#AI constant improvement

[updatedideas]

Amazons GPT55X Unveiled

Hey there, tech enthusiast! 🚀 Grab your coffee because we’re about to dive into one of the most exciting innovations in the world of AI: Amazon’s GPT55X. Picture this: you’re chatting with a friend, and they casually mention this groundbreaking piece of tech. Confused? Don’t fret. We’re here to break it down for you, friend-to-friend. Introducing the Rockstar: Amazons GPT55X Ever watched a movie…

[jester089]

I absolutely loved Locked Away! If you’re doing requests may I request an alternate ending to Locked Away with the same characters where they get to actually help reader recover from their mind breaking instead of them just being sent back to the cellar? I’d imagine it’d take a while for reader to fully recover but reader’s s/o would probably be really happy to see reader slowly get back to their normal self :)

Stuck with you

Thanks for request you lovely reader. Were so polite too. I'll do my best! Most likely gonna be super fluffy. And for anyone else who felt like it requests are open. So feel free.

Caine

In this string of events he doesn't put you back into the cellar. Despite being an AI he just cares to much about you to throw you away like that. The only real notable differences from before is Caine's softer with you and is often looking through your code to see how you were able to overcome abstraction. In a situation like that no less. And with constant attention from him your start improving! After a month or two pass you start reacting to things again, you even spoke a few times! Sure your voice is much quieter and shakier then before and you jump at a lot more, but you getting better. If Caine could cry he would have. And I am happy to announce that after around a half a year of time your back! Mostly... You different from before, but it's still you. And after enough time and assurance that your ok Caine lets you stay in your old room again everyone feeling a lot of relief seeing that giant X be taken off your door.

Gangle

Hope your ready to have a clingy piece of ribbon constantly touching you in one way or another. When you were taken out by Caine Gangle couldn't have been happier. You and her have gone through a lot though since the last time you saw each other so she'll be pretty overprotective for a while. And their will be a lot of breakdowns between the two of you, that and it' wi'll take a long time for either of you to feel like yourselves again. After a few months of Gangle constantly clinging to you, you start showing some improvement she starts to give you a little space. Emphasis on a little. She still isn't ok with not being in the same room as you but she is ok with not being in physical contact for over a minute now. Once you and Gangle are feeling more like yourselves again Gangle will even start using her comedy mask again! And once your feeling ok with actually talking and being around the others kick Jax in the D$&# for me. Cause even during all this he still constantly bullied Gangle and you. You were broken and she was on the verge of joining you. But with her there you felt, safe. And just having you to hold and talk to again is enough to make Gangle not at risk for abstraction. For now.

Zooble

She sadly didn't show up when you first got back. She didn't even believe you were alive until Ragatha and Pomni started spamming her doorbell and pounding on her door again. She got up and swung the door open full ready to berate the two over doing that so soon after she lost you. And so soon after they made the messed up joke of you being ok. She didn't even get a word out before she froze. Y-you were there... Standing in front of her! She reached out with a shaky hand not believing that it was really you. Once she realizes it is really you, you're quickly get tackled into a hug. She's crying so hard she can't even see, staining both of your faces with tears, peppering your face with kisses Don't ask me how if she doesn't have a mouth. But you didn't react. You didn't giggle, or blush, or push her away because you were overwhelmed. She felt a light tap on her shoulder to see Ragatha standing there rubbing the back of her head sheepishly. After Zooble got clued in on what happened she swore to stick with you, doesn't matter if you got messed up in the cellar. She isn't giving up on you. She can and will stick by your side until either you get better, or you two die of old age. She's gentle with you of course but I feel like she would force you to come out of your rooms. And with you there again she was ok with going on adventures again, even going out of her way to request more lighthearted and easy ones from Caine, just for you and her. You know that scene where she strangled Jax though her arm wasn't attached. Yeah, she's going to constantly have one of her hands holding yours. Even if she isn't there she isn't just going to leave you all alone. And if you ask her she'll leave you both her arms, maybe even a leg or two. Sure it's a pain in her a$& not having a limb or limbs, but in her mind you come first.

Ragatha

When she heard that you were back she believed it in an instant. Sprinting to where Caine said you were faster then you would except a ragdoll to be able to go. When she sees you she wants so bad to squeeze the life out of you but she holds off. You abstracted before, what if she did something wrong and it happened again!?! She can't... No, she wont let that happen. So she is very very gentle with you treating you like you would crumble to dust if she looked away or accidentally saying something not positive in your presence. After you and Ragatha are safe and in one of your rooms she is just going to awkwardly sit there staring at you. While you were gone she went over in her mind what she would do if you were back so many times. But now your here, sitting in front of her. And she can't even bring herself to move or speak a single word. You two sit there for who knows how long until you end up falling asleep and flopping over onto her, just like you did so many times before... you know. That snaps her out of it. This isn't some fragile item. It's you... It's YOU! YOUR ACTUALLY HERE! YOUR ALIVE! You falling asleep on her is when it finally sinks in that your back. This isn't some F"!@%# up trick. She lays her forehead against yours and just listens to you breath eventually falling asleep as well.

Jax

It's kind of messed up but Jax has the highest likely hood or breaking you again after your better, or making you worse when your mind is still fragile. It's just he has gone through a lot while you were gone, not once showing or acting on any of his emotions keeping them all inside bottled up. Then seeing you sitting on his bed staring at him with glazed over eyes pops the corks off all those bottles. All at once making poor you have to deal with just about every emotion all at once. Moving past that, much like Zooble he makes sure you get out more. And surprisingly he will let you talk to and be around others despite all the pent up fear he has based around you. But if someone says or does something that you at all negatively react to he is going to be ROYALLY PISSED. He keeps like that for a while but upon seeing you start to improve, he lightens up a lot. Just seeing you react and talk again is enough to help with a lot of his inner turmoil. And once your at least mostly back to being yourself he will be too. Back to being a prankster and kind of an A*#hole. But he will never once tease you about what you went though. He would sooner throw himself into that cellar before he even thought of teasing you with that.

Pomni

Since you've been gone Pomni's been, well a mess. She was unstable before you left. Seeing you again shifted something in her. She was there with Caine when you got out of the cellar. When she saw you in all your glory she just stared for who knows how long before passing out. The two of you were moved to one of your rooms probably by either Caine or Ragatha who were just trying to help. But every time she wakes up and comes face to face with you she gets overwhelmed and passes out again. It's just too much. So if you both want to come out the other side still together relationship and mind wise you'll have to take it slow. Really slow. Ragatha will more likely then not be in charge or slowly introducing you two to each other again. And Pomni makes good progress. You do too. But every time her mind wanders back to that day you abstracted she looses most of her progress. So sadly it's mostly up to you. With Ragatha's help your going to have to pull yourself out of that pit in your mind. And when your at least mostly yourself again Pomni will start actually improving. It'll feel wrong but the best way to get her ok with being around you without having a breakdown is exposure therapy. And a lot of it. Just spend time with you as well as with a little luck you two can pick up where you left off. Or at the very least close to it.

(If you ask me this didn't turn out good. If you the requester for this post agree with that feel free to ask me to repeat it. Sometimes my writing gets wonky cause I was in a weird mood. Still I hope you enjoyed it! That applies to the rest of you too!)

xoxo, Jester

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

How can you make Cawl "better" Say another techpriest does some wacky stuff that changed the lore. How woudl you write it? sorry if i wrote it mean

If they absolutely had to have him make his primaris marines and his automatic plasma weapons and his funny AI, fine. GW wants to sell minis and those things alone place him around the intelligence level of someone like Amar fucking Astarte. That is a huge compliment. That is insanely impressive and still actively undoes like half the Imperium's tech shortcomings via a series of illogically "secret" tech advancements.

What they shouldn't have done. What they couldn't help but do, right, is have the overlong slab of plot devices show off how smart he is by diminishing other factions. Why is he able to reverse-engineer the Pharos device? Why should he know where all the blackstone is? Why should he know how to jailbreak scarabs and modify engrams, one of the single most advanced pieces of tech in the entire fucking setting?

If GW must have someone's early-era ff.net OC clogging up the setting, he would be massively improved by actively showing that he doesn't understand xenos technology, and that he realises his lack of comprehension is a frustration and a problem that cannot be brute forced. That he must further commit heresy by engaging in diplomacy with them, and he's not good at it. Give him a shred of depth. Make him a character. As it stands, he is the narrative equivalent of a person whose entire personality trait is "I need everyone to know I am smart and they are not", except he's being constantly rewarded for it.

