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#headcanon here headcanon there
vectorworm · 1 year
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Datas mind is so special, so beautiful to me
Nerd Alert: I am horrible at explainig my thougthts *cue the meme where someone explains a story but instead of going through it linearly (easiest to listen to) every thought opens a whole nother tree of new thoughts.
Also this will be about math - but dont be afaid math-dislikers! no equations ready to assault you in here!
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just red a post about Data choosing to spend his time with art instead of computations (im sorry i lost the post, but shoutout to whoever said that, bc that kickstarted me thinking about Data again)
Math is a very simplified abstraction of how we experience the physical world and ourselves.
We do it naturally - counting for example: our nervous system analyzes the physical stimuli (electromagnetic waves) our sensual organs (vision) receive. at the base level its just a bunch of different colored dots in space. but on a conscious level we percieve a background and different entities of objects. we can grasp them, we can manipulate them, we would even go so far and count them.
And this is all done by millions of neurons, shooting electricity, always on the edge of chaos but all together they dance a choreography of brainwaves and other patterns.
Another example from the visual cortex would be edge detection. Done through some locally very easy computations (this is btw also exactly translated into computer vision) - but i digress
Now school math only astracts fairly basic concepts: counting, adding things, taking things away, distributing things evenly, the passage of time, directions in space, shapes, etc - these are very close to the abstarctions our brain already does on a conscious level.
But i have found the more decentralized and parallel the math becomes - the more beautiful patterns arize. - this is more similar of how all the neurons in our brains work together. all those subconcious computations: edge detection, hearing speach, probably also: feeling emotions, and a sense of self, a sense for art and aesthetics
in fact "decentralized math" is also more similar to how the universe works:
single atoms and molecules compute under the local laws of physics. single atoms alone are just points in space. but together they form beautiful systems that act and work together like entities. showing beautiful patterns and dynamics.
here some examples:
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(oooh how i wanna go and infodump about artificial life bc its so beautiul, but maybe another time)
I think that Data gew up very much opposite to his biological friends:
Humans first see the world in its beauty and then abstract it further and further. But Data had math first: his brain started with a simple architecture and he had to consciously learn eveything humans do.
He doesnt only see a flower and sais "its pretty" bc thats what his subconscious has come up with. Data sees a flower and he sees every atom, every different molecule, where they came from, where they will go, how they work together to form a complex structure like a flower.
And i think that is so, so beautiful.
Data spends his time doing art bc art is an expression of how beautiful math (and the universe) can be.
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violent138 · 2 months
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The idea of the Batkids doing normal people things while suited up is hilarious to me, you know, like Red Robin and Spoiler making the 9 o'clock news while racing through a grocery store because they totally forgot to get the things Alfred asked them to bring for the family dinner. Or Damian and Dick swinging into the Bludhaven Zoo mid-patrol because Dami really wanted to see the new baby tiger. Red Hood buying lemonade from a kid's stand and then standing there awkwardly messing with his helmet, trying not to hurt the kid's feelings. Black Bat, on a particularly tiring day randomly appeared in the nosebleeds of the ballet hall and started sniping phones out of people's hands. Or Signal and a deeply irritated Batman changing out a blown-out tyre in some back alley, earning amused looks.
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I remember discussing Tintin casting choices with a friend from Germany and remarked how it was odd he often has an English accent in adaptations rather than a Belgian one, and my friend just replied "that's because Tintin gives incredibly strong English boy energy (derogatory)"
Here in the UK there's a lot of weird classism tied into accents. Today accent diversity and representation in broadcasting is actively pursued but in Tintin's time there certainly was a preferred accent to have.
imagine this exchange happens between pages 28-29 in The Crab with the Golden Claws
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forgettable-au · 3 months
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I think about this call so much
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krysmcscience · 28 days
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Call this the Whoopsie AU (it's barely an AU)
I mean. Narinder never explicitly SAID the Lamb would stay dead... :3c He probably should have been more specific. >:3c
Part Two:
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Well. The Lamb tried, but...sorry, Nari, the crown hates you now. Shouldn't have been so quick to lend it out, I guess. :D
Aaaand Part Three:
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'Isn't he just adorable?' -The Lamb, probably, while their followers smile and nod and internally scream at the brand new hellcat they now have to share living space with...
Anyway, nothing says 'Dead To Me' like following a person around to loudly remind them of how dead they are to you. Right? Right. Narinder's got this all figured out. <:]
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cassandracain52 · 7 days
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so I’ve seen lots of fics about Bruce coming back and finding out things like Tim loosing his spleen or Damian getting shot (on multiple occasions by different people) and he almost always finds out by either having dug into the Batcomputers records and stumbling across it or just seeing it on scans or something after Tim or Damian is injured
but imagine for a moment Bruce finds out, not on his own, but by the others telling him.
And by “tell him” I of course mean that they all automatically assume that he already knows about all of it(because he’s the worlds greatest detective so obviously they don’t need to say anything) so they never bring it up until they mention it one day in passing and nearly give him a heart attack.
for example:
Bruce: Tim, I need you to come with me to speak with Dr. Thompkins down at the clinic about that new drug that’s been circulating
Tim: Oh, sure thing, just let me grab my mask
[Bruce not saying anything but looking at him confused because Tim is already fully suited up and wearing his domino mask?]:
[Tim, now wearing a surgical face mask]: Ok, I’m ready! [Bruce just staring at him, waiting for some explanation. He doesn’t get one.]:
Bruce: Tim
Tim: hm?
