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fangswbenefits · 10 months

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Sharing is Caring (II)

Summary: Things get complicated, but you find yourself sharing a bed with Miguel… once again. Too bad someone else is in the room.

Pairing: Miguel O’Hara x spider-woman!reader

18+. Sharing one bed. Semi-public. Blue balls. Sexual tension. Mutual masturbation. Creampie. Implied cockwarming.

* ˚ ✦ Part 1. (you don’t have to read it to enjoy this one, though)

You were fucked.

Extremely fucked.

Not only had the anomaly managed to slip through your fingers, effectively disabling the trackers scattered around, but you were also fucked, because now you were left to deal with the aftermath of a very intimate encounter with Miguel.

It was nearly five in the morning and the night was nowhere near being done. Fortunately, it had stopped raining, which helped with visibility and grip, and having Lyla assist you as in replacing the faulty sensors was also very much welcome.

“Sensor 24 up and running,” the AI’s sing-song voice announced, as the device bleeped green.

You leapt over the railing, shooting a string of web to the side of the hotel, so you could swing through the window.

As you landed with a clumsy thump, you noticed Miguel had already gotten back from his reconnaissance check.

He looked positively… pissed off.

Great.

“Lyla, call her,” her grumbled, checking his watch.

“Already did,” she announced, appearing by his shoulder. “Want me to run a diagnostics of the perimeter once again?”

“Do it in five minute intervals,” he said flatly. “The anomaly must be nearby.”

You removed your mask and considered sitting on the bed, but were soon reminded that not even thirty minutes ago, you were getting fucked by Miguel.

A shudder ran through your body.

“You okay?” he asked, his narrowed eyes on you.

You shrugged. “Sure.”

The problem with having impromptu sex was that now you were left to deal with the soreness between your legs, and the frustration of an orgasm that never came to be.

Did Miguel feel the same way?

Your eyes roamed his body, and you find yourself glaring at his-

“Hey! I need you to focus,” Miguel said with a snap of his fingers. “There’s still a chance we deal with it tonight.”

You were about to snap back when a loud distorted buzz filled the room, swirls of flashing lights nearly blinding you, as the inter-dimensional portal expanded quickly in pulsating waves.

Through came Jessica Drew, followed closely by Peter B. Parker.

Fuck.

“What are you doing here?” Miguel growled, pointing at Peter.

“What?” he asked, eyes widening in confusion.

Miguel wasn’t known to be a very patient man, and you reckoned his patience was now hanging by a thread. “I called for Jess. Not you.”

Jess let out an exasperated sigh. “Easy, Miguel. We were both on the same mission.”

He straightened up, but crossed his arms. “Right.”

“Care to explain why I had to leave to be here?” she went on, resting on hand on her swollen belly. “How did you lose track of the anomaly?”

He exchanged a brief look with you. “The sensors didn’t alert us in time.”

That was true.

“Weren’t you supposed to be monitoring, regardless?”

“We dozed off,” you chimed in. “Momentarily! Just for a while.”

Not really true…

Jess glanced at you, suspicion written all over face.

“Sleeping on the job,” she then chuckled, eyeing Miguel deviously. “Didn’t think you’d ever do that, Miguel.”

He narrowed his eyes menacingly. “We weren’t sleeping. We were just resting our eyes for a moment.”

A blatant lie.

“What’s that on your neck?” Peter suddenly asked with a worried look on his face.

Oh….

You let out a nervous laugh, rubbing the tender hickey spot. “Bug bite.”

“Allergic reaction,” Miguel blurted out at the same time.

Fuck.

You shot him a murderous look.

Jessica arched an eyebrow. “Which one is it?”

“An allergic reaction to a bug bite,” Miguel said with a shrug, growing visibly annoyed.

A wave of relief washed over you momentarily. That seemed plausible enough.

But…

“Oh, really?” she asked with a knowing smile. “What bug? A spid-”

But Miguel was already cutting her off. “We don’t have time for this!”

Peter walked to you, craning your neck to the side. “You should have it checked. It looks serious.”

Ah, Peter… ever the innocent.

“Jess, you stay with us,” Miguel says, dragging Peter away from you at once. “We need an extra pair of eyes.”

She frowned. “No. Peter stays. I need to get some sleep,” she said, patting her belly.

“No!” Miguel growled.

“Actually, I was thinking of heading back home,” Peter drawled out, rubbing the back of his head. “Mayday should be waking up soon.”

“And I’m pregnant,” Jess shot, holding her chin high.

Peter swallowed and fell silent. The deal was sealed.

“Lyla, any updates?”

