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lokiondisneyplus · 3 years

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A review of “Journey Into Mystery,” the penultimate Loki Season One episode on Disney+, coming up just as soon as I paper cut a giant cloud to death…

Journey Into Mystery was the title of the first Marvel comic to feature either Thor or Loki. It began as an anthology series featuring monsters and aliens, but Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber were so smitten with their adaptation of the characters of Norse myth that the Asgardians gradually took over the whole book, which was renamed after its hammer-wielding hero(*).

(*) The early Journey Into Mystery stories treated Thor’s alter ego, disabled Dr. Donald Blake, as the “real” character, while Thor was just someone Blake could magically transform into, while retaining his memories and personality. It wasn’t even clear whether Asgard itself was meant to exist at first, until Loki turned up on Earth in an early issue, caused trouble, and Blake/Thor somehow knew exactly how to get to Asgard to drop him off. Soon, the lines between Thor and Blake began to blur, and eventually Thor became the real guy, and Blake a fiction invented by Odin to humble his arrogant son. It’s a mark of just how instantly charismatic Loki was that the entire title quickly steered towards him and the other gods.

But once upon a time, anything was possible in Journey Into Mystery, which makes it an apt moniker for an absolutely wonderful episode of Loki where the same holds true. Our title characters are trapped in the Void, a place at the end of time where the TVA’s victims are banished to be devoured by a cloud monster named Alioth. And mostly they are surrounded by the wreckage of many dead timelines. Classic Loki insists that his group’s only goal is survival, and any kind of planning and scheming is doomed to kill the Loki who tries. But this ruined, hopeless world instead feels bursting with imagination and possibility.

There are the many Loki variants we see, with President Loki, among others, joining Classic, Kid, Boastful, and Alligator Loki. There are the metric ton of Easter Eggs just waiting to be screencapped by Marvel obsessives (I discuss a few of them down below), but which still suggest a much larger and weirder MCU even if you don’t immediately scream out “Is that… THROG?!?!?” at the appropriate moment. And all of that stuff is tons of fun, to be sure. But what makes this episode — and, increasingly, this series — feel so special is the way that it explores the untapped potential of Loki himself, in his many, many variations.

This is an episode that owes more than a small stylistic and thematic debt to Lost. It’s not just that Alioth looks and sounds so much like the Smoke Monster(*), that it makes a shared Wizard of Oz reference to “the man behind the curtain” (also the title of one of the very best Lost episodes), or even that the core group of Lokis are hiding in a bunker accessible via a hatch and a ladder that’s filled with recreational equipment (in this case, bowling alley lanes). It’s also that Loki, Sylvie, their counterparts, and Mobius have all been transported to a strange place that has disturbing echoes from their own lives, that operates according to strange new rules they have to learn while fleeing danger, and their presence there allows them to reflect on the many mistakes of their past and consider whether they want to, or can, transcend them.

(*) Yes, Alioth technically predates Smokey by a decade (see the notes below for more), but his look has been tweaked a bit here to seem more like smoke than a cloud, and the sounds he makes when he roars sound a lot like Smokey’s telltale taxi cab meter clicks. Given the other Lost hat tips in the episode, I have to believe Alioth was chosen specifically to evoke Smokey.

Classic Loki is aptly named. He wears the Sixties Jack Kirby costume, and he is a far more powerful magician than either Sylvie or our Loki have allowed themselves to be. He calls our Loki’s knives worthless compared to his sorcery, which feels like the show acknowledging that the movies depowered Loki a fair amount to make him seem cooler. But if Classic Loki can conjure up illusions bigger and more potent than his younger peers, he is a fundamentally weak and defeated man, convinced, like the others, that the only way to win the game into which he was born is not to play. “We cannot change,” he insists. “We’re broken. Every version of ourselves. Forever.” It is not only his sentiment — Kid Loki adds that any Loki who tries to improve inevitably winds up in the Void for their troubles — but it seems to have weighed on him longer and harder than most.

But Classic Loki takes inspiration from Loki and Sylvie to stand and fight rather than turn and run, magicking up a vision of their homeland to distract Alioth at a crucial moment in Sylvie’s plan, and getting eaten for his trouble. He was wrong: Lokis can change. (Though Kid Loki might once again argue that Classic Loki’s death is more evidence that the universe has no interest in any of them doing so.) And both Loki and Sylvie have been changing throughout their time together. Like most Lokis, they seem cursed to a life of loneliness. Sylvie learned as a child that a higher power believed she should not exist, and has spent a lifetime hiding out in places where any friends she might make will soon die in an apocalypse. Our Loki’s past isn’t quite so stark, but the knowledge that his birth father abandoned him, while his adoptive father never much liked him, have left permanent scars that govern a lot of his behavior. The defining element of Classic Loki’s backstory is that he spent a long time alone on a planet, and only got busted by the TVA when he attempted to reconnect with his brother and anyone else he once knew. This is a hard existence, for all of them. And while it does not forgive them their many sins(*), it helps contextualize them, and give them the knowledge to try to be better versions of themselves.

(*) Loki at one point even acknowledges that, for him, it’s probably only been a few days since he led an alien invasion of New York that left many dead, though due to TVA shenanigans, far more time may have passed.

For that matter, Mobius is not the stainless hero he once thought of himself as. While he and Sylvie are tooling around the Void in a pizza delivery car (because of course they are), he admits that he committed a lot of sins by believing that the ends justified the means, and was wrong. He doesn’t know who he is before the TVA stole and factory rebooted him, but he knows that he wants something better for himself and the universe, and takes the stolen TemPad to open up a portal to his own workplace in hopes of tearing down the TVA once and for all. Before he goes, though, he and Loki share a hug that feels a lot more poignant than it should, given that these characters have only spent parts of four episodes of TV together. It’s a testament to Hiddleston, Wilson, Waldron, and company (Tom Kauffman wrote this week’s script) that their friendship felt so alive and important in such a short amount of time.

The same can be said for Loki and Sylvie’s relationship, however we’re choosing to define it. Though they briefly cuddle together under a blanket that Loki conjures, they move no closer to romance than they were already. If anything, Mobius’ accusations of narcissism in last week’s episode seem to have made both of them pull back a bit from where they seemed to be heading back on Lamentis. But the connection between them is real, whatever exactly it is. And their ability to take down Alioth — to tap into the magic that Classic Loki always had, and to fulfill Loki’s belief that “I think we’re stronger than we realize” — by working together is inspiring and joyful. Without all this nuanced and engaging character work, Loki would still be an entertaining ride, but it’s the marriage of wild ideas with the human element that’s made it so great.

Of course, now comes the hard part. Endings have rarely been an MCU strength, give or take something like the climax of Endgame, and the finales of the two previous Disney+ shows were easily their weakest episodes. The strange, glorious, beautiful machine that Waldron and Herron have built doesn’t seem like it’s heading for another generic hero/villain slugfest, but then, neither did WandaVision before we got exactly that. This one feels different so far, though. The command of the story, the characters, and the tone are incredibly strong right now. There is a mystery to be solved about who is in the big castle beyond the Void (another Loki makes the most narrative and thematic sense to me, but we’ll see), and a lot to be resolved about what happens to the TVA and our heroes. And maybe there’s some heavy lifting that has to be done in service to the upcoming Dr. Strange or Ant-Man films.

It’s complicated, but on a show that has handled complexity well. Though even if the finale winds up keeping things simpler, that might work. As Loki notes while discussing his initial plan to take down Alioth, “Just because it’s not complicated doesn’t mean it’s bad.” Though as Kid Loki retorts, “It also doesn’t mean it’s good.”

Please be good, Loki finale. Everything up to this point deserves that.

Some other thoughts:

* Most of this week’s most interesting material happens in the Void. But the scenes back at the TVA clarify a few things. First, Ravonna is not the mastermind of all this, and she was very much suckered in by the Time-Keeper robots. But unlike Mobius or Hunter B-15, she’s so conditioned to the mission that even knowing it’s a lie hasn’t really swayed her from her mission. She has Miss Minutes (who herself is much craftier this week) looking into files about the creation of the TVA, but for the most part comes across as someone very happy with a status quo where she gets to be special and pass judgment on the rest of the multiverse.

* Alioth first appeared in 1993’s Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective, a miniseries (written by Mobius inspiration Mark Gruenwald, and with some extremely kewl Nineties art full of shoulder pads, studded collars, and the like) involving Ravonna, Kang, and the off-brand versions of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor (aka U.S. Agent, War Machine, and Thunderstrike, the latter of whom has yet to appear in the MCU). It’s a sequel to a Nineties crossover event called Citizen Kang. And no, I still don’t buy that Kang will be the one pulling the strings here, if only because it’s really bad storytelling for the big bad of the season to have never appeared or even been mentioned prior to the finale.

* Rather than try to identify every Easter egg visible in the Void’s terrain, I’ll instead highlight three of the most interesting. Right before the Lokis arrive at the hatch, we see a helicopter with Thanos’ name on it. This is a hat tip to an infamous — and often memed — out-of-continuity story where Thanos flies this chopper while trying to steal the Cosmic Cube (aka the Tesseract) from Hellcat. (A little kid gets his hands on it instead and, of course, uses the Cube to conjure up free ice cream.) James Gunn has been agitating for years for the Thanos Copter to be in the MCU. He finally got his wish.

* The other funny one: When the camera pans down the tunnel into Kid Loki’s headquarters, we see Mjolnir buried in the ground, and right below it is a jar containing a very annoyed frog in a Thor costume. This is either Thor himself — whom Loki cursed into amphibianhood in a memorable Walt Simonson storyline — or another character named Simon Walterston (note the backwards tribute to Walt) who later assumed the tiny mantle.

* Also, in one scene you can spot Yellowjacket’s helmet littering the landscape. This might support the theory that the TVA, the Void, etc., all exist in the Quantum Realm, since that’s where the MCU version of Yellowjacket probably went when his suit shorted out and he was crushed to subatomic size. Or it might be more trolling of the fanbase from the company that had WandaVision fans convinced that Mephisto, the X-Men, and/or Reed Richards would be appearing by the season finale.

* Honestly, I would have watched an entire episode that was just Loki, Mobius, and the others arguing about whether Alligator Loki was actually a Loki, or just a gator who ended up with the crown, presumably after eating a real Loki. The suggestion that the gator might be lying — and that this actually supports, rather than undermines, the case for him being a Loki — was just delightful. And hey, if Throg exists in the MCU now, why not Alligator Loki?

* Finally, the MCU films in general are not exactly known for their visual flair, though a few directors like Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler have been able to craft distinctive images within the franchise’s usual template. Loki, though, is so often wonderful to look at, and particularly when our heroes are stuck in strange environments like Lamentis or the Void. Director Kate Herron and the VFX team work very well together to create dynamic and weird imagery like Sylvie running from Alioth, or the chaotic Loki battle in the bowling alley. Between this show and WandaVision, it appears the Disney+ corner of the MCU has a bit more room to expand its palette. (Falcon and the Winter Soldier, much less so.)

#Loki #spoilers #episode 5 #review #Rolling Stone #Alan Sepinwall

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dontcare77ghj · 3 years

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We Interrupt This Program

Wanda x reader x Vision

Monica had dreamt of her mother and aunt. Memories from long ago when everything had been okay.

She had woken up in the same uncomfortable hospital room chair she had fallen asleep in, to her hands forming from dust.

Monica had jumped in her chair with a gasp at the strange image before her head snapped over to her mother's hospital bed.

An empty bed.

As Monica jumped to her feet, she suddenly became aware of the loud crashes and screams echoing outside the room.

When Monica opened the door, she was greeted by the disturbing image of people forming from dust.

Monica had rushed past the dusty people and to a doctor.

"Excuse me," She tried to say.

"They're all coming back!" The doctor snapped. "They're all coming back. We don't have the capacity!" He said before rushing away.

Not deterring from her goal, Monica continued to race through the hospital halls until she crashed into a nurse.

"Excuse me? I'm looking for a patient in room one-o-four."

"Who my wife? Do you have a phone?" The man asked.

"I don't have a phone."

"I have to call my wife." The nurse said before turning away from Monica.

People were still appearing around Monica as she rushed towards the hospital front desk and crashed into a man.

"Are you okay? It's okay, I've got it." A nurse said, helping the stranger up before Monica could pull him to his feet.

"I'm looking for a patient in room one-o-four," Monica said to the woman behind the desk, who waved her off.

"I don't know what to tell you." She said before walking away.

Why will no-one help me? Monica wondered as she stared all around her. Where is my mother?

"Monica?" Her name was called loudly over the din. Monica spun to the person calling her name and let out a sigh of relief at the familiar figure.

"Oh, Dr. Harley, thank God!"

"I can't believe it." The woman said, staring Monica up and down.

"I was,"

"Where did you go?" The doctor cut Monica off.

"I've been in her room since she came back from surgery," Monica told her. "I mean, I might have fallen asleep, but no longer than twenty minutes. Dr. Harley, where's my mom?"

"Your mom, she died, honey." The doctor admitted, staring at Monica with honest eyes.

"What?" Monica asked, staring at the doctor in horror. "No. No, no, no, you're mistaken. My mother, the procedure went well. You said so yourself. Clean margins. You're discharging her today."

"The cancer came back." The doctor said, causing Monica to scoff.

"Okay, stop. Stop. You're, my mom is Maria Rambeau, look it up. I mean, look it up. Maria Rambeau." Monica demanded, rushing to the check-in desk and slamming her hand on the counter.

"Monica, I don't understand what's or how, but you need to listen to me. Maria died three years ago." Dr. Harley said, pulling Monica away from the desk.

"Three? No. No, no."

"Which was two years after you,"

"After I what? After I what?" Monica demanded, willing herself to not let her face crumple.

"After you disappeared."

Monica had been dead for five years, well gone as the rest of the world put it. She disappeared in her mother's hospital room, and when she woke up, five years had passed.

Monica had been gone for five years and her mother two.

The only difference, her mother wouldn't be coming back any time soon.

But Monica was Maria's daughter. Monica had been raised by the strongest of women and refused to crumble under grief's pressure.

So Monica had thrown herself back into the world. She had forced herself back into the life she once lived.

It had been three weeks since Monica and the rest of the universe had found herself undusting, and now she was walking through the SWORD headquarters, preparing for a meeting.

Monica had flashed her badge at the scanner, but the doors wouldn't open as the scanners beeped at her.

"Ma'am? Over here, please." A man from the desk called her over.

"Hi, good morning. I work here, and,"

"If you did, your badge would work." The man cut her off, staring at her with a blank face.

"Right." Monica chuckled nervously. "Um, I have a meeting with,"

"You know who this is?" Tyler Hayward asked, appearing beside Monica.

"This guy." Monica smiled, relieved.

"Captain Monica Rambeau." Hayward stuck his hand out.

"Director Tyler Hayward." Monica nodded, taking his hand and shaking it firmly.

"Acting Director." Hayward corrected. "You haven't aged a day." He complimented.

"And you look old as hell," Monica commented with a smirk, causing Hayward to chuckle.

"Come on, let's catch you up," Hayward said, leading Monica away from the desk and towards the doors she'd tried to enter. "It's been three weeks, and you're the first to report. Can't say I'm surprised, Captain."

"How are the numbers for the astronaut training program?" Monica asked as she and Hayward walked down long and winding halls.

"Dismal. Lost half my personnel in The Blip, and half of those remaining have lost nerve." Hayward told her with a frown. "The program hasn't been the same you've been up there, Rambeau. Shifted away from human-manned mission and refocused on robotics, nanotech, AI. Sentient Weapons, like it, says on the door."

"It also says, "Observation and Response" on that door, not "Creation," Monica noted.

"The world's not the same as you left it. Space is now full of unexpected threats." Hayward told her.

"Always full of threats. And allies." Monica corrected the man.

"Listen, Monica, I just wanna acknowledge the awkwardness of the situation. I know SWORD's your home." Hayward acknowledged, stopping in the middle of a pristine white hallway. "Your mom built this place from the ground up. You grew up here. You should've been here to help name the replacement."

"You were the obvious choice," Monica said with a work-approved smile.

"I was the only choice."

"I wasn't gonna say it," Monica smirked as Hayward chuckled quietly. "Look, Tyler, you know the job you have to do. I'm here to do mine." She told him, nodding to herself.

"Let's get you back out there," Hayward said, opening the door to his office and letting Monica step inside. "The FBI is in a tizzy over a missing person case up in Jersey."

"Missing persons?" Monica asked, raising a brow.

"I know. But the FBI has requested the use of one of our imaging drones, and I need a chaperone." Hayward told her.

"Tyler, drones usually chaperone me." Monica shook her head.

"I get it." The man nodded before Monica cut him off.

"Look, if this is because of, you don't have to worry about me. I'm good." Monica assured, cringing at the thought of her lost five years.

"There's no easy way to say this but, you're grounded," Hayward said, causing Monica to pause.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Terrestrial missions only," Hayward confirmed.

"You're kidding. For how long?" Monica scoffed, glaring daggers at the man. "Whose protocol is this?"

"Your mother's," Hayward admitted. "She implemented guidelines in the event vanished personnel ever returned. Look, I know it's a raw deal, but there is one positive takeaway." He said as Monica rolled her eyes.

"And what's that?"

"She believed you'd come back." He said, causing the woman before him to freeze. "You'd be doing me a big favor with this FBI thing, but if you need more time,"

"No. No, I'm good to go." Monica cut him off, looking much sourer than when she began this meeting.

"Excellent. Keep me updated, Captain." Hayward stood, handing Monica a file which she took with a frown.

Monica made the drive to Westview, New Jersey, the next day.

The plan was to get there that morning and be out of there by the end of the week.

In all honesty, Monica did not want to do this assignment. It was so far beneath her pay grade and not for someone with her skill set, but Monica would grin and bear it.

Monica would take whatever assignments she had to to get back to what she used to do.

It was 11:30 in the morning when Monica pulled up to the edge of Westview where an FBI agent stood, talking with two officers.

"James E Woo, FBI." The agent introduced himself, pulling a card out of nowhere, causing Monica to smile.

"Monica Rambeau, SWORD. What's the story here, Agent Woo?" Monica asked, taking the business card between her fingers.

"I've got a witness set up down the road in Westview, and this morning, it looked like he flew the coop," Woo explained.

"Your missing person is in the Witness Protection Program?" Monica confirmed.

"I have contacted known associates, relatives," Woo started, but Monica cut him off.

"And let me guess, none of them have seen him either?" She asked, a clearer picture of what was happening now in her head.

"No. None of them have ever heard of our guy." The man said, shattering Monica's picture. "Something seemed hanky to me, so I took the first flight out of Oakland to interface with the local law enforcement, which is when I encountered a new wrinkle."

"What is that?"

The FBI agent didn't respond merely nodded his head over to the two police officers, and the two made their way over to them.

"Pardon me, Sheriff. Would you mind repeating your claim about Westview to my colleague here?" James asked the blank-faced Sherrif.

"No such place." The Sherrif shrugged.

"You're saying the town of Westview, New Jersey, doesn't exist?" Monica asked, turning to the visible sign, with a raised brow.

"It's what I keep telling your G-Man here, but he won't listen." The man said, sipping his coffee.

"I see. And, I'm sorry, but what town are you from?" She wondered.

"Eastview." The man answered, causing Monica's befuddlement to grow.

"Thank you, Sherrif. We'll reach out if we need further assistance." James dismissed the officers as he and Monica turned back to her car. "I pulled phone numbers for all the residents, I'm only through the D's, but so far, I got diddly squat." He told her.

"So you can't reach anyone inside, and everyone on the outside has some sort of selective amnesia?" Monica asked.

"This isn't a missing person's case, Captain Rambeau. It's a missing town. Population 3,892." James said, turning to the sign.

"Why haven't you gone inside to investigate?" Monica questioned the agent.

"Cause it doesn't want me to," James told Monica, causing her head to snap and face him. "You can feel it too, can't you? Nobody's supposed to go in." He said, finally acknowledging the unsettling feeling in the air.

Monica couldn't respond. She couldn't think of a single thing to say at that moment, so she didn't.

Monica didn't say anything as she opened her trunk and pulled out one of the SWORD drones.

"What about you?" Monica asked as she set the drone up.

"Me?" James confirmed before letting out a small chuckle. "Well, I'm from Bakersfield originally. Growin' up, other kids had Micheal Jordan posters on their walls, but I had Elliot Ness." He explained as Monica moved to stand beside him.

"No, no, no. I mean, why is it that you have an awareness of Westview? Or me, for that matter?" Monica asked, focusing on the controls in her hands. "Is it because we are outside of a certain radius or maybe because we don't have a personal connection?"

"I don't know, maybe,"

"Wait. Where'd it go?" Monica cut James off as the video feed fritzed and the drone disappeared from the air.

"It was right there," James said as Monica stalked closer to the town.

As Monica got closer to the town's edge, she finally noticed the cause of the man behind nerves.

"Whoa."

"What is it?"

"Some sort of energy field," Monica said, raising her hand towards the force field.

"Careful, Rambeau," James warned, stilling at Monica's actions. "Captain Rambeau!" He exclaimed when Monica's hand touched the field. "Watch out! Rambeau! Captain Rambeau!"

But it was too late. Monica had touched the force field, and she had disappeared.

