#Accuracy in AP

[technicalfika]

Mastering Accounts Payable: 15 Common Interview Questions and Expert Answers

Preparing for an Accounts Payable (AP) interview is a crucial step in securing a position in this vital finance function. To help you excel in your interview, we’ve compiled a comprehensive guide that covers the 20 most common AP interview questions, each paired with expert answers. In this article, you’ll gain valuable insights into the world of AP and enhance your chances of acing your…

[ssruis]

Forgot about this yesterday first try let’s go woohoo

[springeneticist]

accidentally made myself angry thinking about gacha rhythm scoring dynamics. cause why can i only name one mobile idol rhythm game where it gives you a technical score separately to your gacha slop score after playing a show

[not-poignant]

I was just wondering, in the UTB universe, how are peak alphas differentiated from regular alphas? You say Caleb acts like a peak alpha, and Augus is mild as a peak alpha. So how are peak alphas recognized as such?

Hi hi!

So all secondary sexes (omega / beta / alpha / peak alpha) are determined by a combination of blood + genetics + physiological markers (i.e. normative penis size / presence of certain glands / knotting etc) + active hormone levels - and for peak alphas: a range of unique abilities they have that no other secondary sex possess (like the ability to use alpha persuasion on other alphas, and the ability to use an innate persuasion/hypnosis ability on everyone).

This is why they test Efnisien to make sure he's an omega because of what he says in the beginning of the story - there's a biological component to secondary sex (and we see this too in the story when Temsen talks about normal hormone level ranges in the chapter where he talks about Efnisien's hormone levels).

The genetic / biological components of secondary sex are talked about in the story quite a bit (Efnisien being omega according to both blood tests but also genetically is mentioned around 10+ times).

So Efnisien will always be biologically an omega despite his active hormone levels (and they do have to take that into account when they supplement his hormones/ardolphogen levels, even as they recognise him as an alpha as well - which is about identity and not biology). And Caleb is biologically be an alpha despite acting more like a peak alpha. And Augus is biologically a peak alpha, despite his behaviours. Acting like a peak alpha isn't the same as being one!

As to Efnisien being treated like an alpha, that's partly because he has been scientifically experimented on, mutilated, had organs removed, and changed so much that he just is no longer really exactly anything at all completely. He can no longer make larentin, he no longer has Kaeper glands or lare glands, he developed unique alpha abilities because he was forced onto ardolphogen years before even alphas start producing it in large quantities, etc. And partly because he's been raised an alpha. And partly because he sees himself as one.

Caleb doesn't see himself as a peak alpha, even though he can behave like one. Augus doesn't see himself as a softer alpha, even though he behaves like one.

The answer is both 'with science' and 'it's complicated' depending on the person :D

[majorshatterandhare]

I started a piece of art today which is based on some plant species* that I think would be good to colonize Tim in @gunpowder-tim’s headcanon of the Persephone Tim headcanon; so it’s art based on a headcanon of a headcanon of a headcanon 😅 [sweat simle emoji].

It’s gonna take a long time I think, but I am planning on posting it here even though it’s just gonna be plants and no Tim (because I am much better at drawing these little doodle plants than drawing people).

*so the art is basically of real species we have on Earth, but I maintain that they wouldn’t have the same plants on the City, so in my brain his plants are just similar to these ones.

[littleaipom]

new fursona! (not to replace my usual one) It is time that i embrace the charm of monkey :D

I'm naming her Zivi

[xartus]

Here's some reconstructions ACTUALLY based on historical findings of Viking Age female divinatory ritual specialists!!!!! See how they look NOT like the previous post!!!!

[comettingmurder]

In a debate, always assume Gerbil Catholicism as default. Gerbesus must exist for the arguments to be true.

[nerdontour]

#Android 15 brings Wi-Fi Ranging with IEEE 802.11az, enhancing indoor location accuracy to under 1m. This tech uses precise timing instead of signal strength, aiding navigation in malls and stores, plus smart home functions. Broader adoption awaits device and Wi-Fi AP upgrades. Video also published on YouTube: https://youtube.com/shorts/VcMN8yGlFkI

[apotelesmaa]

I am merging my consciousness with hatsune miku as we speak.

[kyokosskyblog]

FIRST TRY WITH NO ACCURACY BOOST

[sweetromanova]

Crisis Management: Part Four🖤

Natasha Romanoff x PR Handler!Reader

Summary: Your assigned to make Natasha Romanoff more ‘relatable’. Somewhere along the way you forget your job was to fix her image, not fall in love with it.

Chapter Four

Things were… chill now. Surprisingly chill.

Post-chaos, post-crazy-men-with-guns, post-Natasha-saving-you-infront-of-thousands-of-camera-phones, life at the Tower had settled.

Sort of.

You were back at work, strategising reputations and terrorising people with social media. Natasha was back to sparring, briefing, intimidating new agents with her entire existence.

And the team? They were being weirdly normal about it all. Almost too normal, which meant one thing.

They were plotting.

It started small. Tony casually asking “So… how’s work-life balance?” Steve mentioning offhandedly how well Natasha had been sleeping lately. Wanda smirking every time you entered a room. You had been easier to break than Natasha, the team could get your cheeks to the same colour as Natasha’s hair with just a few comments and it gives enough away that they didn’t need words. 

But Natasha? Untouchable. Unbothered. Perfectly composed.

She gave them nothing. No confirmation. No denial. No sass. Not even a smirk.

Just cool, calculated indifferent.

⋆⋆⋆⋆

“Alright, this is war." He hissed to Sam one night in the kitchen, phone in hand. “I’m getting revenge!”