Bruce: Why are you wearing a face mask..?
Tim: Oh! Well Dr. Thompkins got mad at me last time I came to the clinic without one because there’s a lot of sick people there and I should be more careful since I’m immunocompromised-
[Bruce, immediately cutting him off]: Wait, what?
[Tim, slightly confused]: She got mad at me when I didn’t wear one last time..?
[Bruce, equally confused and growing very concerned]: No, not that. You’re immunocompromised?
[Tim, now completely lost because this is all common knowledge?]: Uh, yeah??
[Bruce, even more concerned]: How??? What do you mean??
[Tim, getting annoyed and rolling his eyes]: Well that’s what they call you when you have no spleen, Bruce.
Bruce: What.
[Tim finally realizing that, just maybe, they skipped a step]: I have no spleen? It got stabbed so Ra’s took it
[Bruce, about to have an aneurysm]: RA’S DID WHAT-
______ Or like him finding out Damian had his entire spine replaced
Bruce: Hey, do you think it’s strange Damian’s so small?
Dick: No?? He’s ten?? Ten year olds are small?
[Bruce, audibly concerned]: No, I mean don’t you think he should have grown some by now? Is he not eating enough?
[Dick, immediately relaxing]: Oh, that? Yeah, it’s fine
[Bruce, still concerned]: Are you sure? I was taller than that at his age
[Dick, waving his hand dismissively]: Nah, he’s fine. I think the spine replacement just stunted his growth a bit
Bruce:…
Dick:..?
[Bruce, near hysterically because all his kids somehow keep losing pieces of their insides and none of them seem bothered by it??]: his wHAT- ____
Dick has to spend the next several hours trying to stop Bruce from making everyone do a mandatory medical examination so he can make sure none of his other kids are missing anything
Dick promises that it was just the two things
Bruce is not reassured
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cthulhum · 1 month
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does anyone realize how crazy it is to have the actor of a mostly headcanoned queer ship say the fans were never crazy and they were right all along after 10+ years of everyone just absolutely going nuts over the said queerbaited ship
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peaktora · 3 months
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𝐂 𝐈𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐂𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐘 ˚◞♡ ⃗ satoru gojo
𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬 ┊ your husband is unbearably clingy.
𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩 ┊0.9k words. no pronouns used or specified gender for the reader. intended lowercase. established relationship (#married).
a/n. — i’m warning u guys right now that this is not proofread 😭 .. i literally just typed this up rq and posted it bc it’s been too long since i’ve last posted something on here
p.s. the prompt was in my notes from a longgg time ago, but i believe it’s from @/creativepromptsforwriting .. if not please lmk !!
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"c'mere, hold my hand," satoru pleads for what has to be the third time. he pouts at you, who’s sitting on the countertop.
your brows furrow as you look up from your phone, "but, you're washing the dishes?”
he twists the faucet handle, and a steady stream of water flows down. after a brief glance at you, he places the plate beneath the water and says, "i know how to multitask, baby."
clinginess is defined as “the tendency to stay near someone for emotional support, protection, ect.” but there has to be another term for what satoru is, because you can't give any of those things while holding his hand right now.
you let out a deep breath and turn off your phone, watching as the screen fades to black. "satoru, there's no way i'm sticking my hand in that dirty dishwater," you say, sliding your phone into your pocket.
he practically shoves the plate into the drying rack. "i can't believe this," he huffs. "we literally had vows."
“what are y—“
“we had vows that said you’d love me in sickness and in health.”
"well…are you sick?" you ask, crossing your arms across your chest.
he pauses his task of washing dishes, leaving them untouched. leaning over the sink, he rests his arms against its edge. he steals a furtive glance at you, only to find your gaze locked onto him. with a hint of hesitation, he softly mumbles, "no..." before you can respond, he interrupts, "but i’m in health, and the vows said that you have to love and cherish me in this state too."
you lean back, searching your mind for what the alternative of holding his hand would be. because in no world would you hold his hand in dishwasher. then, it hits you. "for now, would a hug make you feel better?"
he answers your question with a hum, and you can't believe he's debating whether or not to accept your offer after all that drama over holding hands in dishwater. even so, he adds, "i'll have to give it some thought."
two can play that game.
“it’s okay,” you say, gracefully hopping down from the counter. a smirk spreads across your face. “i could just go—sit on the couch?” slowly, you start to walk in his direction and make your way over to the living room.
he doesn’t say anything, letting you do as you please. it’s not until you start to pass by him, that you get the reaction you wanted.
or atleast, somewhat similar to what you wanted.
"on second thought—" he exclaims, and the dishwater swirls around him as he turns around, his hands still wet and dripping.
you cringe as small puddles gather on the tiles. "hey—" but he interrupts you as he reaches out to grab your wrist. “ew—I—what the hell?”
you instinctively try to pull back, but he slips his wet hand in yours; sealing your fate.
“satoru—”
“what happened to nicknames?”
“satoru.”
"’m not sure who that is. i go by a lot of names, but not that one. lets go down the list, yeah?” he clears his throat. “i go by "babe, baby, swe—"
"you should consider adding "gojo" to that list."
"now, when have you ever called me gojo?”
"right now, in exactly ten seconds.” your husband gasps, hanging his mouth open. “satoru go—"
“woah woah woah—what’d i do to deserve this treatment?”
“you put your dirty dishwater hand in mine.” you jerk your hand back, struggling to escape free of his grip.
his grip tightens on your hand, “if you’re feeling like not loving me today then just say that.”
