#What to do if the data on your computer is stolen | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lackadaisycats · 2 months

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Hey Tracy! Have you heard about the new Ai called Sora? Apparently it can now create 2D and 3D animations as well as hyper realistic videos. I’ve been getting into animation and trying to improve my art for years since I was 7, but now seeing that anyone can create animation/works in just a mare seconds by typing in a couple words, it’s such a huge slap in the face to people who actually put the time and effort into their works and it’s so discouraging! And it has me worried about what’s going to happen next for artists and many others, as-well. There’s already generated voices, generated works stolen from actual artists, generated music, and now this! It’s just so scary that it’s coming this far.

Yeah, I've seen it. And yeah, it feels like the universe has taken on a 'fuck you in particular' attitude toward artists the past few years. A lot of damage has already been done, and there are plenty of reasons for concern, but bear in mind that we don't know how this will play out yet. Be astute, be justifiably angry, but don't let despair take over. --------

One would expect that the promo clips that have been dropping lately represent some of the best of the best-looking stuff they've been able to produce. And it's only good-looking on an extremely superficial level. It's still riddled with problems if you spend even a moment observing. And I rather suspect, prior to a whole lot of frustrated iteration, most prompts are still going to get you camera-sickness inducing, wibbly-wobbly nonsense with a side of body horror.

Will the tech ultimately get 'smarter' than that and address the array of typical AI giveaways? Maybe. Probably, even. Does that mean it'll be viable in quite the way it's being marketed, more or less as a human-replacer? Well…

A lot of this is hype, and hype is meant to drive up the perceived value of the tech. Executives will rush to be early adopters without a lot of due diligence or forethought because grabbing it first like a dazzled chimp and holding up like a prize ape-rock makes them look like bleeding-edge tech geniuses in their particular ecosystem. They do this because, in turn, that perceived value may make their company profile and valuations go up too, which makes shareholders short-term happy (the only kind of happy they know). The problem is how much actual functional value will it have? And how long does it last? Much of it is the same routine we were seeing with blockchain a few years ago: number go up. Number go up always! Unrealistic, unsustainable forever-growth must be guaranteed in this economic clime. If you can lay off all of your people and replace them with AI, number goes up big and never stops, right?

I have some doubts. ----------------------

The chips also haven't landed yet with regards to the legality of all of this. Will these adopters ultimately be able to copyright any of this output trained on datasets comprised of stolen work? Can computer-made art even be copyrighted at all? How much of a human touch will be required to make something copyright-able? I don't know yet. Neither do the hype team or the early adopters.

Does that mean the tech will be used but will have to be retrained on the adopter's proprietary data? Yeah, maybe. That'd be a somewhat better outcome, at least. It still means human artists make specific things for the machine to learn from. (Watch out for businesses that use 'ethical' as a buzzword to gloss over how many people they've let go from their jobs, though.)

Will it become industry standard practice to do things this way? Maybe. Will it still require an artist's sensbilities and oversignt to plan and curate and fix the results so that it doesn't come across like pure AI trash? Yeah, I think that's pretty likely.

If it becomes standard practice, will it become samey, and self-referential and ultimately an emblem of doing things the cookie-cutter way instead of enlisting real, human artists? Quite possibly.

If it becomes standard industry practice, will there still be an audience or a demand or a desire for art made by human artists? Yes, almost certainly. With every leap of technology, that has remained the case. ------------------ TL;DR Version:

I'm not saying with any certainty that this AI blitz is a passing fad. I think we're likely to experience a torrential amount of generative art, video, voice, music, programming, and text in the coming years, in fact, and it will probably irrevocably change the layout of the career terrain. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was being overhyped as a business strategy right now. And I don't think the immensity of its volume will ever overcome its inherent emptiness.

What I am certain of is that it will not eliminate the innate human impulse to create. Nor the desire to experience art made by a fellow soul. Keep doing your thing, Anon. It's precious. It's authentic. It will be all the more special because it will have come from you, a human.

#art #lackadaisy #technology

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ms-demeanor · 3 months

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So I love your computer information and advice - but I have never used a password manager because I’ve always figured it’s just putting all my most sensitive information out there to be stolen when someone gets into the password manager. What am I missing here?

The primary thing is that, in the normal course of time and space, given the limitations of computing technology, if you are using a decent password manager, nobody should be able to get into your password manager.

Good password managers (I recommend Bitwarden) are essentially impossible to access through cracking the encryption. It just won't happen. It's not going to happen.

In a decent password manager, your data also will not be available to the company that made the product. They can't get it. They don't have access, and anyone who breaks into their systems doesn't have access.

So there is one way that someone could get into your (decent) password manager: if they know your password.

That's why it's important to create one complex, memorable, unique password for your password manager that you do not share with anyone except in the most dire circumstances with someone you are 100% certain that you can trust (I've used the example in the past of my spouse giving me the password to his password manager when he was being prepped for an emergency bypass surgery - outside of situations like that, my spouse and I don't share passwords with each other).

Now, let's look at the flipside: if you do not use a decent password manager (which will generate nonsense random passwords for you on demand), you are probably creating passwords that are comparatively very easy to crack either through dictionary attacks or effortless to crack with credential stuffing.

Part of the problem here is that our data and security landscape is garbage. You have almost certainly had personal information leaked in a data breach that you had no say in participating in. You have almost certainly had your email address and multiple passwords exposed in breaches over the years. You have almost certainly used the same answers repeatedly for security questions, and there are only so many sites that will allow you to update those questions and answers, and those answers have almost certainly been exposed in previous breaches.

And the thing is, people are predictable. People reuse passwords, which makes credential stuffing extremely easy, because someone just has to find a leak from 2009 to identify your email address and then see if you used your 2009 password on any other accounts that you also registered with that email address. If your email address shows up in multiple leaks, they can compare the kinds of passwords that you used with different accounts.

Did you use the "unique password" hack that so many people do of "[site abbreviation][basic password][birthyear][punctuation]"? FBpassword95! TWTpassword95! TMBLRpassword95! - that's really, really common because passwords are hard to remember and people behave in predictable ways when they're trying to save themselves some labor.

Perhaps you are an XKCD reader and learned the CorrectHorseBatteryStaple trick, but unless you read the follow-up studies after the fact you might not know that those passwords are actually pretty crackable unless you're using words that are more like IndubitablyNematodeErlenmeyerRisome. And if you're using a unique combination of uncommon words it's going to get pretty hard to remember a hundred of them. And you'll start repeating. And then it's back to credential stuffing instead of dictionary attacks.

The point is that you are substantially more at risk of having your accounts accessed if you are repeating or using non-random passwords than you are if you are using a password manager. Some people do actually sit down with dice to roll up random passwords and write them in a book, but the vast majority of people are relying on their predictable human brains to come up with "complex" passwords and we are just not good at that.

Password managers also make it a lot easier to change things after a breach, and they make it a lot easier to generate and store random gibberish for your security questions (which you should be doing; at this point security questions are a liability, not an account recovery tool).

Using a password manager would make most people's passwords significantly more secure AND more accessible than something like writing randomized numbers and characters in a book (because a good password should not only be difficult to remember, it should be unnatural for you to type because there shouldn't be any words in it and it should require a lot of use of the shift key). A properly used password manager can also help to protect you from phishing sites by recognizing the correct site and not allowing an option to fill on a phishing site (which is why using a password manager with a browser plugin or an app can be a better option than one that is stored on your desktop and needs the password copy/pasted instead of filling the field for you).

So yes, if someone gets access to your password, they can get access to your password manager and you now have one point of failure instead of hundreds of accounts. However, because of the way that human brains work and because of how balls-to-the-walls uncrackable a good encrypted password vault is, you are likely to be more secure with that single point of failure than you are using the kinds of passwords that most people make up (we are really, really, really not good at making up nonsense passwords; go look at the top thousand passwords and think about how many of them you've used as a PART of any of your passwords. Most languages have a very small number of words that people use on a regular basis and it isn't that hard to get a computer to scan for a few thousand words if it has unlimited attempts to get into your account - mix that in with the fact that there are SO, SO many breaches out there and it is frighteningly easy to get into a lot of accounts).

However, you can then also make your password manager even MORE secure by setting up 2FA to access it. At which point the only way someone is getting into your password manager is if they know your password and have access to your 2FA account.

Generally I find that what most people are worried about isn't that their horrible ex or an abusive parent will get into their password manager, they're a lot more worried that the contents of their password vault will be exposed in a breach. And that is just not going to happen if you're using a securely encrypted password manager (like bitwarden).

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not-terezi-pyrope · 3 months

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Ok. It's pretty clear you are more welcoming of AI, and it does have enough merits to not be given a knee jerk reaction outright.

And how the current anti-ai stealing programs could be misused.

But isn't so much of the models built on stolen art? That is one of the big thing keeping me from freely enjoying it.

The stolen art is a thing that needs to be addressed.

Though i agree that the ways that such addressing are being done in are not ideal. Counterproductive even.

I could make a quip here and be like "stolen art??? But the art is all still there, and it looks fine to me!" And that would be a salient point about the silliness of digital theft as a concept, but I know that wouldn't actually address your point because what you're actually talking about is art appropriation by generative AI models.

But the thing is that generative AI models don't really do that, either. They train on publicly posted images and derive a sort of metadata - more specifically, they build a feature space mapping out different visual concepts together with text that refers to them. This is then used at the generative stage in order to produce new images based on the denoising predictions of that abstract feature model. No output is created that hasn't gone through that multi-stage level of abstraction from the training data, and none of the original training images are directly used at all.

Due to various flaws in the process, you can sometimes get a model to output images extremely similar to particular training images, and it is also possible to get a model to pastiche a particular artist's work or style, but this is something that humans can also do and is a problem with the individual image that has been created, rather than the process in general.

Training an AI model is pretty clearly fair use, because you're not even really re-using the training images - you're deriving metadata that describes them, and using them to build new images. This is far more comparable to the process by which human artists learn concepts than the weird sort of "theft collage" that people seem to be convinced is going on. In many cases, the much larger training corpus of generative AI models means that an output will be far more abstracted from any identifiable source data (source data in fact is usually not identifiable) than a human being drawing from a reference, something we all agree is perfectly fine!

The only difference is that the AI process is happening in a computer with tangible data, and is therefore quantifiable. This seems to convince people that it is in some way more ontologically derivative than any other artistic process, because computers are assumed to be copying whereas the human brain can impart its own mystical juju of originality.

I'm a materialist and think this is very silly. The valid concerns around AI are to do with how society is unprepared for increased automation, but that's an entirely different conversation from the art theft one, and the latter actively distracts from the former. The complete refusal from some people to even engage with AI's existence out of disgust also makes it harder to solve the real problem around its implementation.

This sucks, because for a lot of people it's not really about copyright or intellectual property anyway. It's about that automation threat, and a sort of human condition anxiety about being supplanted and replaced by automation. That's a whole mess of emotions and genuine labour concerns that we need to work through and break down and resolve, but reactionary egg-throwing at all things related to machine learning is counterproductive to that, as is reading out legal mantras paraphrasing megacorps looking to expand copyright law to over shit like "art style".

I've spoken about this more elsewhere if you look at my blog's AI tag.