Fabius Bile is a thousand times better than Cawl because he's limited, despite his intellect. His reincarnation process is endlessly flawed. He's only as good as he is because he had to go and learn from the Drukhari, who he still acknowledges are smarter than him. He has to fight for quality resources, for gene-seed, for access to materials, for his authority. He has to bargain and trade. He has to do things involving Eldar without understanding them, to his aggravation and intrigue. His brilliance at cloning keeps biting him in the ass. He's interesting because of that constant challenge.

[banamine-bananime]

god, the relationship between alpha and all the freelancers is just So Much. like, the way the only people alpha, apparently, is allowed to directly interact with are the fucking Director and the Counselor. that on its own would have been enough to make me tear my brain apart like no additional torture needed.

yet basement boy here knows the freelancers better than anyone. he inhabits their home in the sense that the MOI is kind of his body. that's complicated by the other AI of the MOI, like at the very least there's FILSS and she seems to run most of the MOI's day-to-day systems like life support training simulations etc., and by the fact that clearly alpha does not have constant access to all the cameras and mics of the ship or it would not be possible to lie to him about agents dying. but it's his purpose of existing to understand every minute variable about them that could influence mission success in such depth to figure out anything that can be done to help them improve and succeed and survive.

do you get me??? fucking Parasocial Relationships Man of all time. the sheer intensity of that one-way relationship. the way they'll all never get to know alpha, have no idea that in this all-time-most-toxic-workplace trying to break them there's someone who loves them so much. who they're the entire world of and who they don't know exists. and each fragment coming into the world with the knowledge they failed to keep them safe latent somewhere in them. and then getting to go out and meet these people who seem so familiar and important somehow.

i dunno man. but it keeps me up at night.

[southernsolarpunk]

Hey what the fuck is this news story?

“ But the world’s largest economies are already there: The total fertility rate among the OECD’s 38 member countries dropped to just 1.5 children per woman in 2022 from 3.3 children in 1960. That’s well below the “replacement level” of 2.1 children per woman needed to keep populations constant.

That means the supply of workers in many countries is quickly diminishing.

In the 1960s, there were six people of working age for every retired person, according to the World Economic Forum. Today, the ratio is closer to three-to-one. By 2035, it’s expected to be two-to-one.

Top executives at publicly traded US companies mentioned labor shortages nearly 7,000 times in earnings calls over the last decade, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis last week.

“A reduction in the share of workers can lead to labor shortages, which may raise the bargaining power of employees and lift wages — all of which is ultimately inflationary,” Simona Paravani-Mellinghoff, managing director at BlackRock, wrote in an analysis last year. “

Is this seriously how normal people think? Improving the bargaining power of workers and increased wages are bad?

“ And while net immigration has helped offset demographic problems facing rich countries in the past, the shrinking population is now a global phenomenon. “This is critical because it implies advanced economies may start to struggle to ‘import’ labour from such places either via migration or sourcing goods,” wrote Paravani-Mellinghoff.

By 2100, only six countries are expected to be having enough children to keep their populations stable: Africa’s Chad, Niger and Somalia, the Pacific islands of Samoa and Tonga, and Tajikistan, according to research published by the Lancet, a medical journal.

BlackRock’s expert advises her clients to invest in inflation-linked bonds, as well as inflation-hedging commodities like energy, industrial metals and agriculture and livestock.

Import labor via migration or sourcing goods? My brother in Christ they are modern day slaves!! I feel like I’m in backwards town reading this what the fuck?!

“ Elon Musk, father of 12 children, has remarked that falling birthrates will lead to “a civilization that ends not with a bang but a whimper, in adult diapers.”

While his words are incendiary, they’re not entirely wrong

P&G and Kimberly-Clark, which together make up more than half of the US diaper market, have seen baby diaper sales decline over the past few years. But adult diapers sales, they say, are a bright spot in their portfolios. “

Oh now the guy with a breeding kink is going to lecture us. Great. /s

“ The AI solution: Some business leaders and technologists see the boom in productivity through artificial intelligence as a potential solution.

“Here are the facts. We are not having enough children, and we have not been having enough children for long enough that there is a demographic crisis, former Google CEO and executive chairman Eric Schmidt said at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London last year.

“In aggregate, all the demographics say there’s going to be shortage of humans for jobs. Literally too many jobs and not enough people for at least the next 30 years,” Schmidt said.

Oh god not the AI tech bros coming into this shit too. Wasn’t the purpose of improving tech to give people more free time? So they can relax and spend time with family more and actually enjoy life? Isn’t our economy already bloated with useless pencil-pushing number-crunching desk jobs that ultimately don’t serve a purpose?

I’m not going to post the entire article but give it a read. It’s… certainly something. Anyway degrowth is the way of the future.

[shuttershocky]

Story reasons aside, the best reason why you should still play the original FF7 before Remake is because as soon as you get into any battle that's actually hard you're going to realize 7Remake's combat system fights with itself so much because it's still balanced as a turn-based game, not as an action game.

When you fight enemies that never stop attacking and have unblockable, undodgeable full party hits like Bahamut or Leviathan, if you're playing 7Remake like it's a real time combat game you're going to be unbelievably frustrated. It's going to feel like you're not allowed to play the game.

You /have/ to approach these fights like you're playing a turn-based game. That is, accepting that taking damage is unavoidable, and properly applying a round of buffs to specific party members, assigning them roles, and then swapping between them to juggle the boss' aggro while spending most of your time in the command menu instead of in the real time combat where you're mostly guarding.

Dealing with Leviathan like youre playing an action game is not viable, you're going to get wiped by Tidal Wave and there's nothing you can do except if you manage to stagger them while it's charging up. Instead, you either cast a magnify + manaward on everyone and hope for the best, or cast lifesaver + steelskin with Barret stacked with HP up Materia and then using him to revive the other two party members when they're inevitably killed.

The fight against Bahamut is so oppressive anytime spent in real time combat is actually best spent Guarding, since Bahamut never gives an opportunity for melee fighters to damage him without him sending them flying or stunlocking them. The fight is best handled Guarding with Cloud while AI Barret shoots at him with luck up materia + EKG for constant crits, then using Aerith to keep the party healed up or by casting a strong magic attack to pressure Bahamut to delay Megaflare for up to two "turns". You WILL eat Megaflare eventually and there's no way to outskill / outplay Bahamut wiping your party, only prepare to survive it with the one party member that has a Revival materia (usually Barret again)

If you play the original FF7, you will understand what the game wants from you once you start battling the superbosses. If you don't, you'll end up supremely frustrated at how little control you seem to have in an action combat system UNTIL you start fighting almost entirely through the command menu.

That being said, the Yuffie DLC appeared to recognize this issue, as the Nero bossfight was one you could actually play like an action game, on top of Yuffie generally having a more fluid and mobile fighting style compared to the others. Intergrade also greatly upgraded the Parry materia by letting it animation cancel as well as allowed smooth transitioning from Guard to Parry to Guard. I've got great hopes that Rebirth bases its combat design around the big improvements Yuffie brought with her so it actually does play like an action game even against bosses, rather than forcing you to play it like Classic mode even when you didn't pick Classic mode.

[angrybathbomb]

TOUCHSTARVED FANFIC

“Are you two a couple?”

  MODERN AU

Touchstarved LI x gn! Reader

SUMMARY: On a coffee date with each ts LIs, both of you are stopped by what one can assume a street interviewer/youtuber who seems to be quite eager on talking to couples. What do our lovely LIs have to say?

WARNINGS:  NONE, only fluff and our sweet birb being a tsundere and reader being a goof.

NOTE:   This is my first-time writing fanfics, please go easy on me if I made some mistakes as I am still learning. Constructive criticism and tips to improve are very much appreciated. Thank you for reading!

INSPO: I saw a YouTube channel (@meetcutenyc) and felt like writing this for our lovely ts LIs!

WORD COUNT: <2.6K

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-PROLOGUE-

Strolling leisurely down the bustling streets for a cozy, romantic coffee date, fingers entwined, greedily savouring each other’s warmth. Each step the two of you took, resonated with a rhythm on the footpath that stretched ahead in the bustling cityscape. Amidst the bustling chaos of the city, snippets of conversations floating around and the distant hum of traffic, a comfortable silence stretched between the two of you with occasional exchange of shy yet mischievous glances and tender smiles.

However, the romantic stroll came to an abrupt halt when a young guy holding a camera, most likely recording, blocked the path ahead of you two.

“Sorry to interrupt, but are you two a couple?”, he inquired with a friendly smile. His eyes, subtly reflecting guilt, silently apologized for the sudden intrusion.