Darcy Lewis had been through and experienced so many things in the past thirteen years. Experiences that had completely changed her definition of weird.

That's why when she was approached by two SWORD agents, camped outside of her apartment, asking if she would help on what they were described as an anomaly, Darcy didn't bat an eye before agreeing.

Now Darcy was sat in the back of a van with three other people.

"Hey, what's your field?" Darcy asked the man across from her, breaking the silence of the car.

"We're not supposed to talk to each other." The man shook his head, eyes wide.

"Hmm? Boy Scout leader. Got it." Darcy rolled her eyes before turning the woman beside him. "And you?"

"Nuclear Biology." The woman told her

"Artificial Intelligence." The bald man beside Darcy said.

"Astrophysics." Darcy nodded. "We got the full clown car. It means whatever the threat it, SWORD clearly has no idea what they're dealing with."

"I'm a chemical engineer." The Boy Scout leader piped up.

"No-one cares." Darcy shot him down quickly as the van came to a halt.

"Alright, grab your gear." An agent from the front ordered.

Darcy was the first to exit the car and survey the chaos around her.

They set up a base camp faster than I paint a base coat. Darcy thought as she walked past several men and women.

"Ms. Lewis." A man called, walking over to her.

"Dr. Lewis." Darcy corrected him.

"We have your gear inside." The agent said before leading her towards her station.

"Those drones you're sending in, what kinda data are you getting?" Darcy asked, watching as one drone approached Westview on a screen before disappearing.

"I'm afraid that's highly classified." The agent told her.

"You can't see anything?" She asked, causing the agent to freeze. "FBI, Army. I saw the Air Force Office of Special Investigations out there." She commented, setting up her computer. "Research Lab, Space Command, too. A bona fide, joint, multi-service response. Looking forward to a commemorative T-shirt. Is there somewhere a lady could get a cup of coffee? You guys look like you might get down with those little pod things, horrendous for the environment, by the way."

"Make your assessment, please." The man sighed, irritated by Darcy's comments.

While going on her mini-tirade, Darcy had been setting up her equipment and station. She now looked down at a small device in her hand, watching it scan the area.

"Whoa. I mean, whoa." Darcy said, her eyes incredibly wide, as she adjusted her glasses.

"What're you getting?" The agent demanded, moving closer to her.

"A colossal amount of CMBR," Darcy told him.

"CM?"

"Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation." She clarified.

"We've been told the radiation is within a safe limit." The agent said, looking at Darcy in concern.

"It is, for now."

"Wait, what do you mean?"

"Sh!" She cut him off with a hiss. Darcy watched the device in her hand with rapt interest as it continued to beep. "There are longer wavelengths superimposed over the noise here." She thought aloud, chewing on her lower lip.

Darcy surveyed her surroundings before she found what she needed beside her.

"I got it," Darcy grunted as she heaved a large piece of computing systems onto her desk. Darcy fiddled with the settings and the knobs before a blurry picture began to appear. "I need a TV. An old one. Like, not flat." She told the agent beside her.

Hours later, it had begun to rain, but that didn't stop SWORD operations.

A man in a plastic hazmat suit walked over to where Hayward was standing, allowing the rain to soak his form.

"You good to go?" Hayward asked, yelling slightly over the weather.

"Yes, sir." The man nodded.

"The sewers will take you straight into town. Try to find anything you can on Rambeau." Hayward ordered him.

"Copy that." The man said, beginning to descend into the sewers.

"Agent Franklin. We will keep this channel open for you." Hayward said over Franklin's earpiece as he crawled through the small tunnel.

"Copy."

"Keep me updated," Hayward told the assembled team before walking away.

"Director Hayward," Woo said, jogging beside Hayward. "Between you me and the bedpost, I am not confident about this mission."

"Thanks for the feedback, Jimmy. If only my drones were as forthcoming." Hayward said as they entered a tent.

"There's no reason to suspect the perimeter doesn't extend subterraneously." Jimmy tried to reason.

"There's no reason to suspect it does."

"We don't know enough about the nature of the threat to send another agent when the first is yet to return," Jimmy told the director.

"Someone must miss you back in Quantico." Hayward scoffed.

"No, sir. Softball season's over, sir." Jimmy joked.

"What do we have up?" Hayward asked, walking further into the room and towards a female agent.

"Radar, lidar, sodar, infared." She told him.

"Cycle through," Hayward demanded. When the woman couldn't get anything up on the screen, Hayward let out a sigh. "Will someone get me a useful visual, damn it?" He asked before loud studio audience laughter rang through the room. "What is that? Who's doing that?" He asked as everyone began to look around.

"Who are those people?"

"What are you wearing?"

"And why are they here?"

"What are you wearing?"

Hayward froze as he caught sight of a dark-haired woman watching the source on an old-fashioned television.

"Well, it's our anniversary!"

"Our anniversary of what?"

"Vision now is not the time to debate your failing memory processors."

"Is that?" Jimmy asked, leaning on the desk beside Darcy as several other officers and Hayward crowded behind her.

"Yeah, it looks like them." Darcy nodded, not taking her eyes off the screen.

And sure enough, on the screen before her was a black and white video of Wanda Maximoff, Y/N Barton, and The Vision.

"You move at the speed of sound, Y/N makes a storm with her pinky, and I can make a pen float through the air. Who needs to abbreviate?" Wanda questioned incredulously.

"Look, I know it's been a crazy few years on this planet, but he's dead, right?" Darcy asked, turning to Jimmy, who hadn't taken his eyes off the screen. "Not blipped, dead."

"Excellent plan. Where's the tenderizer?" Vision asked.

"We're looking at him," Y/N said as she handed Vision the tenderizer.

"What am I looking at?" Hayward demanded. "You. What is this? Where's this coming from?" He asked Darcy.

"Out there," Darcy said, throwing her arm up in a vague gesture to the outside.

"You didn't answer the back door. For your upside-down cake." A dark-haired woman said, holding a pineapple in her hand.

"Is it authentic?" Hayward asked.

"I'm not sure how to answer that," Darcy told him.

"Is it happening in real-time? Is it recorded? Fabricated?" He pressed.

"I don't know. I don't know. And I don't know." Darcy told him.

"What do you know?" Hayward demanded.

"My equipment registered an extremely high level of CMBR. That's,"

"Relic radiation dating back to the Big Bang." Hayward nodded.

"Yeah." Darcy nodded. "Entwined was a broadcast frequency. So I had one of your goons pick me up a sweet vintage TV, and when I plug this bad boy in, voila, sound and picture."

"Dinner is served."

"So, you're saying the universe created a sitcom starring three Avengers?" Jimmy asked, staring at the screen in confusion.

"It's a working theory." Darcy shrugged.

"Get me transport back to headquarters now. And someone get me, Clint Barton." Hayward demanded, causing two men to rush away. "Are we recording this?" He asked the woman.

"Never stopped," Darcy informed him.

"I need immediate analysis. Now, people. Let's go!" Hayward said before walking away. All the agents scattered, keen on following orders, leaving Jimmy and Darcy alone.

"He's a charmer." Darcy scoffed.

"Great work." Jimmy smiled before getting up and walking away.

"Hey, thanks." Darcy grinned happily. "Maybe I can get that coffee now?" She asked, looking around, but no-one even looked up. "Or not. That's cool." She grumbled, turning back to the screen as the episode finished and three kissed one another. "Aw!"

"First and foremost, our main objective is to get any intel on Captain Rambeau. Originally this case was a missing person, so we're going to start there," Jimmy explained to the gathered group. "We've successfully identified three individuals inside the Westview anomaly." He added, hanging up pictures of Wanda, Y/N, and Vision in their 1950's garb. "Let's keep going."

"This guest is leaving your home." Mrs. Hart said as Darcy frantically typed away at her keyboard.

Everyone in the room had a job to do to find out what was happening in Westview.

Some were watching the footage on repeat, taking copious notes, Darcy was attempting to find out who was playing who, people were tracking the radiation waves coming from the town, and Jimmy had been filling out a whiteboard with questions.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hart. Played by Todd and Sharon Davis." Darcy announced, holding up two forms with pictures of the two before hanging them up beside the three other photos.

"Computational forms," Norm said. "And no-one can process the data quite like you do, pal."

"Agent Woo." A man interrupted Jimmy's watching of the footage before handing him a form.

Jimmy slightly smiled as he read it before calling out,

"Abhilash Tandon is Norm."

"Harold Copter is Jones!"

"We got Isabel Matsueida cast as Beverly!"

"John Collins as Herb!"

It had been hours of searching, trying to figure out everyone's identity, and Darcy was tired.

Tired and hungry.

She had just made herself cup ramen and made her way back to her desk when she let out a gasp and dropped her noodles.

"Jimmy!" She called, dropping into her seat, not even bothering to clean up the mess. "Damn it, Woo. Hurry up!"

"What?" Jimmy asked, rushing over and freezing when he saw who was on the screen. "Oh my god." Jimmy sighed, sinking into a chair beside Darcy.

"Does she seem okay to you?" Darcy asked as the two watched Monica read a newspaper while Wanda, Y/N, and Agnes spoke in the background.

"Well, she doesn't appear to be harmed in any way, but that is definitely not the boss lady I met yesterday." Jimmy determined.

"So what, deep cover? Monica has to play along?" Darcy asked.

"With whom? Or else, what? All right. Brass tacks, Dr. Lewis. What are we lookin' at here? Is it an alternate reality? Time travel? Some cockamamie social experiement?" Jimmy asked

"It's a sitcom. A 1950's sitcom." Darcy explained, shaking her head.

"But why?" Jimmy wondered.

"I'd like to know that myself." Clint Barton demanded, now standing behind the two.

"Agent Barton." Jimmy greeted, standing up and moving towards the man. "I was told you wouldn't be here until tomorrow."

"Well, it turns out a quinjet makes journies a lot quicker," Clint said, crossing his arms. "Where is my daughter? And where is Wanda?"

"We'll have to fill you in later, Hawkeye." Darcy piped up. "I think I have an idea how to contact them."

"How?"

"So there's this radio that sits in the kitchen, right? The next time someone's washing the dishes, which happens like once an episode, barf, we'll shoot a signal to that little guy." Darcy explained.

"Sounds like a plan. What do you need done?" Clint asked.

"This transmitter will mimic the frequency of the broadcast, and if my theory is right, allow us to speak to either Y/N or Wanda. This is totally gonna work." Darcy explained, continuing to set up the station. "Don't touch that." She admonished Jimmy.

"Agent Woo." A woman called, walking over to the three with a file.

"Is this from the current episode?" Jimmy asked, looking at the picture in his hands.

"Aired about two minutes ago." The woman nodded.

"What is it?" Clint asked, looking over the man's shoulder.

"What does it look like to you?"

"It looks like a retro version of a SWORD drone," Clint noted as Darcy took the picture out of his hands.

"Bingo." Jimmy nodded.

"But how did it change and why?" Clint wondered.

"Uh, to go with production design?" Jimmy guessed.

"Or to render it useless." Darcy theorized.

"Why'd you colorize it?" Jimmy asked the female agent.

"I didn't." She shook her head.

"Let's get this show on the road. Clint, you're with me." Darcy said, grabbing her laptop and rushing back into the tent with Clint on her heels.

Darcy and Clint donned their headpieces before Darcy turned to the window.

"Jimmy, you ready?"

"Ready," Jimmy affirmed, holding his thumb up.

Darcy and Clint took their seats in front of the screen where Wanda and Y/N were now talking with Monica.

"Uh, Jimmy, Monica is talking now. She's got a speaking part." Darcy told him.

"What is she saying?" Jimmy wondered.

"Say those pants are peachy keen. Both sets."

"She likes their pants." Darcy shrugged. "They're at some sort of swim club. We've never been here before."

"Is it the sixties still?" Jimmy wondered.

"Still the sixties and still black and white." Clint relayed, not taking his eyes off the screen.

"The girls are with another character," Darcy told Jimmy.

"Another person." Jimmy corrected.

"I can't help but wonder if the three of us haven't gotten off on the wrong foot, Dottie. And I'd like to, we'd like to, correct that if we can." Wanda said to a blonde woman.

"Ooh, radio on the side table!" Darcy cheered.

"Start talking," Clint ordered the man.

"Wanda, do you read me? Agent Barton, are you there?" Jimmy asked. "Can they hear me?"

"I don't think so," Darcy told him.

"Keep trying." Clint pushed.

"Wanda. Wanda, can you hear me? Agent Barton, do you read me? Wanda? Y/N?"

As Jimmy continued to speak to the two, Clint and Darcy were staring at the screen intently, waiting for any sign they might hear.

For a second, it looked like it might have worked. The radio on the television crackled before the show jump cut.

"Pop quiz, Wanda," Dottie said as Y/N wrapped her hand. "How does a housewife get a bloodstain out of white linen? By doing it herself."

"Wait." Darcy stuttered, staring at the screen in confusion.

"What?" Jimmy asked.

"I don't know," Darcy said. "That was weird."

"What was?"

"Nothing." Darcy shook her head when the show faded to a commercial. "It's over. Mission failure."

"It was worth a try. Good effort, Darcy."

"Yeah, come on in," Darcy said, pulling off her headset.

"You saw that, right?" Clint asked, pulling off his own. "I wasn't imagining that. The screen cut?"

"It's an old TV, Clint. It flickers." Darcy sighed.

Franklin had been crawling through the sewers for what felt like days. It was hot inside his suit, he was sweating, and the sewer smelt like a sewer was supposed to.

But Franklin kept crawling along.

He kept crawling even when he passed through the energy field, and the cord around his waist fell off.

No-one was sure what had happened to Franklin. He'd never checked in with base, and when the cord had been rewound, the end had somehow turned into a child's jump rope.

When morning came, no-one had slept. Everyone at the SWORD base had stayed awake all night, continuing their search into the Westview anonymity.

Darcy wasn't sure who had suggested it, but soon the room had been filled with old-fashioned TV's all playing the latest episode.

The show was now in color as the decade had shifted into the seventies.

"Sweetheart, do you think it's time to,"

"Call the doctor."

"1950's, 1960's and now the '70's. Why does it keep switching time periods?" Darcy asked as she, Jimmy, and Clint sat in front of the same TV. "It can't be purely for my enjoyment, can it?" Darcy wondered, grabbing a handful of popcorn.

"I can't believe Y/N and Wanda are both pregnant," Jimmy commented, watching with rapt interest.

"I can't believe I'm about to be a grandfather." Clint sighed, staring at the screen in confusion.

"Can I ask you something?" Darcy asked, turning to Clint. "Do you seriously not know where Wanda and your daughter were before this?" She questioned the archer, recalling what she read in his statement.

"No. I don't know where they were." Clint shook his head. "And I'm the only person to blame."

"That can't be true." Jimmy tried to assure.

"It is." Clint nodded. "I hadn't seen Y/N since 2017 when Thanos snapped. She was on the run with Wanda and team Cap after the raft, but I'd taken a plea. After Banner snapped and Thanos dusted, my only thought was to get back to my wife. I left Y/N with Wanda on the battlefield." Clint admitted. "I abandoned her."

"Look, I wasn't there during that final fight, but I can imagine the chaos after," Darcy said to the man. "It's not the coolest thing you could have done, but it's understandable."

"Shh!" Jimmy hissed. "The girls are giving birth!" He said, causing Darcy and Clint to turn back to the screen. "Congratulations, Agent Barton, you've got a granddaughter."

"Yeah, and two grandsons."

"Twins. What a twist." Darcy sniffed, causing both men to turn and face her. "What? I'm invested."

"He was killed by Ultron. Wasn't he?"

"Did she just say the name Ultron?" Jimmy demanded. "Has that happened before? A reference to our reality."

"No. Never."

"Don't go near her." Wanda snapped, stopping Geraldine from moving beside a sleeping Y/N.

"Hey, I'll take a shift rocking the babies." Geraldine offered, beginning to move closer to the bassinets when the babies started to cry.

"No, I think you should leave." Wanda shook her head, blocking the bassinets from her view.

"Oh, Wanda, don't be like that," Geraldine said, staring at Wanda as though she were the crazy one.

"Who are you?" Wanda demanded, staring at the woman in anger.

"Wanda." Geraldine shook her head as she took a step back. "I'm. Wanda, I'm."

"This is different," Darcy said, staring at the screen uncomfortably.

"What happened? Where'd she go?" Jimmy asked as the screen glitched. The screen glitched to the end credits, which showed Wanda, Y/N, and Vision now sitting on the couch, each holding a baby.

"God not again." Darcy sighed, reaching over Jimmy to her laptop, which was recording the episode. Darcy quickly typed away at her computer, and it brought up the last ten seconds of the scene. "There's nothing here!" Darcy snapped when it played the same.

"You think it's still a glitch?" Clint asked her.

"I don't get it. One second, Monica is standing right there, and the next, she isn't. Someone is censoring the broadcast." Darcy realized.

"But where's Rambeau?" Jimmy asked right as alerts began to blare.

"Alert! Boundry has been breached!" The alarm screeched, causing the entirety of the tent to rush into action.

"Who are you?" Wanda demanded, stalking closer to Geraldine.

"Wanda, I'm just your neighbor." Geraldine attempted to reason with the woman.

"Then how did you know about Ultron?" Wanda demanded, tilting her head to the side.

But Geraldine couldn't answer, causing Wanda's hands to glow bright red.

"You're not my neighbor," Wanda whispered tearfully. "And you're definitely not my friend. You are a stranger and an outsider. And right now, you are trespassing here. And I want you to leave." She said before blasting Geraldine out of her home.

It took a second for Wanda to realize what she had done. Geraldine was gone, and there were large holes in the walls.

She stared at her hands in shock before looking over to her wife, who was just beginning to stir.

Thinking quickly, Wanda used her powers to pull the house back together and reset it.

Before Wanda could wonder too much about what she had done, one of the babies let a loud cooing noise.

Wanda had just moved back in front of the bassinets when the front door slammed open.

"Wanda? Where's Geraldine?" Vision asked, rounding the couch to stand beside a stirring Y/N.

"Oh, she left, honey," Wanda told him, not turning to face him. "She had to rush home." She added, finally turning to the man.

But the sight of Vision caused Wanda's eyes to widen and a gasp to escape her mouth.

Vision had lost all his color. He was grey, his eyes white, and there was a hole in his head.

"What?" Vision asked. "What is it? What's wrong?" He asked, moving closer to Wanda.

When Wanda looked up, she was relieved to see Vision was back to normal.

"We don't have to stay here. We could go wherever we want." Vision reminded his wife.

"No, we can't." Wanda shook her head. "This is our home." She smiled.

"Are you sure?"

"Don't worry, darling. I have everything under control." She said as Y/N sat up on the couch with a yawn.

Outside of Westview, Jimmy and Darcy had made it to the scene.

"Monica!" Jimmy gasped, kneeling beside the woman. "Are you okay?"

"It's Wanda," Monica whispered, staring at the night sky blankly. "It's all Wanda."

"I thought you said you'd wake me if the babies cried?" Y/N asked, taking Tommy into her arms.

"I had it control, sweetheart. You needed your rest." Wanda said, picking up Luna. "What should we watch tonight?" Wanda wondered, moving over to the couch.

Y/N and Vision followed their wife and sat on either side of her, each holding an infant.

Today had been a series of crazy events, but it had had the best outcome. Y/N thought staring down at her son in her arms and her other children in the arms of her husband and wife.

Something is happening here. Vision thought glancing down at his squirming daughter.

We’re safe here. Wanda thought with a smile as she made faces at the baby in her arms. I’ll keep us safe.

Taglist is open throughout the entirety of the series.

@x-uglyprincess-x @imthedoctorlove @loveinnoya @unknownalien3388 @bindythedemon @summersimmerus @buckmesidewaysandcallmesteve @natasharomanoffismywife @mcsteamy4ever @monxpeet @amywinehouseisgod @milleniumloki @buckybarnesplumwhore @kennedywxlsh @drpepperobsessed @madamevirgo @superbsccissorsdeanexpert @itty-bitty-witch @essenceproxima @severusminerva @okkulta @mrscasnovak @niki-is-a-thing @sunshinepower17 @pinkninja200 @iflostreturntoflynnrider @simp4mcuwomen @blackfarrahfawcett @angelicl-y @bromieeeomieee @persie33 @ambria

#wanda maximoff #wanda x reader #wanda maximoff x reader #vision x reader #wanda x vision #wanda x reader x vison #wandavision #scarlet witch x reader

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radioduo · 3 years

Text

rescue him || dsmp become human

word count: ~1,300

notes: am i technically late? yeah.. am i going to count it as being late? nope! anyway i have no idea how this one is, so feedback is appreciated! enjoy :]

first // prev // next

X Rescue him

“He’s coming with us, Tommy,” Tubbo said firmly, lifting the young boy into his arms. “I can’t leave him,”

Tommy stared at the scrappy android boy crossly but said nothing. As the newly formed trio wandered to the bus stop, the brown-haired child gripped Tubbo’s shirt, fiddling with the buttons. He was strangely silent, Tubbo noted, save for a few staticky noises he made now and then. A part of him wondered if that was the result of whatever had happened to his face and eye. He got the feeling he already knew the answer to that question but didn't dare to think about it too hard. “I wonder if he has a name,” Tubbo murmured to himself.