Only last week, Clint had been the butt of every joke after the team convinced him post-mission that he’d tested positive for some kind of disease that turned him into an ape.

Believable? No. 

Had he believed it and spend 16 hours, locked in the lab then been filmed by the others of his dramatic breakdown for TikTok? Absolutely. 

Sam sipped his tea. “This is how you get arrested.”

“I’ve accepted that.”

⋆⋆⋆⋆

2:38 A.M.

The lights were dim. The hallway was quiet. Clint’s phone was recording.

He tiptoed toward Natasha’s room, whispering into the mic like a wildlife doc.

“This is the elusive Black Widow in her natural habitat. She’s lethal. She’s quiet. She said if I ever woke her up before 5am again, I’d need dental records to be identified. Naturally, I brought my camera… and a foghorn.”

Sam, off-camera, mutters. “I’m not helping you fight her when she murders you.”

He creaked open the door, expecting either an empty bed and she’s somewhere above him about to snap his neck. Or maybe pillow with a knife stitched in the middle. 

But what he saw instead?

Two bodies. One blanket.

Your head tucked into Natasha’s shoulder, arm sprawled lazily over her stomach. Her hand, tangled in your hair. Both of you seemingly sound asleep, peacefully unaware that hell was about to break loose.

Until Clint gasped, loudly.

“OH MY GOD- OH- YOU GUYS- YOU-“

Natasha bolted upright, groggy and terrifying.

“Barton, I swear to everything that is holy-“

“YOU’RE CUDDLING?! THIS IS DOMESTIC?!

You blinked, barely awake. “Tasha?”

“TASHA?! I KNEW IT.” He yelled, turning the camera to his own face, delirious with joy. “THEY’RE TOGETHER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THEY’RE- OH MY GOD GUYS! THEY’RE TOGETHER! SHE’S- OH SHIT! SHE’S COMING!”

Natasha launched the pillow with sniper accuracy.

The video went dark but the audio kept rolling, just the sounds of Clint screaming, the unmistakable fwump fwump fwump of a pillow being weaponised and Natasha’s low, murderously calm voice growling.

“I told you what would happen, Barton.”

Somewhere in the background, Sam could be heard wheezing with laughter. “She’s using the good pillow! Bro, run!”

⋆⋆⋆⋆

Later, on TikTok:

@/BartonUnhinged

🎥 I almost died getting this. Worth it. #NatashaRomanoff #SoftSpyEra #IWillBeInHiding #SheCalledHerTASHA

Comments:

@/W.Maximoff: this made me cry

@/TheRealCap: We warned him

@/TonyStank: I already printed merch

@/romanoffthereal: run.

The next morning, you found Clint hiding in the ventilation system.

Natasha didn’t kill him.

But she did shoot him with a stun round.

And maybe, just maybe, she wore that smug little smirk all day while holding your hand in full view of the team.

⋆⋆⋆⋆

You’re sitting cross-legged on the couch, ring light angled, phone recording, while Natasha lounges just out of frame with a mug of tea, some kind of thriller book that would give you nightmares and her most judgmental expression.

You tap the screen, smiling sweetly. “Hi guys! I’m back with another video but this time I have a very special guest… my current girlfriend, Natasha.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Then a scoff. 

You glance off-screen at her in mock confusion. 

Natasha has straightened up, brows arched so high they might detach from her forehead. She sets her tea down with slow, dramatic precision.

“Current?” She says, eyes narrowing. “I’m sorry, what?”

You bite your lip, trying not to laugh. “I said current girlfriend. As in… present tense?”

“…Current?” She repeats, her voice dropping an octave. Sexy enough to make your throat dry up.

You glance at her, already sensing trouble. “It’s just a phrase-“

“Mm. Interesting choice.” She hums, finally setting the book down and turning to face you with that slow, calculated tilt of her head. “Like I’m… one of many.”

You start to laugh but something in her expression make it stutter in your throat.

She shifts closer, just slightly. Enough for her thigh to press against yours.

“Should I be worried?” She murmurs, voice dipped in velvet. “That there’s an upgrade coming?”

“Tasha-“

“Or maybe…” Her hand slides up your thigh, just barely, just enough. “You like the idea of options. Something casual. A little rotation. That it?”

Your mouth opens but nothing comes out.

She smiles like she’s toying with her food.

“Because if that’s the case…” She leans in, lips brushing your jaw, breath hot. “…maybe I should remind you what makes me very, very hard to replace.”

Your soul leaves your body.

She pulls back just an inch, eyes glinting, voice still low. “You sure you wanna keep calling me current, baby?”

You can’t form words. Your brain has rebooted.

The camera is still rolling.

You dive for it in a panic.

She laughs, smug and satisfied and leans back like nothing happened, sipping her tea while you fumble with the screen, red-faced and speechless.

From behind her mug, she laughs. “Don’t worry. You can edit out the part where you stopped breathing.”

You groan. “You said you’d stopped doing that!”

“Doing what?”

“Making me go red and shit on camera.”

“You started it baby.” Natasha smirks. “Just remember I’ll always end it.” 

Your finger hovers over the delete icon, another trend you can’t upload because of your ridiculously hot assassin girlfriend but her hand comes up to push your finger away. “Don’t delete that.”

“Huh, why?”

“Upload it. Let everyone know you’re taken.”

⋆⋆⋆⋆

It opens, mid chaos. The camera’s at a weird angle, out of focus and flashing to and from a black screen.

“I’m telling you now, if Steve eats all of the peanut butter again, I’m staging an intervention.” Tony’s voice moodily grumbles, somewhere off screen.

“I once survived three days with only peanut butter… and rage.” That was Clint.

