweet enough to make his heart skip a beat, and his dick give a valiant twitch.

He pulled you to your feet, not wasting any time in smashing your lips together. He spun you around, pushing you towards what he prayed was a clean bed.

He pushed you back onto the sheets, making quick work of tearing your pants down your legs as he grinned down at you, “Your turn.”

He kneeled in front of you; spreading his hands over your splayed thighs to peel off your underwear. The core of you was already glistening, slick enough to make Astarion’s mouth water. He licked his lips as he spread your legs further apart, shameless as he feasted on you with his eyes.

You were shaking in his hold, biting your bottom lip when you whined, “Stop staring already…”

“But you’re so pretty here my sweet,” Astarion cooed, tracing a single finger over the seam of your cunt, “And you’re dripping. Poor thing, have I kept you waiting too long?”

You nodded excitedly above him, your hips bucking when he let his fingers dip in further between your pussy lips. He lightly traced your clit, softly laughing at the way the simple touch made you whine.

It was his own fault that you were so needy, a fact that brought a smirk to his lips. You always got so wet after you had him down your throat, soaked and gorgeous.

Astarion dove right in, loudly moaning as he licked into your folds. He dragged his lips upward to suckle on your clit, basking in all the cries and whimpers escaping you.

He licked back down, teasing your hole with his tongue as your legs quivered around his head. He let the sharpness of his fangs scrape against you as he started to fuck you with his tongue, threatening your most intimate places.

He knew you liked that; little minx that you were. The slight risk of pain that was always looming. It made him want to sink his fangs in you for real, a hunger that he'd sate after he had you gushing into his mouth.

You were already close, he could tell from the way your cunt was tightening around his tongue; too worked up from the thrill of being in public and the taste of him still lingering on your tongue. Astarion trailed talented fingers up to rub against your clit, his tongue still curling inside of you as you cried out. Finally falling over the edge. But that wasn't stopping him from continuing to play with you.

You had to tug on Astarion’s hair for him to finally pull away, too over sensitive to handle his talented tongue. You were still trembling by the time he leaned back, licking his lips. He rested his head on your thigh, obviously pleased with himself as he grinned up at you. He could feel your heart racing against his cheek, the sound of your blood pumping singing through your veins. It had his mouth watering for a completely different reason.

He let his fangs drag against the delicate skin of your inner thigh, looking up at you through his lashes, "Can I?"

A superfluous question. Not when he already knew the answer before it escaped your lips.

“Y-yeah," You mumbled, lovingly gazing down at him. He would never tire of seeing that look on your face, "But be gentle? Please?”

"Of course my love," Astarion murmured, before promptly sinking his fangs into your flesh. He had to hold you down from the way you were still trembling, your quivering only getting worse at the pleasure mixed with pain. He didn’t let himself go rabid, just enough to get a taste. He was pulling back too soon, smiling to himself at the little whine you let out. He gently licked over the wound before standing, not yet swallowing the last drops on his tongue.

Instead he leaned forward to kiss you, more than happy to share the sweet taste of your blood as he slipped his tongue into your mouth.

“Thank you my dear,” Astarion sighed as he pulled away, “That was exactly what I needed. Now I think that’s enough investigating for one day.”

You sighed, taking the time to card your fingers through his hair, “Agreed. Though you might have to carry me out of here now.”

Wasn’t that a wonderful idea?

Astarion hummed as he pulled your clothing back on, “I think I like the sound of that," He didn't give you time to respond, too busy sweeping you up in his arms with a grin, "I'll be taking you up on that."

You squeaked when he hefted you up, bridal style, “I wasn’t being serious!”

But it was too late, Astarion was already kicking the door open. He shrugged at you, completely shameless as he winked at a few onlookers, "Then you shouldn't have suggested it."

You groaned, hiding your face in his shirt as he happily took you outside, “I’m going to get you back for this. I hope you know that.”

Astarion laughed as he kissed the top of your head, “I’m sure you will.”

It was a childish stunt, borderline on par with a jealous tantrum, but gods, did it feel good. Good enough to sate Astarion's obsessive tendencies for an impressive amount of time. Under normal circumstances.

But what about your lives were normal?

#astarion #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #baldur's gate 3 #you'll pry my long posts out of my cold dead hands #long fic #spoilers #and thats how later astarion found himself on stage with a killer clown #whoops #still fluffy i'd say #I got a soft (in comparison to cough alternatives) jealousy trilogy in mind so one more dirty part. Also #side note #in reality everyone in your party is attractive and probably gets flirted with an equal amount at the caress #but I love the idea of astarion being hyper focused on you.

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ghostaholics · 1 year ago

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𝐏𝐈𝐂𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄-𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓

➸ PAIRING: Lieutenant Simon 'Ghost' Riley x gn!reader (aside from a single idiom whose origin uses masculine language/pronouns - every man for himself) ➸ SUMMARY: Against all odds, the Lieutenant accidentally falls asleep on your shoulder. Unfortunately, there are witnesses to the precarious situation (just your luck that it would be Gaz and Soap). ➸ WORD COUNT: 2k

𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐀𝐃𝐕𝐈𝐂𝐄: don't poke the bear.

Danger in your line of work typically consists of trying to walk away from a mission while still being left completely intact (i.e. the goal is to make it out alive, in one piece). You’ve survived a great number of ordeals: cornered into a shootout with a dwindling supply of ammo, tiptoed your way through a field of pressure-sensitive IEDs, dove towards probable death (with an awfully high probability of splattering onto hot, concrete hell like a bug on a windshield) because your helo was sent tail spinning courtesy of a perfectly-aimed RPG – and really, the list goes on.

It's been child’s play, in the grand scheme of things. An extensive catalogue of life-or-death scenarios accounts for your entire military career. And sure, this might be a bit of a stretch, but you'd wager that none of those instances thus far have been as high-stakes as the current predicament you’ve found yourself in.

Jesus-fucking-Christ. Why’d Ghost have to fall asleep on you?

𝐀 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐂𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: avoid sitting next to him on the plane ride home. You've had to learn it the hard way.

And the kicker is that this whole thing could’ve been avoided; it didn’t have to be your problem. You could’ve sentenced any one of the other soldiers to your seat. Every man for himself, right? Get off scot-free, have a normal trip back to base with plenty of legroom so that you’re not cramped. Theoretically, it would've been beautiful – a passenger's paradise, the closest you could get to a first-class ticket.

But no.

Instead, play the Good Samaritan; extend your hand out with an act of benevolence. What’s the harm, right? So, you'd spared the poor guy, said you wouldn't mind switching places with him because he'd looked as white as a damn sheet at the idea of being crammed beside this behemoth of a lieutenant who's infamously every FNG's living nightmare.

Yeah, well hindsight is 20/20. Had you known what was going to happen, you would've had no reservations about throwing him under the bus. Sayonara, mate.

Law of the jungle, plain and simple.

To make matters worse, he is, in fact, exhibiting terrible flight etiquette. His head (which is dead weight and feels about as pleasant as a fucking bowling ball, mind you) has taken up every inch of real estate on your shoulder and is practically tucked into the curve of your neck; you’ll need to take a trip to the chiropractor’s after this – several, probably. The edge of his skull mask is digging into you. And, the cherry on top: get this – he’s man-spreading, so his left leg's trespassing into your own territory and brushing against your thigh. Utter lack of regard for personal space.

Incredible.

You’d still rather die than wake him up, though. You're not sure what'll happen if you do, but that's a risk you're not willing to take.

All things considered, an achy shoulder is a much better alternative than incurring the wrath of one angry Lieutenant. He's more subdued in this kind of context. To be completely honest, if you weren't already well-acquainted with him, you'd find it endearing.

From here, it's easy to see the simple rise and fall of his chest, steady and even. Slow inhale in, slow exhale out. He's at peace, a rhythmic lull that matches your own breathing. You can't quite put your finger on the exact moment he fell asleep. (He's got a habit of shutting his eyes and folding his arms over his chest when he isn't in the mood to converse with the other soldiers onboard. But God willing, he would never voluntarily loll his head onto your shoulder.) For what it's worth, he deserves the rest – never been one to do it this soundly as countless missions have taught you that he's usually a light sleeper. You remember him roughly prodding the toe of his boot at Soap's arm once when the Scot was conked out and his snores were a bit loud for Ghost's taste.

Rather odd then, that the Lieutenant even managed to allow himself to doze off like this. It’s too loud, too unsteady – the droning of the plane engine doesn't exactly make for good white noise and the turbulence outside is jostling the cabin around. Moreover, this puts him in a position of vulnerability, and he’s not the type to let his guard down so easily.

But somehow he did it with you beside him.

You try not to think about the implications of that.

𝐈𝐓 𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐒 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐄, 𝐎𝐅 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒𝐄.

Because, Soap's just woken up from his nap, the first among the entire company of soldiers in the cabin still sleeping, excluding yourself. His seat's parallel to yours, straight across the walkway within direct line of sight, so he’s got an unobstructed view of you and Ghost. Soap sends a questioning glance in your direction, eyebrow quirked. A look that says, The hell's going on?

The level of your voice is down; it's at a conservative decibel to avoid rousing the others. Yet you convey your distress with the same amount of passion as if you were stuck in the middle of a losing firefight. "MacTavish, help."

Soap works with bombs for a living. Surely, he's capable of defusing situations too.

Alright the man’s a demolitions expert, but that’s semantics.

He blinks like he's trying to make sense of the situation. Though, it's pretty obvious what the problem is here. You're not sure why he’s got to take a moment and contemplate it. You need a solution, now. And he's moving at a snail's pace.

For a second, you think he might sympathize with your plight.

But then his mouth morphs into a shit-eating grin and when he nudges Gaz awake, you know right then and there that you're absolutely fucked.

More witnesses.

Great.

Because that’s just what you need, isn’t it?

Gaz drags a hand down his face. He pans over to his right to figure out why he’s been jolted awake so suddenly, and sees Soap who’s inexplicably, nauseatingly jovial before his eyes land on you.

Much like Soap’s original reaction, Gaz can’t help but offer a quizzical expression. The confusion is evident. His brows are drawn together because he knows that the L.t. wouldn't fall asleep on your shoulder.