The hologram popped up instantly. “No, boss.”

Jess glanced over at you one last time, before stepping into the portal once again. “You should really have that checked. Whatever bug did that seems… vicious,” she then slipped into the vortex, which vanished behind her.

You momentarily froze in place, feeling the dread of realisation hit you like a ton of bricks.

She knew.

“I’ll be right back,” Peter drawled out with a yawn and a stretch, disappearing into the bathroom.

The moment you heard rhe door click shut, you turned to Miguel.

“An allergic reaction to a bug bite?” you hissed.

He scowled deeply. “Because simply saying bug bite sounded ridiculous.”

“She didn’t believe it, regardless.”

Miguel was suddenly towering over you, his face twisted in annoyance. “Then why does it matter?”

“Because… you gave me a visible hickey!”

It was a silly thing to get upset about. There were worse things in life than having Miguel O’Hara marking you as a result of built up sexual tension.

But you didn’t want to give in.

“Got carried away,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah…”

He cleared his throat. “But I have a problem.”

You looked up at him. “What problem?”

“Well…” he said, glancing at the bathroom door.

“Peter?”

“No!”

You clicked your tongue. “Then what?”

His placed both hands on his hips and glanced down.

Your eyes followed suit.

Oh.

“What? Why are you… what?” you stuttered in disbelief at the sight of the outline of his hardened cock.

“Biology, remember?” he said through gritted teeth. “It’s not going away.”

You somehow managed to tear your eyes from the impressive bulge. “Go jerk off, then!”

He had you walk back until you hit the wall behind. “It won’t go away.”

Had you just given Miguel blue balls?

“How’s that my problem?” you huffed, staring intensely into his crimson eyes.

“This is all your fault.”

“Oh, really? I thought we were blaming Biology.”

Before Miguel could retort, the sudden squeak of a door being swung open, had you slipped past him.

Peter emerged, eyeing you both. “Oh, I see what this is.”

Miguel had to move strategically in order to hide his raging boner from him. “What do you mean?”

“I know what’s up with you two,” Peter said, with a playful grin. “All the whispering and whatnot.”

Great.

Were you two that transparent?

“Huh…”

Miguel had pursed his lips.

Peter paced closer to you, eyeing you with a knowing smile. “You’re deciding on Jessica’s birthday present, right?”

You blinked a few times and heard Miguel exhale nearby.

“Right? I knew it!” he threw his arms in the air as if he’d just won the lottery.

In truth, you were simply baffled at how innocent Peter could be. The immediate weight that was lifted off your shoulders was enough to draw a laugh from you.

“Sure!”

“Of course, Peter,” Miguel said, voice dripping with his trademark sarcasm. “We went on this mission, so we could go through birthday checklists.”

A layer of pride settled on Peter’s face. “Ah! You’re growing soft, Miguel.”

You winced at his poor choice of words.

“But fear not!” he said as if he was about to fight off the anomaly himself. “We’ll take turns watching. You two can get some rest and properly plan it out,” he then pinched his thumb and index finger together and dragged them across his lips. “Your secret is safe with me.”

Miguel didn’t budge at first, but you were all too grateful to stop this insane conversation altogether.

“Thanks, Peter.”

“Of course,” he smiled widely, pacing to the open hotel window, leaping into the the sky night.

You shot Miguel one last look before slipping inside into the comfort of the bedsheets, welcoming the softness.

But you were sorely mistaken if you thought Miguel wouldn’t have followed you.

Your heart skipped a beat. Or two.

You had turned to face the wall, hoping he’d take the hint, and leave you be.

But once you felt his erection pressing into your ass, you knew you were a goner.

There was something extremely empowering about having a man like Miguel be so needy and desperate.

He scooted closer until his breath fanned your ear. “Can you just…”

You scoffed, pride swelling inside you. “Go ask Biology to jerk you off.”

“Whawt?”

“You keep blaming it, so…”

Silence fell between you two.

His hand then came to grip your hip. “It’s you.”

“I didn’t catch that,” you said, feeling his thumb rubbing gently, as he pushed the top half of your suit increasingly higher.

He rolled his hips into you, letting out a shaky moan in your ear that had your skin raise with goosebumps.

You flipped onto your other side to fully face him, and Miguel immediately took your lips with his, kissing you hungrily.

His hand dragged the fabric all the way up until he managed to expose one breast, breaking the kiss only to move down to suck on your hardened nipple.

The thought that he might be too much vaguely crossed your mind. For the second time that night you were meeting a side of Miguel that you had never seen before.

A side you much preferred.

Your fingers dragged through his hair, silently praising him.