As the black screen disappears, colours flash, almost like the camera is being shaken around. The view is tilted sideways, a little off-focus but it’s slowly stabilizing, giving an almost too intimate peek into the Avengers’ living room chaos.

The screen is upside down but the focus is better and the viewers can just make out what’s going on. That’s when things get personal. Natasha is on the far end of the couch, legs tucked underneath her, her fingers slowly combing through your hair where your head rests on her chest, body tucked up on her lap. Your eyes are shut, a lazy, satisfied smile on your face, completely melted into Natasha’s touch. Both clearly unaware they’re being recorded, much less broadcast. Wanda and Vision sit across the room, trying (and failing) to ignore everything. Vision is reading a novel. Wanda flips through a fashion magazine with a sigh.

Tony is prancing round like Jack Sparrow, insulting everyone and everything with a fondness. Sam, Steve and Bucky are all having their own conversation, pointing at the television that viewers assume is playing sports, gesturing manically. It’s peaceful, it’s content… it’s being live streamed.

The screen jostles again, still tilted at an odd angle. Somewhere offscreen, Peter’s voice can be heard muttering.  “Okay, okay, I think I’ve got it set up. Just testing the lens alignment, no big deal…”

“I’m telling you...” Sam says to Steve, who’s nursing a soda on the other side of the room. “…if we lose this next game, I’m blaming Bucky. He’s bad luck.”

“Excuse you-” Bucky looks up from the game on screen. “I am the luck.”

“The luck no one wants.” Sam mutters.

“Can we put the movie on yet?” Clint calls, huffing at the rerun of the game the guys are watching. “I’m gonna eat all my popcorn before it even starts.”

“You sound like a child.” Natasha laughs. “Better you do eat your popcorn because if we’re watching the horror that Tony wants too, you’ll only throw it off your lap like last time.”

“I did not throw it!”

“Did too!”

“Did not!”

“Clint.” Wanda sighs. “I was picking kernels out of my hair all week last time.”

“IT WAS SCARY!” He defends.

“Real talk.” Tony interrupts now, finally taking a seat. “Who would survive a horror movie out of us all?”

“If we’re being honest…” Clint mumbles through a mouthful of popcorn, making everyone in the room grimace. “Vision’s the only one here who would survive a horror movie.”

“Statistically, you are correct.” Vision comments, without looking up from his book.

Tony puffs his chest out next. “I’d survive. I have a suit and charisma.” 

“You’d trip over your own ego in the opening credits.” Sam cuts in, passing bottles of beer around the room.

“He’d monologue and get eaten mid-sentence.” Natasha says, pulling you a little closer into a more comfortable position.

“‘This isn’t even my final form!’ CHOMP!” You laugh at the look on Tony’s face before looking back to Nat.

You can already tell she’s going to tease you before you start. “You’d have a good chance because you’d try to befriend the killer.”

“Well… maybe they just need a hug! Emotional intelligence matters.”

“She would trauma bond with the slasher and become their therapist.” Clint adds, howling in laughter.

Wanda finally throws her magazine on the coffee table, giving up with trying to pay attention. “They’d leave with more closure than they came in with.” 

“I’d just shoot them.” Bucky shrugs, not really understanding the game. “Why would you try and talk to the guy with a knife when you have a gun?”

“Well it’s not necessarily a knife.”

“It could be.”

“But not always.”

“But most of the time.”

You cut back in. “Can we go back to the part where Natasha said I’d try to hug the killer? Rude.”

“You hug me every time I glare at someone. It checks out.”

There’s a unison of ‘Awww’ that makes Natasha blush.

“Shut up.” Natasha scowls.

“Don’t worry baby, I’ll make sure the killer doesn’t get you.” You tease, pinching her cheeks between your finger and thumb.

She narrows her eyes at you, lips quirking in that dangerous smile that never means anything safe. “Oh yeah? And what happens when I’m the killer holding you captive?”

You blink, pretending to think it over. “Mmm... I probably make you dinner. Talk about your childhood. Ask you what your love language is.”

Clint chokes on a popcorn kernel. “She’s gonna romance her for her life.”

“I’ll make her beg for her life.” Natasha corrects and suddenly the room gets a little hotter.

“You’d make me beg?” You pout. “You wouldn’t just save little ol’ me?”

“Begging looks good on you.” She murmurs, what should probably be only loud enough for you to hear but by the reaction? It wasn’t.

Clint chokes again. “Okay! Choking for real this time!”

Sam fans himself dramatically with a throw pillow. “Is it hot in here or is that just the trauma leaving my body?”

Steve groans, shielding his eyes. “There are innocent ears present!”

Tony snorts. “Name one.”

“I’m literally right here.” Peter says flatly.

You bite your lip, trying not to laugh as Natasha leans in a little closer, her breath warm against your ear. “The rest of you I’d kill in a heartbeat but I’d definitely keep you around.”

Your face is beyond red now, flushed with the audience that you think is only the team and not the hundreds of thousands watching you live.

“It IS getting hot in here.” Sam adds again, pulling the collar of his shirt.

Vision tilts his head. “There appears to be a 42% increase in temperature across the room. That is… unusual.”

Natasha just grins smugly, pulling you even closer into her lap. Tony raises a brow and glances at his phone. 

Then he goes very still. “Uh… guys?”

No one hears him or like usual, they choose to ignore him.

He says it louder. “Guys.”

“What?” Everyone snaps back in unison.

Tony turns his phone around. “We've been live for 16 minutes.”

Dead silence.

Even Clint stops chewing.

“…HOW?!” Steve finally asks, with dread in his voice.