“hey—don’t discredit me. i offered you a hug and you said you had to “think” about it.”
“cause holding your hand ‘s better.”
you sigh, “after you’re done with the dishes, you can hold my hand as long as you want.“
he lets out a soft, thoughtful hum—the same hum that got you both into this situation in the first place. at the same time you shake your head, a mischievous twinkle appears in his eyes, and a smile twists onto the edges of his lips. "deal" he says, shaking your hand. “but before-“
you tsk, making him drop his excuse.
“wh—“
"the quicker these dishes get done, the quicker you’ll be able to hold my hand. so get on with it—go," you playfully command, and his grip loosens in response. seizing the opportunity, you slide your hand out of his grasp. you look down at it, seeing bits of food that’ve stuck to your palm. gross.
you walk over to the sink, feeling the cool water flow over your hand, washing away the food and dirt that clung to your skin. as you stand there, you hear satoru's voice grumbling from behind, "i hate doing dishes,” and you can’t help but snort.
before you know it, you feel his presence close behind you, his body pressing against yours. his arms encircle you, creating a cozy pocket of space between the counter and his body. satoru leans over your shoulder, gets a sponge from the soapy water, and starts washing a bowl. you simply lean back and look at his features.
the sight almost makes you want to stay in his arms forever. that is, until you realize the predicament you're in.
“you did not,” you whine. you desperately try to break free from the cage he’s trapped you in, but your attempts prove more and more pointless.
"oh, yes, i did," he declares with a smile. “what did you say earlier?" he clears his throat before proceeding. "the faster these dishes are done, the sooner you'll be able to hold my hand," he says, mockingly imitating your tone. "so, the faster these dishes are done, the sooner you can leave and do anything you want."
you sulk and moan while you reluctantly grab a dish and a spare sponge from the sink. “i hate you.”
“i love you more.”
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atsuwumus · 5 months
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𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 . . .
Zayne, who had to stop wearing a smartwatch because it would alert him about his heart rate that spiked dangerously everytime he found himself around you.
Rafayel, who's ears turn red from the intensity of his blush whenever you get perhaps a little too close to him, brushing a hand over his arm, your knee knocking his underneath the table, all innocent touches that makes him go red.
Xavier, who's opted to start stuffing his hands into his pockets or hoodies so you wouldn't see how they trembled, or how they ached to hold your own. He can at least keep the fidgeting to himself that way.
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azlrse · 5 months
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– basically idia's married life with mc
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jewishrat420 · 5 months
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No one has ever flirted with Steve the way Eddie flirts with Steve.
And it's not like no one flirts with Steve. God, no, it's not like no one flirts with Steve. Steve can't walk into the grocery store without at least three sets of heads turning and focusing all their attention on him.
And he's not even trying to be cocky about it. That's just the reality he was gifted when he came out of his mother's womb looking like the world's freshest Adonis. Honestly, he wouldn't be surprised if they changed the colloquialism to "Steve."
Regardless. For as many people like to flirt with him, make themselves known, filtering in and out of his orbit like willing planets, no one knows quite how to get him going like Eddie. Maybe it's that they're not as confident as he is, maybe they're scared of the rejection Eddie was born facing and will die knowing.
Maybe they're scared of ruining their chances. Maybe Eddie isn't.
For whatever reason, Eddie doesn't seem like he's scared. Even though there was a long time before he knew Steve was bi, was just as into the flirting as Eddie was, even though there was a chance (not like it'd ever happen, but the unknown was there) that Steve could have beaten him up just for calling him "sweetheart," he did it anyway. He got right up into Steve's space, close enough that Steve could get high off the remnants of the joint he'd smoked earlier, and gave him a look that offered everything.
And, God, Steve wanted it. He wanted it all.
And so that began months of what Steve has so aptly referred to as torture. Apt, because he knows what it's like. He has the scars and the fear of ice cream and needles to prove it.
But this... this is a different kind of torture. Mental, emotional, spiritual, whatever you call it-- this is meant to tear him apart from the inside out, meant to make him want to rip his own bones out from his body and offer them to Eddie if it meant the other man making a fucking move.
And Steve would, is the thing. He would absolutely make the first move-- it's what he usually does, anyway, and he's got a pretty damn good success rate for it.
But, for whatever reason, this feels different. This back and forth they have, the constant teasing, the sliding in and out of each other's orbits, unable and unwilling to refute the most fundamental laws of gravity... it's something special, at least to Steve. Something sacred.
Which is why, when Eddie calls Steve "Harrington" for the first time in months, his first response is to pout.
They're about halfway through splitting a joint, the sweet smoke curling around wisps of hair and parted lips and filtering in and out of the holes in their sweaters. The air outside is getting colder, thinner, sharper, as the winter months dreg on. But inside the trailer, it's comfortable and warm. Safe.
Steve's being a bit of a hog, and he's man enough to admit that. But he had a shitty day at work and all he wants is to feel nothing other than the weightless relaxation of a good high buzzing through his bones. Sue him for taking a little more than his fair share of the good stuff, even if it is Eddie's.
"Steve," Eddie whines, reaching his hand out and curling his fingers in request. "Give it over."
"No," Steve responds, just on the edge of whiny. He brings the joint to his lips and takes a long, slow, deep drag, feeling the sweet heat of the smoke burning in his lungs, taking up the space where oxygen should be. He goes a little dizzy with it, feels his eyes lower. "Mine."