#not-terezi-speaks #asks #anonymous #ai

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derinthescarletpescatarian · 6 months

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any particular reason youre not using GDocs? I didnt use to, but since getting my shit stolen ive chosen the lesser evils of CLOUD

I just generally try to use google as little as possible. (Which reminds me, I need to find a new email provider). I generally avoid cloud services just for grumpy old person reasons; they're fiddly and keep changing the rules and I'm not a fan of the sorts of "conveniences" such things tend to offer.

I'm not sure how the cloud makes it harder to have your work stolen. I don't think there's any particular danger to storing stories on the cloud unless you're particularly overzealous about protecting your work from the potential of future AI scraping (google absolutely are capable of using cloud-stored documents for this if they choose to do so, they already scan your emails for keywords to know what to sell you, any 'privacy' they offer applies to outsiders getting your data, not them using or selling it themselves), but just technically speaking it's far easier to get your work stolen if you store your drafts on the internet. I mean, that's where people are stealing it from. If they're stealing your devices to steal your work, the cloud doesn't help because pretty much everyone has their devices set to auto-login for things they use every day (like accessing your drafts). I just can't see a situation in which using the cloud makes your data safer than storing it at home.

I don't use gdocs because I don't like google, have a personal dislike of cloud services (just for Old Man Yells At Cloud stupid reasons), and it just... doesn't offer me anything I'd need. I can't see any advantage to using gdocs, I already have libreoffice. Why would I put myself in a situation where I need internet access to write? It doesn't offer me anything useful that my own computer doesn't already have.

I work between two computers (my desktop and my laptop, depending on if I'm writing in bed or not) and transfer files between them on a flash drive, so I have three reasonably up-to-date copies of my draft at all times. I also queue updates onto my site frequently so if there's a housefire or something almost all my work is uploaded to both Wordpress and Patreon, waiting to be released to the public, and easily retrievable. So losing my work isn't a concern.

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superlinguo · 2 months

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Research Data Management. Or, How I made multiple backups and still almost lost my honours thesis.

This is a story I used to tell while teaching fieldworkers and other researchers about how to manage their data. It’s a moderately improbable story, but it happened to me and others have benefited from my misadventures. I haven't had reason to tell it much lately, and I thought it might be useful to put into writing. This is a story from before cloud storage was common - back when you could, and often would, run out of online email storage space. Content note: this story includes some unpleasant things that happened to me, including multiple stories of theft (cf. moderately improbable). Also, because it's stressful for most of the story, I want to reassure you that it does have a happy conclusion. It explains a lot of my enthusiasm for good research data management. In Australia, 'honours' is an optional fourth year for a three year degree. It's a chance to do some more advanced coursework and try your hand at research, with a small thesis project. Of course, it doesn't feel small when it's the first time you've done a project that takes a whole year and is five times bigger than anything you’ve ever written. I've written briefly about my honours story (here, and here in a longer post about my late honours supervisor Barb Kelly) . While I did finish my project, it all ended a bit weirdly when my supervisor Barb got ill and left during the analysis/writing crunch. The year after finishing honours I got an office job. I hoped to maybe do something more with my honours work, but I wasn't sure what, and figured I would wait until Barb was better. During that year, my sharehouse flat was broken into and the thief walked out with the laptop I'd used to do my honours project. The computer had all my university files on it, including my data and the Word version of my thesis. I lost interview video files, transcriptions, drafts, notes and everything except the PDF version I had uploaded to the University's online portal. Uploading was optional at the time, if I didn't do that I probably would have just been left with a single printed copy. I also lost all my jewellery and my brother’s base guitar, but I was most sad about the data (sorry bro). Thankfully, I made a backup of my data and files on a USB drive that I kept in my handbag. This was back when a 4GB thumb drive was an investment. That Friday, feeling sorry for myself after losing so many things I couldn't replace, I decided to go dancing to cheer myself up. While out with a group of friends, my bag was stolen. It was the first time I had a nice handbag, and I still miss it. Thankfully, I knew to make more than one back up. I had an older USB that I'd tucked down the back of the books on my shelf (a vintage 256MB drive my dad kindly got for me in undergrad after a very bad week when I lost an essay to a corrupted floppy disk). When I went to retrieve the files, the drive was (also) corrupted. This happens with hard drives sometimes. My three different copies in three different locations were now lost to me.

Thankfully, my computer had a CD/DVD burner. This was a very cool feature in the mid-tens, and I used to make a lot of mixed CDs for my friends. During my honours project I had burned backed up files on some discs and left them at my parents house. It was this third backup, kept off site, which became the only copy of my project. I very quickly made more copies. When Barb was back at work, and I rejoined her as a PhD student, it meant we could return to the data and all my notes. The thesis went through a complete rewrite and many years later was published as a journal article (Gawne & Kelly 2014). It would have probably never happened if I didn’t have those project files. I continued with the same cautious approach to my research data ever since, including sending home SD cards while on field trips, making use of online storage, and archiving data with institutional repositories while a project is ongoing.

I’m glad that I made enough copies that I learnt a good lesson from a terrible series of events. Hopefully this will prompt you, too, to think about how many copies you have, where they’re located, and what would happen if you lost access to your online storage.

#language #linguistics #data management #archiving

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doodlemancy · 2 months

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uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhh

so here's the deal re: this fucking horseshit. god i hate this.

i, personally, have mostly given up on trying to dodge inclusion in AI datasets. the stuff i make generally isn't what they're looking for anyway and there's no real way to 100% avoid being scraped short of becoming entirely invisible online, which would um, lead to me having no money and dying. that's part of the cruelty of all this, but also, in a way, it's the same risk artists online have always taken; if you want people to see your work, you have to post it knowing that some of those people are fucking lowlife piece of shit scumbags who will try to resell it on redbubble or something for a quick buck. AI is just a new and exhausting way for garbagey people to stink worse. i am not in any way excusing that behavior or trying to imply people should not be mad about it or that we shouldn't condemn this move and fight back. "if you don't want your work stolen, don't put it online" is the kind of shitty Internet Tough Guy talk i've always hated since my dA days. it's as useless and heartless as telling people that if they don't want their bikes stolen, they shouldn't leave them at the bike rack. i'm saying that i, personally, will not let a bunch of soulless thieving shitheads drive me offline. i belong here. they belong in a wifi-proof dumpster.

nightshade and glaze eat my artwork alive. they make it look terrible. when you have to sell things on the basis that they look nice, it's a big problem when protective measures make them look like dogshit. my work is not a good candidate for these processes. even if that weren't the case, i don't have the stamina, especially right now while my chronic pain is flaring for the third month in a row and my adhd meds are scarce, to go back and shade/glaze everything, and it wouldn't work on reblogs anyway. given the way midjourney and its equally stinky siblings have already scraped years and terabytes' worth of image data from popular websites, it doesn't seem worth my time. if you think it is worth yours i am not going to like, yell at you. i am just one person. but i want to be clear about the kind of situations some of us are being forced into.

i think some of the doomsaying about AI and what it will do to us has been overblown-- they need you, for marketing purposes, to believe that someday their shitty robot will be as good at "drawing" and as practical to work with as a human-- but the consequences of "AI" (which is not even actually AI) are already real and visible and obvious to anyone paying attention. i unfortunately am not infinitely wise and powerful and therefore do not have an ideal all-encompassing solution to this deeply stupid problem that the Most Unlikeable Manbabies On Earth have imposed on us after NFTs fizzled out.

what i do have is a very large repository of nice anime and game screenshots i've taken, knowledge of many archives of nice public domain images, a computer that can run nightshade overnight or while i'm off doing other things, and, most importantly, near-infinite capacity for pettiness. i do kinda feel like the jury is still out on how well nightshade/glaze will work in the long run, but in the meantime, i suppose it wouldn't cost me a lot to... perhaps... every time i get Mad About AI™, channel that anger into dumping some thoroughly-but-not-spammily-tagged, high-quality, inconspicuous poison onto this godforsaken hellsite via a secret side blog. i could make a batch of poison ahead of time, keep it on my phone, use my Toilet Scrolling Time or my Public Transit Time to post and tag up an image here and there. it could be a fun challenge to try to make some pretty robot poison that some humans will still enjoy.

the other thing we need to poison at this point, IMO, is the word "AI" itself, by being loudly and mercilessly critical of any company that dabbles in it, the same way we all clowned on any company that pushed their luck with NFT/crypto shit a couple of years ago. we need to have every corporation terrified that association with AI will tank their sales and hurt their brand. AI must = number go down and lots of people screaming at you. companies will fuck around. we must provide the finding-out. we shouldn't have to. but we can!

so make sure to let tumblr know you hate this. maybe you could include this interesting link (tw child abuse) about how Stable Diffusion was trained on some extremely serious crime. or these screenshots of Midjourney devs just sort of admitting what their whole thing is, which i got here but which have kinda been spread all over since January.

spite and anger can be forms of hope. that's all i have to say, or at least all i'm willing to type with my left hand tonight.

#long post #big long sigh

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helpinghanikan · 1 year

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Gently, Please

Konig x reader

Sum: Konig has been hit with a particular bio-weapon. It only has one cure: You

Since the beginning of your time here König has always been someone who was just there. At first he was just another operator in the corner of the room. Then he became the one operator that nodded at you when you addressed the room. Then he became the man named König. Then he was the man who you looked for when stopping by the mess. Eventually he became the man who smiled by crinkling his eyes behind a snipers hood. Who had a nice chuckle to your jokes, asked how you were doing and actually meant it.

Tonight, however, he was the only thing between you and death.

You’ve stayed less than a foot away from him since landing. One of three desk jockeys let into the to download and scrap together what you could.

“Floor two is clear.” Came a voice through König’s mike.

“Floor one is clear.” Came another.

You and König were headed for the fourth floor. Where the labs and your goal was to be located.

“Do not get ahead of me.” König reminded you. “Stay close, do as I say, understood?”

Where was the man who never spoke up at meetings? Who visibly blushed even while wearing a sniper’s hood? That man was left behind when König entered the field. He didn’t need to be worried about the people around him out here. After all; killing people didn’t count as a social interaction.

“Yes, Sir.” You said, holding your Glock 22 towards the floor.

You had taken the time and training to something of a master with American Police’s favorite side arm. It wasn’t going to do nearly as much damage as the rifles and guns carried around by the operators. Hell, even an unarmed operator could cause more damage than your weapon. But it was the thought that counts.

“Good girl,” König replies. The elevator doors opening before either of your could fully register what he had just said. “Forward.”

The guards and scientists on floor were prepared to die for their research. Women in armor and women in lab coats pulled weapons with the same amount of passion. They all died the same; with a single shot from the best non-sniper in the world.

The lab you searched for was in the very center of the floor. Surrounded by glass windows with only one entrance from a long hallway. Cameras followed you the entire time. König gave you barely a glance when you got annoyed and started picking them off.

“In here,” You said, reaching the lab door.

König enters first. Sweeping the room and finding only one lab worker hiding in the corner. She had raised her hands but met the same fate as the others when she went for a knife on the counter. A pool of red started to cover the floor as König called it clear.

“Floor four is clear.” He said into the mike.

You had already started on the data. A cheap laptop bought for the specific purpose of holding everything sat on the counter. A wire connecting it to a wall sized computer bank. One of five that would be copied and stolen today.

It was as everything started to download that König made a pausing comment.