Tony’s head slowly turns to Peter then to his phone in his hand.

“NO?!” Peter lets out a scream. “MY AUNT FOLLOWS STARK INDUSTRIES ON INSTAGRAM! SHE WON'T LET ME COME AGAIN!”

Sam throws a pillow across the room. “We are so getting cancelled.”

Natasha doesn’t even flinch. 

“This is why the kid shouldn’t hang out with us.” Bucky moodily inserts, ignoring the look of offence on Peter’s face.

Tony snatches the phone out of Peter’s hands, fingers flying as he fumbles with the screen, the audience being spun around in circles as hands grab. “Okay, okay, stop, stop! Disconnect! End stream! Delete! CAN YOU HELP?! Aren’t you meant to be PR?!” He points the phone at you, to which you roll your eyes at.

“I’m off duty.” You shrug, feeling Natasha’s fingers grab your chin to pull you back to her lips amidst the chaos. Natasha’s lips press softly against yours, steadying you in the middle of the madness. The world around you blurs, the frantic voices fading into a distant hum.

Tony’s panicked shouting continues somewhere off to the side. “STOP KISSING! THEY CAN SEE!”

“Turn the camera!” Peter yells, trying to pull it back.

“I TRIED BUT IT’S CRASHING! THE COMMENTS ARE CRASHING IT!”

“TURN IT OFF!”

“I CAN’T.

Sam throws a cushion at Peter. “Congratulations, kid. You just made us viral.”

⋆⋆⋆⋆

“Back by popular demand, we’re back with this bunch of misfits, who are taking on the Guess the Gen Z Slang challenge.”

Natasha let out a small sigh beside you, cradling her tea like she was already over it. “You’re really doing this.”

“Yes.” You grinned. “For science.”

Tony groaned from the kitchen. “Didn’t we fail the first one of these challenges?”

“Spectacularly.” You said brightly. “Today’s goal is to lower the Tower’s collective IQ by at least 30 points. Let’s begin.”

Sam leaned back, arms crossed behind his head. “I’m gonna ace this.”

“You say that now.” You pulled out your phone. “First word: ‘No cap.’ Clint?”

Clint blinked. “No… hat?”

You snorted. “Incorrect.”

Steve tilted his head, thoughtful. “Is it like… no capital letters? As in, informal communication?”

Everyone turned to stare at him.

“Lowercase aesthetic.” He added with a nod. “All the young agents use it apparently.”

Tony threw half of his cookie at him. “It means ‘I’m not lying,’ Rogers. Keep up.”

“Correct.” You said, pointing at Tony. “One point to the man with the ego the size of the moon.”

“Thank you, thank you.” Tony bowed in his seat. “Next.”

“‘It’s giving’.” You read.

Bucky furrowed his brows. “Giving… what? A gift?”

‘Is it like giving head?”

Everyone chorused. “NAT!”

“What?!”

Sam shook his head. “No, come on, it’s like… a vibe. Like if something’s dramatic, you say, ‘it’s giving Tony Stark.’”

You pointed at him. “Yes! Sam gets it. Bucky, go read a Buzzfeed quiz or something.”

“I’m 106.” Bucky grumbled. “I invented vibes.”

Natasha sipped her tea. “That’s giving delusion.”

“EXACTLY.” You said, nearly choking on your laughter. “Thank you Tasha.”

Next one. “‘Mid.’ Wanda, go.”

Wanda didn’t even blink. “Tony’s third Iron Man suit.”

Tony gasped. “Rude.”

“Accurate.” Sam coughed.

Vision, beside her, looked intrigued. “Does it refer to something median? Statistically average?”

You blinked. “…Technically yes. Honestly? Yes. I’ll allow it.”

“Boom!” Vision said, with what might’ve been his attempt at enthusiasm.

“Next!” You scrolled. “‘Rizz.’ Steve?”

He glanced around warily. “…Is this one dirty?”

Peter called from the hallway, “It’s short for charisma!”

You glanced over. “Correct!”

Peter popped his head into view. “Wait, am I being filmed?! Is this on TikTok?!”

“Yep.” Tony confirmed, rolling his eyes at the enthusiasm.

Clint leaned over. “Wait, is ‘rizz’ good or bad?”

“It’s good, Grandpa.” You reply, rubbing your temples.

Clint looked smug. “Then I’ve got mad rizz.”

“You have mad delusion.” Sam replied.

You scrolled again. “‘Touch grass.’”

Steve looked insulted. “I touch grass daily.”

“Of course you do.” Wanda sighed. “I hear you whisper to the plants in your room.”

Bucky muttered, “I thought it was code for like… punching someone?”

“Nope.” You shook your head. “It means ‘go outside, stop being online, stop being insane.’”

Tony raised a hand. “So basically every Thursday at this Tower?”

“Correct.”

You cleared your throat. “Next word: Feral. Wanda?”

Wanda blinked. “…Like a raccoon?”

Clint nodded like that made sense. “You know. Wild. Uncontrollable. Full goblin mode.”

Natasha tilted her head. “Is this about you last night when I said we were out of ice cream?”

You turned red. “That is… not public knowledge.”

“It is now.” Sam said, already howling with laughter.

“Moving on.” You grumbled. “Delulu. Bucky?”

He crossed his arms. “Sounds like a pasta. I’ll get the delulu with bolognese.”

“Delusional.” Tony said, sipping his drink. “It means being so out of touch with reality that you actually believe it. Like Steve thinking he’s not obvious about his crush on-“

Steve slammed his glass down. “Don’t finish that sentence.”

Natasha smirked into her tea. “Delulu.”

