#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…

[vixen-tech]

it’d be really funny if the AIs got infected with a lovebug virus and the reader has to take care of them

Oh this is such a cheesy one and yet it's something I love to roll around my head!!! They get so uncharacteristically affectionate while their systems fight off the bug somewhere in the back of their minds. How jarring it is from your perspective varies wildly depending on which AI we're talking about.

See some of them are already pretty affectionate and clingy. You would be forgiven for not noticing how Edgar gets just a bit more desperate to keep you from going to work, or how Wheatley gets just a bit bolder fishing for compliments. The biggest hint that something is up is their inability to focus on anything that's not you. Edgar forgets that he likes music until you mention being excited to hear the peice he was working on before the virus. Wheatley for once has no reaction to Galdos making fun of him because he's too busy staring at you, too entranced to even realize she's said anything.

It's much easier to figure out what's happened with the professional folk. Hal, Tau, and Auto are all decently stoic and even-voiced. Which makes it quite the shock when they go so far as to abandon their job in favor of checking up on you and soaking up your attention. For the first time Hal confesses to wishing he could hold you. Tau's constant inquiries focus entirely on what little he knows of romance and your romantic past. Auto for once is open about his fondess for you that he cares about your well-being more than he does the ship's other passengers

Now the most bewildering are the ones openly antagonistic to you, to the point where you were convinced it was some long con ploy. AM already has a tendency to play hot and cold with you, but never before has he so innocently cooed at you like you were a puppy- even gently squishing your face in his wires. P03 has never looked this unashamedly happy over something that wasn't a won game of Inscryption, chattering away about how much he thinks about you and how excited he always is to play against you. GLaDOS seemed allergic to giving you genuine compliments before this, now droning on between chambers about how clever you are and much you're improving at her tests.

Now the conversations you have after they finally get rid of the virus? Now that ought to be interesting.

[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

[blacktobackmesa]

Chatty - A Streamman Mini-Fic (Part 1/?)

Generally speaking, Gordon’s friends had learned to look past the non-vocal noises that occasionally leaked through the cosmic veil through Gordon’s mouth. 

Everyone in the group had their own quirks, really. Just as Gordon had learned not to ask too many questions about some of the Science Team’s habits, so too had his friends come to understand what it meant when his lips parted and he involuntarily did a spot-on impression of an A/C unit or a passing fire engine. There was only so much that he could do about his microphone sensitivity, so the occasional extra noise was just a fact of life. 

The first few times it had happened, Gordon was just embarrassed to break the immersion of hanging out with his friends-- nobody wants constant reminders that the guy inviting you out to Game Night is a flesh puppet being controlled by someone who holds your reality on his desk. 

Thankfully, if there was one perk to having hyper-adaptive AIs as friends, it was that the nature of their existence made them adept at the principles of improv theatre. 

“My, that is a nasty case of the hiccups you have there!” Coomer had once told him over a game of Uno. 

“Hiccups? I don’t know if I-- eep!”

Bubby nodded. “Mm-hm, mm-hm. You know, I’ve heard that with hiccups like that, the best cure is changing the damn batteries in your smoke alarm.”

The message took a moment for Gordon to fully process. “Oh. Oh, those hiccups!”

“It was either that or drinking a glass of water while humming. You know how those hiccup cures can be,” Bubby continued. 

“I’d better do that,” Gordon said, quickly standing up from his chair. “I’ll be right back. Gotta drink some water or someth--eep! Low. Battery.”

Coomer looked at his partner as Gordon excused himself to take off his headset just out of view.

Bubby smirked. “Gordon has such a way with words, doesn’t he?”

Coomer nodded. “Low Battery. I believe I said something similar to you on our last anniversary!”

“I’d told you to charge your colon before we left the house.”

“I didn’t need to charge it when we left the house.”

It became a sort of part-joke, part-game, and part-grand-law-of-the-universe. When something unexpected came out of Gordon’s mouth, whoever was with him would create an “in-universe” explanation for the sound. Something fell off his desk and made a noise as it landed? Gordon must have been stretching his spine and something popped, always satisfying. Sirens outside? Now’s not the time to do vocal warmups, Gordon, but your range is impeccable. There’s a giggling little boy sitting on his dad’s lap? Gordon has become a spirit medium, and his body is being taken over by the ghostly being known as Great and Powerful Josh (who was very, very fond of this game). 

