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midnightraine131 · 7 months

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Pairing: Armin Arlert/Annie Leonhart Minor: - Tags: Fluff, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Teenage Love, Awkward First Times, Slow Burn, POV Armin Arlert, Bottom Armin Arlert, Wet Dreams Warning: R18 - This chapter contains Teen M*st*rb*tion. If you are easily triggered by religions, specifically Christianity and Catholicism, I don't think this fic is for you. I have nothing against these religions and this fic is anything but serious. Summary: They say the most judgmental people are those who attend church on Sundays. Despite growing up in a Christian household, Armin Arlert felt overburdened by the pile of ministry activities assigned to him. So he made a pact with himself to never follow in his father's footsteps and become a pastor. With the goal of saving enough money to persuade his parents to let him move to another state after high school, he started accepting paid essay projects in school in secret. Everything in Armin's busy life seemed manageable until he met Annie Leonhart, a Californian girl whose parents had moved her against her will to Vermont. Upon discovering Armin's secret business, Annie approached him with a unique request- to write love letters for a long-distance lover. To craft the perfect love letters, she would help Armin embark on a journey of firsts— his first kiss, first hug, first date, and first everything in a relationship.

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The fall season no longer excites Armin. He has witnessed it every year at the same time throughout his life. He observes as tourists come and go, both before and after the fall foliage. He watches the same hue of brilliant gold, red, and orange leaves falling from the branches of the trees. He sees the same bridge crowded with people, much like bees swarming around a honeycomb.

Then there's Mikasa, who won't stop talking about Halloween decorations in the shop and incessantly browses online for goth dresses she plans to wear.

Bell dings

Next, Eren starts rambling about Thanksgiving food and community activities they could participate in.

"Uhm,"

And the busiest month of the year is approaching because, well, you-know-whose birthday is coming. Although it's not yet December, their church is already holding meetings and preparing for the holiday season.

"Hi."

Armin sighed, just thinking about these activities was enough to make him feel exhausted. Anyway, it's been two weeks since he last saw Annie, and he wonders what she's been up to lately.

"...Earth to you. HEY!"

Armin snapped out of his thoughts, flinching. Involuntarily, he placed his hands on the cashier and looked up at the customer on the other side of the counter.

"Good morning, Ah–" he was interrupted, or more accurately, surprised when his eyes suddenly met hers, a striking blue reminiscent of the spring sky.

Annie frowned at the sight of him, crossing her arms. Her face was flushed, and her porcelain-white skin glistened as if she had been out for a run. She was dressed in her workout clothes: a white tank top that ended just below her ribcage, revealing her well-toned abs over an unzipped windbreaker.

She had caught the attention of all the customers in the shop, particularly the men sipping their coffee. Armin wondered just how much of her skin was exposed this time.

“Can I order now?” She hissed, engaging in a staring contest with him.

“Ah, yeah, sure.” Out of panic, Armin accidentally closed the order app on the tablet, but he quickly reopened it. “What would you like to order?” he asked, sweating as he entered the password incorrectly twice.

"What excellent customer service you have," she commented, stepping forward and looking down at the menu. "I'd like a cup of cappuccino, Belgian waffles with extra maple syrup and whipped cream," she continued, flipping the menu to the next page, "and one slice of Oreo Cheesecake."

"Is this supposed to be breakfast?" he asked, tilting his head and placing his other hand on his waist.

"Well, yeah," she replied, flipping to the next page of the menu. "Are you going to take my order, or should I leave a bad review on Google?"

Armin huffed and rolled his eyes, tapping her order on the tablet. "Is there anything else?"

"That's all."

"$15.50," he said.

Annie retrieved a card from the pocket of her windbreaker, but before she could hand it to him, Armin pointed at the small sign above the coffee bean bottle. "Cash only," he read out loud.

Annie pursed her lips, closing her eyes, and the skin around her nose bridge wrinkled. "Why don't you have an AmEx machine?"

Armin shrugged his shoulders, amused at her reaction. "We're just a small shop in a small town."

"Hey, lady in front, come on! The queue is getting longer!" a girl yelled from behind the line.

He smiled apologetically at the girl. "Just a few more minutes, Hitch. I'll put extra caramel drizzle on your macchiato later." Then, his eyes returned to Annie.

"You promised that, Arlert."

Annie's face turned red. "Fine, cancel my order. Just give me a glass of water."

"Unfortunately, I already punched in your order," Armin sang, turning to the fridge to get a bottle of water. He reached into his back pocket for his wallet. "The total is $17, including the bottle of water. You can pay me the next time we meet." He placed the notes on the cashier and handed her the receipt. "Your name will be called once your order is ready."

He smiled at her, and she took the bottle of water and receipt from his hand. "I'll come back in the afternoon to pay you," she said, then spun around quickly and walked away from the queue to find a vacant table. She made her way to a table near the window.

Armin's smile immediately disappeared when he discovered the source of all the attention from behind.

She was wearing grey yoga shorts that fit her too snugly, emphasizing her perfectly shaped buttocks, and were too short to hide her gluteal curves. Armin's jaw dropped at the sight of her backside.

Hitch stepped closer to the counter, following his gaze. She squinted her emerald eyes when she caught him staring and raised her hand to push his chin up, urging him to close his mouth. "Armin, can you take my order first before you let your hormones run wild?" she raised an eyebrow, shaking her purse to get his attention.

"Yeah, right, right," he said, blinking rapidly and swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat as he take other customers' orders. Occasionally, he would sneak glances at her.

When Mikasa returned from her break, Armin asked her to take over the cashier so he could prepare some orders. He quickly prepared Annie's order, but as he was about to call her name, he noticed some boys looking at her, teasing each other about who would make a move first.

Armin clicked his tongue, feeling a slight sting in his chest as he left the counter and took the tray with Annie's order to personally deliver it to her table.

She was leaning on the table, her chin resting on her hand, and her other arm bent at the edge of the table. She was looking out the window, observing the people outside the shop as they went about their daily lives.

Armin placed the tray on her table and stood next to her, feeling the tips of his blonde strands touching his jaw as he looked down at her.

She looked up at him, the skin between her eyebrows creased. "What now?"

"Annie, how’s your injuries?" he whispered.

“I’m fine now, I guess. My feet don’t hurt anymore.” She ran her fingers towards her knees.

Armin was aware that the boys at the next table were glaring at him. He clenched his hand into a fist before he spoke again, "You know this town isn't like California. You can't wear those kinds of clothes on the streets."

"Why would you care?" She retorted, blinking her eyes slowly as if she was bored with his talking.

"Because—"

"Armin!" Hitch interrupted him. "I'm sorry for breaking your little Cinderella moment there, but I'm still waiting for my order."

"One sec!" he negotiated for a little more time with Annie.

"No, now!" Hitch demanded.

Armin made a sound, as if he was trying to suppress a complaint, but he still turned to go back to the counter. Annie looked down at her orders and noticed two small blue macarons placed just beside her waffle. "Hey, I didn't order these—"

"You don't have to pay me. Consider it my treat today," Armin shouted from across the shop.

Unfortunately, luck was not on Armin's side. Of all the times he wanted to talk to Annie, the shop was packed. The queue had already reached the entrance door, with Mikasa preparing the orders while Armin was stuck at the cashier, taking one order after another.

When he glanced at Annie's table, she rose from her seat, stretching her arms, lifting her already short tank top a bit higher, revealing more of her porcelain skin and gaining the attention of every boy in the shop.

Armin was starting to think she was doing it on purpose.

Why was she so thirsty for attention?

He watched her return the tray at the counter, and she didn't even glance at him as she hurriedly exited the shop and started to jog away.

Armin sighed, his shoulders slumping in disappointment as he continued working. He could have at least asked for her contact number.

#armin arlert #aruani #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #annie leonhart #annie leonhardt #armin arlelt #aruannie #arminarlert #annieleonhardt #aruani fic #aruani ao3 #aruani fanfiction #lovelettersfromtheskiestothewestcoast

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mttyswhre · 5 months

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“I mean something stronger: that there are only finitely many lives that could possibly be lived; and that therefore free will, if it exists, must at some level be simply the selection of an element from a finite set.”

An equation of how the human experience can be broken down finitely

Ponders that

T = how long any human could live

A= possible inputs a human brain can experience at a time (5 senses++)

B= how many outputs a brain can produce (motor cortex signals)

K= “”moments”” in a second (neurons can fire at most around once per millisecond)

The total number of human lives= (AB)KT

This argument doesn’t depend on how conscious works: even if there’s an immaterial soul, it can still make at most (AB)KT choices

“You might object that, even if there are a finite number of phone conversations that could be had, paintings that could be painted, and human lives that could be lived, the numbers are so astronomical that it would make no difference if they were infinite. This objection illustrates what might be called the 'fallacy of the virtually infinite” Is this provable with math? There's a Vsauce video titled Will We Ever Run Out of New Music? and he talks about how songs are consisted of bits in CD format and the state of each bit is only ever 1 or 0. A CD would need 211Million bits of data to store about a five minute song. And since bits are only ever in a 1 or 0 state this means that the number of different ways you can possibly arrange those bits is Two to the 211th million power. He explains that this leaves us with a 63MILLION digit number combinations within that equation. This includes every single audio file imaginable, conversations, newscast, voicemails, classical music, kpop, animal sounds, church preaching and everything else imaginable. He's saying that since we prefer certain notes, beats, melodies and sounds that a lot of music still sounds alike despite all these different options. New Scientist states that, "Although the number of possible melodies is finite, it is so very large that for all practical purposes, the supply of new tunes is infinite." I just can't imagine this being true. Don't the sounds run out? What is infinity? I'm like so confused because to me, in this universe, the simple math is telling me that there is a finite number of the way sounds can be arranged on a CD. Is the argument that we'll never run out of new music because an artist won't make a song twice just to change one single word and give us another version? Because yeah the same song with a small tweak has so many different versions, but they can exist and be counted. By God??? By the main simulation? Like this world we live in has such limits and boundaries and it's hard for me to imagine something being infinite.

Distinguishing between ten goats and twelve goats holds an evolutionary advantage but being able to understand infinity isn’t ‘helpful’. Informational remarks about Bill Gate’s wealth or the vastness of space showcase the fallacy of the virtually infinite.

“But you can avoid the fallacy by remembering this simple rule: that for every whole number N, there are infinitely many whole numbers larger than N. This rule implies that 2, 17, and the number of possible human life experiences are all equally distant from infinity.”

The finite calculation on humans (AB)KT can be applied to computers even though computers appear to be infinite to us, we are both finite. There is a limitation to the number of states both humans and computers can be in. Since the Halting Problem applies to a computer it can be argued that it applies to us in ways that we are unable to compute.

All thinking is computation, feelings of conscious awareness are done by completing appropriate computations.

Awareness is a feature of the brain's physical action; and whereas any physical action can be simulated computationally, computational simulation cannot by itself evoke awareness.???

The Halting Problem

NonComputable processes in the brain (according to Penrose) mean that these processes can't be simulated by a machine.

Specific tests are conducted to see if there are definitely some problems that are just non computable and the answer is yes. One example of this in action is the halting problem

This is where you ask a computer program to calculate whether or not another computer program will either halt or run forever.

So we have this program called H that can decide this for us and do the calculations. Now let’s create a new program called P that is programmed to the opposite of whatever H calculates as the outcome for P (halt or run forever?). If H says P will halt, then P will run forever, and if H says P will run forever, then P will actually halt.