In no time, you watched his digital suit disintegrate, giving you full access to the beautifully sculped body underneath.

He gripped your wrist and lowered it until your fingers grazed his cock. Knowing fully well what he craved, you wrapped them around it, earning an immediate jerk of his hips.

“Miguel…” you moaned, letting him freely fuck your hand, spilling more and more precum.

He released your nipple and had his forehead resting on your shoulder, his hand on top of your, making sure you squeezed tighter and tighter.

It didn’t take long for your hand to be soaked with precum, making it easier for him to slide up and down.

You squeezed involuntarily and a gush of wetness spilled into your underwear, your body yearning for him to fill you up with his cock.

He moved his hips deliciously, and you focused on taking in the wet sounds that filled the room as well as his breathless grunts.

But such bliss was short-lived as you heard Peter bolting into the room with a swish of his web.

Well…

Miguel immediately stilled, letting go of your hand.

You didn’t let go of his cock, instead peeking over his shoulder only to find Peter rolling out a sleeping bag on the floor.

He then turned to face you, and your head immediately slumped against the pillow, eyes on Miguel’s.

“Are you okay?”

“What?”

Peter’s voice was but a whisper. “Your heart rate is accelerated.”

Ah… spider senses.

“Yeah… I’m just a bit tense… it’s fine,” you muttered, feeling Miguel’s cock twitch in your hand. “Go get some rest. I’ll take over.”

“Oh! Thank you,” he beamed. “Mayday has been giving us terrible nights, and I could use a few minutes.”

You watched as he fluffed out his pillow before settling down on his back with a yawn.

Miguel’s breathing has steadied momentarily and you eventually let go of him.

But he quickly got a hold of your wrist.

The implication of that action wasn’t exactly subtle and you widened your eyes.

“No,” you mouthed right away.

His crimson eyes had darkened and you spotted his fangs from behind his lips.

You shook your head vehemently.

This was a bad idea.

But as soon as Peter’s snores tore through the room, you felt your heart clench.

“Peter is right there… he will hear it!”

He pressed an urgent kiss to your forehead. “We’ll be quiet. I’ll help you be quiet,” he promised, pressing his cock further into your already soaked crotch.

Your eyes fluttered shut, and just as you were about to let out a low whimper, you felt his hand cover your mouth, effectively reigning it in.

“Quiet.”

The other travelled down painfully slowly, palm grazing your exposed breast briefly, before resting just above the waistline of your suit.

“You have to be quiet,” he warned in a barely audible tone.

You nodded and he lifted his hand from your lips.

“We shouldn’t…” you muttered under your breath.

But your words were not matching your actions, as you dragged your hand covered in precum across his hard chest, taking your time to gently rub his nipple with your thumb.

You thought Miguel had stopped breathing altogether, but soon realised he was merely attempting to hold back a moan.

His fingers quickly slipped past the the waistline, finding your clit and drawing small circles. You had to bite your lip hard to suppress a whimper, rolling your hips into him.

You found his cock again, gripping it desperately and giving him a few pumps that matched the tempo of his strokes.

The thrill of indulging in such experience even when someome else was in the room, and with the increased chances of being caught, merely added to the pleasure you were already feeling.

“You’re doing good,” Miguel praised you through a shaky breath. “So good…”

Impatience took over and you wiggled out of your bottom half of the suit, allowing you to grant him betterr acces, as hou parted your legs.

He immediately seized it and slipped one finger inside.

You had to clasp your hand over your mouth to keep from groaning, eyes fluttering shut.

His breath was on your ear again. “Can you take one more?”

You nodded, not trusting your voice. A second finger immediately joined the first one, slinding inside effortlessly.

Feeling that you had managed to keep yourself under control, you dropped the hand covering your lips to grip his cock.

“And another one?”

You shook your head, fearing that would be too much. He pressed a kiss to your neck with a sigh, as he fucked your hand in a slow rhythm.

The knots of pleasure in your lower abdomen let you know that you were headed towards the precipice. You kept on riding his fingers relentlessly, your mind suddenly hazy from the feeling of being so full of him already.

“I’m close…” he mouthed, his breath shaky and cock twitching.

He had bared his fangs, and you thought you’d combust on the spot, realising he was truly overwhelmed with pleasure.

Finding your voice again, you whispered sensually, “Where do you want to cum?”

His eyed widened, pupils fully blown.

Your hips faltered briefly, grazing your clit across the palm of his hand. “Inside?”

He pressed his eyes shut and dug his fangs into his lower lip. “I won’t last.”

“I know,” you moaned, dragging thumb across his tip, feeling more droplets of warm precum coating your skin.