Soap's shifting, sliding his hand into his pocket before pulling out his phone. He messes with it – a few taps here, a few swipes there. And then before you're registering what's happening, he's aiming it straight at you, like one of those mums getting a snapshot of their kids in matching jumpers during the holidays.

"Say cheese."

An indignant gasp leaves your mouth. "If you so much as—

"Soap, no. Don't do that." Gaz says from beside him, plucking the phone out of his hands. He tsks him with a click of his tongue. Stern disapproval in spades. The meaning is clear: it’s a big thumbs down from the Brit. He’s not endorsing this type of behavior. “Gone mad now, have you?” he asks in admonishment.

You release a sigh of relief. Finally, some moral support. He's reliable. Your faith in him is unshakable. Always could count on Gaz to get you out of—

"Have to shoot with a wide angle, see? Or else it'll look wonky," he corrects, flipping the phone horizontally before handing it back to Soap.

"Aye, thanks mate.”

Gaz's smile isn't as excessive as Soap's but the smirk gracing his face tells you he's relishing in your misery all the same.

Fucking traitor.

"Knobheads—"

They’d risk their own hides to save you from certain death. You've seen it in Cairo, Valencia, and Seoul. Good men. Good hearts in the right place as well. However, they're also the type to embarrass you at every opportunity – public humiliation being somewhere on that roster as well. And for that, you want to strangle them.

"Rude,” Soap comments pointedly.

"Bite me, MacTavish."

"Just wake him up if it's bothering you," Gaz supplies unhelpfully.

"If you were in my shoes, would you do it?"

"'Course, not," he snorts. "I don’t have a death wish.”

“Well, I also prefer my head on my shoulders, thank you very much," you whisper furiously, nearly hissing at him.

And Soap is admiring his handiwork, when he coos, “Aw, the two o' you make quite the pair." He briefly twists the screen so that you can catch a glimpse of it, and even from this distance, you can confirm that he's captured the shot. Annoyingly well, to add insult to injury. Angle? Spot-on. Lighting? Brilliant. It's interesting, has character. Black and white photography. He's managed to make a stunning composition and your upper lip is curling up into a sneer of disgust at his artistic eye. How infuriating.

"I'll send this to the Cap. He’ll get a kick outta it."

"Sod off."

"He'll appreciate bein' included."

Gaz matches the energy with an equally gleeful smile, now delighted by the idea. “Hey, and the L.t. he looks—”

“—cute," Soap has the audacity to finish for him.

What.

There are many words that you’d use to describe Ghost.

Cutthroat, maybe. Imposing. Glacial. Taciturn. A stringent set of ideals that makes him the perfect soldier: disciplined, honed, fierce. Intimidating, if he's not fighting on your side – someone you'd much rather have on your team than against, unless you fancied death. He can be a stone-cold terror on occasion. The man’s been penned as a walking horror story by those in the military. Given his iron-hearted demeanor, you'd be hard-pressed to disagree with that statement; there's not much room to call his steel-encased resolve into question.

So, yeah. Above all else, he's certainly not cute.

Your eyes narrow at them. "Congratulations, the both of you have officially made the top of my shitlist."

Soap, indifferent to your crisis, asks, "Want a copy for your wallpaper?"

There's another heated remark waiting on the tip of your tongue, because there's no way in hell that you would and you're ready to tell him off, about to give him an earful.

But somebody else beats you to it.

“Wipe that picture, or I’ll wring your bloody necks.”

Ice surges through your veins. Goosebumps break out across your skin. Because that voice belongs to one person. Oh, Christ. Never in a million years would you want to be on the receiving end of it.

There's anxiety warping in your chest. You're scared stiff, paralyzed with fear in a way that implores you to remain stock-still. The coarse fabric of your trousers bunches underneath your palms as you try not to freak out. This isn't your fault. None of it is.

And here's the worst part: Ghost hasn't lifted his head from your shoulder yet.

But Soap's unfazed. He blinks a couple of times, seems like he's weighing his options – as if there's something else he could choose besides following his lieutenant's command – yeah, right. He wises up, settling for a simple answer in the end. "Alright, Ghost." His smile makes a reappearance, sweet and well-meaning. Troublemaker. "Any chance you'd like a copy before I do away with it?"

"What kind of fuckin' question is that, Johnny?" he grumbles. "Obviously."

𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐄:

"I take it you don't think I'm cute then. Have I got that right?"

"I'm sorry... mind repeating that again, sir?"

"You didn't have anything to say about Soap's comment."

"I have a feeling that whatever I answer will get my arse handed to me, L.t."

He's smiling in response – like sunshine trapped behind clouds. Despite it being obscured by the mask, you can see his eyes crinkling at the corners, which makes the black charcoal that's lining them begin to crease a bit. "Permission to speak freely, Sergeant. You have the floor."

Your mouth parts in surprise. Well, then. Maybe you stand corrected. And so, you appraise him momentarily, giving it some serious thought. There's more to Ghost than you give him credit for. He's terse and rough around the edges, but respected for a reason. Admirable. Someone you think highly of and has deserved your approval. The mask undeniably provides an air of intrigue. “I suppose you can be,” you start off, gradually warming up to him being more approachable. “When you’re not terrorizing the new recruits, that is.”

#i got lazy again #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon riley #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost x reader #ghost x you #cod fic #cod mw x reader #cod mw 2 #cod modern warfare #call of duty fic #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty modern warfare 2 #cod x reader #simon ghost riley x you #simon riley fluff

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redroses07 · 5 months ago

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The Umbrella Academy Season 4 Fix It Fic // Five Hargreeves x Reader Edition

WC: 3.1k

CW: Canon accurate violence, swearing, kissing, use of Y/N, Y/N is a bad ass, domestic fluff, angsty af.

Summary: A Five x Fem!Reader rewrite for the end of season four because I absolutely hated the ending. Five and Lila are not a thing in this fic, because that made me literally gag.

A/N: Hey luvs! I worked my ass off writing this fic because I needed to have a better ending for season four. In my mind this fic is canon. I hope y'all like it because I truly love how it turned out! Have an amazing day and enjoy! - Claire ♡

Five sat on the empty train, riding round in aimless circles. He had no intention of ever stopping. Perhaps he would die here, if death was even possible in this endless void. There was no reason for him to continue, they were out of options.

All he wanted to do was save his family, save you, but he couldn't even do that. At least this way he could escape having to witness the end of their lives.

He couldn't help but feel as if this was all his fault, if only he had listened to Reginald when he told him never to time travel. So much pain, so many lost lives, it never would have happened.

Five looked out the window, he didn't know what exactly for. Everything looked the same. Round and Round again, each identical station feels more hopeless than the last.

After an immeasurable amount of time, days? years? who knows. Something caught Five's eye.

He jumped up from his seat, following the dark figure out into the station.

Was that? No.

"Hey, wait!" Five shouted, chasing him down a staircase.

He rounded a corner, seeing a dimly lit cafe filled with all too familiar faces. The place was filled with several alternate versions of Five himself. It was an odd feeling for him to see himself this way.

Nonetheless, he took a seat across from the Five he had followed.

No more than ten seconds later, another Five served up two pastrami sandwiches. Five number two began to complain about the amount of sauerkraut on his sandwich, staring intently at the meal.

"What is this place?" Five asked, reaching for the cup of hot coffee next to him.

"It's a gas station. What the hell does it look like? It's a Deli." He could see that the alternate Five share his love of sarcasm.

He went on to explain how this was a place where all of the Five's from alternate timelines end up while trying to fix the "broken timeline" issue.

"Okay, so what shattered the original timeline?" Five asked.

"Not what. Who? I'll give you three guesses." Alternate Five held up three fingers.

"We did!" Another Five yelled.

Five wasn't surprised, everything always seemed to be caused by him.

"By we, do you mean my siblings?" Five asked.

"Yep, the morons."

Five rolled his eyes.

"When we come into existence, the timeline is shattered, and then we're stuck trying to save the world. How many times was it again?"

"145,412."

The number seemed almost impossible to fathom, but the more alternate realities, the more opportunity for the world to end. Alternate Five pointed at the wall, which was filled with every possible way the world had ended. Viktor's attempt at blowing up the moon was front and center. Seeing it gave Five an unpleasant sense of nostalgia.

Five came to realize that the commission was created by an alternate Five in an attempt to fix the timeline, but it was never successful since the Hargreeves siblings were the root of the problem.

"I have to get back." Five turned, rushing out the door. He heard the alternate versions of himself begin to speak, but his overwhelming thoughts drowned it out.

Five ran as fast as he could, getting back on the train and returning to his rightful place. With his family.

As Five entered the abandoned shell of his former home, the room's occupants turned to look at him.

The first person he noticed was you. You watched him with sad eyes, eyes he thought he would never have to gaze into again. Yet here he was, and undeniably, he had a plan.

You watched Five scan the room. Dark hair hung in front of his eyes, his chest heaved from running, or perhaps from anxiety.

"I didn't think you'd be back." You purse your lips, giving him a sour look. '

Facing your bitterness was the hardest part of all this for Five. Of course you had every right to feel that way, he had just up and left you. Although, in his mind that was better than having to watch you die.

"Yeah, neither did I." Five muttered.

Everyone looked at him, obviously awaiting an explanation.

"We caused this." Five began.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Alison sighed.

You stared at Five intently, wondering what had changed since he decided to ditch you and everyone else.

"The marigold that infected our mothers bringing forth our births had a side effect, it fractured the timeline, bringing forth the end of the world."

Five looked from person to person, attempting to read everyone's emotions. They were unreadable.

"Extracting the marigold from our bodies is the only way to stop the cleanse, and in short, fix the timeline."

Silence settled over the room. You weren't born with marigold as the Hargreeves were, but due to Ben's antics, this now concerns you too.

"Okay, but how exactly do we do that?" Diego asked.

Five looked over to Viktor.

"Viktor, you can use your powers to extract the Marigold from our bodies. Unfortunately Ben and Jennifer are too far gone to be saved, but their sacrifice will have been for the greater good."

Viktor let out an elongated sigh, and with little to no hesitation, he agreed.

"Okay, let's get moving before it's too late." Viktor said, speeding out of the room.

You followed closely behind, trying your hardest to avoid Five's gaze.

"Y/N, I-" You cut him off, this was not the time to be talking about all the mistakes he had made. Even if those mistakes led to the answer for all your troubles, they were still mistakes.