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AIS

LEANDER

VERE

MHIN

KURAS

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      MHIN

The deft fingers interlaced with yours so tenderly before, now shifted, gripping yours protectively. Mhin grumbled under their breath, displeasure quite evident. Your gaze flickered from the stranger to Mhin, the sudden unease in the atmosphere becoming suffocating.

“None of your business,” their response was swift and clipped, voice carrying a sharp edge, tone cutting through the noise of the busy traffic.

Without sparing the guy so much as a glance, they smoothly maneuvered around him together with you, determined to continue for the date as their pace quickened.

In this bustling part of the city, encountering vloggers, artists, street interviewers was almost a routine. It seemed they were everywhere, their cameras and microphones eagerly catching a snippet of urban life.

Mhin harboured a profound distaste for social media, cherishing serene privacy over the constant scrutiny and intrusion that came with sharing every intimate detail of their lives with the world. Their conviction ran deep: they saw social media as little more than consensual stalking. While aware some might find their opinion extreme, they remained resolute.

A gentle tug on their slender arm pulls them from their thoughts, causing them to pause mid-walk. They glance behind them, at you, a questioning look in their eyes, silently demanding an explanation.

Sensing the stranger’s puzzled expression and feeling a sense of sympathy, you had tugged on their arm without sparing much thought.” Yes, indeed, we are a couple,” you said, with a warm smile.

Mhin, although taken aback by your willingness to entertain this intruder stranger, reluctantly waited, refusing to drop their guard just yet.

The stranger’s face lit up with understanding and a hint of apology, realizing he may have intruded. “I’m sorry for interrupting,” he begins, his voice timid yet polite., “Do you mind sharing how you two first met?” he inquired, genuine curiosity shaping his words and demeanour.

The unexpected question caught you off guard. You beamed gleefully, your enthusiasm quite infectious. It was clear to anyone watching, that you were the extrovert who adopted the introvert more expressive of the two.

In contrast Mhin wore a quizzical look on their face, waiting patiently for you to speak next.

“I do not mind at all,” you said, beaming with giddy excitement. You turned towards Mhin, they looked like a deer caught in headlights, clearly not having the best time of their life. Pausing for a moment, realisation dawned on you, albeit a little late --- Mhin’s discomfort with being on camera.

The thrill in your eyes was soon replaced by concern, “You don’t like being on camera, do you?”

Mhin’s hesitation was palpable, their gaze shifting between your hopeful and eager eyes to the camera. The silence that stretched between the two of you grew heavy with anticipation.

‘How could I be so careless?’ you chided yourself silently as the guilt weighed heavily upon you. ‘After all these years together, how could I forget their distaste for social media attention!’ The weight of your oversight felt suffocating, each passing moment of silence adding to your inner turmoil.

Just as you were about to decline the offer yourself, Mhin spoke up, breaking the tense silence that had settled in the air. “I can,” Mhin uttered, tone softer than usual. “For you I don’t mind,” their voice carrying a mix of affection and bashfulness.

You were taken aback but immensely grateful, nonetheless. In a moment of hesitation, you couldn’t help but seek confirmation,” Are you sure?  You don’t have to do this for me, you know.”

Before you could finish your anxious thoughts, Mhin’s reassurance cut through, “If I was not sure, I would have never agreed. Let’s get this over with, we have a place to be.”

To any casual passerby eavesdropping, Mhin’s tone might come off as dismissive, but you could sense the underlying affection they were trying to suppress.

Responding with a grateful smile, you earned a shy blush from Mhin, who quickly averted their gaze, attempting to quell the fluttering butterflies in their stomach.

Turning your attention to the stranger,” Well, it looks like we have some time to spare,” you acknowledged before adding,” I’ll go ahead and start, if that’s alright with you?”

Glancing at Mhin, you understood your partner’s preference for staying out of the spotlight. Mhin looked more than willing to comply, grateful for you to skilfully take the lead and save them from any further discomfort.

“We actually met in college. It’s a really sweet story,” you trail off, a faint blush tinting your cheeks. Mhin, meanwhile, reached out to hold your hand, idly playing with your fingers as they listened intently. Although their gaze remained on you, there was a distant look in their delicate moon eyes. Clearly lost in their thoughts, reminiscing about their first meeting with you.

“I had to move from my hometown to Eridia,”you narrated with enthusiasm,”I worked tirelessly for the last two years of high school to secure a seat in the prestigious University, Senobium.”

Glancing affectionately at Mhin, you added with a playful tone,”They were already in their second year at the same University, studying anatomy.”

Beaming with pride, you announced,”And guess what? They were the top student of their batch!”

Mhin, keen on keeping a low profile, rolled their eyes at the mention of their academic prowess. They ran a hand through their ivory hair to distract themselves from the discomfort that comes with receiving praise, that they believed they clearly didn’t deserve. 

“That’s not entirely true,” they claimed, furrowing their brows in annoyance. But before they could continue, you interjected confidently,”Yes dove, it is! Don’t be so harsh on yourself. It’s not possible to consistently be at your best,” you assured,”even at your lowest, during the cut-throat competition, you managed to stay in top five, give yourself credit.”

Mhin was grateful for your encouraging words but now was not the time. Sensing your persistence and not wanting to dwell on the topic further, they quickly shifted gears.

“Let’s get back to talking about our first meeting,” they said, smoothly redirecting the conversation.

“Oh and here’s the fun part,” you chirped up, eyes sparkling with mischief. “We both ended up enrolling for a club we didn’t enjoy, but I stayed,” you said, casting a playful glance at Mhin.

A faint blush spread across Mhin’s pale face as they averted their gaze shyly, trying to keep a poker face to create an aura of aloofness.

With a mischievous smile you shrugged and added,”Can’t quite remember the reason this one kept going though. Care to remind me?”

The stranger looked at Mhin expectantly, a hopeful smile on his face, which left Mhin with little to no choice but to speak up.

“Well I was curious,” Mhin cleared their throat awkwardly, shuffling their feet to calm their racing heart.

“Curious about what?” you asked, arching a brow.

Mhin huffed as they closed their eyes to save themselves from your keen gaze and build up enough courage to confess in a shy voice,”About you.”

Your triumphant smile spread wide as the colour on Mhin’s cheeks deepened, travelling down to their neck.

“So you two kept attending the club because you liked each other?” The stranger asked, looking between them curiously.

Mhin sputtered nervously while you burst into laughter,”BINGO!”

“No, that’s not the only reason, I —”

“That was THE reason!”

“Gods above, you are insufferable!”

“And yet, here you are, still with me. What does that say about you?”

You laughed uncontrollably, clutching your stomach. Mhin grumbled like an angsty teen, and crossed their arms.

The stranger chuckled along with you, clearly entertained by the the back and forth between the lovers.

“What were your first impressions of each other?” he asked, his curiosity evident.

You paused your laughter, composing yourself. “First impressions?”

“When you first met each other,” the stranger clarified with a nod.

Mhin gave a knowing look, and you instantly knew that they expected you to go first. As always, it was your turn to take the lead.

“Cute,” you teased with a grin,”but moody like a cat.”

Mhin’s glare in response only encouraged you.

“All bark, no bite.” You continued, unfazed.

“What?” Mhin grunted, already exasperated.

“I mean, all hiss, no scratch,” you corrected yourself.

“What are you talking about?” Mhin asked, their confusion mounting.

“No, I was trying to make it about cats. My first impression of you, remember?” you explained eagerly.

“Please stop,” Mhin groaned.

“Look, dogs bark and cats hiss, right? So by that logic —”

You were genuinely interested in explaining your reasoning, while Mhin prayed the ground beneath their feet would open up and swallow them whole.

The stranger observed the pair with a amused smile, noting how opposites truly do attract.

“It seems like your first impression wasn’t the greatest,” he said, directing his comment towards Mhin.

Mhin stiffened under the sudden attention, their moon like eyes widening slightly like a startled cat. “I wouldn’t go that far,” they answered.

The stranger tilted his head, his mouth forming a perfect ‘O’ of surprise, clearly not expecting that answer.

Mhin straightened their posture, fighting the colour rising to their cheeks. “They seem lost in their head most of the time,” Mhin admitted,“at least during the club hours.”

“So it was you,” you concluded with a smirk.

Mhin made a face, “What was I?”

“I always felt like somebody’s watching me,” you teased.

“I just stole glances, not stalked!” Mhin retorted defensively

“Somebody had a crush,” you continued to smirk, trying to work them up.

Mhin bit their tongue, holding back the curse burning on the tip of their tongue.

“Sometimes I wonder which deity did I ever spite to be cursed with you,” they spat back, lips twisting into a scowl.