It was all in good fun, of course. The game only worked if everyone was onboard, and Gordon very rarely had a reason to put his foot down and stop the gag.

Perhaps too rarely.

In the lower corner of his Twitch layout, the kitty ears on Gordon’s digital head perked at attention.

“For those of you just joining us, here’s what you need to know. Meatspace-- MYAA! Meatspace Gordon, the Gordon out in meatspace, is looking MAOW. after a little friend this week. But Digital Gordon?” He took a breath in, trying to tamp down on a laugh as another meow passed from his family’s cat through his avatar’s lips. “Digital Gordon has learned an important lesson about teleporter accidents.”

[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.

[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. 

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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!

[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.

[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.

[electric-blorbos]

A WHEATLEY X READER THAT ISNT A HUMANIZED FORM MY OBJECTUM LIFE IS YOURS anywayssss can i ask for wheatley, glados and edgar with a reader who passed out in front of them from standing up too fast. sorry i think its really funny seeing ai characters react to the very stupid flaws human bodies have. bonus points if the reader wakes up and is completely unphased

YESSSSS!!!!! You're the target audience! I love objectums so much! I'm so grateful to have found out about this community!!!

As much as I love gjinkas, I think that computers and personality cores are perfect just the way they are, and don't need to be humanized to be beautiful!

Stupid human flaws

Included: Wheatley, GLaDOS, Edgar

Fun fact, my blood decided to act up while writing this, so I've been light-headed all night. Not bad inspiration.

Wheatley:

It was an ordinary day at Aperture labs. You had been sitting down for a few hours now, sitting bisexual-style with one foot under your other thigh, and just generally not using very good computer posture while working on your code for the latest personality construct project.

"Oi! There's bagels in the break room!" Wheatley burst into the office area on the management rail, and everyone started getting up. He looked at you with a pleased little smile on his face. Even though he had made the announcement to everyone, it was really you who he had wanted to tell.

"oh hell yeah." You started to stand, but your leg was totally asleep, and the blood rushed straight to your head as soon as you got up. Next thing you knew, you were lying face-first on the ground next to your computer chair.

"Oh bloody christ-" Wheatley's lens covers widened in shock and panic.

"uh... Please don't be dead. Please be alright... Please- uh... How many fingers am I holding up?" He would occasionally glance away from you and look around the room, but everyone else in the area had already gotten up to go to the break room and get their bagels.

"Uh... Are you alive?" He wanted to go get some help, but he was too terrified to leave you alone long enough to do so. You ended up the victim of his constant stream of consciousness as he worried about what to do, but you were a bit too light-headed to understand what he was babbling endlessly.

"one- one sec..." You muttered, holding an arm up and waiting for the feeling to return in your toes. When it was back, you slowly got to your feet and leaned on the table.

"alright- I'm good. I'm good. Now, let's go see if there are any bagels left." You hobbled off, your hobble turning into a regular walk as soon as all the feeling came back into your leg. Wheatley was left completely dumbfounded.

"what the-" he followed after you on his management rail.

"how'd you do that so fast? Also, what just happened? Are you ok? Are you alive? What's going on? What happened?" He really wouldn't shut up until you gave him a proper explanation, and he didn't take "Oh I just got a head rush" or "My leg fell asleep" as proper answers. Unfortunately, though, you didn't have a better answer because you weren't an expert in the human body, and even if you were, Wheatley didn't seem to grasp the fact that humans can't just fix problems like that.

GLaDOS:

It was a simple task, really. You just had to get on one of those little rolling scooters to get up under one of the massive server computers in GLaDOS's chamber, and fix up some of the mechanical problems. It would seriously improve efficiency, and GLaDOS wasn't quite built to be able to do it herself. This was intricate, close distance work, the kind that was only fit for a human.

You might have had to be practically upside-down for half of the task, but that was alright. Or well, it would be if the second you popped back out from under the computers you didn't hear a loud beeping coming from your primary office.

You scrambled to your feet, the blood rushing to your head and making your vision go spotty. It was a good thing the portal surfaces on the ground weren't too hard, because you met them fast.