"We can talk about this later, if there is one."

Five sighed and watched you exit the room, not even bothering to look his way. He had fucked up big time.

You watched Viktor head towards the monster that was Ben and Jennifer. The creature growled, as it hurdled towards your group.

You turned back as you felt someone grab your arm, Five was standing behind you. You saw something in him that you had only seen a few times before, fear.

"Please. If we don't make it through this I want to make sure we're okay." Five begged for your forgiveness.

In any other circumstance you would not have given in this easily, but the dire situation has just begun to settle in. This could be it.

Neither of you wanted to leave this world with so many words unsaid.

Your gaze softened, and you followed Five away from the other Hargreeve's.

"I know what I did was wrong. With every bone in my body I feel that it was wrong."

He spoke loudly enough to drown out the oncoming chaos, but softly enough to omit any sort of aggression.

Five reached for your hands, and you reluctantly let him take them.

Five paused for a moment, trying to find the words that would mean the most, considering he was dealing with limited time.

"My worst fear is to see you suffer, and at the time, running away seemed like my only escape. I feel like I've already caused so much hardship in your life, and the thought of any more terrified me." His eyes stayed glued to you.

Five was the whole reason you had joined The Commission to begin with. He helped you to believe in a cause that you otherwise wouldn't have, and the two of you hadn't left each other's side since.

You didn't regret it per say, but you couldn't deny that you often wished for a different life. You would never blame any of your circumstances on Five though, and you hated how he always chose to blame himself.

"Nothing that has happened to me, or to anyone, is your fault. I think all of us share some responsibility, but blaming yourself is just wrong." You squeezed Five's clammy hands.

Five let out a sigh of relief as he was able to recognize forgiveness in your eyes.

"I love you." He said, fighting the tears that began to form in the corners of his eyes. The phrase was reserved only for you, as it is a concept that has always been hard for five.

Growing up with Reginald as a father, and a family that could win an Olympic gold medal in dysfunctionality, Five didn't exactly have a positive outlook on love.

"I love you too. We've been through worse, we'll get through this too."

Five pulled you into a tight hug, breathing you in as if it was the last chance he would ever get to hold you. The two of you were versed in the end of the world, this was not the first final hug you had shared. Five placed a soft kiss on the top of your head, and he didn't miss the small cry that escaped your lips.

You rarely cried, and when you did it was always around Five. He was the only person you felt comfortable enough with to show vulnerability. It was the perfect moment, and the past few days had worn down your patience. You reluctantly let a few tears slip loose.

"Get your asses over here love birds, Ben is here." Diego called from the other side of the room.

You and Five exchanged a look before running over to the center of the room and rejoining your family.

Ben growled ferociously, the red goo that dripped from his body falling around the room.

"Just so you guys know, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. So if we all die, I apologize in advance." Viktor said, clenching his fists on either side.

His newly improved orange power began to swirl around his body. He squeezed his eyes shut, clearly focusing on the task at hand.

You reached for Five's hand, interlocking your fingers with his. If these were to be your last moments, you wanted to make sure he was with you.

Five gripped your hand with everything he had in him, every bit of strength was to remind you of his presence.

With each moment that passed, the colorful plume of Viktor's powers grew, encasing not only Ben and Jennifer, but all of you.

You and Five watched as the all too familiar gold marigold specks began to float through the air. It felt odd, it didn't hurt, but it wasn't a particularly pleasant feeling. It was like your whole body was being poked by a prickly cactus.

The air turned cold, and all other sounds were overcome by the rumbling of Viktor's power.

An unbearable wave of exhaustion washed over you, and it became hard for you to keep your eyes open.

You looked over at Five, making eye contact with him one last time. He gave you his signature smirk, funny how in spite of everything he could still be himself.

The last thing you saw was Ben falling to the floor, the marigold protruding from him filling the whole room with a deep yellow glow.

And just like that, the world turned black.

· · ─────── ·☂· ─────── · ☂ · ─────── ·☂· ─────── · ·

Five opened his eyes, the bright light of day overwhelming his vision. The ground beneath him was soft, the tall grass tickling his fingertips.

Five sat up slowly, his eyes adjusting to the sun. He looked over next to him, and there you were. Just as you had always been, right by his side. Your chest rose slowly, a thankful sign that you were still alive.

Five looked beyond you, to see his siblings all scattered around the lawn. They were all exactly where they had been before the blackout. The empty patch of grass, of course, was where the Hargreeve's mansion used to stand.

Without the existence of their powers, The Umbrella Academy was never formed. It was strange, to know that what Five remembered, no one else did. It was like waking up from a strange dream.

However, one thing was missing, Ben. And of course Jennifer. Five wasn't surprised that they hadn't made it, considering how their bodies were overtaken.

Five watched as his siblings slowly began to rise from their temporary comas, their eyes heavy and glazed over.

Five nudged you slightly. Unable to wait for you to wake, wanting to share this beautiful moment with you.

You opened your eyes and felt as if you had awoken from a decades long slumber. The first thing you saw was Five next to you, a genuine smile on his face. That was something you had missed.

"Are we in heaven?" Klaus mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

"Well if this was heaven, I'd be awfully disappointed." Lila replied.

You laughed to yourself, and stood up on wobbly legs.

You all had done it.

"Viktor. I think you might have just saved the world." Luther announced.

Viktor smiled and looked down, maybe eventually he'd let himself take the credit.

You began to take in your surroundings. The sound of traffic in the distance, the wind stinging your cheek, the smell of spring air. It was all so normal.

"Guys, where's Ben?" Klaus asked, and your heart dropped.

"Klaus...we all knew he probably wouldn't make it.." Alison said sadly.

Just then, something caught your eye. Something yellow that stuck out in the patch of green.

"Guys, look!" You pointed at the unique plant.

"Marigolds." Five said softly, and you felt his hand close around yours.

Two beautiful yellow flowers sprouted from the earth, a reminder of what was sacrificed. A reminder of what had to happen for all of this to exist, and a symbol of hope.

~~ Two Years Later ~~

You awoke to the sound of birds chirping outside your window, a song that was often your wake-up call. You rolled over to see Five sleeping peacefully next to you. You weren't surprised. He always slept late, after all, he was an old man at heart.

It had been two years of living freely in the new timeline. You and Five now share an apartment next to Lila and Diego and their three kids.

Life wasn't without its challenges, but compared to everything else the two of you had been through this was paradise.

Viktor had started his own Cafe, a small shop on a street corner that had quickly become a local favorite.

Alison had landed a big movie role not long after everything returned to normal. Ever since it hit the big screen, she had no problem with job offers. She didn't even miss her power of persuasion.

Klaus still lives with Alison. He doesn't really do anything specific, he often refers to himself as 'self-employed'. But he was happy, and that was all that really mattered.

Luther had somehow reconnected with Sloane, who had re-appeared after the timeline was fixed. Of course she didn't remember anything, but it must've been fate because they got to fall in love all over again.

Diego decided to put his skills acquired from his power to use and now taught axe throwing classes.

Lila had decided to help people who had ended up in a mental hospital, similar to how she had. She was working on getting her degree in psychology.

As for you and Five. Five kept his CIA job, and you decided to join him in his career. As the two of you had always done everything together, why not this too?

You felt Five stir next to you, letting out a series of groans. He slowly opened his eyes, a smile spreading across his face the moment he saw you.

"Good morning, beautiful." His morning voice is thick and deep.

"I love you." You whispered, pushing his messy hair out of his eyes.

Five leaned up to kiss you but you counteracted it by jumping out of bed. You pulled the blanket off of him and he whined in protest.

"Time to get up, Gramps, Lila wants us to drive the kids to school today."

Five rolled his eyes at the nickname. You snickered and kissed him on the cheek before heading to the bathroom to get ready.

After the two of you grabbed breakfast, you met Lila outside, Grace and the twins behind her.

"Thank you again for helping us out with this, I don't know how I'd ever get to work on time without you." Lila gave you a quick hug.

"Of course, whatever you need." You ushered her away, signaling that you could take it from here.

You were used to driving the kids places, and they always said you were their favorite aunt. Five however, could not surpass Klaus for favorite uncle.

"Alright guys, who's ready for school?" You said as you jumped in the driver's seat.

There was a chorus of enthusiastic cheers from the back, and you laughed.

"I was never that excited about school when I was your age." The kids had no idea how long ago that actually was for you.

You made sure to put on some kid friendly music, anything but Baby Shark. You dropped the kids off and made sure they all got inside safely.

"Anything else on the schedule for today?" Five asked you.

"Nope, we're both off today so I think the rest of our day is free."

"Great, we should do absolutely nothing." Five's eyes lit up with excitement.

You nodded in agreement and drove towards your home.

Once you arrived, the both of you threw on pajamas and cuddled up in bed. Five flung his arms around you and rested his head on your shoulder, simultaneously letting out a big sigh.

"I love you." He mumbled in your ear.

Even after all these years he still made you blush every time he said those three little words.

"I love you more." You pressed a kiss to Five's nose and he scrunched it up before responding with a chaste kiss to your lips.

After breaking apart you and Five settled into each other's arms, excited to spend a calm day together.

He reached for the remote and flicked on the TV. The small kiss he placed on your forehead didn't go unnoticed.

As Five settled into this new life, he found it hard not to expect a new life altering crisis to pop up at any moment. But it never did.

As the day dragged on, nothing out of the ordinary happened; and you could almost say that it was an ordinary day.

Taglist: @xreader-writing @dorkyfangirl24 @dinorawrss @anne-oop @ladynaviamin @i-amtrash @patchesofdreams @sarbear33 @marinalor

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snowball-doie · 4 months ago

Text

| pairing: gn!Reader x switch!Mark

| warnings: 18+ MDNI. Under the desk blowjob. Edging. Overstimulation. Oblivious.... oblivious Mark..... He's more on the subby side for this one.

| wc: 3k

“How does London sound?”

You looked up from your laptop to raise a brow at your boyfriend who was sitting on the couch with you, your legs swung over his thighs while he slowly massaged your feet as he got lost in thought. That was what he spent the last hour thinking about? Really? He knew better than to ask you to go with him on trips, work or not.