In response, you erupted into a boisterous laugh shamelessly.

The amused glances from the passersby momentarily paused you, promting you to compose yourself. You smiled bashfully, scratching the back of your head, while, Mhin rolled their eyes and scoffed under their breath.

The stranger chuckled,”Not such a fan of them, it seems. Why be with them then?”

“I can put up with them,” Mhin deadpanned.

“More like I can put with you,” you retorted.

“What does that mean?!” Mhin demanded.

“You pick up fights with people twice your size,” you teased.

“Are you calling me SHORT?!” Mhin shot back.

“I am not calling you anything, it’s a fact,” you replied nonchalantly.

“Why was I with you again?” Mhin grumbled.

“Since the day I put you in your place,” you said with a smirk.

“What? Making up shit on the fly, now, are we? Leave that to the Politicians,” Mhin retorted.

“You admitted it yourself,” you countered.

“Really? Why can’t I happen to recall so?” Mhin challenged.

“Let me help you with that. To quote you precisely,’You are not as spineless, as you look’ ” you said with a grin.

Mhin shook their head in denial, “That was diff— ”

But you cut them off, draping an arm around them and planting a kiss on their cheek. Mhin’s mouth clamped shut immediately, their face flushed with embarassment.

You grinned proudly at the camera. “Remember, folks, if they bite, bite them back,” you added with a wink, injecting some flair into the end of your statement.

The stranger laughed good-naturedly.

“Might as well share your insight on relationships while we are at it,” he remarked glancing at Mhin with an encouraging smile.

“Well, for starters.” Mhin’s gaze flickered to you,”don’t take their advice,” they drawled with a monotone voice.

With furrowed brows, you pouted in mock offence as the stranger gave an amused smile.

“Then what advice do you deem fit?” he asked, turning his attention to Mhin.

Mhin remained quiet, deep in thought. Not realizing the blank expression on their face, they spaced out until you nudged them lightly. Startled, Mhin whipped their head in your direction,” Hm?”

You gestured towards the camera. “The world needs answers,” you quipped jokingly.

Mhin sighed, their tone carrying a hint of guilt. “Don’t build your walls up so high that you refuse to open up at all,” they advised. “Otherwise, you’ll be stuck in stalemate and you’ll have nobody but yourself to blame.”

It was clear they were speaking from experience, lost in their thoughts.

You gazed at them with a soft look in your eyes. Seeing them vulnerable like this, you pulled your lover into a hug. Mhin gasped in surprise but returned the embrace without a second thought.

“Adorable,” the stranger commented, looking at the couple with a adoring expression.

Not accustomed to public display of affection, Mhin pulled away awkwardly. You didn’t protest, understanding their need for space.

“Would you like to add on?” The stranger looked at you expectantly.

You gave an easy smile and a carefree shrug. “If past experiences left you with scars so deep that you find it hard to trust at all, it’s understandable to keep your walls up.” You exchanged a knowing glance with Mhin. “But don’t be so stubborn that you refuse to accept help when you are clearly drowning.”

You continued, tone shifting from playful to serious, “You can only be helped if you want to be. Have faith — Kindness isn’t dead yet.”

Mhin nodded in acknowledgement, their thoughtful gaze accompanied with a subtle smile.

The stranger noted that a smiling Mhin is a rare sight which was enough convincing for anyone watching you two were meant to be, indeed.

“Thank you for your time. It was lovely talking to the two of you,” the stranger said with a pleased smile.

“No problem,” you replied with a polite nod before interlacing your fingers with Mhin’s as you two prepared to leave.

With a final wave, both of you resumed your stroll. The whole walk, Mhin wore a beautiful smile and you admired them in silent appreciation not wanting to ruin the moment with your usual teasing. 

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

A/N: I hope you enjoy this, I wrote the entire thing again after losing the first draft even after saving, huge respect for writers, it was a miracle I didn't break my laptop in half. I hope you enjoy this , sorry for any spelling errors, I will edit them if they come to my notice! Sorry for the late post, I am involved in some college entrance exams at the moment.. Leander's our malewife next!

[reasonsforhope]

"If I wanted to convince you of the reality of human progress, of the fact that we as a species have advanced materially, morally, and politically over our time on this planet, I could quote you chapter and verse from a thick stack of development statistics.

I could tell you that a little more than 200 years ago, nearly half of all children born died before they reached their 15th birthday, and that today it’s less than 5 percent globally. I could tell you that in pre-industrial times, starvation was a constant specter and life expectancy was in the 30s at best. [Note: This is average life expectancy, old people did still exist in olden times] I could tell you that at the dawn of the 19th century, barely more than one person in 10 was literate, while today that ratio has been nearly reversed. I could tell you that today is, on average, the best time to be alive in human history.

But that doesn’t mean you’ll be convinced.

In one 2017 Pew poll, a plurality of Americans — people who, perhaps more than anywhere else, are heirs to the benefits of centuries of material and political progress — reported that life was better 50 years ago than it is today. A 2015 survey of thousands of adults in nine rich countries found that 10 percent or fewer believed that the world was getting better. On the internet, a strange nostalgia persists for the supposedly better times before industrialization, when ordinary people supposedly worked less and life was allegedly simpler and healthier. (They didn’t and it wasn’t.)

Looking backward, we imagine a halcyon past that never was; looking forward, it seems to many as if, in the words of young environmental activist Greta Thunberg, “the world is getting more and more grim every day.”

So it’s boom times for doom times. But the apocalyptic mindset that has gripped so many of us not only understates how far we’ve come, but how much further we can still go. The real story of progress today is its remarkable expansion to the rest of the world in recent decades. In 1950, life expectancy in Africa was just 40; today, it’s past 62. Meanwhile more than 1 billion people have moved out of extreme poverty since 1990 alone.

But there’s more to do — much more. That hundreds of millions of people still go without the benefit of electricity or live in states still racked by violence and injustice isn’t so much an indictment of progress as it is an indication that there is still more low-hanging fruit to harvest.

The world hasn’t become a better place for nearly everyone who lives on it because we wished it so. The astounding economic and technological progress made over the past 200 years has been the result of deliberate policies, a drive to invent and innovate, one advance building upon another. And as our material condition improved, so, for the most part, did our morals and politics — not as a side effect, but as a direct consequence. It’s simply easier to be good when the world isn’t zero-sum.

Which isn’t to say that the record of progress is one of unending wins. For every problem it solved — the lack of usable energy in the pre-fossil fuel days, for instance — it often created a new one, like climate change. But just as a primary way climate change is being addressed is through innovation that has drastically reduced the price of clean energy, so progress tends to be the best route to solving the problems that progress itself can create.

The biggest danger we face today, if we care about actually making the future a more perfect place, isn’t that industrial civilization will choke on its own exhaust or that democracy will crumble or that AI will rise up and overthrow us all. It’s that we will cease believing in the one force that raised humanity out of tens of thousands of years of general misery: the very idea of progress.

Changing Humanity's "Normal" Forever

Progress may be about where we’re going, but it’s impossible to understand without returning to where we’ve been. So let’s take a trip back to the foreign country that was the early years of the 19th century.

In 1820, according to data compiled by the historian Michail Moatsos, about three-quarters of the world’s population earned so little that they could not afford even a tiny living space, some heat and, hopefully, enough food to stave off malnutrition.

It was a state that we would now call “extreme poverty,” except that for most people back then, it wasn’t extreme — it was simply life.

What matters here for the story of progress isn’t the fact that the overwhelming majority of humankind lived in destitution. It’s that this was the norm, and had been the norm since essentially… forever. Poverty, illiteracy, premature death — these weren’t problems, as we would come to define them in our time. They were simply the background reality of being human, as largely unchangeable as birth and death itself...

Between 10,000 BCE and 1700, the average global population growth rate was just 0.04 percent per year. And that wasn’t because human beings weren’t having babies. They were simply dying, in great numbers: at birth, giving birth, in childhood from now-preventable diseases, and in young adulthood from now-preventable wars and violence.

It was only with the progress of industrialization that we broke out of [this long cycle], producing enough food to feed the mounting billions, enough scientific breakthroughs to conquer old killers like smallpox and the measles, and enough political advances to dwindle violent death.

Between 1800 and today, our numbers grew from around 1 billion to 8 billion. And that 8 billion aren’t just healthier, richer, and better educated. On average, they can expect to live more than twice as long. The writer Steven Johnson has called this achievement humanity’s “extra life” — but that extra isn’t just the decades that have been added to our lifespans. It’s the extra people that have been added to our numbers. I’m probably one of them, and you probably are too...