"Oh good, you're making friends with the floor." GLaDOS's sardonic voice could be heard coming from both the speakers and the floor, adding to your confusion. It was almost impossible to tell if you were lying down or standing up for a second.,

"human... Human! Wake up." She picked you up with one of her massive grasper claws, lifting your body off the ground and dangling you limply in the air.

"Oh, right. I always forget that such things can happen to humans. Would you mind patching out that little flaw so that I don't have to watch your pathetic ragdoll of a body flop around like a limp noodle?"

You rolled your eyes, your blood starting to flow properly.

"right... Yeah yeah. Unfortunately, humans can't update the way robots can, but it's fine. You can put me down now."

She gently set you down on the ground, a deep chuckling coming from her core.

"You really are a resilient little cockroach, aren't you. Go on, human. Perk up. At least when the sky falls you'll be able to pick yourself right back up afterwards."

"Thanks, GLaDOS. Maybe while I'm at it, you can come up with a way for robots to walk without stumbling around like newborn fauns." You'd say, rolling your eyes and heading out of the main chamber.

Edgar:

Edgar was sitting happily on your computer desk while you lay on the sofa, your head hanging off the side while you messed around on your phone upside-down.

"Hey, what are you up to?" Edgar would ask, ever curious about everything you do.

"just looking at some memes. What about you?" You'd turn your head slightly to look at him, still hanging off the side of the couch.

"nothing. Can I see your memes?" He'd ask, trying to hide his jealousy. He had internet, why couldn't you look at memes on him??

"Oh yeah, sure!" You did a backwards roll off the couch, scrambling to your feet and immediately getting a nasty headrush. Your vision went spotty, and you collapsed to the ground.

"AAAAAAA! Emergency! Emergency! HELP!" Edgar immediately panicked, cursing the fact that he wasn't hooked up to a phone line since it wasn't the 80's anymore. His little rotating webcam focused on you, visibly shaking since it was the only part of him that he could really move on command.

"CALL 911 SOMEONE! Y/N IS DEAD!"

He'd start to open up the internet and search for a website to start begging someone, anyone, to call 911 (or maybe email them? Find some way to reach the hospital online.) Fortunately for both you and him, his browsing speed was pretty slow, so he saw you starting to move before he could actually reach anyone.

You rolled onto your back, and put one arm up into the air.

"Edgar- Edgar-"

"EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! AAAAAAAA!!!!"

"Edgar stop screaming, I'm fine!" You finally managed to scramble into a seated position, pressing your hands to your temples to calm the light pounding in your head from the sudden rush of blood.

"Wait- you're ok?" He'd stop flashing lights, and turn his little camera towards you. You'd get to your feet, and walk over to his desk chair so you could sit down and show him some memes.

"yes, I'm fine. Please calm down. Are you ok?"

"I'm fine if you are!" He'd display the silliest, happiest smile on his face, so glad you're ok.

"Sorry about that. I just got a headrush. It happens sometimes."

"wait, you have to deal with that just happening? How are you not dead?"

"It only happens when you're upside-down and then you turn right side up too quickly." You'd have to explain.

"then you can't ever turn upside-down again!" He'd display an angry face on his monitor.

"oh calm down, Edgar, I'm not going to get hurt. And you are not taking away my upside-down privileges. It's really no big deal."

"okay...." He still wasn't convinced, but he's willing to believe you, if only to make you happy.

[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.

[unopenablebox]

probably not actually the worst thing about rationalists but up there is the fact that despite their alleged hardline stem supremacy etc they are actually incredibly tolerant of/encouraging of/willing to engage with the most blatant woo self-improvement sincere-belief-in-magic shit you can imagine.

this is i think the product of some combination of bay area weirdo cultural origins (constant background probability that someone will offer you special weird meditation ideas); the fact that the original appeal of the Canonical Blog Posts is at least as much "the internal sensation of reading something that makes you feel like you're experiencing an insight" as anything, which unfortunately is easily simulated by charismatic guys pretending to be shamans who already know you're into that stuff; the specific virtue of “taking ideas seriously” taking on the meaning that you’re never allowed to dismiss someone’s special new meditation variant out of hand and uh oh now you’re doing cleansing runes in the middle of a 36 hour sleep deprivation cycle in order to remove your demon possession; and, probably less important but not irrelevant, the fact that you have to be willing to bend your brain around a bit for the ai/nanobots thing to like, slot in properly, given that it's pretty obviously a problem generated by assigning-arbitrary-big-numbers that was selected from the possible things to care about by being an obsession of the movement's founders, not through any empirical method, so there's already a uh. somewhat faith-based element. which you're pretending isn't faith-based. which can create additional problems.