What happens when we use H on P? If H says P halts, then P starts running forever. If H says P runs forever, then P halts, contradicting what H said each time.

So, no matter how smart and magical your program H is, there will always be a program like P that messes things up. This demonstrates that there are certain questions or problems for which there is no universal algorithm or set of instructions that can provide a correct answer in all cases. The broader implication is that there are inherent limits to what algorithms and computers can accomplish.

Consciousness Is Finite (But I Don't Mind) by Scott Aaronson Note: I must have been in a finitistic mood when I wrote this piece three years ago. I don't know how much I agree with it. -SA (2001)

Introduction https://www.scottaaronson.com/writings/finite.html

Since so little is known about consciousness, it often seems that one can make any assertion about it that one wishes without fear of being proven wrong. For example, one could claim that the true seat of consciousness is an invisible cashew residing in the pancreas, and challenge scientists to find a better explanation. Or one could speculate that consciousness arises from as-yet-undiscovered noncomputable laws of quantum gravity operating within brain structures called microtubules, as Sir Roger Penrose did in his 1994 book Shadows of the Mind [Pen94]. Yet there's one seldom-discussed fact that tells us something tangible and important about consciousness, and that's easily seen to be true. It's that consciousness is finite.

Now we know that the brain is a finite physical object, containing roughly 100 million neurons and 100 billion synapses linking the neurons together. But by consciousness being finite, I mean something stronger: that there are only finitely many lives that could possibly be lived; and that therefore free will, if it exists, must at some level be simply the selection of an element from a finite set. The goals of this article are threefold: to show that this proposition is true; to discuss how it affects Penrose's theory of consciousness; and finally to explain why we needn't worry about the finiteness of our minds.

Finiteness

Perhaps you have the sensation of being able to do infinitely many things with your computer. You can visit web sites dealing with medieval weapons or the flammability of Pop Tarts; you can play Minesweeper or Quake, or make the mouse pointer dance across the screen, or write a program or an article about consciousness -- surely this variety has no end? But on closer thought, your computer is a finite object. If it can store N bits of information in memory (where maybe N >> 500 million), then it has at most 2N possible states, and its state at any time is a deterministic function of its previous state and the current input. (Here 'input' refers not only to the keyboard, mouse, microphone, and so forth, but also to the hard disk, CD and floppy drives, internal clock, and any other device external to the processor and memory.) In other words, your computer is what's called a finite-state automaton, or FSA (see Hayes [Hay95]).

Furthermore, time for your computer is broken up into discrete units, so that viewed as an FSA, it might only have, say, 200 million opportunities per second to change state. So clearly there's some finite upper bound M on the number of state transitions your computer can make before it breaks down. To be conservative, we could set M equal to a billion billion billion billion billion (1045), which is many more state transitions than your computer could make between now and when the universe collapses in a Big Crunch or degenerates in a black hole era. Then, raising the number of possible states to the power of M gives us a crude upper bound on how many things your computer could do. It's not infinite; it's at most 2MN.

Here's a disconcerting implication: if you have friends with whom you've only interacted online, then the whole history of your interactions can be described by one of those 2MN possibilities. So in that sense, you're not 'creating' your online conversations; you're just choosing from a large but finite space of pre-existing conversations. The same is true of phone conversations carried over digital switches. As Richard Dawkins [Daw95, p. 14] put it,

"When you plead with your lover over the telephone, every nuance, every catch in the voice, every passionate sigh and yearning timbre is carried along the wire solely in the form of numbers. You can be moved to tears by numbers -- provided they are encoded and decoded fast enough."

To which I'd add that yearning timbres can be encoded not only by numbers, but by numbers of bounded size -- that is, by finitely many of them.

These considerations apply not only to conversations, but to any information that you could store on your computer. The complete works of Shakespeare downloaded from Project Gutenberg, the Mona Lisa stored as a high-resolution JPEG image, and Beethoven's 5th Symphony stored as an MP3 audio file are all just selections from the space of 2MN possibilities. This raises an interesting question: how can 'artistic creativity' exist if every work of art is just a selection among finitely many pre-existing forms? It certainly wouldn't be 'creativity' if, presented with a bag of jellybeans, you chose a red one. I'll return to the matter in Section 5.

For now, let's ask how far our 'finitizing' of human experience can go. We've seen that there are only finitely many phone conversations that could be carried over a digital switch. But what about conversations over an analog switch? Or face-to-face conversations? First kisses? Walks through the park on an autumn day? I argue that there are only finitely many possibilities for each of these things, and indeed for all of human experience. This requires only that a computer could, in principle, simulate a human's experience of the world such that it would be impossible for the human to tell the difference from the real thing -- in other words, that 'total-immersion virtual reality' is theoretically possible. First, note that there's some finite upper bound T on how long any human could live. Again, to be conservative, we can set T equal to 101000 seconds (>> 10992.5 years). Second, at each moment, the human's brain can accept only a finite number A of possible inputs (i.e. signals to the visual, auditory, olfactory, and somatosensory cortexes), and produce only a finite number B of possible outputs (i.e. signals from the motor cortex). But how many 'moments' K are there in a second? Neurons can fire at most around once per millisecond, so as far as the brain's concerned, probably K < 1000. But once again, we'll be conservative, and assume that K = 101000. (Indeed, according to quantum theory, time itself might not be divisible beyond the Planck scale of 10-43 seconds.) Then the total number of human lives that could be lived is at most (AB)KT. This argument doesn't depend on how consciousness works: even if there's an immaterial soul, it can still make at most (AB)KT choices.

The Fallacy of the Virtually Infinite

You might object that, even if there are a finite number of phone conversations that could be had, paintings that could be painted, and human lives that could be lived, the numbers are so astronomical that it would make no difference if they were infinite. This objection illustrates what might be called the 'fallacy of the virtually infinite': the conflation of the distinct concepts of 'arbitrarily large' and 'infinite.' That we humans regularly commit this fallacy is understandable: the ability to distinguish between, say, eight goats and ten goats undoubtedly carried an evolutionary advantage, but a prehistoric human who pondered the difference between 101000 goats and infinitely many goats would only be wasting valuable hunting time. And in informal remarks about the vastness of space or of Bill Gates' wealth, we all understand 'virtually infinite' means. But in serious discourse, the fallacy of the virtually infinite can only create confusion. To explain why, we need to talk about sets.

Mathematicians denote the cardinality (or size) of the set of whole numbers, which is usually what we mean by 'infinity,' as (pronounced aleph-null). is not a number, nor is there any sense in which it can be considered the 'largest quantity.' In the 1880's, Georg Cantor showed that given any set S (which might be infinite), one can form a larger set by taking the set of subsets of S. The study of higher orders of infinity led to the amazing theorem of Kurt Gödel (1938) and Paul Cohen (1963) that whether there are orders of infinity between and the cardinality of real numbers is undecidable within the usual axioms of set theory [Coh66], but I digress. What's relevant for us is that it's easy to prove that is the lowest order of infinity -- that is, that there are no sets straddling the fence between finite and infinite cardinality. This means that there's a sharp distinction between sets of size N, where N could be an arbitrarily large integer, and infinite sets. These two classes of sets have very different properties: an infinite set can be placed in one-to-one correspondence with a proper subset of itself (think of the whole numbers and the even whole numbers), but this isn't the case for any finite set, no matter how large.

The ancient Greeks were suspicious of infinity because of 'paradoxes' related to the Fallacy of the Virtually Infinite, and because of their suspicion humanity had to wait two millennia for Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz to discover differential calculus. But you can avoid the fallacy by remembering this simple rule: that for every whole number N, there are infinitely many whole numbers larger than N. This rule implies that 2, 17, and the number of possible human life experiences are all equally distant from infinity.

Implications for Penrose's Argument

When Penrose asserts that consciousness arises from noncomputable processes in the brain, he means that these processes can't be simulated by a Turing machine. The Turing machine is a model of computation proposed by the English mathematician Alan Turing in 1936. At first it seems bizarre: it involves a tape head moving back and forth, reading and writing symbols, on an infinitely long paper tape divided into squares. But the Turing machine can simulate all other models of computation that have ever been proposed, leading to the Church-Turing Thesis, that 'computable by a Turing machine' is what we mean by the word 'computable.' But are any problems noncomputable? Turing proved that the answer is yes. One example is the Halting Problem: given a Turing machine M and an input I, decide whether M will ever stop running when I is the initial configuration of symbols on M's tape. (If there were a Turing machine that decided this problem, we could use it to create another Turing machine H that stops running if its input program P runs forever when run with itself as input, and runs forever if P ever stops running when run with itself as input. Then we could run H with itself as input, creating a contradiction.) Penrose contends that simulating the human mind is among these noncomputable problems, and this is the basis for his speculations about quantum gravity and microtubules. Before we look at why the finiteness of our minds causes problems for Penrose's contention, let's examine his original reason for making it, which is based on Gödel's incompleteness theorem.

The incompleteness theorem says roughly that given any formal proof system F that allows reasoning about numbers and that's consistent (i.e., doesn't allow falsehoods to be proved), there's a statement of F, called G(F), which is true for F and yet unprovable within F. Gödel constructed G(F) by starting with the statement "This statement doesn't have a proof in F," which we can easily see is both true and unprovable in F given that F is consistent. He then showed how to express this statement in the language of F, by encoding the concepts of 'statement' and 'proof' as numbers. Gödel's result is a cornerstone of mathematical logic, but Penrose argues that it's relevant for consciousness as well. His reasoning is that, while a computer operating within the fixed formal system F can't prove G(F), a human can see its truth, and therefore humans must have mental capabilities beyond those of computers.

This argument isn't new (it goes back at least to John Lucas in 1961), and logicians and computer scientists have pointed out a major flaw in it. This is that human mathematicians don't use any consistent formal system such as F: they rely on intuition, and they frequently make mistakes. If we grant a computer this same liberty to make mistakes, then it need not operate strictly within F, and there's nothing paradoxical about it being able to 'see' the truth of G(F). Even without this consideration, that a computer is algorithmic doesn't imply that it must or should use a consistent formal system: if we program it to print '1+1=3,' then it will oblige. Penrose is aware of this flaw, and he tries at great length in Shadows of the Mind to repair it. For example, he argues that, even if individual mathematicians make mistakes, the mathematical community as a whole never disagrees 'in principle' about whether a given statement has been established as true -- but of course it does, in practice! He also asserts that we can distinguish between human mathematicians' 'correctable' mistakes and their 'unassailable' conclusions, but he's never explicit about how we can do so. (See McDermott [McD95].)