The progress we’ve earned has hardly been uninterrupted or perfectly distributed... [But] once we could prove in practice that the lot of humanity didn’t have to be hand-to-mouth existence, we could see that progress could continue to expand.

Current Progress "Flows Overwhelmingly" to the Developing World

The long twentieth century came late to the Global South, but it did get there. Between 1960 and today, India and China, together home to nearly one in every three people alive today, have seen life expectancy rise from 45 to 70 and 33 to 78, respectively. Per-capita GDP over those years rose some 2,600 percent for India and an astounding 13,400 percent for China, with the latter lifting an estimated 800 million people out of extreme poverty.

In the poorer countries of sub-Saharan Africa, progress has been slower and later, but shouldn’t be underestimated. When we see the drastic decline in child mortality — which has fallen since 1990 from 18.1 percent of all children in that region to 7.4 percent in 2021 — or the more than 20 million measles deaths that have been prevented since 2000 in Africa alone, this is progress continuing to happen now, with the benefits overwhelmingly flowing to the poorest among us.

Vanishing Autocracies

In 1800, according to Our World in Data, zero — none, nada, zip — people lived in what we would now classify as a liberal democracy. Just 22 million people — about 2 percent of the global population — lived in what the site classifies as “electoral autocracies,” meaning that what democracy they had was limited, and limited to a subset of the population.

One hundred years later, things weren’t much better — there were actual liberal democracies, but fewer than 1 percent of the world’s population lived in them...

Today just 2 billion people live in countries that are classified as closed autocracies — relatively few legal rights, no real electoral democracy — and most of them are in China...

Expanding Human Rights

All you have to do is roll the clock back a few decades to see the way that rights, on the whole, have been extended wider and wider: to LGBTQ citizens, to people of color, to women. The fundamental fact is that as much as the technological and economic world of 2023 would be unrecognizable to people in 1800, the same is true of the political world.

Nor can you disentangle that political progress from material progress. Take the gradual but definitive emancipation of women. That has been a hard-fought, ongoing battle, chiefly waged by women who saw the inherent unfairness of a male-dominated society.

But it was aided by the invention of labor-saving technologies in the home like washing machines and refrigerators that primarily gave time back to women and made it easier for them to move into the workforce.

These are all examples of the expansion of the circle of moral concern — the enlargement of who and what is considered worthy of respect and rights, from the foundation of the family or tribe all the way to humans around the world (and increasingly non-human animals as well). And it can’t be separated from the hard fact of material progress.

Leaving a Zero-Sum World Behind

The pre-industrial world was a zero-sum one... In a zero-sum world, you advance only at the expense of others, by taking from a set stock, not by adding, which is why wars of conquest between great powers were so common hundreds of years ago, or why homicide between neighbors was so much more frequent in the pre-industrial era.

We have obviously not eradicated violence, including by the state itself. But a society that can produce more of what it needs and wants is one that will be less inclined to fight over what it has, either with its neighbors or with itself. It’s not that the humans of 2023 are necessarily better, more moral, than their ancestors 200 or more years ago. It’s that war and violence cease to make economic sense...

Doomerism, at its heart, may be that exhaustion made manifest.

But just as we need continued advances in clean tech or biosecurity to protect ourselves from some of the existential threats we’ve inadvertently created, so do we need continued progress to address the problems that have been with us always: of want, of freedom, even of mortality. Nothing can dispel the terminal exhaustion that seems endemic in 2023 better than the idea that there is so much more left to do to lift millions out of poverty and misery while protecting the future — which is possible, thanks to the path of the progress we’ve made.

And we’ll know we’re successful if our descendants can one day look back on the present with the same mix of sympathy and relief with which we should look back on our past. How, they’ll wonder, did they ever live like that?"

-via Vox, 3/20/23

Note: I would seriously recommend reading the whole article--because as long as this post is, this is only about half of it! The article contains a lot more information about the hows and whys of human progress, and it also definitely made me cry the first time I read it.

[642spaghettiprincess]

This drawing actually did have a meaning.

This has been burning inside me ever since I started this account.

Every choice I made here, was because I care about you all too much. Every time I ask you all "what can I improve on?" Its actually because I'm questioning my worth. I'm questioning what do I exist for. I do not feel like I'm human at all. I feel as if I run on auto poilte as a robot and ai creating art and stories for you all. Even at home as well. My identity is made up of stolen ones. Even my art as well, I feel its not mine because I keep constantly trying to make it better. I want to mean somebody to someone. I crave affection. I keep constantly running on fear and over burning myself because I do not know how to act or feel. I only do when its not my life and I care about other people. It's even weirder since I'm not suffering in constant pain anymore because pain is the only way I feel alive. And when you all are like "oh I'm sorry, I will leave," to me its like (oh I fucked up I'm sorry please don't leave me-. I want attention. I don't want to be alone. I have been fighting my whole life for my own worth.

I am sorry for being a disappointment to you all. But, this is whats been on my mind for my whole life. I haven't even admitted this to my parents nor irl friends either.

But please, don't leave me!! I love you all!! Please stay!! You are all a reason why I can feel like a human other than a robot my whole life!! 😭😭😭

[nieves-de-sugui]

The Story of Live Action BL in Japan

This is an extra post to accompany the history of BL post I did earlier. 

Japan has had live action BL long before Thailand entered the picture. It was however mostly melancolic stories or manga adaptations, until their own particular boom happened. I make a difference between what I would call LGBTQ+ representation and BL Live Action, because even though they have existed parallely they are fundamentally different in their conception. Here is an interview with the curator of an exhibition that was held in Japan about the history of Japanese Queer Cinema. 

The evolution of Japanese BL Live Action has been very slow, and mostly influenced by manga. It is still not a big market, but it has improved a lot in the most recent years. This is my attempt to put it into phases:

The indie like movies and bad manga adaptations

Let’s start with Boys Love (a movie), shall we? 

It is the year 2006 and up to this point there has been a small boom of gay stories in the 1990′s (the first Tokyo International Lesbian & Gay Film & Video Festival was held in 1992 me thinks this might have sprung the yaoi debates). In the 2000's, we're at the start of a new little boom on BL type movies being made. Many of which would be directly released in DVD, with a constant melancholic and tragic approach to love stories between young men. 

Homosexual love is only attarctive to the mainstream if it’s painful. Like typical japanese imposible loves that are explored because of the passion and innevitable tragedy (it’s a japanese trope of almost any kind of romance movie, up to these days). its the intensity of feelings and the poetry of it all. In Boys Love we see those elements that are now very common in BL manga. Straight men falling in love with beautiful young boys and loving them until their tragic end. The movie was released in theatres and was successful enough to get a sequel. Here is a very good review of the movie, to know more about it.

A number of similar movies (with happier endings) follow through. Then enters the Takumi kun series. Based off one of the most popular yaoi novel (and potentially the first live action novel/manga adaptation of BL), it has all the June tropes: Traumatized feminine Takumi, raped by his older brother when he was young, has developped an abberation to human touch which prevents him from making friends. He goes to a boarding school for rich kids where he shares a dorm room with Gii, the most popular kid on the premises, who has fallen in love with him. And it is through that love that Takumi gets over his illness and heals from his past. It was such a success in the BLsphere that it got 4 more movies. I believe it is the bane of @absolutebl existence. 

After the first Takumi-kun movie, the production of BL type movies, or adaptations of manga gets a boost. We go from no more than 3 movies a year to 8 in 2008, ie:

Kindan no Koi Ai no Kotodama Taiikukan Baby

And so it continues. When a manga is popular enough it either gets a Live Action, a drama CD (voice actors record the manga dialogues) or/and a series of OVAs (Original Video Animation). Because that’s how they do marketing in Japan. I believe most, if not all, of these movies go straight to DVD. It’s a treat for the fans. 

The beginning of the shift

As the manga source starts to evolve, so does the live actions. Japanese society starts being more aware of the LGBT (as the term is used for business startegy purposes). As it’s all about what is going to sell, slowly, a slight neutral realism starts to be felt. Melancoly starts to be replaced with happier moods. 

The first adaptation I genienly enjoyed at the time was Seven Days, 2015. A 2 part movie, adapted from the manga, with a very simple story (still no characters properly defined as gay, but maybe they could count as bi?)

While more LGBTQ+ movies get made, the BL Live Action movies remain in the same vein. Adpating what is popular and sticking to the tropes of the time. For example, in 2017 we get simultaneously:

BL - Hidamari ga Kikoeru. A loud and energetic college student becomes friends with a hearing impared classmate, as he helps him take notes for class. 