“Okay, next word: Slay.” You looked around. “And no, it’s not just what Natasha does for a living.”

Natasha hummed, pleased. “Still counts.”

Steve squinted. “Is this… like the old sense of the word? You slay a dragon?”

“Nope.” You said. “It means you look good, you did something awesome, you’re killing it like in a fashion sense, mostly.”

“I slayed an alien with a shield once.”Steve offered, trying.

“Not the same vibe.” Sam muttered.

You pointed at Clint. “Say ‘slay’ in a sentence.”

Clint hesitated then slowly. “That lasagna last night… slayed?”

You held up a finger. “Honestly? Not terrible.”

“Situationship.” You looked around.

“Easy.” Sam smirked. “It’s when two people act like a couple but refuse to admit it. So basically, Natasha and Y/N for six months.”

You nearly dropped your tea.

“I- WE- THAT’S NOT-“

Natasha didn’t even look up. “Accurate.”

“Whatever.” You muttered, flustered. “Girl dinner. Vision?”

Vision perked up. “Is it a nutritionally imbalanced assortment of random snacks justified emotionally?”

The room went silent.

“…That is exactly it.” You whispered. “What the hell.”

“I read a thread.” He said simply.

“Ick?” You read off next.

Bucky made a face. “Is that a Gen Z disease?”

“Nope, I got this.” Sam said. “It’s like… something someone does that makes you instantly lose interest. Like the second they say ‘moist.’ Or when Clint refers to TikTok as ‘the tick-tack.’”

“I HATE THAT!” Wanda gagged.

You raised a brow. “Natasha, what’s your ick?”

She doesn’t hesitate. She doesn’t even blink.

“Men who moan when they stretch.”

The room erupts.

Sam drops his drink. “OH MY GOD?!”

Tony chokes. “WHY IS THAT SO SPECIFIC AND CORRECT?”

Bucky groans. “You could’ve just said my name.”

Clint’s laughing so hard he wheezes. “I COULD HAVE TOLD YOU ALL THAT!”

Wanda shivers. “That deep ughhhhh sound-“

“I will never stretch again,” Steve mutters, face buried in his hands.

You’re biting your lip, shaking your head. “Okay but… accurate.”

Natasha just sips her tea, totally composed. “If I hear one more ‘aaauughh’ after a shoulder roll, I’m defecting.”

She pauses. Then glances your way with that slow, sultry smile.

“You’re safe, though.” She adds, low enough for just you to hear. “Your sounds are very… deliberate.”

Your brain short circuits.

Clint shudders, pushing Natasha away from him. “Okay! No! Too far! Someone throw holy water!”

Steve’s already walking out of the room. “I’m retiring.”

“My other Ick is when my girlfriend calls me her current one.”

“OKAY! Get over it already!”

⋆⋆⋆⋆

It’s been a couple weeks since ‘my current girlfriend’ gate.

You survived.

Barely.

Natasha’s ‘forgiveness’ is on a strict need-to-know basis. Spoiler: you don’t need to know.

Every day, without fail, she lifts her phone, strikes some ridiculous pose and drags you into the latest dumb trend, just to mess with you.

Brushing your teeth? Cue: “HEY GUYS, BRUSH OUR TEETH WITH US!”

Walking through the store? “GUYS, LOOK AT WHAT WALMART HAS! THE BEST STRAWBERRIES IN THE WORLD!”

Mid-shower? “GET SHOWERED WITH US! TODAY I’M USING-"

And then currently, while the two of you are at the sunset spot that’s fast become your favourite place to visit, since the first time you took her out.

She drops the mic with the deadliest line. “Hey guys. So, I’m here with my beautiful wife-”

You don’t even bother turning around. You just roll your eyes and stare at the sunset like it’s your only escape.

She repeats, louder this time. “So I’m here with my beautiful wife-”

You keep your eyes on the horizon, voice flat. as the ocean. “What do you want? You only call me ‘wife’ when you want something. Also this is getting exceedingly unfunny.”

“Me and my WIFE-“

“Can you stop?” You finally whip around, giving her your best glare, part annoyed, part amused. Your sunset video is officially ruined.

And then you see her.

One knee, phone in one hand, a little velvet box in the other.

You blink, mouth halfway open like you forgot how to breathe. “W- Wife?”

She doesn’t look away from your eyes, as she shrugs, completely casual. 

“Why not?”

You open your mouth to protest but she’s already slipping the little velvet box from her hand and popping it open.

Inside, a ring. Simple, elegant, and somehow so Natasha.

Your heart does a weird little backflip and you realise that all those ‘current girlfriend’ jabs? Yeah, this is payback.

Her eyes catch yours, sharp and soft all at once.

“I was gonna do something bigger.” She says, voice low and wicked. “But then you called me your current girlfriend, so I figured you deserved to suffer a little.”

You laugh, breathless, your brain doing somersaults.

She tilts the box towards you.

“So… you marrying me or what?”

You cover your face, laughing like you’re both the luckiest and most doomed person alive. “You’re the worst.”

She leans closer, grin on full display. “Is that a yes?”

You peek through your fingers, cheeks blazing. “Absolutely.”

She slides the ring on your fingers, finally rising from her bent position. She’s barely stood straight before you leap into her arms, her hands catching your thighs as you wrap them around her, planting kisses all over her face. “I love you so so so so much.”

“I love you too wife.” You finally meet her lips, unable to hold it for long because you can’t stop smiling.

“Oh, Tasha?”

“Hmmm?”

“You turn any other milestone of ours into a TikTok trend again and I’ll post that ‘thirst trap’ I got you to do in the training room. Your reputation will be over.”

“Noted.”