But refuting Penrose's argument is like a refuting a proposed method for squaring the circle: although finding the specific flaw can be instructive, we can decide before even looking at the argument that there must be a flaw somewhere. This is because, as we've seen, a human mind accepts only a bounded number of input bits and produces only a bounded number of output bits. So we don't even need the full power of a Turing machine to simulate a mind: a finite-state automaton (as from Section 2) will suffice. This makes the idea that the mind has noncomputational capabilities problematic. Before we consider Penrose's response to this objection, let's look at his proposed taxonomy of views on conscious awareness [Pen94, p. 12]:

All thinking is computation; in particular, feelings of conscious awareness are evoked merely by the carrying out of appropriate computations. Awareness is a feature of the brain's physical action; and whereas any physical action can be simulated computationally, computational simulation cannot by itself evoke awareness. Appropriate physical action of the brain evokes awareness, but this physical action cannot even be properly simulated computationally. Awareness cannot be explained by physical, computational, or any other scientific terms. Views A and B, I think, are the ones compatible with the knowledge that consciousness is finite. Penrose states, unsurprisingly, that view C "is the one which I believe myself to be closest to the truth" [Pen94, p. 15]. (He states at the outset that his focus is on explanations for consciousness that at least attempt to be scientific, thus ruling out view D.) The closest Penrose comes to addressing the objection that consciousness is finite is in his 'Q7' (one of twenty objections he raises against his theory, together with his responses). Though Q8 also deals with the fact that computers and brains are finite, it involves mathematical issues that are less relevant to us here. So let's look at Q7 [Pen94, p. 82-83]:

The total output of all the mathematicians who have ever lived, together with the output of all the human mathematicians of the next (say) thousand years is finite and could be contained in the memory banks of an appropriate computer. Surely this particular computer could, therefore, simulate this output and thus behave (externally) in the same way as a human mathematician -- whatever the Gödel argument might appear to tell us to the contrary?

To which Penrose responds, in part:

… One could equally well envisage computers that contain nothing but lists of totally false mathematical 'theorems', or lists containing random jumbles of truths and falsehoods. How are we to tell which computer to trust? The arguments that I am trying to make here do not say that an effective simulation of the output of conscious human activity (here mathematics) is impossible, since purely by chance the computer might 'happen' to get it right -- even without any understanding whatsoever. But the odds against this are absurdly enormous, and the issues that are being addressed here, namely how one decides which mathematical statements are true and which are false, are not even being touched by Q7. [All italics Penrose's]

This sounds like view B, directly contradicting Penrose's stated belief in view C. Penrose might respond by emphasizing the word 'properly' in view C, and arguing that simulating a mind by simply listing each of its finitely many contingencies, together with its chosen responses, isn't a 'proper' simulation. But in that case, why does he even distinguish between views B and C? (Penrose further blurs his stated position in a fantasy dialogue [Pen94, p. 179-190] between a human and a robot. The robot is driven insane when the human challenges it to prove a statement corresponding to G(F), but that the robot can hold an articulate conversation at all would seem to indicate Penrose's agreement with views A or B.) Penrose may not have sufficiently considered the impact that the finiteness of our minds has on his theory.

Why Finiteness Isn't So Bad

We've argued that, regardless of whether consciousness arises from the brain's complexity, or an incorporeal soul, or even quantum gravity and microtubules, to be conscious ultimately means to select one element from a finite set. Does this render consciousness trivial? Given the emphasis of 19th-century mathematics on continuous relationships and infinite sets, a mathematician from that era might have answered yes. But since then, it's become increasingly clear that finiteness doesn't imply triviality. The computer scientist Donald Knuth [Knu76] wrote,

"Since the time of Greek philosophy, scholars have prided themselves on their ability to understand something about infinity; and it has become traditional in some circles to regard finite things as essentially trivial, too limited to be of any interest. It is hard to debunk such a notion, since there are no accepted standards for demonstrating that something is interesting, especially when something finite is compared with something transcendent. Yet I believe that the climate of thought is changing, since finite processes are proving to be such fascinating objects of study."

So how did finite objects, dismissed as insignificant less than a century ago, come to take their proper place at the mathematical table? Part of the explanation might lie with Paul Erdös, a giant of 20th-century mathematics, who through his more than 1,500 publications helped bring respectability to the study of graphs and other finite combinatorial objects. The field of finite groups may also have played a role. For example, a group called 'The Monster' has only 8 * 1053 elements, and thus could be completely described by a finite table, but because of its connections to fields such as modular functions and string theory, it occupied the attention of some mathematicians for years.

The greatest impetus, though, has been the computer, which has fueled the creation of whole new branches of finite mathematics. One of these branches, called complexity theory, deals with how quickly the time and memory required to solve a problem grows as a function of the problem's size. For example, in the Maximum Clique problem, we're given a list of N people, together with a list of who's friends with whom, and are asked to find the size of the largest group of people who are all friends with one another. We can solve any instance of Maximum Clique by examining finitely many groups of people (there are 2N possibilities), and thus the problem might seem trivial. But 2N grows so rapidly that when, say, N >> 500, solving the problem by this brute-force approach would take all of the computers in the world today longer than the age of the universe. Maximum Clique is called an NP-complete problem (NP standing for Nondeterministic Polynomial), and thousands of other problems proven to be NP-complete are plagued by this same exponential growth. It's known that if there's an efficient algorithm for any NP-complete problem, then there are efficient algorithms for all of them -- where efficient is defined as requiring an amount of time that's bounded by a polynomial function (say N3) in the size N of the input. Having searched in vain for such an efficient algorithm for decades, complexity theorists assume that no such algorithm exists, and this is called the P!=NP conjecture. Proving (or disproving) P!=NP is one of the great open problems of modern mathematics, with applications to engineering, operations research, cryptography, and even the nature of creativity.

This last claim might seem surprising, especially given Penrose's guess that "the issues of complexity theory are not quite the central ones in relation to mental phenomena" [Pen89, p. 145]. So let's elaborate. Recall that in Section 2, we asked how a work of art could be 'creative' if it's just a selection among finitely many pre-existing possibilities. The answer most people would give, I think, is that if a set of possibilities is so enormous that no two people would ever be likely to make the same choice, then selecting one possibility could be creative. So choosing a jellybean from a bag containing eight flavors wouldn't be creative, but choosing one from a bag containing 101000 flavors might be. Often we're confronted with many more choices than 101000 when we write a poem, compose a song, or draw a picture, because the number of choices grows exponentially with the number of characters, notes, or pixels. But having exponentially many choices, by itself, doesn't guarantee that creativity is possible. We also need that given any choice, evaluating that choice's 'beauty' is computationally intractable -- requiring us to, say, simulate an entire human brain to gauge its reaction to the choice. For if there were an efficient (polynomial-time) algorithm for evaluating artistic beauty, and if complexity theorists ever discovered that P=NP, then art would be rendered trivial! We could have software to write 'optimal' poems, compose 'optimal' songs, and paint 'optimal' pictures, and artists in those fields would be out of jobs. Since we hardly want our notion of creativity to hinge on the solution to an unsolved math problem, we should at least require that evaluating a work of art of size N requires an amount of time exponential in N, and maybe even require the problem to be undecidable. (Humans, of course, could make 'heuristic' judgments of beauty much more efficiently than this.) Thus, even though art only involves selecting among finitely many choices, complexity theory helps us understand that the choice can be nontrivial in practice.

That our minds are finite helps to shed light on certain philosophical arguments, such as Penrose's. But as we've seen, it doesn't render consciousness trivial, nor does it diminish the role of creativity. So I don't mind that my entire life can be modeled by the choosing of a single element from a finite set, and I hope you don't mind that yours can be so modeled either. The finiteness of our minds may even be cause for optimism, because it makes our ability to contemplate the infinite even more astounding.

References

[Coh66] Cohen, Paul. Set Theory and The Continuum Hypothesis. Benjamin Books, 1966.

[Daw95] Dawkins, Richard. River Out of Eden. Basic Books, 1995.

[Hay95] Hayes, Brian. "Debugging Myself," American Scientist, September-October 1995.

[Knu76] Knuth, Donald. "Mathematics and Computer Science: Coping With Finiteness," in Selected Papers on Computer Science, CSLI Publications and Cambridge University Press, 1996. Originally published in Science, Volume 194, December 17, 1976.

[McD95] McDermott, Drew. "[STAR] Penrose is wrong," Psyche, September 22, 1995.

[Pen94] Penrose, Roger. Shadows of the Mind. Oxford University Press, 1996 (first printing 1994).

[Pen89] Penrose, Roger. The Emperor's New Mind. Penguin, 1991 (first printing 1989).

#thought #journal #diary #reread #nov 2023 #interesting

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lady-divine-writes · 4 years

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Kurtbastian one-shot “Right Where We Belong” (Rated NC17)

Summary: After they return to the states, Kurt and Sebastian go on a tour of America, hitting all the touristy sites Sebastian remembers visiting with his mother during his childhood. They hit the Grand Canyon, where Kurt discovers that even though he may not be the 'camping' type, he's definitely the 'sex in a tent' type. (1566 words)

Part of the Deliver Me series

Read on AO3.

Kurt didn’t necessarily abhor the outdoors, but he and nature didn’t always see eye to eye. A walk in the park or a Sunday jaunt through a road-side farmer’s market were fine outings for him. On the rare occasion, he’d agree to a hike … if they were headed to a five-star restaurant on the top of a hill, provided that hill was located in a vineyard. The outdoors outdoors, where animals and insects lived and did their business, was a horse of a different color entirely. No roughin’ it for Kurt Hummel, no camping, and definitely no sleeping in a tent.

But sex outdoors … that, he discovered, was something he enjoyed doing.

He loved every second of it, even if, in this instance, it came hand and hand with camping … in a tent.

They had set up the tent together … sort of. Sebastian had the expertise of a practiced survival specialist while Kurt stepped in a hole that turned out to be a den, tripped twice over the same log, then tied his right hand to a guide pole. After that, he decided to sit the rest of the tent construction out, nursing his wounded pride. While Kurt wallowed in his ineptitude, Sebastian managed to snap a beautiful photograph of him, backlit by the setting sun, arms wrapped around one leg as he gazed out over the canyon.

For Sebastian, capturing that moment was more than worth the manual labor that preceded and followed it.

Sebastian inflated their mattress, then rolled out their sleeping bags. He extended a hand to Kurt, raising his eyebrows suggestively, soft but hungry green eyes beckoning, asking Kurt wordlessly to make love to him.

In a tent.

At first, Kurt was not that receptive.

Moments after getting settled, the quiet of night falling around them, the music of crickets filling the air, the two men came to the same conclusion at the exact same time.

They needed one another.

Sebastian had become expert at peeling Kurt out of his jeans, and Kurt swooned at the speed in which Sebastian managed to have him completely undressed and straddling his hips. For Kurt’s part, he swiftly rolled a condom onto Sebastian’s cock while Sebastian watched. Gone was the shy violet he had been, fingers trembling over performing such an intimate act, especially with Sebastian’s gaze following him so closely.

No.

Kurt relished the feeling of Sebastian’s eyes focused on his hands as the condom covered his length and Kurt coated him liberally with lube. Meanwhile, Sebastian absorbed the beauty of Kurt poised over his erection and sinking slowly down, his body accommodating, muscles twitching as he moved, eyes squeezed shut as he became accustomed to the stretch.

The feeling of being so perfectly full.

Riding Sebastian gave Kurt an enormous sense of power. His gorgeous Sebastian laid out beneath him, gazing up at him, eyes shining, blown with lust but overwhelmed with love. This was a view no one else got but Kurt.

And he intended on holding onto that view with white-knuckled fists.

“Tell me,” Kurt panted, moving sinuously up and down, “why we didn’t do this earlier?”

Sebastian moaned when Kurt leaned over him, swallowing his gasps as he captured Sebastian’s mouth.

“If I remember … Oh, God, Kurt!... if I remember correctly, you said … absolutely … and in hmmph! … in no uncertain terms … no tents … no dirt … no creepy crawlies … no nature …”

“Well …” Kurt arched his back when Sebastian grabbed his hips, holding him still while he pounded up into him “… I was wrong! I was so so so so wrong!”