When you and Mark started dating, a clear rule had been struck which stated that you could never, ever get caught dating— Not because he worried about his career, who gave a fuck about that? Mark was consumed with anxiety about you being attacked and harassed by cruel fans who felt they could say or do whatever they wanted behind the safety of their phone screens… Or worse, they would confront you in person and threaten your safety. He tried not to imagine the worst, but the possibilities seemed to be endless, and he wanted to protect you first and foremost, so the most important thing was being as careful as possible; That usually meant no public outings. You two lived together, you slept together, you ate together, but you would never be seen together.

However, the past few months had taken a turn for Mark. He disliked being away from you due to tours and comebacks, so his clinginess had grown twofold, leading to some instances which you found to be tiptoeing the line between breaking your number one rule and just Mark being a good boyfriend. You tried not to care about it too much. You were both adults making adult decisions, and you knew how to play it safely… But that didn’t stop you from wondering why the Hell Mark of all people was willing to play with fire like that. Now he was throwing out the idea of London? That was supposed to be his sponsored trip for Wimbledon. You weren’t invited. You didn’t have a plane ticket. His hotel room was only reserved for one person in a king sized suite, thanks to his sponsors. There was no room for you, and the odds of getting caught were too high.

“Can’t,” you replied.

Mark rubbed his thumbs into the arch of your left foot. “It’d be fun. We can fly first class together, stay in a nice hotel, tour the city… I don’t think I could get you into the game, but… There’s plenty of other things for us to do together.”

“Can’t.”

He tsked his tongue with frustration. “Why?”

“Too risky.”

“Not if we put the flight in your name, get you your own room in the hotel so no one would think we’re sharing a bed…” He hit a sore spot, causing you to stop typing on your laptop and put your full attention on him. “I’ll put on hats and masks while we’re walking around—”

“We can’t.”

Mark sighed. “Come on. Just once. I promise, we’ll be super, super, super careful. And if you ever get too worried, we can bail. Just say the word and we’ll go back to the hotel, no questions asked. We can stay in all day, watch movies, order room service, fuck a ton—”

You kicked his thigh gently.

“Ow!”

But with a little more persuasion and a few solidified plans about how you two would pull off your incognito trip to London, you were convinced to go with him at the last second. Mark paid for everything. Your first class flight— Somehow there was still a seat available next to him, so he snatched it up immediately, despite the insane price gouging because of how soon the flight was; Your hotel room, a small one since you wouldn’t be spending time in it anyhow, it was just for appearances; And he made sure that all other expenses were attached to his card. He truly wasn’t wasting any time locking you into the trip. He wanted you there no matter what. Stupid or not, he wanted you there so badly… If it were at all possible, maybe in some alternate universe, Mark would’ve had you at his side throughout the entire trip, no masks or hats, no more hiding from the world. But alas… that wasn’t your reality.

You and Mark had to arrive at the airport separately. The paparazzi and fans were waiting for him because he was flying for a schedule which meant that it was public information, unfortunately; But you managed to walk through check-in and security smoothly without any issues. Boarding the flight, you were able to stand next to each other, but you couldn’t be caught talking to each other. That didn’t stop Mark. At one point, as the line was moving towards the flight attendant who was scanning tickets, Mark’s pinky drifted against yours, letting you know that he was there and that he so badly wanted to hold your hand. On the flight. That was the look you gave him, a promise that he could hold your hand for the entirety of the trip once everyone was seated and no one was looking. And that was exactly what happened.

Mark fell asleep on the plane, his hand clasped with yours under his blanket. He was in the middle of rewatching one of the Spider-Man movies when his head slumped to the side, his mouth fell agape, and he started quietly snoring under the noise of the jet engines that kept the plane moving in the air. He looked really cute. You’d never flown with him before, and you never really imagined that you would, so seeing the way he so comfortably fit into his spot in first class and accepted all the amenities and even fell asleep so quickly was baffling to you— But his fogged up glasses, and his brown curls falling in his face nearly took you out. You figured out about two hours into the flight that it was cuteness aggression which nearly had you cuddling him, if it weren’t for the fact that anyone could have spotted you two at any moment.

Mark organized having a driver pick you up at baggage claim because fans were waiting for him there too so he couldn’t go with you. You were pampered completely by the driver offering to take your bag, dragging it behind him as he led you to the nice SUV which had water and snacks waiting for you, and he even offered to let you control the music if you wanted— You were too shy to entertain the thought. When you arrived at the hotel, the driver helped hand your bag over to the bell boys who opened your door and guided you to the front desk where you found Mark already checking into his room as well. He grinned over at you while you both stood at the desk. The lady across from him was trying to ask him questions, but he was so locked into staring at you out of the corner of his eye that he couldn’t focus on the topic at hand. You, however, made your check in brief because your bag was delivered to your room despite the fact that you needed to covertly transport it to Mark’s room. Idiot was already there by the time you arrived. Life of a celebrity… Even though he procrastinated, he still managed to beat you everywhere.

“You like it?” he asked, looking around the suite before falling onto the bed.

You also looked around a bit. It was a big place with a living room, a big TV, a small kitchen, the large king bed, and a huge bathroom that you couldn’t imagine why it was like that. “It’s nice.”

Mark smirked. “You tired? Hungry?”

“Both.”

“Room service?”

You nodded.

Over the next few days, Mark was so busy with work that he was up early in the morning in order to let the makeup, hair, and clothing stylists in so that they could doll him up for the day, then he wouldn’t be back until late in the evening when everyone would return with him in order to take back all their work. It gave you plenty of time to explore on your own, but you wished that it were with him, like a normal couple. You knew what you signed up for. You weren’t stupid. But that was exactly why you declined the trip in the first place because you expected that being alone and missing him would suck. Yeah, the city was pretty in certain places, and it was kind of funny seeing fangirls running around with their Mark Lee photocards on their bags while they ran to go find him at his next public schedule. He even thought it was funny when you told him about your day when you two would be cuddled in bed together, catching up on what the other missed out on. He had a lot more going on than you did, but that was a given.

After the last day of his sponsored trip, Mark was finally free. Like he promised, he took you wherever you wanted, despite the many layers of clothes he had to wear in the heat just so he could go unrecognized, and you felt too uncomfortable to hold hands while walking around. Mark noticed. He was always observant about those kinds of things, so he didn’t want to push you, especially when he was slightly worried too about the amount of fangirls that were still roaming around the city in the hopes of “accidentally” running into their favorite idol.

In the evenings, you and Mark returned to the hotel to relax. Sometimes you would go out for dinner, most times not because someone could snap a picture of you two at dinner and have it in the tabloids ten minutes later with a headline about how the lead rapper of NCT was on a dinner date in London. That was a shit storm neither of you wanted to handle. And it wasn’t like staying in was a bad thing! You still got to see the city as much as you wanted to, and you finally got to spend time with Mark in London, so what was there to complain about?

Work.

There was always work. Being at the hotel meant that Mark got caught up in making music at his laptop for hours on end without realizing how much time was passing. For the most part you didn’t mind because he began around the time you were getting in bed, and you always woke up in his arms regardless, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. But there was one night you were annoyed. Before your room service dinners arrived, Mark was sitting at the desk in his pajamas, headphones on, music blasting while he worked on creating a new mix for his solo projects that he enjoyed messing with— You were pretty sure that he and Johnny were writing another song together too, so his focus was tunnel visioned on work, work, work and not his partner whom he’d dragged to Europe with him after begging like a pathetic puppy for so long. Was he stupid? Yuta probably would have smacked him upside the back of the head if you told him what Mark was doing. “Idiot, there’s a hot person in the bed behind you. Do something about it!” But Yuta would have to smack some sense into your boyfriend later… In the meantime, you had to make due with fighting to put his attention back on you.

“Baby,” you cooed from the bed.

He didn’t budge. Instead, he clicked a few things, opened another Chrome tab, Googled something, then went back to his mix.

“Mark.”

Still nothing.

You tsked your tongue and crawled off the bed. Mark was so lost in his own world that he didn’t even notice that you were only wearing blue underwear just for him; and he didn’t even budge when you dropped to your knees beside him. You rolled your eyes. There was no way his tunnel vision was that bad… Sure, he moved a bit to accommodate you as you skillfully made your way under the desk and settled in between his man-spread legs, but come on, really? He still didn’t take off his headset? What the Hell did he think you were doing down there, counting specs of dust? Sometimes he really could be oblivious.

When you started fiddling with his pajama pants, Mark hesitated, leaning back slightly so that he could glance down at you through his glasses with a raised brow. You hesitated. With a doe-eyed look, you acted like you weren’t doing anything at all, because he seemingly didn’t want to pay much attention to you in the first place, even though it was his idea to drag you to London. Mark warily went back to his work. Once his focus was elsewhere again, you continued to tease him. He let out a quiet gasp when you ran the palm of your hand over the crotch of his pants, feeling up his length that jumped with excitement. You grinned. Still, he eyed you suspiciously while slowly clicking things with his mouse and readjusting tunes with the mixer to his left. Then the tips of your fingers danced over his sensitive tip. His breath hitched, his eyes squeezed shut, and he adjusted slightly in his seat so that it would be easier for you to touch more of him. You didn’t enlighten him. Not yet. You just stared up at him with a grin, admiring how handsome he was, and how the blush on his cheeks was growing along with the erection in his pants.

To test the waters, you ran your hand along his cock again, content that he found you so alluring that he could get as hard as he was within a teasing touch or two. Surely he’d put his attention on you finally if you just… reached into his pajamas and pulled out his cock. Mark let out another quiet moan. But what really did it was when you held him upright as he was still getting harder, and you wrapped your lips around him, sinking down about half way.

“Oh— Fuck, baby—” His hands abandoned his music set up to tangle his fingers in your hair so that he could keep you on his cock. However, you pulled away with surprisingly not much protest from Mark who whimpered when your lips left him, and instead your thumb slowly played with his tip. “Baby, please…”

“Keep working.”

“What?”

You shrugged. “You’ve got a lot of work to do, right? You should keep working, or else Johnny’ll get mad when we go back home.”

“He won’t care—” He bucked his hips up in an attempt to get you to suck him off again.

“Oh? So it could’ve waited?”