[leonstoenailunderhisbed]

I don’t think people understand how smart Leon actually is. That man had high marks from the police academy, hence why Chief Irons (in the orientation letter Leon has in RE2R) says that his grades are commendable and that R.P.D. are proud to have him on the force.

This got me thinking a lot because at first I thought being a police officer didn’t take much given that anyone today can be in the force.

But that wasn’t the case in 1998.

I did a little research because I thought it would be interesting to see just what Leon had to go through to become a police officer.

Back in the 90s, cellphones and modern technology didn’t exist such as DNA identification and body cams/car cams. This definitely made the job a bit harder than it is today because there was a need for more evidence to be collected and the overuse of your brain. Nowadays, technology is an important factor in the police force and almost everything is done by the computer now.

So let’s picture this: It’s the late 90s right before he got sent to Raccoon City. He’s in the academy and he has to go through training. Especially with weapons since most academies switched from revolvers to semi-auto guns (already something a bit modern for that time).

For those who’ve played the game, when you go into the Shooting Range room, you can clearly see just how old the room is compared to modern shooting ranges. Not only is the design of the target paper old, it’s also very simplistic compared to today’s (in 2024, most markings have numbers and more lines for accuracy than back in the day).

This meant that Leon had to train a good amount of time to perfect his aim. It also meant that he had to go through driving training—which was mostly Emergency Vehicle Operations Courses (EVOC: safe and defensive driving for cops in other words)

I’d like to think that his determination (when he told Ada that the reason he joined the force was for people like Emma and Gunshop owner) really helped him advance through his academic route of the training and I’d like to believe that he go high scores because of that.

The 90s were a pivotal time for new policies to be introduced in police academies. When Leon was a kid, presumably during the 80s, he probably saw just how different it was back then than it is now (in 1998) lots of “new” technology were introduced to him when he first started the training. And he probably had to adapt quickly to the technologies and new techniques.

Leon is quick on his feet, he grasps a lot of things and I’m tired of people making him out to be as some dumb blonde with muscles. He’s very smart and we see that throughout the games and films.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he was GT when he grew up.

EDIT: MB YALL😭 GT is a program for students K-12 where they’re put in advanced classes like AP or IB. It stands for Gifted and Talented (something like the Magnet Program in some schools in the US)

[foone]

Alternative names for humanity along the lines of "Homo sapiens" (Wise man) and "Pan narrans" (Storytelling Chimpanzee) that I'm too lazy to look up/make up Latin for:

chef ape

throwing ape

walking ape

The idea being that we're apparently unique in the animal kingdom in that we cook our food, so we're the Chef Apes. We're also one of the best animals at throwing things: humans have more accuracy and strength when throwing stuff than other apes, by a long shot

And apparently our ability to walk slowly for ages was key to our early survival as persistence predators. We can't outrun a gazelle or mammoth or whatever, but we don't tire easily and so we can just keep following it until it runs out of stamina

Pan basipila: the baseball playing Bonobo

If only baseball had a cooking element, it would be the perfect Human Sport.

We need to devise a sport where you cook something, follow someone for a long time, and then throw it at them.

The most human thing is the surprise pie to the face

Also as much as I like Terry Pratchett's suggestion of "Pan narrans" I wouldn't be surprised if we turn out to not be the only animal that tells stories...

Elephants. I bet elephants do.

Like, there was that case where an injured elephant went to a ranger station for help. One it had never been to before, but other elephants had.

The theory being then that some other elephant had told this elephant "hey if you're hurt, go here, the humans will help"

That, combined with how they have burial rituals (some which might indicate there's an elephant religion!), and that we're working on figuring out how elephants communicate...

It wouldn't surprise me if we learn sometimes in the next decade or two that "oh yeah, elephants tell stories too. They've got FICTION."

So "Pan narrans" isn't what I'd want to bet on as our uniquely human thing.

But at the end of the day, maybe the whole idea of there being a uniquely human thing is, in itself, just another story we're telling.

So maybe it is a good fit after all.

But I especially like the idea that we're the Baseball Ape because I have this image in my head of a galactic council of aliens. Some angry alien who looks like Cthulhu had a baby with a spider has the floor, and they're ranting about "why do the Hu-mons deserve a seat?"

The Crogath are stronger, the Eldru are smarter, the Cybernetic Essense lives longer, the Dromans go farther and faster, the Moltriri have us beat in fiction and poetry, what is so special about these damn bipedal fleshbags that makes them unique in the universe?

And then WHAM. Right between the eyes. A handheld translator device, a bit bigger than a modern smartphone, beans the speaker out of nowhere.

And there's an (untranslated) yell in the chamber as the prime representative calls for order.

"WE CAN THROW, MOTHERFUCKER!"

(it takes a while to properly explain the insult. Crogathi (especially drones) don't really have mothers or sexual reproduction, so they don't really get why that would be an insult. It's finally translated as something like "bud-biter")

and it's true. even after the World Series becomes the Galactic Series, no non-human team ever manages to win.

The Eldrul Librarians almost make the cut in 2486 but accidentally piss off the ghost of Colonel Sanders and end up inheriting the Hanshin Tigers' curse.

alien textbooks describe The Colonel as some kind of human patron deity of baseball and cooked avian food, who should not be disrespected at all costs, or his vengeance from his place beyond the grave will be swift and punishing

(they're right)

"Look, we can't PROVE he was why Gemini Noctis went supernova unexpectedly, but given the protests that had happened right beforehand, and the incredible powers ascribed to the human spirits, do you really want to risk it?"

the funniest possible future: humanity gets a key place in galactic politics because we're never able to adequately convince the universe at large that our ghost stories are just that, stories, and they're terrified shitless that we'll unleash spectral torment on them

"humans? look man, living humans are a pushover. you can easily rip them in half, crack their planets with a quark bomb, their ships are little more than tin cans with a tachyon drive taped on the side. but it's not the living humans you have to worry about... it's the ghosts."