Sweat beaded along Kurt’s shoulders, in stark contrast to the bitter cold around them, steadily heating up with every hitched breath, every moan. Sebastian loved watching Kurt this way - so free, so abandoned, allowing himself this single moment of obliviousness to the goings on in the world around them. They became one when they were together like this, like vines tangled forming a single entity, seeking out the sun.

Sebastian held onto Kurt’s hips relentlessly, not allowing him to move or squirm away. Once Kurt realized there was no hope of taking back control, he surrendered to Sebastian thrusting up into him, hands scrabbling over Sebastian’s chest, his abs, looking for anywhere to hold.

Sebastian knew Kurt - knew him intellectually, knew him intimately. He had invested more time on Kurt than he had on anyone – learning how to touch him, how to hold him, where to kiss him, when to move slow and sensually, when to go fast and hard.

Now was definitely a time for fast and hard, for fingernails biting into his milky flesh, for eyes locked on Kurt’s face as Kurt’s cheeks flushed and his eyes grew wide.

Time for that one thing that always tipped Kurt over the edge.

“Oh my, God, gorgeous. I love you ...”

It wasn’t lip service. Sebastian meant it. Every time, he meant it. And the more he said it, the truer it became.

Sebastian reached a shaking hand to grasp Kurt’s neglected cock but Kurt didn’t need it. The sound of Sebastian’s voice alone was more than enough to overwhelm him, fire him from within and send heat shooting through his veins. Kurt came, shuddering in Sebastian’s grip, mumbling and gasping, hands threading through his own hair, pulling gently. But Sebastian - focused so hard on Kurt’s pleasure - wasn’t quite there, wasn’t quite ready.

Until he saw Kurt fall apart above him - the tightening of his abs, the straining of his thighs, his voice going thready … then non-existent. After that erotic display, there was no hope of Sebastian prolonging his own orgasm any longer. He felt himself dissolving into Kurt’s body, filling up the condom, longing for a day when barriers between them would no longer be necessary.

Sebastian felt high inside Kurt’s body, addicted, though his own personal experimentation stopped at two failed attempts at smoking weed and more alcohol than he was proud of. But this feeling of ecstasy, this soaring-through-the-sky-while-losing-all-your-breath spin that he felt in his head right now, had to be close, because all that registered was a vague feeling that he might pass out. But he didn’t mind. In fact, he wanted more of it. He wanted to get high off of Kurt, even if it destroyed him.

Kurt, however, looked strangely sullen, eyes downcast, cheeks wet with errant tears.

Sebastian reached for Kurt, who slid off his cock carefully and into his lover’s arms. “What’s wrong, gorgeous?”

“Nothing. Nothing should be wrong. It’s just … sometimes I get so afraid that this …” Kurt gestured between the two of them “… isn’t real. It’s all a dream, and I’m going to wake up, and everything will have gone back to the start. I’ll be … I’ll be with him and …”

“Shhh.” Sebastian threaded his fingers into Kurt’s hair, scratching lightly at his scalp with blunt nails. “You don’t have to explain. I’m sorry.” He hummed softly, trying to bring Kurt back from those memories of hurt and entrapment in the arms of the man who treated him so cruelly.

“It seems so much like a fairy tale sometimes,” Kurt continued. “Being with you. And all fairy tales eventually end.”

“Yeah, but don’t they usually end in happily ever after?”

Kurt lifted his head, watching Sebastian’s eyes return from wide and lust blown to the soothing soft green color he adored.

“How can you be so sure?” Kurt asked. “My fairy tale with Blaine didn’t.”

“Well, from what I hear, that was less a fairy tale and more an angsty CW drama. Besides, I know the end to this story.”

“But how do you know?” Kurt pressed, his voice thick with anxiety, uncertain about the future. Most people were in the same boat, but Kurt - he’d been living a life he’d designed meticulously after high school, and it seemed to be heading that way without a hitch. But then, out of nowhere, it got flipped upside down.

As a consequence, he didn’t trust his own instincts anymore.

Kurt didn’t believe in God. He’d told Sebastian it seemed too cruel to imagine an all powerful being controlling everything who would choose to allow the kind of things that had happened to him happen and why? Because he broke some rule about sharing his peanut butter and jelly sandwich when he was four? Because he chose to watch AMC Theater every Sunday morning instead of getting dressed up and going to church?

Because he was gay?

But the truth was, even if there weren’t an almighty creator guiding people’s steps, and even with all of his logic and planning, that didn’t mean his life couldn’t be randomly derailed by a speeding train.

He needed security.

“I just do,” Sebastian said. “Don’t ask how,” he added when Kurt started to argue. “Top secret. It’s classified. But between then and now, there are so many chapters for us to write.”

“Us?” Kurt repeated, but it came out like a question whether he meant it to or not.

“Of course ‘us’, gorgeous.” Sebastian kissed Kurt’s forehead, covering him in the sleeping bag and sighing when Kurt laid his head over his chest, right above his heart. “We are the end of the story, my love. We belong together.”

#kurtbastian #sebkurt #sekurt

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rational-mastermind · 4 years

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It Doesn’t Hurt

Ch 1/5

Hurt/Comfort. A Trilbhan (Trilby x Siobhan) fanfic taking place after Trilby’s Notes. Warnings of suicidal thoughts and depression (in later chapters) and blood. But I mean.. If you’re into this series you’re sure as fuck not squeamish.

It's been a few months since the Clanbronwyn Hotel incident. The events that took place there still haunts me to this day and my reputation around the Ministry of Occultism hadn't gotten any better, now that I'm responsible for the permanent decommissioning of two agents, Andrew Jarvis and Lenkmann. Granted, most forgave the latter, as he not only threatened my life but was a part of an insane cult named The Blessed Agonies. But AJ…

Ever since my first day I was referred to as "the one who killed AJ". As if it wasn't bad enough bearing the responsibility of killing the man to begin with. As well as bearing the responsibility of three other deaths, Philip Harty, Simone Taylor, and Abed Chahal.

A week or two after the Hotel Incident, I attended Dr. Chahal's funeral. At a distance, mind you. Somehow knowing why they couldn't find his body and making it a closed casket ceremony made me feel worse, but at least I could properly, discreetly, pay my respects to the man.

However, seeing his family come to the casket to say their good-byes, forced me to leave. I suppose that's what people call guilt. I was walking out of the building when a familiar voice called out.

"Terry Railby?"

I couldn't tell if my initial feeling was one of surprise for being recognized or dread as I, in turn, recognized who it was. I turned around only to find Siobhan O’Malley standing by the doors, looking a little shocked herself. I should've figured she was here, being the late professor's assistant. Still, I was foolish to hope I wouldn't run into someone who would recognize me, let alone know me by the more common alias, Trilby.

"Siobhan..." I started, unable to mask my surprise.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, rightfully perplexed.

"Just came to pay my last respect." I said giving a nod to the funeral house behind us. "The least I could do."

She nodded sadly and folded her arms around her.

"Same. But… Well I mean.. ", she started to say before smiling back at me. "It's good to see you again."

"And you as well." I smiled back politely.

"I was kinda hoping you would show up." She stepped a little closer. "I don't think I thanked ya properly for rescuing me."

I gave a modest shrug.

"All in a day's work." I stated, cringing inwardly from how cheesy that sounded.

"No really." She insisted. "If it weren't for you, it'd be my family in there. At least lemme buy you a drink, as a proper thanks."

I nodded back to the funeral.

"Wouldn't you rather say your proper good-bye with everyone else?"

"Nah. I actually hate funerals. It's like church, but more depressing." Siobhan explained, looking at the ground in thought. "I paid my respects and don't get me wrong, I do miss him but… Well. I know he's not in there. Saying goodbye to an empty casket isn't gonna do me much good is it?"

She looked back at me sadly. I knew we were both thinking the same thing. We had both seen what really happened to Abed.

"So come on. Lemme thank ya for saving me from a worse fate, and we'll say a real good-bye instead."

I don't know what possessed me to agree, but in about 15 minutes, I found myself sitting in a corner booth of a small cafe with Siobhan and a couple of drinks.

"Here's to a good man." Siobhan tucked away the small flask she used to "fix" her drink, and raised the cup in a small cheers.

I returned the gesture and we drank.

"I didn't know you drank." I mentioned.

"Terry, I am Irish. Of course I do." she chuckled before adding. "Only on occasions."

I nodded and dropped it. We sat in silence for a while before I decided I should ask the obvious question.

"So… do you want to talk about Abed?"

Siobhan sighed a little and shrugged.

"What can I say?" She asked and looked absent mindedly at her drink. "He was nice. A good professor. Passionate about his work. A nice man overall. I mean.. don't get me wrong, it always hurts to know someone's dead. But well… it's life, isn't it?"

“That's a very mature way of looking at it." I agreed.

"Well.. Thanks." She smiled a little, albeit sadly. "Personally I don't think anyone should mourn the dead for too long. It's bound to happen, and it makes life a little brighter to know they were a part of yours. I did. Back at the hotel. But then that was it. Time to move on."

"Hmm. And where are you moving on to?"

"Well I finished college last year. I'm planning on opening up an antique shop here in about a month." Siobhan perked up a bit.

“Well that’s nice to hear.” I smiled more comfortably. “So soon?”

“Well I've been planning this for a while now." She explained. "It's just now been coming together. And I've already got a decent amount of stock set in storage to get started on."

"Very smart. Sounds like you have a good head for business."

She grinned a little.

"About the only thing I'd be concerned about is if any cat burglars broke in overnight."

"Hmm. And why would they?" I asked, playing along. "I'd assume anything worthwhile would've already walked out the door."

Siobhan laughed a little, blushing, and finally dropped the charade.

"If you mean me, I'm actually going to live in the building. Right above the shop actually."

"Ah I see." I nodded with understanding, but couldn't resist teasing further. "So there WOULD be a reason for some, tall, dark, handsome, mysterious-"

"Oh crap Terry!", Siobhan laughed.

"-sophisticated and impressively dressed gentleman thief to break in"

Siobhan was trying hard to keep her laughter quiet but it was obviously a strain. Her face started to flush as tears swelled. The reaction caused me to laugh along, equally quiet and strained. It was nice. This frivolous moment of peace. I couldn't remember the last time I laughed like this. It felt good. It felt like such a relief to laugh. I supposed this is what Claire meant by getting a "good vibe" from someone.

And that was when it dawned on me.

Oh no.

Claire.

Work.

SHIT.

I quickly checked my watch and mentally cursed.

"What's wrong?", Siobhan asked, noticing the sudden shift in behavior.

"I have somewhere I need to be." I stood up and left a bill for the drinks. "Sorry for leaving so suddenly. It was nice seeing you again."

"Oh! Um, yeah. It's great to see you!" She said giving a small wave good-bye.

I hurried out the door. I had just caught myself in time and barely made it back before someone missed me.

I came into the office and sat down at my desk with a sigh. Just in time. I clocked back in from my computer. Claire, sitting right across from me as usual, looked up from her desk with a smile.

"So…? Where were you? Missed you at lunch."

"Had something to attend to."

"Personal? Or is it a girl?"

"Wouldn't a girl be personal?" I frowned, quizzically and glanced back at her.

"You'd be surprised how casual people really are about their love life Trilbs." She rolled her eyes, though still smiled. "It's called socializing."

"Well I'm not entirely one for doing such, to start with, and secondly, don't call me Trilbs. A nickname of a nickname is ridiculous."

"Oh fine. You're no fun today." She shook her head and went back to work.