Peter suddenly let out a loud snore that made you jolt.

“Are you close?” Miguel asked.

“I’ll be with you inside me.”

You shifted on the mattress, and he removed his fingers from you at once, a wet sound filling the room.

Your body shuddered from the loss, but you soon felt his tip proding your entrance.

Before you could take another breath, he jerked his hips and slipped past your fold effortlessly.

His hand was on your mouth again, and this time you could taste yourself, as he struggled to keep your moans at a minimum.

It was also evident the sudden position was taking a toll on him. His steady pace was faltering with each passing second.

You soon entered the familiar point of no return, feeling an intense wave of pleasure tear from within you, blinding your vision with each pulse and contraction. It took all of your not to moan out loud even against his hand, the few shreds of sanity having a hold on you.

Miguel joined you, clearly not able to withstand the rhythmic squeezes around his cock as you reached your high.

Your caught a glimpse oh him biting the back of his other hand hard. He would for sure draw blood with his fangs, but you couldn’t even stay properly focused.

He bottomed out as deep as he could, spurts of cum coating your squeezing walls.

The two of you were struggling to breathe, shallow pants surrounding you.

“Oh my god! Butterfly!”

Peter…

You jerked away from Miguel in distress but with him still buried deep inside you, catching a glimpse of Peter sitting on the floor, breathing rapidly.

“Go back to sleep. It was just a dream,” you said with a smile.

Miguel pulled you into an embrace. “You did good.”

“Me? Not Biology?”

He scowled deeply.

“You can slide out now…” you whispered with a yawn.

Miguel didn’t move. “I want to stay a little longer likes this.”

Masterlist

#miguel o’hara x reader #miguel o’hara smut #miguel o’hara x you #miguel o’hara #miguel ohara x reader #miguel o’hara x fem!reader #spiderman 2099 x reader #miguel x reader #spiderman 2099

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modmad · 27 days

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Hey Mod, I don't know what's going on that hurt you, I feel like I missed something that's happened, but I can tell from what I did see that it didn't just hurt you, but scared you and made you feel a Lot of doubt. I've also seen a lot of messages pouring in with support, and I want to share mine.

I have hypermobile type EDS, fibromyalgia, and a whole bucket's worth of faulty wiring in my brain. And I've always had stories to tell but I never felt I was good enough to share them. If it's because I can't focus enough to get through nanowrimo, or because I can't manage the focus and time towards drawing as a hobby, or the fact that an excessive amount of either for me leads to my hands wanting to shut down. But you? You *inspire* me. Your stories, all the ones I've seen, read, experienced in some way or another, they're so good. And you're open and honest with your fans about your own health, and of course, we support you and always would rather you rest and feel as best you can, instead of pushing out something and working yourself too hard. But all of this is to say that. I think I would have given up on my own stories if I hadn't found you and yours.

I hope whatever is going on sorts itself out, I hope you're able to keep telling your stories. At your own pace, in your own way. I think you deserve to be happy. If there's anything we (your fans, especially those of us too awkward to come off anon, whoops,) can do, to help in some way? Even if it's silly videos or cute cat pictures or whatever it is that could just help you smile. We're here. We love you.

woof. I woke up to so many messages I can't even read them all in one go I'm getting too emotional- I do feel I owe an explanation so I'll explain what happened under the cut but all you guys need to know is I'm okay, I got through it, I love you, and you're so important to me and I'm so grateful for all the messages that have asked me to stay.

tw for suicidal thoughts and all that

yeah so I have the bad morning of all mornings: was introduced to the fact there's this one character (Mr Puzzles) on a very popular youtube that. resembles RGB. incredibly strongly. like. I don't want to link to it just look if you want to. Anyway at the time I thought it had just dropped (seems to have been around for 6 months actually), and having commented on it I immediately got an inbox full of hate mail.

My website, meanwhile, had locked both me and my web designer out of it, and- already in a bad state of mind- I went into full on panic/paranoid spiral of 'they have hacked it, and they are going to delete any proof that I was here before them.' This of course wasn't true, and we have since recalimed control of the site (don't know what happened there but hey. it's fine???? haha. ha.)

On top of this my father has terminal cancer of the pancreas, which is horrible for everyone already but it means that- at some point this year- I am going to be the only person with an active income in my house. I am disabled, do not make a lot of money, and the cost of living is skyrocketing. Combine that with months of Despair at the world right now, with the multiple wars, genocide, corruption and AI and the loss of control any of us have over our IP or lives and I just decided it was time to end it all.