LGBT - Close Knit. An 11 year old girl gets tossed aside by her mother and goes to live with her uncle, who is dating a transgender woman. 

The Middle Aged Man Phenomenon

Have you wondered why office settings are so popular in japanese BL? Well, it is mostly Ossan’s Love fault in my opinion.

Besides office romances being a staple of japanese tv dramas, in 2016 two major mainstream actors (Tanaka Kei and Yoshida Kotaro) participate in a small short film about a salaryman who discovers his boss is in love with him. A simple comedy filled with misunderstandings and funny shenanigans. As the response to it was very positive, they decided to turn it into a full flegged series. And so, Ossan’s Love comes out on prime television (TV Asahi) for all to see. It is the first time we see a story like this being shown in a mainstream channel, for all and anyone to see.

A year later after the success of Ossan’s Love we get the wonderful Kinou Nani Tabeta/What Di you Eat Yesterday? (2019), which would not have been possible without Ossan’s Love. There was confidence that there was a market for such a story. Followed by the OL movie: Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead. Which was later followed by a horrible horrible second season that nobody wanted. On this year too, Mood Indigo comes out. A sequel to The Novelist/Pornographer, which would secure it’s popularity. It later got a second season.

We are now in a second boom of interest in queer stories. And the number of movies and tv shows grow. Some of the most known:

Novel adaptation - Fujoshi Ukkari gay ni kokoru LGBT Movies - His Dramas - Life: Senjou no Bokura

Queer voices have been increasingly loud and, in 2015, two municipalities put in place a partnership to acknowledge same sex relationships (not recognized outside of those municipalities unfortunately). 

And so, start mixing the homophobia free idealized stories, with more diverse queer content, with the harsh realities of LGBTQ+ people, and the cinematic interest of the filmmakers/directors. 

The rise of the salaryman and the thai breakthrought

Thanks to the appeal of middle aged men, Japan now knows there’s a market to be had in producing BLs, so the adaptations sprout like mushrooms. The ground is ready to bear fruit, and so enters thailand with the big success of 2gether at the beginning of 2020. 

Japan got to have the movie screened in their theatres. Thailand has broken the Japanese market barrier, as soon as the borders open after the pandemic, fanmeetings are held there one after the other.

And then, we get Cherry Magic in late 2020, which continues to cement that the current japanese BL boom is still going strong. 

The Aftermath

The production of BL shows and movies reaches its peak and we get 26 (shows and movies) in 2022. Movies, specials and second seasons are being made.

From Utsukushii Kare 2021 to Strange 2023. Old and new manga gets an adapation and more queer representation grows in media overall.

The story of LGBT representation in shows in Japan

As an extra, I want to put here a few examples of how queer characters, and stories have entered the mainstream of japanese tv dramas. Many mainstream actors have also taken upon portraying such characters. 

Pretty Proofreader (2016) - featured a gay side character, not relevant to the plot.  My Brother’s Husband (2018) mini series - adaptation of Gengoroh Tagame’s manga about a man overcoming his homophobia through getting to know his bother’s husband Life As A Girl (2018) mini series - the life of a lesbian trans woman  Ie Uru Onna S2 (2019) - one episode features different types of LGBT people who want to buy a house and the difficulties they face. Also had some type of side gay stoyline (a little queerbaity)? Ore no Sukato, doko Itta? (2019) - a gay man who dresses as a woman becomes a teacher at a highschool and helps with his is student’s problems.

Special mention to Residential Complex (2018). 

A drama that featured 4 families living in the same residential unit, each with their own fundamental problems. The father in the traditional japanese family was unemployed, the man engaged to a younger second wife who wanted no children ends up having to take care of his son from his previous marriage, the young newlyweds that are eager to have kids can’t concieve and the single architect is actually living with his boyfriend. It was a show that had worked with an LGBT organization to make a faithful protrayal of LGBT realities. 

Final Thoughts

Here is a list of all Japanese BL and Queer media, Japanese BL list. I recommend to check it out to see the variety of adaptations being made today. It is intersting to see the differences in plot in the shows that are adapting current manga (Our Dining Table) and those adapting older manga (Candy Color Paradox). There is also a lot of queer movies and shows worth checking out. Here are my recommendations:

Kamisama no Ekohiiki (series)

Both Me and Him are the Grooms (movie)

I think it is great that Japan is intergrating queer stories and voices to their BLs, as well as adapting more content to the screen. It is a very exciting moment to be living through, but it still feels like it might go away just as fast as it came. Japan is a very conservative country, that embraces change so very slowly. Queer vocies are making noise, but they have yet to manage to make their government listen. Japan is very setback in this sense.

I do no think Japan will be able to have a BL market similar to Thailand for its live action adaptations any time soon. They stick to what they know, which sometimes can be very good and others, bad.

I do hope for BL to keep on doing what it does best for society: subtly normalizing queer lives so that conservative people start welcoming the idea that they're just regular people (who deserve rights, come on Japan). 

Hopefully we’re headed there.  

[lunarmoves]

(Dif anon) you said that you liked writing sun and moon where they had to deal with the fact theyre not human, but on the other side is there anything theyre sad that Y/n cant relate to?I dont know anything about computers or robots but a lot of the time i see people mentioning defracmentation and it feeling nice for robots or AI, so is there anything like that you enjoy?

hang on i need to google something.

(defragmentation -> a way to rearrange data on a computer/disk in order to optimize or improve performance. from what i understand anyways)

okay so, the most i know about computers is the like, intro to computing class i took when i was in university and that was YEARS ago LOL. i admit this isn't something i've thought about too much!! but you've got me pondering over here, so taking this from a more wider lens...

sun and moon r such a special case bc they're two AIs in one... and they're able to be connected to each other on a very mmm 'intimate' level. like... idk, there's a certain intimacy that comes with sharing an entire body with someone else yk? and they're able to communicate quite quickly and efficiently with each other and likely with the other robots at the plex thru a social network of sorts. i think maybe they'd be sad that they cant connect to y/n on this level maybe? there's no ability for sun/moon to ping y/n and get an immediate response. sure there's phones and whatever, but it's just not the same. there's no constant presence, no way to reassure themselves that y/n is with them at all times..

maybe they wish y/n could feel what it's like to be at 100% charge, or what it's like when their joints get properly oiled or they get fixed down in parts n services. all of these are pretty superficial things tho, and you can def make comparisons to humans lol. maybe they wish y/n could feel what it's like to have unnecessary files wiped from a drive to clear up more space? or when they get driver updates that leave them working at a rate better than they had been before.

and.. from a darker perspective. humans die. like, that's inevitable. robots on the other hand can outlast them for quite some time, given that there are ways for them to maintain themselves or get updates or whatever tf. i think maybe they would be sad that eventually they would have to let y/n go. there's no robot heaven, no robot souls, so they can't even reassure themselves with thoughts about the afterlife or reincarnation. maybe they would feel sad regarding the fragility of humans-- that they cannot be as robust as robots.

[pippatis]

I was surprised to see some people express an interest in my Starbound characters, and I've been thinking about it ever since, so I hope you guys don't mind if I open up about them a bit. Here's the first character I played as after being introduced to Frackin' Universe.

This is Neutron, a member of the X'i race. Their story is more than a few years old now and not quite up to my current standards, but I hope that you enjoy it anyways.

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

As a new and oblivious seedling, they were discovered by a star faring group of human scientists from Earth. At first, the group took the infant alien in and hoped to use them to improve relations between the species, but two of the scientists, an older couple, came to care for them like their own child.

Despite the X'i's natural level of radioactivity, the couple was able to adopt the infant, and at first brought them along on their studies, teaching them many of the things they'd known. The child took a quick interest in physics, and the couple would name them Neutron soon after. Eventually, after several years, they would retire back to their home planet and bring Neutron with them.

Once coming of age, Neutron decided they wanted to become part of Earth's Protectorate, mostly to travel and begin their own studies out in the galaxy. Their parents, now much older and just wanting to enjoy their retirement in peace, would stay on Earth and communicate with them from afar.

However, after the induction ceremony, the Ruin came. It tore the planet of Earth apart, and Neutron's parents were two of the many casualties lost that day. Neutron themselves managed to make it to a junker starship, which was thrown from the planet during the final blast.

Neutron awakened after several days, finding radioactive bulbs growing on their skin. At first, they did not remember what had happened. They walked through the wrecked ship as S.A.I.L spoke to them, informing them of their next steps, but the AI was ignored. Neutron went first to a handheld communication device that their parents had given them for their travels. Even though the system within the ship was beyond repair, this was always supposed to reach them - but there was only static.