Steve can't see it, but he knows Eddie's rolling his eyes. Can sense the shift in the air, can sense every little fucking thing about Eddie at any given moment.
"C'mon, Harrington, you're being a brat."
And, normally, Steve would find another aspect of that sentence to freak out about. Would zero in on the word brat and relish in the flare of heat it sends shooting up his spine like firework sparks. Would squint his eyes at Eddie and tilt his head in the way he knows makes him look good, would give him his cutest little smirk and say, "Who, me?" and would preen in the response it gets.
This time, though, he's much too focused on the other name Eddie used for him. The one he hasn't heard come out of Eddie's mouth since before he realized that Steve was, as he put it, "actually a good dude."
He doesn't realize he's pouting until the sudden silence in the room starts to creep in, make a home in the buzzing in his ears. He didn't realize that he didn't say anything, and neither did Eddie, and now they're sitting in a mess of their own making. Of Eddie's own making, really.
His next words come out without effort, without intent.
"Don't call me that."
He chances a look over at Eddie, at the risk of appearing as vulnerable as he feels, and to his distress, he can't get a read on the man. His dark eyebrows furrow, brown eyes squinting slightly, and his lips part like he wants to speak. He licks them. Steve's eyes follow the motion unintentionally.
"Call you what?" Eddie says on an exhale. "A brat?"
Steve shakes his head. "Harrington. Don't like it when you call me that."
Eddie kind of softens, then, and Steve didn't realize he had stiffened until he isn't anymore. He sort of sinks into the couch, spreads his legs imperceptibly wider, and Steve wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't for the way his left knee brushes against Steve's just barely. Just enough for those heated sparks to send a couple pinpricks across his skin.
"No?" he says, looking over to meet Steve's gaze. His cheeks are flushed, whether from the weed or the heat of the room or the heat between them, and Steve's sure that his look the same. "What do you want me to call you, then?"
Steve's definitely blushing now. He looks away from Eddie, tucks his chin to his chest, lets the joint between his fingers burn away. Eddie takes it from him, gently, and brings it to his lips. Steve hears the paper crackling as he inhales.
His voice is quiet, almost meek, when he speaks. It's completely unlike Steve, completely unlike the persona he used to so proudly take on-- but then again, Eddie is completely unlike anyone that Steve has ever met. He's more real, more human, and in turn, Steve is too.
"...You know."
Eddie makes a little noise, then, something in the back of his throat that was born and died within the very same second it was released. Something soft, almost pained, like his body couldn't help the reaction it had to that sentence.
Steve watches the thin, long line of Eddie's arm reach forward and press the joint into the glass of the ashtray. He follows the motion until Eddie's hand settles into the rips over his knee, fingers intertwining with the thread. His pinkie is dangerously close to Steve's own sweatpant-covered skin, and he feels the contact as if Eddie were touching him.
Eddie's hand twitches like it wants to move, and Steve resists the urge to grab it, hold it within the warmth of his own palms.
"Do I?" Eddie says, his voice quieter than it was a moment ago. That thick silence fills the trailer once more, settling in between the soft buzzing of the lightbulb in the kitchen and the muffled humming of the crickets outside. Steve hears Eddie take a stuttering breath. "Tell me."
Steve sighs, feeling his chest burn as his heartbeat picks up. His throat pounds with the pulsing of it. He places his own hand on his right knee, pinkie finger edging closer and closer to the space where Eddie's meets his. Eddie's hand twitches again.
"Like it when you call me sweet things," he says on an exhale, as though getting it out all in one breath would make it easier. "Like how it makes me feel."
Eddie lets out another one of those noises, then, something more like a cut-off groan. His hand curls into the fabric of his jeans for no more than a second before he releases it, and Steve gets to watch as the blood blanches and then returns to his knuckles.
"Sweet things, huh?" he muses, voice only slightly strained. If Steve didn't know any better, he'd say Eddie is nervous. "Like... Stevie?"
Steve hums. "Yeah. I like that."
Eddie's pinkie moves closer. Barely. Imperceptibly, if not for the way Steve is tuned into his every movement, like a dog to the sound of their owner's keys.
"Yeah?"
Steve hums again.
"What about... sweetheart?"
Steve closes his eyes. Lets out a shaky breath, inhales a smoother one.
"Yeah."
Steve feels something brush against his pinkie. Something warm.
"Honey?"
Steve nods, biting his lip. "Mhm."
Eddie lets out a quiet little laugh. "Even big boy?"
Steve returns it helplessly, feels the edges of a smile pulling at his lips. The air feels cold on his teeth, as though he's burning up from the inside out and anything outside of his own body is a cooling salve.
"Especially big boy."
Eddie laughs a little louder, and the jostling of his body brings his pinkie even closer to Steve's. Completely pressed against his own, now.
Steve swears he can feel his heartbeat through it. Or maybe it's his own.
"What about..." Eddie takes a breath. "Love?"
Steve's own breath hitches. He opens his eyes, looks at where their skin is touching in more than one place. He feels it, feels every point of contact where the cells that make Eddie are existing with the cells that make Steve. Wonders, maybe, if they stay here long enough, if they'll merge and mold over time. Become one.
"Yeah," Steve breathes. "I like that one a lot."
Eddie hums, and the room falls back into silence for a moment. Steve's skin burns where their fingers are touching. He moves his hand to the right, just barely, just enough to let Eddie know that he feels it. Just enough to ask Eddie if he does, too.