“I—” He dawned on him that he’d gotten himself caught in your trap. “I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t even realize.” His head fell backwards when you suddenly licked the length of his dick from base to tip so slowly that you felt him pulse in your hand. “I’m so, so sorry, baby, please…” His hands unwittingly guided your mouth back onto him. Mark groaned loudly. “Just like that.”

He looked so cute with his headset slowly falling off his head, his glasses pushed all the way up the bridge of his nose thanks to gravity, and your name was being chanted like a prayer while it mixed with his moans and pleas for you to keep going. You couldn’t stay mad at that. Seeing him fall apart for you made you happier than anything else in the whole world.

“Use your tongue— Y-Yeah— Just… just like that… Don’t stop…”

You did as he wanted, patterning your movements between bobbing your head, swirling his tip with your tongue, and using your hands to play with his balls and the base of his cock. He whimpered pathetically. It seemed that you were getting to him, faster than you expected. The way Mark swiveled his hips desperately in his chair, and he finally knocked the headset off the top of his head and onto his neck, you could tell that he was already close to cumming.

You pulled away again, using that moment to catch your breath while Mark popped upright to look down at you with pouty eyes, wondering how you could possibly do such a thing when he was so close… Poor thing. Still, it was just as much fun to torment him as it was to see him falling apart thanks to you. When his breath was steady again, you went back to sucking him off slowly— Really slow in the hopes of working him up without getting him too close to the edge yet. It worked. Mark’s feet anxiously kicked against the floor. He groaned and grabbed onto the arms of his desk chair as tightly as he could to keep himself from grabbing you or fucking your face because he knew that would deter you from giving him what he desperately needed.

“Come on, baby,” he egged you on needily, “you look so good with my cock in your mouth… Wanna cum in your mouth… Wanna watch you swallow every drop.” He sucked in a deep breath to relax his body, recollecting himself. When he was calm, he put his fingers back in your hair and pushed you down onto his cock, letting you feel the way his tip hit the back of your throat, both of you moaning in unison. “Fuck, yes!”

For about a minute, Mark fucked your mouth, thinking that he had all the control in the world, but once again, when he got close, you squirmed your way out of his grasp and sat back to look up at him from under the desk. He pouted down at you. Okay, okay, fine, just one more… It was fun edging him, but you couldn’t bear that sad look on his face.

You tangled your fingers with his so that he had something else to hold onto when you returned to sucking him off with hollow cheeks and your tongue swirling around. Mark’s grip tightened against yours. He boiled himself down to pants and pathetic little whimpers rather than begging you, probably theorizing that it was his neediness that convinced you to keep edging him for fun. However, you wanted to drag those cute reactions out of him to make him earn the orgasm you’d already decided on giving him; So you made sure to put enough attention on his sensitive tip until he had no other choice than to start moaning your name again, coupled with quiet, “Please, please, please, please, please, please…” that indicated his brain had broken so soon and so easily.

With another doe-eyed look up at him, you silently told him that it was okay to finally cum. Mark tensed in his chair in preparation. His thighs squeezed around your head, his feet kept anxiously tapping the carpet, and his hips wiggled desperately in his seat while you bobbed your head faster up and down his length.

“I’m cumming—” He moaned out so breathlessly you almost missed it. “I’m- I’m— Fuck—” With his hips hovering in the air, he finally snapped.

He came hard, his legs shivering, his hands tugging against yours, his cum spilling down your throat. You pressed his hips down onto the chair so that he could relax while you helped him ride out his orgasm. Mark hunched forward when “helping” turned into overstimulating.

“Ah, shit, baby, wait, wait, fuck—”

Finally, you gave him reprieve by slowly dragging your lips off his cock with a pop. Mark released your hands while his body completely slumped with relief, and he reached out to run his thumb over your bottom lip, collecting the little bit of drool mixed with cum that you hadn’t realized was there, then he slowly pushed his finger into your mouth. Take every drop…

“That’s it,” he cooed at you tiredly.

After you finished sucking his thumb clean, Mark rolled his desk chair back in order to give him room to readjust his pants momentarily before reaching out to help you off the ground.

“Come here.”

He welcomed you so easily into his arms and onto his lap. He hugged you close, kissing your lips desperately despite the fact that you tasted like his cum— Or perhaps because of that.

“I’m sorry I got lost in my work.” He pecked your cheek. “Let me make it up to you.”

“Better make it good,” you replied teasingly.

Mark chuckled. “Oh, I will.”

Carefully, he lifted you off his lap and navigated you towards the bed. There was a little more than twenty four hours until your flight home… Yeah, there’d be plenty of time for him to make it up to you and keep his full attention on you in the meantime.

#op #nct #nct smut #nct fanfic #nct 127 smut #nct dream #nct 127 fanfic #nct 127 #nct dream fanfic #nct dream smut #mark #mark lee #mark smut #mark fanfic #mark lee fanfic #mark lee smut

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cavegirlpoems · 4 months ago

Text

Violet Core Approaches

So. My close friend and collaborator Sarah Carapace has been working on Violet Core - a ttrpg about dykey mecha pilots in space - for the past few years, and that work is approaching its fruition. It's about to get kickstarted pretty soon, and I got a preview copy of the game ahead of that. So, preview/review I shall.

Disclaimers: I'm close friends with Sarah, was involved in some of the early playtests, and might end up doing a stretch goal for the game. So, I am of course wildly biased in Sarah's favour. Still, even if I wasn't, I figure this'd be my jam.

TL,DR: This game is really really good, back the kickstarter. For more details, read on.

The Basics:

Violet Core is set in the Nemesis System, an alternate scifi version of the solar system. The game follows the lives of spacers cut off from their home planet, Cerulea, as they face an oncoming disaster as escalating waves of comet-storms hit the system and everything starts to come apart.

Our characters are mech pilots for one of three factions of spacers - The Reach, The Homebound, and The Cosmic Embrace - each with their own perspective on what to do about the looming disaster. It's generally agreed that they need to escape, but where to and how is a source of conflict.

All three factions and their approaches have their merits. Although the Reach are positioned as more heirarchical and organised than the other two, all three are clearly scrappy tenacious punk-ish survivors who've been rejected and exiled to space by the dickhead bourgoisie of their home planet, Cerulea.

Luckily, you get to pilot X-10s, giant personalised mechs powered by a mysterious psycho-active (psychic?) crysteline core. This lets you get up to all the various activities you just pictured when I said that.

Tonally, it's Sarah Carapace through-and-through. Everything is purple and blocky, with CRT monitors and snaking cables and spray-paint. Riot Grrl mashed up with retro scifi mashed up with cosmic weirdness.

On The Humble D4

The game uses the oddity of dice - the humble D4 - as its main dice, with D8s scattered in here and there. It's a choice I really like, giving the game a feel that's a little angular and off-centre. It's a simple choice, but it does a lot to set it apart. I can't sum this up better than Sarah does, so I'll just quote her:

d4s are the most cursed of all dice.

They are awkward to roll.

They are pointy and can/will stab you.

Femininity is pointy, painful and powerful and so are these odd little polyhedrons.

Also, There is no standardised style for d4s. When you roll them, the result is the number displayed upright, either on the top or bottom. It varies from die to die.

Which I think gives you a good sense of the tone of the whole game, y'know?

The game cares about dice as physical objects deeply. Players can use the emotional connections between their characters to donate bonus dice to another character's rolls: the game suggests that when you do, you should pass her your physical dice, and use the motion of how you do it (including potentially how your hand touches hers as you hand them over) as a way of expressing the connections between characters, which is a fucking genius bit of design.

Anyway. Who do you play as?

Some sort of dykey space-gal x-10 pilot. To define who you are, you pick three things: the faction you belong to, your pilot type, and the X-10 you pilot. I'll go over each in quick succession.

Your faction determines your political alliance and likely goals, and the culture you grew up in, and each faction has access to a different set of X-10s. You pick between:

The Reach: the most organised and strict faction, and the oldest. Strict, heirarchical, and high-tech. You play here if you want to have a good The Man to chafe against, or to be that The Man for somebody else. The Reach are working on engineering humanity to be able to survive the coming disaster and thrive in space, and building a vast engine - the Overlock - to enable this.

The Homebound: the most rough-and-ready faction. A large population of working-class gals, and with too few resources to go around. They're working on repairing a giant machine, The Sling, to transport their people to another star system and flee the coming disaster. Unfortunately, The Sling and The Overlock are both adaptations of the same machine...

The Cosmic Embrace: the weirdo faction. The smallest, most mystic, and overall hippy-est. Short on space, people, and resources, but not on idealism and enthusiasm. They're poking the weird shit of the setting, and getting results. A little culty. In the playtest I was in, I played Cosmic Embrace, obviously.

Notably, you can have PCs all be in the same faction, or be split between them. If split, there's lines of conflict, but also room for alliances and subterfuge. PCs can, and might well, switch faction in play.

As well as your faction, you pick your pilot type. There's three broad types of pilots you can be:

Genebuilt, artificially created super-pilots with custom genetics to make them good in space. Divided into two rough types; the Violet Kind (for if you were a successful project, and inhereted mysterious abilities) or the Rat Bitch (for if you... weren't, and mostly just inhereted emotional issues). There's some interesting space to play with the idea of nature vs nurture here, or with the pressure of expectation.

Baseliners, aka normal humans who haven't been genetically engineered or tinkered with. Again, divided into two types; the Shining Star (for if you're keeping up with the best through sheer talent and training) and the Baseline Breaker (for if you're a normal person getting by with determination and adaptability.

And then, lastly, the Returned. People who died - or nearly died - and were brought back. The character creation section only mentions one sort of Rebuilt - the Returned, who have been remade by the power of humans science - but hints that other sorts might exist. And indeed they do, tied to the mysteries of the setting.

I ended up playing a Rat Bitch, who'd seen her best buddy get horribly fucked up in a training exercise and gone awol. It was great fun.

Lastly, your X-10. Each faction has three models of X-10, divided by function: Warriors to be brutal front-line fighters, Rogues to be mobile scout-types, and Witches that do weird shit and fight at range. Out of these, each faction has its own version of each of these archetypes. Some X-10 models are pretty common and mass-produced (like the Ogress, the Reach's warrior-frame), and some are rare or even unique (like the Hag, the homebound's rare and experimental Witch type that can fuck with time and space).