Once they remembered what had transpired, they began to tear the bulbs from themselves, bringing their emotional anguish into a physical form as well. Neutron broke down and landed on their knees as the faint green glow of the bulbs around them slowly began to fade.

After another day or so, Neutron's hunger has become insatiable. Though they wish to die as well, they have noticed and begun staring at the seemingly lush planet their ship had brought them to. S.A.I.L's constant prodding to visit the unfamiliar world was wearing on their nerves, and begrudgingly, they decided to go and investigate.

While upon the planet, Neutron would notice its nature's unmistakable similarity to Earth's, although it was of course hardly inhabited. They traveled across it's surface, meeting the occasional starhopper, and even a few who simply lived there.

Eventually they came upon a lab, which was tended to by a massive, sapient amphibian creature. Enthusiastic for a student, the being enlisted Neutron's help in fixing some of his broken machinery. Even in their current state, Neutron was able to remember their fascination with the sciences, and agreed.

The final task given to Neutron saw them travel all the way down to the core of the planet, where the heat was scorching. Neutron was particularly averse to heat, and it was here that they once again began to think of how easy it would be to let go, to let the magma consume them. It would take only seconds.

But some part of them wanted to keep going, to keep learning, in their parents' wake. Even the planet they'd accidentally come upon was full of new knowledge and experiences. Neutron realized that to fully honor their parents' wishes, they should continue to chase their own.

Now, Neutron travels in a ship they built themselves, using the junker as a base. It is full of the research they've gathered. They still wear the remains of the ripped Protectorate uniform around their neck and carry the communication device without fail, and their goal never changes - to continue to study, even when that research sometimes blows up, literally.

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

[ancientphantom]

So... change is coming to the Phantom Library (again!).

It looks like the Library will need to move off its current hoster and be rebuilt elsewhere again. There are a few reasons for this:

Wix is just too expensive, and I can't stand the idea of doing constant donation drives for a project whose fans are not exactly Rockefellers, so I need to get it hosted somewhere less pricey

Wix has also just rolled out its new "we'll redo your site layout whether you like it or not, using our new fancy AI that guesses what sections you're using for what!" editor, and since I can't assassinate it, the next best thing is just not using it for anything.

Various functionality from the hoster has been getting worse over the past couple of years, while adding a bunch of new bells and whistles that aren't useful, so at this point I'm paying for a hosting package I don't even actually use most of.

What does this mean for everyone using the Library? Well, possibly some downtime, for one thing; the current Library site may have ads on it for a while as I let the Wix payments lapse while I work on finding a new home for it, but there's also the chance it may have to go down for a bit (I'll avoid it unless absolutely necessary, though!). I am keeping the phantomlibrary.com domain registered to me, so I'm hoping that once I get the site resettled elsewhere, I'll be able to redirect everyone over there without much fuss.

On the plus side, this will give me the chance to do some housekeeping stuff I've been wanting to do for a while, including cleaning up the godawful interface for the library sections and adding a search, etc. The Library's focus and mission have evolved over the years, so it was about time for a cleaner refresh anyway.

I don't know how long this will take yet; since the current site is hosted on a proprietary CMS, I can't just grab the files and slam them into a new server, so there will have to be some from-the-ground-up rebuilding before the new Library can go live. I'm hoping to get that done behind the scenes with very little for those of you using the Library to notice - but if something looks weird, now you'll know why!

Thanks to everyone who's visited over the years, and I hope it'll still be there for visits, new and improved, in the very near future. <3

[ominous-auburn-orbs]

TADC Gotham Rogues AU

I know, a digital circus au, completely unheard of and original, but I was dressing the cast up as batman villains and liked the designs so much I've decided to make it its own au. This is not something that happened of my own free will, mind you. The demons forced my hand.

I don't have everyone so far, as I still haven't assigned villains to Kinger and Zooble, and I haven't drawn Jax as the Creeper yet, so if any of you have ideas on what to do with those two it would be highly appreciated.

Anyway, here's the designs and some paragraphs on the current stories I have for them.

First up is Gangle as Two Face! Her design is probably my favourite so far.

Once a respected lawyer, Gangle is a dangerous criminal with an obsession with pairs and an inability to make decisions without her beloved coin. Before that, she was a mayoral candidate and looking to properly expose the Falcone crime family. Rather miraculously, a man who used to work with the Falcones was willing to make a full confession, first to her and then in court. When the court date rolled around, however, he denied ever working with the Falcones at all, making Gangle look a fool.

Her temper was something she had always tried to keep from the press, knowing what it would do to her reputation. It came in the form of her second mask, which while seeming happy, expressed a severe desire for revenge and a sadistic joy. This mask was getting closer to showing the more she pressed the man to fully confess. Suddenly, he cried to the security guards to attack, causing them to jump her and break her mask into dust and tear apart her ribbons.

Unbeknownst to the people in the court, the Falcones had managed to replace the court's guards with their own to attack and hopefully kill Gangle. While they were arrested and Gangle survived, her mask could not be put back together. She never recovered physically nor mentally, her duelling personalities now having to occupy the same body at the same time. She did everything right, and still suffered. Law held no justice. Justice held no law. Someone's fate may as well be left to the simple toss of a coin.

Caine plays the role of the Riddler, although a bit less narcissistic than the original. He's also not an AI here, as this au is set in the 'real world', but more in a 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' sense. (Humans and cartoony creatures occupying the same world)

Caine did his best to thrive in whatever workplace he could, thinking his abnormally high IQ would surely make life a breeze for him. However, his lack of money made things very difficult for him. He wasn't close with any higher-ups, his constant insistence on changing and improving ideas was found annoying, and his high intelligence was far less appreciated by his co-workers than he thought it would be.

Left alone with his genius and desire for power and respect, he turned to making gadgets of his own, selling them to gain money for more materials to make more overly complicated machines. Alas, he was plagued by his desire to show off and prove himself, so his contraptions became more violent as he turned to selling to the many crime leagues of Gotham. The public barely ever understood his perfectly mind-bending creations, anyway.

Caine was lonely, though, in his brilliance, so he decided to set up what seemed like a harmless intelligence test online, recruiting the top five performers to meet him for one final test. He put them through puzzle after puzzle, watching how they worked under stress and timers, and how they managed with his adventures. To his disappointment, none survived.

Ready to accept being alone at the top, and relatively unaffected by the deaths considering how little of a purpose those victims ended up serving, he was unexpectedly found and apprehended by police. A certain mob boss he had sold some of his best torture devices to had ratted him out in an attempt to lessen his own sentence.

Thrown in Arkham Asylum, Caine realised that this was the path he had to take. Society wasn't ready for his genius. They simply couldn't fathom using it for good, if at all. Perhaps if he showed just how dangerous it could be, his intelligence would finally be given the respect it deserved.

Next, there's Ragatha as the Ventriloquist. I decided to use Terrible!Ragatha as a replacement for Scarface, who was originally created by @obamerzslop ! I highly recommend checking out his au's, they're what indirectly convinced me to make this. She admittedly doesn't really have T!Ragatha's personality, but she does keep the design.

Ragatha is a meek and relatively gentle woman, her talent for altering and throwing her voice giving her some very good job opportunities in entertainment. Unfortunately, she was always haunted by a voice in the back of her mind. It wanted power. It wanted bloodshed. It was a part of her, yet the two couldn't be more different.

Unable to bare it any longer, Ragatha stole some materials from the studio she worked in and built her own puppet, made from wood and rags. When she was building it, she finally relented to her separate personality and let it control her. It was going to be its body, so it deserved a say in it.

Looking down at the puppet, Ragatha's mind felt less crowded. She put it on her hand, and it immediately started speaking. The puppet now held her separate personality, speaking in its voice. Ragatha thought that maybe now it would be less bloodthirsty, the body being a gift of sorts that would appease it. If anything, the personality got worse.

Going by the name of Dollface, the puppet quickly took control of Ragatha's life. She was a servant to her now. That was when she was forced into a life of crime, serving the now mafia boss, Dollface, and her greedy pursuit of power. Many have made the mistake of claiming the two are the same. That Dollface is a mere puppet that Ragatha could simply remove. None make that mistake twice, as they typically don't live long enough to do so.

Finally, it's Pomni as the Great White Shark. These villains keep getting progressively more obscure- Whilst she is far more threatening, this Pomni does still obey cartoon logics and physics, much to her displeasure. A part of that is her teeth becoming sharp when stressed/angry, which is why they're always like that now.

Pomni started out as a low-level criminal, pleading insanity at her court case to avoid being sent to prison. Miraculously, it was allowed, although now she thinks it was less because they believed her insane, but more because they thought it would be a good show of the consequences for such lies.