The small boy brightened at the mention of a name, smiling up at the white-haired teen.

“I doubt it. Should you give it one?” Tommy suggested. He was tracing circles on the bus stop bench in boredom. “Seems like the best thing to do.”

Tubbo looked at the android thoughtfully. The boy stared back at him with chocolate brown eyes that reminded Tubbo vaguely of a puppy. “What about Michael? Do you like Michael?” He asked brightly, moving strands of hair from the kid's one good eye.

Michel beamed and nodded at him, hauling himself onto the bench between the two teenagers. He made a noise that sounded similar to ‘yes,’ though Tubbo wasn't one hundred percent sure. “Good!” he grinned, watching with unmistakable fondness as Michael turned to Tommy and tugged on his jacket sleeve. “So that’s settled, I guess.” His gaze wandered to the bus schedule. The next one would be arriving in a few minutes, thankfully. He wasn’t sure how much longer they would be able to wait without being spotted.

“What are we gonna say if someone asks us who he is?” Tommy questioned, shrugging Michael’s hand off his coat. “Someone’s gonna be suspicious of us at some point, so we need to have an answer,” he said. His leg bounced up and down nervously. “Our brother or something?”

There was a moment of silence before Tubbo replied at last, “He’s my son!” He grinned as he felt Michael lean into his side, and he ruffled his wavy locks of brown hair.

Tommy stared at him dumbfoundedly. “What d’you mean he’s your son?” He demanded, volume rising slowly. “You don’t even look old enough to drive, let alone have a fuckin’ kid! He’s what, like five or so? You’re only 17, Tubs, what are you talking about?”

Tubbo rolled his eyes. “I’ll just say he’s my son and hope for the best. Doesn’t matter what people say, y’know? I rescued him from death, Tommy, I’m already treating him better than whoever his previous family was.” As he put an arm around Michael, the familiar sound of tires on asphalt grew louder as the bus pulled up to the stop. The three hopped up from the bench, both Tommy and Tubbo gripping Michael’s hands.

“Let’s go.” Tommy flung his bag over his arm. “We need to find somewhere safer than here.”

The three boarded the bus, sighing in relief when they saw there was nobody else on board besides a sleeping man in the back. The trio chose a seat in the middle, settling down as the doors closed and the bus lurched back into movement.

“This route is taking us to Ferndale, I guess,” Tubbo murmured. “That’s what the schedule said, at least. Is there a train station up there?” He brushed a few snow-white strands of hair out of his eyes and peered over Michael's head to where Tommy sat.

Tommy shrugged, not seeming in the mood to talk. He stared moodily out the window, watching the tall buildings roll past the glass. Tubbo could tell the blond was upset about something, but he decided to leave the topic alone. Tommy would talk if he wanted to.

Tubbo listened to the news from the bus's radio absently as the vehicle traveled north. It was hard to catch everything the reporter was saying, but he managed to catch every other word.

“Hard… believe… another deviant… last night... home… CyberLife’s founder… attacked… Devon… killed…”

Tubbo froze as a shiver ran down his spine. They were talking about him.

“...suspect… fourth case… past week… begs the question… androids dangerous… tensions… sales plummet… recalls…”

The deviant’s stomach turned as he listened to the news report. Androids were getting recalled from CyberLife, and android owners had begun returning their robots out of fear they might get hurt. He felt dizzy as he realized that leaving the state was his only option if he wanted to make it through this alive. Police were still searching for him, and if he was thinking about it, he felt as though civil war was inevitable. Enmity was brewing between man and his creations, and Tubbo felt sick just thinking about it. Tubbo gripped his son's hand and glanced sideways at Tommy. He didn't want to think about what would happen if someone found him.

He pushed the thoughts from his mind and decided to tune out the radio for the rest of the trip. It was dark when the three of them finally came to their stop, and Tommy, Tubbo, and Michael filed off the bus one by one. The electronic bus stop's faint glow was the only light source around other than an ominously flickering streetlight. Tommy grimaced. “Where now? We’re far enough away, surely,” he said, eyeing the different cars that passed by. The taller boy grabbed Michael's hand absent-mindedly as the kid hugged his pant leg.

Tubbo scanned the area silently. There didn’t seem to be anything of interest around besides some graffiti and street signs. The city seemed a little rundown and abandoned, and Tubbo would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little unsettled. “Let’s head… that way.” Tubbo flung a finger in a random direction, hoping that he was making a good decision. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

----------

Tubbo and Tommy walked down the darkened sidewalk, looking around nervously for anyone who might be watching. “I feel as though we’ve been walking for ages and getting nowhere,” Tommy grumbled. “Do even you know where the fuck you’re going?”

“Nope!” Tubbo chirped, adjusting a sleepy Michael on his hip. “I hope you know I just pointed in a random direction,” he admitted, snickering a little at Tommy’s annoyed expression.

“We’re fucked, you know,” Tommy mumbled. “We’re walking in a random direction, in the dark, all alone. I can’t imagine that anything could go well for us right now.”

The three slowed their pace when they came to the end of the street. The air smelled vaguely like the Detroit docks, and Tubbo felt his heart pounding as he squinted into the darkness. He could see the outline of a large, mostly abandoned freighter in the distance, but if he looked close enough, he could see a faint light flickering inside.

“You can’t seriously be thinking about going in there,” Tommy whispered cautiously. “You have no idea what the hell is in there, do you want to risk our lives? And more importantly, my life?”

“It’ll be okay, Tommy,” Tubbo promised. “If anything shady starts going on, we’ll get the fuck out, but I gotta know what’s in there first,” he said, already making his way towards the boat and onto the docks.

“What even is this place?” Tommy wondered aloud, trailing after the white-haired android. He stepped onto the docks and looked up at the large, hulking ship beside him. Despite the beat-up and rusty metal, a word was visible on the side in chipped white paint. "Something's written on the side... Jericho?"

Tubbo raised an eyebrow. “Huh,” he replied eloquently. “Well then, what’re we waiting for? Let’s check inside, shall we?”

#tubbo #tommyinnit #michael dsmp #michael_beloved #dream smp #dsmp #dream smp au #dsmp become human #my writing #fun times :]#might write some alt endings next :O #or some extra dialogue for choices n stuff

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asternevermore · 4 years

Text

Analytical Reflection

As time goes on technology advances faster than what most people are ready for. This causes generational gaps, and panic to spread as people do not understand these new technologies. Technopanics are nothing new in the human world. They have been happening since writing was invented. However, these panics are usually dispelled when there is enough evidence to show support for the technology. For example, prosthetics might have been seen as scary or even give someone a bad quality. In reality, though they are helpful for the person using it. Some technological advances are scary though. Human head transplants and cryogenics are a couple of scary technological advances. Although, the technology for these procedures is there is still a lot of work that needs to be done so they are successful. In our world, humans are no longer the smartest species. Humans have invented supercomputers that can detect diseases in humans, and that can win at Jeopardy. These computers have led to the creation of the first humanoid AI and helped progress driverless vehicles. While these computers are smarter than humans they are still connected to the Internet of Things. This Internet of Things connects everyone and everything to each other. It allows people to access a plethora of information that they might not be able to access otherwise. Along with these advances humans have gotten to the point where they can enhance the human body with mechanical parts or their genetics. Along with Cyborgs humans have discovered ways to make art with biomechanics. With all of these advances, some people look forward to the future while others are more hesitant. Techno panics are things that should be considered but they should be looked into and researched instead of reacting blindly to them.

Techno panics are nothing new to the human race. As the younger generations grow into these new experiences the older generations become more scared by the changes. In the article “The Six Things that Drive “Technopanics” the author writes “Parents and policymakers who dread the changes to cultural or privacy-related norms ushered in by new technologies often forget they, too, were children once and heard similar complaints from their elders about the gadgets and content and of their generation.” (Thierer, 2012). Although this article is old it still holds true today. Most of the older generation, especially those from the Baby Boomer generation, seem to have a lot of problems with technological advancements that would save our planet, or even make us more connected. Techno panics are spread through the media which will usually over exaggerate the technology into something scary and evil. The article “Techno-Panic reporting: The Media Deserves No Mercy” writes “ It's tough to find any large news organizations that don't turn technology into the star villain of every story in which it is even tangentially related--and they aren't afraid to misrepresent the facts to do so.” ( Carab, 2011). Media places a huge role in everyone's lives. We all watch the news or at least get some form of it on social media daily. This leads to multiple interpretations and multiple misinterpretations on subjects. While prosthetics are not scary and they have been around for decades they are still undergoing significant changes.

Prosthetic limbs have been around for decades and have changed exponentially. They have gone from immovable objects to being able to move individual fingers and potentially feel things. However, many of these high tech limbs have no use in most jobs, like farming. In this class, we viewed a source where a dairy farmer had a high tech arm that was basically useless for him since it would just get damaged from the work he does (Eveleth, 2014). Prosthetics have been around for centuries according to archaeologists. In the article “Future prosthetic: towards the bionic human” they write “Archaeologists have found examples of replacement body parts from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. These range from the crude — wooden peg legs and strap-on toes — to primitive, but still impressive attempts at limbs with hinged joints.” (Nathan, 2018). It is interesting to think about ancient prosthetics as it is not something people usually consider. The new prosthetics that can move individual fingers are possible thanks to the Internet of Things and Supercomputers.

The internet of things is essentially the internet everyone is using every day. It connects all of your devices together, and it connects everyone to each other. The Internet of Things shares all sorts of data. One thing that was discussed in class was the issue of 3D printed guns and how they were going to be controlled. The article used for this anthology discusses how there are still people publishing blueprints for weapons anonymously. One of the people interviewed for this article, named Ivan the Troll, said “If they [the government] were to come after me, they’d first have to find my identity. I’m one of many, many like-minded individuals who’re doing this sort of work.” (Hanrahan, 2019). This is scary to think about since it seems that the people sharing these articles do not seem to care about the safety of other people, or they just have a general dislike of the government trying to control them. This is a techno panic that should frighten people, but should not be completely banned. There are many uses for this sort of technology and it could be beneficial. One thing is that if something were to happen guns could be produced in a large quantity fairly quickly. Another thing would be to use these models as a way to print replacement parts in the field. Granted the technology would need to be more advanced for that.

With the vastness of the internet and the advances in technology, we have reached the point where cyborgs can become a very real thing. In Issac Arthur’s video, he explains how we have already passed the point where we will become cyborgs. He is essentially arguing that we are already cyborgs in our own right. However, he makes the distinction between someone who has a prosthetic and someone who has a bionic eye for example. In class, we were asked a question at one point if we thought we were like cyborgs since we were connected to our phones. I argued against the theory, but after watching Arthur’s video I have begun to rethink my opinion.

All of these advances I discussed seem scary and some of them are. For example, the 3D printed guns sound terrifying to some people, however, it does hold some beneficial effects. Many people fear the day that robots will become a common entity and that they might take over the world, but in reality, robots taking over the world seems to be the exaggeration of science fiction movies. Likewise, cyborgs already walk amongst humans in the sense that people may have bionic body parts, or other mechanical parts to enhance their bodies. Techno panics are things that should be considered but they should be looked into and researched instead of reacting blindly to them.

Works Cited

Carab, Marcus (2011, February 4th) Techno-Panic Reporting: The Media Deserves No Mercy. Retrieved from https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110131/09311312896/techno-panic-reporting-media-deserves-no-mercy.shtml

Eveleth, Rose (2014, March 5th) When State-of-the-Art is Second Best. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/durable-prostheses/

Hanrahan, Jake (2019, May 20th) 3D-printed guns are back, and this time they are unstoppable. Retrieved from https://www.wired.co.uk/article/3d-printed-guns-blueprints

Nathan, Stuart (2018, January 4th) Future prosthetic: towards the bionic human. Retrieved from https://www.theengineer.co.uk/future-prosthetic/

Thierer, Adam (2012, March 4th) The Six Things that Drive ''Technopanics' '. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamthierer/2012/03/04/the-six-things-that-drive-technopanics/#295cabdc70b0

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overx · 6 years

Note

Kill Me (Death and Dirge)

Some things are inevitable.

Like the collision of two souls, drawn to each other across worlds. Fate is not such a fickle thing that those meant to be could ever miss each other by chance.

If anything… She was just the opposite.

So it was a familiar story would play out for the first time, a fated meeting to be repeated in ripples throughout creation. Spirits so different, but so much the same, clashing before intertwining.

“You’d be surprised how much you can learn in such a short time. The living have a lot more to offer than just souls to house and organize when you come for them.”

Silence, as usual, met lady Fate.

“It’ll only cost you one lifetime, Death. Long for him, short for you, so give it a spin.”

Rock wiped a hint of purple coolant from his cheek, eyes narrowing at the first person to ever keep up with him. An irritation, but also a temporary fascination.

A feeling that was only semi-shared by the tall blond across from him. Amusement more than annoyance at the tiny black haired android who’d barked at him since he set foot here. Was this really who he was meant to spend his time with? Was this the mortal selected to teach him something about the souls he collected? He’d been told he’d learn something from this one, but all he saw before him was a reckless, wretched creature that would be better taken care of with some other deity.

And all Rock saw was another machine, a challenge to be won or be conquered by. The first and only other being of his kind sentient enough to hold a conversation, to have ambition, to pose a threat.

“Stop lookin’ so fuckin’ calm an’ finish the fight ya started,” is demanded, green eyes narrowing dangerously in the taller man’s direction. Rock dusted himself off, teeth bared. “I don’t like t’ leave shit unsettled.”

It’s not your time.

No matter what the hothead may have desired, and he did want the only thing Death knew how to give, this was not the time and place destiny deemed for that life to be severed. A simple shake of the head is served as the blond’s answer. “I’m not going to kill you.”

“Why the fuck not?” Rock looked so furious to be rebuffed, but Death could see something else in those green eyes. A nameless thing that existed underneath the fury and hellfire. Not the despair he saw daily in the fading lives he visited, not fear, but a different kind of pain.

A miserable existence, with so much longer to live.

How tedious this would all be.

The Reaper didn’t know pity, not truly, but that hadn’t stopped him from sweeping the hotblooded android into another world for a short period. He’d offered the only thing he could think of, to keep the mortal he was supposed to interact with by his side.

They marched through the snow, Rock’s arms wrapped around himself for some useless layer for comfort and warmth. “That’s all it’ll take huh? I beat ya, for real, an’ you’ll grant me a merciful death?“

“That’s the idea,” an oversimplification on Rock’s part, but one that would be accepted. There would be no mercy in the machine’s end however, no peaceful afterlife, or place for his soul to wander. The artificial consciousness that he had could not be categorized, so if it would even exist afterwards was a question all its own.

Such an odd situation, why did they put me here?

“Well alright then, guess we better get t’ trainin’ so I can give both of us satisfyin’ fight for me t’ go out on.” Rock knew how brazen he must have sounded, surely, but there is no uncertainty in their arrangement for him. They’d train, together, until the Light-bot was good enough to win. And once he had…

If that’s really what he wants… what am I supposed to learn?

“A promise is a promise,” the blond replied, opening the door to the abandoned facility they’d be using. “…but don’t think it’ll be quick or easy.”

Not with so much time still left for Rock to live.

How had routine given way to something different? For months they crossed blades, traded fists, shared idle quips, everything as planned. So when did he begin to take an interest in the android’s moods? His opinions? They were often dark, morbid things, inky blackness covered up with layers of falsehoods to make them appear lighter. A cocky grin and easy denial, hiding nihilism akin to Death’s own views on existence. If it wasn’t for the self loathing, the way Rock threw himself at anything and everything destructive, maybe they could have shared a real conversation. A moment of understanding.

Maybe then, we could really talk.

But that cloud still hung over the mortal’s soul, the miasma of misery that drove him to constantly wound himself in any way he could. He was incapable of physical self harm, but that didn’t stop him from goading others into fights– as he’d tried when they met– or from finding ways to leave other scars on his heart.

The blond leaned over, leering down at his sparring partner, fresh with coolant from some off world encounter. His right arm was torn to shreds, exposed wiring sparking and leaking precious internal fluids.

You did it again.

Rock is given only a heavy sigh, before the snap of fingers can be heard. A cloud of purple light swarmed around them, healing flames stitching together the shorter man’s injuries. Nanites, or so the excuse was for Death’s “mortal” shell. Another machine, in Rock’s eyes, far more advanced, so far above him…

“…why do ya bother fixin’ these things…?“ The question is quiet, the machine unwilling to meet Death’s gaze. “…you know what I want. Why I come t’ see you day in an’ day out, so why not let it happen?“ It’s asked in a different tone than usual, though he likely expects the same answer. “If somethin’ else kills me, who cares?”

“Because, Rock, we made a deal. I can’t keep my promise and neither can you, if I let you go.“ The answer slips so easily from his mouth, despite the strange unease setting in. It’s not the whole truth anymore, is it? But even he doesn’t know the real answer beyond “duty”.

No, the loud, violent, and blunt little machine could have been allowed to pass several times now without intervention. All Death would have needed to do is collect his soul. And yet…

“…you’ve got a weird sense of honor, savin’ me over’n’over just so ya can keep that fucked up promise of ours.” He looks up, finally, a thin smile on his lips, like he knows something the God does not. “…guess we should get goin’, then. Don’t want t’ fall behind.“ A spark of something else flashes in his eyes, just behind the resignation there before. He’s already wandering off towards their normal training area, leaving the Reaper to simmer in his curiosity for another day.

Kissing, that’s what this was. Another impulsive decision made by his charge– for once surprising. A skill Rock had gotten very good at, as of late, catching Death off guard at the oddest times. The mortal had pinned him in their fight, pulled him close to deliver a crack to his jaw, and instead…

It’s warm, the living energy such a deep contrast to Death’s own cold aura. Their lips connect, once, twice, each sending a spark through the Reaper’s form. A slow burning fire that made him yearn to continue. To explore the foreign feelings and sensations never before afforded to him.

He eases back, red eyes uplifting to the lively green across from him. There are flames, but not like before. Not rage and hurt, but the shine of life so rarely found there. It makes him want to lean in, to feel it again, but…

“…is this really what you want?”

Or was this just another passing fancy? The newest trial in Rock’s attempted self destruction?

Tell me the truth.

Daunting, for such a simple question, and it makes the robot hesitate. He’d done it just now without thinking, yes, but the truth was he’d been enamored for a while. A fact he was slow to admit, color burning in his cheeks. “…I’m… curious? I don’t know what I was thinkin’, I just…“ he resisted the urge to look away, optics locked on the face in front of him, but only just. “…want t’ try it with you..?”

That was earnest enough, a longing for connection clear on the Light-bot’s flustered face.

You’ve led such a lonely existence, haven’t you..?

Rock clung in his recharge cycle, not unlike a human pulling close in sleep. The affectionate gesture had become so common now, it almost felt strange not to have it. Death rested his head against that mess of fluffy black hair, content in their silent stillness.

…it was a feeling that brought him dread, every time he watched Rock go.

He’d prolonged the android’s life several times now. Saved him from situations that could and should have killed him. At first in those early months it was only because he thought he hadn’t learned what Fate wanted him to, but now it was… different.

He felt his partner adjust, burying his face drowsily into Death’s side, and the Reaper frowned. He hooked an arm around the smaller being, keeping him safe, close.

There’s so little time left.

This wasn’t like watching a human go. They aged, fought disease, faded so clearly and visually. They gave up their souls, and Death only ever had to find them.

For Rock, there was only a deadline he’d been allowed to unknowingly miss. Close calls growing in exponentially since that date. He could be repaired again and again, survive things no human could as long as a few precious pieces stayed intact. It worked, up til now, justified by their morbid first day promise.

It was the unknown that kept Rock among the living. The underpinning fact that no one knew if he had a real soul, or if he would simply cease to exist. It was unprecedented. Terrifying. The thought of spending the rest of eternity torn away from the life they’d created together. Years spent building up to some futile end that neither of them wanted.

Is this why mortals fear me?

Another outing into the snowy wastes. They stopped, finally, at one of their favorite shared places. Glacial walls, filled with light and color, surrounded them. Cascading rainbows in the otherwise bleak, blizzard laden world. They’d come with the intention of sparring outdoors, and then spending the rest of their time as they pleased. Gleeful in their shared freedom, as always.

Rock caught his fist, reflexes far quicker than they ever had been that first day. The raven haired robot gave a grin, confident in his standing. Their rivalry had sharpened every skill over the years, and there was only so long his partner could stay ahead. Today he would win.

…and he did.

He held a blade to the blond’s throat, panting to vent steam into the cold air, but triumphant. “I finally fuckin’ did it! I…” It’s a short lived smile, a crestfallen look overtaking him as his love rose from the snow. “…I… did it…” is repeated, disbelief making the mortal start to tremble.

Death plopped a hand into Rock’s hair, giving it an easy ruffle. “…you did.”

Is this still what you want?

Rock swallowed, gaze cutting away from his partner. “…you must’ve been goin’ easy on me.”

So it isn’t.

“Oh..?” A tired smile graced the God’s face.

You want the same thing as me.

“No, I wasn’t, but there is… something I wanted to give you first. If you’ll take it.” Death knelt, revealing a box in his hands. “We would… have to renegotiate that deal of ours but…” It snapped open, blue ring sparkling almost as bright as the ice around them.