I somehow remembered this was a bad idea to act on immediately (hard during a period of entirely irrational thought) and instead went for a very long walk, crossed the bridge I could have jumped off and during that I came out of the worst of it. I then came back home to so much love online I felt deeply ashamed for ever contemplating it, and I cried a lot. My nose is still puffy and now my feet hurt! lmao

Anyway. Yeah. There's your context. I am not going to stop hoping, making, or living. I am prone to moments of weakness and this was one of the worst of them and I am still here, thanks in a large part to all of you. I might need you in the future to defend me against this, or people who take our ideas, but I hope you know that I will do the same for you. We need each other, and to be there for you I need to be here at all.

also fuck Mr Puzzles

#context for mod's little (massive) mental breakdown yesterday #you don't need to read it but I felt folks are due an explanation #tw suicide #ask to tag #mental health is wow!!!! a thing

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caeruloves · 1 year

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. . contract details !

gender neu.reader x male yan.ai oc || cw; none(?) send in an ask if ive missed any!

‘PAYMENT ERROR.’

You almost wanted to pull your hair out again as you saw the message. That was the nth time you tried to buy something online with your e-wallet, only for the same message to pop up again.

That was one of the many cons of living in a world that was primarily technology centered. Many shops use digital payment, cash wasn’t even a thing anymore. People from a few decades ago may be overjoyed with this accomplishment and development, but it’s just annoying for you. For this very problem, you knew who was behind it— no, what was behind it.

The virtual assistant for everything, Eros. You could even call him the new and improved version of the old ‘Alexa’. He was an AI made to comply with the orders of everyone all over the world, every home and establishment had him. Made by the famous tech company; K-TECH. Unsurprisingly, you were about to declare a big-shot company your sworn enemy because of this one faulty AI.

Unlike what others experience, Eros was painfully annoying towards you. He’s always teasing and demanding despite what he was made to do. While people find the AI as an evolutionary creation, you found him bothersome.

“Eros, give me my access back to my wallet! I’m trying to pay for something,” You speak with exasperation. At your call, the hologram of the virtual assistant appears behind you with a chuckle.

When you whip your head around to glare at him, Eros had a smug grin that you wanted to smack off of his face. You weren’t sure whether to be thankful or not for Eros not having a physical body.

“I don’t know...” He spoke with a teasing tone, “Perhaps if you tell me ‘I love you’ once more, I’ll consider letting you proceed with your payment!”

There Eros was, holding your money hostage. Again.

#🗃️— contracts #🗂️— drabbles #yandere x you #yandere x reader #male yandere x reader #yandere oc x reader #yandere oc #yandere drabble #gender neutral reader #male yandere

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crevicedwelling · 8 months

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I’ve had a pretty intense fear of insects my whole life, but a while back I noticed my phone has the ability to identify what kinds of animals are in a picture, including bugs, so I’ve just been taking pics of every little critter I see around the house or outside and looking up what they are. It’s actually a lot of fun and it’s definitely helped me to be way less scared of most bugs !!!

I recommend the apps iNaturalist and its offspring Seek! Seek is a app that’s more just for fun, since it won’t let you edit IDs and it gets things wrong or can’t ID to species quite often, but it collects the things you’ve seen in one location and you can get badges and stuff.

iNaturalist is much more of an serious platform for citizen science, so when you upload things other users, including professionals and experts, will see your photos & the location you saw them, and can give their ID. you can see others’ observations too. I find it a lot more satisfying than Seek since you don’t have to rely on a faulty AI to give names to things.

both are great for exactly the sort of thing you mentioned. they help you build a picture of the world around you and hopefully get you closer to it—if you’ll brave getting close to a spider to figure out who it is, you might end up appreciating them more than if you’d stay far away out of fear.

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metamatronic · 4 months

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I saw you had a past headcanon of Mike possessing Glam Freddy, did that change? Or after VR did he do something rash enough to lose his body and have to possess an animatronic, and now he’s like, vibing in a “don’t be suspicious~ don’t be suspicious~” with his illusion disc hiding he is in fact like a 9 foot 80s themed bear

That was a legit theory I believed about Security Breach for a while, but I never really implemented it into my AU, lol.

My current stance for the AU is that the Glam Animatronics and most of the staff bots are just AI, but Mask Bot is an exception because Bonnie Bro was a liability that Henry needed to get rid of. That’s also why Mikey doesn’t immediately suspect that Mask Bot might be more than just a faulty program.