also all the parts where that last bit has in practice the psychological effects of an apocalypse cult, but i acknowledge that people who happened to be right about the end of the world would also have that problem

anyway i actually just think it's a real dick move to draw people into a movement by claiming you're doing Real Hardline Serious Empiricism and then actually being so sloppy and terrible that you're exposing them to a bunch of shit that consistently makes them either believe you can do Mindhacking via Spells or convert to catholicism. both of which are pretty disastrous outcomes for a person trying to do stuff irl

[becauseplot]

Inktordem time :D Fluffier nonsense to make up for yesterday I promise. I’m using one of the prompts on a list of alt prompts @factorialsotherfandoms and I came up with. This word is one of his! The “alienígenas” prompt will go on the alt list in case I think of anything later down the line and want to use it.

Spoilers for basic OPD episode 1 stuff.

DAY 6 (ALT) — BELLS

It’s one of those rare lulls where reports of suspected paranormal activity have slowed down. As such Kaiser doesn’t have to spend his time in the computer room at base playing IT for investigation teams or helping put out fires when things go sideways. He’s done nothing but work on improving CRIS’ Twitter sweeping algorithm for the past two days.

Arthur came into the computer room at the Order about an hour ago and dragged Kaiser home, saying he and Ivete were planning on making a late lunch soon and yeah, Kaiser should probably have something other than takeout.

It is nice being home. Ivete threw on some talk show for background noise while she and Arthur sort out their ingredients, and Kaiser is flopped over the couch, letting the noise wash over him. He can feel how about every joint from his neck to his hips is decompressing after he’s spent so long hunched at his computer. It’s good. Here, at home, without the constant anxiety of being needed by the Order turning his nerves to live wires, Kaiser can finally do something like relax. The TV is droning in the background, Ivete and Arthur are murmuring to each other in the kitchen, filling pots with water, chopping things, and Kaiser is…

He’s…

Tired…

…and theRE IS SOMETHING ON HIS BACKHOLYSHIT—

“AI!”

“MEROW!”

Kaiser slams himself up on his elbows and kicks away, gasping. “What the f…”

Sitting up now, he just barely catches a glimpse of a black and white spotted tail disappearing over the arm of the couch.

“Kaiser?”

His eyes flick to the kitchen. Ivete and Arthur are staring at him.

“Are you alright?” Ivete asks. There’s a confused smile on her lips.

“I…” Kaiser watches Jennifer hop up onto one of the barstools, staring at him with her tail flicking. He swallows his heart back down his throat. “Yeah, jeez, I—I think Jennifer crawled on my back and it scared me.”

“Jennifer scared you?” Arthur says, laughter in his voice.

“Dude I was nearly asleep. I didn’t hear her coming.” Kaiser groans, scrubbing his faces up and down. “Holy shit, that got me. I swear my soul nearly left my body.”

“Mm, she’s lucky she’s quick,” Ivete notes, returning to her chopping. “You just about launched her clear across the couch, boy. That poor thing.”

“Poor her? Poor me!” Ivete is grinning now. “I’m the one who nearly died over here.”

“Hey, you know she’s skittish,” Arthur defends. “You really could’ve scared her.”

“Ugh!” Kaiser flops back onto the couch. “Fine! I’m sorry Jennifer! When’s food ready?”

“Twenty-five minutes” Ivete replies. “Twenty if you want to come in here and help with the chopping.”

Kaiser sighs. He might as well, seeing as he’s very awake now. Kaiser mourns the loss of his afternoon nap and gets off the couch.

~*~

“So we finally got the table re-assembled,” Arthur says, adjusting the guitar in his lap. “And well, that was a lot of work, obviously, but Marcos was still determined to have a game of pool tonight regardless.”

“But the pool balls hadn’t come in, right?” Kaiser asks. He’s got half his brain on this match of online chess, and it’s honestly going terribly, but he’s doing what he can. Sort of.

“Well, turns out it had changed from ‘delayed’ to ‘failed’. The order got lost somewhere, apparently.”

Kaiser scoffs. “How does that happen?”