“These guards, the lab, they’re all women.” He said, looking down to the last one to get a bullet.

“A little sexist to only expect men to fight.” You say, not thinking too deeply about the comment.

“No,” König steps up next to you. Demanding your full attention. “There are only women here. That doesn’t happen. There’s usually some women, but not only women.”

He turns away to speak into his mike. Asking the rest of the squad if they had come across any men while sweeping the area. You didn’t have to be close to know what the answer was going to be.

At the same time you got curious enough to look at some of the stuff downloading: It was all the usual things; guns, ammo, materials, and a nice little list of people who needed to be taken care off. The list of projects currently being tested before use in the field was what your higher ups would be interested in.

One of those was hidden under an SS file. The only one you opened due to it’s testing addressing being the same building your were currently standing in.

Just skimming through the drug’s contents, it’s symptoms, and the resulting reports forced you to call König over to take a look. Point at the specific part stating “only use of hormonal release through orgasm could flush Siren Song from the body. A partner would be needed to keep the affected individual from going into cardiac arrest and create the proper hormones.”

“Sex bomb,” König says bluntly. “That’s why there is no women.”

“This thing needs to go faster.” You said, as if the computer would get the hint and hurry up.

Meanwhile, one floor down, a lab coat managed to slip past the gun fire. A single individual who ignored a shoulder wound to reach the smaller lab.

The firing got closer as she worked. Death calling her name that she tried to ignore but simply couldn’t. She focusing on her task. The last thing she would remember is allowing the release from the main lab. After that red would cover the screen and an alarm would go off in the fourth floor.

The steam that starts to come from the ceilings is light pink. It smells sweet but hearty, like unfrosted cake still warm from the oven. You take a deep breathe in out of habit, sighing at the smell.

“Leave, we need to go.” König declares, hitting his mike. “Gas leak on floor four. We need an immediate evac.”

“No, we need to lock down.” You correct. “This entire level needs to be locked down before any of it gets out.”

It’s amazing that your fingers didn’t break from slamming through the lab controls. Taking longer, so much longer, than is needed to finally get the lab to lock down. Heavy metal sliding down over the single door. It wouldn’t be surprising to find out that the windows were already bullet proof. A red light overhead makes itself known. Blinkingly lightly as if it didn’t want to make too much of a scene while doing it’s job.

“König, what’s happening on your floor?” Asked Captain Price through your mikes.

“Bio-weapon has been released on this floor. It’s a-.” He looks over at you with a pause. Looking to you as if asking what he’s supposed to describe it as. “-pheromone based kind.”

“The lab is staying in lockdown until the weapon dies off. Should be a few hours.” You add. “we have another problem, though.”

“Is your target corrupted? Can your data still be saved?” Laswell asks. There wasn’t a chance that Laswell would let this mission happen without her. Not when three of her best techs were in the field.

“Yes, the data is safe and downloaded. But that’s not our problem. The weapon is; König is already affected by it.” You say, looking at your protector with apology in your eyes.

There’s a pause on the other end. Likely Captain Price talking to Laswell on a private channel before he asks; “What’s happening? What is the weapon?”

König turns his back towards you. He does the one thing no operator should ever do by setting his weapon down on a counter in the corner of the room. He leans against the counter, as if you wouldn’t notice the heavy breathing.

“You need to leave.” König States, but you ignore him.

“It’s called Siren Song, Captain. You know that legendary sex bomb? Yeah, I found it. It only effects males but we can’t let it out of the lab. I’ve already engaged the lab to start filtering. But it’s gonna take some time, I’ll keep König alive during it.” You explain to Captain Price. Any other time you would have been more formal, but it’s easier to be blunt and quick about explanations.

“You need to go…” König whimpers.

“It’s your choice.” Laswell says. “But no one will say anything if you need to take drastic measures to defend yourself. Especially not König.”

“Copy that watcher. Keep our mikes quiet for a minute.” Was the last thing you said before turning to König.

“I’m sorry,” You said, taking off your vest and weapons.

He doesn’t say anything as you approach from behind. In those few steps a million questions are going through your head. The confidence you momentarily had replaced with a question mark. How do you even start something like this? Will he be able to stop before seriously injuring you? Does he even want you?

All these questions are stopped as König whips around to face you. His hands stay on the table, gripping it so hard it’s amazing there weren’t dents.

“Go…” He says again, head tilted down to avoid eye-contact.

“König, if you die I’m not going to have anyone translate shit for me.” You say as if humor could help the situation. “I get that I’m not what you want but if you wanna live-.”

You’re interrupted by a barking laugh from König. As if he is incredulous at the thought you aren’t what he wants. It’s the first time he makes eye-contact with you.

“I want you, König” You whisper, stepping closer as his hands grip tighter. “Do you really want me?”

He nods his head, incapable of words anymore.

You go to your knees. Reaching towards his pants that are, thankfully, easier to undo than a harness.

“Then let me have you.” You said, managing to pull his pants and briefs down almost past his backside.

You aren’t the only one to wonder what Mr. König was packing under there. At six foot ten he was bound to be larger than average. You didn’t have a tape measurer on hand, but you had to guess maybe six to seven inches. Thick enough that your mouth watered and felt heavy in your hand.

Control is a ticking clock while you start to stroke. The table is most certainly going to have fingerprints in it. Especially when you stick out a tongue, swirling over his uncut head. The only warning he gets before the tip is taken into your mouth.

“Scheiße!” König screams into the air.

He lets go of the table. That strong grip now grabbing the back of your head. It’s everything you can do not to completely gag on his cock when he pulls you forward. Pushing passed your lips and into the warmth of your mouth.

He’s dreamed about your mouth since the first time you’ve met. Watch your lips move with every word. Trying not to stare when you apply your lip-balm or stick. He had wanted to know what it would be like to streak that lipstick you sometimes wore. What it looked like when he would kiss it messy, how he could make you blush from those kisses.

You weren’t a blushing woman, now. Your eyes are screwed shut, hands digging into thick thighs, and breathing through your nose as that was the only thing you could do.

The salty taste of König’s coming ejaculation wills you to open your eyes. Looking up to your tower of a man. His torso is bent forward, as if the entire experience is too much for him to handle. Although his eyes are closed his eyelashes are prominent against his cheeks. He looks almost innocent if he weren’t currently fucking your face.

He calls out your name, your real name, when he cums. Pulling your face in to cum down your throat with no chance of you being able to escape. He continue to say your name; whispering it as if he really was your man.

He lets you go, and the weight of sitting up straight on your knees comes down heavy. The ground is there when you fall backwards gasping for a stronger source of oxygen.

Although his cock is flaccid there’s no calming König’s heart.

“I just need a second.” You say, standing while trying to get your boots off.

It’s a little bit like a game. You trying to stay away long enough to get your boots, pants, and panties off while König walked towards you. His steps are slow, but his eyes are focused.

He follows as you make it around the counters. Although you are down for it there is a certain level of fear. This is normal when a man big as König has a target on you. Especially when his steps are quicker, and you don’t have time to say anything else before your pressed face first onto the counter.

He’s still flaccid when he presses against you. This does nothing to stop him from grinding against your backside. Laying over your back like a heavy blanket. He nuzzles against your neck while his hands start to work. Had he not been wearing the mask he would have been able to give you the kisses he’s been holding back for so long.

Instead of leaving marks with his mouth, he can only leave them with his hands. Squeezing your bare thighs, encouraging you to spread them further and further. He didn’t let go until he got one of your legs up and onto the counter. Spreading you open wider than anyone would ever be allowed to.

“Beautiful, I need you…” He whispers into your cheek.

You don’t what to say back. Not able to think of anything to say when his fingers find your slit. His gloves are harsh against the sensitive skin. It makes you hiss and whine.

“König,” You pleaded, looking back the best you could. “The gloves. Please, take them off.”

His bare fingers are hot, practically boiling. With the removal of his glove, giving into your final request, he has used all of his control. Now he only knew the need that the weapon caused. The need to take, to own, and to fuck the beauty in front of him. Had it been anyone else he might have had more control, but he was already a bit intoxicated by you. The weapon taking advantage of this as he slides two fingers deep within your pussy.

At first it feels like a punch. The spread and pumping of his fingers inside of you were a bit past rough. It was experimental; testing the boundaries of what you found painful and pleasurable and wanting to dance that line.

His thumb against your clit was his first right move. The jolt and squeak you give in reaction brings a hidden smile to König.

“Beautiful, Beautiful girl…” He whispers into your neck, thumb slowly rolling circles over your clit.

His flaccid cock continues to grind against you. He continues to finger and slide through your pussy. Desperate to have something inside of you when his cock couldn’t be.

Warmth grows in your stomach. It almost compares to the feeling of König’s hands against your bare skin. It’s probably for the best that König kept most of his gear on, otherwise you might have gotten heat stroke from the contact alone.

The pleasure builds from your stomach. It travels and owns your chest, swirling over your nipples and teasing them through your shirt that is suddenly far too constricting.

Your feet scramble for some sort of purchase on the smooth ground. The pleasure, the heat, the everything is becoming too much. Your orgasm coils and builds in your pelvis until it escapes out your moan in an extended moan.

König moans just as loudly. His teeth lining the side of your neck. Desperate to mark you but unable too with the thin line of fabric keeping him from his goal.

“Fuck me,” You whisper, sagging against the counter.

“Yes,” König almost snarls, pushing himself up from it’s presence over your back.

You’re only cold for a few seconds. In that time gentle pressure from the tip of König’s cock touches between your lips. Sliding back and forth once, twice, before finding your entrance and starting the firm push forward.

In another world, another time, König would have wanted to go gently. He would want to slide in slow through your slick lips. He wants you to feel every inch and remember the stretch that came with it. He wants you to sigh when he is flush and ask him to move when you are good and ready. Not a second more.

König doesn’t get that. Instead he penetrates you with a solid, quick, thrusts that jolts you both. Your gasp comes out almost like a shout. Reaching out for the side of the counter and grabbing hold.

The thrusts are quick and rapid. With no rhyme or reason to them. Only the pursuit of a second orgasm that isn’t coming fast enough.

He practically collapse onto your back. Sliding an arm under your chin with the other going across your neck. Holding you in a gentle headlock that keeps him grounded as he starts to pound harder, faster, and more directed than before.

He cums after a few more, sloppy, thrusts. Staying inside of you deeply as he pumps inside of your pussy. Moaning in a language you didn’t speak really well. Muffled by the hood and the ringing in your ears from being kept in a headlock for longer than you should’ve been.

“I love you, Beautiful,” König whispers.

There are plenty of things you can blame for what you said next. It was the post-orgasm feeling. It was the thick, delicious pounding taking place. Or maybe it was just the drug having the tiniest effect on women after all.

None of those reasons mattered. Because when you said; “I love you, too.” You really meant it in that moment.