His response is overwhelming.
Eddie moves his hand to the left, solidifies all the points of contact between them, and Steve feels like he's exploding. Feels like a bubbling pit of lava that's set to burst, to overflow, like it can't hold back anymore. Like it's tried for so long that it's hurting, now, pressurized and boiling and hot, way too fucking hot.
And then, Eddie crosses his pinkie over Steve's, and Steve thinks he's dying.
He takes in a sharp breath like it's the last one he'll ever get, and he doesn't even have it in him to be embarrassed about it. He knows Eddie is right there with him, knows he's not the only one feeling this irrefutable pull like gravity between them. Knows, hopes, it's only a matter of time before they collide.
Eddie hums again. He taps his pinkie once over the smallest of Steve's knuckles, almost like he's making a decision. He takes a long, slow breath before he speaks.
"You know which one's my favorite?"
Steve's throat clicks. "Which?"
"Look at me."
Steve turns his head to the right for no more than a second before Eddie's lips are on his.
It's hungry, it's indulgent, it's immediately addictive. It feels like breathing.
Eddie presses his whole body against Steve's, and he can feel the way his tendons flex where his hand is covering the back of Steve's. Where their pinkies meet, their fingers intertwine and cross over one another like the roots of a tree, their bodies the whole mycorrhizal network.
The next word is spoken against Steve's lips, and Steve can feel the way his mouth forms around it. Decides, from this moment on, that he never wants to hear it another way.
"Baby."
Steve's exhale is more of a moan, a dying sound that, like Eddie's before, lived for only a moment in his throat before pushing through the wall of his lips. Eddie takes it, holds it in his own mouth, swallows it down hungrily and slides his tongue against Steve's as though asking for more.
"That's--" Steve pants, getting his hands on Eddie's hips and pulling until he's seated in his lap. "Mine too."
"Yeah?" Eddie asks, his lips still pressed against Steve's. Their words are muffled against each other, but they don't need to hear them to understand. They only need to feel the outline of them, the shape of the consonants and vowels against and around each other's tongues. They only need to press their bodies together and know, intimately, the meaning in each other's hearts.
"Yeah. Want you to call me that forever."
This time, Steve feels Eddie's laughter against his lips. His chest. Feels it bubble up in the space between his ribs, feels it flow into his mouth like a river, swallows it down like the first glass of water after a run. Feels his own creep up behind his teeth in return, gives it back to Eddie like an offering, who takes it greedily. Hungrily. Gratefully.
"Think that can be arranged, baby."
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phantomrose96 · 1 month
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Sham Sacrifice
(Hi it's time for my favorite headcanon)
...
Vlad Masters sat firm and proper on the Fenton Family couch, legs crossed, teacup pinched in his fingertips, fighting subtly against the sinkhole that came with the mistake of taking Jack’s usual spot on the couch. He appeared with all the same charm and delightfulness of an ant swarm rearranging your picnic.
Danny stood at the doorway, just-still-in-the-kitchen, just not inviting himself to join the adults in the living room where Jack boomed and rambled and Vlad sat so stiff and polite and nice that his tea in his hands was going cold.
“Oh, Danny you’ll love this story—Danny, you should join us—Danny this was, what, summer of ’84? When was that heatwave, Vladdy? The one where you—”
“There’s no need to bore Daniel with the mad ravings of two old kooks, Jack. Kids would rather be off at the mall or—some store, surely. No need to stick around Daniel on my behalf. I assure you I won’t be offended if you leave.”
“No worries, V-man. I’m good right here. I love hearing Dad’s stories." Danny met Vlad's challenge, speaking with more poisonous courtesy than Vlad had proffered first. "In fact I think he should tell a few more, if he’s got more in mind.”
“In fact I do have more in mind—” Jack answered.
Neither Danny nor Vlad were listening to Jack. They held eye-contact, Danny with a stern unblinkingness of a sheepdog on duty. A lot was said without words. A lot was understood when Vlad decided to visit through the front door. Vlad only used the front door when he wanted something.
And it was never good when Vlad wanted something.
“—the core reactor project, yeah? That summer? That was in the lab with no A/C. Top floor. We were sweating like pigs, all of us. And I dared you to eat the really moldy pizza from our fridge the night before and you ralphed right into—”
“—Surely you remember this more fondly than I do. Daniel, really, you can go.”
Not a chance.
“Actually,” Danny answered, brightening some as his opportunity struck. “I am interested in this. For science class I need to write a report on the invention of an important piece of technology. I was gonna ask Mom and Dad about the Ghost Portal. And now that you’re here, I can get the whole history.”
Jack made a giddy little noise. He leaned forward, words primed, but Vlad was quicker to the draw.
“Sorry to say, your faith in me is unfounded. I wasn’t the portal guy back in college—that was always your mother and father’s passion project. I was their skeptic.”
“Bet that’s got you feeling pretty foolish right now, doesn’t it V-man?” Jack chided, a quick jab to Vlad’s ribs that nearly unseated the teacup from his suspended saucer. “Considering the fully-functioning portal right beneath our toes.”
“I hardly feel foolish, Jack. Your calculation for the portal in college was never going to work.”
“What do you mean? Of course it did.” Jack thumped the ground with his foot. “It’s running the old girl right now.”
At this, Vlad’s eyes narrowed. For the first time he’d been shaken off whatever skeezy machinations had brought him in. His pride was being challenged, and by Jack no less.
“Absolutely not. With that calculation? Absolutely not.”