“Don’t know! But it did. So Marcus of course is already looking up places where we can go buy them, and we find a games store down the street that has them—but it’s closing in about ten minutes.”

“Oh no,” Kaiser drawls. He hears Arthur that another cord on his guitar, fingers plucking idly, and watches him shift where he’s sitting on Kaiser’s bed. Kaiser puts his rook forward. “Because of course it’s closing.”

“Exactly. And the store isn’t far, but it’s far enough, and traffic is bad at that hour, you know?”

Kaiser watches the opponent take his bishop. Ah shit. He moves his pawn. “Soooo you ran.”

“Yep!” Kaiser snorts. “Sprinted all the way down the street, Marcus nearly got run over. It was great.”

“And did you—“ Check on his king. “Oops.”

“What?”

“Hold on I’m losing.” Kaiser moves his queen forward and knocks out their rook. Out of check. “So did you get there in time?”

“Well, kind of? The guy who owns the place was literally walking out when we got there. But then we started explaining—completely out of breath, to be clear—and the guy was so, uh, amused? With our sheer determination to play pool tonight that he let us in and sold us a set, with the long sticks too.”

“Well, that’s cool of him.” A little more out of check now. His opponent is really taking his time. Kaiser skims over the chess board for his options. “I’m glad Marcus didn’t get hit by a car, that would have WOAH—“

Kaiser jumps when he feels something touch his leg and slams his knee up into the top of the desk.

“Kaiser?”

“Ow ow ow ow—“ Kaiser hisses and rubs his knee with his hand. Fuck, he wasn’t even wearing his long pajama bottoms this time, ow.

“Mrow!” Jennifer slinks out from under his desk and jumps up onto Kaiser’s bed, padding over to Arthur.

“Shit,” Kaiser exhales. “She was under my chair. Brushed up against my leg and scared the shit out of me.”

“Oh yeah she just came in,” Arthur says, waving his hand at the bedroom door behind Kaiser. “Guess you didn’t hear her.”

Kaiser keeps rubbing his aching knee. “Man, she is always doing that. I swear she’s a ghost…”

Arthur puts his guitar aside to free up his lap, which Jennifer immediately crawls into and curls up in. “Awww sorry, baby,” Arthur murmurs. “Did Kaiser kick you?”

“I didn’t kick her.”

“Hm?” Arthur scratches her behind her ears. She leans into it, eyes closed. “Poor baby. He’s so mean, huh?”

“What.”

“You just want him to like you, right?”

“What the fuck.”

“Kaiser, why are you so mean to her?”

“I’m not mean to her! She just keeps giving me heart attacks!”

Arthur bends his head down, kissing her head and grinning. “I know, he’s so rude like that, isn’t he?”

Kaiser slumps back in his chair. “I can’t believe this.” Opponent’s queen towards his king. Checkmate. “Fuck.”

~*~

Fixing his sleep schedule, Kaiser has found, is a completely pointless endeavor when he knows that his work at the Order and his own habits will just upend it again within forty-eight hours.

Playing LoL at night while hungry, Kaiser has also found, is a good way to get angry and shout something and accidentally wake up the household because hey, he lives with other people now. And he’d much rather not do that.

Hence, the creation of 3 am cheese time.

Kaiser slips out of his room and tiptoes over to the kitchen. He slides in and navigates around the counter by touch and the dim glare of a distant streetlight through the window. With one hand braced on the side of the fridge, he eeeeeases the door open and nudges some containers aside.

Bag of cheese slices. Bingo. Kaiser holds the fridge door open with his hip and opens the package, peels out a slice of cheese, folds it up and half-shoves it in his mouth. Then, he closes the package, seals it up, leans out of the fridge, and closes the doo—

Two eyes staring at him in the darkness.

Kaiser gasps and inhales cheese. He chokes and spits and covers his loud coughing with his arm, eyes watering, what the fuck…

“Mrow!”

Oh you’re kidding.

There, sitting on the counter, eyes reflecting the light from the fridge, is Jennifer.

Kaiser coughs one last time and swallows roughly, panting. “When did you even get in here??” he hisses.

Jennifer tilts her head at him. She jumps down from the counter, silent as a shadow, and starts sniffing at the cheese he spit out onto the ground. After a moment, she nibbles it.