Any thoughts I did want to have about Siobhan went right out the window. The last thing I needed was office-stereotype-like Claire gossiping my thoughts to the entire department.

The rest of the day was as normal as it could be and I hadn’t seen Siobhan again for the rest of the month. August passed with almost nothing noteworthy, aside from the occasional ghosts I had to banish and demon slayers I’ve met while working. Then one day, I came into the break room.

I had been dealing with a woman on the phone who claimed to have seen her dead mother come back to nag her and she wasn’t willing to listen to reasoning. I wasn’t really needing the coffee, though I poured myself a cup regardless. Just needed an excuse more than anything to get away from the griping.

“Hey Trilby.” one of my co-workers, I believe his name was Darren, came up to me.

“Good afternoon.”, I greeted, not turning to face him until after I made my cup.

“Kill anyone lately?”

My heart stuttered and I looked back to find Lenkmann staring me down, inches from my face. A sudden sharp pain welled up in my abdomen. I screamed in pain and looked down to find blood dripping off my hands.

It hurts

Everything was growing dark. There was a scream and I looked up only to find a dead Philip Harty, sprawled out on the dining room table. Simone and Jim were running away into the house.

It hurts

I had to chase them down. I had to kill them. I wanted them to suffer. Just like I did.

It hurts

I looked down at the floor to find Abed. His porcelain face looked back at me, trying to mouth words but I could only barely understand.

It hurts

Pain coursed through every vein of my body and I knew the name of the King.

IT HURTS

I was running through the hotel, trying to escape. Sharp, hot, agonizing pain scorched my nerves. The smell of death and blood was everywhere. The darkness around me was growing. I tried to reach out. Siobhan caught my hand. I grabbed her throat and snapped it.

IT HURTS

I ran until I tripped on something and fell. Into nothing.

Into darkness.

Eternity.

On the floor.

With a gasp of fresh cold air, I woke up on the floor of my apartment, just off my bed. My head hurt with a sharp pain. I likely fell on it first. I quickly checked my body only to find no blood. Just the scar from where I had been stabbed. I sighed. There was a phantom pain there, but it was fading. Why was I? Oh.. Right. The nightmare.

A pit in my stomach grew. Having a stressful nightmare wasn’t unheard of. You don’t just accept murdering two people under possession and nearly dying. But the last time I had such a vivid dream like that was when…

“Oh no…” I felt like everything in me suddenly grew cold. “Oh God no. PLEASE NO.”

I scrambled to look around my apartment for something.

It wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere.

I hurried to get dressed and ran out the door. Praying I was mistaken.

I got to the office and came rushing to my desk

“Trilby? You okay?” Claire asked as I ravaged my drawers, searching frantically.

“Where is it? Oh crap, WHERE IS IT?!”

“Trilby, calm down! What are you looking for??”

“Where the hell is that letter?!”

“What letter??”

I slammed my hand on the desk, too flustered and frustrated to listen to her.

“THE DAMN LETTER FROM NASA, CLAIRE. DID THEY SEND THAT ABOMINATION OUT OR NOT??”

“That idol? From Defoe?? Yeah, they- Oh, Trilby, calm down they did!”

She came over and laid a hand on my shoulder. My frantic paranoia was wavering, swaying as she tried to calm me down.

“Trilby, Trilby, they sent it out.”

I looked back, still scared.

“They did?”

“Yeah, it launched a couple of weeks ago. You got a letter.”

I started to calm down. I could feel waves of nostalgia and serenity from Claire as she tried to help.

“They did.. Okay.. O.. okay..” I placed my head in my hands, rubbing away the bags under my eyes. “Holy.. Alright. It was just stress…”

“Doing better?”

“Y...yes? No?”

“Right now?”

“....Yes. Yes, I’ll be okay.” I sighed. My paranoia and stress melting away. Being replaced with a settled, calm, hollow feeling. Like the still peacefulness of the dark. “I’m… better. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. We all have those days.” Claire reassured me. “So, what happened?”

“Just another nightmare… I thought.. I was worried that…”, I couldn’t find the words.

Blurry images of the nightmare flashed through my mind. Growing more distant.

“You thought you killed someone again?”

“Y...yeah.” I sighed. “I thought.. The idol…”

“It was shipped out.. It can’t hurt anyone.”

“And you’re sure the box wasn’t opened?” “I doubt they would’ve opened it.”

I sighed with relief.

“Okay.. Alright.”

Claire sat down at her desk. I noticed a piece of paper sitting under my monitor and pulled it out, only to find it was, indeed, the letter from NASA. The idol was shipped out. No one had opened the box. I started to ease up. It was okay. Siobhan wasn’t going to be killed. Everything’s alright.

“Trilby.” one of my higher ups, a short, stocky man with thick round glasses, came and sat a folder down at my desk. I believe his name was Richard. “I’ve got a case for you. Mysterious deaths happening at the same locale. The only person people could have in suspicion, doesn’t add up. Especially cause she phoned in the deaths herself in hysterics, and no one’s that great an actor.”

“Alright. I’ll uh, take a look at that.” I said, starting up my computer. “Thank you.”

“We want you to take someone with you. It looks dangerous.”

“Very well.”

He left and I looked over the folder. Mysterious deaths happening at an antique store named Rusty Pot o’ Gold. I looked up at Claire. I usually like to go with Chris Quinn, but something told me I was going to need her help in this. Someone who would be a bit more… serious than Chris.

“Would you like to come, Claire?”

She looked back, a little surprised, but smiled sincerely.

“Yeah. Why not?”

A small drive later, and we arrived at the antique store. The first thing I noticed about it was how new it seemed. I was reminded of Siobhan for a moment.

For a moment… I was reminded of that nightmare.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. Nothing like that was going to happen. There are about a dozen antique shops, this side of town. What was one more? No one said this had to be Siobhan’s.

We walked in, past the police tape and glanced about us. There were dozens of shelves, display cases, and boxes of worn antiques. Everything from hats to farming equipment was found here. Everything was full, cramped, and kind of messy. Admittedly, the owner made it feel homey. The various chandeliers, lamps, and torches, all lit and warming the place while the rugs and strange antiquated china dolls and figurines made it feel almost lived in. I was reminded, for a moment, of visiting my own grandmother’s for the holiday. I would say the shop felt cozy, if it weren’t for the obvious, damp, chill that hung in the air. A first sign of possible specters.

We started to look around, hoping to find something unusual, or out of place. Something the magenta in our pockets would react to, though they carried a generalized warmth and a healthy glow regardless. But we didn’t get far before my previous concerns came true and Siobhan’s voice called from the back of the store.

“Are you with the police? Be right with you!”

“Oh no…”, I grimaced.

“What?” Claire looked at me curiously.

“I know her.” I said in a low voice.

“Ex?”

“What? No!” I rolled my eyes. “It’s Siobhan O’Malley. From the Clan Bronwyn Hotel.”

“Oh! Ohhh.” Claire grimaced as well. “Oooh..”

“I’ve got this.”

“Aw, man. I came up with names and everything!”

“Well I’ll still introduce you as your alias.”

Claire beamed and handed me the slip of paper. I took a glance at it, frowned in disgust and handed it back.

“And you lost your alias privileges.”

“Aww! Why?”

“That’s far too crass for me to say.”

“Gosh you’re boring.”

I shook my head and came up to the counter.

“Siobhan?” I called out. “It’s me, Trilby.”

“Trilby?! Come in! What are you doing here??”

I walked in, past the counter to find a hallway leading to a small office space. Siobhan greeted me at the doorway with a smile.

“Hello, Siobhan.” I smiled back.

“I certainly didn’t expect this! What…” suddenly her face fell as the pieces began to connect. “Oh.. Wait.. What are you doing here?? Unless...”

“Yes, I’m here about the deaths.” I said, growing serious. “I’ve reason to believe it’s paranormal.”

“Into the ghost hunting business now, are we?” she looked at me with reasonable disbelief.

“Well.. actually, more or less.” I shook my head. “Believe me, not by intention. Just something I’ve… fallen into.”

“Oh, really?”

“Ludicrous, but it’s a living.”

“Hey, Trilby?” Claire called from the other room. “There’s something going on out here!”

We head back out into the shop. Claire stood up from where she was, piece of magenta in hand.

“So.. Who’s your friend?” Siobhan asked.

“She’s my co-worker, Claire.” I explained.

“Hi! You must be Siobhan.” Claire beamed and shook her hand. Always the friendly extrovert.

“Nice to meet you.” Siobhan smiled, though it seemed out of sheer politeness.

“So what’s wrong?” I asked.

“Look at this.”

Claire held up the magenta to the ceiling as high as she can. It began to grow dim. She then brought it low to the floor and it burned brighter.

“Hm. Siobhan, there wouldn’t happen to be a basement, would there?”

“Um. Yeah, actually.” She headed to a door in the back of the store.

“Any extra information on this place, while you’re at it?” we followed her down the stairs.

“Well there used to be a prison here.” Siobhan began to explain.

I immediately grimaced. Prisons are just one of those things I’ll never fully appreciate, given my life choices. I felt uneasy standing in the old grounds of one.

“Ooh. That makes sense!” Claire chimed in. “A lot of things could’ve happened in one of those.”

“Actually the history is kinda scarce, but interesting.” Siobhan began, immediately falling into a sense of careful study and quiet enthusiasm. She almost sounded like a tour guide, if the subject were anything else. “The jailhouse was originally erected in 1602. The plot of land for it was actually a lot larger than the current store, starting from the sidewalk from one end of the block to another, but it was bulldozed down and divided by 1718. What we’ll find down here is some of the original brick foundation and layout of the previous jailhouse.”

“That’s um.. Comforting.” I commented.

We came out into a large, brick and cobblestone basement. Some old cells were polished up and filled with various cardboard boxes and crates.

“Well it kinda gets worse.” Siobhan continued. “Apparently this basement was specifically used for… well.. Death Row.”

An icy chill went down my spine and it wasn’t just because we were literally in the coldest room. Looking around at the iron bars, I could only imagine what it must’ve been like. Convicts simply waiting here in the musty, damp, dark, wondering when their time was going to be up. Likely a few wrongly accused. The pit in my stomach grew worse.

“Of course it was…” I muttered, recognizing that I could now see my breath, but only barely.

“Hm. That could be a good lead.” Claire noted.

“Possibly.” Siobhan shrugged. “There was a few rumors surrounding the place about police brutality. A few convicts were found dead before their due date. The prison was shut down after that.”

“So we’re looking at the possibility that several upset ghosts are still haunting, after being killed prematurely in their previous life?” I questioned, looking back at Claire and Siobhan.

“But if it’s just a mindless ghost… Then why hasn’t it killed Siobhan? Or….us?” Claire asked.

“Good question.” I pondered and turned to Siobhan. “Any similarities to the previous deaths?”

“Aside that they all broke in, looking to steal stuff? Um.. No. Old, young, short, tall, man, woman.” Siobhan sighed a little. “They were all different.”

There was a moment to think before Claire spoke up again.

“...Maybe the ghosts have something against thieves?”

“Wouldn’t that be kind of against the phrase, ‘thick as thieves’?” Siobhan grinned a little.

Siobhan and Claire both looked at me curiously. I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help a small smile.

“I find that to be somewhat of an offensive phrase.” I clarified. “I preferred to work alone.”

“Hm.. Alone, you say?” Siobhan nodded towards Claire.

Claire laughed a little.

“I tagged along. Otherwise, yeah, he would’ve probably worked alone.”