“Well forget the tea biscuits Vlad, because you’re going to be eating your words in a second. Mads, hold my spot,” Jack said, as if anyone was planning to take his spot. He bounced from the couch, scooted from the living room, and vanished into the dark maw of the lab stairs, leaving only the waning beat of his footsteps behind.
His absence filled only a swallowing few seconds. The footsteps returned, bounding upward, creaking with his heavy cadence, and Jack bounced back into the room in much the manner he left. A pad of yellow lined paper was clutched in his hand. When he dropped it on the coffee table, it revealed row after row of tight scribble, churning math, carrying down the page and occupying two entire pages more that Jack flipped through.
“Same baby I came up with in college. It just needed heavier dampening and higher voltage than what we made back then. The portal downstairs has that in spades. Well, in like two-thirds of a spade.” Jack tapped something on the last line. “The projection was still only hitting 70% of the threshold we calculated to reach dimension penetration. But it’s an art, not just a science. We fired it up anyway, and it took!”
Vlad grabbed the paper pad, agitated. His eyes ran over it. Then again. Until he settled on one line, a firmness overcoming his face. He tossed the pad back onto the coffee table, and Vlad leaned back into the couch, arms crossed.
“The lambda, Jack.”
“The lambda?”
“Check it again.”
Jack did, lips pursed, pad of paper nearly swallowed in his big meaty hand.
“What about--?”
“It squares. The units don’t balance otherwise. It originates from an integration step of λ*∂λ/∂t. It squares.”
Jack’s brow remained furrowed, firm, until delight cracked into his eyes, and he let out a laugh.
“Gods, my handwriting is gonna be the death of us. Mads,” he tapped something unseen on the second page. “That’s the genius of Vladdy. Cracked this puppy wide open with just a glance. I never noticed that in all my checking. That explains the missing 30%, at least. That explains how the portal took. Lucky for you Danny that Vlad was here—”
“Jack,” Maddie said.
“—your report can have the correct formula. It’ll be—”
“—Jack—”
“—A+ worthy—”
“—Jack,” Maddie said, curt. “Lambda is the ambient ecto-energy. It’s a few ten-thousandths of a unit.”
“It—huh.”
Maddie had surfaced a pen from her pocket. She sheared a few blank pages out from the back of the pad and started the formula fresh. She made quick work of copying it over, quicker work of solving it through – lambda-squared intact.
She hit the final line and hatched a pen mark beneath the number. Jack stared, confused.
“That can’t… no.”
He repeated the same. New pages torn loose. Formula copied over, processed, line by line by line—lambda squared—by line by line by line.
Jack settled on his answer. Same as Maddie’s.
Confusion made his face tense.
“So it’s not 70% of the way to the threshold… It’s 0.013% of the way to the threshold.”
He held the pen hard, his whole body holding firm and taut as the gears turned in his head. Jack’s eyes flickered across the formula, again and again and again. He looked to Maddie, like a dog issued a command he did not understand.
“But it worked,” he said, small. “But it worked.”
Jack stood, robotic almost, eyes lost in something far away. He disappeared into the lab almost as quickly as he had a few minutes before, but now he exited with a smoothness and a quietness so very uncharacteristic of him. It bothered Danny, somewhere deep in his gut.
Maddie followed, a possession matching Jack’s.
Danny’s fingers curled and uncurled. He’d succeeded. He’s successfully interrupted Vlad’s… whatever this was. But the disquiet infected him. He didn’t like it.
“So what does that mean?” Danny asked, perhaps to Vlad. “What’s wrong with the calculation?”
Vlad sipped on tea ice cold.
“Who knows?” Vlad lied.
The math didn’t work.
Maddie and Jack burned through paper, burned through pencils, burned through hours.
The math didn’t work.
Clothes stuck to skin. Sweat lingered fetid and stale in the cold basement air. Exhaustion beat like a slurry through their veins.
The math didn’t work.
The portal supervised all, placidly green, the light for their table, the light for their work when the lightbulb overhead burnt clean out and neither Jack nor Maddie could be pulled away to replace it. It stood, it watched, a testament of contradiction to everything they could not solve on paper, and yet everything they built directly into the fabric of reality.
And it should never have worked.
They threw every radical what-if they’d ever conceived over 20 years of ghost research.
The ecto-ether layer.
The latent activation stitches in space fabric.
The anti-ectomatter collision proposal.
The positive-feedback crystallization theory.
And still nothing worked.
All together, every crackpot theory in their favor taken for granted, racked them up to an activation energy 200x more potent than the calculation, and still just 2% of what would be needed to rip open, and hold open, a stable fissure between their reality and the ghost zone.
Maybe by pure luck, unfathomable luck, Fentonworks basement was directly situated atop a natural portal.
Maybe that would explain ripping it open. It did nothing to explain the stability. Natural portals were unstable by definition. There and gone in a few seconds. Not hours, days, weeks, months, a year, that the Fenton Portal had been open. Never so much as faltering.
It was late. 3am ticked away to 4am, and 4:30am. The discarded paper stacked higher than Jack and Maddie both. Calluses oozed from their hands at another attempt, and another, and another.
Maddie flipped through a folder’s worth of yellowed papers, aggressively thumbed over and over after two decades left untouched. And she settled on the one she’d passed over a few dozen times already, always seeking something else, something better.
This time she unsheathed it, and she placed it on the lab table.
“…If a mouse died. In the machine. If a mouse ran through the machine and accidentally bridged two live wires, and died of violent electrocution. 500 milliamps. Instantly melted into the circuitry.”