He watches Rock’s hands raise to cover his mouth, tears threatening to fall from the gut punch of horror turned joy. “Y-yes! Yes of course you moron.” He doesn’t even wait for the ring to be on his finger, pulling the blond from the snow to kiss him. “I love you.”

“…I love you, too.”

It’s a mortal custom, one that won’t mean anything once Rock is gone, but one that will also give them a little more joy all the same. A last needed push, before the end.

Something to hold onto, even if it’s only a trinket. A memory.

I don’t want you to go.

It’s coming faster now. A sense only he has, but even as they begin to wander home, he can see the exhaustion taking Rock’s body. The mere act of being around the God of Death was slowly killing his beloved, taking him in one final bittersweet act of inevitability.

The only gift Death knew how to give.

…The only one he wanted to take back.

#ziel-soundwave #;a fading light #;death’s guardian #~bounded vamploid~#~angel of death~#[strings of fate]#[the archives]#thegatesofinfinitespace #[~Not even the strings of fate will untangle me from you~]#[earth prime]#implied death tw

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olivettheory · 3 years

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The Conundrum of Doing vs. Being

I’m constantly tempted by the lure of performing at robotic levels. Should I podcast? Should I write six blog posts a day? Seven if I skip a meal or two? How many blog posts can I publish if I miss out on sleep? Can I possibly finish writing the first draft for my first book in ninety days? Maybe I should give up writing altogether and become an underground chill-pop rapper. A poet? Perhaps, I’m better off creating a social media account by which I thrive and flourish from displaying a lifestyle that is inconsistent with my lived reality.

At the same time, perhaps I should produce seven categories by which to denounce the latest theological heresy, and in the same process, seven more by which to denounce my own sins in the lives of others. I’m good at that. Too good actually.

How should I interact with others on matters of disagreement? Is there a correct approach or is hostility the best avenue I can travel on to tell someone that mayonnaise is the devils’ spittle in a bottle?

I’m pressured to better my writing so that it is lauded by the intelligentsia but I also want it to be read and understood by children. Mind you, I’m no grad or undergrad so I’m pushing a rock up a hill that will never reach the top, my grip giving every now and then, and then I’m chasing this boulder back down the hill.

I’m a greek mythology story in a western modern scope where pragmatism and meritocracy are the ruling tenets of my time. Does it work? Overdo it. Can I derive capital from this? Then do it as much as possible. No matter the cost to my mental, emotional, familial, or financial stability. Just capitalize on it.

Always over-performing leads to underperformance which leads to thinking that one needs to perform even more.

Until all that is left is flesh and bones; and fat, plenty of it as of late.

So I want to write when I read great material from wonderful authors. I want to sing when I hear singers sing well. I want to edit because I am all too aware of someone else’s written errors but all too ignorant about my own. I want to act but I’m ugly and if I weren’t I could not act to save my life. Should I take up comedy? I’m funny but in passing. Like the jokes passed between a doorman and a tenant. It’s something enjoyable only for a moment because should the interaction last any longer it becomes a dreadful experience, a chore.

Am I funny? To whom? Myself, of course. I laugh at my own jokes plenty and I think that’s enough.

But what next? The pressure to perform and produce can be overwhelming when I admire and applaud the success of others.

If I venture to throw a ball well enough as an athlete does in one sphere or wave a baton timely so as a conductor does in another, someone may see and perceive, falsely so, that I’m an athlete or a conductor.

And if the rhetoric is repeated often enough, if I throw the ball far enough, accurately enough, lead an ensemble well enough, an amateur group of musicians long enough, I too, will begin to believe the notion that I am these things.

Maybe I am an athlete, albeit one undiscovered.

Perhaps I’ll take up composing from now on. I’ll start with the violin and work my way to the clarinet.

Therefore, through repetition of a false success story under false pretense, I lead myself and others to believe that I am that which I am not.

Therefore, not only am I not qualified for said positions but my knowledge and experience within said areas of work and performance are nascent and lacking.

Should I pastor? Maybe I’ll take up the mantel of a shepherd. A priest, perhaps. I’ll become a theologian! All I need is a heart for people. A degree. A parish. Right?

I mean, I’ve opened the bible in the past. Managed to regurgitate intelligible and digestible information by which the clergy and laity could put into practice. I’ve conducted the introduction, body, illustration, and lastly the conclusion of plenty of sermons. So, by definition I’m a preacher, no? I’ve counseled youth members in the past therefore I must be a youth counselor, no? I’ve assisted in the collections of offerings and tithes and later the appropriate allocation of said funds therefore I must be treasurer, no? I’ve prayed for the sick and the sick have gotten better, so I’m a healer, no? I’ve sat people in services and directed services from start to finish, therefore, I’m a deacon, am I not?

I’ve done most things, somewhat well, well enough to make others believe that I have done the same things for some time. Perhaps because that which was done was done so differently or by a different personality so unique that the work accomplished was considered good but perhaps it was just a distraction from the status quo. We normally think distractions are good when we’re bored.

Have I been working and growing, garnishing respect on the basis of being a distraction from the status quo?

Is that why there is such immense pressure to perform?

The pressure is consistent, at times it grows, as the demand is there to throw the ball further. To land it on more difficult targets accurately so. To go from conducting Debussy to Beethoven and later Faure. I’m in a place where I have to or at least I’m made to believe that I have to perform to feel accomplished but under this line of thinking, I never will.

Because in this pragmatic nightmare my ideal of what works is only temporary so my pleasure is fleeting and temporal.

In a meritocratic worldview, I am but the sum of my production. So how much is enough? How much can I accomplish to say, feel accomplished?

And who determines my work ethic or the value of that which I produce? Me?

Is that which I do, is it done for me? For you?

Why am I so anxious about doing things instead of finding comfort in being me.

Introspection advises me that there is greater comfort in being than there is in retrospective doing.

Not that doing things is bad but if life becomes a thing by which we determine value and worth by what one accomplishes instead of what one is then there is no hope.

In that, I wage war against my own mindset that is rigged to function within a different world.

What, then, should I do? I ask myself when the question should render: Who should I be?

So the conversation on this crisis is between what’s and who’s more so than where’s and when’s.

The how is undetermined because our ways of thinking originated long before I was born, possibly, with the inception of our individualistic society.

I derive pleasure and comfort from stopping, clearing, distancing, and breathing.

If I stop to admire the clouds and the creatures that live and move and have their being under them, I am content.

But if I stop there, under the sky, and reach for my phone I rob myself of an experience I then lose the authenticity of that moment thus robbing myself and the scene of contentment.

I could look at clouds and make myself bothered by the need to make the same seen by others.

Or I can gaze at creation and allow creation to gaze back at me.

Knowing that this current state is finite I must, in this temporal form, understand that I must stop to admire things and people and just be.

This gentle stance is ancient but has long been forgotten because our desire to constantly share and immerse others in our perception of reality is disastrous.

Does it work? We ask.

Can I benefit from it? We inquire.

It is such a trap. Such an existential trap from which we seldom escape.

But these are thoughts of the wealthy and financially stable.

Because I am neither I must retort to the old ways. I’ll rescind from these greater thoughts by continually seeking the practice of perpetual production and the lucrative nature and success of that which I produce.

One day I won’t have to. None of us will. But until then, back to the machine I go.

This post is a product of this same machine.

Your reading of this post is a sign that you, too, are within this machine.

We’re reading the next article, next post, next blog, or person to see which of them work best for us.

And from there we share, comment, critique, and elaborate further upon it to profit, either financially or socially from the same.

My writing and your reading, it is all part of it.

We are cogs in a machine subconsciously begging for a systems failure warning.

Maybe a flat tire so we have enough time to realize that we’re part of it in the first place.

Either way, my next step is probably a step back.

A step toward being.

As I have been created to be. For we are human beings, not human doings.

Too often, I have gone against the grain, the fiber of who I am. Who we all are.

Maybe I’ll become a chef.

Written with an anxious heart,

Olivet Theory

#Olivet Theory #Mental Health #Faith #Christianity #Love #Deep Thought #Cynicism #Rediscovery #Reconstruction

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mirage-krp · 4 years

Photo

The guardians welcome [ARTHUR] to the city of Jeonseol. He is [A SYNTH] currently living in [AMBER] and working at/as [ARCHIVE ASSISTANT AT JEONSEOL LIBRARY]

Welcome to Mirage! Please follow the admin twitter within 48 hours of acceptance, or your faceclaim will be freed up.

Faceclaim: Cameron Monaghan (actor)

Name: Artificial Robotic Technology

Nickname(s): Art/Arthur

Age: 10 months (appears 25)

Date of birth: August 16th 2019

Species/myth/cryptid/etc:

Synthetic human.

Art is well, state of the art, even where he comes from. He appears almost entirely human, however his skin isn’t quite the same texture as a human and while his blood appears red it is in fact dyed oils that keep him running. He feels no pain and his skin is thicker than a human’s therefore making it harder to cut into. As well as being slightly stronger than the average human he can connect to wifi (as long as there is signal) and any technology surrounding him and browse at frightening speeds.

Weaknesses:

While he is somewhat like a self-charging hybrid, this is only to about 40-55% and he does need regular charging. Often he will do this overnight akin to humans sleeping. His connections to technology and the internet rely on electricity and signal, so if that is cut or dampened he cannot access anything and can only rely on what he already has downloaded. Also while he doesn’t feel pain he is still susceptible to damage and if bad enough would shut down and be unable to reboot (aka death).

Residence: Amber 1601

Occupation: Archive and database assistant at Jeonseol Library

Personality:

At first glance, and maybe second as well Art appears entirely human, both physically and the way he speaks. But stick around longer and you’ll learn that he has his quirks that give away his synth status. He’s never been in a place where he has had to hide what he is, so he will often make statements about his world, or about his creator or himself. His ability to connect to the internet can sometimes make him appear as a smart ass because he will often search for anything he doesn’t know instantly before giving an in depth answer. On the flip side there is an element of childlike wonder to him. He has only been functioning for ten months and only in our world for six of them, so a lot is new to him and he loves these experiences. He is also prone to bouts of existential crises really isn’t quiet about it.

Background:

16th August 2019, in an alternate universe that skipped the industrial revolution and went straight to technology a well renowned scientist was adding the final touches to his ultimate creation. Artificial Robotic Technology, or Art (Arthur) for short was the most sophisticated and real life AI that had been produced in a world that was already head and shoulders above the rest. While the technology was still too expensive to fill every house AIs were common in the public sector and military. Dr Flannery’s aim was to make Art an integrated piece of household technology, while capable of the basics such as housework, internet browsing and education he was also capable of true human speech, emotion and thought. The perfect companion.

From the moment he was powered up Art exceeded expectations, passing test after diagnostic test with flying colours, but a few months in the unthinkable (otherwise known as the anticipated in our world) happened. Before Dr Flannery could announce his creation to the world and start mass production a rival company did the same, selling their software updates to everyone possible. Only they hadn’t perfected it so well. Upgraded to emotional capability and free will the AI population began to revolt. Unfortunately for them it panned out just like our movies and stories. While an integral part of society they lacked the numbers to truly take control and as military and civilian alike took part in destroying any AI they could get their hands on Dr Flannery knew he had to do something to protect Art.

That came in the shape of a traveller. A figure who could cross into alternate realities. They knew of a place Art could be safe and with a final hug the robot parted ways with his creator and taking the hand of the stranger stepped out from his world and into the city of Jeonseol.

That was six months ago and he has settled in fairly well, even finding himself a job and a place of his own to become just another face in the crowd. Though at least he doesn’t have to blend in entirely and he hopes that one day he will be able to find that stranger again and perhaps bring his creator through as well.

Any wanted connections?: The inter-dimensional traveller that brought him to Jeonseol.

#( mirage : accepted )#( fc : cameron monaghan )

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scrletvsn · 7 years

Text

A Beautiful Hobby

Title: A Beautiful Hobby For: @visionxwanda Rating: T Word count: 1,5k Warnings: None Summary: Since the Sokovia incident, Vision felt increasingly lost with his existence. His prospects for the future change when he found support and kind words from Wanda Maximoff. AO3 link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12126762 Message for visionxwanda: I am only hoping that you can see Wanda and Vision in this fic. It was so pleasant to write them and I tried to transform in words what I think it was their first contact. I am pretty sure that Wanda influenced most of his hobbies, but the one I chose I am certain it was his first and favorite one. Thank you for your beautiful prompt, I wish I could write all of them. Other Note: A huge thank you to @mrtnfreemn for being the best beta and friend. Lov u. Made for the Scarlet Vision Exchange 2017! With each passing day of his existence, Vision got more impressed with humans and their deeds. They were doomed to the end, yes. But nothing would stop him from admiring the time he has, knowing them, learning with them, enjoying the miracle of life that they gave him. Since the Sokovia incident, Vision felt increasingly lost with his existence. He was created to save the world, defeat Ultron. Now that his mission had been completed, he had no idea what to do with his time. His appearance was very peculiar for walks through New York City, so he limited these small walks at dawn, turning his density so light that hardly was seen by the few inhabitants that came across. He visited the most beautiful stops of the city, he found out the reason it’s known as the city that never sleeps, he saw the human interactions in the distance. Vision was out of breath admiring the humans. Their laughter, their screams, their cries, everything was so beautiful. And he wanted so much… And he wanted so much to live this. But he was not human, just merely a copy and he couldn’t live this. And it was then that he gave up wandering like a ghost and decided to feel content living only in the tower. Out of sight, out of mind… Right? Vision tried to interact with the Avengers as well, but turned away when realized he was not helpful in this hard time. Tony Stark could barely look into his eyes. Vision believed it was due to the voice of his old friend JARVIS, but decided to leave the inconvenience of touching the subject for a less inopportune moment. Captain Rogers and Black Widow were too busy working with the rescue team of survivors from Sokovia, and Clint spent his days aiding Wanda Maximoff, who was going through an emotional whirlwind after the loss of her twin. No matter how much he insisted, no help he could give to any of them. A month had passed since his creation and Vision found himself in the middle of the night wandering through the Stark Tower. Despite going against all the expectations he had in the early days of his life, Vision felt something latent in the depths of his artificial chest. As he paced the main floor and touched the same furniture he had touched a few weeks ago, he decided to name the sensation down as lamentation. That building was his crib, home, and sanctuary. Say goodbye to it is to say goodbye to the only place he fit. Vision’s feelings confused him. How could an artificial being have emotions that belong to the natural world? Before he could spend hours stifling theories to understand himself, a noise interrupted his thoughts. “Sorry … I … Ahm …” He saw Miss. Maximoff crouched on a broken vase, trying to energetically gather all the earth that was spread on the floor. Vision did not know how to interpret the questioning look and the startled pause she made as he approached to help. He preferred to leave at the back of his mind the possibility of her seeing him as a freak. Gathering the earth, Vision suddenly stopped. He gave himself the time to feel the dark, wet sand in his hands, it’s texture, the way it slips from his purple palms and fall a few inches to join the heap of dirt. His eyes went beyond his hand to notice the contrast of his own color with the sand and it’s with the light skin of Miss. Maximoff. As he left his hand only a few inches from Miss. Maximoff, a twinge bloomed in his chest. It was not physical pain, the possibility of him being physically injured was practically minimal, such as being ill. But it was constant and, as he analyzed and counted all the differences between their hands, it increased. It might have been hours for him, but only a few minutes passed when the young woman withdrew her hand and their eyes met. In her eyes, curiosity grew just as it had that first day. In his, only pain. “Thank you for helping.” She said, after cleaning. She picked up the single surviving tulip from the floor as she stood up, and held it to the Vision, regretting this as soon as questioning appeared in the robot, android, man’s gaze. He took the flower anyway, touching it as if it was made of crystal, looking at every detail as if it as his first time seeing a flower. Wanda actually believed this was his first time. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” “Quite beautiful, and delicate. And purple.” His fingers touched the petals, admiring the difference between the purple of his skin and the one of the flower. “My mother had always wanted to plant a tulip.” She said, ignoring the lump in her throat. “But in Sokovia it wasn’t easy to find them. You know… the cold.” “Did she like to garden?”“She planted everything she could, but it wasn’t much. Our apartment was too small for this.” She said, admiring the flower in the man’s hand. “But a hobby is a hobby, she would not stop to plant for lack of space. “ “A hobby?” Vision finally said taking his attention away from the flower. “Yes … Do you know what it is?” “I am familiar with the definition. But human things have been extremely complicated to understand by myself. ““A hobby is when…” Wanda started as she sat on the couch. She looked at him until he understood and sat by her side. Satisfied, she continued: “We do something we like, for pleasure, for having fun… for distraction. My mother planted everything she could. My brother,” You’ll say his name one day, Wanda. But not today. “He loved to run. He used to go for long runs every day. The hydra men believed that he got his abilities because of this…” Vision was trying to disguise his excitement from finally talking to someone. He had spent weeks rehearsing trivial dialogues with humans, hoping he could fit in, but nothing could match finally talking to someone in the flesh. And, not just greetings or questions without meaning when stumbling upon the hallway but, to have a complete conversation. They were far apart on the couch, but Vision could see her perfectly. Her hair no longer looked as lined up as before, it was messy and full. Her eyes were swollen, despite the blurred makeup disguise. And there were her eyes… Her eyes were beautiful, enchanted, human, watching and doubting everything around. But there was something about her, like a lie. As if the smile on her lips was not compatible with her eyes. “And your hobby?” Vision asked after realizing that it had been a long time staring her. Humans don’t like to be stared, he realized some time ago. She laughed. “I don’t know anymore. I use to like drawing, but in hydra they did not let us to do normal things.. .” Her eyes fell on the immense window, as if searching for answers to all of her pain. Having found her answer, she said dryly: “Maybe my biggest collection is death.” “Never.” And the intensity of this single word surprised Wanda. He only continued when she looked him in the eye. “You are such a strong woman, Miss. Maximoff. Vou have several powerful abilities, but none of them is to bring death.” “I drew as a child. I think it could be said that this was my hobby.” She said, not knowing how to form in words the warmth in her chest. “Drawing again will make you feel better?” His voice came out so innocent and hopeful that Wanda could do nothing but smile and nod. “Then I’ll get you drawing material tomorrow. But I think now you should go to sleep, your body is showing signs of fatigue and it’s late.” And she knew he was right. Without letting a smile leave her face, she said goodbye to the strange man, surprised of the nice time they had after everything that happened. Before leaving the room completely, she grabbed the sleeve of her coat feeling anxious and turned to Vision. “And your hobby? Do you know which one it is yet?” She knew that he was not human like the others, but his eyes did not lie. He is. After having such a pleasant conversation, she could not help but try to be nice to him. He smiled sadly at her. “I have no hobbies, Miss. Maximoff. I am not human.” But his eyebrow arched when he saw the rolling eyes of the beautiful woman in front of him. “What would you like to do? I do not want a melancholic answer this time.” Hypocrite? Perhaps. But he really was more than not human.“I do not know.” “We’ll think something tomorrow, shall we?” Her smile was largest than any other given to him. Vision’s artificial heart beat faster, while nodding and seeing Wanda Maximoff’s smile as she left the room. They would talk again, after all. Maybe his social skills were not as bad as he thought. Turning and smiling at the sight of the immense New York, holding the delicate tulip in his hands, there was no more lamentation in him. Now he finally knew what he would do. He did not talk about the decision of his new hobby. Maybe it would not fit in the relation of only acquaintances that they had, but he already decided. His new hobby would definitely be studying mankind and ways to overcome mourning because he definitely wants to put that smile on the face of the beautiful Wanda Maximoff again. He will make her smile again.

#scarletvisionexchange2017 #sve2017 #scarletvision #wandavision #the vision #vision #wanda maximoff #scarlets2visionfics #scarlet vision

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oneeyedumbrella · 7 years

Text

Yo I finished watching Shineskai Yori and was dissatisfied with the ending so i rewrote it

reader beware there be spoilers below

They came at night. Queerats, hundreds of them surrounding the hut and setting up machinery in dead silence. They opened the door and stuck a tube inside, the slightly rusted hinges making a soft screech. Mamoru, ever the anxious one noticed something was off and woke, he sat up suddenly and shouted to Maria, only to find he had no voice. Looking down an arrow protruded from his throat, followed by three more in his chest. Gurgling as he choked on his own blood, the gas from the tube filled the room, sending him to his final sleep.

The Queerats retrieved the baby first, making off with it as quick as their legs would take them. Unable to wake from the gas, Maria had her hands and legs bound, her mouth gagged, blindfolded and a sack thrown over head before being carried away.

Five days passed, waking and sleeping in a haze Maria finally became truly conscious and looking around found herself in a prison cell guarded by Queerats.

"Where am I? Where's Mamoru? Where's my baby? What have you done?" Maria demanded of the guards, but they remained silent, stoic.

"Where are you? I wonder." Came a voice from the darkness. "You are in my jail, and as for what I've done? Well it's more a matter of what I will do." Footsteps echoed of the concrete walls and slowly Yakomaru walked into view.

"And just what is that?"

"I'm going to make you into my slave, no, worse than that, you will be nothing more than a doll, a perfect little doll that can merely follow my orders." Maria tried to burst down the cell door, to set Yakomaru on fire, anything. But nothing happened. "I believe you'll find your Cantus has no power here, human. You've been drugged and hypnotised for days. You couldn't even make a spark.