I shrugged modestly and returned to the task at hand.

“There’s no guarantee that it’s multiples, either. We’d just need at least one to stay and become a ghost.”

“Would it be alright if I poked around, Siobhan?” Claire asked. “Maybe I can find some piece of the corpse or an artifact he’s attached to.”

“Oh, yeah, help yourself.” Siobhan offered politely.

“Actually, while you’re doing that, I might as well try to find more information myself.” I sighed. “Do you have a computer I can borrow?”

“Yeah, in the office.” Siobhan nodded to the stairs and smiled. “I’ll show you.”

We headed back up into the office. Siobhan sat at the desk and began to start the dial-up internet.

“So, be honest. What does one have to do to become a Ghost-buster?” she asked, with a playful grin.

I rolled my eyes. That reference has been made around the office several times, and even though I’ve yet to see the actual movie myself, I still know so much of it, picking it up in passing conversation.

“Well you don’t have to wear a ridiculous jumpsuit.” I started to explain, earning a giggle from the other. “Secondly, I don’t think you’d want me for a reference on the job interview. It um.. Wasn’t exactly the best.”

“Oh.. Really? Is it all that bad?”

“Mine was at least. I hear it’s different for everyone. Besides, it’s a boring desk job most of the time.” I shrugged. “Half the time chasing down the paranormal isn’t even as thrilling as movies make it out to be.”

“Oh, it can’t be all that terrible.” Siobhan grinned, obviously still trying to hold onto some silly romantic idea she had of the whole thing. “I’m sure it must be a lot of fun at times. Or at least a few good stories to share.”

I decided to spare her the retelling of one obnoxious, love-sick, school boy.

“Well.. Perhaps I’m just unlucky.” I simply told her. “Claire would know better than I.”

“Hm. Maybe I’ll ask her opinion.” Siobhan chuckled. “She’s nice, by the way.”

“She’s the nicer of the people in the office, at least.” I agree. “A little absent minded.”

“Hm, sounds like someone else we know.”

I chuckle.

“Okay. Not that bad.”

“So… What’s her.. thing?”

“‘Her thing?’” I looked at Siobhan, perplexed.

“Well I mean, I doubt any normal person could be right for the job.”

“Ah. Well, she’s a um.. Clairvoyant.”

“Claire the clairvoyant?” Siobhan grinned, though incredulous.

I shook my head and chuckled.

“As silly as it sounds, she’s actually really good at what she does.” I replied.

“She reads minds?”

“Somewhat. She’s said it’s a little more complicated than that. But basically it’s about what you’d expect. Read minds. Telepathy. Senses ghosts. Um.. Feels…. vibrations or something?” I shrugged. I never really understood it myself, though I had tried to read up on it.

“Hmm. Well, the internet’s up now. Here you go.”

We traded places. I sat down and began to search. Siobhan made herself comfortable on the desk. I checked reports on the previous deaths. No leads there. The victims were all just as varied as Siobhan explained. Mostly hooligans. Nothing similar.

‘Rookies, the lot of them.’ I thought to myself, reading through their reports. ‘No wonder they got caught.’

I tried looking for information on the jailhouse. The deaths that occurred were equally varied. The only thing any of them had in common was that they all appeared to have been horribly beaten to death. Everything from cracked ribs to broken bones. One was even killed with his skull bashed in. To be fair, my stomach was somewhat weak to read in more detail what all had happened. The chief of police at the time, a man by the name of Brutus J. Ustyss, was held in suspicion for the deaths, but never brought to court.

Suddenly the website I was searching turned blank and then the screen flickered and went black.

“Wha-?” I sighed in frustration and Siobhan did as well.

“I’m sorry, Trilby. The computer blinks out, sometimes.”

“Well..” I checked my watch. It was late into the afternoon. Soon enough I would have to stop. “I suppose I should go check on Claire. After that, we’ll try to gather more information elsewhere. I’ve been meaning to pay the library a visit, anyway.”

We headed back out of the office.

“You know, I’m still curious how someone as infamous as you landed a job as a paranormal investigator.” Siobhan started as we walked into the main room of the shop. “I mean, did you always want to be one? Or did you want something more?”

“Honestly? I wouldn’t have ever wished for something as ridiculous as this.” I sighed. “I yearn for the days before the Defoe Manor. Back when things were simpler. I’ll always be a thief at heart.”

The shop suddenly began to shiver and quake. Miscellaneous merchandise began to fall off the shelves around us. I felt an icy cold hand grab my shoulder and before I realized I’m being turned around, I’m met with a brick wall of immense pain and darkness.

#Chzo Mythos #Trilby Somerset #Siobhan O'Malley #Trilbhan #my writing #Chzo Trilby #ghosts #whooo boy how quickly did I write this??#holy shit I'm actually posting a fanfic again ^//^#I just didn't feel right posting until I've had the whole story finished so #updates will be regular!#Holy crap I'm super excited!#and open for critiques!#rational writing

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daryls-dixon-antoni · 4 years

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Chapter 17.) Remember

Right before we walk through the gates, Daryl shoots a possum, the sound causing Mason to jump.

As the gate opens Daryl says, "We brought dinner."

After exchanging a look with some guy at the gate, Aaron says, "It's okay. Come in guys."

We walk through the gates, and I am beyond nervous. Daryl and I exchange looks as the gate closes behind us.

The guy who opened the gate looks at our odd group and then states, "Before we take this any further, I need you all to turn over your weapons. Stay, you hand them over."

Rick pipes up before I can, "We don't know if we want to stay."

"It-it's fine, Nickolas." Aaron states, trying to keep the peace.

"If we were gonna use them, we would have started already." Rick continues.

"Let them talk to Deanna first." Aaron says.

"Who's Deanna?" Abraham pipes up.

"She knows everything you'd want to know about this place." Aaron answers. "Rick, why don't you start?"

We all hear the dead guy snarling behind us and Rick looks and says, "Sasha."

Sasha turns around and shoots the dead person.

"It's a good thing we're here," Rick states, as if he were coming in to rescue this place.

I'm almost the last person to go see Deanna, and when I step into the office she greets me, she's a white woman with shoulder length blonde hair.

"Hello. I'm Deanna Monroe."

I nod, staring at her. Trying to tell if she's a good person or not, trying to find out what she's hiding.

"And you are..?"

"Oh, right. I'm Antionette Andrews."

"You mind if I film this?"

"I don't care."

"What were you before all this?"

"A stay at home mother. My late husband; Tyler Andrews, he made more than enough money to sustain our children and us."

"I thought I recognized you, that is unbelievable."

"Look, Aaron said we are auditioning, so here's what I have. Rick is an amazing leader who takes care of us, no matter the cost. His son Carl is friends with my own boy, and he's a good kid, takes care of his dad and little sister. Michonne is a badass with her Katana, she has a kind heart and a good head on her shoulders. Sasha just lost her lover and her brother, she's trying to make it despite all that. Maggie just lost her father to a very bad man but found her husband after we were all separated. Glenn is one of the best men you'll meet, and he's smart. He did most of the runs before our old home fell. Carol is someone who will do whatever it takes to take care of her people, but she's also good with people; something not a lot of us still know how to be. Tera joined us after her group caused our old home to fall, she has a great heart and helped reunite Glenn and Maggie. Eugene is the smartest person you'll know, he can build a battery with minimal supplies. Rosita has a killer shot with her gun, she's saved most of our lives at least once. Abraham was in the military and can take out a herd of the dead practically by himself. Sev was a medic in the military with Abe. They could be an asset if any of you get injured. Noah saved my life when I was taken to Atlanta; and he kept me sane when we were both being forced to stay there. The father is pretty much useless, but he let us use his church when I was shot and rescued. Daryl is a good hunter, and a tracker. He's rough around the edges, but as soon as he cares about you, he will protect you with everything he has. My son is young, but has been watching out for me and my family the minute the world changed. Every single one of those people out there has saved my life on more than one occasion each."

"And what about you?" Deanna asks, leaning forward.

"What about me?"

"What do you bring to the table?"

"Nothing anymore. I don't trust you, or that this place will be here in the morning. The walls won't keep you safe, because walls can't keep any illnesses out. It can't keep bad people from bringing them down. I think you're delusional if you think this community will be still standing in a month or so. But I also know that's maybe a month away from the outside for my son. For my son's friend, and for Rick's little girl. That's all I care about."

"How long have you been out there?"

"Does it matter?"

"I think it does, yeah."

"I don't. It's been too long, and by that point it doesn't matter."

"Why?"

I eye her, trying to figure out her angle. "We've killed more of the dead than a human should. The kills have started swimming together. They don't matter anymore. It doesn't affect us to kill the dead. Plus, we've all lost enough; none of us can trust that anything's going to stick."

"And yet, here you are."

We surround a cart and are placing our weapons on it; a woman with glasses and a black haired ponytail is standing next to it.

Deanna addresses us, "They're still your guns. You can check them out whenever you go beyond the wall. But inside here, we store them for safety."

"Should have brought another bin," the woman with glasses jokes as she wheels our guns away. I look to Daryl, feeling unsafe at the aspect of walking around unarmed. He, too looks uncomfortable.

I'm standing on the porch of one of the two houses we were designated. Daryl is sitting down and skinning the possum he killed earlier, and Rick is standing holding Judith when Mason comes out and excitedly tells me, "There's hot water."

I'm watching for any signs of danger coming this way, but spare my son a glance, "No way," I ask, trying to sound light hearted.

"There is! Mom, I can take a shower!"

"That's wonderful," I reply, shooting him a smile before my eyes return to watching up and down the street.

Carl comes out next and I hear Rick say, "You can look. Just be quick."

"Okay, come on Mason." Carl says, excitedly.

I turn around, "Mason's staying."

"But mom, I'll be right next door, please?"

"No," I shake my head. "You're staying here."

"But Carl gets to go."

"Carl isn't my son. You are. You're staying here."

Mason storms back inside as Carl walks to the next house with Carol.

"What was that about?" Rick asks me once both boys are out of earshot.

I've since returned to watching the street carefully, but glance Rick's way before answering. "I just got him back and I don't trust these people as far as I can throw them. When things fall this time, my son is going to be with me when we get out."

"Anne-"

"Leaver 'er be. Woman's got a point." Daryl speaks up from his place on the ground.

Daryl comes to get me so we can meet Carol with Rick in between the houses to discuss what we think of all this. I glance at Mason nervously, before following Daryl out.

Carol gets to the place same time Daryl, Rick and I do.

"They're right next to each other, but..." Carol trails off.

"They took our weapons and now they're splitting us up." Rick says.

Daryl and I both say, "Yeah."

"Yeah," Rick repeats. "We'll all be staying in the same house tonight." I nod in agreement.

We all pile into the living room of the bigger house, when Michonne comes in with a toothbrush in her hand, "How long was I in there for?"

"20 minutes," Rick answers.

"God, I could not stop brushing. Huh. I've never- I've never seen your face like that." Michonne says, looking at Rick and sounding surprised.

I glance at Daryl who's already looking at me. We're sat behind the boys at the table, and next to Judith's sleep pen. I return my gaze back to the window as I hear Rick respond.

"That's what I felt before and after."

The two start whispering and I lose interest, as I watch a figure approach the front of the house, I elbow Daryl to get his attention and point, but the figure seems to have disappeared. My heart starts racing in my chest, and I quickly make sure Mason is close by, he's still sat next to Carl and Noah at the table looking through a comic.