Maddie’s mouth was cotton-dry while she wrote. Ambient ecto-energy was low. Always very, very low.
Unless something very, very bad happened to something with the capacity to become a ghost.
The numbers wove. Maddie started the formula fresh, and it was pure muscle memory. A mouse. A big mouse, even. A 99th percentile beast of a mouse. And a wire that had been wired incorrectly. Something grounded that never actually grounded. An absolutely horrific amount of electricity.
0.37%, by pure numbers. If she included every permissive crackpot idea they had thrown on top, it topped out at 6% of the needed activation threshold.
Not a mouse.
“A cat,” Jack said, words gummy, tongue dry, face tired. “If we’ve got mice down here, maybe… a stray cat wandered in. Chased the mouse.”
Maddie nodded. It didn’t matter if it made sense.
She penned it in. A large cat. A devastating electrical short. Cats carried more ecto-potential than mice did. Ecto-potential did not necessarily go up with size. It went up with complexity. The things with the most ecto-potential were the things that most became ghosts.
1.45%, by pure numbers. 18% at absolute, absolute crackpot best.
“A dog,” Jack proposed with a shaky laugh. He swallowed. “A mouse… chased by a cat… chased by a dog… all electrocuted at once”
Maddie didn’t say the thing they both knew, which was that both of them would have noticed the evidence left behind by the electrically exploded pieces of a dog.
Maddie did it anyway. A mouse and a cat and a medium-sized dog, maybe just small enough to notice no evidence of, all together. All at once. All violently ripped apart, sacrificed to a machine still asleep in its wall.
Mice did not often make ghosts. Cats did not either. Dogs, occasionally. But infrequently. Very infrequently.
37%. At best.
“Jack.”
“Maddie, I know just—maybe something really smart—”
“—Jack—”
“—like an octopus—”
“Jack.”
“I hear, maybe, pigs are smart. If it was—”
Maddie was writing, already. Not for a pig. Not an octopus. Jack watched, and he knew what the numbers meant. The ecto-potential she penned gave her away. An ecto-potential that high.
65kg, an estimate
10,000 milliamps, a catastrophic accident, a death certificate.
A human’s amount of ecto-potential.
Maddie wrote.
And she wrote.
And she did not apply a single crackpot theory, not a single discredited proposal, not an ounce of exaggeration.
138%.
Threshold, and then some.
Comfortable, easily, then some.
For the first time, after all the hundreds of times she and Jack had penned this equation over the course of 2 decades, the number met her and Jack’s threshold.
A breakthrough.
A revelation.
A pure eureka moment.
Jack and Maddie were silent.
Alone in a humming basement. Alone with only the soft swirls of the portal for company, happy, stable, purring its contentment, singing to the cold air.
“It has to be something else,” Maddie said. And she said it weakly. And she said it childishly.
“You’re right. It can’t be this,” Jack echoed. “If someone died down here, we’d know. Dead bodies don’t walk away. We’d have seen it. O-or even if, if the body got stuck in the portal, we’d have heard of someone going missing.”
Maddie sat, quiet. A thought held her mind hostage.
“Unless they didn’t go missing,” Maddie said, and she said it barely audibly. “Unless the portal spit them right back out.”
“Then—that’s what I said—a dead body, on the floor, we’d have seen.”
“Not a dead body.”
“It had to be lethal, Mads—”
“I know Jack. But if they died, here, in the portal Jack, then their ghost did not get ripped away from the body and sent to the Ghost Zone. …They ripped the Ghost Zone here.” Palms slick with sweat smoothed over her notes. She pointed to one specific line and found her pen tip trembled no matter how badly she stabilized it. “The ecto-potential of a creature is how strong of a pull their ghost creates on the Ghost Zone. A strong enough pull means the ghost can reach the Ghost Zone and stabilize, like a fish reeling itself up, yeah? We agree on this Jack, yes?”
“Yes,” Jack answered.
“It’s what makes the math even work, Jack. Someone dying in the portal didn’t reel themselves to the boat. They reeled the boat in. Jack, they brought the Ghost Zone here…” Maddie wasn’t breathing right. She pulled sweat-soaked bangs away from her face. “Their ghost never left their body Jack. They died, Jack. And they walked back out.”
“…No. No,” Jack said. “No, they didn’t.”
“Then what?” Maddie asked.
Jack stared. He looked away. He didn’t like the expression on Maddie’s face.
“It—what about the ecto-ether theory?” Jack said, of the theory they’d tested and retested and tested all over, all night. He grabbed his pencil back up and pointed it aimlessly at Maddie’s piece of paper, pointed end out in self-defense. “If the ecto-ether is maybe… if it’s only 250-times stronger than we calculated. Then it could…”
Jack’s voice died. His pencil hung idle. Maddie’s paper remained unblemished.
“If it… was a pig,” Jack offered. “If it was a pig that died in the portal.”
“How, Jack? How would a pig get in? We lock all the doors at night, Jack. No one else can get in, Jack. It’s just us, Jack.”
Jack and Maddie were not there when the portal turned on.
Maddie’s statement carried two possibilities. Only two. Both felt like claws digging all the flesh right out of Jack’s heart.
“I want… I want to try the ecto-ether theory again,” Jack choked. “I think it’s the ecto-ether. I think it’ll work.”
Jack slid a piece of paper over, already covered in scribbles. In its single untouched corner, he started the equation for the several-thousandth time that night.