Each X-10 has its own Violet Core, the psychoactive crystal that's at the heart of the mech and gives the game it's name. Thoughts from the violet core filter through to the pilot, and visa versa. If you pilot a Hag for long, you'll start thinking Haggish thoughts, and your own emotions will start to seep into the core. It can get real strange real fast.

Each type of X-10 feels and plays extremely differently, in a way I personally found made your choice of frame a reflection of your pilot's personality. My pilot ended up in a Mermaid - the Cosmic Embrace's version of a Witch frame - that had the ability to shift space around it (her?), and 'swim' out of the normal world into sub-space. Which brings me to...

The Spaces & The Mysteries

As well as the material, mundane world - what Violet Core terms 'top-space' - there are two other spaces that exist.

Sub-space is a serene, empty (is it?) realm that lies below top-space. You can dive into sub-space in the right X-10s, and explore. Time and space are wierd and fluid here. If you dive deeply, you find... things. If you dive too deep, you might not come back the same, or at all. There are mysteries down there. Remember I mentioned there are other types of Returned you might become? Yeah. Remember those Violet Cores that power your X-10s? They're made from something called 'the fingers' found deep down in sub-space. Who's fingers? You see where I'm going with this.

There's also The Violet Realm. This is the psycho-sphere, the realm of dreams and emotions and mystical experiences. The violet core of your X-10 links you to the Violet Realm. You can meditate to experience it, to commune with what's within...

This is a setting with mysteries. There are things to explore, forces and powers beneath the surface. I won't elaborate. Partly because I don't want to spoil the discovery for you, and partly because I don't want to read it all and spoil myself before I can play this again. What I will say is that the bits I did read ahead on give you a lot to explore, and are explained in a way that make how they tie into the wider setting and plot. It's all coming together into something impressive.

Personally, as a player of rpgs (larp and ttrpg) I really enjoy settings which present you with mysteries and mysticism, which let you explore the underlying nature of this universe in ways that are at times rational and at times intuitive or mystical. It's an itch few other ttrpgs have scratched for me. Lacuna and Orpheus were, until now, games that achieved what I wanted; now I get to add a third game to the list in Violet Core.

In case it wasn't clear, this is high praise. This is extremely high praise.

Mechanics

I'm going to assume you're already sold. If you aren't, let me make a statement:

I'm mad I didn't think of these game mechanics.

The core engine is pools of d4s, in a way I believe is drawn from forged in the dark. However, unlike FitD, I really like how VC handles its rolls. Particularly - as I mentioned above - the way players can pull on the connections between PCs to offer each other dice, and the way this affects the game.

The core is pretty simple but has nuance. There are PbtA-style moves - things like Negotiate, or Hurt, or Shield - that trigger when you do a particular thing. You roll, and get a codified result based on the result. When you roll, you get a number of dice depending on how you're going about it. In person, you use your talents; things like Making Out and Using Your Head. In your X-10, you use the X-10's talents, things like Synchronising and Drawing Near. An example: You're piloting a Mermaid, and you see your friend (piloting an Ogress) is about to be struck by spiraling comet shards. To save her, you dive across to pull her out of top-space and into sub-space with you, dipping out of the material world to avoid the hazard. Since pulling somebody into Sub-space with your X-10 is Draw Near, you roll as many d4s as your Draw Near pool, and count how many hits you get. Since you're trying to protect somebody, you take that result and look at the Shield move to see what happens.

It's a simple core that's then built on with more detail, giving it a lot of room for nuance and expression.

Further, there's a neat little system for tracking the emotional connections between PCs and how they escalate over time. As they escalate, you pick statements to describe how you feel, pinning down the nature of the relationship, that will get deeper and more intense the further in you get. And the further in you get, the more potent it is when you hand another player your dice to assist her PC.

In play its such a neat, deep, evocative system that it made me really mad I didn't think of it myself. It's basically perfect.

Sorties, in which our cosmic purple space robots punch each other

Up front. Although your in giant space-mechs with giant space-weapons, combat isn't meant to be lethal and horrid. It's intense, and gritty, and emotional raw, but in the way that a bloody-knuckled fist-fight is, not in the way that a shootout is.

Fights aren't war. They're personal.

There's a lot of dancing metaphors in how the fights are described. You might be sparring or actually seriously going after each other, but either way, a fight is an interplay between two characters at their most intense. That thing where a fight scene serves the same purpose as a musical number? Yeah, that.

So. Each fight between X-10s is a Sortie. A sortie is divided into a series of steps, and at each step you pick an option for how you're fighting;

Lead, to be agressive

Sway, to be fluid and fucky

Follow, to be evasive

Sway hits follow, Follow hits lead, Lead hits sway. Its a rock-paper-scissors cycle. (If you get two Leads, both hit, and if you get two follows or sways, both miss.)

When you hit, you can trigger one of the moves as a result. It can get ugly and painful. It could concievably get vulnerable and emotional.

Critically, you have a limited pool of lead/sway/follow actions (depending on your X-10), that get used up as you use them in steps. IE: if you're piloting a Witch, you can use Sway twice and Lead & Follow once. So, you can count what you're opponent's used up, and predict their moves based on what they've got left. In really long sorties, once you've only got one option left to you, it resets.

A sortie is a sort of dance as you maneuver for the advantageous position, use that to fuck with your oponent, and get your fists bruised.

Damage to your X-10 can bleed through to you. Contact between two X-10s can bleed through to their pilots. Things can get strange, particularly when there's Witch X-10s involved.

I'm gonna quote the book again here:

Not all pilots fight to win. Some pilots fight to hurt.

The Gay Bits

As you might have realised by now, it's a really fucking sapphic game. Not as a focus, but in the way where all our PCs are assumed to be some sort of dykey queer type because that's just the kinda tone we're going for.

To misquote Sarah's fellow aussie: "This is my book motherfucker, they'll walk be lesbians if I tell them to".

Pulling It All Together

Tonally, it's a fucking slam dunk. The world bleeds with a very specific atmosphere, a sort of dykey grungey weirdness that draws on old late-80s to early-90s mecha anime, and Heaven Will Be Mine, and weird scifi.

The writing has a really strong voice. Sarah doesn't write like a typical clinical dispassionate ttrpg text, she writes like Sarah. There's little witicisms, emotional bits, slang. It reads like somebody passionately explaining how to play in person.

There's a lot of snippets of in-character text - chat logs, reports, records, recordings - that give you a sense of the sort of people in this world.

The art is all fucking gorgeous. Mostly Sarah art, with some guest spots.

It is extremely purple, so purple its even in the name.

In conclusion:

Listen I am wildly biased because I've been friends with Sarah for yonks, but even if I wasn't I'd be incredibly enthusiastic about this game because:

a) it seems to have been carefully fine-tuned to hit my tastes.

b) it's really fucking good. Really fucking good.

It's an idiosyncratic personal work that also has a huge cosmic scope to it. It fucks around with the medium of dice-based ttrpgs in interesting ways. It's gorgeously written. It's got a setting that makes me want to dive in and explore it.

You should go back the kickstarter when it goes live, and tell your friends about it, and I am not kidding. If this game isn't a wild success there is something wrong with indie ttrpgs. The kickstarter is here, I believe it's due to go live in a couple of days.

If any bloggers are interested in getting a preview copy of their own, hit me up and I can hit up Sarah and we can sort things out.

#ttrpg #rpgs #rpg review #rpg kickstarter #queer ttrpg #mecha ttrpg #scifi ttrpg #dyke stuff #my friend is incredibly talented and you should give her money

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gay-dorito-dust · 5 months ago

Note

After request the kiss on the cheek and gotmany likes, its too joyful for me. Im craving angst

Stans brothers reaction when Bill told them that y/n will and always died in every universe and dimensions like stuck forever as zombie/wood statue/etc, which y/n will die in their own dimension too in matter of time or months, time is ticking, they can’t change destiny (can they?)

Ford

Didn’t like those odds at all.

He and bill had history and who’s to say that this wasn’t just Bill trying another method to get inside his head once more by using you, his beloved, as a cheap tactic to do so.

‘I thought a being would have more tact than this Bill.’ Ford would say as the dream demon only chuckled.

‘Oh Stanford, do you really think I’d bluff about this? You should know me better by now that I do not bluff, I’ll show you instead seeing as how stubborn you are into believing me nowadays.’ Bill said as he then showed Ford of all the infinite ways you died throughout the multiverse:

Drowned

Stabbed

Possessed

Lost in the multiverse

Body snatched

Turned to stone

Went through a curse doorway unknowingly and never returned, etc, etc.

Bill took immense pleasure in the horrified look upon Ford’s face as he gingerly traced your face as though you turned into porcelain and not stone.

‘Sucks doesn’t it knowing they your loved one is bound to die in every single timeline, it’s enough to suck the joy out of everything.’ Bill said as Ford only glares at him. You don’t deserve these fates, none of your alternate selves did and he could only imagine what you could’ve possibly felt before dying alone.

‘Oh and your beloved y/n is on route to die in like five months.’ Bill casually mentions and Ford immediately looks to him again.

‘What do you mean by that? How do they die! How can I stop it!’ Ford exclaimed as he felt his heart race and his blood run cold at the sheer helplessness he felt in the moment, but it only proved to humour bill all the more. ‘Oh you can’t prevent this one Stanford Pines, they’ll die regardless of what you do to try and prevent it they’ll die regardless and you’ll have to live with it.’ Bill says before leaving Ford alone with his rampaging thoughts.

He could send you away to Dimension 52 to stay with Jheselbraum for the time being, just until he figured something out, but what if Bill foresees this move being made and goes after you himself? Ford didn’t know what he could do to protect you and it was driving him mad with Bill’s vague nonsense not helping him in the slightest. He’ll become paranoid of every little thing you did from that point onward to the point that even if you got a paper cut Ford was expecting something unfortunate to happen, but it never did.

Shit like this kept him awake at night as he holds you tightly against his chest, staring at the ceiling as though daring it to try and take you from him, which it didn’t but Ford grew skeptical of everyone you came across in case they were the catalyst for your death and kept himself near you at all times, hand on his gun in the instance he need to use it to keep you safe.