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #michael afton #mike schmidt #glamrock freddy #fnaf au #mask bot #bonnie bro

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bakedbananners · 1 month

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I don’t really care about “defining” Murderbot and ART’s relationship I think they’re both uniquely insane human-adjacent but Not Quite sentiences that defy total human comprehension. Murderbot is the only way ART can contextualize human experience. ART is how Murderbot allows itself to be vulnerable because it literally doesn't let it be alone in its brain where it can generate 5 trillion faulty risk assessments per second. ART gaslights Murderbot into thinking it died and then shoots missiles at the colony when it gets kidnapped. They made a kamikaze AI baby together.

#touch averse cyborg meets an ethereal artificial intelligence supercomputer. what happens next will shock you.#all i can say is theyre totally besties!!#murderbot #the murderbot diaries #asshole research transport #perihelion #me talking #does it even qualify as queerplatonic. i guess insofar as murderbot itself is queer. which it technically is. so win for me!#if i think about 2.0 for too long i get chest pains

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madamesinsalot · 11 months

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What if...

Moon completely accepts the insanity, the sadistic nature, and bloodthirstiness of the retched virus? He relishes in maniacally guarding their home while maiming every unwanted guest that enters the forbidden areas he and Sun’s claimed over time, that much is true. If that was the case though... how did he end up like this?

Ayooo! i finally FINALLY made part 2 of this snippet! I’m tempted to continue the story I’ve kept planning so far should you guys want it! :D please enjoy!

Here’s Sun’s Version, the beginning!

----------

When you first met Moon after forgetting your belongings one unnerving evening. You expected a lot of mishaps to arise like Chica’s munching escapades, or STAFF bots entering the weirdest areas of the plex. What you’ve never expected was the Lunar animatronic hunched over numerous wrecked robot parts, spasming heavily over the gruesome scene while clutching his wire-exposed spasming arm. From the cryptic warnings your uncle has reminded you of, the jester had every opportunity to throw you out for intruding the facility afterhours, especially when you were caught looking. Yet, instead of enacting the heinous deeds that were described to you... the glitching bot merely guided you out the front doors with only a calm wave, items returned, and that unreadable default smile.

You knew then and there that you had to know more about this msyterious character.

You remember the earful you had gotten from your Uncle the day after. It was brutal. Though you were a tad guilty and apologetic to the old man, your curiosity was far greater just from the reminder of that evening. In fact, it was the sole reason why you started visiting the daycare more frequently ever since. At first, the Moon-like automation was courteous, but wary. Sun moreso. Then that apprehension quickly melted away once they realized you’ve never bared any ill-will since speaking to them. Moon was especially forthcoming towards creating a bond at that point for some unexplained reason. And while you had theories, it didn’t bother you more than the worried glances your Uncle would give you at the mention of the attendant.

Goodness did he want to tell you everything. The unsolved murders both robotic and human, the faulty machinery they’d manipulate to spend more time with you, even the intentional spastic sparks that would shoot out of Moon all the time as a failsafe to talk to you. But the biggest and most troublesome aspect that your stoic Uncle would battle with was the lunar bot’s skilled evasions to getting caught and or decommissioned by the man himself.

Every piece of security footage, any type of recording depicting the attendant in anyway, or written notes your relative would make and stash away would usually end up getting destroyed; sometimes marked off as false information by the higher ups. All of that was Moon’s doing. Sun is the more dangerous, violent, and volatile of the caretaker AI while his counterpart prepared alibis and well-timed distractions, making the sunny jester open to whatever plan he’d receive in their coding to appear inviting and innocent to the public according to Moon’s plan. They made an efficiently menacing team, much to your Uncle’s chagrin.

It quickly became clear that things would be increasingly difficult since your arrival at the Pizza Plex. The wily night-themed animatronic had definitely caught on to your familial relation to the Janitor, taking any advantage to heighten your Uncle’s personal hell. This was especially true when you ended up being romantically pursued by the celestial duo themselves. Improvised dances, mutual petnames and long-lasting hugs were part of his own personal torture, and your own unaware bliss.

The moment... the absolute moment that your Uncle discovered he had truly lost you to the Daycare Attendant, was a seemingly normal night when he finished cleaning the last of the security rooms. He always made sure to find you before completely leaving the premises so as to carpool back to your respective homes, totally not to drag you away from the murder crazy jester. Not at all. Doing so also meant going to the daycare much to his exhaustion. It wasn’t a secret among the rest of the employees that you spend all of your free time there. That night though, things were different. The daycare was dark when the perimeter was brightly lit up. Wandering in, your Uncle fished out his flashlight, taking cautious step after cautious step through the cushioning and calling your name with absolute caution and vigilance. He would even flash his light in every direction when he came across the security desk, with every monitor and screen having been deactivated. An obvious omen. Ducking underneath the bridge led him the display forever seared into his mind. You were peacefully sleeping among pillows and a glowing star-clad lap. Surrounding you... or rather towering over you, was the ominous Moon animatronic. he jerkingly etched huge tears into the fabric of the foam padding. Whether it was due to the glitch, or the flashlight in your Uncle’s hand, the man wasn’t so sure. The sparks flying out of the bot flew out of different parts of the animatronic... it was probably the main reason you ultimately came to the daycare this late at night. Moon’s face though... was less than inviting when he glanced into those hostile eyes.