Above their head, birds were singing.
Sunrise hailed unseen from the windowless laboratory.
At 6am, Vlad answered his cell phone. The reception crackled, struggling through the layers of sheetrock above his head.
“Vlad?” Maddie’s voice crackled. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”
“Not at all my dear.” Vlad leaned his weight against the wall, playing with the singsong melody in his voice. “But you sound exhausted. Is anything the matter?”
“Yes. Well… Yes. Jack and I have—all night—trying to fix the equation.”
“Naturally.”
“We found something that maybe works.”
“Oh?” Vlad asked. He straightened, pacing now, cracklingly attentive. “And what might that—”
“If someone died. Activating the portal. We have an on-switch inside the portal’s interior. The trigger we use to press it is external to the portal, of course. But if someone went inside the portal, and they pressed it directly, and if they died, and pulled the Ghost Zone here—”
Vlad’s red eyes reflected pools of iridescent green. He twirled his free hand in the fringes of his cape, tongue working over the fanged edges of his teeth. He stared, consumed, forward.
“—and just, you, I was thinking, you’re the only other expert I’d trust to… maybe weigh in.”
“What does Jack think?”
“He denies it. He’s still. He’s trying other theories.”
“Well who knows, surely? The answer may lie somewhere you haven’t looked.”
“…I’ve looked everywhere, Vlad. That's the thing. There is no more ‘somewhere else’. I’ve looked.”
“You sound like your mind is made up.”
“I just… if maybe you have some idea.”
“Am I meant to talk you out of this idea?”
“Vlad.”
“Do you think I have some secret information you don’t? Sorry to say, I’m just your skeptic.” Some noise came through muffled from the other side. Vlad flashed a smile. “But…as your skeptic I will offer you this—It all sounds a bit absurd, doesn’t it? To kill someone and have them come back intact and… for you to never notice? Who would they be? How would they be? Surely not human anymore, surely. How would you never notice?”
Vlad paced forward, booted feet clicking along his laboratory floor.
“It would be ridiculous,” he continued, with a building crescendo, “so unfathomably self-centered surely, to not notice something like that befall someone so close to you, who died at the hands of your own invention? …If I’m correctly inferring who, in your household, you suspect of having activated the portal?” Vlad’s tongue lingered along his teeth.
Maddie’s line held, quiet. And the seconds of static drew long.
“Ah, apologies. I’ve overstepped,” Vlad continued. “I meant this as a vote of confidence in you. You and Jack both. Two people as attentive, caring, compassionate as yourselves. You would notice. I promise.”
“You’re… Okay, thank you, Vlad. I appreciate it.”
“Is there anything else, my dear?”
“No. No. Thank you, Vlad. I’ll think about this.”
Maddie’s line clicked dead. A chuckle built to Vlad’s lips and he let his head tip back with mirth. It lasted only a moment. He stowed his phone. And as if the interruption had never happened, Vlad reaffixed his attention on his own portal swirling in front of him. It bathed him, swimming green, purring contentment.
And Vlad vanished into his portal.
(Chapter 2)
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thelilsirius · 2 months
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posted wrong the first time sorry guys... anyway happy dungeon meshi day for us
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beeqisch · 28 days
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who wants to be best friends who secretly hold hands very platonically
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sleyu · 10 months
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no thoughts just mean!bf remus mocking your cries n whimpers as he fucks into you n tells you how desperate you are for him
i genuinely needed to sit down and stare at my phone for a good two minutes to process this i am going crazy.
he would be so, so, so mean. the gag is that he’s the one who initiates everything and is, in fact, equally if not more desperate. but, mean ! remus loves ignoring this and instead, mocks you for your every cry and whine.
remus’ cock is so big, both in length and width. every time he’s inside you, it feels like the first time all over again because his size is just so overwhelming. remus sometimes feels bad for doing this, but his cock throbs at the sight of you struggling to take him and he often loses self-control and meanly laughs in your face when you cry out at the feeling of him suddenly pushing into you. every time you would tell him to slow down, he’d only go faster, laughing breathlessly at your whines and the tears on your cheeks.
‘telling me to stop but i’m sure you like this, don’t you, baby? cunt’s so fuckin’ wet.’
‘does it hurt, dove? thought you said you could take me?’
just imagine remus calling you his fussy little baby; every time you paw at his thighs, attempting to tell him that you need him while he’s studying, he’d just sigh in annoyance and bend you over his desk to fuck you stupid :( i don’t know if remus would slap you or not, but he would definitely tug your hair to force you to look up at him every time he takes you from behind !
‘is that what you needed, hm? all you fuckin’ think about is getting filled up—is this what my baby needed? such a fuckin’ brat, no patience at all.’
he genuinely has to control himself from busting inside you at the sight of your wobbly lips and furrowed eyebrows, paired with your teary eyes and the quiet mewls coming out from your mouth. you just look so fucked out and cute, he has to resist leaning down and peppering kisses all over your face.
i know this is a little unhinged but all i’ve been thinking about is remus fucking you in your childhood bedroom and calling you gross and disgusting for enjoying it when he ruins you as your parents are downstairs.
‘fuck—imagine what they’d say when they see their little girl slutting herself out like this. i’ve completely ruined you, haven’t i? no longer their innocent baby, are you, honey?’ BRRRRR i need psychiatric help.
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goodsmellerart · 7 months
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embodying the Element of Magic sure means reading LOTS of tomes 🔮📖✨
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