Ford would busy himself down in his lab to the point of exhaustion looking and theorising methods on how he could prevent your death, so much so that you’d have to come down and practically dragging him out because he was worrying you and the rest of the family. But Ford was stubborn as stubborn could be when it came to you and your safety that he tends to drown out your concerns for him, much to your dismay.

Ford believed that Bill was tempting him into making a deal to keep you safe but he knew that even as powerful as Bill was, even he couldn’t prevent something that he himself and told him happened across the entirety of the Multiverse. So Ford stuck to his guns and buried himself in work to keep you safe because he couldn’t and wouldn’t loose you if he could help it.

Stan

Doesn’t believe a thing Bill is saying in the slightest and thinks it’s all a pile of horseshit, up until the triangle demon shows him of all the infinite universes of which you did indeed die did Stan actually start to believe that Bill was actually telling the truth for once.

Zombies made you one of them.

Got turned to stone by a gorgon like creature and wasn’t saved in time.

Possessed by bill and had multiple stab wounds, bruises, scratches and lacerations from his misuse.

Submerged in amber/tree sap, face permanently stuck in horror.

Eaten by the Summerween Trickster.

Replaced by the shapeshifter after you were killed for being the imposter.

So many timelines where you’ve died cruelly or unfairly and it broke Stan’s heart knowing that in all of these universes his other selves might’ve been either too late, or made the wrong choices that he probably regrets as he downs each and every bottle of the hardest liquor in hopes he’d numb the pain.

He was destined to loose you no matter what and things weren’t made any better when Bill tells him that you were on route to die really soon, taunting him with the fact that there was nothing he, Ford or even the Pine Twins and their stupid pet pig could do to stop it; you’re death was an inevitability across the entire multiverse.

Stan hated being told that there was nothing he could do to prevent you from dying, he hated being told what he can’t do in general! So he’ll much rather take his odds with trying any and everything in his power to keep you safe and sound, even if it means dying himself he’ll do it gladly knowing you were okay.

He was already protective of you to begin with but with the added fact that you were bound to die sooner or later had Stan become even more protective of you. So much so that he doesn’t leave the shack without a crossbow or even his brass knuckles to fight off whoever or whatever was going to try and take you from him; hell he might even teach you how to fight should you get into trouble and he’s not there to protect you.

He keeps you by his side almost 24/7 at this point and would shower you in affection as though he was going to run out of time to do so, even going so far as to keep you away from walking under any ladders, tripping over anything and or crossing the street when you shouldn’t. However it got concerning to the point where you’d have to sit him down and ask what was wrong. Stan isn’t one to talk about his emotions nor how he felt about certain things but this was something he knew he had to share with you sooner or later, regardless of whether you believed him or not.

Stan still thought Bill was full of shit and even acted like he didn’t believe him about you dying and everything, but deep down Stan was scared that his best attempts to keep you safe wouldn’t be enough and that you’ll be taken away, regardless of how hard he fought back but Stan wasn’t one to easily give up not when his loved ones are involved.

#gravity falls x reader #gravity falls imagine #gravity falls imagines #gravity falls #stanford pines x you #stanley pines imagines #stanford pines imagines #stanford pines imagine #stanley pines imagine #stan pines imagines #stan pines imagine #stanford pines x reader #stanley pines x reader #stan pines x reader #ford pines x you #ford pines imagines #ford pines imagine #ford pines x reader

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mostlysignssomeportents · 9 months ago

Text

“Humans in the loop” must detect the hardest-to-spot errors, at superhuman speed

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me SATURDAY (Apr 27) in MARIN COUNTY, then Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

If AI has a future (a big if), it will have to be economically viable. An industry can't spend 1,700% more on Nvidia chips than it earns indefinitely – not even with Nvidia being a principle investor in its largest customers:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39883571

A company that pays 0.36-1 cents/query for electricity and (scarce, fresh) water can't indefinitely give those queries away by the millions to people who are expected to revise those queries dozens of times before eliciting the perfect botshit rendition of "instructions for removing a grilled cheese sandwich from a VCR in the style of the King James Bible":

https://www.semianalysis.com/p/the-inference-cost-of-search-disruption

Eventually, the industry will have to uncover some mix of applications that will cover its operating costs, if only to keep the lights on in the face of investor disillusionment (this isn't optional – investor disillusionment is an inevitable part of every bubble).

Now, there are lots of low-stakes applications for AI that can run just fine on the current AI technology, despite its many – and seemingly inescapable - errors ("hallucinations"). People who use AI to generate illustrations of their D&D characters engaged in epic adventures from their previous gaming session don't care about the odd extra finger. If the chatbot powering a tourist's automatic text-to-translation-to-speech phone tool gets a few words wrong, it's still much better than the alternative of speaking slowly and loudly in your own language while making emphatic hand-gestures.

There are lots of these applications, and many of the people who benefit from them would doubtless pay something for them. The problem – from an AI company's perspective – is that these aren't just low-stakes, they're also low-value. Their users would pay something for them, but not very much.

For AI to keep its servers on through the coming trough of disillusionment, it will have to locate high-value applications, too. Economically speaking, the function of low-value applications is to soak up excess capacity and produce value at the margins after the high-value applications pay the bills. Low-value applications are a side-dish, like the coach seats on an airplane whose total operating expenses are paid by the business class passengers up front. Without the principle income from high-value applications, the servers shut down, and the low-value applications disappear:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Now, there are lots of high-value applications the AI industry has identified for its products. Broadly speaking, these high-value applications share the same problem: they are all high-stakes, which means they are very sensitive to errors. Mistakes made by apps that produce code, drive cars, or identify cancerous masses on chest X-rays are extremely consequential.

Some businesses may be insensitive to those consequences. Air Canada replaced its human customer service staff with chatbots that just lied to passengers, stealing hundreds of dollars from them in the process. But the process for getting your money back after you are defrauded by Air Canada's chatbot is so onerous that only one passenger has bothered to go through it, spending ten weeks exhausting all of Air Canada's internal review mechanisms before fighting his case for weeks more at the regulator:

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/air-canada-s-chatbot-gave-a-b-c-man-the-wrong-information-now-the-airline-has-to-pay-for-the-mistake-1.6769454

There's never just one ant. If this guy was defrauded by an AC chatbot, so were hundreds or thousands of other fliers. Air Canada doesn't have to pay them back. Air Canada is tacitly asserting that, as the country's flagship carrier and near-monopolist, it is too big to fail and too big to jail, which means it's too big to care.

Air Canada shows that for some business customers, AI doesn't need to be able to do a worker's job in order to be a smart purchase: a chatbot can replace a worker, fail to their worker's job, and still save the company money on balance.

I can't predict whether the world's sociopathic monopolists are numerous and powerful enough to keep the lights on for AI companies through leases for automation systems that let them commit consequence-free free fraud by replacing workers with chatbots that serve as moral crumple-zones for furious customers:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563219304029

But even stipulating that this is sufficient, it's intrinsically unstable. Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops, and the mass replacement of humans with high-speed fraud software seems likely to stoke the already blazing furnace of modern antitrust:

https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

Of course, the AI companies have their own answer to this conundrum. A high-stakes/high-value customer can still fire workers and replace them with AI – they just need to hire fewer, cheaper workers to supervise the AI and monitor it for "hallucinations." This is called the "human in the loop" solution.

The human in the loop story has some glaring holes. From a worker's perspective, serving as the human in the loop in a scheme that cuts wage bills through AI is a nightmare – the worst possible kind of automation.

Let's pause for a little detour through automation theory here. Automation can augment a worker. We can call this a "centaur" – the worker offloads a repetitive task, or one that requires a high degree of vigilance, or (worst of all) both. They're a human head on a robot body (hence "centaur"). Think of the sensor/vision system in your car that beeps if you activate your turn-signal while a car is in your blind spot. You're in charge, but you're getting a second opinion from the robot.

Likewise, consider an AI tool that double-checks a radiologist's diagnosis of your chest X-ray and suggests a second look when its assessment doesn't match the radiologist's. Again, the human is in charge, but the robot is serving as a backstop and helpmeet, using its inexhaustible robotic vigilance to augment human skill.

That's centaurs. They're the good automation. Then there's the bad automation: the reverse-centaur, when the human is used to augment the robot.

Amazon warehouse pickers stand in one place while robotic shelving units trundle up to them at speed; then, the haptic bracelets shackled around their wrists buzz at them, directing them pick up specific items and move them to a basket, while a third automation system penalizes them for taking toilet breaks or even just walking around and shaking out their limbs to avoid a repetitive strain injury. This is a robotic head using a human body – and destroying it in the process.

An AI-assisted radiologist processes fewer chest X-rays every day, costing their employer more, on top of the cost of the AI. That's not what AI companies are selling. They're offering hospitals the power to create reverse centaurs: radiologist-assisted AIs. That's what "human in the loop" means.

This is a problem for workers, but it's also a problem for their bosses (assuming those bosses actually care about correcting AI hallucinations, rather than providing a figleaf that lets them commit fraud or kill people and shift the blame to an unpunishable AI).

Humans are good at a lot of things, but they're not good at eternal, perfect vigilance. Writing code is hard, but performing code-review (where you check someone else's code for errors) is much harder – and it gets even harder if the code you're reviewing is usually fine, because this requires that you maintain your vigilance for something that only occurs at rare and unpredictable intervals:

https://twitter.com/qntm/status/1773779967521780169

But for a coding shop to make the cost of an AI pencil out, the human in the loop needs to be able to process a lot of AI-generated code. Replacing a human with an AI doesn't produce any savings if you need to hire two more humans to take turns doing close reads of the AI's code.

This is the fatal flaw in robo-taxi schemes. The "human in the loop" who is supposed to keep the murderbot from smashing into other cars, steering into oncoming traffic, or running down pedestrians isn't a driver, they're a driving instructor. This is a much harder job than being a driver, even when the student driver you're monitoring is a human, making human mistakes at human speed. It's even harder when the student driver is a robot, making errors at computer speed:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/01/human-in-the-loop/#monkey-in-the-middle

This is why the doomed robo-taxi company Cruise had to deploy 1.5 skilled, high-paid human monitors to oversee each of its murderbots, while traditional taxis operate at a fraction of the cost with a single, precaratized, low-paid human driver:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

The vigilance problem is pretty fatal for the human-in-the-loop gambit, but there's another problem that is, if anything, even more fatal: the kinds of errors that AIs make.