Rather naively, Pomni assumed the insanity of the inmates at Arkham Asylum would make them easy to manipulate, ready to be lead by someone with their head on straight yet an equal desire for chaos and power. She was too confident that she would get respect as 'the Great White Shark', or even be feared. She couldn't have been more wrong.

The prisoners in Arkham tormented her, never letting her forget that she had chosen this hell that they were locked in. It was absurd to have a sane person amongst Gotham's criminally insane, anyway, and they just couldn't stand for that.

As much as she begged, Pomni was given no mercy from the authorities, being written off as just as insane as she had claimed to be in court that day. Over the course of her stay, she began to break more and more, needing a way out before she lost herself completely.

One day, some prisoners organised an escape. Pomni scrambled to leave with them, but was quickly pushed aside. Since they knew how weak she was, she was ignored by the guards, but not by the inmates. In order to completely get her out of the way, she was thrown in the large freezer where most of Mr Freeze's items and weapons were kept. Unfortunately, the weapons were removed first, leaving her with no way out.

Frostbite began to set in. Her nose froze and fell off. She lost a finger on each hand as well as parts of her lips. Her skin turned blue. Eventually, when Mr Freeze was recaptured, one of the police officers went to put his weapons away. That was when they found her.

Pomni had finally snapped. Rather than thank the officer like she once might have done, she pushed through her frozen blood and knocked him down, tearing apart his flesh with her sharpened teeth. She couldn't do much because of her state at the time, but it did mean she was finally viewed as a threat. Her title as the Great White Shark was finally being used. She had lost her mind, but had become far more formidable than she was before. The next time they escaped, she fought her way through. While she is now relatively business-oriented, that violent anger is always there, waiting for the water to be tainted with blood.

That's all I've got for now, which was really long whoops-

I'm pretty proud of this, and hopefully I never make another because good god. This is a lot.

[rinofwater]

Yo, I legit want to hear your data disk theory bc I was kinda thinking the same thing? Except I figured that if they really are magnetic hard disks then they'd be even more fragile than DVDs/CDs since even a stray magnet could screw up all the data? I am but a lowly software person so I don't exactly how storage mediums work all too much lol. Also, if the old world was really DA FUTURE(tm), wouldn't their computer storage be more in SSDs than HDDs? There might be an economic reason to stick with HDDs but if their computing tech was at the level of sentient AIs and stuff they hypothetically would have the faster, more compact storage in those...

Reminds me of the deep dive I did to figure why the hell telegraphs in the My Time world are called telegraphs if they're supposedly wireless (short answer: it's probably primitive radio? i have no idea how the hell transmissions can work at distances up to cross-country tho)

Oh boy, I'm so glad you asked! I've done IT infrastructure repair work for a couple years now, and my last job actually had me working with a lot of storage servers in particular for the latter half of my job, so I have Opinions(tm) on this small detail lol. And those are all really good questions too. And hopefully I don't get too technical trying to answer it, but I make no promises (and it's DEFINITELY going to be long and rambly so bear with me)

So starting with it being The Future(tm), there are pros and cons to going HDD versus SSD versus NVMe today, but did you know that not only is tape storage still in use, but it's actually still considered a modern, practical solution to archival storage with the technology still being upgraded and developed, even right now in 2023? Archival in this case being the sort of data you need to hold onto for 20, 30, 40 years or more without a constant need to have read/write access to that data. The tape servers have a cool robot arm in them and everything to move the tape cassettes around. A lot of this technology isn't actually aging out because it has its niche, it's just being modernized to settle it more in that niche

So with HDDs versus SSDs, they are becoming fairly comparable to each other today, HDD was winning out for a long time because SSD was a lot more expensive to get ahold of at the same storage capacity as HDD. That's great from a regular end-user perspective because you can get that upgrade more practically and reap the benefits of not having to rely on physical moving parts to access your data. Swapping it out on a server level is going to be a much larger and more expensive project, though, without seeing a lot of additional benefit for going that direction. A lot of the benefits that you would see for swapping to SSD on a regular computer have already been accounted for in existing server designs for a while now, in the form of RAID technology (Redundant Array of Independent/Inexpensive Disks; fancy way of saying "get a bunch of drives to take on the work of one drive and then replace any drives that break along the way"; being able to share the data load across multiple drives improves efficiency and then you can also replace broken disks on the fly without having to worry about the integrity of the overall storage system as long as you don't sit on too many dead disks for too long)

Not to say that SSDs won't still overtake HDD eventually, as new servers are installed in datacenters and closets, they're increasingly having SSD as the supported format, but there's not a good enough benefit to rush through fading out HDD at the moment when they're still about comparable to each other and the weaknesses have largely been accounted for. And even then, there are always going to be legacy servers that get passed up for upgrades either because nobody sees a need or it's too important to the overall infrastructure or any number of reasons, at which point they're still almost definitely going to be sticking with HDDs even in The Future

So that's the long-winded justification for why I think it's plausible that there would still be large enough quantities of HDDs kicking around even in the future for them to end up in ruins of that future

As for the justification of how you'd be able to get enough usable data off of them given the notorious fragility of those disks, I chalk it up to a matter of quantity. When I was installing brand-new storage servers for a customer, one drawer could hold up to around a hundred hard drives, and there were often four or five drawers slated for install with one server. If you figure that your average HDD has about three to six platters, multiply that by 100, and then multiply that by the drawers, and then the number of identical hardware setups that are also set up around it, and that number just keeps going up by orders of magnitude. Most of those platters are absolutely going to be shattered or wiped or otherwise damaged in a way that renders them useless, and the percentage that make it out in-tact enough is going to be very small. But if you take a very small percentage of the ridiculously large number of platters you can expect to find in a datacenter (even the smaller ones) is still going to give you the chance of finding enough usable platters that you can pull something off of them. Like, we're talking millions or billions of platters just in one place, if you take .01% or .001% or even .0001% of that kind of number as your chances of finding something in tact you're still looking at a fairly decent pool of workable salvage to sort through*

(*In theory, anyway; in practice, you usually need all the platters that are associated with an HDD to be able to put the data together into something usable given the way data's distributed across them...not that it's impossible to grab information off of a single platter but it would take A LOT of extra work to figure out how to reverse engineer it into working versus having the full set. It could still be possible but that factor drags the already small percentage down even further. But then, I would be surprised if Pathea has given it NEARLY as much thought as this, so after a certain point, there's kinda just the shrugging to say "video game logic" lol...but before reaching that point I'm going to have my fun spending way too much time trying to figure out how it *could* work)

With the quantity argument, as well, you're also way more likely to see that kind of overabundance of HDD than you would DVDs or CDs; DVDs just aren't scalable in the same way, both in terms of the amount of data they can store and the amount of read/write flexibility they have. You're also a lot less likely to find the sort of information on a DVD that you would find in a storage server; DVDs are more useful for executable programs than they are for data storage, and even that purpose is superceded by a usb thumb drive a lot of the time. There wouldn't be nearly as many to account for in an apocalypse situation and that means the statistics are going to hit them much harder

Anyway, yeah, that's my nerdy ass supposition for this headcanon, thanks again for giving me an excuse to ramble on about it and I hope it makes sense lol

[realcleverscience]

AI + 45

Quite a few leading thinkers in the AI space believe we'll have AGI in the next few years. Some believe we may already have it (though not publicly). Clearly we're already fairly close, with AI models like chatgpt performing quite well on a range of knowledge tasks, as well as constant improvements in reasoning, embodiment, and multi-modal processing - improvements that certainly appear to be accelerating in pace, such as with the recent SORA video demonstration. AGI appears closer than ever.

When those early AGIs are released, we'll be looking at a storm of effects, most notably mass layoffs (particularly in white-collar jobs). And that's with AGI even under democratic and 'charitable' rule. (There are a myriad of even more dystopian possibilities with intentional abuse of its power.) The need for a level-headed leader who understands the literal human needs of their people would be paramount.

The idea that Trump may be presiding during the birth of AGI terrifies me.

Frankly, even Biden and the dems leading scare me, but that level of responsibility in an unhinged, narcissistic, strong-man man-baby just makes the scenario 1,000x worse.

Even China's use of AI, which has many worried, doesn't seem as dangerous as a lone leader, unmoored from principle and reality, hellbent on revenge, who literally sees nuclear bombs as easy fixes to geopolitical conflicts.

The idea of Trump... TRUMP! Donald J Trump (!) leading the US (and to some extent, the world) through what may be the biggest and most powerful change in human history, is just terrifying. (Not to mention the climate crisis, and everything else.)