That's when someone knocks at the door; I stand up, Daryl following my lead.

Rick answers the door and it's Deanna.

I feel Daryl relax slightly, but I move so I'm between Deanna and Mason.

"Rick, I- Wow. I didn't know what was under there. Listen, I-I-I don't mean to interrupt. I just wanted to stop by and see how you were all settling." She looks in and observed our close living quarters. All 17 of us.

"Oh, my. Staying together. Smart."

"No one said we couldn't," Rick states.

"You said you're a family. That's what you said. Absolutely amazing to me how people with completely different backgrounds and nothing in common can become that. Don't you think?"

"Everybody said you gave them jobs."

That's news to me, I look at Daryl who also seems caught off guard.

"Mm-hmm. Yeah. Part of this place." Deanna says. "Looks like the communists won after all," she laughs.

"Well, you didn't give me one," Rick says, which makes me feel better.

"I have. I just haven't told you yet. Same with Michonne. I'm closing in on something for Sasha. And I'm just trying to figure both Mr. Dixon and Ms. Andrews out, but I will."

I shake my head and look back out the window as Deanna says, "You look good," to Rick and then leaves.

Everyone is laying down for the night, and I'm doing my best to try and sleep when I hear movement; I immediately bolt up right, and Rick looks at me, he's the one moving around. He puts a finger to his lips, and I nod.

The next day has Daryl and I sat on the porch again, when everyone starts leaving the house, going on different directions. Mason comes out, and when I silently point my finger back at the door, he goes back inside without complaint.

Rick comes out then, eyeing Daryl and I before saying, "They said explore. Let's explore."

"Nah," Daryl answers for the both of us. "We'll stay."

"All right." Rick walks to the edge of the porch before saying, "Lori and me, we used to drive through neighborhoods like this. Thinking, 'One day'."

"Well, here we are." Daryl says.

"We'll be back," Rick lets us know before walking away.

"What're you doin', Woman?" Daryl asks, as I pace the porch, trying to keep an eye on the area around the porch,

"What do you mean?"

"Stop pacin', come sit down."

I shake my head, "I can't see the other end of the street from where you're sitting."

"You gonna let that boy out of your sight some time soon?" Daryl asks me.

I shake my head, "When shit hits the fan, I don't want to be separated again."

Carl comes back before anyone else and approaches me, "Can Mason come meet the other people our age with me?"

I shake my head, "Not this time, Bud. Maybe later."

Carl nods slowly, eyeing me for a minute before walking back off the porch and away from the house.

"Can't keep 'im here forever."

I look at Daryl, "Watch me."

Later that night as almost everyone is asleep, I hear Rick approach Michonne who's been stood at one of the windows the last few hours.

"Deanna hasn't given me a job yet," I hear Michonne whisper to Rick.

"You want one?" He asks, just as quietly.

"Yeah. Do you?"

"That's signing the papers. That's saying yes, this is how it is."

"You afraid to do that?"

"Aren't you?"

"No." Michonne replies, evenly.

"So then why are we both awake?" Rick asks, making a point. "I'm gonna take a walk." I hear as he leaves the house.

"What about you, you wanting to get a job yet?"

I look at Michonne from where I'm sat. "I don't know. I think we're getting too cozy already, and it's only our second day."

"I have a good feeling about this place," she says.

"And who are you trying to convince of that? Yourself, or me?"

She shakes her head and looks back out the window, letting the silence settle back around us.

The next day is basically the same, although everyone leaves to go to their jobs. Daryl and I are sat on the porch, he's finally convinced me to sit next to him, instead of spending my day pacing the porch like a caged animal. He's messing with his crossbow, and I giggle when he catches his finger off it.

He shoots me a glare before we both look up to the sound of the door opening and closing behind Carol, "Time to punch the clock and make the casseroles."

"What?" Daryl asks.

"Make dinner for the older people, moms who need a break, people who can't cook."

"Why?" I ask her, raising an eyebrow at her blue cardigan. "Get to meet a lot of the neighbors that way."

Daryl scoffs, "All right."

"Have either of you taken showers yet?"

Daryl and I exchange another look, he shrugs and hums at her.

"Take a shower, both of you. I'm gonna wash that vest. We need to keep up appearances, even the two of you." She starts walking down the porch steps.

"Hey, we ain't startin' now." Daryl grunts at her.

"I'm gonna hose you both down in your sleep."

"You look ridiculous," Daryl states.

"Thanks!" She calls back as she departs.

Mason comes out the door, "Can I go m-"

"No, get back in the house." I say, sharply.

Mason sighs heavily about to go back inside when Daryl stops him.

"Hey, c'mere."

I shoot Daryl a warning look, but he ignores me.

"Let the boy go explore a bit, what's it gonna hurt?"

I glare at him, "I don't want him going too far. When shit hits the fan, I want us close by. End of story, get back in the house."

Mason nods and disappears back through the door.

"Don't ever question how I'm raising my son again." I snap.

"Alright. But that boy of yours is gonna sneak out you keep tellin' him he can't leave."

I shake my head, "He understands why he has to stay near me. We'll go look around sometime. But I-" I take a deep breath. "I won't risk losing him again. Not after everything he's been through. He still won't even look you in the eye... what those men did-"

"I won't let that happen again," Daryl says, fiercely. "I won't let you be separated again."

I look him in the eye, and I believe him. "But-" I sigh "You'll help me find him if he's out running around when shit hits?"

Daryl nods.

"Mason," I call, opening the door. He comes out; looking like I'd just beat his dog up. "You be back long before dark its. Anything, and I mean anything goes bad, you immediately come find me, you hear?"

He nods, getting excited.

"Go, have a look around," I let up, and he runs off the porch without even a hug goodbye.

I watch him leave, and it isn't until Daryl nudges me and points in the other direction that I stop looking in the direction Mason left in.

I look and see Glenn and some guy squaring up at the gate surrounded by Noah, Tera and Nickolas.

"Lets go," I say, standing up and walking over with Daryl at my side.

We get there in time to hear Noah say, "Come on, man. Just take a step back."

The strange guy shoves Glenn and says, "Come on, tough guy."

I go to step forward to punch the dude, but Daryl puts his arm out, and I look at him as I hear Glenn say, "No one's impressed, man. Walk away."

Deanna rushes up snapping, "Aiden! What is going on?"

"This guy's got a problem with the way we do things. Why did you let these people in?" The stranger with brown hair responds.

"Because we actually know what we're doing out there." Is Glenn's response.

He ducks a punch that Aidan throws and punches him, knocking him to the ground with one hit.

Daryl runs and basically tackles Nicholas to the ground.

"Aiden, no! That's enough!" Deanna orders just as Rick and Carl come in through the gates. "I said that is enough!"

Rick runs over to Daryl, putting his arms around his back, "Whoa, whoa! Hey, hey, hey! Let's not do this now."

"Tell him," grunts Daryl.

Aidan stands up and Michonne gets in my way before I get the chance to punch his lights out for trying to take a hit at Glenn. Michonne gets in his face instead, "You want to end up on your ass again?"

Aidan backs off, "Cool, all right?"

I turn to see Rick pulling Daryl off Nickolas who is coughing and stands up.

Both Daryl and I go to go after him, but Rick puts his hands on both our chests, keeping us from fighting anyone else.

Deanna addresses everyone, "I want everyone to hear me, okay? Rick and his people are part of this community now in all ways. As equals." She's met with silence and I scoff. She turns to Aidan and says, "Understood?"

"Understood?" He repeats, smirking.

I try to side step Rick while saying, "Don't make me come over there and wipe that stupid smirk right off your face!"

Rick grabs my shoulders and looks me dead in the eyes as he says, "Cool off."

I take a breath before nodding, "Fine."

"All of you, turn in your weapons," Deanna orders before turning to Aidan and Nickolas, "Then you two come talk to me."

When everyone walks away Deanna looks at Rick, "I told you I had a job for you. I'd like you to be our constable. That's what you were. That's what you are." She turns to Michonne, "And you, too." Before turning back to Rick. "Will you accept?"

"Okay."

Deanna looks to Michonne who smiles, "Yeah, I'm in."

Daryl grabs his crossbow, scoffing and walks off. I roll my eyes at Rick before following him away from the idiots.

When Rick comes out of the house in a police uniform I shake my head at him, Daryl and I have been outside while everyone else went in. We're sharing a cigarette together.

"We good?" Rick asks.

"Yeah," Daryl responds, they both then turn to me.

I sigh, "We're good."

"You a cop again?" Daryl asks, as Carol comes outside.

Rick sighs this time, "I'm trying it on for size."

"So we're staying?" Carol asks.

"I think we can start sleeping in our own homes," Rick says, looking at Carol. "Settle in."

"If we get comfortable here, we let our guard down... this place is gonna make us weak." Carol states.

"Carl said that," Rick replies. "But it's not gonna happen. We won't get weak. That's not in us anymore. We'll make it work. And if they can't make it, then we'll just take this place." He looks at the other three of us and we all exchange looks.

#daryl dixon #daryl dixon fanfiction #the walking dead #the walking dead fanfiction #season 5 #chapter 17

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knownunknownn · 3 years

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he called himself an...eboy? an eboy. imagine wanting to be an eboy. he only wore black and never did his hair. i mean... he didn’t really have to do his hair because it was perfect the way it was but still. he never showed his body off... but he would tease us. fucking weirdo. or maybe i’m a weirdo for falling in love with a boy i follow on instagram.

yesterday he posted a body shot. he wore a black graphic tee-shirt tucked into black skinny jeans with chains hanging off of every loop. he had a thick silver chain around his neck. his face wasn’t even showing but let me tell you.. he was hot. the veins on his arms were protruding. they shone slightly blue under his pale skin. his knuckles were pink and his hand tattoos were slightly out of view.

he didn’t have many tattoos.. or atleast he didn’t show us many tattoos. we’d only seen about 5. one on each of his hands... one on his forearm... one behind his ear... one inside of his lip. but apparently he had more.

he didn’t date. he always talked about how lonely he was, or how empty it felt living by himself. he never took pictures of his house but he took pictures of himself around his house. from what i’d seen... it wasn’t too bad.

he didn’t work, and he’s just dropped out of college. he said that he couldn’t figure out what he wanted to do in life so instead of paying the government thousands of dollars, he’d rather take the time off to find what he loves. he found music. now, he wasn’t an musical genius or anything but... he was pretty talented. he already knew how to play piano but he’d learned drums earlier in the year. he learned how to produce beats and mix tracks and how to compose songs. there was a time when he posted covers but he makes his own music now.

he said he’s been having trouble writing lyrics recently. he said that he’s been feeling numb and he doesn’t know why he can’t express himself anymore. he said maybe music wasn’t for him but everyone reassured him that he was amazing and his music was incredible.

he said he was feeling unmotivated. “life is really sucky right now... i don’t know what to do.” he said that he might log off of all social media account for a while. but he’d be back.

he did come back... eventually. he was slightly different from before. happier. livelier. he said he’d met this girl that made him feel things again. i wasn’t too happy about that but... i was glad that he was feeling better. his happiness was all that mattered to me.

i’d met him before. a few times actually. we’d exchanged words. not many words but words nonetheless. he didn’t know that i was such a huge fan. he also didn’t know that i’d began revolving my whole world around him. but then again... he didn’t exactly need to know that.

he said he didn’t have many friends. that he couldn’t keep friendships well. i wanted to change that. i just wanted to talk to him about anything and everything. maybe beat his ass at a game of mario kart. but he made it very hard for anyone to get close to him. and anyways... i was just a fan.

he wasn’t famous by any means. but according to this society, having 739K followers makes you pretty damn popular. he said he hated the numbers. it only made people act fake towards him. i understood what he meant.

he followed me the other day. i don’t think he recognized me though. good. i wouldn’t want him thinking i was a weird fangirl. that would crush all of my chances on getting to know him.

he posted a picture of a manicured hand pulling his shirt up today. it was the first time we’d ever seen his abs. and boy do i mean abs. i was less focused on the abs (there’s a first time for everything) and more focused on the girls hand. long, red acrylic nails. who the fuck is that.

i got a dm today. and when i opened it... i screamed. “i really like your content... i want to learn to play the electric guitar so much. maybe you could teach me? do you make tutorials?” i think i was in a state of shock. i answered immediately.