Foundationally, AI is applied statistics. An AI company trains its AI by feeding it a lot of data about the real world. The program processes this data, looking for statistical correlations in that data, and makes a model of the world based on those correlations. A chatbot is a next-word-guessing program, and an AI "art" generator is a next-pixel-guessing program. They're drawing on billions of documents to find the most statistically likely way of finishing a sentence or a line of pixels in a bitmap:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922

This means that AI doesn't just make errors – it makes subtle errors, the kinds of errors that are the hardest for a human in the loop to spot, because they are the most statistically probable ways of being wrong. Sure, we notice the gross errors in AI output, like confidently claiming that a living human is dead:

https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/according-to-chatgpt-im-dead

But the most common errors that AIs make are the ones we don't notice, because they're perfectly camouflaged as the truth. Think of the recurring AI programming error that inserts a call to a nonexistent library called "huggingface-cli," which is what the library would be called if developers reliably followed naming conventions. But due to a human inconsistency, the real library has a slightly different name. The fact that AIs repeatedly inserted references to the nonexistent library opened up a vulnerability – a security researcher created a (inert) malicious library with that name and tricked numerous companies into compiling it into their code because their human reviewers missed the chatbot's (statistically indistinguishable from the the truth) lie:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/ai_bots_hallucinate_software_packages/

For a driving instructor or a code reviewer overseeing a human subject, the majority of errors are comparatively easy to spot, because they're the kinds of errors that lead to inconsistent library naming – places where a human behaved erratically or irregularly. But when reality is irregular or erratic, the AI will make errors by presuming that things are statistically normal.

These are the hardest kinds of errors to spot. They couldn't be harder for a human to detect if they were specifically designed to go undetected. The human in the loop isn't just being asked to spot mistakes – they're being actively deceived. The AI isn't merely wrong, it's constructing a subtle "what's wrong with this picture"-style puzzle. Not just one such puzzle, either: millions of them, at speed, which must be solved by the human in the loop, who must remain perfectly vigilant for things that are, by definition, almost totally unnoticeable.

This is a special new torment for reverse centaurs – and a significant problem for AI companies hoping to accumulate and keep enough high-value, high-stakes customers on their books to weather the coming trough of disillusionment.

This is pretty grim, but it gets grimmer. AI companies have argued that they have a third line of business, a way to make money for their customers beyond automation's gifts to their payrolls: they claim that they can perform difficult scientific tasks at superhuman speed, producing billion-dollar insights (new materials, new drugs, new proteins) at unimaginable speed.

However, these claims – credulously amplified by the non-technical press – keep on shattering when they are tested by experts who understand the esoteric domains in which AI is said to have an unbeatable advantage. For example, Google claimed that its Deepmind AI had discovered "millions of new materials," "equivalent to nearly 800 years’ worth of knowledge," constituting "an order-of-magnitude expansion in stable materials known to humanity":

https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/millions-of-new-materials-discovered-with-deep-learning/

It was a hoax. When independent material scientists reviewed representative samples of these "new materials," they concluded that "no new materials have been discovered" and that not one of these materials was "credible, useful and novel":

https://www.404media.co/google-says-it-discovered-millions-of-new-materials-with-ai-human-researchers/

As Brian Merchant writes, AI claims are eerily similar to "smoke and mirrors" – the dazzling reality-distortion field thrown up by 17th century magic lantern technology, which millions of people ascribed wild capabilities to, thanks to the outlandish claims of the technology's promoters:

https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-really-is-smoke-and-mirrors

The fact that we have a four-hundred-year-old name for this phenomenon, and yet we're still falling prey to it is frankly a little depressing. And, unlucky for us, it turns out that AI therapybots can't help us with this – rather, they're apt to literally convince us to kill ourselves:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkadgm/man-dies-by-suicide-after-talking-with-ai-chatbot-widow-says

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #ai #automation #humans in the loop #centaurs #reverse centaurs #labor #ai safety #sanity checks #spot the mistake #code review #driving instructor

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pepperf · 4 months ago

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I'm a little puzzled by a few takes I've seen along the lines of, Lila was such a great wife and mother and Diego took her for granted! Because I don't think the show gave us that at all, and I think it relied heavily and lazily on societal norms to get the audience to make that leap. It also ignored previous characterisation, which is why I plan to disregard the season as a whole - because if the characters had been like this from the start, I wouldn't have fallen in love with them.

So, what I mean is: the whole time we see her as a parent, Lila is basically phoning it in. She seems to view her kids as one monolithic, sticky entity sent purely to ruin her day (distinct shades of the Handler there). They're just a list of chores - diapers, dentist, ballet, cake, piñata... And I'm not underestimating how much parenting really is a list of chores to be done - but that's all we see, no love, no fun. She's eager to get away from them, and she's only - finally - desperate to be with them when it's convenient for the plot, at which point we're supposed to buy the idea that her kids are her sole focus (not the relationship that they spent the past two seasons building up). And even then, the focus is not on the reunion with the kids, it's on all the awkwardness of the surprise love triangle. Hell, one of the kids doesn't even get a name.

Their intent might have been to have Lila be the better parent, but like much of this season, it's all tell and no show. We're working off a couple of brief conversations from the points of view of two frustrated, tired, biased individuals who are already at odds with one another, plus the evidence of what they actually do. They show that they’re not communicating well, but they don’t show how that happened, how long this has been growing, if one of them really is more at fault. All we know is that he complains a lot, and she’s sneaking out at night to play secret agent. They tell us that she loves her children (eventually, after seven years apart), but they show her being annoyed and/or bored in every normal, non-apocalyptic interaction. They have her (and Five) tell us that Diego is a bad husband, but they show Lila sniping at his weight, his way of running a birthday party, rolling her eyes at his efforts to impress her and regain her attention - and they show him dadding at everyone (he will turn this van around, so help him), the comfortable love and affection between him and his kids, the Punjabi he learned to speak fluently to his in-laws, him looking for ways to fix his marriage...

Take the bracelet thing, for example. "You hate bracelets," says Diego. "I gave you one for Valentines and you traded it for a Dyson vacuum." I think what we're supposed to take from that is a) Lila stopped wearing the wooden bracelet (uh oh, signs the honeymoon period has worn off!), b) Diego gives thoughtless, stereotypical gifts, and c) he doesn't understand what she really wants.

But an alternative reading is this: a) Lila stopped wearing the wooden bracelet (could not be a clearer or more loaded 'fuck you' to Diego), b) Diego tried to find another way to win her affection (on his pay as a delivery driver, with a wife and three kids to support, he managed to buy a bracelet that was expensive enough to trade for a Dyson?), and c) she rejected that gift as well, without any deeper explanation than 'I hate bracelets'. She's shut down all communication between them and is not telling him what's wrong. She has shut him out so comprehensively that she's got a whole undercover life - for which she apparently has the time and energy! - and yet we're supposed to think that oh it's all on Diego. Why? Lila is not a shy and retiring flower, and she and Diego have been shown before to have some very sincere heart-to-hearts about their relationship. Something changed, okay, fine - but why would we assume it was Diego that caused that?

I think our expectations about What Women Are Like are doing a LOT of the heavy lifting in how the show wants Lila to be perceived. She's a woman, and therefore she's automatically a good wife and mother - that she's emotionally intelligent, the organiser, she'll love her children and would do anything for them, she'll tried the hardest to make her marriage work, just...because boobies, I guess. This is not how you write good parents, or good female characters, TUA! A truly astonishing amount of people actually ARE women, and they know that it doesn't automatically confer any kind of maternal or wifely abilities! These things have to be worked on!

(In real life, women are often socialised to be better at these things, this is sadly true. But an awful lot of us do not have an innate talent for it, and there's no shame in that. And, more relevantly to this post, this is not real life, and Lila is not your average person. She's not normal, and I love that about her. She was raised to be a weapon. Do we really think the Handler installed the 'homemaker' module? Lila herself said that she was scared that she wouldn't know how to be a mother, because she had no good example to base it on.)

I also think the show assumes that, when you get married and have kids, you're automatically granted a house in the suburbs, a bunch of in-laws, and enough money from just the husband's job to get by. And I think that is an incredibly privileged and blinkered assumption. Frankly, unless her parents are financing them, they should be struggling a lot more. None of that is explained, and for me it was a real gap, because these are the arguments that Lila and Diego should be having. Lila caring for the kids versus getting a job. Living with family versus striking out on their own. Diego sticking at a job that makes him miserable and difficult to live with, or taking the huge financial risk of trying to find something better. These are the real life issues they should be facing.

Listen, I think the characterisation of Lila as a parent and spouse in this season is horseshit. I think she would be so much better than they showed - of course she's going to have some low times, she's going to struggle with her own upbringing, but I think she would try her damndest to get it right, and I don't think she'd be defeated so easily. But if we're dealing with what canon actually shows us, she's, uh, kind of mediocre as a mother, and really not that great as a partner.

And yes, I'm sure Diego is no angel, either, he's obviously wrapped up in his problems, and he's probably not much fun to be around when he's fixating on, uh, *checks notes* wanting a more fulfilling job (the fiend). But honestly, he's not that far removed from the Diego we've seen all along, the one she fell in love with. It takes one conversation for him to realise how incredibly fortunate he is, and to convince him to try to work harder on his relationship and stop focusing on the unobtainable. The idea that he's the only one who is failing at this whole gig - the chief culprit in the failure of their marriage, the only one who needs to make an effort to fix things - is bizarre. And it's pretty obvious why they've done it: to justify her thing with Five later and make it all seem more palatable. But there's no real substance behind it.

tl;dr: this season was badly-written, takes some incredibly antiquated attitudes towards the role of women that are inconsistent with the characters they themselves established, and some incredibly classist attitudes towards manual labour, and just hopes that you'll either take it at face value or read the fuck into it, to better sell you a shitty romance that added nothing to the plot.

#I love lila but they DONE HER WRONG this season #anyhow I blocked a bunch of fivela blogs bc I was fed up of seeing that in the tags #no offense to those blogs it's just your ship brings me out in hives #so this is basically me talking to an echo chamber lol #lila pitts #diego hargreeves #tua #the umbrella academy #tua s4 #tua s4 spoilers #long post #pepper gets salty

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