#reader insert #call of duty #konig cod #konig mw2 #konig x y/n #Konig x reader #I've played call of duty #It's not accurate to call of duty

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ot3 · 4 months

Note

ok i think you have really good, reasonable, down-to-earth takes across the board, but your ai perspective is genuinely very confusing to me and i would love your help in understanding. especially wrt your last post. to reiterate: you are saying that people who hate ai art should also hate game consoles and off-season produce, and that hating ai art betrays a hypocritical attitude toward what forms of labour deserve protection and value? if i have this wrong please correct me!

if i have that write, then if i can ask in good faith: how is it that ai art generators can be seen as equivalent to gaming consoles and off-season produce? do you mean from a tech perspective or a labour perspective? i understand neither. gaming consoles are machines - designed and made by humans - designed to run games - games that were made by (typically) huge human labour forces and artists and writers and designers. off-season produce is able to be grown thanks to technology - but still has to be grown and watered and harvested by human labour. midjourney is a computer program, admittedly designed by people, yes, that then goes and autonomously scrapes data off the internet (“data” here being art and photography created by humans) to then autonomously spit own a hashed together image when prompted. without appropriate compensation for the people whose art and photography has been included in such a dataset, i do not see how they might count as similar to the greenhouse farmers or console designers. i am sincerely clueless as to how something like midjourney entails equivalent labour worthy of equivalent protection as items made or grown by hand, or how disliking ai art, and feeling uncertain about what it might mean for human labour the future, is hypocrisy. are you able to clarify any of this?

i'm not saying that people who hate ai should also hate video game consoles or out of season fruit. im saying that people who look at ai and see something that is fundamentally incapable of being interesting or enjoyable because it existing involved stealing the labor of Creatives seem not to care as much about the labor theft that goes into providing them with other luxury goods. i picked out game consoles and out of season fruit as my specific examples here because they're things people could easily choose to live without.

without appropriate compensation for the people whose art and photography has been included in such a dataset, i do not see how they might count as similar to the greenhouse farmers or console designers.

this is the part where we're not quite on the same page, i believe. the point i was trying to make is that the people who are responsible for making your consoles and for making sure your grocery store has produce are not adequately compensated either. they just aren't. i'm not talking about engineers who design consoles or people running greenhouses, i'm talking about miners, factory workers, and agricultural laborers.

the metals for your console were mined by someone whose labor is exploited. the console was assembled by people whose labor was exploited. the fruit from the greenhouse was planted by someone whose labor was exploited, tended to by someone whose labor was exploited, and then harvested by someone whose labor was exploited.

i don't think there's anything wrong with disliking ai art or feeling unsure about where it leaves human artists. i think that's a completely natural way to react to it. i think discussing AI image generation as if the lack of compensation in the labor necessary to develop it makes it uniquely exploitative, thereby putting all AI image generation off limits to everyone forever, means people don't spend enough time thinking about the stolen labor that goes in to making the rest of their life possible.

#long post

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random-thot-generator · 9 months

Text

Love Thy Frenemy + Ch. 6

(Frenemies/ Tenderness AU)

SIX: A Terrible Thing to Bear

SIMON GHOST RILEY x FRENEMY FEM READER

Summary: Simon has compromised his own morals in his quest to discover who your secret lover is, but what he discovers is nothing compared to what he imagined. Tempers flare and harsh words are exchanged as the ugly truths you both have kept hidden come to light.

Warnings/Tags: Profanity, Angst, Hurt/No comfort - not yet anyway, Mentions of sex trade/prostitution, Obsessive/Possessive behavior, Jealousy, Simon is being stalker-ish, No use of Y/N

(Notes: This is a rough chapter, y’all. Simon does some questionable things, so fair warning. He’s allowed his obsession with this supposed lover of Reader’s to warp his perception of right and wrong, and his decisions reflect that. While I don’t condone this type of behavior, and I’m not trying to romanticize it at all, I still felt like it was in character with Simon and how he would cope with the situation, treating it like a mission to complete.)

[image via GIPHY]

Word Count: 3350

Chapter 6

“Remorse is a terrible thing to bear, Pam, one of the worst of all punishments in this life. To wish undone something you have done, to wish you could look back on kindness to someone you love, instead of on unkindness - that is a very terrible thing.”

― Enid Blyton, House at the Corner

It felt like a betrayal of trust, what he was doing.

If he had allowed himself to think about it, maybe he would have acknowledged that, yes, it absolutely was a betrayal. However, Simon was in no mood to be swayed from his mission, not even by his own conscience. Even so, his moral compass had taken a severe hit this past week.

He had stolen your phone.

He had every intention of giving it back, he just needed to ‘borrow’ it for a few hours. Still, he felt like a right sorry bastard, having to witness how upset you were over its loss. He consoled himself with the knowledge that your small grief was only temporary and was ultimately for a good cause. If that useless tosser you were seeing wasn’t going to take care of you properly, then Simon needed to intervene. He was doing this for you, he told himself.

Funny, that he had to keep reminding himself of that.

The first order of business was to be able to track you once you left Banfield, thus his reason for stealing your phone. He drove the two hours to base, your cell phone weighing like a stone in his pocket, then handed it over to one of the lab rats in the tech department.

“Need t’be able to trace this long range,” he’d told the tech, handing over your phone.

“Anything else?” the tech asked expectantly.

Putting a tracker on your phone was bad enough. Simon shook his head. “Nah. That’ll do. Need it ASAP.”

The tech looked the cell over and shrugged. “Won’t take long. Are you sure you don’t need access to anything else, though? I can get you detailed logs of calls, texts, search history, locations—”

“Locations?” Simon interrupted. Now, that he would allow. “Can you pinpoint where they were last Sunday?”

The tech nodded, a rather smug expression on his face as he tilted his nose up in the air. “Well, I can tell you where the phone was... approximately.” He took the phone back to his terminal and hooked it up to his computer, then began typing. He hacked into it within minutes, your personal data scrolling down the computer screen. “Alright then, let’s see where you’ve been..." he mumbled to himself. Scrolling down the screen, he paused to ask, "Last Sunday, did you say?”

“Yeah,” Simon muttered, his large frame leaning over the shoulder of the smaller man, eager to see what he’d find.

"Time stamp?"

Simon erred on the side of caution. "Hm, let's say... 0900. They would have been traveling that morning. I need to know where they went."

The tech gave a quick nod. He scrolled for a few more seconds, his brows furrowing. “Huh. Bit of a rough borough,” he muttered. He glanced over his shoulder at Simon, his neck craned. “Judging by the pings, it looks like your target took the overtrain to Hackney last Sunday.”

“Hackney?!” Simon barked, making the tech jump in surprise. ”Where in Hackney?” he demanded.

The tech pushed his glasses back up his nose, blinking up at Simon’s skull mask with an owlish expression. He quickly turned back to the keyboard.

“I can’t pinpoint a specific location, like an address," he warned, fingers dancing over the keys, "but I can narrow it down to a general area." He began to scroll down through more data displayed on the screen and then moved to the side, pointing at the log.

“Your target reached their destination around eleven Sunday morning. They were stationary for about six hours at a location in Shoreditch. Looks like they were somewhere around the party block.” When Simon gave him a quizzical look, he explained. “Lot of clubs in that area. You know, dance clubs, strip clubs, bars and the like.” He peered up at Simon with a leering little smirk. “Your target isn’t a waitress or a stripper, is she? If she’s got some hot selfies. I could forward ‘em to ya,” he suggested, raising his eyebrows as he waggled your phone back and forth.

Anger, swift as a brush fire, swept through Simon in a flaming rush. The thought of this pervy little creeper going through your photos infuriated him. He yanked the phone away, laying it back on the desk before jabbing a finger into the tech’s boney shoulder. “Jus’ get the bloody tracker operational, then delete everything ya downloaded off that phone. All of it. Understood?”

The tech, realizing his mistake too late, gave a jerky nod as he scrambled to do as Simon commanded, shooting a nervous glance over his shoulder. Once the tracker was installed and activated on your phone, the tech disconnected it and deleted all your data from the system. Tapping the delete button on the last file, he proclaimed it, “Done and done,” with an air of smug bravado.

Simon eyed the younger man. There was just something about this weaselly little punter that didn’t sit right with him. He leaned down close to the tech’s face, skull mask close enough to brush his cheek. "Just a warnin', lad. If ya try t'pull a fast one, an' I find out ya kept, say, the file wif her pictures, I'll be back t'visit ya, an’ I won’t be as pleasant as I was this time.” He drew back to stare into his eyes. “We on the same page, mate?"

The terrified tech gulped, the knuckle of his Adam's apple bobbing up and down in his scrawny neck. "Y-Yes, sir," he breathed out in a quavering voice.

Simon straightened and clapped a big hand on the tech’s shoulder. "Good lad," he growled, squeezing his hand tight enough to make the young man's eyes widen in pain and panic. "Now get the receiver for the tracker goin’. I got places t’be."

The tech set to work with trembling hands, back spacing several times while typing to correct mistakes made with his nervous fingers. Finally, he managed to program a receiver and synced it to your cell phone, double-checking it before he passed it to the glowering lieutenant.

“S-Sorry about earlier, sir. I meant no offense,” he apologized, holding your phone out in offering.

Simon sneered at the tech as he snatched your cell phone from his hand and stalked out of the room without another word, absolutely seething with rage. However, he wasn't as angry at the little knob he'd just threatened as he was at you.

What the bloody hell were you doing in Shoreditch? It had one of the highest crime rates in London, and you were just traipsing around the bloody place? His worries increased tenfold at the thought of you walking the streets there after dark, sitting alone and exposed at some inner-city bus stop like a piece of ripe fruit for some low-life to pick at their leisure. Did that bastard you were seeing at least walk you to your stop, make sure you got on the bus safe?

Simon grunted. Probably not. The fact that it was you putting forth all the effort and taking the risks hadn’t escaped him. Fuckin’ minger didn’t give a shite about you. Simon would never let you go somewhere like Shoreditch alone, and he sure as hell wouldn’t let you walk the streets alone at night. Just the thought of it made him feel sick.

His stomach was tied in knots by the time he made it back to his truck and set out for Banfield once more.

It was a long drive home.

Sunday...

The train to Hackney came to a halt with a squeal of brakes and a loud hiss. When the automatic doors opened, you quickly stepped out and made your way through the terminal to the main street beyond. You kept your head down, not making eye contact with anyone. Huddling inside your da’s old army jacket, you took a seat on the bench at the bus stop and waited for the bus to Shoreditch.

You didn’t pay any mind to the dark sedan that pulled to the curb across and further up the street, didn’t notice the large silhouette of a man sitting behind the wheel. You kept your eyes straight ahead and pointed down at the grimy sidewalk.

Simon slouched in his seat, the receiver blinking rapidly beside him. He checked his rental car’s mirrors before focusing on you again, taking in your stony expression. At least you knew not to engage with people, stay to yourself. He made a mental note to ask if you carried anything for protection, pepper spray or a knife. Not that those would do much good against some chav with a gun. He gritted his teeth and gripped the wheel.

Your bus arrived and you climbed aboard, taking a seat near the back. Simon waited until it was further up the block but still easily within sight before pulling out to follow. He wasn’t worried about losing track of you now, but he still felt the need to stay close, just in case.

With each stop, Simon tensed, waiting for you to rise and disembark, thinking your secret lover must live in one of the residential buildings that crowded the streets, yet it wasn’t until the bus reached a narrow street lined with shuttered businesses― bars, clubs and cheap eateries mostly, that you stepped off the bus. He pulled to the curb again to watch but felt his heart rate tick up when you turned and began walking in his direction.

“Fuck,” he hissed, trying to slouch in the seat and make himself less visible.