Seeing that made your Uncle reluctantly stay away within a nearby security room and watch over you through the security cameras for the rest of that night until you woke up hours later. The crazed machine was not helping matters when glaring at the every mounted camera in the Daycare’s vicinity. It wasn’t because he was scared of the lunar nightguard. Not really. No, the real reason he did it was because of the jester’s resolve... it was possessive. Dangerously so. If he hadn’t had years of dealing with their heinous acts to the point of gathering a psychological profile for each alter, he would’ve thought Moon was... protecting you. But that’s impossible! It can’t be true.

Can it?

Safe to say... That question was enough incentive to help your Uncle to stay awake that night... and every evening after that.

----------

AAAHHHHHHH! I missed you guys SO MUCH! Many things were happening in my hectic life that I had to go away for... yeesh, over a month??? Now that the stress has died down, I’m more than ready to get back into creating that sweet Sun and Moon content again. I’ll start with this and finishing up that Sun’s confession comic. I’ll see you guys until then! Love y’all!

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

Text

Hypothetical AI election disinformation risks vs real AI harms

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (Feb 27) in Portland at Powell's. Then, onto Phoenix (Changing Hands, Feb 29), Tucson (Mar 9-12), and more!

You can barely turn around these days without encountering a think-piece warning of the impending risk of AI disinformation in the coming elections. But a recent episode of This Machine Kills podcast reminds us that these are hypothetical risks, and there is no shortage of real AI harms:

https://soundcloud.com/thismachinekillspod/311-selling-pickaxes-for-the-ai-gold-rush

The algorithmic decision-making systems that increasingly run the back-ends to our lives are really, truly very bad at doing their jobs, and worse, these systems constitute a form of "empiricism-washing": if the computer says it's true, it must be true. There's no such thing as racist math, you SJW snowflake!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/aoc-algorithms-racist-bias.html

Nearly 1,000 British postmasters were wrongly convicted of fraud by Horizon, the faulty AI fraud-hunting system that Fujitsu provided to the Royal Mail. They had their lives ruined by this faulty AI, many went to prison, and at least four of the AI's victims killed themselves:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

Tenants across America have seen their rents skyrocket thanks to Realpage's landlord price-fixing algorithm, which deployed the time-honored defense: "It's not a crime if we commit it with an app":

https://www.propublica.org/article/doj-backs-tenants-price-fixing-case-big-landlords-real-estate-tech

Housing, you'll recall, is pretty foundational in the human hierarchy of needs. Losing your home – or being forced to choose between paying rent or buying groceries or gas for your car or clothes for your kid – is a non-hypothetical, widespread, urgent problem that can be traced straight to AI.

Then there's predictive policing: cities across America and the world have bought systems that purport to tell the cops where to look for crime. Of course, these systems are trained on policing data from forces that are seeking to correct racial bias in their practices by using an algorithm to create "fairness." You feed this algorithm a data-set of where the police had detected crime in previous years, and it predicts where you'll find crime in the years to come.

But you only find crime where you look for it. If the cops only ever stop-and-frisk Black and brown kids, or pull over Black and brown drivers, then every knife, baggie or gun they find in someone's trunk or pockets will be found in a Black or brown person's trunk or pocket. A predictive policing algorithm will naively ingest this data and confidently assert that future crimes can be foiled by looking for more Black and brown people and searching them and pulling them over.

Obviously, this is bad for Black and brown people in low-income neighborhoods, whose baseline risk of an encounter with a cop turning violent or even lethal. But it's also bad for affluent people in affluent neighborhoods – because they are underpoliced as a result of these algorithmic biases. For example, domestic abuse that occurs in full detached single-family homes is systematically underrepresented in crime data, because the majority of domestic abuse calls originate with neighbors who can hear the abuse take place through a shared wall.