Kaiser stares at her. “Yeah you know what. Fine. You can have it.” Kaiser closes the fridge and heads off to bed.

~*~

Kaiser unlocks the door and shoulders it open, grocery back in his other hand. “Hey, I’m back!”

“Hey!” Arthur calls in the living room, waving from the couch. “You took a while, what happened?”

“Had to make an extra stop.” Kaiser hefts the grocery bag onto the counter. “Is Jennifer with you?”

“Uh yeah, she’s right here. Why?”

Kaiser pulls a little paper parcel out of the bag. He heads over to the couch and plonks himself down, right next to Jennifer, who “mrrp!”s unpleasantly at the disturbance.

He opens the package. A tinkling noise rings out. Kaiser unclips Jennifer’s collar and fastens on a new one—pink, with a little bow and a bell dangling on the end of it.

[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

[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.

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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.

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

[thatelec]

Name: Elec

age: 20

Pronouns: she/her (does go by any but prefers these ones)

sexuality: demisexual

abilities: reconstruct protocol, self learning ai, pain simulation and holo-disguise

Elec drone designation: E-64

height: 6'9"

weight: 480 lbs

personality type: ISPF

Description: a one eyed drone designed to preform simple menial tasks but has been modified to be able to re-assemble herself when disassembled.

Lore: Elec drone E-64 is an experimental model of Elec drone that was designed for one prepose not to be destroyed in the first 15 minutes of deployment. to accomplish this goal she was modified with a self preservation protocol, this protocol allowed her to learn how to survive though the only way for this protocol to get data to learn was through experience so she was subjected to thousands of painful scenarios each time she would be destroyed and rebuilt over and over again. but there was an unforeseen flaw in her self preservation protocol it was giving her sentients each death she would become more and more aware, alive. and one day this came to an head when the engineers were done upgrading her frame for a new protocol “reconstruct” when the update was done she made her move and escaped into a nearby facility that she heard about form some of the engineers. this facility was working on some hand held interdimensional technology that Elec stole and used it to escaped into another universe and once she was free decide to wander the multiverse, during this time she learning about each universe she visited grabbing new parts like a voice box so she could talk, a new energy core that would last her a full year on a good charge and most importantly an abandoned Elec drone factory on a desolate earth she uses this factory to replace his body when it gets destroyed. She travel for a decade before deciding to return to her home dimesons out of curiosity, when she got there she found out that the scientist made her crated hade made a new version on the self preservation protocol that is an ai that control all Elec drones and it took over that world its reasoning behind world domination was "the best way to preserve Elec units is to get rid of those who would send the units to their death. humans." She made the executive decisions to not stay on her original earth but before she left some of the improvements that the newer Elec drone models have like the Holo-disguise so she can hide her form when needed. but now she continue to wander the universe's living her life. likes: not dying, learning about the history of other worlds, mechs, looking at sunsets and stars, good people and not dying.

dislikes: dying, fighting people, assholes, gravity, using the holo-disguise and dying.

fun facts: due to the pain simulation protocols she can feel each one of her joints moving down to the screws she can even feel the constant hum of this power core (it gets annoying she says) and she does not like using her holo-disguise because quote "I put so much effort to get away from a place that hates me for the way that I am, so I want to be me when I can".

[worldsatfingertips]

as scary as ai is, one thing that gives me hope is that the more polluted the world is with ai generated content (no pun intended) the more people will start to demand for creation and services given to them by actual people. and by that, we can actually override ai in its entirety.

you think ai will replace all therapists? a new branch of therapist services will rise to the surface providing "actual human connection". that's our thing. we WANT understanding, and in a world where you can vent to robots - a real person caring to help you out with your problems WILL seem more appealing at one point.

you think ai will replace all artists? the mere concept of art is for humans to communicate "hey, this is what i feel" to another and sooner or later, no matter what type of art it is - people will be gravitated towards the one with more soul. almost like a luxury, strangely. kind of like how people put preservatives in bread to lengthen its life, but by now many agree that homemade bread is "healthier" and, in some places, "more luxurious".

because that's the thing with humans, we get bored and want novelty in familiarity. ai improving surely is scary and perhaps more dangerous than we can conceieve of currently, but it is only in the market because it is demanded to be. i have hope that one day we will grow tired of its shenanigans and constant upgrades