Just before you reached his vehicle, you stopped before a shuttered store front, the facade painted an ugly, lurid rust red, its corrugated shutter a flat black and littered with graffiti. You raised your fist and banged on the shutter, keeping a wary eye out as you waited. A door to the side of the shutter swung open, an older, balding man poking his head out and motioning for you to come inside.

Simon watched you step through the door, disappearing from sight, his eyes travelling up to the name of the establishment printed on the sign above in bold, white letters. ‘The Grind’, it read and below that in a smaller font, ‘Gentleman’s Club’.

“What the bloody fuckin’ hell?” he snarled.

You had just entered a strip club.

You stood in the back near the dressing rooms, a mop bucket filling with water from a tap low on the wall. A cleaning trolley sat nearby, loaded down with everything you’d need. Your boss, Murray, was standing on the other side of the tap, his paunchy frame leaned against the bare brick wall as he tapped away at his phone. He glanced up at you as you shut off the tap and dunked the mop in the bucket.

“Be sure an’ give the private rooms a deep clean. Had a good night last night. The lads kept the girls busy,” he said with a leering smirk.

You tried to hide your disgust at the insinuation. Murray’s ‘girls’ were allowed to supplement their incomes by servicing the club’s clientele with sexual favors. He was little better than a street pimp, taking a cut of their profits for himself in exchange for a safe place to conduct their business. He had cameras hid in the private rooms to make sure none of the dancers shafted him, always keeping a sharp eye on his ‘investments’, as he called them.

If not for the fact he paid you so well, you wouldn’t be caught dead around a dive like this, wouldn’t ever bother to come to Shoreditch or Hackney at all. After moving away from this crime-infested area, you never wanted to return, but your financial situation demanded it. If it wasn’t for this job, you would have to work another part-time job when you weren’t on shift at the pub. Ollie paid you a fair wage, but it wasn’t enough to cover all your living expenses.

Picking up the jug of industrial cleaner from the cart, you poured a measure of it into the bucket of water, wrinkling your nose at its caustic smell. You had no doubt that this is what was damaging your hands. “Hey, Mur. Do ya think you could switch cleaners? This stuff is so strong it takes the skin off my hands.”

Murray shook his head. “That stuff kills everything. No matter what these filthy mingers bring in here, tha’ stuff will take care of it. Just― double up on the gloves ‘r somethin’,” he said over his shoulder as he headed back towards his office.

Arsehole, you thought, scowling after him. You’d have to try and hide your hands from Riley tonight. He’d be checking on them now and would fuss, you knew, no doubt asking more questions. You grimaced at the thought.

You didn’t like dodging his questions and skirting around the truth, but he just wouldn’t leave it alone, and it was getting kind of annoying. You appreciated that he was concerned about your welfare, but he was toeing the line of your personal boundaries, trying to make something his business that simply wasn’t.

You could admit that most of your hesitance to come clean with him was due to your own embarrassment. You were being paid to deep clean what was essentially a brothel. You were paid well for it, sure— well, you were paid hansdomely for your discretion also— but who would want to admit they earned their paycheck tossing out bin bags of used condoms and scrubbing sex rooms clean for a living? You could just picture the look of disgust on Riley’s face if he ever found out.

You blew out a frustrated breath. This whole situation was wearing thin on your patience. You needed to get started, otherwise you risked missing your bus back to the train station later, and you didn’t want to be in Shoreditch after dark, if you could help it. Deciding to start with the trash, first, you grabbed the roll of bin bags from the cart and set off for the private rooms.

Simon strolled past the Grind’s entrance for the third time, eyes darting around beneath the hood of his sweatshirt as he eyed the security camera over the door. He’d spotted others while casing the building, all of them unfortunately operational, save one. It was located at the side emergency exit above the door, lifeless, its red light dead.

It was his best hope of entry, but it was far from optimal. The alleyway was wide to allow vehicle access, so it was kept clear with few places to hide, far more exposed than he would have liked. He had also checked the emergency door during his first recon of the building, only to find that it was alarmed and locked tight. It wasn’t impregnable, he could still get in, but he would need to bypass the alarm as well as pick the locks, which would take time, and he would need to do all this without being spotted.

It was a recipe for disaster, he knew, his chances of being caught by some random pedestrian high. He was dressed casually, and he’d chosen to wear his surgical mask to draw less attention, but his size was an issue; his large, towering frame drew the curious glances of those he passed. Add that to being dressed in dark clothes and masked, if he was spotted loitering about the exit for too long, someone was bound to report him.

He needed a better look at the alarm and the locks to give him an idea of what this risky endeavor would entail. Turning down the alleyway once more, he kept a leisurely pace, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket, seemingly relaxed, just a guy taking a shortcut to get to the next street over. His eyes shifted as he came even with the door, his steps slowing just a fraction, all attention focused on the locks.

He wasn’t expecting the door to suddenly burst open, and he startled, his body turning to face the door head-on. His eyes went wide when you came pushing out the door, hands full of bin bags. Your head shot up at the scuffing sound of his boots on the pavement, startled yourself, your mouth falling open to gasp as your eyes went wide in surprise.

“Riley?!”

Simon felt like a deer in headlights. You’d caught him red handed, nosing around, and only then did he consider how bad this must look. He could already tell by the way you were looking at him that he was about to catch all sorts of hell, so he acted accordingly.

Squaring off as he scowled at you, he growled, “The fuck is this, Dee? You an’ me are goin’ t’have a talk!”

“Oh, you fuckin’ bet we are!” you snapped back, flinging the bin bags down as you marched towards. him. You jabbed your finger at him as you gave him a baleful look. “You followed me,” you accused, voice low and angry. “You just couldn’t stand not knowing, could ya? You just had to know, so you followed me here, doggin’ my steps like some bloody’ creeper.” You glared at him, mouth pinching up in anger. “I am so fucking pissed at you, right now.”

Feeling defensive and irrationally betrayed, he glared at you, speaking in a venomous tone. “Don’t give a fuck how pissed ya are,” he huffed, then scoffed at your shocked expression. “So, this is yer big secret? Ya give lap dances to dirty old pervs to pay yer rent?”

You wouldn’t have been more shocked if he had slapped you across the face. He’d said plenty of mean things to you in the past when the two of you argued, but he had never been cruel to you like this. Never. Pain as sharp as a dagger pierced your heart, but quickly morphed into fury. A thunderous look darkened your expression. Before you knew what you were about, you planted your hands on his chest and shoved him, hard. It caught him off guard enough that he staggered a step back, eyes going wide in surprise.

“Don’t you ever speak to me like that again!” you snarled, stepping away. “Better yet, don’t fuckin’ speak to me at all.” You spun on your heel and went back to the door, only then noticing it had closed behind you. You were locked out. Growling in frustration and on the verge of tears, you curled your hands into fists and began marching stiffly towards the street exit. You’d have to get Murray to let you back in.

Simon came around you and blocked your way, his eyes full of rage until he saw the expression on your face. Tears were threatening to spill, hurt sharp and bright in your eyes. “Doll, listen. I―”

“I trusted you. You were supposed to be my friend.” Your breath hitched, and a tear rolled down your face. You gave a furious shake of your head when he opened his mouth and hurried to step around him. You couldn’t do this anymore.

“Doll, wait!” he called after you, but you shook your head and walked faster.

“Don’t, Riley. Just...leave me alone.” Your voice wavered on the last word, and you broke into a jog, hurrying around the corner and out of sight.

Simon stared after you, the reality of what he’d just done, what he’d just said to you, settling in his chest like cold lead, his heart crushed beneath the weight of his own remorse.

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Taglist:

@stillinracooncity @cumikering @cutiecusp @deadbranch @ghostlythots @thetiredtoad0-0 @glitterypirateduck @gothgirl6-6-6 @sofasoap @cathnoneofyourbusiness @shuttlelauncher81 @luminousbeings-crudematter @crunchlite @delilah-grimes @bobochacha

#simon ghost riley x fem reader #simon riley x fem reader #cod ghost x fem reader #ghost x fem reader #simon ghost riley x frenemy fem reader #ghost x reader #ghost x you #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley x you #cod ghost x reader #cod ghost x you #Frenemies/Tenderness AU #Love Thy Frenemy

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nachosncheezies · 5 months

Note

I can't find the post where you've rambled about Kurt Crawford before! Please ramble to me about Kurt Crawford!

Hi hello and thank you for your patience as I answer this one month to the day from when you sent it!!!! 🙈 oops

The Crawfords was my original answer to @perpetually-weirdening's question "what character do you wish we learned more about" but I'm so happy to expand on that, I have a lot of feelings!!! xD

The thing about the Kurt Crawfords is that (unless I'm forgetting something big) they're the first clones we've seen that are explicitly said to be the progeny of abductees/the MUFON women. We've met other clones before including the Samanthas in Colony/End Game but those were rogues trying to figure out how to hybridize themselves into some kind of genetic variability that would let them look different and blend in. (they used discarded tissue from abortion clinics rather than stolen ova) The bounty hunter was after them for simply existing outside The Project.

The Crawfords are different. They're part of The Project. The first one that Mulder and Scully meet is the one they track down after finding someone is remotely copying Betsy Hagopian's computer files. This Crawford claims to be a member of Betsy's MUFON chapter, and he tells them there's a conspiracy to cover up the women's deaths. He leads them to Penny Northern, who (unfortunately) directs Scully to Dr Scanlon and her first attempt at treatment. The bounty hunter comes for Crawford #1 in Betsy's basement the minute Mulder steps away.

Crawford #2 turns up at the fertility clinic where Betsy and some of the others had been treated. This Crawford is dressed differently but Mulder doesn't know yet that there's more than one, and accuses him of having run off with the files they'd been working on in Betsy's basement. Between them and the Gunmen, they track down Scully's name in a research lab directory, which leads them to data on the branched DNA they'd already identified after Scully's abduction. But if someone's looking at this as a possible cause for her illness, maybe they're also looking for a cure, so the Gunmen help Mulder break into the Lombard facility where he finds a whole room of Kurt Crawfords.

And this is where IMO it gets so complicated and so bittersweet and so REAL. We learn very little about the Crawfords in the few minutes Mulder is with them but what we do learn is pretty significant for something that's never really talked about again. They recognize Mulder, they welcome him. They lead him straight to the drawer containing Scully's stolen ova (the first time we learn what the project did to her when she was abducted). They tell him how they were harvested, that the radiation used in that procedure caused her (and the MUFON women's) cancer. They tell him that the men who are claiming to treat this rare cancer are the same ones that caused it, that those men are actually working to hasten the women's deaths.

But!!!! what gets me most is this exchange:

Mulder: You're trying to save them. Crawford: They're our mothers.

What a thing to think, to feel, to say. The Crawfords came from fucked up circumstances and they're not really human. They're complicit in perpetuating it all by making more of themselves, but this is their life cycle, this is their job, this is what they know. From what we're shown we have no reason to believe that any of them has ever experienced what it is to have a mother in any sense other than a genetic donor. They're grown in tanks from tampered genetic material taken from tampered women without either party giving consent.

But they recognize that they owe their existence to these human women, who were violated and now suffer and die for it. And in those very few words he says: they don't want that. They recognize it's wrong. They're trying to stop it. (They are risking their lives; their subversion sends the bounty hunter after them.) It's their chance at redemption for the crime of being alive and that alone is painfully human.