“ohmygod thank youuuuu, and no i don’t make tutorials but i could of you want? and you’re so cool too wtf!! if i help you learn to play the guitar you HAVE to teach me how to use beat pads.” he didn’t respond for two days. i waited by my phone the entire time. it’s crazy how whipped i am for a boy that doesn’t even know me.

“yesss deal. i’m so fucking excited. do you live on the east coast?” ohmyGOD. did he want to meet up? i thought this was going to be an over-the-phone kind of thing.

“yeah i do! i live in Atlanta... you?” i chewed my nails. of course i knew he lived here, why was this so damn nerve wracking. “oh fuck same. we gotta meet up. i wanna learn ASAP” fuck. fuck. fuck.

“oh lit! okay we’ll talk soon then. when are you available?” the conversation went on like that. he told me he was technically always available.. just to give him a day and a time. he told me we could meet at his house or somewhere else. but all of his equipment would be at his house. i told him we could probably do it this weekend but i would have to check my schedule.

“woah woah woah. before i invite you into my house um what’s your name and how old are you??” i completely forgot that he doesn’t know ANYTHING about me.

“ohh lol i’m Jia and i’m 18” my name wasn’t jia. that was more of a... stage name. but he didn’t need to know that. i also wasn’t 18. i was turning 17 in December but.. he didn’t need to know that either.

i felt bad. the minute i hit send i felt like a liar. i don’t usually lie to people about my age or name but i didn’t want him to judge me or treat me like a child.

“Well hello there Jia. i’m Uley (but you already knew that) and i’m 23.” hes t w e n t y t h r e e ? his body screamed ‘adult’ but his face screamed ‘baby boy’. i thought he was 19... at most. his fluffy hair and dimpley smile didn’t help. fuck.

“How come i haven’t seen you around before Jia?” how am i supposed to respond to that?? ‘Um maybe because my parents are over-protective bible bangers and only allow me to leave the house to go to church or group therapy—‘ but instead i settled on, “what do you mean?”

“Oh not to be creepy or anything it’s just that a lot of people i know follow you.. i’m trying to figure out why you’re just now showing up on my recommended lol” oh. that makes more sense.

“i don’t know... i don’t talk to many people online haha” that was another lie. i only had online friends. they seemed much nicer than the people outside of my front door.

“me neither. people are assholes.”

we talked for 4 hours that day. he kept asking me when i’d be able to meet up but i kept reassuring him that i’d let him know by the weekend. i had to find some way to get out of this house.

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jazzinuptheworld · 7 years

Text

First Abroad Update (first email)

Hello Friends and Family,

My first month in Madrid has come and gone in the blink of an eye! And I can't believe it! I'm writing to let you know what I'm up to, how I've been, and what it's been like here in Madrid.

My Host Family

My host family is absolutely wonderful! My hosts parents are Pilar and Jesus, and I have two host sisters Maria and Andrea who are both in their twenties. They are all so kind and welcoming, and it's been an absolute blessing receiving them as my host family. I have my own little room that's painted a very happy orange, with a bed, a desk, drawers, and a closet. My room is so cozy and nice, it's a great place to come back to at the end of the day. I have two housemates from SLU that share the other room, they're both nice, but I don't see them much outside of dinner time. My host parents make the best dinners! There hasn't been any dinner that I haven't liked (knock on wood, we still have 3 months to go), but they are very considerate of our likes and dislikes and try to only make things that they know we'll enjoy. I have heard horror stories from friends about the dinners they are served, so I'm glad I haven't had to experience that (yet?). The only downside of Spanish dinners is that they're at 10PM!!! Being that I'm American (or from the US @Facundo), I eat my dinners around 5/6 or 7 at the latest, so 10 o'clock dinners have been quite the struggle! Although I've found ways to last until that time, like grabbing tapas or bocadillos at my favorite place: Cien Montaditos.

Learning the Language

Although I have dipped my toe in the Spanish language at home or at Mexican restaurants in LA, I have a very limited ability to speak the language. As many of you know, I'm able to understand a lot of what is spoken to me, so it's been easy getting around and understanding some things here and there, but the real struggle is actually saying something. I am usually able to string along some words and people will understand me, but I still have a lot of learning to do. Not to mention that Castilian Spanish is different than the Spanish I'm used to!! You know how people say as long as you know how to say "Where's the bathroom" you should be fine?? Well SURPRISE the one word I thought I knew for sure was "baño" but they don't use "baño" here they say "aseos" !!! Did anyone else know that?? Bc I didn't. AND YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE THEY USE HERE.... VOSOTROS! Which every Spanish teacher ever told me not to worry about because we'll never have to use it (insert upside down smiley face emoji). And the cherry on top, is the lisp they have that makes it the slightest bit more difficult to understand what they're saying. (Rant over). The point is, I've been on the struggle bus, but not to worry I try to practice with my host family because they only speak Spanish, and my friend and I try to practice our Spanish with each other which helps. Also, what I'm trying to say is... don't expect me to come back to the states knowing how to speak Spanish (although hopefully I'll be much better).

The "Study" in "Study Abroad"

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that I'm here to go to school! What a concept. Long story short, it took about two weeks here to get a final schedule of classes. During my first two weeks here, I was switching in and out of classes, getting on and off waitlists, collecting syllabi and trying to construct a schedule that won't make me want to pull my hair out while abroad. At the start of my third week, I finally got my schedule figured out. Most of my classes are pretty lame tbh, but you gotta do what you gotta do. They seem pretty manageable which is good, but it is only just the beginning. My Spanish class is probably the hardest, and the one that pushes me outside of my comfort zone the most. It's an intermediate Spanish class, which I thought would be fine, until I realized I don't actually know Spanish. The other classes I'm taking are things I'm used to like two theology classes, a philosophy class, and a Language and Linguistics class. I had to pack my schedule this semester to ensure that I would graduate on time in the Spring, otherwise I would gladly be taking an beginner's art class or a flamenco class. Hopefully I just pass the classes that I'm in, and I should be fine (C's get degrees, rightt???).

Outside of the Classroom

Madrid is such a beautiful city! And the streets are always buzzing with people! There's so much to see and explore, and I've tried my best to experience all Madrid has to offer, whether that's going to the museums, the Royal Palace, the beautiful parks, or grabbing tapas after class with friends. (Although sometimes, I choose siestas rather than walking all throughout the city). Other than exploring the city, I've also found other ways to spend my time. Being that church is my hobby, my friend introduced me to some other girls that were all interested in creating a Bible Study group, so we picked a meeting time and thus a beautiful thing has begun. We've had two meetings so far, and they have been wonderful, it's just been a space to reflect, pray and share about our lives. They're all such kind, genuine people and I look forward to building better relationships with each of them. The Sunday after our first meeting, we all went to church together and it was so much fun! Some girls in our group have a host mom that knows a priest at the parish we went to, so she made a cake for him and gave it to the girls to deliver. So, after mass, we went back into the sacristy, and met him and then he took us to the top of the church which had a beautiful view of the Royal Palace! He talked to us about his trip to the Holy Land, which he had just returned from! Then, he showed us the residence and other chapels within the church. Finally, as we said goodbye, he blessed us with Myrrh that he brought back with him from the Holy Land and said the Irish Blessing over us (which is significant to me because it is a tradition at LMU to say the Irish Blessing at Welcome Mass as a freshman and then at Graduation), then he sent us away with gifts! So basically, it was a wonderful day. Besides church related things, I have signed up to teach an Advanced ESL (English as a Second Language) class! I have only had one class, and it was a bit stressful, but hopefully it will get better!

My First Trip

We took our first trip out of Madrid to London and it was.... memorable. lol. Long story short, the housing situation was kind of crazy, and I feel like I didn't get to see a lot of London, and everything was really expensive. But on the bright side, I got to see my friend Kateri (who has been my friend since kinder, and also goes to LMU), and I got to go to the Warner Bro's studio and see sets from Harry Potter which was pretty awesome. I think the best part of going to London was missing Madrid. (Whhaaattt?? What do you mean by that Jazmin??). Well, after arriving in London, and spending the weekend there, I realized I really missed Madrid! Which was awesome, because it made Madrid feel like home. Being away from Madrid made me appreciate it even more, and I was so happy to go back!

If you want more details on London, feel free to contact me lol

Valencia

Valencia was AMAZING! 10 out of 10 would recommend to a friend. The whole city just felt so relaxed and chill, and it was a nice contrast from the ever buzzing Madrid. My friend Cristina, has a friend in Valencia and he showed us around the entire city, telling us fun facts, and history! He was so fun and nice, it was great to have a local show us around! On the second day, we spent the entire day at the beach which was incredible! I was really starting to miss the beach, so it was nice to spend the day there. I was just floating and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea and it was FANTASTIC, the water wasn't too cold, and the waves were calm, and the water was clear, and I was so at peace. Then we ate some bomb paella, and then went back into the city and had some BOMB gelato. It was truly a wonderful day and trip.

Missing home?

As much as I try to be present here, I've had one foot at LMU, for reasons mostly out of my control. Since I'm trying to graduate in the Spring, I've had to be in contact with LMU for various reasons. For one, graduation pictures are happening, and I'm obviously not there, so I was contacting the photographer and the yearbook editor to see if I would be able to take pictures when I go back in the Spring. It's not a huge deal if I'm not in the yearbook, but it would be nice, so I've been trying to figure all of that out. Additionally, I was in constant contact with my advisor to make sure I was picking the right classes, how many units I would need to finish, which cores counted and which didn't, sending transcripts and constantly checking my CAPP report (which probably doesn't mean anything to you unless you're from LMU). I'm also attempting to try and finish my Catholic Studies minor, so I've had to be in contact with Fr. Marc, sending syllabi and course descriptions. And in addition to that, I've been thinking about doing another Spring Break trip, so I applied to both IC and AB trips, and have already had one skype interview and I have another one to come (tomorrow!!) And looking towards the future, I've been looking into some post grad service options. I've been researching, and reaching out to people, and keeping in contact with TK. So it's been crazy! As if that isn't enough to think about, soon registration will come around, and I'll have to reach out to my advisor again and then apply for my degree (but we're not there yet, so we'll cross that bridge when we get there). Besides that, I really have been missing home! Both homes: Santa Maria (shocking I know) and LMU, I miss familiarity and comfort, but I know I have so much to gain from being outside of my comfort zone here in Madrid.

If you made it this far, thanks for bearing with me! I know that was an absurdly long update. But that's what happens when you leave a month's worth of content in one email, and there's been so much left unsaid!

Anyway, I love you all so much and I miss you!

-Jaz

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