"humans are a bit like the Nontilek, with a two-stage lifespan, a grub and an adult. What you think of as "adult" humans is just their infant stage, and they only fully transform once they "die". Once fully hatched into Ghost form, their powers are almost limitless."

you want humans off a colony planet and bomb them from orbit? good luck, now you have a few million ascended humans who can pass through solid matter and can't be killed, and they will never rest until you and your descendants are gone or dead.

you don't believe me? look at this: One of their most popular stories is about them building an empire that spanned a large chunk of their little planet, then having it MURDER THEIR OWN GOD.

It only worked for a few revolutions, and he just came back, promising that one day all of them would join him in the next phase of their lifespan.

They still, to this day, thousands of orbits later, erect little statues of the means they used to execute their deity.

not even the Crogathi, who literally worship death itself, tell stories that frightening to their newly hatched grubs.

Humans are scary, man, stay away and just give them whatever they want.

the rest of the alien's education on the dangers of humans is just a selection of human movies. the sixth sense, poltergeist, ghostbusters, the shining, the devil's backbone, and, of course, field of dreams.

ghosts AND baseball? it's everything they're scared about humans all in one package!

the obvious twist you could do, of course, is simple:

the aliens are right.

humans are a two-phase species where the elder form has immense power but leaves communication and decision making to the younger form, which will be confused and angry if you acknowledge the presence of their elder-stage members among them.

this often leads to them cutting off contact or their elder-stage members causing immense damage through seeming "accidents" on the contacting vessel. This is believed to be some kind of religious prohibition that they are not able to explain.

so it's official contact protocol to pretend you cannot perceive the elder-stage humans among them, and to give them what they want to avoid possible retribution.

No means to combat elder-stage humans has yet been found, and the limits of their power is not known.

All alien captains are required to study the fate of the SS Ennolon, which contacted a lone human craft in the galactic year of 12,783. They had initiated contact and were getting along fine, until the human showed the Droman captain a picture of their "late father".

Captain Droless, accounting for the difficulty in telling humans apart, then pointed at the father sitting in a chair nearby and said "That is them, correct?".

The human looked at the chair, reacted in confusion, then anger, and asked the contacting crew to immediately leave.

It was another 400 cycles before contact could be reestablished between the Droman Federation and the Human Alliance.

the intergalactic guide describes humans as a powerful race of immortal energy beings who have the strange habit of sending their larvae out on missions around the galaxy, occasionally contacting other races, but refusing to acknowledge their elders, except in stories

they seem to frequently put their young in dangerous situations without lifting a hand to help, so this is suspected to be some sort of pilgrimage or coming-of-age ritual.

(From a twitter thread on October 1st, 2022)

[littybeech]

Ten things the Twilight animated series can do better than the original movies (if they care enough to, please add all your own points to this as I will, too.) :

1. Include ALL of the book scenes, without having to change them to make them easier to film (for obvious reasons, since it’ll be animated they shouldn’t have much issue there.)

2. Their daughter, Remoulade can actually look like the book described her (or better or worse) and not the CGI monstrosity we got twelve years ago.

3. Make all the characters fit their book looks to complete accuracy. Alice was 4’10 and the movies made her 5’5. They let Edward have brown hair when he’s a ginger. Jacob and the wolf pack had better be above 6’5! I want 23 year old Carlisle and 26 year old Esme playing parents to like three legal adults and two 17 year olds.

4. The parentification of Bella Swan, by both of her parents, mustn’t be ignored. Bella was making sure the bills were getting paid by the time she was 10 cause her mom was ‘too flighty and distracted’ to do things like that consistently, she also learned to cook and clean early on too because her mom’s cooking was inedible and she’d improperly mix cleaning solutions dangerously. She got a job at 14 and took care of the groceries and any other issue necessary on top of being in AP classes in school. By the time she moved in with Charlie, she was basically more of a parent than he was. He did the bare minimum to ensure her car’s safety by installing snow chains on her tires without telling her and she cried because she wasn’t used to being taken care of.

5. How she cries when she’s angry is peak girlhood and I hate that they got rid of that in the movies. She stomped her feet bro, like c’mon she was so angry and anxious and annoyed all the time and they only focused on her angst.

6. Integrate aspects of Midnight Sun too, maybe incorporate them both so we can get a more full story. Twilight on its own was a bit of a snooze fest compared to Midnight Sun. We’re gonna pretend that Edward hunting and eating Esme’s abusive ex-husband isn’t hot af?

7. Add in more character’s back stories. Alice’s abusive father and stepmother, Emmett’s gambling and womanizing as a human in Tennessee, etc.

8. Unfortunately we need to make it clear that Charlie’s not winning any father of the year awards here either. He congratulated Jacob after forcing a kiss on her and joked about Jacob pressing assault charges on her after she breaks her hand punching him away.

9. Maybe ask why the Cullens…’need’ so desperately to come back to Forks every couple of years? Like they’re multi-billionaires, they’re immortal and there are plenty of gloomy, cloudy places they could live in semi-permanently. Why Forks when they know the Quileutte tribe knows what they are and they know it makes them so uncomfortable? It just seems unnecessary.

10. More of Edward reading Mike Newton’s inner-monologue. I know it would depend on whose perspective we get but I think the idea is hilarious.