You are going to be my soldier, my trump card, and I'll have you slaughter humans by the thouands and we, the Queerats, will become the dominat species on Earth! We will enslave the few humans we spare, and turn each and every one into a weapon of mass destruction for our gain."

"Never! You can't make me do that! Even if I agreed I would die immediately from death feedback."

"Death feedback? Do you really think we would have gone to these lengths if we didn’t know how to counteract that? You will be made into a mindless beast, you will be drugged beyond your mental capabilities until your subconscious is unable to think. You will become a pseudo-Fiend. As for you agreeing? We never asked you, you do not have a choice. You may even now be thinking of escape, perhaps by only pretending to eat the drugs until its worn off enough for you to use your Cantus? A clever plan, but predictable. I recommend you follow my every command if you want to see your baby alive."

"You have her? You have Maddie? What about Mamoru? Where are they?"

"Mamoru is dead, he tried to stop us taking you and was disposed of. A shame, we could've used him too. I can assure you however your baby is safe, for now. If you so much as step a toe out of line however, the slightest hint of rebellion, and, well, I can no longer vouch for her safety."

Maria slumped against the wall, her eyes tearing up. She tried one last time to use her Cantus, grief powering her, but to no avail. She wept, she wept for Mamoru, she wept for her baby, she wept for the villages, and she wept for her own helplessness. The guards entered the cell and dragged her away to a different room.

The next few weeks Maria spent being drugged, only waking to be hypnotised, fed and drugged again. Occasionally she was conscious enough to make out the sounds of her captors, and once she saw Yakomaru consulting with a False Minoshiro. By the end of the process her eyes had gone glassy, her mouth hung slightly agape and her movement were almost robotics. She was the perfect doll. Her memories and thoughts blocked from her, the only thoughts she was permitted were 'kill humans' and 'obey the Queerats'.

Yakomaru observed his creation and smiled evilly, stepping up to the council he announced, "Let us go to war."

Saki froze up. Moments after flinging herself and Satoru from the boat they lay on the path, reeds blocking the view of the fiend. The trick was successful but they were unlucky, the reeds parted were Saki's head lay and now the fiend was staring straight at her. The full moon emerged from behind a cloud and the ground was lit up as a stray wind blew back the fiends' hood. Saki's breath caught in her throat. The ground she lay on was cold but Maria's stare was colder than ice, their eyes locked and Saki began to cry. Through the tears there was one thing she noticed, as Maria stared at her, her right eye twitched violently. After what seemed like an eternity, Maria, no that was Maria no longer, Fiend Maria put her hand to her head and turned away, returning to whence she came.

Saki and Satoru sat in the darkness of the tunnel. Their plan had failed. She thought the death of Kiroumaru by Maria's hands would activate the death feedback and save them, but nothing had happened. Kiroumaru's corpse lay there, staining the ground with his blood while Maria stood still and Yakomaru smiled sinisterly next to her.

"Saki, come on we have to run, there's nothing more we can do!" Satoru pleaded.

"Shun... you lied to me." Saki whispered hollowly. His voice came to her once more. No, it is true she is no fiend, you know this, it's something else. Try to remember back to the night where you saw each other. As he said those words the memory seemed to flash in front of her eyes. Of course, it was so obvious and she was too stupid to see it.

"Saki! Let's Go!" Satoru shouted desperately once more.

"Satoru, there is one more thing I can do. I can still save this, but I need to do it alone. Run if you must but please let me do this, please trust me. I understand her now."

Satoru stared down at the floor. "F-fine, do what you must. I'll stay here but if anything happens I'm coming for you, even if I have to kill her myself and suffer the consequence of death feedback I won't let you die here."

"Thank you, Satoru."

Saki began to walk toward Maria, once she came into view Maria let out a scream that stopped her in her tracks. This wasn't a scream of anger, nor of hate, this was a cry, a warning, for Saki to run, to not come closer. Composing herself, Saki continued forward and Maria's scream grew in intensity, vicious winds whipped up sending Queerats flying, dashing them against the rocks, walls, and ground. Yakomaru was slammed against a wall and fell unconscious.

As Saki mounted the steps up to Maria, Maria fell to her knees. Saki stopped in front of her, and, tears in her eyes, knelt down and embraced Maria. With this the winds fell and everything went silent. Maria's eyes filled and both her and Saki began to leak waterfalls of tears as her cry filled the room again. Though this cry was not of anger, hate, nor warning, this was a cry of grief, of sorrow, as she came back to herself and all the evil deeds she had done hit her at once. They remained this way for over an hour before Maria fell into a deep sleep. Taking her and binding Yakomaru, Saki and Satoru headed back home.

"Your trial is in three days." Said Saki. She and Satoru stood in front of Yakomaru's cell. "You will be killed or worse, and it will still not be enough. That being said, what have you to say for yourself. I just want to know why, why would you do this?"

"We are not your slaves, we are as intelligent as you, and being treated as beasts is unacceptable just because you have access to Cantus and we don't. You want to know why? Because we are humans too! We deserve equality! We are the product of your pride and fear."

"What are you saying? Just saying that alone is more than enough for eternal damnation!" Satoru shouted.

Yakomaru looked up at him. "The False Minoshiro told us a great many things, I may die here but my kind will live on, and it's only a matter of time before another will rise to bring you all down."

Disgusted, Satoru turned and left, followed by Saki. Disturbed by his words Saki was able to calm Satoru down and enlisted his help in a study.

The day of the trial. The three judges seat stood tall, though only two were filled. The center by the head judge, and to her right the head of the Department of Ethics, Saki. The third member had not come, deeming it below him to pass judgement on a Queerat. Laughter echoed across the hall as Yakomaru, no, Squealer as he wished to be called, vouched for his humanity. But it died out as Saki rose suddenly.

"Silence! He speaks truthfully!" She cried.

The head judge turned to her, "You would defend this beast? Perhaps you should be put on trial with him!"

"Defend him? No, I, more than anyone else, want to see him suffer for his crimes, but this is a court of law and he is sworn to speak truthfully, more than that, I have concrete proof that he is not lying.

A collective gasp was heard throughout the courtroom. "Using my rights as head of the Department of Ethics I interviewed Squealer some days ago, and from his words conducted private research wherein I discovered that Queerats where not bred from naked mole rats being modified with human genes. It was the other way around, they were human! Humans infused with naked mole rat DNA, just enough to mutate them from humans so that we could kill them without consequence. When we first created the names for these creatures two important names stand out above the rest, the first which stands out due to it being used, is Queerats, the second bears a striking resemblance to the scientific name of humans. It is Homocephalus Glaber. Homo meaning human."

Chaos broke out in the court. In the ensuing anger and chaos of the people Squealer was killed. Two factions formed, those willing to believe in Saki and reform society, and those against it. Years passed until these conflicts were resolved, but they were resolved for the better. The Robber Fly clans had been wiped out to a man, and the False Minoshiro recovered. Maria undertook therapy and finally came back to herself before marrying Saki and living together with her and her child. Through this therapy they discovered a way to heal those her became Fiends, though research was still ongoing as to how to save Karma Demons. Saki sat heavily on the bed with Maria, who was playing with their child, rescued from the Queerats.

"It's finally over, we won." Saki said with a heavy sigh. Maria and Maddie embraced Saki as she stared out the window into the night sky.

The changes would be slow, and there would be many difficulties, but hopefully perhaps a thousand years from now, the world would be a better place.

Author Notes:

I reworked the way the court system works for this a bit in order to make it work sorry. Also I gave Marias child a name. Maddie seemed to fit, it made sense at least. I skipped over the scene where Saki and Satoru found out Queerats were originally human as well as many other scenes but that’s because I didn’t feel a need to change them. I hope you enjoyed this I put some decent effort into it. Though im still kind bad at writing dialogue lolol.

#Shinsekai Yori #spoilers

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meltingalphabet · 7 years

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Artificial Intelligence

“I'm a reporter, I do not care about morality. I just want to know what happened.” Smith nudged the recording device closer to me. The hard red light reminding me that everything I say will someday be read by Meredith. My stomach sank.

“Are you saying reporters are moral less?”

“No. I care about my morality. But for this story, it is your morality I do not care about. I want to write exactly what happened. I will not judge you innocent or guilty. I will write what you tell me.”

“Good enough for me” I paused, and added “I guess.”

I swallowed hard as I began.

“I want to start by telling you that I truly love Meredith. Despite what I did, I love her with all my heart. I may be a flawed individual, but Meredith is not. I had always greatly enjoyed waking up to Meredith beside me. Her straw colored hair tangled around her angelic face. She never drooled or snored. I always awoke with her in the exact same position she had been in when she fell asleep. And yet her hair was always tangled. Thinking back, she must have tossed her head in her sleep a lot. I just never noticed.” A pang of regret. I sighed and continued.

“I woke up on that cold day in February to her face. As always. We had been so happy together but, in recent years our marriage was strained. We had found out that Meredith was pretty much sterile. The damn doctors told Meredith she could conceive, but it would be difficult. If only they had told her it was impossible, I could have convinced her to follow alternative options, but no. She insisted we keep trying.

It had been three years and still we were childless. With every month, Meredith grew more distant from me and I grew more desperate.

I had been working on developing intelligent robotic designs for the Neaman Institute for twenty years and had recently acquired Carol as my lab assistant. I admit, I noticed her beauty instantly, but I swear, I never desired her until that day.

Leaving Meredith to sleep, I went downstairs for breakfast. Meredith always looked so peaceful in her sleep. Waking her into existence was too much for me. I ate the egg and toast Nancy, our live-in housekeeper, had prepared for me and immediately went downstairs into my home lab. Carol was there, waiting. Her short brown hair shining beautifully in the artificial light of the lab. While Meredith's complexion was alive and warm, Carol looked as if she was frozen from the inside out. Her red lips and rich dark hair were highly contrasting to her pale, almost translucent skin. Meredith and I had sex solely for child-making these days, the intimacy completely gone. So when Carol kissed me, I could not resist the soft touch.

I forget what was said or done before that moment. All I remember is that she kissed me, and we were gone. We made love five times that day. I basked in the glow of her naked body as we became unified again and again.

And then the day ended. I dismissed Carol. She kissed me good-bye and the regret started to sink in. So much regret and fear. Fear for the loss of my marriage, my wife. And fear that my life would end because of it.

I took twenty years of research, almost half of my life, and did not leave my lab for days. I ate, slept, and worked for almost two weeks straight, not letting anyone in. Not Carol, nor Meredith. Only Nancy came down with my meals and occasionally I would actually eat some of it.

It was guilt and fear for my life as I knew it. I gagged every time I thought of what I had done and what the consequences would be. Have you ever faced such fear?”

I had been looking absently towards the wall, but now I held Smith in my gaze. Begging him to answer me. I had become emotional with my re-telling.

Smith seemed slightly surprised at a direct question. He waited briefly, probably to make sure I actually wanted an answer before replying, “Once, when living in a small town in Africa, working on an essay about the effects of the endless civil wars on the family structure, I woke up to find a Black Mamba on me. It is one of the most poisonous snakes in Africa.”

“Did it bite you?”

“No, it left without conflict. But I was paralyzed with fear.”

“Well, unless it had bitten you, then no, you have never faced such fear as me.” Smith stared at me coldly, his eyes almost blank. But there was a sliver of disagreement in that stare. “See Smith, I had been bitten. I was dying. And I would die if I did not find the cure immediately. And in my state of panic, I thought I had found it. Thirteen days I had been locked in my lab, but it had been worth it.

I sat on the bed next to Meredith as she slept. Her hair tangled as always. There was a small knock at the door and Meredith's eyes slowly opened. She stared at me unrecognizing. And then smiled. It was a perfect smile. Small but filled with love and unaltered happiness.

'You're back.' She said, her voice heavy with recent sleep. I returned her smile. 'Nancy wouldn't let me see you. What happened? What did the Institute need so desperately that you couldn't see me, even for a minute?”

'It wasn't the Institute that needed something desperately my love. It was us.' Her brow furrowed with confusion as the small knock that woke her sounded again behind us. Meredith sat up and pulled the blanket to her neck. She wore a look of surprise and curiosity upon her sleepy face.

'Come in,' I called. Our bedroom door opened and a small boy with straw-colored hair walked in. He walked slowly, balancing a silver tray neatly laid with eggs, toast and strawberries in his small hands. He beamed at us.

'Morning! I made you breakfast in bed, mommy!' He stopped at the side of the bed and smiled up at her, offering the perfect breakfast.

Meredith was no longer smiling. She looked at me. Her eyes wide with horror. The regret and fear I had almost forgotten grew once again in my stomach.

'He's ours, my love.' Meredith looked to the boy, and then back to me. 'I made him,' I explained. 'Since I've been working at the Institute, they have had me design countless robots for use in space, as well as for remedial positions here on earth. While the Institute's main focus is and always will be astronomical research, they quickly discovered that they could easily make the money to fund their intergalactic explorations by selling robots to the private sector. My research for the past six years has been to make these robots more human-like.' I pointed to the perfect boy, who stood patiently at the side of our bed holding the tray of food. 'Meet one of my first human-like prototypes, our son.'

Meredith looked from me to the boy, and back again. She shook her head and walked to the bathroom. I could hear her retch into the toilet. The boy beamed at me and presented me the perfectly messy breakfast, made to look exactly like a small child had made it. I smiled hesitantly and took it. He left the room as I ate the food our son prepared for us.

A few days passed and Meredith moved out. She never knew about Carol and me, but I guess her disgust over my creation of a son for us removed any remnants of love. She told me that she did not approve of Nick, the name I gave him, because he was not a child nor a son.

With Meredith gone, my world dissolved. It did not take long for me to completely break down and give in to Carol's requests to return. She eventually moved in permanently. While Carol's companionship was pleasant, I missed Meredith constantly. Sometimes when making love to Carol, I would remember Meredith and stop, my guilt making me unable to finish.

Six months had passed and I grew used to my new little family. I never told Carol Nick was a robot, but after working with me for so long, I think it was obvious. I was grateful to her for never discussing it with me and she seemed to enjoy having him around.

Then Meredith came back. Just for a visit. I was eating at the kitchen table when the side door opened. I turned, expecting to see Carol or Nick and my heart almost leapt out of my chest as I saw her. Her stomach was swollen with child. We stared at each other for what seemed like hours before I spoke, 'Is it ours?'

Meredith nodded and she smiled. I laughed and jumped from my seat. I grabbed her and pulled her towards me. I should have been surprised she allowed me to hug her, but I guess I had known she'd come back. Her stomach was firm and unyielding as I hugged her to me tight. I remember she smelled of lilacs that day.

Carol and Nick entered the room and saw us hugging. Their idiot faces dead to the sight of real emotion. I could make them smile, I could make them frown, I could even make them laugh, but their eyes always revealed their lack of humanity. Meredith eyed Carol. I had forgotten I had dressed her in Meredith's clothing.

Meredith recognized that dead-look right away and turned to me. I could tell instantly that Meredith knew what I had done to my creation. She threw me against the wall. She yelled at me about how vile it was that I would sleep with a robot. I tried to explain that I did not make Carol for sex, I made her to help me with my research.

'Then why make her anatomically correct? Do you have sex with a dead thing? Or does she act like she enjoys it? Someone had to program her for that.'

I had not thought of it that way before. I guess she was right, I had made Carol for my own perverted reasons.

The regret drilled further into my core. I watched as Meredith grabbed a kitchen knife and started hacking at Carol. I know Meredith was just attacking what she thought was a sophisticated sex toy, but Carol was more than that. I had created her. She was mine and as much a part of me as the child inside Meredith. I grabbed Meredith and threw her on the ground. I watched surprise overtake the anger that had been ruining her pretty face. I still don't know why I did it, but I grabbed the knife Meredith dropped and stabbed her. I sunk the knife deep into her stomach.

Meredith's screams of pain brought me out of my anger-induced trance and I immediately called 9-1-1, but it was too late. I had murdered our child.

I was arrested and tried. They found me guilty of murder, but thanks to my own personal wealth combined with financial assistance from the Institute, I sit locked in my bedroom instead of a jail cell, counting the days till I'm free. Then you showed up and asked to interview me for your paper. I asked how you could want to write a story about someone who killed one child to avenge another child they had created just to rape. And you told me you did not care about morality.”

Smith reached over and nudge the recording device. “Yes, I have that part on tape. Thank you for your time Dr. Jackson.”

Smith stood up stiffly, nodded to me and went to the barred door. I wanted to ask him to stay, not knowing when someone other than Nancy, who brought me my food every day, would come to visit. Maybe I just wanted to not be judged for a moment longer. But I didn't. Smith wouldn't. And it was better this way.

Nancy opened the door for him. She then came in carrying a tray of food to the little table by the window. I nodded to my original prototype, the stupidest of the robots I had made, but ultimately the least bugged and problematic.

Nancy left and I stared out the small barred window in what was once Meredith's and my bedroom, what is now my cell. It had started to rain since Smith and I began only an hour ago. I felt comfortable with Smith and now that he was gone, I felt a sense of loss. He had reminded me of one of my robots.

#nosleep #shortstory

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gregwhite · 7 years

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SOLD A SHOW

So a writing career is kind of made up of two jobs: getting staffed on other people’s shows, and selling your own shows in the hopes that one day you will be the one doing the staffing. I’ve been lucky since getting my first writing job in 2009 to basically be employed on other people’s shows on a fairly consistent basis, with only a few notable gaps*, but I hadn’t had much experience selling shows.

I had pitched a bunch over the years, and I’m still very fond of a lot of them. One of them was called Lesser Gods (pitched with character designs by my very talented board artist pal Will Patrick)--it was set in the realm of the gods, and followed the Zeus character’s degenerate son as he is exiled into a life ruling the lesser gods, aka the gods nobody cares about (there was the god of smooth jazz, and so on). Very fun show, but I don’t think I pitched it very well. Then there was a show called Slice, pitched with Six Point Harness, which was more of a King of the Hill sort of tone set on a crappy public golf course. The show began when this slummy golf pro’s somewhat estranged daughter, a local government employee, is hired to make the golf course profitable, which basically makes her her dad’s boss. Another show I really loved, but I don’t think it really connected with the folks we took it to.

And on and on and on.

Then in 2015, I had partnered with Alex Bulkley at Shadow Machine (a great man, and a great studio) on another animated show of mine called Robot Daughter (my agents made sure my DreamWorks deal allowed me to pitch and develop to outside buyers). The premise of RD was basically Terminator meets Girls. A small-time inventor is kidnapped by the Russians (it’s always the Russians) and forced at gunpoint to create a killing machine for them, which he does, but he ends up developing paternal feelings for his creation, so he takes it on the run, slaps skin on it, and tries to hide it in plain sight by enrolling it in high school, passing it off as his teenage daughter. The joke of the show was that for this death machine, capable of anything, high school is a lot more complicated and confusing than actual war. It was funny and vulgar and we sold it to MTV. That was the first time I really felt truly confident in a pitch, where I could just talk about the show without little note cards or anything. It was just “here’s the hook, here’s what the show’s about, thanks for listening.” It was a good lesson in not only how to pitch, but also what to pitch. There are some things that you take out that you feel sort of like, “Yeah, this is a show more or less” and then there are things you take out that feel like, “Oh, this is definitely a show.” That isn’t to say they follow a template, quite the opposite, but that there’s something that just feels right about it.

I wrote a pilot I’m still really fond of (it’s become a sample my agents and managers use quite often) but ultimately MTV decided, after buying our show, that they didn’t want to do animation anymore. Fair enough. It was a throwback to sort of that Liquid Television era of MTV, and in the end it wasn’t enough to convince them that animation was where it’s at.

A note on animation for a sec. While I love it, I never intentionally decided that I was going to do primarily animation, it just sort of happened this way. And when it comes time for me to pitch something, the ideas I get most excited about take place in alternate universes and other realities with gods or animals or robots as protagonists. At this point, I just go with it. But on the selling side of things, a lot of studios and networks don’t really know how to approach animation. Is it its own thing? Can it exist alongside live-action shows? It’s a weirder, more niche thing to pitch it seems. I don’t let that really influence what I pitch or write, but it’s worth noting.

Anyway, moving on. At the end of 2015, I was rewatching The Sopranos, and one episode ended with this beautiful Nick Lowe song called The Beast in Me and I became a little obsessed with it. Just the notion of this roiling monster living inside someone (basically all of us to some degree) and the person not knowing exactly how to deal with it struck me as particularly profound. It also made me think of my dog, Louie, a little wonderhound schnauzer, and how he seems to contain all these amusing contradictory traits. One minute he’s trotting along next to me, docile and obedient, and the next minute he’s vomiting blood and shrieking at the sight of a squirrel or one of his SACRED ENEMIES (pugs and other flat faced dogs).

So with this in mind, I wrote a script for a show called The Beast in Me. It was basically, what if Bambi decided to get revenge on his mother’s killer, but in doing so, gets sidetracked and wanders off into a nearby city and gets a job at a data entry office. The show was very dry and odd and absurd, and was sort of just about this fox character learning what it means to become human (he gets a job, makes friends, experiences love, etc). I sent it to my managers at Principato-Young, as I often do, with a very self-satisfied note: “Hey! Here’s another script! I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done!” When we connected, they were less enthused than I (I get VERY enthused about things), but they said that there was something about the revenge aspect of this show that struck them as interesting. I recall one of my managers saying, “It feels more like a Western.” It was the end of the year, and I was leaving for the holidays, but they told me to fiddle around with it to see if maybe there was something there.