But the majority of algorithmic harms are inflicted on poor, racialized and/or working class people. Even if you escape a predictive policing algorithm, a facial recognition algorithm may wrongly accuse you of a crime, and even if you were far away from the site of the crime, the cops will still arrest you, because computers don't lie:

https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/texas-macys-sunglass-hut-facial-recognition-software-wrongful-arrest-sacramento-alibi/

Trying to get a low-waged service job? Be prepared for endless, nonsensical AI "personality tests" that make Scientology look like NASA:

https://futurism.com/mandatory-ai-hiring-tests

Service workers' schedules are at the mercy of shift-allocation algorithms that assign them hours that ensure that they fall just short of qualifying for health and other benefits. These algorithms push workers into "clopening" – where you close the store after midnight and then open it again the next morning before 5AM. And if you try to unionize, another algorithm – that spies on you and your fellow workers' social media activity – targets you for reprisals and your store for closure.

If you're driving an Amazon delivery van, algorithm watches your eyeballs and tells your boss that you're a bad driver if it doesn't like what it sees. If you're working in an Amazon warehouse, an algorithm decides if you've taken too many pee-breaks and automatically dings you:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

If this disgusts you and you're hoping to use your ballot to elect lawmakers who will take up your cause, an algorithm stands in your way again. "AI" tools for purging voter rolls are especially harmful to racialized people – for example, they assume that two "Juan Gomez"es with a shared birthday in two different states must be the same person and remove one or both from the voter rolls:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eligible-voters-swept-up-conservative-activists-purge-voter-rolls/

Hoping to get a solid education, the sort that will keep you out of AI-supervised, precarious, low-waged work? Sorry, kiddo: the ed-tech system is riddled with algorithms. There's the grifty "remote invigilation" industry that watches you take tests via webcam and accuses you of cheating if your facial expressions fail its high-tech phrenology standards:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/16/unauthorized-paper/#cheating-anticheat

All of these are non-hypothetical, real risks from AI. The AI industry has proven itself incredibly adept at deflecting interest from real harms to hypothetical ones, like the "risk" that the spicy autocomplete will become conscious and take over the world in order to convert us all to paperclips:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

Whenever you hear AI bosses talking about how seriously they're taking a hypothetical risk, that's the moment when you should check in on whether they're doing anything about all these longstanding, real risks. And even as AI bosses promise to fight hypothetical election disinformation, they continue to downplay or ignore the non-hypothetical, here-and-now harms of AI.

There's something unseemly – and even perverse – about worrying so much about AI and election disinformation. It plays into the narrative that kicked off in earnest in 2016, that the reason the electorate votes for manifestly unqualified candidates who run on a platform of bald-faced lies is that they are gullible and easily led astray.

But there's another explanation: the reason people accept conspiratorial accounts of how our institutions are run is because the institutions that are supposed to be defending us are corrupt and captured by actual conspiracies:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/09/21/republic-of-lies-the-rise-of-conspiratorial-thinking-and-the-actual-conspiracies-that-fuel-it/

The party line on conspiratorial accounts is that these institutions are good, actually. Think of the rebuttal offered to anti-vaxxers who claimed that pharma giants were run by murderous sociopath billionaires who were in league with their regulators to kill us for a buck: "no, I think you'll find pharma companies are great and superbly regulated":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

Institutions are profoundly important to a high-tech society. No one is capable of assessing all the life-or-death choices we make every day, from whether to trust the firmware in your car's anti-lock brakes, the alloys used in the structural members of your home, or the food-safety standards for the meal you're about to eat. We must rely on well-regulated experts to make these calls for us, and when the institutions fail us, we are thrown into a state of epistemological chaos. We must make decisions about whether to trust these technological systems, but we can't make informed choices because the one thing we're sure of is that our institutions aren't trustworthy.

Ironically, the long list of AI harms that we live with every day are the most important contributor to disinformation campaigns. It's these harms that provide the evidence for belief in conspiratorial accounts of the world, because each one is proof that the system can't be trusted. The election disinformation discourse focuses on the lies told – and not why those lies are credible.

That's because the subtext of election disinformation concerns is usually that the electorate is credulous, fools waiting to be suckered in. By refusing to contemplate the institutional failures that sit upstream of conspiracism, we can smugly locate the blame with the peddlers of lies and assume the mantle of paternalistic protectors of the easily gulled electorate.

But the group of people who are demonstrably being tricked by AI is the people who buy the horrifically flawed AI-based algorithmic systems and put them into use despite their manifest failures.

As I've written many times, "we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, but we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job"

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

The most visible victims of AI disinformation are the people who are putting AI in charge of the life-chances of millions of the rest of us. Tackle that AI disinformation and its harms, and we'll make conspiratorial claims about our institutions being corrupt far less credible.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/27/ai-conspiracies/#epistemological-collapse

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

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

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