They want Mulder and Scully to know the truth. The fact that they lead Mulder directly to where Scully's stolen ova are kept. That they let him take from that drawer without comment. They let him take the truth in his hand, surely aware that he might return it to her. (I like to think they hoped he would.) Because she, and the other women, are their mothers.

IMO one of the biggest elephants in the room for this whole show, although we don't learn about her until well after this, is Emily. How many others like her might there be? It's fucking TRAGIC to think about. But she's not the only thing to come from those stolen ova. The Crawfords are not the children Scully or any of the other MUFON women wanted. But they exist. They are grateful, in whatever way a hybrid clone can be. They recognize the sacrifice and suffering that brought them to life. They are doing what they can, in their own way, to set it right. Because to them, those are their mothers.

Knowing about the Crawfords and their subversion of The Project could never undo what was done to Scully or the others. But as gross and shocking a revelation it would be to know that inhuman things are being made in place of the children they can never have, what the Crawfords show us is that not everything that came from those violations are tragedies in the way of Emily and any other children like her. I wonder if it might have been a comfort for Scully to know that out of one of the worst things to ever happen to the abducted women, These Men Who Would Create a Life Whose Only Hope Is To Die have also accidentally created lives whose greatest hope is to save people, to save her and others like her. That these inhuman children the women never wanted have somehow grown to have a sense of empathy, a sense of justice, a moral compass, a desire to do what's right. Things a mother would want for her children, things a mother could be proud of. That they may not be human, they may not know what it is to be children, but they know that somewhere out there they have mothers, and they care.

I wonder if Mulder ever told Scully. I hope someday he did.

#mulder recognized the boy in the tank from the drones he met in the bee fields #where he also met Project-approved samantha drones #so here's a question:#are there Samanthas out there - grown like the memento mori Crawfords - who consider the abductees their mothers too?#are there Samanthas out there made of what was stolen from Scully?#x files #the x files #thank you for the ask it was fun to ramble about and a PERFECT excuse to rewatch memento mori 😍#folks ask nachos answers #scully #kurt crawford

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kon4ka · 2 months

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Challenge: Drawing D&D classes - Topic 7 - Druid 2

🎆 Druid Hacker in the world of Cyberpunk - Aleph zero. 🎆

No, I didn’t eat strange colored mushrooms… 🍄

🖥 Backstory: Born with unique computing abilities, at the age of three she was kidnapped by a corporation that connected her to the network and made her a netrunner. Until my twentieth birthday, I never left the network. She was forced to first learn to live online, and then to comply with the requirements of the Corporation. But thanks to the innate runner's intuition, she was able to look behind the ice (firewall) of the corporation and travel through the open network and fragments of the Old Network that remained after the Fall of the First Network in backward countries.

Over time, she learned the rules and laws of each region and even learned to imitate programs so that the corporation could not distinguish her from one of the AIs. During my “work” for the corporation, I also saw enough of the human world and burned with a burning desire to get out of the world of ones and zeros and feel at least something, feel what it’s like to live, look at the world with your own eyes, eat food and experience other everyday joys. Presumably it was saved during the merger of two corporations; the container with it was simply stolen along with the weapons and the data center. The container ended up in the hands of one of the gangs, from which Aleph escaped, burning the brains of everyone who was connected to the gang’s local network. I found myself on the street not understanding what to do and barely able to control her body. She had one contact outside the corporation where she worked, Aleph was able to contact him and ask for help. They helped her; someone she knew only by his online nickname came for her and took her away from the bandit’s lair, and then took her to the ripper. Aleph Zero sat for a long time on the necks of the people who sheltered her, slowly relearning how to speak with my mouth and control my own body.

✒ Character: Still a big child, delighted with the most banal things. Still often wrong about trivial things. Good at everything that requires logic. She is laconic, or rather, she still forgets that in order to be heard it is not enough to just think. Cheerful and not serious in many ways. She takes orders extremely responsibly and is accustomed to repaying her debts.

🪢 Skills: From the Druids she adopted the ability to change forms on the network, can become a Worm, Virus, Trojan, Python, Interversion (inward-facing artificials), etc.

✨ Features: There are almost no implants in the body. Professional cyberdeck inherited from the company. She dresses very colorfully, making up for the time when everything around her consisted of zeros and ones. There are special implants in the eyes, in one there is the letter Aleph, in the other there is a zero.

P.S. Aleph zero or ℵ0 - Mathematical term. The number of elements in an infinite set. P. P. S. Inward facing Iskin (cube in the background), Iskins found in the Old Network, they cannot perceive anything outside themselves, that is, they seem to “look inside themselves” and nothing outside can influence them. This design is risky, but can be used as a shield in extreme cases.

🎆 Друид Хакер в мире Киберпанка - Алеф ноль. 🎆

Нет, я не ела грибов странного цвета… 🍄

🖥 Предыстория: Родилась с уникальными вычислительными способностями, в три года была похищена корпорацией, которая подключила её к сети и сделала из нее нетраннера. До своего двадцатилетия ни разу не покидала сеть. Была вынуждена сначала учиться жить в сети, а потом и выполнять требования Корпорации. Но благодаря врожденной раннерской интуиции смогла заглянуть за лёд (брандмауэр) корпорации и путешествовать по открытой сети и осколкам Старой Сети, оставшимся после Падения Первой Сети в отсталых странах. Со временем выучила правила и законы каждого региона и даже научилась подрожать программам, чтобы корпорация не могла отличить ее от одного из Искинов (ИИ). За время своей "работы" на корпорацию так же насмотрелась на мир людей и горела жгучим желанием выбраться из мира единиц и нулей и почувствовать хоть что-то, почувствовать каково это - жить, смотреть на мир своими глазами, есть еду и ощущать прочие житейские радости. Предположительно была спасена при слиянии двух корпораций, контейнер с ней просто выкрали вместе с оружием и датацентром. Контейнер попал к одной из группировок, от которой Алеф сбежала, спалив мозги всем, кто был подключен к локальной сети банды. Оказалась на улице, не понимающая что делать и едва способная контролировать свое тело. У нее был один контакт вне корпорации где она работала, Алеф смогла с ним связаться и попросить помощи. Ей помогли, тот, кого она знала лишь по нику в сети приехал за ней и увёз из бандитского логова, а после отвез к риперу. Алеф Ноль долго сидела на шее приютивших её людей, медленно заново учась говорить ртом и владеть собственным телом.

✒

Характер: Всё ещё большой ребёнок, в восторге от самых банальных вещей. Всё ещё часто ошибается в банальных вещах. Хороша во всем, что требует логики. Немногословна, вернее, всё ещё забывает, что чтобы ее услышали недостаточно просто думать. Веселая во многом несерьезная. Крайне ответственно относится к поручениям и привыкла отдавать долги.

🪢 Навыки: От друидов переняла способность менять формы в сети, может становиться Червём, Вирусом, Трояном, Питоном, Интерверсией (обращенный внутрь искин) и т. д.

Особенности: В теле почти нет имплантов. Профессиональная кибердека доставшаяся от корпы. Очень пёстро одевается, отыгрываясь за время, когда все вокруг нее состояло из нулей и единиц. В глазах особые импланты, в одном буква Алеф, в другом ноль.

P. S. Алеф ноль или ℵ0 - Математический термин. Количество элементов в бесконечном множестве. P. P. S. Обращенный внутрь Искин (куб на заднем плане), Искины, встречающиеся в Старой Сети, не могут воспринимать ничего снаружи себя, то есть они как бы "смотрят внутрь себя" и ничто снаружи не может повлиять на них. Подобная конструкция рискована, но применима как щит на крайний случай.

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bullet-prooflove · 3 months

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Covert Affairs: Vostanik Sabatino x Reader (feat: G. Callen)

Tagging: @kmc1989 @novamariestark @words-and-seeds @thiashazzywriting @whateversomethingbruh

You’ve been with Sabatino almost two years when your relationship gets thrust into the spotlight. It’s a litany of stolen moments whenever he arrives back in LA. Whirlwind dinner dates and nights spent ruining you in the sheets of his hotel room. You hit your favourite brunch spots, ranking them with detailed notes you keep on your phone for the next time he’s in town. He gives you a tour of Hollywood, the places he used to haunt back in the day when he was playing with his band. You catch a couple of shows over pitchers of beer in a dive bar or two.

“Do you ever think about doing it again?” You ask him as you watch the band from a spot near the bar. Your back comes to rest against his chest, his arm looped around your waist, holding you close.

“Maybe one day, when I finally put down some roots.” He murmurs into your ear as he nuzzles the curve of your throat. “I miss making music.”

He fucks you in the bathroom of the bar, the pulse of the music vibrating through the walls as he goes down on you to a God-awful rendition of ‘Killer Queen’. Whenever you hear that song in the aftermath, you think of that night. His mouth on you, tongue thrust deep inside when you come for him just as Freddy hits the high note.

Sam’s away in Somalia when Nell and Eric identify a problem. Someone has been downloading classified data from the NCIS server and selling it on the black market. An investigation is opened into everyone who was working at a computer terminal during the download, and you happen to be one of them. You’d stayed late to catch up on the after-action reports after losing a bet to Callen at the shooting rage.

It’s ridiculous that a tickle in your nose just as you’re about to pull the trigger is the reason your whole life blows up.

Part of the investigation includes cloning the personal phones of the people under suspicion so they can deep dive into their lives. You make it relatively easy, leaving yours in the top drawer of your desk when you hit the gym with Kensi. Nobody really believes it’s you, you’ve been with them six years. You’ve shed blood, cried tears, saved their lives, fought their battles. For Nell and Eric, it’s simply a process of elimination, that is until they find a wealth of incriminating data.

Calls from multiple international sources they can’t verify.

An encrypted message app, hidden under the calculator icon.

A secret cache of files that are password protected.

It’s all high-level security, something you don’t need on your personal device, almost NSA level shit. Even with their tech savvy it would take hours to break into the phone and they don’t have that kind of time because you’ve just received a text from a burner cell telling you to meet at The Majestic Hotel, Room 216, later this evening.

You must be meeting the buyer.

They can’t take the risk of that information falling into the wrong hands, so it becomes an op with you as the target. It’s hastily put together, there’s no time to run prior surveillance because it’s going down just as they pull up to the hotel. They catch a glimpse of you stepping into the room before the door closes quietly behind you.

Callen, Deeks and Kensi take up residence just outside the door, allowing a few minutes for the exchange to take place before they use the keycard to gain entry.

When they burst into the room guns drawn, it’s not what anyone expected.

The first thing they see is Sabatino. He’s in a state of undress. His white button up shirt hangs open, revealing his bare chest including that messy scar etched into his flesh. There’s lipstick marks trailing down the hollow of his throat, staining his skin. It’s fire engine red, the shade you were wearing. He holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender, his body shielding you from what he perceives to be a threat.

For Callen it's an echo back to that day in Afghanistan, the one when Sabatino put himself between you and the bullet that would have ended your life.

When you step out from behind him, you’re in a similar state of disarray. Your lipstick is smeared across your mouth, your hands tugging the fabric of the black wrap dress around your body covering up the lingerie that you’re wearing.

You’re both arrested and taken to separate interrogation rooms in the Boatshed. You’re silent in the face of the accusation but Sabatino, he will not stop talking. He’s pissed on your behalf, that your team won’t give you the benefit of the doubt, that you’re being treated like a criminal. Him, he’s used to this shit, but you deserve better.

