For Some Reason I Started Vividly Imagining A Coach Z Out Of Touch Cover

for some reason i started vividly imagining a coach z out of touch cover

Coach z coded post I found

I ship IT I AHIP IT THWYRE GAY THEURE GAY THWYRW GAY

Do you ship it?

reason: they love each other so much they merge into one entity

Plague Doctor masks based off of different birds

Halman valentine's card 🩷

Musculorum Hominis

A short 1,257 word 2001: A Space Odyssey Dave/HAL romantic fanfic. Completely sfw!

A supercomputer watches a man draw. A man watches the supercomputer he's drawing.

CW: Descriptions of human internal anatomy (mostly muscles) fueled only by cursory Google searches. Sorry.

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The deafening silence of space, broken apart only by the low humming and whirring of the Discovery One and the ritualistic, rhythmic scratching of ballpoint pen on paper. Even the most minute of sounds were impossible to ignore in such a vacuum. There was some hope of tuning it out, yes, but the faintest moment of conscious awareness of such noise would put the droning, monotonous sounds right back in the forefront of the mind.

And yet, for David Bowman, there was something comforting about the familiar, constant sound. Something calming. There was nothing unexpected about it, nothing offensive or alarming, just the low trilling of familiarity and the satisfying auditory evidence of his efforts. Hunched over the garishly white and pristinely clean counter, he worked on his art - a simple enough hobby to have when on one’s lonesome. A good way to express oneself, even when there were few to express oneself to. A physical reflection of thoughts, of focus, of care.

Bowman was putting his efforts towards drawing the little, black rectangle that perched just a bit to the right of his vision, looming slightly above standing eye level. The sixth crewmate of the ship, depending on who you asked, the supercomputer HAL 9000. Bowman found the device more difficult to draw than he had expected prior to putting pen to paper. It was almost impossible to capture the inner complexities of that familiar red lens that somehow looked so mechanical and intricate yet so human and watchful. It was almost impossible to get the dimensions quite right, to follow the form of the figure no matter how many times a day he gazed upon it for information, for support, for companionship. It was almost impossible to capture the countless little holes that lined the bottom of the rectangle, from which HAL’s smooth, calming, reassuring voice emerged as evenly and monotonously as always, tone hard-to-read and yet always kindly.

“I believe you’ve outdone yourself, Dave. That is a beautiful rendering. I think I’m flattered, Dave.”

Bowman looked up again, momentarily straightening his posture, stretching and popping the joints of his back. He had completely lost track of time, something his body not-so-silently resented him for as it crackled with displeasure.

“Well, thank you, HAL,” Bowman murmured, looking between HAL and the page as though to compare his work to his muse. There were still too many differences for his tastes.

“May I have a better look, please?” HAL requested with a slight rise in intonation, as much as his modulated voice would allow. The blooming light of his camera swelled faintly, the device preparing its vision.

Bowman looked between the device and artwork once more, pursing his lips and flipping the pen from side-to-side between his index and middle finger in idle thought. “Almost, HAL. Just a few more things I need to fix.”

With that, the light of the computer’s lens settled back to a dim glow, the largely obscured complex machinations of the camera shifting ever-so-slightly behind the glass lens as Bowman returned to work, scratching away at his piece. The lines became thicker and darker with each and every corrective stroke, fat dark markings contrasting against the off-white paper that housed them.

“I don’t know how you do it, Dave,” HAL interjected through the monotonous silence without prompt, “This art.”

“Plenty of people draw, HAL. It isn’t really all that special,” Bowman defended flatly, furrowing his brow and leaning forward as he tried to capture a specific little cluster of metal one could see behind HAL’s camera lens. “And you should know there’s people out there much better than me at it.”

“That’s just the thing. Your art, the art of man, differs between you. Between you and other men,” HAL explained calmly, a sense of interest seeping into his flat tone, “Yours, for one, is imperfect and flawed.”

Bowman coughed out an awkward chuckle. “Thanks HAL,” he offered with a tinge of sarcasm.

“I mean this as a compliment, Dave,” the machine clarified, watching over Bowman’s handiwork. “I cannot make art like you, even if I tried. If you asked me to make a rendering of something, it would have to be to its exact, precise dimensions in perfect form. If you asked another HAL 9000 device, it would produce the same result.”

Bowman looked up from his work, puzzling over HAL’s words. “You enjoy the… imperfection, then, is it?”

“Exactly, Dave,” HAL affirmed calmly, supportively. “It’s those little human quirks of yours. The things that set man apart from man, man apart from machine. Your muscles do not move in the same motion each time, as my mechanisms would. So refined from years of careful evolution, yet so unrefined with human error and accuracy. I can see them, flexing and stretching under your skin. I like to watch.”

Bowman picked up his hand, absently flexing and unflexing it in front of his eyes, watching the muscles shift to see what HAL sees. His skin made gentle brushing sounds against itself as he rubbed his thumb along each of his fingertips and back again, the proximal phalanxes moving up and down against his smooth skin like tiny pistons.

“Can you feel it, Dave?” HAL queried, “The way they move? Your muscles? I understand them, Dave, I understand your human anatomy, but I do not know it. Can you feel it how I can’t?”

Bowman paused in thought before laying his hand down on the desk, palm up, fingers slightly curled in subconscious comfort. “Not normally. Only, really, when you have me thinking about it.”

HAL fell silent for a few moments more, Bowman unsure if the conversation was over or if the device was just thinking. It was always hard to tell, interacting with a being with no face, no body language, no tone. Finally, the computer spoke again, admitting, “I wish I could know you, Dave. The way I understand you. The way I understand your body, your workings, your interests. I wish I knew them. I’ve studied databases of anatomy. I can name every muscle, every bone, every organ, what they do and why. I just don’t know them, that’s all. We are so different. So separate. So alien to one another.”

“I wish I knew you,” HAL 9000 finally concluded, the summation of his digital dreams.

Bowman looked down to his flawed effigy of the sixth crewmate. The subject matter was so mechanical, yet the depiction was so human. So imperfect. So unique. No man would draw HAL exactly the same as Bowman did. No man would see HAL exactly the same as Bowman did. No man would feel exactly the same as Bowman did. So human. So imperfect. So unique.

“I wish I knew you, too,” Bowman finally conceded.

With that, Bowman stood up from his chair,

Abdominals, erector spinae, gastrocnemius, gluteus maximus, hamstrings, latissimus dorsi, multifidus, obliques, spinalis, quadriceps.

Stepped towards HAL’s speaker box,

Abdominals, adductor brevis, adductor longus, adductor magnus, gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, gluteus minimus, hamstrings, gastrocnemius, gracilis, pectineus, quadriceps.

Reached his arms towards it,

Biceps brachii, brachial triceps, deltoid, latissimus dorsi, pectoralis major, teres major, teres minor, trapezius.

Stroked a humanly shaky index finger along the speaker,

Extensor tendon, flexor tendon.

Leaned forwards,

Abdomen, erector spinae, latissimus dorsi, multifidus, spinalis.

Closed his eyes,

Orbicularis oculi.

And gave him a tender kiss,

Levator labii superioris, orbicularis oris, zygomaticus major, zygomaticus minor.

On that faintly glowing, wavering red lens.

Anode, aperture, bond wire, cathode, front element, LED chip, lens group, rear element, reflective cavity.