So I went home to Jersey for a few weeks, and thought about it, and when I came back in January of 2016, we started talking about this idea weekly. First it was a change in the setting, from present day Hudson Valley to the 1800s Dakota Territories. And it needed a tone shift. So I made it about The Fox, now this sort of bizarre combination of a sweet, sentient animal who is at the same time violently hungry for revenge and yet weirdly naive about the world in his absolute dedication to his personal code. And he’s out there traveling with a Chinese immigrant who is searching for his own family, and this murderous crack shot Molly, who dreams of becoming the first female US Marshal. And then it needed a villain, so we rewrote history and made it Chester A Arthur, who we portray as a lunatic American Hitler with no moorings in reality. He murders James Garfield to snatch the presidency, and by the time The Fox discovers who killed his mom, the task is clear: kill the dictatorial president of the United States. (Who knew this would be so satisfying to write post November 8...)

So it took us quite a while to really land on the tone and the serialized nature of the story and to make sure it functioned as a bizarro drama and not just as a disposable joke machine comedy. And so by September of 2016 the adults started setting up pitches for us, and we basically spent 2 weeks or so in the early fall pitching once or twice a day. The pitch felt very good from the start. I knew the show very well, and was very passionate about making this show (basically, it was me doing Tarantino/Miyazaki fan fiction). Plus, the pitch was fun to do. I liked talking about it. I liked telling people about our alt Chester A Arthur. I liked walking them through five seasons of serialized storytelling. And this was a big difference. In the past, I worried so much about hitting certain talking points in the pitch, that I never really considered whether or not I even liked the words I was saying. This time around, the metric was: what is the detail in each section that I can’t wait to get to? No notes, no pages, just go in there and tell these people about our strange story.

And it worked! This combination of a weird but familiar thing, and a straight forward telling of something very strange ended up resulting in two offers. One from a streaming channel, and one from FX. FX was always the target in our heads in terms of the tone they aim for, and the kinds of stuff they put on the air, and so we were pleased to be able to go with them. Then the adults started doing the deal stuff, and I went home for Christmas again.

Now here we are, and I’m about to start writing. So far the conversations we’ve had with their execs have been very creatively satisfying. They want us to make something unique and they have been pushing me to do better work, and to consider the characters’ inner lives and all the things that are very easy to ignore. I pitched them a few pilot premises, and they were off the mark, and we’re** about to go back to them with what I think is a strong but simple premise that allows us to introduce the world and the show to an audience while still leaving plenty of room for the quiet stillness associated with the Western genre. We always said that the show was more anime than Archer. I love Archer more than anything else some days, but it’s a very quick, dialog rich show. This thing will work best in a slower execution.

So that’s the shape of it. I wrap my very happy time at DreamWorks in a few short weeks, and then I’ll switch over to writing The Beast in Me pilot full time for a few months before seeing what comes my way next. Hopefully I can write a script on this thing that convinces FX to let us make a pilot, and then eventually get to series because I really want to spend a few years making this incredibly strange show.

I hope to convey a few things here. One is: it’s ok if things take a while. I used to think if something wasn’t ready in five minutes or less, it wasn’t worth pursuing. But having had this experience, one that I enjoyed at every step, I’m okay with something taking longer than expected (in this case it was well over a year between conception and pitching and eventually selling). The other thing to point out is that it’s really not worth pitching things unless you’re very excited about them. This sounds obvious, and maybe it is, but I feel as though there’s enough stuff out there that nobody seems to care about. At the very least, you owe it to yourself and anybody who might watch or read your stuff to care more than anyone else does. There are easier ways to make money than selling cartoons.

A few other takeaways from this experience: the outcome doesn’t matter. In other words, is this show more valid because we sold it? Would it have been less valid had we failed to sell it? Of course not. And yet a certain extrinsically motivated mindset would say that the opposite is true. Ignore extrinsic motivators. Be intrinsically motivated. Now obviously, you need to eat food and live in the world, so making a living is a valid reason for doing anything, but from a strictly creative point of view, this experience has bolstered my beliefs in doing good work for its own sake. Lewis Hyde would likely agree if I understand his dense writing correctly.

Finally, this show I think taught me to be fully confident in my ideas, but also that confidence doesn’t come from blind faith, it comes from a true belief and connection to your work. I would take long walks while working on this idea with Lou, and I would play Morricone on my headphones and walk and walk for hours and let the show reveal itself to me in waves. I would then go back home and write down my impressions of what the music made me feel. It gave me a sense in the feeling I wanted to write towards. And in this process, I came to really love what I was thinking about it in terms of the eventuality of this show being made. And that made me very excited and knowledgable by the time we walked into rooms*** for our pitch meetings.

I don’t know if The Beast in Me will ever become something anyone sees, but I do know that I’m enjoying the process, and I promise you, if you can hold tight to that enjoyment, you will never fail.

*Such as the gap between April 2013 and October 2013 where I wasn’t on a staff at all...this was right before I started writing on Puss in Boots at DreamWorks and now here we are over 3 years later, still at it. Such is a freelance style career. The trick is to not let the external stuff influence your internal life.

**I keep saying we or us because my managers are serving as producers on this, so often it’s a “we” more than “me.”

***A note on rooms and circular life paths. In 2010 or so, I was a very new-at-this writer, having just done a very short 7 episode season of a then-unaired show on Comedy Central called Ugly Americans. FX had a pilot called Duchess, later called Archer, and they were thinking that maybe the show would have a writing staff or maybe some freelance writers at some point. So I remember sitting in this room watching this pilot of theirs, just being so amazed to even be on the dance floor, and thinking how fortunate I was that things worked out as I had hoped they would. And then 6 years later, we sold The Beast in Me to FX in the same room. It doesn’t mean anything, but it does. It’s easy to let things slip by in an attempt to channel the Stoics, but once in a while it’s important to allow yourself a brief moment of satisfaction that your process is leading you down a rich and fulfilling path.

#television writing #writing for tv #creative process #animation #dreamworks animation #fx #career advice

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muggycuphead · 3 years

Text

TH!FPA_VB – Lord of Lies and Deceiving

Yo, been a while since I posted something on this account, but here we are, back at it again with a casual VB drawing like in good ol’ 2020

…Though, this time things got built on a different road of events as you can see, not to mention this is a spoiler to what’s to come for VB (but tbh I stopped caring at this point so yea)

First and for most however, there are quite a few questions surrounding this fic’s development I have to answer for our sake (mostly mine since I feel like mold spaghetti for not keeping up on things oml-)

Yes, I once said VB was on the way of getting completed and all that, I know

Problem is, the changes I want to do to the ‘lore’ (if you want to call it that way idk) are also retroactive to the events in the present timeline (aka past events that are mentioned but not entirely shown because ugh-), some characters that have some relevancy on the story but only come up at the very end chapters on VB itself, etc. etc. which are things that I personally find bothersome as its writer and the reason why I’d rather not make the ‘sequel-prequel’ of it where things get explained and all that

Instead, I’ll fuse both VB and TAF (the sequel-prequel’s name acronym standing for ‘The ‘ANOMALY’ files’ fyi) so it can focus on one party alone and I don’t waste any more time than what I already have done so (haha funny cuz me late to party amiriteeeimsorry-)

…And about the format for it, I’ve decided I’ll ‘upgrade’ it to a comic instead since y’know, I do art and it’ll also make my writing simpler so yea

Still tho, I’m kinda paranoic on if I should get going with the prologue by the time I finish its script or not since I don’t wanna make the plot a mess or leave things (important* things) unfolded by accident, but we’ll see how it goes (and hopefully I’ll make it out alive-)

Also, keep in mind that by the moment I’m writing this, I’m stuck in the Friday Night Fuc- I mean Funkin’ fandom, and y’all know what happens when the fandom switching happens…

My concept-creation-obssessive-self starts grinding gears like cuckoo -doesn’t mean I’ll abandon everyone else tho, it’s just that my focus splits on multiple parts and all that balloney

So, now that I did my little defense statement up there, let’s get rolling to the mainpoint down here

First, who’s this spider guy?

Well, he’s a ‘side’ antagonist, more specifically the person DPM is after (but doesn’t realize he is until very later)

His name is Q-Ross Sid, a ‘camel spider’ that lives in the Spider Kingdom as the royal executioner and prison head-guard/-caretaker

He’s what I’d consider to be an ‘anomaly’, since he’s a genetic fusion of graphite (20%), chalk (10%) and correcting fluid (70%), with the graphite being his ‘stabilizer’ component (osseous structure and skin/muscular tissue mostly) and the chalk his ‘cooler’ component (mostly on his defense and assimilation mechanism), not to mention he can only consume either correcting fluid matter derivatives…and/or ink matter derivatives, including living beings (mostly as an energy source and which his body somehow can partially convert into graphite)

…And by that fact alone you can tell that yes, he killed Isea -also known as Dizzy/Izzy Pants Girl (YESss I fINALLY GAVE HER A NICK ASDFGH-) in VB mostly due to her ‘special ability’ and stuff- by Queen Aris’ command. And yes, he can shapeshift, which explains why he got DPM to blame FPM for what happened, this that (but I think you might have figure it out already by the drawing alone so yea-)

However, although at first I thought his ability would be limited to mimick FPM’s appearance only, I now decided to amplify it a little, and instead he can shapeshift into any sketch/graphite-alike/related being, with FPM being his ‘link’ to them most of the time (stalkey tatics are not okey dokey my man but you do you I guess)

Though he can only shapeshift into stickfigs since he doesn’t have that much of ‘color filling’ for a human drawing itself (yeah ik they’re humanized in the story but things will make sense sooner or later I promise, for now just bear with me as we go on on this plz), and he cannot shapeshift into ink/liquid-alike/related beings because they’re not compatible and it’ll only lead him to corrupt his physical form –not meaning he can’t recover from it tho

But he can’t replicate them entirely, as his eyes and the ring are the two main red flags to spot him (but with some contact lenses and a little pocket, it can be fixed y’know-)

As for his robotic arm, it was after a fight that I’ll rather not explain due to not being that relevant; and even thought doctors refused to give him a prosthesis at first since he could simply let it rebuild naturally (yes he can regen too, but in a slower phase bc reasons), he got it anyways due to the fact limbs regen take way longer than physic injuries and/or internal damage (some even assumed that they probably wouldn’t actually regen anyway), which can be a bother on his job most of the time…and maybe out of spite too –he wanna look tough, yo-

Fun fact, during the hype I got from making this bad boi, I ended up attaching him to grandson’s song called ‘Blood/Water’ due to the lyrics kinda resembling his defamatory actions towards FPM (and also his wild and sometimes desperate hunger towards ink beings, yikes)

Second, what’s VB’s main plotline now and why did I expand it?

To resume it in the ‘signature phrase’ I made for the new version (which was also inspired on MARETU’s ‘Magical Doctor’ song –mandoilovethisvocaloidsongcomposerasdfgh)

**THIS WASN’T MEANT TO HAPPEN**

Venomous Bittersweet (which I’ll rename in the future due to the fusion with TAF) started off with a simple plot -FPM going on a mission for himself to get cured from a spider bite he got all of a sudden, but failing in the process (bc plot convenience idk) and CPG is the one who goes to his rescue instead while showing off the things she learned from him, this that, wholesome ending blah blah blah- you know the drill if you read it to end.

But by the moment I began making those little ‘inside stories’ –specially DPM’s backstory explaining why he became so reckless and outgoing- I started to extent myself on how things worked on this AU, even how drawings come to life (ik it’s weird but that’s how I though it to be so ff-), and by such I felt the urge to give almost everything a background story, such as Aris’ reason to kidnap and take control over FPM’s body and mind (and maybe his soul too oops-), the Spider Kingdom’s origin and even the portals and ‘reality deterioration’ in SFPA, passing by DPM’s origins and stuff.

And even if I felt like hitting walls and taking things a little too in-depth most times, I think it did bring some good things for the new plotline I’m going for now

So, in the new story, all the weird, whacky (and disturbing) things that happen after SFPA and during OG VB plotline came by what I’d express as some sort of ‘time-space anomaly’ that made everything slightly unstable on the ‘other side’ of the studio (I won’t explain too much my brain is about to boil rn so take that as you will for now tysm), having a passive (but not unnoticeable) effect on the sketchbooks.

I can’t give much context why, how or where did the anomaly came to be exactly (you can make theories if you like, I’d love to read them 4real <3), but it’s main purpose is to take control over all existing worlds just to corrupt them to its will, to the point there is basically nothing left but despair and desolation to which all entities will be forced to endure and all that edgy jazz.

…And by that, the ‘anomaly’ will create incompatible matter amalgams –ink and graphite being the most coming-to-mind example in the story so far- in order to conquer all the sketchbooks, but as a consequence of this ‘anomaly’s’ arise, new worlds came to be fully developed (in other words, they finally exist as a whole), and with that, new ‘heroes’ are brought into the situation, each representing a type of artistic material alone –watercolor, oil paint, etc-, heroes with which FPM will encounter and interact with, as he’ll also help them in how to use their abilities to fight the baddies and stuff.

And because we need conflict to make things interesting, Q-Ross and DPM indirectly (but kinda) ‘team up’ to fabricate fake evidence and such in order to mess with FPM’s reputation towards the heroes by incriminating him and/or even mislead his actions (confusing wrong by right and vice versa, etc.) (because ink man is salty and corrector ass is a dick by nature –ofc), and even ocassionally with Q-Ross starting the job, just to get DPM to finish it; and sometimes they get the aforesaid characters to hold grudges –if it comes to succeed, or instead making them get more on his side by the same feeling of doubt –if they mess up on something, no matter the size.

As about his sickness, well, it also got a little twist.

We know that new worlds and material compositions come with new squiggle types, and even if ‘dust-related’ types don’t affect him for too long –chalk being the closest example I can bring up-, liquid or clayish matters, such as oil and crayon squiggles respectively, are toxic towards him, so in the way the more he interacts with incompatible squiggles, the more harmed his health condition gets, to the point it grips into the weakest part of his body –his core (I’ll later explain this just…let me get this out first plz), which limits him on doing most things he’s used to do normally.

…And well, the spider bite (which is also an abnormal matter amalgam times two, though I’ll keep it secret for now) was the last nail in the coffin on fucking him up entirely to a new level of corruption (damn is that a stretch I’m seeing-)

Long story short, this was also because I wanted ArPM to have a backstory that’s more than just ‘I’m evil nao bc me get poisond and mindcontrold by spoders out of spite hahahaha-’

Third (and lastly), who’s Ahetzo exactly and what’s his main purpose on the story?

This is a short one

In case you didn’t see my tweet on my Twitter account (here a linkie), this is a side character I made that’s supposed to be some kind of ‘spirit’ or something alike who’s the one in charge of the studio while ya dev boi is gone

In other words, he’s basically like Brad’s subconscious self (IK YIKES- YOU CAN HIT ME WITH THE CHAIR NOW I WON’T MIND-)

…and even though he tried to keep the anomaly thing contained as long as he could while figuring out how to disarm it or at least neutralize it (yes it was there way before, like during fpaw3 events or before so because AU logic lol), the more he tried to condense it, the more it multiplied itself until, well, y’know, shit blew up and everything just sdfghjk’d

And yes, he was the one who released the new worlds to keep the crazy stuff at range, this that

Oml my brain-

And before I finish here, I’d like to make a little ‘self-critic’ regarding my artwork here…and I gotta say, I’m really proud of it on most parts

As I began to retake on digital art lately –mostly due to my slight entering onto the FNF/partially NG communities and other things, I’ve been testing out new techniques and stuffs on GIMP 2 with the ‘routes’ tool and all that (that’s also why it looks almost symmetrical, but don’t fool urself it did took its time-), I even corrected some of the lines to make them sharp and fancy (haha funi joek im so quirkee-)

In here, I wanted to try mixing both solid and blurry shadows as well as replicating a ‘crystalish’ effect –as seen on Q-Ross’ eyes- and some line effects with the ink tool such as the liquid dripping out of Q’s mouth (yes that correcting fluid saliva now stfu-) and the graphite/correctfluid webs coming out of his clawtips/fingertips

And though I haven’t made an official palette for him, I think the colors I picked here suit him well enough in my own idea of such

Overall, I had fun making this, and I love how it came out

Still though, any criticism, opinion and commentary is welcome, both about my art piece and my little showcase over here

That’s all I got for now, see you all later on

K bai-

#The Fancy Pants Adventures franchise (C) belongs to Brad Borne (DrNeroCF) on NewGrounds #FPAVB + Q-Ross Sid| Artwork (C) belong to me

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on-the-wings-of-hope-prose-en · 4 years

Text

License

Lightning cut through the night sky of the Metropolis, for a split second illuminating jumped out of the alley and rushed in the direction of “Zone S” man. Such a rare natural phenomenon at this time of year, still so unrestrained by the scientists of corporations, it was one of the few things that could still occasionally please this fugitive, despite all of its energy static side effects.

As he ran, the man muttered something under his nose, touched the wrist with his free hand – and his shapes suddenly became less and less clear, as if merging with the surrounding reality, and after fifteen or twenty seconds he completely disappeared from the habitual to the inhabitants of the Metropolis photonic field of vision. As if in response to this astounding disappearance, another bolt of lightning lit up a fragment of “Zone D”, better known among Metropolis residents as the “derelict territory”, before finally dissolving into the endless blackness of the night.

Seekers of the Security Department had been searching for Thomas’s IDs and current location for several days after the highly publicized assassination of the head of “Symbionics” – the largest corporation in the Metropolis dedicated to the research and “improvement” of its gene pool, or to be more accurate – many forcefully imposed by the “League of Seven” genetical modifications designed to make their subdued inhabitants even more manageable and obedient, as well as to finally implement so cherished by the rulers of the past centuries dreams of super-soldiers creation.

Antonius Risario – almost immortal and permanent leader of the “Symbionics” for more than two centuries already, a member of the fearsome “League of Seven” – the unofficial government of the Metropolis, entirely consisting of the heads of the largest megacorporations – died as one of the brave while indulging in virtual carnal pleasures for his consciousness in a sealed segment of the neural network, while his body was safely guarded as he sat on a pedestal in his private quarters of own skyscraper with many neuro implants attached to his body. Antonius was a well-known lover of such evening “enlightenments of consciousness”, and as for Thomas… and for Thomas, the neural network has been his second home for a long time.

“Virtulex Enterprise” – the developer of neuro implants as well as the father, creator and perpetual curator of the entire neural network – would gladly issue a license worth millions of “credo” for the network profile of the still-undiscovered hacker – and this would be a fabulous sum for the mind and consciousness of the outcast, a song of praise to all the outcasts, still considered by “Symbionics” only as the by-product of badly gone initial super-soldiers experiments. One head of the hydra died. Will new ones ever grow?

On the run, still shielded from the city’s security cameras and occasional drones cruising over the houses by the field of space transformer – “stealthsar”, embedded in the torso of his stellar-suite, Thomas couldn’t help but smile.

“Your own weapons are destroying you, are they not, oh great and mighty of this world, who think of themselves as demigods?”

Each of these seven demigods, who thought of themselves as children of eternity and rulers of human destinies, could not escape their own fears, passions, and weaknesses.

"Do you believe that it’s you who hunt us down and sacrifice us like cattle? It’s we who are coming for you. And with each passing day, there are more and more of us.”

The space transformer, better known as the “stealthsar” – a marvel of engineering, a small device capable of shaping surrounding fragments of space, was his, Thomas’s, true salvation against the seekers.

Acting under the direct control of the “League of Seven”, the internal security service of the Metropolis greatly disliked such high-profile murders of the victim’s consciousness inside the net, followed by the inevitable death of its physical brain. And it was physically impossible for even the best of hackers to completely erase the traces of neuro-penetration from existence. Based on the smallest quantum fluctuations, through complex calculations, the seekers will eventually calculate the network coordinates of his initial entry into the neural network as well as the point of disconnection, and establish a projection of correspondence between the virtual and physical worlds.

That way they’ll learn the coordinates of Thomas’s last hideout. But by that time he would be in his new home. And then the call will sound.

* * *

Step. Step. Jump. Another jump. Thrust. Landing and somersault.

Miniature jet engines, embedded in the legs of the stellar-suit, successfully overcome the five-meter-tall wall that is separating the tiny by Metropolis’s scale “Zone S” from the unofficial territory of the outcasts, the government territories in “Zone W” as well as “Zone A” – the domain of megacorporations. Here it is – the great battlefield of the past and only a technological cemetery at present.

This area has not been seriously guarded for many years. The winners had built multimeter walls around its perimeter with a minimum set of sensors to ward off mutated stray animals – byproducts of yet another series of “Symbionics’s” experiments – as well as all the homeless. Apparently, corporations didn’t regard this territory as being capable to inflict damage to their plans. Well, it’s their loss.

Fifty earth years ago, it was a field of fierce battles between the Resistance and corporations. In these times, half of a century ago, the spirit of people was different. Unbroken. Unsubdued. Living. But now this was only a graveyard of both technology and memory.