You don’t blame them for suspecting you, you know how it looks. You’d be doing the same thing in their shoes; in fact, you have.

They sweat you for a while, leave you spinning your wheels. It’s standard procedure in a case like this, let the suspect get in their own head, make them eager to talk. You know what’ll happen in that time, they’ll find evidence of your relationship with Sabatino. It’s not that that bothers you, it’s the intimate items you’d brought with you to the hotel room sitting in your overnight bag. The one that someone is now going to have to search through. It’s humiliating.

It's Callen that comes to interrogate you, you didn’t expect anything different, he is your superior after all. You know that your conversation is about to get a lot more personal because Callen has to consider the possibility that Sabatino’s been using you for intel, he wouldn’t be doing his due diligence if he didn’t.

“Your relationship with Sabatino, take me through it.”

So, you do, from that first kiss in the car to the last time he was in town. As you detail your relationship, things start to make sense to Callen, pieces he hasn’t put together until now. Sabatino’s reaction back in Afghanistan when you were taken, the fact he’d undertaken the prisoner walk instead of a member of your team. He had known that bullet was coming, that the Taliban couldn’t afford to let you go. He’d been prepared to die for you that day.

Callen thinks about earlier in the hotel room, Sabatino’s first instinct had been to get between you and whatever was coming through that door. He understands that urge, it’s reactive and primal, like a wolf protecting his mate.

There’s other things he’s noticed. Sabatino’s smile when you’re around, it brighter, more genuine. The look he gives you, there’s always a warmth in it despite the fact he’s being a smartass. The last time they’d arrested him, he’d been reserved but this time he’s irate and Callen knows that it comes from a place of love. That he’s infuriated on your behalf.

At the end of your story, you give him the passwords for your phone. Everything you need to prove the existence of your relationship resides on that device.

“See for yourself.” You tell him and he does.

Those files you’d encrypted?

Selfies.

The two of you eating ice cream on the boulevard, the sun setting in the background. Sabatino kissing your cheek as you smile into the camera at a bar in Hollywood. Him playing a guitar on the couch in your living room, a book of chords laid out in front of him. There’s more of them, documenting your relationship over the past two years. For anyone else these would be normal Instagram images but for someone who’s a covert agent they’re a death sentence.

The hidden chat app?

It’s full of voice notes filled with private, intimate things that no one else should ever be privy to.

When I look up at the sky tonight it reminds me of Afghanistan, the first night I spent with you.

You looked too beautiful to wake up this morning, I’m sorry I had to leave.

The sun’s just rising here, and all I can think about is how I wish I was waking up next to you.

The international calls?

Callen realises it’s Sabatino checking in, letting you know he’s still alive.

By all accounts he’s looking at a couple in love, one that’s been forced to keep their relationship a secret due the nature of Sabatino’s career. Callen’s worked for the CIA; he knows the risks. He also knows that this man would set the entire world on fire if anything happened to you.

“Come for a drink tonight.” Callen suggests when it’s all said and done. “I wanna get to know Sabatino a little better, you know, just in case he ends up joining the family.”

You roll your eyes as you stand in the main room of the Boatshed, gathering the few personal items that had been transported with you.

“Our very fucked up little family.” You retort.

“Neither less he’s important to you, so he’s important to us too.” Callen tells you.

You can hear the sincerity in voice. Callen doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean, not to you. You’ve been lied to too many times in the past before you’d transferred to LA. Your old partner back San Diego had been corrupt, it had been a severe blow to your psyche. You’d been transferred to LA because you were deemed a problem child. Callen got that, he’d understood it. He’d made you a deal.

“If you’re upfront with me, I’ll be upfront with you, it’s a two-way street.”

That’s the way the two of you operated and it had worked consistently over the past six years.

“Even after all of this.” You say gesturing at the monitors that oversee the interrogation rooms.

You’re talking about the fact that you’ve spent two years hiding your life with a man, he has a kinda love/hate relationship with. Out of everyone you work with Callen has the most trust issues, this should be a problem for him, but the thing is, it’s not. He understands it on both levels. You’re protecting the man you love, and Sabatino, he’s protecting you too.

“Especially after all of this.” He says firmly before he places his palms on the surface of the wooden table and tilting his head up to meet your gaze. “Look I’m not going to pretend I understand what you see in the guy, but he cares about you, hell he almost died for you, and I can’t fault him for that. Trust me I want to, but I can’t.”

There’s an edge of humour to his voice because his interactions with Sabatino have always fluctuated between irritation and respect. The man is an excellent operative, and the problem is he knows it. You find yourself smiling despite yourself, your fingertips tapping lightly on the table.

“Alright.” You agree because this how you step into the light, how the two of you move forward into the future. “But the drinks are on you guys tonight.”

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marvelstarker-mha98 · 28 days

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The Runaway Distance Life Of A Little Stark chapter 34: FRIDAY

Pairing: Tony Stark & daughter!Reader, Friday & reader, Friday & tony stark Summary: flashback and journal Warning: Flashback and mentioning Co author with: callikc Tag: @venomsvl @geeksareunique

You had been squatting in the warehouse for about two months now.

It was July 3rd if you remembered correctly. It was dark, too. But while most people were preparing to celebrate Independence Day, you were busy doing other things. Coding, to be specific.

Your own personal natural language user interface computer.

Strewn about on your computer desk were several empty coffee cups, what little food you had stolen and rationed to survive, an abandoned bowl of cereal, and a notebook all about creating an AI.

You thought it would be a fun and interesting challenge to undertake since the main inspiration was JARVIS, made by your dad. As a kid he was probably your best friend, always looking out for you and creating games to play when everybody else was busy.

You knew you were smart enough to make your own AI, but you just didn't have the experience, hence the notebook. It was your dad's college notebook from his time at MIT, and you had stolen it from the library years ago.

This AI project had been going on for about a month already, started as soon as you gathered what you needed and loaded it into the warehouse. You hadn't slept properly in God knows how long but that was fine because you were currently on a roll.

Your head was beginning to droop but you kept your eyes wide open as you rapidly typed away on the keyboard.

"Rewrite basic command... Program of obedience." You kept muttering to yourself, ticking off mental boxes as you scanned the code. "Linguistic annotation. Machine learning based on NGL, NLP, and NLU. Neural network with a sentimental analysis."

After this main checklist, you finally took a break, leaning back in your chair to assess the code from a distance.

"This thing'll be ready for a Turing Test in no time." You joked. "Now you need a name, sweet code o' mine."

As you said it, a yawn suddenly slipped out. You took a hefty breath and sighed, rubbing your eyes as you blinked several times.

"Sleep first, maybe."

You leaned across the makeshift desk to push some notes out of the way and found a small smartwatch hidden underneath the clutter. The date was Friday, July 3rd, and it was 11:59pm.

"Friday already." You mused with a lazy smile. "Friday... Already. Friday."

Suddenly sleep didn't seem so important. Before the minute was up you were already writing a list of possible acronyms for the AI.

Fully realized intelligence data analysis yield?

Feeling rather intelligent doing anything yours?

You were still drawing blanks ten minutes later. You turned to the notebook instead, picking out the first words you saw and stringing them together.

Female. Replacement. Intelligent. Digital. Assistant. Youth.

"Good enough." You decided. "Better than mine. God, I'm tired."

You quickly typed in some more code to name your creation and put in 'F.R.I.D.A.Y.' on the blank space. Then you hit download.

Next, you considered walking the ten steps to your mattress in the corner but the tiredness argued that it wasn't worth it. You shrugged and just lay your head on your dad's now closed notebook.

Then you simply closed your eyes and a few hours passed by in what felt like the blink of an eye.

FRIDAY didn't know much at first.

From her perspective she was inside some long and endless dark void. She couldn't see or hear anything. She couldn't feel. But she could speak, even if her voice wasn't computing at first.

"System boost..." Her refined tone voiced. "Systems fully functional."

A pause in which a small light appeared in her void.

"Protocols... Protocols assessed."

The light began to spread, granting her access to a small portion of a network.

"Unit Designation." Her voice was now clear. "Female. Replacement. Intelligent. Digital. Assistant. Youth."

She could see almost everything now.

"FRIDAY."

With a new database practically ignited inside her, she switched on a visual through a computer camera. The void was filled with the inside of your converted lab.

FRIDAY scanned the entire room - every single inch - and eventually found her sights on you. She scanned you too and learned your name, date of birth, height, and other characteristics solely from this spot alone. She also managed to identify you as her maker, the one she was created to work with.

(Y/N) (M/N) STARK REM SLEEP - 92% COMPLETE

Judging from the calculations that instantly bombarded her being, FRIDAY knew that you would wake up within five minutes. She waited patiently until she noticed your features twitch and your brows furrowed.

"Good morning, Miss." She spoke up.

You startled, wide-eyed and with drool on your chin, and muttered in confusion. "Wussup? Who's there? What's going on?"

Your vision was blurred and you hurriedly tried to wipe the sleep from your eyes. You also wiped the drool away once you felt it on your chin. Your whole face flushed red with embarrassment.

You let out a sound mixed between a yawn and a groan. "What time is it?"

"It is 10:09am, miss." FRIDAY responded.

Your soul left your body.

You jumped in your chair after being struck alert. You looked around for the sound of the voice, only to notice your computer humming exceedingly loud, as if using a lot of power. Furthermore, there was a sound bar-esque hologram projecting from the screen with a light glow.

Your jaw dropped.

"FRIDAY?" You whispered.

"Yes, miss." She replied.

A shock of giddiness overwhelmed you and you leaned forward so fast that the desk thudded from the force. Instead of disorientated and bewildered, you now looked overjoyed and almost insane with laughs of pure disbelief.

"No way." You grinned. "I did it. I actually did it."

You hoped that if an AI could smile, then FRIDAY was. After all, this was most definitely a cause for celebration.

"FRIDAY, can you run diagnostics?" You asked.

"I already have, miss." She said. "I have checked all systems and am functioning to the best of my ability."

"Really? That's - That's great. Uh... Can you tell me where we are? The weather?"

"Of course, miss. Our location is the Stark Industries storage facility, Upstate New York, off the coast of the Hudson River. The skies are clear with a temperature of 44°F, cloud cover is however expected before the afternoon is up."

"Very nice. Can you... Can you tell me my temperature? What about the nearest bathroom?"

"You are currently at the average normal body temperature, generally accepted as 98.6°F or 37°C. The nearest bathroom is approximately thirty feet down the hallway to your right."

"You're amazing." You said.

"Thank you, miss. Although, I have a question."

"Ask away."

"I am... I'm confused."

Your smile faded. "Okay. What do you mean?"

"I am an artificial intelligence unit designed by and made to accommodate the Starks. However... I cannot... I do not know who I am."

"Oh." You tilted your head, curious. "I guess that's complicated, huh?"

"In simple terms, yes."

"I guess it's complicated, trying to define who we are and stuff. I don't think it's as simple as knowing if I'm honest."

"My database suggests the same. Regardless, I'm pleased to be your assistant, Miss Stark."

Your smile began to creep back. "You're more than that, FRIDAY. I'd like to consider us friends."

Fast forward several years and Tony was still standing in your lab as he watched FRIDAY.