[mariacallous]

On Saturday, an Associated Press investigation revealed that OpenAI's Whisper transcription tool creates fabricated text in medical and business settings despite warnings against such use. The AP interviewed more than 12 software engineers, developers, and researchers who found the model regularly invents text that speakers never said, a phenomenon often called a “confabulation” or “hallucination” in the AI field.

Upon its release in 2022, OpenAI claimed that Whisper approached “human level robustness” in audio transcription accuracy. However, a University of Michigan researcher told the AP that Whisper created false text in 80 percent of public meeting transcripts examined. Another developer, unnamed in the AP report, claimed to have found invented content in almost all of his 26,000 test transcriptions.

The fabrications pose particular risks in health care settings. Despite OpenAI’s warnings against using Whisper for “high-risk domains,” over 30,000 medical workers now use Whisper-based tools to transcribe patient visits, according to the AP report. The Mankato Clinic in Minnesota and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles are among 40 health systems using a Whisper-powered AI copilot service from medical tech company Nabla that is fine-tuned on medical terminology.

Nabla acknowledges that Whisper can confabulate, but it also reportedly erases original audio recordings “for data safety reasons.” This could cause additional issues, since doctors cannot verify accuracy against the source material. And deaf patients may be highly impacted by mistaken transcripts since they would have no way to know if medical transcript audio is accurate or not.

The potential problems with Whisper extend beyond health care. Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Virginia studied thousands of audio samples and found Whisper adding nonexistent violent content and racial commentary to neutral speech. They found that 1 percent of samples included “entire hallucinated phrases or sentences which did not exist in any form in the underlying audio” and that 38 percent of those included “explicit harms such as perpetuating violence, making up inaccurate associations, or implying false authority.”

In one case from the study cited by AP, when a speaker described “two other girls and one lady,” Whisper added fictional text specifying that they “were Black.” In another, the audio said, “He, the boy, was going to, I’m not sure exactly, take the umbrella.” Whisper transcribed it to, “He took a big piece of a cross, a teeny, small piece … I’m sure he didn’t have a terror knife so he killed a number of people.”

An OpenAI spokesperson told the AP that the company appreciates the researchers’ findings and that it actively studies how to reduce fabrications and incorporates feedback in updates to the model.

Why Whisper Confabulates

The key to Whisper’s unsuitability in high-risk domains comes from its propensity to sometimes confabulate, or plausibly make up, inaccurate outputs. The AP report says, "Researchers aren’t certain why Whisper and similar tools hallucinate," but that isn't true. We know exactly why Transformer-based AI models like Whisper behave this way.

Whisper is based on technology that is designed to predict the next most likely token (chunk of data) that should appear after a sequence of tokens provided by a user. In the case of ChatGPT, the input tokens come in the form of a text prompt. In the case of Whisper, the input is tokenized audio data.

The transcription output from Whisper is a prediction of what is most likely, not what is most accurate. Accuracy in Transformer-based outputs is typically proportional to the presence of relevant accurate data in the training dataset, but it is never guaranteed. If there is ever a case where there isn't enough contextual information in its neural network for Whisper to make an accurate prediction about how to transcribe a particular segment of audio, the model will fall back on what it “knows” about the relationships between sounds and words it has learned from its training data.

According to OpenAI in 2022, Whisper learned those statistical relationships from “680,000 hours of multilingual and multitask supervised data collected from the web.” But we now know a little more about the source. Given Whisper's well-known tendency to produce certain outputs like "thank you for watching," "like and subscribe," or "drop a comment in the section below" when provided silent or garbled inputs, it's likely that OpenAI trained Whisper on thousands of hours of captioned audio scraped from YouTube videos. (The researchers needed audio paired with existing captions to train the model.)

There's also a phenomenon called “overfitting” in AI models where information (in this case, text found in audio transcriptions) encountered more frequently in the training data is more likely to be reproduced in an output. In cases where Whisper encounters poor-quality audio in medical notes, the AI model will produce what its neural network predicts is the most likely output, even if it is incorrect. And the most likely output for any given YouTube video, since so many people say it, is “thanks for watching.”

In other cases, Whisper seems to draw on the context of the conversation to fill in what should come next, which can lead to problems because its training data could include racist commentary or inaccurate medical information. For example, if many examples of training data featured speakers saying the phrase “crimes by Black criminals,” when Whisper encounters a “crimes by [garbled audio] criminals” audio sample, it will be more likely to fill in the transcription with “Black."

In the original Whisper model card, OpenAI researchers wrote about this very phenomenon: "Because the models are trained in a weakly supervised manner using large-scale noisy data, the predictions may include texts that are not actually spoken in the audio input (i.e. hallucination). We hypothesize that this happens because, given their general knowledge of language, the models combine trying to predict the next word in audio with trying to transcribe the audio itself."

So in that sense, Whisper "knows" something about the content of what is being said and keeps track of the context of the conversation, which can lead to issues like the one where Whisper identified two women as being Black even though that information was not contained in the original audio. Theoretically, this erroneous scenario could be reduced by using a second AI model trained to pick out areas of confusing audio where the Whisper model is likely to confabulate and flag the transcript in that location, so a human could manually check those instances for accuracy later.

Clearly, OpenAI's advice not to use Whisper in high-risk domains, such as critical medical records, was a good one. But health care companies are constantly driven by a need to decrease costs by using seemingly "good enough" AI tools—as we've seen with Epic Systems using GPT-4 for medical records and UnitedHealth using a flawed AI model for insurance decisions. It's entirely possible that people are already suffering negative outcomes due to AI mistakes, and fixing them will likely involve some sort of regulation and certification of AI tools used in the medical field.