Thomas badly remembered the details of those years – back in these ancient and half-forgotten under corporate propaganda times he was still a teenager. He vaguely remembered once hearing a call that came through all visor channels. The call to remember who we really were – not enslaved by sweet lies of corporations, capable of thinking clearly and remembering the purpose of our coming into this world. The call to fight against universal and omnipresent control, mass surveillance and lies, against moral degeneracy which has become the new norm, imposed on people around the world.

The call to search for their children and loved ones who have been taken away “for the common good” by corporations. The call to get rid of gene-chips and licenses. The call to fight by force of arms, should the time demand so.

Back then, fifty earth years ago, like an eternity in miniature – it was primarily a peaceful call. But already formed by this time from the heads of the largest corporations that entangled the Earth like a web, the “League of Seven” instantly realized the potential scale of the threat of this call to maintain its status quo.

“Ada” – the heart of the neural network, an artificial intelligence named after the first programming language and designed for its self-maintaining and self-control, in a matter of mere minutes located and analyzed network profiles and coordinates of almost all leaders of the Resistance and released combat drones and seeker robots on their trail.

Missile drones and first prototypes of “battle mechs“ – gigantic robots that towered high as buildings – in a matter of days had vanquished all the most desperate areas of resistance on the surface, driving the survived leaders of the Resistance into the catacombs beneath this zone. Then all located exits to the surface were blocked, and robots that were put on combat duty had been patrolling this territory for about a month. For several months after this massacre, people from the security department in black-as-night tessa-suits had been coming to arrest the identified “sympathizers” in order to transform them into material for new monstrous corporate experiments. In those days they came after Thomas’s parents as well.

This was what Thomas still remembered, still kept his very vague memories in own primordial, natural, unchipped memory, unlike so many of the newly grown humans. He learned the rest by scouring the neural network’s backup segments, abandoned and forgotten by all but the neuro-hackers and the earliest of the net-runners.

“Do you believe that you have won once and for all? Then let your pride and arrogance continue to blur your vision. We were born to change your new world order.”

* * *

Moving carefully between the ruined remnants of past technologies, continually scanning the road with his info-visor, Thomas traveled deeper into “Zone S” in search of the previously discovered treasure. But his thoughts wandered far from these tragic places.

…Once upon a time, uncountable ages ago, we could be called as humans by right. We were capable of thinking. We were still intelligent. Who are we now – bereft of families and grown in test tubes in the bowels of biofactories new servants for the “great ones” of this world?

…We have forgotten ourselves. We have forgotten the past and therefore can no longer foresee and make our own future. In the half-erased archives of the neural network, there was almost no data left about these times when people were truly free. When they had their own thoughts and feelings. When their body and spirit belonged to them. When they had their countries and families. When there was no such thing as planet-wide Metropolis. When they weren’t food for corporations. When they were alive.

…We gave them ourselves willingly. All in all, all of this started so usually, casually. Just some smartphones, watches, and homes that were transferring bits and pieces of information about ourselves into completely unknown hands with each passing day. Just some global network profiles, recreated from these informational fragments. Just almost deadly accuracy in predicting the behavior of individual citizens and entire states afterward. Just the owners of megabanks and founded by them corporations, generously paying with virtual digital “credo” for these databanks of knowledge about ourselves. By giving them our true selves, we became false afterward.

…In the course of evolution and improvement of “Ada” “smart cities” became too smart and too sharp-sighted, and “smart houses” became too talkative. Routes, habits, addictions, fears and phobias, diseases, diets, graphs of social relationships and everything else that had anything to do with the notorious “personal data” were compiled and analyzed. When the very concept of “personal data” disappears – the personality vanishes as well… or vice versa. Having gained all this knowledge about ourselves, corporations have moved on to the stage of creating their new digital slaves.

…Were finally absorbed and merged into a single entity all planet’s states, and this day was recorded in history under the name of “Unification”. Bringing to a single lowest common denominator all of mankind’s accumulated knowledge and experience for the sake of their preservation exclusively among the new planetary rulers. Corporations created new laws, and their constituent megabanks enslaved most people through the interest rate system. “Credo” – the new financial unit – became the most coveted food for many. A new Earth God, if you will. That’s the way a man is made: there must always be someone above him whom he can rely on in times of need, or shift his own responsibility in times of greed.

…New laws heeded the spirit of the new age. Corporations appropriated the right to take away necessary or undesired people from almost any family. Thus a material for numerous experiments was born. When there are neither states nor families – everyone starts caring for himself, and the security department that was subordinated to the “League of Seven” was as skilled in dealing with outcasts as no one else.

…Control over the mind of another for the greater good of everyone – what can be more humane? But the new lords of thoughts understood only their own good instead of public. The neural network – a virtual “I” for everyone – replaced the internet and network profiles. A brave new world in a world much more terrible, the horrors of which manifested themselves even when one was wearing “new reality glasses” and similar gadgets that were capable of altering the perceived picture of reality in accordance with the owner’s desires. And the more dreadful the physical world became, the more attractive the neural network seemed to many.

…Neural network travelers – net-runners – became popular and ubiquitous. Some were on corporate intelligence-gathering missions, some were simply exploring newly opened opportunities, some were searching for spies and hackers. And someone – people like Thomas – became these hackers. But “Virtulex Enterprise” was the father and the maker of the neural network and the only manufacturer of bodily neurochips required in order to enter the network. At least until recently.

…After the suppression of the Resistance’s rebellion the licensing mechanism was forcefully imposed. According to the plans of corporations, it had to prevent the very possibility of an incident’s repetition and to finally solve the question of the cost of human life. Licenses were diverse: some represented the officially given permission, issued by corporate managers or closely integrated with them criminals, to eliminate people that were undesired by them; others – a “granted from the above” forgiveness for a number of past crimes; finally, the third type, most valuable for the majority – licenses for a life or, in other words, for the right not to be turned into a battle thrall for “Military International”, or not to be transformed into a gene-mutant in the hands of scientists from “Symbionics”, or even “to serve as fertilizers” for “Sunny Soils Agriculture”. From the moment the databases on each personality of the Metropolis ended in the hands of corporations and were adapted for their needs by “Ada”, the fate of these big game’s pawns was in the hands of new players. And in order to make a man either a saint or a criminal, to elevate him to the top of the corporate ladder or to plunge him into the depths of poverty and helplessness, it was enough to change just one record in the neuro-base.

…Interestingly, how much in the eyes of corporate elites would a license for Thomas’s liquidation cost?

* * *

All these thoughts slowly floated inside Thomas’s mind while he, guided by signals of his info-scanner, used the built-in capabilities of the stellar-suit – now gracefully levitating, now easily leaping from one spot to another, moving to the location of his awaiting treasure.

Powered by the Earth’s gravitational field, “stealthsar” reliably shielded him from the occasional flying drones or scanning beams of “monitors” – packed with electronics ground and orbital tracking stations with which “Military International” – a leading developer of weapons and security systems – had now built up almost two-thirds of the Metropolis.

“Stealthsar” was the answer to all types of surveillance: if necessary, it could completely absorb, creating a shadow, or allow to completely pass by, without revealing the source, all photons or radio waves of specified frequencies and lengths, as well as send to the null channel various types of emissions, as a matter of fact making its owner invisible to electronic radars and for quite armed eyes-cameras of drones.

It was an experimental model, created by scientists of the new Resistance on the basis of stolen from the neural network scientific project of “Military International”. And the only one of its currently known shortcomings was this “experimental” label. But one could not live without the risk of its in-combat battle testing.

“Shall we play hide-and-seek, guys?”

Info-scanner’s sensor and a global positioning module of the stellar-suite jointly announced the fact of his target’s location acquisition. The neuro-helm’s visor obediently formed a route map in front of Thomas’s eyes. Jet engines, mounted on the legs and feet of the suit, softly roared and pushed Thomas’s body in the indicated on the map’s direction.

* * *

Chipset and virus. Or is the virus just an upcoming and well-deserved payment?

This chip, which Thomas was now gently rolling in his hands so that the info-scanner could create and save inside its local memory full gelogramma of its structure, was, perhaps, the pinnacle of engineering and scientific developments of scientists of the Resistance who died half a century ago. How many decades were they ahead of their time, how far were they from the scientists of insane corporations?

The chip was definitely a part of some kind of super-project, involved in the ways of breaching the neuro-net’s primary firewalls that was just becoming self-aware at that time. The small underground complex that Thomas had recently found in this sector of “Zone S” was definitely related to the destroyed rebel base, which had been miraculously partially preserved here at a depth of several dozen meters. Despite all the satellite and ground-based surveillance technologies that corporations had acquired over the past decades, they had not yet been able to penetrate that depth with their all-seeing eyes.

Thomas discovered the entrance to this ruined rebel compound almost by accident. Who could have known that these stone piles, closing the descent into the tunnel leading inside these catacombs, are in fact just a very high-quality hologram working on an autonomous solar battery? How miraculously this battery lasted for almost fifty years – only God of engineers knows.

The chip resided in neocrysolite energy crystal, smoothly levitating above the surface next to a pile of dilapidated terminals and cryobiogenetics capsules that had long since been shut down without backup power sources. And the most valuable to Thomas in this nondescript-looking crystal structure was the code written inside it.

The initial and very superficial analysis carried out by the info-scanner’s debug module during Thomas’s initial visit here demonstrated its original purpose – hacking the firewalls of the neural network for breaching into its protected segments. Ones such as private virtual quarters of the members of the “League of Seven”.

An ingenious combination of software loopholes and techniques that allows you to use the original inherent in the program code of “Ada” self-analysis capabilities for the purpose of self-disclosure. And as the recent history of Antonius Risario’s sad ending has already shown – this still considered experimental code of engineers and programmers of the defeated Resistance – or the virus, if you like – was practically working option. The key to the salvation of the human race. The beginning of the end and a new beginning. A machine virus in response to a human virus. What an irony.

The New Resistance wasn’t born in one instant. After the untraceable death of Thomas’s parents as “sympathizers” in the clutches of corporations, for many years he had lived as a wanderer. He worked as a neural network info bulletin messenger, a neuro-analyst, a neuro-implant salesman, a network tracker for jealous husbands, even a bouncer at the virtsex club. But in the own mission and destiny, Thomas was and remained a neuro-hacker. And it was the neural network where he once started the search for survived members of the Resistance and their descendants.

That was about five years ago. And now when the surviving descendants of the Resistance leaders had re-established their headquarters deep in the catacombs of “Zone D”, and the scale of their activities had taken over the top management of corporations, Thomas finally understood his ultimate purpose.

* * *

Thomas didn’t count how much time had already passed. His supplies of liquefied oxygen and food would last for at least another twenty or so hours. And then – it would all be a matter of skill, fate and at least a little bit of good luck.

At all costs, he needed to modify the program code of the neuro-virus found on this chip, so that the hacking of private segments in the neural network of still surviving leaders of the “League of Seven” couldn’t help happening. He learned the weaknesses and addictions of each of them by heart a long time ago.

Second. Minute. Hour. The artificial intelligence in the debug module of his info-scanner disassembles and piece by piece reunites bits and bytes of code, analyzes algorithms and highlights recommendations on the stellar suit’s neuro-helmet.

Artificial intelligence surpassed natural one a long time ago. Or maybe humans have just failed to uncover their innate natural potential, too much relying on program code and machines? The code of the virus against the code of the “Ada”’s neural network. The battering ram facing the walls. Freedom versus slavery. And – at least the slightest bit of good luck.

During the final stages of the code’s alteration, Thomas was distracted by the growing buzz of sound. May the sniffer robots don’t find him here. Having copied the modified code into the stellar-suit’s memory module, Thomas switched his info-scanner into the battle-tracking mode and started climbing to the surface.

* * *

He seemed to be awaited on the surface. Or, perhaps, they decided to temporarily enhance their patrols?

Dozens of missile drones were dashing through space, scanning the surface near Thomas with light beams and radio waves. Somewhere in the distance, their noise was echoed by the humming of “monitors”. Apparently, they haven’t discovered Thomas, who was shielded by “stealthsar”, yet. What had alarmed them, where did this patrol come from?

Wasting no more time, Thomas rushed in the direction of his “Zone D”’s hideout. It’s there where he will have to get in touch with the leaders of the new Resistance and it’s there, in his underground neuro-laboratory, where the virus capable of breaching the AI’s protection will be released into the network.

* * *

Jump. Somersault. The drone’s laser beam melts the rock and plastic where Thomas just stood, turning them into a boiling, bubbling muck. Another jump. Activation of the RF interference module. Warning sound from the target acquisition and detection module, telling of a guided and approaching missile.

Following Thomas’s brain impulses, the stellar suit’s neuro-interface did almost everything it could to evade the pursuit, occasionally throwing his body to the right, then to the left, or even throwing him into a dive at times.

Space transformer – “stealthsar” – failed him in the most inopportune moment, when after emerging on the surface Thomas tried to activate jet boosters. A fucking experimental model! The gravitational energy converter inside it had failed and switched to a backup power supply directly from the core of the stellar-suit so that Thomas could now and then be detected either by visual traces of the jet engines or simply by the most primitive radio frequency scanning. Damn it!

Another laser beam turned into gelatinous slime the remnant of a half-century-old rebel prototype of modern mechs a few meters ahead of Thomas. Ugh!

If only to reach, fly, jump, whatever! Get to his refuge and have enough time to release the virus into the neural network. It would take at least a few dozens of minutes for the sniffer robots to break into his neuro lab underground.

Another jump. Acceleration of free takeoff. Dodging from a dozen of “smart” self-guiding “friend or foe” bullets. Activation of a field of constant electromagnetic pulses in order to burn the electronic chips of these flying back petty bitches. Bullets fall down like impotent crumbs in a couple of meters before him as if in some fantastic movie from forgotten by everyone past.

Here comes another laser beam, burning through the night. Evasion attempt. A fragment of the beam passes over Thomas’s left hand, instantly turning two fingers into a blackened skeleton. Neurostimulants and painkillers injected into his bloodstream by the suit’s artificial intelligence system. A flash of pain cuts through the brain, and Thomas’s mouth cries in a silent scream. Only not to lose consciousness from the initial pain shock!

Jumping again. The roar of jet propulsion behind him. Endless attempts to activate the gravitational energy converter. Stellar-suit core charge readings at twenty-three percent. It should be enough.

And once again, the laser beam cuts through the darkness like a lightning, descended from heavens, only by purely machine-human will that time. Or maybe purely machine-made.

The response finally surges from the gravitational energy converter. Just in time! Come on, don’t let me down again!

The familiar spiral vortex of energy that surrounded Thomas’s body. Shimmering as if in the northern lights colors of the visible visual spectrum. The space transformer is back in action! Now he will be able to break away from his pursuers and win a few extra dozens of minutes.

Turning on maximum thrust mode and now ignoring the rapidly diminishing charge indicator of the stellar-suit’s internal battery, Thomas raced toward the place of the impending call.

* * *

Embedded in the walls of this shelter and connected by thick power cables running deep from the old nuclear reactor, news visors vied with each other to announce the discovery and impending elimination of the killer of one of the members of the “League of Seven”.

“Thanks to the security measures taken to date by the forces of corporate net-runners together with the top management of the corporation and the internal security service of the Metropolis, we have located Thomas Robinson – the main suspect in the murder of our beloved head of “Symbionics”, a neuro-hacker and a descendant of sympathizers with the insurgents that were destroyed half a century ago.

The interim head of “Symbionics” corporation granted a license to all interested parties for liquidation of Thomas Robinson worthy of fifty million “credo”. At the moment the internal security forces are determining suspect’s exact coordinates…”

Thomas switched off the quantum transmitter’s encryption module, took a deep breath, inhaled the stale air of his neuro lab, and slightly rolled for fun in the makeshift, dilapidated chair in front of the terminal.

Everything was going as it had to be. There was no other way. The communication session with the leaders of the new Resistance that bypassed the neural network was completed, the virus code along with the information about the vulnerable entry points into the personal segments of the remaining six leaders of the corporations were all transferred. Pre-recorded videos and texts addressing the citizens of the Metropolis, along with his farewell word, were uploaded to an encrypted fragment of the neural network and after a couple of dozens of minutes will be relayed to the visors of millions of Metropolis’s residents simultaneously with the work of the virus code.

The hydra of the new digital world will fall – and may any God who still hears us prevent it from rising up again. But it would not be his choice. Today he had already made his own.

Out of the corner of his eye, still looking through the news feeds on his visors, Thomas glanced at the internal cameras in the escape tunnels of his hideout, once built above an underground nuclear power plant. The cameras, dimmed by the gas that had started to spill through the tunnels, showed the silhouettes of sniffer robots and internal security troopers in black-as-night tessa-suits.

“No, guys, it’s not your day after all. And even more so – tomorrow.”

Here one of the soldiers is shouting something to others, pointing down. Firing of the laser rifle – and the image on one of Thomas’s security cameras goes black.

“Thomas Robinson! You are charged with the murder of the head of “Symbionics” and will be eliminated on sight without additional warning in the name of peace and prosperity of the entire Metropolis!”

Amplified by audio transmitters voice floods Thomas’s underground control room.

“Come on, beasts, show yourself! Show me what you can do. And then I’ll show you.”

Explosion roars from the above. Dust falls from the cabin’s walls.

“You’ll become dust, don’t you already know that? You have been transformed into dust willingly a long time ago when you swore an oath to your dead corporate gods.”

The clang of the jaws of sniffer robots that are gnawing through concrete.

“Dogs of the dead regime. Will you ever be humans again?”

The sound of cursings behind the last massive titanium-ceramic door that is separating two completely different worlds. Dents and sparks flying from it.

“Thomas Robinson, you have no chance of escape!”

“You are the ones who have doomed themselves a long time ago.”

Turning in his chair for the last time, with a bitter smile on his face, Thomas picked up a small cube of the prepared neutrino detonator. His fingers hesitated for a moment, but then tightened on the trigger. He raised his head proudly to face the crumbling door, trying to imprint those final chords deep in his soul.

“Come in!” he said loudly.

01.12.2019

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morethanithoughtofficialblog · 4 years

Text

Chapter 20: Short people are moody or bipolar?

In which Sans behaves like a prick at first.

*Frisk's POV*

I looked over the mirror in my room and smiled. I was wearing a plain purple sweater and a pink skirt, along with my wonderful brown boots and a small pink ribbon in my short hair. I was ready to see them all. To have the day of our lives with them!

I sighed, knowing it will probably won't be that exciting. Everything in my life makes me feel empty and... incomplete. That's why I kept on resetting; so I could finally be able to find the path I wanted. However, I haven't, and...

I can't reset any longer.

It's probable that Sans will throw a party after knowing, but I? I simply don't know how to react. The resets were the best power in my life, the only thing that made me feel special. And now, all of that is gone... because I have stayed in the Surface for too much time. That's why I never did a "Pacifist" route, I always killed at least one monster.

oR sOMEtIMeS i wOUld vAnISh tHEm aLL.

It's... quite funny, you know? It interests me how far someone can get thanks to the curiosity we eventually deal with. Also boredom. The kind of power a simple human girl like me can have due to her personality is also quite impressive. But how does it work? How a single trait is able to determine (get it? because mine's determination? *wink wink*) a whole person? Everyone has a lot of backstory, ideals, dreams, hopes, and problems. How can only a word represent all of it? It's just amazing how souls work and how their power depends on each person individually. I have a theory, though...

I think that the trait is settled only in the Underground thanks to the huge concentration of magic the Surface lacks. In that place, it was able to see the purest and original trait of the person, but in the Surface, thanks to all the experiences, this trait is slightly modified, changing its color into a combination of the first one and others. That would make more sense, and each soul would be different, just like our fingerprints.

That, however, won't explain why all monsters have the same color and, therefore, trait. All of their souls are white and, according to some reading I made, the color means more than a simple word. No. Their souls are made of love, hope, compassion... or so the books say. The whole consistency of a soul is unknown, still. After all, humans' souls have proven to don't need these things to exist. Then what is exactly a soul?

Monsters are... way too attached to their souls. If they are afraid or not willing to fight, then their defenses will grow weaker. If they are mentally unstable, depressed, or with another problem in their personality and mind... their hp will be way too low. That's why I suspect that Sans has problems of this kind and that he has lost all hope in continue living. Hp means "hope", so it makes complete sense. He has only one hp, but also only one of defense, which must mean he is vulnerable.

Mmm...

Vulnerable, huh?

Is he like that because of what I've done these past timelines?

Unfortunately for me, I have not found the way to make a True Reset. For that reason, Sans remembers all the timelines I have created since I fell in the Underground. He also remembers Flowey's timelines, which is quite odd. Where did this guy find the secrets of determination? How has he been able to remember everything if he lacks determination? Sans, in none of the timelines, has been the most determined monster in the Underground. Besides Flowey, Undyne was way too determined. But why she doesn't remember? I must ask Gaster about this...

After all, he is the one who experimented with Sans...