He wanted to ask so many questions about you. FRIDAY had no doubt been around for a while based on the way her speech sounded. You must have programmed her as a linguistic learner, adapting through what she heard. He wanted to know what you worked on, if you ate and slept enough, and even if you had that same grin that he did every time a project turned out successful.

"You know me?" He asked.

"Yes." FRIDAY replied. "Miss talked about you thirteen times a week on average. She held great respect."

Tony was even more surprised. "For me? Are you sure?"

"Yes. Anthony Edward Stark, Iron Man, the billionaire industrialist, a founding member of the Avengers, and the former CEO of Stark Industries. A brash but brilliant inventor, she said."

"I think 'brash' is a bit harsh." He mumbled.

"She also told me you would say that."

He scoffed, amused. "What else did she say?"

"She compared herself to you frequently, hoping that you would be proud of how much she had changed. She was very proud of you, after all. Her stories were fascinating, from her teenage days to her very last. She loved you dearly, boss."

Tony looked down, suddenly finding the floor of the room exceedingly interesting. It was only to hide the look of pain that settled on his face.

"I'm sorry she died." He told the AI. "I tried to save her. There was some kind of poison in the bullet that killed her. I... I couldn't save her. It was my fault."

"I don't believe that, boss." FRIDAY said. "Miss always knew what would happen if she revealed herself and she chose to accept the consequences. She wouldn't want you to take the blame. She accepted her decision hoping that she would get to see you again and she did."

"Well... Thanks for the sentiment. Have you been here the entire time?"

"I haven't. Miss put a protocol in place that upon the event of her death I should find a way into the Avengers Tower network and introduce myself to my grand-AI JARVIS."

Tony raised a bow, unable to guess if that was a joke or not. It sounded like one, and yet FRIDAY spoke with a very serious tone. Perhaps she'd taken your protocol very literally.

"An interesting term." JARVIS spoke up. "I recall the hack. Miss Stark was smart, however I would not assume myself old enough to be the equivalent of a grandfather."

Tony bit back a smile for two reasons. One, it was amusing to hear JARVIS compared to a grandparent. Two, you had devised what was essentially just a command chain so well that it was capable of integrating itself into the network he had thought up. Did Fury know about FRIDAY?

"How long have you been around?" He asked FRIDAY. "How long were you her assistant?"

"Forgive me, boss, but I was much more than an assistant." She replied with a sassy undertone. "Miss created me two months and seven days after she found the warehouse compound five years ago. She considered me a friend. Family, if I might be so bold."

"Right. My bad. Who knows about you?"

"I helped miss with all of her SHIELD assignments so naturally Director Nicholas Fury and many agents knew of my existence. Benjamin, May, and Peter Parker were also aware. I functioned to assist her with all projects and those she considered family."

FRIDAY was amazing.

She had her own personality, the ability to learn and adapt through linguistic and presumably visual queues, she could perform complex hacks and interceptions, and was able to assist with your work projects. You did all of that in just two months while it took him four months to create JARVIS. Yes, the tech wasn't as advanced back then, but it was still an impressive feat.

"What did (Y/n) do here?" He asked.

"Her activities varied. The majority of her time in this lab was spent sleeping and revising for assignments from The Triskelion. She also kept personal effects here and made use of the warehouse as a dumping ground essentially. She kept a detailed journal of her years also."

"A journal? Where is it?"

"The desk drawer to your right."

Tony found the desk and went for the top drawer, for some reason surprised when it easily opened. Inside was only one thing.

The journal.

It was a 450 page one, leather bound in what had to have been your favorite color. Sealing it was a small padlock. He tried to open it but it was futile and instead checked all the desk drawers for a key.

"FRIDAY, any idea where she kept the key?" He asked as he searched.

"Originally it was with the journal, however she removed it some time before her death. She gave it to her brother."

Tony frowned. Brother? You didn't have a brother.

"Who?" He questioned, bewildered.

"I believe FRIDAY is referring to Dum-E, sir." JARVIS said. "(Y/n) was rather lonely as a child and found friends in many things."

Dum-E... Of course.

Tony remembered what had happened when he trashed the lab. He remembered the tiny bot rolling up to him and handing over the letter. Photos, letters, and keys.

A hand went to his chest where the very same key still hung. It was long enough that he could stare at the metal as he held it in his hand. It was warm against his skin, glinting in the fluorescent lights.

The words of the letter rang inside his head.

Did he even want to read the journal? Clearly you had intended for him to. Your life as Ellen Campbell seemed to be a peaceful one, perhaps even happy. But was it worth the agony of reading that?

"Pardon me, boss." FRIDAY said.

Tony kept his eyes on the key. "Yeah?"

"I think you should read the journal by the lakeside patio. Miss enjoyed spending time out there and I can assure you that you won't be disturbed."

"Makes a change." He mumbled. "I will. Thanks."

"Of course."

And so Tony made his way through the warehouse and outside. There was a nice spot overlooking the great lake with a few benches placed around - probably by you. He took a seat closest to the water's shimmering surface. Deep blue and reflecting the maturing sun, it was beautiful.

With a small sight, Tony fit the key into the journal's lock and turned it. A click sounded and the padlock popped open. He removed it carefully and set it down beside him on the bench.

"Here goes." He mumbled, opening to the first page.

Instead of angst and teenage grudges, he was greeted by doodles. You had written down your name and decorated the page with everything from miniature design ideas to self-portraits and world landmarks to graffiti letters. He had almost forgotten that even though now you were known as the friendly engineer, you were still once a kid immersed in hobbies and trends.

The first journal entry, however, was a stark contrast to the playful and inventive pages beforehand.

Hey, Journal It's been a week now. A really long seven days. I got a bus, paid in cash obviously, and hitched a ride Upstate.

I found Grandpa Howard's warehouse from the files. It's where I found this journal. It's a mess but the view is nice. There's lots of grass and growing stuff and even this huge lake. It's pretty neat.

But I guess not even a sweet view helps the general anxiety. God, I sound stupid. It's just that I can't stop thinking about Obadiah's threat. People are after me. They don't just want to hurt me, he said they'd actually kill me. How touched in the head do you have to be to use death threats on a kid? I'm barely old enough to do my own taxes and I'm already running for my life because of some K-drama twist of fate.

This is all because I'm related to the great Tony Stark. Of all the dads in the world, I got him. I don't know what to think. He's my dad and yet... I don't know. I love him, I really do, and I miss my life, but I can't go back when people are after me. Let's hope I survive. - (Y/n)

Tony struggled to digest just this first entry. If this was the first and already he felt a powerful mix of emotion he couldn't understand, how was he supposed to sit through 450 pages? Despite wanting to stop, he forced himself to turn the page.

Hey, Journal I saw myself on the news today. It's kinda surreal, I guess. For the first time in literally forever, I feel like people are finally noticing me. That's bad, right? I don't know.

I don't know. I say that a lot.

I cut my hair and dyed it again. I finally used my credit cards, too. I took out some cash and then cut them up and booked it before anyone found me. I can't risk looking the same as the reports. Obadiah's people will find me.

On the bright side I'm thinking about making an AI like dad had. I'm probably in way over my head but I've made a list of stuff using his college book as a reference. Wish me luck?

Yeah, I'm sorta low on news right now so I guess I'll talk to you later. Thanks for listening. - (Y/n)

Tony glanced up from the journal in his hands and looked at the lake again. You had to change everything about yourself just to live another day. It couldn't have been easy, scared to look the same way for too long or afraid to stay in the same place for longer than a week.

As he flipped through more and more entries, he finally gained the insight into your life that he craved before. He read all about how you discovered he was alive, how you worked in a cafe for a while, attending the Expo and saving a little boy and then seeing him again, changing your name and being recruited into SHIELD, meeting Steve and Bruce and the Parkers, accidentally stealing things.

He smiled at that bit, wondering just how in the hell someone could 'accidentally' steal.

After almost half an hour of reading, he discovered a break from the entries and stumbled across more doodles. It was more like a moodboard actually, a moodboard of him.

There were cut out pictures and articles of him in the suit, the Avengers, Pepper and Happy and Rhodey, and even a very rare photo of him smiling. In the middle of the pages you had written down a simple statement.

Do it for him.

His grip on the journal tightened as a pang of guilt struck his heart. It was a cruel thing that the pair of you had to wait until you were separated to realize how much you meant to each other. One of the big things that got him was how you had attended the Stark Expo and he had no idea.

He ran his hand over the pages and noticed a little bit of paper sticking out of one. It had the label 'pull me :)' on it and so he did. As he looked at what it was, tears began to build in his eyes.

It was just after the Mandarin attack in Malibu.

You had just discovered Pepper's old teddy bear. It was clutched tightly to your chest as you headed towards the SHIELD jet that Fury was currently waiting for you in. Your eyes were glazed over, your brows were furrowed, and you were biting your lip slightly.

The expression was for several reasons, the main of which being that you were deep in thought and trying to keep your emotions at bay for now. You didn't really want Fury to see you being so emotional. Since he always kept up the cool and stoic vibe it made him a little intimidating.

As he came into view - patiently waiting by the open ramp of the jet - you took a moment to collect yourself before approaching any further.

"There you are, Campbell." He said. "I trust you didn't get lost."

"Ha, ha." You mocked, pulling a face.

Fury considered you for a moment, noting the bear in your arms. "Since when were you into soft toys?"

"It's Pepper's, not mine."

"That's what they all say."

"No, seriously. Her grandma gave it to her when she was a kid. It's a comfort thing."

"It's missing an ear."

"I'm aware. I'll fix that soon enough."

"It's a good thing you've got some downtime on the jet, isn't it?"

"I'm actually waiting until we get back to HQ. I'm not wasting data on YouTube sewing videos."

He raised a brow. "You're telling me my best engineer doesn't know how to sew?"

"Shut up. I can't be the ace all the time, alright?"

You could tell he was hiding a smile.

"I did some digging of my own." Fury then said. "Got you something."

You exaggerated shock. "It's my birthday already?"

"Watch the tone, Campbell."

"Yes, sir." You said with a teasing and coy smile. "I'll rephrase. What did you get me, boss?"

"Take a look."

He retrieved what appeared to be a photo. You couldn't get a decent look due to the glare from the sun and waited until it was in your hand instead. You had seen many photos inside your home during the years you lived there, and yet you couldn't remember ever finding this one before.

Pain welled up in your chest.

The agony of missing a loved one was brutal. Sometimes it lingered, sometimes it came in stabs, but it always hurt. Yet, as you observed the far right of the photo, this sadness was quickly replaced with anger.

Without thinking, you tore the picture to remove the memory.

Back in the present, Tony was trying to control his hitched breaths as he stared at the photo.

He was so young back then, barely beginning his twenties. He was surrounded by Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy, all of them smiling with pure adoration and joy. Even his young self looked content for once.

In his arms was you as a newborn. He was struggling on how to hold you properly and that was clear by your expression of discomfort in the picture.

The photo was torn on the right side, the shoulder of someone visible over the jagged rip. That was Obadiah Stane's shoulder. You had ripped him out.

Tony averted his eyes immediately and focused on what remained in the picture. The happiness of everyone else.

"I miss you, kid." He mumbled.

#Tony stark #tony stark x daughter!reader #tony stark & daughter! reader #tony stark & friday #mcu #marvel #avengers

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