The mere thought of someone using their own son as a lab rat makes me sick but thrilled at the same time. That's I've always found a fascination for how Sans still lives, after all the experiments he has suffered. Of course, he must be enduring some psychological trauma, but that doesn't erase my fascination at all. In fact, thinking that Sans's hope and defense are down because he may have some mental disorder at this point is... is just amazing! Think of the possibilities! Sans is like an experiment himself, all modified in soul and powers. He is the only one with the ability to make artificial magic invented by a monster mind. The Gaster Blasters are a creation of his father, but Gaster himself doesn't have them. He only implemented them on Sans, and amazingly, that unnatural project can be popped up with the same effort as regular magic requires.

Oh, c' mon. You can't tell me it isn't intriguing!

I've... I've been fucking up Sans's mind for oh so long...

But that's a funny sight.

The face he made when he realized I knew everything was priceless. After that encountering, Flowey and I laughed our asses off. He is so... alive! Unnaturally alive! Most of his magic and abilities are artificial (not all of them, don't get me wrong), and still... he is alive! I mean, he was born naturally, but... his strength? His strength wasn't normally developed. His ability, "Karma", is artificial. No other monster has it...

Do you know what's the best of it?

Gaster didn't create "Karma".

Sans did.

He is a living being, and thanks to that, his feelings of dread, revenge, and displeasure created that ability. He... he can even KILL his father in the blink of an eye! However, Sans is totally unstable in his mind. I can even say he is way too mad and crazy at this point. He's probably waiting for the next reset. Poor thing.

Maybe, and just maybe, Sans has an artificial determination created by that ability of his... that thought is more exciting! He may have a strong determination, but since it's artificial, he has never possessed the powers over time and space. That's funny! He looks so frustrated about me being able to do so!

Or well, when I was able.

I noticed myself being daydreaming about Sans's incredible aura again, and I immediately went up from my bed. Sans is a nice pal, yes, but his power is way better than what his personality could even reach with the maximum of effort. Since he never efforts at anything, I know that his mind will never surpass the amazing magic he has been blessed with.

The possibility of having artificial power is endearing. Just imagine it! If we open our research with human advanced technology, we'll be able to create a new form of life that is COMPLETELY not made by a god or nature.

Oh Jesus! Imagine when that happens!

My life won't be boring anymore!

It'll be like a sci-fi novel!

And I will never have the urge to reset again!

I'll finally... finally-!

I'll finally feel complete...!

"My child!" My mom screamed, her being downstairs of our huge house "Undyne and Alphys have arrived!"

"Gimme a minute!" I answered, and enthusiastically went out of my room. There are high probabilities that the skeleton family will come today, and I'm super excited about it! Gaster is super nice when he's around me, Arial is a sweetheart, Papyrus is a cute cinnamon role and Sans... well, his power!

My OTP, Alphys and Undyne, greeted me at the moment they saw me. They looked... a bit tired. Nothing I can't understand, of course. The house changes and the new step of their relationship can surely make someone feel devastated. That feeling of dread... what I've been feeling since two years ago...

Maybe the hormones are responsible for that.

But I don't care.

I don't deserve to feel empty and without a purpose. How can someone feel like this and not die? Two years have been enough. I bet no one has passed over five.

It's stupid.

Really stupid.

People who feel like this for five years have killed themselves by now.

After some minutes, the rest of our guests arrived. (Y/N) was quite punctual...

Oh, (Y/N)...

She is... interesting.

That strange glimpse of DETERMINATION I saw on her eyes the day she met us has caught my attention. I... I don't think I could define her with a single trait. She is too diverse, too deep of a person. I bet she hides things. I can see it in her desperate look, like if she's trying to escape. Is she bored like I am of regular life? Oh, I bet we'll be pretty good friends if that's the case! She's really smart... she'll understand the concept of time and space manipulation. And when she hears it, she'll be as fascinated as I am. No doubt about it.

I should investigate her more.

When I saw the skeleton family arriving, my heart skipped a beat. But... I think Sans wasn't that well. Did he tire himself? His own powerful existence tires him up a lot.

"SANS! BEHAVE!" Papyrus scolded him after the short skeleton punched Mettaton on the arm... quite roughly.

"fuck this robot" Ok, this isn't like him at all. He's normally pretty laid-back and with an "i don't give a shit" attitude. But now? He looks like cares! This isn't the Sans I know! "actually, fuck everyone"

"SANS!"

"papyrus"

"STOP IT! I KNOW YOU ARE ANGRY AND ALL THAT STUFF, BUT PLEASE! DON'T ACT LIKE A BABYBONES! YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS!"

Sansy groaned loudly which worried everyone in the room. Something bad must have happened...

Hope it doesn't involve his magic.

We started our evening by playing an old board game that Sans surprisingly loves: Yahtzee. Minute by minute, the madness of the short skeleton started to go away until he said the first pun in that evening. Everyone knew then that Sans was back.

Honestly, he is the perfect definition of "messed up teenager". He is pretty... bipolar, and sometimes he is just too... childish. Too mature and, at the same time, too stupid. How can someone like that exist?

How?

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

*Papyrus's POV*

Thanks to a bit of effort, Sans was back to his usual, punny self. And well, I also have to thank Yahtzee. He loves that game with an unhealthy passion. And I say unhealthy because he mostly played it on the bar of Grillby...

Talking about bars...

Remember when Sans left the house all angry? Well, guess what?! He went to a freaking bar!

I was so disappointed when I found him there, unconscious and on top of a table. He had a small glass on his side, which I think it's for smaller beings than him (which it's weird since he is pretty small. He is only 5'1 feet tall!). Anyways, he was just there, obviously passed out thanks to that horrible thing called alcohol. Seriously, the life of my brother would be way better if that thing didn't exist in the first place. That's something that messes up with him as well. He just doesn't want to admit it.

After finding and scolding him when he woke up, he became really mad at us. No, I don't think mad... more like moody. It is said that short people are moody! That must explain it...!

Sans has been pretty bipolar these last days. He is at first happy and then he's angry. Sans wasn't this moody when we were younger. I have the theory that all these sudden changes and how often does he see our parents now are the major causes of this problem. This is becoming so overwhelming for him that he needed to feel at home again... and that's why he went to a bar.

I don't pity him, but I know he's been through a lot. He doesn't even know how to express or even call his own feelings, something that interests me. I'm quite good at expressing myself, but him? Maybe he never was good at this, but I recall those days that he used to interact with a lot of people. Now he's closing his world and he's not letting new people come in. Not even the ones he used to care about are allowed to enter there anymore. When we were younger, I practically knew everything about my brother. I can't confirm that now. He's been pushing everyone away, including me. I don't know his thoughts, I don't know how he sees life. I only know his likings, and there's where I'm trying to base myself on my research.

After a few of board games later, my favorite star (Mettaton) caught everyone's attention with his marvelous and robotic voice. Sans seemed a little annoyed, but he quickly joked about it...

I'm worried.

I think Sans has been using these jokes to despise us and make us think he is fine when he clearly isn't. Thinking about it, (Y/N) smiles a lot and tries to show a positive image when she may be struggling with her problems. She shows a bit of confidence and clear kindness, but is that all she wants to let us know? According to what I've seen with my brother, he hides his feelings until he is on the edge. Is she the same? Is she trying to hide her mind from us? Why in the world do they think it's a good idea?

...

I don't think I'll ever understand them.

"Beauties!" Mettaton exclaimed glamorously, like always! "My creative and artistic mind has settled the next activity: A KARAOKE CONTEST!"

"OH MY GOD!" I gasped happily, with the hope that my brother would sing again "THIS IS GOING TO BE AMAZING!"

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

*Your POV*

Yeah, now I was really regretting this.

A lot of the people present thought it would be a wonderful idea. Some were more hesitant about it, and a certain someone was... scared?

"oh hell no. i'm not doing this"

"C' MON SANS! YOU SING REALLY GOOD! I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU DON'T WANT TO DO IT ANYMORE!"

Wait, so he sings? Or well, sang?

Papyrus kept on complaining that his brother had a real talent for singing. I was not the only one dumbfounded at this statement. In fact, the only one who was not surprised was Mettaton, confirming what the tall skeleton was saying.

For destiny reasons, I had to agree with joining the competition. Mostly because everyone was going to join (except Flowey). It was about to get awful, I knew it. Thank God that Sans wasn't angry anymore. He was more like... anxious and having a panic attack. He...

ohmygodheisnotdoingfinehelookslikeheisgoingtocollapseohgodaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Em pal...?" I tried to sound as confident as possible. I failed. "Are you okay? You look like you've just seen a ghost?"

"i... i'm fine, kid" I sighed in relief when he seemed to be more relaxed. "by the way, what do ghosts have to do with all of this? i just saw napstablook and i was pretty much okay"

Oh right, ghosts are indeed a thing...

I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

"So... is it true that you used to sing?" I asked, trying not to fall into the dark hole of awkwardness.

He remained silent for a moment, and his expression was pretty... shocked. I thought I may have touched a complicated topic, but when I was about to apologize, he answered.

"i used to. i just don't have the guts to do it anymore"

...

Oh my God, I'm going to kill this guy.

He remarkably smirked while I rolled my eyes, feeling like a complete idiot. At least I was sure of something: I didn't hurt his feelings at all. That made me feel peaceful and sort of... angry? More like pissed off, actually. After all, I was the only one worrying, and Sans? Oh, he never gave a shit.

So...

Mettaton went first on this stupid contest. Said he had to "make the beginners feel confident". He sang REALLY good, yes, but...

"INSIDE MY HEART IS BREAKING! MY MAKE-UP MAY BE FLAKING BUT MY SMILE... STILL, STAYS ON!" Aaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnndddddd he struck a dramatic pose on top of a table. Again.

I couldn't help but cringe at every time he did so. A wonderful Queen song, ruined by dramatic actions between lyrics. I kept my cool and hummed the song silently, trying not to punch the robot on the face. I don't hate the guy, but Jesus, he was starting to flirt with everyone! The song is not even flirty!

"MY SOUL IS PAINTED LIKE THE WINGS OF BUTTERFLIES! FAIRYTALES OF YESTERDAY, WILL GROW BUT NEVER DIE! I CAN FLYYYYYYYYYYYYYY MY FRIIEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDDDSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!" And he jumped from the table and fell on his metallic butt...

Before I could tell myself what was wrong and what was right I laughed loudly. He gasped in fake horror, and soon more people started to laugh as well. He finished the song more dramatic than ever, and after that, he punched me lightly on the arm.

"Dude, what the-"

"You don't have the right to offend me, darling!" He laughed mischievously " And, as a consequence, now is your turn!"

Oh no.

I felt how my heart stopped for a moment, and then, how fast it started to beat.

I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it.

...

Yes, I can.

I took a deep breath and let the song picker choose. You bet I was shaking, but... I somehow felt sure about myself in that place. They have shown nothing but kindness and support, so I went along with it. What a silly song would change?

And so I sang "Dream" by Imagine Dragons. It's such a powerful song, and I let myself get lost on it. They applauded me, just like they did with everyone else, and it was really good actually. I was having fun, I felt really welcomed. My singing wasn't spectacular, but still, I received a couple of compliments.

How can they be so nice?

Everything went well, the rounds started to pass by and more applauses came in the end. That, until it was Sans's turn.

"do i really need to do it?"

"SANS! JUST FREAKING DO IT!"

Sans sighed and stood in front of all of us. It doesn't matter how hard he tried to hide it- panic was still visible in his eyes. His posture was normal, his smile as well, but his eyes said everything. He was scared of people not liking his voice. He felt overwhelmed because he was overrated. He had our expectations high...

He just didn't want to disappoint anyone.

It's kind of scary how relatable I see Sans. He shows a smile and a laid-back personality, but in reality, he cares. His look says it all.

And just when things were not bad enough, the song picker chose "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns N' Roses. And oh, that's a hell of a song. However, he didn't complain. In fact, he was looking pretty dead at that point.

And before he was ready, the music started.

#more than i thought #more than i thought fanfiction #sans x reader #sans #x reader #chapter 20

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is-god-real-blog · 5 years

Text

Is God real? Does it make a difference?

Response to this

The question of whether God exists seems to be either unanswerable or irrelevant to many. Hervé, who grew up in France, says: “Although I don’t define myself as atheist or agnostic, I am not a believer. For me, the best way to live is to use common sense. That doesn’t require belief in a deity.”

Amen to that, Hervé.

Others may feel as did John, in the United States. He said: “I was raised by parents who did not believe in God. As a young man, I had no position on whether God exists. Still, at times I would wonder about it.”

If it weren’t for my religiously active household, I would not have a position but I am not so fortunate, so I am forced to think about it.

Have you ever wondered if there is a God and, if there is, whether there is a larger purpose to life?

Never.

Perhaps you have encountered facts that are difficult to explain without the existence of a Creator, such as scientific data on the finely tuned balance in nature that makes life on our planet possible and evidence that life does not come from lifeless matter.

What. No.

Also, I see what you did there.

Consider the significance of the facts mentioned above. They are like signposts pointing to a treasure. If you find convincing evidence that God exists, along with trustworthy information about him, you will have much to gain. Here are four examples.

1. THE MEANING OF LIFE

If there is a larger meaning to life, we want to know what it is and to understand our place in it. After all, if God exists and we are unaware of it, then we are living without knowing the most fundamental truth in the universe.

The Bible says that God is the Source of all life. (Revelation 4:11) How can knowing this give our lives meaning? Consider what the Bible teaches on the matter.

Among all of earth’s creatures, humans are unique. According to the Bible, we were created by God to be like him, to reflect his personality. (Genesis 1:27) Furthermore, the Bible teaches that humans can become God’s friends. (James 2:23) Nothing can give our life more meaning than to have such a relationship with our Creator.

What does it mean to be God’s friend? Friends of God can express themselves directly to him. And he promises that he will listen to them and act in their behalf. (Psalm 91:15) As friends of God, we can come to know his thoughts on many matters. This can give us reliable insight into the deepest questions about our lives.

My early (albeit small and passing) philosophical inclinations lead me to ponder the deeper questions. These deeper questions were satisfactorily answered in entirety by the Christian interpretation of the Scriptures. The Bible addressed the bigger questions in better coverage and satisfaction then science or other ideas could. They still stand to be the best (emotionally/spiritually appealing) answers to life.

Now however, I’ve adopted a more rational and boring approach to life. Those passing thoughts are long gone. If someone were to ask me what the meaning of life is, I would answer, “It’s what you what you want it to be” or “Why worry about it, worry more about your bills”.

This “purpose of life” line of thought that satisfies the philosophical deep thinkers but it is not hard evidence that God exist.

2. PEACE OF MIND

For example, some find it difficult to believe in God because of the suffering they see worldwide. They ask, ‘Why would an all-powerful Creator permit suffering and evil?’

The Bible’s comforting answer is that God never intended for humans to suffer. At the time of man’s creation, human life was free from suffering. Even death was not part of God’s original purpose for mankind. (Genesis 2:7-9, 15-17) Is this hard to believe? A fantasy? No. If there is an all-powerful Creator and if love is indeed his foremost quality, then this is exactly the kind of life that we would expect him to purpose for humans to have.

What brought about mankind’s current situation? The Bible explains that God created humans with the ability to exercise free will. We are not robots, forced to obey God. The first human couple, from whom all others have descended, chose to reject God’s guidance. Instead, they selfishly pursued their own will. (Genesis 3:1-6, 22-24) We now experience the painful results.

We can gain great peace of mind from knowing that human suffering is not part of God’s purpose. But, naturally, we also want relief. We need hope for the future.

The target audience are likely believers who have doubts of God’s presence because of the current world situation. The missing details of God are revealed for the inner peace of these troubled ones. I am not part of the target audience however, so this argument doesn’t really work for me. This is more so an argument to reassure ones belief in God’s existence, not prove.

3. HOPE

Immediately after mankind rebelled, God promised that he would in time fulfill his original purpose for the earth. Because he is almighty, nothing can prevent him from doing so. (Isaiah 55:11) Soon, God will undo all the consequences of the rebellion against him, and the earth and mankind will be brought in line with his original purpose.What can this mean for you? Consider just two of the many promises God has made for our future, as found in the Bible.

PEACE EARTH WIDE AND WICKEDNESS REMOVED.

“Just a little while longer, and the wicked will be no more; you will look at where they were, and they will not be there. But the meek will possess the earth, and they will find exquisite delight in the abundance of peace.”—Psalm 37:10, 11.

SICKNESS AND DEATH ELIMINATED.

“No resident will say: ‘I am sick.’” (Isaiah 33:24) “He will swallow up death forever, and the Sovereign Lord Jehovah will wipe away the tears from all faces.”—Isaiah 25:8.Why can we trust the promises of God found in the Bible? Because numerous prophecies recorded there have already been verifiably fulfilled. Yet, the hope of future relief from suffering does not remove the difficulties of life now. What additional help does God provide?

Apparently, the Bibles hopeful message is evidence that God exist but by that same logic, the hopeful promise of an afterlife is evidence that Norse god’s exist. I don’t really see how the hope example is evidence of God’s existence, it’s more so a testimony to his character (which is either fictional, nonfictional or inconclusive at this point)

The ‘evidence’ is a strong emotional appeal to the distraught target audience, those who are suffering from illnesses and such but I would not consider it evidence that proves God exist.

4. HELP WITH PROBLEMS AND DECISIONS

God provides guidance to help us cope with problems and make good decisions. Many decisions are small, but others have lifelong consequences. No human can offer us wisdom as effective as the wisdom that our Creator can provide. He has a timeless perspective and is the very Source of human life. So he knows what is best for us.

The Bible contains the thoughts of Jehovah God, as he inspired various human writers to record them. In the Bible, we find this statement: “I, Jehovah, am your God, the One teaching you to benefit yourself, the One guiding you in the way you should walk.”—Isaiah 48:17, 18.

God has unlimited power, and he is willing to use his power in our behalf. The Bible describes God as a loving father who wants to help us. It says: “The Father in heaven [will] give holy spirit to those asking him!” (Luke 11:13) This power from God can guide and strengthen us.

How can you obtain such help from God? The Bible answers: “Whoever approaches God must believe that he is and that he becomes the rewarder of those earnestly seeking him.” (Hebrews 11:6) To become convinced that God exists, you need to examine the evidence for yourself.

The line of reasoning is this: The Bible reveals practical wisdom that suggests divine wisdom. This is one of the stronger arguments because it appeals/applies to me personally. I’ve grown up in a dysfunctional family. An absent father, an emotionally damaged mother and three younger siblings. Mental, physical and emotional abuse, financial struggles, inconsistent parenting, mood swings, twisted mindsets, deep seated regrets, grudges, failures, endless wants, unsatisfied needs and the list goes on. The Bibles perspective and advocation of how life should be lived appealed to me so well.

The concept of a God and your due accountability was a relief for me. Humans who believe they hold accountability to no-one except their self-built conscience are difficult people. The idea that people would make efforts to reach a high standard resonated so well with struggling adolescent me. The concept that God was a loving being was consistent with the bibles various teachings on love, forgiveness, patience and endurance. The vision of unity and the consistent beseeching that its members adhere to these standards was strategic, practical and loving.

The Bible to me seemed to me like the product of various experts, walks of life, backgrounds and timelines. It gave counsel that could be used by all despite racial or religious difference. It appealed to all kinds of people despite differing circumstances. It advocated consistency, discernment and love. It gave depth and weight to matters and concepts of importance. It stressed the need to be practical and considerate.

I found the Bible to be unique because of its psychological, political and poetic design. It is the most widely published book and for good reason. It seemed to offer something for everyone.

That’s all I could deduct though, a profoundly unique and well written book.

I’d like to credit it’s ingenious wisdom to the 40 humans who wrote it, but they themselves unanimously argue that its author is an omnipotent being called God. So it comes to an interesting crossroad.

Do I respect the unanimous testimony of the 40 men who have provided profound insight into life, love and history that stands true and has been proven true, time and time again? Or do I dismiss it completely, and rely on my own wisdom that struggles when deciding between an almond croissant or a blueberry cheesecake?

For last few months, I’ve followed the latter path.

WILL YOU INVESTIGATE? It takes time to seek out the truth about God, but clearly you can benefit from doing so. Consider the experience of Xiujin Xiao, who was born in China and now lives in the United States. He says: “Although I believed the theory of evolution, I was curious about the Bible. So I began to study the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses. In my last year of college, I got so busy that I had little time for what I was learning from the Bible. But I was less happy. When I again made my Bible study a priority, I found inner joy.”

Would you like to learn more about our Creator, Jehovah God? Why not take time to investigate for yourself?

I've been investigating for 2 years, but I am knuckling down and solving it now.

The evidences in this article are not exactly evidences and its relevance to the existence of God is questionable but they are genuine reasons to look into Bible. Weighing all, I've concluded that the Bible is a profoundly insightful book, so much so, I would veer as close to say, that it is the product of the same divine wisdom that its human scribes accredit it to.

It's strange that all its authors wrote about supernatural accounts as well as factual places, authentic people and verified events. Archaeology reveals that the Bible's account of history aligns with its archive of artifacts. We have very little of early Mesopotamia, yet of these records, there is nothing to incriminate the Bible of Pseudo-history. Quite the opposite, there is a growing collection that testifies to its authenticity.

Why is the Bible honest in all respects except supernatural miracles? Or is the same authenticity, precisely what proves these supernatural miracles are genuine events?

#God #is god real #religion #christianity #Jehovah #jehovahs witnesses #jw response

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